Thanks to the on-board artificial intelligence, it was decided to down the size of the crew to half, and as for the miners of the wonder-weed, all of them were to be left on the planet, possibly euthanizing them (if there is no other method) so they cant prevent the last working shuttle from taking off into orbit, where the mother ship is to be waiting for them at all times. During the flight to Hopus, the computer is to put all passengers onboard into hibernation for four years, supplying their sleeping chambers with a special concentrated gas consisting of all necessary nutrients while they are asleep. Trial experiments on prisoners had shown satisfying results eighty percent of the subjects had survived after an almost two-year sleep, and sixty five percent of the survivors were still capable of doing the necessary physical labor. All these measures allowed reduce the load by three quarters and additionally double the ships payload of the precious cargo.
It had been decided to assemble the interstellar ship piecemeal in lunar orbit and use shuttles to deliver the necessary resources to it fuel, water, oxygen, and flight foods.
This measure would reduce the amount of fuel necessary for decelerating when returning to Earth and getting caught by its gravitational orbit.
Valentin Valentinovich, the head of the development team working on the flight conditions for the starship, became so overzealous that he offered additional radical measures to the executive management.
I believe that we can halve the nutritional amount for those asleep, since a sleeping person needs less glucose and vitamins. And reduce food consumption twenty per cent taking into account the statistical mortality rate from induced sleep. Even the quantity of clothing can be cut in half, given that part of the expedition team will die, and the workers will be marooned after completing their job.
You, Valentin Valentinovich, are very prudent around here, the chief-executive of the pre-flight commission responded, and addressing the commission members, continued, that, in my opinion, you are the one who take the mantle of the ships director, and with your natural frugality directly supervise the hired workers on site so that they do not eat an extra slice of bread and do not have an extra sip of water or air. Am I right, colleagues?
The members of the state commission remained silent for a short while, contemplating their chairs suggestion, and began nodding their heads in agreement.
And Valentin Valentinovish, hearing such a fatal suggestion and becoming scared for his own life, turned pale, his forehead went clammy and his heart sank. He grasped for air for some time yet could not produce any sound, until finally, pulling himself together with a great effort, uttered, his lips trembling:
My dear fellow executives! I am immeasurably glad about the honor granted to be your director in such a high-stakes journey, but I am completely untrained to direct interplanetary flights. I have no diploma and no experience in endeavors of this kind. Finally, I have a common-law wife on Earth and two little children, and I cant abandon them to their fate.
Dear Sir, firstly, the chief executive and members of the state commission know better who is to be sent to this flight as a director. Secondly, during the flight everything will be managed by the on-board computer and you will have nothing to worry about; all that is needed it will do on its own. You will need to only control the computers course of actions and report everything to us. And when you exit the communication range, you will act according to the instructions given to you by the Mission Control Center. While you are away, well look after your family and help them with anything they need.
After the meeting, Valentin Valentinovich left the room, feeling his legs getting numb and a voice in his instantly turned dull head that said, Run, immediately! But where? Of all people he perfectly knew with a tracker implanted in his head he could only get so far. He would be caught regardless and sent to mine the weed, but this time as a laborer fated to be killed on the wild planet following his service. Nor was it possible to wriggle his way out of the decision declared by the high committee. I must accept and fly there as director, and if I am lucky then I could eat my fill of this weed and come back immortal.
And Valentin Valentinovich, taking time to grieve and shed a few tears, began to prepare for the interstellar trip. He negotiated for himself his own food, water and oxygen, his own personal quarters with his own air conditioner so that the terrible GAS could not accidentally put him to sleep, and altered the ships subroutines with the additional clause, Whatever happens, GAS must bring him to Earth with the cargo.
No matter how hard the developers tried to lessen the total number of the travelers, they were still coming up with fifty people at least counting the crew, maintenance personnel, and the actual workers, while taking into account the demise of the part of the crew up to forty percent due to the prolonged sleep. Of all the crew, the ships director and the pilot were off limits for GAS, as well as three refrigerating engineers (to ensure extra control for the machinery and modules with the plant cargo, just in case). As for the others, GAS could dispose of them at any moment without compromising the weed storing prior to departure back to Earth. However, the director, mechanics and pilot was expendable only in the event that the cargo was endangered.
For two years the ship had been built in lunar orbit and equipped with everything that was needed space shuttles were delivering these resources from Earth. And, finally, not long before the early winter, all of the supplies had been loaded and the final tests of the systems and the machinery had been finished. However, all of a sudden an unforeseen problem had occurred. The HR department for Space Expeditions found it impossible to accrue personnel for this fascinating flight, in spite of the double salary and quintupled reward upon returning to Earth.
It turns out that information about the flight had gotten leaked nonetheless; people began to talk about how it was a one-way trip and that those hired to work on the unknown planet would be abandoned there (or killed) after they gathered some invaluable weed for the Earths elites. So, knowing that the executive officials were lying to them, and the rumors were unlikely totally groundless, nobody volunteered to fly there, even with the promise of a big payout. As a result, the expeditions executives decided to recruit former spacemen who were imprisoned in the special barracks for stealing the lichen and exhaling the state officials property they had illegally consumed.
Those who agreed to the mission had been promised, in addition to the big pay, that their sentence for their horrible crime would be revoked; many had to agree in order to avoid starving to death in the barracks. With a crew now assembled, the spaceship blasted off from its lunar orbit in the direction of the planet Hopus, without any unnecessary fanfare, one hour before the New Year, in order not to interfere with the planned reporting before the chiefs.
The huge starship, externally bearing the resemblance of a zeppelin, had been accelerating for four months, with great effort sped up to the velocity to break away from the Solar systems gravity, and detached the first acceleration stage. Later on, it was picked up by a stream of the galactic aether which sucked it in like a speck of dust into its fast-flowing river of time, several times exceeding the speed of light. The giant ship merged into it just as a knife dropped into still water, and instantly disappeared into the endless space of the Universe, like a needle in the haystack.
The entire launch and interstellar flight was being vigilantly overseen by GAS; it was relentlessly and meticulously checking all of the parameters of the ships engines and systems operations, repeatedly calculating and re-calculating the variants of the burn rate of fuel necessary to slow down when approaching the intended destination, and was making adjustments to the possible maximum load for the return trip.
Trouble began on the ship right after blast-off, happening as early as the acceleration stage. The central air conditioning system on the ship started malfunctioning at once, and some cabins were cold and damp. Controlling the temperature and air humidity was impossible this operation could only be done by GAS, which kept refusing to warm up the cold units on account of economy for the journey back. It was also supplying water to the lavatories for workers according to a strict schedule for half hour in the morning and for two hours in the evening. And besides, the food for the personnel was meager in serving and tasted awful no cook was hired for the flight to cut costs and resources, therefore GAS prepared the means using pre-stocked briquettes of frozen meat and fish as well as dried grain products. The uncomfortable accommodations and poor food quality created much hardship for the travelers. Given that the ships crew had been assembled at the last moment, it consisted of a ragtag group of individuals who were hard to manage. In addition to the recruits from the special barracks, there were twelve girls working as chambermaids, six guards for Valentin Valentinovich, and, finally, the crew of seven people.
At first, the recruits from the barracks were just complaining, We didnt join here to put up with cold and hunger weve had this shit in the barracks in spades! And then, a couple of months into the flight, those amongst the group who were stronger and cockier began switching up the living arrangements, kicking out the weaker and more timid members from their warmer cabins. This process got out of control, but the guards stayed out of it, having decided that everything would settle down somehow on its own, and being more preoccupied in fooling around with the chambermaids instead; even Valentin Valentinovich was indifferent to the infighting amongst the crew over the cabins, picking for himself the most curvaceous girl of the twelve helps, locking himself with her in his cabin and barely leaving it, entrusting GAS to entirely pilot the ship and manage the crew on its own. As for GAS, having economically considered with its silicon brain that having members of the high-stakes expedition engaged in promiscuous erotic escapades and physical altercations was an extravagant and excessive waste of air, water and food, ultimately decided to put all crew members into hibernation six months earlier than planned. So, on week ten of the voyage, it released the sleeping gas to all ships modules induce anabiosis, in the middle of the night time while everybody was already asleep. It also began injecting nutritional supplements into the atmosphere, to make sure that the travelers do not die from malnutrition before arriving to the destination.
Valentin Valentinovich and his mistress alone were spared from this event, as he made his suite completely autonomous from the ships general systems pre-flight. They learned that GAS had put all expedition members into stasis the next morning, when they saw a warning sign Gas! No exiting! appear above the hallway entrance and discovered that the door was automatically blocked.
Elina, the mistress of the ships director for duration of the expedition, was the first to wake up and wanted to sneak out to her friends to chitchat while her paramour was sleeping, but upon noticing the locked door and the alarming sign above shook Valentin awake.
Valik, wake up! Someone locked us up, and some gas was released.
Valentin scratched himself for a long while, unable to understand what this dumb broad wanted from him, and when the situation finally dawned on him, he hailed GAS.
Listen, GAS, what is going on there? he asked the on-board computer, yawning.
Good morning, my master, that was the ironic name that GAS had given to him, knowing that he liked it, To prevent the crew from screwing around all over the place, for economical purposes I have put them into stasis and supplied their air with the proper nutrients until we arrive to our destination. I hope after two to three years of some healthy sleep they all will wake up safe and sound.
Good God, grumbled Valentin in response and thought to himself, It was smart of me to disconnect my cabin from the general support system and make it autonomous. Otherwise, I would have been lying passed out somewhere with others, and who knows if I would have woken up in three years.
Well then, you better serve breakfast for two here in the bedroom. But next time before you do anything like that, let me know in advance. OK?
Yes, my master! replied GAS joyfully and hung up.
The service board robots showed up a half-hour later, rolling food into the flight directors sealed module chamber and passed his meal to him on a serving tray.
Valentin hungrily began eating and, mouth full of food, asked his girlfriend.
And you, Elya, why arent you eating?
For some reason, Im not hungry, sweetie. You eat, she replied, stroking him on his slowly balding head.
Valentin Valentinovich was quite an ugly little man short, fat, balding, with large, protruding, moist lips and bulging watery eyes. He always walked bowlegged, hunched over, and smacking his lips all the time, licking off saliva in fact he resembled a toad. But despite his repulsive looks, Elya agreed to live with him right after she had got a job on the ship, because of his wealth and status, but also because she was two months pregnant by her last lover a handsome, but very poor boyfriend. Elya tricked the medical board when applying for a job on this flight, not thinking that she would be away that long. She wanted to live with Valentin, provide him with sexual favors for as much money as possible, and come back to her beloved toy boy as a rich girlfriend. That the flight would take several years, not weeks, as she had originally thought, Elya learned only after blastoff from Valik. So she decided to announce that her unborn babys father was the little toad the name she called him in private just waiting for the right opportunity to do that. And any premature labor in the future could be blamed on the unbearable space conditions. This ploy would allow her to solidify her position on the ship as a chief hostess and let her do nothing for the whole duration of the flight, and then see what the future would hold. Elinas morning sickness had started early: she was nauseous and craved something salty all the time, but she did her best to hide from the little toad for at least a couple of weeks. The fact that GAS had put the crew into sleep was to Elyas advantage. The only problem was to being forced to tolerate the constant company of the slobbery little toad. Before, she was able to escape every day to the guards, but now they were gone too, and she felt nauseous, nauseous, and nauseous incessantly.
The following four months Valentin and Elina had done nothing except for eating, sleeping, and getting fat. GAS occasionally tried to talk to them and educate them about their current location and the stars they were flying by, but it found them to be quite poor students and stopped its lectures. On the sixth month of the journey GAS noticed Elinas quickly growing belly and mentioned it to her.