Voyage to Alpha Centauri: A Novel by Michael D. O'Brien Page B

thousand new galaxies and more than eighty new quasars.
    Encounters with McKie are neither lengthy nor memorable, seasoned as they are with his crabby comments and complaints, his antisocial nature demanding that human interaction be kept to the minimum, unless a subject arises in conversation that interests him (i.e., quasars). By coincidence, I brought along on the voyage my well-thumbed paperback copy of his book on quasars, not knowing he would be aboard. White-haired, cranky, tall but bent like a bad penny nail. I like him. He’s a misfit like me.
    Also, there is Dr. Maria Kempton of Sydney University, whom I first met in a lounge one evening when I was feeling shiftless. She initiated the conversation, asked if I was Dr. Hoyos the physicist. Inwardly I sighed, since I am not dedicated to my reputation. A lively irrational discussion with a real child would have been so much more rewarding, but, alas, children are entirely absent from our little venture, and are a somewhat endangered species back on our home planet.
    Kempton is in her early sixties, but it took no stretch of the imagination to see that she had once been a lovely young woman. She opened the exchange by mentioning that we have something in common because we are both lapsed members of Mensa.
    “You have lapsed?” I exclaimed with feigned shock.
    “Yes, long ago. High IQs don’t guarantee that you remember to keep your membership renewal up to date.”
    I knew why I had once been a member—I had been badgered into it by Xue for reasons of prestige—but I was curious to know her reason and asked why she had joined the elite brain club.
    “Well, I was very young”, she said with a thoughtful look. “It was pride in the beginning. And loneliness. The desire to find people with whom I could discuss things without them wondering if I was a dysfunctional, masculinized gnome.”
    “Which you very obviously are not”, I replied with a little bow, dropping my cowboy accent, since I quickly realized she is one of those totally honest people you meet from time to time.
    “Thank you, Dr. Hoyos.”
    “Please call me Neil.”
    “Neil. I’m Maria.”
    I asked about her area of expertise. Microbiology, she informed me, then launched into an intriguing conjecture about what kind of life we may find on our destination planet, that is, if we find any life. It is possible, she says, though by no means certain. However, AC-A-7 is in the Habitable Zone, is about the same size as Earth, about the same distance from AC-A as Earth is from our sun; moreover, AC-A is only a little larger than our sun. These “abouts” and “littles” represent immense distances and quantities, and thus we can only hope to find life there.
    “Even if we do”, she added, “the planet could be millions of years younger or older than ours, and whatever life it may have could be either extremely primitive or dying out in its end phase.”
    “Then there’s the various sorts of ionizing radiation”, I added, “which we have no way of measuring at this point.”
    “Mmmm, yes, the gamma rays and x-rays, you mean. Without sufficient shield, I suppose that would put an end to things pretty quick.”
    “They’d never get started, actually.”
    An enjoyable conversation. It concluded with her showing me photographs of her grandchildren. Yes, she has more than one. Apparently, she and her husband had three children, since Australia was the last state to sign the one-child global policy accords. Each of their children married and produced a single legal child, for a total of three! She’s a very lucky woman. A strange joy took hold of me as I examined those bright shining faces. This was followed by a cordial goodbye on both our parts, and an agreement to talk again if we should happen to bump into each other.
    As I said, there is a great deal to interest me on board, everything from the hydroponics garden (they have a good selection of vegetables, succulent vine fruits, and vividly