Tonight we continue with Part 3: Journey and Conquest. We're now approaching year ten of the Santa Maria's voyage to Kapteyn B, an exoplanet believed to possess the potential for feeding the population of Earth. It's a daily grind for the crew of the ship, despite the effects of time dilation meaning they are aging at only half the rate of folks back home. Boredom has become a problem. Crew members resort to casual sex as a means of dealing with the monotony; and that's not all, as we're about to find out.
The three space twins become quite popular on board; Young-Min Jo especially. Yet his twin brother Kwang-Min is also doing pretty well, as we're going to learn. Now twenty; and despite being left behind at that gloomy orphanage near Toronto, he's been able to achieve great success. Same can be said for Rudo Kachote still working away back in London. She's on her way to becoming famous! Just like Ozzie's twin brother back in Texas, it seems the Earth twins are all three making names for themselves - at least in one way or another.
Tonight we continue with Part 3: Journey and Conquest. We're now approaching year ten of the Santa Maria's voyage to Kapteyn B, an exoplanet believed to possess the potential for feeding the population of Earth. It's a daily grind for the crew of the ship, despite the effects of time dilation meaning they are aging at only half the rate of folks back home. Boredom has become a problem. Crew members resort to casual sex as a means of dealing with the monotony; and that's not all, as we're about to find out.
The three space twins become quite popular on board; Young-Min Jo especially. Yet his twin brother Kwang-Min is also doing pretty well, as we're going to learn. Now twenty; and despite being left behind at that gloomy orphanage near Toronto, he's been able to achieve great success. Same can be said for Rudo Kachote still working away back in London. She's on her way to becoming famous! Just like Ozzie's twin brother back in Texas, it seems the Earth twins are all three making names for themselves - at least in one way or another.
Hello, and welcome back to Twin Paradox. I'm King Everett Medlin and what you're hearing is a SciFi trilogy I wrote four years ago under the pseudonym Purple Hazel. Twin Paradox follows my first podcast series entitled Deathwalker Colony, which is now a full length novel available for purchase on Amazon. It's on sale today in E-book format, as well as the first two books in the Rijel 12 Series, The Rise of New Australia and Return of Anarchy.
Tonight we continue with Part 3: Journey and Conquest. We're now approaching year ten of the Santa Maria's voyage to Kapteyn B, an exoplanet believed to possess the potential for feeding the population of Earth. It's a daily grind for the crew of the ship, despite the effects of time dilation meaning they are aging at only half the rate of folks back home. Boredom has become a problem. Crew members resort to casual sex as a means of dealing with the monotony; and that's not all, as we're about to find out.
Twin Paradox is a SciFi series encompassing three full length novels; all of which will be read in their entirety during the coming weeks. You can go online and download the E-books ... or if you prefer, tune in each week and listen to me read them to you. So let's continue.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Twin Paradox, Part Three: Journey and Conquest. Chapter Eleven, Year Ten ...
By year ten it had become clear not everyone living and working aboard the Santa Maria was to be satisfied by the occasional diversion of a romantic tryst. “Shower hookups” simply couldn’t fulfill crewmembers’ needs, and they were bound to turn to other activities (or substances) to relieve their boredom. Young-Min Jo discovered this early on as he, just like Ozzie and Shamiso, reached puberty and learned from crewmates how they were coping with the oppressive loneliness and despair otherwise normal people might experience being cooped up inside a galactic space vessel.
Young-Min was assigned to the hydroponic garden center and there he found (to his chagrin) that some of his colleagues had, prior to departing Earth, smuggled Cannabis onto the ship. This they’d done by shoving plastic bags filled with seeds inside their rectums. From this “stash” he learned, they intended to grow Marijuana plants, carefully concealed within the massive gardens onboard the ship, then later turn them into Cannabis resin for human consumption. It didn't turn out that way. Nevertheless, “the garden”, as it was called, became an increasingly popular place to visit for those trying to deal with the mundaneness of space travel. It developed into quite an enterprise.
Within five years of launch, the “garden” was discretely producing newer, more potent strains of marijuana every three to five months; and the staff working in the garden center were developing edible variations ... so to give participating crewmembers their desired “medication”. It became the worst-kept secret on the Santa Maria. Even Captain Berwick of all people became a “customer” (though he had “couriers” act as go-betweens so no one would actually see he was acquiring it).
The entire operation was deemed “hush-hush”. Once word got around, open discussions of what was really going on in “the garden” were frowned upon, even as the voyage continued into its tenth year. For one thing, not every officer approved. Kelvin in particular. Ironically enough, given his past, he was diametrically opposed; and continued to shun its use. If there was Marijuana being grown and distributed on the Santa Maria, people were bound to be abusing it. He knew that more than anyone. The lieutenant established this early on with his team.
“Show up to work high, and you’re outta here,” he’d warn them. “I’ll bust you down to Seaman E-3 and you’ll be scrubbin’ shit off the walls for the rest of the voyage if I even think you’re wasted while on duty.” To his relief he only had to enforce this once, and the replacement he chose? Ozzie Guerrero of course! Biologically only fifteen years old by year ten of the mission due to time dilation, he was already 1.8 meters tall and physically fit from head to toe.
That said, Young-Min Jo was every bit as impressive when compared to Ensign Guerrero; for it was he himself who developed the process by which smuggled marijuana seeds could be converted into edible consumables. His innate grasp of chemistry grew by leaps and bounds once surrounded by so many bright young men and women; and it was his subsequent adaptations to the food distribution system, or “chow line” as the crew called it, which made him something of a folk hero on board. It set him apart from others working in his section who'd expected to secretly grow pot and get stoned every waking hour during the flight to Kapteyn B. Not Ensign Jo. He saw an opportunity to better the lives of those on the ship; and that’s essentially what he spent most of his spare time working on. What he came up with would have a tremendous effect on crew morale.
Chemically altering and mixing plant hybrids then introducing cannabis into the process was no small feat, but that’s what Young-Min pursued. Splicing plants and combining the roots in a grow pot, the marijuana leaves would eventually die and fall off, he learned. Then the roots of the cannabis plant would take over the rest of the process, infusing the resulting fruit or vegetable with THC. Cannabis Indica proved to be the best strain for this purpose, he discovered. The rest was merely a matter of experimentation. Mangos could be used. Potatoes too. Also strawberries and other fruits. The possibilities were endless.
But it wasn’t as simple as merely growing marijuana-hybrid tomatoes, tomatillos, green beans, spinach, carrots, squashes, yams, and citrus fruits; then serving them up to hungry crew members desiring a little help from mother nature. That could lead to abuse. He had to freeze-dry the resulting produce and override the system whenever the computer detected foreign substances. With time, he pulled it off, and once accomplished, all crew members desiring “medication” of one sort or another got their daily doses applied at mealtime ... no longer having to pay a visit to “the garden” to get their fix. Accomplishing this elevated Young-Min to the status of near-celebrity amongst his fellow crew members - not to mention his superiors. Wherever he’d go, people would greet him enthusiastically.
“Hey Doc!,” they’d holler, sometimes addressing him as “Dr. Feelgood”. Or they’d call him “Dr. McCoy,” which he dearly loved as a nickname once Tommy Berwick explained who that was. It was far better than “ensign”. Practically everyone held that rank; and besides the Captain no one ever called him that anyway. Certainly not by year ten. He was the boy genius who figured out how to make people feel better; more popular now than he’d ever been back at the orphanage. In every possible way it was an improvement. To be sure, it was a heck of a lot safer being on that ship, braving the darkness of space, than having to survive those gloomy hallways back in Uxbridge … a fate his dear brother had been left behind to endure.
********
Not that it presented much of a challenge to his clever sibling. Back on Earth his twin brother Kwang-Min was approaching age twenty; and sure enough just like Kelvin had predicted years earlier, he’d been plucked from that orphanage just outside Toronto right when he’d turned thirteen.
Admitted to the Government Program for Gifted Children, he’d been sent to a large dormitory filled with teenagers from all over North America and put through intense studies to train him for a career in chemical engineering. He’d excelled in the subject, and that was rather timely in that large pharmaceutical companies were always in need of young talent coming out of college - certainly by year 2096. For the very culture of societies within the Global Union was changing - and changing rather quickly all around him.
North Americans, after sixty-eight years struggling through challenges posed by the Great Collapse and its aftermath, had become ravenous consumers of pharmaceutical drugs. Advances in science had paved the way and most everyone – from every generation too – seemed to accept this new reality as well as the opportunity for relief from their stressful lives. Drugs could solve practically all their problems these days, and with little or no side effects compared to earlier times. In fact, even if there were such side effects, there was a drug for that as well.
If concocted in just the right formula, a better quality of life could be had by simply taking the right combination of pills. The working classes, both white collar and blue, gradually embraced this modern verisimilitude. Social stigmas associated with a reliance on pharmaceuticals dissipated like a morning fog. It was the same in Europe too! By 2096 people fervently believed there was a drug for nearly any problem, challenge, malady, or condition one might face. This was the world Kwang-Min was entering into by his late teens and he could see it evolving with each passing day.
Impotence? There was a drug for that. Erectile dysfunction? Low sex drive? Low testosterone? Depression or mood swings? Obesity? Bloating? Infertility? Premenstrual Syndrome? Yes, they had a drug – likely several – for each and every one of those. Need to concentrate better at work or in school? There was a drug for that. Need to sleep better? They had a drug to accomplish that as well and best of all, addictive “narcotics” were, or so it was claimed, a thing of the past. If it needed to be engineered, chemists seemed able to come up with a new formula; one even better and more effective than the year before. Meanwhile, earnings reports from “Big Pharma” were growing by leaps and bounds as prices for their assorted remedies soared. It soon got out of hand … to the point working class people couldn’t afford their medications.
Kwang-Min saw this going on and seized upon it. In his free time, he forsook everything (including girlfriends) to develop his own smuggling operation by bringing in cheaper, generic versions of already popular drugs and selling them on the streets. He recruited a network of former “city kids” to re-package the drugs into mock-ups of the real thing. These were youngsters who’d reached age thirteen, had to leave their orphanages, and were now working at menial jobs, barely scraping by. He turned them into distributors – and even a few of them into enforcers assigned with protecting his distribution network from competition as well as detection by authorities.
It was unethical really, and he above all had the intelligence to know better. Nonetheless, he built it into a going concern. Had couriers and the necessary muscle to oversee them, spread across the Toronto area and even made runs to cities as far away as Hamilton and Ottawa. They’d travel Highway 401 down to New Detroit, or journey across Lake Erie to Cleveland. When they needed to get to New York, they’d slip across the old U.S. border at Niagara Falls and make their way into the now heavily industrialized city of Buffalo.
And yet, with the creation of each layer of go-betweens and lowly “mules” doing his deliveries, it was impossible to ever peg him as the ultimate source. The reason for this? Most people working for him, especially at the lowest levels, never knew his name. All he required (certainly by the year 2096) was a means of “going legit” so that he could break into the highly profitable world of Big Pharma and become a major player in the international arena.
“Better living through chemicals … that’s what it’s all about,” he’d comment on occasion to his inner circle of street-toughs and informants. His minions would nod obediently. It was an old expression that went back a hundred and forty years or so, but still timely even in this modern era. They loved him; all those working for the reclusive young fellow, importing generic copies of popular drugs from China, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, then selling them on the streets. He was helping them get their bills paid. Providing them “a way out”. Raising them up from poverty so they'd never go hungry again. Loyalty was inevitable. As for Kwang-Min himself? He was raking in tens of thousands of Euros with every passing month as couriers delivered pouches of contraband and returned with “drop-offs” filled with cold hard cash. The richer he got; the bigger his empire grew.
Not so when it came to his identical twin Young-Min Jo. Ensign Jo's modest little operation focused on achieving maximum efficiency. It was, when compared to Kwang-Min's illegal drug network, “above-board” ... even if it was against regulations. Approved by the Captain (though not officially) and participated in by many among the crew, “the garden” was serving up a regular dose of Tetrahydrocannabinol so to make their dreary 7-day work weeks tolerable. Because of this; sex was not the only 'drug' people could rely upon. For some that was simply not an option anyway. More than a few didn’t have the looks - or the charm. But THC? That was a whole other ball of wax. It could now be had by simply scanning the palm of their hand in the chow line, and re-hydrated food, laced with “goodies from the garden”, would be discreetly conveyed to them. A far cry from what his twin brother was doing back on Earth that was for sure! Whatever they needed; that food processing system was soon to be serving it up, right along with their daily calorie allotments. A little dose of happiness perhaps. A little help staying relaxed. A way to sweep away their blues for a while.
********
Of course “weed” and casual sex weren’t the only potential relief available to the crew of Santa Maria. No, Space Programme had certainly thought ahead in that regard. The ship's design team had anticipated that the urge to achieve emotional balance would lead to needs for physical release. For that reason, the ship’s athletic center was a rather popular venue onboard the Santa Maria.
This facility offered elliptical workout equipment, weight training machines, and aerobic dance programs for those inclined to sweat out their stress while maintaining proper fitness. Everyone went there; what’s more every crewman was required to perform a minimum of five 30-minute cardio sessions every week just to prevent muscle atrophy. That said, most crew members found it to be a rather decent social gathering place and went there several times a week if not every day just to meet up with friends.
Artificial gravity existed throughout the ship, but the gravity inside the athletic center was enhanced to replicate surface gravity on Kapteyn B. Thus a thirty-minute workout would exhaust a person - even Kelvin or Ozzie, who were physically-fit and worked in strenuous jobs to begin with. But there was another good reason for regular visits. Next door were the Virtual Reality Chambers. These were extremely popular; usually had people signing up for reserved use days in advance.
A Virtual Reality Chamber or “VRC” was a large oval-shaped room with a six-meter tall ceiling and a twelve square meter interior. The surface activated an electrified field which allowed the occupant or occupants to run, jump, crawl, “swim” ... whatever the program required. The rounded walls, high ceiling, and pixelated floor combined to depict a three dimensional “world” where the “player” could reenact a battle scene, sports challenge, or crisis situation in the form of a natural disaster. Players could even program fictional monsters or real-life predators to hunt or be hunted by and have to chase or elude them in order to advance to higher levels. There were other options as well.
Want to play Center Back in the classic North American Megaball championship of 2078? The classic confrontation between New Chicago and Dallas where the heavily favored Wranglers held a sizable lead going into the second half - and as time expired, the upstart “Enforcers” staged an heroic comeback? It had a program for that. Practically any famous sports match was programmed into its database. Want to act out a role in some famous action film they’d grown up watching as a child? The system had almost every movie ever made, recorded for their enjoyment. They could run through jungles created on the electrified floor, feeling sensations of steaming humidity. They could dive into a creek or pond to swim to safety from pursuing headhunters, using the system's water-simulation feature. Want to cave-dive through the subterranean cinotes of Mexico? Want to hike one of the three volcanic cones of Mount Kilimanjaro? Want to hunt kangaroos with aborigines in the Australian outback? No problem. Simply select it from the menu, enter the chamber, and watch as the screens came alive; with a three-dimensional setting that made one feel like they were truly there, and that objects or people coming at them were actually going to make impact.
Everyone enjoyed the VRC’s; particularly Captain Berwick. He often chose selections from the Australia program. He was descended from a famous sea captain who’d once been a British officer convicted of scuttling his own ship and been sent by prison barge to Western Australia back in the 1860’s. Therefore, it was of particular interest to a man like Tommy Berwick to try and replicate what his ancestor might have had to endure two centuries ago. Kelvin of course enjoyed all the great Megaball programs, starting with “Professional Training Camp” and worked his way up to championship game scenarios. In this he developed a camaraderie with Ensign Guerrero and the two traded experiences regularly, trying out each other’s programs and creating ones of their own to replicate situations they thought the other would find challenging. Often the two would be seen together during those first ten years of the mission. Kelvin never had a little brother after all. Perhaps Oswaldo was just missing his identical twin back home on Earth.
Ozzie went through his entire puberty on board. So did Young-Min and Shamiso. And not surprisingly the three space twins remained close throughout. Palled around whenever Ozzie wasn’t working out with Kelvin or finishing up his shift in the Pod Launch section. However it was also during this time that Ozzie began developing a special relationship with the adorable and remarkably talented Shamiso Kachote. By the tenth year of the voyage, those two were “an item”. Spoken about constantly, referred to regularly in conversation among the crew, speculation was that the two teens would in all likelihood become lovers.
Young-Min was no competition for Ozzie in that regard. Didn’t care to be. To be fair, Young-Min was quite busy with developing effective strains of Cannabis for those currently in stasis. These were the other hundred passengers currently in the cryogenic chamber inside the Santa Maria. That’s where Shamiso worked, and her duties, though technically not as exciting as Ozzie’s and Young Min’s, were just as crucial to the success of the mission. In her section there was a level of discipline and dedication to their work which was rarely equaled. Often referred to as the “freezer” by the rest of the crew, the cryogenic chamber was arguably the second most vital facility on the ship. Second only to the onboard lab which was creating Casimir vacuums for the production of non-baryonic matter. It was supervised around the clock. Shamiso would report to her post and when her twelve-hour shift was finished, heave a big sigh of relief whenever she’d “knock off work for the day”, as she’d typically say. It was quite stressful at times - strangely enough - even though she couldn’t have imagined how when she was first assigned duties there.
It was very much like a morgue: a hundred human bodies frozen in stasis; faces she could easily recognize through blueish lenses located at eye level. Shamiso had to “care” for them. Someone had to be on duty at all times monitoring and watching out for potential malfunctions in the machines which looked like coffins only they were about the size of a solar-powered sedan. It was kind of like working as a nurse in the Intensive Care Unit of a major hospital; only the difference was there were a hundred patients, not five or six, and what’s more … they weren’t even alive, technically. No, they were essentially frozen corpses awaiting reactivation – sort of like zombies or vampires in some scary movie. The biggest challenge therefore, in addition to constantly monitoring the machines keeping them cryogenically preserved, was in not allowing oneself to go completely "bonkers", as Shamiso put it. It was an ongoing challenge; and for that matter practically no one in that section ever completely got over it. Never got used to it either. True, it was a particularly strange ordeal for the pretty young girl from London.
Before departing, the cryonics team first had to remove water from the patients’ cells and replace it with a glycerol-based chemical mixture (aka cryoprotectant) which became a sort of human antifreeze. The goal was to protect organs and tissues from forming deadly ice crystals at extremely low temperatures. This vitrification, or deep cooling without actually freezing the body’s internal organs, put the cells of their crewmates into a state of suspended animation. A team of five could easily supervise this section of the ship, which was made up of a long, sterile chamber and a long rotating axle with racks upon it which could be turned to bring up rows of twenty stasis machines for inspection. It was also a “clean room”, meaning they had to wear full body suits and hoods. Gloves and booties too. Nothing was ever left to chance as far as germs existing within their environment.
Maintaining the body at an average temperature of -130 ◦C completed the vitrification process. Bodies were placed into individual containers that would then be lowered into a metal tank filled with liquid nitrogen which remained at a temperature of -196 ◦C. Bodies were stored head down so that if a leak ever occurred, the brain would stay immersed in this freezing liquid for as long as possible. Therefore, to view the faces of her comrades, Shamiso would have to turn her head nearly upside down to look into their eyes. They'd of course been placed in their chambers with eyes closed so to reduce the eeriness of their appearance. That being said, not all remained that way! Some had their eyes barely open after the freezing process and seemed to stare out at her. To say this was creepy would have been an understatement, in Shamiso's opinion.
Thus, Shamiso became a big fan of the athletic center and of course the Virtual Reality Chambers next door. She became fascinated with death and movies about the afterlife - or lighthearted films depicting young lovers arising from a deep sleep or coming out of a coma. Zombie movies disturbed her though. These caused terrifying nightmares and she’d occasionally awaken with torn fingernails from scratching the ceiling of her sleeping berth – imagining herself buried alive in some moldering tomb. She preferred romantic comedies that depicted couples kissing or running through the rain together hoping to seek shelter from a storm. Not surprisingly, her favorite diversion was to take young Ozzie into the chamber with her. That was also where she experienced her first romantic kiss! Covered in a deluge of computer-generated rainfall (replicated sensations of water pelting their faces), they’d hold hands and trudge through animated floodwaters, with gravity sensors beneath their feet conjuring sensations of sloshing through a deluge. It made life a bit more tolerable, enjoying these programs inside the VRC. She abstained from cannabis, naturally. Still a minor, she as well as Young-Min and Ozzie were forbidden to have these substances in their foods, even if their fellow wonder-twin had helped concoct them in his lab. But Shamiso enjoyed her free time as much as anyone else. Worked out in the athletic center experiencing heavy gravity like that of Kapteyn B, lifted weights to make herself stronger and keep her body fit.
She also received special treatment in the co-ed hygiene chambers whenever men were present. They’d leave immediately and give her the entire area to herself, even when in danger of being late reporting for duty. No one ever complained about it. She was a beautiful girl with a really tough job and people respected her. Her pleasant personality and bright smile, whenever she got out of that ghoulish cryogenic chamber that is, was both uplifting and inspiring. Jokes about “the freezer” promptly ceased when in her presence. Cynical remarks about the place being filled with “bodies” or “stiffs” were rarely heard after she walked into a room. It wasn’t acceptable, basically. Captain Berwick, if he ever found out, would have demoted them to Seaman E-3 and they’d be relegated to lowly cleaning crews.
That of course was a fate no one dared imagine. The inside of a spacecraft was like a petri dish; not much different than that of an old submarine for all intents and purposes. Humans and their collective filth were everywhere. It had to be cleaned constantly. Such a job was both disgusting and loathsome! Of course, if they’d have asked Shamiso just how bad their lives could get, she could have easily told them about her younger days back in that London orphanage. Could have told them about mopping factory floors and cleaning employee bathrooms after school. That said, Shamiso was not the willful type. She’d likely tell them, if they ever inquired, “You probably don’t wanna know, mate.” Better that she never had an encounter like that. It would cause her to remember her sister back in London.
********
As the Santa Maria completed year ten of its mission, Rudo Kachote was still back in England muddling through life’s trials and tribulations. But things were looking up! She’d turned twenty by then, working (as fortune would have it) as a maid in a swank London hotel. Her good looks were an asset, and yet occasionally a liability, fending off advances from lustful male patrons. She took up singing, mainly as a means of wiling the time away during her long work day, gathering laundry and bedding, transporting it to the hotel laundry, and viewing the life of the British elite as though looking through a window into an elegant home while standing outside in the cold rain.
In time however, someone heard her singing, mentioned it to someone else, then they in turn told others. Sensing she may have talent, a charming socialite with connections aplenty one day approached her about entertaining the idea of a musical career. Rudo jumped at the chance. After failing a litany of auditions and getting frustrated a few times, she gained the attention of a vocal coach who endeavored to bring her to the next level. She entered singing competitions. Got a few “gigs” fronting musical groups or backing up visiting celebrities. By age twenty she was being viewed as an up and comer ... well on her way to an exciting career in music. In time perhaps she’d be able to leave that stuffy hotel for good – better yet return someday as a guest instead of a lowly chamber maid.
Indeed, by 2096 things back on Earth were truly looking up for young Rudo Kachote. She even changed her name so it would more easily appeal to potential fans. Her first name in Shona meant “Love”, so she altered it slightly. She would eventually become known to the world as “Rudo Love”.
This concludes tonight's podcast of Twin Paradox Book Two, Chapter Eleven: Year Ten. I hope you enjoyed it. Watch for episode twelve; which I'll be posting very soon.
Also, and don't forget, my latest full-length novel ... Deathwalker Colony ... is available right now in E-book format and can be downloaded today on Amazon.com, along with the first two books in the Rijel 12 Series, The Rise of New Australia and Return of Anarchy. A link to these can be found in the transcript for this episode.
I'm King Everett Medlin. Thanks for tuning in.
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