An Odyssey of the Heart

Most days you’ll find me debugging lines of code on my computer. The noise of incoming data from an optical spectrometer needs to be filtered to reduce signal attenuation and ensure its quality. Said data is disassembled by Fourier and assembled into a matrix by the algorithm, which proceeds to extract the index of a star’s Hydrogen-alpha line, defined by the trough of a spectral footprint… In other words, the speed of a star can be calculated relative to your reference frame by comparing the intensity of light it emits at different wavelengths. This works because hydrogen is the most common element in the universe; so, it works on stars, planets, comets, and… objects.

Today, I’m playing hooky, stowed away with nothing but my thoughts and a picture book I snuck out of the library. The mere act of opening it fills me with determination. Tablets are nice too, more efficient, and reliable; however, its cold and tolerance-conforming construct doesn’t compare to the touch and smell of real paper. When I caress the pages, my fingertips can feel the rings of the tree it came from. Its weight whispers century old tales starting with a fermented seed. Every flip of the page inspires my imagination to flow freely and, like holograms, envision the lives of people who witnessed these illustrations. Entire lives I know nothing about.

“Why are you hanging out in the garbage disposal?”

I jerk forward in a panic. “C-Captain!”

She heaved a hearty laugh from the gut. At least I’m not in trouble, I thought. I hid the book between my legs and looked back in askance.

“For you, it’s Tierra,” she finally said, wiping the tears swelling in her eyes. We make eye-contact, and I knew then, that she knew.

“What’s in the book?”

My head drops in defeat. She crouched to take a gander. It was an illustration of the ocean with a metal structure on the horizon. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was an asteroid, but I’m not that gullible.

“Ah, this takes me back,” Tierra smiles warmly. “Ships look a little different nowadays.”

“You’ve been on one?”

Tierra nods. She recounted her days faring the seas with her father as a little girl. ‘Mother died’, she said, and he had no one else to leave her with, so Tierra joined her father on a convoy rescue and resupply ship to provide aid to seafarers in need. It was the best experience of her life, which came at a time when she needed it most. She learned everything from him.

“Mira m’hijita!” he would say. “That structure in the center of the ship, we call the bridge. That’s where we navigate the ship and monitor the weather and sea conditions. Above that is Monkey Island, it used to be where sailors performed solar and stellar observations!”

Tierra giggled, “why is it called like that?”

“Pues, because we have little monkeys onboard, why else?”

“My father was a kind and hard-working man. He instilled those values onto me, and I didn’t even notice. Every day I witnessed all the effort and passion each person exhibited on that ship.”

Tierra went on about specific procedures and protocols, rescue operation jargon. It wasn’t enough to rescue people, he had to manage interpersonal relationships and assess the mental and physical well-being of his crew. After all, if he took care of them, they would take care of the distressed seamen. He taught her that she needed to be like an ocean.

“Tierra, come join us!”

The entire crew waved at her from the base of the ship as they bathed in the salty waters. It was a long way down and her feet squirmed at the edge. Ballasts would fail before she dived down. Her father unexpectedly tapped on her shoulder. She flinched.

“Times like these are few between. Whenever you get the opportunity, jump, because you may never get it again.”

“I’m scared… La tierra no flota.”

“M’hijita, look at the ocean and tell me, what do you feel?”

Tierra struggles to come up with an answer.

“You’re conflicted. You’re conflicted because I asked you an unfair question. I look out at the ocean and what I feel is peace, yet it commands respect and fear. Its formlessness instills both stability and chaos. It’s unfathomable. Naturally, those who dare explore it must adopt a similar character; they must achieve balance between qualities that, at first, appear divorced.”

He hunkered down to a knee. Both his hands on her shoulders. His caring eyes felt safe, but his words electrified her.

“M’hijita, they must be adventurous.”

Tierra’s gaze shifted back to the waters below.

“Will you jump with me?”

He shook his head. “I have to stay here and watch over everyone. This journey, you must do on your own.”

“-Captain!”

Tierra wipes tears off her face. All vulnerability previously shown was replaced by a hardened visage and a beckoning hand.

“What are you doing with that book!?”

Tierra grins wickedly while scratching her head. “Sorry Li, what can I say, I got a bit nostalgic and wanted to revisit the old Milky Way!”

“Stop waving the book around!” Li swats the book from her hands. “Hey, kid, return this to the library and don’t let anyone see you!”

I nod nervously and progress slowly to the exit.

“What’s going on?”

“We’re arriving. Everyone is gathering in Monkey Island.”

“Sweet, we need to join them!“

“-We- need to be in bridge.” Li grabs Tierra by the arm and drags her.

At a time before I was born, the Earth was in peril and we needed to take what we had and make it work. Technical advances in nuclear fusion and hydrogen ion propulsion meant we could approach just over 90% the speed of light! Don’t ask me the specifics, I’m just a student; however, our exuberance and euphoria for humanity’s salvation was short lived. Humanity’s salvation didn’t necessarily mean -your- salvation. And, well, the rest can be explained with war and politics. I wasn’t there.

Proxima Centauri b was the closest planet at 4.25 light-years. With our technology, we could get there in about 5 years. Unfortunately, gripping hope in the neck, Fair Wind ventured out to find a planet robbed of its atmosphere by radiation and stellar winds. Robotic probes were launched to key regions in search of subsurface life. If it was habitable 4.25 Earth-years ago, when we last checked prior to embarking on this journey, it seems we were 9 years too late. It turns out that a light-year is still an Earth-year past. There are billions more planets to explore, but the next closest planet was 11 light-years away -if you embarked from Earth.

Two years ago, our navigation specialists, preparing for our next star trek, picked up the spectral signature of a redshifted star that wasn’t listed in our database. The star was just over the horizon of our Celestial Sphere. Along with other civilians, I was pressed against the glass of the observation deck overlooking Monkey Island. Our officers were strapped onto their chairs, having a heated debate about this new star.

“Absolutely not!” a deep voice boomed across the roundtable, only slightly muffled by his ginger Viking beard. “Our trajectory is backed by aggregate research spanning centuries, we can’t change our course over an off-hand discovery with five seconds of data!”

“Calum, I understand where you’re coming from, but every planet we’ve visited thus far has been barren and it’s going to take us another 13 years to reach our next destination. We can reach this one in 2 years-”

“-and extend our voyage by 4 years, Junior!” he retorted.

“But it’s also near potential resources we can mine,” Laura interjected. “Our hydrogen reserves are depleted since the last time we revved our engines. Not to mention-“

“-We can find resources closer to Tau Ceti f, try again.”

“I, for one, agree with the ginger,” Zlatka added. “We must trust in the scientists who discovered these exoplanets. The proximity of this new planet is too convenient, and I can’t imagine it was missed. They must have excluded it for a reason.”

Li motions for everyone to gander at the data he had collected. “This planet matches all our metrics for a habitable environment, it would be foolish not to explore it.”

“Maybe there was a smudge on your lens, ever think of that, baldy?” Calum chuckled.

“What? You are also bal-“

“-Enough! If you’re going to bicker like this, do it near the crops!” Maria interrupted. The room went silent. Maria then turned to our captain, waiting for her input. Tierra gazed over her shoulder, glancing directly at me and smirked. For the first time, I could see a nervous crack on her lip, and I knew that she was thinking back to the lessons of her old man.

“In our lifetime, we can only explore about two more planets. After that, we’re unlikely to live through another voyage -we can only hope to prepare our children by then. The way I see it, this one is free.”

And so, it was decided, the vote to visit the new planet was approved five to two. I had just returned from the library when I was greeted at Monkey Island by a crowd. It was open to the public when our officers weren’t deliberating. On the glass floor below, I could see Tierra and the others inside the bridge. The opening sequence for a glass shield protecting us from radiation had been initiated, in a few minutes the metallic eyelid would be retracted, leaving nothing but a thick glass dome between us and space. I was nauseous.

Calum, uncharacteristically silent, impatiently tapped his fingers against his armrest and glared at Li. He exchanged looks with Zlatka, who was also displeased. There was a somber lull in the room as everyone came to terms with the realization Calum was more than eager to broach.

“I don’t see a planet.”

“I don’t see anything,” Zlatka added.

Li scrambled through his touchpad reviewing all the data he had collected. “I-I don’t get it. I couldn’t have made such an egregious mistake.”

Maria, reviewing her own data, displayed their trajectory on the common screen. “Well, I inputted your coordinates correctly, so it wasn’t me.”

“Then what star did we track!? We should have noticed a -lack- of star months ago!”

“Calum, lose the ‘u’ and turn it down!” Tierra barked. “This is a five-sigma event, there was most likely a small miscalculation. Find the error and project the planet’s corrected coordinates.”

“Perhaps there was a misreading on the H-alpha line, which would affect our calculation of the planet’s velocity,” Junior speculated. Suddenly, all the commotion veered to a halt as a bright and warm light irradiated in the distance and commanded our attention.

“It has the same spectral signature of the planet we were tracking.”

“That’s… not a planet.”

“Is it from Earth?”

“No.”

At that moment, I glanced at Tierra and realized, this must be how it felt –to peer out into a vast ocean. A heart wracked with a congregation of conflicting emotions, the source of which could only be an unfathomable force bigger than ourselves. The heart of an adventurer.