Two days later, the engineering team had met with great success. The Lethe was mostly ready to land. The landing thrusters were primed and the auxiliary landing systems checked out in case of a failure of a landing thrust. As soon as the Hyperion, the Lethe in tow, settled into a standard orbit, the Hyperion released the older ship from its tractor beam. At that point, the Lethe’s autopilot engaged a landing sequence and slowly descended to the surface of Elysion in a bright fire of re-entry.
As soon as the Lethe had landed on Elysion, Dobbins and Skylar took a shuttle down to the planet to pick up the engineering team that had stayed on board to surpervise the landing.
Dobbins took the opportunity to pay one final visit to Captain Loman. He found Loman helping a group of about 20 colonists haul building materials out of one of the outer cargo bays and onto the soil of their new home.
“Captain Dobbins,” Loman said upon seeing the younger man approach. “It’s good to see you, again. I can’t begin to say how grateful we are for your work to get us here. Without you, I don’t think we would have made it here.”
“You’re quite welcome, Captain,” Dobbins responded. “How go the preparations to start the colony?”
Loman sighed. “They’d be going better if we could get more people to help us. At this point, there are only about 500 people who’ve decided that they’re going to leave the ship for this new world. I can’t understand why they would want to stay, but I guess if you tell yourself a lie enough times, you eventually come to believe it.”
He paused and looked around at the environment around him. Lush, green grass covered the ground as far as the eye could see. In the distance, a large forest loomed on the horizon. Overhead, a yellow sun that looked similar to Earth’s, only smaller, hung in the center of the sky. On the far horizon opposite, the planet of 47 Ursae Majoris B loomed, its violent, swirling storms visible.
“It’s a bit hard to believe that anyone would want to live in that sort of imitation of reality when there’s one right here to experience,” he said after taking a deep breath. “Of course, unless they’re willing to believe that there’s something better than the inside of the ship, why should they want to give up on what they already know?”
Dobbins nodded. “Do you think that most will come around?” he asked.
“More than likely, once they see their old world collapsing around them. We’re going to have to disassemble the Lethe piece-by-piece to build our first settlement. It’ll take a few years to get that done, but by that time, I expect that most of the people we brought along will join us. We’ll leave anyone who doesn’t want to join us, of course, for as long as we can. Eventually, though, we’ll have to disassemble the main deck. At that point, I think we may have some people who may discover this new, better world only through the loss of everything that they held dear.”
“What a shame it would be,” Dobbins observed, “if some of the people died on the Lethe and never got to see this new world that they traveled 13 years to inhabit.”
“Quite true,” Loman answered, “but I can’t do much about that, now, nor can those who are here with me. All we can do is try to convince as many as possible to leave willing in order to spare themselves that unfortunate reality.”
A voice called from the cargo hold, “Captain Loman, we need your help with some of these crates back here!”
“I’ll be right there,” Loman called back. He addressed Dobbins again, “Captain, once again, thank you. I have to be going, but you and your crew will be welcome here on Elysion whenever you wish.”
Dobbins bid him goodbye and shook his hand. Leaving Loman to his work, Dobbins walked back to the shuttle, walking pensively through the soft grass and staring at the beautiful, blue sky.
He arrived at the shuttle a couple of minutes later. Skylar and the engineering team were already there.
“We’re ready to go, sir,” reported the helmsman.
“Excellent, Mr. Skylar,” Dobbins said. “Let’s go. We have quite a bit to report to Fleet Com once we return to Earth.”
He took one last look at Elyson, and then boarded the shuttle, which roared off into space in a dazzling rush of fire and wind.
The End
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