The Second Ark

By Theodore R. Wade Jr.

A thrilling tale of a futuristic space
odyssey, with a stellar plot set in an
intriguing time. The story begins
when a young astrophysicist fi nds
an anomaly in the solar system that
could signal the beginning of the
end of the world.
Dr. Dia Vu is stricken with a brain
aneurysm while in the process
of trying to warn mankind of the
impending disaster and is put into a
cryogenic state to protect her until
she can be treated and served. Her
preservation allows her to be a part
of the quest for a new Earth, three
centuries after her discovery.
Now Dr. Vu is assigned to head a
team of astrophysicist on the largest
spaceship ever constructed in the
history of mankind. With an android
and a team of the best humanity has
to offer, Dia Vu scouts the galaxy
for a place to call home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 11, 2009
• ISBN: 9781469114026

Theodore R. Wade Jr.

Mr. Wade was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in late 1932. In a strong stable environment, Ted developed a foundation that would allow him to “do whatever in the world you want to do in life,” his father’s mantra. Ted graduated from his Louisville High School just months before Bellarmine University, now the “premier Catholic university of the South”, opened its doors, where he became the first African American to attend an all white university in Kentucky and the first to play basketball in the state. Bellarmine University honored Ted in 2004 with an honorary doctorate for his contributions to the computer industry and for his contributions to his community. After serving in Europe in the United States Air Force, his first job was in the fledgling computer industry, leading to a long successful career in New York and around the world—choices that allowed him to perform on the cutting edge of the industry for his entire career. Ted retired from all community activities in 2003, with his wife, Linda, and one newly adopted daughter aged two. Looking for another life challenge, Ted turned to writing. The Second Ark is the product of that challenge, written by him as a personal challenge after being an avid reader of science fiction for half a century. His second book, 2012, was preempted by Hollywood. He has two more plots in different stages of development, hoping that this book will produce positive feedback and motivate more creative writing.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

June 30, 0150

From the creation of our universe, evolution of mankind, through civilizations’ ancient history and dark ages, until the first breakthrough of space travel by mankind, approximately 13.7 gigayears had transpired. Thirteen billion years after the big bang and the creation of our universe, mankind had achieved a milestone marker of the rise, development, and continual evolution of science, mankind, and space travel. Thirteen billion seven hundred seventy-five million four hundred thousand one hundred fifty years (13,775,400,150), usually noted only by the last three or four digits, except perhaps during a decade after a transition into the next thousand-year cycle. Academia and the scientific communities had championed a universal calendar counting from the big bang for centuries. Eventually after millennia with no further demonstrable divine interventions, the universal calendar was adopted. The term billennium was coined for its similarity to, and the acceptance of, the word millennium. The term and a universal calendar began to be used and accepted.

During that period, it had been calculated for the first time that the nearest galaxy to our Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy, two million light-years away, would collide with the Milky Way in an estimated three billennium or gigayears in the future. Three billion years. After the initial rush of conferences and meetings between governments, universities, and leading astrophysicists, little else was done; and since that time, little thought or consideration was given to the potentially monumental disaster. In the intervening time, earth had forgotten about the galactic forecast, always intent on dealing with one global disaster after another, focusing on the current impending disaster rather than on a theoretical disaster in the distant future.

Over the intervening millennia, a global warming event had occurred in which both ice caps eventually melted, causing centuries of global flooding of biblical proportions. Massive loss of life occurred, and populations were moved to the highest points on the planet in order to survive. This event eventually disrupted the normal flow of ocean waters between North, South, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans, resulting in a subsequent ice age that lasted for more than a millennium. Mankind was again forced to shift to only the most habitable locations on the planet within thirty-five to forty degrees north and south of the equator. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tectonic plate shifts—more frequent than in the first half of the history of the planet—resulted in the sciences and governments continually focusing on activities to save and protect mankind.

With so many crises, so much loss of life over billennium, historians and governments eventually discontinued the current calendars and restarted the new calendars with year 1 on the occurrence of some monumental event. Academia installed a new method of numbering the years by coining the words gigayear and billennium and adding the billennium and millennium notation before the year in historic notations and recordings when appropriate.

By the sixteenth billennium, scientific researches, discoveries, and inventions continued to improve the technological development of space travel and to increase the life span of the population, impacting health, lifestyle, etc. However, with so many threats to the survival of mankind over the past three gigayears, the world population had been reduced by nearly half and could very well be threatened with extinction. As fate would have it, an inexperienced young astrophysicist, specializing in the study of M31, the Andromeda galaxy, rediscovered the impending galactic threat to Earth and the Milky Way. On June, 16, 0150, 150 years into the sixteenth billennium, Dr. Dai Vu, junior astronomer and astrophysicist, had been looking in old storage rooms below the California Institute of Applied Astrophysics’ (CIAA) telescope and computer analysis facilities. Holding up an old photo plate, she felt that she had found some old, perhaps ancient, film plates of what she suspected to be the Andromeda galaxy. Checking, she also found some obsolete equipment that might allow her to view the pictures more closely.

Her searches and inquiries uncovered operable equipment and software that would allow her to transfer the old pictures to new technology and media to simplify her viewing of the pictures and make comparisons to current pictures of the Andromeda galaxy.

Transferal of the plates into the current technology enabled Dr. Vu to determine immediately that the old data was indeed the Andromeda galaxy. Andromeda being Dr. Vu’s field of interest in astronomy, she found herself driven to make repeated comparisons and measurements with her modern lab equipment, computers, and advanced modeling formulas.

After several weeks of analysis and measurements, Dr. Vu came to the conclusion that Andromeda was much closer to the Milky Way now than when the old pictures were taken. Checking the dates of the pictures, calculating how much time has transpired between the earliest picture and her current pictures, she was able to determine that the Andromeda galaxy would collide with the Milky Way in slightly less than approximately three hundred years.

Dr. Vu calculated that the projected paths of Andromeda and the Orion Arm of the Milky Way would intersect with as little as plus or minus 0.02 degrees variance. The Orion Arm of the Milky Way was going to take a direct hit from the Andromeda galaxy. Calculating and recalculating the paths and the length of time, Dr. Vu determined that the event would occur in slightly more than three centuries. Her calculations further determined that the bulk of the Milky Way would escape the intersection and cause damage.

Panicked by her discovery, Dr. Vu rushed through the corridors of the complex in search of Dr. Paul Wilson, director of her department at the CIAA. Racing up the steps, in far too big a hurry to wait for elevators, she reached the fourth floor, the level of Dr. Wilson’s office. Dr. Vu slowed from a run, to a fast pace, to a stagger, and collapsed in the hallway, spilling pictures, calculations, formulas on the floor.

Security and office personnel rushed to Dr. Vu’s aid. She was then rushed to the nearest hospital. Examinations in the emergency room determined that Dr. Vu’s collapse has been brought on by a fatal disease resulting in a cerebral or brain aneurysm in a most critical location in her brain, which had been aggravated by her excitement and strenuous activity. The doctors determined that while an operation could perhaps save her life, it would without doubt disable her from being an intellectually active individual to being an invalid, perhaps not able to even talk. Realizing that there was as yet no treatment and no cure for her medical condition, the CIAA made an immediate decision to put her into cryogenic suspension, before she dies. This decision, as it turned out, would result in the possibility of saving mankind from extinction.

~1~

Awakening

Three hundred and four years after the young astrophysicist was cryogenically preserved to try to save her life, technology had advanced to the point that Dr. Dai Vu’s medical condition could be successfully treated. She was resuscitated, major brain surgery was performed, and she now had the ability to be restored to society as a highly functional successful astrophysicist. Her doctor, responsible for her treatment after resuscitation and brain surgery, Dr. Malone, had more than a little trouble explaining to Dr. Vu what has transpired.

The lithe, slender, Oriental (relative to hair, complexion, and eyes), beautiful, and definitely physically attractive young lady could easily be taken as an athlete. Perhaps a basketball player, although not particularly tall. Perhaps volleyball. Seated on the cold stainless steel examination table in nothing more than an examination gown tied in the back, she looks up when the doctor enters the room in his white lab coat, with a stethoscope wrapped around his neck.

"Good morning, Dr. Vu. I have reviewed your medical history prior to your problem and your recent examination results. And I must say, you look sound as today’s renminbi. Well, let’s say you look like a new gold yuan. Since your last conscious thoughts, prior to today, you have had a very successful brain surgery, and your hair has completely grown back, although perhaps slightly shorter than you will remember or prefer. Dr. Vu, on the morning of June 30, 16, 0150, you suffered what was thought to be a massive stroke over two hundred years ago. Fortunately you were near this medical facility when it happened, and even more fortunately, our government considered—considers—your work of such importance that they made an immediate decision to cryogenically preserve you until such time as your medical problems could be corrected to save your life. Dr. Wilson was particularly instrumental in saving your life. Today’s date is February 12, 0375. I hate to tell you, but Dr. Wilson died of natural causes eighty years ago.

On the plus side, you have been restored to a better state of health than on the day that you collapsed. In the process, we have taken the liberty of enhancing your health and adding certain augmentations to help you continue to be of great value in the resumption of your career. On the negative side, I’m sorry to tell you that your mother died about four years after your collapse. Your distant relatives, aunts, uncles, and cousins, most of whom, after long and successful careers and lifetimes, have passed away over the years. I apologize for being so blunt, but the crisis that you discovered over two hundred years ago is coming to a head now, and the general consensus is that you can be of great help in the very near future with implementing the solution.

A long pause. Silence.

After an expected time to allow Dr. Vu to process the information and adjust to it, Dr. Vu responds, "Dr. Malone, are you telling me that I am an old woman? A two-hundred-and-fifty-one-year-old, old woman? I feel… I feel the same as I did the day before I collapsed, or… died? Please hand me a mirror."

A smile and a chuckle came from Dr. Malone as he reached for a fairly large hand mirror, obviously having anticipated the request. Dr. Vu, you did not die, you were put in cryogenic storage state just before any damage could occur to your brain or body. However, your image may be even more of a shock to you than my information.

Handing the mirror to her, the doctor steps back with a smile on his face. Dai views her face in silence. Complete silence. I have not changed. I have not changed one iota. Please, Doctor, please let’s stop the jokes. Is this a joke because of my name? Vu? As in déjà vu? Please. I have an extensive series of images to review and comparisons to make before the day is over. I must warn Dr. Wilson and the government of an impending disaster.

Dr. Malone responds, "Dr. Vu, I am not prone to jokes. I do not know you. I did not know you. I had not been born when your collapse occurred. In fact, my mother had not been born when your illness occurred. You are indeed a healthy, intelligent, beautiful young lady, and while chronologically three hundred or so years have passed since your birth, you can feel free to refer to your current age as twenty-six. Your medical records and all government records will reflect twenty-six years as your age by having assigned an adjusted birth date to your records.

"Dr. Vu, you are well. And except for perhaps some slight psychological problems that could be manifested in the near future, I can find no reason to hold you. However, I have scheduled a follow-up examination for you thirty days from now. This is not an optional appointment. It is necessary and mandatory.

"You will be escorted to the examination that will be performed here by myself and two additional specialists. In addition to corrective treatments to remediate your medical condition, you have had several augmentations added, which will have to be activated and calibrated before you can be considered to have completely recovered.

"For the time being, you are free to leave. You will be escorted from the hospital now and taken directly to the director of astrophysics, your boss, at the California Institute of Applied Astrophysics. I need to advise you that you have a new apartment and a new car, and in all likelihood, you will be working in a new office space at the institute. We have tried to place you back in society with as little displacement as possible, and I am sure that your institute management has gone to considerable efforts for you there too. My receptionist will give you an appointment slip on your way out. Your escort and your new director are aware of your appointment in thirty days, and my office will call you as a reminder the day before.

Feel free to call me if you sense any complications or discomfort or if you have any questions, regardless of their simplicity. It has been a pleasure to meet you, and I hope the rest of your life is as successful as this procedure has been. We are all pulling for you and waiting for you to go back to work, with great expectations.

Mild confusion and disorientation obvious in her face, Dr. Dai Vu is escorted from Dr. Malone’s office as he updates her medical charts on his wrist link.

~2~

Discharged to Duty

In the waiting room of the doctor’s office, a diminutive young woman, dressed in a black jumpsuit looking slightly like a military uniform, calls out to Dr. Dai Vu as she steps through the door. Dr. Vu, Dr. Vu, my name is Dai Two, warrant officer in the Earth Space Force. You may call me Dai, D2, or Officer D2 more formally, if you prefer.

Dai Tu? Dai! What an interesting coincidence. I have never before met another person with my first name. And while you do look Oriental, I cannot detect or place a national or racial lineage whatsoever.

Collecting her appointment slip from the receptionist, Officer D2 and Dr. Vu exit the medical facility and walk to a nearby parking lot. Dr. Vu, I am assigned to you. This is your car. We are both to serve you at and for your every convenience. Now we must go to your office at the institute where Dr. Phillips is waiting for you.

Dr. Vu responds, Very well, thank you. Oh my, this is a new car! I am not sure that I can drive this thing. Why would the institute bother to buy me a new car? What is its method of propulsion and energy source?

Most cars are new today. All governments on earth have outlawed old fossil fuel internal combustion transportation. You will only find the dirty machines off planet at mining and construction sites, replies her driver. "This conveyance has a