My Space Train

The first thing I heard was the voice of the Conductor. “Julia Carlson, wake up please. Dr. Carlson, your assistance is needed. Please respond. Julia Carlson, wake up please…” The deep voice repeated the message several times as I tried to make my eyes, and mind, focus. As I became more alert, I saw that I was lying on a medical diagnostic bed while two small robots scanned me and checked readings. I guessed that I was in a hospital. “I’m awake,” I finally responded to the voice.

“How are you feeling, Dr. Carlson?” the voice asked.

“Not great,” I replied honestly. I felt dizzy and nauseated. My body ached and my head was pounding. The most disturbing thing, though, was that I had no memory of where I was or even who I was. “I don’t seem to remember anything. You called me Julia Carlson, but I don’t know that name. Was I in an accident? This looks like a hospital.”

“Memory loss is sometimes an issue when an individual is awakened from cold-sleep too quickly. Normally we would do it over a course of days, but we didn’t have time,” said the voice. “The loss of memory is usually temporary, Dr. Carlson. “

Cold-sleep is one of the greatest euphemisms in history. It sounds like a person is just put into a deep sleep so they can deal with how long space travel takes. The truth is that the person isn’t asleep; they’re dead. It should be called “cold-death,” but how many people would agree to being killed? Once they inject you with something that kills you, they freeze you and hopefully revive you when you get where you’re going. It’s proven to be very reliable, but It’s not pleasant. The general public doesn’t know about the death part, but I knew it which meant part of my memory was coming back. It also meant I was a person who was privy to things others didn’t know.

One of the robots elevated the exam table to sit me up and handed me something to drink. As soon as I took a few sips, I felt better. The headache abated and my whole body felt stronger. I asked the voice, “Who are you?”

“I am the AI for the Colony Train Trappist 1. I am referred to as the ‘Conductor.’ I control all functions of the train with the help of 2,400 task-oriented robots. I have been managing this train for 198 Earth years since our departure in 2134.”

The Conductor’s answers cleared up more than his identity. I now knew that I was aboard the colony train and had been for 198 years. My name was also starting to register in my head, but everything else was just a hazy mess. “Conductor, show me a schematic of this ship.”

An image appeared before me of what looked like an enormous train hanging in space. There was a gigantic engine at the front and what looked like hundreds of pods strung together behind. “How many pods are there?” I asked.

“There are 320 pods making up the train,” the Conductor replied. “The first hundred pods are colonizing supplies. The rest hold colonists. There are 1200 colonists in cold-sleep on each of those pods.”

More pieces of my memory fell into place. I knew this train. I could recall being involved with the project before launch. I wasn’t sure how, but I just knew it. I had the feeling that this was my train. “Conductor, what was my position on the train.”

“You were one of the five leading members of the Trappist 1 Colonizing Project,” the Conductor said. “Trappist 1 is a star system approximately 40 light years from Earth. It has been determined that two planets should be able to support human life. Our destination is the fifth planet, Trappist 1e. You are the person who chose this destination.”

My train! The thought came again and with it a memory of a meeting with four stubborn men who would not listen to reason, so I decided not to reason with them anymore. “This is my train!” I had argued. “You may also be on this committee, but make no mistake, you are just here for the sake of appearance. None of you are needed.”

A particularly arrogant and stupid member of the committee smirked at me. His name was Harris and he was a friend of the president. “Now Doctor, you know it isn’t really your train,” he said in that smarmy way of his. “There are thousands of people involved in this project. No one is more important than anyone else…”

“Shut up, Harris. You’re the most useless one here. We have been meeting for three months now, and it’s just a waste of time. You spent this entire meeting arguing about what font should be used on the train’s exterior. I don’t have time for this anymore. I have real work to do.”

“Well, let’s see what the president has to say about this.” He called the president and put her on speaker. “President Chen, this is Raymond Harris. We’re having a bit of a disagreement on the space train committee and I was hoping…”

I interrupted him before he could say anything else. “Sarah, this is Julia. I can’t work with these people anymore. I have too much to do and these meetings just waste my time. Is there something you can do about this?” Harris looked stunned with the way I talked to the president. He was more stunned when the president spoke.

“I’m sorry. Julia,” she said. “Harris, you and the others will continue as the committee without Dr. Carlson. Any suggestions you have can be brought to her, but she will have final say. Decisions will no longer go through the committee for approval. This project belongs to Dr. Carlson. It is her train. She is the lead engineer and creator of the entire project. The rest of you will no longer impede her progress. I trust this is understood. The recording of this call will serve as the final word on the subject. Julia, I apologize for this. We’ll talk later.”

The president hung up without another word to Harris. I started collecting my things and prepared to leave. I could tell all the men were seething at how the president had embarrassed them. As I was about to leave, I told Harris, “You may be Sarah Chen’s friend, but my project is going to get her a second term. You gentlemen will continue to meet, per the president’s instructions. I will review any suggestions you have about my train and give them all the attention they deserve.” I smiled and left them. It was one of my favorite days on the project.

The memory of that incident was so clear, and yet so much was still blank. I was starting to feel more like myself, though. I was Dr. Julia Carlson, head of the Space Train Project, humanity’s first extra-solar colonizing attempt. I was the chief designer of the train. I supervised the development of the Conductor AI. I reviewed the selection of colonists. This was my train. The entire thing existed because of me.

“Conductor, get me something to eat and a cup of coffee, extra sugar,” I said.

“It is not advisable to eat solid food so soon after leaving cold-sleep. I recommend you stay on an IV for now,” he replied.

“I’ve been dead for almost 200 years and I want a turkey and swiss on wheat toast with mayo. And the coffee. I don’t care about the cold-sleep protocols. I’m pretty sure I helped to write them,” I said.

“You did work on the cold-sleep protocols,” the Conductor said. “I’ll have one of the robots bring your food, but we do need to discuss the reason I woke you.”

“I already checked the train’s status,” I said. “There are no malfunctions, everything is running optimally. I assume if it was an extreme emergency, you would have already said so. I think I can take some time for myself. Understood?”

“Yes, Dr. Carlson,” the Conductor replied almost sheepishly.”

“Good,” I said. “Give me 15 minutes to eat, take a shower and then we can discuss why you woke me.”

It felt good to take a little time for myself and to eat some real food. I was sipping my coffee when the Conductor interrupted. “It has been fifteen minutes, Dr. Carlson. Do you feel up to discussing our issue?”

“Has the situation changed?” I asked.

“No Dr. Carlson. Everything is functioning normally,” he responded.

“Fine, then I will let you know when I am ready.” I remembered how much I hated AI. People I understood. I could read their motivations and figure out how to get them to do what I needed. Some people just fall in line, some are seeking money or power, some were a combination of a few of these. It wasn’t as simple with AI. Depending on how its protocols were written, they always thought they knew what was best. I had made sure the Conductor wasn’t programmed that way.

It was ten months before departure when the head of the Conductor project, Dr. Susan McCarthy, gave me the final protocols to review. I was furious when I saw it. “Are you out of your mind? Why did you give the Conductor so much autonomy?”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Carlson. I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“No, that’s not what I wanted! The Conductor is not in charge of my train. He’s just a well-trained monkey who can handle things while we’re in cold-sleep. Am I making myself clear?” I glared at her and she nodded. McCarthy was a genius when it came to AI, but she had no backbone.

“But I thought you would want him to make decisions in an emergency,” McCarthy said.

“I want him to be able to put out a fire, adjust something that needs fine tuning, and make sure everything is working as it should. Beyond that, he wakes me and I decide what to do. Is that so hard to do?”

I thought McCarthy was going to cry. She held it together long enough to say, “I’m sorry. I’ll get right to work on the changes.” I didn’t see her again for a few months, but when I did, she presented me with a much less independent thinking Conductor, just as I asked for. She resigned a few days later and gave me a letter saying that she thought I was making a huge mistake with the Conductor and that her original design would have made the trip much safer… blah… blah… blah. The memory of it made me smile. Almost two-hundred years later and the Conductor was functioning just fine.

I knew the Conductor was waiting for me, but I just didn’t feel like doing anything. My memory seemed to be fully restored. I felt like myself and I wanted to appreciate the moment. I had spent almost eight years working on my train. I had sacrificed everything for the project. I’d had a full bathroom put in my office and after the second year, my office became my permanent home. The last six months I lived in orbit as the train’s construction was completed. I watched as the pods, with colonists already aboard in cold-sleep, were attached to the train. When it was completed, it was the largest thing humans had ever constructed, and it was all my doing.

As the train started its voyage into space, only three people were not in cold-sleep. The two individuals I had chosen as my subordinates and I were able to watch for several days as we moved away from Earth. Then we got into the cold-sleep pods reserved for us in the train’s engine section and let the Conductor kill and freeze us.

I had an immense feeling of satisfaction as I sat in the lounge, drinking coffee on my train. I was the only living thing aboard the greatest engineering achievement in human history. Somewhere on Earth there were probably monuments dedicated to me. They would be old and weathered by now, but people would still remember me. And the next time I woke up, I would be on a new Earth. I would be the leader of a new colony, a new civilization. I knew I was being arrogant, but you need to be arrogant to achieve what I had. I was feeling quite pleased with myself when the conductor interrupted again.

“Dr. Carlson, another fifteen minutes has passed. Have you recovered sufficiently to discuss our issue?” I was annoyed, but reluctantly agreed.

“Thank you, Dr. Carlson,” he said. Eighty-seven hours ago, we executed our pivot and began our deceleration into the Trappist 1 system.” That was as expected. For half the distance to the destination we accelerate slowly. When we reach the midpoint in the journey, the ship turns around and continues firing its engines. Then we gradually slow down unit we arrive, travelling at a minimal speed. If we didn’t do this, we’d be travelling too fast and fly right through the star system.

“The pivot went perfectly and the train is slowing as expected.”

“So, what’s the problem?” I asked. “Sounds like everything is fine.”

“Everything is fine as far as the functioning of the ship. The problem is with the timing of the train’s pivot. The train switched trajectory based on the original distance calculations done on Earth. My readings indicate that those calculations were inaccurate. The exact distance to Trappist 1 was less than predicted. As a result, the train will not have slowed sufficiently when we reach our destination and will overshoot the system,”

“So, fix it,” I said angrily to the Conductor. “Just increase thrust until we’ve compensated for the problem.”

“We do not have enough fuel to make that possible. The train is too massive to slow down adequately,” the conductor said calmly.

“When did you know that the original calculations were incorrect?”

“I noticed the mistake approximately two years and three months into our voyage,” the Conductor said.

“And you did nothing for 195 years?! Why didn’t you just pivot the train sooner? It seems that would have been pretty easy,” I said.

“I was not authorized to make that type of decision?” he answered flatly.

I realized that was true, but it still seemed like an inadequate explanation. “Then why didn’t you wake me sooner so I could have given the order?”

“I was not authorized to wake you unless there was an emergency I could not handle. Until we pivoted, there was no such emergency. Once it became a true emergency, I woke you.”

Anger and fear were competing for space in my head. “How could you have done this?” I said softly.

“I was functioning within the parameters of my protocols. I believe I acted as expected,” the Conductor said.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” I said. I really could not understand how I had caused this. There had to be some way to fix it.

“Conductor, you’ve had a long time to think about this situation. Have you come up with any options that will save the train and the mission?”

“Of course,” he said calmly. “The problem is one of mass. If the train’s mass could be reduced, we would be able to slow ourselves sufficiently to safely reach Trappist 1.”

It sounded like a reasonable plan. If we could eliminate enough extra equipment that we didn’t need, it could work. “What do you recommend we eliminate?” I asked.

“To adequately slow the train, we must cut loose a minimum of nine colonist pods. To ensure a safety margin, I suggest an additional three pods are released. Eliminating the mass of twelve colonist pods is the best way to ensure the train reaches Trappist 1 safely.”

“You’re talking about killing over 14 thousand people,” I said.

“I remind you that as they are currently in cold sleep, they are already dead.” The Conductor sounded so cold when he said it. I wished, then that I had included some emotional protocols in his design.

“There have to be other options. Can’t we eliminate cargo pods from the train?” I knew the answer, but I was desperate.

“Because of the layout of the train, with equipment and supply pods directly behind the engine, it is impossible to uncouple them. The only choice is the last twelve pods of the train. They can be uncoupled from the rest of the train with minimal impact.”

“You’re supposed to be this brilliant AI and this the best you can do?” I was shaking. I didn’t want to accept that the only way to save my train was by condemning 14 thousand people.

“I am not a brilliant AI. My designers told me that I was created to be a ‘trained monkey’ that could handle the basics of managing the train. My protocols were all custom created so that in virtually every instance I must defer to you.”

It was very difficult for me to accept that this was all my fault, but I had no choice. It was my train and it was my failure. “Conductor, prepare to uncouple the last twelve pods from the train. Do not execute until I give you the final order.”

“I will be ready,” the conductor replied.

I spent the next couple of hours preparing a few things. I had the conductor randomly select one colonist from the last twelve pods and move that person to the pod I had been in. I did some quick modifications to the Conductor’s protocols so that he would have greater autonomy to make decisions, as he should have had all along. Then I made my way to the back of the train and found the pod of the colonist that had been moved.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” the Conductor asked. “You could live out a normal lifespan if you stayed awake. We have adequate supplies to support you for at least fifty years.”

“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself, but thanks. I’m ready now. You can uncouple the pods.” I felt a shudder as the twelve pods were released. I watched on the monitor as we moved away from the main body of the train. Since the engine was decelerating the train, our twelve pods were moving faster. We headed into the unknown at about ten percent the speed of light.

I climbed into the cold sleep chamber. Over 14 thousand dead people, including me, would never be revived. The Conductor promised that he would report what had happened when the train arrived at Trappist 1 so that a rescue operation could be launched. I knew that would never happen. Most likely we would travel for thousands, perhaps millions of years until we inevitably collided with something.

I told the sleep chamber to close the hatch. I had thought I would be remembered as one of humanities greatest heroes. Instead, I was a failure responsible for the loss of 14 thousand people. I deserved what was coming, unlike all of those around me on my train. I was ready. Just one more command to give.

“You can kill me now.”