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After almost three years in space, we have our goal in sight—a beautiful planet, four times larger than
Earth. To see our new home, we merely use our personal screens, walk through a lounge, visit the
observatory, or—as I have done no fewer than three times—obtain permission to visit the areas near
the outer hull of our ship and look with naked eyes through one of the thick, polarized glass ports.
We can also see that odd sun, 61 Cygni B. Our new sun is farther away from our target planet than old
Sol is from Earth, but she’s larger and appears as a swollen, bloated, orange-flaring disc of unusual
beauty.
To say that we face an uncertain future would be nothing new. But when I think about what was facing
the billions on Earth when our ship rocketed away, I count my lucky stars—and there are plenty of
them
to count from space. I must soon begin to record and preserve the shocking facts given to me by
Captain
Rodrick as to the reasons behind President Dexter Hamilton’s decision to use the dwindling resources
of the United States to build this great starship: Soviet Premier Yuri Kolchak suffered from a rare
terminal disease and was determined to see a Red world or a dead world before his own death.
Hamilton’s choice was a grim one. He had either to stand aside and let the communist forces occupy all
the world except the United States or contest the communists. Kolchak had promised him that the end
result of American resistance would be nuclear war.
So, more than anything else, Stphierit of Americais Dexter Hamilton’s creation. He had it built to keep
the spirit of freedom alive in the face of a threat of nuclear war. We colonists are charged with keeping
the American way of life alive in space, no matter what happened on Earth after our takeoff.
When we left Earth, two other starships, the Rus-Ksiarls’Marx and the BrazilianEs’strela do Brasil,
were making preparations for takeoff. With our communications out, we don’t know the whereabouts
of those ships or their intentions. There are billions of stars in our galaxy, and in theory, many of them
will have habitable planets. Perhaps the Russians and the Brazilians will find their own planets, but I
have heard many people, including some of our officers, speculate that the Russians might want to
carry the old Earth war into space. Should they follow us here to the Cygni system, I know we will be
ready.
I also feel confident that our huge new planet is going to be friendly to us. Today, eleven light years
from Earth, over a thousand passengers who represent all civilized skills and all scientific knowledge
are busy preparing to join our scouts and scientists, who have already proven that our new planet is
quite friendly
to human habitation. We are all eager to begin. We have the tools, the knowledge, and the expertise to
build a technology and do whatever it takes for Captain Rodrick to return this vast starship to Earth
with her raw materials, food, and most important, a message of hope.
I OMEGA
ONE
