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CHAPTER FOURTEEN - CASTING
HUMANS:
The initial crew of the Barnard Star Expedition consisted of twenty people when it left the solar system. One of the crew, Dr. William Wang, during the long process of curing the rest of the crew from an infectious type of cancer, died en route from the same cancer. Although the crew spent forty calendar years traveling through space from the solar system to Barnard, their aging rate during the long journey was slowed by a factor of four through the use of the drug No-Die. As a result, upon arrival at Barnard, the effective biological age of the crew had only increased ten years over their age at the start of the mission.
Landing Party:
The landing party for the second landing on Rocheworld consisted of ten crew members:
- Major General Virginia "Jinjur" Jones—
- Commander of the Barnard Star Expedition and the second Rocheworld landing party. Height: 158.5 cm (don't neglect that half-centimeter!) (5'2"). Weight: 61 kg (135 lbs). Effective Age: 56 years. Jinjur is short and solid with dark-black skin and a no-nonsense black pixie Afro haircut. She graduated high in her class at the U.S. Naval Academy and chose the Marines. During her first tour of duty with the Marine Recruit Training Command, she distinguished herself in the Greater San Diego tourist riots in 2009. She rose to become commander of a Space Marine fleet of lightweight solar sailcraft that kept the spacelanes swept of debris, inspected foreign spacecraft for compliance with the Space Treaty, and resupplied and protected the Laser Forts. Jinjur's nickname (bestowed on her by her Space Marines) was taken from the name of the spicy female general that conquered the Emerald City in one of the lesser-known Oz books.
- Shirley Everett—
- Chief engineer and pilot. Height: 190 cm (6'3"). Weight: 85 kg (185 lbs). Effective Age: 47 years. Shirley is the epitome of a tall, strong, tanned, blue-eyed, blonde-haired "California Surfer Girl." At USC, she obtained a B.S. in electrical engineering with minors in nuclear engineering and mechanical engineering. She played on both women's and men's basketball teams in college, and was top scorer in women's collegiate basketball. She became the third woman to play on a men's professional basketball team, but gave up her pro-basketball career as a second-string forward for the Los Angeles Lakers to return to USC to get an Engineering Doctorate. After learning to fly, she went to work for the company that designed and built the Dragonfly aerospace planes used on the Expedition. With her eidetic memory, Shirley knows everything about the spacecraft they fly, except details of the computer software programs, where David Greystoke takes over. She can fix anything, not with the proverbial hairpin—she is too well trained and equipped for that—but could if she had to.
- Cinnamon Byrd —
- Levichthyhusbandry specialist, medic, and pilot. Height: 172(5'8"). Weight: 53(117). Effective Age: 42 years. Tall and skinny, Cinnamon wears her long straight black hair in two low braids to cover her large ears. Cinnamon was born in Alaska to an Aleut woman and her outback doctor husband, altruistic scion of a prominent East Coast family. By 16, Cinnamon had became both a pilot and an emergency medical technician in order to help her father during emergencies. Distressed with the pollution fouling the beauty and ocean life of her home state, she studied oceanic fish-farming (ichthyhusbandry) courses at the University of Alaska. Through the International Space University, she did graduate work in levichthyhusbandry at Goddard Station, where she met Nels Larson and proved to be invaluable to him. She was brought along on the Expedition largely at Nels's request, although it helped that she aced the GNASA piloting tests, and qualified as a back-up pilot for both the rocket landers and the Dragonfly aerospace planes.
- Carmen Cortez—
- Communications engineer. Height: 165 cm (5'5"). Weight: 80 kg (176 lbs). Effective Age: 42 years. Carmen is a chunky, very feminine Spanish seorita, with black, nearly-afro, curly hair. She always wears makeup and a tightly tailored uniform. She went to University of Guadalajara in 2015, and became president of the College Radio Amateur Club. She was in charge of the generator-powered base station during a radio transmitter hunt, when the 9.1 magnitude earthquake struck Mexico in 2018, killing many in her family. For 48 hours she ran the only operational emergency communication services in West Central Mexico. She obtained her B.S. in Engineering from the University of Guadalajara in 2019, then a Doctor of Electrical Engineering magna cum laude from University of California, San Diego in 2022. She applied for the Barnard Star Expedition upon graduation and was placed on the back-up list. She was in training on Titan for the Alpha Centauri Expedition when she was activated for the mission at the last minute in order to replace a primary crew member who had to resign and return to Earth for health reasons.
- Caroline Tanaka —
- Fiber-optics engineer and astronomer. Height: 165(5'5"). Weight: 60(132). Effective Age: 47 years. Caroline has long dark-brown hair, brown eyes, and light-brown skin from a mixed Hawaiian heritage. Although moderately good-looking, she is an intense, hard-working engineer who pays no attention to her looks. Caroline did all the design, fabrication (with the help of the Christmas Bush), installation, and check-out of a laser communicator that was left behind for use by the flouwen on Rocheworld after the humans had departed.
- John Kennedy —
- Engineer and nurse. Height: 183(6'0"). Weight: 80(176). Effective Age: 46 years. John bears a striking resemblance to his distant relative. He tried the premed curriculum at USC, but gave it up in his sophomore year and went on to get a Ph.D in electromechanical engineering. He didn't feel satisfied working solely on machines and went back to get his R.N. His strange mix of talents just fit a slot on the Expedition. With his combination background in electromechanical engineering and biology, John was able to develop a chemically, electrically, and sonically responsive touch-screen for the flouwen to use as input-output coupling to the laser communicator that was left behind on Rocheworld for the flouwen to use.
- Richard Redwing—
- Planetary geoscientist. Height: 195 cm (6'4"). Weight: 110(225 lbs). Effective Age: 48 years. Richard is a very large, very strong outdoorsman of American Indian heritage. He was a college champion weight lifter and won a gold medal in the 2012 Olympics. He earned his B.S. in geophysics in 2014 and started work for a mining company in the Alps. He also worked as a part-time mountain-climbing guide who distinguished himself in a mountain rescue that cost him his two little toes. He grew tired of the lack of mental challenge and returned to school to get his Ph.D. in planetary physics and geophysics. He did his post-doctoral field training on the Moon and Mars, participated in the Ceres and Vesta expeditions, and was part of Callisto field crew when he was accepted for the Barnard Star Expedition.
- Sam Houston—
- Planetary geoscientist. Height: 200 cm (6'7"). Weight: 80 kg (176 lbs). Effective Age: 59 years. Sam is very tall and very thin, with pale face and skin, long bones with knobby joints, gray-blue eyes, and long greying hair. He does not have a doctorate, but instead has years of experience in the field. He started field exploration in 2003 on the Canadian shield with Exxon. By the next decade, he had worked on all the continents, both poles, and the continental shelves of five of the seven seas. One of the first full-time geologists on the Moon, he spent 2015 making a preliminary geological map of the backside, then spent two years on Mars with the first Mars colony. His experience made him the lead geologist on the 2018 "Big-Four" asteroid mapping expedition. His experiences on Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Juno, followed by two moons of Jupiter—Ganymede and Callisto—made him an obvious choice for the Barnard Star Expedition.
- Captain Anthony "Tony" Roma—
- Lightsail and aerospaceplane pilot. Height: 168(5'6"). Weight: 70(155b). Effective Age: 44 years. Tony is small and very handsome, with a dark complexion, dark eyes, dark wavy hair, and a neat mustache. He was a cadet in the first class at the Space Force Academy and went directly from aircraft pilot school into lightsail pilot training. When picked for the mission, he was on assignment as a pilot in General Virginia Jones's Space Marines Interceptor Fleet, where he invented a number of new lightsail maneuvers.
- Captain Thomas St. Thomas—
- Astrodynamicist and pilot. Height: 188 cm (6'2"). Weight: 85 kg (187 lbs). Effective Age: 47 years. Thomas is good looking and clean shaven, with Air Force trim short black hair, and a light-brown skin from a Jamaican heritage. After graduation from the U.S. Air Force Academy, he became a Rhodes scholar in 2014, and obtained his Ph.D. in astrodynamics at Oxford in England. On return, he went into Air Force pilot training and became a heavy-lift rocket pilot in 2019. He had over five years of experience raising and lowering the heavy, cumbersome rockets in Earth's gravity before joining the Barnard Star Expedition. He is also an amateur photographer who takes strikingly artistic photographs of the exotic locales visited by the Expedition.
Sailcraft Crew:
The backup crew up in space, on the lightsail spacecraft Prometheus, consist of:
- Colonel George G. Gudunov—
- Second-in-Command of Barnard Star Expedition, commander of the sailcraft Prometheus. Height: 185 cm (6'1"). Weight: 100 kg (220 lbs). Effective Age: 65 years. George is the oldest person on the mission. He obtained an Air Force ROTC commission from University of Maryland and was first in his class in flight school. His first assignment was with the Space Command Laser Forts project. In 1998, when a twenty-three-year-old Captain, he suggested testing the laser fort system by using them to send interstellar probes to the nearest star systems. When a number of space laser forts suffered catastrophic failure under this two day test, he was commended by Congress for exposing the problems, but the military brass never forgave him. They shunted George off to be a permanent Flight Instructor, and promoted him as slowly as they could legally do it without raising the ire of Congress. When the positive reports from the Barnard probe came in twenty-four years later, he had just made Lieutenant Colonel. Despite his age, he was promoted to Colonel and allowed to go on the Expedition.
- Nels Larson —
- Leviponics specialist. (Height and weight not relevant). Effective Age: 47 years. Nels has very muscular arms, a barrel torso, and a large handsome head with a strong jaw, light-blue eyes, and long yellow-white hair that he combs straight back. When Nels was born with flipper-like feet in place of legs, his parents quit their jobs on Earth and moved to Goddard Station where Nels grew up. He took college courses by video and apprenticed in levibotany and levihusbandry at the Leviponics Research Facility on Goddard. He initiated the famous Larson chicken breast tissue culture ("Chicken Little" to most astronauts) and many new strains of algae with various exotic flavors. Nels's primary duties are on Prometheus, where, with its near free-fall environment, legs are more of a handicap than a help. Nels, however, does have a specially built spacesuit with electrically powered prosthetic legs that allow him to take part in expeditions to low gravity worlds such as Rocheworld and the Gargantuan moons. Because of backpack power limitations, however, his electrically powered legs don't have the long distance endurance capability of the flesh and bone legs of the others.
- Elizabeth "Red" Vengeance—
- Asteroidologist and pilot. Height: 178 cm (5'10"). Weight: 70 kg (154 lbs). Effective Age: 52 years. Red is tall and thin, with an aristocratic nose, a short, straight cap of red hair, green eyes, and the typical redhead complexion with freckles resulting from an Irish heritage. She has over 150 hours of credits in mining and mineralogy from University of Arizona but no degree. Elizabeth was one of the first independent prospectors in the asteroid belt. She struck it rich, became a billionaire, and then realized that there were more interesting things to do than loafing for the rest of her life. Her extensive space experience as an asteroid prospector and heavy-lift asteroid-tug operator got her onto the Barnard Star Expedition.
- Arielle Trudeau—
- Aerodynamicist and pilot. Height: 165 cm (5'5"). Weight: 50 kg (110 lbs). Effective Age: 49 years. Arielle is thin, delicate, beautiful, shy, and fair-skinned, with short, curly light-brown hair and deep-brown eyes. She was born and raised in Quebec, Canada before the succession of Quebec from Canada. She emigrated to the United States and became an American citizen after the absorption of the rest of the Canadian provinces into the Greater United States of America in 2006. Her father taught her how to fly at an early age and she has hundreds of hours experience in a glider. She obtained a Ph.D. in aerodynamics at CalTech and entered the space program as a non-pilot mission specialist. On her first flight into space, there was an explosion that killed both Super-Shuttle pilots. Single-handed, encumbered by a spacesuit, she brought the crippled Super-Shuttle safely down in the smoothest landing ever recorded on the shuttle program. Marie was given special dispensation to take Super-Shuttle pilot training after public acclaim, later became one of the best shuttle pilots. She was training for lunar pilot status when the Barnard Star Expedition let her travel to the stars.
- David Greystoke—
- Electronics and computer engineer. Height: 158 cm (5'2"). Weight: 50 kg (110 lbs). Effective Age: 49 years. David is a short, thin, red-haired, quiet young man. He has perfect pitch and perfect color sense, and can see color differences in the flouwen that others cannot see. An undergraduate at the prestigious liberal arts college at Grinnell, Iowa, he went on to Carnegie-Mellon University for a Ph.D. in robotics and computer programming, with a minor in music. He wrote most of the programs used on the computers operating the various vehicles. David's hobby is creating computer generated animated art-music forms and laser light shows.
- Katrina Kauffmann—
- Nurse and biochemist. Height: 150 cm (4'11"). Weight: 45 kg (99 lbs). Effective Age: 54 years. Katrina is a small, compact, efficient no-nonsense scientist with a short cap of straight brown hair. Trained in Europe, she had started out in a nursing school, but after getting her R.N. she found she liked working more on scientific problems that working with sick people, so switched professions. She received a Diploma in Biophysics at the University of Frankfurt a.M., Germany in 2010, and went on to get a Ph.D. in Biochemistry. She came to the Greater United States on a post-doctoral fellowship and stayed until picked for the mission.
- Linda Regan —
- Solar astrophysicist. Height: 155(5'1"). Weight: 55(121 lb). Effective Age: 45 years. Linda is a short, stocky, bouncy "cheerleader" type, with sparkly green eyes, curly brown hair, and lots of energy. She took physics at MIT, went on to get a Ph.D. in astronomy at CalTech, and earned her way to a position at the Solar Observatory around Mercury, then onto the Barnard Star Expedition.
- Reiki LeRoux —
- Computer Programmer. Height 163 cm (5'4"). Weight: 53 kg (117 lb). Effective Age: 43. Reiki is the daughter of a Japanese nurse of good family, who was working at a Tokyo hospital when she met and fell in love with a US Air Force Captain. His family were oil-rich Louisiana Cajuns. The couple married, but he was killed in a training crash before Reiki was born. Reiki spent her childhood in Japan among the large family, who loved here, but found her alien appearance constantly unsettling in the community. Her skin is almost apricot, her black hair is curly, and her dark eyes are round. With money no problem, she was sent early to a good boarding school in Scotland, where she pursued a wide variety of courses and excelled in them all. She specialized in computer programming and anthropology at Glasgow University, graduating with honors. Of medium size and pleasantly curvy, she has had lots of experience with many different kinds of people, and has learned the skills of cooperation to a high degree. This manifests itself in a passion for etiquette, which the others find entertaining. She is a quiet person, very good at her work, which is designing user-friendly computer interfaces, and keeps a detailed diary in her slim electronic journal that goes with her everywhere.
ALIENS:
There are two different types of aliens living on the double-planet Rocheworld. The humans have given the two types of aliens the generic names of "flouwen" and "gummies". The flouwen live on the water-covered Eau lobe of Rocheworld, while the gummies live on the dry Roche lobe of Rocheworld.
Flouwen:
The flouwen are formless, eyeless, flowing blobs of jelly weighing many tons, that the humans found swimming in the ocean on the Eau lobe. Like whales or dolphins, the flouwen group into social "pods," and use sound to "see." Although the flouwen have no eyes, their bodies are sensitive to light, and they can use light to "look" at things, although poorly. Their IQ is many times that of humans, but their only developed science is mathematics. Like an amoeba, or more literally like an ant colony, a small portion of a flouwen can function like a full-sized flouwen, except for decreased physical and mental capabilities. Thus, a portion of flouwen, weighing a fifth of a ton (200 kilograms or 440 pounds), can bud off from the main flouwen body, get into a specially-built spacesuit, and ride in human space vehicles in order to take part in joint expeditions with the humans to visit the dry Roche lobe and other worlds in the Barnard planetary and moon system.
In the following list of individual flouwen, the human version of their name is in parentheses.
- Clear«»White«»Whistle (White Whistler)—
- A white, mature elder who is one of the three dominant adults in the pod that the humans interact most with. Clear«»White«»Whistle is a scientist who is trying to "invent" physics and astronomy. Unlike most of the other flouwen, who would rather cogitate than experiment, he has explored the physical world, invented an artificial "eye", discovered the stars, and has developed a theory of gravity. He understands the technologically oriented humans better than any of the other members of the pod, but their way of thinking is still quite foreign to it. The budded off portion of that goes off on expeditions with the humans is called Little White.
- Roaring*Hot*Vermilion (Loud Red)—
- A middle-aged, mature elder with a iridescent red color that looks like flame. Very deep roaring voice, boisterous nature, and eager to *Get on with it!* He is nominal leader of the pod, although Warm§Amber§Resonance and Clear«»White«»Whistle are co-equal and Strong‡Lavender‡Crackle is the elder of the pod. One can see that Roaring*Hot*Vermilion will become more and more like Strong#Lavender#Crackle with time. The budded-off portion of Roaring*Hot*Vermilion that goes off on expeditions with the humans is called Little Red.
- Strong‡Lavender‡Crackle (Deep Purple)—
- A large, massive purple elder, with thousands of seasons of experience. Has participated in the formation of many younglings including Sweet•Green•Fizz and Roaring*Hot*Vermilion. Spends much of his time as a deep purple boulder—thinking. Sometimes, however, he dissolves and joins in group play as enthusiastically as if he were a youngling. The oldest one of the pod, he is looked upon for advice and wisdom, but he is often pompous. The budded-off portion of Strong‡Lavender‡Crackle that goes off on expeditions with the humans is called Little Purple.
- Sweet•Green•Fizz (Green Fizzer)—
- A bright-green young flouwen. From an emotional and experience viewpoint he is equivalent to a bright, young, nubile, unisex college junior. He has developed considerable mass, and is an innovative thinker. Until recently, he had preferred to laze around, doing nothing, and watch his collection of flitters. Now he has become interested in genetics and along with Shining?¿Chartreuse?¿Query, has helped map the flouwen equivalent of DNA. The suited bud is called Little Fizzer.
- Warm§Amber§Resonance (Yellow Hummer)—
- A mature, clear yellow-brown elder. Stable in personality and given to poetry, song, and theater rather than hard logic, although a better abstract mathematician than any human. Warm§Amber§Resonance is the one who organizes and directs the complex plays that the flouwen perform using their own bodies as stage, backdrops, and actors. When suited, the bud is called Little Yellow.
- Dainty~Blue~Warble (Blue Boy)—
- A youngling in the pod, a light, clear blue in color. During their first visit to Rocheworld, the human exploration crew witnessed the formation of Dainty~Blue~Warble by the combined mingling of Warm§Amber§Resonance, Roaring*Hot*Vermilion, Clear«»White«»Whistle, and the virgin—Sweet•Green•Fizz. The four flouwen were pleased by the resulting transparent blue color of the newly formed flouwen, the beautiful warbling acoustic sonar note it emits, and the delicate wisps of feeler tendrils. Since it had four progenitors, Dainty~Blue~Warble was a very precocious and reasonably massive youngling. He has now grown nearly to full size, but is still learning from the others.
- Sour#Sapphire#Coo (Old Bluey)—
- A very old, very massive, deep-blue elder who has spent the last hundred seasons rocked up as a thinking boulder trying to derive an example of the fifth cardinal infinity. The others sometimes pester him, but mostly they leave him alone with his thoughts. He is perched near the eddy point for the seasonal flow near the Islands of Thought on the outer pole of Eau.
- Shining?¿Chartreuse?¿Query (Curious Green)—
- Awakened by the landing of the SLAM, this flouwen was responsible for the controlled breeding of the flittering Pretty¤Smells from the food prey animals called Sharp¤Flyers. Shining?¿Chartreuse?¿Query works with Sweet•Green•Fizz and Nels on understanding human and flouwen genetics. The suited bud is called Little Curiosity.
- Clear=Yellow=Chirp (Sunshine)—
- A small clear-yellow youngling addicted to music... and who likes to be called Pooh. It was one of a set of twins made by some members of the local pod combining with some members from the distant counterspin pod. Clear=Yellow=Chirp learns to partially condense its body so that all of it can go into a flouwen spacesuit.
- Delicious|Dark|Crimson—
- The twin of Clear=Yellow=Chirp. This young cherry-red-colored flouwen youngster went off to live with the counterspin pod.
- Bittersweet@Blue@Bubbler—
- An electric-blue flouwen from the counterspin pod who participated in the creation of the twins.
- Odoriferous&Ocher&Ooze—
- A greenish-purple counterspinner who also participated in the making of the twins.
- Piquant%Pink%Popper—
- A very aggressive hot pink counterspinner who also helped make the twins.
- Bitter†Orange†Chirr (O.J.)—
- A greenish-orange flouwen from the local pod that participated in the formation of the twins.
Gummies:
On the Roche lobe, the joint expedition of humans and flouwen meet the alien "gummies". These are large, starfish-shaped creatures that have thick, viscous, gum-like bodies with five thick appendages that can be used either as arms or legs. The gummies are named by their parent during their stay in the birthing pouch over the dry season. The parents, knowing that the future life of their child will be nothing but a series of battles for water, territory, and food, give the child impressive sounding names that hopefully will intimidate future opponents.
- Loudest Beast —
- One of the loudest, largest, and smartest gummies in the region where the humans and flouwen first land. Its ugly brown-yellow body has many scars from old battles. Loudest Beast has survived through hundreds of wet-dry cycles and has come to occupy one of the best pieces of territory in the region. Its territory is over an underground water trap that allows Loudest Beast and its pouched child to live through the long dry season with minimum dehydration. Because of the large size of Loudest Beast, and the good area it occupies, its children are large at birth release, and nearly always are able to win out in the vicious tooth and claw battles for survival and mating rights they must engage in shortly after their birth.
- Screaming Killer—
- This gummie was one of Loudest Beast's younglings. After leaving its parent's pouch, Screaming Killer moved across the lake and managed to find a mate. Smart and curious, Screaming Killer longs to find a better life for its young.
- Gigantic Grabber—
- A small, weak, and selfish gummie, this child of Loudest Beast breaks under the pressures of gummie life and goes insane, attacking the colony and the human visitors. Shrieking Grabber kills Little Red in battle before it is destroyed by a blast of the Dragonfly's exhaust.
- Flesh Burner—
- A large red gummie. Flesh Burner alters its body temperature by excreting ammonia so that the heat from its flesh will frighten its opponents. Loudest Beast's neighbor and the first to be mated in the colony, Flesh Burner is willing to give up all that it has, to join the humans at Everwet so that it can learn how to turn Roche into a better place for the gummies to develop.
- Baby Killer—
- A large but unmated yearling, Baby Killer also goes with the humans to Everwet. Baby Killer has nothing to lose by going, but shows bravery by coming up to the larger gummies and the human ship and asking to join them.
THE END
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