"How long has it been?" I asked.
"It's been... three and a half hours." the professor said.
"Any word?"
"None, sir."
I was anxiously walking around the bridge, waiting for Admiral Mei to report back from either the underground city or her shuttle.
"The marines?"
"They report, again, that they are waiting near the shuttle on the landing pad." said the professor. "Just like they reported five minutes ago. They've encountered no problems, and Admiral Mei was able to pass through the security checkpoint with no problem... as I repeated to you five minutes ago, for the hundredth time."
"That was five minutes ago." I said. "Mei is taking an unusually long time."
"Maybe she is trying to look as unsuspicious as possible." said the professor. "Rushing to get out of the meeting may not be the best idea."
"She just has to say yes to everything and get out." I said. "The Council is going to be removed anyway, it doesn't matter what kind of agreement we come to. Why is she trying so hard?"
The professor didn't answer me for a while.
"If you are going to ask for a report another five minutes later, just remember what I said five minutes ago." he then said.
"Five minutes is long enough for me to forget it all." I said.
"Oh my god, commander..." said the professor, finally openly showing his exasperation. "For a change, why don't you take a look at... I don't know, the colony ship maybe? Mei will eventually report anyway!"
"The colony ship..." I said. "That's true. I need to see the progress on the colony ship. Get me the... the, uhm... whatever those guys were called..."
"Interstellar Transports Design Bureau."
"Yes, them."
"They will be on the line shortly..." he said, and gave me the headset.
"This is the President of the New Republic. I would like to get a report on your progress with the colony ship you are working on."
"Yes, Mr. President." an engineer said. "One moment please, I will gather around the designers working on various subjects..."
I waited for people to gather, listening to the sounds from their office.
"Mr. President, are you on the line?"
"Yes, go ahead."
"We've came up with two different designs that are quite different from each other, and one of them has been chosen to be built first. We are at the early-mid construction stage right now. The spaceframe-"
"I'm sorry - you said two designs?" I asked.
"Yes, Mr. President." the engineer said. "The one we are building right now is quite similar to a cargo ship, and is therefore easier and faster to build. It has large cryogenic tube sets that will hold frozen organisms, including humans and some animals, for up to thousands of years. In addition to live organisms, we also plan to transport seeds, embryos and various reproduction cells along. The actual cargo will have water and other raw matter, foodstuff, replacements for parts that we think are vulnerable to-"
"Okay, cut the details for now, how does this work? How many crew members will be awake, and to which planet of which star system will it travel to? How will the crew rotat-"
"Sir, everyone will be in cryogenic chambers. No one will be awake during transport."
"Then who will fly the ship?" I asked.
"The flight computer, along with it's habitat survey system."
"A... A computer fly the ship?" I asked.
"Not only fly, but also evaluate potentially habitable planets as it travels and pick the best site to land the humans. It will then start the process of getting people out of cryogenic chambers. It will send us a signal, which will hopefully be strong enough for us to receive some years later. The settlers will take over the operation at that point."
"We lost the entire Solar System to a stupid artificial intelligence, and you are putting a computer in charge of the humanity's last desperate survival attempts!?"
"Not an artificial intelligence." the reply was quick. "It is a simple computer system to automate the process. It will only make the mathematical calculations and evaluate the results. It will have no ability to enhance or even fix itself."
"I see..." I said. "But that is a problem on it's own. What if something goes wrong in the middle of the flight?"
"In case that happens, the computer will pick a skilled human from the database, according to our criteria, and wake them up from cryogenic sleep. That person will most likely be an engineer or a physicist, we believe. Either way, the person will be given the necessary situational awareness and they will decide whatever they need to do for the completion of the mission. They may choose to wake up more people to help out, or if the problem can be fixed by applying duct tape, they will simply do that... before getting back to sleep."
"Makes sense, I guess..." I said. "But do you think people will last thousands of years in cryogenic sleep? Is our technology that advanced yet?"
"Well, Mr. President, to be perfectly honest, we don't know." they said. "But on paper, yes it is. Of course we won't reach zero percent metabolism rate ever, but we will have enough material aboard the ship to make sure whatever slow metabolism the people will have can be satisfied."
"How many people will you put aboard the ship?" I asked.
"What we think is necessary for a small civilization, using our current technology." they said. "About two thousand five hundred souls. The exact number may change."
"How did you calculate that number?" I asked.
"The number we calculated is actually one thousand five hundred. The extra one thousand is for..." the voice changed, becoming a little gloomy. "You know, just in case we lose one thousand people on the way."
"One thousand five hundred..."
"It is quite a complex calculation, I don't know if I can explain it over comms." the engineer said. "Anyway, the other design was a generation ship, but that is quite a lot harder to design and at least ten times more expensive to build even with the best estimates, in means of raw materials we need. We decided to make that design the second priority."
"I understand." I said.
"We are almost done with the first ship's skeleton spaceframe, but we are actually just beginning. We think the ship will take about an Earth year to construct if we work everyone to their limits."
"It must be completed as soon as possible, the AI is working faster than us." I said. Just then, I was interrupted.
"Uh, sir..." said the professor. "Admiral Mei is on the line. She wishes to speak with you."
"Okay." I whispered to the professor, before pushing the talk button again. "Interstellar Transports Design Bureau, keep up the good work. We will talk more in detail later."