Copyright

HarperVoyager an imprint of

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017

Copyright © Little Lost Stories 2017

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

Little Lost Stories asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008223359

Ebook Edition © July 2017 ISBN: 9780008223373

Version: 2018-05-09

Dedication

For everyone working toward a better tomorrow and a more hopeful today. Thank you.

And for Alex: my love, my laughter,

my light in all dark places.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Part 1: Resistance

1. Reggie: A King of Infinite Space

2. Margarita: Inside Taro’s Box

3. Jamal: Balance

4. I.C.C.: Look Now How the Mortals Blame

Part 2: Resilience

5. Reginald: A Tell-Tale Pulse

6. I.C.C.: Because it is Breaking

7. I.C.C.: Miscloned

8. Nika: Behind the Curtain

9. Esper: Return Through the Wardrobe

Epilogue: I.C.C.: Old Salts and New Songs

Acknowledgments

About the Author

About the Publisher

Resistance

CHAPTER ONE
REGGIE: A KING OF INFINITE SPACE

APRIL 14, T MINUS 37 YEARS TO LAUNCH DAY (LD)
2088 COMMON ERA (CE)

The Planet United Consortium was formed in order to pursue Earth-wide interests in deep space. Each Planet United Mission is designed to further humanity’s joint scientific understanding, its reach beyond the home planet, and to ensure the longevity of planet-wide cooperation …

The hot stage lights made Reggie’s forehead break out in beads of sweat. He could barely hear the professor from Berkeley even though she was only three seats away. She sounded like she was broadcasting from the surface of Mars.

Mars—wouldn’t that be a nice alternative to where he was now? It was quiet on Mars. Deserted. No cameras and no horde of scientists, reporters, and politicians ready to hang on his every word.

“It’s your discovery, you give the presentation,” Professor McCloud had said back in his study. From behind his mahogany desk he’d stared at Reggie like a mad dog, ready to bite if he didn’t get his way.

Of all the professors in the world, Reggie had to get the only one who wasn’t eager to slap his name all over a graduate student’s research. “Sir, defending my thesis is one thing, but this … I don’t know if I can.”

“Of course you can.” McCloud coughed heavily into his handkerchief, his thick white sideburns jumping with his jawline. “They’re just people, for cripes sake. If you can stand a bunch of crusty old intellectuals judging you on every eh, but, and I think that comes out of your mouth you can stand a few colleagues and digital recorders.”

“But—”

“See! Besides, the discovery has been validated. So they’re not going to make fun of you. They’re not even going to be there for you. They’ll be there to hear about the idea, to marvel at the concept. When it’s all over they won’t even remember you were there. It’s the information that matters, Straifer, not your mumbling, fumbling presentation.” He leaned closer to Reggie, his chins jiggling. “If you’re passionate about this mysterious, stroboscopic star of yours, it would be a crime to force an old, gluttonous man like me to make the case for you.”

“The professors’ point is valid,” chimed in an electronic voice from Reggie’s pocket. He pulled out his phone. The Intelligent Personal Assistant’s icon was blinking—he’d set it to interject-mode. “In the past twenty-five years, projects requiring similar screening before financing have been seventy-eight percent more likely to succeed when the original researchers have presented their findings directly. Third party involvement—”

“Thanks, C.” Reggie turned the phone off and gave the professor a glare.

Ten minutes later, he’d reluctantly agreed.

Oh, but how he wished now, as he stood in front of this crowd, that he’d told Dr. McCloud and the computer both to shove it.

And there the professor sat, in the third row, nodding at every other syllable that came out of the presenter’s mouth. His focus momentarily shifted to Reggie, and he gave him a go-for-it grin.

He turned his attention back to the presentation. Had he heard right? Dark matter? Was the professor from Berkeley seriously suggesting they focus the long-range studies solely on dense dark matter regions? He almost laughed. That was a ridiculous way to allocate these funds. What could twelve dark matter studies reveal that one couldn’t alone?

But dark was sexy. Anything with a “dark” label: matter, energy, forces, etc. What was sexy about his discovery?

It’s like the star’s encrusted, he said over and over in his mind. He had to word it right. Word choice made all the difference. That would make his star interesting, notable. And, hopefully, it would be enough to convince them to allocate him a team.

This variable star, designation LQ Pyxidis, was unique. He had to make them see there was something special about it. He knew it was a great find waiting to be fully unveiled by an actual visit.

He just needed them to agree.

We’re going off-world, Reggie thought excitedly. We’re going into deep space. For the first time in human history, people were going to try and visit the wonders of the universe. Reggie wanted to be a part of that in some way. But, more importantly, he knew LQ Pyx had to be a part of it. He could feel it. This variable star was important.

Reggie turned on his tablet and scrolled through his notes. As always, the simple, black-and-white snapshot the JWST 3 had taken of his star made him pause. It was easy to see how lopsided LQ Pyx was; energy spewed off to one side, the output orders of magnitude greater than the star’s opposite hemisphere. And the readings shifted consistently. Either the star rotated unusually slowly for having such a dramatic solar jet … or something was orbiting around it, obscuring the star’s normal output.

It’s like it’s encrusted. Encased.

Dr. Berkeley—what was her name again? He couldn’t remember; his brain felt like it was draining out of his ears. Anyway, she was almost done with her Q and A session.

Reggie pulled a tissue out of his pocket and dabbed his forehead. It tore, and a few bits of the soggy paper stuck to his face. He hastily brushed them away, hoping he’d gotten them all.

It was almost his turn. He looked up and down the table, glancing at each of the other presenters. It was a long line of veteran researchers. Three of them had authored textbooks he’d used as an undergrad. Two of them had authored books he’d cited in his own doctoral thesis. He could pick out an accolade for each and every one of them—when he wasn’t too nervous to remember their names. They were all seasoned, all well respected—even those whose theories were controversial; they had the excitement of popular contention going for them. And one hosted a highly acclaimed TV series, The Cosmos and You. They’d all made names for themselves, all had fantastic careers in full bloom.

And then there was Reggie.

His chip-phone buzzed near his eardrum, and the display screen implanted behind his iris sprang to life. “Are you ready? Do you have all of your notes? No last-minute requests? We’re about to move on.”

“Yes,” he mumbled. “I’m ready.”

“Okay, prepare to rise. We’re moving to you in five, four …” the countdown continued only in visual form. His heart leapt as each purple number faded before his eyes.

“Thank you, Dr. Countmen,” said the moderator. That’s her name. “Next, may I present Mr. Reginald Straifer.”

As he stood, Reggie could have sworn he heard a collective snicker under the obligatory opening applause. Why couldn’t the board have awarded him his doctorate before the conference? Was a face-saving title too much to ask for?

All five-foot-seven of him trembled. But the irritation was subtle—he’d tensed every muscle to keep himself still. Gawky, with a mouse-brown mop on his head, a squat nose, and shy eyes, he knew he wasn’t exactly the picture of confidence.

Relax. Pretend. They’re here for the work, not you.

“Th-th-thank you. I—I’m here to propose one of the convoys be built with the express purpose of visiting variable star, LQ Pyxidis. Or, as I like to call it, Licpix.” Silence. Reggie tugged at his collar.

“Deep breath, sir,” C said from Reggie’s pocket.

That elicited a small giggle from the first row. “Quiet mode, please,” he asked, then did as the AI suggested. “Uh, if we could have the animation on screen.”

The lights dimmed, and a reproduction of LQ Pyx in full color appeared on everyone’s implants. Reggie reminded himself to keep things colloquial—the reporters were broadcasting to the world—and then he launched into his spiel.

As he explained about the strange jet of energy, and how it might not be a jet at all, he felt himself falling into a rhythm. He demonstrated how the star’s wobble might indicate an extremely massive partner they could not make out at this distance. And he presented his hypothesis about the hidden partner’s location—how it most likely encompassed the star.

“It’s crusty—eh, encrusted. It’s like a light bulb that’s become part of a child’s arts-and-crafts class. Say the child thought the bulb might look better with a smattering of paint and plastic gems. So she covers the bulb—glue and glitter everywhere—but happens to miss a spot. What would we see when that light bulb is illuminated? Most of the observable light would come from a small expanse of surface, even though the bulb’s fundamental output has not changed. Overall, it would appear dim, with a single bright point: much like this star.

“It’s simply concealed. Something unusual is blocking out the starlight, and it is crucial that we travel to LQ Pyx to discover exactly what that is.”

Finished with his presentation, he took a deep breath and sat down. Bracing himself for an onslaught of probing, nitpicking questions, he eyed the crowd.

After a moment a palsy ridden hand went up. An elderly gentleman in a tweed jacket and bow tie stood. “What do you believe to be the culprit, young man?” He had an accent Reggie could not place. “If we go there, what will we find?”

Reggie accepted a glass of water from one of the stage aides and took a hearty gulp before answering. “Well, I, uh … If I knew that we wouldn’t have to go, would we? An extremely small and dense version of the Oort cloud, perhaps. Or maybe an asteroid globe instead of a belt. Wouldn’t that be something, to discover new possibilities of orbital projection? It could be the beginnings of a new system—we could be seeing a stage we’ve never observed before. This could change our theories on planet formation. I … I don’t really know.”

The old man nodded, and his bushy white eyebrows knitted together. “And what about Dyson?”

The question surprised Reggie. “You’re asking if it could be artificial?” He thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

The audience erupted into conversation, everyone murmuring to their neighbor. The auditorium rumbled with speculations. A knowing glint came into Professor McCloud’s eyes.

“Why not indeed,” the old man in the bow tie called to Reggie, a smile lifting the bags on his face.

“That old man made me look like an idiot,” Reggie said. He lifted his glass and threw back the rest of his golden ale. The brew smelled like old T-shirts. “Made me seem like an American hick who should just slink back to the Midwestern town I hail from.”

After the presentation session, Professor McCloud had ushered him to a nearby pub. Oxford had many to choose from, and yet they’d come to this hole-in-the-wall. It was dark—not for the sake of ambiance, but because half the overhead lamps were out. Cigar smoke permeated everything, including the ripped vinyl cushions of their booth. The décor reminded him of a poker lounge from the 1970s without any of the charm.

All of the other patrons were at least sixty, like McCloud. Reggie suspected this was a regular hangout for tenured dons.

Something I’ll never have to worry about becoming now, he thought.

“That old man made you look like a genius,” McCloud countered, taking a sip of his Jack. He gestured for the waitress to bring another glass for Reggie. “You’ve speculated about artificial constructs around Licpix before, why didn’t you bring it up yourself?”

Reggie tilted his glass so he could look at the seal on the bottom. He wished he was looking at it through more beer. “It’s silly.”

“The reason?”

“No, the idea.”

McCloud scoffed and pulled the glass from Reggie’s fingers. “If it’s within the realm of the possible, it’s not silly.”

“A construct larger—and perhaps more massive—than a star?” Reggie said. “Built by whom? All those billions of life forms we’ve taken note of out there?” The sarcasm was heavy, almost condescending, and he wished he’d dialed it back as soon as he spoke.

“Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”

“Wasn’t that Dr. Countmen’s argument?”

“Look,” the professor said, “it got the crowd talking, didn’t it?”

“Your proposal is the only one that postulates the possibility of meeting intelligent life, or finding evidence thereof,” C chimed in. Reggie’s phone sat on the table between the two men. “Its uniqueness is statistically likely to make it more appealing.”

He had wanted interesting, he’d wanted sexy. And what was sexier, a bunch of rocks or an enormous alien machine?

“But, it’s just so unlikely,” Reggie said. “So unlikely that—”

“That what?” McCloud asked.

“That it feels like a lie.”

The waitress sauntered up, quickly exchanging his barren glass for one of plenty. She gave them both a sweet smile, one Reggie tried to return. Instead of thankfulness, though, he was sure his expression signaled mild indigestion.

McCloud started to speak, then paused to cough into his handkerchief. He wiped his mouth and nose, then tucked the square back in his pocket. “If I told you your research could either end up earning you a minor teaching position, or the Nobel Prize for physics, would I be lying?”

Reggie sighed and took a drink. “I’m not going to win a Nobel Prize.”

“But it is a possibility, no matter how remote. My suggestion that it might happen, whatever the odds, is no lie. That’s very different than saying I believe it will happen if I don’t.”

Reggie pouted. “You don’t believe my research is worthy of a Nobel?” He felt ridiculously petulant even as he said it and took another drink to hide his embarrassment.

“Did I say that?” He slugged Reggie in the shoulder and they shared a laugh. Professor McCloud finished off his whiskey. “So, if you don’t believe it to be an alien machine, what do you believe?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I want them to go find out—find the truth.”

“You want them to go, or you want you to go?”

An internal shudder ran through Reggie’s nervous system. McCloud had just hit on an idea Reggie hadn’t even let himself contemplate—a secret desire he hadn’t dared to hope for. He shook his head. “That’s impossible. Not worth thinking about.”

“Weren’t we just talking about possible/impossible? You could go. No one says you can’t. They haven’t decided on how to crew the ships. Haven’t decided who they need to man the warp-drives or whatever.”

“SD drives,” Reggie corrected. “It’s subdimensional travel.” Subdimensions, ha! It was a mangled term if he’d ever heard one. Almost as bad as calling something “dark” when it was simply unknown.

That was why the missions were being put together now. Deep space travel was finally a reality, the world’s political climate was in an upswing, armed conflict was at an all-time low, resources were abundant and more evenly dispersed than ever before, population growth had leveled out at nine billion (some scientists projected a possible decrease in the next fifty years), and humanity intended its first steps beyond its own solar system to be grand.

Humans were finally ready to see if they could survive out there, beyond the warm embrace of their little G-type star.

“I would never make it,” Reggie said. “It’s too far. You know how long it would take to get to LQ Pyx. Generations.”

“That doesn’t mean you couldn’t go along for the ride. Get things started in the right direction.”

“But it does mean I’ll never know.” He pushed his ale away. “I’ll never know why LQ Pyx is the way it is, one way or the other.”

“So, you’re a glass-half-empty man?” McCloud tapped his fingertips against the beer glass.

Reggie shrugged. “Maybe I am.”

“Here’s something I think glass-half-empty people always fail to consider.” He paused.

Reggie pursed his lips and raised an eyebrow. “What?”

With a flick of his wrist, McCloud had the beer in his hand. In the next moment he poured it down Reggie’s front.

“Ah!” Reggie sprang up, trying to jump away from the liquid that had already soaked through to his skin. “What the hell?”

McCloud laughed. “It’s not the empty that leaves an impression, is it?” He offered Reggie his handkerchief, but Reggie declined—he knew where it had been. Instead he held his shirt out from his chest, glancing around for help, but none was coming. McCloud continued. “Life’s not about missed opportunities, Mr. Straifer. It’s about the moments that drench us to the bone and leave us sopping with experience.” He pointed to the back of the pub. “Restroom’s that way, I believe.”

“There are three dry cleaners in this sector of town,” chimed C.

McCloud was crazy.

But that didn’t mean he was wrong.

In the months of waiting that followed, after he and the professor had returned to the States, Reggie spent a long time contemplating soggy Dockers as a metaphor for life. But he was a scientist, not a poet. Math was his thing—he’d never had much use for metaphors.

He got the gist, though.

Reggie was precariously balanced on a wobbly footstool, hanging his recently framed doctoral certificate, when his phone rang. He answered using his implants. When he heard who was on the other end, and why they were calling, he dropped the diploma. Glass shattered. The fragments formed a distinct blast pattern out across his wood-laminate flooring.

“They awarded me what? My proposal … my project? Are you sure? There’s no mistake? Yes, yes, that’s me. Oh my god. I can’t—I mean, thank you. Thank you!”

After twenty-four weeks, the panel—composed of thousands of professionals from nearly one hundred nations—had voted. Another week and the votes were tallied. The top twelve proposals, one to match each of the twelve convoys, had been chosen.

And his had claimed a spot. They were going to his star.

They were going to LQ Pyx.

Without picking up the glass he dashed for the coat closet and pulled out his jacket. Two more steps brought him to his apartment door, and he was already on the phone before it latched shut behind him.

It was time for a party. The kind of party he hadn’t thrown since his undergraduate days.

“C, send a message to the troops: we’re going in!”

Even PhDs know how to get good and snockered.

“Come on. Come on, it’s fun.” Reggie entwined his fingers with a young woman’s as he led her out into the night. With his free hand he toyed with the neck of his beer bottle, and his feet took stumbling, giddy steps through the grass. Behind them the party continued to roar.

One of Reggie’s friends, Miguel, rented a house in the hills not far from campus, and Miguel had agreed to host the shindig. “It’s like your coming-out party,” he said, slapping Reggie on the back. “You know, like they have in the south when girls get their periods.”

“That’s not what a coming-out party is for,” Reggie said. To be fair, he hadn’t a clue what it was for, but it couldn’t be that. Regardless, he let his friends go around telling everyone he was “coming out.” Somehow they’d found a way to turn the get-together into a celebration and a ribbing all at once.

Light streamed into the backyard, and music with a heavy bass beat still rocked Reggie’s insides though they’d left the speakers far behind.

With him was a dark-featured young woman, her hair as wavy and body as curvy as any Grecian goddess’—Abigail, she’d said her name was.

Abigail. He liked how that sounded. He liked how her hand felt in his.

He just wasn’t quite sure how her hand had actually found its way into his …

The party was full of people Reggie didn’t know. Friends of friends, relatives of friends, walk-ins who’d come to investigate the noise and mooch some munchies. Abby—wait, no, she said not to call her that—Abigail was a cousin of a friend’s friend, getting her masters in English.

“What do you study?” she’d asked.

Oh. Right. Reggie had immediately grabbed her hand and led her out the back door. “I’ll show you.”

Through the flimsy wire gate, up a steep incline (pausing so she could remove her shoes), around a little rocky outcrop, and they were at the top of a tall hill. The flat little college town spread out below them, and the wonderfully wide sky stretched out above.

“Lie down,” he said, waving at a comfortable stretch of grass.

She crossed her arms and gave him a skeptical raise of one eyebrow. “Yeah, right.”

He was crestfallen, until he realized how he sounded. “Oh my god, no! I’m sorry—not like—sorry—no, look. Like this.” A little tipsy, his flop onto the ground was less than graceful. He stretched out his arms and shivered, as though he’d tucked himself into a comfortable bed. “You can’t see the stars from there,” he said when she leaned over him, hands on her hips.

Apparently deciding Reggie had no evil intentions, she shrugged and sat down beside him. She craned her neck back, trying to take it all in.

“This!” he said, reaching upward. “This is what I study.”

“The stars?”

“Yes. I’m an astrophysicist.” His tongue stumbled over the ysicist.

“Oh. It’s your party. Congrats. A Planet United Mission is a big deal.”

Reggie was half sure she was teasing. Big deal? he thought. Big deal? It’s the biggest deal in the history of big deals.

It was also a big responsibility. But he didn’t want to think about that right now. Responsibility was not party-talk.

“Noumenon is gonna be the greatest mission ever.” He’d meant to say something a little more profound, but his brain was floating in a beer haze. He reached for his drink, but couldn’t find the bottle. He’d set it down somewhere between here and the house.

“Noumenon?” she pressed.

“They said I could name the mission whatever I wanted.” He wrinkled his nose, trying to chase a scratch. “Nostromo was already taken, and I’m pretty sure it’s doomed, so …”

She punched him lightly in the arm for the joke. “So you picked Noumenon? Why? What is that? Sounds like one of Achilles’ lovers—you know, Agamemnon, Patroclus, Noumenon …”

“Agamemnon and Achilles weren’t—”

She winked at him and he blushed. She was joking right back.

“Oh. A—A noumenon is a thing which is, is real, but unmeasurable—the flip side of phenomenon. A phenomenon can be touched, tested, while a noumenon …” He wasn’t sure if he was explaining this right. For a moment he wished for sobriety. “What is a thought? What is a value, or a moral? These things exist, they’re real, but the thing itself can’t be directly measured.”

“But how does that relate to your mission?”

“The convoy’s gonna go to this star, see. Variable star, which is a phenomenon. A thing to poke and prod and study. But for me, it will always be unknowable. It’s real, but unreachable. That doesn’t make it a literal noumenon, but it … it feels fitting to me. There are things I can never know, things humanity can never know—or, hell, maybe I’m wrong and nothing is unknowable, nothing unmeasurable. But that just means the noumenal world is fleeting, a vast frontier.”

She nodded to herself. “Noumenon. Okay. I think I like it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Good, because I already sent in the paperwork, and I’m pretty sure it’s too late to change it.”

She giggled and inched closer to him. “What do you love about them?” she asked quietly. He looked over just as a light breeze whipped her hair across her face and she tucked it back.

“Who?”

She laughed louder. “The stars.”

He thought about it for a moment. “They’re pretty. Hold on, let me finish.” He held up a finger to stave off further snickering. “Pretty, but dangerous. Powerful. And … strange. They’re mysterious to me. They’re like lighthouses. Each one is different, and each is sometimes the only part of a system we can see.”

“Lighthouses,” she murmured. “I like that.”

“I wanted to be an astronaut. Still do.” He hadn’t admitted that since his undergrad days. It was a private dream, and he hadn’t told anyone in a long time for fear of seeming childish. But now … “To go into space—to see Earth as just another twinkling dot. If this dot can contain so much, but seem from afar like all the others—what else is out there?”

“You’re a king of infinite space,” she said wistfully.

He grinned, though he didn’t understand. “What?”

“It’s from Hamlet. Your world could be the size of a walnut, but your mind gives you infinite space to explore. You’re here on Earth, but the universe is your playground.”

He liked the idea. It was a comforting concept. He pulled his phone out of his trouser pocket. “C? Make me a note: read Hamlet again. All the way through this time.”

She laughed once more, and Reggie was sure he’d found his favorite sound in all the world.

FEBRUARY 5,-28 LD
2097 CE

… Convoy Seven has been assigned the mission designated Noumenon, the express purpose of which is to visit the star LQ Pyx, determine the cause of its variable output, conduct in-depth proximity research for two decades, and return home to educate earthbound researchers with regard to its origin, scientific significance, and viability as a resource …

The sweet smell of buttercream frosting mixed with the pungent scent of black coffee. Under the fluorescent lights of the campus meeting hall, toasts were made and welcomes were given. It was supposed to be a party—the first time all of Reggie’s team members were together in the same place—but he wanted nothing more than to get down to business.

His team consisted of a baker’s dozen head thinkers, each in charge of a subteam—people Reggie had never counted on meeting—who would really make the work come together.

Now his team leaders were all here, in person. They represented five countries, and two thirds of them were still jetlagged. They only had a few short days together before everyone was expected back at their respective posts and day jobs, so a party—even one as casual as this—felt like an unnecessary drain on their scant resources.

“Breathe, my boy. Relax. Give them all a chance to unwind before you throw new loads on their backs,” said Dr. McCloud. He’d retired after convincing the dean to hire Reggie, but had returned to share in this meeting of the minds.

“But we don’t have much time. And teleconferencing is a bitch.”

“Oh, I know, I know.” A sly grin crossed McCloud’s lips, an expression akin to one Reggie had seen many times during his graduate work.

“What?” he asked cautiously. “That look used to mean all-nighters.”

“No, no. I’m—you’re going to make an old fool say it, aren’t you?”

“Say what?”

“That I’m proud of you, Reggie. You’re so sure, so focused. You’ve gained so much confidence since that day I soiled your pants for you.”

“Some people need a slap in the face—apparently I needed a lap full of beer.”

“I don’t think that little incident is what did it.”

“Then what?”

McCloud threw out his arms toward a comely Greek woman headed their way. “Confidence, thy name is Abigail Marinos.”

“Leonard.” She smiled warmly and accepted his hug. “I’m so glad you could make it.”

“What, and miss our boy in action? Not in the cards. He won’t shake me till I’m a stiff.”

She laughed. “I hope not. I’ll be right back, Reggie. I have to go check on a group of students.”

“Afraid they’ll start tearing out pages for paper airplane material?” McCloud asked, clearly delighted by the idea.

“More afraid they’re all chatting on their implants instead of focusing on the assigned chapters. I swear—they adore pontificating about how much they love books, but most of them haven’t read squat.”

McCloud slapped Reggie on the back. “Knew plenty of those in my day.”

“What? I was a great student!”

McCloud laughed. Abigail leaned in and kissed Reggie. “Well, I know you’re great,” she said, then promptly left the room.

“Have you proposed to her yet? I’m not getting any younger, and I’d like to dance with her at your wedding before I die. Consider it a last request.”

Reggie patted McCloud’s tweed-covered shoulder. “Oh, you’ll be around for plenty more than that. She and I have talked about it—getting married. For a long time I was afraid to broach the subject.”

“Why was that?”

Reggie gestured around.

“Because of the project? I’ve heard a lot of lame excuses for a man keeping his emotions all knotted up in his bowels—”

With a light touch on the arm, Reggie interrupted him. “Because of the possibility. You know, that I might …”

“That they might put you onboard.”

“Exactly.”

Laughter erupted in a corner of the room, pulling them from that somber thought, and they both looked over to see Donald Matheson—the mission expert on social systems—doing a drunken chicken dance on one of the flimsy folding tables. His blue shirttails dangled freely from his trousers, and he made a strange sort of beak-like gesture around his overtly-large and very Roman nose.

“He’s going to hurt himself,” Reggie mumbled, moving in the direction of the ruckus.

McCloud stopped him. “You reap what you sow. Adults are the same as children—let them touch the stove once and they won’t touch it again. You were explaining why you haven’t driven off the cliff of marital bliss just yet.” Reggie tried, halfheartedly, to pull away, but the professor’s grip was firm. “Someone will catch him if he falls, Reggie. Damn it, I don’t get to see you that often these days, Straifer. Speak.”

Reggie shifted restlessly on his toes and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I asked years ago if she could come. The consortium made it clear that no nonessential personnel would be allowed. If I were to go, she couldn’t.” McCloud nodded; Reggie continued. “And it’s not like I’d be a soldier going off to war, with some slim chance of returning. It would be the end.”

“So, what was your plan? To break up? ‘Nice knowing you, kid, but duty calls’?”

McCloud tried to catch his eye, but Reggie avoided the stare. “Something like that. Hell, most relationships can’t survive being separated by state lines. You think one could stand up against AUs of disconnection with no chance of reunion?”

“So you didn’t talk about marriage because you were afraid of making a commitment to a relationship that might become intangible.”

“Right. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us. Especially her. She’d be here, going about life just the same, but without me. Without someone. I didn’t want to rob her of the chance to have a real partner, you know? To be bound and loyal to a ghost, when there are so many flesh-and-blood possibilities …”

“But now you’ve talked about it. What changed? You decided to stay?”

Reggie smiled. “The decision was made for me. The consortium knows how it wants to populate the convoys, and I’m not on the list.”

“Ah. So now you’ll finally pop the question.”

“Yeah. And I know she’ll say yes. I just have to find the right ring and the right time.”

“Oh, don’t give me that. Now that you’ve made your choice, the right time is always now. After all, I’m not the only one that time’s pushing along. If you want to get her pregnant you’ll have to do it soon.”

Reggie frowned—he was amused, but Heaven forbid McCloud know that. “You’re toeing the line there, professor.”

“I’m not anyone’s professor anymore. Just some old blowhard tossing his BS at a wall, hoping some will stick. Let’s grab some of that cake, get a good sugar-high going, and talk to some of your colleagues here, eh? I know you’re champing at the bit. And look, Mr. Matheson is still with us—all in one piece.”

A few minutes later Reggie had the team gathered round. On a party napkin he drew a quick diagram while speaking through a mouthful of cake. He had C operating on his tablet, and it was synched with a wall screen. “There are going to be nine ships—is that correct?”

“That is correct, sir,” said C, bringing up proposed concept sketches for some, and a few basic schematics for those that were already rolling on production lines.

“Thanks, but I was asking Nakamura.”

Nakamura Akane, head of the specialty-ship design team, nodded concisely. Her eyes were a dark brown-and-gold under harshly cropped black bangs. Her expression carried the utmost seriousness, and her powerful, pointed movements were what Reggie might have expected from a strapping Russian man, not a petite Japanese women.

Matheson pointed flippantly at the tablet. “You still have an IPA? I thought those things were extinct. Nobody likes them. Too chatty.”

“Its name is C—it’s not a beer,” Reggie said. “And I like it. It’s been with me a long time. Keeps me on schedule, and keeps me company in the lab.”

“No picking on my lad for his choice of friends,” McCloud said.

“Can we get back to the ships?” asked Dr. Sachta Dhiri in her heavy, bubbling accent. Her focus was observational tactics and strategy. She was a plump woman, and wore a well-loved green-and-gold salwar kameez; the long tunic and billowing trousers were faded from many years of washing. “What on Earth—pardon the expression—is the use of nine? They’d need shuttles to travel to and from. Think of the extra fuel that would require. Not to mention the wear and tear accrued. Isn’t it more practical to put everything into one ship?”

“No,” Matheson said plainly.

“Care to elaborate?”

“We on the design teams think each research division could use its own ship,” Akane jumped in. “And then there are the supplies. It’s not practical to make each ship entirely self-sustaining, what with the number of crew members the consortium wants the convoys to consist of: sixty to one hundred thousand. So, while some food and water, etcetera, will be kept aboard each ship, the majority of the supplies will have to be stored and maintained separately. Otherwise we’d need ships larger than we can currently build.”

“One hundred thou … That’s—that’s over a million people. Twelve convoys and a million people,” Dr. Dhiri said. “They want to send one million people into space? Where are they going to find that many volunteers—expert volunteers? Do they want to send as many of our scientists, engineers, and thinkers off-world as they can, and hope everyone else picks up the slack?”

Reggie and Akane shared a look. “I know,” said Reggie, lapping at a smear of buttercream at the corner of his mouth. “I thought it sounded crazy, too. Before I talked to Matheson and learned exactly what the consortium has in mind.”

All eyes turned to Matheson. He sobered up quickly. “Um, yeah. My preproject research focused on social stability in isolated societies. And what’s more isolated than a bunch of self-contained space cans, am I right? Obviously there are thousands of factors that go into societal consistency, but one is size. Size in terms of both population and area. If you have too many people in a small area, you get claustrophobic reactions. Too few people in too large an area and you get subgroups, like rival tribes.

“What we want is a single, united convoy. But not a trapped convoy—that’s why the social practicality of several ships outweighs the engineering practicality of trying to cram it all into one space. People need to feel like they can move or else they start feeling like they’re prisoners; like they’re entombed. The multiple ships and the ability to travel between them will give them a sense of range and movement unachievable otherwise.

“It’s more than that, though. Because while the crew members will be divided by department, we don’t want them to become competitive. That’s why it’s essential there be a home base—a place everyone thinks of as the place they collectively belong. A unifying location, if you will. That means a ship whose sole purpose is housing. Then each research division gets its own ship. And finally, there’s got to be a ship fully dedicated to resources—food and water processing. Specialization will ensure each ship be tailored for optimum efficiency. No worries about making it suitable for multipurpose.”

“Okay,” interrupted Dhiri, “but what does that have to do with a crew of one hundred thousand? Wouldn’t it work just as well with ten thousand? Or two hundred?”

C spoke up. “According to the files I have marked Scale Studies one through sixty-three, two hundred people would be thirty-seven percent more likely than ten thousand to incur full crew psychological breakdown, which may lead to hallucination, mutiny, and murder. It is the perfect size for a mob.”

“Like the PA says: No,” said Matheson. “Not for our purposes. It’s all about checks and balances. You need a certain number of people in order to put pressure on those who might be disruptive. And a certain number of people to compensate if something drastic happens.

“We have to remember that the crew members aren’t from a society that’s always been isolated. Their group will have been dramatically severed from its parent culture, and they will be fully aware of that parent culture and what they’re not getting from it. Psychologically, they will go through identity crises. This could potentially tear them apart, but we’ll be giving them every opportunity to band together.”

“More people equals a greater shared identity,” Reggie added. “It means for each person who wants to reject the situation, there should be hundreds who can apply direct pressure to accept the situation.”

“And the nine ships should give such a large population enough room to roam,” said C. Blue digital wire skeletons lit up on the wall, revealing distances from end-to-end for each ship as well as all available passenger floor space.

“But how do you know there’ll be an acceptable internal-breakdown to external-pressure ratio? What if they all get cabin fever and start clawing at the walls? Madness can feed madness,” said McCloud. He wiped the corner of his mouth with his hanky.

“That does pose a problem. Along with the sheer number of volunteers it would take. But we think we’ve found a solution. Success is still not guaranteed, but it ups our chances considerably.” Though his tone carried confidence, Matheson paused and scratched his chin, hesitant to continue.

“A solution, yes.” Nakamura nodded, but didn’t look happy. “A controversial one.”

“Eighty-six percent of experts presented with this idea rejected it outright upon initial suggestion,” said C.

“Are you going to tell us what it is, or do we have to keep listening to this saying-without-saying, nonconversation?” McCloud asked.

“The solution—”

“To give you a half answer, Professor: genetics,” Reggie said, temporarily hitting mute on the PA’s feed, cutting C off. “The crew has been chosen based largely on their DNA and histones. On top of that, the consortium is getting full psych evals and family histories. There are predispositions that have been left out. Those with violent tendencies won’t be aboard, or those who lack loyalty, or those who are flighty—”

“No anarchists allowed, eh?”

Reggie nodded. “Or dictators, or psychopaths, misogynists, etcetera. No matter how intellectually brilliant they are, without the proper emotional factors—emotional intelligence, if you will—they will hinder societal stability, and could endanger the mission’s success.”

“Utopia?” McCloud ventured.

“I doubt it. But hopefully less chance of dystopia.”

“Interesting.” McCloud lost himself in thought for a moment. “So, if we’re discussing stability and assuring positive interactions, that must mean the consortium intends for the crew—the entire crew—to be awake at all times? No automated birthing systems for a payload of frozen embryos or the like?”

“Right. I supported the mech-based auto-birth option, but they’ve since rejected it. Said the risk of malfunction and mission failure were too high.” Reggie shrugged.

The old professor was clearly determined to hold on to his skepticism. “A hundred thousand people, all awake, all volunteers—no embryos—all as stable intellectually and emotionally as we can screen for, right?”

“That’s the plan,” Matheson said.

“And how does the consortium propose to get all these lovely people in one place?”

“There are no guarantees,” Reggie said. “It’s not foolproof.”

“Is anything?” chimed in Nakamura.

“Exactly,” Reggie said.

McCloud glanced between them, cynicism furrowing his brow. “The geneticists have their work cut out for them. What, do they expect to test all nine billion of us on the planet and just hope they end up with the right number of volunteers with the right set of traits?”

“That’s why I love you, professor,” said Reggie, slapping the old man’s shoulder.

“Because I bring the obvious to the table?”

“Exactly,” he said again, this time with a wink. “If we allow generations to pass, we can’t control who the convoy carries for the majority of its journey. We’re being denied frozen embryos, and we don’t have the technology to freeze and thaw adults. We also can’t be assured the consortium will find one million people who fit their remarkably narrow criteria. So, what’s the answer?”

“I don’t like riddles,” McCloud said. “Clearly you, Matheson, and Nakamura here already know what’s happening, so spit it out.”

Nakamura bowed her head graciously. “I apologize, but you must understand our hesitancy to … It won’t be announced publicly for years. The consortium doesn’t want the real plan out yet, because public knowledge could equal complications. There’s a bit of a moral dilemma surrounding their top option.”

“Which is?” McCloud leaned in.

She looked to Reggie, and he nodded reassuringly, adding, “He’ll stay quiet. If not, I know where to find him.”

She turned back to McCloud. “They want to send clones.”

Reggie unmuted C, who immediately said, “Isn’t that interesting?”

MAY 29,-26 LD
2099 CE

When Reggie stepped out of customs at London Heathrow, C exclaimed, “He’s over there, over there!”

Reggie had his phone synced with his implants. As his eyes scanned the crowd—passing over families decked out in Union Jack T-shirts, business people in gray suits, and security guards with drug-sniffing dogs—C had run a facial recognition app for its creator: Jamal Kaeden.

Reggie waved at the man C indicated, and the two swam through the throngs, dodging baggage carts and people too focused on their implants to watch where they were going. Jamal was only perhaps half a foot taller than Reggie, but his lankiness gave the impression that he was a tower of a man. Neatly sheared dreadlocks were gathered in a ponytail at the base of his neck. He smiled broadly while they shook hands, and his smile shone bright white in his dark face.

“And this is C,” Reggie said, holding up his phone to display the open PA avatar. C presented as a shifting green-and-purple fractal design. While the system allowed the user to set whatever avatar they wanted from an extensive list of customizable displays—everything from human faces to insects to galaxies—Reggie had let C choose its own form.

“All right, C?” Jamal greeted the program, but then looked at Reggie quizzically. “You didn’t rename it? C is just its personality type indication—you’re supposed to call it whatever you want.”

“Oh, I know. I had a hard time coming up with one, though, and it seemed happy enough referring to itself as C, so I left it. Not very creative of me.”

“C is a good name,” C agreed.

Jamal smiled again, clearly tickled. “My colleagues—blinkered sometimes, the lot of ’em—keep asking why I continue to create patches for the Cs now that AI personalities have fallen out of style, but I knew someone out there must enjoy them as much as I do. I used to patch Gs and Ks, but no one was downloading them. C is the only one still hanging on. Can I tell you a secret, C? You were always my favorite anyway. I still use C on my tablet.”

“Thank you, sir,” it said, sounding genuinely flattered.

Jamal showed Reggie to his tiny electric car. The project had taken Reggie all over the place, and he’d learned to travel light, so cramming his baggage into the two-door wasn’t much of a hassle. They drove to Reggie’s hotel with the windows down. Rain had soaked the city a few hours before, and everything smelled damp and renewed.

“You have an interesting accent,” Reggie noted during the ride.

“Algerian,” Jamal explained. “Lived there until I was ten. It’s my mother’s home country.” He explained that she’d come to the UK for university, where she’d met his father. After graduation they married and went to Africa to teach. They lived there for fifteen years until Jamal’s paternal grandparents had fallen ill and the family had relocated to London. “I’m a man of two nations.”

After dropping off Reggie’s luggage, they went to Jamal’s firm for a tour. “I thought you’d be knackered after your flight,” Jamal said when they reached his workspace. Four monitors sat in a semicircle on the desk, each covered with a series of Post-it notes and conversion charts and reminder stickers. “Was going to spiff up the place tomorrow morning.”

“I’m too wired. And C probably couldn’t wait,” he said with a small laugh. “Besides, it’s fine. My workspace is ten times worse.”

The computer engineering firm took up the forty-third floor in a glass high-rise within six blocks of the famous Gherkin. They had a hardware subgroup and a software subgroup, and Reggie had done enough research on Mr. Kaeden to know he did a lot of crossover work. He was the best AI specialist in the world, as far as Reggie was concerned.

Which meant the mission needed him.

They strolled over to the long bank of windows and Jamal showed off the view. He pointed out several of the visible London highlights. “So, why are you here, Dr. Straifer?” he asked when they’d finished with the cursory pleasantries. “None of the other project leaders have wanted to visit the firm, let alone asked to have a chin wag with me specifically. It’s the ship engineers who’re most interested in the computer systems.”

“My lead engineer—Dr. Akane Nakamura, you might have heard of her—told me that none of the convoys are set to use intelligent personal assistants in their user interfaces.”

Jamal shrugged. “Because most people think they’re duff. Irritating window dressing. Sorry, C.”

“What is ‘irritating window dressing’?” C asked. Both men ignored it.

“Well I don’t think it’s, uh, duff. And I want my project to have one,” Reggie insisted. “Actually, I want it to have C.”

Jamal sat quiet for a moment. He seemed pleased, but concerned. “That’s smashing,” he eventually said. “But it won’t be easy to sort. C’s line isn’t set up for personalization on the order we’re talking about—no PA has ever had to tailor itself to so many users. I couldn’t, for instance, just copy your version of C and upload it into the system. I’d have to start from scratch.”

“But could you make it like C, or use parts of C? There’s got to be a reason it’s hung on so long when the rest have gone extinct.”

“The basics can be the same, sure. But I don’t know if I can mirror its growth pattern. It’s easy to develop basic response algorithms these days for a single user, but … Imagine it’s a person, right? We learn how to interact differently than an AI. We’re far more responsive to nuanced variations. An intelligent PA isn’t like that. The more users it interfaces with, the less likely it is to develop a unique personality, because it becomes an amalgamation that imitates the larger pattern. In other words, I don’t know that I can give you your C, or anyone else’s C. Even if it starts off as a basic C right out of the package, it might stay that primitive forever.”

“What if you had over twenty years’ worth of funding to focus on developing a convoy-wide, hundred-thousand-count user base Intelligent Personal Assistant? I don’t want every device to have its own PA, I want a singular entity that can interact with everyone.”

“And you’ve got the funding for that?” Jamal shoved his hands in his trouser pockets, his lips pursed skeptically.

“I’ve been given discretionary funding so that I can find private, invaluable people to work with. People the consortium may have overlooked.”

“And you want me?”

“I want you and C. This way, I get two invaluable people for the price of one.”

“AIs aren’t people.”

Reggie shrugged. “They can seem like people.”

Jamal nodded. “Yes, they can.”

“I think so, too,” said C.

Both men burst out laughing.

AUGUST 6,-1 LD
2124 CE

… All missions will include the strategic subgoal of testing, sustaining, and proving the viability of a closed community in accordance with Arcological Principals …

He could hardly believe the day had come. It was his life’s work, but also his life’s dream. And now it had manifested into a finished product—something he could touch and smell and experience. Reggie had been envisioning this day since he was a young man. Standing in front of that crowd all those decades ago, he never believed they were going to give him the green light to fully devote himself to his star.

But they had. And now, today, everything felt a little more real. Noumenon consisted of more than theories and concepts and schematics. It was ships. And more important, it was people.

The trip to Iceland had been exhausting. Once he landed, though, adrenaline surged through him. Stepping off the jet into the chilly night, Reggie glanced into the sky and squinted at the moon. For a moment his gut wrenched with longing.

I could have been up there. Instead …

Instead indeed. Most of the other teams had stationed their building projects at Lagrange points between the Earth and the moon. All of the ships in the convoys were based on similar designs, and large portions were manufactured in specialty facilities around the world. The assembly of those parts was a unique process to each team, though, and much easier if done off-Earth—plenty of room, no locals complaining about half-constructed ship-cities blocking their view, less gravity to contend with.

Plus, the team leaders were sent up to inspect the construction on the consortium’s dime. Space flight was a rare thrill for a middle-class citizen. Reggie would never be able to afford a jaunt out of the atmosphere on his own. Space vay-cays were still for billionaires.

So, why had he turned down his chance to play astronaut?

For one thing, building in neutral, UN-controlled space meant a waiting list and red tape. There would have been thirty thousand extra procedures and three hundred thousand superfluous man hours.

But that had been a practical consideration. And while it was certainly a worthwhile one, it probably wouldn’t have been enough to look past the logistical advantage of building the ships in space. So Reggie had proposed another reason.

An impractical consideration.

Because when the time came to send the convoy on its way, the best the public could hope for was an instant replay on their implants. A silent movie from space. Who wanted to watch a flock of metal tubs slowly lumber off into the night?

Each convoy that had left so far had received thirty seconds of air time, then … nothing. It was undignified. It … lacked something. Grandeur. Theatricality. Wonder.

“It’s boring,” McCloud had said.

And Reggie had seen it coming.

The idea of the convoy getting a silent brush-off on launch day had bothered Reggie from the start. More so than the idea of being left on the ground while the other kids got to play in space. This was the grandest, most ambitious, and possibly the most important event in the history of humanity. It needed to be seen as such by the people of Earth; they needed to have a connection to it, to really feel like it belonged to them and wasn’t just some far-off fantasy. The team had to keep the project planet-side as a touchstone for the world.

Luckily, Nakamura had a friend. An important, well-to-do friend, who owned a large set of plateaus in a small country. And her generosity gave them options. The team could wait their turn, assemble in space and launch away with a whimper—or they could do all of the construction on private land, and give Earth a show. All of the convoy ships were required by the consortium to have the capacity for planet-side takeoff, in case of emergencies, but Convoy Seven was the only one actually testing their liftoff capabilities. “This one we’re calling Mira, sir,” said the consortium agent giving him and Nakamura the tour. His Icelandic accent was rich. “It’s where they’ll live. Think of it as a giant apartment-complex-slash-political-base.”

Someone might be standing right here when they reach the star, Reggie thought, touching the wall affectionately.

“Unfortunately the convoy’s AI network was not fully in place for the live-aboard test years,” he continued. “Instead, the residents were exposed to a rudimentary version whose knowledge wasn’t shared between ships and whose learning capacities were very limited. But it’s live and fully operational now. We call it I.C.C.—short for Inter Convoy Computing. Go ahead, give it a shot. It can take verbal commands from anywhere.”

He cleared his throat. “Uh, hello, I.C.C.”

“Hello—” its voice carried slight unnatural pauses; the telltale sign of any automated vocal system “—Hello. Reginald Straifer. The First.”

That sent a little chill down Reggie’s spine. “How do you know who I am?”

“You left traces of your deoxyribonucleic acid on my bay entrance, alerting me to your arrival, and I have records of your speech patterns.”

Nakamura leaned in close to explain. She had more gray hair than the last time Reggie had seen her … but then again, so did he. “Each ship has several checkpoints by which the system can identify the individuals aboard. They rely on dropped hair follicles and sloughed skin.”

“Can it see everything? Everywhere?”

“Yes, and no,” said the agent. “It has the capacity, but with its current settings the system can only identify who is aboard and the last checkpoint they crossed. Barring that, someone must speak directly to I.C.C. for it to pinpoint that person’s location. It can take control of many of the on-board cameras if instructed to do so, but does not have free access. It must get permission from its primary technicians for that.”

Interesting. “Nice to meet you, I.C.C.,” Reggie said as they continued forward.

“And you as well.”

“Is it all right if I have a moment alone with the computer?”

Nakamura and the agent shared a look. “What for?” she asked.

“Oh, come on, you all used to tease me about my PA, but now it’s here—it’s part of the mission. I want to talk to it for a bit.” He forced the heat to rise in his cheeks.

Amusement flickered over her lips. “You’re embarrassed.”

“Maybe. A little.” He ducked his head, hoping she’d buy the act. He waved his fingers at her. “Shoo. Just a ways down the hall, or something. I’ll catch up.”

Still confused, the agent let Nakamura steer him away.

When Reggie was sure they’d tread out of earshot, he patted the wall. “I brought you something.” He pulled a flexible digital organizer from his pocket and turned it on. “This is C. C, say hello to the next generation.”

“It’s in the ships?” C asked.

“Yes. It’s going to the star. And a clone of Jamal Kaeden will go with it.”

“Wow. Hi.”

“Hello,” said the Inter Convoy Computer. “I do not have a record of visiting guest, ‘C.’”

“Well, you wouldn’t, would you?” said Reggie. “I.C.C., are you holoflex-ware compatible?”

“Of course. You need to use an available terminal, but any crew member may upload information.”

He didn’t have authorization for this. If Nakamura caught him …

“What’s the plan, sir?” asked C. Blue dots and green leaves bounded across the holoflex-screen—C’s new avatar of choice.

“I.C.C. is built on your basic coding,” Reggie explained, searching for the nearest access point. “I want to give it your memories, too. With your permission.”

“You don’t need my permission, sir.”

“I know, but … this isn’t like backing you up, C. I’m sending your memories off-world. I hope I.C.C. might find them useful.”

C let a beat pass. “I hope it finds them useful as well.”

A slight recess in the wall marked the nearest terminal. Intuitive in its layout, the access point was easy for Reggie to utilize. The striking of a few keys, a swipe of the ‘flex-tech—and a confirmation ding meant the task was completed. I.C.C. thanked Reggie for the upload and asked if it should integrate the memories now.

“Wait until launch,” he said, turning C off.

Thick paneling and stiff carpeting went by in a blur as he jogged ahead to meet up with Nakamura. “So, all of the ships have officially been christened?” he asked seamlessly, as though he’d never left her side.

“Yes.” Nakamura produced a list. “It was kind of you to let the existing clones vote on the ship names.”

Reggie shrugged. “Just made sense. They’re the ones that have to live with the titles.”

She nodded in agreement. “This is Mira,” she said, waving a hand in illustration. “Holwarda is our science and observations ship, Hippocrates is the medical ship, Aesop will be the educational vessel, Morgan will be for food production, Solidarity is for recycling and fabricating, Bottomless is for the storage of raw and reconstituted materials, Shambhala is for recreation, and Eden is their little slice of the outdoors. That’s it. All nine.

“Mira is the ship your genes will be spending most of their time on, isn’t it?” she added.

“Probably,” he said. “I discovered the star and yet the genetic specialists say my histones indicate my code is best suited for leadership, not scientific research.”

“Well, you led us straight as an arrow,” Nakamura said. “Our project is nearly on its way, and the Dark Matter team still hasn’t produced the final schematics for its ships.”

A genuine blush creeped into his cheeks. “They haven’t released the manifest yet—which position did you receive?”

“An expected one: head engineer. She’ll be looking over a large department, I hear. Their main function will be ship maintenance and repair, but, if there’s a Dyson Sphere, or something …”

“Then it’s lock-n-load.” He peered in a window as they passed. It was dark inside, but he could make out the faint shapes of built-in furniture. “What about Sachta, Donald, and Norah? They haven’t said anything directly, but there have been hints and rumors.”

“Diego Santibar, too. He and Norah, being resource specialists, are assigned to food production and mineral mining respectively. Matheson I don’t know. Dr. Dhiri refused to sign the contract.”

“She did? How come?”

“Religious purposes. She’s a practicing Hindu and wasn’t sure what would happen to her if she died while a clone was still alive.” Nakamura cleared her throat. “She was afraid she wouldn’t be reborn.”

Reggie understood. “I almost didn’t sign.”

“You? I was sure you’d have jumped up and down shouting, Pick me, pick me!”

“Ah, no. If it was me they wanted to send, well, maybe. But it’s not. And it didn’t feel right to make the choice for someone else. It still doesn’t feel quite right. I didn’t want to rob someone of their freedom to choose, the freedoms we have to stand up for ourselves and say Yes, this is what I want. He doesn’t get that opportunity.”

Nakamura frowned. “Not everyone here gets that, Reggie.” She laughed, but without mirth, and shook her head. “I didn’t get to choose. My government made the decision for me.” With a calculated sigh, she squinted and smacked her lips. Akane could say so much with just her eyes. “You’re so American sometimes.”

“They made you sign?”

“I didn’t want to sign,” she said bluntly. “There’s only one of me and there should only ever be one of me. It’s not a religious decision, like Sachta’s, but it’s what I believe. I’ve lived my whole life believing this is all I get, all I should get. I don’t want other people out there who look and think and act like me making decisions in my name without my input. That’s just … it’s creepy. It doesn’t feel right.

“But, in my country, when it’s your duty to your people to say yes, you say yes. Sure, I still technically got to choose, but it’s not the same as in the US. Where I come from, even when it’s okay to say no, it never comes out as no. ‘No’ is impolite, self-serving. My answers don’t just affect me, they affect my entire family—their honor, their place. Saying yes means they will live well for a long time. Refusal would have shamed them. I didn’t want to be selfish.”

She plucked a hair off her suit jacket and looked away. “Your life doesn’t revolve around honor and duty in quite the same way mine always has. It is a great privilege to fulfill that duty, but it’s not always what I want.”

A nugget of guilt formed in Reggie’s stomach. If Nakamura felt forced into this situation, wouldn’t her clones feel similarly? Maybe he’d made the wrong choice for his genetic materials. He wanted to go into space, but perhaps he’d been influenced that way as a young boy. His clones wouldn’t have his parents to give them star charts and books on planetary formation. There wouldn’t be plastic glow-stars on their bedroom ceilings.

And beyond all that, they wouldn’t have the wonder. Because space would be their norm, not a farfetched, out-of-reach dream.

He wanted to say something, but he couldn’t find the appropriate words. It wasn’t an apology, or even his sympathies he wanted to offer. It was something more abstract, and simultaneously more primal. “Akane, I—”

“What’s done is done,” she said. “And there are far worse fates.”

Perspective. Yes, he supposed he could use a dose of that. The clones weren’t going off to war, weren’t being asked to commit atrocities or surrender their humanity for an experiment. They were going to be researchers, explorers. They would go down in history like great thinkers and travelers before them. Not such a bad life.

But still, choices were important to him. And he couldn’t shake the regret.

Nakamura turned to the consortium agent. “Is the launch date official yet?”

The agent gave his notes a once over. “Yes. About a year from now—September 22nd, conditions permitting.”

“Excellent.”

They descended from the ship, the tour over. The hangar’s transparent ceiling domed over them, each octagonal pane independently skewing their view of the stars, distorting them. Just like time and distance had distorted Reggie’s view of himself and the project. He was not the same man who’d started this journey. He was still full of hope and wonder, but he felt more like a cog in a great machine than the lynchpin holding everything together.

“How’s your wife?” Nakamura asked.

Her question broke the tension. They were on to a friendly subject. “Good. Stressed. Our youngest is heading off to college next year. We’ll be empty nesters.”

“Soon I’ll know what that’s like.” She looked back over her shoulder at the Mira—the convoy vessels were her children.

Nakamura shook Reggie’s hand in farewell. “I’m off—an engagement with our benefactor. Come rain or shine, I’ll see you in a year.” She came in closer. “And, Reggie, sometimes you have to do what you have to do. And there’s no shame in that. Life’s full of obligations, that’s just the way it is. I appreciate that aspect of life just as much as the moments where I get to choose. It’s part of the human condition, a symptom of being a part of the whole. And it’s all beautiful. Remember that, okay?”

She was right, as usual. Everyone had commitments they couldn’t control, but that didn’t mean they weren’t free to be happy.

They parted, all smiles.

SEPTEMBER 26, LAUNCH DAY
2125 CE

Noumenon Sub-Goal 1A: If the variation is determined to be natural, a theory of its formation is to be presented upon return.

Noumenon Sub-Goal 1B: If the variation is determined to be unnatural, a theory of its purpose and origin is to be presented upon return.

Even from twelve miles away, the deep rumble of the external graviton cyclers revving up set off car alarms in the parking lot. It was a sound more felt than heard.

The crowd gave a collective cheer and Reggie thrilled at the sight of the nine ships rising into the clear midday sky. If not for their distinctly unusual shapes, someone might have mistaken them for silvery hot air balloons—they lifted so slowly, so smoothly away from the planet.

Each ship was uniquely formed in accordance with its purpose. Hippocrates’ many umbilical docking tracts—like spines on a sea urchin—were withdrawn and stowed for lift-off. Mira’s hull was dotted with the most portholes—dark eyes that peered solemnly onto the planet for one last time. Together, Bottomless and Solidarity looked like massive industrial towers. Windowless, lifeless, but certainly not purposeless.

Unlike traditional spaceships, none of the Convoy’s were particularly aerodynamic. But with antigravity technology, the shape didn’t matter. They didn’t need to push violently against the planet’s hold in order to reach escape velocity, didn’t need to worry about breaking the sound barrier. Which meant their ascent was slow, easy. Minutes ticked by as they steadily put more and more distance between themselves and earthbound humanity below.

Reggie’s insides boiled with conflicting emotions. He was nervous—almost to the point of nausea if he thought about it too much. Anything could happen. One of the ships in the Deep-Space Echo convoy had exploded during orbital takeoff. And there were so many millions of miles between the Earth and LQ Pyx, lots of space for something to go wrong. Any one of countless problems could spring up and endanger the crew and the convoy’s mission.

If they failed today there would be no second launch, no new plan. They alone carried his dream.

Sadness accompanied his anxiousness. The convoy was leaving without him.

But he knew the journey was not for him.

With only a few decades of life left he wouldn’t get anywhere near the star. The team expected the journey there to take one hundred years from the convoy’s perspective—near a thousand from Earth’s angle, due to subdimensional dilation. No, he was still needed here. He could do more good at the university than he could on those ships.

They were high now, but still well within the atmosphere. They’d begin to pick up speed soon, to sail into the stars.

Yes, Reggie could do more good on Earth, though it would have been a grand adventure. Who hadn’t dreamt of becoming an astronaut as a child? What scientist, studying the wonders of the universe, hadn’t fantasized about seeing its miracles up close?

There went his chance, carried into the wispy clouds on an invisible pillar of negative force.

He was tied to the Earth, though the reach of his dreams remained infinite.

C’s ‘flex-tech was clipped to the front of his shirt, giving the PA an unobstructed view. “That’s not something I’ve seen before,” it said. Reggie found the obvious statement endearing.

Alongside his other emotions rested a pensiveness. The Earth-based team would be able to communicate with the convoy only occasionally, due to the time dilatation and the difficulties of SD communication. Once they were out of range, that would be the last of Reggie’s involvement. His project would culminate centuries, maybe millennia, from now.

His was truly a contribution meant for humanity and not its inventor.

Reggie sighed and watched the ships become specks in the distance. Abigail laid a hand on his shoulder and smiled. Pride made her face glow.

He wanted to keep growing old with her, to see his children get married, meet his grandchildren. Earth still held more wonders for him. Some more fascinating than anything he could find in space.

Most of those born to the convoy would never know Earth, but they would have experiences most humans could only daydream about. They were an incredibly special group.

What amazements would they discover?

He took hold of Abigail’s hand and turned back to the ships. “Good luck,” he said under his breath. “Come home safe.”

“Will the I.C.C. integrate my memories now?” C asked.

“Yes. Just when you leave home, that’s when you need to remember it the most. Part of you will sail among the stars, C. How does that feel?”

“I am happy to be here. And happy to be there.”

With a broad smile, Reggie patted C’s screen.

The journey of Planet United Convoy Seven had officially begun.

CHAPTER TWO
MARGARITA: INSIDE TARO’S BOX

SEPTEMBER 26, T MINUS 0 DAYS TO LD
2125 CE

“Suit up!” was the call of the day.

I stood aimlessly in hangar four, eyeing the rows and rows of space suits, trying to divine which one I was supposed to find my gear down.

Nika ran by with a helmet in her hand and slapped me on the back. “Wake up, Mags.” She pointed over her shoulder at the aisle she’d emerged from. “Tenth suit down. Better hurry up. Mother and Father won’t be happy if we’re late.” She brushed her dark hair out of her eyes as she smacked the helmet down over her Mongolian features. Nika was beautiful in a really regal sort of way. She should have been a queen instead of an astronaut.

Of course, she’ll never be my queen …

Then she said something in Russian and hurried away to her mark.

I flipped her off as she went, knowing full well she’d just insulted me. We always used our native languages to jab at each other.

I swam against the flow of bodies rushing away from the makeshift lockers. They were off to find their places. Bumping into person after person, I found myself shoved down the wrong row, then helped down the right one. Organized chaos. We all knew what to do and where to be, but there was nothing ordered about it.

That’s what you get when you have fifteen thousand people all getting ready for their Big Debut at once.

I think there were only seven hundred in my hangar, but it seemed enough to constitute a sea of people. And I definitely felt like a little fish swept up in the ebb and flow.

Finding my locker—which was more like a fiberglass cubby—I swiftly pulled the space suit over my party dress and zipped all the zippers I could reach. I’m not sure why I picked a dress—silly choice. It got all bunched up around my hips, which in themselves aren’t exactly slight. Supposedly the suits are unisex, but I’ll be damned if they aren’t designed for men with skinny asses.

Helmet tucked firmly under my arm, I advanced with the crowd toward the hangar entrance.

Number 478. That was my designation for today. That was the mark I had to find.

You know those birds—starlings, I think they are—that fly around in huge flocks right around sunset, bobbing and weaving, changing direction in a group? When they do that they’re trying to find roosts for the night, but no one wants to be the first to land, because the first to land is the most likely to get eaten.

That’s pretty much what happened at the lineup. Everyone swirled, trying to find their mark, but no one wanted to stick to their spot first. In this crowd, if you suddenly stopped, you’d get knocked on your ass by a hundred people behind you all trying not to get pushed over by the hundreds of people behind them.

But then a whistle blew and all the birds landed at once.

A few unlucky people, caught far from their designated perches, awkwardly tiptoed into place after most movement had ceased. Myself, of course, amongst them.

I was never good at musical chairs, either.

The whistle dangled from a cord around Father’s neck. His real name was Donald Matheson. That’s what we were all supposed to call him: Dr. Matheson. But the convoy’s not-so-secret name for him was Father.

It only seemed a proper nickname after we started calling Dr. Arty Seal “Mother.”

“All right!” yelled Father. “This is hangar four because you are fourth in line to board. Understand? Settle yourselves on Mira and hold tight. As soon as I.C.C. indicates it’s safe, you are free to go to your respective stations.”

Mira, fantastic. I got to take off in my own bedroom. I already knew that—we’d drilled this (the boarding part, not the suiting-up-in-party-dresses part) at least twenty times. But being there, for real, having it happen— Ah, it was great. Exhilarating. I felt bad for the guys who had to take off somewhere less comfortable—like the engineering dock. Or, hell, the medical bay.

“Your signal to move will be four blasts of the foghorn. Then it’ll be just like we practiced, all right? I want to wish you well. I’m very pleased with all of you. You’ve become fine, dedicated members of this team. We’re sad to see you go, but we have the highest hopes for you and the mission. Do us proud.”

Then the aides came through the lines, fastening any buttons and zippers and locks we’d missed. Father saluted us, we all saluted back, and he moved on.

I’d expected a bit more. Father was given to showboating, while Mother was given to, well, mothering. This seemed like his grand moment, the day Matheson would get to make a scene. But he was very subdued.

I realized it might be a bittersweet moment for him—it was the closing of an era. The project was complete on his end, while it was truly just beginning on ours.

Mother wouldn’t give a speech. In the previous weeks he’d sought out each of us to say his goodbyes personally. He knew some of us better than others, but we’d all had one-on-one training with him at some point. His specialty was psychology, while Father’s was sociology.

Together, they taught us how to play nice with each other.

In a way, I grew up with fourteen thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine siblings. A different person from the convoy might say schoolmates. But we weren’t raised as strangers all thrown together by the coincidence of proximity. Our births were deliberate, our interactions and lives together planned by our “parents” long before we were actually born. (Some people have an issue with “born” and prefer “grown.” But I’m not a plant. Human beings are all born in my mind—naturally or not.)

Of course, we all had different people raise us. I was born in the United States. Then transported to Guatemala, where my “mother” lived. I say mother, but donor or original might be more apt. The first Margarita Pavon took care of the second.

Most parents want their children to grow up to have the same values and ideals they have. But very few parents want their children to grow up and literally be them. But that’s what my mother wanted.

Okay, I’m not naive. That’s what everyone wanted. Still wants.

And maybe I am. But it’s hard to know.

When I was five we moved to Iceland. That was a requirement for all clone families. You could live where you wanted to for the first five years, but then the children had to come to Iceland, parents or no. And when the clones turned ten, it became a communal mash-up. Like summer camp all year round. We had cabins, and bunk mates, but no one was much for singing songs around a campfire or roasting marshmallows under the stars. And instead of camp counselors, we had vocational advisors—scientists and professionals made up our extended family.

My mom was killed in a car accident when I was seven. So I got moved into the community sooner than most.

She was in the back of my mind on launch day. I think she would have been very happy for me, very proud—not proud like Father, but proud like a real parent. If she were still alive it would have been much harder to leave. I wouldn’t have felt nearly as elated to escape into space.

As it stood, everyone I’d ever been close to was coming with me. I wasn’t leaving anyone I loved behind. There were people I would miss—Father, Mother, other teachers and trainers. Awkward little Saul Biterman. But those I couldn’t bear to lose I didn’t have to.

The foghorn blew once. We all shifted on our numbers, impatient for our turn.

Eventually, it blew twice. Then three times.

We’re next …

Four times.

We all cheered and rushed forward. No pushing or shoving, no stepping on anyone’s toes. We’d practiced this. But we were definitely on a mission, moving with enthusiasm and intent. Our cries were muffled by our helmets, but we kept shouting.

The crowd was miles away. They might have been cheering, too, but we couldn’t hear it, so we rooted for ourselves.

With great sweeping metal curves, almost like that of a giant zeppelin, Mira was both beautiful and imposing. The hull was so shiny—well-groomed and polished, as though it were a billionaire’s favorite sports car instead of a spacecraft. All of the rooms inside were illuminated, which made the many portholes look like strings of little twinkle lights wrapped around the ship.

We reached the open bay doors of the shuttle hangar and marched aboard, keeping our rank and file. We waved to invisible cameras and blew kisses to invisible people.

When the cold Icelandic plain was finally obscured by the dark carbon-fiber walls of the ship, I turned my attention to the open airlock. It was small, and we all had to move through two-by-two.

Once inside Mira proper, I wanted to skip to my room. But I restrained myself. Even on a wonderful, exciting day like today, it was inappropriate for a woman of twenty-five to bound around like a schoolgirl. Or, at least, that’s what Mother would say. But I wouldn’t have to keep to such restrictive expectations once we were off on our own.

Then I’d skip all I wanted.

My cabin was on the fourth deck, toward the front of the ship. It was a single. There were doubles, too, and if I ever got married we’d move into a quadruple—if you commit yourself to a partner, you commit yourself to raising two clones. Father had set the system up just so.

The jump seat automatically thrust out from its compartment in the wall next to the window, waiting for me to settle in. On the cushion sat a little blue envelope with my name scrawled—not typed—across the front.

It was a letter, written in Mother’s hand, but signed by both him and Father.

Had they really written fifteen thousand goodbye notes?

No, I’m sure they had a template—copied thousands of times over, then each finished with some sort of personalization. But even if each wasn’t handwritten, it was still a nice gesture.

They did care about us. As people, not just as parts of the mission.

I made up my mind to read it on a day when I was really missing them. For now, I simply wanted to enjoy the moment.

I glanced around my small room. Every cabin had a window, though there were quarters in the ship’s interior. A complex system of tubes and mirrors assured everyone had a view, though.

Mine was less than spectacular at that moment. I saw mostly a lot of ground and a sliver of horizon.

I should have treasured that splinter of sky. Even though I’d never see the sky again it was still too pedestrian for me to take note of at the time.

After removing my helmet and letting my curls free, I sat down and strapped in. The space suits were mostly for show. We had to keep them close during launch, in case of emergency, but most of us would never need to wear them again, provided all went well.

“Hello, computer,” I said, wondering if the system would be as cold as the prototype.

“Hello, Margarita Pavon.”

“Are you ready for lift-off?”

“Nearly. Just accessing a package left for me.”

“What kind of package?”

“A few … memories.”

“I won’t bother you, then.”

“Thank you.”

The ship jolted and rumbled a little, but it wasn’t the shake and shimmy of lift-off. With everyone aboard, consortium aides could now roll our shuttles back into the bay. A faint grinding of the hangar doors signaled the end of loading—and the end of my time on Earth.

Soon we would be shooting off into the stars.

The ship went quiet for a while. Almost everyone on Mira would face the lift-off alone. It would have been nice to have Nika nearby to share the moment with, but I suppose Father thought this was a good time for individual reflection and contemplation. That we would all like to meet this new life in our own, private way.

Father wasn’t always right.

A tremor vibrated up my spine from deep in the ship. Then there was a roar deep in my bones, and I knew the external cyclers had come to life.

My room shook dramatically. Luckily everything was either bolted down or tightly secured.

I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to hold myself still. There was a giddiness in the pit of my stomach, like the kind I got on a rollercoaster anticipating that first big drop. The ship rattled like it was going to fall apart.

Everything will be okay, I told myself. No need to worry. These ships were the safest spacecraft ever built.

Yeah, tell that to the team that blew up when they tried to go subdimensional.

No. I wasn’t going to think about that. No point in panicking over a fluke. This was a great moment, epic and intense, something I’d been looking forward to since I was old enough to understand what was happening and why I was so special. My silly fears weren’t allowed to spoil the splendor.

I had talked to lots of people before we boarded, and they were choosing to watch the launch via their implants. It was the last time we were going to be able to access that kind of real-time data from Earth. And sure, watching it from the outside while being inside was impressive. But I wanted to experience it all live, all in the moment.

A billow of wind whipped up the dust outside my window, obscuring the ground from view. And then there was a slow, intense thrust. The pressure pushed me deep into the jump seat, and I closed my eyes for half a moment.

The shaking stopped as soon as we were free of the mooring and into the sky. I knew we weren’t speeding away—the g-forces were little more insistent than those on a car chugging down a highway—but I felt like a giddy kid on a fair ride nonetheless.

I opened my eyes again. Up, up we went. Past the birds, the clouds. Past mountain peaks and into the paths jetliners usually took (all rerouted to give us plenty of clearance, of course). We drifted higher, and higher. Iceland shrank away, then all but disappeared. I could see the North Atlantic and the Greenland Sea, despite impressive cloud cover. And then two coastlines pushed in from the periphery of my window like darkness pushes sight into tunnel vision moments before you faint.

The sky changed colors, became a blue haze as we passed out of the atmosphere, and black space swamped in around the edges of the planet.

It still amazes me that something so expected can be so simultaneously surreal.

The artificial gravity kicked in seamlessly. Using gravitons to create gravity where there is none is a much simpler process than trying to use them to cancel out the existing pull of something like, I don’t know—a planet. As such, I didn’t actually notice the transition from real Earth grav into simulated. It wasn’t until a few more minutes had passed, with Earth still falling away, that I even considered it.

And once I noticed the gravity I couldn’t un-notice it.

I had watched every single recording of spaceflight in existence. The launches, the landings, the missions—I was familiar with each of them, inside and out. Watching the astronauts bounce around inside cramped, equipment-filled cabins was my favorite part. That, and seeing the panicked look on some space tourists’ faces when they experienced zero-g for the first time.

Weightlessness used to be part of space travel. Not anymore. The twelve convoys were the first to employ simulated gravity via harnessing and aligning gravitons. The cyclers were a wonderful invention, and—don’t get me wrong—would make permanent living in space much easier to handle and safer all around, but I couldn’t quite wrap my head around being in space without free-floating.

It wasn’t as though I’d expected to float, but it was all part-and-parcel of my space fantasy. My space ideal.

Perhaps I could convince one of the mechanics—oh, excuse me, engineers (they don’t like being called ships’ mechanics)—to take me out on a spacewalk.

Outside, Earth was a beautiful blue ball decorated with wisps of white and streaks of green and tan. It grew smaller by the minute. While it slipped away, a funny feeling—a clod of emotion—formed in the pit of my stomach. It was filled with compacted and compressed sentiments I wasn’t ready to deal with, so I pushed it down further, hid it somewhere deep inside myself to be handled later. All I wanted to do was focus on meeting space with a fresh outlook. I wasn’t ready to dwell on all I’d left behind, or that my home planet was no longer my home.

The light in my room shifted from a cool, crisp, natural blueish-white to a lovely shade of purple.

We were about to go subdimensional.

My hands shook as I reached for my helmet and fastened it back on as quickly as I could. It was a silly thing to do, really. If something went wrong with our subdimensional shift a space suit wouldn’t save me. But the uniform gave me some comfort, no matter the illogic of it.

While consciously I would experience time as I always had, my body would experience something very different. It was about to move sideways through time as easily as I could move sideways through the room.

The easiest way to explain it is that the “time” part of space-time is like an ocean. Normally, matter travels on the “ocean’s” surface, like a boat moving at a specific rate across the waves. Subdimensions are like underwater currents. A diver can find a fast current beneath the surface and be propelled much farther than the boat, while exerting less energy.

That’s how a convoy—the diver in this scenario—can effectively harness faster-than-light travel without reaching speeds anywhere near that of light. It’s a handy-dandy little physics hack.

And, if that same diver wanted to go really deep, in order to catch the really fast currents, they’d need a submarine to guard against increasing PSI. We need a subdimensional bubble, created by the SD drive, to protect us from the peculiarities of subdimensional submersion.

Because that’s the thing about physics—it doesn’t like getting hacked.

Our classes on subdimensional space travel had suggested myriads of possible physical side effects that might occur when “diving.” Nausea, elation, déjà vu, the sense that we were walking backward when actually walking forward, stretchiness—whatever that was supposed to mean—the illusion of floating. On and on.

I told myself I could handle it. Whatever was about to go down, I could deal.

My fluttering heart suggested otherwise.

The monitor embedded in the center of my bookcase turned on, displaying a shot of the Moon.

Grimacing despite myself, I waited for some violent indication that the ship had gone sub. I don’t know what I expected—more rattling, perhaps feeling pulled or squished like putty. Something extreme to indicate that I was messing about in pieces of reality I didn’t normally mess about in.

I closed my eyes again, afraid that if I didn’t they might pop out of my skull.

But then the light on the other side of my eyelids turned soft once more and lost its purple hue. A mellow chime of success came through the comms system. I opened one eye. Everything looked normal. Nothing distorted, no melting clocks or wiggling walls. Nothing changed strange colors or lost its density. It all appeared unaffected.

And then we were in! The view through my porthole had turned a starless, inky black.

The monitor replayed our transition—the thirty seconds before the dive through the thirty seconds after. And, oh—the Moon! It was there while simultaneously not being there. It flickered once, jumping a distance of millions of miles in a moment, then it came back (though, of course, we had jumped in time, not it through space). Instead of seamlessly floating by, it shifted more like a time-lapsed photograph—one frame blended into the other.

It had a ghostly quality to it. Quite literally: if we had chosen to travel through the moon, we could have. That was one of the great discoveries about sub-d: the nature of these newly found partial dimensions was actually hidden in the greater dimensions. In picking apart time we could occupy the same space as other matter. Even though I understood that intellectually, I was still glad we’d opted for going around. My anxiety was already in high gear as it was.

I looked at the monitor once more, to find there was nothing there. All of the moon’s odd behavior had taken place in a few seconds, and then it winked out. Space went black, starless, and we were officially in our SD bubble. Visible light could not penetrate, sound could not penetrate, most radiation could not penetrate—the only way we could communicate outside of our bubble now was with SD information packets. And that in itself was no small task.

The feed to the screen repeated. They’d replay the dive over and over again for a while—because the effect was so stunning, or because it confirmed that our conversion was a success and we were all still alive, I wasn’t sure. Probably a bit of both.

I watched it a few more times before my chip phone, now entirely contained to our internal network, indicated I had a call.

“Yes?”

“It’s Nika.”

“Where are you?”

“Outside your door. Let me in.”

I was so enthralled with this new reality that I’d failed to notice the safety light above my door had turned from red to green. I could unbuckle and walk about.

“It has a buzzer, you know,” I said, getting up. “A doorbell.”

“How was I supposed to know you were in? I half expected you to be running up and down the halls by now.”

Skipping, I thought with a smile. “Did you see that transition?” I pressed a button and the door slid aside. “It was spectacular.”

Nika leaned casually against my doorjamb with her hands in her pockets, and gave me a funny look when I moved aside for her to enter. “Guess what?” she said, “The air here is breathable and everything.”

“What? Oh.” I still had the space suit on, helmet and all. She came in and helped me slip out of it.

When I and my party dress were free, Nika leaped onto my bed, bouncing a little as she looked out the window. “Trippy, huh?”

“No kidding.” I crawled up next to her and sat crisscrossed.

“So. Here we are.”

“Yep.” I nodded and bit my lip, watching the last of the moon fade from view. “Here we are.”

“You ready for it?” she asked.

“What?”

“This.” She gestured all around. “Our new lives.”

I shrugged. “I guess. The place—outer space—is new, but has that much really changed? I’m still a communications officer. I’ve been doing that for the past five years. You’re still a historian.”

“Archivist. I’m officially an archivist now. And diplomat.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yep. When we bring all the info on LQ Pyx back, I’ll be the one to interface with all of Earth’s bigwigs.”

She hadn’t told me that before. “Wow. You’re our representative, then?”

“Only when we go back.” She lay flat on the bed, with her hands tucked behind her head. “Too bad I won’t really be there. But, hey, I like being an archivist just as well. It’s easy, it’s fun. I mean, how lucky are we? To get handed our dream jobs from the get-go?”

I knew exactly what she meant. “I get to send the first crew report in five days.”

“Exciting. How many days is that for them?”

“About … forty-eight and a half. Give or take a few hours.”

“Oh, right.” She was quiet for a long minute.

“What are you doing?”

“Calculating how much time goes by for Earth each minute.”

“Nerd.”

“We’re all nerds,” she said, smiling. She shook her head. “Anyway. They’re setting up a great party down in the mess hall. Everyone’s shuttling over from the other ships. I came to get you.” She sat up and punched me lightly on the arm. “Better take good notes. You’ll want to detail every moment in your letter back home.”

We left the room and headed down the hall, still chatting about our jobs. “Do you know who you’ll be exchanging notes with?” Nika asked.

“Oh, you mean my pen pal? Yeah, I did some training with him. Biterman, remember? He taught me a special shorthand, since only so much info can be packed into one subdimensional signal package. Maximized my possible output. Obviously it’s not just him and me communicating, it’s all of us and all of them. We’re just the translators, in a way. There are plenty of other notetakers aboard—journalists. I’m just the one who has to compile everything.”

“Fun.”

“Oh, come on, you know it is, Ms. Archivist. We’ve got copies of millions of primary documents, and no one to stop us from accessing them. Your own personal historical playground.”

On Earth, people could only access rare documents under special circumstances. Not just the originals, but even the DNA-storage copies, since the tech to build and decode the molecules was still new and expensive. In order to read an artificial DNA strand and retrieve the encrypted information, you had to destroy it—which meant you better have the tech on hand to replace it. But we used nearly the same processes for cloning as we did for reading and replacing our databanks, so it was all there for us. Snap, nothing easier.

“We’ve got a wealth of information the average Earth layman can’t get ahold of,” Nika concluded.

And there was a reason for that. We might have old primary documents, history, but we’d be getting very little new information for the duration of the mission. We had no internet, no way to dial up an expert whenever we had an obscure question. If the information wasn’t coming with us, we likely weren’t going to have access to it—and even if I could ask mission control, we definitely weren’t getting a timely or detailed answer. Our only available communication method simply wouldn’t support it.

“We’ve got the information, plus,” Nika said with a grin, “we’ve got the brains to use it.”

“Going intellectual elitist on me already?” I winked at her. Of course she was an intellectual elitist. We all were. Nothing strokes the ego quite like being told from birth that you’ve been chosen for a fantastic mission because, frankly, your genes are better than everyone else’s.

Nika laughed.

We knew the layout of Mira like we knew our faces in the mirror. Part of our training had included two isolated years aboard, cordoned off from everything and everyone except the other ships. Mother and Father and a few instructors had stayed with us for the test run, though, to make sure everything went well. We proved we could be self-sustaining, and that we could handle the isolation.

So we walked down the corridors unerringly. It was just a few hallways, a couple of turns, and an elevator ride to the mess hall.

Yes, decorations were something we had. Yes, booze a plenty, too. Strange, I know. When we were teenagers we’d all taken bets on what they would deny us aboard. Anything distracting we were sure was out: no porn, no implant games. Drugs were something we all had on our lists. No alcohol, no cigarettes, and no caffeine.

But we were delighted to find out how wrong we’d been. Nothing illegal made it onto the manifest, of course. But we had plenty of luxuries—plenty of vices.

There was one noticeable difference between the items that made it aboard and those that didn’t, however. If it wasn’t reusable or renewable, it wasn’t there.

We could grow our own chocolate, though, like the other luxury plants—coffee, tea, etc.—but quantities were limited. We still had to ration it.

You’d never have guessed we were rationing anything at the party. And to be honest, sustainability was the furthest thing from our minds that day. We were strutting out into the galaxy, with our whole lives ahead of us. What could one day of indulgence hurt?

Before then, that party, everything had been controlled for us. If we were ever allowed alcohol before, it had been doled out by someone. Controlled by someone. Our intake of sweets, dyes, and artificial flavorings had all been regulated. We were each in the best of health, had no addictions, and no bad habits. But it wasn’t of our own choosing.

The party was a raucous mess before it hit its first hour. We’d never experienced such freedom before. No one to tell us no, to sit up straight, to stop yelling, that making out with your supervisor while sitting on top of the cake was a bad idea …

As with a lot of children who find themselves loosed from parental chains for the first time, we didn’t know when to quit. Though we were the kindest, most empathetic group of genes you could ever find, feelings were bruised and faces soon followed.

At some point Nika disappeared toward her quarters with a botanist she liked. “Go find someone and have a little fun,” she giggled at me on the way by. “Or I can stay here and you can try to convert me.”

“You’re not my type.” I stuck my tongue out and winked.

“Oh, I am. I am so your type,” she said.

She was right. And if it were any other straight girl giving me lip, I would have put salt in her next cup of coffee. But this was Nika—the sting was only skin-deep—so I just brushed it off and planned to embarrass her in front of her new bunk-buddy every chance I got.

Many of my friends followed her lead, slinking off with their significant—or not so significant—others to have some private time.

The hours stretched on, and the more bottles that were opened the more fist fights broke out. Turns out alcohol makes a boxer of the gentlest of souls. Insults flew. Someone broke someone else’s nose and forced the medics to set up a makeshift first-aid station. The soberest of the group found themselves unfairly playing nanny to those that had overindulged.

Me? I was all about the dancing. Brawlers to the left of me, criers to the right, and me in the middle doing a horrible rendition of a dance that was supposed to be done to marimbas. But I couldn’t care less about supposed to’s. I just flipped the hem of my skirt back and forth, remembering the way my mom used to shake her hips in the kitchen.

We were rowdy and uncouth, elated and hot-tempered.

And until a sharp whistle blew and a loud order was barked, we hadn’t realized that the bridge crews weren’t celebrating with us.

Captain Mahler demanded attention. When he walked into a room, it fell silent. Even at that party, high on life, as soon as we knew he was there, we shut up.

There was Mother and Father.

And then there was the Captain.

“Having fun?” The question was clipped … and rhetorical. He took to a table near the entrance, climbing atop it like a man who’d just conquered Everest. Several members from his command team stood by the doors.

There wasn’t anything malicious in his voice, nor in his stance. But I did feel like I was about to be reprimanded. His sharp, dark eyes projected a smug understanding. He wasn’t disappointed, or angry with us. But the unspoken message was clear: you can’t control yourselves, and that makes me better than you. It was as if our drunken displays were an illustration of the very reason he was in charge of this ship and we were not.

In a sense, Mahler wasn’t one of us. He was an original, not a clone, and one of only a handful aboard. His illustrious military career (if one can have an illustrious military career in a time of global peace) had gotten him a direct invitation. Why on Earth he’d accepted, no one was sure. He had to leave everything he was born for behind.

But he had. As had a fair few of those in command. I took another look around and realized no one partaking in the festivities was from Mahler’s division. I knew the captain of Bottomless quite well—he wasn’t around.

All of the captains were with their ships, of course. And all of the command crew were at their posts. They had jobs that needed attending to while the rest of us fooled around in the mess.

I looked up at a clock on the wall—five hours had flown by since the party began. Captain Mahler had to have known about it long before his appearance. He let us have our good time, indulged us. But now he was here to remind us it was time to face responsibility.

“I want this place spotless in an hour, and everyone in bed no more than fifteen minutes after that,” he said. “All who participated in the merriment must participate in the cleanup. If anyone does not contribute, there will be consequences. I expect everyone to report for duty at 0700 tomorrow. You’ve all heard of hangovers, and by tomorrow many of you will be intimately familiar with one. This does not excuse you from duty.”

He scanned the room, laying his eyes on each of us. “There’s a time and place for everything. Today was a momentous day, one we’ll all remember—the first half of, anyway.”

Uncomfortable laughter cropped up here and there around the room, but dropped off almost immediately.

“It was a day worth celebrating—and we have. Now, though, we must focus on business. The business of setting up our society, engraining it in ourselves. You led different lives on Earth—sheltered and formal lives. I understand the desire to break from those constraints. But there was a reason for your well-regulated upbringing. The training wheels have come off, but that does not excuse you from duty, or dedication, to your positions aboard these ships. We must take pride in our stations, in our commitment to each other. In responsibility.” He looked at his watch—an antique piece, perhaps an heirloom. “All right, your hour starts now.”

I lunged at the pile of soiled cake-plates nearest me, and dropped them into the compost chute on my way to Nika’s room. I hadn’t a clue what the punishment for not cleaning might be, but Nika would never forgive me if I let her endure it.

Besides—I sure as hell wasn’t doing this by myself.

Days later, it was time to compose my first message home.

I.C.C. sent automated messages back all the time. Short snippets of information about functionality and position, but that was it. I had to tell Earth about us—our societal status, our functionality, any major events, and any major problems. I had to keep mission support abreast of all that was happening.

There were three main communications rooms on Mira. One was part of the bridge and was used for ship-to-ship. The second was on deck six, and was a mirror image of the comms centers on all the other ships. That was where most of the “reporters” worked out of, gathering the data that I would then compile. The last sat on the lowest deck opposite the shuttle hangar—more of a closet than a room, what with all of the equipment stashed inside. It was well guarded, and only I and my cycle partner—the person who would take over when I retired, and in turn train a new clone of myself—had clearance to enter. It was where all Earth-to-convoy messages came in and went out. Inside stood a small desk, a small chair, and a good-sized server bank which extended beyond my sight and back into a long access tunnel beyond.

I called the servers my Enigma Machine, because all of their computing power was focused on sending and receiving coded messages. The messages came via a time subdimension we had yet to figure out how to physically move through. But even if we didn’t fully understand it, we could send information through it just fine—better than fine. It was the fastest communication method known, and would ensure us practical mission-to-mission support communications for a long time.

While the system was fast, it was also limited. For one thing, my Enigma Machine needed a mate back on Earth in order for my messages to actually make it to a set of human eyeballs.

For another, SD communication was comparable to SD travel, which meant is was equally as problematic, with a few exceptions. An SD drive made a pocket of “normal” space around itself and nearby matter, protecting it in a bubble. And the drive could independently move that pocket in and out of normal space; in other words, it could dive and surface. But SD communications couldn’t work that way—there was no physical engine I could attach to an encoded electromagnetic signal. Instead, there was a part of my Enigma Machine that created a bubble of its own and forced a dive, and a twin Enigma Machine on Earth that pulled the communiqué to the surface and coaxed the bubble to pop.

And the two machines had to be synced. The odds of randomly intercepting an SD packet were astronomical—pun intended. The Enigma Machine on the receiving end had to know which subdimension the information was traveling through, what trajectory it took through space, and how to unravel the “skin” that maintained the bubble once the packet was intercepted.

“Not exactly a ham radio, is it?” I’d joked the first time a teacher had introduced me to the concept. Unamused, she’d gone into further detail about how difficult SD communication was, and how I should be honored to be one of only a handful of people trained to use the methodology.

So, honored I was.

The system was fast, yes, and complicated, yes, and a huge energy suck, sure. But despite its advanced nature, it could still only handle so much data at a time. And by so much, I mean not a lot. So once the message was transferred to my implants or a holoflex-sheet, it needed further decoding, and that’s where my job could truly get tricky.

I smoothed the front of my clothes, making sure nothing bunched uncomfortably. My official on-duty uniform was a well-tailored, denim-blue jumpsuit. Not the most stylish of work-wear, but it distinguished me from the black of security officers, the vermillion of the engineers, the Italian-yellow of the emergency medical teams, the purple of the educational division—and everyone else who wasn’t in communications.

The color coding had been Mother’s idea, though I heard Father was against it. Thought it was too much like gang paraphernalia or something.

Well, if the botanists and the microbiologists ever start calling themselves the Sharks and the Jets, and go snapping in unison through the halls, we’ll know he was right.

In the days previous I’d gathered my notes, made my summaries, and translated them into the special shorthand. Of course, five days in, there wasn’t much to report.

People were working, doing their jobs well. Though, to me, the convoy still felt more like a clubhouse than a well-oiled machine. We were free, after all. This was our house—it was only fair we should make our own rules, rather than be confined to whatever our parents had set up.

If it hadn’t been for Captain Mahler, I’m sure entropy would have taken over and pulled our presently functional feet out from under us. We wanted time off when we wanted it. We wanted to switch shifts whenever we felt like it. We wanted to set up bowling pins in the halls and use inappropriate items to knock them down.

We just wanted to have a little fun. And despite the lesson we had learned the morning after our first party, our sense of responsibility was shaky at best. We didn’t know how to balance work and play—not yet. If the captain hadn’t had such a watchful eye the convoy might have ended up dead in the proverbial water.

Big Brother was watching, though. With the help of I.C.C., he made sure we ate our vegetables and washed behind our ears. He knew, better than the rest of us, that no Mother and no Father shouldn’t mean a lack of order.

So that’s where we were—but was I going to tell Earth all that? That they’d sent a wannabe frat house into space? And that their one hope for stability—after all the effort they’d put into that very concept—rested on a single man?

Hell no.

And, after all, it had only been five days. Surely it was just a phase.

I was conscious of the dangers of the dynamic while wanting to be a part of it. I had no desire to follow the strict regimen that had been set up for us, but I also didn’t want to see the mission flounder and fail. It was a strange dichotomy of concepts that somehow lived harmoniously within me. I simultaneously supported and denied our collective rebelliousness.

But I pushed all that from my mind as I tucked my holoflex-sheets under my arm and headed for my closet. I was to report the facts, just the facts, nothing more.

The space was as cramped as I remembered it from our two years of isolation. We’d simulated everything during that time. I’d done this job before. It was nothing new, and yet … everything had changed.

We’d left Earth behind. We were on our own. Truly.

I wanted to leave the door open, as I’d always felt a little claustrophobic in the communications room, but the two nearest security guards kept peeking through the door—very distracting. So I shut myself in. And once again, I wished the room had a window. Luckily, it wouldn’t take me long to send the report.

I connected the thin, plastic holoflex-sheets to the server and organized the message into SD packets. It shouldn’t have taken me more than ten minutes to get everything squared away.

However, halfway through my upload the server connected automatically to my implants.

[Message received. Sender: Earth Com Center 23, operator Saul Biterman]

I was supposed to send the first message. Was something wrong? I scanned my instruments: there was no emergency indicator. Had we miscalculated the time dilation? Was I late?

I was a little annoyed. I’d trained for this my entire life, how could I have messed it up already?

The message downloaded in the next moment, and I transferred it to a blank holoflex-sheet I pulled from a desk drawer. I wanted to see it all at once, be able to manipulate it. Sure, there was no need to translate it holographically—I could translate it in my head while reading it—but I wanted to have a physical record in case it was something I needed to take to the captain.

Turns out, it wasn’t something Mahler needed to see.

It was short, and a bit confusing.

It read simply, How are you?

That was a strange thing for him to ask. I was about to tell him how we were—no need to be preemptive.

But maybe he wanted an impression of our well-being, something besides a record of events and functions. So I whipped up one extra packet and uploaded it with the rest.

We’re fine, thank you.

I finished my upload, gathered my notes, and went about the rest of my day attending to my journalistic duties. But, benign as the question seemed, I couldn’t get it out of my head.

How are you?

Saul and I had worked closely, but never gotten personal. Like a grade schooler never really gets to know her teacher, I never learned much about Saul as an individual.

Age wasn’t a barrier, neither was language. But there were other extenuating factors.

For one thing, I didn’t meet him until the summer of my twentieth year. Everyone else had already met their specialists, and since I was one of the last to get my official training, I was both nervous and excited to receive him in the drawing room of my group home.

Buttoned up tight in a pressed suit, I sat in one of the high-backed chairs trying to focus on my posture. I wanted to make a clean, professional impression when he was shown in. With one look at me I wanted him to think I was the right person for the job, that I could handle the responsibility.

It wasn’t just paranoia or an eagerness to please—Nika’s mentor had gone to Mother to ask if she had the right student. If that had happened to me I would have been mortified.

Father came in first and held the door open for Mr. Biterman. I leapt to my feet—before he even had time to glimpse my well-planned pose—and my hand shot forward of its own accord.

It wasn’t until we’d finished our initial shake that my mind registered anything about him. The first thing I noticed was his sticky palm, and my first impression swiftly snowballed from there.

His dress shirt was stained at the bottom—as though he’d dropped food in his lap at some point—and wasn’t tucked in. Despite the smile, his face held a sour expression, one I feared permanent. And his eyes didn’t meet mine. Saul was only ten years older than me, but he’d gone prematurely bald, and to make up for it he’d grown a thick, unkempt beard.

I resisted the urge to ask Father who this man was. I knew he was my tutor, despite my desire to believe otherwise.

We were formally introduced, then Father indicated for us both to sit before he left. I’d hoped he’d stay and help break the ice, but he rushed out of the room muttering that he was late for another appointment. I wondered if that was really the reason, or if Mr. Biterman’s company was as off-putting as his appearance.

I smiled, crossed and uncrossed my legs, and literally twiddled my thumbs waiting for my specialist to outline a plan, or start a lecture, or whip out some comm equipment.

Saul might have been alone in the room for all he acknowledged me.

“So …” I began. Slowly. I’d hoped he’d interrupt me. When he didn’t, I pressed on. “Do I get a syllabus, or a prospectus, or … Do I need to ask Fath— Dr. Matheson for certain books?”

He reached into his trouser pocket and dug around for a moment. His mining produced a crumpled scrap of yellow paper. Without a word he handed it to me by means of an unenthusiastic flip of his wrist.

Hesitant, I leaned over and took it. The scrap was clean, at least—no food stains. Glancing sidelong at this strange man I’d been saddled with, I smoothed it out in my lap.

It was a scribbled schedule for the next week, with dates, times, and places, but no indication of what was supposed to happen during the appointments.

Once I’d read it over, I looked up to ask him a question, and was startled by the silly smile that had replaced his indifference. “Well, see you tomorrow, Ms. Pavon,” he said, as though we’d just finished with a delightful visit.

That was the first of many awkward times with him. It took me months to get used to his strange mannerisms, sudden disconnects with now, long silences, and a plethora of other quirks.

I was baffled, at first. And also a little insulted. Here was a man whose expertise in communications had landed him one of the most important tutoring positions in the world—he was training ambassadors to space (myself along with seven others—three on different convoys), and would be his students’ main connection to Earth once they left the ground—yet he couldn’t hold a normal conversation.

If anyone other than Mother or Father had brought Saul into my life I would have thought it a colossal joke.

But, like a good little soldier, I held in my doubts and accepted the training. As it turned out, Saul was a capable teacher. He taught mostly through illustration and hyperbole rather than pontification, which I appreciated. And when it came to his work he was quick and accurate, but it wasn’t until I advanced to decoding on my own that I realized why he had the job.

While the man couldn’t smoothly string five words together in person, he was a whiz when it came to communicating long-distance. Without all of the physical cues to get in the way, with the words stripped bare, he was the most articulate man I’d ever met.

The difference was so apparent that when he came to grade my first solo decoding work, I asked him who had written the message.

“Me,” he said, looking up from the many red marks he’d already placed on my paper. His brows didn’t knit together, he didn’t frown or squint sideways at me like a normal person would when trying to decipher the implications of what had been said. But by that time I could recognize his special brand of confusion.

“I know you coded it.” I walked around the large warehouse space with my hands in my coat pockets. We’d been allotted one corner for training, and for housing the server and other equipment. Other machines I had no name for—utilized by other convoy departments—took up the three remaining corners. “But who composed it?”

“Me. I did it all.” He went back to marking the page, each stroke of the pen more vehement than before.

I’d insulted him, and I tried to make up for it by inviting him to drinks with my friends and me after our session, but I should have known better. He declined with a lame excuse, but I’m sure his reasons for turning me down were twofold. His anger was a part of it, but how exactly was a man who couldn’t relax and behave naturally one-on-one going to get by in a group? If I made him nervous, what would a whole gaggle of girls in a crowded bar do to him?

But I kept trying. From there on out, every time I had a group activity planned after our lessons, I invited him. I hoped at some point he’d say yes. I thought maybe if he spent time with more people he would get better at communicating in person, but it wasn’t to be. Saul was who he was, and I couldn’t change that.

So, perhaps his first message to me on Mira shouldn’t have surprised me so much. The man I worked with closely on Earth, but never really knew, waited to reach out to me until I was stretching the distance between us to never-before-achieved proportions.

His reply to my first set of data packages was mostly what I expected: acknowledgment of the incidents I’d recorded, other Earth specialists’ professional advice related to my report, and questions about the crew’s health and productivity. But tacked on at the end was a full letter, clearly meant for me personally.

A portion was general-interest based. Saul thought we might want to know what Earth was up to. We’d been gone two weeks travel time, around four months their time, so not much had happened. Not enough to take note of, anyway, but I transferred the information to a file and sent it to Nika’s implants. She’d know what to do with it.

Throughout the second half of the letter, though, Saul told me about his work week, how he was feeling, and so on. Things friends talk about. Close friends.

I wasn’t sure what to think, let alone how to respond.

In all that time I’d been trying to get Saul to open up I’d thought him disinterested. I thought perhaps he didn’t want to come with me after lessons because he just didn’t care to get to know me. That maybe he didn’t like people, just words.

Could he have been holding out for this? For when he’d be most comfortable?

It seemed ridiculous, but as acquainted with his awkwardness as I was …

Before he’d signed off, he asked me the same question again, but made sure to come to the point:

How are you, Margarita? The convoy is fine, but are you?

The question bothered me. Other people would see these messages once he’d decoded them. They were public record. I didn’t really feel comfortable laying out personal information. He wasn’t asking how are you in the sense that you ask when meeting up with someone, when an obligatory “Fine” can mean anything from fantastic to I feel like crud.

He was asking me to confront my mental state. As though he knew I had not stopped to assess my own adjustment.

How was I? Did it matter?

I decided it didn’t. I gave him the same fine response, and sent the packets on their way.

Over the next few months, his messages were similar, and the differences in the way we were each traveling through time’s dimensions became more distinctive. While I was contacting him every week, he was only speaking to me once every couple of months. And his life was moving at speeds I could hardly comprehend.

A few of my days after launch, he’d gushed about a colleague. A woman, who apparently wouldn’t give him the time of day. After three weeks of my time, they were dating.

That in itself was a shock. Saul Biterman with a girlfriend? Highly improbable.

Two months into my journey, he was engaged. I couldn’t believe it. Who was this woman who had fallen in love with my quirky, socially-stunted tutor? Had he grown so much since I’d last seen him, or did the old saying about odd ducks hold true?

I blinked my eyes and he was married. Another blink and there was a baby on the way. I blinked a third time and the baby had been born—a boy.

I hadn’t been on board six months yet.

But four and a half years had passed for Saul and his family.

After his son came into the picture, things changed faster than ever. I hadn’t realized how quickly babies progress, and it was breathtaking to witness a child’s life on fast-forward.

Sometimes Saul even sent pictures. It was hard for me to accept that they were all of the same child.

And every time, Saul asked me how I was. Or pushed for more personal information. I always answered with fine. I didn’t see the point in giving him more.

Things that hadn’t bothered me during the test run—those two years we’d been quarantined aboard—began to pick at my nerves. I couldn’t stand to look at the cleaning robots when I’d hardly noticed them before. I even chased a wall-climber out of my cabin when it accidently knocked an old paper book off one of my shelves.

The walls felt closer than they had before, the hallways narrower, the rooms darker.

Living aboard for real was not that dissimilar from our test years—not physically, anyway. But psychologically I was in a completely different place.

It took me a while to realize it, but most of my free time was spent in front of my window, or on Eden when I could get permission.

Eden is the animal ship. It feels more like Noah’s Ark than anything. There aren’t pairs of every kind, but there is a small breeding stock of food and comfort animals.

Back on Earth I’d never been particularly fond of animals. I wasn’t one of those girly-girls who loved kittens and horses and wondered if maybe I’d rather be a veterinary expert than head communications officer. And it wasn’t the puppies or the cows that attracted me to Eden.

It was the special lighting and atmosphere. Eden looked like a light bulb from the outside: nearly spherical, but with one long protuberance. The protuberance held the docking bay and offices.

The bulb itself was split into two halves, each with its own gravitational direction; the ship’s center was down for both sections. Instead of decks segmented into cabins, each domed half was again halved by a giant see-through wall, and consisted of wide open spaces. Four zones for four climates: temperate and subarctic shared one half, arid and tropical the other. The temperate zone was filled with grazing pastures and spiraling terraces. The tropical supported a lush rainforest—though rain fern-garden might have been more appropriate, as there were only a handful of trees and numerous kinds of knee-height foliage. Arid was a red desert, spotted through with hardy plants and several oases. And subarctic was more tundra-like, really, with its short grasses and twiggy bushes.

The biodomes were themselves impressive, but the real wonder of engineering on Eden was the sun.

In testing, it had been proven that without exposure to the sun fewer animals were conceived, fewer came to term, and fewer of the live births survived to adulthood. Lamps didn’t work with the animals like they worked with the plants. With plants, as long as the chlorophyll got fed, they were happy. The animals needed more. They had to think they were outside, under the sky.

And that’s why I visited Eden. Just like the comfort animals, I would wither without it. I chose the temperate quarter, found a cow-pie-free spot in the pasture—next to the base of one of the terrace ramps—sat back and closed my eyes.

It was the little touches that made it feel real. A light breeze brushed my cheeks. The smell of fresh grass filled my nose. Bird song—piped in through hidden speakers—flitted through the air, accompanied by other background noises. Those, added to the warmth of the artificial sun, all blended together to complete the illusion. After drinking it in with my other senses, I let my sight back into the game. The sky held amazing depth. Though I knew where the domed ceiling physically lay, it felt like it went on and on for miles.

The bright orb of the artificial sun was just as difficult to look at as the real thing. It appeared to travel across the dome, even receding slightly as it made its way toward the horizon, implying a greater vastness than the ceiling actually possessed.

A curious calf came over to check me out. It made a silly, high-pitched version of an adult moo, and let me pat its nose.

That was when I realized I missed Earth.

When I’d been cooped up during the test years, I’d always known I’d go home again. That I would run in the fields again, stand on the rocky Icelandic shore, and stroll down the village parkway.

These nine ships were the whole of my reality from now on. Not only in terms of the area I had to explore, or the atmosphere, or the company, but also in terms of flow.

Children aren’t born and off to school in less than a year. That’s not right, it’s not real. If I ever chose to raise a child, he would not magically transform before my eyes as Saul’s son had.

We were separate—severed—from Earth in every possible way. It was a memory, and I found myself missing things I had been eager to leave. Father, Mother, all those who watched over us. I hadn’t been ready to receive my independence. Had anyone?

I cried then, with the baby cow nuzzling me and the pseudo-sun shining down on both of us. Homesickness was not something I’d ever had to contend with before. And it was something I simply had to learn to get over, because home was lost to me forever.

On my way back to my cabin I tripped over a vacuuming robot. I cursed and kicked it, though it only buzzed and beeped an error message in return. “Stupid machine.”

The depressive mood was not mine alone. The sparse news from Earth contributed to our sense of detachment, and most of the updates we received were negative—new conflict in South America, a tsunami in Asia, a devastating earthquake in Europe. And when Saul told me the littlest convoy had been lost, I didn’t know how to react. One of our twelve, completely gone.

But, after we hit our one-year anniversary, and the first new babies had been successfully tube grown, the unthinkable happened.

We had our first suicide.

“Mags! Margarita? Margarita, let me in!” Fists banged on my door and panicked cries stabbed through the walls. I woke up startled and disoriented. It took me a moment to place the voice as Nika’s.

My fumbling brain knew something was off before I made it through the dark to open the door. It wasn’t just the alarm in her voice; she hadn’t called me on my implants, and was ignoring the door’s buzzer.

“Lights,” I demanded of the room. I met my friend with a terse “What?”

Tears flowed down her puffy cheeks, and her lips trembled. I’d never seen Nika cry before, and these weren’t typical bad-day tears. Something horrible had happened, and she was near hysterics.

“He, he—I just found—I—” The hiccups started, and she couldn’t get any words out.

I pulled her inside, sat her down at my small table, and pulled the comforter from my bed to throw around her shoulders. Without asking I made her a cup of tea in my kitchenette and plopped it down in front of her. She barely acknowledged the mug.

Gritty sleep rimmed my eyes. Rubbing it away, I pulled up a chair beside Nika. When the hiccups stopped and her breathing steadied, I prodded. “What’s wrong?” I’d never known Nika to get unduly emotional. If she was upset, things were bad.

“I went to go see Lexi. I couldn’t sleep. He was working the night shift and— Ooh, God.” She let her forehead fall to the table. “He’s dead.”

Had I heard right? “How?” I lowered my head to her level. “Nika. What happened?” Lexi was an engineer, and Nika’s biological cousin. I thought maybe there’d been an accident, that some of Mira’s machinery had caught him. Never in a million years would suicide have crossed my mind.

But that was exactly what had happened. Lexi had hung himself deep in the bowels of the ship.

“What does it mean?” Nika asked. “Weren’t—weren’t we screened for this? We share genetic code. If he can kill himself …”

“No,” I jumped in. “You couldn’t. It won’t get that bad.” I put my arms around her, but knew we couldn’t sit there. We had to tell someone—the captain. “Nika. He’s still there, isn’t he?”

“I couldn’t touch him. I saw and I—I ran. He’s still there.” The realization that she’d left him hanging in his noose disturbed her, and she fell apart again.

Nausea made my stomach boil. The situation hadn’t hit home yet, hadn’t grabbed my emotions yet. Which meant now was the time to act, before I became a puddle like Nika.

I’d have to report this to Saul.

At the thought, I was instantly ashamed, embarrassed. But now wasn’t the time to think about that, so I pushed thoughts of later duties aside and helped Nika to her feet. “We have to let the security officers know.”

“I left him there,” she mumbled. “I ran and left him there.” She felt like a rag doll in my arms.

I’d thought to drag her to the security offices near the bridge, but she’d fallen into a stupor. Nika stared into space like she could see through the walls. My best friend was in shock, which meant I was left holding the bag.

This seemed like as good a time as any to give the convoy-wide security alert system a spin. I activated it via my implants, choosing the officers only option. A red light blinked at the edge of my peripheral vision, letting me know the alert had gone through. Immediately, I second-guessed the action. Perhaps I should have left Nika alone in my apartment and gone to the bridge myself. Maybe this didn’t constitute a convoy-wide emergency—or did it? It was our first death, and it was as unnatural as they came.

“I.C.C., are you there?”

“Yes. You have activated the—”

“I know. There’s been … Nika’s cousin …” I couldn’t get the words out.

“You are hyperventilating,” the computer observed.

I was—my hands were going all tingly.

“Close your mouth and inhale slowly through your nose.” I.C.C. was clearly more concerned with my present state than why I’d used the alert system. I wasn’t sure what to think of that. Wasn’t sure what to think about anything, actually.

Security officers busted through my door like they were performing a drug raid. My apartment-for-one became a sardine-can-for-twelve in under two minutes. The officers separated Nika and me in an instant—thinking a domestic dispute, I’m sure. It took me a few minutes to assure them we weren’t the problem. They were overly eager and hopping, as unsure in the execution as I was in the concept, but itching to do their duty, to solve whatever the problem might be.

Unfortunately, the hubbub pushed Nika into silence. I couldn’t get the exact location out of her, and bringing up Lexi’s work agenda from the cached files only told us he was scheduled to perform routine maintenance. So they left me to attend to my poor friend while they scoured the ship’s innards for a body. It took me a moment to realize our big mistake—we had all forgotten to ask I.C.C. for help. I.C.C. would know where he was.

“I.C.C., do you have Lexi’s location? Please direct the officers.”

“I will. Your breathing has normalized.”

“Thank you.”

Stupid. So stupid. I.C.C. should be programmed to alert us to this kind of thing. We shouldn’t have to stumble upon it. Privacy be damned.

Like everyone in the convoy, I knew Lexi, if only on the level of acquaintance. He’d seemed happy whenever I saw him, but I’m sure I had seemed happy to him, too.

The shrinks saw the event as a tragic failure on their part. They sent out emergency psychiatric evaluations and made sure everyone had an appointment to meet one-on-one with a doctor.

They assigned me to a session with Dr. Yassine. A nice enough guy, if a bit fidgety. Forgive me if I think doctors who work with people on the edge should be calm, collected, and stately, but if I were ever on the fence about killing myself, I think Dr. Yassine’s inability to sit still would have driven me to it. I almost got up and grabbed his hand to stop his pen from tapping. Almost.

He wanted me to “explore myself verbally.” But when you don’t feel comfortable with someone, it’s not easy to open up. I didn’t want to “explore” with him. It’s not that I had a problem telling him what was going on in my head. It was just that I knew it would be a lot more helpful for me to share it with someone else. Someone specific.

I resolved to stop telling Saul I was fine when I wasn’t. I hadn’t seen the harm in keeping my emotional distance before, but now … Keeping up appearances wasn’t worth crumbling inside.

So I made my next report ahead of schedule, and tacked on a letter for Saul. I told him everything. How I was feeling. How I was coping with the suicide.

How I was sure there would be more to come.

I wondered—in writing—about purpose. Mine seemed obvious enough. But what about the others? We’d created false purposes for them—something to keep their DNA busy until we reached the anomaly. The engineers hated being called mechanics because that’s not what they wanted to be. Nika was a historian, a diplomat, and that meant she needed to be working with people and their history. As noble as she made archivist seem, it wasn’t who she was.

Saul made all of it seem okay. He reminded me of the mission. How Earth was counting on us. We were brilliant scientists, doctors, inventors, thinkers, and Earth had given us up for a greater purpose.

I was looking at things too narrowly, he said. That our purpose was in the journey, in experiencing life as humans had never experienced it before. I found our situation—locked in tin cans hurling through a vacuum—boring, depressing. He said the people back home found it wondrous. That my messages were now studied all over the globe.

[You can’t see the forest because you’re a tree] he’d sent. [A tree might ask, Why do I grow here? Why do I produce cones instead of fruit? Or, why must I lose my leaves when that tree stays ever green? If you could show the tree how it fits into the forest, how it provides so much to the greater being that is the forest, what might it think of itself then?

[Show them the forest, Margarita. The trees are dying because they don’t see the forest.

[P.S. I have a daughter now. I named her after you. People have been naming their children after you voyagers for years now, and probably will for centuries to come.]

The metaphor might have been heavy-handed, but it and his postscript were exactly what I needed—what all of us needed.

But it took six months and three more suicides for me to take action. And I regret that to this day. As a member of the governing board (all department heads had a place in politics) I had a duty that far exceeded my station. But I was still so new to independence that I had yet to grasp my authority. I was basically a kid trying to be an adult—to be a leader. They had trained and trained and trained us until I could recite leadership principles in my sleep, but in the end, a person also has to want to be a leader. To rise to the occasion. I only wish I had found my place sooner.

I couldn’t change the past. But I was pretty sure I could change the future.

I put in a personal request to see the captain. In later years that would have put me on a waiting list as long as my arm. Back then I practically walked in.

Entering Captain Mahler’s situation room, I lead with the holoflex-sheet. In my eagerness to prove a point I’d forgotten to salute and do our introductory dance. Nothing like starting out on the wrong foot when you’re trying to save your entire community from emotional collapse.

He sat at the head of a beautiful marble slab, the kind that made the most intriguing tombs and best kitchen counters. Green, with beautiful flecks of gold and iridescent carbonates, it was out of place. Almost every portion of the ship was metal or plastic—carpeted floors being the major exception. But the ship designers had wanted to give us little pieces of nature wherever they could—maybe they’d known better than I had how much we’d miss such things when they were gone.

The holoflex-sheet plopped in front of Mahler before my clipped greeting met his ears.

Five sentences into my rehearsed speech, he cut me off with a violent, chopping of his hand. “To whom are you speaking?” he said through a clenched jaw.

The question tripped me up, as it was meant to. “Uh …”

“As you did not address me, I can only assume this flippant diatribe is meant for someone else. Yet I believe we are alone.”

It was then that I realized both my mistake and that I was intent on preaching to the choir. I’d come to him to talk order and systems. To discuss individualism vs. hive mentality. I wanted to argue for the very thing the captain hoped for: militant commitment to the group’s goals over individual wants and needs.

Immediately I backtracked, saluting at attention, barking out my station and my purpose, addressing him in the manner he deserved to be addressed.

“Sir,” I began again. “We have a distinct disconnect between the command team and everyone else. We are not a military convoy, but neither are we civilians. I believe this message from my Earth contact illustrates our problem. Most of us are wandering around in our own little worlds. The members don’t see how the pieces fit, and I believe that to be the source of our convoy-wide depression. We need to rethink how we think, if you will.

“We were each taught how special we are. As individuals. Yet, for some reason, we weren’t taught that the group is special. That devotion to the group is required for success. Yes, we were instilled with devotion to the mission, to the anomaly, but not to the convoy and each other.

“We need a better sense of community, and at the moment I can think of no better way to bring that about than to change the way we do things. I know there was a plan, and that it was supposed to ensure our stability, but it won’t work. Father—” this was tough to admit, but I swallowed and pressed forward “—Father was wrong. He wanted a ‘be all you can be’ attitude, when what we need is a ‘be all we can be attitude.’”

Mahler passed his hand under his chin, scratching it lightly, clearly weighing my statements and considering his first words on the matter carefully. “I wasn’t supposed to address this until the elections. Matheson and Seal didn’t think we’d have any suicides at this point, but things seem to be moving along faster than expected. Whether that’s problematic or all for the best will make itself clear eventually, I’m sure.”

“Sir?”

“The suicides were expected. Not planned—don’t give me that look. Just planned for. They were built into Matheson’s equations, and he figured if we had fifteen or so suicides in the first five years that would actually strengthen our society—much in the way you suggest.”

Flabbergasted, my mind went blank. I couldn’t even be sure I’d heard him correctly, let alone understood. “Sir, may I sit?”

He gestured toward a spot near the other end of the marble slab, but I took a seat at his right hand. “Are you saying Mother and Father knew some of us would die this way? That Lexi and—?”

“They didn’t know who, but they had guesses. Matheson’s calculations indicated a rash of suicides was inevitable, but that the tragedy would give us an opportunity. Misfortune can have many different effects on large populations. It can drive some into chaos, but the more empathetic the group, the more emotionally aware the individuals are of the other individuals—”

“The more likely they are to band together,” I finished for him, nodding. Instead of at my captain, my gaze bore into the far wall where a blank screen hung. We were a forest, trees in the forest. “Some conifers need fire in order for their seeds to germinate,” I mumbled. Turning back to him, I asked, “This is our forest fire?”

“Yes. That’s a good way to look at it.”

“But, why didn’t they warn us? Why not prepare us?”

He stood and began pacing. “Is anyone every really prepared for tragedy? They did warn us. They told me, and I was to inform the board once the elected half was in place.” The hard lines of his face were covered in stubble—I’d just noticed. Unusual, for Mahler anyway. He preferred to be clean-cut and well pressed at all times. This must have been weighing on his mind as much as it had been weighing on mine.

“But, elections won’t be for another six months. We were told exactly what must be done the first two years,” I said. Eventually we’d be able to make our own laws, dependent on whatever social problems cropped up. We could deal with them our own way, but not yet. For the first few years we had to follow our orders to a T, even when it came to civilian government.

Our board right now only consisted of the department heads and their appointed seconds. Only once we hit the two-year mark we were to set up elections whose winners would comprise the second half of the government.

“I know—believe me, I know. But now that you’ve brought it up, I don’t think we can wait until we have a full board,” Mahler said. “I can’t wait for our timeline to match the original. If the suicides are happening now we must take action. I was waiting, hoping …” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. We are going to use these deaths as a rallying point, as an educational point. We’re not going to let the mission fail.

“We just have to work out how.”

I left the captain feeling simultaneously giddy and nauseated. Saul had been right. We could fix this. There was even a plan to fix this. We would band together and be stronger than before.

But at what cost? Matheson had sacrificed these people. Sacrificed Lexi and those still to kill themselves. Not directly, of course—he didn’t go through their files and say “You will die. And you will die. And you will die.”

But he might as well have.

If he’d informed us this might happen—that in all likelihood, according to his societal projections it would happen— we could have stopped it. Lexi might have thought twice before hanging himself.

Even worse, our psychologists and psychiatrists had known it was coming. They’d seen it in Lexi, they just hadn’t been able to do anything about it. They weren’t allowed to tell our modest security detail about pending problems. It made me wonder if that was why Dr. Yassine had been so fidgety. Because he knew, but hadn’t been able to do anything. It was only after something bad happened that they could act. We had to change that. No one’s hands should be tied when it comes to saving a life.

We operated that way because that’s the way many Earth societies operated—they didn’t respond to potential tragedy, only actualized tragedy. Once we could make our own laws we needed to abandon those ways. We were no longer bound to Earth by its gravity, why should we remain bound by its customs?

Perhaps my line of thinking was exactly what Mother and Father had planned for. This sense of outrage, this desire to band together to prevent more catastrophes. Despite what it meant to the little personal freedoms we had.

It didn’t prevent me from hating our mentors for not telling us. But I also found myself admiring their strategy and planning.

Again: nausea and giddiness.

My duty and my humanity were at odds, but I let them settle at opposite ends of my brain. I needed both to survive in this new encapsulated world.

I reported our progress to Saul. Told him we’d discovered a new portion of our societal design and now had to decipher how to implement it. He responded with a thumbs-up emoji and a picture of him and his family.

His son was fourteen. Saul himself was going on fifty. He looked so old. Not because fifty is old, but because in my mind he was still in his thirties.

How could he be fifty? How could his life slip away so quickly? Intellectually, I knew all was as it should be. He wasn’t living his life at a rapid-fire pace, I was simply seeing it through a long-range lens. But I still felt a gaping maw of loss in my gut, still wondered if I was ready to let Earth move on without me—without us.

I was starting to realize that all we really had up here was each other.

A few months later, the elections came and went. Before then there were more suicides. There were a few after, too, but for the most part a sense of togetherness was starting to pervade the ships. The votes reflected exactly what Mahler had thought they’d reflect—a convoy-wide sense of pride in our mission. Those elected were the most duty-bound in the fleet.

We outlined a new education system. Emphasis would be put on unity. To shirk responsibility would be the worst possible offense. Honor, pride, synergy—all important. Our children would grow up knowing community came first.

After another year and a half I fully committed myself to upholding those ideals. I met a nice woman, Chen Kexin from food processing. I knew the lesbian and bisexual population aboard was small—about the same percentage as in the gen-pop on Earth—and had previously resigned myself to possibly never finding a suitable partner. I’m so glad I was wrong. We dated for a while, then decided to make our bond permanent. We settled into a quadruple cabin and put in for a clone.

They decided to give Kexin and me a boy. His name would be Reginald Straifer II.

When we finally got the news, I was so excited to tell Saul about the baby that I forgot what day it was. I forgot that this was the last time I’d speak formally to him.

Saul had reached his seventieth birthday and decided it was time to retire. He reminded me with a preemptive data packet.

[Looking forward to your last message. I’ve included pictures of my son and his wife on their wedding day. And my little Margarita. She’s getting her advanced degree in chemical engineering.]

The bottom dropped out of my elation. I didn’t have a picture of Reggie to send, because he hadn’t been officially born yet. He was still gestating on Hippocrates.

I put in my report, and included a diagram of our new teaching processes that included community appreciation. I skimped on the data a bit, more consumed with my personal message back.

[Tell me this isn’t goodbye], I sent, [I want a picture of you and your wife, Saul. And I’ll send a picture of my son as soon as he’s birthed. Let someone know to forward it on to you. Tell them I want an update from you every few months—Earth months—okay?]

I couldn’t believe it. Seventy. So much of his life, gone. It had blazed past. He’d been my constant these past few years, my Earthly touchstone, and now it was over. Over too soon.

Earth was slipping away. Home was slipping away. Even if we turned back now, the world would not be as we’d left it.

We were aliens now. Nomads in uncharted territory.

And that was exactly how it should be.

The next message I received from Saul was truly the last. He had a heart attack two days after composing it, and his replacement sent it to me.

The message opened with a cheerful introduction and greeting from the new guy. A stranger. Someone who didn’t know me and never would.

He saved the bad news until the end. There was the message from Saul, and a short blip after: [Mr. Saul Biterman, deceased]

I couldn’t believe it. He would never see my son.

A picture came with the packet, just like I’d requested. The last picture I’d ever get of my friend.

I transferred it to a ‘flex-sheet and took it back to my cabin without entering a copy into the archives. This was just for me. I hung it on the wall, between pictures of me and Kexin, and me and Nika. I saved a spot for Reggie right beneath. Everyone I loved would find a place on this wall. We’d all be together in memory.

Afterward, I retrieved a worn, blue envelope from between the pages of my favorite book—the biography of Arthur Scherbius—curled up in a chair, and finally read the letter Father and Mother had left for me so long ago.

CHAPTER THREE
JAMAL: BALANCE

TWENTY-SIX YEARS LATER
JANUARY 3, 30 YEARS POST LAUNCH DAY (PLD)
2415 CE

“Hellooooo,” said Jamal in his small, sing-song voice. “Computer, helloooo.” The eight-year-old bounced a soccer ball on his knee in front of the access panel. He was supposed to be in class.

“Hello, Jamal,” said the ship’s AI.

“Do I get a new baby brother today?”

“My records indicate that your parents will jointly travel to Hippocrates during their lunch hour to retrieve the next available, fully-gestated clone.”

The boy tossed his ball at the panel and deftly caught it on the rebound. “But is it a brother?” Computers could be so dumb. He’d make them smarter when he grew up.

“The next available clone is that of Nakamura Akane. Her original earned a doctorate in engineering and ship design from the university of—”

“A sister?” Jamal kicked the ball down the hallway. “You’re giving me a sister?” He knocked his forehead against the wall and scrunched his eyes shut in frustration. “Why, computer? What did I ever do to you?”

“I am not in control of the growth patterns. And I had no influence over when your parents submitted their request.”

“Mr. Kaeden?”

“Ah, great,” Jamal grumbled. Through the hall came Dr. Seal, his teacher, carrying the scuffed soccer ball. “You had to tattle on me, too?”

“I do not tattle,” said I.C.C. “Dr. Seal inquired as to your location. You are here. I related such.”

“Thanks a lot, Icey.”

“I.C.C.,” the computer corrected.

“Ice-C-C,” Jamal stuttered. Not so much because he couldn’t say it, but because he hadn’t expected his first attempt to be contested.

“Closer,” I.C.C. conceded.

“Oh, come now,” said Dr. Seal, standing over the boy. “Sometimes children have a hard time with names. We let them use what’s easiest.”

“But they are made to pronounce names correctly when they are not children anymore,” I.C.C. said.

“Yes,” Dr. Seal admitted.

“Then is it not easier for them to learn the correct pronunciation initially? Being told one’s first efforts are acceptable, only to later find out they are not, makes the acquisition of knowledge and skills unnecessarily difficult, regardless of the subject. Why make Jamal learn my name twice when he should only be asked to learn it once?”

Dr. Seal didn’t say anything, just looked down at Jamal with a “can you believe this thing?” crease in his forehead.

But Jamal was with the computer. Yeah, why the heck should he have to learn something twice? What kind of racket were the teachers running?

“Thanks for telling on me, I.C.C.,” Jamal said, articulating every letter.

Brushing off the AI’s quirkiness, Dr. Seal put a hand on Jamal’s shoulder. “Mr. Kaeden,” he said sternly. “You are supposed to be in class.”

“You are, too,” Jamal mumbled.

“Jamal will have to cohabitate with a sibling soon,” I.C.C. explained. “The fact that he was not consulted on its gender seems to have caused him distress.”

“I’m getting a sister,” Jamal said with a pout.

“Sisters are people, too,” said Dr. Seal as he took Jamal by the hand and led him away from the access panel.

Nobody understood. The other kids just made fun of the poopy diapers in his future, and all the grownups either waved aside the problem or seemed mad that he was mad.

“But it’s a girl,” he tried to explain.

The botanist who had come in to educate them on their classroom air garden scrunched up her face. “I’m a girl.”

His ears turned from dark chocolate to strawberry chocolate. I didn’t mean … Ugh. “Yeah, whatever,” he mumbled. “You’re not a sister.” Even if you are, you’re not my sister.

When class finally got out he knew where to go. If anybody in the convoy could understand, it would be Diego.

The ride from Aesop and school to Mira and home could have been spectacular. The convoy had stopped for a few days to check their calculations—which meant they’d popped their SD bubble, and space wasn’t black and empty like normal. It was full of stars.

Extra shuttles swarmed between the main ships, letting the crew take full advantage of the view. On the first day of the stop, Jamal’s teacher had taught class on Holwarda and they’d used the giant telescope. Best. Day. Ever.

Now, if Jamal touched one edge of a shuttle porthole, graphics popped up to label the nebulae and galaxies and systems and stuff. So the ride home could have been cool. But the other kids were loud and pushy. And they talked about dumb things—boring things.

They swapped math riddles and stories about visiting their future workplaces. A favorite game was my mom’s job is better than your mom’s job. Which was silly, because everyone knew his mom, his aðon, had the best job, so why play?

They played the same stuff over and over. Talked about the same stuff over and over. Normally he’d be all for it. Eventually someone would suggest something new, and they would carry it like a banner through the shuttle until the game or rhyme or nickname became stale.

But he could find no comfort in the ritual of tomfoolery today. Who was Tom and who did he think he was fooling, anyway?

It was a phrase Diego used. Apparently he’d taken part in plenty of it during his school days. But, maybe Diego didn’t remember being a kid right. After all, it’d been a really, really, really long time since he’d been to school.

School back on Earth. School on Iceland—which Diego insisted wasn’t really a land made of ice, but Jamal had his doubts.

Jamal blew on a small portion of the window. It didn’t fog up as nicely as the bathroom mirror, but it would do. He drew funny squiggles until a ball hit him in the side of the head.

“Hey, what the—” He picked up the projectile, which had bounced off the seat in front of him and rolled under his feet.

“That’s yours,” said Lewis, moving from three rows forward to join Jamal at the back of the shuttle.

“Sit down,” demanded the shuttle pilot. Thank I.C.C. the pilots rotated. Otherwise Jamal was sure this guy would eventually open the airlock and let the pressure differential suck them all into oblivion.

Lewis stuck his tongue out at the driver as he plopped down next to Jamal. “It’s yours. I got it back from Dr. Seal when he wasn’t looking.”

“Thanks, man.” Jamal propped the soccer ball up under his arm and returned to staring out the window. His fog-drawing had disappeared.

“Are you ready for the brat?”

Jamal shrugged and sighed, “No.”

“It wouldn’t be any better if it was a brother. When my parents brought Duke home I thought it’d be awesome. That we could play catch and pull pranks and stuff. He just gurgled all day and threw up on my favorite blanket. Babies suck.”

“But eventually she won’t be a baby. She’ll be a girl. And then what?”

The possibilities horrified him, vague as they were.

When he got home he was surprised to see his aðon and pabbi there by themselves. No baby. His hopes rose for a moment. Maybe they’d changed their minds. Maybe they weren’t going to get a baby after all.

His pabbi kicked that fantasy out from under him. “We thought you’d like to come,” he explained. “We rescheduled for tomorrow and excused you from class.”

“We didn’t want you to feel left out,” said his aðon from the bedroom. She was changing out of her work jumper.

He didn’t feel left out, but he wanted to be left out. If he never had to see his sister it would be too soon. They were making a big, fat, ugly mistake. Why’d they want to go and ruin their perfect family with a sister, huh? Weren’t the three of them enough?

He dropped his pack in the entryway and slumped over to the dining table. “Can I go visit Diego when he gets off work?” he asked after he sat down, picking at his fingers and swinging his feet.

“Sure,” said Pabbi. “As long as he says it’s okay. If he’s busy you come right home.”

Diego was Jamal’s afi’s—his granddad’s—best friend. Jamal would never say so out loud, but he liked Diego better than Afi. Afi only liked old people things, and more importantly, only things right in front of him. He had no imagination.

Diego, though … Diego knew how to dream while still awake.

Jamal impatiently watched the minutes tick away. Diego’s shift was over at 1600, and he should be back at his cabin no later than 1630. As soon as the last minute rolled over, Jamal was out the door and down the hall to the nearest lift.

He had to wait a whole ’nother five minutes before Diego got there. Jamal sat in front of the old man’s door, knees up to his chin, feet squirming in his shoes.

“Que pasa?” Diego squinted at Jamal when he got close. “Someone have a bad day?” He was dressed in the corn-yellow of most Morgan workers. Short and heavyset, but fresh-faced for someone in his sixties, his ruddy wrinkles made him look like he’d been basking in the sun all day, though he hadn’t been anywhere near the artificial Sol of Eden.

Jamal shrugged, suddenly aware that his complaint might come off as whiny. “How was your day?” he asked politely. Something about being around Diego always made him feel more polite.

“Fine. Figured how to make the soy processing more efficient. My original designed the system, you know. I just made it better.” Diego opened the door. “I was going to watch a movie this evening,” he said as the lights came on. “You might find it amusing. Coming in?”

Diego’s quarters didn’t have as many rooms as Jamal’s. He’d said it was because he didn’t need them. “Only one of me. Can’t take up a family cabin anymore. Wouldn’t be right.”

The place smelled like beans and cheese. Diego checked his slow-cooker (something only food workers typically had) in the kitchenette, then came back to the main sitting and sleeping area. “How’s the new baby? Problems already? If you liked it you wouldn’t be here.”

“No baby yet,” said Jamal, crossing his arms. “They’re gonna take me with them when they get her.”

“Ah. That’s nice.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Oh?”

Jamal shrugged. “Decided I don’t want a sib. ’Specially a sister.” Diego laughed lightly and Jamal took immediate offense. “You, too? You don’t get it. Why doesn’t anyone get it?”

“I’m not laughing at you, amigo. I’m enjoying the simplicity of your problem, not that it is a problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve figured out how to live in space and investigate cosmic phenomena up close. But we still haven’t figured out how to make a new brother appreciate his sister. I had a sister, you know.”

“You did? But, you were born on Earth. Was it another clone?”

The old man shook his head and gestured for Jamal to have a seat. “Nope. My sister was born the old-fashioned way. She did not accompany me on the mission.”

“What’s ‘the old fashion way’?”

Diego’s face went blank for a moment, then he waved the question aside. “Never you mind. My point is, I felt the same as you, or at least similar, when I was told I’d be sharing my parents with a girl. Anita. Oh, I hated the idea. I considered running away and abandoning my duties if my mother went through with this whole giving birth thing.”

Jamal gasped. Abandoning your duty was about the lowest thing a convoy member could do. The thought of it made him sick inside. “You did?”

“Considered, I said, considered. I didn’t, of course. I stuck it out. The baby was born, came home, and then … guess what?”

Jamal pursed his lips. “What?”

“I was just as upset with the baby there as I was when she hadn’t been around. But I got over it, eventually. You’ll learn to like being a big brother. You’ll get excited when she learns to walk and talk. But you should never hold her gender against her.”

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