Gliese 581

by Christine D. Shuck

  Jia was a dreamer, an artist. She didn’t possess a mind for the sciences. No wonder she dreamed of escape to Hong Kong.

  “I wish I could go with you,” she whispered, “but Mama, she would forbid it.”

  Cheng gave his favorite cousin a quick hug, “Someday Jia, someday.”

  Once back at the house, Cheng changed into regular clothes and finished packing while the women burned the funeral clothes in the courtyard.

  His aunt and Jia would take most of the furnishings, and he had no need for anything else within the house.

  “Perhaps Jia could come for a visit when she is on break from school,” he suggested, smiling at the excited look on his cousin’s face.

  “Perhaps,” said Wang, her face shuttered and expressionless.

  Cheng’s heart thudded. Poor Jia.

  “If you need anything, Auntie, Jia, just call me and let me know.”

  It felt awkward, the last string of their connection cut now that his mother was gone. His aunt nodded woodenly, saying nothing in return.

  Jia hugged him tightly, “I will miss you, my cousin!”

  The autotaxi was small, just a one-person affair, and he sat alone inside it, staring out of the windows. His chest ached not so much at the loss of his parents as at the loss of possibility. As infinitesimal as the chance might have been, he still had dreamed of a moment when his mother might accept him, not try to change him, and love him for who he was. And now, with both of them gone, he knew he would never have that moment. It was that loss that hurt more than becoming an orphan did.

  The trip to the airport took far longer than expected, after several sharp stops and starts, the autotaxi informed him that there were delays due to an accident far in front of him.

  He pressed a button on his Comm link and dialed Ang’s number. His lover answered on the second ring. “Cheng?” His voice was still thick with sleep. They both worked late shifts and it was a few minutes before the alarm was scheduled to buzz them awake.

  Cheng smiled for the first time in days at the sound of Ang’s voice. “I’m delayed, some accident or something, I might miss the plane out, but there is one last one that I should be able to catch.”

  Ang sounded disappointed, “I was hoping you would get home early, Dayezhu, my big wild boar, and we could try out these new sheets I bought.”

  Cheng’s grin grew wide. Ang always knew how to make him smile. Dayezhu, big wild boar, indeed. With his skinny bony body, he was anything but a big wild boar. Ang was a tease, exotic ice-blue eyes, a sensual mouth and a wicked sense of humor to go with it. Cheng couldn’t wait to fall back into his arms.

  His family, everyone except Jia, they didn’t understand him, not at all. He wouldn’t miss this city, and the loss of his mother and father in just the space of a few months hadn’t really sunk in yet. It felt like an odd emptiness inside. He had lost them long ago, when his inclinations had first manifested. Their deaths hadn’t affected him as much as the loss of their affections and approval had years ago.

  “I’ll call you when I’m at the airport. Love you.”

  “I love you. See you soon.”

  Accidents were rare these days, given that the automated vehicles had sensors which had a faster response time than any human. Cheng turned on the vidscreen, which immediately showed the cause of the accident far ahead, a vast number of people wandering in the road, and a line of cars slowed or stopped and unable to pass them.

  What normally took thirty minutes would eventually take over two hours to drive from his parents’ house to the airport south of the city. As the car inched forward, the wails of emergency vehicles echoed through the streets and Cheng stared out of the windows, watching scores of people lurching about, stepping into the roadway with little awareness of the danger.

  On the Hequn Road, near the edge of town, things changed ominously. Hequn Road was one of several popular night food markets. There were scores of stalls selling prepared foods, clothing and more. This was a popular destination. Cheng had often walked this area, enjoying the night life and especially the Si Wa Wa, a pancake with shredded vegetables or fish in sour soup. There were dozens of stalls, and many delicacies to choose from.

  Tonight however, as the sun dipped below the horizon and the yellow-tinged streetlights lit up the concrete, the crowds on Hequn Road were beyond anything Cheng had ever seen. There was an edge of violence and desperation in the air and the stalls were buried beneath the scores of hungry people. Some of the vendors were running, and not towards their stalls but away from them.

  Cheng watched an enormous soup pot fly through the air, empty. He flinched as it bounced into the road, causing the autotaxi to jerk to a halt once again.

  The city seemed to have gone mad. Beside the car the crowd pressed close and to the left a man reached up on a scrawny tree and began tearing handfuls of leaves off of the branches and stuffing them into his mouth. A group of women were fighting over a roasted duck, eventually tearing it to pieces, steaming chunks of meat flying while the vendor yelled at them to stop. Everywhere he looked he saw chaos, violence, and voracious hunger.

  He should have been disgusted, put off by the mindless eating and violence that surrounded him. Instead, he found himself craving hot pot, an egg cake his mother had made when he was little.

  “Perhaps at the airport,” he murmured to himself.

  The car edged away from the crowd, finding an expressway and finally picking up speed. Behind him the city seemed to scream in agony and confusion. Something odd was happening, Cheng didn’t understand it, but it terrified him. His flight was long gone by the time he arrived and he scheduled himself on a red eye departing five hours later, desperate to leave the city.

  Whatever dark cloud had descended upon the city of his birth, Cheng wanted nothing to do with it.

  The Final Cut

  “Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy – in fact, they’re almost incompatible; one emotion hardly leaves room for the other. Both at once can produce unbearable turmoil.” – Robert A. Heinlein

  Date: 11.20.2097

  Earth – Seattle, Washington

  Daniel Medry stood staring at the envelope. The news vid stream had been running coverage of the Selection Committee for weeks now, as the finalists had been selected.

  “Uncle Dan, look at me!” Toby aimed his skateboard down the ramp, with only a small wobble. He was getting better, more confident.

  Daniel smiled at him and waved, “Keep going, buddy!”

  As applicants had been slowly weeded out, letters had been issued, carefully worded, kindly phrased, and he had dreaded each day’s mail delivery, certain that he too would receive a polite “thanks but no thanks” printed on clean crisp white paper. The Selection Committee chose the National Mail Service for their notices, which now delivered via Autobot each afternoon.

  “You gonna just stare at that envelope all day or are you going to open it?” Luke asked.

  Daniel ignored him.

  “Dad! Did you see that?” Toby yelled from the skate ramp.

  Luke waved at the boy, “Yeah! You nailed it!”

  He turned back to Daniel, “I’ve been showing him those old vids of Tony Hawk and his grandson. You remember the ones we saw? The ones dad gave us?”

  Daniel smiled, his eyes still on the envelope, “Yeah, I remember.”

  They sent actual hard copies, not just emails or vidmails, which was the standard of the day. That choice, along with every other one the Selection Committee had made, was analyzed and vivisected ad nauseum by the news corps. Entire talk shows had centered on the leaked details of the selection process, including the decision to only send applicants whose IQs were demonstrably above the average.

  Luke laughed, “We were obsessed. We spent every day of the summer out here on this ramp, practicing, determined to do bigger and bigger tricks. Until I fell and busted my arm up,
that is.”

  Daniel nodded, “And I wouldn’t practice without you.”

  “You said it wouldn’t have been fair to practice without me. Instead we spent the rest of the year learning coding.”

  “Nah, you spent the rest of the year learning coding, little brother. I spent the rest of it chasing Vicki Fields.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like you all right.”

  Just the other day on The Informer, a morning newsvid that tended toward inflammatory reporting, they had released a series of secret videos that showed two of the Committee members toe to toe, screaming about God. Daniel smirked, The Informer was filled with jackasses who would twist a woman’s dying words into something deviant given the chance, but that vidcord had been especially damaging, resulting in calls for the Selection Committee to meet in a public setting.

  It wouldn’t happen. World Geographic, while political, still remained a private institution and the entire mission to the Gliese system was under its purview.

  Daniel ran his finger under the flap, slowly easing the paper envelope open.

  “I did it, I did it! Did you see? Uncle Dan, did you see?” Toby’s excited voice distracted him for a moment.

  “Yeah buddy, that was so cool!”

  “He sure does worship you,” Luke said, an almost envious tone in his voice.

  “If he saw me all day instead of you, it would be all about you, little brother.” Daniel reached out and punched his brother lightly on the shoulder.

  There had been protests, heated debates, and even calls for the government to intervene in the face of “obvious favoritism and elitism.” This had gone nowhere, and swayed no one on the Selection Committee by any great degree, who issued a statement declaring in no uncertain terms that if there were disagreements with the Selection Committee’s choices, those individuals were free to build their own ship, and man it in whatever form they chose. This sparked yet another round of protests and calls for additional missions, further filling the newsvids with controversy.

  Daniel felt the mass within the envelope, several layers of papers for certain. It wasn’t thin, it was thick. What did that mean?

  “Would you just open the damn thing?” Luke asked.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m getting to it.”

  His heart rate increased as he fumbled with the papers inside, slightly tearing the World Geographic embossed seal on the corner of the enclosed top page, his heart thumping a rhythm he could feel in his ears. The chance of a lifetime, an opportunity that would change his life forever, and one that would take him impossibly far from everything and everyone he had ever known – all of it lay inside of the envelope waiting to be unveiled.

  “Well?” came Luke’s voice.

  “Holy shit. I...I got in to the last round.”

  Inside of the envelope was a letter and an airline voucher, dated for early January 2098. The letter was brief and to the point. He had been conditionally accepted into the Gliese program and would undergo two months of training and the last rounds of evaluation. Just five hundred applicants had made it this far, and his chances were now 50/50 that he would be accepted. Out of nearly 852,000 applications carried through from the last round, he was now in the final lap!

  His brother clapped him on the shoulder, “Seriously? Damn, I would’ve thought that was like finding an iceberg in hell! What were the odds anyway?”

  Daniel smiled, the letter in his hand a victory of sorts, a promise of the ultimate adventure.

  “There were over thirty million applications submitted, with a total of two hundred and fifty actual crew member slots open, so my chances of being selected were one in one hundred and twenty thousand.”

  Luke whistled, “Damn, and they picked you?”

  “Very funny little brother.”

  Daniel aimed a thumbs up at Toby again as his nephew swooped up and twirled confidently, the skateboard becoming a natural extension of his feet.

  This park, named after the Swiss immigrant Ulrich Gabriel, who had owned an extensive farm and dairy herd, was home to so many memories. Here, in the days after his mother’s death he had skateboarded for hours, not wanting to talk to anyone. That had been a dark time.

  Years later, after the devastating loss of their dad, both he and Luke had slipped away from the house full of concerned neighbors and ended up here, wandering the wild part of the park, first in silence, and finally, near dark, with a plan. They wouldn’t be split up. The next day Daniel had filed paperwork with the court requesting emancipation and also requesting guardianship of his younger brother. The house was paid for, and there was a healthy amount of money they could live on for years thanks to Dad’s savvy investing.

  “This place, it never changes. It looks the same as it did when we were kids.”

  Luke didn’t respond for a long moment.

  “Do you think you’ll make the final cut?”

  “I hope so.”

  “Why? Why would you want to go? You would leave this all behind? All of us, your home, your family?”

  Daniel was silent for a moment, lost in the memory of that day. They had returned to the house, now filled with police and panicked neighbors. Daniel had credited the park with helping him remember what was truly important – his family.

  And now, a dozen years later, he was considering leaving them. Daniel struggled with the thought of it. It had all seemed rather theoretical before, a distant dream, but this was reality now. It was there in front of him, he had only to step on the plane and head for training.

  “Daniel?” Luke’s voice cut through.

  “I...I guess so.” How could he explain this to Luke? “I mean, damn, who knows what will happen at training, right? They’ll probably take one look at me and say, ‘Ah, hell no!’” He grinned at his brother, “I just want to be able to say someday when we are both old and gray that I tried. Y’know?”

  Six weeks later Daniel found himself standing in line in Florida, staring at the enormous hangars where he and the rest of the future crew were to train. He stood near the entrance to Cape Canaveral, bag in hand, the line of applicants slowly snaked down the sidewalk. He drank it all in, stunned at his luck.

  “It still feels unreal to me. What about you?” A beautiful woman, dark curls pulled into a ponytail, stood behind him. Her eyes were a soft gray.

  Daniel grinned at her, “Yeah, completely unreal. I’m Daniel, Daniel Medry.” He put out his hand.

  “I’m Sam.” Her grip was firm and warm. She cocked her head to a guy with a friendly gap-toothed smile. His brown hair was cut short and his face sported a short beard. “This guy here is Mike Deekins.”

  Deekins shook Daniel’s hand, “Everyone calls me Deeks.”

  “Nice to meet both of you.”

  Daniel, Sam, and Deeks talked, sharing information as the line inched forward. Sam and Deeks were both from the Alaskan Republic, separate now from the Reformed United States of America. The Republic maintained close ties with the RUSA as well as Canada. The Alaskan Republic was still sparsely settled, but they were fiercely independent.

  In the weeks to come, Deeks and Medry formed a close friendship, joined at times by Sam, and a petite, attractive Kit Tanner, who Deeks was instantly attracted to.

  Training and evaluations kept them busy, as did varying schedules and activities. As the weeks wore on, there was a steady stream of dropped applicants. Not everyone was cut out for space travel. There weren’t just tests of athleticism or physical health, but also psychological tests, and even several tests that pushed the boundaries of many individual’s deepest fears – claustrophobia, acrophobia, and more. Through it all, Medry and Deeks maintained, as did Sam, Kit, and a handful of others they grew to know well. Slowly, they were seeing their numbers reduced, edging ever closer to the final selection. There were, after all, only 250 spots to fill.

  Sam I Am

  “What a wonderful world it is that has girls in it!” – Robert A. Heinlein

  Date: 11.02.2101

  Calypso Col
ony Ship

  “Buy you a drink, Sexy Sam?” Deeks asked, a sly smile on his face.

  Daniel knew Deeks was full of it. The guy was so hung up on Kit Tanner that it was almost embarrassing. Apparently he needed to overcompensate by messing with Daniel at every opportunity. Deeks leaned against a deck support and winked at Sam. Medry gave his poker buddy a half-hearted scowl.

  Sam grinned back at Deeks and winked playfully at Medry. It gave him a jolt, and a touch of encouragement. They had interacted in a limited fashion since meeting at Cape Canaveral for training before departure, moving in different areas of the ship and performing different functions, but he found her fascinating and wanted to get to know her better.

  Sam shook her head at Deeks, “Sorry Deeks, I’ve got a full hour left on shift, and I don’t dare leave this guy unattended,” she said, crooking a thumb at Daniel, “you never know what he’ll get up to.”

  As the current head of the ‘Ponics Deck, Sam was in charge of producing all of the fresh fruits and vegetables aboard the spaceship.

  “I am surprised he hasn’t burned the ‘Ponics Deck to the ground.” Deeks said, grinning at Daniel.

  Sam laughed, “Well, I’ve hidden all of the incendiary devices on the Cryo Deck. It’s up to you to keep them safe, Deeks.”

  The food that they produced on board Calypso not only fed the crew but was also being continually tested and experimented with. Any successful new strains increased their chances at productive crops once they had achieved planetfall. There were multiple experiments going at the same time, as they tested out new species of plants that would grow in the twilight conditions of the meridian.