by Laura Lam
Naomi hesitated. “You need to scan me anyway, don’t you? Might as well.” She inhaled through her nose. “Don’t put it on official records.”
Hart pursed her lips. “Dr. Black will definitely find out sooner or later,” she said with a pointed look at Naomi’s still flat stomach.
Naomi said nothing.
“All right. Fine. Lie back.”
Naomi complied. She lay on the ergonomic cushions, hands at her side, staring up at the white ceiling. Hart lowered the door and the screen came over the glass, blocking the doctor from view. Naomi closed her eyes as the machine mapped out her insides. Eventually, the cover pulled back, revealing Hart and the too bright lights of the med bay.
Hart helped her up, and she projected Naomi’s body double on the white wall across from the autodoc. There were her muscles, her veins, laid out as if she had been flayed on the table.
Hart zoomed in on the womb.
There it was. A clear image; no grainy static of an ultrasound or strange, knobbly 3D scans. As big as a sweet pea. A tiny blob that looked like it could become anything. That early, a chicken and a human embryo were much the same. The bulbous, earless alien head, the lattice of veins like a leaf, the small buttons where the eyes would form. Nodules that would elongate into legs and arms. Its minuscule heart beat twice as fast as Naomi’s own. A small, doomed tail curled around the C-shaped body, an evolutionary leftover. All tethered back to her through the umbilical cord. An unexpected seedling that should never have been able to take root and could still float away like a blown dandelion.
Make a wish.
Naomi reached for Hart’s forearm. “The first day. The spacewalk. The radiation protection isn’t as good in the EMU. Could it…?”
Radiation was a sneaky thing. She remembered reading about the girls at the turn of the last century who dipped their paintbrushes into glowing green radium to paint watch dials, then licked the tip of the brush to a point to do it again, each watch face ticking away at the time they had left. They’d paint the radium on themselves for a lark, swirls of green along their skin, luminous dust shaken off their dresses at night. They were told it was healthy, and the radium girls glowed right up until their jaws disintegrated and they spat their teeth into their palms.
Hart put her opposite hand over Naomi’s, giving it a reassuring pat.
“There’s no need to tell anyone, is there?” Naomi asked. “It’s happened before. I didn’t make it past ten weeks. I’m—I’m meant to be infertile.” She kept her gaze even, her shoulders square. “There’s no reason to suspect this’ll be any different.”
“Well, at present, it’s healthy,” Hart said. “You’ve passed the window with the highest chance of miscarriage.”
Four to six weeks. Naomi glanced away from the tiny, pink-veined cluster of cells.
Hart turned off the projection. “If you don’t want to wait for a potential miscarriage, I can help you,” she said. “It’s your choice to make.”
Her voice held no judgement, as if what she offered wasn’t illegal in all fifty states. Women were meant to carry their first child and then be fitted with their IUD, with very few exceptions. Any subsequent children resulted in the additional child tax, which was at least six months of the average salary, and no birth bonus. Enough to financially devastate most families.
Naomi swallowed. “I’ll think on it,” she said. “Thank you. Do you need anything else from me?”
“No.” Hart’s eyes held pity Naomi didn’t want and wouldn’t stand for. “I have what I need for the reports.”
Naomi gave a curt nod and left. She made it to her room without coming across any of the others. She climbed back into bed, staring up at the ceiling.
She should have known better. That last night before they flew out to the launch site, she’d looked up at the moon, two hundred and fifty thousand miles away, and known she’d be going light years beyond it. She could have ignored his knock. She could have left it at that first kiss. Pulled back, softened her rejection with a smile and another sip of wine. The whole time, she’d known that it was a mistake to look for comfort from him. He was not hers.
But she was too much of a coward to spend her last night of her old life on Earth alone, counting down the hours and minutes until she flew out for quarantine and left it all behind. So she’d reached for him.
Another selfish wish.
CHAPTER TEN
61 Days After Launch
65 Days to Mars
188 Days to Cavendish
They gathered in the rec room to celebrate the Fourth of July and the fact that Naomi had successfully solved the problem of the algae. In the end, she hadn’t even needed to bioengineer the receptor.
She used evolution instead. She isolated the contaminated crops into hundreds of small samples with one cell of culture in each and waited. The spontaneously resistant cells did their work, and she isolated those cells and regrew. Three batches in a row had held. Even if it came into contact with the virus again, it was now immune. Life support was stable, and they had all the nutriblocks their hearts desired.
Naomi had scienced her way out of the mess, and she was relieved. And frustrated that she didn’t foresee the problem sooner. Cyanophages were common, and they should have been prepared for some form of contamination. Going forward, Naomi saw it as an indication that she needed to think through ways of systematically dealing with biohazards on the new planet. She wished she could be proud, but she was mostly sheepish.
Hart had stressed the importance of holidays, of carving out a routine, marking time. Otherwise, they risked a lack of varied stimulation, and everything would blur together. Naomi was already having trouble remembering what day of the week it was back on Earth.
On the Atalanta, the air always smelled the same, except for in the canteen or the greenhouse, and even that didn’t deviate day to day. The ship’s small bots sucked up the dust so it wouldn’t catch in filters and recycled everything back into the fertiliser. It was always the same temperature. When she’d been down in Antarctica, she’d been able to leave the compound, feel the bite of the cold. She’d been able to phone people back home, check the news regularly uploaded to their local server. She’d still understood the shape of events and felt a part of the world, even hunkered down at its southern pole.
But Earth was further away each day, and not simply in terms of distance. Headlines could not affect them out there, unless it had to do with the threat of Atalanta II on Cavendish’s eventual horizon. She’d skim the information Valerie disseminated from conversations with Evan, but it was difficult to spare it more than a second thought. It was callous, perhaps, but protective.
Naomi had continued to speak to Evan as she worked on the spirulina problem. They kept to practical matters. Naomi had also begun the vat-grown meat experiment, and she kept him updated on it. A corner of her greenhouse had been relegated to a Dr. Frankenstein lab. It wasn’t so different from growing plants. Prep the starter cells in the growth medium and program them to grow along their lattices—thin tendrils that would thicken into corded, artificial muscle within the incubator. Meat. It wouldn’t be much, but the few grams here and there would help bolster their protein and give a much-welcome break from endless nutriblocks.
Evan asked her opinion as one of his colleagues was looking into an outbreak of sickness from suspected wheat rust in local crops. She recommended the company where she’d done her first summer internship, Argaine.
That brought back memories of that summer between freshman and sophomore year. Those long days, fingertips growing calloused and dirt under her fingernails. The farmer’s tan on her arms despite the sunscreen. Walking down to the end of the farm to the gas station to buy an ice cold soda, holding the can to the back of her neck, her temples, before sucking it down by the time she got halfway back to the office.
Evan and Naomi were too stiff, too polite, aware that every word they typed could be read by anyone on the ship.
Hart had set the b
ackground of the rec room to a park—green grass and crusty barbecues next to wooden picnic tables, complete with weathered, carved initials in lopsided hearts. No matter the detail, it still paled compared to Naomi’s memories of past Independence Days—hot, sticky nights, the blaring of “Star-Spangled Banner” from old speakers, the smoke from the charcoal grills and spent fireworks tickling her throat.
Hixon passed her a plate. They’d raised comfortable chairs for the crew from the malleable floor of the rec room. Naomi stretched, her spine easing as it moulded to the shape of her back. The crew was marking the first meal made almost entirely from Naomi’s crops. An entirely nutriblock-free meal. Their protein was from some of their last packets of vat steak in gravy—her own crop of vat meat wasn’t quite ready yet—but they had a side salad of lettuce, spinach, and tomatoes, and potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes with rosemary. The salad was still peppered with ten grams of spirulina for an extra micronutrient burst, but at least they didn’t have to chew it in gelatinous form.
Hart pressed a button on the controls, and the fireworks began—bright carnations of red, green, blue and white flickering out, leaving a ghostly imprint behind. They were mercifully quiet. Naomi had loved the fireworks displays as a child but hated the noise—she’d always stuck her fingers in her ears, which did little to block out the gunshot booms. She’d turn from the fireworks and read the lips of the adults. She’d taught herself how, watching people speak about her when they assumed she couldn’t hear.
Naomi carefully layered a bite of steak, potato and salad on the tines of her fork. She tasted it, chewing slowly. Was it the best meal she’d ever tasted? No. Was it satisfying and palatable? Yes. The rec room filled with that reverent silence as the women ate and watched the silent fireworks.
Hixon had a smear of blue ink on her cheek, like another freckle. She liked to calculate longhand on a sheet from their precious store of paper using a particular pen—said it helped her think better. Hart noticed and leaned over, wiping the spot away. Hixon made a face but put up with it.
Lebedeva watched the fireworks with a half-smirk. “It is strange, to celebrate patriotism to a country that wants us behind bars for what we did.”
They all took this in.
“Did you ever feel patriotic towards Russia?” Hixon asked.
Lebedeva’s gaze went distant. Naomi thought she wouldn’t answer. “Once I did,” she said. “This is new for you—your country thinking of you as a traitor. Give it time. It gets easier.” She poured herself a glass of mint tea, clearly wishing it was something stronger.
Of the four other women on board, the Russian was the one Naomi knew the least about after more than sixty days in space. Lebedeva had struck up a friendship with Hixon, but kept the rest of them at arm’s length, preferring the company of machines. Naomi knew Lebedeva had spent time on the ISS, and not long after she’d returned, she’d left Roscosmos and Russia before landing at Hawthorne. Naomi had begun to suspect Lebedeva had been kicked out and forced to flee. She’d left behind a husband, but there seemed to be no love lost there. Valerie had ended up sponsoring Lebedeva’s work visa and scooped her up for Project Atalanta.
Dessert was berries, a sweet potato, and a scoop of peanut and hazelnut butter from their stores. Naomi really, really missed chocolate.
She picked up one of the raspberries with her fingertips, biting down on the sweet tartness, grinding the seeds between her molars.
“I’ve never been good at patriotism,” Hart said. “The U.S. was too big, too diffuse and diverse to really understand what it meant to be American. Was I proud of the good things we’d done? Sure. But I’m ashamed of a lot of other things. That we did. That we still do.”
“I used to be proud,” Hixon said, her mouth twisting as she stared at the remnants of her sweet potato. “In the military, I was honoured to have that flag stitched across my chest, representing my country. I was one idealistic little recruit, plucked right out of the cornfields.
“Took me too long to realise the country would rather I shut up, sit down. Don’t be too loud about who I loved. Move aside and make room for someone new. I already went to Mars—how selfish was I, to want to go up again?”
“They never said that to Cole,” Naomi said, thinking of him down there in the Crypt. Waiting to wake up. “They were constantly courting him to go back up.”
“Well, he’s straight, white, and has a dick.” Hixon folded her legs and rested her chin on her knees, watching the fireworks.
“He only got backup for this mission,” Naomi pointed out.
“Yeah. Guess they found Shane Legge shinier this time around. Cole still got on the ship officially over us.”
Naomi could say nothing to that. It was still strange to think of him down there. There and not there.
Valerie’s face had remained still throughout the conversation. “Forget America. Forget Earth,” she said. “We’ve got Cavendish.”
“We won’t for long.” A thought occurred to Naomi. “How does it even work, if we get there first? We’re not a sanctioned U.S. vessel anymore.”
“We can’t claim it,” Hart said. “I looked into it, out of curiosity. The Outer Space Treaty covers all celestial bodies, including the moon and exoplanets.”
“But,” Valerie cut in, “that means America can’t claim it either, much to their consternation.” Valerie poured herself more tea. “Cavendish is what space law called a res communis, or a thing belonging to all. Think of space like the high seas.” She popped a raspberry into her mouth. “No one needed to ask permission to move through it. So even if the Atalanta set down, and we plant a flag—whether American or one of our own making—officially, we would only have jurisdiction over ourselves and the ship. The ground underneath the base would still technically belong to all of humanity.”
“I like that,” Hixon said. “Don’t you? People owning or claiming land hasn’t exactly worked out well historically, has it?”
“America is still coming for us,” Lebedeva pointed out. “And we still stole American property.”
“They’re legally within their rights to reclaim their stolen ship, that’s true.” Valerie seemed unconcerned. “But it’s worth noting that not every country has agreed to the treaty or ratified it into law, and the UN isn’t terribly strong anymore anyway. It’s difficult to enforce things from ten and a half light years away. I can’t imagine it’d be worth the effort as long as we’re not building a military base and planning to attack Earth.” She drained the last of her tea. “If we could make Cavendish our world entirely,” Valerie said, leaning forward, her face animated, “if we could build it from the ground up, set the rules for everyone, how would you want it to function?”
“You’re asking us to build a utopia?” Naomi asked.
“Sure. Thought exercise.”
“No such thing as utopia,” Lebedeva said. “People mess it up.”
“Or one person’s utopia usually means someone else’s dystopia,” Hart agreed.
“Come on,” Valerie said. “Try, at least.”
They thought about it as the fireworks kept up their slow dance.
“Well, if the ground belongs to all of humanity, then there shouldn’t be borders,” Hixon said. “No nationalism getting in the way of things. Freedom of movement.”
“Not sure we’ll be able to shift humanity’s penchant for tribalism so easily,” Hart said. “Can we throw rampant capitalism out the window? Not saying we need to go full communism, but the whole desperate reliance on growth and inflation, the bubbles and the pops of the economy—that can go.”
Valerie held up her hands. “As an ardent capitalist myself, sure. Though most of my money’s gone now, anyway. Liquidated as we speak.”
“Free education,” Naomi said. “And placing emphasis on art and creative play as well as science.”
“Good one,” Hart said.
“No plastic,” Lebedeva said. “No fossil fuels. Eco-friendly from the beginning.”
“No
factory farming or meat industry,” Hart said. “I mean, we’re basically all vegan once those meat packets run out anyway, if you consider meat grown without a nervous system vegan.”
“No men?” Hixon joked. “Though I guess that plan is already kaput with the backup crew.”
“We don’t have to wake them up on day one of landing,” Valerie said. “We can have a few weeks of a women-only planet, I’m sure.” Her tone was teasing.
They drank more tea and kept building their idea of utopia. It was a nice way to spend an evening. They changed the VR background to a rainforest, the sound of rain dripping through green leaves and the caw of now-extinct birds soothing.
Some of their ideas might come to pass. Once you’re capable of harvesting exotic matter and building a warp drive, it’s hard to imagine everyone gleefully using fossil fuels and coal again. But borders would be drawn. Not every community would be able to produce everything they needed—trade and some form of currency would be required. The Outer Space Treaty could be broken. Instead of grand, large countries, due to the planet’s islands and small continents, perhaps it’d be more like the city states of ancient Greece. People would find ways to disagree, to squabble, to fight.
They all knew that their rosy picture of Cavendish was just that—a fantasy. And so much of the inequality would happen before the ships came. Earth had so far only managed one interstellar ship and was in the process of building more. Valerie had sent them plans for the ark ships, but it’d be impossible to build enough for everyone on the planet.
So who went?
The tickets weren’t going to be free. Hawthorne had been planning on a sliding scale—a percentage of income.
Lockwood would do no such thing. Tickets were going to be dear, most people going into debt to the government or whatever company built the ships. And what of those who couldn’t afford the ticket?
They’d almost certainly be left behind.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
7 Years Before Launch