by Laura Lam
If you were reading the signs closer, Naomi had wanted to say, you would realise this time, thirty years is likely the best-case scenario. Wars had broken out due to the ever-increasing waves of people displaced by climate change, with many countries shutting down their borders through force. Refugee aid programs were cut left and right, leaving philanthropists like Valerie to plug the funding gaps. Naomi didn’t have the heart to tell Lynn that if things didn’t change, those babies in her belly might not make it to middle age.
So many went about their day-to-day life with the vague unease that things were sliding past the point of no return. It was easier to push it away, to focus on the problems that could be solved. What to have for dinner. Fretting about how to pay for that leak in the roof. Those in power can worry about the larger things—that’s why we voted for them. What can one person do?
Naomi needed to move. She fished the pregnancy test from the bottom of the bath, wrapped it in a plastic bag, and shoved it into the pocket of her hoodie. She paced through her nice, boring suburban neighbourhood. There had been a cold snap—gooseflesh shivered across her skin until her furious pacing warmed her up.
It’d been easy, in the end, for Cochran to borrow enough from religious rhetoric to overturn Roe v. Wade but only for the first child. Population control was still a necessity, so they reluctantly also increased sex education in schools. They still espoused the virtues of monogamous marriage, but birth control was readily available. This had the benefit of convincing left-leaning voters, such as disenfranchised libertarians, to support Cochran. And of course, it was a death knell for vat-grown wombs like Valerie’s Haven.
Naomi walked faster.
With the additional child tax, the poor were unable to afford more than one child, the middle class were largely content to stop at one, and the rich continued to illustrate that having a brood of children showed just how rich they were. All in the name of population control and the good of the country, the world.
Naomi threw away the pregnancy test in someone else’s trash half a mile from her apartment. She wove her way back, thinking it all through, weighing up her options.
When Cole returned from work, he drew her close, his mouth on hers. They took a shower together, and she tried not to think of that thwack of the plastic against the tile. It hadn’t left a mark. She ran her hands down the muscles of his back and tried not to resent that he couldn’t remember to take a damn pill every morning.
Naomi had grown up wanting children, but later. Much later. Five years, maybe ten. When she’d had time to finish training and go to space for a tour or two. Save up the money to turn down the bonus and keep her career, or hope the political situation swung back towards progress. Why have children unless she could be sure humanity would actually last longer than a few decades?
A tiny part of her wondered if Cole’s happiness at being a father would outweigh what it meant for Naomi. If he’d realise the extent of what she’d have to give up. In his mind, she would have no choice but to keep it. That was the way things were, now.
The next morning, Naomi reported for training with her fellow astronaut candidates. She threw herself into every task. She was the only woman.
When she had her first free weekend, she flew back to California, to Valerie, to ask for her help.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
119 Days After Launch
7 Days to Mars
130 Days to Cavendish
Day by day, Mars grew larger. Naomi would find excuses to go down to the observation room to watch it. When they neared the warp ring, it’d spread below them like Earth had. Naomi could just make out Mars’ two moons: the larger Phobos and the smaller Deimos.
She wished they had the time and ability to stop and set down. Naomi could walk, heavily suited, along the planet Cole had been to not long before they met. She’d see the pale blue sky turned rusted orange at the horizon. She’d kick at the reddish dust to find the true colours hiding beneath.
One day, people might live there. If the terraforming took root, shifting the planet green. At her job in Sutherland, she’d focused on growing plants on Mars as well as on the ISS and the Gateway. She’d found ways to chelate the calcium perchlorate in native Martian soil so they instead formed harmless crystals so any plants grown weren’t poisonous. There would still be the challenge of dealing with the fact that plants often concentrate heavy metals, but Naomi had been working with some of the plants used in bioremediation around the mines on Earth. She’d carefully created cassettes of genes that could be integrated into crop genomes that would allow them to survive in high-metal soils. She’d figured out how to concentrate the metals in nodules that could be removed mechanically—cleaning the soil and making the plants safe as a human food source.
It was doable, but UKSA and ESA couldn’t access the funding they’d needed to make Naomi’s work there a true success. They needed a Hawthorne with deep pockets. They needed a Valerie Black.
The Atalanta had come all this way only to see Mars from orbit. A rock that so many stories had been written about. So many myths and fears and legends.
Then they’d fit themselves into the warp ring for the test jump. The ring would help ensure the ship was an exact location for the equation and give parameters for the warp bubble for utmost accuracy.
In one week, Naomi and her crew mates would test the warp drive and see if they could indeed drag their destination closer to them through space-time. If it worked, they’d slot themselves back into the warp ring and away they’d go again. All the way to Cavendish.
That evening, as she finished work on her tablet in her lab, she heard a ping. For half a minute, it didn’t register as bizarre, until she realised it was a specific notification she hadn’t heard since Earth.
She drew it towards her, frowning. There it was:
New message.
Evan Kan: Hey.
Her frown deepened. She typed the first words that came to mind.
Naomi Lovelace: What the fuck?
He’d timed it for a shorter window of communication. Five minutes passed as the signal swung its impossible way back to Earth. Another five minutes for his reply.
Evan Kan: It worked. I’m sending this through the main hub but encrypted and rerouted to your tablet. A buddy taught me how. I wanted to talk to you before you went through. Actually talk to you. This should be secure.
Naomi Lovelace: I suppose I should take advantage of this, then. I’ve been wondering how to ask you, but not wanted to put it on the official records—do you by any chance know if Earth is still sending the Atalanta messages?
It was something that had been niggling at her. They’d sent messages the Atalanta had ignored from lower Earth orbit, but they knew the ship’s location and projected path. It’d be easy to send further missives, but Valerie hadn’t mentioned anything. Naomi had asked Hixon, but she hadn’t heard of anything either, and seemed annoyed about it.
Evan Kan: Funnily enough, that’s what I wanted to ask you about, too. Earth is definitely still sending messages, and V is ignoring each and every one. I’ve urged her to at least see what they’re saying or if they’re offering anything, but she’s refused. I don’t know what’s in them, but you’d be able to access them from the hub. They still save on the drive. A little hard to access, but doable.
Naomi rubbed her lower back, easing the tight muscles. A conversation that could have taken a few minutes had already stretched out to almost an hour.
Naomi Lovelace: That would be crossing a line I can’t come back from. It’d be undermining her and Hixon at once. I’m technically lowest ranked on this ship. Maybe I should just trust her.
Evan Kan: Are you really okay with not knowing? It could be they’re offering clemency. Or that there’s more to this mission than you know.
A thread of unease wound through her. Why wouldn’t Valerie tell them what Earth had said? Naomi would previously have stated their mission had always been clear. Naomi sometimes feared that Valerie had alrea
dy lied to them once—had Valerie found out about Atalanta II and not passed that on to the crew? Naomi could have explained it away, that the distraction would have only caused stress and opened them up to making errors when they needed to focus. Could she say the same again? It was an uncomfortable pattern.
More minutes of delay. His next message told her it was up to her if she wanted to read them and gave her instructions on how to access the subfolder.
Evan Kan: If there’s one thing we both know about my mother, it’s that she never leaves anything to chance. There is always a contingency. If she’s read them and not told you, they are saying something she doesn’t want you to know. You know this as well as I do, but it’s up to you what you do next. Send me a goodbye before you go to the warp ring.
Then he was gone.
She swallowed several times in quick succession, as if that would ease the tight knot of guilt.
It was late on Earth—nearly two in the morning. Naomi should have been in bed ages ago. She went back to her room, the amber lights leading the way, her tablet held tight in her hand.
As she brushed her teeth, she thought about the day NASA had told Valerie they were firing Hawthorne from Project Atalanta, a year before launch. Valerie had stood perfectly still in the centre of the lab as people tiptoed around her, packing their things. Everyone had that same blank expression. As if a bomb had just been detonated and their ears were ringing as they waited for shrapnel to fall.
Naomi spat into the sink, rinsing her mouth out with water that had been recycled through the systems—and their bodies—countless times since they’d taken off. The potable water had once been their urine, sweat, even water in their breath. It was all distilled and cleaner than water back on Earth, but it was carefully rationed. God, she wanted a shower. They always helped her think, the warmth chasing away the stress of the day. She was tired of sponge baths.
Naomi had only seen Valerie that furious a handful of times in her life. She’d known, with certainty, that Valerie would make NASA pay.
She sat at the little desk by her bed, too agitated to sleep. She unwrapped one of her extra nutriblocks, forcing herself to chew the gummy stuff.
Evan was right. Valerie never left anything to chance. She was always one, two, three steps ahead. Even when they’d been thrown off Project Atalanta, it hadn’t been long before she’d approached Naomi with her plan to steal the ship. Naomi had thought she’d been joking, but she had every step planned out. She’d put in the manual override on the ship long before NASA had thrown Hawthorne off the project.
She’d known she’d have to take it on her own terms. To reach Cavendish and have a stake in it at the start.
The women on the ship could make no claim on the exosolar planet. Not for longer than two years. As soon as the Atalanta II touched the surface, that was the end of any chance of making their utopia a reality.
But Valerie had been told she couldn’t do something over and over again, and that hadn’t stopped her. What was an outdated treaty that hadn’t been ratified by all countries of the world?
It was late. All the women on the ship would be asleep.
Naomi ghosted through the curved hallway and slipped into the rec room.
It took her a few tries to find the subfolder. She stared at the list of messages. They were all marked as read. Should she start with the most recent one, or the oldest?
It mattered little, in the end. Most of the messages were more or less the same. In the early ones, they were official, with all the pomp and circumstance:
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to ensure the safety and integrity of its citizens, in accordance with other major world leaders, it is hereby ordered as follows:
… and so on. Demanding they return at once or face the consequences. Citing the specific laws they had broken. Berating them like they were a group of errant children. Small wonder Valerie had ignored those.
Naomi should find the messages frightening, but way out here, it was hard to feel intimidated. She couldn’t help but read the missives in Cochran’s voice. He had a peculiar intonation—in his speeches, he tried for gravitas but ended up speaking with that untethered transatlantic accent from old movies. Cochran was a desiccated hard-boiled egg of a man—hair too white to be from anything but a bottle, pale skin spotted with freckles. His dark eyes, blond eyebrows and eyelashes gave him the look of a skinny, naked mole rat, but with perfect, Chicklet teeth. He’d been handsome, once, but time and hatred had bleached him.
The later missives had their hot air punctured. They were more informal, with an edge of desperation.
Your takeover of the Atalanta is in violation of uncountable laws. This is fact. We understand your frustration that Hawthorne was taken off the project, and we recognise that your work made much of the Atalanta possible. I could continue to threaten you, but what is the point in that? I will admit we should have handled this better. We should have worked with you instead of cutting you out.
Naomi blinked. By virtue of silence, Valerie had gotten the President of the United States to admit he was wrong. And they said miracles couldn’t happen.
Not that she was entirely convinced he wrote it. More likely, Vice President Thomas was the one who drafted it. He was usually the more temperate of the two.
We know we cannot easily decommission the warp ring, and that you could instead calculate your way to Cavendish from a different starting location, but that would risk the ship. So we have listened to your proposed plan. We discussed it at length. What you ask for we cannot agree to. I am sure you can understand why. The next ships will arrive with the originally proposed inhabitants.
Naomi’s shoulders clenched. Valerie had sent a missive back to Earth and demanded something. What?
We ask that once you land on Cavendish, you revitalise the backup crew—
Naomi glanced away, grimacing. Valerie obviously hadn’t shared that bit of news with Earth yet.
—and establish a base on the surface. We will arrive as soon as is feasible with the Atalanta II. We cannot give an exact arrival date at this point, due to several unforeseen delays.
Naomi snorted. “That’s because you don’t have us helping you with it, you ghoul.”
You will acquiesce to our PR statements and send missives back to Earth showing life on Cavendish. Once we arrive and the base is in good working order, you will welcome the exodus ships with hospitality and camaraderie. In return, we will pardon your crimes. If we do not hear from you by the time you jump through the warp ring, we will assume you have turned down our offer, and when the Atalanta II arrives you will be arrested and transported back to Earth.
I think that, considering the circumstances, you will consider this more than fair.
We await your reply.
FRANKLIN M. COCHRAN
Naomi sucked her lower lip. She couldn’t find any outgoing missives. What had Valerie sent them? What had she demanded?
It was a laurel leaf. Grudgingly offered, likely poisoned. The government had no real reason to hold to it, once the Atalanta II was on the ground. This missive had almost certainly not been released publicly, and was likely classified. Valerie must have seen it for what it was—a way to keep them obedient long enough for the next crop of settlers to arrive. Valerie saw through that. She wouldn’t cave so easily.
The proof was still before her: Valerie was keeping secrets. From the crew. From Naomi.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
123 Days After Launch
3 Days to Mars
126 Days to Cavendish
Mars was growing ever closer. Naomi was running out of time. By confronting Valerie, Naomi would be revealing that she and Evan were speaking privately.
She couldn’t let the other women do the test jump and then go to Cavendish without realising what the U.S. was offering. They deserved to know the truth, and Valerie was in the wrong for hiding it from them.
Bringing
it up in front of the group with no warning would only trigger Valerie’s anger. The morning of the third day before the jump, an hour before breakfast, Naomi knocked on the observation room door, where Valerie had locked herself in to work.
“Yes?” came Valerie’s voice.
Valerie had clearly already been up for hours. Her eyes were bright and clear, the blueprints back up on the screens, the universe spread out before her.
“The others deserve to know,” Naomi said without preamble. “That the U.S. has offered us clemency.”
Valerie’s only response was a slow blink. If she was surprised Naomi had found her out, it didn’t show.
“What message did you send back to them?” Naomi asked. “What plan have they rejected?”
“I know what I’m doing here, Naomi,” she said.
“That’s not an answer.”
Valerie stood, and Naomi had to tilt her head up.
It would have been easier, to pretend not to see. To go through the ring, let the offer expire, keep her head down. Her heartbeat had risen, but she refused to back down.
“You don’t like me confronting you, any more than I like questioning your judgement.”
Valerie’s gaze flicked at the blueprints. “Look. I didn’t mention it because it’s an empty promise. Do you really think that they’ll land and let us carry on as we want, without repercussions? Don’t be so naive. I raised you better than that.”
Naomi’s neck stiffened. “We’d have documented proof they offered us a pardon. And if we’re there from the beginning, we can change things. Set the groundwork. I’m asking again: what plan did they reject?”
Valerie took a few moments, leaving her desk and staring out the window, and Naomi fought the urge to back down. To acquiesce as she had so many times before. Standing her ground before Valerie was a new and terrible, uncomfortable experience.