by Laura Lam
“I’ll tell you all at breakfast. Lay it on the table, discuss next steps.”
The taut rope of tension between them slackened.
“Thank you,” Naomi said.
Naomi made to leave, and Valerie’s hand snatched out, catching her shoulder in a vice of a grip. Naomi fought the urge to recoil.
“Watch how you go, Naomi,” Valerie said. “You can question me, but do not undermine me.”
Naomi kept her back to her, her chin high.
The others were bleary, still waking up. They each had three nutriblocks on their plate, dotted with a few berries for colour.
“Do you think they’ll still feed us nutriblocks in prison, once they arrest us?” Hixon asked, poking at one listlessly. “It’d be a form of cruel and unusual punishment.”
Naomi hadn’t touched her food. She stayed still, alert. Hart noticed, sending her a questioning look that Naomi ignored.
Valerie cleared her throat. “Before we jump, there is something we should discuss. America has offered us clemency. Their offer expires once we pass through the warp ring.”
All at the breakfast table went silent.
“What’s the catch?” Hixon asked.
Valerie rose an eyebrow in Naomi’s direction as if to say: See?
She gave them a summary of Cochran’s last message.
Lebedeva made a disgusted sound. “His offer is—how is the word? Ah. Hogwash. It’s hogwash, yes?”
“I don’t believe he’ll give us immunity any more than I believe he’d go to Hawaii for three weeks and come back with a tan,” Valerie said.
“As resident redhead, I agree,” said Hixon.
“I’m more worried about that bit about agreeing to the PR spin,” Hart said. “That’s an implied threat that if we don’t play nice and say whatever he wants, we’ll face arrest anyway. That’s how he’d get us.”
“He has no reason to want us free,” Naomi said. “What kind of message does it send to his base that he let five women get away with what we did?”
Hixon rested her elbows on the table, her nutriblocks forgotten. “So, what, do we just agree to get them off our backs, jump through, and hope for the best?”
Valerie tapped her teeth together, the sound of enamel on enamel loud in the relative quiet of the canteen. “Whether we agree or not, the end result is the same. They follow and bring along humanity unchanged. Cavendish will end up being another America. Another Earth. They’ll throw out the treaty, draw the lines in the sand. Like we all talked about. Our version of Cavendish will stand no chance.”
“It never stood a chance,” Naomi said. “We were just being fanciful.”
“It’ll take decades to move people across. Having to leave people behind as Earth continues to heat up could shock people into being better. To not wasting a second chance,” Hixon tried.
Lebedeva laughed, the sound hard. “Maybe for a few years. Not for long. People are good at forgetting.”
Valerie placed her fingertips on the table, her face more animated than Naomi had seen in days. “What if it wasn’t just a passing fancy? What if we could make Cavendish what we wanted? Fair. Prosperous. Peaceful. Somewhere humanity could actually thrive.”
The silence lengthened.
“Like we said: utopia can’t exist,” Hart said. “And you’re way too much of a capitalist to make it some socialist paradise.” She softened the words with a regretful smile.
Valerie flicked her wrist. “I used capitalism to get me where I needed to be. My wealth is gone now, all spent. What do I need it for? Money was never my true purpose. I want a world where people don’t grow up hungry like I did. Where women aren’t being pushed out of the spaces they worked so hard to enter. I’m tired of the -isms they love to use to break us down.”
“You don’t think we’ll simply find something else to divide us?” Hixon mused.
Hart rolled a blackberry on her plate. “Probably. But what can we do? Go through, stick a flag of our own making in the soil, and you declare yourself Queen of Cavendish?”
Valerie gave a laugh, high and almost girlish. “Something better than a monarchy. President sounds nice. Or Warden.”
“We could say Cavendish was ours all we wanted,” Naomi said. “But declaring it so would make us a military base, wouldn’t it? Then the treaty is void. We’re a hostile force. All of Earth could band together to remove us. We’re only five women. What have you been planning, Valerie?”
Valerie’s gaze was a knife. Naomi was pushing too hard, but this had been building in her for four days.
What did you ask them to do, Valerie?
“If they don’t agree to what we propose, we don’t build a Cavendish warp ring in orbit,” Valerie said. “That means it takes longer to arrive and is way more expensive. We could journey back to where we originally arrived in Ran’s solar system and destroy the atomic clocks, too. That’d make it very difficult for them to know where to jump from Mars.”
Naomi couldn’t blink. Hixon jerked back in her seat. Even Lebedeva shifted uneasily in her chair.
“You would trap them on Earth?” Hart asked, horrified.
“That… that would definitely be considered a military stance.” Hixon’s voice was faint.
It’d taken Earth over a decade to set up the atomic clocks, ferried across as close to the speed of light as they could, with gold-sheeted sails propelled by solar wind and lasers. They’d sent them after they discovered negative energy but before they understood the Alcubierre drive, in the hopes that one day it’d be a reality.
“We would delay them,” Valerie countered. “Upset the power dynamic. They’ll agree to what I propose.”
“Which is…?” Naomi asked.
“Send a ship of children first, plus some selected caretakers. I’ve already thought this through and sent a list.”
Silence.
“A list? How’d you come up with a list?” Hart demanded.
“Haven. I had to close it down a good fifteen years ago, but before I did, I helped a lot of women with infertility conceive through vat-grown wombs.” She gazed out ahead, eyes distant. “They signed over their data rights to the company—people were so much sloppier about that sort of thing back then—so I had access to a huge database of women who wanted to be parents. A few years ago, when I realised Project Atalanta was progressing well and we actually had a shot, I ran big data analysis and came up with a list of those who are sympathetic to what we are trying to achieve. Politically, ethically, morally. There are five thousand names. They can bring their partners and children on the first ship.”
“And they all just kept silent about this for years?” Naomi asked, feeling sick.
“Of course not. They have no idea they’ve been selected. But I’m confident at least eighty per cent of them will jump at the chance. Their personalities are adventurous enough. We’ll have our pick. A ratio of ten climate change orphans to one caretaker, plus their own offspring, should be sufficient.
“So we welcome the first exodus ship, get them settled. We’ll be able to raise them without the influences that had shaped previous generations. A few years later, when the children are nearing adulthood, we’ll allow another few ships of children. Repeat. In roughly fifteen years, the rest of humanity can arrive into a world with existing infrastructure. Fewer country allegiances. Open borders. Everything we’ve discussed.”
Naomi let out a breath.
“Can you think of another way?” Valerie asked. “This isn’t some whimsy. I have been running scenarios in my head for years. If we bring over the adults in large numbers first, there will be the usual scrabble for power. New versions of old countries. They won’t even change names, they’ll be so lazy. Imagine a Nova Nova Scotia.” She gave a bitter laugh. “We mix everyone up. Teach sciences and arts. Keep their wonder and curiosity. Think about what it could be.”
Naomi had no idea how to feel. She should be horrified, but she could see the reasoning. It did almost make sense. A chance to truly
start anew. Her hand strayed to her stomach. It meant her child wouldn’t grow up alone.
“You can’t,” Hart said, but even she sounded unsure.
“I can’t, no. But we can.” She leaned forward, eyes so wide they showed the whites. “We could have the upper hand. Finally call those in power on their bullshit. Break it all down. Build it all up again. They can think of it as boarding school, if they like. Or an orphanage a hell of a lot better than any they’d be shunted off into back on Earth. I like the idea of orphans being first in line instead of last.”
She met their eyes, one by one, unblinking. Naomi dug her fingernails into her thigh but didn’t look away. “We always say the next generation are the ones who will fix the problems of the past,” she continued. “So let’s get out of the way and let them do it. I’m open to other ideas, other plans. You’ll all come back to the same realisation.”
The lights caught the edges of her hair. She tilted her head up towards them, closed her eyes. “This is how we truly save humanity.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
126 Days After Launch
0 Days to Mars
123 Days to Cavendish
In a few hours, they would slot into the warp ring.
None of them could bring themselves to accept the U.S.’s version of clemency. They knew it for the trap it was.
Throughout discussions, Naomi had kept Evan updated. He hadn’t been appalled by Valerie’s plan, to her surprise. He had to admit the logic of it, but he thought Valerie was wrong to take measures into her own hands. Naomi was still conflicted, but she and the rest of the crew were coming around, as Valerie had known they would.
Perhaps leaving the adults to cook on Earth for another ten to fifteen years would shock them into behaving better on Cavendish. Arriving to a world populated by people in their twenties who had spent years on equal footing, without the same allegiances and biases. Would that work?
Hart was concerned first and foremost with the children’s physical and mental well-being of coming across, whether they left their families or not. Lebedeva sided fully with Valerie and thought it a fine idea. Hixon was somewhere in the middle. She’d grown up as poor and hungry as Valerie, but she wasn’t entirely convinced it wouldn’t devolve into Lord of the Flies if anything went wrong.
“Not sure I expected going to an exosolar planet to be a babysitting gig,” Hixon had said one night. Naomi had to agree. Raising her own child seemed intense and challenging enough. Naomi kept her reservations to herself.
Public sentiment was turning, ever so slightly, against Cochran. The summer wildfires were worse than ever, entire towns disappearing into flames despite the best efforts of public and private firefighters. Naomi’s throat ached as she read. She’d been lucky. She’d gotten out, even if her father hadn’t, and her mother’s body had, though not her mind. Naomi told Evan not to go to the press yet when he asked if he should. Valerie would send Earth a missive before they jumped through the ring, and if they hadn’t acquiesced by the time they planned to jump to Cavendish, Evan was to broadcast it wide. Let the public decide what they should do with their own children. Let the children themselves decide.
In a few hours, they’d be jumping. Naomi had begun a message to Evan several times.
He’d looked as lonely as she felt when he knocked on her door the night before quarantine. She’d let him in. She’d known what would happen. Their last chance to give up, give in to each other like they’d wanted to since that one kiss at the graduation party. Since that night under the juniper trees, if she were honest with herself.
They loved each other, but that didn’t mean they were in love. That night, they were two magnets tired of repelling.
Was it a kindness to tell him? If the Atalanta jumped and never made it back out, he’d gain a child only to lose one again a few hours later. Even if they survived, he’d still be over ten light years away for years unless he bartered a place on the first ship.
He’d miss the birth, first words, first steps. She didn’t know if he even wanted a child. Much less a world of children. To tell or not—which did less harm?
Valerie had always posed those sorts of questions to her. Or her and Evan, to spark spirited discussions at the dinner table. Naomi had once asked Valerie about the trolley problem when she came across it in some article. It was Thanksgiving of her sophomore year at Stanford, when Naomi and Evan were closer. They’d had an unspoken agreement not to let on to Valerie how friendly they’d become.
Evan hadn’t heard of the trolley problem. Naomi had explained the philosophical dilemma: “A trolley is pummelling down a track towards five tied-up people. You can pull a lever and redirect the trolley to a side track but there is still one person there.
“Which do you choose? Do nothing and five people die, or pull the lever, but still kill one?” Little did Naomi know that, in a few years, she’d have to make that choice with five cryogenically frozen people.
Valerie had asked Evan to answer first. He’d taken his time, puzzling it over as he moved bits of his vat turkey around his plate. His hair fell across his forehead, and Naomi resisted the urge to brush it back from his eyes. He’d deliberately worn his oldest T-shirt and most frayed jeans to annoy his mother. Naomi liked it. He looked just as he did on those countless late study nights, as they worked together in silence. The last study session, Naomi had grown too tired to stumble across campus to her own dorm. She’d ended up staying over, sleeping in his bed while Evan took the sofa. She’d borrowed one of his T-shirts to sleep in and wear home and hadn’t yet given it back.
“I’d have to pull the lever, I suppose,” Evan said, slowly. “Smaller level of overall harm.” The corners of his lips turned down. He took a sip of Coke.
“What about you?” Valerie had asked. Her eyes darted between them. Naomi had felt like Valerie was pitting them against each other, and it hadn’t sat well with her.
“I reject the premise that those are the only two options,” she had said. “There must be some engineering fix. Or I could be really selfless and throw myself over and let my body stop the trolley.”
“I like that better. Can I change my answer?” Evan had asked.
“No. Too late. And is that what you’d do?” Valerie had asked Naomi. “Sacrifice yourself for the greater good, if it really came down to it?”
“I’d like to think so. But I can’t pretend when faced with it, I wouldn’t be selfish and let someone else take the fall for me.”
Over the years, Valerie had asked Naomi and Evan variations of the same question—the transplant problem, the loop and the man in the yard variation. Eventually, Naomi had asked her to stop. She never knew what answer Valerie wanted her to give.
Evan Kan: This is it. How long until the jump?
Naomi Lovelace: Two hours. I’ll message you once I’m through. Feel better.
Evan Kan: Go forth and disappear. I’ll be here when you get back.
I’m pregnant, she typed. Deleted it again.
I’m a coward. Deleted it again.
I’m sorry. Delete.
Naomi strapped herself into her chair on the bridge. Her belly swelled above the waistband of the seat belt, the shoulder straps pressed her against the back of the chair. Hart had given her another scan, a snapshot to compare to once they were through. Still there.
Hixon flexed her fingers. Her red hair had grown out since launch, and it drifted up from her skull like fire. Over the past 126 days she had run the Alcubierre simulation at least 126 times.
Naomi counted her breaths, tucking away the nerves that had no place here. The others were equally determined. Hart twisted her wedding ring round and round again. This was nearly the halfway point to Cavendish. It’d be four more months of travel once they jumped. They couldn’t jump too close to the planet for the same reason they couldn’t jump too close to Earth—just in case something went wrong. This test was the last step, and then it would be time to leave the solar system behind—to fling themselves further th
an any human had ever been.
Naomi clenched her toes. She’d left them bare, her socks and shoes tucked up neatly underneath the bed of her cabin. Unlike the launch from Earth, she wanted to be able to feel everything. The engines were still so silent, but the thrumming beneath her soles comforted her.
Satellites around Mars had captured the Atalanta for the last few days, streaming grainy photos and videos back to Earth. On their home planet, whether they hated the Atalanta 5 or not, everyone would be glued to screens, waiting to see a spaceship disappear.
The greatest magic trick. To an outside eye, it’d be there one minute, gone the next.
“Ready?” Hixon asked.
“As we’ll ever be,” Valerie replied.
Naomi reached out across the distance and clasped Valerie’s hand, giving it a squeeze. Valerie’s gaze flicked to hers, the corners of her mouth turned up.
The launch sequence started. As the numbers counted down, Naomi found her voice.
“Now you see us!” she called.
Three. Two. One.
Now you don’t.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
6 Years Before Launch
Pasadena, California
Valerie had arranged all of it.
The day after Naomi had flown to Valerie’s house, she realised that had all been for nothing.
She had started bleeding on the plane. Light spotting. She’d known that could be normal, thought nothing much of it, and it soon stopped. The next morning, not long before the doctor was to visit under the guise of giving Valerie her biannual check-up, the bleeding returned. Heavy, dark and almost grey. Too much. Naomi was bent double in pain, clutching a hot water bottle. Valerie’s hand brushed Naomi’s forehead medicinally, reminding Naomi of when she’d stayed home from school with soup, pillows and bad TV.
Valerie frowned at her fever and asked the doctor to come sooner.
She was a tiny woman, under five feet tall. The doctor didn’t give her name and kept her filter mask on the entire time to ensure her anonymity. Naomi remembered a soft, Indian accent, dark hair in a thick braid to the middle of her back, and gentle eyes.