by Lauren James
“Don’t touch the wires, Romy,” she said. “They’ll shock you.”
It’s an old memory, so faint that only the physical act of replacing wires manages to bring it to the forefront of my mind. Forcing myself to think of something else instead, I start writing a new fic in my head.
I imagine a story where Jayden works in a bookshop. He’d probably wear a Fair Isle sweater vest and those sexy, thick-rimmed glasses that clever characters always seem to wear. He’d lounge lazily across the counter as he made book recommendations to customers. Everyone who’d come into the bookshop would leave slightly stunned, with the beginnings of a crush. He wouldn’t even notice because he’d be too busy pining after the cute girl who would go to the bookshop to buy a romance novel every single Wednesday lunchtime. Jayden would probably change his shifts to make sure he was there when she came in. Once, when she didn’t turn up, he panicked and asked all the other customers whether they knew if she was OK.
I move from one job to the next, replacing air filters, cleaning solar panels and telescope lenses, lubricating joints in the boiler and the water recycling unit, then checking the pressure of the liquid oxygen tanks. I don’t find any major problems. The ship has been working for years without anything going wrong.
I ignore the voice in the back of my head that never leaves, telling me nothing has gone wrong yet. When it does, it will be up to me to notice it. NASA used to monitor the system data, which is regularly transmitted back to Earth, but now the war has started there’s no one analysing the data except me.
My final task is to remove static from the ship by cleaning up the charged particles of dust that cover each surface. The air filtration automatically picks up most of the dust, but there’s always places where it clings determinedly. If the dust built up, the static could cause a fire, so I have to check everywhere myself, just to be safe.
I wander around with a duster, getting into all the nooks and crevices of the floors and walls. When I reach the gene bank, I check that the panel on the door is green, which means that everything is fine with the terrible cryopreserved human spawn inside.
The room contains one thousand cryogenically frozen human embryos, eggs and sperm samples, taken from loads of different countries on Earth before the ship launched. It was supposed to be a secondary source of DNA, to guarantee genetic diversity on Earth II. Now that the astronauts are gone, the embryos will be the only way that we can establish a colony on Earth II. Without the samples, this whole journey would be pointless.
The embryos will stay in long-term cryogenic storage until the ship gets nearer to Earth II. Then I’ll have to set up an enormous artificial womb in the labs. It will incubate a few of the embryos until they are fully grown babies.
There was supposed to be a whole community of astronauts to adopt the children. Instead I’m going to be responsible for raising an entire generation, to make sure that there are people to work on Earth II and make it liveable. It has a hospitable atmosphere – oxygen, water, nitrogen … all of the essentials – but we’ll still need to build housing and set up agriculture. There’ll be a lot to do.
I could start off an embryo now and bring up the first baby, if I wanted to. Maybe I would have, if J hadn’t been sent to save me. Luckily, The Infinity will have joined up with The Eternity long before we need to start caring for children.
With any luck, J knows how to burp a baby. I’m not exactly qualified. I can barely even look after myself.
I’m running the duster along the edges of the floor in the corridor when I find it. It’s leaning against the inner edge of the doorframe of the gene bank, tucked neatly up by the wall. It’s so tiny that it isn’t a surprise I’ve missed it all these years.
It’s a shard from some kind of metallic container; a curved fragment of a larger cylinder, broken unevenly along a fracture line. I only notice it at all because the sharp edge catches the side of my thumb.
When my fingers touch the roughness of the engraving, I realize immediately what it must be. Slowly, I turn it over to see the letters:
vers, M.D.
Gasping, I drop it like I’ve been burnt.
Dr Silvers, M.D. It’s a fragment of the oxygen tank from my mother’s spacesuit.
I thought I’d found them all. I’d been so careful, all those years ago. I never wanted to see any reminder of my mother ever again. But apparently I missed this shard, lingering at the scene of the crime like evidence waiting to be found.
I can taste the sour tang of vomit in the back of my throat. I have to get rid of it. Now. Just knowing that it is on the ship, on my ship, makes me shudder.
I tuck it into my palm so I don’t have to look at it, feeling the metal leach the warmth from my skin, and walk as fast as I can to the airlock.
The seal hisses when I pull open the inner door of the pressurized airlock. I step into the chamber set into the hull of the spaceship. Through a porthole in the outer door, I can see straight out into space. If I opened that door now, I’d be dead in less than a minute as the vacuum pulled the air from my chest, taking my lungs along with it.
I don’t.
Instead I place the shard on the floor of the chamber, and return to the safety of my ship, closing the inner door. Looking through the window, the fragment seems harmless. It’s impossible to imagine the damage it caused.
I swallow, hard. I seal the airlock, and the system pumps to remove the air from the chamber.
In my mind, I watch the tank break, the way I have time and time again since it first happened.
I’d forgotten how cold it was against skin. I’d forgotten how shiny the steel looked when it was covered in blood.
The outer door of the airlock slides open in a silent, easy motion. The last remaining piece of my mother’s oxygen tank slips out into space. I catch a flash of light gleaming off its surface before it’s left behind in the wake of the ship.
Gone.
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
314
From: The Eternity Sent: 30/11/2065
To: The Infinity Received: 17/04/2067
Attachment: L&N.zip [3 GB]
Good morning Romy,
I have some questions for you today, since I was so considerate as to answer yours. Even if yours were hypothetical and uninvited, it still counts. Promise.
Why do you like Loch & Ness so much? (I’ve attached the rest of the latest series, by the way. Enjoy!)
Even if the journey takes another nineteen years, would you turn the ship around and go back to Earth if you could?
I wonder a lot about what life is like for you, alone on your ship. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, but I’d like to hear about it.
J
From: The Infinity Sent: 17/04/2067
To: The Eternity Predicted date of receipt: 10/07/2067
J,
Interesting questions.
I like Loch & Ness because it’s the complete opposite of my life. I’ve rewatched it so many times that the characters feel like real friends to me. Jayden is my favourite. He acts like he’s really cool and jokes around a lot, but actually he’s a total sweetheart. He’s hilarious too, and completely in love with Lyra, even though she doesn’t know that yet.
As to your second question, I actually did try to go back to Earth just after my parents died. I was all on my own, so I panicked and did what my eleven-year-old brain thought NASA would want me to do. I tried to turn the ship around.
You probably know that it’s not like turning a car around – it takes years and years to turn a spaceship around, obviously. You’ve had all the real astronaut training. Well, I didn’t have any of that. I thought it would be easy. I thought I’d be able to go back to Earth and let someone else take over the mission.
I’d also got really fixated on my dad’s dad, who was still alive at that point. All I could think about was going back to Earth and meeting my grandad for the first time. I thought he could adopt me. I knew that by the time I got bac
k to Earth I’d be thirty, and wouldn’t need adopting, but I just ignored that. I was in denial.
Anyway, I marched up to the helm one day, hands on my hips, and ordered the computer to turn the ship around. It refused. I pressed a lot of buttons and did a lot of shouting, and it was still like, “No.”
Because I didn’t have the command codes, it wouldn’t give me access. It forced me to stay away from the controls until I’d calmed down – which took a good few months.
I think it was only when Molly started talking to me that I finally accepted I couldn’t go home. (Did you talk to Molly too, from NASA? Isn’t she just the best? I miss her more than anything else, now that the transmissions are down.)
In her first message, she promoted my authorization codes to make me the commander of The Infinity. I realized I could actually turn the ship around. So I tried again.
I got pretty far with it. I set up the instructions and coordinates and even ordered more fuel to be sent to the thrusters. But when I went to press the button, I just couldn’t do it.
I think it was because this person at NASA was giving me total control of a spaceship. Me, Romy Silvers. I was only fourteen, but I was really in charge. That made me realize how serious it was. They were all relying on me.
Our ships are about more than just us, aren’t they? Everyone on Earth is depending on us to get to Earth II. They’ve invested nearly half a century of money, time and research into getting us there. I couldn’t let them down just because I was scared.
I couldn’t change what had happened to my parents. I couldn’t change the fact that I was here, and that I was always going to be here, and my parents weren’t. So I just got on with it. This voyage was never meant to be easy. It was meant to be important.
Anyway, that’s enough of that, or it’ll spoil my appetite – and I’ve got tomato soup for dinner to look forward to! (That’s my favourite.)
That turned out a lot longer than I thought it would. Sorry if it got more emotional than you were expecting! There’s something about you that just makes me want to open up, I think.
R
PS Thank you so much for the rest of Loch & Ness. I know what my plans are for the rest of the day…!
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
293
I spend the morning making a model house out of dinner packets. I carefully cut little doors and windows out of the plastic, trying to remember what the flat-pack buildings in the stores look like so I can copy the design. I want to make houses similar to the ones J and I will be living in on Earth II. Then I’ll be able to picture what our lives will be like.
I keep finding myself daydreaming about how my first meeting with J will go. Will we hug? Will talking be as easy as emailing is, or will it be really awkward?
Today is the two-month anniversary of the last time I heard from Earth. It’s possible – maybe even likely – that J and I are the only two human beings left in the entire universe. Earth could have blown itself up, destroying every single life form on the planet, and we would have no idea.
Even if we did, there’s nothing that we could do about it. We would just have to … keep going. The idea is almost freeing.
Ever since I lost contact with Earth, J’s messages have become so precious. It started out as a nice bonus on top of Molly’s audio clips, but now we send each other emails daily, and his messages are the highlight of my day. Seeing a new message from him makes my pulse jump in excitement.
At least something good has come from the war. It’s brought us closer together.
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
292
From: The Eternity Sent: 08/02/2066
To: The Infinity Received: 09/05/2067
Romy,
What do you do every day on your spaceship? I’ve only been here for seven months and I’ve already done nearly everything from my list of things I’ve wanted to do for years, which is basically:
• Sleep
• Game for 10 hours straight
• Practice juggling
• Manage to deadlift 200 kg, finally
• Run 18 km at a 5-minute pace
The only thing I haven’t managed to do is learn to juggle, which I’ve decided – after a few attempts – was a terrible idea, and something no sane person should ever try. I keep dropping the balls everywhere and setting off the ship’s impact alarms. I think I’m too clumsy for hobbies that involve throwing objects around at high speed.
It’s a shame, because I’ve wanted to learn to juggle since I was in college. Once, I was talking to a girl in my class and I bragged that I could do it. My roommate was listening and he called me on it, and told me to prove it. I ended up giving myself a black eye. Obviously, the girl didn’t give me her number.
I got my revenge on my roommate, though. I used to pull lots of pranks. I was always covering the toilet seat in cling wrap or ordering a dozen pizzas to be delivered to people who hadn’t ordered them. I definitely made my friend regret the juggling incident.
It was funny at the time, but looking back now, it’s just embarrassing. I was awful when I was eighteen.
To get back to the point: I’ve checked everything off my to-do list. Now I’m kind of lying around aimlessly, which is fine, I guess. I wasn’t expecting endless entertainment or anything. I know I’m not going to be waiting for nearly as long as you’ve been. A couple of years is nothing compared with a lifetime!
J
From: The Infinity Sent: 09/05/2067
To: The Eternity Predicted date of receipt: 25/07/2067
Good morning J,
I can’t believe you’re already bored. You’ve got a hard few years ahead of you! Not that I can talk. You’re basically the most interesting thing in my life, especially now you’ve sent me the rest of the Loch & Ness episodes. (Please say you’ve started watching it? Because that series finale! I really need to discuss it with you!) And like I said, you really remind me of Jayden. It’s funny how similar you two are. It’s such a coincidence.
I learnt to juggle when I was ten. It’s manageable if you start with two balls and build up. I should try it again some time so I can give you tips.
I love that you pulled pranks at university. That’s really cute.
My dad always used to tell me stories about his time at university. He was British, and he studied at the University of Cambridge, where he was headhunted by NASA. My mother was American, and he met her in the orientation sessions at NASA. But before they met, when he was studying, I think he had a lot of girlfriends. His stories always had different girls in them.
I think you would’ve liked my dad. I wish you could have met him.
I’d like to have wild stories about my university days to tell my kids, someday. I’d like to have any anecdotes at all, actually. I used to wish that if I ever fell for someone, it would start with a funny little meetcute that would make a nice story.
Obviously that’s not going to happen, seeing as I have literally no dating prospects at all, living in the endless vacuum of space, but I was a delusional kid. I had a lot of imagination.
R
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
274
From: The Eternity Sent: 04/04/2066
To: The Infinity Received: 27/05/2067
Romy,
I’m really surprised by how much I miss Earth. I didn’t expect it to be so bad, because when I was on Earth I spent every day desperate to just start the mission already.
I have nothing to be anything but happy about, but I keep getting these horrible pangs in my gut out of nowhere. Every time, it takes me a while to realize that it’s because I’m homesick. I just want to be outside.
I never knew how much I need the sky, or the ground, or wind.
Here are the things I miss most about home, now I’ve been away for nearly ten months:
• Walking aimlessly in any direction I want and never running up against a wall or circling back on myself
• The textu
re of wood (everything here is made of plastic or metal, or plastic-coated metal)
• Real, paper books, with pages and ink, and spines that you can crack
• Hot baths
• The smell of perfume in a girl’s hair
• Everything about girls in general: their laughs, and smiles, and soft skin, and – OK, I’m officially censoring myself with this one. Sorry.
• Dogs
• Sitting at a bar with condensation from a cold glass dripping over my fingers
• Getting properly, seriously drunk. I’ve had to find all these new ways to relax without beer.
• The sound of rain against the windowpanes in the morning, when you just wake up and know you don’t have to get up for at least an hour
• Birdsong
I can’t stop thinking about taking you to Earth, even though that’s never going to happen. I’d love to watch your face the first time you saw snow, or stroked a kitten. It’s like I’m understanding everything differently now because I’m looking at it from your perspective. I want to see your reaction to everything, from the rare to the commonplace.
I’m really enjoying writing to you, Romy. I’ve never had a penpal before. I had a girlfriend in college who used to make me write her during the holidays – but I think that was just so she could show off to her friends about the letters her boyfriend had sent her. She never wrote back.
J x
From: The Infinity Sent: 27/05/2067
To: The Eternity Predicted date of receipt: 05/08/2067
Attachment: Relaxation-tapes.mp3 [4 MB]
J,
I wish I really could visit Earth with you. That sounds heavenly. Obviously I’ve never been to Earth, so I can’t tell you what I miss, but I can tell you what I want to experience the most: