The Loneliest Girl in the Universe

by Lauren James

  There’s an orthodontic machine on board that performs dental surgery and check-ups – you just stick your mouth inside and it does everything itself – but I haven’t used it in years. It’s in the sick bay. I’d rather put up with any kind of pain than go in there.

  I abandon the beef in black bean sauce and eat some porridge instead, carefully pushing it over to the left side of my mouth so that it doesn’t touch my aching tooth. I can live with this. It’ll be fine.

  It really hurts.

  DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:

  146

  From: The Eternity Sent: 11/05/2067

  To: The Infinity Received: 02/10/2067

  I decided when I woke up that this is not gonna be one of those days where I sit around watching TV. I am going to do something productive. So I’ve been practicing the flight protocols all day.

  The simulation for landing on the new planet is basically a video game, isn’t it? In my version, there are little graphics of you and me who jump up and down when the ships touch the ground. Every time I see it, I find it increasingly hard to believe that one day it will really be us. It already feels like I’ve been traveling for ever.

  J xx

  On my run today, I came up with an idea for using the UPR’s new software to make my route more interesting. I can project other runners on the walls of the corridor and race them around the ship.

  I look through the archives on the hard drive, and track down some old Wii Fit video games with running scenes. I add two new avatars to the game so that it looks like I’m racing Jayden and Lyra.

  To my delight, it actually works.

  I let Jayden win, just so I can stand, sweaty and panting for breath, and watch the avatar lift up his arms. He celebrates his victory with a silly dance, fireworks filling the screen behind him.

  I’m overwhelmed with sudden gratitude to the UPR for giving me something so lovely. With their new software, it’s like they’ve actually sent me Jayden Ness. A life-size model of him!

  I press my hand against the wall, standing so close that his grinning face is just a blur of pixels, and wish with every atom of my body that this wasn’t just a simulation, that Jayden was really here with me.

  I keep thinking about what it will be like when the ships finally meet. J and I will hug, wrapping ourselves up in each other for endless seconds. In my head, he smells of lime and wood. He’ll brush the hair away from my face, and his thumb will move in slow sweeps across the back of my hand.

  I want that to come true. Soon.

  I can’t believe that I get to talk to J every day. I can’t believe he’s as excited to meet me as I am to meet him; that he pictures us together on Earth II.

  Today he put two kisses at the end of his email. We’ve come such a long way from when we called each other Commander Silvers and Commander Shoreditch.

  DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:

  144

  From: UPR Sent: 07/01/2066

  To: The Infinity Received: 04/10/2067

  Subject: For Attention of The Infinity

  Commander Silvers,

  Hoping all is well on The Infinity and no problem is occurring with any system. We write today to ask that, as a follow-up to water conservation, you reduce shower time by half to increase efficiency and also reduce toilet flushing unless necessary.

  This will save on chemical processing of sewage water as well as electrical heat production.

  Thank you for your cooperation.

  All hail the UPR! May the King live long and vigorously!

  I know the UPR mean well with their efficiency suggestions, but it’s already hard enough to reduce my showers by just one minute. I have to turn off the water while I shampoo my hair and lather up the soap, then turn it back on again to rinse off. I can’t imagine being able to get properly clean in half that time.

  The UPR are right, though. I shouldn’t take my privileges for granted.

  This all seems logical. Despite that, there’s a blossoming concern in my mind, as always. There’s no reason for me to panic over these helpful suggestions, but my brain doesn’t seem to want to listen.

  It’s probably just because my tooth still hurts. It’s becoming more and more painful. There’s now a continuous sharp pain along my jaw. Whenever I roll over in my sleep, I wake up from the pressure of the pillow.

  I’ve checked the ship’s inventory and there isn’t a spare orthodontics kit in the stores. The sick bay is my only option. But just the thought of going inside the room makes tears spring to my eyes.

  I take some antibiotics from the first-aid kit in the living area instead, hoping that will be enough to kill whatever infection is causing the pain.

  DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:

  141

  The antibiotics haven’t made any difference to my toothache. If anything, it’s worse. It hurts so much that I can’t think about anything else.

  I know it’s my own fault for letting my teeth get so bad. I’ve been ignoring the computer’s six-monthly dental check-up reminders for years, trying to avoid going into the sick bay. These days I barely even remember to floss. I deserve this pain.

  I shine a torch into my mouth, staring at the painful tooth using a handheld mirror. The molar is a brownish-black colour. It’s completely rotten through.

  Feeling slightly nauseated, I compare my tooth to pictures of cavities in the medical subprogram. Judging by the photographs, it’s too late to fix it with a filling. It needs to be extracted.

  I’m going to have to remove one of my teeth.

  I just wish that I could do it somewhere apart from the sick bay. The manual tells me that the orthodontic equipment there can remove the tooth without me having to do anything but open my mouth – and there’s a topical anaesthetic, so I wouldn’t feel a thing. It sounds easy. It sounds quick. But I know I’m not going to do this the easy way.

  I can picture exactly what’s waiting inside the sick bay and there’s no way I can go in there. I’m going to remove this tooth old-school style. People have been extracting teeth for millennia without fancy space-age NASA technology. I don’t need machinery to do this – I just need some pliers.

  I read through the manual’s instructions on tooth extraction, making a list of essentials. I can create dentistry tools from cutlery and sewing supplies. Just as long as I don’t have to go into the sick bay, anything will do.

  I find a scalpel, a screwdriver and a set of pliers in the maintenance toolkit. There’s a medium-strength anaesthetic and bandages in the first-aid kit. I fetch a tea towel from the kitchen, just in case there’s more blood than in the pictures in the manual. I also take the few centimetres of whisky left at the bottom of Dad’s bottle.

  After sterilizing the equipment with boiling water, I prepare a clean area of the bathroom for surgery and change into an old pair of dungarees. I rub a capsule of anaesthetic on my gum, and while I wait for it to work I read through the instructions for the seventh time.

  When the pain in my jaw has weakened noticeably, I have no other choice but to start.

  I pick up the pliers. A dizzy feeling passes through me. I ignore it. I am a strong, independent woman and I can totally do this.

  Thinking carefully about anything other than what I’m about to do, I touch the pliers against either side of the rotten tooth. When I press down, a searing pain shoots up my jaw. I drop the pliers, gasping. The tool skitters across the floor, coming to a stop at the base of the toilet.

  OK. So, maybe some more painkillers are needed. And another round of sterilization.

  Four hours later, there are fragments of tooth, gum and blood all over the sink. My tongue feels dry and thick, pressed against the padding where my tooth used to be. But the tooth is out, and my jaw is numb.

  There were a few moments when I almost resigned myself to living with a wobbly, rotten tooth hanging halfway out of my mouth for ever. But I pushed through, knowing that if I gave up I’d never pluck up the courage to try again.

 
; Eventually I managed to lever the tooth out with the screwdriver in only three fragments. I call that a success. I promise myself that I will floss twice a day, every single day, from now on. I am never doing that again.

  Ignoring the post-surgery mess, I stagger to my bunk and fall head first into it. I’ve spent so long running on pure adrenalin that I’m exhausted.

  I’m sure tomorrow my whole face will be covered in bruises, but for now I just want to sleep.

  DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:

  136

  From: UPR Sent: 14/01/2066

  To: The Infinity Received: 12/10/2067

  Subject: For Attention of The Infinity

  Commander Silvers,

  Following previous communications to undertake improvements to The Infinity, we have more requests for lifestyle changes.

  To help the vessel survive voyage in maximum condition, we require you to reduce hours of light usage. Please limit effective “daylight” hours to 90 per cent parts of current usage hours. This will allow better energy efficiency.

  Thank you for your cooperation.

  All hail the UPR! May the King live long and vigorously!

  After I read the UPR’s latest email, I open up the landing simulator and fly the ship aimlessly around the planet.

  Cutting down to 90 per cent of the daylight hours means there will be nearly two extra hours of darkness a day. I suppose it won’t be that bad. I can just go to bed an hour earlier, and have a longer lie-in in the mornings.

  On the simulation, orange flames lick the hull as The Infinity passes through the atmosphere.

  It’s definitely worth turning out the lights earlier in the day if it means there won’t be any more power cuts. I’ve got used to the lights going out at random times, but it’s still irritating – especially if I’m in the middle of a run, when it messes up my timings.

  As the ship glides down towards a burnt orange desert in the simulation, dust lifting up to greet it, I’m filled with the sudden urge to push down hard on the accelerator. I watch The Infinity crash into the surface of the planet. It explodes in flames, metal shards flying in all directions. The destruction makes me feel satisfied in a way I know it shouldn’t.

  I restart the simulation and crash the ship into the ground again, watching the tiny model people drown in ice-coated oceans and crumple under avalanches on volcanoes. My score keeps dropping until I’m at the lowest level, where I don’t have enough control to crash the ship.

  Now I can’t even do what I want on a computer game. And my gum is still so sore that I can’t eat without jarring it.

  I hate everything.

  DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:

  131

  According to the software’s diagnosis of the mainenance system, there’s a slight blockage in one of the air ventilation panels. The computer tells me that I need to remove it before it begins to affect maximum performance.

  The schematic of the vents looks like a cobweb of tunnels, covering every metre of the ship. A blockage glows red on the diagram, somewhere forty metres above the gene bank in the stores. That’s … really high up. It’s closer to the centre of the ship than I’ve ever been before. I’ll be venturing up into the dark core of The Infinity. It has hardly been visited since the ship was built.

  The supplies are stored in the centre of the ship, where the hubcap of a wheel would be. There are ladders every ten metres or so along the corridor, a bit like the spokes on a wheel. They lead up into different parts of the stores, although it’s all connected up there. Apart from fuel, it’s nearly all food. There had to be enough supplies to support several humans for most of their lives, after all. That doesn’t leave much room for anything besides freeze-dried produce and medicine. But as there’s just me here now, the food supplies have barely been touched at this point in the journey. It’s crammed up there.

  Sometimes I get cravings for things so badly that I waste an entire day moving boxes to search through the vacuum-packed food in search of tomato soup or chocolate. You can crawl around the whole of the stores if you’re small enough to get between the boxes.

  I grab my headlamp and a bottle of water, and head to the access ladder outside the lounge area, which leads up to the miscellaneous section of the stores. The trapdoor in the ceiling opens easily when I tug at it, and I use my headlight to shine a light up the shaft. It’s a square tunnel only just wider than my shoulders. It curves gently upwards, until the passage disappears out of sight and my torchlight turns into flickering shadows.

  I count each rung as I climb up, looking down at the glow of light from the lounge area disappearing out of sight below me. The gravity in the centre of the ship is weaker than on the ground level, because it’s created using rotational force. I feel my body lighten as I climb. If it wasn’t so tightly packed, the food would float in mid-air like old-fashioned astronauts used to do.

  The shaft of the ladder opens up into a grid of shelves, stacked tightly with supplies. Gaps between the stacks form paths, most of which Dad carved out when the ship first launched.

  I find myself relaxing as I climb. It’s reassuring up here, enclosed on every side. Protected. I know nothing is coming. I would hear it, knocking over boxes and scattering food packets.

  If the astronauts ever did come back for me, they would never be able to find me up here. That makes me feel safe, even if the ghosts are just a figment of my imagination.

  Once, I found a whole section of farming equipment, with tools and machinery ready to be used on Earth II. There’s even an all-terrain exploration vehicle. I used to crawl into its cabin when I wanted somewhere private to sulk.

  Above me, I catch sight of something written on the side of a box. I climb faster to get to it, and shine my torch on thick black lines of permanent marker. It’s not writing – it’s a wobbly doodle by a young child. I must have come up here to draw when I was little. I would have been very young, though, because I don’t remember it at all.

  There are three stick figures standing in a line, holding hands. They’re on top of a roughly drawn circle, which I think is supposed to be the ship – or maybe it’s a planet.

  One of the figures is a lot shorter than the others, with a big semicircle of a beaming smile. It’s supposed to be me, I realize. The drawing is of me and Dad and my mother. The bottom drops out of my stomach.

  In the picture, she’s smiling too.

  I turn the box around so I can’t see the drawing, and carry on moving.

  After thirty rungs, I can feel the ache in my limbs. I make a mental note to do more weight training. The map on my tablet starts flashing, showing me the route to the blocked ventilation panel. I need to crawl into a narrow horizontal shaft between the stacks. Dad used to make me climb into gaps like these on the lower levels to fetch supplies, when I was small enough to slide between the boxes.

  My size allowed me to hide up here once. It saved my life.

  I push away the thought. I’m not supposed to let myself think about that time, not here, where it might trigger a panic attack.

  I lever myself into the tunnel. It’s a tight fit, with barely any room to move my limbs, and the metal is smooth and slippery.

  It occurs to me as I shuffle forward that I won’t be able to stop myself from sliding head first if the shaft curves back downwards. But it’s too late now – there isn’t enough space to turn around. I have to keep going. Already I’m struggling to keep track of where I am in the ship.

  My knuckles hit the lower rungs of a ladder. The map is still flashing, so I start climbing upwards again.

  I’m halfway up the shaft when I notice that it’s suddenly a lot easier to climb. Effortless, in fact. I grab on to the rungs with both hands, staring down at my legs where they dangle in mid-air.

  I’m floating. I’m floating!

  I must have reached the very centre of the stores. Up here, in the middle of the ship, the force of the artificial gravity is lower. I can float like a real astronaut on a space station.r />
  I kick my feet, watching them swing around in nothing, and let out a happy laugh. Pushing gently against the wall with one finger, I drift up the tunnel as easily as breathing.

  As my hair twists up around my head, I delight in the way that just the smallest touch can send me flying off in another direction.

  When my tablet lets out a beep in my pocket I pull myself to a stop. I must be close to the blockage. I orientate myself with the map. The obstruction is apparently just above me.

  The panel looks normal, but maybe the blockage is on the other side. I open it and shine my headlight inside. I’m expecting to see rows of boxes, but instead there are stacks of neatly folded fabric.

  One of the stacks has collapsed and the material floats in mid-air, clumping against the panel’s opening. Presumably it set off the computer’s sensors.

  I’m overwhelmed by the amount of fabric here. It has never occurred to me to track down the fabric supplies on the ship before. There are boxes of ready-made clothes in different sizes in the lower levels of the stores, but it’s all in the unisex, functional style of NASA uniforms. Most of the time that means dungarees. With uncut fabric, I could design and make my own clothes completely from scratch. Pretty things, like dresses and skirts and cardigans – and scarves!

  My mother was always sewing. It was one of the things she liked doing best, after the astronauts. She would disappear into a small corner in the back of the sick bay, and reappear days later with an intricate piece of embroidery she’d created on an old blanket or towel.

  When Dad and I would coo over them, she’d hand them to us, already picking up more material. The embroideries used to hang on the walls of the corridor, their bright colours and abstract designs lighting up the grey walls. I tore them all down when my parents died and put them in the organic waste disposal. I wish I hadn’t, now that the anger has dulled a little. They were beautiful. There’s nothing on the walls any more except the crayon drawings I used to do as a child.