by Lauren James
Sometimes, if I begged my mother and she was feeling really good, she would show me how to thread a needle or tie a knot. But after only a few minutes she would just freeze, and this horrible expression would come over her face when she looked at me. Then she’d disappear into the sick bay again, and we’d go back to only seeing her when we brought her food.
I could never understand what I did wrong. What was it about me that stopped her from loving me the way Dad did? I think I must have been too loud, too energetic for her.
Hovering in place, I pull the sheaths of fabric into the tunnel, clearing the obstruction. I’m definitely taking some of it back with me.
I see a shining mustard-yellow fabric and add that to my pile, already planning the outfits I can make. I can’t resist choosing a beautiful pale purple fabric and a vivid dark green one as well.
Wrapping the material around my shoulders, I memorize the other colours I can see, so I can plan what to take next time.
For now, I think I should go back to the living quarters. I’m feeling a bit … tired. There are tiny little bumps all over my arms and I feel kind of shivery, especially in my lower back.
By the time I reach ground level, my lips and fingertips are slightly numb. Maybe I’m getting ill? When I give a full-body shudder, the sensation reminds me of an animal from a cartoon, shivering in the snow. I’m cold, I realize, surprised.
The lumps on my arms must be goosebumps. I run my fingers over them, amazed that my body has been able to do something so strange all this time, without me knowing about it.
I’ve never been cold before. The climate on the ship is always set at a comfortable room temperature.
I wrap myself in a blanket, trying to work out why I’m suddenly freezing. Has the temperature of the ship dropped somehow?
At the helm, there’s another error message on the screen. It’s hours old:
POWER FAILURE IN HEATER 43(f)
The heating system must have crashed and shut down while I was in the stores. No wonder I’m shivering – the temperature of the ship has lowered by six degrees. I’m lucky that only one of the heater quadrants failed. If all of the ship’s temperature regulators had shut down, I would have died, frozen in my tunnel as the heat leaked out into space and the temperature dropped below zero.
I reboot the heater, wrapping myself in more blankets while it begins working in overdrive to raise the temperature again.
I attempt to start analysing the system data to isolate what exactly went wrong, but I end up staring blankly at the screen, lost in thought. The letters blur and double before my eyes.
I don’t understand why there have been so many system failures so long after the new software was installed. It’s natural for a new OS to have a few bugs, but this is ridiculous. First the embryo freezers, then the air-conditioning and lighting, and now the heating.
I have no idea what to do about it. I’ve tried every troubleshooting solution I can think of, but I still can’t work out where all the shortages are coming from. Even though I’ve asked the UPR and J for advice, by the time they work out what the problem is and send me the solution, it’ll be far too late.
Maybe it’s time for me to accept that this ship is old now. That it’s falling apart around me.
I just have to hope that The Eternity gets here before The Infinity breaks down permanently. All I can do until then is keep saving as much power as possible to try and make sure the ship lasts that long.
Once J is here, all my problems will disappear. I just have to hold on.
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
125
From: The Eternity Sent: 16/07/2067
To: The Infinity Received: 23/10/2067
Romy,
Sometimes I feel like you’re the only thing in my life that I can depend on. Everything around me is in a constant flux of uncertainty, except for you. You’re always there for me. The Eternity is a beaut, but it doesn’t feel like home to me. You do. And I feel that way even though I’ve only ever emailed you! Imagine how I’ll feel when we’re spending every day together.
I’m so psyched to meet you in person. It’s better talking to you now that we’re sending messages back and forth with less of a delay. It’s more of a conversation now I get your reply after only a few weeks.
I think that the first time we meet we’ll have to sit down and just tell each other things for three days straight. I usually end up cutting out half of what I’ve written in these emails, because they get so long. I can’t help it. I never mean to, but as soon as I start writing, it turns out I have so much to tell you.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I really like you, Romy. More than I expected to. To be honest, I was really nervous about getting in touch – I had no idea what you would be like. Now I can’t wait to see you.
I wonder if we would have been friends, if we had been meeting in less exceptional circumstances. I hope so. I really do, neighbor.
J xx
J likes me! Probably just as a friend, of course – but that’s more than I was expecting! He likes me!
I can feel myself blushing, alone on my spaceship in the middle of a galaxy. I feel like the stupidest teenage girl ever to exist, getting hysterical over a boy. A boy who likes talking to me so much that he can’t help but tell me everything he feels.
It makes my stomach flip in a combination of excitement and nerves. It’s a bit scary, in a grown-up, mature way. There’s so much pressure, so much I don’t know how to do. Things I’ve only ever read about in fics.
I can’t think of anything that could make my life better right now. Except maybe for time to hurry up, for The Eternity to bring my J to me sooner.
We have everything in common. J is so thoughtful and funny and cute. Talking to him is so easy. It’s exactly how I imagined talking to a boy would be, back when I only had Jayden to practise on, in my imagination.
I want to make him happy more than anything else. As long as J is happy, everything will be OK.
From: The Infinity Sent: 23/10/2067
To: The Eternity Predicted date of receipt: 08/11/2067
J,
I feel the same way about writing to you. It’s like everything I’ve been struggling to understand about myself just makes sense when I tell you about it. You make it hurt less. It’s crazy how much I have to say to you every single day. I think we would definitely have been friends in another life. I don’t know how we couldn’t be.
Today I found a secret stash of chocolate in the stores. It was hidden behind some boxes of mushroom soup, near the ladder. I think it was my dad’s secret supply. He had a massive sweet tooth, unlike my mother. He must have been hiding all the chocolate behind the soup he knew we wouldn’t eat – I hate mushrooms – so that he could sneak off to eat it. I can just imagine him gorging on sweets before returning with salmon fillets for dinner, saying we needed to eat more healthily. The image makes me feel happy and sad and tired, all at once.
I hardly ever find chocolate in the stores, so I’d like to eat it, but I can’t bear to. It would be like another part of him is gone for ever. However much I’ve tried to keep him with me – not disturbing his bunk, his notebooks, his toothbrush and razor – every trace of him will disappear in the end, like he was never here at all.
We were all really happy when I was little. This ship wasn’t some terrifying place to be, back then. I loved it. I would have been distraught at the thought of leaving.
My mother used to tell the kind of silly jokes that would make me and Dad laugh so hard we couldn’t breathe. She taught me how to do origami, and after every meal I’d carefully collect up all the food packets and wash them, then unfold them to use as origami paper. We got obsessed with it – we made this whole zoo of animals.
They were both really great parents. Up until the astronauts died.
R xx
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
120
I keep hearing the astronauts. They scratch at the hul
l of the ship with fingernails like claws, scurrying across the outside of the ship in a series of thudding bangs. At night they scrape at the airlock, filling my ears with the high-pitched squeal of metal when I’m trying to sleep.
I tell myself that it’s just the noise of the engine, or space debris. But when I follow the sound, it stops. When I look out of the porthole, they hide. But I know they’re there. They know I’m here, tracking them.
They freeze when I start listening. They don’t want to be caught. The astronauts are clever. They’re patient.
I’m getting desperate.
From: The Infinity Sent: 28/10/2067
To: The Eternity Predicted date of receipt: 12/11/2067
J,
There are so many changes happening on board The Infinity. I’m so ashamed that I can’t cope with all the efficiency improvements, even though they’re for the good of the ship.
The UPR have now asked me to only flush the toilet once a day, and reduce my showers to once a fortnight. Even if they’re short showers, I’m used to washing every other day. I’m going to smell awful if I only wash once a fortnight.
I suppose I’d better savour my last shower, because I’ll have forgotten what it feels like by the next time I have one.
I can’t wait until we can be together. You make me feel safe in a way that nothing else does any more.
R xx
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
106
By the time two weeks have passed and I’m allowed to take another shower, I’m desperate to wash. My hair feels like cardboard, and I’ve got acne all over my back and chest.
I tip my head back under the warm stream of water, memorizing the feel of it over my skin. It’s pure heaven. I wash my hair four times to get rid of all the oil, rubbing my fingers over the strands and revelling in their new softness.
I can get used to infrequent showers, I suppose. It wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. After the first week, I stopped noticing how I smelt. It was only really bad when I was on my period. And it is for the good of the ship, after all.
But when I wash away the suds, I notice that my hands are covered in dark hair from my scalp. Layers of it twist around my fingers and follow the lines of my palms.
My hair is falling out. What if there’s something wrong with me?
Soaking wet, I run to the computer and type “hair loss symptoms” into the medical subroutine. Holding my breath, I skim-read the list of causes:
MALE PATTERN BALDNESS
DRUG-INDUCED
STRESS
Hair loss is a symptom of stress. Understandable.
I hope it’s limited to a few strands. I’ve never really cared what I look like – it’s never really mattered before. But with J arriving, suddenly it does. I can’t handle the thought of him seeing me and being … disappointed. What if J thinks my body doesn’t live up to my personality? What if I’m so unattractive that he decides even our friendship can’t make up for the way I look?
Taking careful breaths, I avoid thinking about it. If stress is causing the hair loss, then I’m only going to accelerate the process by worrying about it. I need to stay calm.
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
104
Today is my birthday. I’m going to make a cake.
I scour the stores for chocolate pudding and brownies, which I mix into a sticky mess that I shape into something round and vaguely cake-like. I stir together sugar, water and powdered milk to make a kind of icing, and scrape it on top of the chocolatey cake, curling it up into rough peaks. It’s messy and inelegant, but it looks cheerful.
I don’t have a candle to put on top – that’s far too much of a fire hazard for space – but I twist up seventeen scraps of paper and stick them in the icing, colouring the ends a bright orange.
Seventeen. I feel a lot older.
As I pretend to blow out the candles, a wish flashes through my mind without me even needing to think about it: I wish J were here.
Then I stretch out in bed on my stomach and eat cake until I feel sick. I can’t help wondering what my next birthday will be like. J will be here by then. I’ll be turning eighteen.
Just the thought of J sends electric shivers from my fingers to the tip of my toes. I want him to kiss me. I want to feel his fingers wrapped in my hair.
I want him, not just his words; I want his body too. Writing letters isn’t enough – it’s never been enough.
I wonder whether J will give me a birthday present. A birthday kiss.
The thought deserves my complete attention. I roll over, and push my pyjama bottoms off my hips.
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
103
I think about sex a lot. Objectively, the idea is kind of disgusting – especially when you start learning about STDs and fissures and enemas. I get kissing – I understand that. I’ve kissed the back of my hand, and it seems kind of pleasant, so yeah. That makes sense. But … sex? I just can’t figure it out.
I can’t decide whether all the gross parts would fade away if you’re with someone you really love, or whether you’d still notice things like smells and noises and stickiness, but the emotions overwhelm it all. I want to know a lot of things like that about sex, and I don’t have anyone to ask.
I never thought it would matter to me anyway. It wasn’t like I was ever going to have sex with anyone. But now … there’s J.
J makes my heart feel like it’s purring in my chest. I’ve been sending him the most honest, truthful secrets I have, and he still likes me. He might even like me enough to one day have sex with me.
In just over three months, we’ll be meeting in person, face to face. I need to start getting ready so I look like the girls in films, all smooth and beautiful. I don’t want to disgust him with my hairy eyebrows and legs and armpits. I want him to like me. I want him to see me as a woman.
I research how to pluck my eyebrows using beauty guru tutorials from decades ago. For the first time ever, I stand in front of the mirror, eyes watering, and pull hairs from my skin.
Copying a picture of Lyra Loch, I try to sculpt my brows into elegant arches, but all I manage to do is make myself look permanently surprised. I’m glad I started early, so I have time to practise.
Next, I shave my legs, and only nick myself three times. My legs feel smooth for a day, and then start to itch. It surprises me how quickly the hair grows back; sharp and blacker than before.
Even though he isn’t here to see it, after my next shower I’m going to divide my wet hair into thin clumps and plait each one, so that it’ll dry curly. I wish that I had make-up, so I could contour my cheekbones and extend my eyelashes with mascara.
I’ve used the fabric from the stores to make three skirts, two dresses and one nightdress. My favourite is a dress I designed based on the one that Lyra wears in the episode where she and Jayden have to pretend to be married for a case.
It’s beautiful. Every time I try it on, my stomach does flips. I keep picturing the way that Jayden looked at Lyra when she wore that dress. His jaw dropped, a pink flush tinging the tips of his ears as he ran a hand through his hair.
It’s the way I’ve always wanted someone to look at me – with eyes full of awe and a smile that tries to hide it. When I imagine J seeing me wearing the dress, I can feel the fluttering pump of my heart against my ribs, lighter than air, and the rush I usually only get from reading cute fics fills my stomach.
I should make more clothes; a whole wardrobe of outfits for him to see me in. I have the time. When The Eternity arrives, I’ll be ready.
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
100
From: UPR Sent: 15/02/2066
To: The Infinity Received: 17/11/2067
Subject: For Attention of The Infinity
Attachment: Lighting-schedule.exe [30 KB]
Commander Silvers,
Following previous communications to undertake improvements to The Infinity, please reduce the vessel’s temperature b
y one degree centigrade in all habitation areas, from 24°C to 23°C. This will save heating resources.
Please also limit light by 50 per cent by installation of the attached lighting scheduling software to ensure optimum efficiency.
Thank you for your cooperation.
All hail the UPR! May the King live long and vigorously!
I stare at my model farmhouse, which in the last few months has grown into a whole town made out of dinner packets. As well as my origami farm animals, I’ve populated it with people: a tiny Romy with a cutting of my hair glued on to a spoon head and ballpoint pen freckles, a J with cardboard limbs and a miniscule set of juggling balls, and a dozen children of different ages.
Model J is showing Model Romy how to plant seedlings outside the building. Near by a tissue-paper dog is digging up apple pip pebbles from the soil. A little boy is looking adoringly up at J, holding on to one trouser leg. There’s a tiny cotton-wool baby in Model Romy’s arms.
I’ve spent hours carefully building up my dream life. I’ve put all my hopes and desires and love into the model, wishing with every tin foil or string addition that one day it will come true.
Right now it feels like it will never happen. I thought a year would fly by, every day bringing me closer to J. Instead, time has slowed down, turning to tar that keeps me trapped here away from him. It’s an effort to get through a day.
I don’t know how much longer I can keep waiting.
There’s an ache, a throbbing in my skull, telling me that I’m cursed: by my mother, by the dead astronauts, by the UPR, by this ancient, failing ship.
They want me to turn off the lights for an extra four hours a day. The very idea makes me want to cry. I’ll be cornered, alone and awake, waiting until my designated daylight hours begin. Anything could creep up on me and I’d have no idea.
I’m not going to do it. I’m going to ignore them. The UPR are light years away – they can’t force me to do it.