by Ashanti Luke
—You know I never thought of it like that. Maybe you’re a wiser man than me.
—No, Dada. Not me. You know everything.
—Not everything Dari. The wisest man knows what he knows, and what he doesn’t, and is comfortable with those things he can’t. Sometimes, it seems like I don’t know what I should, and I think I know what I can’t. Hopefully, when you’re my age, what you do know will be clear, and what you can’t know will be even clearer, so that what you don’t know can exist in an attainable spot somewhere in between.
—I’m not sure what that means, Dada.
—Me neither, but I think, by the time you’re my age, you will understand much better than I.
• • • • •
To Dr. Cyrus Chamberlain, everything seemed smaller. He couldn’t tell if the launch station being so close to home was a good thing or a bad one—if he had had to travel to Houston or Florida, at least the entire process would have mirrored the weight he now felt on his shoulders. The other scientists milled around the inside of the large craft that levitated above the track leading to the launch pad. The tension inside the massive cargo barge, which had been converted into a mobile ballroom, was almost tangible. The faces of everyone there, whether somber or excited, were full of emotion. The hazy morning light that filtered in through clear plastic windows that surrounded them gave everyone’s face a morbid, orange glow. The pain of not seeing loved ones and friends for another ten years, if ever, was visible. As clear as the craft set on the horizon to take those loved ones away. There were twenty scientists in all, each surrounded by several family members and colleagues that had come to see them off. They moved slowly over the metal-laced track toward the looming Unified Nations Rosamond Land Dock in the distance, and the closer they got, the more the ballroom felt like a mortuary. Some cried, mourning those that still walked among them, at least for the next hour or so. Cyrus stood with his wife Feralynn, his son Darius, and his best friend, Dr. Alexander Kalem and watched the dust of Antelope Valley float in lazy swirls as he felt the sting of his choice—he was leaving this overpopulated rock forever. Cyrus, one of the premier astrophysicists in the Unified Nations, had been notified the moment they had discovered Asha. Ten years later, he had been formally asked to join the team of scientist-pioneers that would make up the first expedition to this planet they hoped would become the sister-world to Earth. Only a few months later, the Unified Nations Census had revealed the Earth now held in excess of ten billion people—and that was discounting the Fringe States that had held out in the Unification. And now, Cyrus was about to leave his life behind for a new one. And it floored him.
To Cyrus, Kalem had always looked older than he was. And it seemed he had purposefully promoted that image. The grey flecks in his hair made his skin look lighter. The pale light that streamed in through the large windowed side of the conveyance vehicle gave his light skin an odd glow and accented the lines of his face that made him look serious even when he smiled.
Cyrus imagined Dr. Kalem would have made an excellent poker player if he had believed in gambling. But the man, who had been his closest friend since his matriculation to the physical sciences tract of the Arcology, was too interested in a concrete sense of security to gamble on anything except his own mental ability, which he had in droves.
The lines in Kalem’s face seemed an odd contrast to Feralynn’s. It was hard to read her expression, but Cyrus had grown accustomed to seeing the lines that formed around her jaw line whenever she was quietly upset with something he had said, or something he had done, or something he had not done that he should have. But today the lines were gone. She seemed torn, but was not combative. She was not usually quiet about her emotions, whether she understood clearly what she was feeling or not, but today, her mixed feelings were solemn and unmanifest. Standing there in the pale orange light of the smog tinted sun, Cyrus could see the fire in her eyes that he had recognized the moment he met her—the fire he had not seen in the eight years since his son had been born.
Cyrus looked up at the browning film that limited visibility even out this far from the growing sprawl of Los Angeles. Most of the desert had been consumed by urban renewal and the need to accommodate more and more people. “People just don’t die like they used to,” David Chamberlain, his father, had once said. It wasn’t until now, looking at the dinge-filled sky, Cyrus really understood what he meant. The Silverlake Terraforming Processor had been cleaning the noxious city air now for more than half a century. Ironically, this technology, made obsolete by the discovery of a planet that could sustain humanity without terraforming, now served to make Earth itself more inhabitable—all the while, forcing the filth out here to the desert.
People weren’t even born right any more. Podcenters robbed the mothers who could afford it of the last trimester of motherhood in order to eliminate birth defects and disease. Human beings were surviving better than ever—and that survival was killing them. No one had officially stated that this mission was to ‘save humanity,’ but the shoulder pads in their month-long briefing definitely acted as though this mission had more riding on it than just human curiosity. Something was about to break, and he and the nineteen other eggheads on this barge were being lined up to put their fingers in the dam. No one said it. The words probably didn’t exist to call out the problem by name. But Cyrus could feel it. The thought alone was so ominous it seemed like a promise. He could tell his son felt it too.
Cyrus ran his fingers through the curly strands of hair that always seemed to collect on the front of the boy’s head. The curls made his head look too big for his body, which was smaller than it should have been. Cyrus took his wife’s hand in his other. Her hand was warmer than he expected given the chill he felt in his own. Her long black hair concealed her face, but he caught a glimpse of her eye as she turned her head toward him, and he saw a glimmer there. She squeezed his hand and held her grip, and then turned slowly to meet his eyes. The glimmer had been a tear that had formed on her tear duct, yet refused to run down her face. Her porcelain skin was a strong contrast to his own, but he had always liked that. She didn’t bother to wipe at her eyes, but the tear moved down her cheek slightly as she turned. She opened her mouth to speak, but then turned back to the window, squeezing his hand even tighter.
Darius had been looking through the window of the conveyance lev. “Dada,” he asked, continuing to look toward their destination—it was endearing that his son, as eloquent as he could be for an eight year-old, had never grown out of that particular moniker.
“Yes Dari?” Cyrus continued to look out of the window as well as the Land Dock grew in the distance. The Mercury Six was moored to the massive platform. It would take them to the Eros Slingshot where they would rendezvous with the larger Paracelsus that would take them to Asha.
A tumbleweed rolled away from the lev as it sped down the track. “Miss Hasabe says a long, long time ago they used to land the first space ships here.”
“That’s right Dari. Five hundred years ago, they would land a space ship they called the space shuttle here. It was a military base then too, but not for the Uni.”
Darius looked up at his father, his eyes wide. He began to say something, stopped, looked outside at the sky for a moment, and finally turned back again. “Will they have the Damocles next to the Paracelsus at the Eros station, Dada?”
“They haven’t built the Damocles yet,” Cyrus said as Darius turned to face him. Something moved over the boy’s face and it was as if those words alone carried the pain of how long it would be before he would see his father again. He didn’t cry, but the look of horror on his face was worse than tears. Cyrus wanted to comfort him, but he could only find the words, “I’m sorry, Darius.”
Dr. Kalem saw Cyrus and Darius and moved closer to them. Cyrus shook his hand and then pulled him in, hugging him brusquely, “Take care of my family, old friend.” The lines on Kalem’s face deepened, and his lips parted as if to say something, but he only smiled and gripped Cyrus
’s shoulders tightly. When Kalem released him, Feralynn stepped between them, agape with tears. Cyrus pulled her close as she sobbed and suddenly felt the heaviness between them lifted. In that moment, it was just the two of them, as they had been during their years at the Arcology. Someone more inclined to melodrama would have described the feeling as warmth, but even in that moment where the entire universe was a small space that included only them, Cyrus knew that warmth was no longer a part of their equation. The raw emotion between them had no name, and it was too humble to be overwhelming, but it filled the expanse that had grown between them for the last eight years. And for a moment that seemed longer than the trip Cyrus would soon embark on, he coveted the feeling of every sensation of every gram of flesh where their bodies touched.
As they embraced, the conveyance lev reached the Dock. Feralynn pulled away from Cyrus, punched him rather abruptly on his shoulder, and then turned away lowering her head. Cyrus backed away slowly. He understood more of her mixed emotions than maybe she did herself—enough to know nothing he could say in the time they had left would change them. But he paused anyway, almost apologized, but saved his words, turning to hug Darius one more time. Cyrus almost convulsed as he felt the warm moisture between their cheeks. Then he set his son down, turned as quickly as he could, and walked down the jetway with some other scientists. It felt as if he were walking through a swamp as he trudged toward the airlock. He wanted to turn to get one more glance at his family, but he pressed himself to keep moving toward the ship.
Suddenly, there was a commotion behind him. He heard a shout and then a shuffling, and as he turned, he saw a soldier trying to restrain Darius. Darius flailed his elbows to squirm out of the soldier’s grasp. The soldier moved his hand to get a better grip and Darius twisted. The man only managed to grab the collar of his jacket, and Darius spun out of it, stumbled, and then pedaled his feet beneath him to run outside the reach of the soldier. The soldier cursed under his breath, but Kalem placed his hand on him, spoke some words, and the soldier relaxed and did not give chase. Darius barreled up the jetway, and if he had been six or seven kilos heavier, would have tackled Cyrus. As Darius looked up, he was gasping for air and his cheek was wet, but he did not appear to be crying. Cyrus could not tell if the boy was gasping from crying earlier, from his struggle with the soldier, or from trying to get his words out too fast.
“Dada! Dada! Remember the other day when I said I felt selfish?”
“Yes Dari.”
“I don’t feel so selfish anymore. I feel like it’s gonna be impossible without you, but I don’t feel so sad anymore.”
“I’m glad Dari, but what changed?”
“I figured out what the treasure in the Aryal story was!” He paused to wipe something from his nose, sighed a little, and then continued, “The treasure isn’t a thing, at least not a grabby kinda thing. It’s a feeling. A feeling that someone loves you enough to give up a part of themself because you need it.” His words came in between sniffles, but he managed to hold back any tears.
“That’s pretty deep Dari, but I’m not sure I see what I’m giving up.”
“That’s because you aren’t. I think you need something Dada. I’m too young to know what it is, but I’m Big Man enough to let you go look for it, at least for a little while. But you better find it before mommy and me get to Asha, because you leaving is almost too much once. I know I couldn’t do it two times.”
And then he couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. His body began to shake with sobs and he turned, buried his face in his hands, and stumbled back toward the soldier that still held his jacket. Feralynn moved to the soldier and sidled past him, pulling her son to her side with one arm. She looked up, tears in her own eyes, and Kalem put his arm around her and Darius. Kalem nodded to Cyrus before uttering some quiet consolation to Darius and Feralynn. With her free hand Feralynn blew Cyrus a kiss, her tears adding a melodramatic twinkle to her eyes. She had never looked as beautiful as she had at that moment. It was as if the pall that had hung over her for the last eight years was lifting, slowly, but lifting nonetheless. And that was how Cyrus knew he would never see her again. Darius would make it to the Damocles, but she never would.
two
• • • • •
—Dada, why are you leaving me and mama?
—I’m not leaving you. You will be meeting me on Asha with your mother once the Damocles is built.
—That’s gonna take five years for them to build it though.
—But it will land a year after the Paracelsus, because it will be a bigger and faster ship with a much more efficient drive.
—But I’ll be a grown up man like you before I see you again.
—I know Darius, but this trip may help us understand things we couldn’t understand before. Things we would never be able to see and study here on Earth.
—What’s Asha like Dada? At school they say it’s like a really big desert.
—Well, there’s a huge ocean that runs under the surface. But the surface is barren and dry as far as we can tell.
—Why is it like that?
—Because it spins on its side. Like Uranus. We think a large comet hit it when it was a young planet. The impact created a giant crater we call the Bereshit Scar and knocked Asha on its side. Because the comet was made mostly of ice, the ice melted and filled the gaps under the surface. The comet created the conditions that will allow humans to live on the planet. But because the planet turns on its side like that, a day on Asha is half a year, and it’s night for half a year. And a year on Asha is twenty-five Earth years, so it’s good the ocean is underground, because the water would evaporate and Asha would be covered in clouds like Venus.
—But I don’t get it, why is Asha so important?
—Because it’s like a young Earth. Studying the planet up close might help us learn how life on Earth started. Plus, pretty soon there will be too many people on Earth, we will need a place to go, and that place will need to be prepared.
—Can’t you wait until I’m older to leave?
—I wish I could, but we have to leave now because it takes so long to get there. At the speed the Paracelsus goes, it will take a hundred ninety-six years to get there. A machine called the Hyposoma Apparatus will keep my body from aging until the ship begins to slow down. It takes the ship five years to slow down because it is going so fast, so we use the five years to make our bodies healthy again, because the Hyposoma makes our bodies and brains weak.
—The Paracelsus will travel at ninety-Five point oh five percent of the speed of light, two hundred, eighty-five thousand, one hundred fifty kilometers per second, right Dada? Miss Hasabe taught us about it.
—That’s right. But because the ship goes so fast, it takes a hundred ninety-six years on the ship, but it will be six hundred thirty-one years for everyone else because traveling close to the speed of light bends time.
—So while you’re in bent time, me and momma and everyone else will be in straight time, and we’ll get older. Then me and momma will go on the Damocles, and we will go into even more bent time, and everyone else will get old and die, but we’ll be okay because of the Hyposoma At-her-at-us.
—App-er-atus. And yes, your Uncle Xander already made the arrangements for you and your mother to go on the Damocles when they are done building it. If it didn’t have to slow down, it would actually catch up to us before we got to Asha.
—That’s because the Damocles travels at ninety-eight point one three percent of the speed of light, two hundred ninety-four thousand, three hundred ninety kilometers per second.
—Since when do you pay so much attention in class?
—Well, it’s not all the time the teacher talks about my Dada in class. Are you sure I’m going on the Damocles. No one at school believes me, and Terry Gallager says only important people get to go.
—You’re important to me, so the next time Terry Gallager runs his mouth about something he knows nothing about, tell him to stuff it in his undersuit.
—Okay Dada. Is it gonna be fun on Asha?
—There will be a lot of work for me to do. But the settlement should be prepared by the time you and your mother get there. And you should be traveling with other families as well.
—I don’t want you to go Dada. I think I’ll miss you too much.
—I will miss you too. Terribly. But this is work I have to do. A chance to do something that could change everything we know—everything we thought we knew. But you will be fine. Before long, you won’t even notice I’m gone.
—I don’t think so Dada. The launch is forty-seven and a half days away, but I feel like I’m never gonna see you again, and it hurts so much already. It feels like it’s never gonna stop hurting.
—Well, one way or the other, it will stop eventually.
—You’re real smart Dada, and you always seem to know all the right answers, but I don’t think you got it right this time.
—For both our sakes, I hope you’re wrong.
—Me too, Dada. Me too.
• • • • •
A gasp of stale air escaped as Cyrus Chamberlain exhaled the first breath of the day cycle. He rolled sluggishly out of the sleep chamber and onto the warm, slightly curved floor of the claustrophobic sleeping quarters. At least the floor isn’t cold, Cyrus thought to himself as he slowly inched one bare foot in front of the other. The earthy green walls of the room were as calming as the designer had intended, but the last two mornings had been met with frustration. The first day had been easier because emerging from the Hyposoma, Cyrus could barely remember his own name, let alone move. The second day, he had awaken in this sleep chamber that looked like a medical monitoring station for Intensive Care patients.
But that is what they were at the moment. They would be packed inside these tubes that looked like detached fighter cockpits for another four day cycles. The sleep chambers ensured the microscopic robots that helped to stimulate their bodies back to health were working properly. The sleep units also served to alert the automated Shipmate android if there was a complication. Most of them still lay closed, their occupants opting for rest over attempts at roaming the ship, but Cyrus could not stay in his sleep chamber any longer this day cycle.