The East River swallowed the United Nations headquarters in New York; London was swamped by the New Fens; and a tidal wave deluged Shanghai before world leaders agreed that the crystal blooms were threatening life on the entire planet. UN delegates reconvened in Geneva in the middle of a tornado, offering a last gasp of consensus before the international body was permanently dissolved in favor of the Exploratory Stewardship Council. The blooms could not be attacked, and they could not be stopped. Without the ability to communicate with them, there was no feasible way to understand their intentions or negotiate. The only solution was to leave the planet as quickly as possible.
The world would assemble two hundred ships to venture into the cosmos to find a new home. The ships themselves were made from different designs—lightsails, ramjet engines, liquid propellant, solid propellant, and fusion engines—developed by a mixture of private industry and government.
Twenty-five ships voyaged to Mars. The rest to the beyond, crewed with a range of peoples and cultures on voyages in which generations would rise and fall before they reached their destinations of theoretically habitable moons and planets. The ramjet engines lost contact almost immediately, warped as they were by constant acceleration and the limits of space-time. Even if they settled on new worlds, people on Earth wouldn’t know for centuries, and then only if they could invent new methods of communication that defied our current understanding of physics.
But the conventional crafts could communicate—and were required to remain in touch with Earth at all times—through the beacons and relays they dropped behind them, which would boost their signals.
The Exploratory Covenant set forth many rules: pooling resources to build and launch the ships from the largest moonbases; shared ownership over any resource discoveries; military support, but not intervention; and then strict prohibitions: genocide, crimes against humanity, human bondage and slave labor, and its simplest article, a prohibition against cannibalism:
Art. 3. Cannibalism. Evidence of cannibalism, whether or not induced by starvation, shocks the conscience and warrants instant retirement of the vessel.
Retirement was defined as a pulse transmitted from a council base ordering the ship computer to automatically kill the crew, by asphyxiation, exposure to the vacuum of space, or conflagration. In no instance was retirement ever permitted to be slow or painful.
Sickness could be healed. Rights could be wronged. But not cannibalism. If in doubt, the Covenant held, kill the cannibals.
* * *
Before I entered the initiation, the crew often paid me compliments on my physical form and cool head under pressure. As I mentioned, people expected me to become captain of the Lion’s Mane one day. This assumption was so widespread that I visited the fish tanks at the age of just nine, an immense privilege reserved for the most trusted gen-gineers. We only learned about the trout in the mysteries—their biology, habits, and propagation—but I was able to see them firsthand as a young boy! The captain allowed me to scoop a handful of the most beautiful roe, thousands of little eggs that felt like I was slipping my hand through jellied diamonds. Such was their value that this was not far from the truth. My head swelled with pride, and I hoped I would one day be an excellent captain just like her.
Everyone who survived the initiation had to take a genetics test before qualifying to enter the ranks of the crew. For most of us, this was a mere formality because the computer system already knew our parentage. The test was essential for the health of our journey to remove any anomalies. I remember feeling that it would be my final triumph after I had mastered the mysteries—everything from propulsion systems to mathematical languages to electrical maintenance to EVA walks, food conservation, and Finding-Evasion—the test would confirm my genetic health, one last blessing before I became a trusted elder.
Then, just like that, I was the one who was chosen for a Finding.
“I’m sorry,” the chief gen-gineer said to me, reviewing my file. “But the results are clear. Look at your markers. You’re missing some crucial haplotypes. I’m afraid you were the product of just one pair of elders.” Before I could reply, he said seriously, “Would you like me to tell you who they were, Hiroko?”
I could barely force my head to nod. I was too devastated to move, as if my very breath would fail me.
“It was Elder Amina and Elder Volker,” he said.
“No, it can’t be.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. They were good people. Friends of mine. I would even say you have many of their best qualities.”
“It can’t be!”
I was ashamed. Very ashamed. I brooded over his revelation in my quarters, crushed. Elder Amina had told me herself and I had not believed her. I had genuinely thought they had been lying to me. And besides, didn’t attachment convey weakness for the journey? That’s what the mysteries had taught us. These were the attitudes that made me fit to be captain! Except now I knew I had been their offspring all along—two people bound by love and not the shared mission of the journey. There was nothing wrong with coupling, other than that they should never have conceived a child. Now I was the weakest link in the ship. The very definition of an unhealthy crew member. There was no way I could become captain now.
“There are some people, Hiroko, who believe the Findings should stop,” the chief gen-gineer whispered to me when he found me sitting at the cafeteria, absently stirring a bowl of tofu. “Everyone thinks you’re fit to be captain one day. You were a standout through the initiation, from what I heard. Perhaps genetics aren’t as important as people believe they are. Maybe things have gotten out of hand.”
During the initiation we also learned that if we pushed a dead crew member from the airlock, their flesh was lost for the journey. It was a total waste of resources, when we had so precious few to survive.
“We can take on water in space,” I said, keeping my eyes on my food. “We can harvest minerals. But we can’t replace complex organic matter.”
“That’s from one of your mysteries, isn’t it? From the initiation?”
“I cannot tell you that.”
“I’m merely asking—” he insisted. “Look, I’m trying to say that it’s all right if you miss Amina and Volker. I do too, from time to time.”
I stirred my tofu. No Finding had ever been canceled, and he did not hold the authority to do so. What did he want from me? To weep like a baby? To grow weak when a Finding would require every ounce of my ingenuity and strength? My self-pity had died on the Renewal Pond with the people who had created me.
“Findings are the only way,” I said.
He gave me a disappointed look, a look not too dissimilar, in fact, from the look Elder Volker gave me when he was dragged away, as if he was about to say something that might upset me, and did not.
* * *
For practical reasons, the Exploratory Stewardship Council did not convene in person, because some stewards lived at lunar bases, others in low-Earth orbit, and several on Mars, even if most remained on Earth sequestered in underground filter domes. There were over two hundred stewards in total, one stewarding each ship, with responsibilities for tracking the movements of the vessel and the health of the crew. That was before the ships started failing.
Steward Mafokeng waited as the other stewards took in the image of the captain of the Lion’s Mane raising the severed finger to her lips, some furrowing their brows, frowning, or shaking their heads.
“Savages!” one declared.
“Barbarians!”
After the delegates calmed down, Steward Hutchins spoke to the assembled group, displaying information about the vessel before them. “The image was transmitted fifty-five years ago, eighty-point-three billion kilometers beyond the Kuiper Belt. The Lion’s Mane is carrying three hundred individuals en route to Tau Ceti. It’s an Interstellar Galleon Lightsail, class four.”
“Any deviations from the flight plan?” a steward asked.
“The Lion’s Mane orbited a near-planetary object
for two months, and continued on, with full crew remaining on board at all times. It took on water as it pushed through the Mars-Jupiter asteroid belt, and several times more through the Kuiper. All healthy deviations from the prescribed flight path.”
“Signs of distress?”
“No emergency signals were triggered. The hull reveals full structural integrity. Oxygen levels are at optimal levels, perhaps even slightly elevated.” Hutchins waited for these facts to sink in as the stewards cycled through the information. He wasn’t repeating anything they hadn’t yet read themselves. “This was a clear violation of the Covenant, which required decisive action. Accordingly, I move for a vote.”
Steward Hutchins nodded assuredly, wearing a look of resignation. Mafokeng raised her finger to indicate an objection, but held it there, feeling indecisive. It was all happening so fast. The evidence was incontrovertible, but given the consequences, wasn’t it worth prolonging the discussion? She had read the brief forwarded by Hutchins, like the rest of the stewards, but didn’t three hundred souls deserve a little more deliberation? It was a chance she had never been afforded with her own ship, the Medallion.
“The council moves to retire,” the council president said. The rotating president was chosen for their reputation for impartiality, and held final decisions on procedural matters. They largely stayed out of debates. “Any objections?”
“Yes. Steward Hutchins, are you not charged with the well-being of this ship?” It was a steward interjecting from a sealed cavern in the Philippines. Machines and blinking lights were interspersed among giant crystalline stalagmites that glistened from a trickle of limestone water.
“I am indeed charged with its well-being, Steward, as we all are.”
“Then why does it seem to me that you are all too quick to condemn this ship to retirement?”
The Filipino steward had a reputation as a contrarian, for which Mafokeng was grateful at this moment. She stewarded a fusion vessel, which meant that she lived with the knowledge that it could melt down at any time, or send shock waves across the asteroid belt, killing the crew instantly. Like her, most stewards of fusion vessels tended toward the religious. She was a zealous advocate of her crew, a caretaker who delighted in every report that they were alive and well. “The Lion’s Mane has traveled farther than any other ship, if I’m not mistaken.”
“That’s not entirely true,” another steward chimed in. “The Halios is a full twenty billion kilometers beyond the Lion’s Mane.”
“But we are certain,” the steward insisted, “that the Halios’s crew is dead, bless their souls. We haven’t received a message or signal for fifty years.”
“I am not sure I follow your reasoning,” Hutchins said.
“My reasoning is this: If the Lion’s Mane is the farthest exploratory ship of the council, then it deserves more than a rushed vote to destroy it. We owe a full discussion and consideration of the evidence before us.”
“I have shown you the evidence,” Steward Hutchins grumbled. “It’s all there in the dossier. It pains my heart to see the captain about to devour her own crew member. I’ve seen her grow up from when she was just a child.”
“You mean you have clips of life on the ship? Couldn’t they help us understand the context?”
“Sadly, Steward, we haven’t received a clip for thirty-five years. The ship lost the ability to transmit large data packets in a radiation storm off Neptune. I’ve conducted my investigations through the automated still images sent by the ship, which we receive in bursts of eight bytes each. And telemetry, of course. The transmission speed is painfully slow.”
Steward Mafokeng finally realized what was bothering her. “Steward Hutchins, you said that you were forced to take decisive action.”
Hutchins gritted his teeth, the thin tendons of his jaw knotted and severe. “Steward Mafokeng, we know that you enjoy participating in these debates, but the Medallion was lost a decade ago—”
“—I was appointed by the Stewardship Council as lead crew-behavior expert.”
“—expertise that did not help save your own vessel, the very one you were charged with protecting under the Stewardship Oath.”
Mafokeng reeled at the accusation in the most public of all chambers. She had spent years rebuilding her career after she had lost the Medallion. She had utterly shamed her family. Not to mention what it had done to her soul, studying the images of the sheer terror of her crew as the ship ripped them apart, over and over again.
“The loss of the Medallion,” she said, keeping her voice steady, “was fully investigated, documented, and confirmed by the council.”
“And yet with no ship to steward,” Hutchins went on, “you feel it’s appropriate to intervene in this proceeding—indeed, every proceeding—when the most base, most heinous behaviors are evident before us, namely people eating people. I should remind you that the crew will be retired, but the Lion’s Mane will continue on, sending us data about its discoveries as it follows the mission. Your ship offered nothing of value once it was destroyed. At least allow us to gain from the Lion’s Mane’s discoveries through its automated systems.”
Focus, Mafokeng thought. Forget the Medallion. “You did not answer my question.”
“We have most certainly answered the question,” Steward Hutchins said. “That this is cannibalism. And it must be stopped.”
“No, about the decisive action. You said you already took it, Steward Hutchins. Now, please share with the council—before we vote: What decisive action did you take?”
Hutchins peered at the various delegates in view, as if assessing their opinion. Then he solemnly said: “An extraplenary body of this council sent the signal to retire the Lion’s Mane yesterday.”
The delegates roared back to life all around the solar system.
“How could this be!”
“You had no right!”
“They could still be alive!”
“There are three hundred people out there!”
Hutchins held up his hands as the council protested, waiting for the clamor to die down. Mafokeng was aware of how much he seemed to thrive in the tumult, even when the voices were turned against him.
“As you all know, the Covenant authorizes rapid action by the ship steward, the rotating council president, and the council judiciary for any crimes that shock the conscience. This is one of them. We voted unanimously in favor of retirement. The evidence is before you. Had we waited, you would still have voted for retirement. In my view, every day wasted is another day of descent into madness and suffering for the crew. Now I plead with you to affirm the vote. If we are to disclose this incident to the public—who deserve to know—we need full unanimity from this council. So I put it to you now, for posterity. Is there anyone among us who would vote to preserve this disgusting display of cannibalism, the basest of all human inclinations? Your voting shards are before you. Make your choice.”
Mafokeng watched as the votes poured in across the council, a pile of blue-gray tridymite shards interlaced with each steward’s DNA. Even the steward from the Philippines reluctantly voted in favor of retirement, signing the cross on her chest as she dropped in her shard. It quickly linked to the other shards already assembled, beginning to form the crest of the council.
Mafokeng could feel the eyes of the other council members upon her. Was Hutchins right, she wondered, and she was merely transferring the loss of her own crew on the Medallion to the Lion’s Mane, so desperate to avoid another tragedy that she would tolerate cannibalism?
She refused to believe this. She refused to believe that the council could so easily kill an entire crew without deeply studying the evidence. Killing three hundred souls with a rushed decision was not much better than the crimes retirement would punish. The Covenant had drawn a clear line that could never be crossed, but she felt they owed it a deep review, and she mistrusted Hutchins’s motivations. He moved too quickly, too adroitly to have his word taken at face value. He had mastered the council and h
is swift rise in the bureaucracy attested to that fact. Mafokeng dropped her shard in the no vote. The crest of the council shattered before their eyes and she signed off.
* * *
To prepare myself for my Finding, I train while everyone else is sleeping, using the resistance machines to firm my muscles and the simulators to hone my reflexes. During the initiation, we learned that you need every skill available to you to evade a Finding for three full Earth days of pursuit—what we call Evasion. You have to be quicker than your finder in body and mind. It was one of our earliest mysteries. Only the most celebrated elders had ever achieved Evasion, and they inevitably became leaders on the ship. Not captain, but revered crew considered beyond reproach, with the caveat that they enjoyed no right to propagation.
I practice crimping onto the smallest handhold on the climbing wall with servo weights. I hold my breath for minutes on end and paint my face with antisurveillance makeup patterns before washing it clean and starting all over again. I study the devious ways elders have hidden before, and try to imitate them, remembering the mysteries. And when no one is paying attention, I visit the tanks, where the fish open and close their small puckered mouths as if waiting to devour my flesh.
“Not me,” I whisper, “not me.”
On the day the Finding begins, the entire ship comes out to watch as I am paraded through the corridors and galleys in ceremonial regalia. My short black hair is shaved bare and my naked body is adorned with preserved trout, their filleted skin sticky on my body so that I look like a glimmering, rainbow-colored being. I make my way slowly through the ship to the sound of a marimba fashioned from decommissioned exhaust piping.
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 Page 11