A Planet Too Far: Beyond the Stars, #1

by Nick Webb

  I did it. I’m not sure why I did it, but I did. I asked Willow if her parents were dead. She said of course they were, because they died three hundred years ago. I guess she has a point. Even if mom hadn’t have died before I left, she would have been dead anyway before I woke up from my two year nap. I asked her if they died before she left, and she told me to ask her again sometime, but not now. Ok, I guess. Whatever it is, seems like it’s too hard for her to talk about.

  We had a pretty big scare today. Philae thinks we passed through a molecular cloud. Now, when I hear the word cloud, I think of big white clouds back on Earth. But he said this was different than that. He says that there’s hydrogen everywhere in the galaxy, like one atom per centimeter. And going so fast, we pass through a lot of it, but we have special equipment on the front of the ship that pushes it out of the way before we run into it. But this cloud was like a thousand times normal, so like a thousand atoms every centimeter.

  Anyway, because we rammed through so much hydrogen, the outside walls started to heat up a lot, and the alarms went off. Gertie was scared that I got hit with too much radiation, but Philae thinks I’m fine. They’re going to test me tomorrow to make sure. But it was just a nice reminder that we’re in space, and space is dangerous. I sure hope we don’t hit anything bigger than an atom, because that was scary hearing the alarms like that.

  Day 1500

  I thought I’d finally write again since it’s a special day. Day 1500. I don’t know why that’s special, but round numbers seem special, so there. Willow thinks I’m a goon for saying stuff like that. If it were up to her, we’d celebrate day 1581, and when I ask why, she’d say, because One Five ate One! She’s funny like that, always playing with words. She talks about her art every day. I wish I could see it.

  We’re both eleven now. I had my birthday a few weeks ago, and hers was a month before that. For her present I made her really simple plans for a telescope that will be really easy for her to put together. But she hasn’t even touched the plans yet. For my birthday, she said she painted me a picture. But since I can’t see it, she has to describe it to me. She explains pictures and things a lot better than me, I don’t think I could describe the picture like she could. When she describes it, it’s like I see it in my mind. She said it was a valley, with sunlight streaming through clouds. The light shines on a little house, and I’m in the front yard of a house digging in the dirt. I think she had me doing that because I chose my profession a few months ago. I decided I’m going to be a farmer. I used to love playing in the rocks and dirt in our backyard, and in all our VR simulations with Philae, I love the ones where we learn stuff about planting and harvesting and fertilizing and all that.

  Day 1504

  Willow woke me up today early. She was crying. She kept on saying she wished she had someone to just hold her, because she was really sad. Sadder than usual. Then she told me it was because today was her dad’s birthday. She said that when her parents dropped her off at the launch, they made her promise to remember them on their birthdays, and they’d remember her on her birthday. And then Willow said something weird about them only getting a few birthdays after that. When I kept asking why, all she did was cry, so I tried to say funny things to calm her down.

  I felt so bad I couldn’t hug her and hold her and help her feel better. All I wanted was to make her not be sad anymore.

  This is so unfair. Why did we get sent out here? Is starting a new colony halfway across the galaxy really so important that they need to make me waste my childhood locked on a spaceship? It seems so cruel.

  Day 1505

  Max had amazing news for me today. He likes to be the one to give me good news, and I even overhear the three droids fight over who gets to give me the news, whatever it is.

  Instead of telling me, he took me up to the observatory, and pointed. I looked out the window, and didn’t see what he was pointing at. Just stars. Look closer, he said. So I followed his arm and finger, and saw that it was pointed at a spot really close to the shield at the front of the ship. I still didn’t see anything. Look closer, he said.

  Then I understood what he was telling me to do. I grabbed my telescope and pointed it at the spot he was pointing to.

  And there she was. Hope 92. Willow’s spaceship. We finally caught up with it.

  You know, for a year now I’ve kinda worried that Willow wasn’t real. That it was too good to be true that there was actually someone else out here with me. I expected to wake up any morning and hear Philae tell me it was all a test to see if I would respond to a real human like I do to droids, or that Gertie would say that the whole thing was a dream.

  But she’s real. I can see into her windows. I can see pictures hanging up on her walls. Every wall that I can see is covered with pictures that she’s drawn or painted. I even saw her. Not very well, because she never held still long enough for me to really see her. She never just stopped and stared out the window for me to get a good look.

  But she’s beautiful.

  I didn’t tell her what happened. I didn’t tell her that I could see her. Instead, I’m going to surprise her. Today when we talked, I begged her to finish the telescope. The plans I sent her are so easy. She should be able to build it. I finally got her to promise me she’d finish it. Even though she’s still really sad after her dad’s birthday yesterday.

  Then I’ll have her point it at a certain spot in her window. And when she does, she’ll see what I taped to my window.

  I drew a picture last night of me and her. I’m holding her. Giving her a hug. Maybe seeing that will help her feel better.

  Day 1506

  She still didn’t build it. Instead, she cried more. She must be really sad. I hope she gets over it, whatever it is.

  Day 1507

  Still no telescope. I made her triple promise me today that she’d do it.

  Day 1508

  Still no telescope. But she sounds better now. She didn’t cry once when we talked today, but she still didn’t sound happy.

  I was thinking this morning. Why did her parents send her off in the spaceship without going with her? I mean, in my case, mom was dead, and I hadn’t seen dad for a few years. I didn’t have anybody there anyway, so it made sense to send me. Why her?

  Day 1509

  She built it! When she told me, I shouted over the radio, and whooped and hollered. I told her where to point it, and she did, and when she finally figured out how to focus and saw me through the window, she started yelling too. She sounded so happy. Then she saw the picture I drew, the one I taped to the window. And she got very quiet. I asked her if she was ok, and she said yes. She said she felt better than she’d felt since she left Earth. She said she felt loved.

  That made me happy.

  Day 2200

  Happy birthday to me! I’m thirteen!

  And, as a reward, Gertie started her lessons this morning talking about stuff a girl droid should never ever be telling a human boy like me. She called her lesson the birds and the bees.

  Gertie, no. No, Gertie. Just … no.

  I asked her if Philae could take over the lesson, and she said he was programmed to teach me the hard sciences and history and practical things like farming. It was her job to teach me about penises and vaginas and why I keep waking up with wet sheets. No, Gertie. Just stop.

  Anyway, I’ve been practicing my drawing, so I can impress Willow. I’ve been practicing on her. I’ll stay up late drawing her face and her body. It’s not very good, but it’s a start.

  I’ve started a big new telescope project. It’s called a Newtonian Reflector, and it’s going to be HUGE. All this time using the Cassegrain has been nice, but I can’t really see very much detail when I look at Willow’s ship. I can recognize her face, but it’s still really small. I can see her drawings, but I can’t really catch the finer details because the telescope is just too small. The Newtonian will have a seventy centimeter mirror. It’ll be so big around that I won’t even be able to wrap my arms around it. Wh
en it’s done, it’ll be like Willow is in the same room with me. It’ll be so awesome.

  Day 2234

  Willow said something strange today. It’s her dad’s birthday again, and she was sad just like last year and the year before.

  But she said she wished her parents had died before she left Earth, just like my mom. She said she was a little jealous of me, because she had to live with the knowledge that her parents lived for a few years without her, while my mom was already dead.

  I asked her what she was talking about. Why would her parents live for only a few years? She said it was a secret, that she wasn’t supposed to tell me. I asked her who was around to even tell her what to do anymore. I told her she didn’t have to do what the droids said. It seemed like I was close to convincing her, but then she closed up and stopped talking. It’s making me really mad that she feels like she can’t tell me some things. Not mad at her, really, but mad at the droids. How dare they keep important information from me? It sounds like something was going on on Earth before I got sent away. Something about the clues Willow keeps dropping. It’s like she’s convinced there’s not even anyone back on Earth anymore, that they’re all dead. I mean, of course everyone we ever knew was dead, but those people had kids, and those kids grew up and had kids, right?

  I’m about to finish the Newtonian Reflector. It’s been harder than I thought. The printer can’t print a mirror that large, so I have to print it in sections, and then I have to join them perfectly, and it’s just a lot harder than I thought. But I’ll get there.

  Day 2235

  I beat up Max today. I felt awful about it. But I did it, and I’m glad I did. When all the droids were together this morning, I asked them about what Willow’s been talking about. Why her parents were alive while my mom was dead. Why we were launched into space. Why Willow keeps on talking like no one is left back on Earth.

  They wouldn’t tell me. They all clammed up. It made me so mad. So I started yelling really loud and throwing things around. Philae tried to make some big intelligent-sounding speech about some things being better not knowing about them and Gertie tried to hug me and calm me down, but I cracked. I exploded. I decided I was going to force the truth out of them.

  So I tackled Max and started pounding on his head with one of my telescope tools. Not hard enough to really hurt him, but I yelled at them that I’d start hitting hard enough to really do some damage. And that when I’d broken Max, I’d come after the rest of them. I don’t know what got into me. It just made me so mad thinking about my mom dead, but Willow’s mom and dad alive.

  So they finally told me.

  I … I can’t talk about it right now. Maybe tomorrow.

  Day 2242

  A week ago, they finally told me everything. Well not everything everything‌—‌they gave me access to a section of files in the computer that I didn’t have access to before. The ones that told about The Disruption. That’s what they called it. They even capitalized it, just like I did.

  The Disruption.

  A few years before I was born, astronomers discovered something called a brown dwarf. A really really small one. It’s basically a star that failed to ignite, so you can’t really see it from far away. But it’s way bigger than Jupiter. And they discovered it was flying really fast from above the plane of the solar system, and was supposed to come really close to Earth. It wouldn’t hit the Earth, but it would come about as close as the moon.

  And because it was that big, and was going to come so close to Earth, they figured out that Earth was going to be ejected from the solar system. And within a few years the atmosphere would freeze. Most people would die when the brown dwarf flew by because of huge tides and shifting continental plates making volcanoes erupt and triggering earthquakes, and those that survived would eventually either freeze or suffocate or starve.

  I felt like I was going to throw up.

  I told Willow about it, and she said she knew the whole time, but her droids told her she was forbidden to tell me. That’s just crazy. Why keep that from me? Philae told me that they (meaning the people on Earth that sent me up here) thought that it would just distract me, that it would be better if I didn’t know so I could focus on my new life. But that’s just stupid.

  So that’s why Willow’s been so sad every time it’s her mom or dad’s birthday. They didn’t live for very long after she launched.

  And now I’m starting to wonder when my mom died. And why my dad left. I was only four, but I never remember them fighting. Not once.

  This is so unfair.

  Day 2250

  The Newtonian is done. Of course, I’ve been telling Willow about it this whole time, telling her what it meant, that I could see every detail of her face, and I could really see and appreciate her drawings. She was excited too. I pointed it at Hope 92, and looked for her. She wasn’t there. But I saw her painting, the one with me in the valley and the sun streaming down through the clouds, lighting up the green and yellow grass and the blue hills behind, and me in the dirt, digging. And next to the painting, on just a plain piece of paper she’d taped to the window, was a message. One that I’d never have been able to read before the Newtonian. It said, look closer, and there was an arrow pointed at the old painting.

  I looked closer. On the hill behind the house, really small, was a person. With a bunch of sheep or something. It was Willow. At the bottom of the painting, just above her name, she’d written, I love you.

  I saw something else. On the wall, behind the pictures she’d taped to the window, was another painting. It was the exact same drawing I’d made of us a few years ago, the one where I was giving her a hug to help her feel better, only it was much, much better.

  Then she

  Day 2252

  Sorry. I didn’t mean to cut off like that. But something happened. Something horrible.

  Horrible.

  I don’t know what I’m going to do.

  The day we’ve been dreading came. I mean, it wasn’t as bad as the droids feared. The piece of dust didn’t directly strike the spaceship.

  But it hit the antenna. A one-in-a-million shot. I mean, just hitting the spaceship would have been a one-in-a-million shot. This was one in a billion.

  I can’t talk to Willow. I can’t talk to my best friend. My only friend.

  I can’t talk to Willow.

  We looked at each other through our telescopes. I waved at her. She waved at me. I pointed to my eye, then my heart, then at her. I saw her laugh. Then she did the same thing. All we can do is look at each other. She wrote me a little message that she taped to the window. It said, We’ll figure this out, don’t worry.

  I hope she’s right.

  Day 2601

  I’m fourteen.

  Mom didn’t die before I left. She lied to me. I guess she wanted me to feel like there was nothing left for me back there. I guess she wanted to make it easier on me. I mean, she was going to die anyway. She didn’t want to have to face me on that launchpad like Willow’s parents had to do. To say goodbye. Instead, she faked a disease and left.

  I’ve thought about this for months. Can I forgive her? I don’t know if I can. She’s been dead for hundreds of years, just like everyone else back there. But for me, it was only seven years ago. I mean, that’s half my life. I just don’t know what to think about it, so I try not to think about it.

  Dad didn’t leave. Well, I mean, he did leave. But they didn’t split up. And he might have even died before I left‌—‌the records are spotty. He worked for the defense department. In the decade before I left, Nasa and the defense department and every other government on Earth got together and tried to figure out how to stop The Disruption. Dad was in the marines, and he was also a tech guy. So he volunteered to go up in a big fleet of spaceships and try to land on the brown dwarf, and do something to push it far enough out of the path of Earth that maybe Earth would be spared.

  It didn’t work, of course. I read a few of the news reports after they tried. You can’t land
on a brown dwarf. It would be like trying to land on Jupiter. But they had to try anyway. And they failed.

  Dad didn’t leave me. He didn’t abandon me. Not like mom.

  Day 2602

  Willow and I have worked out a pretty good system for talking. I can’t hear her, of course. But we made up a sign language. I look into the telescope while she signs to me, then we switch and I sign to her. Our vocabulary isn’t huge, but we learn two words a day. It’s mainly a language she makes up, because since I have the bigger telescope I can see stuff she writes down on paper and tapes to the window. She can’t see what I write. So she makes up a few signs, and writes the words next to the drawing of the signs, and tapes it up, then we practice it.

  Her paintings have gotten really good. And she chose her profession. She’s going to be a doctor. She says she likes the idea of helping people feel better.

  Day 2603

  In two years, we’ll do the Big Turn. Philae is a little worried about it, and keeps checking and rechecking the original calculations they did seven years ago. The Big Turn is where we’ll shut the engines off for a few hours, turn the ship around, carefully point it in just the right direction‌—‌straight towards Earth, then turn the engines back on.

  That way we can start slowing down so that by the time we get to Sephardia, we’ll be slow enough to enter orbit and land.

  And this way I’ll still have gravity.