by M. M. Perry
“Corrine is your new co-pilot, right?”
“Yeah. She should be pilot on her own. Got enough time in, but too many crashes in simulation. They’re getting hard on us now I’m certified. Simulations are changing a bit. Today I had to get the Maggie off the ground after crashing. Had to figure out how to fix it. There’s urgency now we’re so close to Mission’s End and the instructors are pushing us. We’ll be seeing Badb sunny side up in a day or two. Getting close, Mi. Two years. Hard to believe these ships have been flying for almost seven hundred years. And we’re the ones gonna get to the ground. Things… they’ll be different.”
They slowed as they approached Port Family. Naomi heard children’s laughter as the door slid open to let someone out.
“Certain things be a lot better I should think,” she said ruefully.
Jeremy looked at Naomi and smiled.
“Yeah.”
There were two girls in the room waiting when they arrived. The girls looked very young to Naomi, just out of Intermediate, sixteen or seventeen, ready to integrate with the rest of the ship. She couldn’t imagine wanting to go directly to Family from Intermediate. There was too much fun to be had in Leisure, meeting new people, popping in and out of sleeping pods. It was how Naomi had found Jeremy.
And Todd and Maria for that matter, she thought.
The people she worked with who lived in Family were so much more serious than her younger self. They occasionally talked about a dalliance with a new person every now and then, but they mostly seemed settled with those in their own unit.
Now that she was about to go into Family with Jeremy, it didn’t bother her much that the days of different pod mates every week were gone. That hadn’t interested her in a while. Maria was eight years her junior, and Naomi could tell Maria was still interested in that sort of thing. Todd was still looking for his match, but he was also younger than both Jeremy and Maria. Naomi had spent more than a few nights with Todd, but she never felt as at ease as when she was with Jeremy. Todd was a good friend though, and she hoped he’d follow through with his idea of a once-a-week meetup.
Third Family Administrator Jonathon Spock came into the office where they were waiting and greeted them. His gray eyes were warm and friendly. Something about his face and demeanor made Naomi feel instantly calmer.
“Hello. We’ve got a mixed group today. A couple moving into Family, and two young ladies who will be joining the Family team.”
The girls smiled happily. Naomi understood now why they looked so young to her. They were just starting work.
“Wow, I’m glad that was the case,” Jeremy whispered. “I was thinking, are we going to be the oldest newcomers?”
Naomi stifled a giggle.
“Let’s make the rounds so you can see what we do here in Family.”
Jonathan led them out into the hallway. He turned to face them as he walked backward, expertly maneuvering through the hallways without stumbling.
“I make this trip several times a day, though usually I’m facing the other way,” he smiled at them, allowing the two excited girls to calm their giggling. “As an administrator, one of my duties is to make sure everything is going smoothly. If you ever feel that something is wrong, anything at all, you can come to any administrator to talk about it, including myself. Don’t feel shy, we aren’t as strict about the protocol of talking to your direct supervisor here as you might be used to in other units. In Family, we all help each other with the issues. Communication is the most important part of keeping everything running smoothly here.”
As they turned the corner they ran into a glass wall that covered one side of the hallway. He motioned toward it and the group peered inside.
“You’ve been taught about this in your studies, but this might be the first time you’ve seen it. This is where we store the embryos before incubation. The Magellan has the highest conformity of the fleet, as we all know and are proud of. Part of why that is, is that we only ever incubate embryos that the computer tells us to. Even if a member of our crew passes away due to tragedy, we don’t replace them unless the computer informs us we should. The genetic variation chosen long ago before the fleet was launched must be preserved.
“So many of the other colony ships have chosen different paths. Their conformity has faltered. Since contact was lost with most of those ships more than a hundred years ago, we can’t say what they’re doing on them to maintain genetic balance. It means that it is even more important we stay the path as laid out by the builders and designers of this mission. The mission was planned so that only one ship, so long as it maintained conformity, needed to arrive at our destination.
“As you can imagine, we here in Family are particularly excited our mission is almost done. Truly, the very fruits of our labor will provide us with all we need to succeed on the new planet we choose in the Xan system. Hard to believe we’ve travelled almost seven hundred years from where we started. As you can see by the dim sections of the storage units, it’s about time we got there. We’re almost ready to start the final incubations - the children that will grow up on their new home, living on solid ground. As you know, once we enter orbit of the planet that looks most fitting, we begin incubating the final groups. Many members of the Family team will stay on as the Magellan is transitioned into a space station. Follow me and we’ll move on to incubation.”
Naomi lagged behind with Jeremy to study the cold storage where all their frozen future slept. She stared at the dark cabinets that were no longer powered. Only a small section of the rows of containment units was still powered, most having no more use after more than six hundred years of supplying the Magellan with a population of carefully chosen embryos. In the still powered section Naomi could just make out green labels stuck to two-thirds of the containers. All the others were marked with white labels. Naomi squinted to read them.
“Fertile and infertile,” she mouthed.
The future of our colony, she thought to herself, remembering Childhood Learning. The only embryos on the ship capable of sexual reproduction.
It made her pensive to think of those lives that would one day have babies the way they had on ancestral Earth.
“Jeremy, those other ships we don’t talk to anymore, do you think they destroyed their legacy, like the teachers always told us?”
Jeremy’s breath fogged up the glass in front of him.
“That’s pod talk, Mi,” he glanced around to see who might be close. “You know that.”
Naomi leaned back and nodded.
“Yeah, alright.”
They hurried to catch up to Administrator Spock. He had stopped in front of another glass wall, this one much smaller.
“This is just a portion of the incubation area in Port Family. We keep them in an area where there isn’t too much traffic because they’re growing boys and girls, and need their beauty sleep. This is where they spend the first nine months. We’ve been lucky here on the Magellan and the rejection rate is low. We can only hope that it’s the same throughout the fleet, if they’re still maintaining their incubators. There isn’t much to see here, so we’ll take you to the next area of Family. By far the most popular.”
Naomi glanced at the peanut-sized mass surrounded by pink ooze, a silver tube connecting it to a feeding tank above it. She moved along with Jeremy to the next area, which was further down the hall than she expected.
“Incubation must be large, yeah?” Jeremy commented.
“No kidding.”
They stopped in front of a nursery where three cribs were filled with squalling babies.
“You may be noticing the emptiness of the nursery. There are three family units on Magellan. Population is carefully controlled by the computer, which monitors it at all times. Both the incubation unit and the nursery are equipped should an emergency arise where many more children need to be born to make up for losses. None of us have been alive for such an event, but twice in the history of the Magellan, these rooms were used at capacity. The radiation le
ak that took out a third of the ship only one hundred twelve years after launch could have been a disaster for the mission. But luckily, even our ancestors adhered to the conformity guidelines, and we lived on to continue our mission. Similarly, during the breakdown of the water treatment plant, the computer came to our aid and preserved us. Soon enough though, we’ll have a happier reason to fill these rooms, as all the babies are born to start civilization anew.”
The two girls were cooing through the glass at the babies. Naomi and Jeremy looked in at the tiny sleeping bundles. Naomi pulled back and waited patiently while the two young women continued to babble over the babies. She wondered if their job would be to take care of little ones just like that. Spock cleared his throat and the girls returned their attention to him.
“This is closer to where most members of Family become involved, even those who aren’t working here, but simply have a residence here to help socialize the children. Childhood Learning is next. Hopefully we all remember our learning units fondly. We try hard to make the environment here welcoming and exciting to all the young minds who stay here until they graduate from Childhood Learning.”
Both girls giggled again and Naomi couldn’t help but smile at their giddy nature. One of them turned back and looked appreciatively at Jeremy. Naomi nudged Jeremy as the girl whispered to her friend and they erupted into fits of giggles again.
“You’ve got a fan, I think,” Naomi teased.
“What? Oh,” Jeremy chuckled. “We’re standing pretty close together. Maybe you’re the one they have their sights on.”
Both girls looked them over quickly before turning back around to keep up with Administrator Spock.
“It’s always possible,” Naomi said.
“You know,” Jeremy said thoughtfully, “I remember being pretty crazy at that age. But I can’t recall ever trying to pod up with someone that much older than me. I never even tried to sneak out of Intermediate. Those girls have gall, I’ll give them that.”
“Ambition,” Naomi said, grinning. “I do remember that when I was that age.”
“You what? Really?” Jeremy asked.
“I mean, older men always fascinated me. I had a bit of a crush on our teacher. A lot of girls did. We all schemed of ways to be put in his unit once we left Intermediate. None of us managed it, of course. But I did look him up.”
“Looked him up did you? You’re right, you were a wildcat,” Jeremy teased.
“Oh shut it. That was a big step for a sixteen-year-old. I was bold.”
“Yeah you were,” he said, laughing again.
“Eh, what was your big escapade when you turned sixteen and were released on the world? Were you as much of a looker then as you are now?”
Jeremy smiled shyly.
“I was not, actually. I was pretty small for a sixteen-year-old. There was a lot more desire than actual success in those days. If any girl invited me to her pod, it was out of pity for the gangly, spotty, clumsy guy. And I’m glad for it, too,” he said grinning.
“Why so?”
“Well, because it took so much effort to catch a lass in the right mood, I had to work hard to keep her interested. You might have some inkling of what I’m talking about. I do believe we redlined ourselves trying a few together,” he said quietly as he tickled Naomi’s side.
“Oh, I see. So you learned all those tricks on your own, did you? No one taught you?”
“I only use original Jeremy Earhart’s. I can guarantee you that. There’s more than a few only you’ll be privy to. Been savin’ ‘em up,” he said conspiratorially.
“Some moves made especially for me? I’m honored.”
They were both grinning by the time they stopped at Administrator Spock’s next highlight.
“We’ll be in the observation area at the back of this classroom. There are classes at all times, each at different eight hour shifts, just like every other job on this ship. The children you help socialize will be on your schedule. So the kids that you see here, won’t be any you’ll be meeting regularly, but you may see them around. Come on in and take a look.”
They shuffled into a small glass booth at the back of a classroom design they were all familiar with. There were four sets of semicircular tables in the room. Each table had a booth-like seating arrangement, with a gap in the booth so only two students sat on each wedge. Only two of the tables were full. The eight children were listening attentively to their teacher speak. Naomi knew that each table was equipped with a learning computer. Administrator Spock pressed a button on the digital panel at the back of the room, and the booth filled with sound.
“That lesson has been completed. I hope you all…”
The teacher was interrupted by a melodic chime and she smiled.
“Okay students, you know what that means. It’s time for our hourly review of the behavioral guidelines. Remember, the guidelines help us maintain conformity. With conformity, we’re assured success. Now, who can tell me a behavior that would be need to be addressed immediately by Command and the counselors? One that we haven’t already talked about today.”
The teacher, an almond-eyed young woman with dark brown skin and hair, looked at each table, choosing the student to answer. They had all raised their hands.
“Aditya. You first.”
A young boy stood and answered.
“Jealousy,” he said confidently.
“Yes. Jealousy. The dark desire for something someone else has. Jealousy can cause strife in the home unit, and at your place of work. Violence can erupt from jealousy. Even death. These feelings are forbidden. You might find yourself starting to feel jealousy. Don’t panic. That’s what unburdening is for. You find a counselor and unburden. Can you tell me how you find a counselor? Leena?”
A young girl with bright red hair stood.
“As long as you’re wearing your jumpsuit, the closest counselor will be alerted to your need to unburden. Never take off your jumpsuit, except when you’re in the shower or in your sleeping pod. If a counselor does not come in your time of need, you can look for someone in the all-orange jumpsuit. Counselors are the only people who wear this jumpsuit. You can always unburden to them, anytime.”
“Correct. It’s important to remember to always, always wear your jumpsuit. Taking it off makes it impossible for people to help you if you need it unless you’re in the shower or in your pod. This isn’t just for the counselors, but also for if you’re injured, or trapped. The suits help you. Some people are very bad, and try to get out of their jumpsuits so they can fill their minds with dangerous, ugly emotions. What do you do if you see someone who isn’t wearing their jumpsuit in a public area?”
“Report, report, report,” the children chanted.
Naomi frowned, stifling her uneasy feelings as she listened to the students. Even as a child she remembered disliking that part of the hourly reminders. When she glanced over at Administrator Spock and the two girls, she could see them mouthing along with the kids. She looked away and closed her eyes, counting until she felt Jeremy’s hand envelop hers. She looked up at him and he squeezed her hand reassuringly.
“Very good. Now, if your feelings are mild, just enough to feel annoyed by them, like an itch or small scratch? You’re a little scared, or a little worried about something. What do we do then? Everybody together.”
“Take comfort in each other.”
This time, Naomi felt herself mouthing along with the kids unconsciously. The two girls and administrator Spock said them out loud with the class. Naomi looked at Jeremy. His eyes had gone glassy.
“Yes, exactly. Look to your friends. You can unburden to them when you’re in doubt. If it’s too much for them, they’ll help you find a counselor. But if it isn’t, we can take physical comfort in each other. As you grow older, these comforts will evolve. For now, we hug each other, hold hands, tell a joke even. But what else do we need to always, always remember about comfort?”
“Comfort goes both ways,” they chanted.
Naomi
once again felt compelled to mouth the words.
“Who can tell me what that means? Sasha?”
“Like, we only hug people we want to hug. We should never do anything that takes away our comfort. And we should never do anything that takes away someone else’s comfort.”
“That’s right. How can we take comfort if we know we’re hurting someone else? How can we offer comfort if we know it’s going to hurt us? Always let the people around you know what you’re comfortable with. Declare. Declare your feelings clearly so everyone knows. Declare what you prefer when meeting new people. What types of people do you like hugging? It’s important for everyone to know.”
“Now, let’s go down the list of other feelings that we can be punished for, shall we?”
Administrator Spock pressed a button on the screen again and the sound went out.
“These are fairly young ones. Your age group, Jeremy and Naomi, will be a little older. Twelve to be exact. We like newcomers to start with the older kids. They’re more disciplined and easier to handle. Obviously, when your kids graduate, you’d get new, younger ones. But, we’ll be close to Mission’s End then, and you might be socializing young ones on the planet. Exciting time to get involved in Family.”
Administrator Spock turned to the girls.
“And this is where the tour ends. At this point, you each go to different orientations. Clarissa and Eva, you’ll go on to Infant Nurturing. Someone will be waiting there to get you started. Jeremy and Naomi, if you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to your new unit to introduce you. Your new unitmates will take you through the ground rules of Family.”
