by Lauren James
My dad tried to help. He loved her more than anyone – more than me. He spent years trying everything he could to help her cope with the trauma she’d internalized. He didn’t stop trying, not until it was too late. Not until they died because of it.
Just remember, J, you’re coping with everything the best way you can, and that’s all that matters. Don’t ever think you aren’t strong.
The UPR makes me feel numb too.
R x
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
254
From: UPR Sent: 30/09/2065
To: The Infinity Received: 16/06/2067
Subject: For Attention of The Infinity
Commander Silvers,
To reiterate our last message, if you have not already done so, please transfer all systems data to Earth for further study. It is of utmost importance we receive this data, as no vessel analytics were picked up by the UPR or NASA during the war.
New data will help us to perform mission analysis and suggest improvements to the operating conditions of The Infinity. We also wish to ensure that the background level of radiations and electromagnetic energy are not damaging to health.
Thank you for your cooperation. More instructions for further improvements to arrive in the coming weeks.
All hail the UPR! May the King live long and vigorously!
I had hoped the UPR’s last request for information was a casual request, but it wasn’t. They’re going to keep asking me, over and over, until I break down and agree. They’re going to try and interfere with every aspect of my mission. I always knew the people on Earth didn’t trust me to do this by myself.
It’s not right, what they’re doing. They can’t take over at the last minute and change everything! I fire off an angry reply, unable to hold my tongue any longer.
I watch the email transmit. Each byte of data explodes inside my chest, spreading painfully through me.
From: The Infinity Sent: 16/06/2067
To: UPR Predicted date of receipt: 07/03/2069
Dear Sir/Madam,
I appreciate your attempts to form a peaceful collaboration between the UPR and The Infinity. However, I regret to inform you that I am unable to cooperate with your requests at this time.
I do not feel comfortable sending you any information about my ship until I know more about the circumstances involved in your takeover of NASA. The details of the events of the Third Global War in your first message were a little sparse. Could you expand on the situation?
I would also like to know whether an employee of NASA called Dr Molly Simmons is still working on my mission, after NASA’s management changed hands. Did she become a UPR citizen after the UPR took over North America? I would be very grateful if you could tell me anything you know about her current whereabouts and status.
Regards,
Commander Romy Silvers
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
253
From: The Eternity Sent: 09/06/2066
To: The Infinity Received: 17/06/2067
Romy,
When I was little, I never did well in school. I hated my teacher, and I thought the classes were stupid. I just couldn’t work in controlled environments – I thrived most when I was left to my own devices.
Before she died, my mom would always tell me that however much I hated my teacher, I needed to do what she said, because she was the boss and I wasn’t. She said that I should respect authority, because they had been put in charge for a reason, even if I personally didn’t like them.
I think that’s the case with the UPR. We might not like them – we might hate everything about them – but they have all the power. I don’t want to feel like I’m living in someone else’s world, where there’s an external force telling me what to do. But they have all the information, and I need to know what has happened to my friends. I’ll do anything they ask if it might help persuade them to send us the details about what happened in the war.
We have to choose what we object to very carefully. As long as it doesn’t harm us, I think it’s best that we agree to their demands. If you can’t help the UPR for yourself, then please do it for me. They could cut off all our contact with Earth if they wanted to, and I couldn’t handle that. Not when we’re already so alone.
Besides, even if I don’t trust them at all, I have to admit that they’ve made some suggestions about my ship’s life-support efficiency that have actually been really helpful. I know they’re asking you to make some changes to your ship too, which have probably been even more useful, as your ship is so much older. Grudgingly, I must say they know what they’re talking about.
I’m sorry. I wish there was something I could do to protect you from this – from them. I feel so powerless. I’m sure you do too.
At least they can’t stop us from talking to each other.
J x
From: The Infinity Sent: 17/06/2067
To: The Eternity Predicted date of receipt: 18/08/2067
J,
I wish I’d waited to see what you said before replying to the UPR.
My dad always taught me the opposite of your mother. He told me to do whatever I thought was right – like he did, when he and my mother ignored NASA’s advice after she got pregnant.
They were supposed to terminate the pregnancy, change shifts with another set of caretakers and go into torpor sleep. If they had, I would never have been born. Dad stood by their decision to keep me, even after what happened with the astronauts. He used to say that someone outside of a situation is never able to truly judge the best actions to take.
I’ve always believed that. But I didn’t consider you. I didn’t think about all the people you know on Earth, about everything you could stand to lose if the UPR cut us off. I’m not the only one who is affected by my actions any more. I should have thought about the impact this would have on you, instead of just getting angry.
I won’t send them any more defensive emails. I’ll play nice. I can’t promise that I’ll do everything the UPR ask, because I still don’t trust them. But from now on, if their requests are logical, I’ll at least consider it – for you.
I’ll send them the information they want. It’s a good idea to analyse the background levels of radiation. I admit that is a useful suggestion at least.
R x
There was never supposed to be just one person on The Infinity. There was supposed to be a whole population. An entire generation of astronauts trained and prepared for this mission. They were put into a deep-sleep state called “torpor” which was developed for long-duration missions. The astronauts would have remained in the biological hibernation until the ship arrived at the new planet, where they would have woken up without having aged a single day in over forty years.
My parents were the first pair of caretakers. They had volunteered to stay awake on the initial leg of the journey to run the ship and safeguard the sleeping passengers, growing old in the process. They had been trained to live alone on The Infinity and make sure everything remained operational.
If everything had gone to plan, after five years they would have woken up another pair of astronauts and left the ship in their care while they went into torpor sleep. But I was born. To say that NASA weren’t pleased is an understatement. My birth meant that my parents had to stay awake instead of swapping places with another pair of astronauts. It messed up the whole plan.
Eventually, NASA accepted it and came up with a new mission timeline. My parents were told to remain as caretakers until I was eighteen, when I would be old enough to enter torpor sleep myself. Then the three of us would have gone into stasis and only woken up again when we arrived on Earth II.
Once that was decided, I became the pride of The Infinity: the first child born in space, the start of the new generation, the emblem of all that the mission would achieve.
In the end, all I am is a symbol of its failure.
I’m keeping track of the number of days until The Eternity reaches me, written in whiteboar
d marker on the plexiglass wall between the kitchen and lounge area.
Two hundred and fifty-three: the number of days I’ll have to survive on my own. The number of nights I’ll have to worry about running this ship alone. Every hour feels endless and pointless now that I’m just waiting for J.
I decide music will help distract me. I make the computer’s controls into an electric keyboard and start practising my piano chords. I play all of the loudest songs I know, turning the volume up and filling the ship with the sound of music until I don’t feel so small and quiet and helpless.
I only stop when my fingers start to ache from playing. Then I turn on some pop music instead, singing along as loudly as I can. I jump down into the lounge area, dancing on the sofa and trying to recapture the carefree happiness I felt when I first started talking to The Eternity and everything seemed so hopeful for once.
I make myself dance until I can’t ignore the fact that it isn’t working, that I just feel worse than ever. I collapse onto the floor, trying to catch my breath. Staring through the porthole, I watch the spiralling stars until I make myself dizzy. I let my vision blur until the constant glow of a distant nebula turns a soft red, then blue, then yellow, then the darkest, deepest green.
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
249
From: UPR Sent: 04/10/2065
To: The Infinity Received: 21/06/2067
Subject: For Attention of The Infinity
Attachment: Linux-Infinity-OS.zip [17 TB]
Commander Silvers,
Judging from evaluations of old NASA data of The Infinity, you must change several elements of lifestyle in order to improve energy efficiency and system lifetime extension in all cases.
Over the next twenty-seven hours following this message, we will be transmitting a large program to The Infinity. Please install the operating system on your computer. It contains multiple updates to the current Command, Data Handling and Flight Data subsystems, which are over a decade out of date. It will allow more autonomous control of the vessel’s devices, such as improvement of translational and altitude control in the X-ray telescope observatory and the thrust throttling.
This software is used on board The Eternity, but NASA felt that it was not worth the cost of transmission from Earth to update the system on The Infinity too. However, the UPR has decided it is a worthwhile expense to ensure that any errors in the system are fixed. We do not want any operational failures due to code decay.
Thank you for your cooperation.
All hail the UPR! May the King live long and vigorously!
I’ve started getting a sick feeling in my stomach every time I open a new email from the UPR. Even though I know that the changes they are suggesting make sense, I still have to fight against my better judgement to agree. My instinct tells me that this latest request is a trick, that they’re sending me some kind of virus. If I install it, they might be able to open the airlocks, shut down the life-support system and leave me to suffocate.
But what possible advantage could they get from sending me software that would damage my ship? From what they’ve said, getting The Infinity and The Eternity was a big victory for them in the Third Global War. Why would they destroy the ships now?
J is right. I can’t let my emotions get in the way of being a good commander. I’ll be hurting The Infinity if I don’t follow their guidelines to improve the ship.
I’ve been so convinced that the UPR are the bad guys, that they only want to hurt me. But I’m going to have to do what they say.
I’ll wait and see what the program looks like when it arrives. I know a little about programming. I’ll see what updates they’ve made, and if they really do what they’ve said.
It’ll take twenty-seven hours to receive, anyway. I can change my mind before it arrives.
* * *
It’s the two-year anniversary of The Eternity’s launch this week. I wonder if J is celebrating, or if he’s regretting ever having left Earth at all.
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
247
The new operating system has finished uploading, and I still haven’t decided whether I’m going to install it. Something just doesn’t feel right. I can’t tell if my anxiety is my usual paranoia, or whether this is actually something worth worrying about.
I wish I could talk to J about this, in real time. He doesn’t seem to know that the UPR have told me to upgrade my OS to match the one he uses on The Eternity – or, at least, he didn’t mention it in his last email. There’s no reason why they would need to tell him, I suppose.
It’s not like I can ask his opinion on what to do, either – it would be two months before he even received my message. I’m going to have to make this decision on my own.
Even if the UPR are genuinely trying to help me, surely there’s a chance they’ve missed something? What if the new program has a mistake in the coding which accidentally shuts down something vital on the ship?
Decades ago, a spacecraft crash-landed on Mars because NASA messed up the units in their calculations. Half the team were using inches and the rest centimetres. The trajectory went completely off-course and the spacecraft disintegrated in the atmosphere.
What if the UPR use a different set of units to the ones NASA used? What if I install their program and The Infinity sets off to a different area of space, and I never get to Earth II? What if it alters the rotation of the ship and sends the gravity haywire, making the ship spin faster and faster until the centrifugal force pushes my brain through my spinal column like soup?
There are so many reasons to ignore their suggestion – but there are always reasons for me to hide under my duvet and do nothing instead of acting. I need to start taking more risks.
If anything goes wrong, I have to believe that I will be able to fix it. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to handle any problems that come up. And it’ll be worth it, if it makes the ship more efficient.
The UPR haven’t lied to me yet. J thinks I should listen to them, and he’s got more reason to dislike them than anyone, seeing as they took control of his country.
I’m going to do it. I’m going to install the program.
Holding my breath, I click on the file and watch the loading bar crawl across the screen. Have I just made a huge mistake, or have I added another decade to the lifetime of the ship?
I guess I’ll find out in thirty hours, when the program has finished installing.
I wake up in the middle of the night to an email telling me that the UPR have decided to end my mission. They’ve cut The Infinity’s power. There’s nothing I can do about it.
The lights stay on for an hour, then slowly, one by one, start to flicker out. I follow the last traces of power from room to room, until at last I’m in the gene bank, surrounded by floating cells in liquid.
Then the final light goes out, and I’m alone in the dark
for ever
they’re moving
eyes opening
staring at me in the darkness
and I can’t see
but I can hear them
murmuring
I can feel their fingers touching my face
tangling in my hair
their soft fingernails
skin pulling away from their bones
catching on my clothes
the embryos are falling apart around me
silently reaching for their mother
wanting me
and I’m alone
in the dark
for ever
I wake up gasping for breath.
I swear the shadows move. They lunge across the floor every time I look away, casting the shape of their long bodies around the ship’s walls. All I can do is lie in bed under the weight of their stares, their eyes lingering on me in the corner of my vision.
The dark, blunted shadows hold me under the duvet where the childlike safe place in my brain says they can’t find me. The shadows dart and swell across the room and
all I can do is watch them creep closer.
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
245
When I check the helm in the morning, the computer’s home screen welcomes me in a glowing, almost-fluorescent blue. The words “Hello Romy” scroll across the screen and smoothly disappear. My inbox opens without me having to do anything, displaying J’s latest email.
I grin, already convinced that this was a good idea after all. It looks fresh and modern, and – in comparison with the old program – almost unbelievably advanced. In an emergency, it’s going to be able to react so much faster. It could end up saving my life.
For the first time, I feel slightly relieved that the UPR are messaging me. Even if it’s not NASA, it’s nice to know that there’s someone looking out for me.
From: The Infinity Sent: 25/06/2067
To: The Eternity Predicted date of receipt: 24/08/2067
J,
I have some bad news. The UPR updated the software on my ship’s computer, and the new program has a censoring subroutine. I can’t swear in my emails any more – look: **** ******* ***** **** ****
It’s ****ing terrible!
Just kidding. When I swore for you before, that was literally the only time I ever have, I think. I’m not sure I’d even know which finger to stick up!
I don’t mind the censoring – and the new program is actually great. It’s the same one you have on The Eternity. The previous version was nineteen years old, so this one is ridiculously good in comparison.
My favourite parts are the little logic puzzles, and the way I can project things on the walls of the ship.
I still don’t trust the UPR – not until I make sure that Molly is OK, at least. But I’d be stupid to let my emotions stop me from taking advantage of the gift they’ve given me.
I hope you’re holding up OK. I hope that by the time you’re reading this, the UPR have finally told you where all of your friends are.
R x
