The Voyage of the White Cloud

by M. Darusha Wehm

  “Mat,” she said, her face way too close to mine. “Am I glad to see you.”

  “Okay. Everything all right?”

  “No. Yes. Ugh, I don’t know.”

  I got myself loose and walked over to the screens. The course was fine, nothing on the longrange that I could see. Lani wasn’t in yet, but I understand the readout well enough. “Karina?”

  “This ship is fine,” she said, then collapsed into her chair. “It’s me that’s all wrong.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. “You need meds?”

  “No,” Karina said, sounding miserable. “It’s not like that. It’s…” She stood up and walked back to the port. I could see a greasy spot where she’s been leaning against it. “It’s hard to explain. I think maybe I’ve changed, or maybe I just never really understood. I— I think I made a mistake, that’s all.”

  “Anything I can help with?” I had no idea what she was talking about, but I had to say something.

  “No,” she said. And then she walked off the bridge.

  I hope I’m not going to have to replace her. Breaking in new crew is no fun.

  Captain’s Log, December 3, 2490

  Not everyone is crew material. This is something we all know—there’s a reason why there’s only a half dozen of us at time. But the whole point of the Committee is making sure that those of us who are selected are the right kind of people for the job. Not just that we understand the work, not just that we’re competent, but that we’re suitable. Cheryl once said that she wondered if the real reason there’s Crew at all isn’t to take care of the ship, but to take care of those of us who don’t really fit into Society.

  I think she was kidding.

  Captain’s Log, March 20, 2491

  Karina told me today that she wants to go back to Society. I told her to think about it, give it a bit more time. I didn’t know what else to say. I hope that she gets over whatever is causing this. I’m not sure that it’s even possible to go back.

  Captain’s Log, April 5, 2491

  If I had wanted to mollycoddle people having some kind of breakdown, would I have spent my time in school learning about machines? Would I have ended up in Crew?

  Lani woke me, saying I had to get to the bridge right away. When I got there I found her curled into a ball, crying. Karina.

  “How can you live like this?” she said between sobs.

  “Like what?”

  “Alone, in this cage?”

  “Do you mean the ship?”

  She shook her head, but said, “Maybe.”

  I sat in my usual chair and waited. Either she would start making sense soon or she wouldn’t, and I was awake already. Might as well see what this was all about.

  “I told you,” she said, finally. “I made a mistake.”

  “Moving to Crew.”

  “Yeah.”

  “The Committee explained that it was a permanent move.”

  “But I didn’t know then,” she said and the tears started fresh. “I mean, I knew it was permanent, but I didn’t know how lonely I would be. How I’d miss my family.”

  “You hated your family,” Lani said. I hadn’t realized she was still there, but where would she have gone?

  “Did you two know each other before you were crew?” I asked. Lani nodded.

  “Not well, but we were from the same habitation sector.” Lani turned back to Karina. “And you couldn’t wait to get away from all of them. Same as me.”

  Karina shook her head. “I didn’t know.”

  “Well,” I said, “what you did or didn’t know doesn’t matter much at this point. What we have to decide is what’s going to happen now.” She just looked at me, this desperate expression on her face. “I’ll contact the Committee,” I said, “but you need to prepare yourself for the likelihood that you’re not getting out of here.”

  I could see her visibly trying not to break down again, but she kept it together. “Thanks for trying, Captain.” I nodded, but it wasn’t as if I had a choice.

  Captain’s Log, May 6, 2491

  I went to bat for her, I really did. I don’t particularly want a crew member who doesn’t want to be here, but I knew it was unlikely. Committee is pretty clear in the recruitment stage that this is a one way trip. That’s all we do on this ship—one way trips. I read once where there used to be a saying, that it was a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. I wonder whatever happened to that.

  They said no.

  It was a long and boring message, full of regulations and security, and I knew Karina wouldn’t believe any of it. I certainly didn’t. But the Committee is on the other side of the door and we’re in here and they have the key. So we’re stuck with each other.

  The Committee sent another message, to my attention only. It was much less long and far more interesting. It was instructions to fabricate some medication that would help Karina “readjust”—whatever that meant. It sounded a bit sinister to me, but what could I do? We are stuck with each other. The crew decks are comfortable enough, but there’s nowhere to go. Of course, that’s the appeal to those of us who are suitable. The solitude. The silence.

  But I guess it can be too much for some people. Makes sense, I suppose. I can’t get enough of the view out the port, but I wouldn’t want to have to go out there. Maybe it’s the same for Karina. Maybe it turned out that she only liked the view.

  So. Am I happy about drugging my navigator? No, I am not happy. Did I fab the stuff anyway, put it in her cup and pour the strongest tea I could brew in the hopes she wouldn’t notice? What do you think?

  Captain’s Log, January 18, 2492

  We aren’t like Society people, with their individual lives, their families, their hopes and dreams. It’s different, being Crew. Harder, sometimes. Simpler, sometimes. Better? Yes, I think so, but then that’s why I’m Crew, why I’m Captain. If I thought I could live like them, like the breeding cattle they fundamentally are, then that’s what I’d be doing.

  So here it is, the big secret to the captaincy of the White Cloud: a computer could probably do the job. You must know it by now yourself—we are just a fail-safe, a backup to the automatic systems. When I became Crew, I thought I was making a real difference to the mission, to this ship. Most days, though, I am entirely unnecessary.

  But here’s the bigger secret, the secret of the whole mission: there might not be much to do on the bridge, but what there is matters. And I know I’d rather be doing something useful one day out of a thousand than just marking time every day of my life. In Society, the best anyone can hope for is that some of their DNA manages to survive in some long future descendant. This ship is just a giant seed pod.

  At least you and I get a chance to steer.

  Chapter 17

  Filling Vacancies

  Sheelagh was stuck. She knew it as clearly as she knew the sequence to open the door between the habitation sectors and the technical centre. She was stuck in a rut. Such a funny phrase to still be using, she thought. She’d seen seen images of ancient wheeled vehicles becoming mired in mud or snow, but there was really was no similar analogue here. There was sometimes mud in the arboretum or garden areas, but there were no vehicles large or weighty enough to really become stuck, and no traffic heavy enough to create ruts.

  She sighed. “I’m doing it again,” she thought. Wasting time pondering useless tidbits of information, obsessing over nuances of language. Getting lost in her own head. It was just one more of those things, the little routines, that defined her. They said that admitting you had a problem was the first step toward solving it, but that was not much comfort to Sheelagh. Simply knowing what was wrong was nowhere near the same thing as having a solution.

  She pulled up the files on her tablet once more. She’d read them over three times already, but she would read them once more. Four times, that was the number. Any fewer and she felt uncomfortable and ill-prepared; more just seemed silly. It was an important decision. Few people were required to keep the ship runn
ing, but they were required. And someone had to pore through their education and work histories, their psychological assessments and expressions of interest. Sheelagh knew she was good at her job.

  She had to choose one person to join the crew, a new stellar cartographer. It sounded dull to Sheelagh, but there were over a dozen candidates. She was shocked at the number of people excited by mapping stars. She had already eliminated all but three of the applicants, but she read through all the files anyway. At least, she skimmed them – that was good enough.

  A knock sounded and she frowned. She didn’t like to be disturbed when she was working. Actually, she thought, she didn’t like to be disturbed at all. No one did, it was inherent in the connotation of the word. Interrupted, that was neutral, but disturbed was… well, it was disturbing. She forced herself to stop thinking about it and turned toward the open door.

  “Yes?”

  Liisa’s familiar face poked around the doorframe. Her dark skin contrasted sharply with the pale walls of Sheelah’s office. “Want to get some lunch?”

  Sheelagh frowned. It wasn’t midday yet. “You’re early,” she said.

  “I know,” Liisa answered, crossing the threshold and leaning up against the inside of the doorway. “There’s some debris on the longrange, and I need to be back on the bridge before 1300. I figured a few minutes early wouldn’t kill you.”

  “Of course not,” Sheelah said, a tightness growing in her chest. “Let’s go.” She powered off her tablet, engaging the security program which would make her files inaccessible without her passcode. She slid the tablet into her pocket and stood.

  Liisa arched an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything about Sheelagh’s somewhat redundant actions. They had been having lunch together weekly for nearly half a year—she knew that Liisa was accustomed to Sheelagh’s rituals. As they walked down the corridor to the nearest galley, Liisa talked about the debris they had seen on the scanners and how the crew was planning to make minor adjustments in their trajectory to avoid the cluster. Sheelagh found the monologue tiresome, but said nothing. She counted her steps, pleased that the walk took the standard 472 strides.

  She waited her turn at the galley, then made a simple salad and took a slice of fresh-baked bread. They sat at her second-choice table, the first choice taken by two people from the farming cooperative. Sheelagh began to eat: spearing first lettuce, then cucumber then tomato. She always counted when she made her salads so there wouldn’t be a leftover piece of anything. Liisa was still talking.

  “… the hull, but if one of the shards gets into the thrusters, or worse yet, scratches a sail, we’ll all be completely boned. Not now, of course, but a few hundred years down the way. Just think about it—a nick today could fundamentally destroy our ability to maneuver on the deceleration leg.” She shook her head and took a bite of her noodles. “It’s kind of terrifying,” she said after swallowing.

  “Mhmm,” Sheelagh said and noticed that the people at her first choice table had stopped their own conversation and were staring at them. She tried to remember if she knew their names, but nothing was coming. “Do you know them?” she asked Liisa, raising her eyebrows in the direction of the other diners. Liisa turned around, staring right at them, then turned back.

  “Nope.” She wound up another forkful of noodles and stuffed them in her mouth.

  “Excuse me,” one of the farmers said, “we couldn’t help but overhear you talking. Are we…” she scooted her chair a bit closer to their table, “are we in any danger?”

  Liisa finished chewing, then said, “Nothing more than usual. I mean, space travel is an inherently dangerous business. Appearances aside,” she gestured at the comfortably-appointed galley, “there’s only plastic and metal between all this and the murderous void. Not to mention that we’re essentially a ballistic missile hurtling through space and time at a speed which would make our ancestors believe in gods.” She shrugged. “So, yeah, we’re in danger, but it’s nothing exceptional.” She turned back to her lunch, and grinned at Sheelagh. The faces of the farmers, though, were not smiling in the least.

  Sheelagh was finalizing the transfer information for the new cartographer she’d chosen when her communicator began to flash. It was a very annoying red light that strobed not quite two times per second. The off-timing was worse than the colour. She put her tablet down and answered the call.

  “We have a problem.” Rhea’s voice was tight and the lack of her customary greeting further indicated to Sheelagh that this was an urgent situation indeed.

  “What can I do?” she asked.

  “You can get your buddies on the bridge deck to stop scaring the pants off the regular folks on this ship,” the head of technical staffing said. “I’ve spent the last two days averting a wide-scale panic. People seem to think that any second now some space rock is going to come hurtling through the hull and we’re all going to perish in a fireball of death. It’s ludicrous.”

  Sheelah frowned. “As far as I know, no one from the crew has ever said anything of the sort.”

  Rhea sighed. “I’m sure they haven’t, but what they say and what people hear are two different things. The crew are trained professionals, whose main concern is making sure that we keep safely on course. Their concerns are more, shall we say, detail-oriented than those of the rest of us. And what they think of as the normal operating situation, someone with little knowledge of the realities of space travel will find terrifying. And that’s exactly what’s going on.”

  “I think I understand,” Sheelagh said.

  “Good. Now, as the liaison between the general population and the crew, could you please instruct them to be a bit more circumspect with what they say when they are off the bridge and among the rest of us? Please?”

  “I will.”

  “Thank you. Now, I need to get back. This situation is far from resolved, I’m afraid.” Rhea broke the connection, and Sheelagh found herself being glad not to have the other woman’s job.

  “Why won’t you tell us what’s really going on?” The woman was standing far too close to Sheelagh, and she was blocking the entrance to the office. Sheelagh blinked several times, her eyes and mouth suddenly dry. She had a sense of not being able to get quite enough air. The woman took a step closer and Sheelagh found herself pushing back into her desk. It was painful but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “What are you hiding?”

  “I—” Sheelagh found it hard to speak. “N… Nothing.”

  “I don’t believe you.” The other woman’s face was pursed into a scowl and she was close enough that Sheelagh could see her own face reflected in the woman’s eyes. “There’s something terrible happening, but we aren’t being told. That’s the only explanation for why no one on the crew will talk to us any more. Why they won’t say anything about the ship. Well, we aren’t going to stand for it. We have a right to know what’s going on.” Her whole body was trembling and Sheelagh wondered if she was going to become violent. She imagined how she might defend herself or hide, maybe use her desk as a shield. She was planning how she could dive under her desk, maybe get the chair between them, when the woman stepped back and shook her finger at Sheelagh. “This isn’t over.” Then she left.

  It took Sheelagh several minutes before she was able to move from the position she’d backed into, and then she found that she was shaking too much to be able to work the communicator. She managed to get to the door of her office and shut it, even though she always felt uncomfortable in the small space when the door was closed. At that moment, discomfort was preferable to terror. She slowly lowered herself to the floor, back to the door, and curled into a ball. She waited patiently for the fear to pass.

  “I don’t know what to do about this,” Rhea said. Her face was lined and there were dark circles under her eyes. Sheelagh thought that she appeared to have aged a decade in the past month. It was, she assumed, the burden of responsibility. Though she looked over at Jules and couldn’t see that that the captain looked any different. People reacted d
ifferently to stress, she thought, and of course this problem was much more in Rhea’s area of responsibility anyway.

  “Sheelagh,” Rhea’s voice brought her out of her thoughts and back to the meeting. “Any ideas?”

  She fought back the impulse to say that yes, of course, she had many ideas. Didn’t everyone? They just weren’t particularly applicable to this exact situation. Instead, she frowned. “This is what’s called a no-win scenario,” she said. “When the crew share technical information, most people don’t have the relevant expertise to understand it. They misinterpret, and their ignorance breeds fear. But it’s no better when the flow of information is terminated. People assume the worst, and because the crew are forbidden to talk about anything, there’s no way to alleviate their fears. It seems to be an untenable situation.”

  Rhea’s face dropped into her hands and she audibly sighed.

  “If I might,” the captain said. “I think I might have a solution. It might make things worse in the short term, but I believe it will forestall this problem in the long term. And as much as I realize that it will make your life much more difficult, we do have to think about the centuries to come.”

  “I’m listening,” Rhea said.

  Sheelagh knew that it was worse for Rhea and the other leaders. Rhea and her team had done their best to insulate Sheelagh from the worst of it, and she was grateful. But more than half the crew had resigned their positions in the wake of the new policy and Sheelagh’s painstakingly assembled criteria had to be completely rethought. She also noticed that the number of applicants had drastically reduced. It puzzled her. For the first time, she found a role on the crew to be personally appealing.