Best of Beyond the Stars

by Patrice Fitzgerald

  Gertie has me doing stuff she calls “etiquette lessons.” Basically, how to talk to girls. She’s so weird. Aren’t girls people? I used to talk to people all the time. Why can’t I just talk to Willow?

  Day 1129

  I built the new tube. It works perfectly. Well, almost perfectly. I can slide the two parts of the tube in and out, and put them in just the right spot so the image is not too fuzzy. The thing is, it’s still a little fuzzy, but I think it’s from another problem. I read more about lenses, and I think it’s something called astigmatism. That’s when the lenses are crooked.

  Man, this astronomy business is hard. Maybe I’ll choose something else for my calling.

  Hmm.... But if I change, I won’t be able to do my thing I have planned. Gertie‌—‌stop reading my journal!

  Day 1209

  Over two months ago, I built that first telescope. It sucked. Now I’ve got a pretty decent one. It’s still a refractor, but the lenses are a little bigger. The tube is not adjustable. That’s because I figured out how to print out some lens holders that will clamp onto the tube. And I even printed out a tripod, and a clamp to hold the telescope on and move it around.

  The bad news is, my plan didn’t work. I tried to use it to find Hope 92. But I couldn’t find it. I spent every night for a whole month looking for it, out every window of the observatory. Looks like I’ll never get to talk to Willow, or see her or her spaceship. It’s so unfair. Just like when dad left. Just like mom dying. Just like being sent out in this stupid spaceship. I should have never said yes. Why did I say yes? I was only seven. They can’t just send seven-year-olds out into space, can they? Can they?

  But now everyone back on Earth that sent me is dead, because for them, I left almost three hundred years ago. Life is so unfair.

  I just want to talk to somebody. Gertie is annoying. Max is getting boring. Philae is the only interesting one, but I only get to talk to him for a few hours in the afternoon before he goes down to the engine room to take care of the ship. But he’s not human, he’s a droid. I mean, he has a human face, and he looks human. But it’s just not the same. Not the same, and not fair.

  I just want to talk to somebody.

  Day 1210

  I woke up today, and Gertie surprised me at breakfast.

  She said tomorrow I get to talk to Willow.

  I’m in bed now, but I can’t sleep, so I’m writing in my journal. And I can’t even concentrate to do that, so I’m going to read about telescopes. Goodnight.

  Day 1211

  I talked to her! Willow is a real person. She is ten years old. Like me. It is day 1213 for her, so she’s been in space for two days longer than me.

  I think that explains it. Since she launched two days before me, maybe it took us this long to catch up! That’s why Gertie didn’t let me talk to her, because we couldn’t. And that’s why I couldn’t see her spaceship in the telescope, because it was in front of us.

  Anyway, I got to talk to her for twenty whole minutes. It was the most amazing thing. We talked about everything. We compared our ships. We compared our robots. She has a mom robot, a fun robot, and a teacher robot, just like me. Her kitchen robot is like mine, except Willow calls him Jeeves. That made me laugh.

  We even had a few minutes where we didn’t say anything at all. But that was ok. It was just so nice to have someone real to talk to. So nice, that even that awkward silence was amazing. It was like I could hear her smile in the silence. I hope she could hear me smile.

  I think I could get used to this.

  I’m in bed already. I didn’t even have time to do telescope work today! How can I have time for telescopes when there’s a real person out here to talk to!

  Day 1225

  I’ve been talking to Willow for two weeks now. It’s like I’ve known her forever. We’re best friends, and we talk about everything. And I mean everything. We talk about our robots. We talk about what professions we think we’ll have. It’s still a few years before we need to decide, and I still have no idea what I want to do. Neither does she.

  But she has chosen her calling. Willow is an artist. She says her mediums are colored pencil, watercolor, and electroglass. I thought it was funny she said mediums instead of saying, I like colored pencils. I laughed at her. But then she laughed at me for wanting to build Cassegrain, so we’re even.

  A Cassegrain is a type of telescope. It’s where light goes in one side, but instead of going through a lens, it hits a curved mirror at the other end. Then it bounces back and hits another smaller mirror at the first end. Then the light goes back to the second end and goes through a really small hole in the first mirror, where it comes out the tube and into a small lens in an eyepiece. I explained it all to Willow, and she’s really excited for me. It makes me happy to know she’s excited. It makes me want to see her art.

  Day 1250

  Gertie keeps on getting after me for talking to Willow so much, but I can’t help it. She and Philae tried to limit me to one hour per day, but me and Max outvoted them. Well, it’s a tie, but we made a new rule on the spaceship that ties go in favor of the way something is already done, and since I already talk to her about two hours a day, that’s how long I get to keep talking to her for. I love democracy. That’s what Philae has been teaching me about. Democracy, monarchies, oligarchies, republics, theocracies, autocracies, military juntas, banana republics, it seems like it’s one of Philae’s favorite subjects. Except that every subject seems like Philae’s favorite subject. Good old Philae. He asked me what system I thought we lived in on the ship, and I said Alexocracy, since I’m the only human onboard, I’m in charge. He did that snorting thing where his chest bounces while he laughs.

  I asked Willow about her parents, about why they sent her up here to settle Sephardia without them. It was weird, Willow got all quiet and changed the subject. She’s never done that before. We talk about everything. We don’t keep secrets from each other. I’m worried I upset her, and then I realized what a stupid question it was, that maybe if I was sent up here because my mom was dead and my dad gone, maybe hers were dead too and I reminded her. Damn, I can be so stupid sometimes.

  I just wrote damn. I think I can swear here. Who’s going to stop me?

  Gertie, if you’re reading this, I swear I’ll figure out a way to deactivate you.

  Day 1252

  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 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. When 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.