Best of Beyond the Stars

by Patrice Fitzgerald

  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.

  But Gertie worries and worries, and pesters Philae to recheck again to make sure everything goes just right. She’s been a nervous wreck ever since I beat the crap out of Max. I mean, Max is fine. He’s as happy as ever. We still play games every night before bed. I switched my bedroom up to the observatory‌—‌I sleep there every night now, just staring at the stars, watching Hope 92 through the Newtonian. I always go to bed later than Willow, so I just stare at her paintings.

  Day 3302

  Tomorrow is the Big Turn. Philae is confident we’ll do it perfectly. Most of the systems are automated, of course, but he’s agreed to let me help perform the actual maneuvers. We’ve been practicing in the VR, running through the steps over and over again.

  Of course, if I do anything wrong, the autopilot will take over. But it’ll be fun to actually get to fly the ship, even if for only a few minutes.

  Willow’s ship is doing the Big Turn at exactly the same time. She’s not flying her ship, just watching. She’s gotten really good with her art the past year. Like, she’s taken it to a whole new level. I look at pictures from artists back on Earth, and I can’t see that they’re any better.

  She’s also a kick-ass ... medical ... person, ha ha. Not a doctor yet, of course, and she hates the word nurse. She fell off a ladder the other day and landed on one of her easels, and cut her arm open pretty bad. And she sewed it up herself, without help from her droids. Let me repeat myself. SHE SEWED HERSELF UP. That girl is bad-ass. And I love her.

  Day 3303

  The Big Turn happened today. I messed up. I c
an’t talk about it yet. I can’t believe what I did. It’s all over. It’s all over.

  Fuck me, it’s all over.

  Day 3310

  I don’t leave the observatory. I can’t. All I can do is search the stars behind us for Hope 92. It’s back there, somewhere. During the Big Turn, I did something stupid. I accidentally pushed too hard on the accelerator, which means that for about an hour, without me knowing it, we decelerated much faster than Hope 92. By the time we figured it out, it was too late. For some reason we don’t understand, the autopilot didn’t kick in for me. I fear I accidentally shut it off.

  Our nose is pointed towards Earth, our rear towards Sephardia, and somewhere back there is Willow, in the shadow of our own hull.

  I’ve lost her.

  I’ve directed the autopilot to decrease our deceleration so that we eventually catch up with her, but Philae says it could be a year before I see her again.

  Day 3425

  Still no sign of Hope 92 and Willow.

  I’ve started studying physics with Philae in the mornings instead of time with Gertie. Things are a lot different here than they were a few years ago. After my episode with Max, I think the droids all decided it was time to let me have more autonomy. Since then, it’s basically been an Alexocracy. My word goes. So, last month, I decided Gertie’s lessons were out, and Philae’s physics lessons were in.

  I just want to understand what my dad was up against as he tried to move that brown dwarf out of the way and stop The Disruption. I want to understand what my mom was trying to figure out‌—‌I learned she was a scientist too. She worked for Nasa in the decade before The Disruption, but I don’t know what she was working on.

  And I just want to understand what went wrong with my part in the Big Turn, and maybe figure out how to reach out to Willow again. I don’t know how, or if it’s even possible. But I’ve got to try.

  Day 3499

  Why didn’t anyone ever tell me physics is hard? Seriously. This stuff is crazy. I’ve learned all about Newton, gravity, inverse square laws, Poynting vectors, flux and Green’s theorem, and the Schrodinger equation, and wave-particle duality, and all kinds of stuff that I had no idea ever existed.

  Still nothing on the Willow front. I look every day down there towards Sephardia, but no ship, no Hope 92.

  I’ve kept up my drawings. I’m trying to get her face just right. I don’t want to forget her.

  Day 3700

  I think I’m starting to forget her face. Some days I don’t think it’s possible, but others I have to go look at the pictures I’ve drawn to remind myself what she looks like. My secret fear is that I’ll lose her, just like I lost mom, just like I lost Earth.

  It’s been over a year since the Big Turn, and still no sign of Hope 92. And now I’m seventeen. Seven years to go.

  Physics is going great. I’m moving on to relativity soon. Just special relativity‌—‌Philae says that general relativity will be beyond my reach for a few years yet, so we’ll stick to the basics. I already got the gist of it‌—‌I mean, I am aboard a spaceship flying at relativistic speeds compared to Earth, you’d think I’d have picked a few things up.

  Day 3755

  Everything is a lie. Mom lied to me. The people on Earth lied to me. Dammit, even the droids have been lying to me. I can’t even trust Philae anymore.

  I haven’t been seeing real stars. I don’t even know if I’ve been seeing Willow. Turns out, physics has consequences. I’ve been studying relativity with Philae, and combining it with my earlier studies of electromagnetism I figured out something pretty troubling.

  We’re traveling at a pretty large fraction of the speed of light. Something like 99.999%. There’s this pesky little thing called redshift. If you’re traveling away from something, its light gets redder. Traveling towards something, the light gets bluer. But we’re moving so fast that the stars in the direction of Earth should be shifted far into at least microwaves, and the stars in front of us should be shifted well into the x-rays. All of them invisible. Instead, all I should see is a huge globe of light in front of us, the color depending on our exact speed. That globe would be the blue-shifted light from the microwave background of the universe. I should only be able to see the light from the universe’s birth. That’s all I should see. Nothing else.

  These windows aren’t windows. They’re holographic projectors.

  I’ve been looking through my telescope at a lie.

  Please. Please let Willow not be a lie, too.

  Day 3802

  I finally confronted Philae about the holographic projectors. He said he was wondering when I’d figure it out. He said the people who designed the ship thought it would feel a lot better for me to be able to see stars. To see the outside of the ship. Otherwise, living for eighteen years closed up inside a box with no walls might make me go crazy.

  Crazy or not, it was all a lie.

  Philae swears Willow wasn’t a lie. But how do I trust a droid that’s already proven he has no problem lying whenever it suits him? Gertie tells me to trust them. Even Max got serious for the past few days and tried to convince me they were only doing what they’re doing to help me.

  I don’t believe them.

  Mom lied. Dad lied. The droids lied. Let me guess, is the Earth still there? Did they just send me away because they were tired of me? Or am I a guinea pig? To test out one of these spaceships, to make sure they work?

  Day 3855

  Philae convinced me to look through the telescope again. I don’t know why I agreed to, but I did. There it was, Hope 92, finally caught up with us. Or us caught up with her. All I can see is the top of their shield. No windows yet.

  I just don’t know if I can believe them.

  I mean, I see why they did it now. If all I had were actual windows, the x-rays would have fried me within a few days of leaving Earth. Behind the holographic projectors is a meter of lead and water shielding, with the water serving double duty as heat suppression. I’m literally in a lead box.

  I think I liked my life better during the blissful lie. It was more beautiful, even if it wasn’t real.

  Day 3856

  I’ve forgiven Philae. The more I look at the holographic setup, the more I realize how necessary it was. It protected me from radiation. It saved my life, most likely. And really, the projector shows me what’s out there‌—‌it just takes the light that it sees, and converts it to a wavelength that my eyes can actually detect. Those stars are real. Hope 92 was real.

  In a sense, it’s like the truth was too horrible, too painful to accept, so the holographic projectors had to lie to protect me. They needed to give my eyes a version of the truth that wouldn’t kill me.

  It was all real.

  It better have been real.

  Willow better be real.

  I hope she is. Hope is all I have at this point.

  Day 3931

  Yesterday was my birthday, and for my eighteenth birthday Gertie gave me The Letter. From mom. I’m still too numb to even talk about it.

  And Hope 92’s windows are finally visible. But no sign of Willow. I can see her picture of the sunlit valley which is still taped up to the window, but she never appears next to it. There’s another piece of paper taped up, but the ship is still at too steep of an angle for me to be able to read it.

  I’ll talk about The Letter tomorrow.

  Day 3932

  The Letter. I’ve read it about a billion times, just to be sure. Just to wrap my head around it. She goes into a lot of detail‌—‌lots of things I’d already figured out for myself. She talks about the brown dwarf, and how all of humanity mobilized against it, sending out mission after failed mission. She talks about preparations for The Disruption, and something she calls The Long Night. I guess, in addition to sending out a few thousand ships to Sephardia, each with a single person and a few droid companions, humanity also started up something called The Ground Initiative. The details were fuzzy, but they tried to dig a huge underground living space u
nderneath North America, and another under France, and set up to keep the human civilization alive indefinitely underground. At least until technology would develop to get everyone off the planet, or steer the Earth back into orbit.

  It failed.

  But that wasn’t the important part of The Letter. The real reason for The Letter was to admit to me that she lied. She said she just couldn’t bear the thought of seeing me one last time on the launch pad, that she couldn’t bear the thought of sending me off into space with me knowing that she sent me away. She thought it would be easier for me if there was a clean break. If she was already dead.

  And she apologized for it. She realized she was wrong, after seeing me blast off and accelerate away.

  She sent The Letter just before The Disruption. It was received by our computer after I woke up from my hibernation, when I was ten. Knowing that she realized she made a mistake, and wanted to go back and change things, well, I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or worse.

  Anyway, I can’t think about it anymore. All I can think about is Willow. I still can’t read what she wrote. Maybe in a few weeks it’ll come into view.

  Day 3946

  The note says: Very sick. Have space sickness. In hibernation. I love you.

  I’m not sure what to think. Is she real? I want to think yes. I desperately want to think yes. But other times I think this is another lie that Philae has contrived, or a game that Max has invented, or some scheme by Gertie to keep me focused on something other than myself. If they can lie about everything else, why not invent a fake girlfriend for me? One I’ll never meet, one I’ll never touch. One I’ll never get to have sex with. One I’ll never really get to share my life with. Just a story to believe in. Something to get me to wake up in the morning and forge onward, thinking I’m not alone.