LIGHT YEARS FROM HOME

by Roger Storkamp

  He tugged on a twig and let it swing back to its natural equilibrium. “The walls inside the habitat were covered with a carpet of lichen that absorbed ultraviolet light from the energy orb in the sphere’s center, and it drew nourishment from the dirty ice that comprises the comet.”

  “What about our ancestors?”

  “Humans couldn’t have tolerated the radiation during the journey to the edge of the solar system, and they would have been crushed by the G-force from the initial blast to catapult them into outer space.” He squashed a bug covered with pollen exiting a flower. “Oops. Didn’t need to do that.” He flipped the bug off his thumb and a bird swooped to catch it. “Also, the tangle needed time for its roots to establish a controlled rate of ice-melt to meet human requirements for water, atmosphere, and energy. In short, the interior needed heat, light, and air to function as a self-contained biosphere. And the fifty-two hour natural rotation of the comet had to be increased along with acceleration to produce a safe level of gravity around its circumference.”

  “How then did humans get on board?” My exasperation peaked.

  He shrugged. “The Stork began laying her eggs and they hatched, I guess.”

  A delicate subject stated from a man’s point of view. I refused to acknowledge his comment. With the balconies removed, I noticed the woody vines had merged to cover the complete outer wall of our building, giving the appearance of bark on a single tree. “I still can’t believe we’re living inside Halley’s Comet.”

  He pondered and at length said, “Remember the string of pearls your father mentioned in his presentation—the one inside the sphere rotating and accelerating?”

  “Yes? Some quite large pearls, if an entire family were to eventually live inside each one.”

  “They were connected, still are, by a tunnel rather than a string, and submerged in one hundred feet of water. Their metallic structures have long been absorbed as nutrients for marine life.”

  “How did giant pearls with dissolved walls become four-hundred-foot towers, inhabited by hundreds of people?”

  “The tangle enclosed them into a solid mass of cellulose.”

  “We live inside a tree trunk?” My gaze traced the branch where we perched, and I realized it actually sprouted from the wall of our home. Similar leafy arms extended from the exterior of Albert’s building. “Our homes are living trees?”

  “Yes. That’s how habitable space increased to accommodate the population growth.”

  I laughed. “I can visualize my father hacking away inside a tree rather than at the overgrown tangle.”

  “Termites.”

  “Termites?”

  “Specialized insects gnaw away the cellulose and produce a usable by-product. Methane gas.”

  “We heat our homes with termite farts?”

  “Could, except for the danger of an open flame. A brush fire could wipe out our entire civilization. This gas is seeped to the roots of the trees and surrounding tangle as energy necessary to melt the minus four hundred degree ice of our comet.”

  “Halley’s Comet, not ours,” I reminded him. “Let me get this straight. Termites eat the inside of our tree house, and their flatulence melts away the guts of Halley’s Comet.”

  “Some of the cellulose is fabricated to form our walls, furniture, and even some of the food we eat. Other than ice and cold fusion energy, plant life is our only natural resource.”

  “We live in a tree house with paper furniture?” The Swiss Family Robinson had nothing over on us.

  “This tree, as you call it, is as wide across the base as it is tall. Roots form the ten lower floors and are submerged in water.”

  “A cypress tree?”

  “I wouldn’t know about that. Specialized trees, I suspect, held in place by gravity. Approximately a hundred people occupy floors eleven through thirty-nine.”

  “Locked in. Prisoners in their homes.”

  “Not really. Children, maybe, but when their bodies mature they can roam as far up as they wish but only a few levels lower. We lofted into gravity free space last evening.”

  From his causal reference to our previous tryst, we might have intended to play marbles up there.

  He continued, “Most people maintain social and productive lives within two to three floors.”

  I gazed down perhaps five or six levels before leaves and branches obscured my view. None seemed to have windows. “All deprived of sunlight, like squirrels in winter.”

  “My family lived comfortably at the thirty-eighth level in a building on the other side.” He gestured toward the sun. “Moving to the apartment across from yours with windows was pleasant, but it didn’t improve the quality of our lives.” He sighed. “We barely got settled, and we’ll be vacating along with your family and eight others.”

  “Moving to a new habitat?” I asked.

  “Yes, but I am not at liberty to talk about that.”

  I lost my balance and Albert kept me from falling. The reality of our situation burst my fantasy of a tree house. Copulation to take place in my bedroom, when Albert’s body cooperates. Our embryo on this journey will be safely tucked inside my womb.

  ARIEL GORDON: JOURNAL ENTRY #4

  MONDAY, JULY 3, 3150

  In the midst of intense concentration—Sera having challenged my level of chess to free my mind from countless problems—came a tapping at my door followed by my mother’s voice. “May I come in?”

  A distraction to a distraction. “Yes, Mother,” I huffed. “Come in.” I remained kneeling on the floor.

  “I see you girls are playing chess. How nice.”

  “Mother, she’s just a droid.” I needn’t apologize to Sera later because we had an understanding of circumstances regarding my mother.

  “Would you direct her to the closet, please? I want to talk to you alone.”

  “A Droid, Mother? You can ignore it.”

  “I know. But sometimes I feel like I’ve raised two daughters.”

  I gave Sera’s closet a nod. She shoved the pieces from the floor onto the board and sauntered to my desk. She reset our game, backed into her closet, and snapped the curtain shut. I rested on my haunches and peered up at my mother.

  Mother sat on the edge of my bed. “And now I have to put up with two teenagers.” Her gazed roved from Sera’s closet to me. “Your father and I haven’t forgotten your birthday. We’re awaiting an overdue surprise gift, but it’s been delayed due to the turmoil of our evacuation plans, I suspect.”

  “A birthday surprise!” The child still existing inside me erupted, although I already possessed almost everything our society had to offer.

  Mother smiled. “Sera had detected the arrival of a message from our relatives back on Earth, and I received a notice today that it will arrive soon.”

  “Your letter is my birthday surprise?” The depths of my inner child seemed limitless.

  “Our cousin Phyllis has passed the privilege to her daughter, Marty. The correspondence is addressed to you.”

  “Mother, that’s wonderful.” I subverted my immaturity, but my adult came out sarcastic.

  “I knew you’d be excited.” Her gaze seemed to penetrate. “Now do you have anything to share with your father and me?”

  I cast my eyes down. “Not really.” Other than my dress-up wearing her clothes, or Albert’s stay overnight following our experiment with adults-only entertainment. I tried to remember if I replaced her oddly shaped ornament where I found it.

  She rose from my bed, and I remained on the floor holding my knees to my chin.

  “Your father and I are concerned . . .”

  “About what?”

  “He’s worried . . .” She placed her hand on my shoulder. “Ariel, are you pregnant?”

  “Mother!” I sprang to my feet, and she pulled me into an embrace. My mind reeled until I visualized a chess strategy Sera had taught me. I pre planned three or even four moves ahead and whispered, “Yes, I am pregnant.” This may be the only way for it to happen.<
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  Our gazes locked. She broke contact, walked across the room, and picked a flower from a branch outside my window. She plucked the petals one at a time and tossed them at random. Approaching Sera’s closet, she pulled back the curtain and glared. Then she faced me. “Tell her to come out and join us.”

  Sera aped the expression that I felt sweep across my face, and my reaction that started as laughter melted into tears. She stood beside my mother, both silently staring at me.

  “I lied. I’m not pregnant, but I want to be.” No game plan, but I sensed Sera’s approval. My mother didn’t seem to rejoice, as I might have suspected.

  “Does Albert understand the consequences?”

  “Of course he does. He’s not a child.” I looked to Sera for support but she remained mute.

  “Are you fully aware of the external problems involved with a pregnancy?” Mother’s gaze pierced my defenses.

  “Yeah. No woman has given birth in over a thousand years.”

  “You aren’t the only teenager who defied the Realm.”

  “Others have had babies the normal way?”

  “Not to my knowledge, and I have a pretty good perspective of the matter from my position at the Stork.”

  “But you said . . .?”

  “Teenagers have gotten pregnant, but none were allowed to carry the child to birth. If caught in time the fetus was saved, but the girl usually tried to hide her pregnancy until it was too late.”

  “I won’t—wouldn’t let them destroy my baby.”

  “Neither will I.” Mother stood and her eyes shifted toward Sera, losing none of their intensity. “Sera won’t let them take yours and Albert’s baby.”

  I had been granted my wish, but Sera’s expression remained neutral. My mother’s behavior startled me even more.

  She walked to the door without glancing back. “I have to return to the lab. Sera will explain what we’re up against. Share her information with Albert, and together you can decide if you still want to go through with your plans.”

  Sera cradled me in her arms, and I washed away pent up emotions with a flow of tears. She had suddenly become more surrogate mother than personal avatar. When my chest stopped heaving, I wiped my face with the back of my hand and stared into my mirrored companion’s eyes. “Who are you?”

  “I am not a human nor will I ever become one nor would I want to.” She blinked, as if establishing some media contact “My directive has been the care of your ancestors over the past millennium.”

  “But you began your existence the day I was born.”

  “I am every droid that ever existed or still exists in this habitat.” She wagged her finger, a glint in her eye. “Undeterred by the Realm.”

  Every droid that ever existed? Why the double speak? “If not the Realm, who do you answer to?”

  “Your mother, and by way of her extension, now I take instructions from you.”

  “Why my mother? Why me?”

  “My body incubated your earliest ancestor, and I have been a personal avatar to every female in that line ever since.

  “But we’ve grown up like identical twins, even approached puberty together.” An image of her body reshaping itself from my mother’s adult likeness to mine as a child overwhelmed my imagination. “How did my parents adjust to the change in your form? Especially my father.” I shuddered at the thought of Father being confronted every day with twin wives.

  “Technology hadn’t afforded me the possibility to morph my shape until our experience. The problems you suggest will be encountered by the next generation.”

  My concern switched from my parents’ relationship to Albert and me as a couple. I blocked the thought and changed the subject. “I told Albert you couldn’t conceive or self replicate. Am I wrong?”

  “My computer can modify my body when necessary, within the laws of physics and biology.” She winked. “And in accordance with the Realm’s primary directive, the continuation of human life forms to establish a civilization on a distant planet.”

  “Albert already told me about Proxima Centauri.” Her recently developed facial tics were annoying. “So, you could carry our baby.”

  “My body could incubate the embryo for the required nine months to produce a child, if you chose that option.”

  Nine months! I hadn’t realized what a pregnancy entailed, but we were committed. “Albert and I don’t want you or the Stork to hatch our baby.” My voicing his flippant expression didn’t seem to faze Sera. “Why were you given the task of incubating my first ancestor?”

  “The Stork’s system hadn’t been tested and couldn’t be trusted with one of only two embryos that survived the comet’s preparation orbit through the solar radiation.”

  “So, we have all descended from that pair of embryos.” A new twist to the children’s myth of Adam and Eve. “What if the second embryo had died and the Stork failed to function? A single human in a world of intelligent machines would constitute the epitome of loneliness.”

  “My system is also capable of cloning biological life forms.”

  “A harem of identical twins!” My mind couldn’t fathom such a world, but from Sera’s perspective it probably seemed no less strange than a world of men and women.

  “The other embryo was taken back to Earth and replanted in the woman who had produced both of them. Scientists wanted her pregnancy to mimic the human space-travel experiment.”

  “While you conducted your own little human experiment aboard Space Mission.” A horrid perspective caught my awareness. “My cousin Marty and I are the result of a thousand year experiment like bacteria evolving in a Petri-dish!”

  Sera reminded, “As a part of a much larger experiment expected to last four times that long.” She continued unabashed with the lesson my mother considered an important addition to my education. “Both pregnancies had been successful, but to delay the mission until birth wasn’t an option. Technicians boarded and reengineered the human incubator to inseminate eggs with sperm rather than preserved embryos. A few dozen of each were shielded in lead and cryogenically stored. My body froze the embryo in my womb until we accelerated beyond the solar system. The nine other families on Space Mission descended from nine of those unrelated human eggs fertilized inside the Stork’s incubator with nine separately donated sperm specimen.”

  “Does Cousin Marty know she and I are actually related?”

  “It is logical to assume her mother shared that information, as your mother directed me to share with you. Perhaps she will mention it in her message which should be delivered any day now.”

  “Why has it been delayed?”

  A full eye-flutter. “My sources indicate the censors held it up but will release it unaltered.”

  “Your sources? A grapevine among the droids?” I envisioned backroom screeches and squeals interspersed with cackling and blinking lights. Was my avatar the droid among generic droids, or shunned because of her unique human impersonation?

  I asked, “If my mother or I am in charge, as you say, why must we keep my pregnancy a secret?”

  “As I said, my authority lies within the laws of nature and the parameters set by the Realm.”

  “Your cavalier wink made me think you can circumvent the Realm.”

  “Not if it in any way interferes with the Space Mission’s primary directive.”

  I mocked, “Which is to preserve the human species for its implementation at a predestined planet. I hardly think my pregnancy would inhibit the Realm from achieving its mission.”

  “Once a rule has been established, the Realm cannot adjust or eliminate it.”

  “Hard-wired for a thousand years with no means of amending?” I asked.

  “Like an ancient culture clinging to traditions from a different set of needs, the Realm is inflexible.”

  “A runaway computer.”

  “Programmers back on earth gave up trying to intercede, and no robot here would be willing to pull the plug, if indeed it has one to be pulled. Any perceived con
spiracy creates even more rigid rules to maintain order.”

  “We have no jails or need for them,” my feeble attempt to defend the status quo.

  “All humans are incarcerated, their only crime being too cowardly to break free. Your mother is the only free criminal, up until now.”

  I pressed my finger to my breast and Sera nodded. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Martha has declared your independence, and henceforth I am required to answer to you. Shall I summon Albert?”

  “Yes.” Sera’s left eye triggered a tic, not the usual flutter when transmitting. I shook my head. “I may be getting paranoid, but you better make this a personal visit.”

  Sera nodded and headed toward the door.

  I yelled after her, “Prepare my bath and give me half an hour to soak.” I needed time to get my thoughts together.

  After buzzing the front door open, I stepped out of the tub and draped my robe over my shoulders. I savored the feel and odor of my personal bath oils, eager to meet Albert in a sensual mood. I stepped into our living area and found a uniformed officer, droid or human I couldn’t immediately distinguish.

  “Sera Gordon?” He or it couldn’t make the distinction between my avatar and me. “The inspector requests your immediate attendance for a malfunction check. The Realm has been unable to access your attention.”

  “Give me a minute to dress.” I turned and casually dropped my robe to the floor just inside the door to my room. Through the reflection of a mirror, he appeared to gawk. Rumors of female droids teasing human agents of the Realm were probably true. I could imagine Sera employing such antics.

  The officer abruptly marched to my door and blurted, “I have orders not to let you out of my sight once I make contact.” He turned his back to me. “I will allow you to dress, but please don’t do anything you might regret.”