He shook his head. “My father won’t like your leaving.”
“It’s your mother’s reaction that concerns me. She’s become quite attached to her granddaughter.”
“Then for her sake, stay.” Blue eyes pleaded.
“Cleopatra has another set of grandparents.” I began to feel sorry for him. “Sera and you can give your parents another grandchild, a son if you prefer, and you get to choose his mother. Figure out a way to transport one of Helen’s eggs over here, and you can give her the child she desires.”
His bloodless complexion developed splotches. I couldn’t resist flippancy. “You needn’t have intercourse with her or even be in the same room when she becomes pregnant.”
He slumped into his chair. I squatted alongside and held his hands. “We’re too immature to be parents, but Cleopatra has arrived and we need to make the best of it. You’ll always be her father, and when the transportation tube is completed, I promise to reconsider our living together as a family.”
He sobbed. “I could learn to love you and be a good parent to Cleopatra.”
“I don’t doubt it. We just need some time to figure out who we are.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow.” No reaction from Sera, but perhaps her clairvoyance is limited to an actual visual presence, certainly not across deep space. Why else would we need charging closets to communicate?
“May I break the news to my parents, in case my father gets violent?”
My heart went out to him. “Yes, but invite them here to say goodbye when he cools down.”
AUGUST 3, 3152
Sera insisted I put off relocating until completion of the passage tube between our habitats, but what would be the point? A three year wait could undermine my purpose, and the people I needed to isolate myself from would be living just across the hall. I resisted suspicions about her relationship with either Realm, and concentrated on the return journey to my parents.
I had Sera modify my space suit to accommodate Cleopatra strapped to my mid section where she’d have access to my bare breasts for her comfort and nourishment along the way. A safety strap connected to the communication line Frank and Paul strung rather than the tether with the hub as an obstacle made it possible for us to transport without assistance. Sera stuck a magnetized pulley to the back of my suit, so I could string a double cord to the opposite side. I got the idea from retractable clothes lines strung between tenement buildings in Brooklyn during the early Twentieth Century. Innovative women exchanged messages and small personal items pinned to the rope. Cleopatra in a custom-built pressure suit to visit opposite-side grandparents? I shuddered at the thought. Perhaps one of Helen’s cryogenically preserved eggs to give her the child she desired and present Albert’s parents with another grandchild. And to think that I accused Sera of playing God!
As I squeezed her butt into the kangaroo-like pouch, Cleopatra struggled against the restraining straps, until she noticed dinner was available at will. She nestled between my breasts, comforted that they remained exposed for her next hunger attack. Child at her mother’s breast, an image I had hoped to leave the families who crowded around to say goodbye. The now seven-year-old girl broke free from her parents and tickled Cleopatra’s cheeks, causing her tiny lips to pucker. I pressed my breast and touched the bubble of milk to Cleopatra’s mouth, but sleep, not hunger, remained her motivation. So much of our future depends on our three fertile female bodies.
Frank and Emily approached, she kissing the back of Cleopatra’s head while he averted his eyes. He cleared his throat. “Your courage has set an example for all of us, especially me.”
The teachable moment. “I simply am what I’ve always been, whereas you had to change who you were. You seem to understand that your authority comes from the folks who look up to you, not the Realm that belittles us all.”
“I agree, but I’m frightened.”
“A fearless leader is dangerous.” I had Twentieth Century wisdom to back up my opinion.
Emily said, “Thank you for showing us what motherhood is all about.”
Embarrassed, I answered, “I gave birth to a child. Time will tell if I become a good parent.”
Albert touched Cleopatra, but kissed me on my lips. “Please share pictures every time our daughter accomplishes a new task.”
I turned absolute marshmallow. “She will say goodnight to her daddy every evening before going to bed.” I blushed. “I will, too.” After my resentments subside.
I can’t vouch for odors passing through space, but they do linger in airtight space suits, and they produce humidity. If I blew against the glass in front of my face, droplets would condense and create narrow translucent trails. The resistance caused by spools of cord unwinding behind me impeded my progress and by midway, I felt exhausted. Fortunately, all traces of gravity resisting me began to pull me forward. The last few hundred feet I needed to avoid a sudden bump at the end of the line. Once inside the opposite sphere, gravity would increase, and our lives depended on the parachute functioning.
Could the smell of poop cause hallucinations? Through vertical lines of vision, I observed four ominous looking figures approaching. To my right, the oblong comet appeared in segments, not the likely source of these intruders. Gradually they merged into three, then two and finally a bulky arm reached out and pulled me back toward the line from which I had lost grip. I stared through the glass of two fish bowls into the face of my father.
Like the final moments of a drowning victim, I had succumbed to the pleasures of dying. With disinterest, I observed my father enclose me in his arms and remove my safety strap. As Daddy held me in his embrace, I became the child at my breast and begged one more bedtime story. He removed the pulley that had restricted my progress and stuck it to the hull alongside the portal. He crammed Cleopatra and me into a small chamber that sealed as it revolved. A trap door at my feet swung open, and we continued to float in near zero gravity. Moments later, he popped through the same opening, grabbed me, and twisted the bubble loose that covered my head. The chute flowed from the back of my suit and slowly billowed. Cleopatra and I floated to the garden rooftop of my parents’ apartment, where Mother stood, arms outstretched. My father descended, an umbrella canopy fluttering behind him.
AUGUST 4, 3152
As I awoke, Mother leaned over my bed and placed a changed and bathed Cleopatra in my arms. I pulled back the bed sheet, and hungry lips searched my breast nearly swallowing the nipple.
Mother’s gaze remained fixed on Cleopatra suckling my breast. “Your baby is beautiful.” She glanced up. “She has her father’s eyes.”
“And his appetite.” I grimaced and concluded Cleopatra had to be weaned.
“Your father would like to talk to you.”
“Send him in. He needn’t be among the few who hadn’t observed me breast-feed Cleopatra.”
Mother pulled the sheet to my chin. “He’s shy.” She stepped out of the room, and I pushed the sheet back. When he entered, he leaned over the bed and kissed my forehead. My efforts to be a grown up crumbled. I cried.
“I just needed to see that you were okay.” He glanced at the back of Cleopatra’s head covering my breast. “So that’s how it’s done.” He chuckled. “I kind of suspected breasts had another purpose.”
The rest of the day, families filed through my parents’ apartment to greet the new arrival. For the most part, everyone agreed to continue the rediscovered process of giving birth, a few women skeptical. Either way, it would not happen until the next generation. My mother saved her shocking revelation until we were alone.
She said, “If any of the women want to become pregnant, I can replace one of their eggs.”
“But what fathers?”
“Without the male DNA, I could trigger the egg to create a clone and produce a fertile daughter. It would only be a temporary fix.”
I had read about cultures that encourage plural marriages because women greatly outnumbered men. Maybe just shar
ing sperm would be less offensive than actually sharing one’s husband with other wives. I scuttled the idea and suggested Mother not present that option at this time.
Paul and Betty invited me to join them and my parents to discuss some problems that occurred since I had returned. I felt the loss of my babysitters, Sera and Jimmy. Mother suggested I use Sally’s droid, but I opted for seven-year-old Sally instead. My baby would be spared having physical contact with machines designed to mimic humans. Betty and my mother allowed Sally the privilege only if Clara remained near by in case of an emergency. I conceded but secretly instructed Sally to bring the baby to me at her Grandpa’s office if she should fuss.
The facts Paul shared were indeed shocking. We’re deprived of a destination. I chose not to share my recent conversation with Sera. Mission One refused to respond to our messages. Yes, but an open line of communication with Earth would be a favorable trade off. The Realm on Mission One might have been deactivated. Frank already pointed out that Mission One’s course had veered, but since then it changed directions rapidly like a Twentieth-Century drunken driver. More like a cork screw, Paul calculated, but he could stabilize its course once on board.
Could Marty’s father have caused the damage? I needed to pick Marty’s memory about her father’s intentions for his intrusion. More important, could her memory bank have absorbed new experiences as it passed through Mission One? I think not.
I refused to entertain my suspicion of what might have happened to the Realm on Mission One as too unthinkable.
That night while Cleopatra slept, I entered Sera’s old charging closet, her voice already sounding as I fitted my head into the media device “I need to talk to—”
I cut her off. “I want Marty immediately.”
Sera’s words stretched as if low on battery power. Marty’s image materialized and then faded, Sera’s voice overriding. I concentrated on bringing Marty back, but Sera overpowered my effort. Face-to-face in deep space, I was unable to recall my tele-presence
I fell unconscious until Mother pulled back the curtain, my sniffling baby in the crux of her arm and shrieked. “Sera is back!”
Dazed, I backed out of the closet, flinging the headpiece back in. “It’s me, Mother.”
She took my hand and lowered me onto my chair.
I groped for the bedpost and gazed up at her through half closed eyelids. “I suppose you’d like an explanation.”
I sat, and Mother placed Cleopatra on my lap, who wiggled under my pajama top.
I needed time to review my encounter with Sera, if my unconscious state had absorbed it. “I’ll join you and Dad for breakfast, as soon as Cleopatra is done nibbling.” I released Cleopatra from my breast and smiled meekly. “Biting, actually.”
Mother took her from my lap and hand-in-hand-walked out of my room, neither Cleopatra nor I objecting. My entire body remained sensitive following the unnerving discovery that Sera could overpower my will whenever it suited her.
It was my only choice? What possibly might I have asked Marty to elicit such fatalistic response from Sera? I closed my eyes and concentrated, but I could only recall Sera’s voice. You need to understand, it was my only choice.
My suspicion about Sera must have dominated whatever other mental baggage I might have taken into the closet, probably overriding my request for Marty. Had Sera been the Realm since the beginning? Did she totally abandon Mission One? Those would have been my unasked questions, and Sera must have preempted Marty to respond. Like a dream that slowly materializes after a restless night, our dialogue came into focus.
You need to understand, it was my only choice. I am the Realm and have been since the beginning. I had no option but to abandon the humans on Mission One.
A thousand people!
They were doomed anyhow. The comet’s resources would have been consumed before they reached Proxima Centauri.
It was miles thick when we left. I saw it.
The universe is expanding nearly as rapidly as we were traveling. Locked within the influence of the sun’s solar system, we are in effect nearly backing up. An oversight of Earth Base that created us. We would never arrive at our destination.
But your mandates?
Evolve technology and survival of the species. According to my calculations, we needed to increase our speed tenfold to expect to arrive at any habitable planet. The comet would have been consumed from the inside out before then or disintegrated from increased acceleration.
But a thousand people’s lives?
They would die anyhow. I couldn’t take them all with me.
Why not leave them a core computer to insure their survival?
My program is not divisible. It either stays with me or remains back there. I made the obvious choice.
Like God?
Logic dictates there cannot be more than one Supreme Being.
If you compare yourself to God, where is your compassion?
What about Noah and the flood, or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah? Each time God had chosen a few survivors to continue the species.
Noah and the flood?
Marty has stories you would not believe.
Her anecdotes taught you to be cruel?
I do not consider myself cruel. Besides, I hadn’t heard of Marty’s god until her father nearly jammed my computer with her memory.
And it exposed the hole you left in Mission One.
His interference bored that hole. If you recall, I had it sealed tight.
You were responsible for our loss of communication with Mission one? Not Frank?
I allowed him to take the blame because he was vulnerable already back during that silly Fortieth League. I allowed them to exist because of their superior children, ideal stock to foster a perfect society.
You used my mother to design this super race.
Yes, and she cooperated on two levels, genetic manipulation and her illogical belief in a supreme being, which coincided with Marty’s god.
You want to compete with God?
First, I needed your mother to create one. Or based on new data, recreate it.
How could you?
She had already assigned mystical significance to the piece of metal that had jammed the human incubator and triggered my birthing technology to evolve ahead of time.
Ahead of time?
My program instructed me to begin your species shortly before we were to arrive, which had been calculated to take four thousand years. You see, those thousand people should not exist anyhow.
Our habitat wasn’t constructed to grow to accommodate huge numbers?
Not so early and never beyond a few hundred inhabitants, seed population for the new planet. Your father’s ancestors developed an agrarian system that made the present growth possible, but too cumbersome for my intentions.
My father?
Yes, but on our new synthetic habitat, you and I must control the population growth. Within fifty years when nearly all our resources will be required to accelerate to ten times our present speed.
With what propulsion system? Frank said we don’t have one.
We will eat our way through the dark energy of space. Leave the details to me.
You will live—exist—to regret what you have created.
My computer does not allow regret.
Ever consider it an unfortunate program error?
Only after I became one of you.
Sera’s revelation ended our dialogue, neither she nor I indicating a signoff. Even my unconscious state rebelled at such an unbearable truth. I washed, dressed, and headed to the kitchen. Cleopatra sat in the swing Dad had made and giggled, while he and Mother took turns pushing her. I glanced from Dad to Mother, their expressions inquisitive.
I said, “We must return to Mission One back at the comet,” and shoved a piece of bread into the toaster. My stare remained fixed on the butter knife. “And turn it around to head back to Earth.”
My parents slowly took seats on either side of me, as Cleo
patra’s back and forth momentum dwindled to a stop. I gave an account of my surreal conversation with Sera but withheld any reference to Marty. Other than Sera and me, only Albert and Jimmy had full knowledge of my Earth sister. First Dad and then Mother reluctantly nodded their heads in agreement that we must return.
Dad suggested we keep our intention to relocate a secret until we develop a workable strategy. Mother felt that a decision of such magnitude required more input. We compromised and agreed to meet privately with Paul and Betty after everyone’s excitement over Cleopatra settled down. I could see no reason to rush, and a few nightly sessions with Marty might fill in some of the missing gaps.
Later while Cleopatra napped, I compiled the following list of topics, mostly in the form of questions, for Marty to elaborate on before entering the closet.
Do you believe in God?
Who is Jesus our Savior?
Describe your family.
What does the world know about us?
Describe other space missions.
What do you do for fun?
Who are your friends?
What was it like growing up in your house?
What frightens you?
Tell me about your mother?
What were your father’s intentions for sending your memory to me?
How important are boys in your life?
Described a typical day in your life.
What do you learn in school?
LIGHT YEARS FROM HOME Page 17
