2017 Young Explorer's Adventure Guide

by Maggie Allen

  But she wasn’t about to leave anything useful behind.

  “I thought I told you to keep the fire going?” Sophia stumbled into the cave, let her backpack drop to the floor, and sank to her knees next to the smoldering ashes.

  “And Mom told you not to play in the mud.” His voice came out as a wheeze, and the way his eyes drooped, it was hard to believe he could actually see her. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” she panted. She heaved the bag over and unzipped it. “I’m okay.” She dumped its contents out in front of her. There were packs of dried food and bottles of water mixed in with her plunder. “We’re both going to be.”

  She tossed two pill bottles onto Maleek’s stomach. “Take two from each,” she said. One was an antibiotic; the other was an antiviral. “But don’t call me in the morning.” She tossed him a bottle of water. “I need to sleep in.”

  The roar of thrusters screamed through the air the next day.

  Sophia lit a flare and ran out to meet them, waving frantically and screaming at the top of her lungs. Maleek followed, a flare in each hand.

  The shuttles landed just beyond the boulders, and soldiers scrambled out.

  “We’re here!” Sophia screamed, though they were heading right toward them. “We’re here!”

  The troops corralled them into the nearest shuttle, where doctors waited to treat them. But a man in a blue lab coat got to them first.

  “Dad?” Sophia asked as he rushed forward.

  He scooped them both into his arms. “My God,” he said, squeezing until they groaned. “You’re okay. You’re really okay.”

  “We’re okay,” Sophia groaned, hugging him back. “We are.”

  “But how?” He held them at arm’s length. “This is the most dangerous planet in this region.”

  Sophia smiled and tapped her wrist-pad. “We had a little help.”

  Her father raised his brows.

  “Something Mom gave me before she died.” She swallowed, trying not to tear up. “Just a silly book.”

  “Not a silly book,” Maleek corrected. “An incredible book. An awesome book. An incredibly awesome book.”

  “You mean The Traveler’s Companion?” her father asked. He gave a little laugh. “I don’t believe it.”

  “What?” Sophia asked. “What do you mean?”

  “She never thought you’d really need it… not like this… not to survive. She meant it more as a symbol.” His forehead knotted together. “You did see the dedication? Didn’t you?”

  Sophia stared at the pad.

  “You mean there’s a message?” Maleek asked. His eyes widened. “From Mom?”

  Her father twisted the screen toward him and made a few quick taps. “See for yourself.”

  Sophia hit the link. The speaker crackled. Someone cleared her throat. And a soft voice mumbled, “I think it’s on.”

  It’s her, Sophia realized, and now she couldn’t fight the tears. It’s really her.

  “Okay.” Mom sounded weak. “Here goes.” She cleared her throat again. “The universe,” she said, “is a tricky place… as scary as it is beautiful. On our journey through it, the bad comes with the good, and it can take all your strength and courage to keep going.” There was another long pause. “I hope this book can help you find your way.” She sniffled, obviously crying. “I hope it can be there to guide you when I can’t…” Her voice cracked. “Happy birthday, baby. I love you. I love you so much.”

  The Ghost in the Aurora

  by Rati Mehrotra

  Rati Mehrotra is a Toronto-based speculative fiction writer whose short stories have appeared in venues such as AE – The Canadian Science Fiction Review, Apex Magazine, Urban Fantasy Magazine, and Podcastle. Her debut novel Markswoman is due to be released in early 2018 by Harper Voyager. You can find out more about her at http://ratiwrites.com or follow her on Twitter @Rati_Mehrotra.

  First Mother went into the organic reservoir eight turns ago. There was a service afterward, and the priest told me how it meant she would never die. All seven octillion of her atoms would be recycled and reused by the voyagers of the Aurora. Atoms that were never hers in the first place. They’d always been stardust and big-bang dust.

  He thought he was being nice, explaining things to a ‘child.’ But even a child—and I am not one, even though I have not yet decided whether I am boy or girl—knows how precious atoms are. Just one for every cubic centimetre of space, with the asteroids few and far between. I’d learned in class how important it was not to waste a single one. But I’d never attended a death service before and was unprepared for how I felt. Tears leaked out of my eyes and Second Mother was annoyed, although she tried to conceal it. Second Mother is Chief Diplomatic Liaison of the Ship Council. I have half her genes and none of her brains, as she is fond of saying.

  I told myself that good, useful things would come out of the printer because of First Mother, that she would always be a part of me and of the Aurora, but it didn’t help. The particular collection of atoms that had made First Mother was gone, vanished into the maw of the reservoir. Nothing could change that. Especially not the priest, going on about ‘stardust unto stardust.’ First Mother wasn’t going to be stardust, not for a million years anyway. First she’d be in the kelp and chlorella crackers.

  I went off my food for a while. Second Mother sent me to Medical; Medical sent me to Psychology, and Psychology sent me to sleep. I had weird dreams, and when I woke up nothing was different except that three turns had passed, and I’d missed my deadline on a low-gravity plant growth report. So I decided to stop crying and start eating and pretend everything was all right.

  That’s when I began seeing First Mother’s ghost. The first time it happened, I’d just been released from Psychology. I was on a walkway back to the pod that I shared with five other kids, wondering how to explain my absence to them. First Mother appeared right in front of me, her face sad, holding the tapestry she’d been working on. The bag slipped from my hands, and I heard a thin scream—my own. People on the walkway turned around and stared. First Mother faded away, still looking sad.

  “Are you all right, Ettir?” said the Aurora in my ear, and I got my second shock. The ship AI had never spoken directly to me before.

  I picked up my bag and said, “Of course I’m all right. Just remembered all the extra work I have to do before finals, and I promised Second Mother I would volunteer at the nursery.” I paused, trying to slow my pulse. “How come you’re talking to me? I thought you mostly let your minions do that,” the ‘minions’ being the ship bots and the humans who ran the interface.

  “You look like you need help, although you seem unwilling to ask for it,” said the Aurora. “Your heart rate and blood pressure indicate stress.”

  “Of course I’m stressed,” I snapped. “I have three assignments due next turn. Look, there’s no need to bother about me. Don’t you have a ship to run?”

  I continued on my way, and the Aurora didn’t speak again, but I knew She’d watch me closely. Over fourteen thousand people, and the ship AI kept tabs on them all—in theory, anyway.

  The pods were located in a beehive-shaped structure in the heart of the ship, accessed by walkways and separated by narrow corridors. I’d lived in mine since I could solve simple algorithms. Before that we were all together in a nursery with sixty other kids. The pod was home until we decided who we were—but I didn’t have to think about that, not yet.

  I entered my pod and threw myself on the sleep-bags in the middle. My pod-mates were working—the pod was a hexagonal space, one side for each of us—but one by one they came over and hugged me. No one said anything, and for that I was grateful. They knew, even if Second Mother didn’t, how much I’d loved First Mother.

  Later, after everyone else was asleep, I wondered if First Mother regretted what she had done. She hadn’t even finished her tapestry. An unusual choice for your death project, but First Mother was never one to do the expected. Astrophysicist and Earth Historian, First Mothe
r was only one generation removed from the pioneers who’d built the Aurora to escape the dying Earth. Their goal? Gliese 667, the nearest star system with at least two Earth-like planets and possibly five more. At 22 light years from Earth, the trip was doable in four generations—in my generation.

  Too late for First Mother. If only she could have held out a little longer. But she’d worried only about the death project she wanted to leave behind. “Virtual displays and robotic art are so common,” she had told me. “I want to make something you can touch and hold.”

  And so she’d printed a small loom and multi-colored yarn, exhausting much of her accumulated credit. She had eighteen turns to work on it before she died. Chose to die. I still couldn’t wrap my head around it. I’d known she was old, older than almost anyone on the ship, and beyond the help of the medbots that ran the infirmary, but I’d thought she’d choose cryo. She had enough credit left for several hundred turns of it, and perhaps she would have woken stronger. It had been known to happen.

  First Mother didn’t confer with Second Mother, as she often did. She didn’t even say goodbye to me.

  That night, before I slept, I saw her again. White-haired and serene, her eyes brimming with kindness, not a fraction of which Second Mother had inherited. She stood at the far end of our pod, holding the tapestry out like she wanted me to take it. I thought of waking Iann and Aimo, curled up on either side of me, but what would have been the use? I doubted they would be able to see her, and then I might find myself back in Psychology. I got up carefully so as not to disturb them, but First Mother faded before I could reach her. What she was trying to tell me was clear, however, and I resolved to act upon it as soon as I could.

  Next turn, Aimo decided he was a boy and left the pod. We’d been expecting it for a while, but I still felt bereft, like he was deserting us.

  “You’re barely a hundred turns older than me,” I said, trying not to sound upset. “How can you know for sure?”

  Aimo closed his bag and put a hand on my shoulder. “I just know, Ettir. I can feel it in my gut. And maybe it’s time for you, too.”

  They all looked at me, as if they were seeing something I couldn’t. I shrugged off Aimo’s hand and left the pod, unable to bear their scrutiny. I was the next oldest, the next in line. If only First Mother was still alive, I could have gone to her for advice. I did the next best thing and went to the museum instead, the vault where the death projects were on display. I got a class reminder while I was on the walkway, but I ignored it.

  “Missing class? That’s not like you, Ettir,” said the Aurora. “Finals are just thirty turns away. Do you not wish to be a lightcraft pilot?”

  I gritted my teeth. It was my dream to get off ship on a lightcraft of my own when we approached Gliese 667, but how did the Aurora know that? “I know enough to pass,” I said.

  “Barely,” said the Aurora. “They only take the best for pilot school.”

  “I’ll make it,” I said with conviction, as if that could erase my own doubts. “I’m going to class anyway; I just have to do something first.”

  I got off the walkway and took an elevator down to the lower levels of the ship. There was a moment on the elevator when I was absolutely alone, apart from the Aurora, of course, and it was a strange feeling. No humans, no bots, no one looking at me. The main living areas of the ship—schools, medical bay, walkways, gardens, canteens—were always busy.

  I hadn’t been to the museum in ages, not since a class trip when I was little. I called up a map overlay, took a shortcut through a disused corridor and arrived at the vault. I identified myself to the door, stated the purpose of my visit, and was denied entry.

  “But why?” I said, dismayed. “I just want to see First Mother’s death project.”

  “It’s all right,” said the Aurora. “You can go in. I overrode the sub-routine.”

  I walked in, feeling self-conscious, but there was no one else inside the vast, silent space that arched over me. Images danced across the walls, a riot of colors and forms. Geometries interlaced, making impossible holos. Interspersed in that living, dancing space were a few three-dimensional stills: sculptures, statues, even a miniature globe of the Earth. I craned my neck, twisting around to try and see everything at once. The last vision of those about to pass from life into death or cryo.

  “It’s beautiful,” I whispered. “How many are there?”

  “Thirty-one thousand, three hundred and eighteen,” answered the Aurora. “There are four levels, and what you see is but a fraction. The majority of the death projects are stored as code, and the view changes from turn to turn.”

  “But First Mother’s project was a tapestry,” I said. “It has to be somewhere here.”

  “It is not,” said the Aurora. “It has been taken out by your Second Mother.”

  I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. “Why? Why has she taken it?” The Aurora did not answer, and a wave of anger rose within me. “You knew this, and still you let me come here?”

  “I thought you would like to see the museum,” said the Aurora. “Did you not say it is beautiful?”

  “Is my being denied entry related to the tapestry being taken out by Second Mother?” I demanded. Once again, the Aurora did not answer.

  I went to class, mulling over the mystery of the missing tapestry. Why would Second Mother take it? Why would the Aurora bother Herself with a death project? And above all, what had First Mother been up to, those last few days when she holed herself up in her private pod and refused to see anyone?

  After school I got a message from Second Mother. She wanted to meet me in her office. My heart almost leaped out of its ribcage. Here was an opportunity to hunt for the tapestry. I arrived at her office fifteen minutes early, hoping it would be empty.

  It was. I identified myself and was allowed inside. The door closed behind me and I did a quick scan. Everything looked the same as usual: curved walls covered with star charts and viewports, a wide desk glowing with data panels, fibreglass seats melded with the floor. I walked up to the desk and glanced at the panels. The Gliese 667 triple star system was only eleven standard years away, at our current speed. Robotic probes had already been sent to explore the system; five years from now, piloted lightcraft would follow. Finally, the Aurora would come to rest, and her denizens could escape the ‘zero atom-waste economy’. What would we do with dead people then?

  I pushed that thought away and went to work. It was unlikely that the tapestry was here, but I had to eliminate the possibility. I looked in the drawers, the cabinets, even under the desk.

  The door slid open and Second Mother walked in. I straightened up, trying not to look guilty.

  “Ettir,” said Second Mother, “what were you doing on the floor?”

  I didn’t respond; I couldn’t. Second Mother was wearing the tapestry. It was draped on her shoulders like a stole, the bright blue-and-yellow patterns covering the insignias on her black uniform. In that moment, I hated her.

  Second Mother sat down and waved me down opposite her. “I hope you’re not going to be difficult,” she said. “I have very little time before my next meeting.”

  I found my voice. “Why are you wearing First Mother’s death project?” I asked. “Shouldn’t it be in the museum?”

  Second Mother frowned. “Really, Ettir, how is that relevant? I want it with me and that is enough.” She paused. “You were late to class today. I was informed that you made a detour to the museum. Since when have you developed such an unhealthy interest in people’s death projects?”

  “Since I began seeing First Mother’s ghost,” I said in a flippant tone, but the blood left Second Mother’s face. She clutched the tapestry, opened her mouth and shut it.

  Realization dawned. “You’ve seen her too, haven’t you?” I whispered.

  Wordlessly, Second Mother shook her head. “You’re lying,” I said. “You’ve seen her and that is why you called me.”

  “I called you about finals,” snapped Seco
nd Mother, recovering. “Your performance in the last few turns has been abysmal. Have you even chosen your finals project? I have been invited by your school for the presentations, but I don’t want you to embarrass me. You used to be at the top of your class. Do you think failing the best way to honor your First Mother’s memory?”

  Her words stabbed me, like they always did. “Be honest,” I said. “You’re just afraid any failure of mine will reflect poorly on you.”

  Her nostrils flared. “And why not? Not everyone on the ship gets the chance to pass on their genes. We all have to prove our worth.”

  “Of course. First Mother must have been real proud of you.” I stood, wanting to be gone. “Anyway, you don’t have to worry. I promise to pass with flying colors.”

  Second Mother looked relieved. “See that you do. There’ll be no end of opportunities, now that we are nearing Gliese 667.”

  “I only want one thing to motivate me,” I said and pointed to her shoulders. “I’d like First Mother’s tapestry as a keepsake.”

  Second Mother gave me a cold smile. “You are so impolite, Ettir. I hope you do make it to pilot school, for you have not the temperament for a civilian post. No, you cannot have the tapestry. And I strongly suggest you do not mention ‘ghosts’ again, unless you wish to be declared mentally unfit to fly.” Her eyes became unfocused, like she was scrolling messages. “Leave now. I am expecting the Council at any moment.”

  I left, bitterness in my mouth. What was First Mother’s death project to her? She was wearing it like an ordinary bit of cloth. I went to my pod without bothering to stop at the canteen for a meal. No one else was around and I had the room to myself. Five sides cluttered with projects and data screens, and one side empty, with Aimo gone.

  I crawled into my sleep-bag and wondered how Aimo was doing, why he had decided to become a man, and whether it was painful. Second Mother had never told me, although I knew the process: the combination of hormonal and surgical procedures by which one half of our genes were given full expression and the other half suppressed. I just couldn’t imagine it, becoming something I was not. Part of ‘growing up,’ apparently, but what if I didn’t want to choose? Couldn’t choose?