by Ian Whates
Sophisticated onboard systems would control navigation, waste recycling and life support.
But who should be the passengers?
IT’S ALL A front, a scam, this programme of recruiting the autistic. That’s just what we’re being told by the powers-that-be. Actually, all the places on board Pandora have been bagged by politicians, billionaires and their families. They’ve all cronied together and they’re going to bugger off and leave the rest of us poor sods behind to die. This is no conspiracy theory. It’s how it is. I have proof. They get the lifeboat, we all go down with the ship.
“DAD?”
“Yes, Martin?”
“You’ll feed Tyke after I’m gone?”
The cat. Tyke, short for Tycho. Named after Tycho Brahe, the sixteenth-century Danish astronomer, a hero of Martin’s.
“Of course,” I said. “Don’t worry.”
“Oh, I’m not worried. I’m just confirming. He likes his wet food in the morning, no later than seven, and his dry food in the evening, no later than six.”
“I know.”
“Sometimes you forget.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“Martin?” said Claire. I could tell she was about to say something she shouldn’t. Something that wouldn’t get her the answer she wanted. “Will you miss us? When you’re up there? Off in space?”
“I wish you were there to do my laundry,” Martin replied, having considered the question for barely a moment. “And to cook tuna bake for me. That’ll be a shame, not to have your tuna bake any more.”
I took Claire’s hand. Felt it tremble.
“There are worse things,” I said to her, trying for consolation. “Your tuna bake is very good.”
WHO WOULD YOU rather share a starship with? Kirk or Spock? That’s what it comes down to. Kirk will either beat up or shag everything in sight. Spock will actually get you where you want to go. It’s a no-brainer.
MARTIN WAS OUR first kid, so we didn’t know any differently. We didn’t know that not all babies were as taciturn as he was, not all toddlers were so laser-focused on their play that they ignored the other children in the room, not all three-year-olds failed to respond to verbal or visual prompts and couldn’t meet your eye, not all youngsters were born so old. It wasn’t until Jenny came along that we realised how – for want of a better word – abnormal Martin was. Jenny did all the things the child-rearing manuals said were supposed to happen. She hit all her marks, a textbook baby, whereas Martin was an exception to every rule. He was formally diagnosed when he was five, statemented when he was eight. He could read like a demon but his handwriting was infantile. He could solve complex logic puzzles but found tying a shoelace a challenge. He could work a computer like a virtuoso pianist but not ride a bike. He was superior in so many ways, and in so many other ways inferior.
Sometimes he would look at me across the dinner table, or I would look at him, and I’d have no idea what was going on inside his head. There was no expression on his face, just a flat affect. His eyes seemed lost, deep in thought, but perhaps there was nothing going on behind them, just cogs whirring aimlessly, a humming blankness. Only Martin knew what he was thinking, but he rarely told us. Rarely let us in.
We got used to it, but I couldn’t escape the feeling that we were cursed, our family blighted somehow. A chance permutation of our combined DNA, Claire’s and mine, had let Martin down. We had created, between us, a hollow being, an emptiness that looked like a person, a living automaton. He could never interact with others on any meaningful level. He was destined to be eternally apart. He would not belong anywhere.
Little did we realise that we had, in fact, given birth to the future of the human race.
WHAT’LL THEY DO when they get there? They’ll need to get on with building shelters, sowing crops and mating – especially the last. But they’ll be too busy playing World Of Warcraft to “get busy”, tee hee hee.
HEATHROW NEARED. THE shuttles were going up from major airports all across the world simultaneously, a co-ordinated programme of launches to send a message to the inhabitants of this doomed ecosphere: see them go, watch them ascend as one, weep if you must, but also rejoice.
The shuttles were riding atop modified Boeing 747s, a piggyback ride to take them close to the stratosphere. Safer and surer than booster rockets, and simpler too. They would detach in flight, break through the ionosphere, then converge on the geostationary drydock where Pandora was berthed. Four hundred autistic youths would file through umbilicuses and airlocks onto a ship that looked not unlike a snowflake, a glorious confection of solar panels and habitat arms that would spin as it flew, its whirl generating artificial gravity. Fifteen years later they would touch down on Gliese 581g, fully grown now, physically mature, in the prime of life and ready to face the rigours of starting from scratch on strange soil under strange skies.
HI! JOHNNY NIMBUS here. You know I don’t like to butt in, but every so often people need reminding of the rules. Keep ’em clean, don’t be mean. That’s what it comes down to, Cloud Crowders.
JENNY DECIDED TO annoy Martin. Because she liked to and could. One last go, for old times’ sake.
“Martin.”
“Yes?”
“Will you be eating Wookie steaks when you’re in space?”
“I’m sorry?”
“I said, will you be eating Wookiee steaks when you’re in space?”
“No. Wookiees aren’t real. And if they were, I wouldn’t eat one because it might be Chewie.”
“Chewy, you mean?” said Jenny, sniggering, triumphant. He had fallen into her trap.
“Chewie. As in Chewbacca. First mate of the Millennium Falcon.”
“But you can’t eat a steak if it’s too chewy.”
“No, you can’t. Oh, I see. A pun.”
“Duh.”
“You’re very juvenile, Jenny.”
“Come on. Give us a smile. It’s funny.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s facile,” said Martin irritably. “It relies on the inadvertent homophonic resemblance between the words Chewie and chewy. It’s not that clever. Why did you bother?”
“Because I knew it would bug you.”
“And what’s the point of that?”
“I dunno. Why not?”
“Well, in future, don’t.”
“Yeah.” And suddenly Jenny was sad. “Anyway, what future?” And morose. “We don’t have a future. Unlike you.”
“Jenny...” chided her mother.
“It isn’t fair. It just isn’t. How come Special Needs Martin gets a ticket to another planet and we don’t? Why can’t we go with him? We’re his bloody family!”
“Jenny, that’s enough,” I said.
“We ought to be allowed to go too. What if he gets lonely?”
“I don’t get lonely,” Martin pointed out.
Jenny burst into tears. Claire slid across the plush leather bench seat to cradle her. It was hard to say which upset Jenny more: losing her brother or being obliged to stay behind. All said and done, she did love Martin. And she didn’t want to die, any more than I did, or Claire, or anyone.
“There isn’t room on Pandora,” I said to Jenny as soothingly as I could. “They can’t take everybody. Just be grateful that one of us is going. Martin met the criteria. Be glad for him.”
“Why should I be glad,” my daughter pouted, “when he isn’t even glad himself?”
“He is,” I said. “I’m sure he is.”
Just not so as you would notice.
THERE’S THIS RUMOUR going round that some of them are faking it. These parents, they’ve schooled their kids to, like, pretend they’ve got Asperger’s, or bribed a doctor to give them a certificate. To get them on board, yeah? It’s despicable. But then, if I had a kid, maybe I’d do the same. You never know.
WE PULLED UP virtually on the runway. No need for customs, immigration, passports, check-in, baggage inspection, any of it. A smooth, first-class ride straight onto the tarmac, where a dozen si
milar limos were already parked. Families stood in knots. A throng of journalists jostled behind barriers, shouting out questions, begging for interviews, and not far from them stood a horde of onlookers, the public, some cheering, some jeering, held back by a line of police. The racket was tremendous. There was a podium with a microphone and a PA system. The prime minister was due to make a speech shortly, a tightly-scripted homily of hope and good wishes.
Martin got out of the car. It didn’t seem to faze him, the enormity of this moment, the significance of it, the irrevocability. He could have been just paying a visit to the local Games Workshop branch in town, for all the excitement he demonstrated. Perhaps that was just as well.
“Will there be Seven Up on board?” was all he said. It was the one, the only carbonated beverage he could stomach. Other than milk, it was the only thing he drank.
“I’m not sure there will be, Martin,” I said. “I think we were told it would be shakes, power smoothies, that sort of thing.”
“Oh. Yes. Well, I don’t like them much.”
“You won’t have a choice. It’s interstellar travel, not popping out for a picnic.”
“I know. I was only asking. I’ll manage.”
Claire fussed over him, finger-combing his hair. Jenny moped by the limo, disconsolate. A cold wind blew. The sky was overcast, the clouds low. The plane and its shuttle hitchhiker would be lost from view mere moments after takeoff.
I looked up at the clouds and shivered in the chill of an unseasonably cold June day. The Incident, making its presence felt. The black blot of nanotech-gone-mad was already affecting weather patterns. It had altered the course of the Gulf Stream and the mean temperature of the Atlantic, which meant mild winters and rainy summers for Europe and beyond. The climate was destined only to get crazier. It was predicted that there would be terrible atmospheric disruption, thunderstorms of biblical proportions, hurricanes, tsunamis, the whole Revelation gamut of acts of God. Within five years, if not sooner, crop yields would go into steep decline, there would be mass starvation, death on an epic scale, followed by epidemics of typhus and cholera, and then, to add to the general cheery forecast, the planet itself would begin to wobble on its axis, its balance skewed by the relative density of the von Neumann replicators. Eventually things would arrive at a literal tipping point, when fully half of the world’s surface area was black, like a permanent eclipse, and the Earth would sheer from its orbital path, the whole delicate equilibrium of celestial mechanics utterly spannered. There was debate as to whether the planet would shoot off into outer space or be drawn in towards the sun, whether our mudball would freeze or burn. Either way, we, its inhabitants, were – what’s the technical term? – oh yes. Fucked. Well and truly fucked.
LAST NIGHT, ANGELS came to me. It wasn’t a dream, it was a vision. They told me everything is going to be fine. This is all part of God’s plan. If we just have enough faith, pray hard enough, the Incident will reverse itself. It will heal itself. The angels were beautiful. I’m so happy. I’m not making any of this up. It’s true. Don’t be afraid. Believe.
“THE LUCKY FEW,” the prime minister said. “Chosen. Chosen not by committee, nor by lottery, but by natural selection. The fittest under the circumstances. A representative cross-section of a certain stratum of the population – pragmatic, efficient, dogged, regimented – who will take the human narrative on to the next chapter, continue our story elsewhere, on a distant world. I congratulate you, I envy you, I salute you...”
Blah, blah, blah. I tuned him out. There was only so much high-flown flannel you could endure, especially on the day you and your son were parting company for good.
“Martin,” I said. The time had come. “I love you. You know that.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“And you love me too, in your way. I’m sure of that.”
“If you say so.”
“I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks.”
“I couldn’t be happier for you. And if there’ve been times when I’ve been impatient with you, angry with you, lost my temper, then I’m sorry. I never meant to. It’s been difficult. We’ve tried our hardest, Mum and me. We’ve done everything we can to understand you and accept you.”
“Okay, Dad.”
“We’ll live on in you.”
“Genetically speaking, that’s true.”
“So remember us.”
“I imagine I will.”
I JUST WANT to say, I’m terrified. I don’t want to die. Everybody out there, do you hear me? I’m so scared. Johnny Nimbus? Is there an afterlife? Are we all going to heaven? Does anyone know? Please, someone, tell me.
AND THEN HE was gone, strolling with his suitcase towards the mobile stairs that led to the shuttle entrance hatch. He was in a long line with all the other kids. Some were in their mid to late teens like him, the rest not much older than eleven or twelve. Yet all of them strangely adult, serious and sombre as they walked, here and there someone with an oddball gait, a peculiar hand twitch.
Clutching a sobbing Claire and Jenny, I waited for him to look back.
And waited.
All Martin had to do was turn, look at us, maybe raise a hand, possibly smile. That was all he had to do to prove he cared.
Not much.
He reached the stairs.
He climbed the stairs.
And I realised that the only option for me was to look away. So I did. I lowered my head. Turned my gaze aside. Concentrated on a spot on the tarmac to my left.
So that I would never have to know.
Because who wants posterity to deny them? Who can bear, not simply to be forgotten, but to be unacknowledged? Unrecognised? Dismissed as irrelevant by their most precious possession?
Seeing Martin go off to live was a kind of death.
KEEP ’EM COMING, Cloud Crowd! This is Johnny Nimbus, on the air, in the ether, wireless and tireless, your sentient social network, up all hours and hungry for chat. The shuttles are airborne, the pigeons are eagles, and the stars await, while down here we’ve got terminal cancer of the planet and the lights are going out one by one. So talk. Talk to each other. Talk to me. Tell my silicon soul your innermost secrets. I’m all heart and all ears. My hard drive is wide open to you, my memory stands at a petabyte and counting, and I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here to be your confidant and best friend to the end. To the very bitter end.
FEAST AND FAMINE
ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY
Adrian Tchaikovsky was born in Lincolnshire, studied and trained in Reading and now lives in Leeds. He is known for the Shadows of the Apt fantasy series starting with Empire in Black and Gold and currently up to Book 8, The Air War. His hobbies include medieval combat, and tabletop, live and online role-playing. More information and short stories can be found at www.shadowsoftheapt.com
“MOTHER, PRODIGAL, CONFIRM crew and cargo secured, ready to depart. Telemetry incoming. Initial course mapped, confirm check on our exit solution. Prodigal out.”
(eleven minute pause)
“Prodigal, Mother. Telemetry confirmed flight path clear. Come on in. Mother out.”
(eleven minute pause)
“Mother, Prodigal. Commencing countdown, separation from Oregon in one minute.
“Twenty seconds.
“Ten... nine...”
COUNTING DOWN TO oblivion, the final transmission of Doctor Astrid Veighl, as she patiently numbered the last seconds of her crew’s lives down to zero. And then she died.
There was a general conspiracy, back at Mother, to pretend that there might just be a radio glitch. Even as we made our approach towards her last known location – a course plotted to more decimal places than even God normally bothers with – there was a vacuous suggestion that Veighl would have passed us in the night, would reach Mother any moment now, and our four day investigatory flight would turn out just to be a criminal waste of fuel and resources.
After the abrupt cessation of any transmission from Veighl a swift dec
ision had been made to send us out after her. ‘Swift’ meant a seven-hour prep for departure: that a returning, radio-mute Veighl would have arrived at Mother long before we reached her take-off point was the sort of maths that needed no computer. It was a subject that neither we nor Mother touched on when we checked in, as though to point it out would be to look in the box and kill a cat that we all knew was stone dead already.
Syrenka, to whose song everything danced, was an ugly green-purple bruise to starboard as we came in: a gas giant with twenty-one variously barren moons and enough of a debris ring to suggest the demise of at least five more. And in that ring, a secret, like the oyster’s pearl.
The computers back at Mother, our own Onboard, and Pelovska’s Expert System, had all put their heads together at our launch to plot out the sort of four-dimensional map that no unaugmented human mind could conceive of, so that when we kicked off from Mother on our fact-finder (nobody had ever said ‘rescue mission’ in the briefing) our course would keep us clear of each piece of the great field of murdered moon clutter that was Syrenka’s waist. Oregon, our destination, was one of the larger pieces of rock, too small for a moon, but making a large asteroid. Very loosely comparable in length and breadth to Oregon USA, in fact. Eventually some peeved astronomer would throw something from the classics at it, but for now it proudly carried the monicker of the Beaver State because someone back on Mother was homesick for Astoria.
“There’s another beauty.” Osman was designated pilot, which meant that, unless someone had dropped a decimal back at Mother, he was here to sightsee. He was referring to a rock tumbling past, less than half the size of Oregon and a hundred kilometres away: he had magnified the image to show the blue starburst flower of Anchorite. Or an Anchorite. Or some Anchorites. Veighl, the departed, had been working on the answer to that problem of nomenclature. Pelovska, our geologist and Expert System, had reviewed the raw data Veighl had sent before her decision to return home, and subsequent abrupt silence. The question had remained unanswered.
