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“No, because we’d have a malfunction and that would mess with everything.”
They finally arrived at Pulse’s bay entrance. Almost all of the habitat ships in all of the convoys were designed exactly the same. They were humongous, filled to the brim with personal quarters. Each room had a window, regardless of where it lay within the ship—a series of mirrors reflected outside views back to those on inner portions of the decks. The bay itself was large, holding up to fifteen shuttles at a time. Most of it was controlled from observation booths, so that no one was sent scrabbling every time the bay was depressurized. Now, convoy crew bustled in and out of the hall airlock, barely allowing the automated door to shut before taxing it once more. Swara hesitated before entering. “I wish I didn’t have to go so soon.”
Vanhi gave her a tight hug, with an extra squeeze for good luck. “I know, me, too. But my six-month break will come sooner than you think.”
“You have to come stay with me and James.”
“For how long?”
“Long as you want.”
“Uh-uh, don’t say that unless you mean it. You might not be getting rid of me for a month.” Vanhi gave her a wink.
“You’ve done well here,” her sister said, glancing around the hall, watching jumpsuited specialists double-time it to and from their stations.
Vanhi’s face fell, but she propped up her smile in the next instant, not wanting Swara to see her falter.
Her family didn’t need to know she’d tried to resign, that Madame Chair had begged her to stay on. She’d only acquiesced because the guilt of dropping the mission had outweighed the guilt of maintaining her post. Now, she tried to stay in constant motion, to keep busy. Busy people didn’t have time for regret.
She’d even offered Dr. Chappell a prominent position on the team. Vanhi knew the move looked odd from the outside, but no one suspected any motives beyond altruism (which, in its own way, only burgeoned Vanhi’s shame). In response, Dr. Chappell had all but sent a flaming bag of dog poop to her door.
Vanhi couldn’t blame her. If their positions were reversed, she would have balked just the same.
Sometimes the bad guys win.
So … what does that make me?
But she couldn’t tell her sister all that. So she just said, “The crew does well. They’re wonderful. We have a lot more retired military aboard than I would have expected. Should have, though. They’re used to taking on temporary stations halfway across the globe, so it’s no wonder they’d be up for a few years in space. But they’re great. And I’ve got some new recruits coming in as you’re headed out. Excited to meet them. Even though I wish you could stay longer, of course.”
With a scrunched-nose smile, Swara reached into the side pocket of her duffel and drew out a small box wrapped in bright green. It looked like a container jewelry might come in, but Swara would know better than that; Vanhi hardly ever wore any. “To say thank you for letting me come visit you aboard your convoy,” she said, holding it out with both hands.
“You know you don’t need to.”
“I know. But this way there’s something up here to help remind you of us down there.”
They hugged again, said their goodbyes. Vanhi wished her sister a safe trip back to Earth. When Swara was securely on the other side of the door, Vanhi looked at the box again. She had an hour before the next pods had to be approved for deployment, so she scurried back to her quarters to open the gift.
Once inside her spacious quarters (they were meant for a four-person family, but since there were plenty of vacant rooms, there was no need to be restrictive), Vanhi settled herself at her small kitchen table.
She tugged at the bit of twine encompassing the wrapping before tearing into the packaging proper. The slick paper fell away with ease, leaving what was unquestionably a jewelry box, hinged on one side and velvety. It opened with a snap.
Vanhi wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting. A necklace? A pin?
Inside was a wristwatch-that-wasn’t. It had all the trappings of a watch: real leather strap (she hoped Papa didn’t know!), metal buckle, clockface. Only the clockface wasn’t analog or digital. It was antiquated. Where one would expect to see a pair of hands or set of displays was instead an evenly scoured plate and a gnomon.
Underneath the watch lay a note.
Dear little Ullu,
Vanhi cringed, then shook her head fondly at the old nickname. It had been a childhood insult that had slowly morphed into an endearment.
Since you are the strangest scientist I know, what with your love of archaic things like eyeglasses and your pocket protector (I believe you call it C), I thought you might enjoy this gen-one timepiece. I hear it’s cutting-edge technology, if you happen to live in Babylon.
When I saw this in the storefront I remembered what you said about distance not mattering, only travel time. So when you wear this, know that it takes exactly 0.00 seconds for my love to reach you, no matter where you are.
Found that programmer you talked about—Kaeden. We worked in some upgrades I think you’ll like.
Good luck. See you soon.
Yours lovingly,
Swara
Vanhi turned the sundial over in her palm. The back wasn’t inscribed, but it didn’t have to be. It was made of a polished, brassy silver-gold metal she couldn’t identify, even after finding the jeweler’s stamp. It carried some weight, but not too much. The hour lines were labeled in Roman numerals.
She hurried to swipe the old phone from where it sat in a place of honor on her bookshelf. She didn’t need it aboard the ships—everyone’s chip implants were integrated into the comms system—but they’d have to pry her Intelligent Personal Assistant out of her cold, dead hands.
“Wake up, want to show you something. Look at what Swara gave me.” She flashed the sundial, then held up the note for C to scan.
“She’s not wrong, I am antiquated,” it agreed.
“But that’s why I love you,” she said, strapping the sundial onto her left wrist. “Hope I don’t jab anyone with the gnomon. Can’t tell if it would bend or skewer.”
“The stamp indicates it is a Ti-Au alloy, typically used for medical implants. It would likely puncture.”
“Odd thing to make a bracelet out of.”
“Agreed. You should probably assess its electrical properties before wearing it during experiment engineering.”
The strap pulled snug. The brown leather was soft on the inside of her wrist. A little green light lit up on the side of the dial. “That’s … interesting.”
“I’m detecting a software compatible device within range,” C said. “I believe the sundial can support my applications.”
“What? No way.” Now she understood the part about talking with Jamal. Swara always did give the best gifts.
“Shall I upload myself to the new device?”
“Yes please. I need to head to Breath for my shift, but let me know when the download is complete, okay?”
“Will do. Oh, and Vanhi?”
“Yeah?”
“The convoy communications team sent me another message from Dr. Kaufman. Would you like to hear it before you go?”
She’d asked comms not to contact her by implant with his drivel. Instead it all got shuffled over to C. “Nope. You know what to do with it.”
“Message number eighty-seven from Doctor McKenzie Kaufman—Archived.”
Vanhi was the first on the shift shuttle. She buckled up as other workers poured into the craft behind her, pulling the heavy harness straps over her shoulders one at a time. Most of the new recruits were dressed in slacks and button-downs, which would be hidden under lab coats and bunny suits once on the experiment ship. Vanhi hadn’t changed out of her jeans and loose-fitting kurta.
A thin, black-skinned man with yellow around the edges of his eyes slid into the seat next to her.
“Gabriel! No one told me you’d come aboard. Good to see you.” She held out her hand—the shoulder straps keeping her awkwardly pinned.
They hadn’t seen each other since he’d been awarded his Ph.D., and she’d gotten no direct word on whether or not he’d accepted her invitation for a stint aboard the convoy.
He shook her hand, but with a hesitancy. “Good to see you as well.”
She felt the corners of her mouth twitch, her smile slip, and she feared her expression was giving everything away, laying all her guilt bare. He seemed reluctant to talk to her. Did he know something? No, no, that couldn’t be it. Perhaps he suspected, though. Gabriel had seen Kaufman grease enough palms in his day that he likely believed—and not unrightly—that Vanhi had caved to a number of their advisor’s ethical mishandlings. Their faces were plastered all over, after all—always the two of them, together.
She felt sick and turned away.
Of the twenty people crammed into the shuttle, fifteen of them were new faces. Well—somewhat new.
She noticed Chen Kexin, whose uniform indicated she was a new Breath security guard. Vanhi had seen her face before—seen several of her faces before, actually.
While none of the convoys’ crews were entirely identical, most of them shared a core of at least a thousand clones who were present on all of the original twelve missions. People whose skillsets and fitness for service had been seen as ubiquitously advantageous. Those whose contributions to things like food processing or practical medicine would not be affected by the size of the crew, purpose of their mission, or growth-cycle patterns.
After all, why go through the hassle of identifying twelve suitable individuals to clone when it was far simpler to clone one qualified person twelve times?
Kexin was one of those individuals. And this particular clone had been displaced by the sudden cancelation of Convoy Twelve’s original mission. Vanhi felt a dagger of guilt slash across her side as she imagined the devastation Kexin and her contemporaries must have gone through. What would it be like to have someone tell you that the very reason for your existence—something you’d been training for your entire life—had been canceled?
At least they were all offered retraining and positions here, Vanhi thought, though it did little to assuage her regret. Sure, some had jumped at the chance, but others had vehemently rejected the offer, choosing to make their own way in the world instead. Because Convoy Twelve’s crew rotated, there were fewer than fifty clones aboard at any given time.
Vanhi didn’t know what job Kexin had originally been intended to perform, but she suspected it wasn’t security.
She’s been repurposed, too.
Kexin, like the other new crew aboard, had spent the past month in final training, and today would be their first shot at the real thing.
The seat on Vanhi’s right was occupied by a man with a deep brown tan. She glanced at his badge, trying to discern what position he’d come to fill.
Noticing her side-eyeing him, he made small talk when their glances met. “I like your, uh—” He pointed at the sundial. “What is that?”
She smiled secretly to herself. “A gag gift.”
“It’s nice.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m Stone—Stone Mendez Perez.”
“Vanhi Kapoor.”
“I know,” he said sheepishly. Vanhi wasn’t surprised at his admission or shyness—it wasn’t like the Planet United Mission heads weren’t paraded across the news every other month. It had taken some time to come to grips with her newfound celebrity, and luckily she was able to escape a lot of the global fame out here in space. Still, there was something about Stone’s manner that wasn’t simply “star shock,” but she couldn’t quite place it.
“I, uh, saw your ship dedication speech on the Moon,” Stone continued. “It’s why I applied for the remote-piloting job.”
Her stomach shriveled. “That’s—that’s great,” she said, trying to sound chipper, sure the words rang as hollow as they felt. It’d been years, and still the memory of that day was sour in her mind. “Where, uh, where are you from?”
“Originally? Puerto Rico.”
“How was the trip from Earth?”
He looked up at the shuttle ceiling and smiled a little.
“First extended space stay?” she asked knowingly.
“Yeah,” he admitted. “Used to think I was hard to impress. Then I saw Jupiter.”
She smiled as the lighting shifted in the docking bay, yellow warning beacons flashing as the hangar decompressed.
When the exterior doors opened, three shuttles gently lifted away, carrying their passengers out into the dead silence of space.
The three convoy ships hung like fat insects hovering over a bottomless pit. Starlight dimly reflected off the portions of hull not directly illuminated by windows or exterior safety lamps. Sol was a cool pinprick in the distance, unobscured.
The housing ship, Pulse, was the most balloon-like of the ships, almost like a dirigible, save for the twinkle-light pattern of windows forming a multitude of great lines down its sides. It had been designed to hold tens of thousands of people, but less than fifteen hundred—consisting of crew and crew families—now called it home. Most of the interior rooms had been repurposed as command centers and supply storage.
Breath was the second ship, a long, thin bar, with dumbbell-like protuberances on either end. The center section was lined with giant windows for directly observing the experiment pods, and antennae and sensor towers stuck out of it in a haphazard-looking fashion. One dumbbell end contained the docking bay, the other was the experiment launch point.
The final ship, Life, was more of a warehouse than anything, and had a boxy shipping container quality. Fitting, as it stored the components for the experimental devices, the pod shells, and the mini-SD drives. “Mini-drives” was a misnomer to challenge all misnomers. While the SD drives that powered the convoy ships were the size of small office buildings, these were still the size of a studio apartment, the pods themselves matching single-family homes for square footage.
As the shuttle approached Breath’s docking platform, Vanhi caught sight of the resupply ship out of the corner of one window. It had originally been intended as the garden ship for Convoy Twelve, now, too, repurposed. It slid slowly away, putting enough distance between itself and the convoy to turn on its own SD drive for the brief jaunt back to Earth.
Bye, Swara. Safe journey.
She suppressed an impulse to wave at the ship, not wanting to seem silly in front of the new recruits.
Docking went smoothly, as did badge-check and equipment dispersal.
While the new hires lingered to unload their gear, Vanhi beelined for the breakroom, where she prepared a cup of oolong. Taking a deep breath, she savored a calm moment before the workday began.
The new crew members would be finding their stations in the mission control room now, settling in. Everything felt fresh, hopeful.
Today, she told herself, today we’ll sink a pod into a new SD.
After preparing herself a second cup, she hurried to the mission control room, angling for her station in front of the curved windows, eager to stare out into their testing ground for a moment before beginning.
One hundred and fifty-eight crew members worked mission control, either in the official control room, or in backrooms for supplementary support. The primary mission control room was also known as the Experiment Observations Lounge, the EOL, and it was stuffed to the brim with staffers working side by side at crowded console banks spanning across seven terraced platforms. The room was curved, much like an amphitheater, and the platforms provided a stadium-like view of the outer windows.
The ship’s long inner hall also sported a bay of tall windows, allowing special visitors to watch as a launch commenced.
The flight director’s platform jutted out from the right side of the room, and gave Vanhi an excellent vantage point for observing her staff and the experiment field. Opposite her station, on the left wall, were several projections of various readouts.
As she took her seat, Vanhi dialed her chip phone into the “loops.” This would let her communicate with any member of mission control directly at any time.
Once everyone was settled, she checked in with her newest crew members, including the shift’s pod attitude determination and control officer—Stone Mendez Perez, the man who’d commented on her sundial. He would control the pod like a drone, directing its flight pattern to the testing ground, then retrieving it if and when it reemerged from an SD.
