I stay up late writing fic, practising the piano on the helm’s touchscreen and basically doing anything possible to avoid going to sleep. I can’t have another dream about the astronauts. I can’t handle that, not on top of everything else.
I’ve had the nightmares since I was four, when we lost the astronauts. The sight of hundreds of corpses has been impossible to erase from my mind. I don’t really remember a time before the astronauts began to haunt my nights.
Dad used to let me sleep in his bunk in those early days when my mother wasn’t sleeping at all. When she just stayed in the sick bay, trying and failing to fix what had gone wrong.
Some nights, Dad would wake up screaming from nightmares too. I think that made it worse. For everything else that upset me, Dad was there to make it better. A problem with the ship? He knew what to do. A headache or injury? He could fix it.
But the astronauts – they scared him too. They scared him more than they did me. That left me petrified. If my incredible, brave, genius father was helpless against them, then what hope did I have?
There was nothing to be done back then but wait it out.
All three of us tried our best. I suppose the lingering nightmares are a small price to pay for what happened to them. I got off lightly, compared with my mother.
I wake up shivering at five in the morning to find myself still at the helm, my head pillowed on my arms and a fic open on the computer. Line after line of Js fill the page. I must have fallen asleep with my head touching the keyboard, typing Jayden’s name.
jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj
I delete the letters and go to my bunk.
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
330
From: The Eternity Sent: 10/10/2065
To: The Infinity Received: 01/04/2067
Commander Silvers,
I’m writing because I don’t know what else to do any more. I’ve spent the last few months wishing and hoping that NASA will get back in touch with us. But it looks like the DSN communications aren’t going to be reinstated for a while yet.
I’m at a loss. I can’t stop thinking about my friends. They’re all stuck on Earth in the middle of a war, and I can’t even make sure they are safe. I don’t know if they are in a war zone or not.
Although it’s only supposed to be an official communication line for emergencies, I’m really glad I can at least speak with you, Commander Silvers. If you don’t mind, I think I might send you more frequent messages from now on. I don’t know whether you’ll welcome these messages, but seeing as you can’t tell me one way or another just yet, I’m going to keep talking to you anyway. Feel free to ignore my chatter or not, as you wish.
Whatever happens on Earth, at least it won’t affect our actual ships. Not even the largest nuclear bombs can stretch this far, I hope.
Commander Shoreditch (but you can call me J. We might as well drop the formalities at this point, don’t you think, Romy?)
From: The Infinity Sent: 01/04/2067
To: The Eternity Predicted date of receipt: 30/06/2067
J,
I’m so sorry. It never even occurred to me that you wouldn’t have heard from your family and friends since the war started. I hope this war ends soon, for your sake more than my own.
Of course you can talk to me, if it will help you. It would be comforting for me too. We can be interstellar penpals.
Romy
I keep catching myself gazing into nothing, hands loose at my sides. I’ve got a horrible feeling that I’m falling into a trap, but I can’t work out what kind of trap it could possibly be.
I’m sure it’s just paranoia. My brain is playing tricks on me, in the same way it always does whenever I see a flicker of light and become certain that there’s someone just around the corner, watching me.
The war can’t hurt me. I’m only a bystander. It’s not my problem. Whatever “nuclear bombs” Commander Shoreditch – J – thinks are being let off on Earth, they can’t touch me here.
My brain doesn’t seem to want to listen. I’ve got that familiar worry about everything going wrong. I need to make sure I’m ready. I need to know how everything on The Infinity works, in case there’s an emergency. I’m on my own now, at least until The Eternity catches up.
If I get ill, there will be no one to help me. No one to fix me if I break. I try to ease my worries by giving myself a medical exam. I take my pulse, my temperature, and my glucose levels using a urine sample.
The readouts tell me that I’m fine. I can’t quite believe them. I decide to start checking myself every week. I can’t get ill. I need to be OK.
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
328
From: The Eternity Sent: 18/10/2065
To: The Infinity Received: 03/04/2067
Dear Romy,
It’s harder than I thought it would be to talk to a person who can’t reply. I’m not really sure what to write about. I suppose the best place to start, if we are actually going to get to know each other, is to tell you about myself. If nothing else, that should make our first meeting a little less awkward.
Here’s a short history of Commander J Shoreditch. I’m a 22-year-old male. I studied medicine at college. In my second year, I decided that I just couldn’t spend another three years studying, so I did the obvious thing and applied for a job at NASA.
At the time, they were looking for trainee astronauts to prepare for the new mission. I somehow conned my way into the position, probably helped by the fact that the program director was an alumnus of my college. I am perfectly willing to take advantage of my privilege.
I’m pretty honored to be chosen, even though my entire job is to grow old in space, as a caretaker in the service of humanity.
Which brings us up to today, which I spent marathoning an entire series of a TV show. Clearly I have quite the illustrious career.
You’re writing back, aren’t you? I hope you are. That would make this whole sending-messages-to-a-stranger thing a lot less weird. I can’t believe you won’t read this message for over a year. I feel like I’m talking to the future.
J
J is only twenty-two! That’s so much younger than I was expecting. I suppose it makes sense to send out young astronauts, so they aren’t old by the time we reach Earth II, but still – twenty-two. That’s only a few years older than me.
No wonder it’s so easy to talk to him. We’re peers. I’ve never had a peer before. And twenty-two is close enough to my age that it’s not—
I mean, it’s a bit weird, but … Jayden was only twenty-two in Series 1 of Loch & Ness, when Lyra was nineteen. That’s almost the same age difference as between me and J, plus or minus a few years. OK, three years.
But still. It’s close. Close enough for— I don’t even let myself think what for.