It’s definitely worth turning out the lights earlier in the day if it means there won’t be any more power cuts. I’ve got used to the lights going out at random times, but it’s still irritating – especially if I’m in the middle of a run, when it messes up my timings.
As the ship glides down towards a burnt orange desert in the simulation, dust lifting up to greet it, I’m filled with the sudden urge to push down hard on the accelerator. I watch The Infinity crash into the surface of the planet. It explodes in flames, metal shards flying in all directions. The destruction makes me feel satisfied in a way I know it shouldn’t.
I restart the simulation and crash the ship into the ground again, watching the tiny model people drown in ice-coated oceans and crumple under avalanches on volcanoes. My score keeps dropping until I’m at the lowest level, where I don’t have enough control to crash the ship.
Now I can’t even do what I want on a computer game. And my gum is still so sore that I can’t eat without jarring it.
I hate everything.
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
131
According to the software’s diagnosis of the mainenance system, there’s a slight blockage in one of the air ventilation panels. The computer tells me that I need to remove it before it begins to affect maximum performance.
The schematic of the vents looks like a cobweb of tunnels, covering every metre of the ship. A blockage glows red on the diagram, somewhere forty metres above the gene bank in the stores. That’s … really high up. It’s closer to the centre of the ship than I’ve ever been before. I’ll be venturing up into the dark core of The Infinity. It has hardly been visited since the ship was built.
The supplies are stored in the centre of the ship, where the hubcap of a wheel would be. There are ladders every ten metres or so along the corridor, a bit like the spokes on a wheel. They lead up into different parts of the stores, although it’s all connected up there. Apart from fuel, it’s nearly all food. There had to be enough supplies to support several humans for most of their lives, after all. That doesn’t leave much room for anything besides freeze-dried produce and medicine. But as there’s just me here now, the food supplies have barely been touched at this point in the journey. It’s crammed up there.
Sometimes I get cravings for things so badly that I waste an entire day moving boxes to search through the vacuum-packed food in search of tomato soup or chocolate. You can crawl around the whole of the stores if you’re small enough to get between the boxes.
I grab my headlamp and a bottle of water, and head to the access ladder outside the lounge area, which leads up to the miscellaneous section of the stores. The trapdoor in the ceiling opens easily when I tug at it, and I use my headlight to shine a light up the shaft. It’s a square tunnel only just wider than my shoulders. It curves gently upwards, until the passage disappears out of sight and my torchlight turns into flickering shadows.
I count each rung as I climb up, looking down at the glow of light from the lounge area disappearing out of sight below me. The gravity in the centre of the ship is weaker than on the ground level, because it’s created using rotational force. I feel my body lighten as I climb. If it wasn’t so tightly packed, the food would float in mid-air like old-fashioned astronauts used to do.
The shaft of the ladder opens up into a grid of shelves, stacked tightly with supplies. Gaps between the stacks form paths, most of which Dad carved out when the ship first launched.
I find myself relaxing as I climb. It’s reassuring up here, enclosed on every side. Protected. I know nothing is coming. I would hear it, knocking over boxes and scattering food packets.
If the astronauts ever did come back for me, they would never be able to find me up here. That makes me feel safe, even if the ghosts are just a figment of my imagination.
Once, I found a whole section of farming equipment, with tools and machinery ready to be used on Earth II. There’s even an all-terrain exploration vehicle. I used to crawl into its cabin when I wanted somewhere private to sulk.
Above me, I catch sight of something written on the side of a box. I climb faster to get to it, and shine my torch on thick black lines of permanent marker. It’s not writing – it’s a wobbly doodle by a young child. I must have come up here to draw when I was little. I would have been very young, though, because I don’t remember it at all.
There are three stick figures standing in a line, holding hands. They’re on top of a roughly drawn circle, which I think is supposed to be the ship – or maybe it’s a planet.
One of the figures is a lot shorter than the others, with a big semicircle of a beaming smile. It’s supposed to be me, I realize. The drawing is of me and Dad and my mother. The bottom drops out of my stomach.
In the picture, she’s smiling too.
I turn the box around so I can’t see the drawing, and carry on moving.
After thirty rungs, I can feel the ache in my limbs. I make a mental note to do more weight training. The map on my tablet starts flashing, showing me the route to the blocked ventilation panel. I need to crawl into a narrow horizontal shaft between the stacks. Dad used to make me climb into gaps like these on the lower levels to fetch supplies, when I was small enough to slide between the boxes.
My size allowed me to hide up here once. It saved my life.
I push away the thought. I’m not supposed to let myself think about that time, not here, where it might trigger a panic attack.
I lever myself into the tunnel. It’s a tight fit, with barely any room to move my limbs, and the metal is smooth and slippery.
It occurs to me as I shuffle forward that I won’t be able to stop myself from sliding head first if the shaft curves back downwards. But it’s too late now – there isn’t enough space to turn around. I have to keep going. Already I’m struggling to keep track of where I am in the ship.
My knuckles hit the lower rungs of a ladder. The map is still flashing, so I start climbing upwards again.
I’m halfway up the shaft when I notice that it’s suddenly a lot easier to climb. Effortless, in fact. I grab on to the rungs with both hands, staring down at my legs where they dangle in mid-air.
I’m floating. I’m floating!
I must have reached the very centre of the stores. Up here, in the middle of the ship, the force of the artificial gravity is lower. I can float like a real astronaut on a space station.
I kick my feet, watching them swing around in nothing, and let out a happy laugh. Pushing gently against the wall with one finger, I drift up the tunnel as easily as breathing.
As my hair twists up around my head, I delight in the way that just the smallest touch can send me flying off in another direction.
When my tablet lets out a beep in my pocket I pull myself to a stop. I must be close to the blockage. I orientate myself with the map. The obstruction is apparently just above me.