Why would my mission have been ruled as low priority all of a sudden? Have they decided that, since The Eternity has been launched, it isn’t worth spending any more money on me?
Now that Commander Shoreditch is around – clever, competent and NASA-trained – there’s no point baby-sitting me any more. I know that I’m the worst possible person to be responsible for an interstellar spacecraft. Even if NASA would never tell me that, it’s the truth. They would never have actually chosen me to command this mission. They’ve only spent all this time looking after me because they had no other option.
NASA have always sent me everything I could possibly want to read: the latest scientific papers and newspaper articles; books; blogs; Twitter feeds; medical journals… I could read all day and never get through all the information that comes from Earth. I’ve tried.
Is that over now? Are they slowly cutting the ties between me and Earth completely?
What if I never hear Molly’s voice ever again? What if I’ve lost her, along with the voices of everyone else on Earth?
I should have enough already; I know I should. My hard drive contains every TV show, book and video game made in the twenty-first century, as well as thousands of songs, apps and podcasts. I have nearly every YouTube video – and an entire archive of Loch & Ness fanfic. I have Commander Shoreditch now, too, I remind myself. At least he can still send me episodes of Loch & Ness.
That should be enough entertainment to occupy a human for an entire lifetime. Shouldn’t it?
From: The Infinity Sent: 27/02/2067
To: The Eternity Predicted date of receipt: 09/06/2067
Dear Commander Shoreditch,
I got a worrying email from Earth today. Apparently there’s something happening that means they can’t send any audio files for a while. Did you get the same message? Do you know what’s going on?
I guess there’s no point in asking, seeing as you won’t read this message for months. Hopefully it’ll be fixed before you reply to this, anyway. I just needed to tell someone.
Commander Romy Silvers
I’m so jumpy for the rest of the day that I manage to catch my thumb with the scissors when I’m cutting the top off my lunch packet. Blood spills over the dried noodles inside, and I quickly wrap up the wound in my sleeve, pressing hard to stop the bleeding.
Get a grip, Romy.
I need to calm down. It’s just voice messages. It’s not that big a deal.
I use a first-aid kit to bandage the cut, even though it’s already stopped bleeding.
Afterwards, I eat my noodles, picking out the blood-covered ones as I take a walk through Google Earth.
I click down a street, not really thinking about anything, just absently taking in the trees and street lamps and parked cars, frozen in time in the decades-old recording stored on my hard drive. It doesn’t really make up for not being able to walk there myself, but sometimes, if I’m lucky, I can trick my brain into thinking I’ve actually been for a walk. On those nights, I’ll dream of Earth and wake up happy, stretching out in my sheets, trying to grab on to the tendrils of my dream and keep them. Make them real.
There’s a girl on the pavement, an old phone to her ear. As I click along the street she turns and watches the camera as it passes. It’s like she’s staring right at me. She looks like a ghost, moving through the series of sequential photographs that tie together to make the Google Earth images. I click back and zoom in. She looks around my age – maybe fifteen or sixteen – with red hair, a long fringe and bangles around one wrist.
I wonder what her name is; who she was talking to on the phone. I wonder if she remembers the day that a Google Earth car drove past and she turned to look, her picture caught in their records for all eternity. I wonder if she knows who I am.
I take a screenshot and leave her picture open on the screen while I tidy up. I stare at her, imagining the conversation we might have.
“Excuse me,” I’d say. “Sorry, I know you’re on the phone, but I was wondering if you knew the way to the cinema.” I’ve always wanted to go to the cinema. It looks fun. Popcorn. Slush Puppies. “I’m Romy. What’s your name?”
She doesn’t answer.
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
362
I’m feeling a little happier by the time my emails arrive the next day. It’s no big deal, I decide. Sure, it was a shock at first, but I know that I can live without audio files. It was a nice bonus, but it isn’t vital.
Then I read Molly’s latest email – which is in text format again.
From: NASA Earth Sent: 24/06/2065
To: The Infinity Received: 28/02/2067
Romy,
I’m afraid that the situation with the Deep Space Network has worsened slightly. We will be completely out of communication with The Infinity for the next three days.
There’s nothing to worry about at this stage – it will definitely not impact your mission. This is purely a political matter. International disputes have unfortunately affected the control of the DSN antennas, but this should be resolved shortly.
I will keep you informed as to how things unfold when communications resume.
If all goes well, I will be able to catch up with you soon.
Molly
Molly’s messages usually feel like a soft, steadying touch on my shoulder. This one feels like a punch.
I have no idea what the message means. What is Molly talking about? What is happening?
I try to keep track of Earth politics by reading the latest news reports, but it’s so hard to understand what’s going on between countries on a planet I’ve never been to. There’s a cultural shorthand that I just don’t understand, full of terms like “stock market futures” and “Electoral Colleges” and “FDA regulations”. It’s a foreign language with a whole vocabulary that I have no way of clarifying.
Besides, by the time it reaches me, the news is all out of date anyway.
I send off a quick reply asking for more information, but I know it’s hopeless. It’ll be ages before I get an answer.
I hope that whatever is happening on Earth doesn’t last long. I need Molly.
From: The Eternity Sent: 28/06/2065
To: The Infinity Received: 28/02/2067
Dear Commander Silvers,
I apologize for getting back in touch so quickly. I had assumed that, outside of emergency scenarios, we wouldn’t need to use the communications systems between ships regularly. However, today I received a message from NASA Earth saying that transmissions are stopping for a while.
I wonder whether the news raises the same warning bells for you as it does for me. It seems odd that transmissions would be cut off only a week after my ship has launched. What if something goes wrong with The Eternity while it settles into the voyage?
I haven’t prepared for this in training. I admit that I may have skipped some of the more unlikely emergency procedures (I really don’t think we’re going to come under alien attack any time soon!) but I think I would have remembered anything that mentioned the possibility of cut-off data transmissions.
It’s really ****ed up, if you’ll excuse the language.
Regards,