Genre: Science fiction, dystopian, dramatic, Introspective.
1° book in the anthology series The Voyage of the Endeavour
Awarded in internati onal literary competi tions
Giovane Holden 15° Edition – Jury's Special Award Vinceremo le Malattie Gravi 8° Edition – 3° Place InediTO – Colline di Torino 20° Edition – Finalist “With the honor of command comes the burden of hard decisions"
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"A voyage of one thousand seven hundred and thirty nine light years.A voyage we should not have made awake."
What would happen if the crew of a starship awoke from cryostasis with a thousand-year journey ahead of them?
The spaceship Endeavour and its crew were sent on a thousand-year journey to terraform and colonize a planet in the TRAPPIST-1 system. However, a malfunction caused half of the passengers to awaken from cryogenic sleep only a few decades after departure. Andrew takes command of the ship for the last thirty years of the voyage and feels it is his duty to bear witness to future generations of the living conditions the crew endured, generation after generation, to survive this odyssey.
How can a society of only five hundred people survive for a thousand years trapped on a spaceship? How can such a population arrive at its destination healthy enough to perform the tasks assigned to it?
The spaceship Endeavour and its crew were sent on a thousand-year journey to terraform and colonize a planet in the TRAPPIST-1 system. However, a malfunction caused half of the passengers to awaken from cryogenic sleep only a few decades after departure. Andrew takes command of the ship for the last thirty years of the voyage and feels it is his duty to bear witness to future generations of the living conditions the crew endured, generation after generation, to survive this odyssey.
How can a society of only five hundred people survive for a thousand years trapped on a spaceship? How can such a population arrive at its destination healthy enough to perform the tasks assigned to it?
Trigger Warnings: violence, suicide references.
Read the first 3 chapters
December 30, 3609
Endeavour
Captain Cook’s Journal
Captain Cook’s Journal
This is Captain Andrew Barclay Cook.
I have taken command of the Endeavour by accepting the baton from the hands of my predecessor, Captain Dylan Edwards, which will now be recycled as required by law. During the ceremony, two bottles of wine were uncorked, and meat was even served. I cannot even remember the last time I tasted it.
I have achieved the dream of my life. Yet only one night has passed, and already I feel the weight of responsibility on my shoulders. With the honor of command comes the burden of hard decisions. Like all Captains since the Awakening, I will be called upon to make them. Some will be terrible, I know. They will come like ghosts to destroy even the most beautiful dreams. However, I am determined to take on this task for the sake of the crew and all of humanity. The mission is more important than any of us and takes precedence over everything.
I shudder to think that Elpis is only thirty years away. I will be fifty-eight by the time we reach it, and with any luck I will still be alive to command the landing. A moment in history we have been waiting for over a millennium. A moment that most people will feel as an achievement, and they are right, but at the same time it will bring a new challenge for mankind and the beginning of the real mission: the terraforming of Elpis.
This brings us to the main reason for the journal you hold in your hands. If history has taught us anything, it is that humans have short memories and tend to forget the past and the reasons that led them to where they are now. As the last Captain to lead Endeavour through the black vastness of space, I feel an additional duty to my predecessors: to bear witness to what this odyssey to TRAPPIST-1 has meant and to ensure that future generations remember those who shed blood, sweat and tears to accomplish this feat.
A silent testimony of memories.
I have taken command of the Endeavour by accepting the baton from the hands of my predecessor, Captain Dylan Edwards, which will now be recycled as required by law. During the ceremony, two bottles of wine were uncorked, and meat was even served. I cannot even remember the last time I tasted it.
I have achieved the dream of my life. Yet only one night has passed, and already I feel the weight of responsibility on my shoulders. With the honor of command comes the burden of hard decisions. Like all Captains since the Awakening, I will be called upon to make them. Some will be terrible, I know. They will come like ghosts to destroy even the most beautiful dreams. However, I am determined to take on this task for the sake of the crew and all of humanity. The mission is more important than any of us and takes precedence over everything.
I shudder to think that Elpis is only thirty years away. I will be fifty-eight by the time we reach it, and with any luck I will still be alive to command the landing. A moment in history we have been waiting for over a millennium. A moment that most people will feel as an achievement, and they are right, but at the same time it will bring a new challenge for mankind and the beginning of the real mission: the terraforming of Elpis.
This brings us to the main reason for the journal you hold in your hands. If history has taught us anything, it is that humans have short memories and tend to forget the past and the reasons that led them to where they are now. As the last Captain to lead Endeavour through the black vastness of space, I feel an additional duty to my predecessors: to bear witness to what this odyssey to TRAPPIST-1 has meant and to ensure that future generations remember those who shed blood, sweat and tears to accomplish this feat.
A silent testimony of memories.
January 6, 3610
Endeavour
Captain Cook’s Journal
Captain Cook’s Journal
Only now do I realize that I have not written about how it all began. I am sure it will be as much a subject of study on Elpis as on Endeavour, and many of the concepts will be familiar even to younger readers. However, it is not possible to tell this story without starting at the beginning: it is essential to know the chain of events that led us to this point to avoid making the same mistakes in the future.
The voyage of the Endeavour began in 2468, a date we all remember with a mixture of envy, bitterness, and… indifference. To you who live on Elpis, such a mixture of emotions may seem strange, but you must understand that none of us has ever stepped on the soil of a planet, nor experienced the touch of grass, the breath of wind, the scent of flowers and resin. We know only the cold screech of metal and the infinite void of space. Ultimately, although we don’t like to admit it, we both despise and envy those who lived on Earth.
Everything I know about the Blue Planet I read in the ship’s virtual encyclopedia, the source of the only knowledge we are allowed to learn and cultivate during the puny existence we are forced to live. Books and documentaries have their appeal but are too detached a system for discovering one’s home planet. You who read this diary, depending on how far in the future you are, may know Earth better than I do: the Endeavour program called for a ship to be launched every fifty years after our departure. The first missions, like ours, will mostly carry materials for the terraforming process, but later there will be room for more.
Who knows what they might bring from Earth… plants? Animals? Who knows what wonders are on their way as I write. Wonders that have been denied us for sixty generations.
I can’t help but feel anger as I think about why we were forced onto the Endeavour. Even as I write these few lines, I grip my pen with such force that my knuckles whiten. Is it fair for those who study history in hindsight to condemn the ancestors for their mistakes? Would we have been able to prevent the catastrophe if we had been in their place? Perhaps it would be a sin of presumption to think that we would have been better, are we not better precisely because we have been able to learn from their mistakes?
But the denial of responsibility is different. If the planet had been in critical ecological and climatic conditions for hundreds of years, could humanity really claim to be blameless? Could a species as technologically advanced as we were, capable of predicting even the distant future, have been caught unaware by such a slow change? Or was it perhaps because of this imperceptible gradualness that it went unnoticed?
The fact is that the climatic point of no return, caused by greenhouse gases, has been reached. Mankind, deaf to the warnings, headed headlong toward catastrophe... only to come to its senses, as is typical, when it was too late and the trend could not be reversed.
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” goes the ancient adage, so why does humanity seem incapable of learning this lesson? Is it so difficult for people to understand what lies beyond the everyday? To see the long-term effects of their actions? Yet the signs were there, picked up by the most perceptive. Scientists have pointed it out, there is clear evidence of it in the documents that have come down to us: the problem was already felt in the 2000s. Did science create a sense of mistrust in ordinary people back then? Or perhaps a sweet lie was preferred to an inconvenient truth? Too blinded by the pursuit of prosperity, they did not notice or did not want to notice that they were consuming Earth’s natural resources like a fire consumes a forest...
We have little say in the matter; what is done is done. We can only use the time we have left and make our decisions as wisely as possible, learning from the hard lessons of history so that we can avoid making the same mistakes in the future.
By the time you read this journal, I will be dead or at least old and sick and about to be recycled. I urge you to remember the sacrifices made by the crew of Endeavour to bring you to Elpis.
The voyage of the Endeavour began in 2468, a date we all remember with a mixture of envy, bitterness, and… indifference. To you who live on Elpis, such a mixture of emotions may seem strange, but you must understand that none of us has ever stepped on the soil of a planet, nor experienced the touch of grass, the breath of wind, the scent of flowers and resin. We know only the cold screech of metal and the infinite void of space. Ultimately, although we don’t like to admit it, we both despise and envy those who lived on Earth.
Everything I know about the Blue Planet I read in the ship’s virtual encyclopedia, the source of the only knowledge we are allowed to learn and cultivate during the puny existence we are forced to live. Books and documentaries have their appeal but are too detached a system for discovering one’s home planet. You who read this diary, depending on how far in the future you are, may know Earth better than I do: the Endeavour program called for a ship to be launched every fifty years after our departure. The first missions, like ours, will mostly carry materials for the terraforming process, but later there will be room for more.
Who knows what they might bring from Earth… plants? Animals? Who knows what wonders are on their way as I write. Wonders that have been denied us for sixty generations.
I can’t help but feel anger as I think about why we were forced onto the Endeavour. Even as I write these few lines, I grip my pen with such force that my knuckles whiten. Is it fair for those who study history in hindsight to condemn the ancestors for their mistakes? Would we have been able to prevent the catastrophe if we had been in their place? Perhaps it would be a sin of presumption to think that we would have been better, are we not better precisely because we have been able to learn from their mistakes?
But the denial of responsibility is different. If the planet had been in critical ecological and climatic conditions for hundreds of years, could humanity really claim to be blameless? Could a species as technologically advanced as we were, capable of predicting even the distant future, have been caught unaware by such a slow change? Or was it perhaps because of this imperceptible gradualness that it went unnoticed?
The fact is that the climatic point of no return, caused by greenhouse gases, has been reached. Mankind, deaf to the warnings, headed headlong toward catastrophe... only to come to its senses, as is typical, when it was too late and the trend could not be reversed.
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” goes the ancient adage, so why does humanity seem incapable of learning this lesson? Is it so difficult for people to understand what lies beyond the everyday? To see the long-term effects of their actions? Yet the signs were there, picked up by the most perceptive. Scientists have pointed it out, there is clear evidence of it in the documents that have come down to us: the problem was already felt in the 2000s. Did science create a sense of mistrust in ordinary people back then? Or perhaps a sweet lie was preferred to an inconvenient truth? Too blinded by the pursuit of prosperity, they did not notice or did not want to notice that they were consuming Earth’s natural resources like a fire consumes a forest...
We have little say in the matter; what is done is done. We can only use the time we have left and make our decisions as wisely as possible, learning from the hard lessons of history so that we can avoid making the same mistakes in the future.
By the time you read this journal, I will be dead or at least old and sick and about to be recycled. I urge you to remember the sacrifices made by the crew of Endeavour to bring you to Elpis.
* * *
Andrew closed the journal, put down the pen, and took a long breath.
He drummed his fingers on the desk.
Two hundred had left, including astronauts, crew, and passengers from a variety of professions. Two hundred people, carefully selected to travel to the TRAPPIST-1 system and begin the process of terraforming the planet “e”, renamed Elpis after the Greek goddess of hope, and establishing the first extraterrestrial human society.
Two hundred people, two hundred pioneers.
Two hundred heroes.
He knew them all, their files were in Endeavour’s database. Everyone knew them, some even worshipped them. Especially the hundred who were still alive, in suspended animation in their cryogenic cells, perfect in every detail. Smooth, flawless skin, free from any kind of deformity, genetic disease or tumor.
Pristine genomes.
He pounded his knuckles on the table.
He often paused to look at them. They conveyed a sense of peace, tranquility, as if everything could only turn out well. They were so seraphic in cryostasis. They were so... oblivious. He bit his lip. He had often dreamed of what it would be like if their places were reversed. Could they dream in cryosleep? Who knew what it was like to dream for one thousand seven hundred and seventy-one years and even if it had been years of oblivion, he would have gladly swapped places.
He shook his head, rousing himself from that negative spiral of thoughts. He let out a long sigh as he looked at the unframed photo of Haruko and Taki that sat on a corner of the desk, leaning against the base of the unlit lamp. The woman’s oriental features were faint and barely visible in her son. After sixty generations, the ethnic differences had gradually blurred and were barely noticeable.
The photo had been taken a few years earlier when Taki was only two years old. Andrew smiled; he remembered well the time when Taki was an infant. Every time he looked at the photo, he was amazed at how small Taki was in Haruko’s arms. A father would always want the best for his child, would want to see him running free through the meadows, not cooped up behind steel walls, struggling with cystic fibrosis and having to call himself lucky.
He sighed again and scratched his beard, looking around to distract himself. The office was small. After all, the ship had not been designed to have one, and with five hundred people aboard, one could say that space had become an issue. He took a moment to study it: after years on the opposite side of the desk, this change of perspective was enough to make him feel the full responsibility that weighed on his shoulders. Humanity expected him to be able to lead Endeavour and all its passengers to Elpis. It was a task that had fallen to the astronauts who had been carefully selected at the beginning of the voyage, but now he and a few others, born and raised in space, chosen not from thousands of individuals but from the few available, would have to carry out. Would they be up to the task? It was a question the entire crew had been asking since the Awakening, and in the end, there was not much to say: it could not be done otherwise.
He placed the journal in the top drawer of his desk and rose. It was time for the usual inspection tour, only this time it would be his first as Captain. He closed the cabin door behind him and walked down the corridors he had walked a thousand times.
The Endeavour consisted of a large central cylindrical section that housed the two antimatter engines and stored fuel and bulky equipment. Connected to this structure were ten large rings, twenty times its diameter, surrounding it from end to end, each attached to the central structure by three massive bridges. The rings were connected to each other by six smaller bridges. Finally, the ship rotated on its axis to simulate Earth-like gravity at the level of the rings. Since it was a ship designed for cryogenic travel and only intended to serve as a base for the first few months on Elpis, it was not very spacious, and it took half a day to walk it from top to bottom, traversing the three decks that made up each ring.
He had taken only a few steps when he collided with Karl, who was coming from the bridge at a brisk pace and was accustomed to turning corners without regard for those coming from the opposite direction.
«Ah! Captain!», the boy exclaimed, grabbing his glasses as they fell from his head. «I was just looking for you».
Andrew smiled and shook his head.
«Hello, Karl», he said, taking a step back. «To what do I owe the pleasure?».
«Elsa sent me, for the morning report».
Elsa was between the ages of the two and had been working as the bridge’s telecommunications officer for several years. There was no such thing as a morning report, and if there was any value out of the norm, she could communicate it to him in real time through the earpiece the captain was required to always wear.
«Tell me everything», he hid the grin that was deforming his lips with a cough.
«The speed is stable at ten million meters per second and we have emerged from the space dust cloud without any damage to the hull. The antimatter engines show no malfunctions, nor do the solar panels. All ship systems are operational. Finally, the air maintains good quality, with noxious gases below alert levels».
«Very good! I will complete the inspection tour of the first rings and join you on the bridge after lunch. Give my regards to Elsa...».
Karl nodded his head in assent and spun around. Andrew smiled as he watched him go back to where he came from. Sure, the boy was a bit clumsy... but when the time came, he was sure Karl would make a fine First Officer.
Andrew resumed his tour with slow steps, waving to all the people he passed, who gave him big smiles and excited words. Not much happens on Endeavour, and the transition from one captain to another was a rare event; it was only natural that it was the most talked about topic of the moment and that people were still thrilled. He had to admit that he liked being the center of attention, and it was good for the mood of the crew to have something new to discuss from time to time.
His first stop was the armory, which was not far from the bridge and his quarters. He scanned the badge on the sensor and the doors swung open, disappearing into the walls. Inside, a series of racks housed dozens of laser rifles. The shelves were filled with plasma grenades and every other kind of weapon that might be useful on Elpis, depending on what life forms they would find there. Andrew took a quick look around and found that everything was in place.
He continued his tour, passing the warehouse that held the tent-houses that would be used to build the first settlements on Elpis. Some of the materials had already been used on the ship, and the warehouse was half empty. Millennia of use was certainly not what the engineers had envisioned when they stowed the cargo, but what else could they do? Since the Awakening, the people of the Endeavour had had to find ways to survive on a ship that was not designed to accommodate them. As the population grew, housing had to be made in creative ways, and life-support systems had to be upgraded. All non-essential equipment had been moved and piled in the corridors to free up the ship’s many storerooms, which had been converted into cabins.
As he walked through the corridors, he began to tap his knuckles on the equipment lined up against the wall. He had memorized the sound of every shelf, every metal plate and measuring instrument. He could have made music if only he had moved the catchy ones nearby, but fortunately there were several musical instruments aboard the ship if he felt like playing something.
He slowed to a halt when he reached the greenhouse section, one of the most important and delicate on the entire ship, essential to produce food and oxygen. Every time he passed them, he was thankful that they were designed to support a population of several hundred, since they would serve as a food and air supply until it was possible to grow on alien soil. Had the greenhouses not been designed that way, they would all have died long ago. In fact, the First Fifty would have died shortly after the Awakening; subsequent generations would never have been born.
Perhaps it would have been better that way.
Many people would have been spared so much torment. After all, it was possible that the cryogenic cell control systems were still active and capable of awakening the remaining one hundred original crew members in time for the landing maneuvers to be properly executed... but it was not acceptable to put the future of humanity in a “maybe”, and given the damage Endeavour had sustained in the accident that had caused the Awakening, it was probably a good thing that half the population had been accidentally thawed.
He resumed his rounds, and a few minutes later he reached another area of the ship that, while not as vital to survival, was just as important. There he saw Silvia, her gaze lost beyond the glass window. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she did not notice him.
«How’s the day off going?», he asked, taking her hand.
She shivered and turned around.
«Andrew!», she exclaimed, starting to laugh. «You scared me».
Andrew chuckled as he pulled her into a warm embrace, their lips touching in a kiss.
If Haruko was the woman the Match Mate system had chosen for him to procreate with, Silvia was the woman he loved.
«Would you like to see them more closely?».
«Yes», she replied. «I haven’t been inside in a long time».
Andrew stood in front of the optical sensor and allowed his retinas to be scanned. The door swung open and slid sideways into the wall. As they entered, a white light came on reflecting off walls of the same color. A multitude of cryogenic towers stood in a checkerboard pattern, a meter apart. Inside was Endeavour’s most precious cargo: hundreds of human embryos.
He drummed his fingers on the desk.
Two hundred had left, including astronauts, crew, and passengers from a variety of professions. Two hundred people, carefully selected to travel to the TRAPPIST-1 system and begin the process of terraforming the planet “e”, renamed Elpis after the Greek goddess of hope, and establishing the first extraterrestrial human society.
Two hundred people, two hundred pioneers.
Two hundred heroes.
He knew them all, their files were in Endeavour’s database. Everyone knew them, some even worshipped them. Especially the hundred who were still alive, in suspended animation in their cryogenic cells, perfect in every detail. Smooth, flawless skin, free from any kind of deformity, genetic disease or tumor.
Pristine genomes.
He pounded his knuckles on the table.
He often paused to look at them. They conveyed a sense of peace, tranquility, as if everything could only turn out well. They were so seraphic in cryostasis. They were so... oblivious. He bit his lip. He had often dreamed of what it would be like if their places were reversed. Could they dream in cryosleep? Who knew what it was like to dream for one thousand seven hundred and seventy-one years and even if it had been years of oblivion, he would have gladly swapped places.
He shook his head, rousing himself from that negative spiral of thoughts. He let out a long sigh as he looked at the unframed photo of Haruko and Taki that sat on a corner of the desk, leaning against the base of the unlit lamp. The woman’s oriental features were faint and barely visible in her son. After sixty generations, the ethnic differences had gradually blurred and were barely noticeable.
The photo had been taken a few years earlier when Taki was only two years old. Andrew smiled; he remembered well the time when Taki was an infant. Every time he looked at the photo, he was amazed at how small Taki was in Haruko’s arms. A father would always want the best for his child, would want to see him running free through the meadows, not cooped up behind steel walls, struggling with cystic fibrosis and having to call himself lucky.
He sighed again and scratched his beard, looking around to distract himself. The office was small. After all, the ship had not been designed to have one, and with five hundred people aboard, one could say that space had become an issue. He took a moment to study it: after years on the opposite side of the desk, this change of perspective was enough to make him feel the full responsibility that weighed on his shoulders. Humanity expected him to be able to lead Endeavour and all its passengers to Elpis. It was a task that had fallen to the astronauts who had been carefully selected at the beginning of the voyage, but now he and a few others, born and raised in space, chosen not from thousands of individuals but from the few available, would have to carry out. Would they be up to the task? It was a question the entire crew had been asking since the Awakening, and in the end, there was not much to say: it could not be done otherwise.
He placed the journal in the top drawer of his desk and rose. It was time for the usual inspection tour, only this time it would be his first as Captain. He closed the cabin door behind him and walked down the corridors he had walked a thousand times.
The Endeavour consisted of a large central cylindrical section that housed the two antimatter engines and stored fuel and bulky equipment. Connected to this structure were ten large rings, twenty times its diameter, surrounding it from end to end, each attached to the central structure by three massive bridges. The rings were connected to each other by six smaller bridges. Finally, the ship rotated on its axis to simulate Earth-like gravity at the level of the rings. Since it was a ship designed for cryogenic travel and only intended to serve as a base for the first few months on Elpis, it was not very spacious, and it took half a day to walk it from top to bottom, traversing the three decks that made up each ring.
He had taken only a few steps when he collided with Karl, who was coming from the bridge at a brisk pace and was accustomed to turning corners without regard for those coming from the opposite direction.
«Ah! Captain!», the boy exclaimed, grabbing his glasses as they fell from his head. «I was just looking for you».
Andrew smiled and shook his head.
«Hello, Karl», he said, taking a step back. «To what do I owe the pleasure?».
«Elsa sent me, for the morning report».
Elsa was between the ages of the two and had been working as the bridge’s telecommunications officer for several years. There was no such thing as a morning report, and if there was any value out of the norm, she could communicate it to him in real time through the earpiece the captain was required to always wear.
«Tell me everything», he hid the grin that was deforming his lips with a cough.
«The speed is stable at ten million meters per second and we have emerged from the space dust cloud without any damage to the hull. The antimatter engines show no malfunctions, nor do the solar panels. All ship systems are operational. Finally, the air maintains good quality, with noxious gases below alert levels».
«Very good! I will complete the inspection tour of the first rings and join you on the bridge after lunch. Give my regards to Elsa...».
Karl nodded his head in assent and spun around. Andrew smiled as he watched him go back to where he came from. Sure, the boy was a bit clumsy... but when the time came, he was sure Karl would make a fine First Officer.
Andrew resumed his tour with slow steps, waving to all the people he passed, who gave him big smiles and excited words. Not much happens on Endeavour, and the transition from one captain to another was a rare event; it was only natural that it was the most talked about topic of the moment and that people were still thrilled. He had to admit that he liked being the center of attention, and it was good for the mood of the crew to have something new to discuss from time to time.
His first stop was the armory, which was not far from the bridge and his quarters. He scanned the badge on the sensor and the doors swung open, disappearing into the walls. Inside, a series of racks housed dozens of laser rifles. The shelves were filled with plasma grenades and every other kind of weapon that might be useful on Elpis, depending on what life forms they would find there. Andrew took a quick look around and found that everything was in place.
He continued his tour, passing the warehouse that held the tent-houses that would be used to build the first settlements on Elpis. Some of the materials had already been used on the ship, and the warehouse was half empty. Millennia of use was certainly not what the engineers had envisioned when they stowed the cargo, but what else could they do? Since the Awakening, the people of the Endeavour had had to find ways to survive on a ship that was not designed to accommodate them. As the population grew, housing had to be made in creative ways, and life-support systems had to be upgraded. All non-essential equipment had been moved and piled in the corridors to free up the ship’s many storerooms, which had been converted into cabins.
As he walked through the corridors, he began to tap his knuckles on the equipment lined up against the wall. He had memorized the sound of every shelf, every metal plate and measuring instrument. He could have made music if only he had moved the catchy ones nearby, but fortunately there were several musical instruments aboard the ship if he felt like playing something.
He slowed to a halt when he reached the greenhouse section, one of the most important and delicate on the entire ship, essential to produce food and oxygen. Every time he passed them, he was thankful that they were designed to support a population of several hundred, since they would serve as a food and air supply until it was possible to grow on alien soil. Had the greenhouses not been designed that way, they would all have died long ago. In fact, the First Fifty would have died shortly after the Awakening; subsequent generations would never have been born.
Perhaps it would have been better that way.
Many people would have been spared so much torment. After all, it was possible that the cryogenic cell control systems were still active and capable of awakening the remaining one hundred original crew members in time for the landing maneuvers to be properly executed... but it was not acceptable to put the future of humanity in a “maybe”, and given the damage Endeavour had sustained in the accident that had caused the Awakening, it was probably a good thing that half the population had been accidentally thawed.
He resumed his rounds, and a few minutes later he reached another area of the ship that, while not as vital to survival, was just as important. There he saw Silvia, her gaze lost beyond the glass window. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she did not notice him.
«How’s the day off going?», he asked, taking her hand.
She shivered and turned around.
«Andrew!», she exclaimed, starting to laugh. «You scared me».
Andrew chuckled as he pulled her into a warm embrace, their lips touching in a kiss.
If Haruko was the woman the Match Mate system had chosen for him to procreate with, Silvia was the woman he loved.
«Would you like to see them more closely?».
«Yes», she replied. «I haven’t been inside in a long time».
Andrew stood in front of the optical sensor and allowed his retinas to be scanned. The door swung open and slid sideways into the wall. As they entered, a white light came on reflecting off walls of the same color. A multitude of cryogenic towers stood in a checkerboard pattern, a meter apart. Inside was Endeavour’s most precious cargo: hundreds of human embryos.
* * *
When they saw that the situation on Earth was not likely to improve, it was natural for our ancestors to look to the stars for a solution. A frontier they considered almost unexplored at the time. I wonder if they knew what it was like to look out of a porthole every day for thirty years and contemplate the vacuous vastness of space.
A claustrophobic immensity.
The mission had been studied in detail, but they could not foresee what would happen only forty-five years after departure, the event we know as the Awakening. I have read several times the diary pages of Felicity Green, the first Captain of Endeavour, who recorded in detail what happened. Apparently, it was the collision with an asteroid that caused the complete destruction of one-third of the second ring and the communication systems, as well as the drop in power that resulted in the shutdown of all cryogenic cells connected to the leading antimatter engine due to a failure that, fortunately, did not have worse consequences.
One hundred awoke, but only half survived the disaster. They managed to save the ship and repair much of the damage caused by the impact. However, it was impossible to re-establish communications and from then on, Endeavour remained isolated from Earth. Not that they expected to receive transmissions before one thousand seven hundred and seventy-one years but, since they were in the dark about the condition of the ship, they could not provide any kind of support, either technical or psychological, and given the situation, they would have needed both... for the cryogenic cells that had failed proved impossible to restore.
The most anxious paragraphs in Felicity Green’s diary are the ones she wrote when she realized they could no longer return to suspended animation. Day by day, her hopes faded as each attempt to restart the cryogenic chambers failed, and you can sense from her words all the fear, uncertainty, despair, and finally resignation to which she had fallen prey. There was no guarantee that the thawing protocols would work properly once they arrived near Elpis, and the astronauts who were part of the crew had all awakened. This could only mean one thing: a group of people would have to live on the ship for more than a thousand years.
There should have been someone to make sure that there were no other malfunctions during the voyage and that the resuscitation protocol would awaken the hundred passengers still in suspended animation when the time came. Also, someone should have been able to execute the landing maneuvers. The autopilot could handle the descent on its own, but human intervention would have been essential for any corrections, especially with the damaged ship. The astronauts would only live for a tiny fraction of the journey. They had knowledge that needed to be passed on, as did many other passengers who had highly specialized skills that were essential to the mission.
It was necessary for the fifty people who had awakened and survived the impact to form a society that would last on the ship and be stable enough to pass on the knowledge that needed to be passed on and to be able to carry out the mission that had been entrusted to them. Therefore, they activated the birth control protocol that had been designed for the early days that humanity would live on Elpis and instituted the recycling protocol.
So it began, with the First Fifty led by Felicity Green.
We are now traveling at a speed of ten million meters per second to a recently discovered system in the hope that the planet we land on will match NASA’s analysis and that it will be possible to live on it and terraform it.
A voyage of one thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine light-years.
A voyage we should not have made awake.
A claustrophobic immensity.
The mission had been studied in detail, but they could not foresee what would happen only forty-five years after departure, the event we know as the Awakening. I have read several times the diary pages of Felicity Green, the first Captain of Endeavour, who recorded in detail what happened. Apparently, it was the collision with an asteroid that caused the complete destruction of one-third of the second ring and the communication systems, as well as the drop in power that resulted in the shutdown of all cryogenic cells connected to the leading antimatter engine due to a failure that, fortunately, did not have worse consequences.
One hundred awoke, but only half survived the disaster. They managed to save the ship and repair much of the damage caused by the impact. However, it was impossible to re-establish communications and from then on, Endeavour remained isolated from Earth. Not that they expected to receive transmissions before one thousand seven hundred and seventy-one years but, since they were in the dark about the condition of the ship, they could not provide any kind of support, either technical or psychological, and given the situation, they would have needed both... for the cryogenic cells that had failed proved impossible to restore.
The most anxious paragraphs in Felicity Green’s diary are the ones she wrote when she realized they could no longer return to suspended animation. Day by day, her hopes faded as each attempt to restart the cryogenic chambers failed, and you can sense from her words all the fear, uncertainty, despair, and finally resignation to which she had fallen prey. There was no guarantee that the thawing protocols would work properly once they arrived near Elpis, and the astronauts who were part of the crew had all awakened. This could only mean one thing: a group of people would have to live on the ship for more than a thousand years.
There should have been someone to make sure that there were no other malfunctions during the voyage and that the resuscitation protocol would awaken the hundred passengers still in suspended animation when the time came. Also, someone should have been able to execute the landing maneuvers. The autopilot could handle the descent on its own, but human intervention would have been essential for any corrections, especially with the damaged ship. The astronauts would only live for a tiny fraction of the journey. They had knowledge that needed to be passed on, as did many other passengers who had highly specialized skills that were essential to the mission.
It was necessary for the fifty people who had awakened and survived the impact to form a society that would last on the ship and be stable enough to pass on the knowledge that needed to be passed on and to be able to carry out the mission that had been entrusted to them. Therefore, they activated the birth control protocol that had been designed for the early days that humanity would live on Elpis and instituted the recycling protocol.
So it began, with the First Fifty led by Felicity Green.
We are now traveling at a speed of ten million meters per second to a recently discovered system in the hope that the planet we land on will match NASA’s analysis and that it will be possible to live on it and terraform it.
A voyage of one thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine light-years.
A voyage we should not have made awake.
May 17, 3613
Endeavour
Captain Cook’s Journal
Captain Cook’s Journal
When our ancestors realized that nothing could solve the situation on Earth, they turned to the stars for salvation. They examined all the exoplanets discovered to date, studied their respective systems, and selected those that orbited their star in the habitable zone. Of all these planets, those with the most Earth-like characteristics in radius, mass, density, atmospheric composition, and temperature were selected for further analysis. The answer they were looking for came from the TRAPPIST-1 system, located in the constellation Aquarius, and named after the TRAPPIST telescope, which in turn was named so that the acronym honored the Trappist monks of Belgium, producers of the beer favored by the telescope’s creator.
TRAPPIST-1 is a red dwarf star thirty-nine and a half light-years from Earth, with only eight percent of the mass and twelve percent of the radius of the Sun. Tiny to Earthlings, but to us, who have spent our entire existence in deep space, the light of such a small, cold star is blinding.
Seven planets were discovered, named, as usual, in progressive letters beginning with the star they orbit. Of these seven planets, the third, fourth, and fifth, designated “d”, “e”, and “f”, respectively, were located in the habitable zone of TRAPPIST-1. Studies focused on these three planets to best determine each of their parameters. Only planet “e”, later renamed Elpis, proved to have characteristics similar enough to Earth to support liquid water on its surface and both animal and plant life.
Once the planet with the greatest chance of survival had been found, a strategy for terraforming was devised: a process aimed at making Elpis as similar as possible to Earth by altering the composition of its atmosphere. A spaceship capable of reaching such a distant destination was then designed, powered by two antimatter engines and containing a large number of cryogenic cells, a newly developed technology that allowed living beings to spend even millennia in suspended animation without aging or suffering permanent psychophysical damage.
At this point, another major problem arose that no one had been willing to discuss. It was a problem that everyone had been silent about, even though they were aware of it: only a tiny fraction of humanity would be able to move. Earth was suffering from a serious overpopulation problem. People had ended up living like sardines, crammed into huge megalopolis. Perhaps they knew from that perspective how we are living cramped on Endeavour. Even if they had wanted to, it would not have been possible to build cryogenic ships for even a millionth of the world’s population. Moreover, another thing everyone knew but dared not say was that even if it had been possible to save everyone, it would not have been wise to do so. Elpis would suffer the same effects as Earth and would soon become uninhabitable in the same way.
Almost all the people were to be left to die. Perhaps that was the fate they deserved.
People with a high level of culture and sensitivity, both towards other people and towards the environment, were selected so that the people of Elpis would be better off than the people of Earth. Then, to prevent a narrow gene pool from promoting recessive genetic diseases, in addition to the crew of two hundred passengers, one thousand embryos were loaded onto Endeavour: the first humans to be born on Elpis, the “first generation” that would begin the actual terraforming process.
The plan was that every fifty years, as long as humanity was capable of building ships capable of making the voyage, a new ship would be launched with two hundred passengers and one thousand embryos. According to the original plans, the embryos were to be incubated in “classes” of ten each year for the first hundred years on Elpis, forming a healthy and integrated society.
Of course, the Awakening blew that all to hell.
Of the two hundred crew members, half were unfrozen as a result of the collision with the asteroid, some because of power loss, some because of structural damage, and of those hundred only half survived the disaster. For over a thousand years, a population of five hundred individuals, starting with those fifty, has lived on Endeavour. It follows that even though the birth control protocol was activated shortly after the Awakening, any hope of keeping the gene pool healthy was lost long ago.
Of all the scourges we face, this is the worst. Although medicine had made great strides in gene therapy by the time we left, the ship’s laboratory was located on the second ring, right where the asteroid had crashed. So, we are forced to live without the ability to choose our mates, plagued by sometimes terrible diseases and mutations, and although the Match Mate system calculates every genetic variant in the entire crew’s genome and identifies pairs that minimize the occurrence of homozygous forms of recessive genetic diseases, you are often forced to see them passed on to your children. One in ten people aboard Endeavour has cystic fibrosis, while one in two carries a mutated allele, and the same goes for a long list of diseases. My own son has a terrible cocktail of diseases and has been in the hospital for months, not knowing how long he will live, even though he is not yet seven years old.
We are at the mercy of mutations.
No one can call themselves healthy anymore.
TRAPPIST-1 is a red dwarf star thirty-nine and a half light-years from Earth, with only eight percent of the mass and twelve percent of the radius of the Sun. Tiny to Earthlings, but to us, who have spent our entire existence in deep space, the light of such a small, cold star is blinding.
Seven planets were discovered, named, as usual, in progressive letters beginning with the star they orbit. Of these seven planets, the third, fourth, and fifth, designated “d”, “e”, and “f”, respectively, were located in the habitable zone of TRAPPIST-1. Studies focused on these three planets to best determine each of their parameters. Only planet “e”, later renamed Elpis, proved to have characteristics similar enough to Earth to support liquid water on its surface and both animal and plant life.
Once the planet with the greatest chance of survival had been found, a strategy for terraforming was devised: a process aimed at making Elpis as similar as possible to Earth by altering the composition of its atmosphere. A spaceship capable of reaching such a distant destination was then designed, powered by two antimatter engines and containing a large number of cryogenic cells, a newly developed technology that allowed living beings to spend even millennia in suspended animation without aging or suffering permanent psychophysical damage.
At this point, another major problem arose that no one had been willing to discuss. It was a problem that everyone had been silent about, even though they were aware of it: only a tiny fraction of humanity would be able to move. Earth was suffering from a serious overpopulation problem. People had ended up living like sardines, crammed into huge megalopolis. Perhaps they knew from that perspective how we are living cramped on Endeavour. Even if they had wanted to, it would not have been possible to build cryogenic ships for even a millionth of the world’s population. Moreover, another thing everyone knew but dared not say was that even if it had been possible to save everyone, it would not have been wise to do so. Elpis would suffer the same effects as Earth and would soon become uninhabitable in the same way.
Almost all the people were to be left to die. Perhaps that was the fate they deserved.
People with a high level of culture and sensitivity, both towards other people and towards the environment, were selected so that the people of Elpis would be better off than the people of Earth. Then, to prevent a narrow gene pool from promoting recessive genetic diseases, in addition to the crew of two hundred passengers, one thousand embryos were loaded onto Endeavour: the first humans to be born on Elpis, the “first generation” that would begin the actual terraforming process.
The plan was that every fifty years, as long as humanity was capable of building ships capable of making the voyage, a new ship would be launched with two hundred passengers and one thousand embryos. According to the original plans, the embryos were to be incubated in “classes” of ten each year for the first hundred years on Elpis, forming a healthy and integrated society.
Of course, the Awakening blew that all to hell.
Of the two hundred crew members, half were unfrozen as a result of the collision with the asteroid, some because of power loss, some because of structural damage, and of those hundred only half survived the disaster. For over a thousand years, a population of five hundred individuals, starting with those fifty, has lived on Endeavour. It follows that even though the birth control protocol was activated shortly after the Awakening, any hope of keeping the gene pool healthy was lost long ago.
Of all the scourges we face, this is the worst. Although medicine had made great strides in gene therapy by the time we left, the ship’s laboratory was located on the second ring, right where the asteroid had crashed. So, we are forced to live without the ability to choose our mates, plagued by sometimes terrible diseases and mutations, and although the Match Mate system calculates every genetic variant in the entire crew’s genome and identifies pairs that minimize the occurrence of homozygous forms of recessive genetic diseases, you are often forced to see them passed on to your children. One in ten people aboard Endeavour has cystic fibrosis, while one in two carries a mutated allele, and the same goes for a long list of diseases. My own son has a terrible cocktail of diseases and has been in the hospital for months, not knowing how long he will live, even though he is not yet seven years old.
We are at the mercy of mutations.
No one can call themselves healthy anymore.
* * *
Andrew set his pen down on the desk and paused for a moment to watch the ink dry on the pages of the journal, which were striped with thin black lines in which his thoughts came to life.
It was never easy to talk about Taki. It also seemed strange to write about him in a journal that would be read by who knew how many strangers in the decades to come... it seemed too personal to talk about with complete strangers but at the same time he wanted to be clear about the living conditions on the Endeavour.
Although it was normal for people to die prematurely from a variety of genetic diseases and it was common for children to reach recycling at a very young age, he always felt a pang in his heart when he talked about his son.
He put the diary back in the top drawer and closed the door with one hand, as if this gesture could also lock away negative thoughts in a sealed compartment of his mind.
This was no day for sad thoughts; it was a day of celebration aboard the spaceship. He forced a strained smile on himself to exorcise the bad mood and donned the ceremonial uniform with epaulets and gold buttons.
He locked the door behind him and walked down the corridors. The Endeavour’s rotation simulated Earth’s gravity, and through the portholes he could see the swirling celestial vault, filled with small, distant lights. Each of the ten rings consisted of three concentric planes. Both the bridge and his dwelling were on the upper floor of the first ring, so he descended two levels. The lower floors were the outermost ones, and as a result, after the first flight of stairs he began to feel the force of gravity becoming more pronounced, a phenomenon since the farther away from the central body of the ship, the faster the rotation was, and it followed that the only level to have a gravity equal to Earth’s was the middle one.
When he reached the bottom, he stretched and tensed his muscles; it always took a moment to get used to the new pressure. He walked through a quadrant of the ring and reached the large chamber they had set up as a ballroom for large social events.
He opened the door wide and saw that the hall was packed. All those who were not on maintenance shifts had dressed up in their best clothes and gathered for the most popular social events: the Extraction and the Incubation. These events were held on the anniversary of the Awakening, the former every year, the latter every five years, and for a short time everyone stopped thinking about the cage and death and started enjoying life. As Captain, it was his responsibility to initiate both.
When the people near the door noticed that he had entered they began to applaud, and soon the cheering spread throughout the room and grew to a roar. Andrew smiled; it had been years since he had seen so many happy faces at once.
Haruko reached out and pulled him into a loving hug.
«Good luck», she whispered in his ear.
Taki’s illness had marked a bad time for them, but since they had decided to try for another child, they had become very close again. When she broke loose from the embrace, Andrew saw that Silvia had joined them.
«You’re going to be great», the girl said, printing a kiss on his lips.
Andrew smiled, unable to find the words to answer them; he simply took both by the hand and drew on the strength that they were giving him. He had seen Captain Edwards open the ceremony many times, and even though he was only authorizing two operations, he felt his palms sweat. He was aware that all eyes were on him as he took this small but important step.
He let go of the two women’s hands and plunged into the crowd, greeting Karl with a nod of his head. Past the crowd, he reached a small stage with a terminal to access the ship’s system and a speaker’s lectern with a microphone. Captain Edwards’ speeches had always been short, and he had decided to stick to his style. After all, there was not much to say.
He inhaled, exhaled, and turned on the microphone.
«It warms my heart to see you all gathered here on this momentous day», he exhorted. «Our journey began one thousand one hundred and forty-five years ago, and it has been exactly one thousand one hundred years since the Awakening. Since then, we have followed the laws of Felicity Green and the fifty ancestors who formed the society in which we live. As far from perfect as all of this is, we must never forget what our goal is and what drives us forward: hope. The hope that all of humanity has placed in our mission. Every day that passes brings us closer to our goal, now only twenty-six years away from reaching Elpis. I wish everyone in this room to see that auspicious day!».
«But let’s go in order», he continued after a short pause. «Before we begin the celebration, there are a few things we need to do. In keeping with tradition, I would like to begin by authorizing the Match Mate program to provide us with this year’s result».
«For the happiness of those who are chosen», someone shouted from the crowd, causing a general laugh.
Andrew sneered in turn. He turned and walked to the terminal where Elsa had already entered the program and set up the authorization screen. He brought his face close to the sensor and allowed his retinas to be scanned. His profile appeared on the screen followed by the green words “Authorized Access” and then “Match Mate Program Initialization”.
Each passenger’s genome had been entered into the Endeavour’s database before departure, and after the Awakening, each newborn’s genome was sequenced and added to the list. The Match Mate program was designed to analyze all the variants in the genomes and return the combination of the two that was most likely to produce healthy offspring, thus minimizing the risk of passing recessive genetic diseases to future generations. This would keep the human gene pool healthy for as long as possible while waiting for the next ships to arrive on Elpis, bringing new individuals and expanding the human genetic variability of which two hundred individuals and a thousand embryos could not be representative. The fact that it had been necessary to activate the program only forty-five years after their departure, and that it had only been possible to get the algorithm to work on fifty individuals, had put it under great strain. After a thousand years, the health of the crew had been severely compromised by the bottleneck that had started it all, so it had been over a century, not counting the couples born from the embryos, since the program had been able to find a combination that had a probability of producing healthy offspring above ten percent.
Elsa transferred the result to a tablet, Andrew took it and returned to the podium. At a glance, he could see that any children would have a fifty percent chance of carrying sickle cell anemia, Werner’s syndrome, and xeroderma pigmentosum. Fortunately, the program had not predicted homozygosity of any kind, and that was a stroke of luck for the prospective parents.
He approached the microphone and saw the audience eagerly waiting to find out who was the couple chosen by the program. Andrew remembered the excitement he had felt years before when Captain Edwards had called his name and Haruko’s. He remembered how, after a moment of disbelief, he had looked around, searching for her as the people between them shifted as they realized which way the other was facing. He had seen her appear before his eyes, they had not known each other well then and it had not been easy, as it had never been easy for anyone, to discover out of the blue the person with whom one was to conceive children. Some were lucky enough to be paired with someone they were interested in, and some were unlucky enough to be paired with someone they did not like. The law was clear, and those who were chosen had to procreate. Most of the time, however, it was not a problem: not everyone was allowed to become a parent, and it was a unique and undeniable opportunity. He remembered how his heart had pounded when Edwards had granted them both the right to procreate. He smiled as he stepped up to the microphone. A hush had fallen over the room.
«The program has given its verdict», he said, adding to the anticipation. «The names are Jasmine Kaza and Liang Martinez. Congratulations!».
He said nothing about what he had read on the Match Mate algorithm report; according to the protocol established by Felicity Green, the details were confidential to the Captain in order to maintain as much of a semblance of normalcy as possible in an alienating process. He just watched the crowd move as it usually did, and the two interested parties look at each other. There were only five hundred of them aboard the Endeavor, they all knew each other, but Andrew would not have been able to tell what kind of relationship these two had; he could only hope that they would find some positive notes in this union.
«Jasmine and Liang», he said in a solemn tone. «Advance».
When the couple was in front of him, he picked up a portable scanner.
«In accordance with the laws of the Endeavour and in the presence of the entire crew», he continued, pointing the scanner first at one’s wristband and then at the other’s. «I grant you reproductive rights!».
A roar of applause followed his statement, and the couple retreated into the crowd, surrounded by animated chatter. Andrew remembered how tense those first moments with Haruko had been, undoubtedly the most awkward of their relationship. However, the crew of the Endeavour was used to it, and relationships outside the Match Mate system were neither forbidden nor frowned upon, as long as they did not beget children.
«I would proceed with the Incubation without delay!», he said, raising his arms to summon silence.
With slow steps, he returned to the terminal where Elsa had entered the embryo incubation program. It was necessary to replenish the crew’s gene pool from time to time if humanity was to arrive on Elpis healthy enough to perform its task. Therefore, two embryos were incubated every five years. The computer would automatically highlight the pair that would carry the most variability given the current gene pool of the entire population. Choosing which ones to thaw was easy, but the same could not be said for authorizing the procedure. If authorizing a couple to procreate could have several positive ethical implications, in this case it was condemning two people to spend a good part of their lives cooped up on an overpopulated spaceship with few available resources and a highly unhealthy psychological environment to live in, instead of on a fertile planet in a more balanced society where they could cultivate dreams and ambitions.
Andrew moistened his lips.
He swallowed and rubbed his fingertips together.
It was the first hard decision he had to make. There was no alternative; he was well aware of how much the crew’s gene pool needed refreshing. So why couldn’t he just push the button? He had seen Captain Edwards do it several times, but now that it was his turn, he struggled to raise his hand. It was this gesture, more than anything else, that defined the responsibility he had as Captain to the crew and to all of humanity. He was deciding the lives of two people. He was forcing them into a life they would not choose, what greater coercion could there be? What greater wrong could be done? Could determining the fate of these embryos with cold reason be called an ethical act?
Andrew could not say. The only certainty was that humanity needed them and it was necessary to act as his predecessors had done. Just as everyone for a thousand years had lived by doing their duty, so these two little embryos would have to live in service to the community. This was their destiny. Andrew raised his hand, pressed the button, and had his retinas scanned.
He did it for humanity.
He did it for the greater good.
A mechanical arm removed the two disks containing the embryos from the cryogenic towers and placed them in as many incubators that, like welcoming wombs, would guide the development of the new lives for the next eight months.
Andrew turned back to the crowd and lifted the corners of his mouth in a sad smile.
It was done.
The party could begin.
It was never easy to talk about Taki. It also seemed strange to write about him in a journal that would be read by who knew how many strangers in the decades to come... it seemed too personal to talk about with complete strangers but at the same time he wanted to be clear about the living conditions on the Endeavour.
Although it was normal for people to die prematurely from a variety of genetic diseases and it was common for children to reach recycling at a very young age, he always felt a pang in his heart when he talked about his son.
He put the diary back in the top drawer and closed the door with one hand, as if this gesture could also lock away negative thoughts in a sealed compartment of his mind.
This was no day for sad thoughts; it was a day of celebration aboard the spaceship. He forced a strained smile on himself to exorcise the bad mood and donned the ceremonial uniform with epaulets and gold buttons.
He locked the door behind him and walked down the corridors. The Endeavour’s rotation simulated Earth’s gravity, and through the portholes he could see the swirling celestial vault, filled with small, distant lights. Each of the ten rings consisted of three concentric planes. Both the bridge and his dwelling were on the upper floor of the first ring, so he descended two levels. The lower floors were the outermost ones, and as a result, after the first flight of stairs he began to feel the force of gravity becoming more pronounced, a phenomenon since the farther away from the central body of the ship, the faster the rotation was, and it followed that the only level to have a gravity equal to Earth’s was the middle one.
When he reached the bottom, he stretched and tensed his muscles; it always took a moment to get used to the new pressure. He walked through a quadrant of the ring and reached the large chamber they had set up as a ballroom for large social events.
He opened the door wide and saw that the hall was packed. All those who were not on maintenance shifts had dressed up in their best clothes and gathered for the most popular social events: the Extraction and the Incubation. These events were held on the anniversary of the Awakening, the former every year, the latter every five years, and for a short time everyone stopped thinking about the cage and death and started enjoying life. As Captain, it was his responsibility to initiate both.
When the people near the door noticed that he had entered they began to applaud, and soon the cheering spread throughout the room and grew to a roar. Andrew smiled; it had been years since he had seen so many happy faces at once.
Haruko reached out and pulled him into a loving hug.
«Good luck», she whispered in his ear.
Taki’s illness had marked a bad time for them, but since they had decided to try for another child, they had become very close again. When she broke loose from the embrace, Andrew saw that Silvia had joined them.
«You’re going to be great», the girl said, printing a kiss on his lips.
Andrew smiled, unable to find the words to answer them; he simply took both by the hand and drew on the strength that they were giving him. He had seen Captain Edwards open the ceremony many times, and even though he was only authorizing two operations, he felt his palms sweat. He was aware that all eyes were on him as he took this small but important step.
He let go of the two women’s hands and plunged into the crowd, greeting Karl with a nod of his head. Past the crowd, he reached a small stage with a terminal to access the ship’s system and a speaker’s lectern with a microphone. Captain Edwards’ speeches had always been short, and he had decided to stick to his style. After all, there was not much to say.
He inhaled, exhaled, and turned on the microphone.
«It warms my heart to see you all gathered here on this momentous day», he exhorted. «Our journey began one thousand one hundred and forty-five years ago, and it has been exactly one thousand one hundred years since the Awakening. Since then, we have followed the laws of Felicity Green and the fifty ancestors who formed the society in which we live. As far from perfect as all of this is, we must never forget what our goal is and what drives us forward: hope. The hope that all of humanity has placed in our mission. Every day that passes brings us closer to our goal, now only twenty-six years away from reaching Elpis. I wish everyone in this room to see that auspicious day!».
«But let’s go in order», he continued after a short pause. «Before we begin the celebration, there are a few things we need to do. In keeping with tradition, I would like to begin by authorizing the Match Mate program to provide us with this year’s result».
«For the happiness of those who are chosen», someone shouted from the crowd, causing a general laugh.
Andrew sneered in turn. He turned and walked to the terminal where Elsa had already entered the program and set up the authorization screen. He brought his face close to the sensor and allowed his retinas to be scanned. His profile appeared on the screen followed by the green words “Authorized Access” and then “Match Mate Program Initialization”.
Each passenger’s genome had been entered into the Endeavour’s database before departure, and after the Awakening, each newborn’s genome was sequenced and added to the list. The Match Mate program was designed to analyze all the variants in the genomes and return the combination of the two that was most likely to produce healthy offspring, thus minimizing the risk of passing recessive genetic diseases to future generations. This would keep the human gene pool healthy for as long as possible while waiting for the next ships to arrive on Elpis, bringing new individuals and expanding the human genetic variability of which two hundred individuals and a thousand embryos could not be representative. The fact that it had been necessary to activate the program only forty-five years after their departure, and that it had only been possible to get the algorithm to work on fifty individuals, had put it under great strain. After a thousand years, the health of the crew had been severely compromised by the bottleneck that had started it all, so it had been over a century, not counting the couples born from the embryos, since the program had been able to find a combination that had a probability of producing healthy offspring above ten percent.
Elsa transferred the result to a tablet, Andrew took it and returned to the podium. At a glance, he could see that any children would have a fifty percent chance of carrying sickle cell anemia, Werner’s syndrome, and xeroderma pigmentosum. Fortunately, the program had not predicted homozygosity of any kind, and that was a stroke of luck for the prospective parents.
He approached the microphone and saw the audience eagerly waiting to find out who was the couple chosen by the program. Andrew remembered the excitement he had felt years before when Captain Edwards had called his name and Haruko’s. He remembered how, after a moment of disbelief, he had looked around, searching for her as the people between them shifted as they realized which way the other was facing. He had seen her appear before his eyes, they had not known each other well then and it had not been easy, as it had never been easy for anyone, to discover out of the blue the person with whom one was to conceive children. Some were lucky enough to be paired with someone they were interested in, and some were unlucky enough to be paired with someone they did not like. The law was clear, and those who were chosen had to procreate. Most of the time, however, it was not a problem: not everyone was allowed to become a parent, and it was a unique and undeniable opportunity. He remembered how his heart had pounded when Edwards had granted them both the right to procreate. He smiled as he stepped up to the microphone. A hush had fallen over the room.
«The program has given its verdict», he said, adding to the anticipation. «The names are Jasmine Kaza and Liang Martinez. Congratulations!».
He said nothing about what he had read on the Match Mate algorithm report; according to the protocol established by Felicity Green, the details were confidential to the Captain in order to maintain as much of a semblance of normalcy as possible in an alienating process. He just watched the crowd move as it usually did, and the two interested parties look at each other. There were only five hundred of them aboard the Endeavor, they all knew each other, but Andrew would not have been able to tell what kind of relationship these two had; he could only hope that they would find some positive notes in this union.
«Jasmine and Liang», he said in a solemn tone. «Advance».
When the couple was in front of him, he picked up a portable scanner.
«In accordance with the laws of the Endeavour and in the presence of the entire crew», he continued, pointing the scanner first at one’s wristband and then at the other’s. «I grant you reproductive rights!».
A roar of applause followed his statement, and the couple retreated into the crowd, surrounded by animated chatter. Andrew remembered how tense those first moments with Haruko had been, undoubtedly the most awkward of their relationship. However, the crew of the Endeavour was used to it, and relationships outside the Match Mate system were neither forbidden nor frowned upon, as long as they did not beget children.
«I would proceed with the Incubation without delay!», he said, raising his arms to summon silence.
With slow steps, he returned to the terminal where Elsa had entered the embryo incubation program. It was necessary to replenish the crew’s gene pool from time to time if humanity was to arrive on Elpis healthy enough to perform its task. Therefore, two embryos were incubated every five years. The computer would automatically highlight the pair that would carry the most variability given the current gene pool of the entire population. Choosing which ones to thaw was easy, but the same could not be said for authorizing the procedure. If authorizing a couple to procreate could have several positive ethical implications, in this case it was condemning two people to spend a good part of their lives cooped up on an overpopulated spaceship with few available resources and a highly unhealthy psychological environment to live in, instead of on a fertile planet in a more balanced society where they could cultivate dreams and ambitions.
Andrew moistened his lips.
He swallowed and rubbed his fingertips together.
It was the first hard decision he had to make. There was no alternative; he was well aware of how much the crew’s gene pool needed refreshing. So why couldn’t he just push the button? He had seen Captain Edwards do it several times, but now that it was his turn, he struggled to raise his hand. It was this gesture, more than anything else, that defined the responsibility he had as Captain to the crew and to all of humanity. He was deciding the lives of two people. He was forcing them into a life they would not choose, what greater coercion could there be? What greater wrong could be done? Could determining the fate of these embryos with cold reason be called an ethical act?
Andrew could not say. The only certainty was that humanity needed them and it was necessary to act as his predecessors had done. Just as everyone for a thousand years had lived by doing their duty, so these two little embryos would have to live in service to the community. This was their destiny. Andrew raised his hand, pressed the button, and had his retinas scanned.
He did it for humanity.
He did it for the greater good.
A mechanical arm removed the two disks containing the embryos from the cryogenic towers and placed them in as many incubators that, like welcoming wombs, would guide the development of the new lives for the next eight months.
Andrew turned back to the crowd and lifted the corners of his mouth in a sad smile.
It was done.
The party could begin.
* * *
Due to the limited number of the population, which started with only fifty individuals, what in biology is called a “bottleneck”, it was impossible to avoid the appearance of a variety of recessive genetic diseases. For this reason, an immutable law had been established, sacred articles that would be dissolved only upon landing. No one was to procreate without permission. Any offspring born outside the Match Mate system would be considered outlawed and destined for recycling to prevent further deterioration of the gene pool.
Of course, humans are not meant to live under such restrictions, and relationships outside the Match Mate system are common. Provided they do not beget children, they are not demonized, but encouraged. In fact, it is not uncommon for each person on the Endeavour to have multiple lovers. However, after more than a millennium of isolation, it was necessary to provide new lifeblood from time to time. A few new individuals would have to be added to the mix. The Hundred in suspended animation seemed the obvious choice; it would be enough to thaw one every now and then. However, they possessed skills that might be essential on Elpis, and waking them would pose the problem of having to pass on that knowledge. So, the only solution was to incubate some of the embryos. Felicity Green decreed that two embryos were to be thawed for every five years, and a thousand years later, we still follow that law.
I wonder what it was like for the First Fifty who started civilization on the Endeavour.
I wonder what it was like for them to raise the first embryos, the only humans who never saw Earth, born on a starship. For us now, the problem does not arise, we are all born and raised on a spaceship, there is no difference between us and the embryos other than the mode of gestation: nine months in a womb instead of eight in an incubator.
Of course, humans are not meant to live under such restrictions, and relationships outside the Match Mate system are common. Provided they do not beget children, they are not demonized, but encouraged. In fact, it is not uncommon for each person on the Endeavour to have multiple lovers. However, after more than a millennium of isolation, it was necessary to provide new lifeblood from time to time. A few new individuals would have to be added to the mix. The Hundred in suspended animation seemed the obvious choice; it would be enough to thaw one every now and then. However, they possessed skills that might be essential on Elpis, and waking them would pose the problem of having to pass on that knowledge. So, the only solution was to incubate some of the embryos. Felicity Green decreed that two embryos were to be thawed for every five years, and a thousand years later, we still follow that law.
I wonder what it was like for the First Fifty who started civilization on the Endeavour.
I wonder what it was like for them to raise the first embryos, the only humans who never saw Earth, born on a starship. For us now, the problem does not arise, we are all born and raised on a spaceship, there is no difference between us and the embryos other than the mode of gestation: nine months in a womb instead of eight in an incubator.