“Wonderful,” I said. My words came out quieter, less enthusiastic than I’d intended. I had never collaborated with another artist before. The woman the commander ushered over beamed at me with excitement. “I mean, thank you.”
“I brought my portfolio,” Dorrie said as I stood to shake her hand. The commander knocked on the bulkhead and excused himself. “I’m a bit more than a hobbyist, though I felt like I was lying when I called myself an artist on the Yamato lottery forms.” Dorrie opened the case slung over her shoulder, spread out a series of charcoal prints and watercolors and tiny acrylic portraits of children she’d painted on index cards. Behind each card: a name, birth date, time of death, and the title “City of Laughter.” I assumed they were from the euthanasia theme park that had been popular during the first wave.
“These are remarkable,” I said. I studied the portrait of a little girl with golden curls. If I squinted hard enough, I could just make out the outline of a roller coaster reflected in her eyes. I wondered what might be reflected in the eyes of those on the journey with us. As artists, we could transform the sterile walls of this ship into a home, preserve our journey for those who never woke up. I could hold on to our memories through the millennia. I could help us move on.
Dear Cliff,
Yumi looks peaceful in her chamber—they all do. Do you remember how we had to take turns reading her stories whenever Clara left on her research trips? Yumi loved origin myths, how the heavens were split from land and gods placed the moon and sun in the sky. I’m writing to you in our daughter’s journal, which you used as your own during your final months. It seemed fitting, after all. The Chronicle of a Family of Explorers. A book of regrets and goodbyes. The crew here have begun to find their footing—not being a scientist or military, I feel left out sometimes, but I join board game nights and I help prepare rations at mealtimes. I became an artist because I was terrible with people. Of course, they all know what I’ve lost, not that we haven’t all lost someone. I wish you were both still with me to witness all of this—the maelstrom of starlight outside the ship’s windows, the constant debates about probe telemetry of atmospheres and water and radiation. I could never have imagined the vastness of nothing between the stars, the invisible dark matter that connects everything in the universe like the branches of the nervous system. I’ve made a friend of sorts, perhaps more of a colleague, a woman the commander woke up just for me. We’ve begun painting murals on the walls to help make the ship feel less sterile, the journey less cold, whenever we’re awake—our ramshackle bungalow in Santa Monica, a water tower in Iowa, the commander’s hometown. My friend Dorrie even painted the City of Laughter, where she lost her son. I’ve been populating an imaginary town with the faces of those the crew has lost and plan to fill the skies with all the planets we find along the way that will be both beautiful and deadly, or simply not quite right for us. If I stare long enough at our paintings, I can almost forget that everything we remember about our time on Earth will soon be ancient history.
Stasis
Fusion rockets and antimatter boosters. Cryogenic suspension. Magnetosphere radiation shields and artificial gravity. Maybe on Star Trek or Star Wars, I thought. But few could fully appreciate the starship Yamato until they signed the government and Yamato-Musk Corporation waivers and walked on board. Named after Bryan Yamato, who solved the problem of harnessing Hawking radiation from microscopic black holes to fuel our main engine and helped us reach 10 percent the speed of light. Oddly, Bryan and his wife had elected to remain on Earth, even though Bryan’s teenage son joined the expedition under the supervision of the commander. They’re working on a solar shade project to cool the planet—trillions of basketball-sized satellites carrying reflective lenses the width of a human hair. End to end, the starship Yamato would span two football fields and can accommodate a crew of fifty out of stasis at one time. Reverse-engineered UFO technology, Area 51, the conspiracy theories from grocery store tabloids. Only a handful of the crew have the security clearance to know for certain whether those tabloid stories were true. But I like to believe we had otherworldly help. That someone or something gave Bryan Yamato a push when he needed it—an equation, a schematic, an a-ha! moment implanted into his brain. Maybe we’re on our way to find them—the constant engine rumble like the ocean surf makes it easy to lose yourself in these kinds of thoughts. Once, as we worked on a mural, I saw Dorrie painting her son, Fitch, in a small landing craft on its way to a planet covered with smiling green aliens, waving at the sky.