“I know. I didn’t want to be presumptuous.”
“It’s not presumptuous, Captain.”
“I prefer Ragtime. Especially if I’m to call you ‘Shell’。”
“Okay, Ragtime. May I ask what gender you’re presenting? Your voice, while comforting, could go either way.”
“Male for this flight, and thank you for asking. Are you ready?”
“I hope to learn a lot, Ragtime, but I have to admit, I’m nervous.”
“But you know what you’re meant to know, right?”
What does Shell know?
She knows everything she was taught about space travel by the best minds on Earth. She knows how to find an edible plant when confronted with unfamiliar vegetation. She can make water in a desert. She can negotiate with people who do not speak the same language as her in case she crash-lands in a place without English or Spanish. She can suture her own wounds with one hand if need be, sinistral or dextral. She knows basic electronics and can solder or weld unfamiliar circuitry if the situation demands it. She can live without human contact for two hundred and fourteen days. Maybe longer. Though she is not a pilot, she can fly a plane. Not well, but she can do it. Best minds on Earth.
What Shell knows is that she does not know enough.
She says, “I hope I’ll have the chance to see things I’ve learned in action.”
“I’m sure we’ll be able to make it a wonderful experience for you. Do you like poetry?”
“Wow, that’s an odd . . . I know exactly one line of poetry. In seed time learn, in harvest teach—”
“In winter enjoy. William Blake. I have access to his complete works, if you would like to hear more.”
“No, thank you. The line just stuck in my mind from when I was a kid. Not a poetry gal.”
“Not yet, but it’s a long trip. You may find yourself changing in ways you didn’t anticipate, Shell.”
“Isn’t this your first flight as well?”
“It is, but I have decades of the experiences of other ships to draw on. Imagine having access to the memories of your entire family line. It’s like that, and it makes me wise beyond my years.”
“Okay.”
“It’s not too late to go back home, you know.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’d be surprised at how many people lose their nerve at the last minute. I had to ask. I’ll see you on board, Shell.”
Chatty for a ship AI, but it depends on feedback loops that taught him how to converse with humans. Not too late to go back home. Does he know the level of commitment required to get this far? The people who would consider going back home have already fallen away.
The thing you miss when in space is an abundance of water to wash with. One of Shell’s rituals before spaceflight is a prolonged bubble bath. She stays there long enough to cook several lobsters, until her skin is wrinkled. She listens to Jack Benny on repeat. She feels decadent.
When she wraps herself in a housecoat and emerges from the bathroom, she does not feel refreshed because she knows from experience that this will not reduce the ick factor for long.
On the eve of her departure Shell conferences with her brothers, Toby and Hank. The holograms are decent, and if not for the lack of smell she’d have thought they were right in the room with her. Good signals, good sound quality.
“Hey,” she says.
“Baby sister,” says Toby. Tall, blond from their mother, talkative, always smiling, and transmitting from somewhere on Mars, a settlement whose name Shell can never remember.
“Stinkbug,” says Hank. Brown hair, five-eight, slender. He’s called her that since she was two. Taciturn, works as some kind of operative or agent. Brown hair, five-eight, slender. He and Shell look alike and they both favour their father. He cannot talk about his work.
“While you’re out there, look out for Dad,” says Toby.
“Don’t,” says Hank.
“What? We don’t know that he’s dead,” says Toby.
“It’s been fifteen years,” says Shell. Toby always does this. They declared Haldene Campion dead years ago so they could move on and disburse his assets.
“Just keep your ears open,” says Toby.
“How? We’re all going to be asleep for the journey, you know that.”
Toby nods. The hell does that mean?
“I’ll tell you what Dad told me,” says Hank. “Make us prouder.”
“‘Prouder’？” says Shell.
“Yes, he said he was already proud of our achievements. It was his way of saying ‘do more’ or something,” says Toby.