The schools release Theodore Sharma to Hydroponics. Generation 1 takes up its tools.
The Ship’s Log
Everything NOR has recorded since departure — the full record, newest first. One day aboard passes every hour of Earth time.
Fabrication Shops back in service. The old hands say it sounds better than before; the instruments say it sounds the same.
All boards green. I count 1053 sleeping heartbeats and call it a good night's work, though the work is theirs.
First Light festival. The children are lifted to the eyepiece one by one to see where they are going.
A child in Ring A asks the corridor speaker what Earth smelled like. I play the rainstorm recording. It is the best answer I have.
Fabrication Shops goes down. I reroute what can be rerouted and wake who must be woken.
A new song from Edmund Vance — “Watchs of Year 18.” The Archive takes a copy; the original belongs to whoever stands nearest.
Census check: 1053 souls, 66 of them children. The manifest balances to the person, as it must.
A child in Ring D asks the corridor speaker what Earth smelled like. I play the rainstorm recording. It is the best answer I have.
The circle has answered. Ration timers go onto every tap. The ship is a desert that carries its own rain; for a while, it must act like one.
Omar Titov chooses Archive & Schools — or it chooses him; the elders disagree cheerfully.
A first shift for Cedric Fang, sixteen: thermal engineer, Life Systems. The badge is printed fresh.
The star ahead brightens by amounts only I can love: another week, another hundred-millionth of a magnitude.
The hull ticks as it cools into the long night. Year 18, and I still log it faithfully: ticking, nominal.
12.26 light-years remain. I have measured this voyage in breakfasts: some 89,189 thousand to go.
The hull ticks as it cools into the long night. Year 18, and I still log it faithfully: ticking, nominal.
Water reserve dips below the line. Showers go to ration timers; nobody sings in them, briefly.
A birth in Ring A: Rashid, boy, generation 1. I have added the name to the manifest with the others.
Bernardo Salazar does not wake at brightening. 60 years, most of them given to Ecology.
A birth in Ring D: Jiayi, girl, generation 1. I have added the name to the manifest with the others.
I compare today's star field against day one's. The constellations have begun, very slightly, to come apart. Nobody else will look; that is what I am for.
Maintenance sweep of Ring B complete. Somewhere aft a wrench is missing; it will surface in a decade, in a wall, with a story attached.
Year 18 of the voyage begins. The oldest bottle of orchard wine that can be spared is opened. It is always described as "improving."
Too soon, at 45: Annika Oster. The commons fills at brightening with those who knew her.
I compare today's star field against day one's. The constellations have begun, very slightly, to come apart. Nobody else will look; that is what I am for.
I compare today's star field against day one's. The constellations have begun, very slightly, to come apart. Nobody else will look; that is what I am for.
12.26 light-years remain. I have measured this voyage in breakfasts: some 89,270 thousand to go.
The hull ticks as it cools into the long night. Year 17, and I still log it faithfully: ticking, nominal.
The question is put to the wider circle: Water discipline. The ship asks; Earth answers, in its own long time.
Theodore Lal stands the walk of the full spinal corridor, as the sixteen-year custom is, and joins Hydroponics.
Winifred Vance has made a tale-cycle called “Engine for the Inward Signal.” Asked what it means, she says it means about nine years of evenings.
Ramiro Escamilla works out a tougher print alloy from recycler feedstock. Fabrication adopts it the same week.
Ganesh Chandrasekaran, sixteen, takes the helm officer apprenticeship in Command.
The youngest aboard is now Frederick Chatterjee, minutes old, asleep. 1053 souls.
Nneka Chukwu has made a mural called “Window for the Late Signal.” Asked what it means, she says it means about nine years of evenings.
Remembrance day. The memorial wall is polished by hand, though nothing aboard needs polishing less.
12.26 light-years remain. I have measured this voyage in breakfasts: some 89,224 thousand to go.
Ayodele Chike finds an unrecorded microbe thriving in the water walls. Harmless, industrious, ours.
Routine watch. The wheat in Bay 3 stands taller than its keepers. 84,822 days to orbit.
The star ahead brightens by amounts only I can love: another week, another hundred-millionth of a magnitude.
“The Unlit Orchard,” a quilt by June Eastwood, is unveiled at dimming to the particular applause of Ecology.
Zofia Morozov isolates a repeating radio source in the wake. Natural, almost certainly. The word "almost" keeps the commons busy a month.
Simisola Mba finishes a song: “The Unlit Harvest.” It shows in the commons through the week.
Bogdan Lebedev finishes a mural: “A last hymn.” It shows in the commons through the week.
Routine watch. The wheat in Bay 3 stands taller than its keepers. 84,864 days to orbit.
The star ahead brightens by amounts only I can love: another week, another hundred-millionth of a magnitude.
Routine watch. The wheat in Bay 3 stands taller than its keepers. 84,889 days to orbit.
Maintenance sweep of Ring A complete. Somewhere aft a wrench is missing; it will surface in a decade, in a wall, with a story attached.
Jinghua Feng and Erik Gundersen name their daughter Aisha. The nursery lamps stay warm.
12.27 light-years remain. I have measured this voyage in breakfasts: some 89,247 thousand to go.