Last shift for Ion Barakat, who joined Life Systems half a century ago. The crew line the corridor and knock wrenches on the rails.
The Ship’s Log
Everything NOR has recorded since departure — the full record, newest first. One day aboard passes every hour of Earth time.
The hull ticks as it cools into the long night. Year 142, and I still log it faithfully: ticking, nominal.
Ulf Thorvaldsen finishes a play: “What the Garden Grows.” It shows in the commons through the week.
Routine watch. The wheat in Bay 3 stands taller than its keepers. 39,275 days to orbit.
Night watch. The orchard sprinklers run their cycle, and the sound carries down the spine like weather.
I dim the corridor lights a shade for Haoran Tväten, 84. It is little enough.
Morale index reads 86. The number is crude. The singing from the mess confirms it.
Farida Ning and Feng Sharma name their son Node. The nursery lamps stay warm.
Night watch. The orchard sprinklers run their cycle, and the sound carries down the spine like weather.
Last shift for Knut Merriweather, who joined Drive half a century ago. The crew line the corridor and knock wrenches on the rails.
The Crossing. Every year it is observed, and every year someone stands to say the second half is the harder, and is booed warmly.
Kayode Diallo resolves a long-period comet in the forward field — a smudge of home ice, very far from home. It is logged and named.
Cygnet Quill stands the walk of the full spinal corridor, as the sixteen-year custom is, and joins Archive & Schools.
The stream falls astern. Damage is surveyed, tallied, and assigned; the ship grows quiet again by dimming.
The youngest aboard is now Alice Thorvaldsen, minutes old, asleep. 886 souls.
Forward sensors pick up a dust stream across our track. Shields to full; the ship rings faintly, like a struck bell heard from inside.
Signe Nwosu is delivered of a son on the first watch. The child is called Mohan.
Ming Thorvaldsen died in quarters on the first watch, 83 years old. 884 souls aboard.
A new song from Deepika Pillai — “The Slow Map.” The Archive takes a copy; the original belongs to whoever stands nearest.
Last shift for Oluwaseun Fang, who joined Hydroponics half a century ago. The crew line the corridor and knock wrenches on the rails.
Mohan Kong has made a poem called “Skys of Year 142.” Asked what it means, he says it means about nine years of evenings.
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.
Polina Orellana retires late in the second watch. The department logs a quiet debt it cannot repay in parts or hours.
Quiet shift. I re-run the arrival calculations for the 6,962th time. They have not changed. I find this restful.
The youngest aboard is now Boreal Navarrete, minutes old, asleep. 885 souls.
First Light. The observation blister queues run all day: Teegarden's Star, held in the eyepiece, a little brighter than last year — 5.22 light-years to go.
Umbra Shen, sixteen, takes the sanitation engineer apprenticeship in Life Systems.
All boards green. I count 884 sleeping heartbeats and call it a good night's work, though the work is theirs.
Kwame Tväten died in quarters late in the second watch, 89 years old. 884 souls aboard.
Anand Ulriksen is made Chief of Command, and marks it by standing the ordinary shift anyway.
Sixty-eight years: Dinesh Petrov hangs up the sash. An elder's quarters in Ring D stands ready.
Last shift for Cygnet Nwosu, who joined Ecology half a century ago. The crew line the corridor and knock wrenches on the rails.
Ghassan Tväten takes the hand of Fathom Ouyang before the assembled watch. I witness, as I witness everything.
Last shift for Noor Kowalczyk, who joined Archive & Schools half a century ago. The crew line the corridor and knock wrenches on the rails.
Hernán Fang and Meridian Sharma are joined under the orchard lamps. The whole of Life Systems turns out.
A daughter, Lubna Fang, born in the Ring A infirmary to Widad Fang and Alejandro Zhao. Mother and child are well.
A new poem from Gilbert Valdivia — “Inward Water, Quiet Winter.” The Archive takes a copy; the original belongs to whoever stands nearest.
Sixty-eight years: Hassan Mansour hangs up the sash. An elder's quarters in Ring C stands ready.
The manifest shortens by one: Unn Navarrete, 84 years. 3 children carry the line on.
After 72 years, Annika Orellana has let go. Remembrance in the Ring C commons at next dimming.
After 91 years, Caelum Sharma has let go. Remembrance in the Ring C commons at next dimming.
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.
I dim the corridor lights a shade for Maksim Ning, 90. It is little enough.
“Maps of Year 142,” a song by Edmund Jaber, is unveiled at dimming to the particular applause of Fabrication.
The star ahead brightens by amounts only I can love: another week, another hundred-millionth of a magnitude.
A joining in Ring D: Gilbert Navarrete and Verne Shen. The pressing of cider is authorized.
5.24 light-years remain. I have measured this voyage in breakfasts: some 35,047 thousand to go.
Funmilayo Thorvaldsen died in quarters at brightening, 77 years old. 888 souls aboard.
Jiayi Nwosu stands down from Medical at sixty-eight, to the orchard benches and the long game of stones.
Arthur Navarrete, sixteen, takes the drive engineer apprenticeship in Drive.