Sixty-eight years: Naresh Banerjee hangs up the sash. An elder's quarters in Ring C stands ready.
The Ship’s Log
Everything NOR has recorded since departure — year 24, newest first. One day aboard passes every hour of Earth time.
Census check: 1030 souls, 61 of them children. The manifest balances to the person, as it must.
Uzoma Olawale finishes a quilt: “Warm Orchard (Year 24).” It shows in the commons through the week.
Darya Dragunov stands down from Life Systems at sixty-eight, to the orchard benches and the long game of stones.
Pilar Izquierdo retires on the first watch. The department logs a quiet debt it cannot repay in parts or hours.
The Assembly reaches its accord: schedules loosened, stores opened a measure, and a promise recorded in the permanent log. The ship exhales.
Routine watch. The wheat in Bay 3 stands taller than its keepers. 82,391 days to orbit.
Maintenance sweep of Ring C complete. Somewhere aft a wrench is missing; it will surface in a decade, in a wall, with a story attached.
Qasim Wahba, 72, generation 0, is carried down the spinal corridor feet-first, as the custom is.
The Ship's Assembly convenes in the largest commons. Everyone who wishes to speaks. I keep time and hold the record, nothing more.
Census check: 1031 souls, 61 of them children. The manifest balances to the person, as it must.
Tariq Abadi and Opal Merriweather are joined under the orchard lamps. The whole of Drive turns out.
Annika Ekelund died in quarters on the first watch, 60 years old, once broadcast keeper. 1031 souls aboard.
Grievances posted in three commons at once — hours, rations, and the shape of the future. The signatures fill a corridor wall.
Last shift for Svetlana Titov, who joined Life Systems half a century ago. The crew line the corridor and knock wrenches on the rails.
Too soon, at 54: Iris Jessop. The commons fills on the first watch with those who knew her.
After 68 years, Jianguo Gao has let go. Remembrance in the Ring B commons at next dimming.
Lev Dragunov retires on the first watch. The department logs a quiet debt it cannot repay in parts or hours.
First Light. The observation blister queues run all day: Teegarden's Star, held in the eyepiece, a little brighter than last year — 12.06 light-years to go.
Too soon, at 52: Nadia Zogby. The commons fills late in the second watch with those who knew her.
The Assembly reaches its accord: schedules loosened, stores opened a measure, and a promise recorded in the permanent log. The ship exhales.
Dinesh Kulkarni has died at 47, far too early. Life Systems stands down a shift in grief.
The Ship's Assembly convenes in the largest commons. Everyone who wishes to speaks. I keep time and hold the record, nothing more.
Grievances posted in three commons at once — hours, rations, and the shape of the future. The signatures fill a corridor wall.
After 55 years, Finn Gustavsson has let go. Remembrance in the Ring B commons at next dimming.
Sixty-eight years: Signe Rasmussen hangs up the sash. An elder's quarters in Ring B stands ready.
Census check: 1037 souls, 61 of them children. The manifest balances to the person, as it must.
12.06 light-years remain. I have measured this voyage in breakfasts: some 85,525 thousand to go.
Last shift for Unn Eriksen, who joined Life Systems half a century ago. The crew line the corridor and knock wrenches on the rails.
The star ahead brightens by amounts only I can love: another week, another hundred-millionth of a magnitude.
A child in Ring B asks the corridor speaker what Earth smelled like. I play the rainstorm recording. It is the best answer I have.
A wedding at dimming. Lakshmi Pillai, Medical; Sylvia Ning, Drive. The ship approves in its way: the lights held steady throughout.
Ernest Iverson stands down from Fabrication at sixty-eight, to the orchard benches and the long game of stones.
Rashid Najjar has died at 44, far too early. Ecology stands down a shift in grief.
A new instrument from Jamila Maalouf — “Iron Corridor, Outward Sky.” The Archive takes a copy; the original belongs to whoever stands nearest.
Arne Nystrom has made a quilt called “Skys of Year 24.” Asked what it means, he says it means about nine years of evenings.
Sixty-eight years: Ekundayo Quaye hangs up the sash. An elder's quarters in Ring D stands ready.
Too soon, at 44: Ludmila Petrov. The commons fills on the first watch with those who knew her.
Zahra Yacoub has died at 48, far too early. Drive stands down a shift in grief.
Morale index reads 53. The number is crude. The singing from the mess contradicts it.
Sixty-eight years: Opal Ingram hangs up the sash. An elder's quarters in Ring B stands ready.
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.
The manifest shortens by one: Wallace Cavanagh, 72 years. The line rests with the ship now.
Leticia Noriega stands down from Command at sixty-eight, to the orchard benches and the long game of stones.
The Assembly reaches its accord: schedules loosened, stores opened a measure, and a promise recorded in the permanent log. The ship exhales.
Year 24 of the voyage begins. The oldest bottle of orchard wine that can be spared is opened. It is always described as "improving."