Noumenon Read online

  I was starting to realize that all we really had up here was each other.

  A few months later, the elections came and went. Before then there were more suicides. There were a few after, too, but for the most part a sense of togetherness was starting to pervade the ships. The votes reflected exactly what Mahler had thought they’d reflect—a convoy-wide sense of pride in our mission. Those elected were the most duty-bound in the fleet.

  We outlined a new education system. Emphasis would be put on unity. To shirk responsibility would be the worst possible offense. Honor, pride, synergy—all important. Our children would grow up knowing community came first.

  After another year and a half I fully committed myself to upholding those ideals. I met a nice woman, Chen Kexin from food processing. I knew the lesbian and bisexual population aboard was small—about the same percentage as in the gen-pop on Earth—and had previously resigned myself to possibly never finding a suitable partner. I’m so glad I was wrong. We dated for a while, then decided to make our bond permanent. We settled into a quadruple cabin and put in for a clone.

  They decided to give Kexin and me a boy. His name would be Reginald Straifer II.

  When we finally got the news, I was so excited to tell Saul about the baby that I forgot what day it was. I forgot that this was the last time I’d speak formally to him.

  Saul had reached his seventieth birthday and decided it was time to retire. He reminded me with a preemptive data packet.

  [Looking forward to your last message. I’ve included pictures of my son and his wife on their wedding day. And my little Margarita. She’s getting her advanced degree in chemical engineering.]

  The bottom dropped out of my elation. I didn’t have a picture of Reggie to send, because he hadn’t been officially born yet. He was still gestating on Hippocrates.

  I put in my report, and included a diagram of our new teaching processes that included community appreciation. I skimped on the data a bit, more consumed with my personal message back.

  [Tell me this isn’t goodbye], I sent, [I want a picture of you and your wife, Saul. And I’ll send a picture of my son as soon as he’s birthed. Let someone know to forward it on to you. Tell them I want an update from you every few months—Earth months—okay?]

  I couldn’t believe it. Seventy. So much of his life, gone. It had blazed past. He’d been my constant these past few years, my Earthly touchstone, and now it was over. Over too soon.

  Earth was slipping away. Home was slipping away. Even if we turned back now, the world would not be as we’d left it.

  We were aliens now. Nomads in uncharted territory.

  And that was exactly how it should be.

  The next message I received from Saul was truly the last. He had a heart attack two days after composing it, and his replacement sent it to me.

  The message opened with a cheerful introduction and greeting from the new guy. A stranger. Someone who didn’t know me and never would.

  He saved the bad news until the end. There was the message from Saul, and a short blip after: [Mr. Saul Biterman, deceased]

  I couldn’t believe it. He would never see my son.

  A picture came with the packet, just like I’d requested. The last picture I’d ever get of my friend.

  I transferred it to a ‘flex-sheet and took it back to my cabin without entering a copy into the archives. This was just for me. I hung it on the wall, between pictures of me and Kexin, and me and Nika. I saved a spot for Reggie right beneath. Everyone I loved would find a place on this wall. We’d all be together in memory.

  Afterward, I retrieved a worn, blue envelope from between the pages of my favorite book—the biography of Arthur Scherbius—curled up in a chair, and finally read the letter Father and Mother had left for me so long ago.

  Chapter Three

  Jamal: Balance

  Twenty-Six Years Later

  January 3, 30 Years Post Launch Day (PLD)

  2415 CE

  “Hellooooo,” said Jamal in his small, sing-song voice. “Computer, helloooo.” The eight-year-old bounced a soccer ball on his knee in front of the access panel. He was supposed to be in class.

  “Hello, Jamal,” said the ship’s AI.

  “Do I get a new baby brother today?”

  “My records indicate that your parents will jointly travel to Hippocrates during their lunch hour to retrieve the next available, fully-gestated clone.”

  The boy tossed his ball at the panel and deftly caught it on the rebound. “But is it a brother?” Computers could be so dumb. He’d make them smarter when he grew up.

  “The next available clone is that of Nakamura Akane. Her original earned a doctorate in engineering and ship design from the university of—”

  “A sister?” Jamal kicked the ball down the hallway. “You’re giving me a sister?” He knocked his forehead against the wall and scrunched his eyes shut in frustration. “Why, computer? What did I ever do to you?”

  “I am not in control of the growth patterns. And I had no influence over when your parents submitted their request.”

  “Mr. Kaeden?”

  “Ah, great,” Jamal grumbled. Through the hall came Dr. Seal, his teacher, carrying the scuffed soccer ball. “You had to tattle on me, too?”

  “I do not tattle,” said I.C.C. “Dr. Seal inquired as to your location. You are here. I related such.”

  “Thanks a lot, Icey.”

  “I.C.C.,” the computer corrected.

  “Ice-C-C,” Jamal stuttered. Not so much because he couldn’t say it, but because he hadn’t expected his first attempt to be contested.

  “Closer,” I.C.C. conceded.

  “Oh, come now,” said Dr. Seal, standing over the boy. “Sometimes children have a hard time with names. We let them use what’s easiest.”

  “But they are made to pronounce names correctly when they are not children anymore,” I.C.C. said.

  “Yes,” Dr. Seal admitted.

  “Then is it not easier for them to learn the correct pronunciation initially? Being told one’s first efforts are acceptable, only to later find out they are not, makes the acquisition of knowledge and skills unnecessarily difficult, regardless of the subject. Why make Jamal learn my name twice when he should only be asked to learn it once?”

  Dr. Seal didn’t say anything, just looked down at Jamal with a “can you believe this thing?” crease in his forehead.

  But Jamal was with the computer. Yeah, why the heck should he have to learn something twice? What kind of racket were the teachers running?

  “Thanks for telling on me, I.C.C.,” Jamal said, articulating every letter.

  Brushing off the AI’s quirkiness, Dr. Seal put a hand on Jamal’s shoulder. “Mr. Kaeden,” he said sternly. “You are supposed to be in class.”

  “You are, too,” Jamal mumbled.

  “Jamal will have to cohabitate with a sibling soon,” I.C.C. explained. “The fact that he was not consulted on its gender seems to have caused him distress.”

  “I’m getting a sister,” Jamal said with a pout.

  “Sisters are people, too,” said Dr. Seal as he took Jamal by the hand and led him away from the access panel.

  Nobody understood. The other kids just made fun of the poopy diapers in his future, and all the grownups either waved aside the problem or seemed mad that he was mad.

  “But it’s a girl,” he tried to explain.

  The botanist who had come in to educate them on their classroom air garden scrunched up her face. “I’m a girl.”

  His ears turned from dark chocolate to strawberry chocolate. I didn’t mean . . . Ugh. “Yeah, whatever,” he mumbled. “You’re not a sister.” Even if you are, you’re not my sister.

  When class finally got out he knew where to go. If anybody in the convoy could understand, it would be Diego.

  The ride from Aesop and school to Mira and home could have been spectacular. The convoy had stopped for a few days to check their calculations—which meant they’d popped
their SD bubble, and space wasn’t black and empty like normal. It was full of stars.

  Extra shuttles swarmed between the main ships, letting the crew take full advantage of the view. On the first day of the stop, Jamal’s teacher had taught class on Holwarda and they’d used the giant telescope. Best. Day. Ever.

  Now, if Jamal touched one edge of a shuttle porthole, graphics popped up to label the nebulae and galaxies and systems and stuff. So the ride home could have been cool. But the other kids were loud and pushy. And they talked about dumb things—boring things.

  They swapped math riddles and stories about visiting their future workplaces. A favorite game was my mom’s job is better than your mom’s job. Which was silly, because everyone knew his mom, his aðon, had the best job, so why play?

  They played the same stuff over and over. Talked about the same stuff over and over. Normally he’d be all for it. Eventually someone would suggest something new, and they would carry it like a banner through the shuttle until the game or rhyme or nickname became stale.

  But he could find no comfort in the ritual of tomfoolery today. Who was Tom and who did he think he was fooling, anyway?

  It was a phrase Diego used. Apparently he’d taken part in plenty of it during his school days. But, maybe Diego didn’t remember being a kid right. After all, it’d been a really, really, really long time since he’d been to school.

  School back on Earth. School on Iceland—which Diego insisted wasn’t really a land made of ice, but Jamal had his doubts.

  Jamal blew on a small portion of the window. It didn’t fog up as nicely as the bathroom mirror, but it would do. He drew funny squiggles until a ball hit him in the side of the head.

  “Hey, what the—” He picked up the projectile, which had bounced off the seat in front of him and rolled under his feet.

  “That’s yours,” said Lewis, moving from three rows forward to join Jamal at the back of the shuttle.

  “Sit down,” demanded the shuttle pilot. Thank I.C.C. the pilots rotated. Otherwise Jamal was sure this guy would eventually open the airlock and let the pressure differential suck them all into oblivion.

  Lewis stuck his tongue out at the driver as he plopped down next to Jamal. “It’s yours. I got it back from Dr. Seal when he wasn’t looking.”

  “Thanks, man.” Jamal propped the soccer ball up under his arm and returned to staring out the window. His fog-drawing had disappeared.

  “Are you ready for the brat?”

  Jamal shrugged and sighed, “No.”

  “It wouldn’t be any better if it was a brother. When my parents brought Duke home I thought it’d be awesome. That we could play catch and pull pranks and stuff. He just gurgled all day and threw up on my favorite blanket. Babies suck.”

  “But eventually she won’t be a baby. She’ll be a girl. And then what?”

  The possibilities horrified him, vague as they were.

  When he got home he was surprised to see his aðon and pabbi there by themselves. No baby. His hopes rose for a moment. Maybe they’d changed their minds. Maybe they weren’t going to get a baby after all.

  His pabbi kicked that fantasy out from under him. “We thought you’d like to come,” he explained. “We rescheduled for tomorrow and excused you from class.”

  “We didn’t want you to feel left out,” said his aðon from the bedroom. She was changing out of her work jumper.

  He didn’t feel left out, but he wanted to be left out. If he never had to see his sister it would be too soon. They were making a big, fat, ugly mistake. Why’d they want to go and ruin their perfect family with a sister, huh? Weren’t the three of them enough?

  He dropped his pack in the entryway and slumped over to the dining table. “Can I go visit Diego when he gets off work?” he asked after he sat down, picking at his fingers and swinging his feet.

  “Sure,” said Pabbi. “As long as he says it’s okay. If he’s busy you come right home.”

  Diego was Jamal’s afi’s—his granddad’s—best friend. Jamal would never say so out loud, but he liked Diego better than Afi. Afi only liked old people things, and more importantly, only things right in front of him. He had no imagination.

  Diego, though . . . Diego knew how to dream while still awake.

  Jamal impatiently watched the minutes tick away. Diego’s shift was over at 1600, and he should be back at his cabin no later than 1630. As soon as the last minute rolled over, Jamal was out the door and down the hall to the nearest lift.

  He had to wait a whole ’nother five minutes before Diego got there. Jamal sat in front of the old man’s door, knees up to his chin, feet squirming in his shoes.

  “Que pasa?” Diego squinted at Jamal when he got close. “Someone have a bad day?” He was dressed in the corn-yellow of most Morgan workers. Short and heavyset, but fresh-faced for someone in his sixties, his ruddy wrinkles made him look like he’d been basking in the sun all day, though he hadn’t been anywhere near the artificial Sol of Eden.

  Jamal shrugged, suddenly aware that his complaint might come off as whiny. “How was your day?” he asked politely. Something about being around Diego always made him feel more polite.

  “Fine. Figured how to make the soy processing more efficient. My original designed the system, you know. I just made it better.” Diego opened the door. “I was going to watch a movie this evening,” he said as the lights came on. “You might find it amusing. Coming in?”

  Diego’s quarters didn’t have as many rooms as Jamal’s. He’d said it was because he didn’t need them. “Only one of me. Can’t take up a family cabin anymore. Wouldn’t be right.”

  The place smelled like beans and cheese. Diego checked his slow-cooker (something only food workers typically had) in the kitchenette, then came back to the main sitting and sleeping area. “How’s the new baby? Problems already? If you liked it you wouldn’t be here.”

  “No baby yet,” said Jamal, crossing his arms. “They’re gonna take me with them when they get her.”

  “Ah. That’s nice.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Oh?”

  Jamal shrugged. “Decided I don’t want a sib. ’Specially a sister.” Diego laughed lightly and Jamal took immediate offense. “You, too? You don’t get it. Why doesn’t anyone get it?”

  “I’m not laughing at you, amigo. I’m enjoying the simplicity of your problem, not that it is a problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve figured out how to live in space and investigate cosmic phenomena up close. But we still haven’t figured out how to make a new brother appreciate his sister. I had a sister, you know.”

  “You did? But, you were born on Earth. Was it another clone?”

  The old man shook his head and gestured for Jamal to have a seat. “Nope. My sister was born the old-fashioned way. She did not accompany me on the mission.”

  “What’s ‘the old fashion way’?”

  Diego’s face went blank for a moment, then he waved the question aside. “Never you mind. My point is, I felt the same as you, or at least similar, when I was told I’d be sharing my parents with a girl. Anita. Oh, I hated the idea. I considered running away and abandoning my duties if my mother went through with this whole giving birth thing.”

  Jamal gasped. Abandoning your duty was about the lowest thing a convoy member could do. The thought of it made him sick inside. “You did?”

  “Considered, I said, considered. I didn’t, of course. I stuck it out. The baby was born, came home, and then . . . guess what?”

  Jamal pursed his lips. “What?”

  “I was just as upset with the baby there as I was when she hadn’t been around. But I got over it, eventually. You’ll learn to like being a big brother. You’ll get excited when she learns to walk and talk. But you should never hold her gender against her.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why would you hold anything against someone that they can’t help? You know what that’s called? Prejudice.”

>   “Sounds stupid.”

  “It is stupid. Very stupid. But there was a time and place where your friend Lewis might not have liked you because of the color of your skin, and where someone like my late wife might never have looked twice at a man who spoke a different language than she did.”

  “Everyone on board speaks the same language.”

  “I’ll give you that—at least one, anyway. We try to preserve our heritage, but truth is you’re never going to know what it’s like to be a true British Algerian.”

  “A whah?”

  “British Algerian. That’s what your original was. His father was from Great Britain, his mother from Algeria.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I met him when I was thirty-five—just one short year before we launched.”

  “You did? You never told me that.”

  “He was a good man. Much like you.” He poked Jamal in the ribs. “But not you, you understand?”

  “Well, duh.”

  “What I’m saying is that I’m a clone of a Mexican who chose to give up his very lucrative R&D job in order to join a closed, multicultural compound in Iceland and donate his genetic material to the future. And now I live in a set of tin cans hurtling through space. We’re explorers, Jamal. Astronauts. You’d understand how wonderful that is if you’d been born on Earth . . . Point is, if we can’t leave all that other caca de la vaca behind us, well, what’s it all for then? And how do we honor our unique position in humanity’s history?”

  “Through loyalty, efficiency, and dedication,” Jamal recited.

  “Yes, but also through understanding. Living in a convoy means we’re rubbing elbows left and right. We have to look at what ties us together. As soon as we start disliking each other for our little differences it’ll all go to pot. There’s nowhere to run, you see? You’re stuck with everyone on board. Might as well be nice to them, might as well appreciate them.”