Racers of the Night: Science Fiction Stories by Brad R. Torgersen (39 page)

Kevin said they finally got it fixed. But he looked scared.

I asked him why.

He said that if the thing that hit us—a rock the size of a softball—had been any bigger, or going any faster, it might have penetrated all the way through to the center. And then we’d have had a
real
problem. Somebody could have even been hurt, or killed.

Leah wanted to know why we don’t just turn on the deflectors.

That made Cassie smile. She said deflectors only exist in movies and on shows. Real astronauts can’t flip a switch and be safe. Real astronauts have to always be ready for the worst.

Audio Journal Transcript: Day 888

It’s triple-eight day.

Kevin and Cassie said that means it’s a holiday for us. No work. Just play. Though I am getting kind of tired of video games and puzzle contests with the others. So I decided to build a kite. Even though there are no parks to fly it in. I spent all day on it, using some plastic sheeting and thin, hollow tubes from the ship’s stores. It’s a big one, with a tail. When we get to where we’re going, I think it will fly well. Until then, I am going to just keep it under my bunk in my cabin.

I went down to look at my parents again.

It’s as if no time has passed for them at all.

I can definitely tell time’s passed for me.

I’m a lot taller than I was when I came onboard, and not nearly so round. I’ll be eleven in a few months. Kevin has pulled me aside a couple of times to warn me—man to man—that things are going to start changing soon. I think Cassie gave Leah the same talk. Leah and I rode the Intra-Ship Transit up to the big room just under the bow shield—where we can be alone when we want—and we talked about it. We both agree, it’s got something to do with making babies.

The birds and the bees, my Papa would call it.

I didn’t believe my Papa when he told me about the birds and the bees the first time. But now that I am a little older, I think I am starting to believe him. Enough so that I wonder if Kevin and Cassie do the birds and the bees when they are in their cabin together. Is it fun? I wonder.

Speaking of birds and bees, Leah is getting very curious about our new planet. Will there be animals? Kevin seems sure that there will be. Cassie disagrees, and thinks that if there are animals, they might only be in the water. Or they might be microscopic, like the cells Cassie has shown me under the medical lab computer scope.

The astronomers think Delta Pavonis is older than the Sun. So old that Delta Pavonis is just starting to move into its red giant phase. I asked Cassie what that means and she said that all stars burn hydrogen, a lot like the motor for the
Osprey,
but when a star is very old, it runs out of hydrogen and starts to change.

Like me and Leah, I guess. We’re going to change too.

Audio Journal Transcript: Day 1,000

I can’t believe it’s been one thousand Earth days since we left home.

And yet we’re still so far away from Delta Pavonis that it still looks just like all the other stars in space. No bigger. We know which one it is because it’s the star our navigational computer keeps track of every second of every day. We’re aimed right at it. Though Cassie said we’re not going in a straight line. We’re actually following a curved line, because Delta Pavonis and Earth are moving relative to each other. Where Delta Pavonis was when we left home is not where Delta Pavonis is now. And it won’t be where it is now in six months, and not in six years, and not in sixty years. So the computer has to constantly watch, and make small adjustments in our course.

Kevin took me down to the big maintenance bay that has all the space suits and other equipment in it. There are small vehicles and tools and things lined up neatly in racks, or in rows on the walls. He told me he’s making it my job to check the maintenance bay every day, and to make sure everything is in its place. So that when I turn 12 he can assign me to the job of Maintenance Bay Chief.

I told Kevin I didn’t know we had rank on the
Osprey.

Kevin said that Maintenance Bay Chief was a very big, very important job, and that I was the right man for it. Which made me feel very proud. So proud that I went down to the medical bay and told Mama and Papa.

I know they can’t hear me. They look like they’re frozen in time. But I think Papa especially would be glad for me. I am growing up.

Though I wonder if Kroger is growing up?

We’ve been having fights lately. Not kicking or hitting. But yelling and name-calling. Nasty words. Cassie has sent us to our separate cabins several times. She yelled at us during the last one. Probably the first time I can ever remember Cassie getting that mad. I think she is tired of Kroger and I not getting along. But I don’t know what to do? I can’t make Kroger like me. And at this point I don’t even want to try. It would be too much work. I think Kroger will always hate me. I talk wrong, walk wrong, think wrong, my breath smells wrong, everything about me, Kroger doesn’t like. What am I supposed to do about that?

But we’re all stuck with each other.

So Kevin tries to keep Kroger and I working on different stuff in different places. Otherwise he’s afraid things might get serious. Though what he means by
serious
I am not sure.

Audio Journal Transcript: Day 1,500

Being Maintenance Bay Chief is a lot of work. Not only do I have to inventory everything and check the inventory against lists, I have to pull all the parts out on a schedule and check them to make sure they work. Big parts. Small parts. In-between parts. Anything that might break, has to be inspected. And Kevin’s slowly been showing me how to do this, so that I can make sure that all of the space suits and maneuvering units are in order, along with all of the winches and one-man extravehicular sleds. Everything we need any time someone has to go outside, especially to fix something.

It made me nervous, at first.

But Kevin’s been very patient about showing me.

He says it’s one of the most important jobs.

Right up there with Nuclear Reactor Chief.

Which is Molly’s job.

Cassie says that in a couple of years, we will each rotate jobs. And then, in a couple of years after that, we’ll rotate again. And so on. Until each of us—all of the kids—have learned how to do essentially everything on the
Osprey
that needs doing. In case the adults get sick or hurt or even killed, and we have to run things. Maybe even all the way to the end of the trip.

Kevin thinks the estimate of 80 Earth years, one-way travel time, is still more or less accurate. I told Kevin that I didn’t want to be an old man by the time we got to our new planet. I also told him that I thought it wasn’t fair for them to keep four kids awake, just to train them to do all the jobs, so that the adults could sleep peacefully in stasis.

Kevin laughed, and reminded me that just like when we switch jobs, people would be switching in and out of stasis too. Like taking turns. So that if everything went as planned, by the time each of us arrived at the new planet, we’d be roughly the same age, biologically. Which made me think for a minute. Do I want to be the same age as my parents when they wake up? That idea seems very strange to me. Will I still know them like I knew them when we left Earth? Will they know
me?
I couldn’t get this question out of my head today, so as always, I went down to the medical bay and I looked at the rows and rows of stasis beds, and I thought about how different everything is becoming as I get older.

Kevin has been right about one thing.

My body is getting ready for the birds and the bees.

And so is Leah’s, and Molly’s.

They’re each getting bumps under their shirts, and their butts are wider. Leah even told me about how Cassie sat Leah and Molly down and had a very serious talk with them about something called
that time of the month.
Leah says she and Molly are going to bleed. Out of the same place where they pee! I said Leah was trying to be funny, but she wasn’t smiling. She seemed as unhappy about the idea as I did. And when I cornered Kevin and demanded to know the truth, he said it was fact: once a month, girls bleed from their vaginas.

I think Leah wants very badly not to believe it.

I don’t blame her. If I had blood coming out of my penis once a month, I don’t know what I’d do.

Audio Journal Transcript: Day 2,500

We all got shots today. All of us teenagers.

Kevin says it’s a nodule designed to slowly dissolve in our blood over the course of the year, and that next year, each of us will need to get another one. It doesn’t hurt. But Leah and I are pretty sure it’s supposed to keep us from getting pregnant.

Not that Leah and I have … done it. You know.

Kroger and Molly? I think they’ve done it a few times. Cassie and Kevin have told us over and over that it’s a mistake to have sex at our age, but those injections today tell me that Cassie and Kevin aren’t taking any chances. There’s only so many resources to go around. The hydroponics farms and waste recyclers can only handle a certain number of people being awake at any given time. Introducing a baby into the environment at this point would be a very bad idea. Which is why Cassie finally admitted to me that this is why she’s never had a child the whole time we’d been underway. Because she doesn’t dare risk it.

I asked her if she wants to have a baby when we get to the new planet. She said she hopes she can have many babies. She said that all of the women, including Leah and Molly, are going to need to have as many babies as they can stand. To ensure that there are enough people in the first generation to survive what might come.

I asked Kevin if he thinks something bad might happen when we land. He said that nobody can say for sure because nobody has any idea what the new planet is like. There could be storms or earthquakes or tsunami or even diseases that kill people. Settling on the new planet is going to be hard, often dangerous work.

I’ve had to do a lot of thinking about that. I’m old enough now that I can handle any tool onboard. But there are no guns. Why don’t we have any guns?

Cassie told me that guns were strictly forbidden. There would be absolutely no need for them, and she was glad to have gotten away from guns on Earth, because guns were a big part of what made life on Earth scary for her.

I’m not so sure Cassie’s right. I’ve been looking at the fuzzy images of our new planet and wondering what might live in those endless forests on all those endless islands. I’ve gone through the computer libraries and seen all the images of all the dinosaurs from Earth’s prehistoric past. If anything even remotely like a dinosaur—especially the carnivorous kind—lives on our new world, we’re probably going to need all the rifles we can get. Hell, we’ll need rocket launchers.

There are machining and milling workstations connected to the maintenance bay. I’ve looked at some of the cylindrical steel stock we have onboard. Could it be drilled out? And cut with grooves inside? What could we use for propellant? And bullets?

A long-term project, I’ve decided. But definitely something for me to look into, though it won’t make Cassie happy if she finds out. So I’d better keep it quiet.

Audio Journal Transcript: Day 3,650

Ten years, trip time.

I’ve now spent more of my life on this ship, than I did on Earth.

I’m really hoping I get to fly that kite under my bed some day.

Kevin and Cassie have literally taught us everything we need to know about the
Osprey
and its operations. We know how to use the tools and equipment to do repairs, how to use the spacesuits and the maneuvering units outside. I’ve even gone out with Kevin to patch holes. One last year, and two more this year. Cassie thinks we must be passing through a debris field. This is the Oort Cloud after all. We’re not even an eighth of the way to Delta Pavonis, and nobody knows how thick the Oort Cloud really is. Light-years thick?

There may be more holes to come. I’ve been out on top of the bow shield. It’s riddled with divots from all the dust and larger junk that’s been in our way all this time.

Kevin and Cassie will be going to sleep soon, and two of the other adults will be woken up. There will be a year of overlap with the new adults. Just to be sure that stasis has not harmed them physically or mentally, and that both of them are capable of taking on their respective jobs. Then Leah, myself, Molly, and Kroger will go to sleep, and the adults will wake up four new kids, and the process will begin all over again.

Audio Journal Transcript: Day 3,787

Ben and Laura are older than Kevin and Cassie were when the voyage began. Ben was an military man back in his day. He’s big, and has a beefy body. First thing he went to look at was the Osprey’s gym. I take it he’s going to be spending a lot of time in there.

I told him about how I’d been pretty chubby as a little kid, but that using the gym has shaped me up. Ben seemed to like that, and I liked giving him a tour of the ship while Molly gave Laura a tour. Not that these new adults don’t know the Osprey from memory. They do. It’s just that knowing a thing—static—is different from knowing a thing real-time. The
Osprey
is 99.8% the same ship she was when she left Earth orbit. But there have been little adjustments and modifications along the way. Small and occasionally subtle, but also important, differences in how stuff operates. Such that Ben and Laura are having to go through a bit of a train-up cycle of their own, before us first-run kids get to take our turns in stasis, and the next batch gets woken up for duty.

Which is what I’ve realized the last ten-plus years have actually been: duty. I didn’t sign up for it, and there have been many mornings when I’ve laid in my bunk and stared at the ceiling and resented the fact that no matter how much I don’t
want
this, I’m stuck with it.

I’ve become especially annoyed with the fact that there are no women. At least not women I could maybe call my
girlfriend.

I’ve known Leah and Molly so long, we’re sort of sick of each other. And while I do think Molly and Kroger were boinking each other for awhile, I believe that got old pretty quickly, so that they’ve each gone back to being celibate again.