Becoming Chosen

There can only be one name for our huge, beautiful, complex ship. The Resolute. It says everything about this mission. It has taken resolve to build it. It will take our resolve to establish the two cultures we need. It will take the resolve of crews to stick to the path laid out for them. And finally, it will take a great deal of resolve to leave the only world they have ever known for the planet. The ship must be called the Resolute, because only those who are resolute in their commitment can finish the mission.

-Foster Delhim, Excerpt from his address to the Solar Congress, Sealed Archive

Ronan knew he liked Miri, loved her, in all probability. But in the last few days he had also been in a state of complete awe.

Intensity she had always had, it was one of her most attractive qualities. But this new level of focus she showed as she pushed her plan was scary. Gone was the diffident politician. She no longer had time or patience to wheedle or cajole doubters. Instead she bludgeoned them with the reality of what must be done.

Since the new links to the other habmo’s had been established, she was constantly using the tablets to talk to group after group. She had stopped making them feel good about themselves, and started to stoke their anger.

The two of them had even had a row, when Ronan questioned her tactics. Point by point Miri had demolished his argument, all without raising her voice once. She no longer reminded him of one of the senior officers. Now, she was a Captain.

Others noticed as well. There might have been a few hold outs, but they were overwhelmed by the numbers flocking to her side. She was asking them all to risk their lives, all of the lives of the Chosen. Not only were they willing to do it, they loved her for it. She was playing on their faith, and it was paying her back double.

If this was the kind of person the mixing of Tech and Chosen produced, it was no wonder the Builders could create something like the ship. And it was no surprise that they had kept the two peoples separate all those centuries.

He was hurrying to get her, to once again bring her to an important meeting. The two of them had been sharing the house left empty by the death of Elder Haussmann. It was still strange to Ronan that the Chosen lived in multiple rooms. And he wasn’t even going to start on the idea of each little family cooking and eating by themselves. Some things were just too odd.

“Miri?” he called out as he entered. Ronan figured she was making a few last-minute calls on her tablet. Instead she was sitting at the little wooden table in the main room. “Miri?” he said again as he walked over. As he got closer, her could hear her crying. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know if I can do this,” she said, looking up. Her eyes were red, she hadn’t been crying a short time.

Oh, no! No, no, no! Of all the times for her to become a regular person, this was the worst. He had to do something. But what?

“What do you mean?”

“I mean they are all trustin’ me. They think I’m like one of the Gods, that I can’t fail. Anythin’ I ask them to do, they do. I just finished talkin’ with some of the fighters. Their leader told me he knew we were goin’ to win, because I was on our side.”

Ronan was paralyzed for a minute. Then he started to laugh. At first it was small, but the more he thought about it, the bigger the laugh got. Miri looked at him like he’d lost his mind.

“Sorry, I just realized. You conned everyone, everyone except yourself.”

Miri nodded miserably. This might be harder than he thought.

“Time for you to learn one last Tech lesson. You don’t get to pick your challenges, you only get to pick the way you respond to them.”

“But if I fail, that’s it. We either wind up slaves or everyone is dead. I don’t know if I can do it.”

“You can,” Ronan said simply.

“How do you know that?”

“Because of what you’ve done so far.” Ronan started counting on his fingers. “The first to leave the Chosen. The first to sneak into the Tech. The first to learn about the ship, and be picked to be a bridge. The first to give the Chosen, not just the Elders, but all of them, the truth.”

Ronan sat down across from her and caught her gaze. “Because you are stubborn, and brave, and you never, ever quit. The whole time I’ve known you, you have always found the way forward. Even when it wasn’t obvious to anyone else.”

“No, I just did what seemed best at the time. That’s not bein’ a leader.”

“I can’t think of a better definition. And I’m not the only one.” Ronan waved his hand around. “The Chosen think so too. They are ready to follow you. They’re proud of you.”

“But what if they’re wrong?”

Ronan shrugged. “Then they were wrong. But here’s the thing, right or wrong, you are the one they’ve placed their hopes and faith in. They could have done nothing or had someone else lead them, but they chose you. Now you’re twice Chosen.”

“I don’t know…”

“I do. Because I’ve been in your shoes. When we were on the surface. You trusted me to know what to do. And even though I knew I wasn’t ready, I had to be, for you. When you fainted, I was just about out of my mind, but I couldn’t stop. You were depending on me. Now we’re all depending on you, and you owe it to us to do your best, win or lose.”

Miri looked away. Ronan made the hard choice to keep his mouth shut. It wasn’t like he knew what else to say.

After a minute Miri said, “Best squirrel.”

“Say again?”

“Somethin’ my Da said. And a promise I made. To be the best version of myself. Promise you won’t tell anyone I’m filled with doubt?”

“Never. Like I told your Gran, I am with you.”

“You really are, aren’t you? Why?”

“Because a smart, stubborn, driven woman thinks I’m worth the time of day. I don’t know about you, but that hasn’t happened in my life, ever.”

“I love you,” Miri said a smile breaking out on her face.

“And I love you too. Now it’s time to get out there and make sure Foster Delhim’s dream does not fail.”

“Yes, sir.” Miri said, with a mocking little salute. “Give me a minute to wash my face, then we’ll go and either end or save our world.

By the time Miri walked into the Meeting Hall, no one could tell she’d just gotten over a crisis of confidence. Her face was composed, her step firm.

The waiting Elders all rose to their feet. Ronan was right, they were looking to her to lead them, she couldn’t let them down.

“Are we ready?” Miri asked. They all nodded. “Elder Delhim, would you lead us in a prayer?”

The old man nodded, then bowed his head. Everyone followed his example.

“Gods of Earth, who were our ancestors, give us the strength that we might continue to follow your commands.”

“Gods of Earth, see us,” the room chanted. Delhim looked up and nodded to Miri.

“Let’s take our seats,” Miri said. The Council arranged itself along the table. At the bottom was a camera Ronan had appropriated. He gave Miri’s hand a little squeeze as he sat next to her. “Ronan, place the call,” she ordered.

Soon the screen under the camera lit, and showed a view of the bridge. It gave the impression that Nesbit was sitting at the end of the table.

“Blaylock, I suspected you were among the farmers,” Nesbit said with a sneer.

Miri took a moment to look at her opponent. His bald head nearly gleamed, but she thought that he’d lost weight. The bones of his skull were much more prominent than she remembered. There was also a bruised look to his eyes, though they were still strange, not being under eyebrows.

She didn’t know why, but Miri was sure Nesbit was every bit as frightened as she was. Something reminded her of the way Uncle Fergus looked, that day in her Commitment Patch. Right, then, it was an even match, fear against fear. She could use that. Giving a small sign with her hands, and Ronan initiated the program to spread this conversation ship wide.

“Captain Nesbit, I am the Most Righteous Miri Blaylock, and I speak for the Council of Elders. We have a problem.”

Nesbit’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, you do. You and Candemir murdered Captain Collins. Turn yourselves in now, and things will be as easy as they can be.”

Miri slowly shook her head. “The time for lies is over Captain. We both know you and Ferro killed Collins.”

“Ha!” Nesbit spat. “Is there any evidence to support that? Or is it just the word of two accused fugitives against the Captain of the ship?”

It had been too much to expect him to confess, but Miri had wanted to get their declaration out as soon as possible.

“Very well, the answer to your request is no, we will not be turnin’ ourselves over to you. But let’s leave that aside. There is another problem.” Nesbit started to smile, he thought he had won the round. Time to prove him wrong.

“I am callin’ you to inform you the Chosen, through this Council, requires your immediate resignation.”

Hate filled Nesbit’s eyes. Miri let her own loathing of the man show right back.

“You dirty peasants have no power to demand anything! The Tech control this ship. You are nothing but passengers!”

Miri heard a hiss as several of the Elders sucked in their breath. But his outburst wasn’t going to get to her.

“That is historically and factually wrong,” Miri held up her copy of the Book of Elders. “Have you ever read this, Captain?” She paused for an answer, but Nesbit said nothing. “Or the mission logs, from the launch? No? That’s too bad, because if you had you would know that while the Tech are the Technical Crew, we Chosen, are the Agricultural Crew. That’s right crew. And it is as the largest part of the crew we demand you resign. Even if you were not a murderer, your plan to refurbish the ship and never establish the colony is enough to warrant it.” Now for the line Ronan had said would get under his skin the most. “Damon Nesbit, your plan is against the Way of Maintenance.”

Ami was very weak. Days without food had sapped her of all strength. But when the intercom had come on full blast, with Nesbit’s and Miri’s voices, she had forced herself to sit up.

“Damon Nesbit, your plan is against the Way of Maintenance” Miri’s voice intoned like the condemnation of a god. She made it! Ami’s will had been tested. When that bastard Ferro had beaten her mother and father she had been on the edge of telling him what he wanted to know. Now her resolve was rewarded.

“Stick it to that rust-spot, Miri! Stick it to him good!” she croaked, thrusting a fist in the air.

Throughout the ship people were looking at their work mates. Questions were shouted, and shushed. Everyone wanted to hear what was going on.

“How dare you?” Nesbit thundered. “What do you know of the Way?”

“I know it was created in service of somethin’ greater. Just like the Path of the Chosen. All to allow this ship to travel two hundred light years to a new world. If we don’t finish it, then it is a betrayal of everyone who has ever lived and died in service of that dream.”

Nesbit was struggling to keep his composure. This dirty little bitch couldn’t talk to him like that! He was the Captain. And he wasn’t going to let anyone force him to live in the open, like an animal. Men were obviously destined to live in corridors. Just look at what too much space had done to the farmers.

“What will the other Tech say now that they know the truth?” the smug girl asked.

Damon looked around the bridge. It had taken some work, but he was surrounded by officers personally loyal to him. Good.

“What makes you think they will ever know? So what if you tell some of the weaklings who work in the Town? None of your scum will ever be in the Tech halls ever again.”

“They are hearin’ us now, Captain” Miri said simply.

It didn’t look like bluster. Damon had been in charge of training and disciplining youth for years. Her words had the ring of truth.

He whirled to glare at the Systems Officer. “Is this being broadcast?” he demanded. The officer blanched, and started pulling up data. Her face paled.

“Yes, sir, it is. Ship wide.”

“Damnit! How did they do that? Cut it off!”

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you. Right now, all the Tech know is that there is a threat to the ship, if you cut it short, do you think they will trust you?”

“YOU DON’T TELL ME HOW TO RUN MY SHIP!” Nesbit screamed.

Miri could see the shocked faces of the bridge crew. They were as surprised as her at Nesbit’s lack of control.

Maybe Nesbit was shocked too, because he pulled himself together. He sat back in his chair, and straightened his uniform. “Fine. You want to live like animals, then that is how we will treat you. I will send security to teach you the error of your ways.” Nesbit looked to the side, “Ferro, send your teams to the habitats. Find Blaylock and Candemir. If anyone tries to stop you, kill them.”

If Nesbit expected Miri to be scared, he was going to be disappointed. Whatever doubts she might have had earlier were evaporated in the flame of his hate. She was ready to die rather than live under such a man.

Miri lounged back in her chair. “That won’t work you know. There are ten times as many Chosen as Tech. And I think some of our young folks would be more than glad to put their hands on the people who killed our Elders.” There another important point out in the open. She glanced at Ronan, to see if they had cut off the ship-wide. He shook his head. Not yet. Good.

“We don’t want conflict, Captain. All we want is to finish the mission, create a new world, with our partners, the Tech. But it cannot be with someone like you as Captain. Which is why I now make this threat.”

Miri took a deep breath, it was time. Oh, Gran, I so hope this is what you would do, she thought. “Resign, or the Chosen will kill the ship.”

Nesbit started laughing. It was not a sane sound. “I don’t know why I’ve humored you this far. You can’t do anything from the habmo’s.”

“That is where you’re wrong, Captain,” Miri said. She turned and gave Ronan a sharp nod. He sent the signal. Gods of Earth help me.

“If you would look at the cameras in Habmo1, you will see what we can do.” Miri waited. Nesbit just stared at her.

“Captain!” a voice called from off the screen. “We are showing a massive fire in Habmo1!”

Nesbit blinked, then called up an image on one of his screens. His face paled.

“What did you do?”

“We have set fire to twenty percent of that habmo,” Miri told him, amazed at how steady her voice was. “We have set the Ship Killer lose. You see Captain, food is not all you get from us. The Chosen’s homes are the source of air for the entire ship. One fifth of a habmo is not enough to kill everyone, but you might ask your Life Support Chief how the filters can stand up to that much ash and dust.”

Nesbit looked down at the image on his screen. He had no idea how they had done it, but the far end of Habmo1 was ablaze. The cameras were mounted on the light tube. The picture they showed struck him with terror. More fire than he’d ever seen in his life, and no one was rushing to put it out.

The view from the light-tube camera showed a vast circle of fire, burning fields, houses, barns. The rotation made of the habitat was fast enough that the flames all leaned over, reaching for more and more fuel. Smoke rose, long columns twisted by the rotation, filling the low-gravity center of the habitat with breath choking gases. It looked like a burning eye, staring into his soul.

“It’s a bluff!” Nesbit shouted at the demon child on his screen. “You will die too, and die in fire.”

The girl didn’t even blink. She might as well have been made of stone. “Fire another section,” she said to Candemir. On the screen fires began to consume another fifth of the habitat.

“Captain, you still don’t understand the Chosen. Yes, we will die, horribly, with the rest of the ship. But we have lived for centuries with one charge, preserve the knowledge the Gods gave us, so that we could use it in a new world. If we can’t do that, then there is no reason for us to live at all. Resign, Captain Nesbit.”

Miri watched the man who had caused so much pain, and continued to cause it. She willed him to see reason.

“No, I don’t believe it,” Nesbit said. “You won’t kill yourselves. But even if I am wrong, I would rather die than live in the dirt like you.”

Oh, Gods, it was the situation she feared. But it was too late to back down now. One last chance.

“Very well. Then I speak to the Tech, to the senior officers. We don’t want to die. We don’t want to kill you either. But this man will force that. Startin’ now, and every fifteen minutes after, I will order another section lit. Until Nesbit is removed, this will continue. I beg you, think of your families. Think of your ancestors and what they sacrificed. And think of what we might accomplish together. I wait for your response.” She turned to Ronan, “Light another.”

Chief Anderson looked at the split screen before him. He saw how composed Miri was, and how unhinged Nesbit had become. He punched in a code. Chief Jager’s face appeared instantly.

“Nesbit is endangering the ship, Jason.”

Jager looked twenty years older. “Agreed. I can’t believe it has come to this.”

“Me either, but it is time to act. Bring as many officers as you can, and meet me on the bridge.” Anderson cut the line and ran out of his office.

The halls were filled with panicked crew. He shouted for them to clear the way, but they didn’t listen. Everyone was speaking at the top of their lungs. Cursing under his breath Anderson started shoving people out of the way. He had to get to the bridge before Nesbit pushed Miri into killing them all!

No one spoke, at first. Nesbit had cut the channel, so they were just sitting looking at a dark screen. Fifteen minutes went by. Miri ordered another section fired.

“Will they listen?” Elder Cavanagh asked Ronan.

“I hope so, ma’am. But we can’t stop. If we do, then nothing will happen but our enslavement.”

Miri couldn’t be prouder of him. Even in the face of the Tech’s greatest fear, fire, he was holding strong. She prayed he was right, because unless Nesbit backed down, she was going to be responsible for killing ten thousand people. At least she wouldn’t have to live with the guilt very long.

The next fifteen minutes passed like decades. Miri could see from the faces around her the Elders were having second thoughts. Why couldn’t you have spoken up sooner? She shouted at them in her mind. I would have never taken it this far without their suppor. Now they blame me. Oh, Gran, how could things go so wrong?

Most of the Chiefs had made it to the door of the bridge. They had been demanding entry, but there was no reply. Anderson punched in the code he’d inherited. Never in his wildest dreams had he thought he’d be using it to break into the bridge.

The door slid open, and the Chief’s pressed forward.

“Nesbit, its over!” Anderson shouted.

“Traitors!” shrieked the erstwhile Captain. “Defend me!”

“Stand to!” Anderson bellowed. Maybe half the bridge crew stayed seated.

The fight was chaotic, gray haired men and women struggling with their colleges. But the outcome was never really in doubt. Jager landed a crushing blow on Nesbit’s chin, and he crumpled to the ground.

Anderson had to shake his head to clear the adrenaline. He punched the code for the last tablet called. The main screen lit up, Miri sat beside Ronan, surrounded by the Council of Elders. She didn’t look like the child he’d met just a few weeks ago.

“Chief Anderson,” she said completely composed.

“Most Righteous Blaylock,” Anderson said, “The senior officers have control of the ship. I trust you will refrain from lighting anymore fires?”

“It would be my pleasure, sir.” She turned to Ronan, “Send in the firefightin’ teams. Move them from every habmo. We have to save as much as we can.” Ronan nodded and started talking to the tablet in front of him.

“Can I count on a partnership between the Tech and the Chosen?” Miri asked. Anderson resisted the urge to smile. Candemir had better watch himself, women like this young leader didn’t come along every day.

“Yes, ma’am. Just like the Builders and Gods of Earth planned.”

Everyone was on their feet cheering. Miri was still stunned when someone grabbed her and started kissing. It was Ronan.

He pulled back and looked at her. “We are so going to pair tonight!” he said with a grin. Miri didn’t even notice when the Elders laughed and cheered louder. She was too busy kissing him.

Epilogue

So far to travel. By the time they arrive, and a message comes back, will anyone in the Solar System even remember the people who headed out into the deep dark, gambling everything on the chance of colonizing another planet? I hope so. The dreaming boy part of me has a fantasy that when the message does come, the people who receive it will have found a way to cheat the speed of light, and immediately go to visit their lost cousins. A silly idea, I know. Yet I was constantly told a vast generation ship, traveling at a third of the speed of light for longer than some civilizations existed was a silly idea. Yet here we are. So, I will keep my silly fantasy, and end my days with a smile of hope.

Final entry in the Notebook of Foster Delhim, Sealed Archive

Where did the time go? Miri thought as she stepped out of her house in Habmo3. Twenty-five years since she’d risked everything to save her people, and it seemed like yesterday.

She looked at the green fields of home. So much was the same as she’d grown up with, but there were obvious changes. To start with, it was much more crowed. The fields still stretched to the road and overhead, but now they were dotted with new houses. The Sealed Archive had insisted a successful colony would need more than the ten thousand strong population of the Long Journey.

Where the Chosen and Tech used to only have two children per couple now three, four or even more was becoming the norm. And they would all live much longer than anyone since the Builders. The keys to genetic longevity had been in the Archive as well.

Turning towards the road, Miri went by a small field. There was a broad-shouldered young man turning the soil with a hoe. He was shirtless and his back gleamed with the sweat of his efforts.

“About done, Foster?” Miri asked.

The boy stopped, turned, then pushed his sweat slick hair out of his eyes. He was the image very image of his father at that age.

“Maybe, Mum. I’m not sure I did a good enough job. I might have to start over.”

Miri grinned, if only Uncle Fergus were alive to see what kind of Chosen she’d raised. “Take it from one of the Most Righteous; its good enough. Why don’t you join your friends?” Miri pointed up at the brightly colored hang-gliders doing impossible things in the low gravity near the light tube. Another change.

Foster grinned, and threw down his hoe. He was running to the house before she could even laugh.

Miri’s data-set beeped.

“Go,” she said to the little box.

“We’re all set up, are you coming?”

“Rust and ruin, why does it have to be me, you’re the Captain?”

“If you didn’t want to do this kind of thing, you should never have faced down Nesbit,” Ronan’s voice told her, unsympathetically. He was the only one who dared tease her like that these days. She prayed he never stopped.

“On my way.”

It was a good thirty-minute trek to the elevator, and Miri had looked forward to it, to settle her nerves, if nothing else. But when a team testing a motorized cart stopped to offer her a ride, she really couldn’t refuse. Like so many things they would use on the planet, the design came from the Archive. But neither the Tech nor the Chosen were willing to just take the Builders word for something. Every bit of new technology had to be tested and tested again.

The wheels hummed along the road, moving them at thirty miles an hour. The fields and barns rushed by in a blur. Miri smiled a bit. It was nicely ironic that someone who had lived most of her life at a third of light speed would be made nervous by moving at a few tens of miles an hour.

“So, what is the verdict? Will this design do?” Miri asked the woman driving.

“Aye, it’s a nice piece of work. But there are so many parts! I think we’ll need them, but I doubt they will ever replace a good solid wagon and a team of horses.”

The man who was taking readings on his tablet looked up and grinned. “She always talks like that. As if the Gods of Earth gave the Chosen the best technology, instead of just making sure there was a baseline to improve upon.”

“You can always tell someone born of the Tech,” the woman shot back. “They think anythin’ without a machine involved is worthless. I hear that includes pairin’.”

Miri joined the woman in a laugh, while the man sputtered and tried to recover some dignity. She didn’t know, but she suspected the two of them might be involved. They certainly bantered like Ronan and her.

The pair dropped Miri off near the elevator, then turned their cart around and started back to the Far End, still quipping back and forth about technology, powered and unpowered.

Stepping out into the wheel of the Town, Miri hoped to make a fast crossing, but it was not to be. Anna was waiting for her, leaning where Farhi, Solange and she had watched the cows being moved so long ago.

“I don’t have any time,” Miri said, trying to forestall whatever it was her friend wanted. “The Captain will be upset if I am late.”

“I’m sure you can make it up to him in the bedroom,” Anna drawled. Miri had to grin. From the minute they’d met her, Anna had been on her about sex with Ronan. There was a huge amount of change these days, but some things would remain constant forever. “Besides, he’ll like this news too. Young Anita has made the list for the first landings.”

Miri’s face broke into a wide, toothy smile. “She did? Which crew?”

“She’s slotted on primary for flight one,” Anna answered, with a smile of her own. Miri’s daughter had talked of nothing but being among the first to fly down to the new world since she was knee-high. Everyone said her single-minded dedication to the goal reminded them of her mother. Though Miri herself couldn’t see it. Pride, tinged with a mothers worry flooded through her.

“Well, that is something I can use to put the Captain off,” Miri agreed.

Anna shook her head, “You said that wrong. You need to focus on getting’ the Captain off, not puttin’ him off.”

Miri gave the eyeroll Anna obviously wanted. “When will you be postin’ the results?”

“This afternoon. I thought I’d give you the chance to tell her yourself.”

Miri considered it for a minute. It would make her daughter ecstatic, but there were other considerations. “No, just post it like you would if it were anyone else. There’s goin’ to be some grumbling about who her parents are as it is.”

“As you like. But I’ll post the test scores as well. That ought to keep too many mouths from runnin’. Anita scored perfect on two landin’s in a row. She has the slot because she’s the best we have.”

“Thanks, Anna, but I really do have to go.”

“Of course, but don’t forget that we have a meeting with the civil engineering committee this afternoon.”

Miri raised a hand in surrender and turned away.

The door of the elevator to the Tech levels whisked shut. It brought up bittersweet memories of Ami. One of the very first changes made to the ship had been the increased door speed she had worked out.

The debate about changing anything had been fierce. For all their willingness to follow the road laid out by the Builders, the older generation of Tech had been strongly resistant to giving up the habits of a lifetime. But Ami had won the day with the very reasonable point that the newly revealed mission plan included large scale changes, so why not start with something small, like faster closing doors?

There had always been a little tension between Ami and her, what with Ami’s unresolved love for Ronan. But she had been such a staunch advocate for reasonable change, her loss still haunted Miri.

When the number seven main engine malfunctioned, she, Chief Jager and four others had never hesitated. They rushed into the Void, braving the radioactive hell of the engines, knowing there was no chance of surviving it. They saved the ship and everyone in it that day. Miri had often thought Ami was heroic, the way she had held out against Ferro and Nesbit, but never told her so. And now it was too late.

The elevator came out of the metal sheath, revealing the Habitat Cavern in all its glory. The cavern was much more crowded these days. The formerly empty space now thronged with activity.

Miri saw one of the two miniature space-planes maneuvering, making a slow rotation around its axis. The amazing machines looked like stretched, white triangles, with black squares of the windows as the only contrast. Pricks of blue-green flame appeared on the fuselage, as the pilot took the spin off.

The other was on the inner surface of the cavern. If she squinted Miri could just make out the team practicing loading. Old Chief Anderson was probably out there haranguing the youngsters about having a proper respect for the Breath Sucker.

Miri wondered if her daughter was in the cockpit of either of the spaceplanes. If not, it was a safe bet she was monitoring the activities or in the simulator. She never seemed happy unless she was working with the cutting-edge technology. Like father, like daughter.

Sitting in a seat on the transport tram, Miri could hear quite murmuring behind her. She could only make out her name, but she knew what the group of teens was saying. It was something to the effect of “that’s her!”. If there was one thing she would never get used to it was that everyone on the ship knew her by sight, but she didn’t, couldn’t with the population approaching twenty-thousand, know all of them. It felt unbalanced to her. But whenever she brought it up, she found none of her friends were the least bit sympathetic. Yes, she’d done things that made her famous and important, but it wasn’t like it was a grand plan or anything. Really, she’d just done the next thing she thought needed to be done, then the next, and the next. Anyone could do it, it was just luck it was her.

The kids got off at their stop, all of them taking a chance to say good morning to her as they left. Miri thought she’d have a few minutes to gather her thoughts, but then two of the Fuel Production Crew sat across from her, and spent the rest of the trip pitching their idea for using the accelerator rings to make any elements that might be hard to find on the planet. It was an interesting idea, but Miri insisted they follow the procedure and take it to the Space Committee. It made her feel old, the way that so many people wanted to just jump in without thinking everything through. And that thought made it even worse! Soon she’d sound like Elder Delhim, with his “youngsters don’t follow the Path” talk!

Finally, she flew down the newly cut hallway. Conscious, as always, of the example she had to set, she kept her speed slow and steady. If she didn’t follow the rules, there would be fifty broken arms and legs from over-eager youngsters forgetting that while you didn’t weigh anything at the center of rotation, you still had mass. A brief smile crossed her face, thinking of how her younger self had to learn this lesson the hard way.

The fight about drilling through the Forward Shield and creating an observation lounge had been epic. It was as close as the ship had come to reigniting the differences that nearly killed them all as Miri ever wanted to come. In the end, the compromise was made. The lounge would be built, but not with the Nanotech from the Archive. It had been used to build the Resolute, but the dire warnings that came at the front of that section of the Archive had been more than enough for her to say no to its use. Someday they would be ready for that kind of power, but not anytime soon. And Miri would make damn sure it was never used where it could endanger the ship or her people. Say true.

She floated into the lounge. Cut into the mile-thick ram that had protected the ship from micro-impacts, was now a ten-yard diameter faceted circle of a material the Archive called Construction Diamond. The faceted lens was almost perfectly clear, the only way to tell it was there was the way light from the lounge occasionally caught a pane.

On the far side, the Great Void was no longer empty. A huge blue marble, marked with brilliant white clouds and brown landmasses rotated in stately silence around the perimeter as the ship turned on its axis. Putting the ship in an orientation and orbit that allowed the new world to be viewed like that had driven the Nav team to distraction, but if you were going to make an announcement like this, you needed the proper background. Or at least that’s what the Ship Council had said.

The Captain and the recording crew were fussing with the holo-recorder. Miri was sure Captain Collins would have frowned at the way Ronan was working with his own hands, but the last Captain had a different view of things.

After a few more minutes of set up, Miri floated in front of it, and Ronan said “Recording.” She was on.

“Hello Earth! This is the Starship Resolute callin’.” Miri looked over her shoulder at her future home. “As you can see, we made it. We don’t know if you remember us, but we remember you.” Miri looked back to the cameras.

“It will be more than eight hundred years since we left, by the time this message reaches you. Even if you don’t remember our mission, we owe it to those who went before to let you know it worked.”

She paused. She thought about everything that had happened to her. It nearly made her forget her lines. Then she disciplined her mind.

“All the records of our trip, along with the original plans, are part of this message. It is our hope that if you haven’t already, you can use it as a template for other ships. I won’t be here, but we hope at some point you come and see what we have created.”

Miri cocked an eyebrow, “If you don’t, well, don’t be surprised if some descendent of ours shows up on your doorstep, eventually.

“For now, we just say thank you. Thank you for the technology your ancestors used to make our ship. Thank you for the efforts of thousands who stayed behind. The effort was not in vain.”

Miri took a breath. “More will follow, as we go down to the planet. A new adventure for us all.” She paused, then smiled the sunny smile of her fifteen-year-old self. “For now, this is Miri Blaylock-Candemir, Colony Administrator for Delhim Colony. Come see us!”