Peter David - After Earth

A parsec, she recalled, was a measure for the speed of light, how far it would travel over one hundred years, and it still sounded like an impossible distance.

Lily then realized she was being spoken to, but her mind had wandered and she looked around wide-eyed to see who had addressed her.

“Sorry, ma’am,” she said to Levy.

“So polite,” the older woman said, winking at Paul. “Nice job.”

“What were you asking me?”

“I asked about leaving home. Where were you?”

“Connecticut,” she said.

“Was it hard?”

Was it hard having a chance to live when she knew everyone she left behind—grandmother, cousins, friends, teacher, priest, and so many others—were being left to die a horrible death? Was it hard knowing that her parents received death threats from the jealous neighbors when their carefully guarded secret was leaked?

Damned right it was hard.

It felt impossible. Their carefully weighed and measured belongings had to be shipped ahead, and they were expected in Antarctica within forty-eight hours of departure. In between there were hours spent filling out additional details on the Web, physicals at the military base up in Groton, and determining what they would take. Her dad drove everyone nuts trying to scan and digitize everything they owned—diplomas, schoolwork, family records, whatever. Her mom was a pack rat and had generations of family memorabilia and old print photos that she swore she would one day scan and organize. Now it was being done hastily and she, along with her brothers, were pressed into service.

Max’s pal Lou was unable to keep the terrible secret and when word got out it was hard. There were tears. Lots of tears. Everyone was cozying up to her at home and at school. She got stares, and the family had to turn down requests for interviews. Everything about The Departure was being handled through Project Next Generation, and it was a hassle to gain permission to speak to the press so they routinely said no, ending the discussion.

Her friends, the boys and girls she grew up with, were upset. Why did she get to live and they to die? Some insisted on spending lots of time together, and boys begged her for sex, hoping she’d get pregnant and thinking they would have to let the new father come along. That was tough. She was just thirteen when they got word, and her changing body was just one more nuisance to deal with. Instead, Lily shut down, limiting her time with friends and keeping to the ones she knew and trusted the most.

The extended family wanted their share of the Carmichaels, too. A last chance to tell stories and give them their own mementos for scanning and preservation. Lily could just imagine how many terabytes of material were being collected from families around the world. In her global studies class, she knew there were still parts of Asia and Africa that lacked the technology for such preservation. How much was being lost?

“Yeah,” she said, summing it all up in one word.

“I left behind an ex-husband, two adult children, and my dachshund. So, Lily, you’re far from alone.”

Lily looked at her with fresh eyes.

“Your own children?”

The woman nodded, her eyes starting to tear up. “One’s a museum curator, the other’s a hairdresser. Not exactly high demand jobs on a spaceship. We’re the lucky ones.”

Lily was tired of that phrase. She had been dubbed a “lucky one” ever since Lou spilled the secret, but despite being named a traveler, she didn’t feel lucky. Instead, she felt incredibly sad. She was leaving behind friends and the future she had dreamed about. There was comfort in all five members of the family traveling together; it was incredibly difficult to say good-bye to so many and so often. There were endless parties, sleepovers, chat sessions, and more as the months became weeks then days. Her mom insisted the final week be as family-centric as possible, with just Nana, Paul’s mother, visiting. This way they could hope to just slip away.

Their personal departure was anything but easy. A military transport, protected by three Rangers, arrived in the wee hours of the morning, waking up the neighborhood. As burly men in gray jumpsuits loaded their approved belongings in the rear, the family wandered the house, taking it all in one final time.

Paul shut the door behind them and automatically locked it, which seemed silly since no one was going to take the house. There was little sense for those left behind to move anywhere. There was no escaping the inevitable death that awaited those left behind.

Lily was raised knowing that Earth began rebelling against its inhabitants in the decades before she was born, prompting the plan to evacuate the planet. But despite the best planning by Project Next Generation, they kept losing time. There were now massive storms with great regularity. School was repeatedly being switched to online mode when it grew too dangerous to leave the house. There were shortages that had led to governments falling and people starving. Connecticut was a fortunate location, but even they felt the deprivation.

Creating the United Ranger Corps helped restore some confidence in the crazy scheme to save as much of mankind as was possible. The Rangers were established just when her older brother was little, but she could sense everyone around her exhaling, as if they had been bottling up all this tension and could finally let it out. Not that they were great wizards and could make things better, but they certainly allowed the arks to be built and they were there to make certain her family and all the others could get to ships stationed at various locations around the globe.

Flying over the frigid white land, she immersed herself in the sensations and sights, taking in its stark features and imagining what it must have been like before the shipbuilding began. She knew from her third-grade teacher that it had been the stuff of legend. Mrs. Griffin made it sound magical, but now it was like everywhere else: filled with trucks, rails, planes, and row after row of gantries where the various ships waited. There had been an orientation vid presentation when they arrived at the staging area in Florida before the Americans were taken away from their nation for the last time. A three-dimensional program showed how each transport ship would take up an orbital position, and then all would fly toward one another in a space ballet, coming together and slowing their momentum just enough so they could link up, forming the grand ark.

This odd celestial dance was going to take place five times, following the success of the Exodus launch. A few months before, it was the first to make this attempt and it went off flawlessly. She remembered watching it late one night, holding her breath. She lost count of the number of spacecraft that came together like one of Zach’s toys and formed a colossal singular vessel. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked. The Exodus successfully cruised to the edge of the solar system and back. The ship even fired up its Lightstream engine at the edge of the system to ensure all worked according to plan, and then it returned to near Earth orbit where it patiently waited for the other five to catch up.

Before the sun rose tomorrow, something like a thousand ships would start to launch. Within days they would form the arks, and the fleet would travel together. Earth would shrink on the viewscreens, diminishing in size but looming large in their hearts.

Lily felt her own eyes grow wet and hot, as the enormity of this moment settled over her.

She looked ahead, blinking away the tears, and saw the Espérer grow larger. They were nearing the entrance to the point where she could make out the Rangers at the entrance. Zach and Max were talking animatedly to the people around them, but her mother was silent, staring ahead, ignoring the conversation before and behind her.