Чарли Андерс - Six Months, Three Days, Five Others

Okay, whatever. I’ve heard what they say about his election. I have no clue, and probably neither did he. He thought he won fairly. I have no clue. None. It’s funny, I knew nothing of any of this until I turned eighteen. He sat me down and told me the whole story, in one afternoon. And then he died a few years later, and I finally got out of here, long enough to buy some historical fibrespecs. I didn’t know what people were saying about him until he died. It’s funny, he never knew quite how much he was hated, but he also totally missed out on the whole “Jando wasn’t so bad” backlash.

No, you can’t hear it. I told you, it’s a shitty song. Jesus. Plus how do I know you won’t record it? Fuck you, man. It’s bad enough I have to do this interview in the first place. You do know how to fix my generator, right? That’s the only reason I let you down here. And you already promised in writing not to tell anyone where I am.

Yes, you could say I’m sheltered. I mean, I grew up in a fucking bunker. So yes. Sheltered.

The generator’s over here. You can work on it while we talk.

Actually, he was a really gentle person. I mean, I don’t have much to compare him to as parents go. But those historical fibrespecs I watched were the first I ever heard of his “dark side.” I know that part of him always wanted to go face his critics and stand trial for his crimes and stuff. But he wanted to protect me.

You’d better work fast if you want to be able to catch my reaction to the first images. That generator’s pretty fucked up. It could totally give out just as the ship touches down. Fuck, I keep using the present tense. Even though it’s not the present, it’s the past, and it’s taken this long for the light to reach us.

I suck at math, sorry. But I think so. Twenty years ago? The ship landed. On “Free Land.” Or else it crashed. Or got shot down by natives we didn’t know were there. Hah. Of course, the crew of the ship were the best and brightest of every culture, so they probably didn’t crash. But you never know, right? They could have gone crazy, cooped on that ship for a few months, their time.

Didn’t I just say I sucked at math? I have no clue. It was like twenty eight, twenty nine years our time, a few months their time. Or something. Maybe it was a few years their time. Part of the benefit of the Suicide Drive.

No, I won’t play you that song. I don’t even know where it is. Stop asking.

My dad definitely didn’t come up with the name Suicide Drive, he hated that name. That’s what his opponents called it. And it wasn’t actually suicidal, right? I mean, we’re all still here?

Okay, so we’re not all still here.

I think those figures are inflated. They’re disputed, anyway.

Yes.

No.

No, not at all.

I’m not being deliberately obstructive. I’m answering your questions. It’s just that some of them I don’t have much to say to. No, don’t stop working on the generator. I’ll answer fully. Right. Fuck you too.

It’s just that you seem kind of biased. Yes, I get that. That’s why my dad hid away. Yes, I get that everyone lost someone. Even me. No, I meant my mom.

I don’t know how to answer that. I can’t speak for my dad, I really can’t. And he addressed all that stuff in his farewell speech.

You can stop working on the generator if you want. But we’re supposed to be able to see the landing in like half an hour, and we won’t see squat here unless you fix it by then.

Okay then, here’s my interpretation based on my knowledge of dad. He took a bunch of logical turns, small steps that each made sense, and ended up at an extreme conclusion. I didn’t say insane, I said extreme. Don’t forget Australia. A whole continent, just gone. And my dad could see nothing ahead but more of the same. He inherited an environment that was already fucked, even without the Suicide Drive.

You know. I mean, supposedly it takes an infinite amount of energy to travel faster than light. And the energy needs increase exponentially the closer you get to light speed. You can’t cheat Einstein. And there was Free Land, so close we could practically spit on it.

No, I wouldn’t agree with that. We were probably doomed on this planet before the Suicide Drive, and we were still probably doomed on it afterwards. You never know, a tiny fraction of the population may survive. But the plagues, the weather events, the accidents, those dumb genocidal wars… those were already happening. People had been saying for a long time that we needed to establish a presence off-world. The difference was the Suicide Drive made it possible.

I don’t know if my dad was insane. Sanity is pretty situational, isn’t it? I mean, if you dropped any of us into the Middle Ages, they’d think we were insane. Good point. We may soon get a chance to find out.

I think he was pretty clear on the difference between being a rock star and being Prime Minister of Europe. Yes, I know people thought he was a joke originally. Pretty expensive joke.

I think he knew that. He would have held elections eventually.

He never wanted to “take over the world.” You’re just trying to yank my chain. I know what you want, you want a money quote. You want me to denounce my dad. Or you want me to say something freaky in his defense. I’m not playing.

No. I’m not being defensive. I feel like you’re trying to provoke me. And watch it, you’ll electrocute yourself. Are you really an electrician? “Used to be” isn’t the same thing. What was it, a summer job? Jesus.

You’re probably right about my social skills. What did you expect?

Twenty minutes until planetfall. Hopefully not “fall” in the literal sense. How’s it coming along there?

There’s vindication and then there’s vindication. If they land safely, that’s one thing. A month from now, we can see if they’re building settlements. A year from now, we’ll know if they survived their first winter on Free Land. We think the winters are mild there, right? We think.

Right. Worst case scenario, they crash. Or die out. And then the human race finishes committing suicide on Earth, and we’re extinct. And it’s my dad’s fault.

It’s been more than fifty years and nobody’s come up with an alternative to the Suicide Drive yet. That was my dad’s biggest fear, you know. That twenty years later, someone would discover a way of propelling a city-sized vessel at near-light speed that didn’t… well, you know.

Who knows what would have happened? The environment was already fucked up. Most people already lived in poverty. The only difference was all the resources were going into a project to help save the human race, instead of building toys for the rich. Nobody’s ever proved that slave labor was used.

No, I feel like you want me to defend my dad. You’re pushing me towards that. Of course I feel ambivalent. How could I not? Yes, I’ve seen it. I’ve been outside a bunch of times, remember?

If you quote me in your article as saying part of me hates my dad, I will sue. I don’t even care if that costs me my privacy forever. I will flay you in court and make you eat your own skin.

I don’t see any irony. It wasn’t just Europe forcing the rest of the world to take part. There was Bolivia and Canada. And. And Japan, what was left of it. It wasn’t a re-run of colonialism, more like a coda. Right, a music metaphor. Huh.

Some of those people would have died anyway. You can’t take the entire number of deaths from those years and blame them all on my dad. That’s a statistical fallacy. Oh look, here’s his guitar solo from “Running In Place.”

You know, mostly he was a dad to me. He read to me when I was little, he sewed my clothes and shit. Well, we didn’t have clothing for every age of child down here, so he had to adapt stuff. No sewing machine. He sewed by hand. I figured out recently he made my footie pajamas out of his old sash of office. Now I mostly wear his old clothes. He taught me math and science, and what little I know of music. He encouraged me to become an artist—you haven’t even asked to see my art, by the way. He kept me safe from the shadows. He never seemed paranoid or haunted, just, I don’t know, withdrawn sometimes. Sorry to disappoint you. His last two decades were peaceful, like swimming in shallow water.