The Seed

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Yet, it’s not the screams that worry you once you’re out in the void. The empty black sea that stretches out between the islands of light, the inhabited systems sit like islands in that sea. The feeds from those worlds stretch out over the dark waves, light from a lighthouse, beckoning travelers’, who have not strayed too far from shore, home.

Once you’re out beyond the fringes, out past the light and the break waters, out in the deep, where the silence rules over all things. There the feed dies, and you are left with what you bring with you. The distractions you pile upon your back, like a shell to protect you from your thoughts. It lasts for a while, perhaps years, but eventually you reach an end to its protection.

Mission rules limit the use of ship resources to necessities and seeing as the crew was given a generous allowance of personal items, entertainment was not viewed as a necessity. Without the novelty of new things, you reach a point where you trade with others for books, vids, anything to pass the time. Then you try to make connections, though sooner or later the conversations become the same, the books have all been read, the movies watched, even intimacy begins to chafe. Leaving behind the only mystery left, the mystery that lies within each of us.

He lay on a sofa in the galley while thinking about who he was. The pop-up lamp in the center of the table cast a soft, muted glow into the rooms ever present gloom. About the edges, on counter tops, doors, the ceiling, and even the walls, display screens showed dim readouts. They reminded him of star gazing as a child. Though better in a way even if these stars were false. Here he was warm, and the soft burbling noise of the coffee maker giving way to the hiss of water falling into the pot promised a warm brew to rejuvenate him. It was all part of his morning routine, the rituals he performed for his own sanity before the ship began to wake up every day.

He found some peace in these moments waiting for his morning coffee, cataloging how it all worked. The hydroponics rings grew the plants, coffee, fruits and wheat. The plants helped create and filter the ships life. The air and water all flowed through the rings. Feeding and filtering through the plants, then down into the oxygen tanks and the water reservoir. The ship was called The Seed, a name with layers of meaning. From the simple likeness to a dandelion seed, down to how it carried so many bits of Old Earth within it. Habitat rings stacked on top of hydroponics rings, which set on top of processing rings, all connected to the central spine of the ship by a myriad of spokes. Rising off the spine in the middle of the rings sat the command hub, like the spine it lacked the spin gravity he was currently enjoying in the habitation ring he was in.

His watch vibrated silently, on its face a smiling green cup appeared below three wavey green lines. It took him from his contemplation and brought his usual half smile crawling across his lips. He had just begun to sit up when the watch vibrated again, more instantly this time, stopping him midway through standing up. Looking to the screen he fell back into his seat. The text had left him stunned. Early return of all drones initiated. One possibility discovered. Eta thirteen minutes. Scrolled out in ship standard over the screen. He shook himself back into focus, willing himself back to his feet and out the galley door. The ritual would have to be missed today; dawn was coming early.

Any other day he would have turned to the ship south making his way to the connecting arm, then climbed his way to the outer ring. There he would have gone through the airlock into the observation ring, worked out, meditated, then screamed his frustrations out to the void. The air locks between the observation ring and the rest of the ship, put there to protect the vessel from the possibility of the transparent metal breaching, kept the rest of the ship blissfully ignorant of his troubles.

Today he turned to ship north as soon as he stepped into the corridor. On the right wall the bottom most ultra-violet display panel had already begun to shade into red. While on the other wall blue filled the opposing panel. As he moved, he could hear the big songs coming from quarters that didn’t have their privacy fields activated. There were no harsh alarms, programmed to drag people into the waking world, on The Seed. The songs of morning birds, ones native to each crew members home region, worked in place of alarms, starting their calls with the rising of the ships false sun. A subtle gift to the crew from the ship’s makers, people who had cared more for comfort than costs, he was sure.

Thunder and falling rain filtered out of the rooms whose occupants woke first, their morning showers masked with the natural sounds. It was a strange sensation, the lack of human sounds on a ship of ceramic and steel. A world completely made by man.

His thoughts derailed as a young blonde woman nearly ran into him. She pulled up short in the last second, blue eyes wide, with a beaming smile on her face. She said nothing to him just nodded running off toward the command hub. He understood her excitement. It had been months, no, no it was years now. They had celebrated two years on the mission just last week. Two years with no possibilities, nothing but the silence and the void. Now there was something out there, something the drones had found.

Below his feet he felt the plating shift, like the decks of a ship rising over waves. The drones were jumping back into local space time. The wake of their travel caused gravity to hiccup, sending the waves out toward the ship. The tide had come. He righted himself, making his way into the command hub. Grabbing onto a rail, upon entering, he pulled himself up through the weightless space. Settling into his chair and strapping in before he started to look at his screen

Looking over the readouts he worked his hands over the console, establishing a connection with Boreas, the drone that had found the probability. The near range communication network rapidly downloaded Boreas’ data. He calculated the jump, pushing the variables and constants from Boreas to the other winds as they settled back into their births. The jump computer began to synchronize the jump drives of each of the winds. Soon enough, The Winds would open the jump, blowing The Seed, the seed of humanity, to one of those islands in the void of space.

The main computer compiled the data, spreading the information across the various command stations at first. The crewmembers in those chairs stared at the screens before them. Each one taking in the words in their own way. Finally, it appeared on the central ring of screens in the heart of the hub.

His smile had grown across the fullness of his lips by the time the final crewmembers entered the hub. The silence finally broke with a scream of excited joy.

“It’s a new world.”