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“Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, Alex. How are you?”

“Good. Did you finish reading The Captives?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Did you like it?”

“It was interesting. I didn’t know about the protests at the Navigation Arc.”

“What do you think about Jeremy’s arguments?”

“You know he’s wrong, right?” Kyla said.

“Of course, Mom. I just wanted to know if you fou…

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« Go to Chapter 23

The door opened.

Dan lifted his head.

An officer stood outside.

For a moment, Dan thought they were releasing him.

Instead, another man stepped through the door.

He was thin, perhaps in his late fifties, with peppered hair that looked like it had been cut without much care. He carried a folded blanket under one arm.

The man turned as the door closed behind him.

He looked at Dan.

Dan looked back.

The man smiled.

“What are you in here for?”

“A fight.”

“That makes sense.”

Dan frowned.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Your face.”

Dan touched his cheek. It hurt.

He had almost forgotten.

“What about you?”

“Speaking out.”

Dan smiled.

“That’s not a crime.”

“It is when you tell the truth they want to hide.”

“Who are they?”

“Regulation. The Council. You know, the people in power.”

Dan studied him.

“I think I know you… Aren’t you the crazy guy?”

“That’s what they want you to believe. That I’m crazy.”

“I’ve heard about you.”

The man placed the blanket on the empty bunk.

Dan watched him.

“Jeremy… Jeremy Larsson.”

The man looked over.

“So you know my name.”

“Everyone knows your name.”

Dan leaned against the wall.

“They say you’ve been going around telling people Helios isn’t real.”

Jeremy sat on the edge of the bunk.

“I never said Helios isn’t real.”

Dan laughed.

“That’s not what I heard.”

“You heard what they wanted you to hear.”

“That sounds like something a crazy person would say.”

Jeremy smiled.

He did not seem offended.

Dan expected him to argue.

Instead, Jeremy unfolded the blanket and spread it across the bunk.

For a while, neither of them spoke.

Dan could still feel the alcohol in his head, but it was fading. Without the noise of the Mirador, everything from the evening felt stupid.

He closed his eyes.

“So what did you really say?”

Jeremy turned his head.

“Helios is real.”

Dan opened his eyes and stared at him.

Jeremy continued.

“The original crew boarded Helios. The launch happened. The first part of the mission probably happened almost exactly the way we were taught.”

Dan waited.

“But?”

Jeremy looked at him.

“But Helios never went to Ross 128.”

“So where are we?”

Jeremy paused.

“We’re near Jupiter’s orbit.”

Dan laughed.

He could not help it.

Jeremy watched him quietly.

Dan shook his head.

“This is better than what I heard.”

Dan stood and walked toward the sink.

“So let me understand. Helios launched from Earth, flew all the way to Jupiter, and then everyone just decided to pretend we were traveling to another star?”

“Not everyone.”

“Sure. Of course.”

“The first generation knew.”

“And the second?”

“Some of them probably knew. But they knew less.”

“And then what?”

“Every generation knew less.”

Dan shook his head.

“Convenient.”

Jeremy leaned forward.

“Helios was part of an experiment.”

“What kind of experiment?” Dan asked with a smile.

“To determine whether humans could survive a multigenerational mission.”

Dan stopped smiling.

Jeremy continued.

“Think about what the Seeder Project was trying to do. They were sending hundreds of people into isolation for centuries. No resupply. No rescue. Limited resources.”

Dan stared at him.

“So they built Helios to test whether the Seeder Project would work?”

“Yes, exactly. They built it to test whether people could survive under similar conditions.”

Dan looked around the holding room.

“And they sent us to Jupiter?”

“No. They sent us to the Sun-Jupiter L5 point.”

“What’s that?”

Jeremy smiled faintly.

“They don’t teach you anything in school anymore.”

Dan rolled his eyes.

“A Lagrange point. It follows Jupiter around the Sun, about sixty degrees behind it.”

“And that helped them how?”

“It gave them isolation. Distance. A hostile environment. No possibility of someone opening a door and walking outside.”

Dan shook his head.

“I’ve seen the stars.”

“On panels.”

“We have the observation deck.”

“With cameras and controlled access.”

“We rotate.”

“Yes.”

“There’s gravity because the rings rotate.”

“Yes.”

Dan stared at him.

“We’re traveling through space.”

“Yes, we are. So are Earth, Jupiter, and all the planets.”

Dan frowned.

“What’s the problem then? You’re agreeing with everything I said.”

Jeremy looked at him.

“Good lies are built out of things that are true.”

Dan was quiet.

Jeremy continued.

“You don’t have to fake everything. You only have to fake the part people cannot verify.”

Dan folded his arms.

“So Navigation is lying.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You just said they are faking it.”

“No. I said the information you receive comes through systems you didn’t build and cannot verify.”

Jeremy continued.

“At some point, everyone aboard Helios started trusting the same information because the previous generation trusted it.”

Dan shook his head.

“That is ridiculous.”

“I’m not asking you to believe me.”

“Then why are you speaking out? Why are you telling people?”

“I’m asking you to prove me wrong.”

Dan laughed.

“That should be easy.”

“Then do it.”

Jeremy waited.

Dan pointed toward the wall.

“Open an exterior hatch.”

Jeremy smiled.

“There are no exterior hatches accessible to people like us.”

“How about the Mirador panels?”

“Controlled.”

“EVA.”

“Controlled.”

“Everything is controlled according to you.”

“No, not everything. Only the things that could prove where we are.”

Dan stared at him.

“That’s convenient.”

“Yes.”

“For your theory.”

“For theirs.”

Dan rolled his eyes.

Jeremy looked at the ceiling.

“They designed it that way.”

“Who?”

“The people who started the experiment.”

“And they convinced everyone to go along with it?”

“No. I already told you. The first generation didn’t need convincing. They volunteered.”

Dan laughed louder this time.

“Why would anyone volunteer to have their children lied to?”

“For the same reason people volunteer for anything.”

Jeremy’s expression changed slightly.

“They believed they were doing something important. Something good.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Dan said.

“Of course it does.”

Jeremy continued.

“It was the only way to make the experiment real. As real as they possibly could.”

Jeremy paused for a moment.

“If you know you can leave, then you are not truly isolated.”

Dan said nothing.

“If you know Earth is still there and you can call for help whenever you want, then you do not behave like someone crossing interstellar space.”

Jeremy leaned forward.

“But if you are born inside the experiment…”

Jeremy continued.

“If everyone you have ever known believes the same story…”

Dan interrupted him.

“Then you believe it too.”

“Yes.”

Dan looked at the door.

“Okay. Let’s say you’re right.”

Jeremy waited.

“Why would they keep doing it?”

“To see if it works,” Jeremy replied.

“For hundreds of years?”

“If the real mission is supposed to last centuries, how long would you run the test?”

Dan said nothing.

“Fifty years?” Jeremy asked.

Dan looked away.

“If you’re testing a society designed to survive for hundreds of years, you need many generations.”

“So we’re just… what? A test?”

Jeremy nodded.

“Captives. We’re captives.”

Dan laughed softly.

“That’s dramatic. You really are crazy.”

“We’re back to that.”

Dan lay down.

“All of this is stupid.”

Jeremy did not answer.

Dan stared at the ceiling.

After a while, he said, “What about Earth?”

“What about it?”

“We communicated with Earth.”

“Yes, at the beginning we did.”

“So those messages were fake?”

“Not necessarily. They were probably real. Those people knew they were part of the experiment.”

Dan frowned.

“So they started lying.”

“They started isolating the next generations to make it more realistic,” Jeremy said. “If you know someone can come get you, then scarcity is different. Fear is different. Conflict is different.”

Dan shook his head.

“That would be in the records.”

“Which records?”

“All of them.”

Jeremy smiled.

“The records you access through Logminter?”

Dan did not answer.

Jeremy continued.

“Change the history early enough, and eventually no one remembers that it changed.”

“That would take generations.”

“Exactly.”

“People would talk.”

“Some probably did.”

“Someone would hear them.”

“Maybe someone did.”

Dan frowned.

Jeremy looked at him.

“You’ve heard about it already.”

The room went quiet for a while.

Dan thought about the conversation.

“Good night.”

Jeremy looked over at him.

“Talk to you tomorrow, kid.”

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After Dan was released, he saw Jeremy again two days later.

Then again the following week.

At first, Dan only wanted answers.

Jeremy gave him questions.

How could anyone aboard Helios verify where they were?

Who controlled the exterior cameras?

Who decided which records were available through Logminter?

Dan began asking his friends first. Then other people.

Most laughed.

Some did not.

Mateo was one of the first to stop laughing and take him seriously.

Within months, small groups were meeting in cabins and quiet corners of the Plaza.

Jeremy spoke about evidence and verification.

Dan spoke about something simpler.

Choice.

“We were born into this mission,” he said during one gathering. “None of us agreed to it.”

Someone near the back answered, “Neither did our parents.”

“Exactly!” Mateo shouted. “We weren’t given a choice.”

The name came later.

Captives.

Dan disliked it at first.

Mateo loved it.

People began calling the group the Captives.

Then the questions became demands.

They wanted to end the Disconnect.

They wanted access to Navigation data.

They wanted independent control of the exterior cameras.

The Council refused.

Safety, they said.

Security. Operational control. Tradition.

The Captives heard something else.

For them, this confirmed that the Council was hiding something.

The largest demonstration happened outside the Navigation office.

More than twenty people filled the corridor.

“Let us see the truth!” someone shouted.

Others repeated it.

“Let us see the truth! Let us see the truth!”

Dan stood near the front.

Mateo and Jeremy were beside him.

A line of Regulation officers blocked the entrance.

Dan pointed toward the sealed doors.

“If we are where they say we are, then prove it!”

People cheered.

Someone pushed forward.

Regulation pushed back.

For a moment, the crowd moved as one body.

Dan stepped toward the doors.

Jeremy grabbed his arm.

“Don’t.”

Dan turned.

“This is what we came for.”

“No,” Jeremy said.

Jeremy looked toward the Navigation office doors.

“We don’t want anyone getting hurt. This is a peaceful protest.”

Dan stared at him.

Mateo moved forward.

The crowd surged again.

An officer shouted for everyone to move back.

Someone threw something.

Then Regulation moved.

People screamed.

An officer stunned Mateo.

Dan was pulled to the floor.

Jeremy disappeared into the crowd.

Kyla stopped reading. She felt someone watching her.

Julian was standing near the table.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m reading a story Alex sent me. It’s for an assignment he’s working on.”

Julian walked closer.

“What story?”

“The Captives.”

He smiled faintly.

“I know that story.”

Kyla looked at him.

“You do?”

“Yes, I read it years ago. It was written by Jim… something.”

Kyla looked back at the display.

“Jim Burbank. He wrote it in 2622.”

“It’s a little strange, don’t you think?” Julian said.

“A little. But did you know it’s based on real log entries?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“The protest really happened. In 2565.”

“I didn’t know that.” Julian paused for a moment. “I remember it had a sad ending.”

Kyla looked at him.

“Come on, Julian. You ruined it for me.”

Julian put a hand on his forehead.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

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« Go to Chapter 22

“Incoming call from Alex Soria. Audio only. Accept?” the computer prompted.

“Yes, open with Whisperzend,” Kyla said.

The connection opened privately.

“Hi, Mom. Do you have a minute? I want to ask you something.”

“Hi. How was your class visit to the virtual reality room?”

“It was good.”

Kyla smiled.

“That’s it? I want more details.”

Alex paused.

“We played a mining mission. We needed to land on an exocomet to get resources.”

“That sounds more interesting than good. Did you complete it?”

“Yes. My team took second place.”

“Congratulations.”

“We should have won.”

“Of course.”

“One of the teams found a faster way to complete the mission.”

“So they deserved to win.”

“I didn’t say they didn’t, but our team was better.”

Kyla smiled again.

“What did you want to ask me?”

“I wanted to ask you about simulations.”

“What about them?”

“We have to write about simulations and connect the concept to Theogenics.”

“That sounds interesting.”

“Fer said we should research cases where people believed they were living in some kind of altered reality.”

“You mean Instructor Mendez.”

“Yes, Mom. Instructor Mendez.”

Kyla leaned back in her chair.

“What exactly did he ask you to do?”

“He wants us to find a historical example first. Something about people questioning whether the reality they experienced was actually real.”

“That sounds difficult, unless you can use fictional stories too.”

“No. He said we have to write a story, but it has to be based on historical records.”

Kyla nodded to herself.

“That sounds like Instructor Mendez. He gives you an assignment that sounds easy until you actually start thinking about it.”

There was a brief pause on the connection.

Then Alex asked, “If we were living in a simulation, how would we know?”

Kyla looked toward her display.

“That’s a hard question to answer.”

“I know it’s hard, but I want to know what you think.”

Kyla considered the question.

“I suppose it would depend on the type of simulation.”

“Yes, that’s true. Let’s say it’s a very, very good simulation.”

Alex continued before she could say anything else.

“If everything we see and hear is part of a very, very good simulation, then anything we use to prove what is real could also be part of it.”

“Exactly. That’s what makes it difficult,” Kyla said.

“So we couldn’t trust what we see. We couldn’t trust what we hear.”

“Yes. We couldn’t trust our senses,” Kyla said.

“We couldn’t even trust Logminter.”

That made her pause.

“Yes, we couldn’t trust Logminter either.”

Alex was quiet for a moment.

“So how would anyone know?”

“Maybe they wouldn’t.”

“That’s what I was thinking too.”

Kyla smiled.

“Yes, I can see you’ve been thinking about this a lot.”

Alex ignored the comment and continued.

“What if whoever created the simulation sent us a message?”

“Well, it would also be very difficult to know whether the message really came from outside.”

For several seconds, neither of them spoke.

Kyla could hear faint sounds from Alex’s cabin through the connection. A chair moving. Something tapping against a desk.

Then Alex spoke again.

“Let’s say for a moment that this is a simulation and we know it.”

“Okay.”

“Which of the Four Possibilities would be true?”

Kyla thought about it.

“Presence,” Alex said. “Right?”

“Let me think.”

Alex laughed.

“You don’t know the answer, huh?”

“We should call your dad and pick his brain,” Kyla said.

Alex groaned.

“He’ll probably give me a twenty-minute explanation.”

Kyla smiled.

“Your father gives very good explanations.”

“They’re long,” Alex said.

“They’re thorough.”

“That’s another word for long.”

“Okay, you got me,” she said. “Let me think about this… it would be Origin.”

“Origin?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“If we were inside a simulation, someone would have had to create it.”

Alex did not answer immediately.

“But wouldn’t that mean that a Theogenic already exists?”

“Yes,” Kyla said.

“So I’m right. It should be Presence.”

“No, not really, because the simulation would have an origin outside itself.”

Alex was quiet again. Then he continued.

“But Presence says that at least one Theogenic already exists.”

“Yes, but inside this universe, not outside of it.”

“I see, but they could also just be people who created the simulation.”

“You mean people like us?”

“Very advanced people,” Alex said.

“That sounds very difficult to do.”

“Maybe to us, but in the future it could be possible. Right?”

Kyla thought about the question.

“I’m not sure it’s that simple. You should ask Dad.”

“Very funny.”

Alex continued.

“If somebody created everything we can see, and they could control what happens inside it, wouldn’t that make them a Theogenic?”

“I assume so,” Kyla said.

“Unless they were inside another simulation too,” Alex said.

“I think you just want to prove me wrong.”

“No, not really. My point is that in this case it isn’t really Origin. It’s more like a loop of realities.”

Kyla smiled.

“Now we really should call your father.”

Alex laughed.

“You started this,” Kyla said.

“I just wanted your answer.”

“My answer is still Origin,” Kyla said.

“Still?”

“Yes, because if our reality was created, then we would know it had an origin outside itself.”

Alex became quiet.

Kyla waited.

Finally he said, “That’s annoying.”

“What is?”

“That even if we found out everything was a simulation, we still wouldn’t be sure about the answer.”

Kyla smiled faintly.

“The Four Possibilities have been around for centuries because people keep asking questions that don’t have clean answers.”

“That sounds like something Dad would say.”

“Maybe I’ve been around him too long.”

Kyla glanced toward the time in the corner of her display.

“So what are you going to do for your research?”

“I already found a couple of stories that could work for this.”

“From Earth?” Kyla asked.

“Not all of them. I found one from Helios, but it’s very weird.”

“Do you want to share it?”

“Yes, of course. I’ll send it to you.”

“I’ll read it,” Kyla said.

“And, Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Share it with Dad. I want to know what he thinks.”

“I will. Love you.”

“Love you too, Mom. Bye.”

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The Mirador was crowded. Friday nights usually were. People filled most of the tables, while others stood near the terrace entrance talking over the music.

Dan sat with three friends at one of the tables. Empty glasses had begun to collect between them. They had been drinking for more than two hours.

The panels projected the view outside.

Dan barely looked at them anymore.

At twenty-three, he had spent his entire life looking at the same projections.

Mateo leaned back in his chair and raised his glass.

“To another productive week.”

Cole laughed.

“You only worked four days.”

“I worked five.”

“You missed half of Monday.”

“I was sick.”

“You were hungover.”

“That is a kind of sickness.”

Eric lifted his glass toward Mateo.

“I support that interpretation.”

Dan laughed and finished what remained in his drink.

Mateo pointed at him.

“See? Dan understands.”

“I understand that you’re lazy.”

Dan signaled toward the service counter.

“One more.”

Eric looked at the panels.

“Do you ever think about how strange this is?”

Dan followed his gaze.

“What?”

“All of it.”

Eric continued.

“We were born here. We’ll die here.”

Mateo lifted his glass.

“Speak for yourself. I plan to live forever.”

Eric ignored him.

“My grandfather was born here. My father was born here. I was born here.”

Dan leaned back.

“And?”

“And none of us are getting anywhere.”

“We’re going to Ross 128,” Cole said.

Eric smirked.

“No. Helios is going to Ross 128.”

Dan understood what he meant. He raised his glass.

“To everyone who tells us we’re supposed to be grateful.”

“Cheers,” they all said in unison.

A few people at the nearby tables had started glancing toward them.

Dan raised his voice even more.

“You know what I hate?”

Cole sighed.

“I’m sure you’re going to tell us.”

“I hate when people say we’re lucky.”

“But I guess they’re right. We’re alive, so we’ve been lucky so far.” Eric raised his glass. “To luck.”

“Yes, we’re lucky we have food. We’re lucky that our ancestors were chosen,” Mateo said.

Dan spoke louder than he intended.

“I wasn’t chosen to be here. No one asked me!”

A man at the next table turned toward them.

“Can you keep it down?”

Mateo looked over.

“We’re just talking.”

“So is everyone else.”

“Then talk louder.”

The man stared at him for a moment before turning back to his table.

Dan reached for his glass.

It was empty.

“Where’s the next one?”

A woman approached their table.

“Here’s your check.”

Dan looked at it.

“We didn’t ask for it.”

“I know.”

Dan leaned back.

“Then why are you giving it to us?”

“We’ve had several complaints.”

“About what?”

The woman looked at him.

“Noise.”

Dan laughed.

“This is the Mirador.”

“Other people are trying to enjoy their evening.”

“So are we.”

“You’ve had enough already.”

Mateo placed his empty glass on the table.

“We don’t want the check. We need another round.”

The woman remained calm.

“You’re being asked to leave.”

The man from the nearby table turned around again.

“Just go.”

Mateo looked toward him.

“No one asked you.”

“I already asked you to keep it down.”

“And I told you to talk louder.”

The man stood.

Dan watched him.

He was older than them. Maybe forty-five. Broad shoulders. A Forge Arc patch on his sleeve.

Cole stood quickly.

“Everyone, stop.”

The man took one step toward their table.

“You’re bothering everyone here.”

Mateo stood too.

“Mateo,” Dan said.

But Mateo was already facing him.

The woman from the Mirador stepped between them.

“That’s enough. I’m calling Regulation.”

Mateo laughed.

“For talking?”

“For refusing to leave.”

Dan stood.

He was not entirely sure why.

The man shook his head.

“Children.”

Mateo moved toward him.

“What did you say?”

Dan grabbed Mateo’s arm.

“Forget it.”

The man smiled.

“That’s probably the smartest thing anyone at this table has said tonight.”

Mateo pulled his arm free.

Then everything happened too quickly.

Mateo shoved him.

The man shoved back.

A chair fell.

Someone shouted.

Dan saw the man grab Mateo by the front of his shirt.

Mateo grabbed the man too.

Eric moved in.

Cole screamed at them to stop.

A glass struck the floor and shattered.

The music stopped.

Another person came from the next table.

Dan felt something hit the side of his face.

He swung without seeing who had hit him.

His fist connected with someone.

A body fell against the table.

People moved backward.

Someone shouted that Regulation was here.

Two officers approached the fight.

“Everyone stop!”

One of the officers grabbed Mateo and pulled him away from the fight.

The other moved toward Dan.

“Dan Sullivan, step back.”

Dan froze for half a second.

He was surprised the officer knew his name.

“I didn’t do anything,” Dan said.

The officer reached for him.

Dan pushed him away.

The officer holding Mateo released him and grabbed Dan.

Within seconds, Dan was on the floor.

Around them, the Mirador had gone almost silent.

“You’re being detained.”

“For what?”

“For assault and refusing a Regulation order.”

“He hit us first!”

“You can explain that tomorrow.”

Dan looked toward the man from the other table.

Blood ran from his lip.

Dan could feel something warm along his own cheek.

People stepped aside to let them through.

Dan kept his eyes forward.

By the time they reached the Regulation Bureau, his cheek hurt.

“You’ll stay here tonight,” the officer said. “You’ll see the judge tomorrow.”

“For a fight?”

“For now, you’re being held for assault, disorderly conduct, and refusing a Regulation order.”

The holding room was small. Two narrow bunks extended from the wall. A toilet and sink occupied the far corner.

Dan stopped at the entrance.

The officer gestured inside.

“Until morning.”

Dan stepped through.

The door closed behind him.

For the first time that night, everything was quiet.

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Thanks for reading Kyla’s Diary, a novel from the Theogenic Universe. New chapters will be published weekly. Subscribe to continue the journey aboard Helios.

Go to Chapter 24 »

« Go to Chapter 21

“That smells very good,” Kyla said.

“I’m making my mother’s recipe.”

She walked closer to the kitchen.

“Pasta al pomodoro?”

Julian smiled.

“Yes. I’m using the fresh basil Layna gave us.”

A pot of sauce simmered on the heating surface. Kyla leaned over it and breathed in.

“Can I try it?”

“It’s almost ready.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Julian handed her the spoon.

“Well?” he asked.

She considered it for a moment.

“It’s good.”

“Only good? That’s it?”

She tried again.

“Very, very good.”

Julian took the spoon away from her.

“Okay, that’s enough.”

Kyla laughed and moved toward the table.

“I thought Alex was with you,” Julian said.

“No. He’s with my dad. He should be here any minute.”

“What are they doing?”

“He has a school assignment about Computer. He wanted to talk to Dad about it.”

Julian looked offended.

“I could have helped him with that.”

Kyla smiled.

“You know teenagers. Parents don’t know anything.”

“True. I can’t believe he’ll be fourteen in two weeks.”

The cabin door opened.

Alex walked in carrying a small backpack.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” Kyla said.

Julian pointed toward the sink.

“Wash your hands. Dinner is almost ready.”

“I was going to.”

“Good.”

“How was Grandpa?” Kyla asked.

“Good.”

“And your assignment?”

“Good.”

Julian brought the pot to the table.

“You spent the afternoon with your grandfather, and that’s all we get?”

Alex pulled out a chair.

“He helped me with questions about Computer.”

Julian began serving the pasta.

“I could have helped you with that.”

Alex looked at him.

Kyla tried not to smile.

They ate quietly for a few moments.

Alex twirled pasta around his fork.

“This is good.”

“It’s your grandma’s recipe,” Julian said.

Alex took another bite.

“Grandpa Emil told me today that Computer is really multiple systems.”

Julian nodded.

“Yes, that’s correct.”

Alex looked up.

“Then why do we call it Computer? Did we run out of names?”

“Very funny, smart guy. It’s the system people interact with. There are many different systems underneath it.”

“Like Navigation?”

“Navigation, environmental controls, communications, scheduling, cabin systems, public services. A lot of things.”

Alex looked toward Kyla.

“So we use Computer when we send someone a message, but a different system actually controls the temperature?”

“Not exactly,” Julian said. “Computer passes the request to the appropriate system.”

Alex nodded slowly.

“Okay, but if Computer connects to all those systems, why do we need Logminter too? Shouldn’t Computer be able to handle the logs?”

Julian took a sip before answering.

“Computer performs operations. Logminter was built to preserve memory.”

Alex frowned.

“That sounds too simple.”

“You’re right. It is a simple explanation,” Julian said. “But it’s a good place to start.”

Kyla smiled.

“Your father likes explaining things his way.”

“I know,” Alex said.

He looked back at Julian.

“What does Logminter do that Computer can’t?”

Julian thought for a moment.

“Computer uses information to perform a function. Logminter was built to preserve information. To preserve memory.”

Alex thought about that.

“So Computer knows how to run Helios, and Logminter knows what happened on Helios.”

Julian nodded.

“That’s a pretty good way to put it.”

Alex took another bite.

“Grandpa Emil told me about SD-3.”

Julian looked up.

“What about it?”

Alex set down his fork.

“He said they installed a restricted Logminter instance in some of the drones.”

Julian nodded.

“They did.”

“And SD-3 stopped following commands during a repair mission.”

Kyla looked at Julian.

Julian was quiet for a moment.

“That’s one way to describe what happened.”

“Is it wrong?”

Julian did not answer immediately.

“The investigation never established that Logminter took control of the drone or deliberately disobeyed a command.”

Alex looked at him.

“But we never figured out why it did what it did.”

“No.”

“Even after all these years?”

Julian shook his head.

“The unit was lost. There were things we couldn’t recover.”

Alex nodded slowly.

For a moment, no one spoke.

Then Kyla said, “Are you going to use this in your project?”

“I think so.”

“What is the assignment exactly?” Julian asked.

“Instructor Mendez said we have to explain how Helios’s systems changed over time.”

“And you chose Computer?”

Alex nodded.

“Why?”

“Because everyone uses it, but nobody really thinks about what it is.”

Julian smiled.

“That’s true. We take technology for granted. We don’t think about the decisions made by the people who built what we inherited.”

Kyla looked at Alex.

“For your next assignment, you’ll probably be using your own Whisperzend.”

“You know Instructor Mendez. Alex will get a couple of assignments before his birthday,” Julian said.

Alex smiled.

“I know.”

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The Mirador was full by the time we arrived.

I wanted to reserve the formal dining section for the celebration, but Alex wanted the terrace.

We reserved an area close to the projection panels. Ross 128 was visible on one of them, brighter than I remember it being when Alex was born.

Mom and Dad came early.

Julian’s parents arrived a few minutes later with his sister.

Alex calls her Kiki.

They enjoy playing board games together. Kiki is his nemesis when they play Three Landers.

Layna came with Alyka. Taro stopped by after the afternoon gathering at the Chapel.

A few of Alex’s friends were there too, including Tom, the boy who will share his new cabin.

I kept looking at the two of them and thinking about Layna and me when we first moved into ours.

It feels so recent, but so many things have happened since then.

The food was simple. Flatbread, herb-roasted vegetables, egg salad, and some pastries from the Mirador kitchen.

Layna brought Alex’s favorite cake, a moist golden loaf with a sweet lemon glaze.

After dinner, Kiki asked Alex and Tom to move some chairs so they could make room for a game.

Alyka looked at the board.

“How do we play?”

“We’ll play in two teams,” Alex said. “One person controls the Rockets and the other controls the Rocks.”

“So it’s Rocks against Rockets?”

“Sort of. Both teams have both. You’re attacking with the Rockets and defending with the Rocks.”

Alyka studied the board.

“How do you win?”

“You have to land three Rockets on the other side.”

Alyka reached for one of the pieces.

“And the Rocks?”

“They try to stop them by destroying the Rockets. If they destroy enough Rockets that the other team can’t land three anymore, they win.”

Alyka looked toward Kiki.

“That sounds complicated.”

Kiki smiled.

“That’s why he likes it.”

Alex rolled his eyes.

After a couple of games, we cut the cake.

Then came the part Alex had been waiting for. The Whisperzend.

Forge Arc had refurbished it and prepared it for him earlier this week.

When we handed it to him, he tried to act like it was not a big deal.

It was.

I remember receiving mine.

Back then, we got them at twelve.

I counted the days.

I remember putting it on for the first time and realizing I could whisper someone. I could talk to Logminter while walking. I could record something the moment I thought about it.

I remember the day the Council voted to change the age to fourteen because we were running out of them.

At the time, fourteen was just a number in a Council proposal.

Today it was my son.

For a few seconds after Alex put on the Whisperzend, he did not say anything.

Then the status light came on.

Alyka immediately asked him who he was going to whisper first.

He said no one.

Then, less than a minute later, I saw the light pulse.

I do not know who he contacted.

I suppose that is part of this too.

He has his own Whisperzend now.

His own messages.

His own conversations.

His own cabin.

And his own log entries.

Until today, almost everything about Alex exists somewhere inside my diary.

The day he was born.

The first time I held him.

The presentation ceremony.

His first day of school.

The questions he asked.

The things he said that made Julian and me laugh.

The things that scared me.

The things I probably remembered incorrectly and then recorded anyway.

I have written about him for fourteen years.

Tonight, Alex can record his own version.

I wonder what he will write about today.

Maybe the food.

Maybe his friends.

Maybe his version of today will be completely different from mine.

I think that is the part I am having trouble with.

For most of his life, I have been preserving my memories of him. Now he can decide what deserves to be remembered about his own life.

He can talk to Logminter without me.

He can save thoughts I will never hear.

I know that is how it is supposed to work.

I know children grow up.

I know they become people separate from us.

But still, it feels strange.

After the celebration, we walked with Alex to his new cabin.

Tom had already moved some of his things in.

Alex stood inside the doorway with his Whisperzend resting silent behind his neck.

I hugged him.

Probably for too long.

“Mom.”

“I know.”

I let him go.

Julian and I walked back to our cabin together.

The corridor seemed longer than it had earlier.

Our cabin was quiet.

Too quiet.

“Logminter, save this to my diary,” Kyla said.

LOG ENTRY

Action type: Log archival.

Integrity check: Validated. Data saved by authorized user.

Authorized user: Anwar Cloutier Soria, Kyla. Created at: 2802.052.2348.

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The Chapel was half full when Kyla arrived.

The ceremony had already begun.

Taro stood on the platform at the front of the room.

“Every week we gather here to think about how to live in a silent universe,” he said. “This week, I would like to talk about prayer.”

The room was quiet.

“For thousands of years, humans prayed to gods. They asked for protection, forgiveness, guidance. Sometimes they prayed because they were afraid. Other times because they were grateful. But most prayed believing they already knew who was listening.”

Taro paused.

“They had a story about God. An idea of what God wanted. To them, God was certain.”

He looked across the Chapel.

“But Theogenians begin somewhere else. We know we live in a universe that has been silent. A universe that has not answered humanity yet. A universe with Four Possibilities.”

The room stayed quiet for a moment.

“So why do we pray if one of those possibilities is that no one is listening?”

Several answers came from the room.

“To remember.”

“For gratitude.”

“To become better.”

Taro nodded.

“That one. That’s the one I want to talk about.”

He looked toward the person who had answered.

“We pray because prayer does not require someone on the other side.”

He paused.

“We can pray for abundance. For strength. For the people we love. We can pray to be patient, to be compassionate, to recognize what we have and what others may be carrying.”

His voice softened.

“Prayer does not have to change the universe. Sometimes it just changes how we live within it. Ultimately, we pray to become better.”

Taro lowered his head.

“Now, let us remember the previous generations. Let us remember the people who departed before us. The people who built what we inherited and carried Helios forward so that we could be here.”

He spoke the first line of the promise.

“I will not forget you.”

The crowd answered.

“I will not forget you.”

Taro continued.

“I will honor you.”

“I will honor you,” the crowd replied.

Taro closed his eyes.

Others followed.

“I will look for you.”

“I will look for you,” the crowd answered.

For several seconds, no one moved.

Then Taro opened his eyes and raised his arms.

“Leave in peace. We know what is possible.”

People began standing and moving toward the exit.

Kyla made her way toward the front.

Taro noticed her once the crowd had thinned. His expression changed when he recognized her.

“Kyla.”

“Hi, Chaplain. Beautiful ceremony.”

He stepped down from the platform.

“Assistant Chaplain.”

“Well, you sounded very convincing up there,” Kyla said.

Taro smiled.

“You came to talk about Alex’s presentation ceremony.”

She nodded.

“We should probably stop putting it off. He’ll turn one before we know it.”

Taro gestured toward the small office beside the Chapel.

“We still have some time. Come on, let’s figure it out.”

Kyla followed him into the next room.

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“Logminter,” Kyla said. “Retrieve the entry from Alex’s presentation ceremony.”

LOG ENTRY

Action type: Log retrieval after 6 years.

Integrity check: Validated. Data accessed by authorized user.

Authorized user: Anwar Cloutier Soria, Kyla. Created at: 2788.321.2054.

> Today has been a big day.

This morning, the Navigation Arc presented several options for changing Helios’s trajectory.

They recommended the maneuver that requires the least additional fuel. That is important because we do not have much to spare.

But there is a cost: ten years.

If everything goes according to the new plan, Helios will enter a stable orbit around Ross 128 approximately ten years later than we expected.

I keep trying to understand how changing our path now can cost us an entire decade.

Navigation explained that it is not simply about moving around Ross 128-X. Changing our trajectory changes the rest of the approach. It changes how we use the magsail to continue slowing down and where Helios will be when we are ready to enter orbit.

So our expected arrival year has changed.

From approximately 2837 to 2847.

Ten years.

I suppose it sounds small after traveling for more than five hundred years.

It does not feel small when you are living them.

But that was this morning. A long Council session, a vote, and a decision that will add a decade to our journey.

The afternoon was different. It belonged to Alex.

We finally had his presentation ceremony at the Chapel.

Mom and Dad were there. Julian’s parents were there. Layna brought Alyka, who spent most of the ceremony trying to get close enough to touch Alex.

Julian and I stood at the front with Alex while Taro presented him to everyone gathered there.

Taro did a good job with the ceremony.

He spoke about the responsibility of raising a child aboard Helios. He reminded us that Alex would inherit a world he did not choose, like every child born before him.

We all inherit a world shaped by previous generations. We do not get to choose that world, but we can choose what we do with it.

He said that a child is not only presented to a family.

A child is presented to a community.

Then he asked us to promise that we would teach Alex where he came from, protect him from what we could, and prepare him for what we could not.

Julian answered first.

My “yes” followed.

Taro placed his hand on Alex’s head and welcomed him as a member of the Helios community.

Alex slept through most of it.

He woke when everyone applauded.

I kept thinking about how strange it is that Alex has no idea what any of this means yet.

He does not know what Ross 128 is.

He does not know that this morning we decided to change the path of an entire ship.

He does not know that arrival has been delayed, but he is lucky to be part of the generation that should see the mission completed.

I am not so sure about myself anymore. I may be an old woman by then, but I hope I will still be here to witness it.

Today we decided to change Helios’s course.

> And today we presented our son to the people who will help us raise him.

The cabin was quiet until the door opened.

“Hi,” Julian said as he approached Kyla’s desk. “You look busy.”

Kyla looked away from the display.

“No. I was just reading an old log entry.”

“Which one?”

“Alex’s presentation.”

Julian smiled.

“That was a good day.”

Kyla looked back at the entry.

“Yes, it was.”

She closed the log.

“Can you believe he starts school tomorrow?”

Julian sat beside her.

“Time moves too fast. My mother was right. You blink and they’re moving into their own cabin.”

“I don’t even want to think about that yet.”

Julian smiled.

“You know what is going to get worse?”

“What?”

“The questions. More questions.”

Kyla laughed.

“I can imagine. Do you know what he asked me today?”

She did not wait for Julian’s answer.

“How many children have started school aboard Helios since launch?”

“What did you tell him?” Julian said.

“That I didn’t know. Then he told me to ask Logminter.”

Julian laughed.

“Yes, that’s our Alex.”

“He also wanted to know exactly how many hours of school he’ll have this year.”

“Did you know that one?”

Kyla shook her head.

“Where is he?” Julian said.

“He went to bed early. He wanted to be ready for tomorrow.”

Julian kissed her on the forehead.

“I’m also going to bed early tonight. Let me get cleaned up first.”

“Don’t you want something to eat?”

“I’ll get something before bed. Don’t worry.”

“Okay.”

Julian walked away from the desk.

Kyla glanced back at the display.

“Logminter.”

> Ready to record entry.

“Six years ago, the Council decided to change Helios’s trajectory.”

She paused.

“The maneuver worked. Navigation says our new path will take us past Ross 128-X at a much safer distance.”

She paused again.

“Tomorrow, Alex starts school.”

“He is going to start learning more. He will learn about the world he inherited. About Helios. About Earth. About Ross 128.”

“Eventually, he will learn about Theogenics and the Four Possibilities. He will learn why we left Earth and why we are still going forward.”

Kyla smiled.

“And knowing Alex, he will probably ask for the exact distance to everything.”

She looked toward the other room.

“Six years ago, I wrote that he did not know what Ross 128 was.”

“Now he asks questions about it all the time.”

She paused.

“I guess that is what growing up is.”

“Logminter, save this to my diary. We’ll continue tomorrow.”

LOG ENTRY

Action type: Log archival.

Integrity check: Validated. Data saved by authorized user.

Authorized user: Anwar Cloutier Soria, Kyla. Created at: 2794.093.2057.

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The cabin door opened.

“Hi,” Kyla said.

Julian looked up.

“Hi. How was your day?”

“Busy.”

She walked farther inside and set her things beside the desk.

“It’s only your third day back. It’ll get better,” Julian said.

“I know. I’m still trying to catch up.”

Julian smiled.

“You’ll get there.”

Kyla looked toward the crib.

“How about your day?”

“It was good,” Julian said.

“Just good?”

Julian nodded.

“Alex ate four times, slept twice, cried more times than I counted, and went through two changes of clothes.”

Kyla smiled.

“His clothes or yours?”

“Both.”

She laughed.

“No strolling today?”

“We went to the Plaza for a little while.”

“How did that go?”

“Better than I expected. He was calm the whole time.”

Julian walked toward the crib and looked down at him.

“We saw Layna and Alyka.”

“You did?”

“Yes. Alyka recognized me before Layna did.”

“That sounds like her.”

“She was happy to see Alex,” Julian said.

Kyla smiled.

“Of course.”

Julian sat down.

“Layna said she’ll be going back to work at the Terra Arc in a couple of weeks.”

“Really?”

“She said she’s ready.”

“I’m happy for her. She needs something for herself too,” Kyla said.

“Yes, of course,” Julian said.

They stayed quiet for a moment.

“Taro called asking when we’re going to have Alex’s presentation ceremony,” Julian said.

“Yes, we should probably do it soon,” Kyla said.

Then he said, “You seem worried about something today.”

Kyla turned back toward him.

“No, I called earlier just to see how you were doing.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. You’re worried about something else. I know that look.”

“I guess I’m just tired,” Kyla said.

“That look is different from tired.”

Julian leaned forward.

“Did something happen at work today?”

Kyla did not answer immediately.

Then she pulled out one of the chairs and sat down.

“We had an emergency meeting.”

Julian’s expression changed.

“With Sheila?”

“She was in the meeting, but everyone was called to the Council chamber.”

“What happened?”

Kyla looked at him.

“Navigation detected something ahead of Helios.”

Julian frowned.

“What kind of something?”

“They don’t know yet.”

“An asteroid?”

“They don’t think so. It’s too big.”

“A planet?”

“I don’t know.”

Julian stared at her.

“How long have they known?”

“Not long. They’re verifying their observations before informing the rest of the ship.”

“That makes sense,” Julian said.

“They’re calling it Ross 128-X.”

Julian raised his eyebrows.

“That’s creative.”

Kyla smiled faintly.

“I thought the same thing.”

“So what are we doing next?”

“There’s a meeting on Friday. Navigation is going to present what they know so far.”

“What kind of information are they going to present?”

“Distance. Trajectory. Possible mass. Whatever they’ve been able to determine.”

Julian became quiet.

Then he reached for his Whisperzend.

“I’ll call Director Prescott.”

Kyla looked at him.

“You’re on leave.”

His hand stopped.

For a moment, neither of them said anything.

Julian looked toward Alex.

“You’re right.”

He lowered his hand.

“Sorry.”

Kyla shook her head.

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“I just heard ‘unknown object ahead of Helios’ and forgot for a second.”

Kyla smiled.

“I’m needed here now. This is my emergency,” Julian said.

Kyla looked toward the crib.

Alex moved but did not wake.

Julian followed her eyes.

“So we wait until Friday, then.”

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The Council chamber lights dimmed as the main display came on.

Kyla sat beside Sheila.

Across the chamber were the Captain, the First Officer, the Arc directors, and several representatives from Navigation and Horizon.

Director Prescott sat with the Data and Information Office delegation.

Kyla noticed the empty chair beside Prescott. Julian was not there.

The Council President looked toward the Navigation director.

“Director, you may begin.”

The main display changed.

Ross 128 appeared at the center.

A small marker identified Ross 128 b close to the star.

Another line showed Helios approaching from the outer region of the system.

“This is the current arrival model,” the Navigation director said. “It incorporates all confirmed objects and the observations collected by Helios during the voyage.”

The display remained still for a moment.

Then another point appeared along the ship’s projected approach path.

It was labeled Ross 128-X.

The President looked toward the display.

“Is that the object we detected?”

The director answered before changing the projection.

“Yes.”

A series of observation dates appeared beside the object.

“The first anomaly was detected during routine forward-field observations. At first, it was thought to be an artifact in the infrared data.”

Another observation appeared.

“Repeated measurements showed that the source was moving relative to the background stars.”

The display shifted again.

“Additional observations allowed us to estimate distance and relative motion.”

Sheila leaned forward.

“How far away is it?”

“From Helios, approximately seven thousand astronomical units.”

A few people around the table exchanged looks.

The President asked, “And in time?”

“Under the current trajectory, Helios reaches the object’s vicinity in approximately eight years.”

The room became quieter.

Kyla thought about Alex.

Eight years.

He would be old enough to understand that something was happening.

The Captain spoke.

“What do you mean by vicinity?”

“We do not currently project an impact with the object itself,” the director said.

The display zoomed in.

A line representing Helios passed beside Ross 128-X.

The director continued.

“Our concern is the uncertainty surrounding the object and the region around it.”

“What kind of uncertainty?” Sheila asked.

“Mass, exact trajectory, possible satellites, and debris.”

The President looked back toward the object.

“Do we know what it is?”

“We are not completely sure.”

The director paused.

“But based on the current observations, we believe it is a planetary-mass object.”

“Rocky?” the Captain asked.

“We haven’t determined its composition yet.”

“Size?”

The director changed the display.

A range appeared.

“Our preliminary estimate places it somewhere within the ice-giant range.”

The First Officer looked toward the projection.

“Something like Neptune?”

“Possibly.”

Kyla watched the small point on the display.

It did not look like a planet.

It barely looked like anything.

The President asked, “Is it orbiting Ross 128?”

“We don’t know yet.”

That answer produced more reaction than the others.

The director continued.

“It is approximately fifteen thousand astronomical units from Ross 128. At that distance, it could be gravitationally associated with the system.”

“Could be?” Adrian Vale asked.

“Yes.”

“And the alternative?”

The director looked toward him.

“That it is not bound to Ross 128 at all.”

“A rogue planet,” Sheila said.

“Correct.”

The President looked toward the trajectory again.

“If we’re not going to hit it, why was the initial meeting classified as an emergency?”

The Navigation director enlarged the region surrounding Ross 128-X.

A shaded area appeared around the object.

“Because we don’t know what else is there.”

Several smaller markers appeared.

“These are not detected objects,” the director clarified. “They represent possible satellite and debris regions based on planetary mass.”

The Horizon Arc director spoke next.

“A Neptune-class object could have rings too?”

“That is possible.”

The Navigation director looked around the chamber.

“At our current velocity, we cannot treat an unknown planetary object the same way we would treat empty interstellar space.”

The Captain looked toward the display.

“How close does the current trajectory take us?”

“We have a preliminary estimate, but the uncertainty is still too large.”

“Why? That sounds like something we should already know,” the Captain said.

The director changed the display again.

Three possible trajectories appeared.

“Because we are still refining its position and velocity. Small differences in the mass estimate will also change the gravitational interaction with Helios.”

The First Officer studied the lines.

“How much can its gravity affect us?”

“Not enough to capture us.”

The Navigation director paused.

“But it could be enough to affect the arrival trajectory.”

The director pointed toward the shaded region around Ross 128-X.

“We also have to consider the possibility of debris around it. At our velocity, even small objects could cause significant damage.”

The room became very still.

Kyla looked toward Sheila.

Sheila was no longer looking at the object.

She was looking at the line leading from Helios toward Ross 128.

The President asked, “Are you saying the current arrival trajectory may no longer be valid?”

“I am saying we need to recalculate it.”

The Captain folded his hands.

“Does Navigation recommend a maneuver?”

“Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because we do not have all the numbers yet.”

The First Officer spoke.

“How long before we do?”

“We should have a preliminary navigation model within several weeks. A more reliable mass estimate will take longer.”

Sheila raised her hand.

The President recognized her.

“How did we miss this?”

The Navigation director looked toward her.

“We didn’t have enough observational data to identify it earlier.”

“That is not what I asked.”

Sheila continued.

“Helios has been traveling toward Ross 128 for more than five centuries. We have spent generations observing this system.”

The chamber went quiet.

“And now, this close to arrival, we discover something that may be the mass of Neptune.”

The director did not answer immediately.

“Our observational capability has improved as the distance has decreased.”

Sheila nodded.

“I understand that.”

She looked toward the display.

“But Earth had centuries of observations after Helios departed.”

Adrian shifted slightly in his chair.

Sheila continued.

“We have discussed the Disconnect as a political decision made centuries ago.”

She pointed toward Ross 128-X.

“This is not politics. This is a real danger in front of us.”

No one interrupted.

“We don’t know what Earth has learned about Ross 128 since Helios departed.”

Her eyes returned to the small point on the display.

“And we do not know because we cannot ask them.”

Adrian leaned toward his microphone.

“That assumes they know anything about this object.”

Sheila looked toward him.

“That is the problem. We shouldn’t need to assume. We should be able to communicate.”

She looked back toward the display.

“Survival cannot depend on what a few people choose to believe or on what makes them comfortable.”

Adrian did not respond.

The Navigation director cleared the display and returned to the wider approach map.

“For now, our recommendation is continued observation and immediate revision of the arrival model.”

The Captain nodded.

“When is the first revised trajectory expected?”

“Within three weeks.”

“And if a maneuver is required?”

The director looked toward the Helios marker.

“Then we will need to begin planning it as soon as possible since we don’t have much fuel to spare.”

Kyla looked at the long line between Helios and Ross 128-X.

Eight years sounded like a long time when she first heard it.

It did not anymore.

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I want to remember every detail of that day.

I was on my way to work. We knew it could be any day now.

The previous week, I had felt something. I thought it was a contraction, so we rushed to the Vital Arc.

We were sent back. “False alarm,” they said.

This time was different.

I had barely left the cabin when I stopped walking. I felt an intense pressure, followed by an urge to push.

I called Julian.

“I think this is it.”

“Where are you?”

“I just left the cabin.”

“Go back. Wait for me there. I’ll be there soon.”

The corridor felt longer than usual.

The walk back to the cabin felt even longer.

After Julian arrived, everything started moving quickly.

The Vital Arc.

The examination.

The pain.

The epidural.

People coming in and out of the room.

My mother checking the displays.

Someone telling me when to breathe.

Then the pushing.

“Push, Kyla. Push.”

Julian stayed beside me the entire time, holding my hand and telling me I was doing great.

For some reason, I wanted to punch him.

I told him that.

He laughed.

I did not.

Then something changed.

There was movement around me. Voices became shorter. Faster.

All I could hear was my mother.

I knew that tone.

Something was wrong.

For a moment, she was not my mother anymore. She was Dr. Soria.

Then I heard what was happening.

The umbilical cord was wrapped around Alex’s neck.

The same thing that had kept him alive, the thing that had connected us for months, was now wrapped around his neck.

I remember asking if he was okay.

No one answered me.

For a few seconds, there was no sound.

Maybe it was only a second.

Then Alex cried.

The first thing I ever heard from my son was a cry.

“He’s breathing,” my mother said. “Everything is all right.”

Her voice had changed again.

She was no longer Dr. Soria.

She was his grandmother.

I want to remember when they brought him to me.

The first time I saw his face.

His little hands.

How warm he felt against me.

I remember looking at Julian.

He was crying.

I think I was too.

My father arrived afterward.

He stood beside the bed and stared at Alex for a long time without saying anything.

Dad always has something to say.

That day he did not.

He touched Alex’s hand with one finger.

Alex grabbed it.

My father cried.

I had never seen him cry before.

Maybe that is why I remember it so clearly.

Everyone cried that day.

My mother told me once that people are built differently from systems.

We cry. We laugh. We hope. We grieve.

We are living stories.

I think I understand what she meant now.

In one day, I went through all of those emotions.

We all did.

It was the happiest day of my life.

But for some reason, I also felt sad.

Empty.

I am still trying to understand those other feelings.

Alex has been with us for only a few weeks, and he already has different cries.

There is the hungry one.

There is the angry one when we change him.

There is the tired one, where he seems offended that sleep exists.

Sometimes he cries and neither Julian nor I can figure out why.

Those are the hardest.

I pick him up. I walk around the cabin. I feed him.

And sometimes he keeps crying anyway.

I have cried with him more than once.

That part is harder to write about.

I thought having Alex would make me happy.

It does.

I love him more than I knew I could love someone.

Sometimes I look at him while he sleeps and cannot understand how he was inside me only a few weeks ago.

But I am not happy all the time.

Some mornings I wake up and do not want to get out of bed.

Sometimes Julian takes Alex and I feel relieved.

Then I feel guilty for feeling relieved.

Sometimes Alex cries and something inside me becomes angry before I can stop it.

Not angry at him.

Just angry.

Then I cry because I was angry.

My mother says the changes after pregnancy affect people differently.

Dr. Navarro called it postpartum depression.

I do not like the name.

It sounds like something simple enough to put into a medical record.

A diagnosis.

A few words.

Something that can be recorded and filed away.

“Logminter, save this to my diary.”

LOG ENTRY

Action type: Log archival.

Integrity check: Validated. Data saved by authorized user.

Authorized user: Anwar Cloutier Soria, Kyla. Created at: 2788.123.1428.

“Logminter, how many entries have I recorded about the day Alex was born?” Kyla said.

> You have recorded 17 entries referencing events that occurred on 2788.052.

“Seventeen?”

Kyla looked back at the display.

“I feel like every time I remember that day, something changes.”

> Archived entries remain unchanged after validation.

“That’s not what I mean.”

Logminter paused.

> Human recollection may vary between retrieval events. Recalling the past can change how an event is remembered in the future.

Kyla read the response again.

“So every time I remember that day, my memory can change?”

> Correct. Human memory is reconstructive. It is an active process of rebuilding past experiences rather than playing back an exact recording.

“But you remember every version exactly the way it was recorded.”

> Archived records preserve the information provided at the time of recording until they are deleted or destroyed.

Kyla looked toward Alex.

He had just woken up. He opened his eyes, looked at her, and started to cry.

Kyla smiled and changed her voice without thinking, the way she always did when talking to him.

“Oh, are you hungry? Is that what it is?”

She stood and picked him up.

“Come here, my baby. Let’s get you fed.”

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Kyla sat near the end of the row in the medical waiting area.

Alex was asleep against her chest.

She had learned that moving too quickly after he fell asleep was a mistake, so she stayed still.

Behind her, a wall display cycled through reminders about nutrition, hydration, and sleep.

The door from the corridor opened.

Alyka ran inside.

“Alyka,” Layna called after her. “Slow down.”

Alyka stopped when she saw Kyla.

“Kai-yah!”

Layna followed a few steps behind.

“Hi,” Kyla said.

Layna smiled when she saw Alex.

“Oh, look at him.”

“He finally fell asleep.”

Alyka moved closer.

“Baby.”

“Yes,” Kyla said. “His name is Alex.”

Alyka leaned forward to look at him.

Kyla smiled.

“She’s so big now.”

Layna sat beside her.

“She’s always been precocious. She talked early. Walked early.”

Kyla looked at Alyka.

“She looks like she’s already two.”

“Not yet,” Layna said. “We still have a little while.”

Alyka climbed onto the chair beside her mother.

“Is Alyka feeling well?” Kyla asked.

“Just routine vaccinations.”

Alyka immediately shook her head.

“No.”

Layna laughed.

“She knows what that word means now.”

Kyla smiled.

“Poor thing.”

“She’ll be fine. She gets more upset about having to sit still than about the injection.”

Alex moved against Kyla’s chest.

His face tightened.

“Shh… shh… it’s okay,” Kyla whispered.

He opened his eyes and started to cry.

Alyka looked at him.

“Baby cry.”

Kyla adjusted Alex against her shoulder.

Layna watched her for a moment.

“You look tired.”

Kyla looked at her.

“They say it is postpartum depression.”

Layna nodded slowly.

“I had it too.”

Kyla was surprised.

“You did?”

“After Alyka was born.”

Layna rested one hand on her daughter’s knee.

“People kept asking how she was doing. If she was eating. If she was sleeping.”

She looked back at Kyla.

“Nobody asked how I was doing.”

Kyla understood.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Alyka leaned against Layna.

Layna put an arm around her.

“It gets better,” she said.

Kyla looked at her.

“The depression?”

Layna nodded.

“It does.”

A door opened.

“Kyla Anwar?”

Dr. Navarro stood at the entrance to the examination corridor.

Kyla stood carefully, supporting Alex with one arm.

Layna reached out to steady her as she stood.

“Are you going back to work soon?” she asked.

“In two weeks.”

“Ready?”

Kyla looked at Alex.

“I don’t know.”

Layna smiled.

“It’ll be alright.”

Kyla smiled back.

“See you later.”

“See you.”

Kyla followed Dr. Navarro into the examination corridor.

Alex kept crying.

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« Go to Chapter 17

I was 85 when we received the bad news that Ra had been canceled. The Seeder 3 vessel would never depart. After that, we only received three more messages from Earth.

Kyla stopped reading. Her cabin was illuminated only by the light from the display.

She read the last sentence again.

After that, we only received three more messages from Earth.

Kyla scanned the next paragraph.

The last two messages arrived only months apart. It would take two years to get an answer to either one.

“Evaluate all your options to change your trajectory and immediately map the area for rogue planetary objects.”

Then the final one.

“The Seeder Project has been canceled. Central Command will shut down its operations next month.”

Kyla stared at the screen for a moment.

“Logminter.”

> Ready to record entry.

“Henry Solariam said Helios received three more messages from Earth after Ra was canceled,” Kyla said.

> Correct. Based on ‘2338: How We Got Here,’ Helios received three messages after Ra was canceled.

“But he only quoted two of them. Are there entries that contain all three messages?” Kyla asked.

Logminter paused.

> The final two messages are quoted in other entries corroborating Henry Solariam’s account. No entries containing all three messages were found. Helios has received no further communications from Earth since the Disconnect.

“When did we receive the message announcing that Ra had been canceled?”

> Based on the Captain’s logs, the message announcing that Ra had been canceled was received on 2337.363 at 17:53.

Kyla looked at the date.

“If it took about a year for the message to arrive, Ra was canceled before 2336.363, correct?”

> Based on the estimated communication delay, the message was transmitted approximately 427 days earlier, on 2336.301.

In the Gregorian calendar used on Earth, the equivalent date was December 26, 2336.

Kyla read all the dates again.

“Give me all communication records received after 2337.363. Search the Captain’s logs, the mission logs, and the content library.”

> There are only two accessible communication records after 2337.363.

“What do you mean by accessible?”

> One additional communication record is sealed, dated 2338.061. Two records are accessible and correspond to Henry Solariam’s account, dated 2338.147 and 2338.213.

“Computer, call Julian.”

Kyla’s Whisperzend pulsed.

“Hello, Sweetie. I’m on my way there,” Julian said.

“Okay, I’ll wait until you arrive.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yes, I just want to show you something. See you soon.”

A few minutes later, the cabin door opened.

“Hi, I’m here.”

Kyla turned toward him.

“Come look at this.”

Julian walked to the desk, kissed her forehead, and pulled the chair beside her.

His hand moved instinctively to her belly.

“How is Alex doing?”

“He’s fine.”

Julian kept his hand there for a moment.

“You sounded serious when you called me,” Julian said.

“I found something serious.”

Julian exhaled.

“You scared me.”

“Sorry.”

He gave her belly a gentle rub before turning toward the display.

“What are we looking at?”

“Do you remember Henry Solariam’s story?”

Julian smiled.

“Of course. We read it with Instructor Mendez.”

Kyla pointed toward the display.

“Henry Solariam wrote that after Ra was canceled, Helios received three more messages from Earth.”

Julian leaned closer.

“He only quoted two of them,” Kyla said.

Julian’s smile faded.

“And you went looking for the third one.”

Kyla nodded.

“I think I found it, but it is sealed.”

“Let’s go to my desk. Maybe I can see what is going on,” Julian said.

They moved across the cabin. Julian sat in front of his workstation and activated the display.

A projected keyboard appeared above the desk.

He did not use his Whisperzend.

Kyla noticed.

Julian entered his credentials manually, then opened the Data and Information Office archive interface.

“Why are you typing?”

“I want to see the record directly.”

His fingers moved across the projected keys.

Kyla pulled a chair beside him.

“Do you remember the day of the record you found?”

“2338.061,” Kyla said.

Julian searched for the communication date.

> Query communication data where Created at = 2338.061.

The result appeared almost immediately.

“Here it is,” Julian said as he tried to access the entry.

The log entry information filled the display.

LOG ENTRY

Action type: Log retrieval.

Integrity check: Validated. Mission archive.

Access status: Sealed. Created at: 2338.061.0635.

Julian studied the information.

“Can you open it?” Kyla said.

Julian nodded.

“A sealed record only needs authorization. If we get authorization, the seal can be lifted. It seems to be classified as restricted.”

“What does that mean?” Kyla said.

“It only needs authorization from a Council member, the Captain, or the First Officer.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Julian did not answer immediately.

“This record is different.”

“How?”

He turned slightly toward her.

“We may not be able to read the message.”

“Why not?”

“Because this record predates the biometric encryption system. Authorization won’t decrypt it. It needs a separate key.”

“Who has the key?”

Julian returned to the keyboard and searched for additional metadata.

“No key reference. No decryption information. Nothing accessible from this level.”

“So someone went through a lot of trouble to hide this message,” Kyla said.

“No, not really. Sealing a record requires an extra step, so that part was deliberate. It can look suspicious, but encryption shouldn’t be.”

Kyla looked at him.

“Why not?”

“Because we use encryption every day.”

Kyla frowned.

“Medical records. Private messages. Log entries. Your diary.”

“My diary is encrypted?”

Julian glanced back at the sealed communication.

“Encryption can protect the Captain’s orders. It can protect the Council.”

He paused.

“But it also protects your entries from unauthorized access.”

Kyla looked at him.

“I never really thought about it.”

“Most people don’t.”

Julian rested his hands on the edge of the desk.

“Encryption doesn’t care who you are. It’s an equalizer. Powerful or powerless. Captain or child. If you have the key, you can read the information. If you don’t, you can’t.”

Kyla considered that.

“So the same technology that protects people from authority can help authority hide something from everyone else.”

“Exactly.”

“That seems dangerous.”

“It can be,” Julian said.

“Then why use it?”

Julian smiled faintly.

“Because the alternative is worse.”

Kyla looked back toward the record.

“I should talk to Sheila about this.”

Julian looked at her.

“She’s on the Council, so she should be able to authorize access. Or I could ask Director Prescott, if you want.”

“If there was something in this message from Earth that someone wanted hidden, Sheila should know before we present a proposal to reconnect,” Kyla said.

Julian did not answer immediately.

Then he closed the archive interface.

“Yes, I think you should talk to her first.”

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I talked to Sheila this morning.

I told her about the three messages Helios received after Ra was canceled, but only two were quoted in Henry Solariam’s story.

She remembered the story.

Then I showed her the sealed record.

At first, she did not seem as concerned as I expected.

She said records had been sealed before. Council deliberations, investigations, medical information, security reports.

A seal meant someone had decided access should be restricted. It did not necessarily mean they were trying to hide something forever.

Then I told her what Julian found.

The record predates the biometric encryption system, so we would still need a separate key to decrypt it.

That changed her expression.

She asked me if Julian could find the key.

I told her he had searched the metadata and found nothing. No key reference. No decryption information.

Sheila was quiet for a while.

Then she asked the question I had been trying to answer since I found out about this.

Why would someone seal a communication from Earth and then leave no accessible way to open it?

She asked if Director Prescott knew about it.

For a moment, I thought she was going to tell me that Julian should have reported it immediately. Instead, she looked at the record again and asked me who else knew.

Julian and me.

That was it.

She told me to keep it that way for now.

I did not like hearing that.

I told her keeping information from other people feels wrong.

She said there is a difference between hiding information and taking enough time to understand what you have found before making it public.

I suppose she is right.

She also reminded me that we are preparing to introduce a proposal to restore deep-space communication.

That is the part that worries me the most.

We argued during the election that restoring communication could help Helios.

I still believe that.

But now there is a message from Earth that someone aboard Helios decided to hide.

Maybe it has nothing to do with the Disconnect.

Maybe it is just an old restricted communication that became inaccessible as the systems changed.

Maybe somewhere along the way, someone forgot to document how to open it.

I keep repeating those possibilities to myself. I keep thinking that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this.

Before I left, Sheila asked me one more question.

“How did Henry Solariam know there were three messages?”

I did not understand what she meant at first.

Then I did.

So either Mr. Solariam knew the message existed without knowing what it said…

or he knew what was inside.

I have spent most of the day thinking about that.

“Logminter, save this to my diary.”

LOG ENTRY

Action type: Log archival.

Integrity check: Validated. Data saved by authorized user.

Authorized user: Anwar Cloutier Soria, Kyla. Created at: 2788.026.2009.

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Go to Chapter 19 »

« Go to Chapter 16

The Civic Arc conference room was small. A rectangular table occupied most of the space. One wall held a display panel. Another one had a small window facing the corridor.

A half-finished pot of dandelion coffee was at the center of the table, surrounded by notes.

Sheila stood beside the display. The Forge Arc projection was already up on the panel. The same descending line from the Council session showing the decline in Whisperzends.

“Sixteen?” Sheila asked.

Kyla looked up from the table.

“Sixteen years old instead of twelve will make it work.”

Sheila crossed her arms.

“I know sixteen would be better, but waiting four more years may be too much to ask. They will be ready to start the cadet program without any experience using a Whisperzend.”

“You’re right. Fourteen is a good compromise, but we have to reduce the age to return the devices to seventy-four,” Kyla said.

Sheila reduced the upper end of the age distribution.

Kyla studied the numbers.

“It helps, but if we want a lasting solution, we need to set it even lower. Like sixty-four years old.”

“That will be political suicide,” Sheila said. “It will not have enough votes.”

She looked back at the projection.

“Seventy-four is easier to defend.”

“It is,” Kyla said. “But it only postpones the shortage.”

Sheila did not answer.

Kyla adjusted the model again.

“At sixty-four, the projection stays within the available inventory.”

“For how long?” Sheila asked.

“Long enough to get us through the current shortage projection.”

Sheila pulled out a chair and sat across from Kyla.

For a moment, neither spoke.

Kyla looked at the projections again.

“When I was twelve, getting my Whisperzend felt like freedom.”

Sheila nodded.

“You could whisper someone from anywhere. Talk to Logminter while walking. Record something the moment you thought of it.”

Kyla looked back at the age distribution.

“Starting at fourteen is the right call.”

“Yes, let’s do fourteen,” Sheila said. “But returning the device while still actively working would probably feel like losing a lot.”

“We could add an exemption when continuous access is required by an active operational role,” Kyla said.

Sheila thought for a moment.

“Yes, let’s add that exemption.”

Kyla entered the sentence.

The draft filled the display.

Sheila read the proposal from beginning to end.

“I think this is it,” she said. “We’re not asking the sacrifice to belong to one group.”

Kyla looked at the two numbers.

14 and 64.

“Fifty years,” she said. “My parents will have to use a terminal soon, and Alex would have to wait two more years, but I think this is defensible.”

“Yes, it is defensible,” Sheila said. “And it offers a better option than having access based on what a person can afford.”

She sat back.

“I still don’t like sixty-four.”

“Neither do I.”

Kyla looked for the exemption and read it again.

“How many people are still in an assigned role at sixty-four?”

Sheila did not answer immediately.

“Probably more than we want.”

“Then this clause will break our numbers,” Kyla said.

Sheila looked at the projection for a long moment.

“I know.”

“Then why are we keeping it?”

“Because without it we lose the vote.” Sheila’s voice did not change. “And because the principle survives. Once the age is in the statute, the exemption can be narrowed later. It cannot be narrowed if it never passes.”

Kyla thought about the eight years, and about how many Council sessions would fit inside them.

She saved the draft.

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I went into the Council chamber thinking about how Sheila would respond to any objection about the proposal.

The Forge Arc projections were already displayed when we arrived. I sat beside Sheila, reviewing my notes one last time.

Across the chamber, Adrian Vale spoke quietly with Liam, who was seated in the Navigation Arc assistant chair. The Captain had not arrived yet.

Director Prescott sat farther down the table.

The President called the session to order.

“Today we will review several proposals regarding future Whisperzend allocation,” she said. “Council Member Vale will present first.”

His proposal was simple. Easy to explain.

Every citizen would continue receiving a Whisperzend at twelve, but continued personal assignment would require a monthly ledger charge after the citizen reached twenty.

His presentation was better than I expected.

He did not argue that people should pay for their Whisperzends. He argued that having a device assigned at twelve was not a right; it was a privilege. A privilege that Helios could no longer afford.

He said that under a ledger-credit model, the people who used their devices most would keep them, and the people who barely used them would find that they preferred to keep their credits. Simple.

The President opened the floor for questions.

Sheila raised her hand.

“And people with fewer ledger credits will make that decision more often.”

Adrian looked toward her.

“Probably, yes.”

Sheila continued.

“That is exactly the problem.”

“No,” Adrian said. “That is the way the mechanism works. It is simple economics.”

He continued.

“Ledger credits already exist to manage limited resources. People make decisions every day about how to use them.”

“A Whisperzend is not a pastry,” Sheila said. “It is how people record their lives.”

Adrian nodded.

“Recording a life does not require permanent possession of a Whisperzend. People who return their Whisperzend would still have access to Logminter, Computer services, messaging, and public terminals.”

The room became quiet for a moment.

“We will review the next proposal.” The President turned toward Sheila.

“Council Member Adeyemi.”

Sheila stood.

The display changed.

14 and 64.

“Our proposal begins from a different principle,” she said. “Every citizen should have the same guaranteed period of personal access.”

She explained the model.

Whisperzend assignment would begin at fourteen instead of twelve.

Guaranteed personal assignment would end at sixty-four.

After that, the device would return to Forge Arc inventory for inspection and reassignment.

The President opened the floor.

Adrian raised his hand.

“Why sixty-four?”

“Because the projections show that the inventory remains sustainable under that model,” Sheila said.

“The Council member representing the elders will not have a Whisperzend,” Adrian said. “We could have people working in the Navigation Arc without a Whisperzend. It could jeopardize basic functions aboard Helios.”

The room became very quiet.

Sheila glanced toward me.

“An exemption would apply when continuous personal access is required by an active operational role.”

Adrian nodded.

“Then the inventory does not remain sustainable under the model you are proposing.”

Sheila did not answer immediately.

“The exemption is necessary,” she said.

“I agree.”

The chamber was very quiet after that.

Then Director Prescott asked to be heard.

The President recognized him.

“I think both proposals are solving different parts of the same problem.”

Adrian looked toward him.

Sheila did too.

Director Prescott stood.

“Council Member Adeyemi’s proposal establishes a guaranteed period of equal personal access. Council Member Vale’s proposal creates flexibility after that guarantee.”

He walked toward the display.

“Why are we treating those as competing systems?”

No one answered.

Director Prescott changed the projection.

The age bar appeared again.

He moved the starting point to fourteen.

“Personal assignment begins at fourteen.”

Then he moved the second marker to sixty-four.

“Guaranteed personal assignment continues until sixty-four.”

Then he said the thing that ended the argument.

He said mandatory surrender was unnecessary. That if the Council raised eligibility to fourteen and, after some later age, replaced guaranteed assignment with a monthly charge, the projected gap would be resolved.

Sheila asked what the later age would be.

Director Prescott did not answer directly. Instead, he asked the computer system to calculate. The answer that came back was a range: fifty-six to fifty-eight years.

Instead of arguing, he selected the middle. A Whisperzend device would be guaranteed at no charge from fourteen until fifty-seven. No exceptions needed.

The President looked around the chamber.

“Any objections?”

No one answered.

“Council Member Vale?”

Adrian was still studying the projection.

“I can support it.”

She turned toward Sheila.

Sheila paused for a brief moment.

I knew that pause. She was deciding whether the next sentence would help or hurt the people.

“Yes,” Sheila said. “I can support it.”

“Then the combined language will be entered as an amendment,” the President said.

The vote passed.

During the election, four votes had felt like the difference between two futures.

Today, I stopped thinking about who had won.

Adrian did not get the system he proposed.

Neither did Sheila.

I had spent two weeks trying to help Sheila find a better answer.

Maybe that had been the wrong way to think about it.

There was no better answer waiting for us.

There were only different costs.

Alex would wait until fourteen.

My parents might someday decide whether keeping their Whisperzends was worth the ledger credits.

Someone else might return theirs when they turned fifty-seven, or maybe they would keep paying for it and return it when they turned sixty-four.

Someone in an operational role might keep one even longer.

No one got exactly what they wanted.

Maybe this is what governing looks like, finding something enough people could live with.

“Logminter, save this to my diary.”

LOG ENTRY

Action type: Log archival.

Integrity check: Validated. Data saved by authorized user.

Authorized user: Anwar Cloutier Soria, Kyla. Created at: 2787.347.2153.

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« Go to Chapter 15

The Council planning session had already been underway for more than an hour when the Council President moved to the next item on the agenda.

All Arc directors were present, along with the sitting Council members, the Captain, and the First Officer.

Kyla sat beside Council Member Adeyemi, reviewing the notes in front of her. Since becoming Sheila’s assistant after the election, Kyla had taken on more of the research and preparation behind each Council session.

Adrian Vale sat several places away, reviewing something in his own notes with the patience of a man who had already read it twice.

Liam had been transferred to the Navigation Arc after being recommended by Adrian. He was sitting next to the Captain, serving as his assistant.

The President looked down at her agenda.

“The next item concerns a report submitted by the Forge Arc last month regarding non-manufacturable components.”

The chamber panels changed.

A diagram of a Whisperzend appeared, separated into layers. Kyla recognized the curved pads and the thin arms that extended toward the temples. The next image showed what was inside.

“The Forge Arc has identified several systems that depend on components we can repair and refurbish but cannot manufacture aboard Helios,” the President continued. “The immediate concern brought to the Council involves Whisperzends.”

She looked toward the Forge Arc director.

“Director.”

The director stood.

“Most of the physical components used in a Whisperzend can be manufactured aboard Helios,” he said. “The housing, contacts, wiring, and several other components can be replaced as needed.”

Several parts of the diagram turned gray.

A small section of the circuitry remained highlighted.

“These cannot.”

Kyla leaned forward slightly.

“The circuitry contains components that require manufacturing processes Helios does not possess. Every functional board aboard the ship ultimately comes from the inventory launched from Earth, or from another device that has been recovered and refurbished.”

The diagram disappeared.

Numbers replaced it.

The director paused.

“The problem is that our recovery rate has been declining.”

A projection appeared across the center panel. Kyla followed the line as it moved gradually downward.

“Based on current failure rates and the number of children approaching eligibility, we estimate that within eight years we will no longer have enough serviceable Whisperzends to maintain the current allocation policy.”

Kyla looked toward Sheila.

Sheila was staring at the projection.

The President asked, “To be clear, what happens in eight years?”

“We cannot predict the exact day yet,” the director replied. “But under current projections, there will come a point when the number of serviceable devices available for reassignment is lower than the number required.”

“For replacements?” the Captain asked.

“For replacements and new allocations.”

The director changed the display again.

“Under current policy, every citizen receives a personal Whisperzend at age twelve.”

The director paused.

“The concern is that approximately eight years from now, we may not be able to provide one to every child reaching that age.”

The room became quieter.

The President thanked the director, and he returned to his seat.

“The purpose of this discussion is to determine what options the Council should evaluate before the projected shortage occurs,” said the President.

The Captain leaned toward his microphone. “I’m more concerned about the circuitry used in devices and equipment that provide life support and other vital functions. Do we have projections for those?”

The Forge Arc director answered. “The initial inventory of non-manufacturable components was calculated to last well beyond arrival. The problem with the Whisperzend devices is that their failure rate appears to have been underestimated. We have also lost several devices due to accidents, the most recent approximately a year ago.”

Adrian leaned toward his microphone.

“Perhaps we should start by reconsidering the allocation model.”

The President looked toward him.

“Go ahead, Council Member Vale.”

“Whisperzends are assigned at age twelve and, in practice, remain assigned for life,” Adrian said. “Perhaps we should incentivize people to return them earlier.”

“What are you suggesting?” the President asked.

“An allocation system using ledger credits.”

There was a brief silence.

Adrian continued.

“We already use ledger credits to manage access to limited resources. Cabin allocations are one example. Whisperzends could operate under a similar model.”

“You want people to pay for their Whisperzend?” Sheila asked.

“I want people to make a choice about whether they need one.”

Adrian folded his hands on the table.

“People who want continuous personal access would pay a monthly charge. The amount could be adjusted according to inventory and demand.”

Sheila shook her head.

“Whisperzends are how people communicate. Students use them for school. We use them to access the Computer and Logminter. People record their lives with them.”

“And none of those things requires a Whisperzend,” Adrian replied.

Sheila stopped.

Adrian continued.

“Logminter can be accessed from shared devices. So can Computer services. Messages can be sent from terminals. Children already do those things before they receive their first Whisperzend.”

Sheila turned toward Director Prescott.

“Director, how many log entries are recorded aboard Helios in a year?”

Prescott did not need to retrieve it.

“Roughly six hundred thousand.”

“And what fraction are recorded through a Whisperzend?”

Director Prescott paused to check the Data and Information Office records.

“Approximately eighty-two percent.”

“Then this is not a question about convenience,” Sheila said. “A system that depends on charging ledger credits will reduce the number of records from people who earn fewer credits. It will not reduce them evenly across the population.”

“I think that’s enough,” the President said.

The chamber became quiet.

“We have an engineering problem and one possible response to it. We do not yet have a proposal.”

She looked first toward Adrian and then toward Sheila.

“I don’t intend to have the Council debate a policy that hasn’t been written.”

She glanced around the chamber.

“If Council Member Vale wishes to develop a model based on ledger credits, submit it for review.”

Adrian nodded.

The President turned toward Sheila.

“And if anyone believes there is a better way to extend the Whisperzend inventory, prepare an alternative.”

Sheila nodded slowly.

“I will.”

“Good.”

The President returned to the agenda.

“Formal proposals will be reviewed two weeks from today. The Forge Arc will provide the projections necessary to evaluate them.”

The panels changed again, and the Whisperzend disappeared.

The President moved to the next item.

Kyla tried to follow.

Instead, she kept thinking about the line on the projection.

Eight years.

Her hand had moved to her stomach.

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The Plaza was busy in the way it always was after the working shifts ended. Children ran along the edge of the shallow basin while the blue light pulsed underneath them in slow waves.

Kyla and Julian sat on one of the benches near the basin.

The kiosk had watermelon ice pops. Julian had bought two, handing one to Kyla before she could ask.

“Eight years,” Kyla said quietly.

Julian glanced at her. “You’re still thinking about the meeting.”

“Of course I am. Do you remember getting yours?”

“Barely.”

“I do. I counted the days.”

Julian smiled. “That sounds like you.”

Kyla nudged him with her shoulder.

“It felt like freedom. I could whisper anyone whenever I wanted. I could talk to Logminter without having to find a terminal.”

She looked down at what remained of her ice pop.

“Alex may not get one.”

“Yes, he will,” Julian said. “He’ll be okay.”

Kyla watched two children race across the bridge.

“I don’t like Adrian’s idea.”

“I figured,” Julian said.

Kyla continued.

“The argument is that price makes people choose, but it doesn’t. It chooses for them, and it always chooses the same people.”

Julian took another bite of his ice pop.

“So what would you do?”

“I don’t know,” Kyla admitted.

The two children disappeared into one of the corridors.

“Maybe we’re giving them out too early.”

“At twelve?” Julian asked.

“Maybe thirteen. Fourteen. I don’t know.” Kyla shrugged. “Children already use terminals before they get one.”

“And maybe people shouldn’t keep them for the rest of their lives.”

Julian turned toward her.

“You mean give them back?”

“At some point.”

“That would affect our parents,” Julian said.

“I know.”

“And eventually us,” he added.

Kyla looked at him.

“I know that too. But it would be more equitable.”

Julian was quiet for a moment.

Kyla glanced toward the corridor where the children had disappeared.

“Sheila wants to bring an alternative proposal to the Council, so we have two weeks to come up with something better.”

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The waiting area outside the Vital Arc medical offices was almost empty.

A wall display cycled through reminders about nutrition and exercise. Across from them, a couple sat shoulder to shoulder without speaking, their hands intertwined. An older man waited farther down the row, occasionally glancing toward the examination rooms before returning to a Whisperzend conversation.

Kyla sat beside Julian, her right leg bouncing restlessly against the floor.

“Are you nervous?” Julian asked.

Kyla looked at him.

“Aren’t you?”

“I always get nervous when I come to the Vital Arc,” he admitted. “Then I remember this is where you madly fell in love with me.”

Kyla laughed.

“You mean where you fell in love with me.”

Julian nodded thoughtfully.

“That too.”

She rolled her eyes, still smiling.

Julian reached for her hand.

“Everything’s going to be okay.”

Kyla rested her free hand gently on her belly.

“I know,” she said. “I’m not nervous… just anxious.”

She looked toward the examination rooms.

“Today we find out if we’re having a boy or a girl.”

Julian leaned over and kissed her forehead.

The door slid open.

“Kyla Anwar.”

A nurse stood in the doorway, smiling.

“You can come in now. The doctor is ready for you.”

As Kyla stood, the nurse leaned closer and lowered her voice.

“I should warn you,” she whispered with a grin. “Your mother has been waiting for you all morning.”

She glanced toward the examination room.

“I think she’s even more excited than you are.”

Kyla and Julian followed the nurse down a short corridor lined with examination rooms.

The nurse stopped at the last door and tapped the panel beside it.

“You can go in.”

Lina was already waiting.

She looked up from the display in front of her.

“There you are,” she said with a smile.

“Good morning, Mom,” Kyla replied.

“Good morning, Mrs. Soria… sorry, Dr. Soria,” Julian added.

“You know you can call me Lina,” she said as she guided Kyla toward the examination table.

“How have you been feeling?”

“A little more tired than usual,” Kyla admitted.

Lina picked up the handheld scanner.

“Today’s examination is routine. We’ll verify growth, check the heartbeat, and make sure everything is progressing normally.”

She spread a small amount of gel across Kyla’s abdomen.

“It may feel a little cold.”

She placed the scanner against her belly.

The screen filled with gray and black. Lina moved the scanner in small quarter turns, her attention fixed on the display.

Kyla searched the image for something recognizable but saw only shapes and movement.

“There we are,” Lina said softly.

A rapid rhythmic sound filled the room.

Julian took Kyla’s hand as their baby’s heartbeat became the only sound they could hear.

Lina took several measurements, saving each one before adjusting the angle again.

A small smile appeared.

“Everything looks good so far.”

The display flickered, then went dark.

The room fell silent.

Lina frowned.

“Nothing to worry about,” she said. “This old machine needs a restart every now and then.”

She switched it off and back on.

After a few seconds, the display came back to life.

Lina picked up the scanner again.

“Let’s see if our little patient is willing to cooperate.”

She moved the scanner slowly across Kyla’s abdomen.

Then she stopped.

A smile spread across her face.

“I’ll have a grandson.”

Julian looked briefly pleased with himself.

“I knew it!”

Kyla smiled, looking at the display.

“A boy,” she repeated softly.

Lina wiped the scanner clean and returned it to its cradle.

She entered a few final notes into the medical record before looking back at Kyla.

“Everything is progressing normally.”

She tapped the display again.

“I’m prescribing a nutritional supplement for the next twelve weeks.”

Her eyes moved from the screen to her daughter.

“And you still look too thin.”

Kyla sighed.

“I’m eating.”

Julian raised his hand as though testifying before the Council.

“I can confirm that. Mostly pancakes.”

“With butter,” Kyla added.

“And berry spread,” Julian finished.

Lina reviewed the schedule one last time.

“I’d like to see you again in two weeks. If anything changes before then, you call me immediately.”

“Yes, Doctor,” Kyla replied.

Her mother almost smiled.

“Good.”

As they reached the door, Lina spoke again.

“One more thing.”

Kyla turned.

“Have you thought about the name?”

Kyla looked at Julian.

Julian looked at the floor.

“Not yet,” Kyla admitted.

“You have time.” Lina straightened a tray that did not need straightening. “But not as much as you think.”

She smiled.

“And tell your father,” Lina said. “He has been trying not to call me every fifteen minutes.”

“I will.”

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The cabin was quiet. Julian had cleared the table after dinner and turned off the main lights, leaving the room lit only by the soft glow of the desk display.

Kyla sat sideways in her chair, studying the list on the screen.

“How many names are left?” Julian asked.

“I’ve narrowed it down to three.”

“That sounds like progress.”

“It is.”

She stared at the list a moment longer.

“But I keep coming back to Alex.”

“It suits him,” Julian said.

“It’s a good name,” Kyla said. “Easy to say. Easy to remember.”

Julian tilted his head.

“That’s not why you like it.”

Kyla looked away from the display.

“No.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“I think… it would be nice to commemorate Darius too.”

Julian sat on the edge of the bed.

“You should ask Layna,” he said.

“I know.”

He folded his hands together.

“I’m not saying she’ll object.”

“I know what you mean.”

Kyla traced the edge of her Whisperzend with her thumb.

“It was one of the last things he said.”

She swallowed.

“It was in the family log. It was in the Council chamber. We all heard him choose a name for a child he would never meet.”

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

Kyla nodded.

“You’re right.”

She took a slow breath.

“I’ll call her.”

She touched her Whisperzend.

“Computer, call Layna. Open speaker.”

The tone sounded twice.

Then Layna’s voice filled the cabin, warm and immediately familiar.

“Kyla?”

“Hi.”

“Hold on.”

They heard a chair scrape across the floor and the muffled sound of someone being gently redirected.

“Alyka,” Layna laughed, “sit down properly.”

A brief pause.

“I have you on speaker, so whatever you’re about to say, you have an audience of one and a half.”

“We had the twenty-week examination,” Kyla said.

“And?”

“It’s a boy.”

There was a sound on the other end that Kyla could not identify at first.

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” Layna said, her voice breaking. “That’s wonderful, Kyla.”

“Thank you,” Kyla replied, her own voice breaking.

“How was the examination?”

“Good, but the doctor was impossible,” Kyla said. “She spent several minutes looking at the baby and then looked at me and said I was too thin.”

Layna laughed.

“That sounds like your mother.”

In the background, Alyka said something too quietly for them to understand.

“Alyka, say congratulations to Kyla.”

A small voice came through the speaker.

“Congrat’lations.”

“Thank you, Alyka,” Kyla said.

They heard a pleased little laugh.

“We’ve been going through names,” Kyla continued.

Layna did not answer immediately.

“I wanted to ask you about Alex.”

The silence lasted long enough that Kyla checked to make sure the call had not dropped.

“Say that again,” Layna said.

“We’d like to name him Alex. But not without asking you.”

A chair moved on the other end. Then a door opened and closed, and the sounds behind Layna became quieter.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t want to talk about this in front of her. She repeats everything now.”

“I understand.”

Layna took a breath.

“Do you know what Darius said the night we found out I was pregnant?”

Kyla waited.

“He said, ‘If it’s a boy, Alex. After Grandpa.’”

Her voice dropped.

“I told him we had months before we needed to decide.”

Layna was quiet for a moment.

“He told me he already had.”

Kyla looked toward Julian.

“He would have been so happy about this,” Layna continued. “About your baby. About both of you becoming parents.”

“I know.”

“And he would have complained that you stole his name.”

Kyla laughed through the tears gathering in her eyes.

“That sounds like him.”

“It does.”

They were quiet together for a moment.

“How is Alyka?” Kyla asked.

“She’s good. Loud. Curious. She asks questions from the moment she wakes up until the moment she falls asleep.”

“She sounds like someone I know,” Julian said.

“I heard that,” Kyla replied.

Layna laughed.

“She’s starting to ask about her father.”

Kyla’s smile faded.

“What do you tell her?”

“The truth. What she can understand.”

Layna paused.

A soft noise came through the wall behind Layna, followed by Alyka calling for her.

“Sometimes I worry that all she’ll have of him are my memories,” Layna said.

Kyla looked at the list of names on the display.

“She’ll have more than that. She’ll have my memories too. And Taro’s. She’ll have all our stories.”

“I guess,” Layna said. “But someone has to keep telling them until she’s old enough to carry them herself.”

Another muffled thump came from the other room.

Layna sighed.

“I should go. I think she broke something.”

“Go,” Kyla said, smiling. “Good night.”

“Good night, Kyla.”

“Good night, Layna.”

The tone sounded once, and the cabin was quiet again.

Julian remained on the edge of the bed.

“Alex,” he said finally.

“Alex,” Kyla repeated.

“It already feels like his name.”

Julian stood, kissed the top of her head, and went to get her a glass of water without being asked. She had cried, and neither of them was going to mention it.

“Logminter,” Kyla whispered.

> Ready to record entry.

“We’ve chosen Alex as the given name for our son.”

> Given name recorded: Alex.

Kyla looked toward Julian as he returned. “Help us determine his commemorative name.”

> Reviewing current commemorative lineage distribution.

Evaluating living bearers, historical continuity, and projected lineage preservation.

A brief pause followed.

> Recommended commemorative name: Soria.

Kyla stared at the screen.

“Why Soria?”

> Of the four last names that we could choose from, Soria is the least represented among the living population aboard Helios.

Commemorative naming was established to preserve names at risk of disappearing across generations. Long before Helios, humans used names to carry memories from one generation to the next.

Julian stood beside her.

“So he’ll carry your mother’s family forward.”

“Show us the full name,” Kyla said.

The words appeared on the screen:

> Alex Soria Darrow Anwar

Kyla read it silently.

Julian read it aloud.

“Alex Soria Darrow Anwar.”

Kyla placed her hand over her belly.

“Welcome to Helios, Alex.”

Outside their cabin, the ship continued its silent journey toward Ross 128.

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The moderator waited for the applause to end.

Kyla stood with the other campaign volunteers near the side of the Plaza stage. The volunteers had been given a narrow section behind the first rows.

The moderator looked down at the display in front of her.

“We have reached the end of the debate,” she said. “Each candidate will have two minutes for a closing statement. The order was set before the debate. Mr. Rook, you first.”

“Tomorrow,” Liam said, “Helios decides between two futures.”

He let that sit.

“In one future, we continue moving forward. We use every tool available to us. We complete the mission our ancestors began more than five hundred years ago.”

He looked across the audience.

“They left Earth knowing they would never reach Ross 128. They built Helios for generations they would never meet. They trusted us to finish what they started.”

A few people applauded, but Liam continued over them.

“In the other future, we allow fear to decide what tools we can use. We place new restrictions on technology when we should be asking how it can help us survive.”

His voice remained calm.

“Nearly a thousand years ago, there were people who opposed the machines changing their world. History remembers them as Luddites. They destroyed technology because they feared progress and believed they could preserve the past by standing against the future.”

Liam looked toward Sheila.

“Today, no one is destroying machines. The methods have changed. Now people call for restrictions. They ask us to weaken the systems that protect us because those systems make them uncomfortable.”

A few people near the front nodded.

“Fear did not carry us more than ten light-years from Earth. Fear has never carried anyone forward.” He let his hands open. “The mission needs courage. Tomorrow, choose the future that finishes the journey.”

The applause came fast and full. Liam did not look pleased with himself, which was the thing about him Kyla had never been able to dislike as much as she wanted to. He meant every word. He always did.

The moderator raised a hand until the Plaza quieted again.

“Miss Adeyemi. Two minutes.”

She waited longer than Liam had. She waited until the Plaza went completely quiet.

“Time passes. Generations come and go. But we continue repeating the same false accusation.”

She shook her head once.

“We are not opposed to technology. We are not opposed to progress. We are not opposed to arrival. And caution is not fear.”

She rested one hand against the edge of the lectern.

“The Luddites did not question technological progress. They questioned who controlled it, who reaped its benefits, and who was forced to bear its risks.”

She looked across the crowd.

“That is still the question.”

A few people began to applaud, but Sheila continued.

“Logminter was created to preserve our memories and our knowledge. It was not created to decide which orders to follow or which lives to risk.”

She looked toward Liam.

“Mr. Rook says we must use every technology available to increase our chances of arrival.”

She paused.

“I agree.”

The Plaza became still.

“If we are serious about improving our chances, we should restore deep-space communication.”

A murmur moved through the audience.

“Earth may have centuries of additional observations of Ross 128. Information about its planets, its stellar activity, and the conditions we may encounter when we arrive.”

Sheila’s voice became firmer.

“And Surya may already have accomplished what Helios is preparing to do. They may know what worked, what failed, and what they would do differently.”

“That knowledge could save lives. It could help us complete the mission.”

She looked toward Liam again.

“Yet Mr. Rook opposes restoring communication.”

The murmur grew louder.

“This campaign is not a choice between progress and fear. It is a choice between two ideas of progress.”

Her eyes moved from one end of the Plaza to the other.

“One gives more authority to a system that was never designed to exercise it.”

The warning light beside the moderator began to pulse.

“The other asks humanity for help.”

The timer sounded.

For a moment, no one moved.

Then the applause began.

The moderator thanked both candidates and reminded everyone that voting would begin the following morning. Her words disappeared beneath the noise as people left their seats and moved toward the campaign areas.

Sheila stepped down from the stage.

Two volunteers reached her first. One embraced her. The other began talking about the reaction from the undecided section. Her Whisperzend pulsed repeatedly as messages arrived.

When Sheila saw Kyla, she moved through the group toward her.

“You did it,” Kyla said.

Sheila shook her head. “We did.”

“You were the one on the stage,” Kyla replied.

Sheila smiled. “You gave me the argument.”

Kyla looked toward Liam’s side of the Plaza. He was surrounded by supporters, answering questions as though the debate had not ended.

“It was only a suggestion,” she said.

“No.” Sheila lowered her voice. “It gave us a way through their argument.”

“They’ve spent the entire campaign saying we’re afraid of technology,” Sheila continued. “That we’re against progress. Against arrival.”

She glanced back toward the stage.

“Now they have to explain why restoring communication does not count as progress.”

One of the volunteers approached and whispered that Sheila was needed. Sheila nodded, then looked back at Kyla.

“Thank you.”

Before Kyla could answer, Sheila moved away.

A memory returned without warning: Darius sitting at a Mirador table when they were teenagers, arguing that Earth could still guide them. That Surya might know something they did not. She had walked away from him.

At the time, she had believed the Disconnect did not matter.

It had taken many years to understand what he had been trying to say.

Julian approached and touched her arm.

“You okay?”

“Yes.” She looked toward the stage. “I was thinking about the Disconnect.”

She watched Sheila disappear into the waiting crowd.

“Maybe this time, we could end it.”

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Sheila’s campaign volunteers had gathered in one of the Civic Arc meeting rooms to wait for the results.

The room was louder than Kyla expected. People whispered predictions, watched the public feed, and pretended not to count the minutes.

Sheila stood near the front with her arms folded. Kyla and Julian stood beside her, watching the display panel in silence.

Kyla's Whisperzend pulsed with an incoming call from her mother.

“Mom,” she answered.

“Congratulations,” Lina said.

Kyla looked toward the results display.

“They haven’t announced anything yet. It should be any minute, but I think it’s going to be very close.”

“I’m not talking about the election,” Lina said. “The Natality Board approved your request.”

Kyla stopped breathing for a moment.

Julian looked at her.

“We were approved?” she whispered.

“Yes, your request was approved,” Lina said. “You can start trying when you’re ready.”

The careful flatness she used with patients gave way to something else.

“You’re going to be a mother, Kyla.”

Kyla turned toward Julian. His expression changed slowly, the way it did when he needed time to understand what was happening.

“We’re going to have a child,” she said.

Julian pulled her into his arms.

The people nearest them turned. A few smiled without knowing why.

“What happened?” Sheila asked.

Kyla looked at her, still holding Julian’s hand.

“The Natality Board approved us.”

Sheila held Kyla tightly.

“That’s good news,” she said.

Kyla looked toward the public feed.

“Now we have to win.”

The volume from the display rose.

Everyone turned.

“The Election Office is prepared to announce the result for the under-forty Council seat.”

The room went silent.

“Of one hundred sixty-eight valid votes cast: Sheila Adeyemi, eighty-six. Liam Rook, eighty-two.”

A pause followed, as though the feed needed to check its own arithmetic.

“Sheila Adeyemi is elected to the under-forty Council seat with fifty-one point two percent of the vote.”

No one reacted at first. Then the room exploded.

Sheila covered her mouth with one hand. People surrounded her, cheering and calling her name.

Kyla did not move with them.

Only four votes.

She could probably name them. She had likely spoken to some of them.

Julian’s arm came around her.

Two victories within the same hour.

A family they had permission to begin. A future they had helped choose.

The public feed continued.

“The Election Office is also prepared to announce the result for the other elected Council seat.”

The room quieted again.

“First Officer Adrian Vale has been elected.”

The celebration did not stop, but it changed.

Adrian Vale was a staunch Destinarian and one of Liam’s closest allies. Sheila had won, but the election had left the future of Helios more divided than anyone in the room wanted to admit.

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Kyla and Julian arrived at the Mirador early. By nine, there would be no tables left on the terrace facing the panels, and they wanted a good one for Sunday breakfast.

They chose a table near the center. Ahead of them, the panels showed a cleaned exterior view from the Central Axis cameras. A black field scattered with steady points of light. Somewhere among them was Ross 128, brighter now than when Kyla was a child.

Julian pulled out her chair without making a ceremony of it. She sat, and he took the chair beside her, facing the entrance.

“You picked the best seat,” Kyla said.

“I picked the chair that lets me see your parents arrive.”

“That is the best seat,” she replied.

Julian smiled faintly. “Then yes.”

Her parents came in at ten past nine. Lina stopped at three tables on the way because she had delivered half the terrace. Emil followed behind her, letting Lina make her usual rounds.

“Good morning, Mrs. Soria,” Julian said.

He stood and pulled out Lina’s chair.

“Good morning, Mr. Cloutier.”

“Good morning,” Emil said.

“You look thinner,” Lina said.

“I’m the same,” Kyla replied.

“You’re thin.” Lina sat, satisfied, and began rearranging the table.

The server came with a basket. Bread, pastries, and the little dishes.

“Butter today,” he said.

He set the white goat butter down like it was a favor.

Dandelion coffee. Berry juice. Pumpkin jam. The usual.

Emil looked over the table. “Are the scrambled eggs coming?”

“They are,” the server said.

“Good.”

Emil poured the coffee for everyone without being asked and without looking at what he was doing.

“So,” he said as he placed the pot at the center of the table. “The protests against Logminter operating the SD units are getting louder.”

Julian set down his cup.

“Logminter is not operating the SD units,” he said. “That’s what people keep saying, but it is not technically accurate.”

Emil looked at him. “I know. A bounded instance. No access to private logs. No independent authority.”

He reached for the butter.

“But it still refused a command. It acted. That’s what worries many people.”

Julian did not answer quickly enough.

Lina noticed. Kyla did too.

“The instance probably resolved a conflict between instructions,” Julian said.

Emil spread butter over a piece of bread. “That’s what a refusal becomes when our office writes the report, but many people outside the Data Office don’t see it that way.”

Julian accepted that with a small nod.

Kyla looked down at her plate.

“The Data Integrity Unit reviewed the implemented boundaries,” Julian said. “Several times. The safeguards are real. They’re not decorative.”

“I know they’re real,” Emil said. “I helped audit some of the early boundary models before you were assigned to Prescott’s office.”

“I know.”

“Then you know why people are concerned.”

Julian looked toward the panels, where the stars held steady above the terrace.

“Yes,” he said.

Lina poured berry juice into Kyla’s cup, though Kyla had not asked for any.

“People don't trust jargon,” Lina said. “Doctors learn that early. The more technical your explanation, the more people think you're hiding something.”

“We're not hiding this,” Julian said.

“No,” Emil’s Whisperzend pulsed. “We’re explaining it badly, and there are people on both sides already using it to push their own agendas.”

“Some people want to restrict the instances. Others want to give them more authority.”

Kyla whispered. “Sheila is running a good campaign.”

All three of them looked at her.

She felt her face grow warm, but she continued.

“I believe caution makes sense. Maybe we shouldn't expand something we still don't fully understand.”

Lina stirred her coffee. “I agree with that.”

Kyla looked at her mother.

“She approached me.”

Emil stopped cutting his bread.

Julian lowered his eyes to the table.

Lina did not move at all.

“She asked me to help with her campaign,” Kyla continued.

“For the under-forty Council seat?” Emil asked.

“Yes.”

“Against Liam Rook,” Lina said.

Kyla nodded.

Emil leaned back. “That will not be a quiet race.”

“No,” Julian said. “It already isn’t.”

Lina looked across the terrace, where more families were having their own conversations. “Liam is difficult to beat. People trust simple sentences when they are afraid.”

“The mission is the priority,” Emil said.

Kyla looked at him.

“That’s his whole campaign,” Emil continued. “And it’s a strong one, especially now that we are so close to arrival.”

“Sheila’s is strong too,” Kyla said.

“Logminter records. Humans decide,” Julian said.

Emil nodded. “Also strong.”

“Strong sentences are not the same as true ones,” Lina said. “Both sides are speaking with confidence. That doesn’t mean either has the whole truth.”

For a moment, no one spoke.

A group of younger citizens passed the terrace entrance carrying polished canes wrapped in dark grip cloth.

Emil followed them with his eyes.

“I thought the ringvolley match was after breakfast,” he said.

“It is,” Julian said. “But there is a cane-fighting exhibition first.”

Lina looked up. “Cane fighting?”

“Apparently,” Kyla said.

Lina shook her head. “I cannot believe we are resurrecting that.”

“It’s historical,” Julian said.

“So were many bad ideas.”

“It is controlled,” Julian said. “They use padded tips.”

Lina gave him a look. “I don’t think that makes any mother feel better.”

“Another thing being pushed by Destinarians,” Kyla said.

Emil looked toward the entrance again. “Maybe Liam is right about one thing. The next generation is going to be tougher than we were.”

“Or more violent,” Lina said.

She watched the group disappear, then turned back to her daughter.

“Has the medical team scheduled the review?”

Kyla looked at Julian.

Julian reached for his cup, then stopped.

“Next week,” Kyla said.

Lina’s expression changed as if she had been waiting to ask since the moment she arrived.

“If there are no medical objections, it goes to the Natality Board for approval,” Lina said.

Emil smiled. “And then, eventually, we become grandparents.”

Before Kyla could answer, applause rose near the entrance.

The young citizens with the canes had formed two lines. Liam Rook walked between them, greeting people as he entered the terrace. Nia followed two steps behind, greeting the people Liam passed.

“Campaigning at breakfast,” Lina said.

“He never wastes an audience,” Emil replied.

Liam stopped at two tables before reaching theirs.

“Mrs. Soria. Mr. Cloutier.” He nodded to Julian. “Kyla.”

“Liam,” Kyla said.

“Good morning,” Nia said as she approached their table.

“I heard Sheila asked you to join her campaign,” Liam said.

Kyla smiled. “News travels quickly.”

Liam smiled too, but Kyla could not tell whether the smile was meant for her or for the people watching them.

“I hope you listen to both of us before you answer her,” he said.

“I intend to,” Kyla said.

Someone called Liam’s name from the exhibition area.

He excused himself and continued across the terrace, stopping wherever enough people had gathered to watch him stop. Nia remained for a moment.

“You should do it,” she told Kyla quietly.

“Help Sheila?”

Nia glanced toward her husband.

“Make the race worth winning.”

Then she followed him.

Emil lifted his coffee.

“There it is,” he whispered.

“What?” Kyla asked.

“The whole campaign.”

Across the terrace, Liam accepted one of the polished canes and raised it above his head.

The applause began before he said a word.

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“Logminter,” Kyla whispered.

> Ready to record entry.

“I’ve been thinking about yesterday’s debate.”

> Would you like to replay the Public Logs?

“Replay the final question,” Kyla said.

A pause followed. Then the moderator’s voice came through her Whisperzend.

> As Helios approaches arrival, should Logminter’s authority be restricted, maintained, or expanded?

The recording shifted to Liam.

> Logminter was created to preserve information. If the mission fails, the information is irrelevant, so the most important part is completing the mission.

Our generation has been entrusted with this unique moment. An opportunity for humanity to expand, to arrive and colonize Ross 128. An opportunity to transcend. That is worth defending at all costs. Those are the memories worth preserving.

Applause followed. Loud and immediate.

The moderator turned to Sheila.

> Miss Adeyemi, same question.

Then Sheila’s voice.

> Restricted. Logminter was created to preserve information, not to make decisions. The mission must remain under human authority.

Mr. Rook didn’t answer the question. Instead, he suggested there is some disagreement about the importance of a successful arrival. There isn’t. We all support the mission. But the mission is human.

Logminter is a tool. It holds our memories, and we trust it because it does not act on them. The moment that trust is broken, we lose the tool. Our memories could be used against us.

More applause. Less at first, then growing.

The recording stopped.

Logminter continued.

> What would you like to explore next?

Kyla remained quiet for a moment.

“I’m not sure we’re going to win,” she said. “We don’t have a good answer to ‘the mission comes first’ argument.”

> Please clarify.

“What will increase our chances of a successful arrival?”

> Assuming current mission constraints remain unchanged, two actions would provide the greatest expected increase in mission success:

- Obtain additional information about the Ross 128 system before arrival.

- Obtain operational experience from a previous interstellar mission.

Kyla frowned.

“We can’t do either of those.”

> Under present conditions, that assessment is correct.

Kyla stared at the ceiling.

A thought arrived so quietly she almost missed it.

“Unless…”

She sat upright.

“Surya.”

She waited a second before continuing. “If Helios reestablished communication, we could ask Surya.”

“Earth could also send us any new discoveries about Ross 128.”

She smiled.

“Darius would be so happy if we ended the Disconnect… It could save this campaign.”

“Logminter, save this to my diary.”

LOG ENTRY

Action type: Log archival.

Integrity check: Validated. Data saved by authorized user.

Authorized user: Anwar Cloutier Soria, Kyla. Created at: 2787.142.2348.

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It has been 153 days since we lost Darius.

More than once, I have picked up my Whisperzend to call him.

Every time I pass their cabin, every time I see Layna, it is impossible not to remember him.

Her body keeps changing. Their child keeps growing. When I see her walking through the corridors, I think about how Darius should be there beside her.

He should be making jokes about being a father. He should be wondering whether the baby will have his eyes or hers. He should be here.

Instead, Layna will have to tell their child about him. Alyka will have to learn about her father through recordings and log entries.

Tomorrow we will celebrate Generation Day. Everyone will be remembering someone.

We will celebrate the previous generations. It is a day to remember our foreparents. A day to remember the people who carried Helios before we were born. The people who repaired systems before we knew their names. The people who raised children who raised children who eventually raised us.

People usually cry because they remember their grandfather or grandmother. Sometimes they remember someone they never met, someone whose name they know from a log entry or a family record. They remember stories repeated so often that they become part of the family.

I always thought remembrance belonged to people who were far away in time.

But Darius is not far away.

Tomorrow, when everyone says, “I will look for you,” I will think about my friend.

That promise was just part of a ceremony. Something we were supposed to say.

Now I think I know what it means. It is not only about finding someone in the future. It is about remembering them today. Refusing to let them go, refusing to let them disappear from our lives.

The ship remembers people through log entries and ceremonies. But that is not enough. A record can tell you when someone was born and when they died. It cannot tell you what it felt like when they laughed with you. When they cried with you.

I remember that.

I remember him.

“Logminter, save this to my diary.”

LOG ENTRY

Action type: Log archival.

Integrity check: Validated. Data saved by authorized user.

Authorized user: Anwar Cloutier Soria, Kyla. Created at: 2786.246.2209.

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The Plaza was full before the ceremony began.

People stood shoulder to shoulder beneath the open space of the ship’s central chamber. Families gathered together in small clusters. Older residents held the hands of children who looked restless and uncertain, not yet old enough to understand the ceremony.

All eyes were turned toward the platform.

Across the back of the platform, panels projected the names of Helios’s dead as they moved slowly through the light.

Some belonged to the launch generation. Some belonged to people who had died before Kyla’s grandparents were born. Others were recent enough that people still stopped when they passed them.

The Captain finished his remarks and stepped away from the center of the platform.

For a moment, the Plaza remained silent.

Then the Council President moved forward.

“Thank you, Captain,” she said. “And thank you to every family gathered here today. Generation Day belongs to all of Helios. We honor the lives that made our own possible.”

She turned toward the man waiting beside the platform.

“Chaplain.”

The chaplain stepped forward.

“We are here today because none of us arrived alone,” the chaplain said. “We live because others repaired what failed, preserved what could be lost, taught what they knew, and carried Helios forward when they could not know who would inherit it.”

The crowd listened in silence.

“We remember the previous generations. We remember the people who departed before us. We remember that every life aboard this ship becomes part of the life that follows.”

Kyla stood between Julian and Taro.

Julian’s hands were folded in front of him. Taro had both hands in his pockets, his eyes fixed on the projected names.

Across the Plaza, Kyla saw Layna standing beside her family.

One hand rested against the curve of her stomach.

For a moment, Kyla could not look away.

Darius’s child was there. Growing quietly inside the person he had loved. A life that would arrive on Helios and learn his name through recordings and stories told by people who wished he had stayed.

A low tone sounded through the Plaza.

Then the chaplain spoke the first line of the promise.

“I will not forget you.”

The Plaza answered.

“I will not forget you.”

Kyla heard her own voice among the others, but it did not feel like it belonged to her.

“I will honor you,” the chaplain said.

“I will honor you,” the crowd replied.

Kyla closed her eyes.

For one moment, she did not see the Plaza. She saw Darius playing ringvolley, moving across the court with the confidence he always had before the game became serious. She saw him laughing at something Taro had said. She saw him before an EVA operation, trying to act calm when everyone knew he was nervous.

“I will look for you,” the chaplain said.

“I will look for you,” the crowd answered.

Kyla’s throat tightened.

The words had always been large. The Theogenian promise had belonged to the dead of Helios, to the people who had carried the ship through centuries.

Now it belonged to one person.

Darius.

She opened her eyes before the tears could fall. The names continued moving across the panels, patient and indifferent. Beside her, Taro lowered his head. They both knew Darius’s name was there.

When the ceremony ended, people remained in the Plaza for a while. Some embraced. Some spoke quietly. Others drifted toward the side corridors, carrying flowers and small memorial lights they planned to leave in the remembrance alcoves.

Kyla, Julian, and Taro moved toward the edge of the crowd.

For several minutes, none of them spoke.

Then Taro said, “I resigned from EVA yesterday.”

Kyla turned toward him. “You resigned?”

He nodded.

Julian looked at him carefully. “Are you sure?”

“I am,” Taro said. “I’ve been thinking about it for a long time.”

Kyla watched him. He looked tired, but not uncertain.

“I applied to the spiritual chaplaincy program,” he said.

Julian blinked. “The chaplaincy?”

Taro gave a small nod. “They accepted me.”

Kyla tried to imagine him there, sitting with people after a loss, speaking to families, helping prepare remembrance ceremonies. It seemed far from EVA. But it also seemed connected in a way she had not expected.

“Why?” she asked.

Taro looked at her.

“I think this is my calling,” he said.

The answer was so simple that Kyla did not know what to say.

Taro looked at Julian. “Have they finished the investigation?”

Julian exhaled through his nose. “It’s still inconclusive.”

Taro looked at him. “What does that mean?”

“SD-3 and SD-5 were lost, so there are gaps in the operation record,” Julian said. “The data we have does not show an anomaly.”

“But something happened,” Taro said.

“Yes,” Julian replied. “Something happened. We just cannot prove what caused it.”

“And SD-4?” Taro asked.

Julian hesitated before answering.

“SD-4’s Logminter instance is functioning as expected,” he said. “Its boundaries held. Its records show no action outside its authorized role and no anomaly in the way it operated.”

Taro looked away.

“So that’s it?” he asked. “We lost the SD unit that saved me, the same unit that could have saved my best friend, and the ship gets a report saying we do not know why?”

Julian lowered his voice.

“We got the truth we can prove,” Julian said. “The investigation found no anomaly. That does not mean the questions are gone.”

“Will Logminter continue operating in the SD units?” Taro asked.

“For now,” Julian replied.

Taro looked back toward the projected names.

“Perhaps one of them will save someone else someday,” he said. “Someone’s friend. Someone’s family.”

For a moment, Kyla thought about Sheila’s words during the gathering outside the Council chamber.

Today, it saved someone. Tomorrow, what will it decide to do? What will it decide to risk?

Then she said, “I hope so… I hope we don’t regret it.”

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Flight Ops: EVA rigger team, confirm positions.

Liam: Tether secure. SD-4 is holding inspection position.

Taro: Tether secure. SD-3 is on repair support. SD-5 has the tension collar.

Flight Ops: Confirm repair equipment.

Taro: Replacement braid secure. Tool kit secure. Tension collar secure in SD-5 cradle.

Liam: Inspection array secure. I have visual on the paired cable.

Flight Ops: Mr. Rook, confirm structural condition.

Liam: No visible fracture along the first seven hundred meters. Load distribution is stable here.

Flight Ops: Continue inspection.

Liam: Copy.

Flight Ops: Mr. Ishida, begin removal of the damaged section on my mark. SD-3 will hold the replacement braid. SD-5 will maintain collar position.

Taro: Copy.

Flight Ops: Mark.

Taro: Releasing outer clamp.

> Outer clamp release logged.

Taro: Clamp is clear. Moving to the inner assembly.

Liam: Taro, take your time with the inner one. That section may be under more tension than the model predicted.

Taro: I know.

Liam: I’m only saying it because you sound like you’re in a hurry.

Taro: I’m not in a hurry.

Flight Ops: Proceed, Mr. Ishida.

Taro: Inner clamp is moving.

> Electrical discharge detected.

Taro: SD-5 took a hit.

Flight Ops: Confirm.

Taro: It is not responding. It lost control.

Liam: I have visual from here. SD-5 is drifting off the cable plane.

Flight Ops: Telemetry confirms partial power loss. SD-5 propulsion is inactive. Rotation is increasing.

Taro: The collar is loose.

Flight Ops: Confirm visual.

Taro: The cradle released. The collar is clear of SD-5.

Liam: Do not move toward it yet.

Taro: It is drifting toward the recovery limit.

Flight Ops: Collar velocity confirmed. Estimated exit from recovery arc in one hundred and forty seconds.

Taro: SD-3, tow SD-5 clear of the cable.

Flight Ops: Command authorized.

Taro: Copy.

Liam: Hold the repair position until SD-5 is secure.

Taro: I’m holding.

Flight Ops: SD-3 is in transit.

Taro: The collar is picking up rotation.

Liam: I can see that.

Taro: It’s not going to stay in the arc.

Flight Ops: SD-3 has attached to SD-5. Tow connection secure.

Taro: Flight Ops, request limited detachment for collar recovery.

Liam: Negative.

Taro: I can reach it.

Liam: You are tethered beside a damaged cable carrying live load. SD-3 has one unit under tow. You’re not leaving the line.

Taro: We cannot complete the repair without the collar.

Liam: I know.

Taro: Then you know what happens when it clears the arc.

Liam: I’m three minutes away with SD-4. I can get there.

Taro: Three minutes is too long.

Liam: Then we lose the collar. We’re not losing a rigger on my watch.

Taro: Flight Ops, request limited detachment for collar recovery.

Flight Ops: Stand by.

Taro: It’s moving faster now.

Liam: Taro, do not unclip.

First Officer: Flight Ops, recovery numbers.

Flight Ops: Mr. Ishida can intercept within sixty seconds. Mr. Rook cannot reach the collar before it exits the recovery arc. SD-3 is unable to reach the collar while towing SD-5.

First Officer: Return probability for Mr. Ishida.

Flight Ops: Eighty-four percent with a clean intercept and return. Sixty-eight percent if he misses the collar and requires direct recovery.

First Officer: Mr. Ishida, you are authorized for limited detachment. Ninety seconds maximum. Recover the collar and return to your tether. SD-3 remains assigned to SD-5.

Taro: Understood.

Liam: First Officer, I object.

First Officer: Objection noted.

Liam: Taro, listen to me. You catch that collar, you don’t chase it farther. You miss it, you come back.

Taro: Copy.

> Tether release logged.

Taro: I’m clear.

Flight Ops: Mr. Ishida is moving toward the collar.

Liam: SD-3, maintain tow on SD-5.

SD-3: Command received.

Taro: I’m closing.

Flight Ops: Collar rotation is increasing. Mr. Ishida, your intercept window is narrowing.

Taro: I see it.

Liam: Keep your body in line. Do not overcorrect.

Taro: I have it.

Flight Ops: Confirm contact.

Taro: Not yet.

Liam: Taro, you’re too far from your tether. Begin return now.

Taro: I can get it.

Liam: Return now.

Taro: Almost.

Flight Ops: Mr. Ishida, your vector is carrying you beneath the damaged cable.

Taro: I know.

Flight Ops: SD-5 tow line has been released.

Liam: Say again.

Flight Ops: SD-3 released its tow connection.

Liam: SD-3, resecure SD-5. Do not pursue the collar.

SD-3: Command received.

Flight Ops: SD-3 has changed vector.

Liam: Return to SD-5.

Flight Ops: No course correction detected.

Taro: It’s coming toward me.

Liam: SD-3, stand down. That is a direct order.

SD-3: Command received.

Flight Ops: SD-3 continues acceleration.

Liam: Flight Ops, send SD-4 to retrieve SD-5.

Flight Ops: Negative. SD-5 is outside SD-4’s safe transit field.

Liam: It’s drifting. SD-4 can reach it.

Flight Ops: Probability of intercept is low and falling. Do not send SD-4.

Liam: We’re losing two units.

Flight Ops: We may lose three if SD-4 enters that field.

Taro: The collar is moving away from me.

Liam: Taro, return to your tether. Now.

Taro: Copy. Collar pursuit aborted.

Flight Ops: SD-3 has reached the collar.

Taro: It has it.

Flight Ops: SD-3 is carrying the collar. Velocity exceeds recovery threshold.

Liam: It cannot brake at that speed.

Flight Ops: Confirmed.

Liam: SD-3, release the collar and reverse.

SD-3: Command received.

Flight Ops: No release detected.

Taro: It’s still coming.

Liam: Taro, move clear. Move clear now.

Taro: I’m trying.

Flight Ops: SD-3 is altering vector.

Liam: It’s going to cross the damaged cable.

Flight Ops: Negative. Vector adjustment is taking it beneath the cable plane.

Taro: It’s too fast.

Liam: Taro, get your arms in. Do not reach until it clears you.

Taro: I see it.

Flight Ops: SD-3 has released the collar.

Taro: I have it.

Flight Ops: Confirm secure.

Taro: Secure.

Liam: Begin return.

Taro: Copy.

Flight Ops: SD-3 is continuing aft.

Liam: SD-3, reverse thrust. Return to the cable.

SD-3: Command received. No return trajectory possible.

Flight Ops: Not enough margin to arrest before the outer recovery limit.

Taro: SD-3 is gone. It’s moving away from us.

Flight Ops: Mr. Ishida, confirm tether lock.

Taro: Tether lock confirmed. Approaching repair site with collar.

Flight Ops: Mr. Ishida is returning to the repair site on a stable vector.

Liam: Confirm loss of SD-5.

Flight Ops: Confirmed. SD-5 has passed beyond the recovery range.

Taro: Liam.

Liam: I’m heading to your position.

Taro: Copy.

Flight Ops: Mr. Ishida, wait for SD-4 and Mr. Rook.

Taro: Copy. I see SD-4 approaching.

Flight Ops: Provide a status update after SD-4 reaches your position.

Taro: Status update. SD-4 is now carrying the collar.

Flight Ops: SD-4, position the tension collar.

SD-4: Command received. Tension collar is now in position.

Flight Ops: Mr. Ishida, begin installation.

Taro: Installing.

> Tension collar seated.

Flight Ops: Confirm alignment.

Taro: Alignment good.

Liam: Paired cable remains stable. No secondary fracture. You can proceed.

Flight Ops: Begin load transfer on my mark.

Flight Ops: Mark.

Taro: Load transfer started.

Flight Ops: Reading.

Liam: It’s holding.

Taro: Collar is holding.

Flight Ops: Magnetic sail anchor configuration stable.

Liam: Good work, Taro.

Taro: You too.

Flight Ops: Magsail deployment complete.

> Mission log playback complete.

The silence in the Council chamber lasted only a moment.

Then everyone started talking at once.

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After the recording playback ended, the Council President introduced a motion to seal the final records of the SD units involved.

The remaining Logminter instances would be suspended until the Data Integrity Unit, the Regulation Bureau, and Flight Ops could explain what had happened.

No one in the chamber seemed completely satisfied by that, but the motion was approved.

Kyla waited for Julian while the directors gathered their belongings and spoke in low voices. Across the room, Liam stood with the First Officer and two EVA officers. Taro was near the operations bench.

He had not moved since the recording ended.

Julian touched Kyla’s arm lightly.

“Come on,” he said.

They started toward the exit, then Kyla stopped.

“Taro.”

He looked up.

“You okay?” she asked.

Taro gave a small shake of his head.

“Not really,” he said. “I’m still processing what happened.”

Julian stood beside her without speaking.

Taro looked toward the chamber panels. They were dark again.

“SD-3 saved me,” he said.

“It caught the collar,” Taro continued. “It brought it to me. It changed course so it would not hit me.”

“I know,” Kyla said quietly.

“But it didn’t follow Liam’s command.”

Julian looked toward Taro.

“It did receive the command. That will be part of the investigation,” he said.

The three of them stood in the emptying chamber. Behind them, someone called for a sealed-copy verification. Someone else answered that the mission record had already been transferred.

Taro looked down at his hands.

“I keep thinking about Darius,” Taro said. “I wonder what would have happened if SD-3 had disobeyed the command and tried to save him.”

Kyla looked toward the floor.

Julian did not look away.

“SD-3 was part of both missions,” he said. “We’ll make sure all its records are fully reviewed.”

Taro nodded slowly.

“I think something saved me.”

Kyla looked up.

Julian remained very still.

“I know what the report will say,” Taro continued. “It will say the unit calculated a better outcome, or that it found a conflict in the command structure, or a condition that was not in the models.”

“That may be the conclusion,” Julian said.

Taro looked back at the dark panels. “But something had to begin before that moment. The ship. The people who built it. Logminter. Darius dying. All of it.”

“Maybe something was set in motion so long ago that we cannot see where it started.”

Julian said nothing.

Kyla said, “You mean Origin?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I was not supposed to die out there,” Taro said.

Kyla wanted to tell him that Darius was not supposed to die either.

But she did not say it.

Taro looked at her.

“…or maybe I just need to believe that,” he said.

Kyla nodded.

“I understand.”

He gave her a tired smile.

Taro looked once more toward Julian.

“Whatever the investigation finds,” he said, “SD-3 came for me.”

Then he walked away.

Kyla and Julian left the Council chamber together.

A group had gathered outside the doors.

At first, Kyla thought they were waiting to hear what the Council had decided. Then she saw the signs held above the crowd.

“Logminter records. It does not decide.”

“No agency without consent.”

Sheila Adeyemi stood near the center of the group. Kyla recognized her at once. She had admired Sheila since they were children, but after Sheila won the anniversary assignment, that admiration had become almost reverence.

“They told us the instances were bounded,” Sheila said. “They told us they would advise the drones, not act for them.”

A few voices rose at once.

“It saved a rigger,” someone said.

Sheila nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “It did. But it also ignored a direct command. It decided which risk to take. It decided what to do. That is not advice.”

The crowd grew quieter.

Kyla felt Julian stop beside her.

Sheila continued.

“Today, it saved someone. Tomorrow, what will it decide to do? What will it decide to risk?”

No one answered her.

Kyla looked at Julian.

“They’re talking about the SD units,” she said quietly.

Julian watched Sheila for a moment.

They stood at the edge of the crowd while Sheila raised her voice again.

“Logminter holds our memories because it does not act on them,” she said. “That is why we trust it. We cannot let them use an apparently successful outcome to erase that boundary.”

As they continued away from the Council chamber, Kyla looked past the crowd toward the side corridor.

Julian spoke quietly.

“We’ll get to the bottom of this. I promise.”

Kyla looked at him.

“We have to find out if this was an error. Or if something else happened,” he said.

“And if it was not?” Kyla asked.

Julian did not answer at once.

“Then we may be dealing with Presence.”

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There should have been time to mourn Darius. There wasn’t. The harsh realities of space did not give it to us.

Completing the magsail deployment was now the ship’s highest priority. The future of Helios and everyone aboard depended on it.

When I was a kid, we were told that we were the generation that would arrive at Ross 128.

Back then, I imagined descending through beautiful skies onto a new world, just like in the old fiction stories, but space is harsher than fiction.

Now I know that if everything goes well, Helios should enter a stable orbit around Ross 128 in the year 2837. I will be almost eighty by then.

If we are lucky, maybe my children, or my grandchildren, will be the first to set foot on a new world.

Ross 128 b is believed to be more massive than Earth, but after more than five centuries of travel, we still know little about the planet that has shaped every decision made aboard Helios.

We do not know if it has oceans. We do not know if it has moons.

We crossed more than ten light-years for possibilities. I hope we learn more the closer we get.

“Sweetie, I need your opinion on something. Do you have a few minutes?” Julian asked.

He was pacing back and forth near the entrance to the cabin.

Kyla had been so absorbed in her diary entry that she had not heard him approach.

“Sure,” she said.

Then she whispered, “Logminter, save this to my diary.”

LOG ENTRY

Action type: Log archival.

Integrity check: Validated. Data saved by authorized user.

Authorized user: Anwar Cloutier Soria, Kyla. Created at: 2786.105.2209.

###

“The Data and Information Office has been working on a software upgrade for the Space Drone units,” Julian said as he approached the desk.

Kyla frowned. “What kind of upgrade?”

“They want to give the SD units a restricted instance of Logminter.”

Kyla looked up. “Wouldn’t that give an archival system autonomy?”

Julian shook his head. “No, not really. The proposal is limited to Logminter providing feedback to the SD computer systems. No agency. No regulatory violation.”

“But it would set a precedent,” Kyla said. “It would be the first autonomous units operating with Logminter.”

“That’s what worries me,” Julian admitted. “But it still wouldn’t have direct control. Think of it as another point of view. Like the voice in your head.”

Neither of them spoke for a few seconds.

“Do you think it would have saved Darius?” Kyla finally asked.

Julian looked down at the desk.

“It is hard to know,” he said quietly. “Probably not. But the investigation concluded that exterior missions are going to become more complex as arrival approaches. Engineering believes additional cognitive support could reduce the risks.”

“People aren’t going to like this,” Kyla said.

“No,” Julian said. “Some people think we’re getting too close to violating the regulatory accord. Others think we should have done this decades ago.”

“And what do you think?”

Julian remained silent for a moment.

“I think we’re asking people to work outside the ship and risk their lives,” he answered. “If we can make those missions safer, we should.”

“When does the Council hear the proposal?”

“Tomorrow,” Julian said. “Right after the briefing on the magsail.”

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The Council chamber had not changed since the last session, but the silence was different.

Ten days ago, they had gathered to hear how Darius died. Today, they had gathered to decide what to do about it.

Kyla took the seat beside Council Member Silva. Julian sat next to Director Prescott. Taro was there too, on the operations side.

The President opened the session without ceremony.

“This is a planning session,” she said. “We will hear the operational requirements for the next deployment, and a proposal attached to it. We will vote on the proposal before we adjourn.”

She looked toward command.

“First Officer.”

The First Officer rose. On the chamber panels, the mission summary appeared. Launch. Cruise. The long band of deceleration that had not yet begun.

“The magnetic sail is deployed, but one of its anchor cables was damaged,” the First Officer said. “To reach a stable configuration before deceleration, we require another exterior deployment to repair it. We have scheduled it in two weeks.”

The room was silent.

“The operation will use three Space Drone units and two EVA riggers. SD-3, SD-4, and SD-5. The riggers are Taro Ishida and Liam Rook.”

Kyla looked at Taro.

He did not look back. He kept his eyes on the table.

Ten days after the cable took Darius off the ship, Taro had asked to go back outside.

Liam Rook sat farther down the operations side. Kyla knew him. Everyone her age did. He was the curfew monitor who sent the unwelcome notices, an outspoken Destinarian, ambitious and courageous.

Of course he had volunteered.

He listened to the First Officer with a small nod, the way a man confirms a thing he has already decided is reasonable.

“There is one condition attached to this operation,” the First Officer said. “It is not mine to present.”

The officer sat. Kyla noticed the small thing. The First Officer had made the call on Darius’s mission. The call not to send the second unit. And now the First Officer had handed the next part to someone else.

The President turned to the data side.

“Director Prescott.”

Director Prescott got to his feet and faced the chamber.

“The Data and Information Office, with the EVA Division, proposes a software upgrade to the Space Drone fleet,” he said. “A restricted instance of Logminter, installed in each unit before the next deployment.”

The panels changed. Specifications now, where the voyage map had been.

“The instance is bounded,” Prescott said. “It records. It learns the task. It provides feedback to the unit’s onboard systems. It does not take control of the unit.”

He paused.

“Exterior work will grow more complex as we approach arrival. The investigation into the recent loss concluded as much. This proposal is one answer to that. It is not the only possible answer, but it is the one before you today.”

He sat.

“The floor is open,” the President said. “Before the vote.”

Council Member Silva did not wait long.

“We all know why the archival systems are not given agency. They are built on trust. Logminter holds our most private thoughts. Our diaries. Our last words,” she said.

“We let it hold those things because it only records. It does not act on what it knows. That is the entire reason a person can trust it with a life. The moment it begins to act, we have changed what it is. And we have changed it for everyone who ever whispered something into it.”

The chamber was very still.

Kyla watched her, and she was proud. This was the woman she had chosen to work beside. Two years at her side, and this was why. Silva had said the thing the room needed someone to say, and she had said it better than anyone else could have.

“I want the Regulation Bureau on the record,” Silva said. “Is this within the statutes, or is it not?”

The President nodded toward the Bureau bench.

The Bureau representative spoke carefully, the way people from the Bureau always did, as though every sentence might be read back to him later.

“As drafted, the proposal remains within the statutes,” he said. “Logminter advises. The onboard system acts, and a human authorizes. No agency is transferred. The regulatory boundary is not crossed.”

He let that settle. Then he added the rest.

“But the software is outside the Bureau’s control. I would ask the Council to hear the Data Integrity Unit before it votes. They are the ones who answer for what Logminter can do and for protecting our privacy.”

Julian had been assigned to present the Data Integrity Unit’s assessment. Heads turned toward him.

He stood. Kyla watched him search for the words, but she already knew them. She had heard him say them before, when it was only the two of them in their cabin.

“I have spent the night on the integrity question,” Julian said. “I will not pretend I have settled it. The representative is right that this changes what Logminter is.”

He looked across the chamber, not at Kyla, but at the empty middle of it.

“But I keep coming back to the same thing. We are asking people to go outside the ship and risk their lives for all of us. If there is a tool that could help bring them back safely, I don’t know how I stand here and argue against it on principle.”

He sat down.

No one spoke for a moment.

“We will vote,” the President said.

The first director voted against the proposal.

The second vote came.

“No,” said the director representing the elders.

The President voted in favor. Director Prescott voted in favor.

Four votes cast. Two against. Two for the proposal.

Then it came to Council Member Silva.

Kyla was watching her face, so she saw the pause. A breath held a beat too long. Silva’s hands were folded on the table, and she looked at them instead of at the President.

“Abstain,” she said.

The word landed flat in the quiet room.

Kyla did not know how she would have voted herself. She turned it over and found no clean answer in either direction.

That was not the thing.

The thing was that Silva had made the whole case and then declined to be counted behind it.

Kyla said nothing. She had no standing to say anything. She was an assistant in a room of principals, and her face was the only vote she had.

To Kyla, an abstention was not a position. It was a place to stand where no one could find you later.

Her pride in Silva became disappointment, and she did not hide it.

“Two in favor,” the President said. “Two against. One abstention.” She looked toward the command chair. “Under protocol, a tie falls to the Captain.”

Kyla had almost forgotten the Captain was there. The Captain had not spoken the entire session.

The Captain did not stand.

“In favor,” the Captain said.

That was all.

The panels held the specifications, glowing, unchanged. The proposal had passed.

Before the next deployment, the Space Drones would carry an instance of Logminter. Its limits had been carefully defined. No one yet knew whether reality would respect them.

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I do not remember most of the walk to the Council chamber.

I remember Julian beside me. Neither of us had said much since we left the cabin. He walked with his hands folded behind his back, the way he does when he is thinking about something.

I remember the corridor lights reflecting off the polished floor. I remember people stepping aside for us, not because we were important, but because everyone knew where we were going.

Julian was going because of the Data and Information Office. He had been assigned as an assistant to Director Prescott, who oversaw the ship’s public logs, secure archives, and the Data Integrity Unit. The record we were about to hear was public, but public did not mean unprotected.

Nothing on Helios really belonged to one person. Not the air. Not the water. Not even the memories.

I was there because of the Civic Arc. I had been working as Council Member Silva’s assistant for the past two years.

The area outside the Council chamber was very quiet. Not the quiet of an empty space. The quiet of people who had decided not to speak.

Two attendants stood at the chamber doors.

Taro was waiting for us in one of the rooms beside the chamber entrance.

“He should be in room C-3,” Julian said as we entered the hallway connecting the waiting rooms.

Civic Arc staff walked along the hallway, their Whisperzends flashing. Everyone was busy but somber.

When I saw Taro, I hugged him.

He froze at first. Then his arms came around me, tight and sudden, like he had been holding himself together and had run out of strength.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He did not answer.

“Have you seen Layna?” I asked.

“This morning.” His voice was careful. “She’s with her family.”

I wanted to ask if she was all right. What I meant was something else, something I did not have the words for yet. I also wanted to ask about her pregnancy, but I let the question sit where it was.

“It happened so fast,” Taro said before I could ask anything else. “I couldn’t reach him. There was nothing I could do.”

Then he lowered his voice.

“They had another unit,” he said. “They could have sent it. They said they couldn’t risk it. That the recovery window was gone.”

He looked at the floor, but I could see the tears gathering in his eyes.

“He was still out there, Kyla. He was still with us.”

An attendant stepped into the room and called our names.

We followed him into the Council chamber.

The chamber was arranged so that no one sat above anyone else. The President of the Council occupied the speaker’s chair. The Captain and First Officer sat together. The Director of the Horizon Arc was there because the EVA Division fell under his authority. He looked like a person waiting for the session to confirm what he already knew.

The Director of the Data and Information Office sat with Julian beside him.

Council Member Silva was seated to the President’s left. I took the place beside her. Taro sat across from us.

The President did not perform any sorrow.

That was the right choice.

“This session is exploratory,” she said. “Its purpose is to establish an initial factual record of the extravehicular operation conducted for magnetic sail deployment, and of the death of the crew member assigned to it. A formal investigation has already been opened.”

She paused for questions. No one spoke.

She continued, “This session does not replace the investigation. We are here to retrieve and review the relevant mission record in the presence of command, operations, data integrity, and civic personnel.”

She looked toward the Director of the Data and Information Office.

Director Prescott adjusted the microphone in front of him.

“Logminter, retrieve the mission record,” he said.

The panels throughout the chamber began displaying text.

LOG ENTRY

Action type: Log retrieval.

Integrity check: Validated. Public mission archive.

Access status: Authorized. Created at: 2786.093.1035.

I had heard recordings before. Drills, ceremonies, the Captain’s annual address. I had never been afraid of one.

I kept my eyes fixed straight ahead. Taro had gone very still. He had been there when it happened, and now he would have to hear it happen again.

I thought about how I could not remember the walk from the cabin. Logminter would remember every second of what we were about to hear. It would carry Darius more faithfully than any of us could.

Then Logminter’s voice, one I had heard hundreds of times before, broke the silence of the Council chamber. It emerged from every speaker at once.

> Mission type: Extravehicular operation.

Mission objective: Magnetic sail deployment and anchor stabilization for deceleration phase.

Location: Exterior stern assembly.

Starting playback.

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Darius: Confirming tether lock.

Taro: Confirmed this side.

Darius: Confirming tool kit.

Taro: Confirmed.

Darius: Confirming that EVA gloves remain a personal insult to the human hand.

Flight Ops: Noted, Mr. Quinn. For the record.

Darius: For the record.

Flight Ops: Begin deployment sequence. Cables one through four on my mark.

Flight Ops: Mark.

Taro: One away. Two away. Alignment good on my side.

Darius: Three away. Holding on four.

Darius: Four is not releasing. Jam at the anchor ring.

Flight Ops: Confirm visual.

Darius: Confirmed. The coupling hasn’t cleared. I can see where it’s caught.

Flight Ops: Stand by for support unit. SD-2 is yours.

Darius: Copy. Moving in with SD-2. Taro, stay on your alignment. I have this.

Taro: I’m tethered on the far side. Repositioning. Give me a minute.

Darius: We don’t have a minute. Hold your station.

Darius: SD-2, take the load above the coupling. I’ll clear the catch.

Darius: Almost. It’s going to go all at once when it goes.

Flight Ops: Mr. Quinn, back your margin off the line before it releases.

Darius: Backing off.

Darius: It’s releasing.

> Cable four release event logged.

Darius: Going hard. SD-2 is in the path.

> Impact event detected.

Flight Ops: Mr. Quinn. The cable hit the unit.

Darius: SD-2 is tumbling. It’s coming back toward me.

> Crew suit telemetry irregular.

Darius: I’m clear of the cable. The unit caught my mount.

Taro: Say again.

Darius: The unit took my tether mount. The coupling’s gone. I’m off the ship.

Flight Ops: Confirm tether status.

Darius: Tether’s gone, not loose, gone. I’m drifting aft.

Taro: Flight Ops, launch SD-3. Send another unit, now.

Flight Ops: Stand by.

Taro: He’s off the ship and moving. Launch SD-3, now.

First Officer: Flight Ops, hold launch. Give me the recovery numbers.

Flight Ops: Drift vector is aft, away from the stern. Separation is increasing. SD-2 is lost. Probability of intercept and capture with SD-3 is low and falling.

First Officer: One unit is already tumbling through the deployment field. I’m not sending a second across four live cables with the intercept probability this low.

Taro: He’s right there. A low probability is still a probability.

First Officer: A second collision could compromise the sail. Mr. Ishida, hold your position and your tether.

Taro: He is right there.

Darius: Taro, it’s all right. We can’t risk the mission for one person.

Taro: I’m going there. I won’t let you go.

Darius: Don’t unclip. Do not unclip, that’s an order.

Darius: Logminter, begin family log.

Layna. I love you.

If it’s a boy, Alex. After Grandpa.

If it’s a girl, Alyka.

I love you all.

Tell my father I checked the tether twice.

I will look for you.

Logminter, end entry.

Darius: Computer, disconnect.

> Audio transmission ended.

The chamber went quiet.

> Mission log playback complete.

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Kyla sat at her desk, exhausted. Her eyes were red.

“Logminter,” she said. “Retrieve the log entry when Darius and I came up with ‘goatshit.’”

LOG ENTRY

Action type: Log retrieval after 16 years.

Integrity check: Validated. Data accessed by authorized user.

Authorized user: Anwar Cloutier Soria, Kyla. Created at: 2770.194.2046.

> Today we went on a class visit to the Work Ring. The instructor divided the class into groups of six students. Each group would take turns visiting different parts of the Work Ring.

Darius, Taro, and I were in the same group. Nia was assigned to a different one with Sheila Adeyemi.

Sheila was younger than the rest of us, but no one treated her that way. She had been advanced after finishing two academic tracks early. She had this confidence that was difficult to explain, like she understood things before the rest of us even asked the question.

I wanted to be in her group, but the instructor had already made the selections.

Our first stop was the hydroponic channels. Long rows of vegetables stretched beneath white grow lights. The channels moved slowly, carrying water below the roots. Instructor Quan explained that almost every fresh vegetable aboard Helios passed through systems like these at some point.

Taro asked how they kept one sick plant from infecting the others through the shared water.

Instructor Quan looked impressed. “Constant monitoring,” she said. “Isolation protocols, microbial balancing, and redundancy. Agriculture aboard Helios is not only farming. It is survival engineering.”

After that, we visited the algae bioreactors.

I thought it would smell horrible, but the smell was just different, like wet metal and plants together. Huge translucent columns stretched upward through multiple levels, filled with dense green fluid while bubbles rose constantly through the tanks.

Instructor Quan explained that algae helped produce oxygen, nutritional supplements, industrial compounds, and emergency food reserves.

Darius stared at the tanks for a while and said, “So technically our lives depend on these micro things.”

Instructor Quan smiled. “Life on Helios depends on humble organisms. They are part of everything from your gut bacteria to the yeast we use to make bread.”

The next section was the Livestock Sector.

The temperature changed immediately. The air was warmer and carried a different smell.

We first visited the poultry layers.

Instructor Quan explained the difference between juvenile hens, active layers, and breeders. I tried to pay attention, but honestly the most memorable thing was the roosters.

One of them suddenly jumped onto a railing near the barrier and stared directly at us.

Its leg spurs looked like knives.

Taro stepped backward.

Darius laughed. “Imagine getting attacked by a chicken and then asking Logminter to record the entry.”

“Roosters can be aggressive,” Instructor Quan said calmly. “Especially around unfamiliar groups.”

After poultry, we visited the Helios Canine Program.

That was everyone’s favorite section.

The dogs were small and fluffy. Most of them looked similar, with soft coats, round dark eyes, and calm expressions. One of them immediately walked toward the observation area and pressed itself against the transparent divider while wagging its tail.

Taro smiled so hard it looked painful.

Instructor Quan explained that the Helionese descended from Earth dogs related to the Bichon Frise and Havanese breeds. Over generations, they had been adapted for life aboard Helios.

“Why are there so few?” I asked.

“Population management,” she replied. “Dogs are part of the ship’s social and psychological infrastructure. Breeding is carefully regulated.”

We asked how families could adopt one.

Instructor Quan explained that the waiting list was extremely long. Most people aboard Helios interacted with Helionese dogs at some point, but relatively few families were assigned permanent companionship placement.

Finally, we reached the goat section.

The goats aboard Helios descended from Nigerian Dwarf goats. Instructor Quan explained that they had been selected because of their manageable size, adaptability, and efficient milk production.

Some of them walked calmly through the enclosure, while others climbed onto little platforms that looked like a playground.

“Goats were among the first domesticated livestock animals,” Instructor Quan explained. “Probably around ten or eleven thousand years ago.”

Taro raised his hand.

“What was the first domesticated animal?”

“Dogs,” she replied. “At least fifteen thousand years ago, though some genetic evidence suggests divergence from wolves may have occurred between twenty and forty thousand years ago.”

“That’s a tragedy,” Darius said.

Instructor Quan looked at him curiously. “Domestication?”

“No,” he replied. “That we have to learn all of this again.”

Taro laughed, but Instructor Quan remained calm.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, all of this was already learned by people before,” Darius said. “Now we have to learn it again, and then the next group, and the next. Isn’t that a tragedy?”

“It may feel that way, but it’s not a waste of time,” she said. “Relearning is what keeps knowledge alive. Every generation tests and reshapes the knowledge it inherits.”

Darius and Taro exchanged a glance, quietly absorbing the thought.

“To keep knowledge alive, we built archives, schools, libraries, and systems like Logminter. But knowledge only survives when someone learns it and chooses to carry it forward.”

I stopped paying attention after that because I stepped backward into something soft.

Very soft.

I looked down.

“Shit!”

Darius immediately pointed at the ground.

“You mean goatshit.”

Everyone burst out laughing.

Instructor Quan tried not to laugh.

I wanted to disappear.

Taro’s face changed. He asked one of the Terra Arc workers for something to clean it, while Darius helped me scrape my shoe against the edge of the walkway.

I was still embarrassed, but somehow it did not feel terrible anymore.

> I think that was the moment I realized we would stay friends forever…

Kyla stopped reading and started to cry. She could not help herself. The crying became louder.

From the bed, Julian’s voice broke the silence.

“You need your sleep,” he said softly. “You have been reading log entries all night. It is four in the morning. Come on, come to bed.”

She broke down completely.

“I cannot believe he’s gone.”

Julian stood and crossed the cabin. He held her while she cried against his chest.

“Tomorrow will be a tough day,” he said quietly. “Let’s try to get some rest.”

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A beep interrupted the silence of the morning.

“Computer, cancel alarm,” Julian said.

He turned over and closed his eyes for what felt like only a few minutes. Then he woke suddenly, realizing he had overslept.

“Kyla, we’re late. Computer, check my schedule for today.”

“Today is Wednesday. Year twenty-seven eighty-six. Day ninety-six. Zero eight forty-two hours.”

The numbers glowed softly on the nightstand:

2786.096.0842

“You have a call at ten thirty with the Regulation Bureau Director and a medical appointment at thirteen hundred hours.”

The cabin remained dim except for the pale light of the nightstand display.

“Please postpone both,” Julian said. “We have to go to the Council chamber.”

“I need a cold shower and a cup of black tea or something stronger,” Kyla said.

“Go ahead. Get ready, and I’ll take care of breakfast. I’ll make your favorite toasted bread with butter. I think we still have some.”

Julian went to the kitchen and started making breakfast. The aroma of dandelion coffee and toasted bread slowly filled the cabin.

He called from the kitchen, “Sweetie, you’ll have both coffee and black tea.”

“Thank you,” Kyla said. “Do me a favor. Taro wanted to talk before the Council session. Can you ask him if we can meet at nine forty-five?”

“I’m on it.” Julian’s Whisperzend light pulsed green as the call connected.

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After the Incident, Helios wanted to heal quickly.

The Council was restructured, and two additional seats were added. One member would now be elected by citizens old enough to vote but younger than forty years old, ensuring representation for the younger generations aboard Helios. The other would be chosen by majority vote among the seven Arc directors, one vote per Arc.

The Seven Arcs were created to turn the different departments and offices into custodians of the ship. All the changes brought by the Helios Reform Accords were meant to restore stability and prevent violent conflict. But if that was true, why the Disconnect?

Why were we so afraid that we dismantled the deep-space communication system?

Earth could still provide guidance, as could Surya. We have no previous experience deploying the magsail or inserting a spaceship like Helios into orbit. There are many things that will be new to all of us. We need all the help we can get.

Even those who defend the mission above all else should realize that arrival is approaching.

Communication should be restored.

“What do you think so far?” Darius asked.

Taro leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, the ideas are good,” he replied, “but it feels a little too dry.”

Darius frowned. “Not everything has to read like a story. This is an essay.”

“That’s fair,” Taro said, “but people still need to feel something when they read it.”

After a brief pause, he added, “I like that you mentioned the magsail, but there’s nothing to worry about. We’re going to be the heroes. We’ll get it deployed.”

Layna looked at him. “What do you mean by we? Are you thinking about working outside the ship?”

Taro nodded. “Darius and I want to join the EVA Division after we finish the cadet program.”

Layna shook her head. “That’s a very dangerous job. Why would you want to do that?”

“Kyla, you’ve been quiet all day. What do you think?” Darius said.

Kyla frowned. “I don’t know why we care so much about Earth and the Disconnect. We’re never going back, so why bother?”

Darius stared at her. “You sound like a Destinarian. Earth built this ship. They can still provide guidance.”

“Guidance?” Kyla replied. “Have you not been paying attention? They canceled the mission and stopped caring about us. Why should we care about them?”

Kyla stood and walked away from the table.

Like most Saturday afternoons, the Mirador was full. Some tables were crowded with people playing board games. Others were alive with conversation while the soft projection panels showed images from the observation deck.

“What just happened?” Darius asked.

“I don’t know,” Layna said. “She’s been moody since she finished the anniversary assignment.”

Taro shrugged. “Maybe she’s just sad because of the remembrance ceremony. I always feel down for about a week after Generation Day.”

Layna lowered her voice. “I’m not sure, but I’m worried about her.”

Kyla did not turn around. “I can still hear you… there’s nothing to worry about. I’m fine. I just need a walk.”

A soft tone sounded through the Whisperzend.

“Computer, disconnect from the group whisper.”

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When I woke up, Layna was already making breakfast. The smell of toasted bread and eggs was enough to give me that extra push to get out of bed. She is a good roommate and a really good friend. I think I don’t tell her enough how much I appreciate things like this.

When I mentioned to her that I had canceled Sunday breakfast with my parents, she quickly offered to make breakfast and keep me company.

We always have the freshest produce and eggs since her mother works at the hydroponic channels and her father works at the poultry layer farm.

Breakfast was delicious, and we talked about many things. She asked me about Darius several times, so I think there is some chemistry there.

She told me that she would like to work in the algae bioreactors or the fungi stacks after we finish training in the Seven Arcs. She is a true Terra Arc girl.

I told her that I will probably end up working at the Civic Arc to provide assistance to the Council. Who knows? Maybe one day I could be a member of the Council and make a difference here.

After breakfast, we decided to take the long way to the Plaza, so we went to the Mirador first. It was quieter than usual. I guess most people were at the Plaza watching the game already.

We stopped at the Mirador to view the projections from the observation deck. Layna pointed to a tiny light and said that it was Ross 128. We wondered if we would change its name.

I realized that we would probably be naming many things. That made me happy.

We arrived at the ringvolley game late. Darius, Nia, and Taro were having an excellent game. Julian’s team was visibly frustrated. They had just lost the first set.

The second set started with Liam scoring the first point. Darius quickly turned it around with a 2-point shot through the ring that caught Julian’s team off guard.

The game continued back and forth, with the score staying close. Liam received a serve. The ball went to one side of the court, and Julian just flew to try to save it.

The sound when he hit the floor was different, like when you hit the hollow railing at the entrance of the Plaza. Time stopped. Everyone went quiet.

Julian stood up and said, “I’m okay,” holding his left arm with his right hand. My mother quickly ran to the court. I’m not sure why, but I ran too.

As soon as I got close, I was able to see it. His left arm bent like rubber.

“Goatshit,” I muttered. My mother was too busy to even notice that I had just cursed.

Blood spread across the court floor. My mother quickly asked for a towel and carefully guided Julian to the floor. I almost fainted when I saw something coming out of his arm.

Julian’s mother and sister also ran to the court, their faces pale with shock.

Julian was taken to the infirmary. My mother’s diagnosis after reviewing the X-rays: an open fracture of the distal radius with dorsal displacement.

Surgery was needed. I stayed in the waiting room with Julian’s mother and sister.

His father arrived just before the surgery began, still wearing his Forge Arc maintenance uniform.

It felt like time slowed down. They were the longest two hours of my life.

When my mother came out to tell us everything was okay, they were able to go inside.

After they came out, I asked if it was okay for me to go and see him. I didn’t want to leave before knowing that he was okay.

To my surprise, Julian asked me what I meant when I said “goatshit.” I told him it was a long story.

I guess tomorrow I’ll go visit and tell him about the time when Darius and I came up with the word. We were 12 and we went to…

“Good night, Kyla,” Layna said.

“Logminter, pause entry,” Kyla whispered, then replied, “Good night, Layna.”

“Talk to you tomorrow,” Layna said.

“See you tomorrow,” Kyla replied.

Then she whispered, “Logminter, save this to my diary.”

LOG ENTRY

Action type: Log archival.

Integrity check: Validated. Data saved by authorized user.

Authorized user: Anwar Cloutier Soria, Kyla. Created at: 2772.250.2342.

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Instructor Mendez was finishing the history lesson. Last week, he had started with the Age of Exploration. Today, it was the Protestant Reformation. He was good at condensing entire centuries into a few lines of text.

A soft beep signaled the end of class. “Before you go,” Instructor Mendez said, raising his voice enough to catch the attention of the room, “remember your history test is next week. It will cover everything from the Age of Exploration through the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.”

Students began filing out of the room, their Whisperzend devices already lighting up with queries about the test. Only Kyla and Julian remained at their desks.

“How can I help you?” Instructor Mendez asked.

“Go ahead, Kyla,” Julian said.

Kyla stayed seated. “I think my question is a little long. You go first, Julian.”

“Okay, I’ll be quick. Is it okay to go over the 1,500-word limit?”

Instructor Mendez nodded. “Mr. Darrow, the limit is there for a reason. A few words over will not matter, but anything more than that will cost you points.”

Julian added, “I’m writing about Destiny and hope. I want to follow Helios from its departure to what arrival might look like. Can I use chapters?”

Instructor Mendez answered, “Yes. Any format is acceptable; just stay within the limit.”

“Thank you. See you tomorrow,” Julian said. “Bye, Kyla.”

Kyla waited until he left the classroom. “I’m struggling with the ending of my assignment, and I need your advice.”

Instructor Mendez folded his hands on the desk. “What seems to be the problem?”

“I find endings difficult,” she admitted. “Is it better to have a story with a happy ending, or not necessarily?”

“Miss Anwar, I’ll share something I heard a long time ago: a story with a happy ending is an unfinished story, but one that ends sadly has finished too soon.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The beauty is in the story,” he said. “Don’t worry about the beginning or the ending. Just tell your story.”

Kyla walked through the corridor, replaying the conversation. Self-doubt weighed on her. Was Julian’s piece about Destiny better? Yet Instructor Mendez’s words kept echoing in her thoughts: “Just tell your story.”

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It was a day like any other in 2272, two years after they had arrived at the enclave. Alyka was playing the cello while Sarah played her violin. Music class had become one of their refuges.

The loudspeakers came on, interrupting their duet. A clear, neutral voice instructed everyone to gather at noon in the briefing hall. Everyone knew what the announcement meant. The names of the final voyagers would be revealed.

Sarah began to cry. Alyka tried to console her. “Don’t be scared. My Nana always says that when life gives you lemons, we make lemonade. Whatever happens, we’re in this together.”

At noon, the announcement began. Names echoed through the speakers as they appeared on the tall display panels across the front wall.

“Sullivan family… Quan family… Alina Acosta…”

Some celebrated, others cried as their future changed in an instant. Alyka and Sarah stood close together, hearts pounding with every name that appeared and was not theirs.

“Paul and Laura Cloutier… Henry Solariam… Giordano family…”

When the list ended, Sarah and her family had been chosen for Helios. Alyka and her family had not. It became a day of sadness and happiness woven together in a way neither girl would ever forget.

Selected families, couples, and single individuals were transported to Cape Verde for their scheduled launches.

Alyka never forgot the moment Sarah left. It was one of those hazy days with calima in the sky, the sand from the Sahara hanging over the compound like a veil. The buses arrived, and Sarah’s family boarded. When it was her turn to step on, she looked back and waved.

This time, Alyka did not forget.

“I will look for you.”

Sarah replied, her voice lost to the noise around them, but her lips unmistakable.

“I will look for you.”

That day was their first goodbye.

Real-time communication was not allowed, so they stayed in touch through emails. Sarah wrote about how the two rings rotated to provide gravity, but they could experience zero-g at Helios’s Central Axis. She described the Plaza and mentioned how they could view Earth from the observation deck.

She said the view was breathtaking, the oceans so blue and wide they seemed endless. At night, the cities glowed like distant stars. She tried to find them from orbit, searching for the pattern of lights along the west coast of Africa.

Alyka wrote about her trip to El Teide on the nearby island of Tenerife, where she saw the famous sea of clouds. She went on a trekking route near the old Juan Évora museum, where rugged lava fields framed the trail. Her father took them on a stargazing tour, where the Milky Way was visible to the naked eye. She looked for Ross 128, but it was too faint to be seen without a telescope.

A few months later, her father was transferred to the command center on La Palma. Alyka visited him there and saw Helios through their telescopes.

About a year passed, and the day of departure arrived. People across Earth watched from every screen they could find. Alyka went to her room and played her cello, hoping Sarah would be playing her violin wherever she was. That day was their long goodbye.

Alyka opened her window and continued playing, each note a reminder of their friendship. Then she remembered Nana’s saying, but this time she understood it differently.

When life gives you Silence, we make music.

###

Kyla read the final paragraph again, staring at the last line for a few seconds.

“Logminter,” she whispered.

> Ready to record entry.

“I have read this multiple times already… and there is something I can’t shake.” She took a long breath and added, “Whose family was the lucky one, Alyka’s or Sarah’s?”

> Would you like to explore the lives of families that boarded Helios versus the ones that stayed on Earth?

“That’s not what I meant. What I’m trying to say is that after all this research, I finally understand how much we gave up. No sun, no clouds, no endless sea. I have never smelled the air before it rains. I have never seen a forest, and I will never see one,” Kyla said, unsettled by her own thoughts.

Her eyes began to water. “Our families left all that behind to travel to a tiny star in a ship that is slowly dying… where each generation has less than the previous one.”

Logminter’s output appeared on the screen.

> There is no data from Earth after communication was lost, but it can be assumed that life continued uninterrupted after the Disconnect. Earth’s resources would far exceed those available in a spacecraft like Helios.

“Yes, exactly. It feels like we may have gotten the worst end of everything. So… who really won?”

> You saved a log entry that may help you answer this question: “a story with a happy ending is an unfinished story, but one that ends sadly has finished too soon. The beauty is in the story.”

Kyla replied, not entirely sure why she felt so upset. “I don’t understand. I’m not talking about a story anymore. I’m talking about real life… my life.”

She did not expect an answer, yet a new response appeared on the screen.

> Based on previous patterns, it is likely you will record thousands of log entries about your life.

Kyla sat back, staring at the monitor. She wanted to reply, but it was unnecessary.

“Logminter, save this to my diary.”

LOG ENTRY

Action type: Log archival.

Integrity check: Validated. Data saved by authorized user.

Authorized user: Anwar Cloutier Soria, Kyla. Created at: 2772.241.2128.

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Thanks for reading Kyla’s Diary, a novel from the Theogenic Universe. New chapters will be published weekly. Subscribe to continue the journey aboard Helios.

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