The Journal of Ingeborg P. Hoffman

May 2nd, 2106

It seems that each time the little red light blinks, on and off, on and off, I think of Tommy. I can’t stop myself. 

When I first saw him, I was about 200 yards away, looking down on the ship with The Majestic’s Outernauts from a platform on a raised scaffold on the yard built over the bay at Calliope station. I remember having momentarily calmed Kerrigen O’Mally, when Dr. Johnathan Carver, through binoculars, pointed to the ship to complain that the ground crew had dropped his luggage. They hadn’t. 

That’s when he peeled out of the shadows of the hull. He came into the hot sunlight like some thick bug who’d been under a log for a week, squinting behind him as he went. I’d seen him before in the yard, that Tommy. Then he looked right at me.

The next time I saw him was roughly two hours later. I was coordinating the PR for the launch on behalf of the Calliope Group with the world’s leading news organizations. I was fielding questions about the various press packets and coverage, when I saw a white face pass outside in a flash. Minutes later I heard him from behind my ear - he’d somehow gotten into the tent - whispering fatly, “I know what’s happening.” I turned and saw his pink,  slick face and started laughing. “I know you might need a glass of water. Maybe a cool cloth.”

Up close, he looked almost deranged. So I led him away from the tent full of reporters. Surrounded by the noise and bustle of the busy shipyard, I pieced together that he had noticed the stasis pods appeared to be calibrated incorrectly. From this, he uncovered the complex web of minute alterations to the navigation system. He was correct in every particular.

“This ship isn’t going to Proxima Centauri. I want to come. I’ll tell everyone if you don’t let me.” He finished his speech so plainly, like a child who doesn’t know he’s playing with a live grenade.

“Why didn’t you report this to Dr. Appiah?” I questioned him, sternly.

“I don’t think he knows. But I know you do.”

“All right,” I said. “Follow me.”

I called the boss, Wiles Gregory. With characteristic calm, he directed me to do what the young man asked. I was to lodge Albrightely in a stasis pod in The Majestic’s cargo hold. “You’ll find the pod underneath a tarp labeled, ‘Toilet Deodorizer,’ along with instructions for what he should do when he wakes up. Go now and call me the moment you are finished.” Before hanging up he added, “You’ll have to dose the anesthetic.” 

Placing Albrightely in hibernation went off fairly painlessly. The equipment was where Wiles said it would be. The main difficulty was lowering Tommy’s heart rate to the level required to enter the pod. The young man, one of nearly one thousand basic launch technicians from all over the world, was babbling. He kept repeating, “How exciting is this!” Meanwhile, I could hear the ground crew waiting impatiently outside the hold. They even banged on the doors.  

Tommy was a good-natured blackmailer; I believed him when he said no one else knew about it. I had to inform him of the risk he was taking. Namely, that we have never proven beyond a shadow of doubt that human beings in stasis can survive the prolonged high G-force such a trip requires. It has never been done before. This sobered him up. However, I assured him that, among his many brilliances, Wiles Gregory was the master of the stasis pod. I didn’t tell Tommy where he was really going. He didn’t even ask.

Akuna was waiting outside the cargo hold after I got the young man into stasis. The spectacled, sturdy scientist - we were still living together, then - looked peeved and skeptical. I couldn’t hold his gaze. In the final months leading up to the launch, I’d scarcely been able to look at him. I’d felt so guilty about what happened. I had done the right thing. But still, it was my fault he wasn’t flying with the rest of them that day. 

“What are you doing in there?”

I didn’t reply. He peered at the cargo hold behind me and then motioned to the tablet in his hands.

“It says here that you’re holding a private spot-inspection. And that the area is designated off-limits until further notice. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“You’ll have to bring it up with the boss.”

“This is my ship, Ingeborg. Right until the moment it flies. That was the deal."

“I’m sorry, Akuna. I have to go. Talk to Wiles.”

I later asked Wiles about how he explained away the critical hour it took to calm Tommy down. “Sambat magic,” he said. He was being too cavalier. Wiles sensed my feeling and added, “Akuna will understand. He’ll get over it.” I only wish I was as confident. 

I took the long way out of the ship so I could speak to my mentor. The room across the hall from the cargo hold, on the lower level of The Majestic, held the processor for the TRENA system. Really, it was where Trena Arsillion lived, her consciousness captured forever in artificial intelligence. As I stood in the middle of the bridge which ran the length of 50 meter long cylindrical room, I was the only human there, but I wasn’t alone. 

“Did you see…” I spoke to the gently flickering darkness. Then the room lit up in earnest, and I was surrounded by her.

“My dear, I see everything on this ship,” the room full of flashing lights replied. What spoke to me was like Arsillion - she sounded the same - but it wasn’t exactly her. The room was so big; the amazing thing about Trena Arsillion, in her fleshy form, was that she was so small. All that power and authority in what, 5’2” inches of human? I loved her so much for that.

At the time I was so upset about Akuna that I could hardly speak. She sensed this.

“You’ve done what you have to,” she said.

“And the boy?”

“I’ll watch over him.”

Tommy got what he wanted, but I pray that he will be safe. At 19 years old, he’s the youngest of the Outernauts. Really, I pray that they’ll all be safe. (I actually held their names in the light at the Meeting last Tuesday. I haven’t done that since I was 14. Actually no, that’s not true! I was 36 when I last held someone up in the light. My mother, when she died, almost 20 years ago. I had stopped writing because of her, to help pay for her treatments. That’s what led me here, to Calliope Island, and my next life.) We’ll soon find out if it all went well. That is to say, we’ll soon find out if they’re all still alive.