The Journal of Ingeborg P. Hoffman

Albuquerque, Alto Desierto, South West North America Autonomous Zone

May 7th, 2106

There was another green light waiting for me on the black matte box in my office this morning; another set of messages from the crew. These are of a radically different tone from the previous set. They described the unprecedented sights they are witness to at their destination, the vast space station known as The Crossing. I only wish I had these descriptions when I was writing my book. (Perhaps I’ll include them in a subsequent edition.) In short, they aren’t quite so afraid anymore.

I brought the new messages to Wiles. He studied them for a few minutes and declared that, “we’ll repress the other videos.” And that I should set up a press conference tomorrow morning for the world’s media, here on the island. It is time to go public. I spent the day sending out these invitations, splicing together sections of the second set of videos, and going back over Wiles’ speech again and again. Quite busy day.

As Chief Physicist of Calliope Group, Akuna should rightfully be among us when we give the announcement, but I feel like that is unlikely. I have invited him, but he has not responded. Despite everything that has happened since, he was instrumental in the success of the voyage; he built a glorious ship. I will never tell him this, but he was so close to learning the truth of the voyage. If not for an errant flick of his wrist, perhaps he would have been aboard The Majestic with the rest of them, or perhaps the trip would never have been made. 

The days after Trena’s death were extremely difficult. It was as if, all in a moment, the weight of what was really being asked of Akuna struck me. It became self-evident that I had not grappled with what was being asked of me, as well. My husband was going to leave and there was no certainty that he was ever going to come back. 

So I didn’t leave his side for days; I didn’t want to let him out of my sight. I remember once, after getting out of the shower to find our apartment empty and him gone, breaking down and weeping on the floor of our kitchen. He came back five minutes later, a bag of fresh fruit and steaks for dinner under his arm. He thought that I had hurt myself. 

Trena’s funeral was held on a beautiful morning on the launch yard at Calliope. This was the only place on the island large enough to hold so many people. Before the ceremony, Wiles called me over to huddle with him and Milosz; they had decided to inform Dr. Akuna of his actual responsibilities at the reception after the service. “There is no time to waste,” Wiles said. And they wanted me to be there when they told him. I nodded and agreed. I was not going to stand between my husband and his destiny.

In those days after Trena’s death, my husband had been an unceasing spring of strength for me. It was only after seeing him give the eulogy for Trena did I realize how difficult that must have been for him. Near the end of his speech, his strength gave way, and tears started to stream down his face. He wiped them away and finished his speech. Then he found his way to his seat beside me. 

The reception was held in the atrium of C1, a lofty, light-filled space, filled with flowers. There were two massive flags hung on the center of the hall. One was of the United Nations, the institution that she had fought so hard to defend; the other was the flag of the Philippines, the home she loved so dearly. I was at the buffet making plates for Akuna and I when Wiles and Milosz approached me, telling me that it was time. 

Then we heard the sound of a glass crashing to the ground; Akuna had knocked it over. I went over to him as a waiter quickly came to clear it up. I watched Akuna fumble as he tried to help, but the waiter brushed him off. I caught up to Akuna as he was walking away. He was in a daze. I looked back to Wiles and Milosz. They did not attempt to follow us. We went home and lay down.

The next day, Akuna was still in his state of shock. When I met with the senior staff, I suggested that we give Akuna some time to mourn before we told him that he, and the rest of the crew, were not going to Proxima Centauri b, that we had other plans for him.

“Ingeborg,” Wiles replied, “ the one resource we do not have is time.”

I was painfully aware, as were we all, that we had only four months before the ship was set to launch, and the vast quantity of information that we would asking Akuna to learn. Yet neither I, nor any of the others, were willing to entertain the possibility of not telling him the truth. He might have presented a danger to himself, the crew, or the mission, had he known he was left “out of the loop,” so to speak. And I worried that he would never forgive me for keeping this secret from him. 

“Let me tell you when he is ready,” I said. “Please, allow me this.”

So the matter was dropped. Akuna went back to work the very next day. We all did; there was too much to do. After about a month, Milosz had had enough. “We have to tell him,” he insisted. “This is getting ridiculous. He deserves to know!”

“Not yet!,” I said.

“No,” Wiles said. “We need to tell him today, now even.”

“He’s not ready.”

“Ingeborg, the boys are right,” Ronny said. “You underestimate Dr. Akuna.”

I didn’t want to say, but there was a real reason why I didn’t believe Akuna was ready to know the truth. The others didn’t see what I had seen. In our day to day work, neither Ronny nor Milosz had to interact with Akuna. Theoretically, Wiles did, but he was focused on building the navigation system and the stasis pods (he had to do these personally). Of course, neither did I. But I saw him every night, and every morning. I could tell that he was still heartbroken, that he wasn’t his usual self. But this wasn’t why I didn’t think Akuna was ready to learn what we had to tell him. Indeed, I didn’t consider his sadness to be particularly unusual. I assumed that he was fine at work. 

Here was what happened. A few days before the meeting where Milosz insisted on telling Akuna, I had heard from a journalist who I had invited to profile Akuna on the occasion of him joining the crew. (All of the other Outernauts had been the focus of intense and extreme media attention; if they were not already, they were becoming massive celebrities.) The reporter told me Akuna had acted rudely in the interview. I didn’t ask for specifics. But then I surveyed some members of his staff. They informed me that Akuna had become increasingly erratic, that he was far more short-tempered than usual, and that he seemed stressed all the time. Once again, it didn’t seem right to ask for specifics, so I didn’t. 

So I couldn’t lie to the others and pretend that none of this existed. More importantly, I was not willing to send Akuna out into space if he was not ready to go. So I told the others about the reports from the journalist and the engineers on his staff. 

“Let’s take a week and observe Dr. Akuna closely. If these reports are true,” I said, "then we’ll have to reconsider his role.” 

“We don’t have a week to spare,” Wiles said. “I will go speak to him tomorrow and then decide.”

I never learned what is was, precisely, that made Wiles decide to replace Akuna. But when came to my office to inform me of his decision, I was filled with both deep disappointment, and profound relief. That same day Wiles and Milosz informed Akuna that he was no longer joining the crew. I was not present. 

As a kind of salve against the disappointment, Milosz insisted (I later learned, against Wiles’s wishes) that Dr. Akuna be promoted to Chief Physicist of Calliope station, Trena Arsillion’s old job. There was no one better qualified. Instead of going with the crew, Dr. Akuna would still be in charge of all the preparations, overseeing the launch from the ground. It was easy to spin that to the media. 

But when I got home that evening, I saw the disappointment and shame within him. That was the beginning of the end for our friendship, of our love. I felt, and I still feel, that Akuna blamed me most of all. I certainly blamed myself for a very long time. Akuna seemed to sense that I was the one who spoke out against him.

Meanwhile, we had more pressing problems to solve. Without Akuna, we did not know who would oversee the fusion reactor aboard The Majestic. (We all had Trena’s words ringing in our heads, that the fusion engineer “had to be someone who knew what they were doing.”) A month went by and we still hadn’t settled on a candidate. And then another. Panic set in. 

One day, a month from the launch date, I could barely control myself. I was frantic, tearing myself up with worry. I paced all over the island. In this state, I entered The Majestic. When I came to from this haze of worry, I was in the room that held the TRENA processor. Akuna must have just finished uploading the TRENA system, since the room suddenly turned “on.” I’d never heard her speak before.

“Ingeborg, don’t fret,” the room full of flashing lights said. “You want Kerrigen O’Malley. Of County Armagh.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, or if I could even respond.

“That’s in Ireland, you idiot.”

“Trena?..."

“She’s your fusion engineer. I’m sending her personal details to your phone.”

I felt my phone vibrate. Sure enough, there they were. O’Malley was only 25, but she had the right education. Wiles and I flew to Ireland that evening. When we returned to Calliope Island the evening after that, our crew was set. 

In those final days before the launch, and for a long time afterwards, I was scarcely able to look at my husband. I lost the certainty I once had that how we were treating Akuna was okay. But, at the same time, I was gaining a new, different certainty. That it was my moral obligation to see this mission through to the end.

Wiles, Ronny, and Milosz have just left. I invited them for dinner at my villa this evening; we grilled fish and drank white wine. I wanted us all to be together one last time before Wiles’ speech tomorrow, when the secret, which has been ours alone for so many years now, becomes a challenge to the world. We will see what they do with it. In about an hour, Milosz and Ronny will be flying to Manila, to be on hand there once the news comes out, and to help settle that station down.