Noumenon

He sat at the head of a beautiful marble slab, the kind that made the most intriguing tombs and best kitchen counters. Green, with beautiful flecks of gold and iridescent carbonates, it was out of place. Almost every portion of the ship was metal or plastic—carpeted floors being the major exception. But the ship designers had wanted to give us little pieces of nature wherever they could—maybe they’d known better than I had how much we’d miss such things when they were gone.

The holoflex-sheet plopped in front of Mahler before my clipped greeting met his ears.

Five sentences into my rehearsed speech, he cut me off with a violent, chopping of his hand. “To whom are you speaking?” he said through a clenched jaw.

The question tripped me up, as it was meant to. “Uh …”

“As you did not address me, I can only assume this flippant diatribe is meant for someone else. Yet I believe we are alone.”

It was then that I realized both my mistake and that I was intent on preaching to the choir. I’d come to him to talk order and systems. To discuss individualism vs. hive mentality. I wanted to argue for the very thing the captain hoped for: militant commitment to the group’s goals over individual wants and needs.

Immediately I backtracked, saluting at attention, barking out my station and my purpose, addressing him in the manner he deserved to be addressed.

“Sir,” I began again. “We have a distinct disconnect between the command team and everyone else. We are not a military convoy, but neither are we civilians. I believe this message from my Earth contact illustrates our problem. Most of us are wandering around in our own little worlds. The members don’t see how the pieces fit, and I believe that to be the source of our convoy-wide depression. We need to rethink how we think, if you will.

“We were each taught how special we are. As individuals. Yet, for some reason, we weren’t taught that the group is special. That devotion to the group is required for success. Yes, we were instilled with devotion to the mission, to the anomaly, but not to the convoy and each other.

“We need a better sense of community, and at the moment I can think of no better way to bring that about than to change the way we do things. I know there was a plan, and that it was supposed to ensure our stability, but it won’t work. Father—” this was tough to admit, but I swallowed and pressed forward “—Father was wrong. He wanted a ‘be all you can be’ attitude, when what we need is a ‘be all we can be attitude.’”

Mahler passed his hand under his chin, scratching it lightly, clearly weighing my statements and considering his first words on the matter carefully. “I wasn’t supposed to address this until the elections. Matheson and Seal didn’t think we’d have any suicides at this point, but things seem to be moving along faster than expected. Whether that’s problematic or all for the best will make itself clear eventually, I’m sure.”

“Sir?”

“The suicides were expected. Not planned—don’t give me that look. Just planned for. They were built into Matheson’s equations, and he figured if we had fifteen or so suicides in the first five years that would actually strengthen our society—much in the way you suggest.”

Flabbergasted, my mind went blank. I couldn’t even be sure I’d heard him correctly, let alone understood. “Sir, may I sit?”

He gestured toward a spot near the other end of the marble slab, but I took a seat at his right hand. “Are you saying Mother and Father knew some of us would die this way? That Lexi and—?”

“They didn’t know who, but they had guesses. Matheson’s calculations indicated a rash of suicides was inevitable, but that the tragedy would give us an opportunity. Misfortune can have many different effects on large populations. It can drive some into chaos, but the more empathetic the group, the more emotionally aware the individuals are of the other individuals—”

“The more likely they are to band together,” I finished for him, nodding. Instead of at my captain, my gaze bore into the far wall where a blank screen hung. We were a forest, trees in the forest. “Some conifers need fire in order for their seeds to germinate,” I mumbled. Turning back to him, I asked, “This is our forest fire?”

“Yes. That’s a good way to look at it.”

“But, why didn’t they warn us? Why not prepare us?”

He stood and began pacing. “Is anyone every really prepared for tragedy? They did warn us. They told me, and I was to inform the board once the elected half was in place.” The hard lines of his face were covered in stubble—I’d just noticed. Unusual, for Mahler anyway. He preferred to be clean-cut and well pressed at all times. This must have been weighing on his mind as much as it had been weighing on mine.

“But, elections won’t be for another six months. We were told exactly what must be done the first two years,” I said. Eventually we’d be able to make our own laws, dependent on whatever social problems cropped up. We could deal with them our own way, but not yet. For the first few years we had to follow our orders to a T, even when it came to civilian government.

Our board right now only consisted of the department heads and their appointed seconds. Only once we hit the two-year mark we were to set up elections whose winners would comprise the second half of the government.

“I know—believe me, I know. But now that you’ve brought it up, I don’t think we can wait until we have a full board,” Mahler said. “I can’t wait for our timeline to match the original. If the suicides are happening now we must take action. I was waiting, hoping …” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. We are going to use these deaths as a rallying point, as an educational point. We’re not going to let the mission fail.

“We just have to work out how.”

I left the captain feeling simultaneously giddy and nauseated. Saul had been right. We could fix this. There was even a plan to fix this. We would band together and be stronger than before.

But at what cost? Matheson had sacrificed these people. Sacrificed Lexi and those still to kill themselves. Not directly, of course—he didn’t go through their files and say “You will die. And you will die. And you will die.”

But he might as well have.

If he’d informed us this might happen—that in all likelihood, according to his societal projections it would happen— we could have stopped it. Lexi might have thought twice before hanging himself.

Even worse, our psychologists and psychiatrists had known it was coming. They’d seen it in Lexi, they just hadn’t been able to do anything about it. They weren’t allowed to tell our modest security detail about pending problems. It made me wonder if that was why Dr. Yassine had been so fidgety. Because he knew, but hadn’t been able to do anything. It was only after something bad happened that they could act. We had to change that. No one’s hands should be tied when it comes to saving a life.

We operated that way because that’s the way many Earth societies operated—they didn’t respond to potential tragedy, only actualized tragedy. Once we could make our own laws we needed to abandon those ways. We were no longer bound to Earth by its gravity, why should we remain bound by its customs?

Perhaps my line of thinking was exactly what Mother and Father had planned for. This sense of outrage, this desire to band together to prevent more catastrophes. Despite what it meant to the little personal freedoms we had.

It didn’t prevent me from hating our mentors for not telling us. But I also found myself admiring their strategy and planning.

Again: nausea and giddiness.

My duty and my humanity were at odds, but I let them settle at opposite ends of my brain. I needed both to survive in this new encapsulated world.

I reported our progress to Saul. Told him we’d discovered a new portion of our societal design and now had to decipher how to implement it. He responded with a thumbs-up emoji and a picture of him and his family.

His son was fourteen. Saul himself was going on fifty. He looked so old. Not because fifty is old, but because in my mind he was still in his thirties.

How could he be fifty? How could his life slip away so quickly? Intellectually, I knew all was as it should be. He wasn’t living his life at a rapid-fire pace, I was simply seeing it through a long-range lens. But I still felt a gaping maw of loss in my gut, still wondered if I was ready to let Earth move on without me—without us.

I was starting to realize that all we really had up here was each other.

A few months later, the elections came and went. Before then there were more suicides. There were a few after, too, but for the most part a sense of togetherness was starting to pervade the ships. The votes reflected exactly what Mahler had thought they’d reflect—a convoy-wide sense of pride in our mission. Those elected were the most duty-bound in the fleet.

We outlined a new education system. Emphasis would be put on unity. To shirk responsibility would be the worst possible offense. Honor, pride, synergy—all important. Our children would grow up knowing community came first.

After another year and a half I fully committed myself to upholding those ideals. I met a nice woman, Chen Kexin from food processing. I knew the lesbian and bisexual population aboard was small—about the same percentage as in the gen-pop on Earth—and had previously resigned myself to possibly never finding a suitable partner. I’m so glad I was wrong. We dated for a while, then decided to make our bond permanent. We settled into a quadruple cabin and put in for a clone.

They decided to give Kexin and me a boy. His name would be Reginald Straifer II.

When we finally got the news, I was so excited to tell Saul about the baby that I forgot what day it was. I forgot that this was the last time I’d speak formally to him.

Saul had reached his seventieth birthday and decided it was time to retire. He reminded me with a preemptive data packet.

[Looking forward to your last message. I’ve included pictures of my son and his wife on their wedding day. And my little Margarita. She’s getting her advanced degree in chemical engineering.]

The bottom dropped out of my elation. I didn’t have a picture of Reggie to send, because he hadn’t been officially born yet. He was still gestating on Hippocrates.

I put in my report, and included a diagram of our new teaching processes that included community appreciation. I skimped on the data a bit, more consumed with my personal message back.

[Tell me this isn’t goodbye], I sent, [I want a picture of you and your wife, Saul. And I’ll send a picture of my son as soon as he’s birthed. Let someone know to forward it on to you. Tell them I want an update from you every few months—Earth months—okay?]

I couldn’t believe it. Seventy. So much of his life, gone. It had blazed past. He’d been my constant these past few years, my Earthly touchstone, and now it was over. Over too soon.

Earth was slipping away. Home was slipping away. Even if we turned back now, the world would not be as we’d left it.