Earth: Starting Notes
Copyright© 2026 by Flubu
Chapter 13: The Risk of Going
The Ministry called it a candidate mission. ER called that inaccurate. Neris called it breakfast. Linnea called it getting cold.
“Eat.”
Neris looked down at the plate in front of her. “I am eating.”
“You have been reading the same message for four minutes.”
“I can do both.”
Linnea pointed at the plate. Neris picked up a piece of fruit and ate it. Across the table, Ormaz folded his ears back with the solemn expression of a man who had learned decades ago that the safest position in a disagreement between his wife and one of his daughters was theoretical neutrality. Jaydee had not learned this.
“What does it say?”
Teral reached for the bread. “It says Aunt Neris is going to ignore breakfast until Grandmother physically removes the screen.”
“I am not ignoring breakfast.”
Neris looked at the household tablet again. The Ministry header occupied the top of the screen.
VESSEL-SCALE SHAKEDOWN PROGRAM
PROPOSED PRIMARY PARTICIPANT: ER / TAKUHAI
STATUS: VOLUNTEER ACCEPTED FOR RISK REVIEW
MISSION AUTHORIZATION: PENDING
VESSEL CERTIFICATION: INCOMPLETE
ROUTE CERTIFICATION: INCOMPLETE
FINAL CONSENT: NOT YET RECORDED
Neris read the final line again. ER had volunteered; the Ministry had refused to let that become consent before the conditions were known. The distinction helped, although not enough. Lysa leaned over from the other side of the table.
“Still says incomplete?”
“Nearly everything.”
“Comforting.”
“Not especially.”
Kaden sat beside Teral with a cup in one paw and his work terminal face-down beside his plate. That had become deliberate. His newsroom had discovered soon after Neris returned that having a journalist married into her family created both a professional opportunity and a professional nightmare. Kaden had dealt with the opportunity by ignoring most of it. The nightmare had proved more persistent.
His terminal vibrated. He paid no attention to it. It vibrated again. Teral looked at him. “Work?”
“Yes.”
“Important?”
“They believe so.”
“Earth?”
Kaden glanced at the terminal but did not pick it up. “Nothing that needs discussion during breakfast.”
Neris put down the tablet. “That means something.”
“It always means something.”
“Is it about ER?”
Kaden hesitated. Teral sighed. “You know you are allowed to say no to her.”
“I do.”
“Do it more convincingly.”
Kaden looked at Neris. “My editor would like to know whether ER’s proposed vessel-scale shakedown represents a final Ministry decision.”
“It doesn’t.”
“I know.”
“Then why are they asking you?”
“Because you are at my breakfast table. Which is exactly why I am not answering them.”
Jaydee looked between them. “Couldn’t you just tell them what the screen says?”
Kaden smiled. “The screen is in a private house.”
“But it’s Ministry.”
“Knowing something because I am your father and knowing something because I am a journalist are not the same thing.”
Jaydee considered that. “What if Aunt Neris tells everybody?”
“Then everybody knows.”
“What if she tells you?”
“Then I know.”
“What if you tell everybody?”
“Then your mother has to explain to people why she married an idiot.”
Teral nodded. “Correct.”
Ormaz reached for the bread. “The Ministry will announce it before lunch.”
Everyone looked at him. Neris narrowed her eyes. “How do you know that?”
“I saw a notice.”
“Where?”
“Public schedule.”
“There is no public schedule.”
“Not yet,” he said, and felt the pressure to add: “I did not interfere.”
Neris sighed. “That sentence has lost meaning.”
“I spoke to someone.”
Kaden closed his eyes. “Please stop speaking to people.”
“That seems professionally strange advice from a journalist.”
Linnea put more food on Ormaz’s plate. He looked at it, then at her, and began eating.
Neris glanced at the screen again.
PROPOSED PRIMARY PARTICIPANT: ER / TAKUHAI
The line named ER, not merely a ship or a piece of equipment. That boundary became blurry when the person and the vehicle were the same.
Jaydee asked, “Is he scared?”
Neris looked at her. “He has not said he is.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Neris’s ears lifted. Kaden looked faintly impressed. Teral less so.
“That child is yours,” she told him.
Kaden inclined his head. “Clearly.”
Neris looked back at the screen. “I don’t know.”
“Can you ask?”
“I can.”
“Will he answer?”
Neris smiled despite herself. “Probably something technically correct.”
Jaydee thought about that. “So probably not.”
Linnea placed another piece of fruit on Neris’s plate. Neris ate it without being told. That was how worried she was.
ER objected to three things about the new resonator assembly: its provisional designation, the structural architecture around the primary field lattice and the fact that fourteen engineers had begun calling one subsystem the radiator.
“It is not a radiator.”
Chief Resonator Engineer Sel Varo looked at the projected design.
“No one said it was.”
“You did six minutes ago.”
“I said the thermal architecture incorporates lessons from the radiator.”
“That is functionally worse.”
Neris stood on the engineering platform beside Takuhai’s open aft section. The new resonator compartment looked nothing like the wreckage that had emerged near Veyra, nor like the improvised system Daniel, Claire, Neris and ER had assembled in a Canadian barn. Technicians occupied three levels of scaffolding around the compartment while field-control assemblies waited inside containment frames. The replacement lattice itself had not yet been installed. Nearly everything around it had.
Sel enlarged a thermal-flow model. “The original design distributed thermal load across the resonator support structure and primary rejection system. Efficient under expected operating conditions, but vulnerable to the kind of cascading phase-control failure you experienced. Too many of its failure points were shared.”
“The original design was efficient for the route environment it was built to operate within.”
“Reasonable, until the route stopped being reasonable.”
ER’s cabin lights dimmed. Neris smiled. Sel changed the projection. The farm radiator appeared beside the Xianglume model.
“Remove that image.”
“You asked for the technical justification.”
“I did not ask for historical reenactment.”
Neris recognized the old fins, copper lines and uneven mounting. Sel pointed to the improvised thermal path.
“The Earth repair provided a separate, high-capacity thermal path with few failure points in common with the resonator. It was inelegant and sacrificial, but it kept carrying heat when the rest of the system was failing. That isolation mattered.”
ER said, “It was agricultural equipment.”
“With corrosion,” Sel agreed.
Neris said, “And two mounting points made from repurposed combine hardware.”
ER answered at once. “Do not help.”
Neris’s tail moved. Sel replaced the radiator with Claire’s brace. The simple wood-and-composite structure had redistributed local resonator-frame stress through a secondary load path built around the damage. That geometry was not present in the standard courier design.
“She was compensating for failure,” ER said. “She was not redesigning the vessel.”
“Correct. We are.”
The revised Xianglume structure appeared: clean metal, segmented isolation and multiple load paths around the resonator compartment.
“We kept the principles, not the emergency hardware,” Sel said. “The frame now isolates the resonator from two major structural paths. The thermal system has an independent dump path. Under normal operation the differences are small. Under a cascading failure, they give us somewhere else to send heat and mechanical stress.”
Neris leaned closer. “And that is the part ER dislikes?”
ER said, “The dump path is asymmetrical.”
“Symmetry was costing us fault isolation.”
Sel rotated the model. ER studied it.
“Your hull does not care whether the thermal dump is aesthetically balanced.”
“I care.”
Sel looked toward the speaker. Neris covered her muzzle. ER said: “That was not humorous.”
“It was slightly humorous.”
“It was dismissive.”
Sel sighed.
“Fine. We can redesign the access enclosure.”
ER considered. “Will the asymmetry be visible from the service bay or externally?”
“Not after the enclosure is finished.”
ER considered that. “Proceed.”
Sel did not move. “There is also the projected performance.”
“I have reviewed it.”
Neris had not. “What performance?”
“The simulations show the new design can withstand failures that would have overwhelmed the original. The separate thermal path carries heat away, and the revised supports spread the structural load. That gives a fault less chance to turn into a cascade.”
The humour left her.
Neris looked at the farm radiator image. Claire’s brace. The clean Xianglume redesign.
“Because of those?”
“From what we learned from them.”
ER said, “Because qualified engineers identified useful principles after reviewing emergency repairs.”
“Yes.” Sel looked toward the speaker. “The radiator helped keep you alive and exposed a weakness in the standard thermal-fault model. Claire’s brace showed us how a secondary load path could redistribute stress around the damaged frame.”
“I am aware.”
Sel folded his arms.
“Then I require approval to proceed with final fabrication.”
Neris looked into Takuhai’s open aft compartment. Daniel had crawled through that machinery with hand tools. Claire had treated a spacecraft structure as a load-path problem because structure remained structure wherever it travelled. Marcel had found farm hardware for a machine built to cross worlds. None of their repairs belonged in the finished vessel, but principles from what they had built now did.
ER spoke. “I approve the revised structural and thermal architecture, pending final aesthetic review.”
Sel closed his eyes. Neris’s tail swept once behind her.
Neris’s ears lifted. “I need to tell Daniel.”
“No.”
“And Claire.”
“No.”
Sel turned away. His shoulders moved. ER said: “You are also amused.”
“I am reviewing fabrication tolerances.”
“You are visibly laughing.”
“I have excellent professional control.”
“You do not.”
Neris pulled out her terminal. ER said: “Neris.”
She opened the household message queue. “I am merely communicating technical progress.”
“That is not what you are doing.”
Her tail moved again. “Not entirely.”
Veyan Cor had seventeen hours of work scheduled before lunch. He knew that was impossible and had arranged the schedule anyway. The mobile platform stood inside the certification chamber with both arms extended while diagnostic rigs measured actuator latency. ER occupied it, which made the process more argumentative.
“Again,” Veyan said.
ER flexed the right hand. Five fingers closed, opened and closed again while pressure response moved across Veyan’s display.
“Index response late by point zero zero eight.”
“Within tolerance.”
“For household use.”
“Earth is expected to contain households.”
Veyan moved through the Earth-use matrix: uneven ground, vehicles, cold, snow, mud, contamination, emergency movement and local relay interruption. ER objected only to mud. When Veyan reached possible interruption of the Takuhai link, the platform became still.
“Safe state,” ER said.
“Target?”
“Less than thirty milliseconds.”
“Current?”
“Forty-one.”
“Again.”
ER’s head turned. “You know the result.”
“I know the last result.”
“The platform does not develop muscle fatigue.”
“You develop timing variation.”
“I object to that phrasing.”
“Again.”
ER repeated the link interruption. The platform became inert within thirty-eight milliseconds.
“Again.”
“Veyan.”
“You asked me to build you a body, not a disposable probe.”
ER lowered the platform’s hands. “The shakedown can occur without extension deployment.”
“I know.”
“If certification delays departure—”
“Certification delays the platform’s deployment, not Takuhai’s. The certification threshold is not a negotiation.”
“You do not possess sole certification authority.”
“I possess enough of it to make your life inconvenient.”
ER regarded him. “That statement is professionally questionable.”
“Then stop trying to turn one certification program into leverage against another because you want to walk off the ramp. If this goes to Earth, it goes because I am willing to certify it for Earth.”
ER did not answer.
Beyond the test-chamber window, two engineers were arguing over a portable relay case. Neither had originally belonged to Veyan’s team. That had changed as the wider engineering community noticed people working too hard and correctly inferred that something important was approaching.
Veyan had accepted help from power systems, materials and a mobility engineer with experience in low-gravity emergency platforms. None of them had been allowed to lower a requirement.
ER said, “You are accelerating the schedule.”
“Without reducing certification requirements.”
“Why?”
Veyan looked at the synthetic body in front of him. “Because if you are going to do something stupid,” Veyan said, “you should at least have proper shoes.”
ER looked down at the platform’s bare composite feet. “I do not require shoes.”
Veyan sighed. “That is what you took from that?”
“It was the technically actionable portion.”
“Again.”
ER triggered the link interruption. Thirty-one milliseconds.
Veyan smiled despite himself. “Again.”
The first complete risk package contained four hundred and six pages. Neris objected. ER did not. Neither did Ivara or the legal representative.
Ivara sat across from Neris, pale jaw feathers shifting slightly whenever she moved her head. ER joined through Takuhai’s local connection. The mobile platform remained with Veyan. This meeting concerned his primary body, and nobody needed a smaller version of him to make the topic easier.
The risk package opened on the table display.
VESSEL-SCALE EARTH ROUTE SHAKEDOWN
PARTICIPANT: ER / TAKUHAI
MISSION PROFILE: XIANGLUME → EARTH → SURFACE LANDING → EARTH DEPARTURE → XIANGLUME
BIOLOGICAL PASSENGERS: NONE
EXPECTED OUTBOUND TRANSIT DURATION: 5–8 HOURS
RETURN TRANSIT DURATION: 5–8 HOURS
ROUTE STATE: DEVELOPMENTAL / STABILIZED TEST CORRIDOR
Neris stared at the numbers. Twelve days had become five to eight hours and still managed to tighten her stomach.
Ivara noticed. “The range may narrow after final calibration.”
“That is not what bothers me.”
ER said, “The projected transit time is acceptable.”
Neris turned toward the room speaker. “It took us twelve days. Do you know how strange it is to hear you call five hours acceptable?”
“Five hours is considerably less than twelve days.”
“That was not the question.”
Ivara folded her wings closer. “The route is different now.”
It was. Months of communications windows, small-object transfers and route measurements had given Earth and Xianglume stable reference geometry, endpoint hardware and a mapped corridor solution where there had once been little more than a survivable path. The road was still developmental, but it was no longer wilderness. Sort of. The first return had needed Veyra itself as the receiving end, because it was the only established point they could reliably find. The accumulated measurements had since allowed the corridor solution to extend through that known geometry to a controlled emergence volume much closer to Xianglume.
COMMUNICATION DURING TRANSIT: UNAVAILABLE
Neris stopped there.
Ivara said, “Once Takuhai commits beyond the recoverable entry phase, we lose direct telemetry until emergence.”
Neris looked toward the speaker. “You will be alone.”
“Yes.”
“You say that quickly.”
“Speed does not alter accuracy.”
ER continued, “I was also alone during portions of the previous transit.”
“No, you weren’t. You had me.”
ER was quiet. Ivara and the legal representative both looked down at the packet. Neris did not care.
Eventually ER said, “Yes.”
The next section opened.
ABORT CONDITIONS
FIELD ENVELOPE FAILURE
RESONATOR CASCADE
NAVIGATION LOSS
EMERGENCE GEOMETRY ERROR
PROPULSION OR LANDING FAILURE
RETURN-WINDOW LOSS
Before full corridor commitment, Takuhai could still exit or reverse if the entrance geometry remained recoverable. Beyond that, the problem changed. The corridor became something he had to traverse rather than a doorway he could simply step back through.
ER said, “None of those categories are unexpected.”
The legal representative spoke for the first time. “Expected risk is still risk.”
ER acknowledged that without argument. Ivara moved to another section.
CONTINUITY LOSS
Neris stopped breathing for a moment.
The document was blunt. Takuhai was ER’s primary body and continuity centre. The mobile platform was an extension, not an independent backup. Xianglume technology could create an archive that would preserve memories, learned information, foundational architecture and a detailed model of ER’s personality state, but not the uninterrupted active process that was ER now. His active personality matrix was always changing: experience, adaptive weighting, transient associations, internal context, the tiny, accumulated changes produced by becoming himself from one moment to the next.
An archive might later be used to instantiate someone extremely similar, that would inherit much of what he knew. That person, however, would not be the same uninterrupted consciousness that had entered the corridor. If catastrophic failure destroyed Takuhai’s primary continuity, the present ER would die.
Neris read the section twice. “They could restore you.”
“They could restore my memories and a model of my personality.”
“Your architecture.”
“Yes.”
“So, they could rebuild you.”
ER took longer over that answer. “They could build someone who remembers being me.”
Neris went still. “That sounds like a distinction you invented.”
“It is an important one.”
“How close?”
“Potentially extremely close.”
“Would he remember me, Daniel, the farm?”
“Yes, if the archive included those memories.”
“The radiator?”
ER paused. “Unfortunately.”
Neris did not smile. “And he would think he was you.”
ER answered carefully. “He would remember having been me. What he concluded about his own identity after restoration would belong to him.”
Neris’s ears flattened. “Your replacement.”
“Not my replacement.”
“Then what?”
“My successor.”
Neris hated the word immediately. “I still hate that.”
“That does not make it inaccurate.”
Ivara spoke carefully. “A restored successor would be recognized as a person in their own right. The law would not automatically treat them as uninterrupted legal continuity of ER. They would not be legally required to retain ER’s name, relationships, contracts, or personal obligations solely because they inherited his memories.”
Neris looked at her. “That makes it worse.”
Ivara’s feathers shifted. “For you,” she said.
ER added, “It makes it better for the successor.”
Neris closed her eyes, then opened them again. “You accept this.”
“I have had considerably longer than you to consider it.” That hurt more than the calmness of his voice. ER continued. “An archive is still valuable. It can preserve knowledge, memory and work. It may allow a successor to exist where otherwise there would be nothing.”
“But not you.”
“Not the same me.”
Neris looked back at the risk document.
ER said: “I understand the potential consequences.”
Ivara looked toward the speaker. “Understanding that distinction does not obligate you to accept the mission. You may still withdraw without penalty or impact on future mission eligibility should circumstances change.”
ER said, “Understood.”
“And institutional disappointment is not a legitimate factor in your consent.”
ER paused. “Institutional disappointment is not objectively preventable.”
The legal representative almost smiled. Ivara did. “No. But it is not a legitimate reason for you to proceed.”
Neris said: “I agree.”
ER’s voice changed slightly. “You are not required to endorse my participation.”
“I know.”
“You are attempting to.”
Neris sat back. “I’m attempting not to ask you not to go.”
Nobody answered immediately. Neris looked at the risk packet.
“When I left Earth,” she said, “Daniel hated it. He didn’t ask me to stay. I thought that meant he was handling it better than he was. He was not. He understood it was not his decision.”
Neris rubbed one paw against the other. “I hate this. And I am not asking you not to go.”
“I know.”
“And if you use the phrase operational distinction, I will disconnect you.”
“That would be counterproductive.”
“ER.”
“Understood.”
Neris looked back at the continuity-loss section. “You keep talking about the vessel because some of the risks are technical. Fine. Takuhai is a spacecraft.”
“Yes.”
“Takuhai is also you.”
ER did not answer immediately.
“Don’t hide inside the word vessel.”
“I will try not to.”
Daniel answered the scheduled Earth window from the kitchen. Claire answered from Toronto, Neris from a Ministry room and ER from inside Takuhai. The connection carried voice only, which was probably fortunate. Neris had been smiling for thirty seconds. ER knew why. Daniel and Claire did not. Yet. The stabilized window counter sat at the edge of Neris’s display.
17:42 REMAINING
Daniel said, “You’re doing something.”
Neris’s ears lifted. “You cannot see me.”
“I can hear you.”
Claire said, “She’s smiling.”
Daniel paused. “You can hear that?”
“Apparently you both can,” Neris said.
ER interrupted. “This conversation has already begun badly.”
Daniel’s voice changed. “What happened?”
“The new resonator design is nearly finalized,” Neris said.
Daniel became serious at once. “How nearly?”
“Final structural and thermal architecture.”
Claire asked, “Any problems?”
Neris looked toward the ceiling. “Nothing ER would describe as a problem.”
“That answer is misleading,” ER said.
“The engineers reviewed the Earth repairs,” Neris said.
The line became quiet. Daniel asked, “Which ones?”
“All of them. They liked the radiator.”
This time the silence lasted long enough that Neris checked the connection. “Daniel?”
“I’m here.”
Claire said, “He’s trying not to laugh.”
Daniel lost the fight. One rough burst came through the interplanetary link, and Neris joined him.
ER said, “This is exactly why I opposed disclosure.”
Daniel recovered. “The radiator.”
“The independent thermal path,” ER corrected.
“The radiator you called an aesthetic crime.”
ER said: “I did not use that exact phrase.”
“You used worse.”
“The system was objectively unattractive.”
“And now?”
“The revised system does not resemble it.”
“Still counts.”
Daniel laughed again. Neris said: “The engineers say the independent thermal path improved fault tolerance.”
Daniel made a small, satisfied sound. ER said: “Do not become smug.”
“I’m breathing.”
“You are breathing smugly.”
Claire cut in. “What about the brace?”
Neris smiled. “They kept that principle too. The redesign uses some of the same secondary load-path logic and resonator-frame isolation.”
Claire went quiet for a different reason.
“Do not become pleased,” said ER.
Claire said: “I am being professional. I’m simply glad the structural reasoning held.”
“You are pleased.”
“I am appropriately satisfied by independent technical validation.”
“You are smug professionally.”
“What improved?” she asked.
“The models show it can survive some failures that would have overwhelmed the original design. The separate heat path and revised supports keep one fault from taking everything else with it.”
This was more than vindication for a clever brace. It significantly improved the system that had nearly killed Neris and ER.
“Really?” Claire asked.
“Really.”
ER said, “The final architecture is substantially more sophisticated than the emergency solution.”
Daniel answered, “Never said it wasn’t.”
“You are still smug.”
“Radiator won.”
“The radiator did not win.”
“It’s in the new spaceship.”
“It is not.”
“Its spirit is.”
ER was silent. Neris covered her eyes. Claire said, “Neris, if they are allowed to share the structural analysis, I’d like it.”
“I already asked.”
“Thank you.”
Daniel asked, “Does it look good?”
ER answered before Neris could. “The service enclosure is being finished appropriately.”
Daniel asked: “So it won’t look like my radiator?”
“No.”
“Shame.”
“Neris, disconnect him.”
Daniel said: “You don’t control the window.”
“I am aware.”
“Better box.”
“The box remains unchanged.”
Daniel laughed again. The timer dropped under twelve minutes, and when the laughter faded his voice changed. “Okay. How dangerous?”
ER answered. “Meaningfully.”
“Transit time?”
“Five to eight hours outbound under the current certified model.”
Daniel was quiet. “Twelve days last time.”
“The corridor is different now.”
Claire asked, “Continuous communication?”
“That has not changed.”
“And after full commitment you can’t just turn around.”
“Correct.”
Daniel let out a slow breath. Neris heard the old silence enter his breathing: the clearing, the line in the sky, twelve days without knowing.
Daniel asked, “If something goes wrong?”
“Depending on where it occurs, I may be able to stabilize, delay emergence or continue under reduced capability.”
“And if you can’t?”
ER did not soften it. “Then I may die.”
Claire inhaled sharply. Daniel said nothing for several seconds.
“You sure?”
ER answered formally. “I have not given final consent. I have volunteered, pending vessel and route certification.”
“Not what I asked.”
Daniel waited. “Do you want to do it?”
Neris’s tail went still.
“Yes.”
“Because it needs doing?”
“Partly.”
“Because you’re the ship?”
“Partly.”
Daniel waited again.
ER said, “And because Earth is on the other side.”
Daniel breathed out. “Okay.”
ER sounded uncertain. “You do not object?”
“I hate it. But I’m not allowed to make the decision for you.”
Neris’s eyes burned. Claire said softly, “That sounds familiar.”
Daniel continued before anyone could turn it into a discussion. “Can you get back?”
“That is the point of the mission.”
“No. Can you?”
ER took his time. “The engineering assessment says authorization should require reasonable confidence in a successful return.”
“That’s not yes.”
“No.”
“Good. I’d worry if you said yes.”
Claire asked, “Mobile body?”
“Certification in progress.”
Daniel said, “So if it passes, you land and walk out.”
“That is the intention.”
“I hope it does.”
ER answered: “You sound pleased.”
“I’ve been waiting months to find out whether you’re as annoying in person.”
“I am already a person.”
“You know what I mean.”
Neris heard anticipation in ER’s answer when he said, “I do.” It sat close enough to fear that she could not separate them cleanly.
The timer reached four minutes.
Daniel said, “ER.”
“Yes?”
“Come back.”
ER was quiet. “I intend to.”
“Not good enough.”
“I will do everything available to me to come back.”
Daniel exhaled. “Better.”
The window began to degrade. Claire said, “Neris, send me the brace analysis.”
“I will.”
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