Earth: Starting Notes
Copyright© 2026 by Flubu
Chapter 14: Departure Window
The departure time became real at 06:17. Neris learned this because Ivara called before breakfast, while Linnea was putting something warm into a bowl and Ormaz was reading three different public reports about the previous day’s engineering certifications despite insisting he was not following the mission obsessively. Neris answered. Ivara appeared from a Ministry office, her black jaw feathers slightly uneven. Neris had never seen that before.
“You’re awake,” Ivara said.
Linnea set the bowl in front of Neris. Before Neris could answer, Ivara added, “Eat.”
Neris stared at the screen. Ormaz lowered one of his reports.
“I like her.”
“You already liked her.”
“I like her more.”
Neris picked up the spoon.
“What happened?”
“The route group completed the first full scheduling model. We have a viable outbound window.”
The room went quiet. Even Ormaz stopped pretending to read.
“When?”
“Forty-one hours from now.”
The spoon touched the edge of the bowl. Linnea sat down. Ormaz folded his screen closed. Neris tried the number once more, as though saying it might change its scale. “Forty-one hours.”
Ivara inclined her head.
“And the return?”
“Not scheduled yet.”
Neris’s ears shifted back. Ivara continued before she could ask.
“The outbound window is not dependent on an exact return window. The Earthside array will continue characterization after arrival. We have several predicted return opportunities inside the mission envelope, but the final departure from Earth will be chosen after local measurements confirm the corridor state.”
“So, he could get there and wait.”
“Current planning assumes less than two Earth days.”
“Assumes.”
“We are not committing him to a return until we have Earthside data.”
Neris disliked the uncertainty and liked the decision that produced it. “That part is sensible.”
“I thought you might say so.”
“The rest can still be terrible.”
Neris ate another spoonful because Linnea was watching.
“The Ministry will coordinate the public announcement with Earth at the next communication window,” Ivara continued.
“Does ER know?”
“He received the scheduling packet four minutes before I called you. He has already requested clarification on two phrases.”
Neris smiled despite herself. “Which ones?”
“‘Target departure time’ and ‘ceremonial hold.’”
Ormaz looked up. “Ceremonial hold?”
Ivara sighed.
“There was a proposal to pause the technical countdown briefly before corridor commitment so the departure could be observed live.”
“No,” Neris said.
“That was ER’s response too. Mine followed shortly afterward.”
“It is a spacecraft departure, not an awards ceremony.”
Ormaz commented: “It can be both.”
“No.”
Ivara said. “It cannot be ceremony at the expense of engineering. The public feed will follow the actual engineering sequence. No artificial delay.”
Neris ate again. Linnea said quietly, “Forty-one hours.”
Neris met her mother’s eyes. Linnea did not add anything. Ivara waited a moment before continuing. “ER’s archival update is scheduled for this afternoon.”
Neris stopped eating.
“It is standard for a high-risk continuity-bearing mission,” Ivara said. “ER asked whether you wanted to attend.”
“He asked?”
“He did.”
Neris looked down at the bowl. Breakfast had become difficult again. Linnea reached across the table and touched her wrist.
“I’ll go.”
Ivara nodded. “I’ll let him know.”
The call ended. Ormaz remained quiet longer than usual. “What exactly is an archival update?” he asked.
Neris looked at him. His ears lowered. “That was a question, nothing more.”
“I know.” She pushed the bowl slightly away, then stopped when Linnea looked at it. “It preserves enough of ER’s architecture, memories and current personality state that, if he died, they could instantiate a person derived from the archive.”
Ormaz frowned. “A copy?”
“Not exactly. ER calls him a successor.”
“Would he remember us? You? Daniel?,” Linnea asked.
“Yes.”
“Would he remember deciding to go?”
Neris looked at the table. “Yes.”
Ormaz sat back. “Then why wouldn’t he still be ER?”
“Remembering being ER and continuing to be ER aren’t the same thing.”
Linnea’s paw remained over Neris’s wrist. “Do you agree?”
Neris looked at her. “I understand why he does.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Neris exhaled. “No.”
Linnea squeezed her wrist. Ormaz opened his mouth, thought better of whatever had been there, then said, “I don’t like it either.”
Neris looked at him. He shrugged. “I am allowed.”
Linnea pushed the bowl back toward Neris. “Eat.”
Forty-one hours. Neris picked up the spoon.
ER’s archive did not look like death. Neris resented that. There were no solemn machines, no darkened room, no ceremonial copy of a mind placed into a vault. There was a diagnostic suite beside Takuhai’s primary continuity support bay and a technician named Pelo who apologized because one verification pass was running slowly. ER sounded bored. Neris sat on a narrow bench inside Takuhai, too warm despite the ordinary compartment temperature.
A wall display showed:
ARCHIVAL STATE CAPTURE
BASE ARCHITECTURE: VERIFIED
LONG-TERM MEMORY INDEX: SYNCHRONIZED
RELATIONAL MEMORY MAP: SYNCHRONIZED
ACTIVE PERSONALITY STATE MODEL: CAPTURE IN PROGRESS
TRANSIENT STATE: NON-PRESERVABLE
Neris stared at the final line. “Non-preservable.”
“What does that mean?”
“You know what it means.”
“I want you to say it.”
The technician glanced at her, then very carefully looked back at his instruments.
“Some active internal states cannot be meaningfully captured as persistent identity data,” ER said through the compartment speaker.
“I know what the phrase means. I want you to say what it means for you.”
Pelo became absorbed in his console.
ER paused. “My current processing state is not reducible to a static record.”
“What gets left out?”
“It is not a list. Transient weighting. Current context. Active associations. Ongoing model adjustment.”
“Feelings.”
“That word is imprecise.”
Neris looked toward the nearest speaker. “Feelings.”
A pause. “Among other things.”
The progress line advanced.
PERSONALITY STATE MODEL: 63%
“You’ve done this before.”
“Every thirty-two days under ordinary conditions.”
Neris had known archives existed. She had not known ER maintained one that regularly. “At Aster Vale too?”
“Yes. Before and after Earth.”
She thought of the first twelve-day crossing: Takuhai emerging broken, Neris bleeding, the resonator destroyed. Somewhere on Xianglume there had been a stored state of ER that knew none of what had followed. Not this version of him that had known Daniel, the farm, and had come to know her differently. She hated that version, which was unfair. It did not exist as a person, just as possibility.
“Which archive is the oldest?”
ER said: “Stored?”
“Yes.”
“Several foundational snapshots are retained for diagnostic history.”
Neris frowned. “How many ERs are in there?”
“None.”
The answer came immediately. “Archived state is not active personhood,” ER continued. “There is information from which a person might later be instantiated. There is no one waiting inside it.”
The display reached seventy-one percent. Neris folded her paws together. “If you die and they use this, he remembers me.”
“If the archive completes after this conversation is indexed, probably.”
Neris stared. “He remembers being worried about dying?”
“I am not presently worried about dying.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I am concerned about failure.”
“That is a terrible word.”
“It is an accurate one.”
She stood. The bench had become intolerable. Takuhai hummed around her, ER everywhere and nowhere she could look directly.
“You called him your successor.”
“Yes.”
“Would he have your name?”
“If he wanted it.”
Neris turned toward the speaker. “You think he might not?”
“He would have the right to decide.”
The answer still landed badly. Not because she disagreed, exactly, but because ER was discussing rights that would matter only if he was dead. Pelo moved to the console outside the compartment, close enough to supervise while leaving the room less crowded.
Neris watched the progress line climb. “You’re saying that like he would be a stranger.”
“No.”
“Then what?”
ER was quiet. Neris waited. “He would begin with my memories, my preferences, my relationships as remembered.”
Neris flinched at that. ER continued anyway. “He would have my learned models, my history and my sense of humor.”
“You have one?”
“That was unnecessary.”
“Sorry.”
“No, you are not.”
“No.”
ER continued: “He would wake believing, in a practical sense, that he had been me.”
Neris’s ears flattened. “And he would not have been.”
A longer silence. Neris looked at the display.
PERSONALITY STATE MODEL: 84%
“How do you know he wouldn’t still be you?”
ER answered quietly. “Because continuity is not information alone. The archive can preserve much of what I know, what I remember and a close model of who I have become. It cannot preserve the uninterrupted process answering you now.”
Neris closed her eyes. “You say that too calmly.”
“As I have said previously, I have had considerably longer than you to consider it.”
“That does not help.”
“I know.”
The progress line reached ninety percent. “You would want them to instantiate him.”
“If the circumstances justified it.”
“Why?”
“Because my death would not make what I learned worthless.” ER was quiet for a moment. “He might still help you. Daniel. Jaydee. Others I have not met yet.”
Hearing her name as one person on a list tightened something under Neris’s ribs. She pressed both paws against her eyes.
“This is horrible.”
“Yes.”
She lowered her paws. “You agree?”
“I did not say I liked it.”
The archive reached ninety-eight percent. Neris breathed carefully. “You act like this is paperwork.”
“It is also paperwork.”
“No. It’s you preparing something in case you don’t come back.”
ER did not answer immediately. “Yes.”
The display changed.
ARCHIVAL STATE CAPTURE: COMPLETE
VERIFICATION: PENDING
Neris stared at it.
“I am still here,” ER said.
She touched the wall. “I know.”
A diagnostic indicator shifted.
ARCHIVE VERIFIED
REFERENCE STATE: ER-47A
PERSISTENT CONTINUITY: NOT TRANSFERRED
That last line was the one that mattered. Not transferred. ER was still here, in the walls beneath her paw, in the systems humming around the compartment, in the voice that had spent several minutes making death administratively precise.
“I hate this.”
“I know.”
“If you come back, I am going to resent every future archive update on principle, and we never have to talk about it again.”
“That is your right.”
Neris rested her forehead against the panel.
ER waited, then said, “There is one thing I need you to understand.”
She closed her eyes. “What?”
“If a successor is ever instantiated, he would not owe you the relationship you have with me. Or Daniel. Or anyone. He would begin with my memories, but his choices after that would be his.”
Neris swallowed. “Including his name.”
“Yes.”
She hated that because the alternative would be worse. A person created carrying someone else’s obligations as if memory were ownership. “He would deserve that freedom,” ER said.
Neris looked at the archive record, then at the walls around her.
“You’ve thought about this a lot.”
“Long before Earth.”
“Long before me.”
“Yes.”
Neris breathed out. “Fine. I still hate it.”
“I know.”
She kept one paw against the hull and felt him there now.
The departure time became public at 11:00 Xianglume standard. Earth received the coordinated announcement during the same communication window. Within seven minutes, Teral had fourteen schedule conflicts. Within twelve, she had twenty-three. By fifteen, she stopped counting. Kaden found her standing in the middle of their kitchen with two terminals open, a headset around one ear and Jaydee eating something that was almost certainly not a proper meal.
“You’re home early,” Teral said.
“So are you.”
“I am not home.”
Kaden looked around. “You are physically in our house.”
“I am coordinating four broadcasts and a public observation event.”
Jaydee lifted her food. “And dinner.”
Teral looked at her. “I ordered food. That’s not making dinner.”
“It is today.”
Kaden put his bag down. The household screen displayed:
EARTH ROUTE SHAKEDOWN
DEPARTURE: 1 DAY 12 HOURS 17 MINUTES
PUBLIC FEED BEGINS: 45 MINUTES BEFORE DEPARTURE
EXPECTED TRANSIT: HOURS-SCALE
BIOLOGICAL OCCUPANTS: NONE
CITIZEN PARTICIPANT: ER
Jaydee pointed with her food. “He’s going tomorrow.”
“Late tomorrow, yes.”
“My editor wants me there for the final countdown.”
Kaden looked at Teral. His newsroom had asked him six times whether he would report from the departure site. Professionally, he had reasons to say yes. Personally, every one of them felt wrong.
Jaydee frowned. “Why?”
“Work.”
“But Aunt Neris will be there. And Grandmother and Grandfather. And us.”
“Yes.”
“Then why would you work?”
Teral closed one terminal. Kaden looked at his daughter. “Because this is my job.”
“So is being my father.”
Teral smiled without looking at him. Kaden sighed. “That is unfair.”
“It’s true.”
His work terminal vibrated. He muted it. Kaden looked at the countdown.
One day, twelve hours, sixteen minutes.
He could stand beside a broadcast team explaining what the departure meant, or he could stand beside his wife and daughter while someone his family loved left for another civilization.
“I’m not covering the final countdown.”
Jaydee smiled. Teral watched him more carefully. “Your editor?”
“Will survive.”
“And if they tell you it’s the biggest story of your career?”
“It is.”
Teral waited. “That’s why somebody else can cover it.”
Her expression softened. Kaden picked up his terminal and typed:
I WILL COVER PRE-DEPARTURE POLICY AND PUBLIC RESPONSE. I WILL NOT REPORT FROM FAMILY ACCESS OR THE DEPARTURE AREA DURING FINAL COUNTDOWN.
The reply came almost immediately.
I DISLIKE THIS DECISION PROFESSIONALLY.
YOU ARE A TERRIBLE JOURNALIST.
I UNDERSTAND IT PERSONALLY.
SEND ME YOUR POLICY COPY BY 1600.
Kaden smiled. Jaydee leaned over.
“What did they say?”
“That I still have work.”
Teral laughed. The household screen changed. A public segment began listing questions about Earth, ER and the route. Kaden muted it. Jaydee protested. “I wanted to hear.”
“You’ll hear enough.”
“Will ER wear the hat?”
Kaden stared. “What hat?”
Teral looked at him.
“You don’t know about the hat?”
Jaydee became delighted. Kaden regretted asking.
Earth’s arrival field acquired paint. For weeks, everything Claire showed him had been conceptual: survey markers, engineering drawings, temporary structures, emergency lanes, controlled zones and airspace maps. During a site call thirty hours before departure, Claire turned her camera toward fresh yellow and white lines on actual pavement, complete with directional arrows and a marked hold area near the edge of the operations apron.
Daniel sat at the kitchen table with his left leg stretched slightly forward. Cold weather had made his pelvis ache that morning. Not badly, but enough to remind him of its presence. Claire walked across the site wearing a heavy coat and hard hat. The camera bounced.
“You’re limping,” she said.
“You can’t see me.”
“I know your face.”
“I’m sitting.”
“You’re sitting like you limp.”
“That is not a thing.”
“It is absolutely a thing.”
Behind her, crews were installing a portable barrier. Daniel changed the subject. “What’s the new box?” Claire turned. A low rectangular structure stood near the apron.
“Mobile-extension support. Charging, diagnostics, local network bridge, environmental cleaning if they want it, privacy if he needs maintenance.”
“Looks like a shipping container.”
“It is temporary.”
“Still looks like one.”
“We had twenty days.”
“Should paint it.”
“Daniel.”
“He cares about aesthetics.”
Claire turned the camera toward herself. “You want me to tell federal site operations that the alien AI might object to the aesthetics of his temporary support enclosure.”
“Yes.”
She considered. “That may actually work.”
Daniel smiled. Behind her, an aircraft taxied across another part of the field. The site was civilian. It had simply become the most carefully watched piece of airspace in Canada.
Claire moved toward the viewing structure. “One thing. Say the arrival sequence back to me.”
“We already did this.”
“And yesterday you said Takuhai lands when he appears.”
“He does eventually.”
“Eventually matters.” Claire turned the camera toward a slice of grey sky. “He emerges in the controlled volume well above the runway environment, verifies flight status, then descends under his own power and lands.”
Daniel nodded. “Emergence first. Landing later.”
“Thank you.”
“I shortened it.”
“Don’t shorten things around journalists.”
Daniel sighed. Claire continued. “He descends under his own power, enters the approach corridor, and lands. No ceremonial arrival.”
“Probably.”
Claire stared. Daniel smiled. “Maybe a little ceremony.”
“ER would hate you.”
“Already does.”
The runway extended into the distance with snow beyond the cleared areas. The whole place looked ordinary. That made it stranger.
“Your clearance appointment is tomorrow morning,” Claire said.
“I know.”
“If Mara says no?”
“I stay home.”
Claire paused. “That was suspiciously easy.”
“I already promised you and Marcel.”
“That helps.”
Daniel looked toward the quiet farmyard. Marcel had handled morning feed while Daniel did paperwork and reorganized tools because idleness made him difficult to live with. His recovery had reached the awkward middle: ordinary days were mostly manageable, but cold, travel, waiting and excitement still accumulated whether he admitted it or not. His body still had opinions.
“You’re going to be furious if she says no,” Claire said.
“Yeah.”
“And you stay home anyway.”
“Still furious.”
“Understandable.”
Claire adjusted her hard hat. “The platform support area has a ramp. So does the observation structure. Circulation widths work for Arilanans, Mephits, humans and the other profiles we currently have.”
Daniel smiled. “You thought of the doors.”
“I refuse to help build the first interspecies arrival facility and then discover the doors don’t work for the guests.”
“Reasonable nightmare.”
“It is.”
Daniel looked again at the marked pavement, a place for Takuhai and a place for ER that was no longer theoretical.
Claire’s voice softened. “He’s really coming.”
“Yeah.”
Neither spoke for a while.
Neris carried Jaydee’s first courier cup aboard Takuhai. ER noticed immediately.
“That is the original cup.”
“I’m lending it to you.”
ER was quiet for a moment. “For the Earth transit.”
“Yes.”
“You previously agreed that it had completed its final trip.”
“I remember.”
“Jaydee was explicit.”
“I remember that too.”
The uneven ceramic sat on the galley counter. It had crossed routes, stations, Earth and the twelve-day return. Jaydee had grounded it afterward with the authority of someone who believed objects could retire. ER did not make the practical argument Neris had expected. He did not mention fragility, unnecessary mass, or lack of operational purpose. He simply said: “I will take good care of it.”
“I know. Somewhere decent.”
A compartment indicator lit beside the galley. Neris opened it. Padded storage. Secure restraints. Close enough to feel as though the cup belonged there rather than in freight.
“You already chose somewhere.”
“I anticipated that you would object to ordinary cargo storage.”
Neris closed the compartment. “You know me.”
“Yes.”
ER paused. “This is a loan.”
“That is what I said.”
“So, you expect it returned.”
Neris rested one paw against the closed panel. “That’s generally how loans work.”
A moment passed. “Bring it back.”
“I intend to.”
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