Chapter 1

Author’s Note: Thanks to all the editors and authors who have helped me improve my writing from ‘Painfully Godawful’ to ‘Above Average’. I hope at least one of them will look at this and smile. For the purists out there, the science in ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Alien’ isn’t perfect, and neither is this. Please put the formulas and calculator away long enough to enjoy some entertainment.

August 2204 Boston, MA, USA Dr. Enka Karjala

On the first day of mission training, I woke up late. On the way out the door, I noticed my blouse had a big stain. I ran back in to change, and realized I was broke and didn’t pack anything for lunch. I was fifteen kilos overweight, but food usually made me feel better, at least for a little while. I could skip a meal and survive, but if my clothes looked dirty people might laugh and make fun of me. I couldn’t take that! I’d rather somebody hit me, than criticize or belittle me. Injuries heal, but teasing and bullying I would remember forever, especially with my ‘photographic’ or eidetic memory.

I still remember when I was nine months old and ate a cookie for the first time. It was early in the afternoon and the sky out the window was cloudy. As I was still a baby, I had on a diaper and a pink top. My father had whiskers, so he must not have shaved. It was probably a Saturday or Sunday. I thought a moment and recalled the calendar, it was Sunday the 23rd. There was a thunderstorm that night. I had eaten nearly half the cookie, including nine of the twenty-one chocolate chips in it. I didn’t know about numbers or how to count at the time, but I still have the images of it in my mind. My four-year-old brother grabbed the cookie away and ate the rest. I was too young to walk or talk, so all I could do was cry as he ran away laughing.

I wish there were a way I could forget even part of the bad things. Every year since elementary school, I gave him a bag of cookies with a bite taken out of one for his birthday. He had no clue why. When I entered the colony program at age 24, a psychologist asked me why I still held a grudge over a cookie, more than two decades later. Simply put, if you can’t forget, it’s hard to forgive.

I was two minutes early, but still one of the last to the classroom. There was a cute, muscular blonde guy sitting near the back, three seats from the aisle. I sat in the aisle seat, so I could glance at him occasionally. I hoped nobody would notice and tease me. All of us were at least 22 years old and I still worried about that. Despite my stereotypical Nordic blonde hair and big boobs, I was also nervous I’d never find a boyfriend.

A thin, pretty red-haired girl walked up next to me and coughed, as she pointed to the seat between me and the cute guy. I politely said, “Pardon me” as I moved back, so she could squeeze through. She stepped on my foot, lost her balance, and fell. I said, “I’m sorry! So sorry!” as the cute guy caught her and helped her to her feet.

She smiled at him and said, “My hero! Thanks!” We didn’t know it at the time, of course, but her words were prophetic.

He blushed and smiled back at her, making my heart sink. Professor Morse came in and called the roll. I became nervous as he got close to my name. I hated speaking in public.

“Alice Jameson”

“HERE!”

“Ross Jones?”

“HERE!”

“Anna Kar ... Kar-juh...”

I stood and slowly pronounced, “En-kah Kar-yoh-lah, sir.”

He cruelly said, “Anchor, I’ll just call you Anchor.”

Everyone but me laughed. It was especially hurtful because of my size. How could they be so mean! They didn’t even know me, and I was sure they hated me already. As he continued the roll, I shrank down in my seat and tried to be as invisible as possible.

By the time roll call was over, I learned the cute blonde guy was Oskar Schmidt and the girl next to me was Molly Walsh. I mainly like guys, but she was very pretty and I noticed she had a nice butt. That made them not liking me even worse.

Professor Morse began the introductory lecture. “All of you are here because you want to be on the next colony ship. I know you’ve been told the rules at least twice before, but I want to make sure there is no confusion, and none of you have any excuse for bad behavior.”

“While you are cadets, there will be no fraternization. No penetrative or oral sex of any kind, with other cadets, or anybody else. A kiss lasting more than two seconds counts as oral sex. There will be no spreading of diseases, unscheduled pregnancies, or unfair treatment of others because of romantic entanglements. You’re all supposed to be responsible adults, and disciplined service members, so act like it.” He paused for a few seconds.

“Look at the palm of your dominant hand.” Everybody did.

“Say ‘I love you’ and kiss it, because that’s your only sex partner until you’re finished here.”

A few people kissed their hands, and there were a lot of nervous laughs. The teaching method was crude, but nobody was falling asleep.

“The mission will launch with a wide variety of microbes, seeds, and animals. Most mammals can be gestated in artificial wombs with 70% success, but 70% isn’t safe enough for humans. For that reason, the crew will be composed of 120 men and 240 women, to ensure rapid colony growth. The settlements will need to grow very quickly, to avoid losing technologies and start production of complex items like power reactors and transport drones in a hundred years or less. You can’t really run an elaborate manufacturing operation with only two or three workers. It takes thousands. If a major technology hasn’t been used in a long time, it can be hard to recover, even with all the needed information. It’s difficult to write code if you’ve never seen a computer before or fly the first helicopter in the world.”

“When the officer in charge of each settlement retires at age 80 or so, government structure will change to democracy and a new leader will be elected. Until then, it’s military order and discipline, for the safety and benefit of the community as a whole.

There will be 10,000 frozen human embryos, to prevent problems with inbreeding. Each female will produce her first child by embryo implantation, until all the embryos have been used. The majority of the other children will be produced the fun way.”

Most of the class giggled, but I blushed in embarrassment.

“If you’re not hetero or bi, don’t worry, all orientations are allowed. Medical help such as artificial insemination and in vitro will be available. No pregnancies will be allowed until the colony living spaces and natively produced food are sufficient and stable. After that, pregnancies should occur on a rotating basis, so that no more than a sixth of the female population will give birth in the same Earth month. You don’t want twenty women in labor at once, with only three doctors. Each woman is expected to produce at least six children in her lifetime, and ten or more if possible.”

Molly whispered to Oskar, “Ten! Wow! My poor poonie!”

Several people overheard and laughed. The professor wasn’t amused. “Is there a problem back there?”

Molly had her turn blushing, as she said; “No, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“Back to business then. The social structure is planned as a family of 2 adult males, 4 adult females, and as many children as possible. After the first generation, family structure can be changed to whatever seems to make sense at the time, provided all orientations and genders are treated fairly.

Regardless of participant age, reproduction between generations is banned for at least the first hundred years, again for reasons of genetic diversity. There will also be a strict rule against sex with any genetic relative, or the parent of any relative. Once you girls pop out a baby for somebody, no more hokey pokey with them, move along. The second and third children should be produced by the family’s two adult males. After that, find love away from home.”

“Children will stay with their mother’s family and should refer to parents as ‘Mom’ and the mother’s name or ‘Dad’ and his name. ‘Daddy Ross’ or ‘Momma Anchor’’, and so on.” The class laughed at me again.

“All parents will take care of all the family’s children equally. Children will not be informed who their biological parents are until they need to know, in puberty. This is to reduce the emotional effect of any losses. Your new home is likely to be a dangerous place. You’ll do everything you can to avoid them, but there will be losses.”

“People will die. Maybe a lot of people.” He paused and let that sink in a moment. “If you can’t handle that, ‘The History of Music’ is down the hall. Class dismissed.”

I didn’t think there was any way I would make it. The training sounded very tough, and the other students hated me already. I sullenly walked to the front and spoke to the professor, “Sir, I’m sorry, but I don’t really think I’m right for this. I don’t know if I can do it.”

“Miss Enka Karjala, do you know why I picked on you today?” I shook my head. He had pronounced my name correctly!

“To lower the others’ expectations of you. You’re going to be a big threat, once they find out about your abilities. Your program entry scores were only a little above average, but I noticed your history and your score details. You were the top student at your medical school, number one of 104, even though you were the youngest of them by two years. You dropped out after only two weeks as an intern, because a patient yelled at you.

As you might already know, your university entrance exam was the fifth highest score ever recorded. You are NOT some middle of the pack student. You’re an actual, bona fide genius.

Your program entry score was only a mediocre 825. Students don’t get the itemized scores. Out of a quarter million applicants this year, there were only eight perfect 100’s and two of those are yours. Take a look.”

He put his screen on the desk in front of me and pulled up the information.

Program entry exam results - Enka Karjala - 825

96 Math 96 Languages 100 Chemistry 98 Physics 99 History 96 Logic 100 Biology 93 Culture 29 Fitness 18 Social

“In sports, an anchor is somebody reliable, highly skilled, that others can trust as the core of their team. If I can teach you to socialize and be comfortable with people, you’re more than capable of being this mission’s Chief of Science and Medicine. I want to make you this team’s anchor.”

“Thank you, sir. I have an eidetic memory, but nobody seems to like me. Could you help me, please?”

“Do you think I’ll go easy on you because you’re special? Make you the teacher’s pet? Pamper and coddle you? That’s not my job. My job is to give you the skills you need to handle things on your own.

There will be medical instruments and six cadaver simulants in the room tomorrow morning. If anybody gives you trouble, you have my permission to beat their egos to a pulp with your mighty intellect. Tomorrow’s lesson is emergency field surgery, and you’re the instructor. Since you’ll be teaching one class a week, you’ll receive a pay increase, effective today.

Like they say, the fastest way to teach a person to swim is throw them in the water.”

Before I could gather the words to object, he turned and walked out.

The next day was terrible. I did my best to teach them, but the rest of the class were downright ignorant and stupid. They seemed to like me even less. Since they knew I was smarter, I seemed like a threat to their chances in the program. It was feeling hopeless.

I talked with Professor Morse at the end of the day. “This isn’t working! I tried the best I could, but they’re appalling! Their stitches are uneven and sloppy. A few of them got nauseous, just cutting into their plastic dummy! At least a quarter of them made mistakes that would have killed the patient!”

As I started to cry, he put his hand on my shoulder. “Enka, other than basic first aid, none of them had any medical training at all. Three quarters of the patients would have lived, instead of none. They went from nothing, to half-assed medics in a day. You did that. They don’t have to love you. They have to know they need you and they can trust you. You need their respect, that’s all.”