Imaginative Limits

My brain is in a weird place this morning. I woke up in the middle of a vivid dream and I haven’t quite managed to get my head on straight since; also, it’s a new month. The year’s turning. There’s a lot going on.

All this – and some incidental stuff, like the fact I watched the movie Avatar yesterday for the first time in ages and a book review I read this morning – are conspiring to fill my mind with thoughts of speculation about the future and how little, in real terms, we can know or imagine about it.

Photo Credit: Firestoned via Compfight cc

I like to read SF books. I won’t say that I’m well read; beyond the basics (Philip K. Dick and Robert A. Heinlein and Ursula K. LeGuin, and a few others), and a couple of oddities I’ve picked up second-hand over the years, I have a fairly thin knowledge of the genre overall. I’m more of an interested amateur. However, one of the things that has always struck me when reading SF is, strangely, not the unlimited breadth of imagination that greets the reader, but the strangely limited views about humanity and its future that one tends to encounter. One of the ways in which this manifests, for me, is the fact that I’ve rarely, if ever, come across a classic SF book which doesn’t mention ‘tapes’ – audio and video tapes, history recorded on reels and reels of celluloid, manually operated and paused and edited. This has always fascinated me.

We can imagine worlds where giant gelatinous cubes can make three-dimensional copies of any object placed in front of them – essentially, an organic 3-D printer – but we can’t imagine anything like a digital future (In Philip K. Dick’s A Maze of Death (1970)). Even Fahrenheit 451, one of my favourite SF novels, imagines a totally analogue world, despite the fact that television screens have become so large that they act as the walls of the room the viewer is sitting in. Books are still hard-copy, and nothing like the internet has even been thought of. The book review I read this morning was for The Monadic Universe, by George Zebrowski (1977), which features a story called ‘The History Machine’, again imagining an archive far in the future which is entirely dependent on tapes. I haven’t read this story but it did chime with the impression I have often received when reading SF books and stories – when it comes to certain aspects of human culture and technology, SF seemed to have been strangely blind.

(Then, of course, you have books like Neuromancer which blow this ‘theory’ out of the ballpark, but you don’t often find books like that – books which resemble our world, but a much less humane and comforting version of it. Usually SF books make me feel like we live in a horror-filled version of their dream of the future; Neuromancer makes me feel like we live in paradise. But I digress).

Sometimes I read SF books and I realise exactly how rooted they are in the world which created them, and how indicative they are of the prejudices and preoccupations of their own age. Inverted World, for instance, which I recently read, was originally published in 1974 and, while being an amazing book about relativity, environmental decay and massive-scale engineering, it also features the most egregiously offensive scenes in terms of its treatment of women and marginalised peoples, and their function in this society. Of course, perhaps this was the point – maybe the author was trying to say something meaningful about how no matter how much changes in terms of technology, old school prejudice and sexism will always be alive and well – but I’m not sure. It just seemed to be a no-questions-asked, this-is-how-the-world-operates acceptance to me, and quite possibly a reflection of the world it came out of rather than the world it was imagining. I know all literature does this – and of course it does, because nobody can see the future – but for some reason I expect more of SF. I expect it to be focused on imagining wider horizons, presenting ways in which the future will be better, more than we can dream of, filled with impossibility. But this genre, more than any other, describes exactly how limited the human imagination can be. We see futuristic societies and thought processes and whole centuries of imagined history (far into our own future, of course), but we still rely on tapes, or women are still abused, or it’s still all about war and terror, and the whole edifice collapses.

Then, perhaps is a cause for optimism that these SF novels seemed so limited in so many ways. As they wrote stories about far-distant futures where celluloid was king, in reality the seeds for a digital future were being sown. As they wrote stories about women as objects for use like any other resource or tool in worlds all over the galaxies, women in reality were fighting – and winning – their battles here on Earth. As we were taking some of the best ideas from the SF novels so beloved by so many and turning them into reality, we were also developing faster than any SF novel had ever dreamed. Perhaps it’s a sign of how far we’ve come that our development has outstripped the dreams of our most far-sighted writers, and perhaps that’s something to be celebrated.

And perhaps I should have rolled over and gone back to sleep this morning instead of getting up and trying to function. Who knows?

Welcome to a new week, y’all. Let’s try and make it something to be proud of.

 

Earth Alpha – and a Bookish Miracle

Huzzah! Let joy be unconfined! My Bookish Mystery has been solved.

Yesterday evening – as a direct result of my blog appeal for help in tracing a book I knew I’d read as a little girl, but whose author and title I’d long forgotten – I got a message which said: ‘Is this it?’

It was, dear readers. It was.

I think this was even the cover of the edition I read as a kid.
Image: found0bjects.blogspot.com

The book is called Marianne Dreams, and the author – who sadly died in 2001 – was Catherine Storr. Embarrassingly, the book now has its own Wikipedia page and everything; if I’d just run another Google search, I probably could have found it myself. I hadn’t actually looked for it for a few years, since long before the age of Wikipedia and the excellent Google that we have now. But no matter.

The book that has haunted me for nearly thirty years has been tracked down.

I found a reissued edition from 2006 which is still in print, and I’ve already ordered it from my favourite bookshop, which also happens to be the place in which I used to work as a bookseller. They’re used to me and my oddnesses there. I cannot wait to have this story in my hands again, and I cannot wait to read it and see whether the terrifying power it had over my brain as a kid is still there.

I am so excited.

I remember this illustration, in particular – it was always the top right-hand window of the house in the drawing that made me quiver inside, and it was this image that convinced me the right book had been found.

Image: gaskella.wordpress.com

That’s the window to the room where Mark – a little boy, not a little girl, as I’d remembered – is being held captive by the power of the standing stones all around. I wasn’t mixing it up with Penelope Lively, after all; there was a stone circle in this book, too. Perhaps there’s hope for my aged memory banks yet.

Anyway. Thank you to everyone who retweeted my appeal and offered suggestions, and I’ll let y’all know in a few weeks whether the book is as good as, or better than, I remembered.

Image: ololbhills.catholic.edu

It also, in all likelihood, hasn’t escaped your notice that today is Friday. That means – yesirree – it’s Flash! Friday again. This week, the required element to include was ‘Space Travel’, and the prompt image was this fine photograph here:

Bicycle tunnel, double exposure. CC photo by r. nial bradshaw.
Image: flashfriday.wordpress.com

So, this is what I made of it:

Earth Alpha

Dan didn’t bother hailing; his words just boomed right through my skull, out of nowhere. I adjusted the volume on my CochliCall as he spoke.

‘Nico!’ he said. ‘Where are you?’

‘Oh, hey, Dan. Thanks for yelling.’

‘Shut up, and get over here. It’s happening!’

‘But – this early?’

Dan just tssked, and disconnected.

I had to think fast. Dad – working. Mom, offworld. Dan and me had sworn, as kids, that we’d watch the landing together, and I was going to keep my promise.

But that didn’t solve my immediate problem – transport.

Then, I remembered. Great-great-gramp’s bike!

I skidded to the garage. Dad kept it in good nick, for nostalgia’s sake, but I’d never learned how to operate it. I did my best.

As I rode, I watched the sky. Earth Omega was beautiful, and all, but I couldn’t wait to see Earth Alpha. Our origin planet, long abandoned.

I smiled, pedalling faster. Maybe now, we could finally start going home.

***

So, that’s where I’m at this Friday morning – dreaming of worlds unknown, some of them made from words. I hope a wonderful day awaits you all.

Wednesday Write-In #64

This week’s words for CAKE.shortandsweet‘s Wednesday Write-In were:

handful  ::  deadline  ::  birdsong  ::  headache  ::  resonate

 

Image: theguardian.com

 

The Dead Line

‘There’s only a handful of them left, now,’ said Winter, her voice obscured a little by the hiss from her oxygen mask. ‘We call them the ‘deadline,’ but that’s just a joke, really.’ She entered her access code into the security lock, the anonymous beepbeepbeep sounding loud and out of control in this dark, hermetic space.

‘Because they’re dead, technically,’ replied Stanhope. ‘I get it. Funny.’

‘Not really,’ she replied, looking back over her shoulder to smile at him. ‘But thanks for saying so.’ He shrugged, flashing her a grin, as the airlock whirred open to admit them. They stepped through, Stanhope doing his best not to stare into the vast chamber beyond. Be cool, he told himself. All in good time. Quickly, they got into their protective suits, making sure every joint and seal was secure. Stanhope took a few breaths inside his helmet and flexed his gloved fingers.

‘Okay. So, do you feel all right? Enough air?’ Her voice jolted him out of his thoughts.

‘Oh – yeah. Sure.’ He adjusted his heads-up readout, trying to look competent and calm.

‘If you start to get a headache, or anything, you tell me straight away, right? That can be a really bad sign, particularly in here.’

‘Sure, sure. I’m fine, honestly.’ He turned to face her, swallowing back a sudden sense of nausea. ‘I’m just excited, I guess. Honoured to be here.’ Her only reply was another smile, and Stanhope shuddered away a stab of guilt.

Then, a green light flashed above their heads.

‘Airlock’s done,’ said Winter, strengthening her stance. She shook out her shoulders and rolled her head around. ‘Won’t be long, now.’

‘Sure,’ he said. A trickle of cold sweat, like the finger of a corpse, ran down the centre of his back.

Then, the door opened, and they were sucked through.

All Stanhope could see were stars, at first, stars everywhere, jostling for space, whirling and roaring and sweeping past his head. They grew, changed colour, changed shape as he watched, dragging tendrils of burning light across his retinas.

‘It’s not going to hurt you!’ he heard Winter yelling, from ten million light years away. ‘Just breathe easy, and go with it.’ Right, he thought. Go with the flow. He gritted his teeth as the lightshow faded out and oceans of world-bending sound started to pound through his ears.  His head felt like a metal bowl, resonating and echoing with the weird screams and trills that were coming from somewhere deep inside this gigantic cavern, where the ancient gods were.

Then, he heard something that sounded like birdsong – except no bird in creation ever sounded like this. The sound was so full and rapid and loud that he felt his brain start to cave in as he listened.

‘What’s going on?’ he called, forcing his eyes open. His heads-up display showed his vitals, which were elevated, and the ambient temperature, which was dropping faster than he could believe. ‘Winter? You there?’

‘The gods are singing,’ she said, her voice like a rush of cold air across the surface of a glacier.

‘Singing? What are you talking about?’ He felt a clutching pain in his chest, like a vacuum grabbing at his heart.

‘Do you know why they call us the Dead Line?’ said Winter, in a voice that was not hers.

‘W-Winter? What’s happening?’ Stanhope coughed, a bubbling agony working its way up his body. He coughed again, and a mouthful of his hot blood spattered across his heads-up display. He moaned, knowing it was already too late.

‘Do you know why they call us the Dead Line?’ repeated Winter – or, the thing using her voice.

‘Please!’ Stanhope gasped. ‘Spare me!’

‘You came here with a device inside your body,’ replied a voice that sounded like ten million Winters, all speaking at once. ‘A device you wished to use to kill us. Why should we spare you?’

‘I was wrong. I – I am sorry. Please.’ Stanhope’s vision was darkening. ‘I was following orders – doing the work of those who believe you should be destroyed. We –‘ Stanhope gasped as a wracking pain twisted him in half. ‘We no longer need gods!’ He tasted his own blood on his tongue as he spoke.

‘No man needs us now more than you do,’ said the gods.

‘Yes,’ said Stanhope, and died.

‘Do you know why they call us the Dead Line?’ the gods asked, but there was nobody to answer them, so they answered themselves.

Because our bodies are dead, and nothing lies beyond us.

Another Publication!

My week is getting off to a good start already. My story ‘One’ was published this morning on Daily Science Fiction, and I have to say it’s a handsome thing. It’s great to see a story in its finished state, formatted and laid out to a publisher’s specification; it almost makes the content of the story seem better, too. It’s a long way from the day I first started tapping it out on my battered old laptop, months and months ago.

If you’d like to read the story, you can go here. Thrillingly, this time around, there’s an option for you to rate the story from 1 to 7, depending on how terrible you think it is. Currently, I’m holding steady at 5.4 average, so have fun skewing those stats!

I imagine the city Unubert lives in to look a little like this…
Image: blog.zeemp.com

Today is a Bank Holiday in my fair isle. Most people, I would wager, are still abed. This is a shame, because they’re missing a beautiful morning. We had awful weather yesterday – not as bad as parts of the UK, which suffered the fury of ‘St Jude’, the winter storm they decided to nickname after the saint of lost causes – but today, the sky is blue again.

I hope good weekends were had by all? I met up with some of my old university friends on Saturday, which was wonderful. It was so much fun to slip straight back into our early twenties, as happens when we’re all together, and forget for a while that we’re not that young any more and our lives have all changed beyond recognition. It did me good to remember what it felt like to have nothing more than getting to your next lecture to worry about, and I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard in quite a while.

So, all in all, it was the perfect cure for a fraught week.

I’m feeling a lot better now, too. You might remember me saying I felt unwell a few days back, and that I wasn’t able to focus on the computer screen, and all that. Well, thankfully it turned out to be nothing serious – the optician diagnosed me with eyestrain. Part of the reason I know the day is bright and blue outside is because I’m making a point of looking out the window every few minutes, just for a few seconds at a time, in order to flex my lenses. That wasn’t the term the optician used, but I just like to imagine it that way.

LIFT and stretch and LIFT and stretch and LIFT…
Image: generalcomics.com

So, today will be spent ‘dividing my time’ (I’ve always wanted to use that phrase…) between my NaNoWriMo prep (my brain has been invaded by an entirely new idea, which is clamouring to be written), my efforts to write a story for the Walking on Thin Ice Short Story Contest, and spending a bit of time with that man who lives in my house, whathisname… oh yeah, my husband. So, you know. It’s going to be a busy one.

Happy Monday! Remember to keep those eyeballs supple and those typin’ fingers flying…

Wednesday Write-In #61

This week’s words for CAKE.shortandsweet‘s Wednesday Write-In challenge were:

menthol  ::  blind date  ::  fried  ::  secret  ::  chit-chat

Image: youtube.com

Engine Trouble

Luggy was chewin’ so hard on his lower lip, I thought it was gonna bust open like an overdone sausage.

‘Ain’t no good. It’s fried, all of it. The whole dang thing.’ He slammed his wrench down on the ground and it sent up a good ol’ clang. Barely missed my boot, too.

‘Hey! You wanna take a little care with that thing?’ I threw my eyes aroun’, checkin’ for any whiff of Ol’ Garth, heart as black as his teeth and breath stinkin’ of that menthol-stuff he chews to try to mask his graveyard breath. We was clear, though. No sign.

‘We can’t keep this secret no more,’ muttered Luggy. His hand left a damp echo on the cold metal. A tremor was runnin’ all through him, like someone’d screwed a wire into the soles of his feet. ‘Garth needs to know what we’ve been doin’.’

‘You know what that’d mean, Luggy,’ I said, leanin’ in close. ‘They’d shovel our behinds rock-side without even givin’ us time to pack.’ I grabbed his shoulder and squeezed, just hard enough to make my point. ‘I don’t know ‘bout you, but I sure as hell don’t wanna spend the rest of my life -’

‘If this thing blows, we won’t have a rest of our life to worry about!’ Luggy’s words came out all strained, bustin’ their way out between his teeth like ribbons of razor wire.

‘Well, well!’ The sing-song voice smashed its way into our ears before I’d even had a chance to think about what Luggy’d said. ‘What’s this? You boys enjoyin’ a little chit-chat, here on your lonesomes?’ I turned to see Prentis, that damned treacle-headed good for nothin’, hustlin’ his way down the corridor toward us. A gush of cooler air made the skin on my arms pickle, and I knew Luggy was makin’ a move. I let him hide behind me as he did whatever was needful. There was plenty of room back there.

‘What you lookin’ for, Prentis?’ My voice sounded, even to me, like one o’ them guns with a spike on top. ‘Ain’t nothin’ down here. Me an’ Luggy here, we was just fixin’ up this engine patch, is all.’

‘Havin’ a little blind date, it seems to me,’ sang Prentis, his eyebrows dancin’. I wanted to tear ‘em off his face. ‘A little one-on-one. You know what the guys upstairs is sayin’ about you, don’t ya? Come on, now.’ I watched him laughin’, rockin’ back and forth in his fancy leather boots. Rest of us worked the shine out of ours, but not ol’ Prentis.

‘We was just on our way back up,’ I said, my voice full of clenched fists. ‘We was gon’ have a talk with Mr. Garth, ‘bout somethin’ important. So, if you’d kindly let us be gettin’ on with that -‘ He held up his hands and stopped my words in their tracks like he was Moses holdin’ back the waters.

‘Not so fast, now. How long you boys think I’ve been standin’ here?’ He was a walkin’ oil slick, this one. Dark and sticky, and hard to get out of. ‘I know all about your tinkerin’ with the engines. Tryin’ to get into Garth’s good books? Or do you guys got somethin’ in particular you need to get home for?’ I could hear Luggy breathin’ hard right behind me, and I knew his mind was on a planet we hadn’t seen for best of eight years. He’d a baby girl he’d never seen; she’d be grown and gone before he made it back, if this dyin’ ol’ engine wasn’t given a helpin’ hand. We thought we’d found a way to boost it, and it had worked – for a while.

But I said nothin’, and Luggy said less.

‘So it’s like that,’ murmured Prentis. ‘Scratchin’ one another’s backs, as usual.’ He heaved in a big ol’ sigh, like we were disobedient children and he our patient Papa. ‘Well, frankly, I ain’t got no choice but to tell Mr. Garth. I’m sure he won’t be pleased at the damage done to his property, but maybe, if I plead your case, he’ll let you stay on board.’ He got a grin then, looked just like an axe had smashed a hole in his face. ‘Maybe.’

I didn’t move a muscle when I felt Luggy’s cold fingers on my arm. Hopin’ I’d read his intentions right, I just moved to one side, givin’ him enough swingin’ room.

The wrench fell like the hand of God, and split Prentis’ face right in two. He dropped, and said no more.

‘Best get him put away before someone comes lookin’ for him,’ murmured Luggy, as Prentis started to drip. ‘Dangerous place, an engine room. Someone like him, no knowledge ‘bout what he’s doin’, shouldn’t even be down here.’

‘Ain’t that the truth,’ I said, bending to pick up the leg of the former Prentis. Luggy grabbed his arms. Those shiny boots caught my eye one last time as we found a quiet stairway to throw him down, but I left ‘em where they was. Not even I’d deny a man the right to die with his boots on.

Funny, I thought later: for a fella who talked so much, ol’ Prentis weighed less than a whisper, and he went down into the dark without a word.

Book Review Post – ‘Robopocalypse’

It’s that time of the week again. Monocles and glasses of sherry at the ready, dears – we’re about to turn into critics once again.

This week, it’s the turn of Daniel H. Wilson’s ‘Robopocalypse.’ For your viewing pleasure, I have provided a cover image. Voila:

Image: scifiward.com

This is a book which screamed out to me from the shelf. It practically sat up and begged me to bring it home. Everything about it, from the slick, SF cover image to the back cover blurb to the opening few paragraphs yelled ‘I am the one! The book you’ve been searching for!’ So, of course, I bought it.

Well.

This is the kind of book you read with a fevered pulse hopping in your throat, one in which you genuinely don’t have a clue what’s going to happen next. The beginning of the novel sets up the end, so you do have an overall idea of the story arc, but from chapter to chapter (or section to section, maybe), the story could literally go anywhere. And it does. The book is written like a report compiled after a major disaster, with every section bookended with a short explanatory note from a character called Cormac Wallace, whose story we follow throughout. Each chapter, then, is written in a different voice – some of them are written like interviews, others as interrogations, some as reconstructions built from CCTV footage or tapped phone lines. The most moving, I thought, was a chapter written as a series of increasingly desperate letters from a husband to his wife, letters he knew she’d never receive, and in which he describes how he and his men have been tricked into a situation that will lead to their destruction. Each voice has a vital role to play in the story the novel builds – that of the creation of a super-powerful artificial intelligence named Archos, and Archos’ efforts to destroy humanity.

Now, anyone who knows me will tell you I’m a bit of a robo-sceptic. I worry, a lot, about humanity’s reliance on technology and machines, and (perhaps it’s because I watched ‘Terminator’ at an impressionable age) I fear the increasing involvement of computers in the everyday life of humans. Others hail the invention of things like the ‘robotic car’, which is programmed to drive itself, as a major scientific breakthrough; I, however, am a doomsayer. All I can think is ‘well, that’s all fine, I guess, until the computer decides to throw a wobbler and drive you straight into a wall, or over a bridge, or whatever.’ I once heard it said that George Orwell imagined the Big Brother society of his ‘1984’ as a totalitarian, oppressive regime forced upon humanity, and he’d spit on the lot of us if he knew we’d actually handed over our lives to the all-seeing, all-knowing eye of technology for the sake of a quiet, convenient life. Every time we make a purchase with a credit card, or use a ‘value card’ to collect points on our shopping, or log into Facebook, or write a blog post (ironic, moi?), or whatever the case may be, we’re feeding the machine.

So, this book was written to appeal to people like me, on some levels.

Archos’ tactics are simple – to hack into every possible machine, to make human life impossible in a million tiny (and some rather large) ways, and to eventually drive the species to extinction. The reasons the machine gives for wanting to do this centre on the idea of biodiversity – Archos believes humanity is killing the rest of the planet, and it wants to take the simplest route possible to fix the problem, which is destroying Homo Sapiens. A drastic tactic, but if you look at it from the point of view of a machine, perhaps an understandable one. As well as this, Archos sees itself as the pinnacle of evolution – humanity developed in order to build it, and once it came into the fullness of its power, there was no more need for humanity. Logical, but cold. As an antagonist, you pretty much can’t beat a computer hellbent on the destruction of humanity. Archos is a great antagonist.

There’s a lot to like about this book besides its central concept – its structure and narrative voice(s) were so refreshing to read, and kept me constantly primed for newness, eager to keep reading; it had some fabulous characters, not least of which was Cormac Wallace himself. My favourite character, however, was Mr. Nomura, an elderly Japanese man who is in love with a robot named Mikiko. She (as a result of Archos) turns on him and almost kills him, but he disables her power supply and leaves her inert until he can find a way to power her back up again without Archos being able to control her. Their story is wonderful, and the actions Mr. Nomura and Mikiko take in the overall story are admirable and courageous. I also really liked the character of Lurker, who starts off as a small-time hacker with big ideas, and who ends up being central to the human resistance, almost against his own will. The technology, and the development of robots designed solely to kill humans in the most horrendously efficient of ways, was amazing. I found myself believing every word, seeing the scenes playing out in my head as I read – the writing is strong, and real, and the dialogue sparkling. It’s an easy book to get drawn into.

There were a few things that I wasn’t as keen on, however. One of these is the fact that a lot of the main human characters are related to one another – a heroic army officer turns out to be the son of a heroic police officer, and both are central to the war; a brave Congresswoman turns out to be the mother of a young girl whose ability to sense the machines is vital to the human war effort – and this got a bit grating after a while. I was also a bit put off by the gung-hoism that went on, including the retreat to a Native American community in the hope that the machines wouldn’t be able to encroach into the wilderness, to make humanity’s valiant last stand. I thought that was a bit clichéd, despite making good tactical sense. I just wish the author had done something slightly less predictable.

However, those are tiny gripes. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed ‘Robopocalypse’, and it’s one I’d recommend if you have any interest in SF, or robotics (the author has a PhD in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University, fact fans), or indeed how to construct a book and create malice that oozes off the page.

Still though. You have to think of Orwell.

I’m WATCHING you….
Image: forward.com

Wednesday Write-In #29

This week’s prompt words are:

‘I do’  ::  crockery  ::  surreal  ::  torch  ::  capsule

Carina Nebula
Image: commons.wikimedia.org

Mission Day

I used to call them ‘crystal time’ moments when I was a kid, you know, those events in your life which seem important, even as you’re living through them. The ones you’re sure you’ll keep in your mind, in their entirety, frozen. A capsule of your personal history, held in amber.

Mission Day had definitely been a capsule moment.

‘Lieutenant Owens,’ the voice of my Commander had boomed. ‘Do you understand the ramifications of the task to which you have committed yourself?’

‘Sir,’ I’d said. ‘I do, sir.’

The truth was, I’d had no idea. They’d wanted a man to fly, one-way, toward an anomaly our ‘scopes had barely been able to pick up, somewhere near the Cloud. It was the best part of a parsec away, and so I knew when I accepted the job that it was ‘Goodbye, Home Planet’. It didn’t really bum me out too much. Since Mireille, the girl I’d held a torch for since we were embryos in neighbouring tanks, had blown me off in favour of a moon-rock salesman (‘at least he has a stable income!’ she’d wailed), there hadn’t been much keeping me here.

Besides gravity, of course.

Just my little joke.

It wasn’t until I’d reached deep space before I could really check out what they’d sent up with me. I couldn’t believe it when I saw they’d kitted me out with old-fashioned crockery, linen tablecloths, actual knives and forks – Goddammit, even a wine carafe! It was almost surreal, this vision of domestic bliss as I hurtled through eternity. I was touched, actually. It was like a final farewell from my buddies on the base, a message to take care. Anyway, I knew I only had a week to enjoy all this stuff before it was time to put myself on ice for the rest of the trip, so I made sure to have a good time. I ate the steak they’d included in my rations (the last fresh meat I’d eat in the living history of my planet, I told myself, which was sort of mind-blowing), and drank the morsel of wine from my fancy carafe. I toasted my planet, Mireille, and the machine that would keep me alive until mission’s end.

And then, my last transmission home. My final orders received. It was time. I said goodbye. They wished me well, and told me I was a patriot. I felt like nothing of the sort.

I lay in the suspension chamber, my mind whirring faster than the mechanism beside my left arm, the one which would put me under. Everything looked fine; the buttons flashed in the correct sequence. The needle entered my vein as it had done in the run-through, back home. The first touch of the freezing liquid stole my breath, as I expected.

But the pain – now, that took me by surprise.

It entered my body at the wrist, and travelled up my forearm. Stupidly, I called for help. I called for help in space, can you believe it?

‘There’ll be no pain,’ the doctor had said back home, her dark eyes soothing. Those had been her exact words. I remembered. ‘The mechanism’s been tested rigorously. You’ll be just fine. It’ll be like falling asleep.’

So much for that. The pain was in my biceps now. My arm felt like it was aflame. I couldn’t undo my straps quickly enough to shut the machine off. On it pumped, my body failing a little more with every second.

My brain reeled. I felt like I’d been turned on my head and set right-side up again, like a doll in the hands of a huge, angry child.

Then, finally, the agony reached my heart.

It stopped.