Extinct Doesn't Mean Forever by Phoenix Sullivan (bill gates book recommendations TXT) 📗

endure it, pulling ourselves along the drums dressed in thick furs. We’re regarded as eccentrics of course, among a crew of people selected for eccentricity.

I’m supremely odd for my choice of flag above my cabin door.

On a ship covered in EU, US, Russian, Chinese, Brazilian and other modern national flags, only mine triggers rage, embarrassment or sadness in the viewer, even after all this time. No one has a simple response to that red cross on a white background.

~~~

Food was brought on trucks through an armored garage door that took up the middle third of one side of the quadrangle. Through the gap one could see the next, identical quadrangle. There were dozens of the things. Prefabricated carbon fiber squares, each one the same as the others, tiled who knew how many times.

After Uncle Fred was so badly injured, Aunt Mary put in for a transfer to another square. Amazingly her request was granted.

~~~

The giant airship was something mother wished she had designed. That she hadn’t been asked she put down to sexism and racism.

Father put it down, vocally, to her reputation for hugely impressive, hugely disparate projects.

Of the big three projects she’d worked on: one was a domed city on Prometheus, the skyhook anchor; one was a modular space-port in Ulan Bator and one was a chip-fab in Cape Town.

Even in an age that abhorred specialising this was felt to spreading oneself too thin.

The fact that each project was so successful somehow made it worse.

No one so singular could be trusted with a project on the scale of the airship.

~~~

Everyone knows my family connection to the dog and its journey from Snowdonia to Liverpool.

Some find it impossible to talk to me despite the gap in both distance and time.

To hell with them.

The sociologists decided a little encouragement to national feeling would add some seasoning to the crew. They probably were thinking something along the lines of pan-European cuisine accompanied by a tango with Bengali dancing.

Instead they got a bunch of simmering, low-level, ethnicity-based interpersonal conflicts. Conflicts that lasted millennia without resolution. If it weren’t for our annual mnemonic adjustments we would have wiped each other out. We’d be zombies with nothing but emotional scars.

~~~

The new quadrangle had a different atmosphere to the last. The central soldiers were stricter — no excursions onto the rockless mud. The kids were sadder, the adults quieter.

I heard Uncle Fred tell Aunt Mary this was a punishment quadrangle. If insurgents shot at US troops, the people here would be decimated — marched into the centre and one in ten would be shot.

No wonder the lieutenant had laughed as he signed our transfer papers.

~~~

“What do you think the chances of success are?”

“Slim to none. The project was put together too hastily. An entire biosphere cannot be treated like building a city.”

“You’re saying they’re being hasty? That’s a wee bit hypocritical coming from you.”

Sensing an argument brewing, I butted in from my seat at the head of the table. “When will the first iceteroid hit?”

“Next year, Hellas Basin. Pure grandstanding to make people think of it as a first step to an ocean.”

“Did I tell you I got the graphic design contract for the impact visuals? Very high-profile contract,” said Father.

“Well done. Another worthless parasite on a noble project.”

“Don’t piss me off, woman. Failing to get the contract for this ship doesn’t give you the right to belittle my work.”

I gave up on defusing the argument.

~~~

Really, we are passengers. Our beautiful ship runs itself. We can access controls and any damage we cause is instantly fixed by the nano paste that is everywhere on the ship and in our bodies. A twinkling gray the consistency of clay it cleans and, we suspect, calms us. Some think we should use it to slow our bodies down so our journey would seem to be over in months. Some of us, I include myself, have other plans. We’ll have to organise a mutiny to get them built though.

~~~

The rhythm of life in the quadrangles was syncopated, deliberately kept off balance. From the random meal times to the lack of night-time lights we were kept deliberately anxious. The poor food and lack of exercise made us easy to control.

The soldiers became gods to us, angels here to redeem us from our childish mistakes.

A food cart slipped off the walkway as it trundled by, its front wheels stuck in the mud.

“Kid, get your ass over here,” said the corporal pushing the cart.

“Yes sir.” I ran to the cart and helped lift it back onto the path. To be honest, I didn’t do much but the corporal seemed to find my efforts amusing and gave me a handful of sweets.

From then on I was his pet, his helper in small tasks and his spy among the DPs.

~~~

The airship powered slowly back to the Martian skyhook. The High-Celebrity in the skyscraper-on-its-side-sized gondola got bored and returned to their casinos, pools, and circuses. In a structure that size, there was something for everyone.

The management panicked. When the High-Celebrity returned to Earth with tales of crimson monotony, who would buy tickets for the Jules Verne?

“They are fools. They don’t understand engineering has emotions. Here, people want destinations. I would have built them. Pleasure domes, haunted mines. Places for ships to stop and people to experience.”

I looked up at Mother, more fascinated by her than the panoramic view out of the window.

“Space is boring. These dust and ice balls separated by voids are only interesting if we engineer them, bring them closer to us.”

~~~

She was wrong in a way. Space is terrifying when you’re moving through it at 0.15% of the speed of light. Dust motes have the kinetic energy of an oncoming truck and are only dealt with by our large ablation shield of dirty ice.

We would get used to it and it would become boring if we let it, though.

Instead, we all allow a certain background of panic to make sure we keep our collective edge.

Mother was right in a more important way, though.