3 AL: AGATHA

Agatha Clearwater pulled the brush through her hair and studied her reflection. She was an old woman and she knew it. She straightened the sleeve of the work shirt. She didn’t have any physical work left in her, but she could still plan and organize. She was putting the final touches on the plan to install windmills on the stony high ground east of the Speedwell. She was leveraging every scrap of equipment they possessed to get it done with the manpower that was available. If they got the windmills installed, their next focus would need to be automating their maintenance.

Agatha picked up her cane and limped out of the bathroom. The apartment was empty. She never paired. Instead she shared the apartment and childrearing with a roommate. They got along well enough, especially since Agatha always worked the night shift, while Frank worked days. When Frank passed away, Agatha was devastated. They never developed any kind of romantic relationship, but somehow the man became a core component of Agatha’s world.

Ignoring the silence, Agatha stepped out of the apartment and headed to the lifts. It was a short ride to the engineering control center. Even though Agatha was a few minutes early for her shift the light was already dimmed into the power save mode, indicating there was no motion in the room for at least a half hour. Agatha hoped that meant the young workers on the day shift spent their time doing actual work in the field and not that they took off early.

She limped her way across the space to her favorite station in the last row. As she rounded the last desk she realized with some alarm that the room was not as empty as she thought. A wild woman was sprawled out in a chair pulled up close to her own. The woman was fast asleep, with a half eaten survival bar in one hand and an empty bottle of water in the other.

Her hair was a wild tangle. Her clothing was so dirty and tattered that it took Agatha minutes to realize they were the same work clothes she herself wore. A worn blanket was on the ground beside the chair along with a backpack. On the ground under the woman’s feet was one of the carbon fiber broom sticks from down on the engine levels.

Agatha sat heavily into her chair. The chair gave its customary creak and the woman stirred slightly. She murmured something in her sleep and Agatha recognized her.

“Irene,” she said in shock. Irene jolted awake. The water bottle dropped to the ground, spilling its last drops. Irene straightened in her chair. She lifted her spread hand and rolled it into a fist. Her eyes darted around taking in the entire space. She held herself at the ready, until her eyes rested on Agatha. Recognition flashed across her features. She shook the fisted hand and leaned over to retrieve the water bottle.

“Sorry,” she said. “I must have dozed off. It has been a tough couple of days.” Agatha thought it might have been a tough couple of months. When Agatha sent the young woman off to get intelligence on what was going on inside the ruins, Irene mentioned that she didn’t think anyone ever came back out. Agatha did some research after her departure. She could not find a single person here in the Speedwell that went inside more than a few feet. In some corner of her mind Agatha decided she sent the girl to her death. That decision weighed on her. Looking at the young woman Agatha felt that weight lift.

“Are you alright?” She asked Irene. The girl didn’t look injured but her clothing was in such worn state that Agatha feared she might be.

“I’m ok,” Irene responded. “Just tired and hungry. I ran out of food the day before yesterday, but I wasn’t going back in when I was so close. I got here a couple hours ago. Your minions wanted to escort me down to dinner. When I told them I was waiting for you, they dug up a couple survival bars for me.” Irene noticed she still held the remains of one of the bars in her left hand. She shoved the last of it into her mouth. She tried to wash it down with the water bottle but found it empty. Agatha opened the drawer under her desk and retrieved another bottle. She handed it to Irene.

Irene twisted the top off and took a long drink. “Thanks,” she said as she screwed the cap back on. She set both bottles on the desktop. She reached into her work shirt and pulled out the camera Agatha sent along with her. “I haven’t noticed any corrosion,” Irene observed, “but I saw how fast technology is broken down. I am curious to see if it is still recording.”

Agatha accepted the camera and set it onto a wireless connection pad. She turned to her terminal and pulled up the data from the camera.

“It’s dead,” she commented. “Looks like the internal power source has failed. I am still getting a return from the memory though. Let's see what I can pull off of it.” As Agatha worked on transferring files, Irene started casually looking through the drawers of the desk next to Agatha’s. She found a survival bar that looked like it was in that desk since launch. To Agatha’s mix of horror and amusement, Irene peeled off the packaging and started eating it.

“This one has a different flavor,” Irene observed. “I like it.”

Agatha’s horror overrode her amusement. She retrieved the bar’s packaging and checked the dates. It was old. It wasn’t as old as the Speedwell or even as old as Agatha herself, but it was too old for something Irene was consuming with gusto. The small print on the packaging did promise the bar within would be safe to eat for fifty years past the manufactured date and today was still within that envelope. Hopefully it wouldn’t make the girl ill.

“Oh, I remember this flavor,” Agatha commented, as she read the description, “I don’t know why they stopped making it.” Her terminal made a beep to signal the copy was completed. Agatha scrolled through the file directory looking at what she got.

“It looks like we have about thirty six days of recordings,” Agatha reported. “Although the first couple will be here on the Speedwell.”

“Yeah,” Irene said. She’d forgotten the camera was already recording when Agatha handed it to her. Irene didn’t leave until the next evening. Thirty six days was still short of the full trip. Irene did some calculations in her head and decided it must have failed during her time in The Heights suburb.

“Why don’t you go back to your apartment, clean up and get some rest. I will review the footage and we can talk things over tomorrow night,” Agatha suggested to the obviously exhausted girl.

“I thought about going there first, but I was afraid maybe the apartment might be reassigned to someone else,” Irene commented.

“No,” Agatha replied. “I made sure it is assigned to you permanently. I wanted you to have a place to go no matter what time of the day you got back.” She wanted to make sure the girl had a place even if she returned after Agatha herself died. She figured it would be years before someone found out that she hacked the database. She not only assigned the apartment to the girl, she granted Irene command level access to all parts of the ship, including the outer airlock doors. Agatha figured if the girl was dead, no one would ever know. And if she wasn’t, Agatha owed her.

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“Great,” Irene responded. She dragged herself to her feet, swung the pack onto her shoulder and hung the blanket over the top. She picked up the broomstick and water and headed out the door. Agatha could see the girl's fatigue in the way she walked.

“Oh,” Irene said suddenly at the end of the row of desks. She turned back and said, “I reached Londontown on about day nine and Chicago around day seventeen. After that I spent a long stretch in one of Chicago’s suburbs. I was probably still there when the camera failed. If you do a quick scan you might want to focus on those parts.”

“Thanks,” Agatha said, “now go get some rest.” Irene stumbled out of the engineering center.

Agatha wanted to dive into the recordings, but she forced herself to set up the workload for tomorrow's day shift first. The day crew was going to be happy with the light load tomorrow because as soon as she listed at least something for everyone, she couldn’t stop herself from diving into the recordings.

She set up the computer to start processing the video. It would mark out different sections, like when it was too dark or there was no movement. It would also pull out all the inscriptions it saw, since Agatha already set it up to do that with the official transmissions they received earlier. After she debriefed Irene tomorrow she would fine tune what she wanted the computer to find and mark. Meanwhile she decided to indulge her curiosity and find out what Londontown was.

Eight hours later she pushed herself back from her desk in utter astonishment. She only watched sections here and there, after playing them at high speed until she reached something interesting. She knew that eventually she would watch it all, but it would take nearly the same thirty six days to watch that it took to record. She locked her station under a password. She hadn't done that in years, but she didn’t want anyone else to see this footage until she decided what she was going to do with it. It was times like these that she really missed Frank. She picked up the camera and put it into her pocket.

Her apartment was still quiet, but it was no longer empty. Her youngest children were asleep in their rooms. They would be up soon to get ready for their day. Agatha went into her bedroom and downloaded the data from Irene’s camera onto her personal computer. She locked her computer under password before returning to the common area.

Agatha’s youngest son, Ted, was up first. Technically he wasn’t her son, he was Frank’s. All the boys were issued to Frank, while the daughters were Agatha’s. If she really wanted to consider the technicalities, only one of the girls was actually Agatha’s natural daughter. She wasn’t certain of the boys. If Agatha and Frank were an official pair, one of the girls and one of the boys would be their natural children. The rest were all cloned from stored genetic material. Their external features were chosen so they all roughly fit into the family group, in an attempt to limit favoritism. The point was to increase the genetic diversity of the landing generation from the limited genetics of the flight crew to ensure the continued health of the colony in generations to come. Beyond those few appearance genes, they were as diverse genetically as the medical team could make them.

Agatha considered all the children hers. It was hard not to when Frank and her raised them all from infants. She didn’t even know which of the girls was genetically hers. That information was kept from the parents, but it was stored in the ship’s database. Agatha knew she could go look it up if she wanted to, this was the same database she hacked to give Irene access, but she never felt the need.

“Hey, Mom,” Ted said as he crossed the room to fetch himself some breakfast.

“Morning,” Agatha replied from where she sat at the family table sipping tea. Ted sat down with his meal and began shoveling it into his mouth.

“Are you aware Frank junior has gone into the ruins?” Agatha asked.

Ted choked on his food and was forced to gulp his juice to clear his throat. He cleared his throat a time or two as he thought about his reply. He glanced at his mother, hoping she would forget the question. He looked up to see her full attention still on him. Agatha waited for her son’s reply. She felt no sympathy for him choking on his food. She told him more times than she could count that he should not gulp his food.

“Yes,” he said hesitantly. “I wasn’t certain you knew,” he added.

“Frank told me before he left,” Agatha replied. “Why do you think he went?”

“Didn’t he say?” Ted responded.

“He told me something,” Agatha answered, “but I think it was just the augments he thought would sway me. I want to know why you think he went.”

Ted took his time thinking about his answer. He took another bite of his meal, chewing slowly. He knew his mother wanted a serious answer.

“Frank wanted a different future,” Ted said finally.

“Different?” Agatha asked, she really had no concept of what that meant.

“Our lives are so defined. There is no mystery or surprise,” Ted explained to his mother, “I have known what my position in the colony will be since I took the aptitude tests at the age of eight.”

“It was no different for me,” Agatha responded. She thought that advance knowledge of what she would do in adulthood gave her a sense of security. Her education was geared to her final role. There was no wasted effort learning things she would never use.

“Trapped between stars, all the flight generations were given no other choice,” her son responded. “This world is so large and its wonders are so numerous, it seems like there should be more.” He took another bite of his breakfast. “It feels like my fate was written down centuries ago by people long dead. People who never saw this planet. The temptation to just walk away from that regimented future is strong.”

“Not everyone is assigned a job they enjoy,” Agatha’s daughter Mae, said from the doorway to the common area. She must have been standing there listening to the conversation for a while. “Facing a lifetime of doing some variation of a job you don’t like is hard.”

“All jobs are essential,” Agatha commented, the response was so ingrained in her own childhood that she could not stop herself from saying it.

“Essential doesn’t mean you like it,” Mae countered.

“Flight crew jobs might have all been essential,” Ted said, jumping back into the conversation, “but too many of the landing generation are assigned to thinly disguised labor pools for any of us to really believe that. Our generation is larger to give the colony enough genetic diversity to be viable for the long term, not because our labor is needed.” Mae got her own food and sat down to join them.

“It sounds like both of you have thought about going,” Agatha responded.

“I have,” Mae answered honestly. “Leaving everything you know, everything you trained for is also hard.” Agatha considered her two youngest. She thought about why she sent Irene into the ruins and not one or both of them. Consciously she would have said they were too young and as her children she was keeping them from danger. That was very unfair to Irene, who was exactly the same age as her youngest. Irene didn’t have any parents left on the Speedwell to protect her. Agatha’s older children all lived in single housing and were assigned jobs of their own. Agatha couldn’t excuse them from their normal duties, as Irene’s boss she could. That too was just an excuse. Agatha realized she did not send her own children because she was not confident they would return. She needed someone she could depend on and her unconscious mind said that was Irene.

“If you decide to go, talk to me first,” Agatha said. “Tell your other siblings too. Since Frank went I have been working on getting more information on the conditions inside.”

“What have you found out?” Mae said with interest.

“I still don’t want you to go,” Agatha countered. “The death rate is terrifying. I am not going to tell you anything that might accidentally encourage you. If you are committed to going, I have found out some things that might help you survive longer.”

Mae wasn’t happy with that answer and tried to talk her mother around. Agatha might be old, but she still had her wits about her. When her children finished their morning meal they headed out to their jobs. This was the time of day Agatha usually slept. Today she remained sitting at the table with a cooling cup of tea, lost in her thoughts.