Lucinda's Journal Entry 16th September 3118

It's like the stasis booth opens again almost immediately.

"Your stasis term is over, Luce," giggles Neb's echoing voice. "Isn't that nice?"

OK… she sounds really weird. I don't think she's ever giggled like a little girl before.

"It feels like I only just got in," I tell her as I step into the corridor.

Planets… the air smells really musty, like an old cellar. What's going on? There's something wrong with the lighting too, it's dim and flickering.

Neb's voice echoes around me. "You feel like you've just got in, eh? Lucky thing. Never did have to use your brain."

Ouch. Perhaps I deserved that…

"Please just go to the Captain's office, there's a dear."

I make my way to the captain's office. The corridor's deserted. Again, why? Has everyone already left? But Baldr must be waiting for me! I grin and run up to the office. But it's empty, except for a service robot. It's hovering above the floor like they always do, but it's acting super-weird. It's spinning round and round in circles. Alright, what's going on?

There's the monitor with Neb's ghostly green face on it. "Where is everyone, Neb?" I ask carefully.

"They're dead Luce."

I feel as if I've been punched in the gut. I begin breathing hard. The office spins around me. My heart's really thumping. "No! They can't be. W-what happened?"

I grab the table for support. As if from a distance I hear Neb's voice. "Radiation leak in Northern hemisphere. Don't worry your pretty little head about how… I got it under control, trouble is, all the crew died instantly. I had to send the Rosasphere off into interstellar space. And naturally I couldn't let you out until the radiation died down. Your sentence got a lot longer…"

"H-how long?" I stammer. I'm shaking.

"A thousand years. Now it's all safe for you to come out, but everyone you know is dead now."

"Everyone?" My voice is barely above a whisper.

"Yes, you poor thing."

"Baldr…" my love. Gone forever. And everyone I knew. I sink to the floor. This is too much to take in all at once.

"You poor thing," says Neb. "But if he were still alive, the age difference would be insurmountable."

I'm barely listening to her. "I'm all alone." My voice is trembling. I hug my knees. I'm starting to cry.

"Oh it's worse than that. Look who you've got for company."

That voice. I look up. "Alice?"

She's semi-transparent. Like Davinia Rothman was. "Alice… you're a VP."

"Yeah… I'm just a computer simulation of me. The real me is dust."

"Oh Alice." I stand up and try to hug her, but my arms go right through her and I end up hugging myself. She's made entirely of light.

I'm really crying now, tears pouring down my face, my body wracked with sobs. It's like some dam in me has burst.

"Hey, hey, you're not the one who's dead." Alice is trying to wipe my tears away, but of course she can't.

"Sorry, Alice. I'm so sorry," I sob.

"You can't go to pieces now," she hisses. "I can't do anything useful, so you've got to take care of me."

I swallow and sniff. "I will." I try to take her hand, but it's like trying to hold hands with a shadow.

Alice glares at Neb. "Where in the cosmos exactly are we?"

"I dunno," Neb remarks. "I've been on my own for a thousand years. I've gone a bit peculiar, to tell you the truth. I shot the Rosasphere into space at top speed. Ten percent lightspeed. She's been going for a thousand years straight."

Alice's lip curls. "Oh great. Just great. A senile computer."

Neb curls her dark green lip in return. "This senile computer is all that's sustaining you, Alice River. I can only support one VP at a time. You are the one Luce knew best and the only one who can keep her sane."

"We've gotta…" I rub my temples. My head's spinning again. Oh planets, don't let me faint… "We've got to get back to Earth," I declare. "Even if everyone we know is dead."

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Sounds like a plan," says Alice. "Can you do that, Neb?" She's using a sarcastic tone, though I don't know why. It's not going to make Neb do any better.

"Yeah, I can plot a course change," says Neb.

"Please do," I tell her. "Listen. I don't think I'm very well. Ummm… I've got to go to the Medibay." I still might faint.

In the Medibay it smells musty as well, but the mustiness is overlaid with the scent of medicine that's gone bad.

There's a monitor here with Neb's green face on it as well. "Hope the Medibot still works," remarks Neb. "Perhaps one of you could check for me?"

The screen flickers and the green face disappears.

"That computer… so rubbish," says Alice. "Completely crocked."

I sit on that leather reclining chair for patients and burst into fresh sobs, tears pouring down my face.

"Hey, hey… enough's as good as a feast," says Alice, sitting beside me and putting her arms around me as best she can. I can feel her grip, like gossamer…

I think of Baldr. "I dunno Alice… I dunno what Baldr wanted to say to me."

"What? What d'you mean?"

"He said he wanted to talk to me when I got let out. I was going to ask him to marry me."

"Whaaaa? Oh Luce, you are the weirdest girl."

I glare at her. "You may scoff. I know I'm not much to look at."

Alice looks uncomfortable. "No, I didn't say that."

"Well you think that Baldr couldn't love me? I know he understood why I did what I did… why I couldn't let cruelty to animals go on around me. He said he admired my passion for doing the right thing and that we had to talk at the end of the trip."

"Well, I don't know what to make of that. It's too late anyhow. Put it from your mind. There's nothing of him left except fingerprints and blood samples."

"Alright, I know. Wait… not just blood samples, surely?" A thought occurs to me. "Neb!"

The ghostly green face appears on the monitor. "You called, Lucey Goosey?"

I giggle a little despite everything.

"Can't you even get her name right?" jeers Alice.

"Please…" I hold up a hand to forestall her snarking at the computer. "May I ask, Neb… I know you've got blood samples here. Well did the guys leave sperm samples. I – I know it's not difficult for them to deposit sperm..." I think I'm blushing.

"Not difficult? They're always at it," says Alice smirking.

"I just want to know if we have Baldr's sperm stored," I say in a rush.

"Sure, sweetie," says Neb.

Oh yes. My sweet Baldr isn't all gone. There's a glimmer of light through the gloom…

"Wait, what are you getting at?" says Alice frowning.

"I want to put the sperm in me," I tell her bluntly. "I want to be a mother. I'm not going to be alone my whole life. If I had a child with Baldr to remember him by, it would be some comfort."

"Are these the right reasons to be doing this?" says Alice. "Bringing a new life onto this ship because you think you're lonely and you want to remember Baldr, who let's face it, you barely knew? And there are other things to consider."

"Like what, Alice?" says Neb.

Alice ponders. "Although having said that … I would like to be an aunt. Aunt Alice. So, what the Galaxy? Why don't you do it, Luce?"

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Let's skip over the insemination procedure. Fortunately the Medibot does still work, but there's no romance involved in sticking thawed out sperm in me. Not what I'd dreamed of. Not at all. But it gives me hope. A sense of purpose. I really hope it works. Let's be optimistic for a moment and assume it does, now I have a reason to live. A child with Baldr. I'm thrilled and my heart flutters even though everything else is so terrible…

We go on a tour of the empty Rosaphere. It's really, really sad. Everything is so empty.

"I like the officers quarters better," says Alice as we enter the cream coloured suite. "We can move in here right away."

I stand in the centre of the room. "Baldr once slept here." I'm suddenly overcome by a desperate desire to speak to him. "I'm hoping to have our baby, my love. Rest in peace. Um… 'til tonight."

Alice stares at me as if I've said something shocking. Well let her stare. I don't care.

Later we come to the barrier to the Southern Hemisphere of the Rosasphere. The artificial ecosystem meant for sustainable farming during interstellar travel.

"You might want to be careful here," says Neb from the monitor by the barrier. "Those cats you released in there… the ones infected with a mutagen… they've been evolving like crazy because of the mutagen – for a thousand years."

"Oh no! What, there's a horde of horrible cat monsters in there?" says Alice, wrinkling her nose.

"No, Alice. I'm having trouble picking up any life signs to tell the truth, but there may be something."

I nod. "We have to find out. Please open the door, Neb."

The algae fields are different to how I remember. They were blue green when I first took the cats here, but now they're brown. They look dead. And cracked. And the domes of the buildings are cracked as well. They look ruined. The air stinks, too. There doesn't seem to be anything alive.

We traipse through each of the buildings. Everything's empty. No supplies, grain … no anything.

But in the last one we here a reedy whisper. "Come… come and be near me."

There's a bed of straw and on it – Alice gives a loud exclamation – there's a cat lady! No, really! Like a cat lady from anime. She has a black face with blue eyes, and a mostly white body…

Then out of the shadows, something leaps forward and grabs my ankles. "Gotcha!" It squeaks. It sounds like a girl's voice although higher. I look down. It's a little cat girl, yellow with brown spots. She looks up at me with green eyes.

"That's not nice, Kitty," murmurs the cat lady wearily. Is she sick?

I detach Kitty from my ankle. I had to do that with Luna, my own cat, enough times.

I kneel beside the cat lady. "Hello. Um, I'm Lucinda. Are you – are you the last cats?"

Her mouth forms a wry smile. "I am the last of the ragdoll cats. The others have gone. They modified the shuttle and took off shortly before you came. They just left me and my adopted kitten. I'm not like other cats. I need company. Kitty's mother didn't want to keep her, so I did."

"A ragdoll? What is this?" demands Alice. "Isn't this thing a cat?"

I turn to her. "Don't be rude to her. A ragdoll is a type of cat bred specially to be sociable. Different from other cats. Not really catlike. Definitely not the hunting type of cat."

Meanwhile Kitty has found a pebble on the floor and is batting it around and yowling. "I'll get ya, pebble. I'll kill ya!"

I point at Kitty. "That's the way normal cats are."

Alice scoffs. "All cats are vermin!"

I stand up and glare at her. "Hey! Enough of that. Cats are living creatures. And I've raised a cat before and I love them. Now I've got a plan, Alice. We're going back to Earth. I have two cats. And I'm going to have a baby. And we're going to have our own place when we get there. You're welcome to come with us, but you've gotta choose." I hold out my hand to her. "Are you in?"

She sighs and nods. "Alright. It's not like I've got anywhere else to be."

This is it. The start of my journey back.

The Beginning.