CHAPTER 2 “Revelations, Part One”
Wednesday 20 July 2811
“What? ¿No shit?”
“ESTRELLA!”
“Yes, Mom,” I actually surprised myself that I let slip an expletive – at home even. “You’re like serious, aren’t you, Dr. Blackwell?” I wasn’t so much asking a question as just blurting out the only thing that my mind could send to my speech center at that moment. I am utterly gob-smacked and the room abruptly seemed unreal, so I sat down on the one vacant easy chair near the door, more to regain a sense of normalcy than to get off my feet.
Before I continue with my story, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Estrella Rita Ramirez and I’m 17. I like to pronounce the double “ll” in Estrella like a “y”, but nobody calls me Estrella except mom, and then only when she’s mad at me. Cripes. Everyone calls me Esty and I’m really short and am beginning to give up hope that I’ll grow any taller. However, if you like see me from a distance you might think I’m like 170 cm tall when in fact I’m only 140 (if I stretch real hard). I look like a normally tall, reasonably slender, attractive young woman who was like shrunk by a magic raygun. Even though I’m now sorta curvaceous and busty, some dolts have treated me like I’m a lot younger just because I’m so short. I waste no time in taking them to task and no one ever makes that mistake a second time. My skin is sorta light caramel and my hair is almost black. My hair! It thwarts all attempts to tame it, but I love it anyway. A couple of years ago I tried straightening it, but that was like way too much trouble, and I didn’t much like it anyway. Usually I just let it bush out or I pull it back into an inflated ponytail. At the beginning of summer break, I tried a punk style where I shaved the sides of my head and left the top about 2cm long. Mom put up a huge fuss over that so I’m letting it grow out again, but I liked the way it gave me the look of power; I may go back to it.
My dad died about 3 years ago in the crash of a 2-person experimental plane that he was writing about. That was hard on mom and me. We were all so close.
A few years back, I got invited to test for acceptance to the Federal Space Agency Cadet Academy in Columbus, Ohio and made it in, so mom and I moved here two years ago from Minneapolis.
I have one more year before graduating from the Academy. My classmates and I are the most fun nerds you’ll ever meet. Maybe those are criteria for getting in; being fun and nerdy. Well I don’t mean “fun” like licentious, but fun like socially adept with great senses of humor, but nerdy nonetheless. Not that none of us has had sex. Sjone and Clint have, and I’ve fooled around a little, but haven’t done “it” so far. However, I don’t deny or affirm rumors; let them guess.
I just got back from a live concert by The Blondies at City Plaza with my classmates Lester, María, Jalal, and Nguyen. You know the kind of concert; loud, raucous, ear-splitting volume. So many crushed together gyrating and jumping to music that old farts can’t stand. And now I’ve stepped into our flat to find my Psych teacher, Benny Blackwell, dressed more formally than I’ve ever seen him – suitcoat with an Academy pendant hanging around his neck – in our dingy living room with its badly worn green couch and easy chairs, having tea with my mom. Mom, Flora Ramirez, is a wonderful mother and hella smart in the social sciences, but she gets lost in a hurry when I talk about physics or engineering. She carries around a few extra kilograms, but I wouldn’t say she’s fat. She and most of her relatives identify with Latin culture, as did my dad. Would you believe I had a Quinceañera? It was pretty awesome actually.
This story, my story, is mostly taken from my diary. I wrote some episodes, like Dr. Esteban’s breakfast with his daughter and gruesome murder, by reconstruction with a bit of literary license. ¿And how did I find the time to write this? You, dear reader, will eventually discover that.
So, I came home and before I could even put my bag down, Benny tells me I have been selected by the FSA for a mission; like totally out of the blue. I’m sure he has a spiel ready – so back to my story.
“Indeed, we are all serious,” continued Mr. Blackwell. “You have been selected by experts, teachers, and … uh … politicians had some say as well … to join the Trillium Project. If you accept, Estrella Ramirez, you will leave the solar system with several others to spearhead humankind’s first effort to colonize another star system.”
“¿Colonize? Another planet? But … but I’m like only 17. I almost failed Eco-Dynamics! I like kill houseplants by just looking at them. I’m hardly strong or heavy enough to swing a hammer or dig ditches or … to … I … I …. Oh.” With some effort, I said what suddenly became so very, very obvious. “That doesn’t matter, does it, Dr. Blackwell?”
“No”
I answered my own question with barely enough breath to get the words out, “I’m like not going to live long enough to actually colonize anything.”
Benjamin Blackwell looked straight at me – his diminutive caramel-skinned former student – from his easy chair as we sat in the modest flat where mom and I live on the outskirts of Columbus. He must have known that breaking the extraordinary news would stress me out. His face and posture noticeably tensed as he paused to find the words to answer my question.
“You will live a full life, Esty, and will likely outlive me by a large margin, but no, you won’t live long enough to reach New Earth. The plan calls for about 300 years in transit, give or take a few.”
“¿Why me?”
Dr. Benjamin Blackwell seemed to quietly rehearse his words as he took another sip of tea. Finally, he spoke. “You are exceedingly bright, but so are all of your classmates. Due to your size and physiology your metabolism is well below average, meaning that you will put a minimum of demands on life support; but some of your other classmates have lower metabolisms still. You quickly learn what makes other people tick. You see the strengths of other people – and their weaknesses – but you don’t exploit them selfishly. And there isn’t a hint of claustrophobia in you.”
He paused again as though recalling the next words of an official presentation. “Estrella, as much as we tried, we could not get you discouraged or enraged or depressed or panicked; and we put you through some hellish situations; some situations were intentionally a bit dangerous. And another thing in your favor, you never got bored. When we totally isolated you from all contact, you read books, you knitted, you wrote stories, you studied mathematics, you maintained your diary, you practiced a hilarious stand-up comic act in front of an audience of origami people….”
“You promised us we wouldn’t be watched” I interrupted. Angrily I continued, “¿And I suppose you watched me masturbate?”
Shit. Now I’ve certainly shocked mom who, if not old-fashioned, is not as comfortable with sexual references as me and my peers. Hell; Benny can’t be shocked. He’s a freaking psychologist. Regardless that I consider self-pleasuring normal, I could feel my blood boil with the thought that I was spied on while massaging my nether parts.
Benny took a breath and continued, “Yes, but you had every reason to believe no one could observe you. Sexual desire and pleasure are part of the human condition and you proved yourself human. Also, during the journey none of the crew will ever be free from surveillance. Psychological evaluations and interventions require that.”
“It’s just too weird, you know, being spied on like that. Too freaking weird.” Something; some notion started to surface. “Hold it, please. I’ve got to figure something out.”
The silence swelled until it filled the living room like a musty odor as my ever-so-well-schooled brain conjured up hypotheses, ferretted out evidence and clues, pulled up snippets of lectures, images, even daydreams.
I turned to mom, slowly, as I considered what to say first. “Mom, I guess this sort of answers a question that I’ve had about why you and daddy picked out a V-baby that would never be more than 140 centimeters in height. A V-baby who is many shades darker in color.” I paused. Both Benny and mom waited patiently. “¿Did you really do the picking? ¿Were you like assigned to birth me and raise me?”
Mom nodded. Her chin started to quiver.
I raised my voice, ” You … I … I was … BRED to live in a … freaking CAN? And be … BLASTED OUT OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM? ¿You KNEW that? You KNEW that all along and … and ….”
The anger and sadness and excitement coalesced into a painful tightness in my throat. I got up out of the chair and walked over to mom on the couch, acutely aware of my tiny feet and diminutive size. I settled myself into her oh-so-comfortable lap, put my arms around her – they didn’t fit all the way – and we silently wept … together.
After a couple of minutes, I wiped my face and turned my head toward Benny. “Dr. Blackwell, you also knew. ¿For how long?”
“Estrella, I’ve known for the last two years that one of the girls from the school would be part of the crew, but your selection became final just this last weekend. I told your mother when I got here this afternoon … while you were out with friends.”
“And you say I don’t get enraged? I like screamed at my mom just now. I bawled like a baby and forgot you were even here in our apartment.”
“You may have guessed, Esty, why they sent a psychologist to break the news to you. They trust I would know whether your responses were within certain norms. I stand by my assessments; you are the best suited person for this singular mission.”
Another protracted silence settled in the room.
“¿But why a 17-year-old, Mr. Blackwell? There are like 30 more college credits I need to take. Next year I’ll be taking astrophysics, orbital dynamics, 3rd order differentials, materials science, and a bunch of other classes.”
“Oh you will be taking those classes, but many of them after departure. And you’ll be 18 before you leave Earth and maybe 19 when you have your first baby.”
“Baby?!?”
Seems like as soon as I just about get my mental bearings, Benny gob-smacks me down all over again. Maybe he gets some perverse enjoyment out of ‘observing’ me teeter on the cusp of insanity. After all, he is a psychologist and very much accustomed to studying the responses of mice and chimps and infants and … his students. Shit, no one has a baby before her 25th birthday; at least hardly anyone I know. I just sort of expected to put off doing the family thing until I’d been in the FSA for a decade or two. Piloting spacecraft or running rescue missions out on the planets is hardly possible if you’re trying to herd kids and a mate. And a mate? Too many questions need answering.
So after consulting with mom, we did the only reasonable thing; we invited Benny for dinner and ordered Chinese take-out.
“Dr. Blackwell,” I asked over the spring rolls, “could you give mom and me an overview of the ISTRI Project? I mean I probably know most of what is planned, but the FSA has like kept quiet about a lot of its facets, and I’m not sure what mom knows.”
“Well, Estrella and Mrs. Ramirez, it’s hard to know where to begin. Let me share a few anecdotes about the history of ISTRI, and that takes us back 800 years to the early 21st century.”