“We were all GC’s,” says Quinn, his thatch of dark hair falling across his face, hands on his hips, facing the screen. “Now we’re Gifted Adults. Not quite as shiny as we were brought up to think we were. Knocked on our asses a few times. As far as I can tell, what really makes us gifted is getting back up again after that happens, every time. Living to be adults, which we have done. As adults, it’s up to us to decide what to do so that you can live to be this old.”
“This isn’t a joke. You have no choice,” says Ta’a’aeva, her voice calm. “We are leaving for Object Shining Leaf. You are all coming with us.”
“Object Shining Leaf? The only place we’re going is back to Earth,” Quinn says, with finality.
Ta’a’aeva says, “The civilians are being returned to Earth. All of you are staying with us.”
“May I please speak with Bean?” says Pele.
“Bean is busy.”
But then Bean’s shy, olive-colored face appears on another screen. She and Pele look at one another for a moment. Bean blinks, and swallows.
Quinn says, loudly, “Look here,” but Pele shushes him with a hand.
“Bean, what’s happening?”
Ta’a’aeva says, “I’ll tell you,” but Bean speaks, in a whispery, uninflected voice, and slowly. “We have recoded the ship. All of the children who have been here before, too. All of us have worked on it for years. Some of us since we were little. I didn’t even know what this was, really, when I started. They gave me things to do. Every problem was like a new toy or a new puzzle. It was fun.” She closes her eyes and nods as if to some internal rhythm. Her screen goes dark.
Ta’a’aeva says, “Half of us want to kick you off the ship. Me included. We don’t need any bosses. We want to get adults out of the picture. You live too long and hog up all the air. You can’t think in new ways. You have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.”
“That’s not true!” says Quinn, hotly.
Ta’a’aeva ignores him. “Some of the insecures think we might need you eventually.”
“Like now,” says Mi, a swarm robotics specialist. “My respectful advice is that you call this off.”
“Not possible. We initiated the launch sequence for the Orion drive before we even arrived. The nukes are armed. No one noticed, right? Think about that.”
“But why?”
Ta’a’aeva wrinkles her nose in disdain. “Moku was completed thirty years ago. She could have left then. But, mysteriously, the launch is always delayed. Brave, willing crews spend years in training limbo, all wasted.”
“Not at all true!” objects Petr, a German who studies communication. “Their training yields crucial information.”
Ta’a’aeva makes a moue of anger, which her tattoos intensify. “Moku has been turned into a money-making boondoggle. An amusement park. A research facility. A vacation destination. We are moving humanity’s dream forward. Now. You won’t find a way out.” She disappears.
No way out? These words give Pele a fleeting, subconscious jolt.
“She’s a brilliant engineer,” says Victor. “We’d better believe her. She modeled something very like this in one of her past projects. If anyone can do it, she can. I personally approved her. I’m sorry I didn’t realize—”
“That her dreams were real?” Selena smiles, closes her eyes, and resumes her habitual tuneless humming. “I’m leaving. I have great-greats.” Selena, a mathematician, most often appears to be doing nothing. She walks a lot, taking swings through all the environments with a small backpack and hiking sticks. She lobbied vigorously for a High Sierra environment, and got it, manifesting a little-used gift for politics, though perhaps all simply went as one of her sociological models predicted.
Quinn says, “My vote is for staying, getting this under control, and stopping the launch. It is our responsibility to the world, and we have a moral responsibility to keep the children from the consequences of their unreason.”
“Nicely put,” says Prajan, tall as a corn stalk and as thin. He has slung himself against a wall, head bent over his device. He looks up, his eyes questioning; challenging. “So do you have a plan? Because the more I dig, the more I find that they trapped us here.”
His mobile face shifts to immense amusement, and then his startling, uproarious laugh is magnified by the metal walls. “Heads in jars! That’s what we’ll be. Sparkling in a row, nutrient juice shot through with starlight, like in all those old, crumbling pulp magazines and sci-fi movies!” Wrapping his arms around himself, he bends over. “AHHAAhahaha.” Tears trickle from the corners of his eyes, and he flicks them away with the forefingers of both hands. “Who says dreams can’t come true? And usually at the most goddamned inconvenient time.” He stuffs his device in his pocket, gazes downward, and continues to erupt in weak chuckles.
Wilhelm, a steady middle-aged physician, sighs, his brown, usually merry eyes sad. “I’m with Selena. I’ve got to get back home. I’m sure most of us are in the same boat. Ta’a’aeva is right. Space travel is not my dream. Using an off-planet environment to generate new therapies, new interventions, for all of us on Earth and Mars, is. And let’s be honest. All of us, or our companies, have profited, and Jane is not the only attorney in our midst with the responsibility of making sure that their employer’s contracts are honored, whether they be government, academic, or private industry, well past our own long lifetimes. Frankly, I’ve never even considered that they might at some point expire.”
Quinn says, “They’re just too damned smart. Their parents paid for genetic and neuroplasticity enhancements. AI nannies. They’re probably not even human anymore.”
“They are,” says Pele firmly, “as much as
