Crimson Dawn

The wind whipped from all directions into the open glider. His face was freezing, and his nose was running. He wiped it on the back of his hand, his gaze already full of longing as he looked at the girl. She wore a dark wool sweater with a shiny pendant around her neck. Her chestnut-brown hair swayed gently in the breeze. He wanted to see her like this, even with his last breath — just like she was now, on that late summer evening in that strange city.

"Will you finally tell me where we’re going, Lex?"

"It's supposed to be a surprise," he said.

"At least give me a hint about what to expect."

"It’s definitely better than the execution you almost led us to."

He followed her gaze towards the setting sun. The boy and the girl, together in a glider, soaring between the towering buildings. Where were they headed? Only one thing was certain: toward a future that wasn’t much different from the present. A dream lived out, received without even realizing it; their entire lives condensed into one moment that could never be captured.

******

Out on the vast grassy plains to the west, half a mile outside the city, lay the spot where the generation ship, The UNION, had landed at the beginning of the settlement. They stood a good distance away from the shuttle’s landing platform, gazing at the massive starship that stretched all the way to the forests from their vantage point. Most of the living quarters were located in three enormous rings around the ship’s middle. Thousands of dark windows made the rings look like they were delicately perforated from afar. Lex tilted his head back, staring up at the bridge. Only there, high up, was there still warm light glowing from the ship's windows.

The glowing megacity encircled the area from the east. The generation ship was two and a half miles long and two hundred meters high. According to the information plaque the boy was reading—its stand made from wood carved from alien trees and planted into the blue grass—the UNION had a usable surface area of 500,000 square meters, almost half of which was living space. Forty thousand people from Earth had boarded the ship, and nearly half a million were on it by the time they reached the Tau Ceti system. All those pioneers were long dead, he thought, looking at the empty, dark windows of the living quarters. Some of the people on that ship had been his ancestors. Despite the lights still glowing on the bridge, the generation ship, with its history and the now-dead pioneers, felt like a ghost ship. Country roads led to the site, dimly lit and rarely traveled. Inside the ship was the largest museum on Vega Prime, a place that collected all knowledge of Earth's past, the Museum of Modernity. The path to the entrance was clearly marked.

"I thought the knowledge about Earth's past was a secret?"

"What nonsense," said Veela. "Who told you that?"

The boy stayed silent. His mind immediately went to the prototype AI on the ST SAMSON, which had clearly lied to him just to get him to share his stories about life on Limbo.

"The journey from Earth took the humans 134 years," Veela continued. "That's way more than a single human lifetime. Can you imagine being born on that ship, surrounded by metal and the cold emptiness of space? Growing old there, watching your kids grow up, and then their kids too? Dying there. Your entire life spent in one place, at a time so uncertain that you didn’t even know if your grandchildren would ever make it safely to their destination, or if they were headed straight into the pitch-black Void. And yet, these brave pioneers took the risk. Humanity’s fate was in their hands. Back then, no one even knew for sure if the planet would be habitable. But with that hope, and the chance for a new beginning, they set off on this daring journey. The settlers were the chosen ones. From Earth to an unknown star system. Can you even imagine living like that?"

They stood for a long time in the shadow of a blossoming apple tree, a silver shadow cast by Chiron, the moon. The evening sun had already set behind the nearby woods, and a cool breeze rippled through the blue grass in waves. White petals swirled in the twilight air.

"This tree is the first thing the settlers planted when they arrived on this new world. It’s meant to remind us of our oath: to protect the rest of humanity and their new home. That’s why they named the generation ship the UNION—because humanity had to finally stand united, to prevent the tragedies of Earth’s history from repeating on Cetos V."

"Do you think people have changed?" he asked.

"No," Veela said. "They haven’t. They're still the same as they were back then." She opened her mouth as if to say more. The boy thought she was about to add something, but she didn’t.

"What are you studying, anyway?" he asked.

"History," she said. "But I'm only interested in the past as it really was, not in the lies they teach at the university."

He looked at her for a moment, then glanced back up at the generation ship.

"Do you know what's up there on the bridge?" he asked.

"A restaurant," she said. "For the rich. For people who throw around credits like nothing. A buffet up there costs 180 credits."

Lex glanced at his PDA. "And I’ve got 200 left. I want to eat with you up there."

Veela looked at him. He couldn’t read any excitement on her face.

"Lex, do you really think we belong here?"

"It's not about the people sitting there," he said. "That ship brought the humans we're descended from to this place. From Earth, where we all come from. What could be better than standing up there on the bridge, thinking about what those people back then were dealing with? I just want to be there with you, at least once. I don’t care if I have to work all night to make up for it, and I don’t care about the people up there either. So, what do you say?"

"I say," she paused for a long moment, "that everyone has to make their own mistakes. And that includes you, my dear Lex."

"What’s that supposed to mean?"

"It means that it’ll be worth it when we go up there."

"It will, I promise."

"Lex?"

"Yeah?"

"It won’t be a good experience."

******

He was freshly washed, but he already smelled of sweat again. Large dark patches had formed under his arms. With his elbows pressed tight against his ribs, he stood in line for the buffet, holding the white porcelain plate like a beggar with both hands. He had brushed his teeth an hour ago with minty toothpaste, and there was still a lingering sharpness and numbness in his mouth. At the beginning of the line, he tried a cucumber salad and immediately made a face.

"Grown right here in the UNION itself, under the most advanced lab conditions," the finely dressed waiter behind the table said defensively, though with a hint of pride in his voice.

"It tastes super bitter," the boy said.

"The cucumbers?" The waiter glanced at the salad bowl, his arms still folded behind his back.

The boy nodded. "Those exactly," he said, chewing, then reluctantly swallowed and scraped the rest of the cucumbers back into the bowl. The waiter remained composed, though for a second, it seemed like he almost lost his cool. Silent and dignified, one arm behind his back and the salad bowl in the other hand, he made his way to the kitchen. The fancy guests whispered among themselves, both in front of and behind the boy, though he didn’t notice. He just watched the waiter walk away and muttered, "You didn’t have to throw it all out. Maybe someone else would’ve liked it."

Potatoes, beans and roasted pork steamed on the plate he balanced, along with a large drink, as he made his way up the broad steps. The entire dining hall was whitewashed. Guests sat at hexagonal tables, scattered across the second level in countless little groups. From here, you could look down at the buffet. The line below was getting longer and longer.

Lex stopped at the landing. The guests were speaking quietly to one another, and soft music played from all directions. Aside from the holographic menus on the tables, the faint blue glow of the energy columns powering the force fields, and the cold light from Kronos shining into the hall, there were no other light sources. It was dim, but not too dark to make out faces. Veela sat three tables away, near the railing, and waved him over.

"You’re quite the character," she said, amused, as he sat down next to her.

He had no idea what she meant.

"You know, because of the cucumbers," she said, gesturing down toward the buffet.

The boy nodded, though he still didn’t get it. "Good thing you saw me," he said, "I’d have wandered around till the food got cold."

"The roast looks good."

"Sure does."

"But where’s the gravy?"

He stared blankly at his plate for a moment, then glanced down at the huge line by the buffet.

"I’ll just grab it when I get seconds," he said.

They shared a plate in secret, since they couldn’t afford two meals. He chewed slowly, swallowed and then, after some hesitation, scooped something strange-looking onto his fork. It was called sauerkraut, and when he tasted it, he found it awful.

"Do you like it?" she asked.

"To be honest, even the food on the SAMSON was better than this, and that’s saying something, considering Flint was the one who made it."

Veela laughed heartily, as if she knew exactly what he was talking about, as if she had been there herself or had tasted Flint’s cooking before. Then, just as suddenly, her laughter died, and a deep sadness clouded her eyes, a sorrow that smothered any hint of joy. They both remembered what had happened to Flint and the others.

"You know," she began, "the people here aren’t really paying for the food."

"What? They get it for free?"

"No, Lex, that’s not what I meant. They pay for it just like we do, but they’re here for a different reason."

"The same as us?"

"No."

"Oh?" The boy asked, "Then why?"

"They want to stand out from the crowd, a crowd that can’t afford a fancy evening in the UNION. They want to feel better than others, more important than the rest of us. They want to do something most people can’t, even if it means paying a lot for nothing. Why do you think they’ve been staring at us the whole time? It’s because they can tell we don’t belong here. But we’re still here. We’re ruining their night just by being around, taking away their sense of exclusivity."

The boy looked at her, trying to follow her train of thought. The girl chewed with her mouth closed. He glanced out the window, where a withered leaf, carried by the wind, flew against the force field, briefly revealing its fine grid structure. Beyond, in the darkness, hung Kronos. Cosmic dust rings encircled the gas giant in an extravagant diameter. The shadow of one of the prison moons fell across the planet’s surface—he couldn’t tell which one, but he imagined it was Limbo Two. And suddenly, he missed Tayus again. And Mori, his old friend, who might still be out there, living out her days as a prisoner. Unless she had already…

"Just look around, Lex," Veela whispered. "See how they act, how they talk. They look at us and laugh. They all think they’re better, like they deserve to earn more and that makes them superior. Do you think they care about what happens to people who are suffering? The poor, the ones living in the LowerCity slums, or the refugees struggling to survive in Adenaaru, starving, dying from diseases because they can’t afford the medicine. For people like this, the world is fine as long as they keep their wealth. Do you feel comfortable in a society like this?"

He had stopped chewing for a moment. He swallowed. "I dunno," he said. "Maybe you’re judging too quickly. Besides, I don’t care about the people. I’m just here to eat with you. I’m only here because I thought we’d have a good time. It was supposed to be a surprise."

"I know."

He set his fork down on the plate and looked at her perfectly shaped profile for a while, still convinced, as he had been from the start, that there was nothing more beautiful than this girl. She, too, looked as if she were from another place. Not from the moon, like him, but from somewhere far away. From another time, he thought.

"Should we just head down to the museum?" he asked. "I really want to learn more about Earth’s past."

"I can tell you everything about that."

He looked at her. "Then tell me where you want to go, and we’ll go there." He waited for her answer, but she said nothing and didn’t even look up at him.

"Veela?"

"I want to go with you somewhere we can be ourselves," she said. "Where the corporations aren’t watching us. Where they don’t have power over us."

"And where’s that?"

"I’ll show you," she said, and the boy left his food and immediately stood up.

******

That night, they fled from Vega Prime, across the vast meadows into the woods, seeking shelter from the rain and their old lives. They lived out their destiny, two people in love, both of them feeling it, though the boy was still unsure. He followed her, hand in hand, through the unfamiliar thicket, life teeming all around them. Everything was just beginning to bloom, even though summer was already fading. Or maybe it was only blooming inside him. He looked at the girl, her skin appeared pale and pure in the light of Kronos breaking through the trees. To him, she had no flaws.

The rain had let up. They could tell because the rustling of the leaves had fallen silent. Beyond the forest, they came to a lagoon, its surface silvered by the moonlight. A coastal beach, much more beautiful than the ones in the picture book, because it was real—and because she was here with him. She showed him how to make a fire, sparks flying into the night sky. It was unusually warm, probably the last beautiful day of the year, she said casually, but with his upcoming departure weighing on him, it felt more like a premonition. She pulled a pricey bottle of wine from her bag, which she had stolen from the restaurant without a hint of guilt. They drank together, and soon they were lying side by side in the sand. The sound of the waves filled the air, and light clouds veiled the horizon, but the sky above was wide open, and they watched as thousands of stars poured down on them. Neither of them said anything, they both felt it. The boy was certain of it now too. At some point, a shooting star arched across the vast sky, and Veela draped her leg over his. His heart pounded wildly. She leaned over him, her face just inches from his. He looked at her, said nothing, didn’t breathe. And then, for the first time, she kissed him.

******

It was late in the night. The fire had burned down to glowing embers. He had thought she’d fallen asleep in his arms long ago, but she had been awake the whole time. He looked up and saw a bright light, high above where the space elevator led into the sky. He was searching the stars for something in particular.

"See that star? The bright one, the one that’s twinkling." He pointed, but with so many stars, it was impossible for her to know exactly which one he meant. "That’s the Sun," he said. "Eerie showed me when I was on the SAMSON. And somewhere out there, where Sol is, that’s where old Earth is too. I can’t believe we’re so far from our home world. That we’ll never see it."

The girl said nothing. The crashing waves filled the silence, a cold breeze carrying the scent of salt and sea. Sleepily, she murmured, "I wonder if we’ll ever get a reply signal from Earth, or if everyone there is already dead."