Earthseed

I’ve ruined things. I wanted to see the Hollow again. I fell asleep. I was just waking up when—”
    “But where did you come from?” Gervais asked.
    “The same place you did. I was born on Ship, grew up in the corridors, and then lived in the Hollow.”
    “But we never saw you,” Serena said.
    “Of course you didn’t.” The stranger gestured with his head. “You can let me go—I won’t run away.” Gervais and Dmitri released him. “You didn’t see me or my friends because all of us have been in suspended animation. You must know the room—it’s where Ship has all of its biological materials, the stored animal embryos and seeds and other things we’ll need in our new home.”
    “Our new home,” Zoheret said.
    “Ours, too.” He paused. “Ship made a place for us— the room is quite large. It kept it closed off so that we wouldn’t be discovered.”
    Zoheret was suddenly angry with Aleksandr; he didn’t belong here. This was their home, not his; he was stealing their birthright. “I don’t understand.”
    Aleksandr spread his hands. “Let me explain—you might as well know. My friends and I were born here, taught by Ship, and sent to live in the Hollow, to prepare for our new life while Ship searched with its probes. It had every reason to believe it would find an Earth-like world—all the signs were right. A G-type star, planets aplenty—at least two at the same distance from that star as Earth is from its sun. But something went wrong.” He was silent for a moment as he swallowed. “One of the worlds was a hot, dead world with a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide—much like Earth’s sister planet Venus. The other was habitable, but the probes had found two possibly intelligent species there, one on land with the ability to make simple tools and the other dwelling in the sea—giant mammalian forms resembling Earth’s whales. We couldn’t settle there. Ship had been directed not to leave us on a world which had intelligent inhabitants. Our preparation had been useless.”
    Night had settled over the Hollow, masking their faces. Zoheret reached for Dmitri’s hand.
    “We were faced with a dilemma,” Aleksandr continued. “We could keep on living aboard Ship, but we would die before it could find us another home. As it was, we were already past the age when we should have been settled on a planet. Ship offered us a life in the corridors or the Hollow, a life where we would be free to live as we pleased, learning what we liked, living only for pleasure if that was what we wanted. But it would have been a life with no future, no hope. We could build nothing. There would be no children—Ship had been programmed with certain procedures and felt that becoming a generation ship would jeopardize the Project. We would die, and leave no trace, no accomplishments. The thought drove some of us mad.” He bowed his head. “A few, unable to face it, killed themselves.”
    The young man’s husky but gentle voice stirred Zoheret in spite of her anger. “But you found another way,” she murmured.
    “We were desperate. A life that had seemed easy and beguiling had palled quickly. We asked Ship to suspend us. It was risky, we knew that—we might never awaken. The Project had known that, which was why it sent only human genetic material to be bred here instead of preserved passengers. Ship didn’t want to put us in suspension, but we pleaded with it, and it consented when we convinced it that this was better than a pointless life, that we had nothing to lose. Ten of us were to awaken after you were in the Hollow, while the others would be revived one by one later. I was one of the first ten—we drew lots.” He looked down. “As it happens, only seven of us awoke. We lost the other three. I don’t know how many others we’ll have to mourn in time.”
    Zoheret was holding Dmitri’s hand too tightly, and let it go. “But if you were preserved,” Kagami murmured, “why did Ship create us? It didn’t need us—it had settlers already.”
    “It couldn’t take the chance. We knew it would have to give birth to a new group, in case too many of us—or all of us—were lost.”
    “What if the same thing happens again?” Tonio said; his voice was too high. “What if something’s wrong with the new world?”
    “That is unlikely. It told us it had explored several systems before giving birth to you and deciding on this one. It didn’t want to make the same mistake and revised some