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My shift ends, and I rush to the front of the mess hall chow line in my Class-B brown coveralls, beating the pampered Class-C’s in their blues. I’m not about to spend my break standing behind people who’ve never had to earn theirs.
I cut ahead, grab two protein tubes, and scan my negative balance. The room’s wide enough to seat fifty across comfortably, but nobody’s been comfortable in a long while. My corner gives me space to watch and stare at the window. The shutters have been sealed since the gravity generators spun up and a digital display of the storming blue jewel took its place.
An interstitial cuts in.
Credit consultant. SKIP.
Sex simulator. SKIP.
The third costs ten credits to skip.
An old, tanned face with a bushy mustache fills the screen. He’s blabbing. “...the choice is yours...” I glance down at the barcode on my arm and think about it.
“OREN needs you—”
I mute it and pull my Personal Network Screen. One swipe against the cold glass surface and I’m back in my book. It’s something romantic like a medieval fairytale. Knights. Maidens. Castles. Green hills rolling forever. All that space. No walls.
“I’m sorry, do you have any Vertinil?”
The voice is bright, feminine and wholly out of place.
I look up.
Blond hair and an amber skin-suit cuts through the blues and browns like a flame taking to dry wood. “Yeah. I got some.”
I fumble through my pockets and pull the bottle free. I hand it over with a grin I can’t seem to shake.
“Oh, thank you. You’re a lifesaver.” She drops into the seat across from me. “I just transferred in. The spins hit me hard. Can I pay you back?”
“No, no. Keep it.” I shrug playing it off. “It’s the only thing on this heap that’s free.”
She smiles and asks, “What’re you reading?”
“Uh, John Keats.” glancing down at the title, “The… Dreamlike Killer.”
I nod at her suit. “Where’d you transfer from?”
“Mellum Station, heading to Earth in a few days.” Her eyes go wide when she says it. She tosses the pills back, and takes a swig from my canteen. She reaches out a small hand across the table. I take it and it feels warm.
“Name’s Del.”
“Wait. What?” I blink at her, still holding on a second too long.
“Uh… I’m Sam.”
I let go.
“You’re going to Earth?”
“We are.” She says with certainty. “We’re going to reclaim it. Be free.”
“Who’s we?”
“Pioneers,” she smiles. “Followers of OREN. Colony needs two hundred and fifty of us. People like you. Like me. Manifest’s still got a few open slots… but they’re going fast.”
“That’s insane.” I shake my head. “It hasn’t been safe in a hundred years.”
She leans in a little and lowers her voice. “That’s all feed talk. Keeps everyone in line. Tell people the outside’s poison, they stop asking questions.”
I watch her.
“They don’t want us leaving,” she says. “Control’s easier when our mind’s the cage… Have you ever listened to OREN?”
I huff and shake my head.
“Mr. Mustache?”
Del takes my hand.
“Don’t you want something real?” She says. “Don’t you want to feel it? Nature. The Earth’s alive.”
Her thumb brushes my knuckles.
“We could be too.”
“Who’s OREN?” I ask. “I’ve seen the displays, but–”
“He’s Class-A,” she says quick. “But he’s not like the others. Not some polished-up prick. He’s a truth speaker. Sees through all of it. Knows all their dirty tricks. He’s giving us a way out.”
“A way out… side.”
I watch her. She’s close enough now I can see the greens shifting in her eyes.
She goes on, “the Earth’s clean again. Virginal. Waiting for us to take it back. No walls. No classes. Just the land and what we make of it… OREN’s already built the infrastructure.”
She slides in beside me. Shoulder to shoulder. Knee pressed into mine like it’s nothing. Before I can think about it, she’s taken hold of my Personal Network Screen. A few quick fingers, and she turns it back to me.
A structure fills the screen. Huge. Gray concrete rising in hard angles, turreted like something out of a storybook. A castle dragged into the wrong century. Above it, a sky so blue it looks fake. Clouds streaked pink and white like brushstrokes.
And the floor is thick with tall green blades moving in undulating patterns like the world is breathing.
“It’s a castle,” I say, a smile betrays me.
Her hair smells like flowers.
“Isn’t it amazing?”
“It is,” I say. “I just… I could never afford to—”
“Afford?” She laughs. “Thank OREN! It’s free. He buys out your contract. Did the same for me. He needs pioneers to push the colony out into the frontier.”
She bumps her knee into mine again. “He especially incentivizes couples.”
The mess hall drops away.
Together, we lean over the glass, sharing the same small piece of light.
“Don’t you want to come,” she says, softer now, “with me?”
“I-I can’t.” My throat tightens. “I want to, but they need me here. What would I even do out there?”
She pulls back as disappointment moves across her face.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Live. Be free. Anything but this, this godforsaken tube. Waiting your turn to get recycled into protein paste.”
My chin drops. The words sink deep.
“Thanks for letting me sit with you. I’ve got an appointment. I need to go.”
She stands, already half gone.
“Sam… I hope you change your mind. You deserve something real, too.”
After a few steps she’s swallowed by the noise and I’m alone again.
Days pass.
The OREN ads keep cutting in whenever I try to look at the blue jewel. That same damned face, same damned smile, same damned promise.
My work slips. My supervisor chews me out. My mind’s somewhere else. I can’t stop seeing her on horseback over green hills. Hair loose in the wind. We fall into the grass, sun on bare skin. No walls. Just open sky.
She handed me a dream.
I threw it away.
The OREN ads start counting down the hours to launch. Each one shows the same thing:
MANIFEST FULL
At dinner in the mess hall I sit in my corner alone, staring at the window. The countdown ticks in the corner of the sky. No more slots.
I see her, across the room, through the crush of blue and brown. Blond hair flashes like a signal in a dark sea. Voices shout. I shove through the bodies into the corridor.
My chest is tight and my head spins. I missed my chance again.
“Sam?” Her voice catches me from behind. “What are you doing?”
I spin and find her standing in the doorway.
“Del, I thought I lost you.” I grab her hand.
She pulls back, a flicker of surprise crossing her face. “Hey, easy. I’m right here.”
“I missed it,” I tell her. “I missed my chance. To go with you. To be with you. I—”
“You wanna come to Earth?” she says, studying me. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.” It comes out fast. “But it’s too late. The manifest’s full. I blew it.”
“Sam…” She tilts her head, searching my face. “You’re sure you want this?”
“More than anything.”
She nods.
“Come with me. We need to move.”
“What?” I blink. “The manifest’s full.”
“Just follow me,” she says. “We’ll figure it out.”
She takes my hand and this time she doesn’t let go.
We run corridors that never end onto walkways that push us faster than we can keep up. Lights blur. Faces smear past.
The port district opens up ahead and we reach a terminal. Del steps forward, lifts her wrist. The scanner hums.
Delilah Cain, Checked-In.
“I have one more to add to the manifest. Couples priority.” Her voice is flat. The attendant doesn’t look at either of us. Just nods.
“Present your arm.”
I do and the scanner bites with a dull hum.
Samson Lamden.
“Your file is being processed,” the attendant says. “Contract buyout in progress… Transfer of ownership underway.”
Ownership. My mouth turns sour. Del’s hand stays warm in mine. The bidding scrolls too fast to follow. One phrase sticks: BULK ORDER DISCOUNT. OREN is buying our freedom from this place. I don’t pull away.
“Did we just take somebody’s spot?”
The attendant doesn’t look up.
“No, sir. We have plenty of slots available.”
My mouth stumbles out “Wha—?”
“Sam.” Del’s already moving. Her grip tightens on my hand. “Let’s go. We need to get seated.”
“Del…” I start.
She pulls me along a corridor packed with brown and blue bodies. All of us moving toward the same bright mouth of light. There are others intermixed in Amber suits each one pulling their fella forward.
“Come on,” she says. “We can’t miss this.”
The tunnel opens into an airlock, and beyond it, something vast. A hollow hull with tiered seats like an auditorium. Rows and rows of harnesses waiting. Without hesitation, Del leads me down, finds a seat and straps me in quick with practiced hands.
I’ve never seen so many people smiling at once. The air hums with excitement. The smiles fade. The waiting bleeds the joy out of us.
Del’s back with a big bright grin, like it never left. She drops into the seat beside me and straps in fast moving like muscle memory. She takes my hand and squeezes.
“It’s almost time,” she says. “Thank you, Sam. For coming.” Her thumb presses into my palm.
A booming voice cuts through the hull.
“Attention passengers. We are preparing to detach and begin descent to Earth.”
The intercom crackles.
“Your benefactor has chartered this descent to Colony Nine: Houska Castle.”
Del mouths along with the last line, mocking. Lips moving in silence.
“Please enjoy your drop.”
She grins at me.
“This is the best part.”
She squeezes my hand hard enough to hurt. A deep metallic clunk rolls through the hull. A roar. Gas venting. Pressure shifting. The whole structure shudders alive around us. Blood rushes into my head like we’re being hung upside down. My vision tunnels.
Somewhere distant in the black, the words call out, “Spin velocity neutralized.”
I come back to the captain’s voice.
“We have neutralized spin and are reducing orbital velocity. From this point, descent will be unpowered.”
The intercom crackles again.
“We will now open the shutters.”
Metal screams as the panels peel back revealing an endless black. A sliver of white and blue streaks across the hull’s massive window, too big to understand at first.
Earth. Backlit from an unseen star.
My mouth hangs open. I squeeze her hand. For the first time, I understand why they believed in God.
She smiles, “Told ya.”
The band of blue light sweeps upwards fast, wrapping around us as we drop into the black of night. The ship shakes and shimmies. Seats rattle in their bolts like they’re trying to tear free.
I look at Del’s closed eyes and her serene smile. I shut mine in mimicry. A deafening roar calls out below us. The hull threatens to come apart. The blood pooling in my head is whipped down into my boots.
I hear the clicks and clanks of harnesses releasing. Voices cheer. Laughter breaking loose like a hundred men realize all at once, that they survived.
Del’s already unbuckled. She shakes my shoulder.
“Wakey, wakey. Welcome Home.” with a too big grin. She hauls me up with a grunt. “Gravity’s heavier than the fake stuff,” she says. “Takes a second.”
My legs feel heavy and I struggle out of the chair.
“Wasn’t that a ride?”
I steady myself.
“Never seen outside before,” I say.
“Come on,” she says. “Sunrise is worth it.”
We move with the crowd, down the tiers, one careful step at a time. Hands on rails. Bodies sway out through the chute into the dark like we’re all learning how to walk again.
The air hits cold. I lock up and my breath catches like I swallowed something sharp. Del laughs.
“Bit of a breeze today. You get used to it.”
“You’ve been here before?”
She doesn’t answer.
The floor… the ground is hard and uneven rock. Each step is carefully placed.
Men in Hazmat suits wave glow sticks herding us into place in formation on a large platform. Light comes slow over the horizon cutting beams through trees and brush speckling the towering craft sitting atop the enormous stones of Houska Castle.
The horizon cracks and the light shoots through me in an instant. I turn away in pain, blinking hard against green and pink rings littering my vision. The first star I’ve seen with my own eyes. The shadows cut through the terrain long and sharp, making the once visible darkness black as ink.
Mountains in the distance. Clouds twist overhead. Miles of sky above my head.
The platform shudders. Gears and wheels squeal to life and the platform lowers us slow with the megalithic gray stone walls rising up above our heads.
Upon the belly of the towering ship, a projection flickers to life.
OREN.
His smiling face looks down like a god demanding tribute.
“To my pioneers,” he says, voice pouring down over us, “Those with the spirit to seek more. To live free. To live as we were meant to. I welcome you… to Earth.”
The crowd erupts in applause. Hoots and hollers echo across the landscape while I stand there shivering, arms tight against my chest, trying to hold onto something already slipping.
The platform stops.
Dell leans in with her arms wrapped around me. Her breath brushes my ear.
“Wait here,” she whispers. “for me.”
She pulls away and slips behind me. Gone.
OREN keeps talking. The words roll on, smooth and practiced, but I’m not listening. I’m watching amber move through the sea of blue and brown. Bodies slipping between bodies, disappearing one by one back into the ship.
“There is nothing more natural,” OREN says, his voice swelling over us, “than for a man to work the earth with his hands. To toil. To build. To reclaim what was taken.”
More amber slips away. Not one of them stays. Not one of them looks back. My chest tightens as I watch the ones who brought us here leave.
Sunlight spills across the length of the ship, as the rest of the men look around with low voices and confusion spreading in small pockets.
I lower my head.
The platform jolts, continuing the descent. Men stumble and shout. I look to the narrowing window of the pink cloud and cyan sky. The platform sinks into the darkness, the window shrinks.
Above, the ship roars to life. A column of white cloud tears up into the sky as we sink into the dark.
OREN’s voice follows us down, echoing off the walls as the light dies.
“Work will set you free.”