"I looked and looked but I didn't see God."
-Yuri Gagarin (First man in space)
Rain
It came pouring down. The sound of each individual droplet drowned out amongst the clamor of its fallen neighbors. It was like a symphony, only the crescendo never ended; It just kept building and building and building indefinitely.
Pitter patter went the rain.
The sheet metal rooftop of the old barn amplified the noise to a clatter. It was still soft and steady, but there was a certain metallic accentuation to the sound of the droplets as they bombarded the thinly sliced steel. It told a tale of a time and a place when clouds billowed across the open sky and water fell from above.
Rain. Rain. Rain.
Some of it fell upon the thick reedy stalks of wheat that surrounded the barn in every direction. The wheat swayed under the curtain of rain, turning the harsh winds into a whisper.
Suddenly, a clap of thunder declared itself. Ara half jumped from her bed, but she managed to remain calm, locked in a state of fear and amazement.
Every now and then another bolt would strike the windswept earth and Ara would shudder slightly although the shock receded more quickly after each subsequent blast. Eventually, she could recognize the sound for what it was: atmospheric friction causing a sudden release of heat and power.
She had read about such a phenomenon in many books. One such book- an old biology textbook - had suggested that it was lightning striking the ancient seas of Earth that had sparked the creation of all life as we know it. Just a little bit of electricity and a little bit of carbon was all it took to set the gears of evolution into motion. The rest is history.
Ara thought about this for a long while as the rain droned on. She thought about how little green plankton floated just below the waters surface, soaking up light from the sun to feed. And after several million years, through some crazy twists and turns of chemistry, those tiny greenish organisms found their way out of the ocean and became humans. It was a gradual process, or so Ara had been told, but one ripe with mystery and excitement. There were ice ages and solar flares and asteroids and volcanoes and a whole host of other phenomenon that could have extinguished humanity long before it even began. There were biological challenges: the unlikely development of multicellular organisms from single cellular organisms, evolution turning upon itself with plagues and cancer, the birth of species that are too powerful for their own good...and yet...
And yet there Ara was, nestled in her blankets listening to the gentle sound of rain and the angry roars of thunder.
Her thoughts shifted towards her family now, as she lay alone amongst these noises. She thought about the pictures she had seen of her distant ancestors. The ones who had flesh that was burnt to a golden brown and whose eyes shown with vibrant intensity. Ara had submitted to the DNA tests and she had scoured the data banks for such photographs. They had traced her blood line back many generations so that she could get a small glimpse of what life was like centuries ago. Her ancestors had lived in a part of the world where the West met the East and sandy deserts stretched as far as the eye could see. There were mountains and valleys and fields and cities and tiny villages and- on rare occasions- there was rain. And sometimes the rain would rattle off the roof of a shanty old barn and make a sound not unlike the one Ara was currently listening too.
Thunder clapped once more and Ara sat up in bed, feeling her heart beat thumping against her ribcage.
Lub dub lub dub lub dub.
She looked around wildly in search of lightning and water cascading from the ceiling, but there was none. Only bare white walls of metal and plastic surrounded her. In the corner of the room, nearest the sliding door, was a small booth with a toilet bowl and in the opposing corner there was a tiny nook whereupon Ara could complete school assignments or type notes into her daily log. Beyond the sliding door there was the commissary, gym, theater, green garden, meeting hall, labs, and other amenities. All of these places Ara knew far too well; She could see them now in her head down to the exact layout of each and every room.
Another clap of thunder, this one more rumbling than sharp. Ara did not flinch, she was growing used to the noise and yet now she desired silence.
Gently, she raised a pale grayish hand- a hand that was so far removed from the brownish tint of her ancestors that it often made her recoil in disgust. Everyone she had ever known had the same blanched gray skin and faded hair. It was a signature of each and every resident.
She waved this gray hand of hers through the air and the sound of rain immediately evaporated into an equally deafening silence.
Ara sat and pondered in the quiet emptiness of her room. A few minutes passed before she decided to ask a question.
"Z?" She spoke, her voice paper thin.
The white walls surrounding her turned to an electric blue at the mention of the letter. A neutral face appeared on one screen, slightly cartoonish in nature but not overly so. There was a small logo below the face's neck with the character 'Z' at the center.
"Yes, Ara?" A calming male voice replied. It seemed to have come from every direction and none at all.
Ara gathered her thoughts. She could feel her throat drying up and her skin turning clammy.
"How fast are we going, Z?" She asked.
She had asked such a question many times in the past. If Z had been programmed to be slightly more sentient, he may have become irritated by now, but that was not the case.
"The CSS Pyrrhus is currently traveling at its top speed of 74,950 kilometers per second, or approximately 25% the speed of light."
That's fast, Ara thought. Or was it really? After all, Ara had never traveled any faster or slower than exactly 74,950 kilometers per second. With the shields to negate g-force and simulated gravity, Ara may as well have been standing still her entire life.
"And how far along are we? To the final destination?"
This was a question that Ara had never dared to ask before. She had a good enough idea what the answer was, but hearing it out loud would make it real. It would settle the hard truth into her mind.
"The ship is currently 54.78% of the way to its final destination: Kepler 186f also know as Quintana."
Quintana.
A curious name for a curious place. It had not been named after the gods of Greece or Rome like the planets of Earth's home system. There was room for wonder in the ancient times...but humanity was in its infancy then. They could look up at the moon and stars and see faces and dragons and swans swimming just above the clouds. They could worship the human spirit, the rainforest, and consume psychoactive mushrooms. They could stand upon cliffs of dizzying heights and shout sermons to the wind. They could even stand in the rain if they so wished.
Those men experienced godliness beyond which a resident of the CSS Pyrrhus could comprehend in their wildest dreams or most accurate simulations. Deep in interstellar space there was no room for gods. After all, how could one understand the meaning of sacrifice, passion, or virtue when over half their waking hours are spent in a purely virtual world?
The very name Quintana was a testament to this loss of faith. It had been decided upon in Ara's lifetime, but before that it had been known by various other names including Cygnus, Phaethon, and Gaia. Ultimately something far less nuanced had been decided upon.
Elisa Quintana had been the founder of Kepler 186f, her picture could be found in a dusty corner of the ship although her existence was far too long ago for anyone to pretend that they knew the faintest detail about her life. She is a face and a name and that was all her planet would ever be to the vast majority of residents. Perhaps the name would be changed yet again at some future date, but if such a thing did happen there would surely be no references to gods or mythos. The scientific name Kepler 186f could certainly win in this game of time.
As for the CSS Pyrrhus? Well it had it's Ancient Greek connotations of course, but that name had been chosen by Earthlings long before the ship launched on its maiden voyage. Not to mention the word Pyrrhus was painted in bold letters on the side of the vessel and scrubbing it away would be impossible without shredding a resident's body into a heap of atoms. Exposure to g forces brought on by traveling at 25% the speed of light tends to do such a ghastly thing to the fleshy apes of Earth.
"How..." Ara began, but there was a feather in her throat. She gathered herself and tried again.
"How long until the ship reaches Quintana?"
Once again, she had a decent idea what the answer was, but had never built up the courage to ask for an exact number.
Z glowed to life and said, "If the current speed is maintained, the CSS Pyrrhus will reach its final destination in approximately 2,328 Earth years."
Ara felt a hollowness spread within her stomach. Her heart skipped a beat, a quiver crept down her spine.
On Earth, the average life expectancy in the most developed nations was 124 years old with 152 being the current accepted maximum. After 152 the heart failed no matter how many shocks were delivered to it, the brain shrank into a wrinkled mass of dementia no matter how stimulating the virtual simulations it swam in were, the muscles atrophied in spite of proper diet and physical therapy, and most cells turned cancerous no matter how flawless the genetic engineering appeared to be at birth. Death was inevitable despite all of mankind's efforts to defeat it, and aboard the CSS Pyrrhus death was far closer than on Earth. The average resident had a lifespan of less than 80 years. If a resident is to reach 80 they are subject to the needle. It was said to be quick and painless; not unlike falling asleep.
After death, the resident's body is cremated and their remains are placed into a small plastic box with their name stamped upon the lid. Ara's box had been labeled the day she was born. The private company that had created the colonial star ship had calculated the exact number of boxes needed for each potential resident. This, of course, was due to the fact that all humans on board were created through artificial insemination and designed to live until approximately 80 barring murders, suicides, or freak accidents. Any natural births were terminated immediately to prevent overpopulation and so far no woman had successfully hidden their natural pregnancy from the CSS scientists. It was a harsh rule without a doubt, but the ship could not sustain more than two children per parental couple. The objective was for the same number of residents that had left earth to be the same number arriving on Quintana.
Sometimes Ara thought about her box. She thought about the incinerator that her body would be pulverized in. How her daily logs would be looked over thousands of years in the future like some inconsequential bit of history. Eventually, her box would be buried in a mass grave on Quintana next to the many others who had died long before the first man stepped foot on the planetary surface. There would be a plaque at the entrance of the graveyard with the following inscription:
"Dedicated to the men and women of the CSS Pyrrhus who sacrificed their lives with the hope that mankind would one day reach this fertile world. May we never forget their perseverance and always keep them in our hearts; for in them, the spirit of Earth will burn forever."
That plaque had quite clearly been created by Earthlings long ago. The concept of sacrifice had ended after the first generation blasted off the surface of Earth, bound for this new world. And the spirit of Earth? According to the radio communications received by the ship, Earth's spirit had all but perished over a thousand years prior. There where still humans living in towering skyscrapers that pierced the atmosphere, but most of the planet's biodiversity had been lost. Roaches and rats lived in abundance, tardigrades persisted as they always would, and flocks of pigeons thrived amongst the twisted steel structures despite the poor air quality, but the ice caps where long gone. The forests a memory at best. The canyons filled in. The coral reefs so unbelievably dead that many historians found it hard to believe that Earth's oceans ever existed at a pH level reasonable enough to allow for such organisms to survive. And yet there was still rain and when it fell it was often ferocious and full of thunder. Nature's last cry of anguish at the greedy apes who hid in their towers.
The colonies on the Moon, Mars, Europa, and Titan had faired far worse and were mostly abandoned. How foolish of humans to think that they could terraform frozen deserts more effectively than they could save the luscious gift of their home world. It was fair to say that the spirit of Earth had never existed on these forsaken settlements.
Ara lifted her head and stared at the virtual ceiling. She hated it with a passion.
"Z, I want to hear the rain again..." She said, still looking up.
"Would you care for the full audio/visual experience this time, Ara?" Z asked in his soft voice.
"Yes...please..."
And there was rain once again, only this time the visuals were not contained to just a portion of one of the screen walls; but every wall dissolved immediately into the raging storm. Ara could see the barn not far off to her right, its roof pattering like a snare drum, and in every direction the reedy wheat field billowed under the force of the wind. It was a terrifying and incredibly vivid display, but there was still something off about it.
When Ara looked at her hands she could see the droplets impacting her skin but no sensation could be felt. The thunder boomed but there was no scent of static in the air. No changes in temperature or barometric pressure could be detected.
It was utterly beautiful, but it failed to capture the true essence of a storm. Quintana would certainly be able to do a thing like that. According to the probes sent out in advance, Quintana had roughly half the biodiversity of Earth before the sixth mass extinction. There were trees and grasses and flowers of such ornate design that they rivaled the majesty of those on Earth. The fish were slimy and alien in appearance, the reptiles fierce and deadly, and the mammals merely tiny critters that burrowed in the dirt. Large mammals had yet to develop on Quintana and perhaps that was for the best. Such creatures had a tendency for growing brains too big for their own good.
Most importantly of all, however, the probes found Quintana to be an exceptionally wet world with deserts only existing near the equator. Ara could see it already; her box of ashes buried beneath the rain-soaked soil so many years in the future. Maybe one day the plastic would crack and her remains would spill into the earth to fertilize one of those peculiar plants.
It would happen one day...she knew it would. It had to happen. It had to rain. And it would rain forever and she would finally feel the drops as they fell from the clouds above. She felt them now, sitting atop her bed as the screens surrounding her flashed with forked lightning. They dribbled down her cheeks and dripped into her lap, salty as the sea life had emerged from.
Ara didn't attempt to dry her face; she simply laid back in her blankets and let the sound of rain engulf her.
