Stuck upside down below a lid of frozen methane was never my idea of fun. The light is fake, the food crap, and the company non-existent.
The ship, I vaguely remember, is more than capable of gliding effortlessly across light years — why on Earth would it stop here?
Memories are slowly returning, each thought leading to another. Earth. Trips off my tongue. Fluid. Warm. Like some sort of staccato poem. Followed by a drip and then a rush of images and ambient sounds that I struggle to put words to. Wind. Waves...
I remember now. It's home.
Fuck, I miss it. Did I choose to come here?
Today’s rota gives some relief. I walk the ship and check on the systems. The ship is growing by around one hectare a day, spreading across the under-surface of the moon like a melanoma, sucking the energy out of the core. We float in a vast unexplored ocean, and my job? Is to?
I call up the next memory. The ship’s doctor appears and explains a few things to me. She's a hologram — at least that's what she tells me. Not that I can tell. Frankly, I do not trust this lot. Nor my memories.
The doctors name is Liane.
She tells me that I am rebooting, that I have been in some sort of deep freeze to protect me from cosmic rays during the journey. She tells me that I am the first person here, and that my job is to prepare the space for the Followers — that there will be Followers. She explains that my memories are returning, and that it will take time for things to make sense.
> How much time?
I ask.