Preface

I knew it would come to this, from the moment I saw his cruel, angular face on the viewer.  Jeremy Wright had destroyed everything we had known.  I was just glad that he had allowed us to leave before he had made his move.  We had jetted off using the precious last tons of fossil fuel left, dredged from the long-dead oil rigs, burning dirtier than diesel though it was more than half ethanol.  Everyone here knew that they would never go back home, even before they saw that pro-j.  It makes me sick to know that I, as well as everyone on that glorified tin can had been so willing to forsake their only home when it had ceased to suit them.  But with things that far gone, there’s only so much that can be done.  Or rather, this was the measure that had to be taken, the leaving.  It wasn’t abandonment, really, it was more of a transplantation.  But what I, what we’re doing now isn’t even close to that goal we had.

He twisted us too, and that I dread.  He made us hate that from which we came, but I suppose that’s how it had to be, to reach the outcome I stand at.  I just hope that this will work. I hope that we’re not just setting ourselves up for another broken world.  I could not endure that.  Neither could General Wright, poor soul.  So I suppose we’ll just have to make sure it doesn’t.  How we will manage that, I have no idea, but there is no doubt in my mind that I at least am staying to do so.

I’ve heard the rumors, of course.  Who couldn’t?  That we’ve made ourselves into inhuman atrocities.  But what else were we to do?  Micro-bionics were the only conceivable way to keep ourselves alive for the entire one hundred, fifty year search. Then again, “alive” isn’t really the word I’m looking for, is it?  I’m functioning.  We all are, except for the ones who offed themselves when the realization hit them.  But we all would have died by now, even with the extended life expectancy.  One thing that they never told us about the trip was that the barrage of radiation would not only render us infertile, but also cause our genes to wither like a plucked morning glory.  We had no choice!  I had no choice. . . even though it was I that thought of it.  Once we knew what would happen to us, after knowing what had happened to our home, I had to.

There are a few semi-religious ones left, after the first wave of lemmings rejected the ‘alternative death,’ as they called it. The selection team rejected any of the overtly religious ones, but I suppose after what we’ve been through, faith will out.  Sometimes it eve appears on it’s own, which I have never sorted out.  But they say that Harland and I are wrong on this.  That we’ve made ourselves into gods and now we want to tinker around and see what we can make.  But what else were we to do?  What can we do, but try to start over and hope it works?  There’s nothing left for us now, just the future.  All of us, even those who took the escape pods to go back.

We had to make something new, don’t you see?  The first try went so badly that this is really all we had left!  Yes, I do mean the “first” first try.  Or rather, us.  But noone but the two of us know that yet.  I don’t want them to know.  I just hope that this try will be the last, even though they went looking for another hopeful.  I just hope that we made the right choice to stay with this batch.  Kim-R might not turn out too badly, if it’s not tampered with.

But if it is, then by everything I have seen and will see yet, we will tamper back.  Both of us, Harland Wright and I, Amy Ferring.  That is why we are staying here, to make sure that this does succeed.  Not even Jeremy can do anything to ruin this hope.

After all, this hope is really all we have left, relics that we are now.

Signed, Amy Ferring Wright, Lab Mechanic 12, Agriculturist 3,
Co-caption of The IHD Venture

Dated March 12, 2374 A.D.   

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