Afterward, I retrieved a worn, blue envelope from between the pages of my favorite book—the biography of Arthur Scherbius—curled up in a chair, and finally read the letter Father and Mother had left for me so long ago.
JAMAL: BALANCE
TWENTY-SIX YEARS LATER
JANUARY 3, 30 YEARS POST LAUNCH DAY (PLD)
2415 CE
“Hellooooo,” said Jamal in his small, sing-song voice. “Computer, helloooo.” The eight-year-old bounced a soccer ball on his knee in front of the access panel. He was supposed to be in class.
“Hello, Jamal,” said the ship’s AI.
“Do I get a new baby brother today?”
“My records indicate that your parents will jointly travel to Hippocrates during their lunch hour to retrieve the next available, fully-gestated clone.”
The boy tossed his ball at the panel and deftly caught it on the rebound. “But is it a brother?” Computers could be so dumb. He’d make them smarter when he grew up.
“The next available clone is that of Nakamura Akane. Her original earned a doctorate in engineering and ship design from the university of—”
“A sister?” Jamal kicked the ball down the hallway. “You’re giving me a sister?” He knocked his forehead against the wall and scrunched his eyes shut in frustration. “Why, computer? What did I ever do to you?”
“I am not in control of the growth patterns. And I had no influence over when your parents submitted their request.”
“Mr. Kaeden?”
“Ah, great,” Jamal grumbled. Through the hall came Dr. Seal, his teacher, carrying the scuffed soccer ball. “You had to tattle on me, too?”
“I do not tattle,” said I.C.C. “Dr. Seal inquired as to your location. You are here. I related such.”
“Thanks a lot, Icey.”
“I.C.C.,” the computer corrected.
“Ice-C-C,” Jamal stuttered. Not so much because he couldn’t say it, but because he hadn’t expected his first attempt to be contested.
“Closer,” I.C.C. conceded.
“Oh, come now,” said Dr. Seal, standing over the boy. “Sometimes children have a hard time with names. We let them use what’s easiest.”
“But they are made to pronounce names correctly when they are not children anymore,” I.C.C. said.
“Yes,” Dr. Seal admitted.
“Then is it not easier for them to learn the correct pronunciation initially? Being told one’s first efforts are acceptable, only to later find out they are not, makes the acquisition of knowledge and skills unnecessarily difficult, regardless of the subject. Why make Jamal learn my name twice when he should only be asked to learn it once?”
Dr. Seal didn’t say anything, just looked down at Jamal with a “can you believe this thing?” crease in his forehead.
But Jamal was with the computer. Yeah, why the heck should he have to learn something twice? What kind of racket were the teachers running?
“Thanks for telling on me, I.C.C.,” Jamal said, articulating every letter.
Brushing off the AI’s quirkiness, Dr. Seal put a hand on Jamal’s shoulder. “Mr. Kaeden,” he said sternly. “You are supposed to be in class.”
“You are, too,” Jamal mumbled.
“Jamal will have to cohabitate with a sibling soon,” I.C.C. explained. “The fact that he was not consulted on its gender seems to have caused him distress.”
“I’m getting a sister,” Jamal said with a pout.
“Sisters are people, too,” said Dr. Seal as he took Jamal by the hand and led him away from the access panel.
Nobody understood. The other kids just made fun of the poopy diapers in his future, and all the grownups either waved aside the problem or seemed mad that he was mad.
“But it’s a girl,” he tried to explain.
The botanist who had come in to educate them on their classroom air garden scrunched up her face. “I’m a girl.”
His ears turned from dark chocolate to strawberry chocolate. I didn’t mean … Ugh. “Yeah, whatever,” he mumbled. “You’re not a sister.” Even if you are, you’re not my sister.
When class finally got out he knew where to go. If anybody in the convoy could understand, it would be Diego.
The ride from Aesop and school to Mira and home could have been spectacular. The convoy had stopped for a few days to check their calculations—which meant they’d popped their SD bubble, and space wasn’t black and empty like normal. It was full of stars.
Extra shuttles swarmed between the main ships, letting the crew take full advantage of the view. On the first day of the stop, Jamal’s teacher had taught class on Holwarda and they’d used the giant telescope. Best. Day. Ever.
Now, if Jamal touched one edge of a shuttle porthole, graphics popped up to label the nebulae and galaxies and systems and stuff. So the ride home could have been cool. But the other kids were loud and pushy. And they talked about dumb things—boring things.
They swapped math riddles and stories about visiting their future workplaces. A favorite game was my mom’s job is better than your mom’s job. Which was silly, because everyone knew his mom, his aðon, had the best job, so why play?
They played the same stuff over and over. Talked about the same stuff over and over. Normally he’d be all for it. Eventually someone would suggest something new, and they would carry it like a banner through the shuttle until the game or rhyme or nickname became stale.
But he could find no comfort in the ritual of tomfoolery today. Who was Tom and who did he think he was fooling, anyway?
It was a phrase Diego used. Apparently he’d taken part in plenty of it during his school days. But, maybe Diego didn’t remember being a kid right. After all, it’d been a really, really, really long time since he’d been to school.
School back on Earth. School on Iceland—which Diego insisted wasn’t really a land made of ice, but Jamal had his doubts.
Jamal blew on a small portion of the window. It didn’t fog up as nicely as the bathroom mirror, but it would do. He drew funny squiggles until a ball hit him in the side of the head.
“Hey, what the—” He picked up the projectile, which had bounced off the seat in front of him and rolled under his feet.
“That’s yours,” said Lewis, moving from three rows forward to join Jamal at the back of the shuttle.
“Sit down,” demanded the shuttle pilot. Thank I.C.C. the pilots rotated. Otherwise Jamal was sure this guy would eventually open the airlock and let the pressure differential suck them all into oblivion.
Lewis stuck his tongue out at the driver as he plopped down next to Jamal. “It’s yours. I got it back from Dr. Seal when he wasn’t looking.”
“Thanks,