Circadian Rhythms in the Cold

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

I had screamed for a little bit, but then that had stopped. My frantic breathing slipped into quiet sips of oxygen. I was cold, so cold. Still scattered around me, I saw the wreckage of Gaia, the ship that had been my home since I was an embryo in its lab. I had never known anything else. Three thousand of my siblings bore the same face as mine, the same eyes, same reserved smile and all had shared Gaia with me. Gaia was an oasis in the emptiness of the universe, a ship that had raised us, sheltered us and fed us. Gaia was our garden. Gaia was home.

Now she was gone and so were they.

For the first time in my life, I was completely alone. Deeper than the nature of twins, my siblings and I had always been able to read each other ever since we were young, anticipating each other’s needs before we ever spoke them. Since this was the case, we never really talked much. It was why us clones were so important to The Great Diaspora, the collective of humanity living across a hundred planets and moons. We didn’t pursue petty feuds or descend into selfish greed and space-madness, like the motley womb-born crews of the first space arks. No, we were efficient. We moved and worked and thought almost as if we were one organism. We didn’t panic. We held no secrets or surprises. We were obedient. We weren’t heroes, we just did our job and it was an important one. We were tough.

Somehow this all now seemed laughable as I spied the floating entrails and seared bones of my siblings, almost hypnotic as they fluttered against the backdrop of the stars. For all our skill and intellect, in the end we were bags of blood and bone just like the womb-born.

My monitor gently reminded me that I had approximately an hour and sixteen minutes left of oxygen. What to do with this time I have left, I wondered, as if by instinct. My fingers twitched and a part of my brain whirred with desire and intention.

There must be something I can do.

Stop it, I hissed at myself, There is nothing you can do. There is nothing to do! Not anymore.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale again.

Breathing was at least something to do, but soon it would see an end to the dwindling reserve of oxygen I had left.

One hour and fourteen minutes to go.

What was it all for?

One hour and thirteen minutes to go.

Why did this happen?

One hour and twelve minutes to go.

I was confused.

One hour and eleven minutes to go.

Why?

You see, it had come like a phantom. Two nights ago, I had been in my bed, ready to embrace the darkness of sleep, to recharge and rest for my nutrition packaging shift the next day. I had closed my eyes, ready to sync up with my normal circadian rhythms. It was like any other day and night. Then it became different. Then it began.

Something I did not recognize, like holograms underneath my eyes, unfamiliar and distorted began to stir and shimmer into life. Nothing about them made sense and yet in a way, they made more sense than anything I had ever known.

I dreamed.

I remembered reading that word in the dictionaries we had been given a century ago when we had last berthed in a womb-born base. Even though they had been recalled two decades back and we had burned them, I faintly remembered the word, though it held no meaning for me. Just letters pressed together. It was womb-born nonsense and besides, there were far more important things to preoccupy oneself with. After all, there was the work and the work was never done. We were responsible for the well-being of The Great Diaspora. We were made for this. This was our great purpose.

I dreamed.

Underneath my eyelids I saw more than I had ever seen in all my years exploring through the cosmos. I saw worlds, I saw people, I saw eyes and things I could not fathom. I heard sounds, whispers and voices. I smelled things I could not name. I saw…why did I see it…I…I saw…everything.

And like some kind of poison, my brain slowly began to begin to understand what I was seeing.

I saw families. I saw picnics by a river. I saw trembling hands and first kisses. I saw love and hate. I saw babies being born to their mothers. I saw secrets, banquets, heartbreak, famine and euphoria.

I dreamt of murder.

Then I awoke.

I went to work. I could feel my siblings’ eyes on me. Looks of subtle confusion. For the first time in my life I felt…different. I felt like an outsider.

Measuring the nutrition pouches at the assembly line, my eyes glazed over and my production slowed. My mind drifted.

What was I doing here?

I went through the motions until I clocked out, the stares of my siblings more intense than before. It felt like their eyes were everywhere, the walls were closing in all around me, the beams of Gaia’s walls became a ribcage clutching me like a mining claw. There was no escape except for the sleep that awaited me in my bed.

Last night, I closed my eyes. For a while there was the darkness I’d always known before, but then it began to stir once again. I was dreaming.

Flying kites, improbable monsters and fairytales. Bombs and shrapnel. Fireworks. A kind face. A woman I did not know the name of. I had never seen a woman in person. Her dark skin bloomed into a smile as she reached a gentle hand towards me.

Then her body fractured, like broken glass.

I was torn as if by fish-hooks and ropes out of my dream, back into the waking world drenched in sweat.

“Brother 30824, you are dysfunctional.”

All around me stood my brothers, their faces reflecting my own but more solemn than stone. They seized me roughly as one, my hands, my legs. I was dragged out of my bed.

The sentencing went quickly. It was obvious I was not like the others now, impossible to ignore. There was no need to debate, no evidence to examine and cross-examine. That was that. I knew what came next. I had seen it myself twice before, even helping my brothers to apprehend them. Those failures. Those abominations.

Yes, I knew what came next.

I was given a space-suit. My oxygen filled for two hours. My brothers said goodbye to me as one, reserved smiles on every one of their faces. As the doors to the cold cosmos opened, I could sense my replacement was immediately being conceived in the lab to take my place. The inner doors behind me shut and slowly began to move towards me, to push me into the endless expanse. The end result would be the same, so with no other choice, I took a step and left Gaia.

I floated slowly away and at first the distance between me and Gaia was subtle, no more than a few feet. But as my monitor counted down the minutes, a few feet became marathon after marathon of distance.

Then the light appeared.

At first it mimicked a star, small and inconsequential…oh so far away. But then it grew and grew and before I knew what had happened, it hit Gaia.

It destroyed Gaia and the debris sent me hurdling. Soon enough, stillness once again found me and I looked at where my home had once been.

My brothers and my little brother replacement, the data logs, the nutrition pouches…all of it was gone. What remained of them was singed, fleshy or liquid turned to ice.

And all of a sudden I was completely alone, with only myself for company.

Well, here I am.

I come back to the present as the monitor gently reminds me, its own battery low now too.

Seven minutes to go.

The cold begins to sink in, deeper now, inescapable.

I close my eyes.

I smile an open, unrestrained smile.

I’m hoping to dream.