Light Delay · Episode 7
Crew
A day on the Tamsin, and the first argument four people can't walk away from. In 2088, Lena Cho's brother calls from Portland: his sister's last message ends the way they always did, and Perihelion has been asking him about the way home.
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A summer night in the kitchen, crickets outside.
Theo Message thirty-two. Sunday, the twenty-sixth of May, twenty forty-one. Eight and a half days.
Theo He called it "A Day on the Tamsin". He'd been promising it since launch.
A soft playback chime.
The ship under thrust, a deep steady engine rumble.
Michael Okay. A day on the Tamsin. Six a.m., the lights come up slowly, like a sunrise, except it's a lightbulb, so it's not that much like a sunrise.
Michael Six-fifteen, Tomas makes the coffee. Tomas makes the coffee because Tomas says nobody else can be trusted with the coffee, and he's right.
Michael Seven, Anika checks us all. Heart, blood, eyes, the lot. She writes everything down in a little notebook. A paper one. She says computers forget, and paper doesn't.
Michael Then we work. I keep the ship running. Tomas keeps it pointing the right way. Anika keeps us alive. And Lena polishes rocks.
Michael That's not fair. Lena's a geologist. She brought forty rocks from Earth, so she'll have something to compare Halcyon to. But she does polish them. She says it calms her down. She's polishing one now. Say hi, Lena.
Michael She's waving. She doesn't like microphones.
Michael Evenings, Tomas plays chess. Not with us. With a man in Lisbon he's never met. The man won a contest to be his opponent. Every move takes a week to get there and a week to come back. They're on move six. Tomas says he's winning. The man in Lisbon says he's winning. Over.
The message ends with a soft click.
The series theme, with the title card over it.
Announcer Light Delay, presented by the VoiceFrequency Network. Episode seven: Crew.
A summer afternoon in the kitchen, a fan turning, birds outside.
Theo On Monday, Mikey did what I had never once done in forty-seven years. He looked up the other three families.
Mikey Anika Rao didn't have kids. Her mother died in twenty fifty-one. Tomas Varga's daughter lives in Prague, and she's not talking to anybody. And Lena Cho has a younger brother. David. Portland, Oregon. Retired band teacher. He gave a TV interview on Sunday night. He said they got a message from Lena that morning.
Theo The same morning.
Mikey The same morning. Four-twelve.
Theo Did he say what was in it?
Mikey He said it was private. I emailed him.
Theo You emailed him.
Mikey I said I was Michael Hale's grandson. He's calling at six.
A phone rings once and is answered.
David Is this Theo? Theo Hale?
Theo It's Theo.
David David Cho. Lena's brother. Your boy wrote me. I hope you don't mind. I've been wanting to call you for about forty years, and I never did, so.
Theo I know what you mean.
David I was eleven when they left. You were nine. I remember seeing you on the news, at the launch. You had a sign.
Theo It said "Over and out". I'd spelled "over" wrong.
David That was it. Listen. Your boy asked about the message. I don't mind telling you. We played it Sunday night. My mother's ninety-three, and she wanted to hear it before she, well. It's eleven minutes. It's Lena. She tells us about the planet a little. She tells my mother to stop worrying. She says goodbye.
Theo Goodbye?
David She always said goodbye. At the end of every one. Since she was twenty-six. "Goodbye for now."
Theo David. Under the message, on the player. Is there a line? "Family channel: closed by sender"?
David No. No line. It just ends, like the others. Why?
Theo Ours has one.
David Huh.
David I'll tell you the other thing, since you're asking. A man from Perihelion came on Tuesday. Very polite. He asked to listen, and I let him. I didn't see the harm. He sat in my kitchen and listened to all eleven minutes, and then he asked me whether Lena had ever mentioned the plant.
Theo The plant.
David That's what he said. "The plant." I said my sister was a geologist, not a gardener. He didn't laugh.
Theo What did you tell him?
David Nothing. I didn't know anything. I still don't. Do you?
Theo I'm not sure yet.
David Will you call me, when you are?
Theo I'll call you.
The call ends.
Mikey What plant?
Theo There was a fuel plant. On the ship. It was in every brochure. You land, you set up the plant, it makes fuel out of whatever's there, and you fill up and come home. They called it "the way home". It was on the poster in my classroom.
Mikey And?
Theo And nobody from Perihelion has asked me about it. Not once.
A summer night in the kitchen, crickets outside.
Theo Thirty-three and thirty-four are short. A rock Lena polished for me. A drawing Tomas did of the man in Lisbon, from his imagination. He gave him a hat.
A soft playback chime.
Theo Message thirty-five. Friday, the fourteenth of June. Thirteen days.
The ship under thrust, a deep steady engine rumble.
Michael Hey, buddy. I'm going to tell you something I'm not proud of, because I said I'd always tell you the truth, and this counts.
Michael Perihelion sent a message today. The further away we get, the harder it is to send things home. The transmitter is only so strong. And they want more of its time for the science. So from now on, each of us gets one message home a week. One. That's the rule now.
Michael Anika read it out at dinner. And I didn't take it well. I said some things. Loud things. I said they were cutting off our families to save a few minutes of radio, and I said that to Anika, like it was her fault. It wasn't her fault. She's the commander. It's her job to say yes to them.
Michael And here's the thing about a ship, Theo. On Earth, when you have an argument, you can go for a walk. You can slam a door and drive around the block. Up here, there's no block. There's a corridor, and it's forty meters long, and at the end of it is Anika. And then it's breakfast, and she's sitting there.
Michael So. One a week. I'm going to pick Sundays. That way you'll always know which day to listen. Over.
The message ends with a soft click.
Back in the kitchen.
Mikey Sundays.
Theo Every one after that. Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. For eleven years of his time. He never missed a Sunday.
Mikey Did they make up? Him and Anika?
Theo Next one.
A soft playback chime.
Theo Message thirty-six. Sunday, the sixteenth of June. Father's Day.
The ship under thrust, a deep steady engine rumble.
Michael It came. Your Father's Day message. It came this morning, at breakfast. On the day. Right on the day.
Michael Your mom says you worked it out yourself, when to send it. That's harder than you think, going your way. I'm running away from your messages, so they have to catch me up, and they take longer than mine do. You worked that out. At nine. I sat in my bunk and played it four times.
Michael And the card. The one you held up to the camera. The rocket with "World's Furthest Dad" on it. It's going on the wall next to the other one. Tomas says it's accurate.
Michael Now, somebody wants to say something.
Anika Hello, Theo. It's Anika. I want you to know something, and your father won't say it, so I will. On Friday, your father fought very hard for you. He lost. But he fought. And I'm the one who said no. So if you're cross with somebody about the Sundays, be cross with me. Not him.
Anika We had breakfast this morning. It was fine. Tomas told a joke. It was a terrible joke. We all laughed anyway. That's how a ship works.
Michael That's how a ship works. Happy Father's Day to me. Over.
The message ends with a soft click.
Back in the kitchen.
Mikey You did work it out yourself? At nine?
Theo No. I got it wrong by a day. I'd used his rule, and his rule only works one way. My mother redid it and didn't tell me. I found her sums in a drawer when I was thirty, next to the cereal box.
Mikey She let him think you did it.
Theo She let me think I did it. That's worse. Or better. I've never decided.
Mikey Same time tomorrow?
Theo No. Not tomorrow.
Mikey Okay.
Footsteps going up a wooden staircase.
A summer night in the kitchen, crickets outside.
Theo Lena's message is eleven minutes long, and it just ends. She says "Goodbye for now", like she always did.
Theo My father's is six hours long, and he closed the channel behind it.
Theo And Perihelion sat in David Cho's kitchen and asked about the way home.
Theo We stopped, after that. Three weeks. Mikey had a deadline at the lab, and I went to see my mother every day and talked about anything else. Message thirty-seven would keep. It had kept for forty-seven years.
Theo We started again on the Fourth of July.
The closing theme, the piano under the announcer.
Announcer You've been listening to episode seven of Light Delay, on the VoiceFrequency Network.
Announcer In our next episode: the Fourth of July, in two summers forty-seven years apart. And Dana Whitcomb finally tells Theo what Perihelion is offering.