AntipodeanSF Issue 321

By Jemma Pollari

The day before the end of the world was announced, Raina and Harry waited, watching, in their government-appointed apartment. Below, activity silenced by thick glass swarmed in the concrete expanse bounded by chain-link and razor wire.

‘What will happen?’ Raina said, for something to say. She knew the answer. Panic. Riots. Disbelief. Denial. 

Her husband didn’t reply. The script was open in his hands. Preparing, practical, as always.

Raina’s fingers tightened on her copy. Her life’s work, filtered down to a single sentence of a paragraph that began Possible avenues for saving humanity include…

Harry’s life work: same paragraph, different sentence.

She leaned her forehead against the window. Juxtaposed at either end of the concrete world were the Doors. Doors that would be forbidden to all but the minutest fraction of humankind. Her Door went up, white and gleaming. Harry’s Door went down, steel and basalt-grey.

Two chances. 

She sighed, closed her eyes. ‘What are we going to do?’

***

She had worked through her pregnancy with Ronin. No allowance in the Timeline for human pauses. She breastfed through meetings. Slept between conference calls. Stole moments with him as a chubby toddler, curling around his sleeping form in the blue-grey predawn. Waved as his nanny took him to kindy, to prep, to first grade.

The day after the announcement, Raina closed her browser on the headlines, the denials, the memes. She left her team and went to the faculty park with Harry and their son.

In the square of corralled nature, she watched as Ronin ran. He spun, shouted, fell to the plush grass with a laugh. 

All of this would be gone. 

Her beautiful boy would never see the sky again.

‘We can’t lock him beneath the ground,’ she murmured.

‘At least he will be on Earth,’ Harry replied. His knuckles turned white. ‘Isn’t that worth it?’

‘Worth never seeing the Sun–any sun–again?’

‘This is home,’ Harry said. ‘Home has to mean something.’

Ronin returned triumphantly, something in his fist.

‘Look, Mumma,’ he said, opening his fingers. ‘For you. D’you like it?’ He flopped down, limbs colt-like, and gazed at her, eyes bright and blue as the ozone above, full of future and hope.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she agreed in a whisper, holding the bruised dandelion bud tight.

***

‘The Trappist-1 system is 41 light years away,’ Raina said. ‘The Soteria will be staffed first by a stewardship crew. Over time,’ she cleared her throat, ‘the ship’s operation will be passed on, to younger generations. These stewards will protect the precious lives of our fellows, who will sleep through the journey unaware, and wake when’–she withheld the if –‘we reach planet Trappist-1e.’

She laid out the mission specifics. Details of the lottery. Systems to let future generations join the sleepers. Took questions, the same, over and over, spiraling, because this was insane. Impossible, yet reality.

When she could take it no more, she said, ‘Final question, please. Rosalie?’ 

The journalist stood. ‘What will your place on the Soteria be?’ Rosalie asked. ‘Steward or sleeper?’

‘No final decisions have been made,’ Raina said. The prepared remark.

‘But you’re head of Project Soteria,’ Rosalie continued, voice ringing. ‘Your husband is Harry Caspar, head of Project Chrysalis. Where is your son going to grow up? In space, in a madcap dash for a new planet? Underground, in a bunker, maybe outlasting the destruction on the Earth’s surface? A lottery for Soteria, a lottery for Chrysalis: each a chance of a chance. What do you have to say to families out there who have no idea how to choose? What are you and your husband going to do?’

Raina’s gaze found Harry at the back of the room, waiting his turn to take the stage. His face was infinitely sad.

‘We don’t know,’ she said.

***

Endless hours. Discussion. Pros. Cons. Ronin finished first grade. The Timeline moved forward. Panic increased. So did denial. Cities fell. Others were abandoned. 

‘We’re out of time,’ Raina spoke the words to cameras, to Harry, to her team. ‘The ship is ready.’ She saw Soteria in her geosynchronous orbit on the back of her eyelids when she tried to sleep, the long ovoid gleaming against the blood-streaked grey of Earth’s failing troposphere below.

‘Chrysalis is ready.’ Harry didn’t voice his arguments anymore. Nor did she. They had all been made.

‘The time’s come.’ Raina’s boss called her and Harry into his office. He stabbed at a Timeline calendar thick with red crosses. ‘Soteria launches next month. The Chrysalis is going to be sealed. Where are we putting you?’

At home, with Ronin, they sat, hands held, one to the other, a circle.

‘And that’s where we’ll live?’ he asked, when Raina and Harry finished speaking.

Raina nodded. 

‘And… we’ll be ok? We’ll be together?’

‘Always,’ Raina said.

Harry brushed the boy’s dark hair from his eyes. ‘We’ll keep you safe.’

*** 

The Door closed with a hiss, a thrumming thud. The base note of a dirge. Their decision echoed in the dim space of the inner lock. The background machines whirring, keeping them alive, would be a sound she’d learn to ignore as the days turned to weeks, to months and years.

‘Did we do the right thing?’ Harry’s hand tightened on hers.

‘We did it for him,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘Together,’ he said, voice thick.

‘Together,’ she whispered. She laid her head on his chest. Felt the thrum of his heart. Her feet, Harry’s feet, would never touch a planet’s surface again. The hard shell protecting them from death outside would be their coffin. They would die here, after a life lived for others’ futures.

If they were lucky, their son would run free again, one day. Breathe real, unfiltered air. Feel starlight on his face. 

Voices on the intercom filtered through, calling her, calling Harry, to their posts. It was time for this new existence to begin.

It would be a good life, she decided. They would make it so. Together.

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About the Author

jemma pollari 300Jemma Pollari is an author writing speculative fiction to explore the grey areas of life and what it means to be human.

Chair of the Queensland Writers Centre, she loves helping writers find their people. Jemma has been published in WQ, The Writing Cooperative and beyond, won small competitions, and shortlisted for the Albedo One Aeon Award.

She thrives on doing lots of things: some well, all with gusto. A keen educator, she holds a Ba.Sci.Comm. (Hons), Grad.Dip.Ed. and M.Ed.

Jemma can be found online at jemmapollari.com and can be found writing at specificsociety.com about the joys of science fiction and fantasy, her adventures in the literary industry, and more.

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Issue Contributors

Meet the Narrators

  • Laurie Bell

    lauriebell 2 200

    Laurie Bell lives in Melbourne, Australia and is the author of "The Stones of Power Series" via Wyvern's Peak Publishing: "The Butterfly Stone", "The Tiger's Eye" and "The Crow's Heart" (YA/Fantasy).

    She is also the author of "White Fire" (Sci-Fi) and "The Good, the Bad and the Undecided" (a

    ...
  • Alistair Lloyd

    alistair lloyd 200Alistair Lloyd is a Melbourne based writer and narrator who has been consuming good quality science fiction and fantasy most of his life.

    You may find him on Twitter as <@mr_al> and online at <...

  • Carolyn Eccles

    carolyn eccles 100

    Carolyn's work spans devising, performance, theatre-in-education and a collaborative visual art practice.

    She tours children's works to schools nationally with School Performance Tours, is a member of the Bathurst physical theatre ensemble Lingua Franca and one half of darkroom —

    ...
  • Mark English

    mark english 100Mark is an astrophysicist and space scientist who worked on the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn. Following this he worked in computer consultancy, engineering, and high energy research (with a stint at the JET Fusion Torus).

    All this science hasn't damped his love of fantasy and science fiction. It has, however, ruined his

    ...
  • Marg Essex

    marg essex 200Margaret lives the good life on a small piece of rural New South Wales Australia, with an amazing man, a couple of pets, and several rambunctious wombats.

    She feels so lucky to be a part of the AntiSF team.

    ...

  • Sarah Jane Justice

    Sarah Jane Justice 200Sarah Jane Justice is an Adelaide-based fiction writer, poet, musician and spoken word artist.

    Among other achievements, she has performed in the National Finals of the Australian Poetry Slam, released two albums of her original music and seen her poetry

    ...
  • Michelle Walker

    michelle walker32My time at Nambucca Valley Community Radio began back in 2016 after moving into the area from Sydney.

    As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, I recognised it was definitely God who opened up the pathways for my husband and I to settle in the Valley.

    Within

    ...
  • Ed Errington

    ed erringtonEd lives with his wife plus a magical assortment of native animals in tropical North Queensland.

    His efforts at wallaby wrangling are without parallel — at least in this universe.

    He enjoys reading and writing science-fiction stories set within intriguing, yet plausible contexts, and invite readers’ “willing suspension of

    ...
  • Emma Gill

    Emma Louise GillEmma Louise Gill (she/her) is a British-Australian spec fic writer and consumer of vast amounts of coffee. Brought up on a diet of English lit, she rebelled and now spends her time writing explosive space opera and other fantastical things in

    ...
  • Tim Borella

    tim borellaTim Borella is an Australian author, mainly of short speculative fiction published in anthologies, online and in podcasts.

    He’s also a songwriter, and has been fortunate enough to have spent most of his working life doing something else he loves, flying.

    Tim lives with his wife Georgie in beautiful Far

    ...
  • Geraldine Borella

    geraldine borella 200Geraldine Borella writes fiction for children, young adults and adults. Her work has been published by Deadset Press, IFWG Publishing, Wombat Books/Rhiza Edge, AHWA/Midnight Echo, Antipodean SF, Shacklebound Books, Black Ink Fiction, Paramour Ink Fiction, House of Loki and Raven & Drake

    ...
  • Chuck McKenzie

    chuck mckenzie 200Chuck McKenzie was born in 1970, and still spends much of his time there.

    He also runs the YouTube channel 'A Touch of the Terrors', where — as 'Uncle Charles' — he performs readings of his favourite horror tales in a manner that makes most ham actors

    ...
  • Barry Yedvobnick

    barry yedvobnick 200Barry Yedvobnick is a recently retired Biology Professor. He performed molecular biology and genetic research, and taught, at Emory University in Atlanta for 34 years. He is new to fiction writing, and enjoys taking real science a step or two beyond its known boundaries in his

    ...
  • Merri Andrew

    merri andrew 200Merri Andrew writes poetry and short fiction, some of which has appeared in Cordite, Be:longing, Baby Teeth and Islet, among other places.

    She has been a featured artist for the Noted festival, won a Red Room #30in30 daily poetry challenge and was shortlisted for the

    ...