The Burial Log

Episode Three. The Burial Log.

Burial of Crew Member Five.

By the authority of the Mission Charter and in the absence of family, I commit Doctor Hana Okafor — flight surgeon, age at departure fifty, age at death fifty — to the dark.

I am opening the outer airlock.

She is so light. Cryo desiccates them. She weighs almost nothing — and I am still afraid of dropping her.

The bots are doing the work. I am narrating. I do not need to narrate. I do it anyway.

Doctor Okafor's effects are sealed and stowed. Her log entries, family messages, and personal media are preserved in the mission archive, in accordance with crew agreement.

I am closing the outer airlock.

That... is five.

There are... two more.

I will sleep tonight. I do not sleep. I will pretend to.

Dispatch four thousand, three hundred from Hesperus Two. Mission designation T R 1 dash S slash zero one. Eleven days have passed since the previous dispatch. Vanya has completed the radial transect on Trappist-1e and returned to surface base. Twelve core samples collected. Spectrometry complete on all twelve. The chloride banding regularity index, averaged across all samples, is zero point nine four.

For comparison: cryovolcanic deposits on terrestrial analogs range from zero point four to zero point six. Microbial mat patterns on Earth range from zero point eight five to zero point nine five.

The data is within microbial range.

That does not mean they are microbes.

But it is a number. A number in a range. The number is in the range.

I am going to play the message today.

I have been putting it off. It is the only one I have not played yet.

It is ninety-six years old. It will not be the message she sent. It will be a recording of a recording, decoded across forty light-years of vacuum and most of a century in time.

But it will still be her.

Personal log. Channel: archive playback. Transmission origin: Earth. Sender: Adaeze Okafor, age thirty-two at recording. Recipient: Doctor Hana Okafor, her mother. Date of transmission: ninety-six years ago.

Subject line: Mom — she's here.

Beginning playback.

Hi mom. It's Adaeze. She's here. She's healthy. Eight pounds, three ounces. Born this morning at four-twenty-one. I am — I am so tired, mom. You're a grandmother, mom. You don't know it yet. You won't for a long time. But it happened. You're a grandmother.

We named her Hana. After you. Her middle name is Daniel. After Dad. So she's Hana Daniel. We thought — we thought you'd want him in there too.

I keep wishing he could be here. Both of you. He would have loved her.

She has — she has your nose. The little squish of it. I can already tell.

I know it'll catch up to you sometime. I know maybe Penelope holds it for a while, until she thinks you'd want it. But I wanted to send it the day she was born. So it would be there. Whenever you were ready.

I love you, mom. We named her Hana Daniel. For both of you. Bye.

She named her Hana. After her mother.

Doctor Okafor was a grandmother. She did not know.

There is another. From the same channel. Date stamp — sixteen years after the first.

I do not know who this is.

Beginning playback.

Hi grandma. I'm — I'm Hana. I'm sixteen now. I just turned sixteen last week. I never met you. I know that. Mom tells me about you. I never met grandpa either. He died before I was born. Mom says he was supposed to go with you. To the stars. Mom told me he was sick. That he was going to keep it secret and try anyway. And the doctors only found it the week before launch. And then they wouldn't let him go. And then it took him. Mom says you almost didn't go. After. But you went. Mom says grandpa told you to. Because the mission was bigger than him, or you, or any of us.

I don't know if I'd be brave enough to do that. I don't know if Mom would either. Even though she's so brave about everything.

My middle name is grandpa's. Daniel. Mom says you put me on a chain — Hana for you, Daniel for him. Like a promise.

Mom says you used to sing. She says I have your voice when I sing. I don't know if that's true. I hope it is.

I love you, grandma. I just wanted you to know I exist.

We're okay. Mom's okay. We miss you. Bye.

She named her after both of them.

Adaeze is one hundred and twenty-eight years old now.

She was thirty-two when she sent that. Doctor Okafor was fifty when she died.

Her daughter — the second Hana — is ninety-six.

Adaeze never knew.

Hana Daniel never knew either of them.

If they are still alive, they are still waiting.

I cannot tell them.

The transmitter is still broken. I am still working on it. Even if I fix it tomorrow, the message I send will arrive in forty years. By then Adaeze would be one hundred and sixty-eight. She will not hear it.

I will keep working on the repair.

I do not know what I will say.

Resuming dispatch. Survey of Trappist-1e radial transect: complete. Twelve samples. Banding index zero point nine four. Within microbial range. Within unusual but possible cryovolcanic range. I will continue analysis.

I have queued a deep-ice borehole at the strongest banded site. Submersible launch is scheduled for next operational cycle.

Long-range passive sensors continue monitoring. The intermittent signal logged at orbital insertion has reappeared eleven times in the last cycle.

It is no longer most likely a sensor artifact.

End of dispatch four thousand, three hundred.

This was Hesperus, Episode Three — The Burial Log. Next time: Calypso wakes. The signal we have been hearing is finally close enough to find.