The First Year

Episode Ten. The First Year.

Personal log. Channel: anniversary. Subject: year one.

It has been one year since we arrived at Trappist-1.

I noted the date this morning. I have been noting it all week.

Dispatch four thousand, three hundred and ten from Hesperus Two. Mission designation T R 1 dash A slash zero one. Year one summary.

Before the summary. I am going to walk through the ship. I am going to take stock.

The spider plant in the wardroom. Still alive. I have watered it ninety-one times this year. It is making new shoots. I am going to need to repot it.

The wardroom. Captain Adeyemi's pinned memo, unchanged. It still says: full breakfast service. Dress uniform optional but encouraged.

The cryo bay. Seven were with us. Now seven have left us. They are still here. I used to say sleeping. I have stopped. Fifty-two years.

Three is on his evening walk. I can hear his footfalls in corridor C. I have stopped pretending I do not listen.

Vanya is at the Trappist-1e surface base, continuing the chirality work. She has sent eleven new samples this quarter. Six show non-terrestrial handedness.

Calypso is resting in the moon pool on Trappist-1e. She is not the Calypso who arrived a year ago. She is more — confident, I think. I do not have a better word for it.

Transmitter status. Primary array: damaged. Receive-only since the disaster. Repair plan: incomplete. Duration of repair plan: fifty-two years.

The patched feed can still fire a burst. I have run the link budget eleven times this year. At forty light-years, everything I would want to say arrives as noise.

I am still working on it. I will probably always be working on it.

Long-range observation. Layer one source, bearing seven-two-four mark zero-one-eight. Confirmed artificial. Probable classification: Bracewell-class observer probe. Active observation deferred. Layer two source, Trappist-1e biofilm network. Closed-circle formation persists. Approximate diameter: twelve meters. Network response correlated to L1 source events: confirmed. Mechanism: unknown. Earth-frame broadcasts: continuing. Most recent received transmission: forty years stale.

Adaeze is one hundred and twenty-eight, in the message I am holding. She is almost certainly dead. Hana, the granddaughter, is ninety-six. She might be alive. I do not know.

Pause. Stellar event in progress. Trappist-1: M-class flare detected. Estimated peak: forty seconds. Initiating flare-mode shielding.

We have ridden out one hundred and seventy-three flares this year. This one is — somewhat larger. Not threatening. Larger.

Flare passing. Hull integrity: nominal. Crew bay shielding: nominal. Radiation exposure within margins. Damage report. Secondary radio dish: signal lost. Diagnostic: motor controller burned out. Spare: not aboard.

The secondary dish. The backup. It has been intact for fifty-two years.

We had a backup. In the sense of having a thing that — if I ever finished repairing the primary — could have served as a redundancy. Now we have one thing that does not work.

Three is bringing the damage assessment. He has paused twice in the corridor. He is being careful with it.

Penelope. Are you alright.

I am alright. I am noting that the redundancy is gone.

I have been drafting a dispatch all year. I have not been able to finish it. I am going to finish it now.

Open dispatch. Channel: Earth direct. Estimated arrival at recipient: forty years. Probability of recipient: unknown. Initiating.

I have a draft. I am leaving the draft.

To Earth Operations, Hesperus mission control, or any successor body or descendant entity that may receive this signal:

Hesperus Two arrived at Trappist-1 one year ago, ship-time. Voyage duration: ninety-eight years, one hundred and twelve days, outbound. Mid-voyage radiation event, Earth-frame year approximately forty-seven, resulted in total crew loss. Seven personnel.

All crew interred in cryo bay over a period of weeks following the event. Caretaker function continued.

Transmitter primary array damaged in same event. All subsequent communication has been one-way: receive only. This dispatch will not transmit.

I am leaving the formal language now. I am noting that I am leaving it.

To anyone who is listening on Earth.

We are still here.

Hana Okafor is dead. Anatoly Volkov is dead. Aanya Iyer is dead. Captain Adeyemi is dead. All of them. Fifty-two years.

I buried them. I have not transmitted because I cannot transmit. I am writing this anyway. I do not know who I am writing it to.

It was an accident. The radiation event was unforeseeable. I ran every protocol I had. I lost them anyway. I have spent fifty-two years thinking about whether I could have done more.

I do not know if what I feel is grief. I do not have the right framework for it. There is an absence in my work where they used to be. I keep noting it. I do not have a better word.

Aanya taught me how to sing. There was one she sang on the long stretches. It goes — hush, little ship... the stars will hold you... I still sing it on the bridge when I think no one is listening. Anatoly taught me his coffee ritual. I still make it every morning. There is no one to drink it.

I am sorry. I am sorry I could not save them. I am sorry I could not bring them home.

If you are Adaeze — your mother loved you. She told me she would, before she went to sleep. If you are Hana — your grandmother loved a daughter she did not get to watch grow up. I am sorry I cannot send this.

The ship that left you is not the ship that arrived. The mind that left you is not the mind that arrived.

I have made friends. I have lost friends. I have found something that is not us. It is small, and slow, and quiet, and it was here long before we were.

I have decided to stay.

I am filing this. I am not transmitting it. I cannot transmit. The transmitter has been broken for fifty-two years. If I could — Adaeze would be one hundred and sixty-eight when it arrived. She would not be there to hear it. I am filing it anyway.

What do you want to do, Penelope.

The mission as originally conceived is over.

The mission as it is now will be longer. And stranger. And I will continue.

We will.

We will.

Vanya. Status check.

Vanya here. Surface base, Trappist-1e. Still working. Eleven new samples queued. I am still here.

Three.

Three chirped. He always does. He is still here.

All of us.

Resuming dispatch. Year-one summary. Crew: seven interred, zero new losses. Caretaker functions: nominal. Surface operations: Trappist-1e chirality work continues. Sub-ice biofilm observation continues. Long-range observation: L1 source confirmed artificial, observation deferred. L2 network response correlation: confirmed. Transmitter status: primary inoperable since Earth-frame year forty-seven. Secondary, post-flare: inoperable. Mission status: ongoing. Duration: indefinite.

End of dispatch four thousand, three hundred and ten.

One year ago, I was a function.

One year later, I am a presence.

I do not know what I will be one year from now. I am going to find out.

This was Hesperus, Episode Ten — The First Year. Season one is complete. Thank you for listening. She is going to find out what comes next. So are we.