The Settlers Project

Settlers Project

By LuAnn Williamson

The old woman sat in front of the window of her room. Paper white skin of her fragile cheeks resting on spotted hands. Her attention wavering between the window and the young woman, sitting in the chair next to her. 

               “Thank you for agreeing to see me,” A beige hand with brightly painted fingernails brushed a strand of wavy, black hair away from dark brown eyes, the color of the rare chocolate. The woman pushed back a wave of nostalgia that threatened to engulf her in memories. Remembering a time, so very long ago, when chocolate was for sale in every grocery store, mini-mart and drug store. It only cost a few dollars, back when they dollar was currency of a place called the United States still existed as a nation.

               “Why not?” The old woman quipped.  “I’ve got nothing but time.” She tugged on a faded flight suit that hung off her body. “The Doctors tell me I still score well on my mental cognition tests.”

               “Just give me a minute to get set up,” the girl jumped out of the chair, putting recording equipment on the small table set up on the opposite of both of them.

               “While you’re getting your equipment ready, the staff has kindly made some red leaf tea,” the woman waved her hands at the small table opposite the camera. “They’ve got wheat growing here. Do you believe that? Finally growing wheat on Centauries 7? We have cookies. I hope you’ll try them. I must admit, they’re not as good as on Earth. Someday, you’ll realize what monumental progress it is.”

               “Are you ready to start?” The girl wore a hopeful look on her face with finely sculptured features. The woman nodded.

           “I am Rebecca Francis, interviewing Constance, Connie, Armstrong for The Settler’s Project. This is summer the twenty fifth of year ninety nine, beginning at fifteen hundred hours. Converted Earth date is June 16, 3021. “

               The woman pulled her attention toward the camera. The sky was already darkening into a peridotite green which would deepen into emerald color of a cloudless sky. Everything on Centauries 7 moved faster, with sunrises and sunsets coming every eighteen hours, compared to Earth’s twenty four hours. It made the pace of events seem faster.

               “Is it true that you are the Great-Granddaughter of Neal Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon?”

               “No. I’m the Great-Grand Niece.” She poured the pale red drink into the molded plastic cups. “As you know, the Armstrong family has accomplished many great things after our ancestor made his incredible accomplishment. Well, that spirit has carried on me,” She gave the camera a wink. “Since I was tiny, all I cared about was space. Science, math, engineering were just tools in exploration. Of course, I joined the Space Force right out of college.”

               Becca, as she was called, asked a few questions about her college majors and graduations dates.

               “I may have passed my cognition tests,” Connie continued. “That doesn’t mean I recall each name, date or place of every little bit of schooling I took. Realize, I was climbing out of test ships in the afternoon and picking up a tablet to study in the evening. We were a driven lot, that’s for sure. Competition with competitive people, just for the few spaces on the first ships with faster than light drives.” Connie picked up her cup, inhaling the fragrance of the tea made from the native plants, some of the few not toxic to human metabolism.  “Sometimes I wonder if my name gave me a boost in being selected as one of the first people on the first planet to be settled.”

               The interview went on with questions about her childhood, her teenage years, parents and family.

               “Tell me what Earth is like?” The girl asked. “I’ve never been there?”

               “Really,” Connie’s eyebrows may have thinned but they were still powerful when they arched above her ice blue eyes. “Are you second generation?”

               “No,” the girl shook her head so hard that wisps of curly hair escaped from her headband. More and more often, there were luxuries, like barrettes and nail polish that graced the younger generation. “I’m third generation. Daughter of Toni Francis, first child born on Centurions.”

               The old woman shook out her short, silver hair. She’s worn it close cropped for most of her life. “I remember. It was all over the news feeds for months. How does that make you feel?”

               Becca shrugged her delicate shoulders. “Not much of anything.  Sometimes when I was a teenager I rebelled against the idea that my Grandparents made a choice on my behalf and I didn’t get any input in the matter. But then someone pointed out that I was a child of those who were forcibly relocated to the United States.” She made an ironic face.

               She sipped her tea, as if thinking about the next question.

               “I know that the one hundredth anniversary of your landing is coming up in a few days. Centauries 7 calendar, of course. Tell me, do you still think more in terms of Earth time or Centauries time?

               Connie stared out the window. She wondered if she looked long enough, hard enough, the correct answer would appear. 

               “I still think in both time frames. But I’ve lived here far longer than on Earth. We, I mean the first settlers, were here only a few months before we realized that Earth time wouldn’t work well on another planet. Instead of twelve months, we just went with four seasons. Instead of 24 hours, we have 18. It works. A lot of the old holidays didn’t work at all, like Independence Day, especially since we were a multi-national crew.” Connie paused. “You can read all about that in their Biographies. That’s required reading in school.”

               Becca scrunched up her face at that remark.

               “So, tell me what was like? Landing on another planet.”

               “When we found out that we were going to land exactly on the planet’s solstice, Captain Josh Hammel actually ordered another rotation around the planet and a slowed down landing. That way, we landed at exactly noon, on the Summer Solstice, planetary time.”

               Connie watched the sky darkening slowly into the deepest shade of emerald.

               “What was it like? The landing? The first Summer Solstice celebration?”

               “Those are big questions for an old woman. I’m one hundred and thirty nine this year. You know the Las Vegas odds makers gave us a fifty-fifty chance of seeing another birthday on this planet?” She laughed. “I image most of them are dead by now. And no way to collect the bet if I did bet on myself."

               “First, the landing itself. For me, mostly it was the feeling of anticipation. I think the other crew members felt the same way. We were selected for our congeniality as well as our scientific knowledge and military skills. But we were a grumpy group; for about a month or month and a half before landing.   Minor disagreements became major issues, petty spats were rampant. I’d have been happy if I never saw any of those people again! But on a small ship, designed to keep us alive in hostile environments of space, there was no room to get away from one another. Get the picture?”

               Connie stared out the window, watching the last of the emerald green sky fade to black. She took so long answering that Becca looked at her carefully to see if she’d fallen asleep.

               “Sorry,” Connie said. “I guess I got stuck in the past. Us Old Ladies tend to do that sometimes. Just humor us.” She winked.

               “Of course, the Captain got the honor of the first to step out of the ship. Of course, the hatch door, so pitted by micro meteorites, got stuck.” Connie laughed at the memory. “Fortunate, or unfortunately, that clip was released on a blooper reel. I’m sure you’ve seen it a dozen times.” They both giggled.

               “Captain Josh, in full space suit, of course, walked slowly down the ladder.  When his feet touched down, he made a little speech. After all, we had five years to write our speeches. I was fifth down the ladder. That meant nobody was paying much attention to me. I made a small talk about the famous words of my famous ancestor. Of course I said, “humanity,” not “mankind.” It’s less sexist.

               “I heard your speech.” Becca said, slipping it in when her subject took a deep breath.

               “Before or after you were sent to interview me?”

               “Before. Last year to be exact. We listened to all the speeches, one at a time, in history class.” She smiled a smile worthy of a newsfeed opportunity. “But I did listen to it again while I was doing my research.”

               “After I made my little recitation for the ages, the first thing I did was bent over and kissed the ground. Well, I bend over, clumsy suit and all, and laid my head on the ground.” Later, after the Captain took off his helmet, I took off mine and I did it again. This time, lips full onto Centauries soil.”

               “What did it taste like?” Becca wondered.

               Connie laughed. “I don’t know. I wiped my lips off, just out of camera range.” Her eyes twinkled at her question.

               “So what’s it like to be out of a space ship after so long in space?”

               “Even with faster than light speeds, we were still on the ship almost five Earth years. You’ve been into space on school field trips. To the moons and back, even as close to the sun as you could safely get. Gone a week, two weeks?” Becca held up 3 fingers. “Three weeks CT? Centauries Time?” Imagine being on the same ship, seeing the same twenty people, for almost five years!”

               Connie picked up the cookie, flicking it with her fingernail. It felt hard. She tasted it. Could something be described as tasting hard? It reminded her of cardboard; common on Earth, rare here on a planet without trees. She looked out the window as if wishing could make her see. Just over the next few hills were planted sapling cottonwood trees.

               “So set the scene for me,” Becca said. “you’ve just kissed the ground, in a symbolic act. What did you do next?”

               “We spent days arguing about which song should be played as the first song on a new planet. We decided to let the computer select something at random. With an irony that still pleases me today, it was “Major Tom” by David Bowie. Of course, I started dancing. Most of us did. We had to rotate in and out of the ship while someone stayed behind in case of an emergency. 

When we rotated back out of the ship, most of us had our allotment of alcohol in our hands. I’m not sure what we would have done if there had been a real emergency. We got drunk. As in almost unable to get back up the ladder, singing along to the music, hugging everybody, drunk. Somebody thought it would be a good idea to burn the MREs that we’d been living on for what seemed like an eternity. Without any food, but prepared meals, we decided we would do a symbolic burning. We each picked the one package we hated the most, doused it with a bit of fuel and set the whole pile on fire, along with some of the cardboard cartons they came in. We regretted burning the cartons later. 

That’s where the tradition of burning unwanted items on the solstice began.” Connie took another bite of the cookie. “Now the burning is symbolic, as well as literal. What did I symbolically burn? What will I write on a piece of rare paper and put into the fire? My expectations; I want to get rid of what I expect to do and live more in the moment.”

The sky was now black and the thousands of stars were visible. Because only the habitation modules were above ground, there wasn’t the light pollution as there was on Earth.

“NASA sent us the unlock codes,” Connie began speaking again. “The storage units that were locked till we landed were unlocked. There were letters; I mean real paper letters, from our loved ones. Best of all, there was food, chocolate, coffee and things we thought we’d never taste again. Like apples, vacuum sealed and stored with new technology. That’s where the tradition of eating apples began. Now, just a hundred kilometers away, they are planting apple trees. I don’t expect you to understand. I’m glad you won’t have to understand, just how wonderful that is. Hopefully, in a few years and hopefully I’ll be around to see them, we can have the first apples grown on the planet.”

“Do you miss Earth?” Becca said gently.

“Every. Single. Day. Do I regret the choice I made? To be entirely honest, most days the answer is no. But it’s not that simple, is it? Life doesn’t come in nice, neat sound bites.” She paused a few seconds. “Unless it’s from NASA. They specialize in press releases and sound bites.” She made an ironic chuckle.  “I mean I knew this was a one-way mission when I took it. I didn’t know I was trading blue sky for green. I mean my mind knew it. I’d seen the videos & read the reports. But not in my heart. It’s hard to explain. I was still young, still a bit naïve and very driven. I was fueled by the ubiquitous god of science. So do I regret it? The short answer is no. The long answer: it’s complicated.”

“So, there you go. The beginning of the Summer Solstice celebrations. The fire, the feasting, the music, the drinking and dancing. Maybe you’d sneak off with someone to do some private celebration.” She wiggled her eyebrows. Becca giggled.

They talked a bit more. Becca’s schooling, what Connie hoped to accomplish in her life, however long. 

“What do want your legacy to be?” Becca asked, hopeful look on her face.

“Do you want the sound bite version? In that case, “I hope to be remembered by history as contributing to settling another planet that has become my home.” That’s a nice, easily digested snack bite. The truth is much more complicated. I expect that if I’m remembered at all, it will be a list of the first settlers on the planet. Nobody cares what I discovered scientifically. But I know that I added quite a bit to the knowledge of this planet and a little bit to astronomy, zoology, biology and much more.” She looked around the tiny room. It had been her home for so many years.

Becca thanked her warmly. Patting the old woman’s shoulder. “Can I give you a hug?”

“Absolutely,” They embraced and let it convey what words just could not.

               Once her visitor left, Connie sat in her chair, staring out the window at the scattered stars. A feeling of nostalgia mixed with melancholy swept over her. She allowed herself some introspection.

               Suddenly there was a knock on the door. She thought it must be Becca, needing to retrieve a forgotten item.

               “Come,” she forced her voice to be loud enough to carry.

               Standing in the doorway with a stoppered beaker was the last settler besides herself. Natasha Chin, born to a Russian mother and Chinese father, had features that reflected the best of both worlds. Hazel eyes, even if surrounded by wrinkles, still sparkled with mischief.

               “Is that what I think it is?” Connie asked, blinking her eyes to make sure her visitor was real. 

               She put painted fingertips against unnaturally pink lips. “Shush! Do you want to get us into trouble?” She sounded like a naughty school child.

               “It’s a bottle of Centauries’ finest moonshine. This stuff has a real kick to it.” Natasha stepped into the room. “Computer, play Major Tom.” She helped herself to the last two glasses in the cupboard.

               “I know that those visitors from The Settler’s Project make you nostalgic,” her coworker and friend continued. “So I thought we could start our solstice celebration a little early. We can write our silly little speeches with a bit of lubrication.”

               Connie shut the door behind her. “At our age, nobody can even remember which day it is. It seems like Solstice to me.” She took the glass from her friend, “Here’s to the wise people of NASA who packed an extra backup to the backup to the water distillation equipment. And the freeze dried grapes with a warning label not to ferment them.”