the burn

We liked the burn. It was something different.

For a few wonderful minutes we would hear the engines pulse, the ship vibrate and the g force double as we accelerated once more. We liked the feeling: the Fathers said it was how it would be when we reach New Earth. It was a change from routine, and an exciting sensation. It was like a holiday: we would all jump up and down, feeling the pull back to the floor. We're burning! We're burning! They said this is how it had felt on the old world, and how it would be one day at the new one. And it meant we were pushing forward again. Closer.

But one burn time, when I woke up the next period, I found Con standing over me. He said, Otto, Otto, quick! Something is wrong. He almost dragged me out of my bunk. He was a weird kid at the best of times. He had found a way to view the Outside in the non-g section and was always up there staring at it. Most of us had looked once or twice but you soon got bored. Those stars: so many of them: but moving so slow. I can make patterns in them, Con would say. Look! Those three in a line. And those make a square. And slowly, slowly they change. You see that faint red one, next to the brightest one? Yesterday they were much closer together. Of course, I said. We're moving to New Earth. We're travelling. We've always been travelling. So what? They say it makes you go mad if you look Outside. Perhaps Con was a bit mad.

So this time, when he woke me, he dragged me up there again. I always feel queasy when I go no-g. And bash into things. So I went along but hoped to get back soon. Humouring him, like. Con, why don't we go and play a game? No, look, this is important. So I shrugged and said, what? He said, it's since we last burned. Look at the stars. I shrugged again. Same as ever. No – you see that patch there? Right there? That bright star right in front of it? Yesterday it was to the left of it. I don't get it, I said. We're travelling. Then I got it. You mean – before they were going to the left – now they're going to the right?

Yes, before it was a pleasure to burn. But now? Now, it was a bit scary. And they were much more frequent. Where it had been a pleasure to burn and to feel the strange g sensations, we were now worried. There were arguments. Not like the bad days, the war days – just words, but it put us all on edge. Some of us thought we were going backwards. Back to the old world. But that was dead. Con was convinced the whole ship had turned around. No longer accelerating, we were decelerating. The stars were going slower – he was sure of it. It made sense: but he couldn't tell us how the ship had done that. And wouldn't the Fathers tell us what was happening?

Then after a few days they did tell us. But what they said didn't make a lot of sense. The screens suddenly lit up and it was the same face we'd seen before, many times growing up, less often lately. And behind him other Fathers always seemed to be playing games on consoles. And there was a big window where you could see the big brown circle of the old world. It was brown because it was earth, like in the hydroponics fields. Con said it was a huge huge world, much much bigger than the ship, all covered in a hydroponics field. So I said, if it was, why was it dead and they had to leave? But he didn't know.

Attention travellers! Attention! Now the time you have been training for all your lives has come! You are the lucky generation that will reach your new home. Now for the first time, we can lower the shields and you can see it.

There was a strange noise, a noise we had never heard before. Like the slider doors but much much bigger. Then a blinding light. At first we were scared. We thought the ship was coming apart. But then we saw: the stars, like Con had shown me. You could see out of the ship, much bigger than Con's window. And there was a disc. Like the disc seen behind the Fathers, but blue and white.

Twenty ships of travellers set out to worlds like this, and yours will be one of the first to arrive. You are now two hundred and twenty light years from Earth. Soon the auto pilot will place the ship in orbit around Omicron Ceti's third planet. This is New Earth. The building pods will be launched and the first city on your new world will be built. Then the living quarters section will detach and descend to land beside it. The city will be your new home. You all have your designated jobs to do: engineers, agronomists, botanists, miners, constructors, medics, teachers, pilots. Everything you need is in this ship. It is our hope that the city will be the seed corn from which a whole new civilisation will grow. And one day you will be able to contact the travellers of the other ships. Out of the destruction of Old Earth will emerge a whole network of new worlds on which humanity can grow and thrive. We started this journey many generations ago and we are long gone: but we live on in you, our children. Our pride; our future. Long live the children of Earth! Get ready, pilots, for the first phase. In about two days the launch sequence for the building pods will start. Once you have established the best location for the city and landed, the pods will deploy rapidly so that the living section can descend. The auto pilot will do the rest.

The message ended; the screen went blank. Everyone was a bit shocked, silent. We all kept staring out of the new openings at the new world ahead of us, so bright. It was Con that spoke first. It's something to do with the edu screens, he said. He was almost the only one of us that had looked into the edu rooms. Like I said, he was weird. Most of us found it a bit scary down there. It was near the vac section, where all the bad stuff had happened. In the old days, said Con, they used those edu rooms. Some of those words the Father spoke, you could hear and see about them on the screens. What words? End-in-eers. Struct-ers. Medix. I heard them before. They is like games you play to make things happen. Then everyone was talking at once, trying to remember the Father's words. We're not gonna travel any more? What are pods? What are pilots? There's only one pilot and that's Otto Pilot (I was named after him) and he's not a person he's a part of the ship. But you could talk to him, so we decided to go and ask him for help. For some reason they thought me and Con should go, so we went up to the Pilot room.

• Otto Pilot? Can you hear me?
• Yes I can hear you.
• Where are we? Are we still travelling? Or going backwards?
• We are approximately 1.1 billion kilometers from Omicron Ceti and half a million kilometres from Omicron Ceti's third planet, our destination. We will reach orbit there in three days, nine hours. We are still travelling forwards and have completed approximately 99.9994% of the traverse.
• Where did we come from?
• From Earth.
• When did we set out?
• Approximately 402 years, 312 days and 7 hours ago.
• What happens when we get to that place?
• Which place?
• Our destio-nation? The new world? New Earth?

• The building pods will be deployed, a new temporary city will be constructed, and then a few days later the living section will be deployed. Refer to the engineering training modules for further information.
• Do we have to do anything to make that happen?
• The pilots will enter the pods and guide them to a suitable location to establish the city. The pods will then deploy the temporary city structures automatically.
• Who are the pilots?
• I do not have that information. Please consult the ship manifest computer which contains personnel records.
• How do we do that?
• I do not have that information.

We went to Creche to ask her. We loved Creche but she wasn't much help in things like this. She always gave us food and she showed us how to play games, but when we asked if she knew where the many-fast computer is, she said we must wait and ask our mummies and daddies when they came to collect us. This was always her answer when we asked anything new.

Even when we told her that they were in the vac section and could never come out, she always said, don't worry dearies, I'll look after you until they come for you.

So me and Con went to the Edu rooms. Con said there was a screen where you could ask questions. We went and asked it.

• Who are the pilots?
• You will have to consult the ship manifest computer.
• Where is that?
• You can access it through any edu screen.
• Can you open it for us?
• Please state your ID.
• What's an ID?
• ID is your name and personnel reference.
• My name is Con.
• Not recognised.
• My name is Otto.
• Not recognised.

Locka was always the cleverest and also one of the oldest. She could even kind of remember the bad times. At least she said she did. She said she remembered her mummy and daddy, and how she cried when they never came for her, like Creche promised. She was very sad sometimes because she remembered them. I didn't get sad because I didn't remember mine. She was the one that told us how it had been before. In the bad times, she saw people fighting. She remembered screaming. Something had gone wrong. She thought that before, you could go in the vac section: there was air in there. After, it was gone. And the mummies and daddies had all died in there. We were still very little and Creche had looked after us.

So, she said, we should have learned to play games like the mummies and daddies, like the Fathers: we should have been the pilots and the end-in-eers and the struct-ers. They didn't look like fun games, not like the games we liked. Our favourite was finding your way through the mountains game. Locka said it was like old Earth before it died: lots of plants like the hydroponics field but huge and colourful, and the floor was up and down all over the place not flat. The mountains were bigger than the ship! There was water like the pond in hydroponics but huge, so big you couldn't see the end of it, with waves on it as big as the ship and you could go on a board and ride the waves. It is called surfing and I was one of the best.

Con and me went back to the Edu room.

• How do you become a pilot?
• The first year training course consists of three modules. Do you wish to start the first module?

We looked at it but it was a boring game.

• How long does it take to become a pilot?
• Three years to graduation, if all stages are passed successfully.
• How long until the pods get launched?
• One day, fourteen hours.

We waited: the disc got bigger. Soon it filled the windows. It was like a floor under the ship.

Citizens of your new world! You are now in orbit around your new home. It is time to prepare for launch. Pilots, take your positions in the pods. Good luck with the construction of your new city, the seed corn for New Earth!

Some time later, there were strange noises from the vac section. Metallic bangs and crashes. Then the whole ship shook. We could see things moving out from the ship – big metal things, like other ships. They must be the pods. Perhaps they didn't need pilots after all! And smaller things: Con thought they must be the mummies and daddies, released from the vac section when the pods left.

Nothing happened for a few days after the pods disappeared. Then the disc below shifted. The ship shook. We all hung on as best we could as the gravity shifted around some. Then it settled down. The white markings on the world grew bigger and started rushing past, then we seemed to be in them: everything was white. Then we saw black jagged things in front of us. They're mountains, said Locka, like in that game we play. Mountains: but bigger, rougher, blacker.

Con was the first to spot the pods, a long way ahead. They were all mixed up with the mountains, they seemed to be mangled up and bashed to bits. Is that what deploy meant? Have they deployed the new city there? Con was excited: soon we will touch down, he said. The pods were getting closer and closer, faster and faster. Then we can leave the ship and start a new life in a new world, he said. Life is going to be so amazing, he said. When we touch down on New Earth.