Timestone

Chapter Twenty-Six ϟ Memories

My mom's memories flood my mind. Swirling clouds form in the white energy, and suddenly I'm surrounded by noises, colors, and shapes. It all coalesces into a world around me. I can make out walls, windows, tables, and people. I'm not just observing my mom's memory—I'm inside it. But everything is blurry. Nothing seems solid. Ripples and waves distort my new environment.

A woman stands next to me. She walks toward a large window. As she moves, I float beside her involuntarily. It's my mom. I'm like a ghost at her side, observing moments from her past. But I'm not just observing. Her thoughts become my thoughts. Her emotions become my emotions.

We stand aboard a giant space vessel—the Orion. It's the newest and fastest starship in the United Earth Space Administration fleet—the UESA. A few other people stand nearby. I know who they are from my mom's thoughts—my mom's younger sister, my older brother, and . . . the other one is me. Yet, I can't even remember the names of my aunt and brother.

We stand before a large window. Filling the view is a beautiful planet of blue oceans, mountains, deserts, and forests. Earth.

"Get a good look," says the blurry projection of my mom to the others in the memory. "This will be the last time you'll ever see it."

Earth! How had I forgotten my home planet? I think about its rolling, green hills and endless expanses of water. No wonder Tempus feels so foreign. I'm from an entirely different planet!

My surroundings swirl back into energy, which reforms into a different area of the starship. This time, my mom is alone. She's gazing at a large screen that shows the colony planet we're destined for. The planet rotates on the display. It has a few similarities to Earth but is uniquely different. It contains quite a bit more land. And it's more colorful. Patches of purple, red, and green vegetation cover its surface.

My mom begins to reminisce about my dad. He doesn't appear in the memory, but I learn about him from eavesdropping on my mom's thoughts. Ever since he died, my mom has dreamed of starting a new life on a colony planet. She feels excited and proud to accomplish her goal.

My dad was an aerospace engineer. He dreamed of exploring space and new planets. He loved the space technology with which he worked. He had been developing a new type of debris shield for starships. But it failed. Particles tore through the ship, and the engines exploded.

The memory swirls out, and a new one takes its place.

My mom is standing before rows of capsules—just like the one I awoke from in the cave. The capsules are stasis pods. The colony planet lies many lightyears from Earth, requiring decades of space travel to reach. Without the stasis pods, we would spend our entire lives in flight before reaching our destination. The stasis pods will keep us in suspended animation—not living or aging—for the duration of the flight. Decades will pass as we travel, but we won't age a day.

Most of the crew is already in stasis. As the Orion's chief scientist, my mom is making final diagnostic checks on the pods. She stares into the pod before her. My brother's blurry face lies inside. As she thinks about my brother, I learn that he graduated from the Earth Space Engineering Academy at the top of his class and was hired as a junior member of my mom's science team.

My mom moves to the next pod, and I see my face inside it. I followed my brother in the same engineering field but wouldn't complete my studies until we arrived on our new planet.

I look at the metal disc in the temple of my blurry face, and it suddenly makes sense. I remember that most receive the cerebral implant upon turning sixteen. It identifies a person and grants access to specific devices and locations. It's integral technology for schools, training programs, and nearly every occupation.