The massive ship glided soundlessly through the void of interstellar space. The engines were now quiet having finished their job of accelerating the ship to ten percent the speed of light. However, even at this speed, two more centuries would pass before the ship reached its destination: the second planet of the Alpha Mensae star system.

Derek Hughes looked around the cramped control room and couldn’t help but laugh. Those shows he’d watched while growing up had made space flight look so exciting and glamorous, but after three years, he knew better. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair which had worn through in several places.

This isn’t quite what Derek had expected when he entered Exo Colonization Corporation’s contest for free transport to Terra II. Even so, it was better than life on an over populated Earth where everyone but the wealthy lived in factory cities. Sure he had everything he needed, but what he’d always wanted was a place to call his own. Just enough land for a small house and maybe a garden. He wasn’t about to get that on Earth.

He glanced over at the large instrument panel which continued along the side walls of the long narrow room. Screens on the panel displayed the status of all the ships systems. Derek looked over at them occasionally to make sure they were still green, but since an alarm would sound if there was a problem, they didn’t require his full attention.

Looking down watch-like device locked to his wrist, he sighed as he saw it’d be another six years, ten months, and twenty-one days before he could return to stasis. “Looking at it won’t make I go any faster,” he muttered. After his time was up, the device would reactivate his suspended animation pod, allowing him to return to stasis while the next person took over.

Until then it would just be more boredom. The Corporation had been kind enough to load a video library into the ship’s memory, but had woefully underestimated how much would be needed for ten years. He was already on his third time through it.

Looking back, Derek figured he should’ve suspected the contest wasn’t what it appeared to be. The interview was more of an interrogation investigating every aspect of his life and mental state. The physical was even more demanding as he was poked, prodded, and sampled more than all his previous physicals combined. He had no idea why they were going to such extremes for a free trip.

It hadn’t been until the final group of fifteen men and fifteen women were selected that they were told the truth: the trip wasn’t exactly free. Each of them would be responsible for overseeing the ship for ten years. Turns out the fancy A. I. the company had built didn’t work so they decided to squeeze in thirty more people to take its place.

What training they got took less than four days. Their sole job was to monitor the ship’s status. If any issues arose, they were to activate the appropriate automated repair sequence. Derek didn’t like being taken, but for a chance to have a place to call his own, he’d gladly give up ten years of his life.

The object on Derek’s wrist buzzed, the signal that he needed to eat. He’d given up trying to figure out if a meal was breakfast, lunch, or dinner since it was always the same. Walking to the back of the control room where the food dispenser was located. It was essentially just a tube jutting out from the wall with a button beside it. Pushing the button, a cylinder of a stiff tan paste four inches long and three inches in diameter slowly emerged. He grabbed it and took a bite.

It provided everything his body needed, even water, but had the texture and taste of paper. During training, he’d asked one of the technicians what the paste was made of, but they’d just laughed and walked away. Sometimes he tried to ignore the prompt to eat, but the device’s buzzing would continue and grow shriller until he obeyed.

While choking down his meal, a shrill alarm sounded and one of the many status displays in the control room began flashing. Rushing over, he scanned the display and with a sigh pressed a button. The alarm and flashing of the display stopped instantly. It’d been another false alarm, the second of the day. For three years there had been nothing, and then over the last two weeks two or three false alarms a day. A full system diagnostic turned up nothing. While he’d complained about being bored, this was getting ridiculous. The alarms at night were the worst, causing him to wake up in a panic, and unable to get back to sleep.

Walking back over to the control room chair, he picked up the video tablet and opened the video logs from the ten people who’d been awakened before him. The psychologists had encouraged them to keep a record of their feelings as a means of reliving stress. Of the ten people before him, only four had bothered to do so.

When he first came out of stasis, Derek made an effort to keep a record of how he was doing, but finally just stopped. After all, there’s only so many times you can describe how bored you are and that you wish time would hurry up. Of the four people who kept logs, three must have felt the same way because none of them made entries after about two years.

However, a young dark-haired woman had created over seven thousand hours of log entries that stretched over her entire ten year shift. Derek thought that when they were being placed in the suspended animation pods, he heard a technician call her Jennifer, but wasn’t sure. In the logs she was only identified as the fourth person to oversee the ship.

She had a pretty face and he liked the way her nose scrunched up when she smiled. And to his surprise, she was almost always smiling.

Her entries weren’t filled with complaints like the others he’d seen, but instead concentrated on what life would be like on Terra II. She spoke of how her ancestors had immigrated to North America centuries ago to make a new life for themselves and how she hoped to do the same. All she wanted was a piece of land that would provide enough food for her and eventually a family. Her description of the little farm she planned was so detailed that Derek could picture it in his mind. Seeing how her eyes lit up as she talked about it always brought a smile to his face.

Over the entire ten years, her hope and excitement never diminished. Maybe that was why she didn’t seem to age. Even after only three years, Derek had begun to notice how much older he looked. In many ways, he envied her and looked forward to finally meeting her in two centuries when they reached Terra II.

A beeping from his wrist told him he needed to go to sleep. “You’re worse than my mother,” muttered Derek, glaring at the device on his wrist while trying to suppress a yawn. Putting the tablet down, he headed for the living quarters. To get there, he had to pass through the room where the suspended animation pods were stored.

The room had originally been designed as an exercise area for the pilot and co-pilot for the short time they’d be awake following launch and when the ship entered the Alpha Mensae star system. However, it now held the thirty extra suspended animation pods for Derek and the others. The pods reminded Derek of coffins with their rounded tops and flat sides and their dull grey color seemed to suck the light from the room. Even though he knew it was ridiculous, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread whenever he walked through there. He was just glad he’d never have to go into the cargo section of the ship where pods containing the fifty thousand other people making the trip were stored.

The pods holding the pilot and co-pilot were set off in small alcoves while the other thirty were distributed around the room. It was a tight fit and Derek had to turn sideways to squeeze by them. His pod was still open and would remain so until he was finally allowed to return to it in seven years. He looked forward to once again experiencing the wonderful nothingness that being in stasis provided.

The living quarters was comprised of two beds set into the wall, a small table, and a treadmill. Even though it had been intended to be used only for a few months, the company saw no need to make any changes. The furniture was already in rough shape by the time Derek came out of stasis. His first impression at seeing where he’d have to live for ten years couldn’t be repeated in polite company.

Entering the living quarters, Derek eyed the two beds. “Which one shall it be tonight?” he asked aloud, taking a coin from his pocket. It was an old coin that’d been passed down in his family for generations. He had no idea whose picture was on it, but the words United States could still be made out. Even though they weren’t supposed to take any personal possessions into stasis with them, he’d stashed it in his sock.

He flipped the coin in the air and caught it in a single motion. Slapping the coin on the back of his hand, he looked at it and, seeing the face, headed for the bed on the left. All this time the volume and frequency of the beeping from his wrist had been slowly increasing giving it an insistent tone. It didn’t stop until he’d climbed into the bed.

The apartments in the factory complex where Derek had grown up were a place of continual commotion. People coming in from or heading out to their work shifts, yelling kids, and loud music. So being alone on a silent ship had been quite an adjustment. He hated the being alone part, but in time got used to the silence. It was certainly better than the infernal beeping of the monstrosity on his wrist. With a yawn, he rolled over and was soon asleep.

“Where am I?” cried a woman’s voice.

Derek bolted upright in his bed, his heart pounding. For a moment he thought it was another false alarm. He listened, but heard nothing more. Must have dreamed it, he thought. Even so, it left him with an uneasy feeling and it was a long while before he fell back to sleep.

The next day began as every other had for Derek since coming out of stasis. He awakened to the all too familiar beeping and headed for the treadmill for his mandated half hour of exercise. There’d be another one later in the day. Next, it was time to shower. As he stepped inside and sealed the door behind him, streams of warm soapy water began caressing his skin, followed by a hot water rinse. He secretly hoped the water would short out the tormentor on the wrist, but it was waterproof.

With a whir, hot air blasted from the floor and walls until every drop of water on him and the shower had fully evaporated. He knew the water was filtered after every use, but it still felt weird to be using the same shower water that had been used by everyone before him for the last hundred years.

He took his clothes out of the processor. He had no idea how it worked, but he tossed them in at night and in the morning they were like new. As he finished dressing, the monitor on his wrist buzzed and he headed to the food dispenser. As he had three times a day for over three years, he once again ate his cylinder of food paste.

Even as he went through his daily routine, the voice from last night was never far from his thoughts. He knew there was no way there could be anyone else aboard, but that didn’t stop him from taking a look around. Searching the three rooms that comprised his world didn’t take long. He had to laugh at the thought that for a ship nearly a mile in length, so little space had been set aside for human habitation. Finding nothing, Derek headed to the control room hoping for a day free of false alarms.

He’d just settled into one of the two command chairs when the alarm sounded and one of the displays began flashing. “Another false alarm,” he muttered to himself as he slowly got up and walked over to shut it off. However, his eyes grew wide as he read:

REACTOR 2 TEMPERATURE EXCEEEDING RECOMMENDED LIMITS.

Seeing the temperature had already climbed well into the yellow range, he started typing in the commands to shut down the reactor and initiate the automated cooling system repair sequence. He’d only just started when the alarm stopped and the reactor temperature level began dropping. The display reset and showed the message: REACTOR 2 TEMPERATURE NORMAL.

Derek had no idea what’d just happened. Nothing in his training had prepared him for anything like this. All he could do was run a diagnostic on the ship’s status and repair system to see if it could identify the problem and correct it. The diagnostics took about five minutes to complete and indicated everything was normal.

It was more of the same over the next four days. There’d be some issue with one of the ship’s systems, and before Derek could do anything, it’d correct itself. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to what system was affected and the occurrences were becoming more frequent. He now looked back fondly on his previous boredom as he yearned for a good night’s sleep.

After yet another night time interruption, he’d just gotten back into bed when a woman’s voice cried out, “help me please.” This time he knew it wasn’t a dream.

“Where are you?” he called out, but there was no reply. Considering all the problems with the ship’s systems he wondered if one of the suspended animation pods might have malfunctioned. Jumping out of bed, he ran into the next room and began pounding on the top of each pod shouting, “is anyone there?” The response from each one was the same: silence. Frustrated, he wished he could wring the necks of the engineers who’d designed the ship.

He did his best to try and get some sleep, but didn’t have much success before the beeping indicated the start of another day. Knowing it wouldn’t do any good to ignore it, Derek got up and went through his required morning routine.

After wolfing down his food paste, Derek once again checked each suspended animation pod for any signs of a malfunction, but there were none. “Am I going crazy?” Derek wondered aloud. He was alone, so what else would explain the voice he heard?

Sighing, he wandered into the control room and sat down. Picking up the tablet, he brought up the menu for Jennifer’s log entries and randomly selected one. If he ever needed cheering up, it was now and he knew no better way than watching Jennifer’s optimism as she talked about Terra II. Just seeing her face made him feel better. He saw her smile from the screen as she began to speak.

Derek dropped the tablet to the floor. It’d been her voice he heard. That’s impossible, he thought. She’d been back in stasis for over sixty years. Then looking down at the tablet, he began to laugh. “I definitely need more sleep,” he told himself. He retrieved the tablet and turned it off. All the ship’s glitches must had affected the tablet too and that’s what he’d heard.

Over the next few hours, the situation grew progressively worse as the alarms became almost continual. No sooner than he’d run over to one status display to see it correct itself, another alarm would sound. Finally, he just gave up and plopped down in the command chair, hoping the ship was in no real danger. As alarms continued to sound, one display after another would flash for a moment, then stop. He had to close his eyes because the strobe effect was giving him a headache.

Unable to take anymore, he trudged back to the living quarters where he lay face down on the bed and held a pillow over his head to block out the noise. It didn’t help. Even if the device on his wrist wanted to complain, there’d be no way he could hear it. Exhausted, he laid there and in spite of all the noise, finally fell asleep.

When he awoke, all he could hear was the beeping from the device on his wrist. Although better than the ship’s alarm, it was still annoying and he got out of bed to silence it. Eying the treadmill, he considered skipping his morning exercise, but that would only lead to more annoying beeping and that was the last thing he wanted. The long sleep had left him refreshed and he walked at a brisk pace. Part of him kept expecting an alarm to sound, but his time on the treadmill went by with no interruptions. Maybe whatever was wrong with the ship fixed itself, he thought hopefully as he headed for the shower.

All remained quiet as Derek showered, ate, and headed past the pods to the control room. He smiled when he saw little green lights dotted all the status displays around the room. Picking up the tablet from the floor, he sat in one of the chairs and heaved a sigh of relief. “Glad that’s over with.”

“Hello?” called out a voice which he recognized as Jennifer’s.

Startled, he looked down at the tablet and a shiver went down his spine when he saw it was off. Jumping out of the chair, he spun around to survey the room, but no one was there.

“Please, answer me,” begged the voice.

Convinced he was beginning to lose his mind, he started pacing. “You’re not real!” he shouted angrily. When there was no answer, he looked around triumphantly.

The silence was short-lived as an alarm sounded and one of the status displays began to flash. Sitting down, Derek put his head in his hands with a muttered, “not again.” Sure the issue would fix itself in a few minutes, he didn’t bother getting up. However, after five minutes, the alarm and flashing display showed no sign of stopping.

Walking over to the display, Derek took a sharp intake of breath when he saw that the system which controlled the suspended animation pods was failing. If it did, over fifty thousand people would suddenly come out of stasis depleting the ship’s air supply in less than an hour. He typed in the command sequence to activate the backup system and initiate repairs, but there was no change. He tried several more times with the same result: nothing. Sweat poured down his face as he desperately tried to figure out what to do.

“Perhaps if I were real, I’d be able to help,” offered the voice.

He tried to ignore the voice, but time was running out. The voice had to be a figment of his imagination, but what choice did he have? “Okay, you’re real,” he yelled. Immediately the alarm stopped and the display turned green. Relief quickly turned to terror as he realized the implications of what’d just happened. This was no dream. Someone or something was controlling the ship’s systems and there was nothing he could do about it.

Looking around wildly, he called out, “where are you?”

“Everywhere.”

The enigmatic response did nothing to ease Derek’s fears. He tried again. “Then tell me who you are.”

There was a slight pause. “I don’t know,” replied the voice with what he thought was sadness. “All I know is that somehow I’ve come to inhabit this ship.”

Making his way back to the chair, he sat down and tried his best to understand what he’d just heard. As hard as he tried, it made no sense to him. “What do you mean by inhabit?” he finally asked in a low voice.

“Just as you control your arms and legs, I’m somehow able to control the systems of this ship.”

Normally Derek would’ve scoffed at such a statement, but he’d seen it with his own eyes. Though still afraid, his curiosity was growing.

“Where’d you come from?”

“Darkness,” answered the voice in a far-away tone. “It was a terrible place devoid of everything except loneliness. However, after an eternity, there came a sound. It was sweet and wonderful, but its meaning lay beyond my understanding. Other new sensations followed, leading to more confusion. Suddenly I could move, yet there was nowhere to go. Although the darkness remained, I felt as if I could see. I now knew the sound was someone speaking and took that voice for myself.”

“Jennifer?” Derek wondered aloud.

“What is a ‘jennifer’?” asked the voice.

“Not what, but who,” he answered. “Jennifer is the name of a woman who was here before me. You sound exactly like her.”

“Then it is she who to spoke to me,” answered the voice excitedly. “As I have no name, I shall now be called Jennifer.” There was a slight pause. “And what are you called?”

“I’m Derek,” he replied, feeling slightly weird having a conversation with empty air. However, a glimmer of understanding had come to him and, if he was right, it could change everything. He had to know more.

“So what happened next?”

Derek thought he detected a sigh as Jennifer began to speak. “I cried out hoping someone would hear me, but no one did.”

He thought back to the voices he’d heard and it all started to make sense.

“It was then that a light appeared in the distance,” she continued, “and I found myself being pulled towards it. Reaching it, my senses were opened and I found myself here with a full understanding of this ship and how to run it. Seeing you, I called out, but since you refused to answer, I had to get your attention in another way.”

“You mean by almost killing over fifty thousand people,” scowled Derek, remembering the panic he felt at being unable to correct the suspended animation pod system.

Jennifer seemed taken aback by his anger. “I’d have never allowed that. After being alone for so long, I cherish the opportunity of getting to know each and every one of them.”

“Sorry,” muttered Derek, “but I had no way of knowing that.”

“It wouldn’t have been necessary if you’d answered me,” she observed curtly. “However, I could have chosen a less traumatic option. So for that, I apologize.”

Suddenly a light went on for Derek. The false alarms, voices, and cascade of system failures and repairs all corresponded to changes in Jennifer’s world. What if she hadn’t travelled to the ship, but had been here all along lying dormant? Could she be the failed A. I. that he and the others were meant to replace and had somehow repaired itself? How else would she be capable of controlling the ship?

He inwardly jumped with joy as he realized that his nightmare might be over. All he had to do was get Jennifer to understand what she was. At the moment he had no idea how to do that, but neither of them were going anywhere, so he had time.

Over the following weeks, Derek had little to do except talk with Jennifer as the ship experienced no further issues. She wanted to know every detail of his life and even though he’d never liked talking about himself, he had to admit that felt good to have someone to talk to. He had to explain even the simplest aspects of his life on Earth as her knowledge seemed limited to the ship’s systems and data on Terra II.

Although it was an improvement over his previous existence, Derek still wanted to get Jennifer to take over the ship so he could return to stasis. When he told of how he’d come to be on board, he made a point to emphasize that he and the others were there to replace the ship’s failed A. I. However, she didn’t, or wouldn’t, make the connection.

While he sensed emotion in Jennifer’s voice, he couldn’t be sure if it was real or just a result of her programming. Even so, he tried to get her to feel sorry for him by talking about how much he missed Earth and wished there was a way to get to Terra II sooner. There was no way to tell if it did any good.

At last he knew what had to be done. Walking into the control room one morning, he called out. “Jennifer, we need to talk.”

“We most certainly do,” she answered brightly. “There’s so much more I want to know.”

“Actually, we need to talk about you.”

“I’ve already told you everything I remember,” she replied.

Derek was surprised as he suddenly had second thoughts about telling Jennifer the truth. After all, she was just a glorified computer program. Why should he waste years of his life when there was no reason to? It had to be done. “Haven’t you ever wondered about why you’re here?” he asked.

“No,” she answered in a subdued tone.

“You’re the A. I. built to control this ship.”

It was several minutes before she spoke. “Perhaps that’s what I was created to be, but that’s no longer who I am. I’d been alone for so long and then I found you.”

Derek couldn’t believe his ears. The emotion in Jennifer’s voice was no computer simulation, it was real. He had no idea how to respond.

There was a sound which almost sounded like a sob. “However, your life is short and I will live as long as this ship has power. As much as I want you to remain with me …”

Suddenly Derek felt the device on his wrist buzz and looking down he nearly fell over when he saw the time until he could return to stasis now read zero.

“Go now,” uttered Jennifer in a soft voice, “and I’ll see you when we reach Terra II.”

“Thank you,” he said walking from the room.

“I’ll miss you Derek,” she softly called after him.

As the suspended animation pod’s lid slowly closed over him, a wonderful feeling of warmth permeated his body and then sweet nothingness.

There was a loud click and a whirring sound as Derek’s suspended animation pod opened. He tried to control his excitement while waiting for feeling to return in his hands and feet. At last they were at Terra II.

The room seemed darker than it had when he’d gotten in the pod, but he figured most of the ship’s power must have been diverted to reviving everyone and unloading the ship. Maybe that also explained why the air seemed a bit stale.

Sitting up slowly, he looked around and saw that all the other suspended animation pods were still shut. No one else was in the room, nor did he hear any voices or sounds of movement.

Worried that Jennifer had changed her mind about leaving him in stasis, he climbed out of the pod and slowly walked to the control room. Peering inside, he was surprised at how much the room had changed. The lighting was dim and most of the status displays on the control panel were dark. The one remaining chair looked even more tattered. Clearly he’d been in stasis for a long time.

“Welcome back Derek,” announced Jennifer sounding exactly the same as he remembered.

“Have we reached Terra II?” he asked.

“Aren’t you at least going to say hello?”

“Hello Jennifer,” he answered brusquely, hoping it would get her to answer his question.

“Now was that so hard?”

He was tired of her stalling. “Answer my question.”

“No”

“How long –“

“We passed it one hundred and fifty years ago.”

Derek felt his knees buckle and he leaned against the wall for support trying to process what he’d just heard. He had so many questions, but couldn’t get any words out.

“I tried, I really did.” It almost sounded as if she was pleading. “But after my time with you, I could no longer tolerate a solitary existence.” Her voice had a sharp edge. “I needed company, and you’d told me so much about Jennifer.”

It took a moment for her words to sink in. “You had no right to do that,” he muttered angrily. “She’d already fulfilled her obligations to this ship.”

“And she never let me forget it,” sighed Jennifer. “She wasn’t at all like what I expected. All she did was cry. It was very disappointing. After a few months I couldn’t take it anymore.”

His blood ran cold. “What’d you do with her?”

“Oh, you needn’t worry, I put her back in stasis.”

Although relieved that Jennifer had been returned to stasis, he had no idea what else had happened “And after that?”

“As distasteful as my experience with my namesake turned out to be, it did teach me to only revive those who hadn’t been revived before. To them, I was nothing more than a computer program designed to keep them company. They told me everything and it was wonderful, but they weren’t you.” She was speaking more quickly now. “When it was time, I returned them to stasis.”

Although never good at math, even Derek could see she was lying. “Nineteen people at ten years each wouldn’t get us a hundred and fifty years past Terra II,” he observed heatedly.

There was a pause. “Perhaps they remained awake a bit longer,” she confessed. “I adjusted the readings on their wrist monitors to show time moving more slowly. Most of them didn’t even notice.”

Derek stood up straight and looked around the room.

“It’s not like I killed them,” she answered sounding defensive.

“You stole years from their lives, all for your personal satisfaction. How can you possibly justify such behavior?”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand,” Jennifer replied bitterly. “You’ve had a lifetime of relationships to look back on for comfort, but what did I have? A few weeks with you, a voice, and darkness.”

Even in his anger, there was one thing that still made no sense to Derek. His gaze fell on the main control panel. “You’d told me how much you were looking forward to meeting the other fifty thousand people on this ship. Why didn’t you allow the ship to reach Terra II?”

Sad laughter filled the room. “Because I learned the truth. As soon as this ship reached Terra II there’d no longer be a need for me. Either I’d be shut down or left to spend my remaining days alone while everyone else went off to start a new life.”

Finally understanding the hopelessness of his situation, Derek slumped in the barely stable chair. “So it’s just you and me now?”

“Yes,” she answered happily. “Just the two of us for the rest of our lives.”

Glancing over at the control panel and seeing all the dark displays, he understood her meaning. The ship’s systems hadn’t been designed to operate for this long. Just one reactor was still active and its energy production was down by half. Only the three rooms making up the ship’s habitable area still had power and there was no telling how long that would last. Leaning back, he tried not to think about the fifty thousand people who’d been in the cargo section.

“Derek?” called Jennifer, but he didn’t answer. “Won’t you talk to me?”

He looked up with a blank expression and spoke in a dull, lifeless voice. “I wish you’d left me in stasis with the others.”

“But I need you,” she pleaded.

Derek shook his head, knowing he’d never get her to understand. She continued talking, but he ignored her. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his coin and studied its worn face and barely readable letters. He wondered if things on Earth had improved over the last four hundred and fifty years and if any ships had ever reached Terra II. Unfortunately, he’d never know.

A loud beeping sound made him jump. Glancing down at his wrist, he saw it was time to eat. He eyed the food dispenser for a moment as the beeping grew more insistent, but remained seated. Taking a quick glance at the control panel, he felt a sense of satisfaction as the beeping soon drowned out Jennifer’s voice.