Mission Day: 157269

Gestation 7, Adam: 17 years, 66 days

Gestation 12, Eve: 15 years, 153 days

Adam had found that reading was much more comfortable in a gravity environment, laying on a couch, rather than floating in zero gravity. The observation dome in zero-g gave not only a spectacular view of the heavens around the ship, but it also offered a commanding view of most of the ship. Logically it should have been the place Adam preferred to read, but his body balled up into a fetal position unless he fought against the tightness of his own muscles. It was more relaxing to lay back in a comfortable chair to read and let gravity stretch the body out of its natural position.

The observation dome lay toward the bow of the ship. Only the rarefied hydrogen collectors and the bridge were forward of the dome. Immediately after was the first of two rotating rings. The first ring had the larger diameter and width of the two rings. Both Adam and Eve spent the majority of their time in that ring. The aft ring mainly held ship stores and equipment, though it housed laboratories as well, including the now defunct gestation chamber. As they both had progressed in their educations, they now spent some time utilizing the labs.

Behind those two rings were mechanical systems they never saw, including the ship’s main engines. Silhouetted against the engine’s plume were many strange shapes of which they knew nothing.

The ship had spent more than two centuries accelerating toward the Colony World — its thrust limited by the rare hydrogen atoms the ship stripped from interstellar space. Halfway to their destination, the ship turned and began the process of decelerating to its destination — the hydrogen collectors rotating to gather fuel in the reverse direction. After nearly two centuries of that, upon its final approach to the Colony World, the first humans were born — Adam and Eve. They were still a decade from arrival.

Unfortunately this meant their ship pointed its engines at the star to which they were destined. The engine’s faint plume was enough to obfuscate the starry glow of their future home. They could not see it.

While it is true to say Adam did not prefer to read in the dome, that is not to say he read elsewhere, such as in one of the many recliners in the recreation room. Adam read in the observation dome, because Eve read in the observation dome. Because of her, the dome had become one of their favored places.

Adam had once questioned Alpha about the name of the observation dome. As Adam put it, a dome was half a sphere with a plane at its bottom. This was not the shape of the observation dome. Rather, the observation dome was a sphere at the end of an access tube. The long access tube extended the sphere high above the ship’s main hull. Adam insisted it more resembled a lollipop than it did a dome and felt it silly to call it by a falsely descriptive name. Alpha could not reconcile this observation with the mission data, so it remained the observation dome, though Eve sometimes teased Adam about meeting in the lollipop.

While the dome was now their reading room, previously it had been a recreation room. While he was a toddler, Adam had discovered that if he positioned himself on the sphere’s equator, then leapt at an angle to another position on the equator, then leapt again, then once again, he could start running along the equator. In zero gravity, the centrifugal force he created by running along the inside of the sphere would hold him to the inside surface. His antics amused the younger Eve, who would laugh as Adam leapt, ran, tumbled, and vaulted around the inside of the sphere. He received numerous bruises showing off in order to hear that joyous laughter.

“Good morning Eve,” Adam greeted her as he now floated up the access tube and into the dome. She was floating in the middle of the sphere, balled up into a natural, relaxed position in zero gravity, drifting very slowly to the aft end of the sphere. As a child, he’d sometimes tease her by putting her there. Unable to grab anything, she became trapped in the middle of the sphere. He’d giggle while she struggled for a few moments, then he’d retrieve her. It did not take her long to learn that she could slowly move herself by paddling with her hands and arms, as Adam did. Or wait as the gentle deceleration of the ship slowly moved her to the aft wall; rather, moved the aft wall to her.

“Good evening Adam,” she replied cheerfully. For Eve, it was morning. She’d been up for an hour or so, having done her morning exercise and was now reading one of her lessons. She’d shortly have her morning meal. Adam, on the other hand, had finished his studies and was about to have his evening meal. They’d share this one meal together each day, work their chores on the farm or elsewhere together, and enjoy recreation or entertainment together afterward. She’d then begin her studies and daily routines; he’d have his evening exercise then wash and retire for the night.

There were three living bays and three farms, as well as the galley, exercise room, multi-purpose room, and other spaces in the larger of the ship’s two rings. Each living bay had sufficient room for ten people, thirty in total. Adam had one bay entirely to himself, which ran on his daily schedule. Eve had another, which ran on her schedule. The third was empty and always dark. They used only one of the three farms. When asked, Alpha had explained there were originally three schedules, but it had adapted to two when no other occupants arrived from the gestation chamber.

Adam hooked his bare feet under the padded bar at the opening between the dome and its access corridor. He stretched tall and extended his hand toward Eve at the center of the spherical dome.

It had become their tradition that he would retrieve her when it was time for them to prepare their meal together. Much to Alpha’s consternation, Adam once prepared the meal without Eve, and then retrieved her — giving her more time to enjoy her reading. This was contrary to their development plan and produced a vast number of possible outcomes, each individually with an unlikely probability. It invalidated the development plan. For this reason Alpha determined it needed to stop. Adam refused to discontinue to behavior and continued to do so occasionally.

After a few of these sporadic kindnesses, the development model stabilized and Alpha ceased its complaints with the caveat that they occur no more than one time in ten — a control that restored predictability to its model. Adam then insisted that this be an average and not an established routine. Alpha agreed. Adam then insisted that all the years of his life be part of that average. Alpha then countered that the average could not begin until Eve began eating prepared food. They had many more arguments on the topic. On occasion, the arguments became heated, once particularly so. Adam injured himself when he balled up his fist and stuck one of Alpha’s robotic forms. After the injury, for Adam’s safety, Alpha stopped reporting on his meal preparation ratio. Adam, shocked by his own violently passionate outburst, relented and significantly reduced the number of meals he selflessly prepared for Eve.

Eve noticed the decline in meals prepared on her behalf. She said nothing to Adam about it. Rather, he arrived in the galley one evening to find that she had already prepared their meal. “Alpha seems to have you very busy lately,” she obliquely hinted at the reduction, “so I wanted to lighten your burden a bit. Come eat.” It had pleased him immensely. Alpha calculated the behavior increased the number of positive outcomes in their model and did not subject Eve to the ratio it had imposed on Adam. The behavior also ensured both would continue to develop their ability to prepare farmed foods, a necessity for when they reached Colony World. Meal preparation training schedules no longer required adaptations due to Adam’s anomalous behavior — for Eve had developed the same anomaly.

Eve paddled toward Adam from the center of the sphere, her tablet in one hand aiding in the endeavor. Her long hair trailed slightly behind her, bouncing with each of her movement. Heading directly toward him, with her hand outstretched too, he looked down the length of her naked body. She had developed a soft, shapely figure. Adam found it pleasing and exciting. He enjoyed looking at the entirety of her, and she knew it. When he had started noticing her, she had found his compulsion humorous. She would tease him for noticing by winking or giving him a come-hither look, and then by giggling at him. She’d found it enormous fun for it’d embarrassed him terribly. She’d stopped, for after a time she’d found herself staring at his body and had herself become terribly flushed when he noticed her doing so. Having realized what she’d been putting him through, she’d made an awkward apology, which he’d accepted with grace. Strangely, it had placed her own awkwardness at ease as well.

Presently, she noticed Adam looking at her body. She looked away and blushed, knowing what he felt, for she had also been looking at him and felt the same. Sidelong, she gave him a coy little smile. He blushed too, looked into her eyes, and gave her an apologetic smile. They cared deeply for each other, and though they were awkward, they were not ashamed.

Closing together, she slid her hand into his, and he grasped it.

He swung her gently around to propel her slowly down the access tube, feet first. It was a dance they performed daily, and they did it with the grace of gulls. The crab incarnation of Alpha, which stood motionless at the entry of the dome as it always did, followed behind Eve — its six pneumatic suction feet popping across the insulation on the aluminum walls. Adam followed behind it.