How High We Go in the Dark

Proxima Centauri B–—4.3 Light-Years from Earth; Travel Time: 50 Years

tiny, shaking body looked embryonic beneath the plastic in her silver crib before she succumbed to the sedatives and the cryo gel washed over her as if she had been encased in ice.

Yamato. Here on Earth, the ship looked like six Saturn V rockets strapped together, with a giant silver sphere in the middle that would open in space like a flower

When I held them, I made a mental note of Steven’s body odor, always masked by a cologne that smells like cinnamon; the way my
sister’s frenetic hair expanded in the humidity; how my niece’s face glitter caught on my flight suit, tiny stars from home that I’d take with me on our journey.

“You can’t leave us! Planet X will collide with us soon. We see the signs, the rising seas, the fires. These are the signs of judgment.”

.S.S. Yamato–—Launch Day, December 30, 2037

only good for one or two days before spoiling

Bryan Yoshio Iba Yamato

My interns had begun staring at me at work, mentally boring a hole in my skull, no doubt hoping to reveal what they envisioned as a tiny version of some wormhole they saw in a sci-fi flick with people zipping around the universe, parallel realities traversable by psychedelic cosmic tunnels.

The government is committed to establishing a colony out there.