Teaser Tuesday: Almost There!!!1!

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Phoebe 5566 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.phoebenorth.com%2F2011%2F03%2F01%2Fteaser-tuesday-almost-there1%2FTeaser+Tuesday%3A+Almost+There%21%21%211%212011-03-02+03%3A29%3A01Phoebehttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.phoebenorth.com%2F%3Fp%3D556

It’s been awhile since I’ve teased, hasn’t it?

Well, Internet, here go you. Fresh off the laptop. As in, I just wrote this. I think it captures both the point in my story (generation ship Maia Asherah has almost arrived at its destination) and the current state of my manuscript, which is ZOMGALMOSTDONEWHATNOWEEEEE!, pretty well.

After the shuttle departed, something changed, shifted, about the mood of the ship. I’d walk through the districts and hear how nobody spoke except in whispers. In the cool, stirring air of the dome, the field workers went about their business in silence. Even the merchants had lowered their voices. When I walked by the shops in the morning, nobody shouted sales at me. I no longer heard anybody bartering, trying to work out a deal. At the counters, citizens paid their gelt, took their packages, and were gone.

I think that everyone was holding their breath. I know I was. For one thing, I was waiting to hear what kind of disaster would befall the shuttle. I was sure that at any moment, Captain Wolff might call us to gather in the pastures and announce that there had been an accident—an explosion, maybe, or a crash.

But I don’t think that was all of it. We worried about the shuttle crew, sure. Every night I watched my brother rock his daughter and make promises that her mama would come home soon, and that just about made my heart break. But there was something else, a sort of breathless excitement in the way we all looked up as we walked through the dome, watching Zehava grow bigger and bigger in the sky overhead.

We were almost there. For five hundred years, the planet had been nothing more than a story parents would tell their children. There were times, I’m sure, when nobody believed we’d ever really get there. It was just a myth! A fairytale! But now things were different. Nine Asherati were bound for the surface, even if their mission was a farce. Soon we would arrive. And then maybe—just maybe—we’d finally be free.

A cycle. Only a cycle remained. I went about my business as if my life would always be this way—walking to the labs in the morning, spending my days digging through dirt, coming home to eat supper with my brother and his baby, frittering my nights away with Silvan. But part of me was always looking up to the glowing sphere of blue and white that grew bigger and bigger in the black distance. Soon we would arrive. Soon everything would change.