A Thousand Luminous Arms

(TOUCH SCREEN/INTERACTABLE) DATA DRIVE CONTENTS LABEL The Crew of the Hullavirág, displaced, and Their Families et al. Interviews recorded by Lt. Katalin Bright, deep space navigator, on dates 45 INT to 56 INT, during spare time from doing my job because the captain asked nicely HOLO ENTRY 01 EXCERPT Lt. Katalin Bright, deep space navigator, Hullavirág BRIGHT: OK. I don’t know what to say, so… The basics. Captain asked me to create a series of crew interviews with the holodeck suite during my off time, for posterity. Our grandkids might want to see it one day, he says — the crew’s grandkids, not his and mine, hah — and I like talking to people, and everybody knows that, because once I get started I have a hard time stopping and I want to know every little thing about everybody, because it makes me feel like I’m a part of — there I go again. I guess I’m suited for the task, which Captain asked for as a personal thing. Our descendents might put it in a museum one day, he says, so here I go. I’ll cut all this. Cut cut cut. OK. Hi, I’m Katalin Bright, I plot the courses between planetary candidates on the cruiser Hullavirág while we search for a place to settle. It takes a lot of math and attention to detail to know where things are now and where they’re going to be and where in that range is an acceptable fuel spend. So I’m a matchmaker for the ship and planets; I put us in the same place and time and hope we fall in love. And that’s me. I’m supposed to ask everyone “what home means to them,” and I guess that includes me. Home is my cats, it’s warm chamomile and lavender tea with honey, and it’s big stretches of darkness in a vacuum where I can do my job. I’ve got one out of three. I guess that’s… No, it sucks. HOLO ENTRY 04 EXCERPT Lt. Cmdr. Remy Clear, chief engineer, Hullavirág BRIGHT: OK, it’s recording. There are only a couple of official questions. But since we’re off-duty: How are you doing, Remy? CLEAR: I’m alright, I think. Tired. We’re lucky to have the ship, but we’d be luckier to have a real deep-space vessel. BRIGHT: I’m shocked. You’re saying a freighter equipped for cattle transport isn’t good enough to scour the galaxy for a new homeworld? CLEAR: Oh, good, you were listening. You know, another century with FTL — we might have had an empire. But we don’t. Our systems are all designed for jaunts that are known quantities, not kicking over every rock in the galaxy. I’ve spent most of my time tuning and rigging the sensors to boost the range, but even at her best, Hulla is blind. If we didn’t have the cartography backups to tell us at least where to start looking, we’d be doomed. BRIGHT: We got lucky. CLEAR: Lucky is a complete understatement. If we hadn’t had that nav bug — that one little coding error — the viral attack would’ve sent us into the nearest stellar body nose-first, just like everybody else in the system. I guess we have Strong’s tinkering to thank for that. HOLO ENTRY 13 EXCERPT Tobin Proud, chaplain, Hullavirág PROUD: Faith is not a ward against reality, Katalin; it’s a way to persevere in spite of it. We’re suffering now, but we know it’s with purpose. BRIGHT: All of our people worshiped the Glorious. We had faith, we believed, we were united against the Malignant. We stuck to the plan and did our part, and… And it’s just us, now. Billions died, and we’re here by dumb luck. We gave everything and got nothing back. PROUD: The Malignant is dead, or at the least hasn’t pursued us. That’s something. We don’t know the rules for an entity like the Glorious. She was beyond us, but she may not have been omnipotent or all-powerful. It may be that all the power in the cosmos only trades for a handful of averted fates. I’ve been thinking about it, too, of course — how could I not? Myself and the others of my caste told everyone we would be saved. And I don’t know if I participated in a lie. Total extinction is what I didn’t want, and I have not received it. HOLO ENTRY 17 EXCERPT Lt. Cmdr. Blin Strong, chief science officer, Hullavirág STRONG: It’s simple: Home is a planet the exact distance from the heat of a star to be temperate, orbiting basically in a constant circle — because we’ll freeze to death at either end of an elliptical orbit — with axial rotation fast enough to avoid baking any one side too long in the sun, with liquid water, a magnetic field blocking cosmic radiation and the mass to hold an atmosphere. Don’t get too comfortable, though: A planet that can support life is likely already supporting life, so we’ll need to get along with anything from microorganisms to bacteria and local fauna. And we’re not in any shape to start a war with a sapient species, so when we come knocking, there had best not be anyone home. BRIGHT: For anyone watching this, what are the odds of finding a planet that even somewhat matches that description? STRONG: Oh, that’s even simpler: Zero. BRIGHT: No chance? At all? STRONG: In fairness, it’s more than zero. But low enough that actually finding that planet would be a religious experience. HOLO ENTRY 22 EXCERPT Capt. Chidi Bellicose, Hullavirág BELLICOSE: It’s alright. Just breathe. BRIGHT: I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled. I shouldn’t be yelling. BELLICOSE: Uh-huh. Breathe now, sorry later. … BRIGHT: OK. I’m OK. BELLICOSE: You’re OK. BRIGHT: It’s the stress. We keep finding wrong answers. How are you not panicking? BELLICOSE: I take deep breaths. And I remember who I am. And who I’ve got with me and what we’re capable of. The odds are against us, but they always were. Scraping by on a chance navigation bug — that was a very small “yes” in a whole galaxy of “no.” But we’re here now, just us — we made it. The hard part’s over. Now we find a place to rest. BRIGHT: You’re being so calm and it’s kind of reassuring and it kind of pisses me off. BELLICOSE: Yep. That’s why I’m the captain. Want to know something real? BRIGHT: Badly. BELLICOSE: I’m sure there’s a future for us. Not because we’re going to make it — I really do think we’re going to make it — but because we’re proof that our people existed. Even if we don’t find a planet and we spend our last days on this ship, there’s a record of who we were, what we valued, what we fought against. BRIGHT: The interviews. You’ve had me making a time capsule, in case we don’t make it. BELLICOSE: I’m optimistic, but I’m not an idiot. I’ve got a mission to see our people through the end of the world, and I’ve got more than one way to get it done. I’d rather it be us with fresh air in our lungs and a nice, warm sun in the sky. If that doesn’t happen… well, the universe is a big place and our data won’t degrade. Someone will find us and listen to us and know us. BRIGHT: I hope you’re right. BELLICOSE: I know I’m right. END DATA DRIVE CONTENTS THANK YOU FOR LEARNING WITH BRIGHTNET Art & Animation by Taylor C Adams Music by Pizzacat Story by Benjamin Nunnally