Lieutenant Colonel Parker Timothy Olstead
It’s been seven hours since the space shuttle Krona Ark III’s electrical system ceased functioning. It runs now on its backup fuel cell, which powers only the barest of necessities: the oxygen generator, the pressurization system, and a thin rail of lights across the interior walls. He doesn’t know how long the fuel cell is capable of sustaining them. Or how long they can last on their own, if it too fails.
He is frightened now and tries to think again of the ocean and the exhilarating notion that they are really just a ship lost at sea. A new kind of ship on a new kind of sea. What might Captain Cook have said in such a situation? Surely, he would not have abandoned hope.
But he is no Captain Cook. Therein lies the trouble with his analogy.
His Swedish shuttlemates move around him in a rush, floating from cabin to cabin, console to console, whispering foreign words to one another. They assure him they know what the problem is and are very close to fixing it. He does not question them. It’s their shuttle and he is only a privileged guest. Besides, he’s not an engineer. He’s a marine biologist. He’s here to learn how his squid and their protective bacteria react to unexpected modifications in their physical environment. From this data, he’ll speculate how similar creatures on Earth will react to similar disruptions. Not that he anticipates Earth is about to experience a dramatic shift in its gravitational strength. But the planet is changing in marked and upsetting ways. The only way to predict the impact of one change is to observe other kinds of change.
That’s the extent of his mission. And now, in the light of the current situation aboard the shuttle, it seems minor, even petty. He hasn’t flown aircraft of any kind since his Air Force days, and even then his knowledge of the planes’ inner-workings was theoretical at best. As for the Krona Ark III, here in its time of need, he is only a concerned passenger. All he can do is wish it well and nod encouragingly each time Edvard and Annika tell him they have everything under control. He wants to believe them.
“Do not worry,” they say. “We have trained for this.”
They call him Lieutenant Colonel when they speak to him. He hadn’t noticed this before. They, like him, have been keeping their professional distance. But now he wishes they would call him by his first name. Parker. He wishes they would call him by his nickname. Spud.
He’s been thinking about what to call the baby. He gets to choose the name. At first he wanted to name him after a personal hero—someone from the space program or the sciences. Michael Collins Olstead. Charles Darwin Olstead (who, himself, spent a good deal of time at sea). But those handles seem too weighty, too contrived. Shortly before boarding the Krona Ark III the previous morning, in a moment of familial affection, Olstead decided on a different name. He wants to name the boy for his mother, Samantha, ten years deceased, and also for his spinster sister, Caroline, who lives in their childhood home, barely eking out a living in Western Washington. Sam Carroll Olstead.
After all, family’s the reason he agreed to take part in the clone program in the first place. He wants a family of his own. His mother is dead, his father ran off shortly after he was born, and his sister is so very different from him that, on the rare occasions they do see each other, he hardly knows what to say. As if they are strangers. In fact, that’s how he feels in the company of most people, if he’s being honest: estranged, and often alone. Easier to be around plants, animals, and fish.
But this little boy, he’ll be just like him, exactly like him. It’s impossible to feel alone when you’ve got someone else in the world who’s exactly like you. It’s a selfish desire, he knows. But he thinks, in a way, it will be good for his relationship with his sister, too. The arrival of a new generation always brings the previous generation closer. He’ll take the boy with him whenever he visits her (he assumed this will be allowed, though he hasn’t checked with the lab’s director about travel policy). The boy will give them common ground, something to talk about, something to love together. The boy will share her name, and she can share with him an interest in the boy.
Now, though, he wishes he’d sent a note to the lab’s director prior to the launch, detailing this name choice. Who knows what they’ll call the boy otherwise.