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Ariane and Elster had their own little planet all to themselves.
They discovered it soon after they weren’t supposed to. First, some minor celestial bodies appeared on the long-range scanners, just asteroids and comets, but they all appeared to be in an orbiting trajectory, so they altered course to close in on the centre.
Then, a planet was detected. It was a gas giant, pale beige, orange, and red, not too dissimilar to the one Heimat orbited. Another gas giant came into sensor range on the next Cycle, then some ice giants on the next, a rocky planet following shortly after, and before long, they found the star they all orbited.
From that Cycle onward, Ariane and Elster practically lived in the flight deck. One of them was always there, every minute of every hour, as if the readings would disappear and turn out to be a dream if they weren’t constantly kept in their minds.
Once they were close enough for them, more detailed scans revealed that the fourth planet in the solar system was habitable, with a luscious, breathable oxygen and nitrogen atmosphere, liquid water covering roughly eighty percent of the planet’s surface, and abundant plant life. They learned even more with every Cycle bringing them closer and closer. Their liveable planet was young, celestially speaking. Elster estimated it was around three and a half billion Vinetan years old, and their readings showed significantly more flora than fauna. They concluded that it was unlikely that intelligent life had evolved yet on the planet, and wouldn’t do so naturally for hundreds of millions more years. The planet had a mass around ninety-three percent that of Vineta, so there would be ninety-three percent of the gravity they were accustomed to. They calculated that the planet orbited the sun once every three-hundred-and-eighty-three Cycles, give or take a few hours and that each day on the planet was around twenty-two hours and thirty-seven minutes long.
Right before they landed, as both Ariane and Elster sat in their flight seats, Elster uttered the word, “Liebe.”
“Yes?” Ariane replied.
“This planet,” Elster continued. “How about we call it Liebe?”
Ariane reached across the console and squeezed Elster’s hand. “I think that’s a great name, Ellie.”
Liebe, their planet.
When they finally touched down, Ariane ran off the ramp from the airlock and planted herself face-down on a patch of green, moist grass, taking in the feelings through all of her senses before she rolled onto her back and stared up the clouds and sun in the sky. Elster followed her with slightly more apprehension, finding it somewhat of a challenge to keep her balance on the soft, soil-rich field she was wholly unused to. They had picked a clearing within a forest next to a modestly sized river to land. There was plenty of space for them to construct their own little house, to till and irrigate the soil to grow crops from the seeds they brought with them, and just to exist in. Ariane got back on her feet as Elster approached her and the two shared a long embrace followed by a tender kiss.
“Look, Ellie,” Ariane said, pointing out toward some trees in the distance.
Elster looked in the direction her wife had shown her but wasn’t sure what to make out. “Do you see something over there?” she asked.
Ariane smiled and squeezed Elster’s hand. “What do you not see?” she asked.
After a moment to think, Elster figured it out. “Walls,” she answered.
“There are things to actually see!” Ariane added, hopping in place through the excitement. “There’s a horizon! There’s more to explore than we can even see with our eyes!”
“All for us,” Elster commented.
But then, a few seconds later, both their smiles vanished.
They went back into the Penrose-512, to the flight deck, where they stared at the console that controlled their interstellar beacon.
If they activated it, eventually, more would follow. The Nation would come, and they would be heroes, but the fantasy would only go so far.
Elster swallowed a dry lump as she recalled the contents of that dossier she decided to open on a whim on their 3000 Cycle anniversary. She turned to Ariane and silently shook her head.
Ariane looked deep into her blue eyes. She nodded.
Without any words, Ariane followed Elster back outside and watched as she climbed atop the Penrose and ripped the communications antenna off the ship.
Then, they hugged each other and spent the rest of that day watching the sun slowly set over the horizon. As the last sliver of sunlight melted away, Elster noticed that Ariane had fallen asleep against her shoulder, holding her arm. She carefully scooped her love up into her arms as she had done so many times before and carried her back to bed, where the two slept their most peaceful night since departing together.
FIVE THOUSAND REVOLUTIONS LATER
Ariane wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand as she carefully clipped the tomatoes from the vine. Summers got hot on Liebe, as they quickly discovered, and while the Penrose had been supplied with almost everything they could’ve asked for to build their own little settlement, one item they neglected to include was hats.
But they quickly learned to make their own. Straw hats made from threshed grain for the spring and summer, and linen hats spun from flax for the fall and winter.
Their little farm had everything Ariane needed to sustain herself and more. Fruits, vegetables, grains, potatoes, beans, legumes, they still had crates of untouched rations aboard the Penrose that would very likely stay that way forever, as Ariane never wanted to leave behind fresh, homegrown food again. The only food she missed was meat, but while she and Elster had tried trapping some of the small animals that wandered around the nearby forests, Ariane hadn’t had the heart to kill any of them. This was their planet, and they were simply borrowing it, she had decided, and so she set them all free. They weren’t going to be the Nation. They wouldn’t be exploiting any life found within their little paradise.
But even without animal protein, they ate so well that Ariane had even lost her old, thin frame and adopted a modest and healthy amount of fat across her body, something Elster didn’t even try not to pinch, squeeze, and rub whenever she had the opportunity to.
As she cut the last tomato from this plant, she thought about what she would make for dinner that night. Perhaps she would cook that tomato, eggplant, and roasted garlic pasta they had a few revolutions ago again. She looked up and saw Elster sitting on their porch in a chair, looking out at the river. She waved at her, and a few seconds later, she looked and waved back.
On her way back to their cabin, Ariane stopped at the waterwheel they had spinning in the river and checked the output of the generator, one-thousand, eight-hundred-and-thirty watts and holding steady, just like yesterday. This little hydroelectric generator was one of the first contraptions Elster built after they landed, cobbled together from parts cannibalized from the Penrose. It was nowhere near enough to power the ship’s computers, but they hadn’t needed those in thousands of revolutions. It was enough to run some lights and the appliances they’d taken from the Penrose, with just enough left over to charge the batteries they relied on during the winter months when the river froze. But most importantly, it was enough that they both took great delight in powering down the ship’s reactor; likely for good. That worry was long past them by this point.
Ariane looked back at the gutted remains of the Penrose and smiled. Entire sections of the ship and multiple hull panels had been ripped away to build their home and all it entailed. It had served them better than anyone at AEON could have foreseen, and it continued to give them life every time they wanted to expand their home and build new structures to inhabit it.
With her check done, Ariane picked her basket back up and walked back to their patio, going up the stairs right to Elster’s side where she knelt and kissed her cheek as she continued to watch the river run with her slight smile and twinkle in her eyes. She had taken to wearing clothes once they had enough materials to start making them themselves, and she wore a mauve shirt dyed from plants they’d harvested alongside brown shorts, and her own straw hat.
Ariane picked up her basket and was about to enter their house when Elster suddenly tugged at her sleeve.
“Alina! Alina look! I saw a fish!”
Ariane looked to where Elster was pointing and, sure enough, a few seconds later a small fish jumped briefly out of the water.
“Wow!” she exclaimed as the two turned to look at each other. “We have such pretty fish on our little planet, don’t we?”
Elster continued to look silently at her eyes for another few seconds until she finally blinked.
“I called you Alina again, didn’t I, Ari?”
Ariane didn’t answer, but her forced smile gave it away.
Elster’s shaky hands hugged her arm, and she looked down at her feet. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “Ari, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Ariane quickly dropped to her knees and hugged Elster as the Replika began to cry into her shoulder. “It’s okay, Ellie,” she soothed her, rubbing her back. “It’s okay,” she repeated.
Elster sniffled hard. “Don’t go,” she pleaded.
“I’m not going anywhere, Ellie.” Ariane kissed her cheek.
“Promise me?”
“I promise. I’m right here.”
“Okay… okay…”
Ariane let go of her hug but kept her hands on Elster’s shoulders as she looked into her eyes again. “Do you want to come inside with me?” she asked.
Elster blinked rapidly and nodded her head. “Inside… inside… yes…”
“Okay,” Ariane said. She then hugged Elster again under her arms. “Alright, easy…” she said as she carefully helped Elster stand up, trying not to pay attention to the squeaks and whines that came from the servos in her joints.
Yes, Liebe might have had everything Ariane needed to thrive, but it couldn’t provide everything for Elster to do so. And as they slowly ran out of new parts to replace her worn components and Ariane dedicated entire revolutions to creating new lubricants from vegetable oil, an unescapable fact appeared before them both.
Even if they had an infinite supply of all the parts Elster needed, Replikas were simply not designed to last as long as she had.
Ariane had first noticed signs around two thousand revolutions in. First, it was forgetting little details, such as the time, and what she had just been doing. She would cut out in the middle of a sentence and be unable to remember what she was saying. That was when Ariane finally dove into those LSTR Replika manuals she had neglected to read so, so long ago.
Three thousand revolutions in, and Elster had started forgetting her name on occasion.
Four thousand revolutions in, Elster could no longer distinguish between her own memories and her Gestalt’s memories.
Elster had gripped her hands hard when she finally realized it for herself.
“Ari,” she had blurted out, looking deep into her crimson eyes. “Before I… when I…”
“You won’t forget me, Ellie,” Ariane told her, but Elster shook her head.
“When I… when I start struggling to remember who you are… I want you to promise me something.”
“No,” Ariane choked. “Don’t talk about this, Ellie!” she shouted. Elster gripped her hands harder.
“I want my last memories to be of you,” Elster said, starting to breathe heavily as clear drops of lubricant fluid fell from her eyes to her hands between them. “So I can go to sleep remembering who you are… don’t let me forget you, Ari… please… don’t let that happen to me.”
Ariane buried her face in Elster’s chest plate as the two hugged each other tightly.
“O… Okay…” she finally said after minutes of shared tears.
“...Promise me, Ari? My love?”
“...I promise… I won’t let you forget me.”
Ariane slowly walked Elster inside their house and sat her down on one of the armchairs they had taken from the Penrose.
“I’m just going to be in the kitchen for a bit, okay?” she told her. Elster continued to breathe a little heavily but slowed down slightly as she nodded.
“Food?” she asked.
Ariane smiled and showed Elster the tomatoes she had picked from their farm. “I was thinking of making that yummy pasta we had a few revolutions ago, does that sound okay?”
Elster looked at the tomatoes in the basket and picked one up, holding it in front of her eyes for a moment before she looked back at Ariane and asked, “Pasta?”
“Yes, we’ll have pasta, Ellie,” Ariane repeated, smiling at her.
Elster looked back at the tomato for a few more seconds and then took a bite of it. “Juicy,” she remarked, smiling as she chewed. “Sweet.”
Ariane chuckled and kissed her wife’s forehead. “I’m just going to the kitchen now, okay?” she repeated to her. Elster nodded again.
She shared one more kiss with her before picking up her basket again, but as she walked past the armchairs toward the kitchen, Elster called out to her again.
“I love you, Ariane.”
Ariane paused for a moment and let out a sigh of relief before she looked back and smiled. “I love you too, Elster.”