January 25th, 2089 (Part 3)

We stowed our gear and made our quarters more like home. They are about the size of a loft apartment, with generous ceilings and monitors built into the walls to simulate windows. I’ve tuned mine to display a constant, but gentle rain storm on a Washington bluff. I once wrote an entire novel in a place like that, and I hope it will inspire me. I set up my personal computer next to it.

The bed is a queen and every inch of the bedroom is built for storage or utility. There’s a computer system built into the wall with touch screens and motion monitoring as well as voice commands. It calls me “your lordship” every time I walk in now. It’s one of the programmable options.

I sat on a park bench for nearly an hour while the rest of the crew made themselves at home. There’s a park to go along with the bench. The artificial trees look and behave so real that the leaves will drop when fall comes around and bud come spring. A breeze blows through from time to time, reflective of the seasons. The Captain can set the Earth-equivalent location for those seasons, though it will never snow. It is very peaceful, and the artificial bird-sounds are a nice touch.

We toured the engine room and I saw for myself the Time-Vortex drive. It’s a cylinder the size of a small house with points of light along its length that reminded me of a music box drum. It rotated like one as well, constantly humming at a frequency just inside human perception. After a few minutes it drove me utterly mad and I was glad we left.

Tomorrow we will go up to the bridge and witness the disembarking of the Icarus from Luna Station. We will broadcast one last beam to Earth before entering the Mars-Jupitor tunnel. I’ve heard our Cans await us just beneath the bridge. My excitement builds, I assure you.

[DELETED] said she would come by tonight. We’d talk about our projects and get to know one another. I agreed but now I find myself unsure about it. The ease of our companionship feels wrong somehow. It was never that easy with her. I chased her for years. That feels like a lifetime ago.

I suppose I ought to change the computer to say something other than “your lordship” anyhow. Perhaps something like “sir” or just Will. She always used to call me Will.

Christ. Tomorrow can’t come soon enough, I need to go.