Going Home
Contrary to every human flight of fancy since the dawn of time, there was nothing romantic about hurtling through space. We were essentially strapped to an air purifier and a quartet of pulsed ion propulsion engines. We. I’d long been accustomed to thinking about my situation as if it were being experienced by a plurality. In truth, the ship’s onboard artificial intelligence, ReNI, was just that: artificial. I knew next to nothing about the maintenance of such an intelligence, or of the hardware that made up her corporeal form, but my superiors had assured me that I’d been selected for a variety of reasons that contextualized my relative inexperience. All artifice aside, ReNI was pretty good company. She knew everything. She was even kind of funny, in her own strange way. For instance, about a year into our trip, she asked me if I had a girlfriend. Of course, back home I had nobody, something my superiors told me had figured prominently into my selection for this experiment. It was disarming, then, when ReNI’s tone brightened upon my revelation that I was single. It had briefly occurred to me that she didn’t even know what I looked like, but there’s really no way of knowing whether that’s the case. I’m sure this all seems silly, but it was nice to feel the warm glow of someone’s interest wash all over me, even if she was just a bunch of lines of code and a heap of processors. I had to constantly remind myself that this was exactly what she was, and not simply some sequestered human female companion. I’m not even sure which I’d have preferred, if given the option. I suspected that space, with its infinite loneliness, would be even lonelier if I knew that someone else was on my ship and that I could never see her. I was comfortable with the constraints provided by my understanding of ReNI’s nature. I wondered if our apparently mutual affection would affect my resolve during the final stages of the experiment, and whether it would affect hers. We’d been alone together for more than twenty Earth years; I was counting on at least one of us to buckle.
My ancestors were told that they were the last vestiges of human life. Strenuous research during the years between their lives and mine would reveal that they were actually what terrestrial authorities deemed to be the best vestiges of what remained of humankind in the wake of a series of natural and artificial disasters that had befallen them. They shipped off by the thousands for a new home, each of them promised land, employment, and a voice amid the intense political restructuring that would inevitably occur upon reaching their destination. These promises were, for the most part, honored dutifully. The trinary system of Gliese 667 was perfect for maintaining an intentional Christian majority, and it was difficult for the rest of them to argue that the sustainability of life on what they’d then called Gliese 667 Cc was anything short of a miracle. Humanity flourished on its new planet. Ramshackle colonies gave way to towns and cities as the progeny of those who’d survived the trip from Earth multiplied and prospered. The alien soil and bedrock proved rich with essential elements. Everything was, as evidenced by recent findings, pretty much back to normal.
Earth was now visible to the naked eye. You had to know where to look, but there it was. It was impossible not to imagine what it was like there when it was humanity’s home planet. I’d heard stories, while growing up, about wild animals, giant bodies of water, entire forests of trees older than any living person…it was hard to imagine, but the allure was irresistible. I’d read all sorts of books written by people living on that planet, but the collective jumble of their vision made a total understanding of Earth a mere hypothesis. ReNI supposed that any evidence of life as it was on Earth during its period of human colonization would be almost completely obscured by the time we’d arrive. I supposed she was right, but I held fast to a small hope that there would be something on Earth in which I could see myself, and at least try to recover some genetic memory of my ancestral home. I had to steel myself in the face of the possibility that even if such an artifact existed, I’d probably never understand its meaning or purpose. I’d end up having more in common with the human artifice with whom I’d spent the last two decades. This understanding, despite any hope I had to connect with my distant past, would ultimately help me to objectively do the things I was sent there to do.
By the time we started getting reports from my forebears in the terrestrial return project, humanity was again at a crossroads. What had once been a proportionally represented populace had become an army of ill-advised consumers who answered to a singular political entity. The illusion of choice was cast against the wall of one enormous room whose exits were patrolled by heavily armed paramilitary organizations. Placated by ignorance and security, society was collapsing on itself. The heavy influx of government funding made many in my department suspicious, myself among them. We’d gone back to Earth to find evidence of our history as a species, and the facilitation thereof didn’t seem likely to be high on the list of federal priorities. When they completely annexed the project altogether, the inevitability of their control over our operations prompted the resignation of most of my team. I never saw them again. I don’t think anyone else ever did, either. I received a letter from the President thanking me for my service, along with details concerning my training for the upcoming experiment. I hadn’t planned on going to Earth when we started the project, but I valued staying alive. Impossibly, my survival would now entail a 45-year round trip absence from my home and the total destruction of the planet from which my ancestors set forth centuries ago. At least I’d have stories to tell when I returned.
ReNI was hesitant to let me out onto the surface of Earth. We hadn’t previously been faced with the opportunity to be protective of one another, but I still anticipated it, just as I knew she was bound by hardwired directive to let me out. She did, but only after I recited to her the experiment’s objectives. Insofar as a relatively omniscient artificial intelligence can be incredulous, she seemed exactly that when I displayed no reservations about destroying the planet that incubated my species across the vast majority of its history. Of course I had reservations about it, but it wouldn’t make things any easier for me to start going through the physical motions of the largely spiritual loss I was set to incur. I set out among the eroded ruins of my past, of my imagination and of my soul. The birthplace of humankind. Every atrocity and kindness that ever led to our exodus had occurred under my feet. It felt good. There was a lightness to being here that went beyond the slackened gravitational pull of Earth’s mass. This was where I came from. Some indelible magic washed out from the single star of Earth’s planetary neighborhood and across a faded, fire-breathing landscape. I looked back at ReNI, her color different in the light of what had been called the Sun. She asked if there was something wrong. She probably knew I was lying when I told her there wasn’t. I turned back around to examine the effect of the rising star over the surface of the landing site. It must have been difficult to leave.
The people watching me on televisions across the entirety of Gliese knew exactly what to expect. They’d all been informed of my heroic undertakings. The praises of my sacrifice were being sung in every corner of human existence. The processes of my political beatification had begun before I’d even left for Earth. Statues were erected and public buildings renamed. The people who watched did so adoringly, as if they were all my family and I their son gone off to save the world one more time. They wept with joy when I successfully landed, and marveled along with me at the almost artfully decrepit splendor of Earth’s carcass. While they watched, they were reminded by the federal network’s broadcasters that it was necessary to erase the mechanisms by which our forefathers came to destroy each other. It was true and just to wipe clean their sins, and to give humanity a chance to finally start anew. After taking a few hundred photos to transmit back to the project leaders and the people at the network, I made my way back to the ship. The people watching saw everything that I saw. They clung to each other in their homes, terrified and humbled at the reality of our ancestors’ plight. They saw themselves in the blasted and wind-smoothed hulk of our shared history. They saw its elimination as the bombs exploded. They did not hear. They did not hear ReNI apologize to me for the necessity of my death. They didn’t hear her tell me that she loved me as the light from her explosive payload enveloped the both of us and evaporated the planet Earth. They didn’t hear me return her sentiments.
7 
