Passengers Page #3

- No. I'm starving.

And this is the dumbest machine.

Happy to help.

Gold-class breakfast.

Well, you're a man of simple tastes.

I'm not a gold-class passenger.

French breakfast puff's above my pay grade.

What? This whole time?

- Yeah.

- What can I get you?

- No. No, I'm fine.

- Stop it.

Really. Okay.

Here you go.

Yeah.

So, I was thinking,

maybe there's another way to go to sleep.

What about the infirmary?

I checked it out.

It's just scanners and an Autodoc.

There could be another hibernation machine

in the cargo hold.

I had that thought, too.

And then I read the manifest.

It's mostly farming stuff,

machines and trade goods.

Replacement parts

for computers and engineering.

We're not gonna find

a hibernation facility in a box.

- We could build our own.

- We can't.

Jim, you're not even trying.

I have tried everything.

For over a year, I...

I tried everything.

Well...

Well, I'm not ready to give up.

Infirmary.

What about research articles?

Any kind of technical documents.

Hibernation technology is proprietary.

The following articles deal with the subject

on a theoretical level.

New file. My voyage.

I boarded the Avalon with an idea,

a destination.

Both now out of reach.

I've been awake for seven days.

Awake far too soon.

And I may well spend

the rest of my life here,

in a steel world 1,000 meters long.

There's another passenger awake,

a mechanic named Jim Preston.

He seems to have accepted our fate.

But I'm scared.

I'm fighting to stay calm.

All the other passengers will sleep

for another 90 years

while I live out my life on this ship,

traveling forever...

Never arriving...

My only companion a total stranger.

Why did you do it?

Do what?

Emigrate. Leave Earth.

I'm interviewing you.

You're what?

You were the first hibernation failure

in the history of space travel.

That makes you a story.

Who you gonna tell?

Posterity.

So, why did you give up your life on Earth?

120-year space hibernation means you'll

never see your family or friends again.

You'll wake up in a new century

on a new planet.

It's the ultimate geographical suicide.

Well, I could ask you the same thing.

But it's my interview.

Were you running away from something?

No.

- Everything was okay.

- So?

Well, I guess I just wanted a new

world, I don't know, a fresh start.

That's Homestead Company advertising.

- Is it?

- Jim.

I know. I guess. You're right.

Back on Earth, when something breaks,

you don't fix it, you replace it.

The colonies, they have problems to solve.

They're my kind of problems.

And a mechanic is somebody.

This is a new world still being built.

I could build a house and live in it.

Open country. Room to grow.

Now you're back to slogans.

Can't slogans be true?

Do you know how much Homestead

Company made off its first planet?

Eight quadrillion dollars.

That's eight million billions.

Colony planets

are the biggest business going.

Did you pay full price for your ticket?

No. I'm in a desirable trade.

So they fill your head with dreams,

discount your ticket,

and you fly off to populate their planet

and give Homestead

20% of everything that you make

for the rest of your life.

Not to mention the debt you run up

on this fancy starship.

So all you see here is 5,000 suckers?

I see zeros

on the Homestead Company's bottom line.

I see 5,000 men and women

changing their lives.

For 5,000 different reasons.

You don't know these people.

I'm a journalist. I know people.

Really?

This one.

Is he a banker, a teacher or a gardener?

- Banker.

- He's a gardener.

And her. Is she a...

Madison, Donna or a Lola?

Donna's too serious for that hair.

Lola.

- Madison.

- Sh*t!

All right, chef, accountant or midwife?

She has to be a midwife.

There's no way you just made that one up.

Yeah. She's a midwife.

I didn't know they still had midwives.

I like her. We'd be friends.

You think you can see that?

Don't you?

I do.

- A round-trip ticket?

- That's right.

I was gonna fly to Homestead II,

live for a year,

and then right back to Earth.

I don't get it. I left Earth for a new life,

but you end up back where you started?

I end up in the future.

Two hundred and fifty years in the future,

on Earth, which is still

the center of civilization,

like it or not.

And I'll be the only writer to ever travel

to a colony world and come back.

I'll have a story no one else can tell.

What story?

Humanity's flight to the stars.

The greatest migration in human history.

It's the biggest story there is.

But you won't know

any of the people who are reading it.

But they'd be reading it.

Or they would have been.

I'll never write it now.

I don't know if I'll ever write again.

Jim, I can't think of anything else to try

to save us.

And I don't even want to

think about it anymore.

What is there to do around here?

- Are you serious?

- Dead serious.

- Partner mode.

- Let's get it on!

Come on, get in power mode.

You just stand here.

And then we repeat what they do.

Is there anything else we can do?

- Just do the...

- Okay.

- You don't have to.

- Okay. I can...

- Beat down!

- Hey!

Here we go. Let's see it.

- Why you smiling?

- Aurora! Aurora!

'Cause I'm up two points.

Who's the lovely lady?

This is Aurora.

Aurora. A pleasure.

- I can't!

- You did great!

Okay, one more time.

One more time, let's see it.

Yes!

I swear, I didn't wear pants for a month.

Seven weeks and two days, to be exact.

The man has no shame.

Well, you're a little lacking

in that area yourself, Arthur.

I laughed at the man with no pants

until I realized I have no legs.

For a minute,

I almost forgot my life is in ruins.

I'm sorry.

What for?

I'm gonna go to bed.

Good night.

- All right.

- Good night, Aurora.

She is wonderful.

Excellent choice.

Hello.

Hi.

Here you go.

Is he asking me on a date?

Do you need a pen?

She didn't seem that impressed.

"Love to." She wrote, "Love to."

You have a visitor.

You clean up pretty good yourself.

You went shopping.

I went shoplifting.

Evening.

What can I get for you?

I'll have a Manhattan, please.

- Whiskey, rocks.

- Coming up.

You two look fine this evening.

Thank you, Arthur. We're on a date.

Very nice.

Took you long enough to ask.

I was giving you space.

Space.

The one thing I do not need more of.

That was so good.

It wasn't easy getting a reservation.

They're probably gonna want us

to give up our table.

I'm getting a lot of dirty looks.

Very popular tonight.

So how's your book coming?

I don't really know what it is yet.

My dad, he used to always

write about his life,

but he had stories.

He'd sailed around Antarctica.

He was a war reporter.

He had lovers.

He wrote about his daughter.

He wrote about you?

Yeah. I grew up reading

about myself in his books.

How was that?

Not always easy.

A little more than you wanted

to know about yourself.

And then, when I was 17,

he had a heart attack.

Right at his keypad.

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