Time to Orbit: Unknown

First -- Prev-- Archive -- Next The elevator was smaller than I remembered. Last time I’d done this tour had been in one of my earliest sessions of Education, and the twelve of us had gone up in two groups of six plus the guide. This time there were only five of us plus the … Continue reading 13: The Treegrave

First -- Prev-- Archive -- Next I started watching teenage girls. Watching how they walked, and what they wore, and how they did their hair. They liked wraps that were plainer than the wraps me and my friends wore, and hair braids that were more complicated, sometimes with ribbons (like grown ups), but not with … Continue reading 12: The Trolley

First -- Prev-- Archive -- Next The month ended, and Grandma still hadn’t spoken up. On one of my free days I waited until I was home alone and went to the red button in the garden. “Treegrave?” “Hello, Taya. How can I help you?” I shrugged. “I’m just alone and bored and thinking about … Continue reading 11: Observation

First -- Prev-- Archive -- Next When I got up in the morning, the whole thing seemed a bit silly. It didn’t really make sense for the treegrave to not be real. It would be a really silly lie to tell, just to kill off people who weren’t useful to the ship. And a silly … Continue reading 10: The Ballad of Billie the Second Son

First -- Prev-- Archive -- Next On the last day of my break, I had a dream. I was in one of the ship’s viewing ports again, alone. But Grandma’s wheelchair was there with me. Like last time, I couldn’t just see out of one wall; I could see all around. The Vanguard to ship-right, … Continue reading 9: The Secret

First -- Prev-- Archive -- Next The number blocks were easy to use. There were little blocks that could be added together or taken away or sorted into groups to find out the answers to math questions. There were longer sticks, twelve blocks long, to represent twelve blocks so that we could work with big … Continue reading 8: Seven

First -- Prev-- Archive -- Next Mum had her baby just as I was about to start Textiles, so she was gone for a few days, but came back fine. She was tired but okay; the baby was okay, safe in the orphanage. I never saw it. Textiles was about what I expected, from talking … Continue reading 7: Round Numbers

First -- Prev-- Archive -- Next We did the rest of Farming, and most of it was stuff I knew and didn’t have to pay much attention to. Arai wasn’t paying much attention either, except for the basic attention that she always paid everything; I didn’t think that she’d choose to do a second pass … Continue reading 6: Mammals

First -- Prev-- Archive -- Next We didn’t see any food making machines on the rest of the jaunt through the Kitchens, but that didn’t mean that I was wrong. They were probably just too dangerous to let kids our age close to. Maybe people who did a second pass in Kitchens got to see … Continue reading 5: The Stranger

First -- Prev-- Archive -- Next I spent as much time as I could with Grandma over the next month, but it wasn’t easy. We have a big family, and she had old friends, so a lot of people wanted to spend time with her. And she had to spend lots and lots of time … Continue reading 4: Change