Journey’s End By Mike Smithwick

February 28, 2208

Dear Diary, I am sorry for taking so long to write since last time, but a lot has happened, and even little girls have a lot to do. It’s almost two weeks since we left earth. Our ship is called The Seraphim. It is huge! Really big! There must be zillions of people here but Papa says only a couple of million. He says that we’re in one of the smaller ships.

Granny was allowed to send us a message yesterday. She and Grampy are okay and miss Benny and me. Papa is still mad that they don’t let old people come. But Granny said that even if they could come she and Grampy would stay so some younger families could go instead. It’s been months since we saw them back on earth since we had to move to the ship in November. I’ll miss them and the farm. I’ll miss old Clara, even if she couldn’t give any more milk. Grampy told us that the harvest this year will be really bad. The sun is doing funny things, one year Papa said it was not bright enough so the earth was cold. Then it will get too bright, so the earth will be hot. Grampy says it is hard to plant anything anymore because of that. So that is why we had to go.

Benny and I start school in a few days. Yuck! He likes it, but I want to explore. Mommy and Papa took us to a window on Saturday so we could see the stars for real instead of on the computer screen. I could see half the earth and I think the moon. But the stars were hard to see until Papa got some nice man to turn the lights off in the viewing room. Then I could see all of the stars. And it was soooo pretty! And the earth there in the middle of them. It looked smaller than on the computer though. Really small. I waved to granny and Grampy. I think they waved back.

I miss them.

I made a friend, Shanti. She lives nearby. She says she is from India and is really pretty. She’s really old, almost 20! She was crying when I found her. She misses her granny too in India. She wants to go home, but I had to tell her what Papa told Benny and me. That this was our home now and will be for 100 years. I did a lot of crying when we first got here, so did Momma. I’ll never see Iowa again. Shanti won’t ever see India again. She showed me pictures of her home and I showed her pictures of mine. Papa made sure we had lots of pictures. He said it was for my kids someday so they can see were we came from.

Benny found his toys that I hid. He called me a brat. He’s a real bratty brat! He told Momma and she got real mad. I think she is right. We can’t take much with us, and Benny’s toys are his favorite things. And now I know he’ll never let me play with them again. Stupid boys! Stupid me!

Oh, diary, Momma is calling us for dinner. Shanti is over here cooking some of her favorite food. It smells really really really good! I wish you could smell it.

Byebye! Love Ginny.

****

March 17, 2235

Dear Diary, Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me! I am now 11! Momma and Aunti Shanti made me a cake! They found someone who had some sugar and someone else with chocolate! It was only the second time I’ve ever had chocolate. It is really good. Uncle Benny sang some songs and we had fun. Then we went for a walk to the big window upstairs. We don’t get to do that much any more, Momma said it was too dangerous for little girls but she had some friends keep us safe. We saw the stars and she pointed at where earth was. I couldn’t see anything except the one bright star they said earth went around they called the sun. Uncle Benny said that he could see earth for about a year without telescopes, and the telescopes lost earth about when I was born.

Then Mommy gave me something from Daddy, one of his bestest books, about a Lion and Witch and a closet I think. Then she read it to me before bedtime. Some kids my age find a closet that takes them to a forest of magic. I could almost feel the trees against my face when they were coming out into the forest and snow. I wish I could feel snow and trees. The little trees in the park are so small, and Mommy says they are sick, that no one is taking care of them. The book also talked about Christmas. I asked Mommy what Christmas was and she told me and that a lot of earth holidays have been forgotten onboard the arks. I asked if we could have Christmas this year. She said yes. Wheeee!

Uncle Benny gave me some of his old toys. He told me to keep them safe, I could play with them a little, but to be careful. They came from his Daddy and he told me to give them to my kids when I am old enough. They were made on Earth like Daddy’s book. There were was something called a yo-yo, some animals and a wooden puzzle. We don’t have many things from earth. Sometimes I think the earth stories are just made up, but then Mommy shows me pictures of granny and gramps at great grannies farm, and I know earth was real.

Uncle Benny is Mommy’s brother. My birthday wish was that I had a brother, but Mommy says we they let us only have one baby each. I was Mommy’s baby. When we get to our new home they will let us have as many babies as we want!

I asked Mommy what snow was like and she told me it was really cold, and wet and smelled clean. I hope there will be snow where we are going. I don’t think I’ll be around then, but maybe. She made me promise that if I was, I would make a man out of snow for her.

I need to go to bed now. I hope I dream of forests and snow and Christmas. Yay!

Love Ariel

****

September 2, 2254

dear diary,

Daddy called us all around the table in the kitchen and told us that great aunti Shanti died in her home. We cried. I miss her. We told Grans, but she is too old and didn’t really understand us. Aunti gave me a little statue from her home, called India. The statue is of a pretty lady dancing. She taught Grans how to dance, but I never learned.

I am glad I knew her. I didn’t know Great Uncle Benny much. But I still have his toys. Mommy gave them to me to keep safe. She wanted them to make the trip to the new world. Daddy has a big countdown clock on the wall. He put it up 3 years ago and he changes it every year. It shows 61 years until we land. That’s a long time!

I asked him if I we could go up to the big window and see the stars, he said no. It wasn’t safe anymore. Bad people have taken over parts of the ark and make people pay money to go through their areas.

Mommy said yesterday that we can no longer hear earth anymore. She told me that it was too far away.

Bye for now!

Katie.

****

February 12, 2285

Hi there…sorry I haven’t written for a long time. Sometimes I can say I’m too busy, but it’s hard to be busy when you wait, and wait some more for something that might never happen.

Today was Countdown Day again. I got to change the numbers this time. A lot of the other families were there and cheered. We are now only 30 years away from planetfall. I think I might actually be alive to see our new home! I wonder what the sky will look like?

Too bad about the Saratoga, it’s been almost two months since we’ve heard from it. It was always way behind us out of the main fleet, a couple of years behind, but then all signals stopped. We didn’t know anyone on board, that makes it a little easier I suppose. They’ll never see New Eden. Dad was telling us about the Valley Forge loss a long time ago when he was my age. He knew one of the families there. He said fragments of the ship are still drifting among the fleet, it costs too much to clean it all up, and that some will probably hit the planet before we land. Funny, the dead will get there before the living.

Rumors are that the parliament has finally chosen a new name for Eden. It is weird. They want to call it Londinium. Until now of course we always called it New Eden, New Earth, New This-and-That, Earth 2, Genesis, Prometheus, Hao da-di. No one liked the original name, Jensen-McGruber 17. Yu ben! Named after the original discoverers I think.

Traveling among the ships is almost impossible now, the little shuttles are in such bad shape only members of the intership alliance or the registered elite are allowed, and a few normal folk like us but only in an emergency.

Even though we’re 30 years away Dad says the advance team will land in 5 years. They’re the ones with the small fast ships. (Lucky guys!) They have the new terraforming stuff with them that Blue Sun has been working on nearly since the ships left. Too late to save Old Earth. Someone said that may have caused Valley Forge to break up. Some sort of bad experiment, a mistake. They said that is where they tested some of the machines.

I am still not used to the new flat. We’ve been here for almost 3 months, but since the problem with the lower decks and the, what did Dad call them? Refugees? Lots of folk had to be moved around into smaller flats like us. Poor us.

Oh, almost forgot. The last Earth-born person died on Friday. She was just a baby when the arks left so didn’t remember anything about Earth. Dad said that this is now our Earth. In a hundred years they may be writing about the last of the “Ark Born” dying. That’s why great grandma started us writing these diaries. She said that they were like letters to the future of the past. I know of a lot of kids who are doing the same thing. And I read the letters from mom, Granny Ariel, her mom Virginia. I read about Great Grand Uncle Benny (he sounded funny and nice) Great Granny’s friend Shanti, and then looked at the little dancer stature. Glad we didn’t lose that in the move.

Gotta go now. Love Lili.

****

January 1, 2305

Ni Hao, we just had New Year’s. A lot of people were wishing we could have it on Londinium. Next year we will. We are all excited and so happy! The year countdown thing is now at 1. The Blue people said that they have another planet ready for us named Sihnon. That is a pretty name. I hope we can live there. Mom said that the first people can go down in only about 6 months. It will take a long time to get everyone down to the planets. I don’t know what will happen to the ships though. I will miss my home. Mom and Dad have been reading us the diaries from a long time ago. They don’t want me to forget the ship. I won’t.

Granny Ginny wrote about her home called Iowa. That’s a funny name. Not funnier then Londinium. She missed the land and the big farms. I can’t imagine a farm as big as a ship! I saw some pictures. They didn’t look real. She also missed the sky. I want to see a star. I wonder what a cloud is like. And the bugs. I wonder what a bug is like? They sound scary. Except for one. Little bugs that lit up. You should see them in the night. Granny called them lightning bugs. Mommy said they were also called fireflies. I want to see a firefly. They sound nice.

Good night, Suzie.

****

November 10, 2305.

We are all excited. I didn’t want to write today, but Mommy said I should. She said that my kids would want to know about landing day. We were all really busy. Our boat landed in the morning. About 1000 people were with us. The camps were big and crowded. A lot of families I never saw before. And I saw the sky and a cloud! And it was warm and the air moved. Daddy called it wind. I wonder why we didn’t have wind on the ship. We got a small flat for us and the Morgans. We are supposed to be there for about 2 months. Adam (he’s so cute!) and I ran around a lot and almost got lost. There are a lot of other kids just like us. Mommy gave me one of great uncle Benny’s toys and told me to make sure he saw the clouds too! So I took one out and showed him around. It is a funny little animal with a long neck and tail. Mommy told me it was a dinosaur, that they were really big. I wonder why they didn’t bring any dinosaurs on the animal ships?

She said these might be the only dinosaurs in the world now and wants to keep them safe so my kids can have them.

Hi Diary again. I am so excited! It got dark outside! And guess what? I saw stars! They were really pretty! But then there were funny ones that moved. Adam and I got closer and guess what again? They were bugs! Fireflies! A lot of them too!

I think I’ll like it here.

Suzie.