Chapter 29 / 51 · 1 min

The Proposal

I’d decided I would propose to Nayeera three days before Project Kepler began. The ring stayed in my spacesuit the entire journey.

There would be a terrible difference between the start and the end of this journey to Kepler-22b, six hundred and twenty light-years away. Inside the cryogenic capsules, we wouldn’t age. But traveling at near the speed of light, by the time I returned to Earth, there would be no one left I knew on that new world. No one except Nayeera.

I wanted to come back to a new Earth and build a life with someone old and familiar and comfortable.

When the mission ended and I rose from my cryogenic capsule, Nayeera was still asleep. I switched on the supercomputer.

“Risi, what’s the most significant change in these fifteen hundred years? Something I should keep in mind before I land on Earth?”

Risi answered in a flat, expressionless voice.

“The Y chromosome.”

“Meaning?”

“There are only a handful of males on Earth now. Reproduction through sexual intercourse between man and woman is forbidden, because it’s difficult to control the quality of children produced that way. So reproduction happens through cloning. And since cloning doesn’t require males, mostly females are produced now. Against four billion females, there are only three thousand two hundred and twenty-one males. Your Excellency Tushan, once you enter Earth, the number will be twenty-two.”

I let the words settle. I thought for a moment.

Then I took the ring out of my spacesuit pocket and dropped it in the trash.

There’s no point getting married in this life.