Page 76 of Meet Me in Another Life

“The clock,” Thora says. “It was a countdown.”

Santi follows her gaze to the tower, hands stuck at midnight for so many worlds. Four years eleven months of compressed time. Four years eleven months of supplies gone. He tries to summon the trained professional he doesn’t remember being. “We need to assess the situation and come up with a plan.”

Thora hiccups with laughter. “All right. Here’s the situation. We’re exactly where we’ve always wanted to be, but we can’t see or touch it. And if we don’t find a way out, we’re going to starve to death inside a metal box without ever waking up.” She darts a glance through the window of Der Zentaur. “Where’s my wine?”

“Brigitta’s still opening up.”

“Brigitta’s not fucking real.” Thora gets to her feet and hammerson the door. After a brief, tense conversation Santi can’t hear, Thora comes back to the table with a wine and a lager. She raises her glass. “To achieving our dreams,” she says bitterly.

Santi clinks with feeling.

Thora puts her glass down, making a face. “It’s not the same now thatI know the real me is getting all my fluids intravenously.”

Santi takes a sip of his lager. “Still tastes real to me.”

“But it’s not. None of this is. What we just saw is definitive proof.” Thora shakes her head. “I get that it makes sense to put us under for the journey. To make a fake world to keep us entertained. But why not let us remember where we really are?”

Santi shivers, thinking of the close metal walls surrounding his real body. “Maybe it’s important for us to accept the reality of this place. I guess that’s why they put copies of our loved ones in here. Héloïse. Jaime. Lily.”

“Jules.” Thora toys with her glass, a strange tenderness on her face. “I want to see her. I mean, the real her.”

“Maybe you will,” he says. “When we get back.”

She looks at him as if she’s afraid to hope. “Ten years out, ten years back, plus however long we’re going to spend on the planet? Not to mention five years’ unscheduled delay? No one would wait that long.”

“You don’t know that.”

Thora takes a morose swallow of wine. “No wonder she kept breaking up with me.I’dbreak up with me. Can you imagine?Hey babe, I signed up for a twenty-plus-year mission across the far reaches of space, no hard feelings, see you when I get back!”

Santi smiles sadly, thinking of Héloïse, of the look in her eyes he has seen again and again: anxious, expectant, waiting for the moment he would leave. “We may know them, but we only know them from one side,” he reminds her. “You think Jules wouldwant you to stay, so that’s how you imagine her. But the real Jules might not want what you think she does.” He taps Thora’s hand. “Think about it. Everything here was by design. They must have agreed to the use of their likenesses, their personalities. It means Jules wanted to send part of herself with you.”

Thora gives him a pained smile. Santi tries to imagine it: coming back to Earth, stepping out into the eyes of the waiting crowd. “On the video,” he says. “How old did we look?”

“I don’t know. Late thirties? Hard to tell when we’re half-starved.” Thora gnaws on her nail. “It’s so weird to think about being one age. At this point, I feel like every age I’ve ever been.” Watching him, her face changes. “You’re thinking about your parents.”

He nods.

“They’ll be fine,” she says. “Healthy Mediterranean lifestyle, all that olive oil. Mine, on the other hand...” She throws her wine back in illustration. “I suppose they might have pickled themselves,” she mutters.

Santi knows it’s her way of coping, but he can’t smile. He imagines the version of himself that left his mother and father, knowing he would likely never see them again. The real version. He wishes he could say it feels impossible. A sudden pain pulses between his eyes. He presses on his temples, inhaling until it passes.

“Shit,” Thora says. “It’s worse than that.”

Santi tries to focus on her. “What do you mean?”

“Relativity.” She moves her glass of wine aside. “Proxima Centauri is four point two light-years from Earth. If it only took us ten years to get here, we must have been traveling at a reasonable fraction of the speed of light.”

Santi nods. “More time will pass back home.”

“How much more?” Thora unfolds her napkin and holds outher hand for Santi’s pen. “Subjective journey time, ten point four years,” she mutters. “So, twenty point eight years round trip. Assuming constant acceleration...” She scribbles down the formula.

Santi leans over, fascinated. “You can calculate hyperbolic sines in your head?”

“To an approximation.” Thora frowns. “Time passed on Earth should be... around twenty-three years. Compared to twenty-one for us.” She laughs.

Santi gives her a puzzled look. “Why is that funny?”

“Jules will finally get her wish. When we get back, she’ll be a year older than me.” She stops, correcting herself. “If we get back.”

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