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As you know, we start training at age four, leaving the orphanages to live in the cosmology academies.” He chuckles, I’m not sure what for. “For the next eight years, we are all built into the best little spacefarer soldiers we can be, learning gymnastics, science, engineering, combat. We practice in zero g, orbiting often so that movements in space will be second nature.”
That's fucking crazy
Once we are twelve, the culling begins. The class must go from one hundred fifty down to twenty or so. There are many ways to fail out and be placed in military or civil service instead, but the most frequent is the ‘pool bash.’ We are strapped into a mock spacecraft that is suspended a hundred feet over a pool with wave generators. The lights go out, and the craft is dropped into the pool. We have to get out of the underwater wreckage in the dark and make it to the edge, all with twenty-foot swells.”
Holy shit
“I spent my whole life feeling like I was a robot pretending to be a human. It just got confirmed.”
“Well, yes. That was how life on Earth worked, too. People did a lot of tasks and tried to keep death as far away as possible.”
Insanity used to be a stranger that lived on the other side of the world. Now it’s moved next door. It’s only a matter of time until it becomes shipmate, lover, self.
“Well, we’re hardwired not to accept our own demise. Daffodils are a lot more chill about it.” “Okay, but we can be like daffodils together.”
