He sails. Velvet night like some soft glove, a womb. It encompasses the totality of existence between feeds, re-runs of comedy shows and the checking of the caskets. No one asked him to caretake for this long, no one expected him to watch them for a lifetime. But these are interstellar gulfs and he is it. No one factored janitorial money into this trip.

This trip was a fast-becoming-standard cheap raft. Hab modules scavenged from the usual sources and lashed together to provide a living space for whoever was woken for watch duty. A vast accretion of modules bolted together to provide a living space for the 3 months rota. Only nobody woke to relieve him. After four months he began interrogating the dumb terminal with stupid questions, expecting answers other than ‘data insufficient’

Only when he began to read logs did he realise. The first clue came from sheer volume of data.

It was the fifth week of his caretakership. The routine was as always, breakfast with Marylin Manson and Nine Inch Nails. Fuck you void. Fuck you. Then the size of the log caught his eye. A computer system designed to take near a million terabytes of information, nearly full?

He finished another rehydrated breakfast of egg and corn bread before preparing for the free-fall section. The euphoria of free fall was matched by the apprehension of knowing gut deep that something was wrong. Back in another spun hab, through a complex four lock system of airlocks he finds a hydroponics lab he could call ‘angola’. The system is wrecked beyond control. But he ventures forth enough to raid a tomato plant, some green bananas and the roots of potato plants.

Back on hab module he fights tears. This was never his job. Caretaker, three months. That was the deal. Pay the fee, do the duty. A new life awaits you in the colonies!

Interrogate the computers again. It has become a daily ritual. Nothing new. Starcharts he never had a chance of understanding. Read-outs on the caskets. The only time a red flashed up he rushed to the sealed deck to claw and scream hopelessly as she did the same. A death for a caretaker who never wanted this. They didn’t design it for no personnel. Where are they?

He spends his waking days obsessing over what could have happened to the overseers. His was only ever support role, a helping hand that gained a discount on flight cost.

He watched, like a Noah, over fully 50,000 caskets. Each one with a person interred, expecting to be awoken and ferried down to the colony world. Why live the journey? Chill out and thaw out on delivery, let physics take the stress.

Nobody asked for more than three months. Nobody asked for anything other than support staff roles.

Nobody asked a man to watch a colony ark on his own.

Self-pity can only last so long. After the fourth dejected trip to the jungle of a hydroponics section he floats further. Deeper. To a section that has no designation, hidden behind hydro and an engineering module.

Freefall is what he has now. The comedies have grown stale, repeat after repeat. The simple pleasure of a well prepared meal is just that. Simple.

So in the weightless gloom he spins and plays, gaining the grace and elite-unite movements a Marine would envy. A quick twist-flick of the heel bounces him from secondary hull to gantry, a brief twist grip of the rail sends him to the hydro hab and another piston push from the legs sent him sailing towards the dark hab module. The whispered cargo, glorious enough to launch but shhh!