The Island - Peter Watts

Peter Watts 3 The Island
time, long ago, when I believed in this mission with all my heart.
Why have you forsaken us?
And so another build begins.
This time I open my eyes to a familiar face I've never seen
before: only a boy, early twenties perhaps, physiologically. His
face is a little lopsided, the cheekbone flatter on the left than the
right. His ears are too big. He looks almost natural.
I haven't spoken for millennia. My voice comes out a whisper:
"Who are you?" Not what I'm supposed to ask, I know. Not the
first question anyone on Eriophora asks, after coming back.
"I'm yours," he says, and just like that I'm a mother.
I want to let it sink in, but he doesn't give me the chance: "You
weren't scheduled, but Chimp wants extra hands on deck. Next
build's got a situation."
So the chimp is still in control. The chimp is always in control.
The mission goes on.
"Situation?" I ask.
"Contact scenario, maybe."
I wonder when he was born. I wonder if he ever wondered
about me, before now.
He doesn't tell me. He only says, "Sun up ahead. Half lightyear.
Chimp thinks, maybe it's talking to us. Anyhow..." My— son
shrugs. "No rush. Lotsa time."
I nod, but he hesitates. He's waiting for The Question but I
already see a kind of answer in his face. Our reinforcements were
supposed to be pristine, built from perfect genes buried deep
within Eri's iron-basalt mantle, safe from the sleeting blueshift.
And yet this boy has flaws. I see the damage in his face, I see
those tiny flipped base-pairs resonating up from the microscopic
and bending him just a little off-kilter. He looks like he grew up
on a planet. He looks borne of parents who spent their whole lives
hammered by raw sunlight.
How far out must we be by now, if even our own perfect
building blocks have decayed so? How long has it taken us? How
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