"Balls"

That was my first thought after being asked to 'kindly' clean the cow pens in the animal ward. I didn't want to give my supervisor Sarah any impression that I particularly hated the idea of that job, despite what I actually thought, because I'm just praying that the more I do the dirty work the less I'll have to do later in the year.

"Sure", I politely responded, "Will I keep the cow shit for manure or pop it in the bioreactor lineup?"

Sarah seemed mildly taken aback at my willingness to do some of the dirtiest work she had to offer, but she told me to ask whatever rancher was tending the herd when I got there. Come to think of it, they mind the cows! Shouldn't they be the ones to clean up their dung?

I let my inner turmoil fester on my way to the livestock sector. Stupid sector painted with a bright blue sky and the cow pens painted to look like an ancient American barn. I didn't eat cow meat, so I felt no love for the guys, and to me they were a waste of space. Smelled bad, gave horrible tasting meat, take three hundred decades to mature enough to eat, useless little creatures. I much preferred chickens, everyone loves chicken meat and their eggs are useful for all sorts. I smiled and waved at Layden as I walked by, the friendliest chicken rancher of the bunch. It didn't smell great in any of the animal sections, but at least Layden knew to take a shower before he came over after work. He didn't come over very often, but when he did I got a nice batch of eggs in return for a kitchen-cooked meal. I had to make my way through the awful-smelling pig pens and get splashed with mud before I got to the cow pens but by the time I reached my lonely paradise the mud was dried to my clothes and I didn't feel as icky. 

The moment I saw the field I could see what I would be in for. It looked like the cow's small patch of grass hadn't been cleaned in weeks! Why do I, of all people, have to do this job? This isn't what I signed up for as a general cleaner aboard the ship. I was about forty-five minutes into picking up every spot of brown I could unfortunately find when the rancher in charge decided to even show up. She was fairly tall, although I'm fairly short so I'm not the best judge. She had long, brown hair, surprisingly clean clothes for her job and deep set green eyes that made her look like she was giving you a permanent death stare. She also looked like she was about to kill me.

"Hi! Here I'll take care of that don't worry." She said, her mild frown surprising me with a sudden switch into a smile.

"Oh, okay?" I asked, confused. It was my job, I thought I would be doing it? "What should I do then?"

"You can just bring all the bags to the lineup once I'm done, I just put in the request for someone to bring the bags of manure away once I had rounded it all up. Thanks for making a start though."

I was rather pleased with my luck, I got the payment and the hard-worker points from Sarah without having to do basically any work! Actually, come to think of it, Sarah probably sent me here knowing that I only had to take the bags away! Scummy move, I'll report her for it later. After I had finished filing a mental note to complain about Sarah's inability to read what's on the screen in front of her, the lady I was speaking to started to collect the rest of the cow manure from the ground with an astonishingly low reaction to the horrible smell. I guess she does deal with it every day so it's not that bad. "I'll bring these three bags away then" I muttered, not sure if I should disrupt her work. She gave me a silent thumbs up and I walked the fifteen minutes to the bioreactor and the fifteen minutes back, only to return to seven more bags ready to go once I had reached the farm.

"Don't worry, there's still plenty more to go!" The Rancher exclaimed enthusiastically. "This is why I asked for some help, it would take wayyyy too long if I brought them there myself!"

"That's so fair." I replied, with a little grin starting to appear on my face. "I'm just glad I get the easy work." I hauled three bags onto each shoulder and walked the distance back and forth for the next two and a half hours until I made it back and there was no cow dung left, only ten bags and The Rancher there waiting for me.

"Come with me, we'll haul these last two together", The Rancher announced, her demeanor jolly and and her grimace pronounced. "might be nice to have a friend go with you this time instead of both of us spending half an hour getting all bored on our own".

She was right, the walk to and from the bioreactor was incredibly boring. The horrible smell of cow shit didn't help either. I thought for a second about the long, grey corridors and going another round with my thoughts. "Absolutely." And so off we went. The hallway that goes past all the farms to the gigantic, ship-fueling bioreactor towards the back of Ancestor is lonely at best, and creepy at worst. My only saving graces were that there are no corners for something, or someone, to hide behind, and that I can see a faint light at the end. Otherwise I'd be petrified that some creature would appear and maul me. We set off, six bags on my shoulder and four bags on hers. The first three seconds went by and not a word was spoken. After a couple more seconds with still no talking I began to worry about what I should say. Would she say something first? What could I say? Something about farming? Something about cleaning? Maybe I should ask if she has any family or friends or what she does on her days off-

"I always hated this damned corridor," she said, quite swiftly ending my spiral, "I'm always worried that some creature is hiding down the end, somewhere in the shadows."

"I KNOW!" I replied loudly, probably a little too loudly actually, she jumped a little, oops. "Sorry I've just never had anyone wholeheartedly agree with my opinion on this hallway before, I'm always actually terrified of the hallway and no one ever seems to understand why." Finally! Someone who gets it! The way that the darkness goes on forever, the slightly eerie yellow glow coming from the intermittent, almost entirely dead floor lights, the random clunks and clatters you hear coming from the right side wall. I've never seen the full map of the Ancestor, but I presume we're near the outside wall of the ship as the pipes, gears and other techno bits are very audible from every point in the tunnel. Usually walls with stuff in them have insulation and noise-proofing, the ship would be unbearably loud on the inside if it didn't. My friend Eoghan was one of the engineers who worked on fixing leaks and cracks in the ship, so he filled me in on all of the important problems that happened whenever he came over to my cabin.

"I used to really hate stories about the supernatural", The Rancher replied, a slight disdain in her voice, probably directed at the eerie darkness we had stepped foot into. She seems to have a knack for cutting off my thought process, or maybe I just shouldn't be thinking so much mid-conversation. "I still do, I never lost that fear, so really I just kinda called someone over to do the scary bit for me. It's rather unlucky that I managed to get probably one of the few people who is as scared of supernatural stuff as I am."

"Right I'll just shove off then." I said lightheartedly, at least I hoped she took it lightheartedly.

"No! I am NOT doing this on my own again. Better to have someone distract me with their fear than to deal with my own." I'll admit that one got me laughing a little. She seemed like the type to be able to deal with it on her own, but she definitely couldn't carry all these bags at once, and she didn't seem to be biting my head off yet, so what's the harm in helping?

"I always watched supernatural horror shows and movies as a kid, and they scared me every time. I only kept watching them because my parents loved them and I didn't want to go to bed yet. The 'staying as silent as possible and hope they don't realise you're still awake' strategy, you know?" She laughed at my comment, it's a universal truth that no kid wants to go to bed at their bedtime. "It's not even really the idea of there actually being something there that scares me anymore, maybe because I know there won't be, but I still can't help get scared at the idea that there is some tiny, minuscule sliver of a chance something is down the hall."

"Shut up, no more, let's not scare ourselves." She replied anxiously, I could see the panic in her eyes and the sweat on her hands so I realised that I should switch topic in order to preserve both our mental states.

"What's your name? Sorry, I never asked." I questioned. Probably the polite thing to ask, and a good way to bring the conversation away from both of our fears. She visibly perked up at the notion of not having to talk about horror anymore. With a big grin on her face she answered;

"Cora." I was surprised, I was expecting something more… butch? I don't know why, maybe it was the whole farmer aesthetic she had going on or the way she spoke or her willingness to pick up an egregious amount of cow dung, but I was expecting a more masculine name. I liked it though, Cora isn't a name you see very often, and I thought it suited her. Now that I was looking at her more, she did seem like someone that I could see lying on the beach sunbathing like in some of the movies from history. We all learned about the old geography of Earth in our classes when we were kids. We were shown globes and pictures of mountains and beaches and cities. I'd like to experience a river for myself. Running water through a forest would be a pleasant sight. The name Cora is beach-y, and she seemed like a Cora. 

"Cool name, I've never known another Cora." I replied with a grin.

"Yeah, my parents loved the idea of taking me to a beach. Their grandparents- my, great grandparents, passed down their stories from their childhoods living beside the clear-water beaches on Earth. Once we make it to Gaea, I think I'll stay. I was born in nature, or at least the little of it left, and I only took this job because my parents begged me to. Spending years of my life on this ship has filled me with hate for it. The animals are the only things keeping me sane enough to remember that there is even a green planet and blue ocean on the other side. Once we've made it to Gaea I'll use the money from this job to buy a home near some beach somewhere while there is still land to buy, and I'll plant some coral, as a token of gratitude to my parents. I will make sure my descendants remember who sent them to their lovely new home."

I was a little astonished at how much she'd thought about what to do once she was done here, she had planned her future out a lot for someone who was stuck on a cargo ship for a lot of her life. I hadn't even tried to think about it. No-one sent me here, I just came to get away from Earth. No-one was waiting for me on either end of the trip, the only difference was that the new planet was mostly unexplored, and that meant I could actually make something of myself there. There was no chance of that back on Earth, all the niches had been filled, and all the resources pretty much drained. Hanging on to our original home was futile.

"I- wow…" I stuttered, unable to find the words. To know what you wanted to do once you reached the other side was a rarity. "Is there anyone waiting for you on Gaea? Anyone who came on any of the other cargo ships?" 

"Nope, I have some family on QA-FFE and OL14, but none went to GE2. I'm the first to try."

"Makes sense, Gaea does seem to be paradise though, I'm surprised that none of your family has tried."

"My parents were too attached to home, and my family on the other two planets are very wealthy there, they have no need to leave. Of course they don't share any of that cash but that's beside the point. Going to Gaea will be my chance to have a nice life, which is all my parents wanted."

"GE2, the new paradise, hopefully it lives up to its name." I answered despondently. 

"Anyway though, what's your name?" Cora asked me, seeming genuinely interested.

"Lucas." I replied with a smile. "I'd shake your hand if it wasn't carrying multiple bags of cow shit."

"Likewise." We both smiled. Then, a sound like a a combination of every known animal's dying screech echoed from outside the ship, and then the crunch of metal from every angle, sudden darkness with no air-

We wouldn't be experiencing paradise anytime soon.