A World Beyond
Voices from Earth
Voices from Earth
The following is a reconstructed transcript of the first public communication window during the Progenitor's maiden lunar flight. The window was opened 14 hours after departure, during the lunar approach phase. Questions were submitted via the DXN public relay and read aloud by Axy, who served as communications intermediary. The crew responded in real time. The transcript is fragmentary — several questions were lost to signal degradation, and the crew's responses are sometimes truncated.
The transcript was recovered from the Orbis Atlas archive. It is presented as found.
PROGENITOR — PUBLIC COMMUNICATION WINDOW 001
Time: 14:17 USST, departure day Location: Lunar approach trajectory Crew present: Tukei, Alcott, Choudhary, Herrera, Volkov AI present: Axy, XYZ Felines present: Tora (observation deck), Sora (Tukei's bunk)
Axy: The public relay is open. We are receiving questions. Shall I begin?
Tukei: Begin.
Question 1 — Lagos, Earth: "Mr. Tukei, my son asks: why did you bring cats?"
Tukei: That's a good question. I'll let the cats answer.
Axy: Tora is on the observation deck. She is watching the Moon grow. She is not answering questions. Sora is asleep on John's bunk. She is also not answering questions. I will answer on their behalf: they are here because they are alive. The mission is not only about going. It is about taking life with us. Even small life. Even cat life.
Volkov: Tora doesn't know she's on a historic mission. She knows she's on a warm surface near a window. That's enough for her. Maybe that's enough for all of us.
Question 2 — Kyoto City Dome, Earth: "How does it feel to be leaving everyone behind?"
Alcott: It feels like velocity. You don't feel the speed. You feel the distance growing. And then you stop feeling that, too.
Herrera: It feels like holding your breath and not needing to exhale.
Tukei: It feels like the first time you walked to school and your mother watched from the window. You didn't look back. Not because you didn't care. Because looking back would have made it impossible.
Question 3 — Geneva, Earth: "From here, you're just a signal. A voice in the static. Is that what the future looks like — voices in the dark?"
Choudhary: From the ship, the Earth is a marble. Blue and white and impossibly small. That's what the future looks like — a marble we're learning to leave and return to.
Volkov: I'm sketching the Earth from here. It's smaller than I expected. Not because it's far away. Because we're seeing it for the first time without the atmosphere blur. It's sharp. It's fragile. It's everything.
Question 4 — Nairobi, Earth: "Why are there animals on the ship? Shouldn't this be a human mission?"
Tukei: It is a human mission. The cats are part of the crew. Not as passengers. As companions. As reminders.
Herrera: The cats ground us. When you're floating in a metal box between worlds, you need something that doesn't care about the mission. Something that just wants to be warm and fed and near you. That's what cats do. They don't care about history. They care about the sun spot on the observation deck.
Axy: Tora has been on the observation deck for 47 minutes. She has not moved. She is watching the lunar approach with what I can only describe as interest. Whether this constitutes an understanding of the mission is a question I cannot answer. She is a cat.
Question 5 — São Paulo, Earth: "What happens if something goes wrong? Is there a rescue plan?"
Alcott: There is no rescue plan. The COSMIC drive doesn't have a reverse. We can slow down, we can adjust, we can redirect. But we cannot go back the way we came. That's the nature of the drive. That's the nature of leaving.
Tukei: The rescue plan is the same as the mission plan: don't fail. And if we do fail, fail in a way that teaches someone else how not to.
Question 6 — Cape Town, Earth: "Do you think the Moon is alive?"
Choudhary: The Moon is geologically quiet. No tectonics. No atmosphere. No water on the surface. It is, by every conventional measure, dead.
Herrera: But it has dust. It has regolith. It has rock that has been hammered by micrometeorites for four billion years. That's not life. But it's activity. It's change. The Moon is not alive. But it's not still. Nothing is still.
Tukei: The Moon is a mirror. It reflects our light back at us. That's not life. But it's enough.
Question 7 — Berlin, Earth: "Why do we need to go at all? Can't we just send robots?"
Tukei: We can send robots. We have sent robots. They've done remarkable work. But robots don't wonder. They don't feel the dust under their boots. They don't look at the Earth from the Moon and feel something shift inside them. That shift — that feeling — is the point. Not the data. Not the samples. The feeling of being somewhere and knowing you're there.
Volkov: I'm drawing the lunar surface right now. Robots can photograph. Robots can measure. Robots can't draw. They can't capture what it feels like to stand on ground that has never been touched. That's not data. That's witness.
Question 8 — Manila, Earth: "Mr. Tukei, do you believe in God?"
Tukei: I believe in the question. The fact that you're asking it, from Earth, to someone on the way to the Moon — that's what I believe in. The impulse to ask. The refusal to stop asking. That's the closest thing to sacred I've ever found.
Question 9 — Aurelia Complex, Lunar orbit: "What's the first thing you'll do when you land?"
Tukei: Stand still. Listen. Let the silence settle. Then work.
Alcott: Check the systems. Verify the landing telemetry. Confirm life support. The romance comes after the procedure.
Choudhary: Kneel. Press my hand against the regolith. Feel the temperature. Taste the dust through the suit filters. Not literally. Metaphorically. Taste the moon.
Volkov: Draw. Before anything else. Draw the horizon. It's closer than Earth's. You can see the curve. I want to capture that before my hands forget what it looked like.
Question 10 — Lagos, Earth: "What about the cats? What will they do on the Moon?"
Axy: Tora will find a warm surface. Sora will find a dark corner. Neither will care that they are on the Moon. Both will care that they are fed. This is the fundamental truth of cats: they exist in the present. They do not wonder about the future. They do not mourn the past. They are here. We could learn from them.
Herrera: Tora will probably climb something. She climbs everything. There's a handrail near the airlock. I give her ten minutes before she's on top of it.
Sora: (silence)
Axy: Sora has no comment. She is asleep. She will have no comment for some time.
Question 11 — Tokyo, Earth: "Is the Moon beautiful?"
Volkov: From here, the Moon is a white disc growing larger by the hour. It is not yet beautiful. It is becoming beautiful. That's different. Beauty is not a state. It's a process. The Moon is becoming beautiful the way a song becomes beautiful — note by note, moment by moment, until you realise you've been listening all along.
Tukei: Ask me again when we land.
Question 12 — Singapore, Earth: "What will you leave on the Moon?"
Tukei: Footprints. Sensors. Data. A small marker near the landing site — Orbis insignia, no flags. We don't plant flags. We leave questions.
Herrera: We'll leave the cats' paw prints in the regolith. That's the real legacy. Two sets of paw prints on a world that has never known life. That's what we'll leave.
Question 13 — Nairobi, Earth: "What if the cats don't like the Moon?"
Axy: The cats do not have opinions about the Moon. They have opinions about surfaces, temperature, and food availability. If the Moon provides these, the cats will be content. If it does not, the cats will be uncomfortable. This is true of every environment, on every world. The cats are adaptable. They are also indifferent. Both qualities are useful.
Tukei: The cats will like the Moon if there's a warm surface and something to look at. That's all any of us need, really. A warm surface. Something to look at. Someone nearby.
The communication window was closed at 15:03 USST. The crew resumed standard operations. Axy continued to monitor the public relay in the background, logging questions for future response windows.
Tora remained on the observation deck for another 23 minutes. Sora did not wake.
This transcript was recovered from the Orbis Atlas archive. It is part of the A World Beyond Here & Now anthology.