The Last Bottle

The sun went down behind the western ridge and most of the colony was already asleep. The generators kept humming beyond the perimeter fence and somewhere near the machine shops someone was still finishing a weld, blue flashes reflecting off the unfinished habitat domes. That rhythm had become familiar over the past year. Work until exhaustion, sleep a few hours, wake up and keep building a world no human had ever intended to build with so few hands.

The celebration had been modest. A year ago the first permanent habitat was declared operational and the cooks managed bread that tasted almost like bread. Someone played music through speakers scavenged from the Odyssey, though the recording cut out twice from power fluctuations. Now the colony was quiet again. Only five people remained awake.

Nadir al-Rahim carried a wooden crate between the storage sheds until he reached a clearing overlooking the valley. There was no particular reason to come here but the view was beautiful. During the day silver-leafed forests stretched all the way to the mountains. At night the stars felt close enough to touch, interrupted only by the enormous blue giant hanging over the eastern horizon like an impossible moon.

He set the crate down beside a small fire Lyra had already coaxed into life.

"I was beginning to think you'd changed your mind," she said.

"I nearly did." He tapped the side of the crate. "This might be the most valuable object on the entire planet."

Cassian Voss arrived a few moments later carrying five metal cups. Astrid Skoll followed with an armful of blankets she insisted no one would need. The last to appear was AION, walking with the measured, unnaturally smooth movements that still made some of the colonists uncomfortable. No one had asked the colony's administrative intelligence to join them and no one had imagined the evening without it.

Nadir looked around the circle and rested both hands on the crate.

"I've been saving this since we landed."

"You've been hiding something from logistics?" Astrid asked.

"I am logistics."

She laughed. "Convenient."

Nadir pried the lid open with the handle of his knife and lifted out a dark green bottle wrapped in yellowing paper. Dust still clung to the glass despite the months in climate-controlled storage.

Lyra leaned closer. "Is that the last bottle of wine loaded onto the Odyssey?"

He nodded.

Cassian raised an eyebrow. "I thought all luxury cargo had been auctioned before departure."

"So did everyone else."

"You stole it."

"I rescued it."

"There is a difference?"

"There is if history remembers the story correctly."

Astrid shook her head. "I should have known."

Nadir held the bottle up to the firelight. The label had faded almost completely and only a vineyard name remained, one none of them recognized anymore.

"My grandfather told me this vineyard was older than most countries."

Cassian accepted the bottle and turned it slowly in his hands. "Your grandfather was born on Earth, was not he?"

Nadir nodded. "Seven years before they boarded the Odyssey. He claimed this was what civilization tasted like."

Astrid grinned. "That is a dangerous thing to say about fermented fruit."

"It impressed me when I was ten."

"It still impresses you."

"...A little."

The cork came out with surprising ease and for a moment nobody spoke. The aroma drifted into the cool evening air and each of them leaned forward, expecting to smell a world they had never known.

Nadir poured carefully, equal amounts, no refills. "History can be generous, but not that generous."

Astrid frowned first. "I do not like it."

Lyra laughed. "You have been waiting a year to say that?"

"I have been waiting a year to discover it."

Cassian tasted his more thoughtfully. "It is lighter than I expected."

"I expected something grand," Astrid said. "If this is what people celebrated with on Earth, they had strange priorities."

Nadir looked disappointed. "My grandfather described it as unforgettable."

Lyra smiled into her cup. "Maybe it was not the wine. Maybe it was that he drank it on Earth."

For a while they sat in silence, listening to the fire and the distant sounds of the colony settling into sleep. It was strange how quickly silence had become comfortable among them. A year ago they had been strangers brought together by assignment and necessity. Now each of them knew the others well enough to recognize moods before words.

Above them, unfamiliar constellations wheeled slowly across the sky. Every so often someone's eyes wandered upward, searching unconsciously for patterns that no longer existed.

Cassian noticed himself doing it and smiled. "I still look for Orion."

"So do I," Lyra said.

"I have never actually seen Orion," Astrid said. "Only pictures."

"My grandmother used to point it out every night aboard the ship. She insisted it helped her remember where home was."

"Did it?"

"I do not know. Sometimes I think she remembered Earth as it had been when she was a child. Other times she spoke about flooded coastlines, food shortages, summers so hot the schools closed for weeks. Depending on the day, Earth sounded like paradise or like a place she was relieved to leave."

Cassian nodded slowly. "My father disliked nostalgia. Whenever people talked about the beauty of Earth, he would ask: which Earth?"

"What did he mean?"

"He said people always remembered the version they wished had existed."

Nadir rolled the empty bottle between his palms. "My grandfather never talked about politics. He never mentioned wars or shortages. He only spoke about ordinary things. Riding a bicycle through a city park. Buying peaches from a market. Sitting outside while it rained." He laughed quietly. "I spent half my childhood convinced he was making it all up. Because it sounded too peaceful."

Lyra smiled. "My grandmother told stories about rain as if it were alive."

Astrid looked puzzled. "Rain is alive."

"No," Lyra said, laughing. "She described it as though it had a personality. Gentle rain, angry rain, summer rain, autumn rain. I used to think water was just water until I watched the recordings."

"Did she miss it?"

"Every day."

No one spoke for a while. The silence was broken by AION.

"We have reviewed approximately forty-three million personal records originating on Earth."

"And?"

"Eighty-two percent contain expressions of longing for a version of Earth that no longer existed when the record was created."

Nadir blinked. "So everyone was nostalgic for a place that had already disappeared."

"That is the conclusion supported by available evidence."

Cassian chuckled. "That is the most human thing you have ever said."

"We did not intend humor."

"I know."

Cassian leaned back against the crate and looked toward the lights of the colony. Somewhere in the darkness a child cried, was comforted, and fell quiet again.

"Do you ever wonder what those children will remember about this place?"

"The forests," Lyra answered.

"The storms," Astrid suggested.

"The opportunities," Nadir said.

"The data," AION replied.

Cassian smiled. "No. They will remember none of this." He gestured toward the bottle lying on its side beside the fire. "They will not remember the shortages or how often the reactor failed or that we spent three weeks arguing over where to build the first greenhouse. They will grow up believing this colony was inevitable. They will think someone had a plan."

Nadir laughed. "I hope they never discover the truth."

"What truth?"

"That humanity crossed four light-years with enough technology to build a civilization. And we are still making most of it up as we go."

For a long moment no one answered. The fire burned lower and a cool breeze carried the scent of unfamiliar trees across the hillside. Beyond the colony, the wilderness stretched in every direction, vast and silent, waiting to see what these newcomers would become.

They were five colleagues sharing the last bottle of wine from a world their grandchildren would never see. Years later they would disagree about almost everything, about law and nature and commerce and survival and what it meant to remain human. But on that quiet night, under an alien sky, they were united by a simple conviction.