JaVale McGee sighed contentedly as he watched the sphere of Earth recede in the window of the spaceship. He had finally escaped the drudgery of terrestrial existence, at the ripe age of 153. A century and a half toiling on Earth, where no adventure nor excitement awaited him, was all worth it, for now, he was sailing through the void of the space with a hundred or so like-minded individuals, all united in one goal: to explore the unexplored frontiers of the solar system.
Seeing that blue circle dotted with clouds get smaller and smaller, he couldn’t help but recall his days as a professional athlete. Soon, he hoped, he would exceed those earthly accomplishments. Out here, he would help advance humankind’s knowledge of the infinite void surrounding them, rather than provide a momentary diversion in the form of a mindless sporting contest.
Snuggling up in his bunk, he issued the voice command to turn off the lights, then rolled over and pulled his blanket over him. A smile was on his face; how could it not be, when tomorrow was the first day of the rest of his life as a space explorer?
—
“JaVale, you’ll be on instrument duty. It’s boring, but this is your first time on the crew, and we all gotta start somewhere,” said Dave Rosear, JaVale’s direct supervisor. “Don’t panic if one of the readings is outside of safe levels, it’s not a big deal unless it stays that way for more than a couple hours. The ship is smart enough to regulate itself.”
“Got it,” JaVale said, privately disappointed that he wouldn’t be doing something more interesting right away, but understanding that he had to earn his stripes out here in space. “Uh, where is the instrument room, exactly?”
Dave rolled his eyes. “Follow the signs. Your chip will beep at you if you’re going the wrong way, it’s programmed with your assignment.”
JaVale noticed for the first time a sign underneath where they stood in the main mess hall. It had the names of at least thirty different areas of the ship on it, with arrows pointing in every direction, but the biometric overlay on his eyeball had lit up the name of the room he was supposed to be going to. “On my way, sir,” he said, glad that he remembered to be formal. If he was ever going to get promoted, sucking up to the higher-ups couldn’t hurt.
He finished off his breakfast of coffee and nutrient powder, then proceeded to his assigned spot. There was one other person in the instrumentation room; she sat at a large bank of panels and was boredly looking from one to the next in succession. JaVale sat down at the other available chair and read her nametag: Janice. “Hi Janice,” he started by way of introduction. “I’m JaVale. I guess we’re working together.”
Janice didn’t smile. She looked up at the newcomer and raised her eyebrows, then grunted and went back to her monitoring of the readings. JaVale shrugged and scooted his chair over to the opposite wall, where an entirely different set of panels was. His biometric chip supplied a helpful summary of what each one meant, with an option to read a more detailed synopsis.
The first day was somewhat interesting, as he learned details about the ship’s operation that nobody other than the designers had bothered to learn. The second day was more tedious. By the third day, JaVale got out of bed dreading having to spend another minute looking at all those dials and gauges whose values never changed. He idly wondered what he was supposed to do if one of the readings was out of the expected range. He supposed he would report it to Dave if he felt like it.
Drinks weren’t supposed to be brought into the instrumentation room, but Janice was doing it, and on that day JaVale decided that a little coffee would help him stay alert for the boring task he was assigned to. He set his mug on an empty space on the panel, thankful that the artificial gravity aboard the ship kept everything in its place and not floating everywhere. However, in his endless clumsiness, not five minutes after he had sat down for another day of tedium, he knocked his coffee cup with his elbow, causing it to spill everywhere.
Immediately, readings began to go haywire across the board, and alarms sounded across the ship indicating a critical lack of oxygen. JaVale sheepishly sat where he was while the initial sounds of panic he heard were replaced with annoyance – since everybody was still alive, there was obviously enough oxygen, even if the ship didn’t think so. Dave soon came running in, fuming about how HIS supervisor was calling for heads to roll, and if JaVale didn’t have an explanation…
JaVale humbly accepted responsibility, and was secretly glad when he was sent back to his bunk early.
—
The next day, JaVale perused the Earth media that was beamed daily to the ship when something caught his eye. It was a picture of his own face looking its absolute dopiest. Underneath was the headline “Shaqtin’ a Fool: Remember this Guy? Notorious Space-Idiot is at it Again.”
“NOOOOOOOOOO!” yelled JaVale.