I wake up, and there’s a man in the corner of the room. It’s strange because I don’t remember falling asleep, but I must have. My bones are heavy, my head light, and I struggle to sit up.

 

“Don’t be alarmed,” he says. “I’m the bailiff.”

 

“The bailiff?” My voice rusty, my head pounding.

 

“You’re awaiting a hearing.”

 

“For what?”

 

“You’ll remember... in time.”

 

I’m restricted to one room, where the bed is, and a small garden. There are no flowers here. I suppose flowers can grow thorns, and no one wants me to hurt myself, but there’s grass, and leaves, and a rock pool with a small fountain. Artificial lights line the ceiling.

 

“What is this place?”

 

“It is where you wait… and you remember.”

 

“What am I supposed to remember?”

 

“Only you can answer that.”

 

He speaks in riddles.

 

“Can you tell me anything?” I ask.

 

“I can tell you your name, it’s Edith Robinson.”

 

The name jolts me. Memories surface.

 

A child running through a field, the sunlight but a kiss upon skin.

A young woman, sunscreen lathered, to stop the burn.

An adult hiding underground from the sun’s scald and also hiding from…

 

“You remember?” asks the bailiff.

 

“… it was hot.” I shake my head. “Is it still hot?”

 

The bailiff shrugs his shoulders. “We do not know.”

 

Of course, near the end, most were living underground, is that where we are now – underground? The human race has always been so adaptable.

A sharp pain shoots through my head.

 

That word: adaptable.

 

“What is it?” asks the bailiff.

 

“I think… I need to lie down.”

 

He leads me back to the bed as if I am an old woman, and I suppose I am. There’re no mirrors for me to see, but I feel it in my bones and see it on my skin. Why don’t I remember growing old?

 

“Here, take this.” He gives me a liquid. I don’t ask what it is, I just swallow, embracing the darkness that it brings.

 

When I next wake the pain has gone, and the bailiff is back to his corner.

 

“I’m hardly going to run away,” I say.

 

“Protocol. Remembering… can be painful.”

 

Remembering. Ah yes, I forgot.

 

“What if I never remember?”

 

“You will,” he says confidently. “They all do in time.”

 

I’m fed some strange meal I do not recognise, and afterwards, I find myself wandering back to the garden. Drawn to it. The grass is spongy under my bare feet and the leaves of the plants are unlike any I remember.

 

“You like this place?” he asks, close behind me.

 

“I do.”

 

I’ve always liked plants. Green Fingers, isn’t that what my father always said?

 

“I grew things from… seed,” I say, pulling a safe memory to the surface. More memories sprout: my laboratory, white coat, safety goggles, gloves, you can never be too careful.

 

“Tell me more,” he says. Like he has all the time in the world to listen to an old woman’s memories, and I suppose he does as he never leaves.

 

“… it was heating up. Do you remember how hot it was?”

 

“No. It was… before my time.”

 

“Crops were dying. People were hungry, and scared. And there were so many people.”

 

“They’ll want to know what happened.”

 

They? Of course. The judges, the jury, or the Ethics Committee, whomever it is I’ll face. I head to the water fountain, the sound is soothing. I speak to the water. Water can be forgiving, fluid, not like the earth.

 

“There was a plant. Welwitschia mirabilis, it was called. In its African language it is known as ‘two leaves; can't die’. It grew in the harshest of climates of the Namibian desert, and we thought its genomes would be the answer to all our prayers. We thought if we could just isolate its ability to withstand high temperatures then….”

 

They must know all this, it was in the recordings, in our notes. The clinical trials. The videos.

 

“You were successful?”

 

“In a way.”

 

I need the water to drown some of my memories, the painful ones.

 

“What happened?”

 

“I… worked with a team. We… isolated the genome. It successfully adapted crops to withstand heat.” I want to stop there. Happily ever after, but it’s not the end of the story. This is not a fairy tale I’m telling.

 

“Go on,” says the bailiff.

 

The painful part.

 

“… the plant’s genomes also promoted longevity. In the desert, some plants live well over a thousand years…”

 

“And…” he leans in.

 

“And people wanted to apply it to humans.”

 

It’s so still in the garden, not a sound but the splash of the fountain, yet the leaves of the plants sway like there’s a wind.

 

“None of it was my fault,” I whisper to the water. The public blamed us though: scientists messing with nature.

 

“What happened to the people?” he speaks softly.

 

The people… if they could be called that.

 

“The clinical trials... were pushed too quickly. We weren’t ready. There were successes and… failures.”

 

Zombie-like creatures, people living in fear, hiding underground…

 

“And… how then were you, Edith, chosen to be sent into space?”

 

His question jolts me.

 

I’d forgotten. But yes, I’d been chosen. To escape the Hell I’d helped create. A successful strain had been found by then. A select few were picked for space travel; those who could afford it, and those who might be useful. All were given the gift of longevity for a new start.

 

“I was thought… worthy.”

 

The bailiff smiles.

 

“You’ve remembered. Thank you.”

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

“You may have been deemed worthy by your planet, but you have not yet been deemed worthy by ours. We’re awakening each one of your crew from cryosleep to determine worthiness.”

 

“By a hearing?”

 

“You’ve already been heard.”

 

And he points to the grass, the leaves and the water. “Now you will wait for their verdict.”