Flash Fiction Fridays - January, 2025

The Ark

Welcome to 2025!

Looking back, I realized I haven’t posted an original flash fiction since September (for shame). The tail end of 2024 was a lot busier than I expected it would be, and I tend to slow down around the holidays. I also spent a good deal of time on other projects, which I’m hoping to announce later this year once I actually wrap them up.

In the meantime, here’s your first flash fiction for the year. Enjoy!

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The Ark

Burt Stockman never meant to convert to Islam. He was a born skeptic; he barely trusted calculus unless he did it himself.

But the Ark was such a blithely religious name for a spacecraft, a salvo in the holy cold war of twenty-third century secularism, and it irked him to yield ground to the monotheists (and especially to the Christians, who still managed to hold a slim plurality in that pie chart). He imagined secret handshakes in the parking lot, sly looks from across the office. Science may have led mankind to the stars, they whispered, but they knew which flags were really getting planted on those distant worlds.

Wink, wink. Nod, nod.

So he converted. Two hours before launch, on a worldwide video feed. Rambled on about how he was both proud and humbled to continue in the footsteps of the first prophet, how he hoped the mission would be a success, God willing.

He was pretty sure he mispronounced every Arabic word up to and including “Noah,” but conviction mattered more than anything, and it was a good enough performance to leave them backpedaling while he prepped for launch. No, the ship’s name was not intended to show favoritism to any specific religion; yes, the captain was free to pursue his individual faith while on board; no, he would not be permitted to use shared resources to do so. He’d have to find space in his personal drives for any holy texts he wanted to bring.

That last one made him chuckle. As the captain, he claimed a zettabyte of space in the ship’s data banks, which was enough to store every word ever spoken in the history of mankind.

Including a few of the holy ones.

***

Eighteen months later, the Ark settled into its orbit ninety miles above the Dawn III biosphere and pointed its short range sensors toward the surface.

Mostly, they found snow.

The terraforming had begun at the poles, in the vast continents of ice that held most of the planet’s water. City-sized engines drilled out permafrost and dispersed it over the planet’s surface, or heated it at careful intervals to fling it into the atmosphere. Once the oceans formed and the ice age looked to be more or less stable, they’d filled the planet with life, a cocktail of microorganisms meant to condense half a dozen geological eras into a few short decades.

Burt’s ship represented the next phase of the plan: twelve thousand species of flora and fauna, their hardy genotypes custom-built for the brumal exoplanet. Not that Burt would do any of the work. He had credentials, certainly: degrees in physics and biology, fifteen years of flight experience, top marks on all his exams. But he knew his presence was largely symbolic, a way to add human significance to the autonomous work of egoless machines.

“All readings are within expected ranges, Captain.”

“Sounds good,” Burt said, unnecessarily. “Release the hounds.”

“Commencing first drop.”

Burt leaned forward and watched the little capsules fall toward the snow.

***

He did his best to keep busy. He had a gym, a kitchen, and a movie theater on board. He kept a video journal and sent weekly recordings back to his friends and family. When he got bored, he bothered the computer.

“Hey, computer. What do the prophets say about snow?” It amused him to ask for divine wisdom on everything from spaceflight to fuel rationing.

“Exodus 4:6,” the computer quoted. “Then the Lord said, ‘Put your hand inside your cloak.’ So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, the skin was leprous – it had become as white as snow.”

“Jesus Christ,” Burt said.

“According to my records, the Prophet Isa does not mention snow directly. Would you like me to expand my search?”

“Sure.”

“Make his resting place a noble one, and facilitate his entry. Wash him with the most pure and clean water, snow, and hail.”

“Wash him with hail?” Burt asked. “That sounds rough.”

“With hardship comes ease,” the computer quoted, “with hardship comes ease.”

***

Burt tapped a finger on the video feed. A furry, white squirrel the size of a poodle lay in a tight ball beside a snow bank, partly sheltered from the wind. “I don’t think this one is going to make it.”

“Correct,” the computer said. “This species is susceptible to lysine deficiencies. It is expected to go extinct sometime in the next few hours.”

“Extinct?” They’d only been there for a month, but he’d assumed things were going well. “How many species have gone extinct already?”

“Of the three thousand plant species we delivered, two thousand eight hundred and fourteen are expected to survive. Of the nine thousand animal species, seventy-nine remain.”

“Only seventy-nine?”

“Seventy-eight,” the computer corrected. Burt looked back at the video screen. The squirrel lay still in the snow.

“The original ark,” Burt said carefully. “How many animals survived the flood?”

“The story is an allegory,” the computer answered. “Assuming it is factual, estimates range from five hundred to three thousand species.”

“Better success rate than us. Maybe we should rename you.”

The computer didn’t respond.

***

Burt sat in the captain’s chair with a book propped open on his knee. He’d only brought the holy texts as a joke, but they were more captivating than his movie library, and a sight less depressing than watching animals go extinct every day.

“Computer. How many species are left?”

“Twelve,” it answered.

“Show me.”

The monitors arranged themselves into a grid. There were twenty-four birds in total, a male and female from each species. His eyes settled on one that looked like a cardinal, huddled in the cold.

“Can they survive on the ship?”

“Yes,” the computer answered. “Why do you ask?”

Burt knew the ship would log his answer for review, but he didn’t care. “Fear Allah in these beasts who cannot speak,” he said.

Then he closed the book, and waited for the doves to return to the Ark.

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