After years of delay, the most ambitious observatory ever built has at last left Earth. It now faces a high-stakes series of deployments in
The James Webb Space Telescope — which my brother worked on —l will orbit 1 million miles away, four times further than the Moon, and thousands of times further than its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope.
It will peer back in time nearer than ever before to the beginning of the universe.
With luck, it will be able to peer into the atmospheres of planets orbiting distant stars, to find signs of life.
But first it has to arrive at its destination and unfurl telescopic mirrors in a highly complex origami-like maneuver. That entire process has 350 possible points of failure.
Your name is Nyiska Jacayl, and you had a carnival today, and for the first time since seeing a tealblood executed for using the wrong pole setting up a carnival tent: you were petrified.
Many indigos surrounded the area, some familiar, some new, but one face stuck out to you in particular...and it was not a friendly one. She was a dancer, one you once made a costume for that she wasn’t pleased with. She had every threat in the book against you when your refused to show your face to her that night. Somehow, you escaped punishment...but you doubt you’d be that lucky again.
You stayed still as you could and lowered your head, barely even breathed, and just hoped the Messiahs would let you have one more freebie for your past sins and mistakes.
“Hey! That’s the girl! The fuckblood with the scarf!!” You heard her voice say, and it that moment your luck had run out.
You swear the punishment lasted hours, the pain was everywhere, your face, your back...You choked back tears as they finally pulled you up by your hair and had you standing on shaky legs that felt as though they’d give out at any moment. They got all up and in your face when they spoke to you, and they told you one thing: “Get the motherfuck out”. Well really, two things: “and don’t ever motherfucking even think to come back”
You went directly to your matesprits, about half-way there slowing your pace a bit to wipe the blood from your face. You used the scarf, as it was one of the only things you could use. And the last time it would be used, you decided then. It had no use any longer anyway.
You were crying still when you burst through his door and went up to his hive, running right past him. You went straight for his dresser and for the drawer where he was keeping some of your clothes for you, and began wrecklessy pulling out your scarves, throwing them out onto the floor; sobbing as you did.
