The Opening Paragraph
The narrative opens with the Neptune Divinity flagship making its way across space to Eris. A battle is taking place with the narrator painting a picture of the high stakes in this dystopian future. The urgency of the situation has the crew on their toes as they assess the success of their attack and their safety:
“A sliver of light cut through the void, shooting toward the center of the battle display. Every soul on the bridge, breaths collectively held, eyed its path as it streaked across space. The room was dead quiet, except for the droning voice counting down to the point of impact. An explosion the size of a thumbnail blinked and flowered to fill half the display, then darkened again.”
Lag Sickness
The chronmen suffer from lag sickness after every jump with their health deteriorating as the jumps accumulate. James still experiences lag sickness even as an experienced chronman putting pressure on his physical wellbeing. Without the miasma regimen, he is much more vulnerable to the effects of the time jump in this situation. The narrator creates an imagery of this sickness that they have to suffer through every single time:
“There was a bright yellow flash and James found himself floating in space over the moon of Hyperion. This time, he threw up, spewing the contents of his stomach out into space, splattering the inside of his atmos shield. He hunched over and watched as the bile floated away and coagulated on the wall of the perfect sphere. Well, from this point on, things were only going to get worse. He looked down at his quivering hands. They were numb; he couldn’t feel the tips of his fingers or his toes. He wiggled them. Nothing. Nine times in a span of two months; it was too much.”
Farming Towers
While Earth is a complete wasteland and human civilization has set base on space colonies, there are survivors on its surface. Elfreth is known as Farming Towers because of the six buildings surrounding the perimeter that shelters the natives. The populace maintains the hope of resuscitating the old world by practicing farming and some of the old ways:
“…the two joined the rest of the natives for dinner in a wide open field surrounded by six skyscrapers arranged in a circle. Near the tops of the roofs was a circular bridge that connected all of them together. The six buildings, known as the Farming Towers, formed an easily defensible perimeter for the Elfreth to entrench themselves in. The field in the center among the towers looked worn; this tribe must have lived here for a while. A large fire burned in a pit in the center. It was surrounded by several increasingly larger circles of benches. Small children sat in bunches along the ground, some playing, some being nursed by their mothers.”
Elise’s OCD
Elise experiences culture shock traveling into the future and witnessing the devastating changes on Earth. As a clean freak back in the past when the world was intact and neat, Elise will find the situation on future Earth distressing. The image of her past life stands in stark contrast with the reality of the matter in the future:
“Much to Elise’s family’s and friends’ delight, she had always been a bit of a neat freak, from something as silly as organizing all her books by genre, alphabetical order, and color, to making sure that the contents of her refrigerator were divided into their proper food groups. Sure, sometimes that caused friction with her loved ones, like when she continually organized her last boyfriend’s stuff to the point where he couldn’t find anything. They fought over her cleaning habits for months. He was a slob anyway; their relationship was doomed to fail. She just liked things clean and organized, the way they were supposed to be. It made the world a better place.”
