Quinn listened to the ghosts in the deep on every run. Her mama had taught her how. Once Caravan Dreams threaded its assigned departure lane; once the fore and aft disks spun up and the hole flashed open before the prow and the ship shuddered forward then jerked hard, straining the dampeners; once the stars blurred from ultraviolet to red, mama showed Quinn how to sit quiet in the whispering ship and open the comm wide in the range below military and cargo frequencies and put on the headset. Then she would hear them. Voices lost in time. The voices of the ghosts who plied the vastness of space long before Quinn was born. Long before Caravan Dreams left space dock to take their family past the stars.
Now Quinn runs the feed through the ship-wide sound plates so she can hear them no matter were she is. The voices driving Baz to his bunk below her own, his pillow pulled tight over his sensitive ears. He didn't like hearing from the dead. But Quinn did.
Though foreign and responding to call signs and names long slipped from memory, the voices reminded Quinn that Caravan Dreams was once a family long-hauler, its throat packed tight with cargo, its belly filled with brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and cousins. A ship always alive with voices, family posted to all six watches meaning someone was always asleep, someone awake, someone eating and laughing, someone watching newsies or dramas in the rec hall.
Quinn couldn't sleep without the sound of voices in the ecosystem of Caravan Dreams giving her comfort, even if they were voices of the dead.
"Who was Gagarin?" a young Quinn asked mama after listening to the ghosts.
"He was a Russian man. The first in space." mama told her.
"What system did he visit?"
"Sol. Only Sol." mama said, "He only orbited Earth."
"Sol Prime."
"Yes, Sol Prime.
"It's dead now."
"Not completely. Some humans survive even today."
"But Auntie May taught us it was destroyed in the war by. the nukes."
"The cities died and most people, but some still live."
"And fight."
"Yes, they still fight. Now off to bed, Quinn.
"Yes, mama."
