To Be Taught, If Fortunate

In a near-future world shaped by climate change, human spaceflight was abandoned in the 2020s. Decades later, a citizen-funded nonprofit called Open Cluster Astronautics (OCA), founded in 2052 by frustrated scientists who believed exploration should serve the public, revived it through grassroots donations. OCA's central innovation is somaforming: synthetic enzyme patches that make small, reversible genetic modifications to the human body, allowing astronauts to survive alien environments without altering the worlds they visit.

The novella is narrated by Ariadne O'Neill, flight engineer aboard the OCA spacecraft Merian, as a transmission addressed to whoever on Earth might be listening. Her crewmates are Elena Quesada-Cruz, a veteran of the Eridania 8 mission to Mars and the first person to set foot on the dwarf planet Ceres; Jack Vo, a geologist and Ariadne's romantic partner; and Chikondi Daka, the youngest member and the crew's biologist. They are the crew of the Lawki 6 program, an ecological survey of four habitable worlds orbiting the red dwarf star Zhenyi, 14 light-years from Earth. Ariadne was born in 2081, 55 years after the last human had been in space, and was the 204th to return to spaceflight. Her message will take 14 years to reach Earth, and any reply would take 14 more. She writes in the hope that her crew will not be the last.

Before recounting the mission, Ariadne provides context. She grew up in a crowded apartment in Cascadia overlooking the Fraser River, fascinated by insects on her father's hydroponic balcony, especially the metamorphosis of caterpillars dissolving and reforming into moths. She describes OCA's campus, where a grove of trees, one for each astronaut, stands above an underground glass chamber displaying the luminescent names of every donor. She also describes the private devastation of "family day," when astronauts say goodbye to loved ones before a decades-long mission, and the doubt about whether she is selfish for leaving.

The crew's first destination is Aecor, an icy moon. After 28 years in medically induced torpor, a state distinct from sleep that conveys no sense of time passing, they wake disoriented. Their somaforming includes synthetic reflectin, a squid protein that makes their skin glitter to catch Aecor's faint light. Ariadne wins a dice roll and becomes the first to step onto the surface: flawless black ice, impossible quiet. One night, she and Elena turn off their headlamps and discover bioluminescent organisms moving beneath the ice. All four crew members converge on the spectacle. Over four Earth years, they catalogue over 900 multicellular species and 3,000 bacteria. Ariadne describes deep contentment: meaningful work in sacred quiet, surrounded by people she loves.

They also receive a news bundle from OCA, 14 years out of date. Amid positive developments, it reveals that Elena's hometown of Tampico, Mexico, has been destroyed by catastrophic flooding. Elena leaves the room without a word.

The crew transitions to Mirabilis, a high-gravity superearth with nearly double Earth's gravity. Somaforming gives Ariadne dense muscle fiber and reinforced bones. They encounter an overwhelming diversity of life, with spine-like structures having independently evolved at least three times. Jack argues the crew should stop watching OCA's news bundles, since they are over a decade old and damage morale. Ariadne is uneasy but agrees. They immerse themselves in four years of intense fieldwork.

On their last day, a small, never-before-seen animal is found hiding in one of Chikondi's equipment crates after passing through multiple rounds of sterilization. It cannot be safely released, and Chikondi must kill it with a stun gun. The animal screams through five shots before going still. The next morning, Ariadne discovers that OCA's news bundles stopped arriving seven months earlier. When they watch the backlog, the quality visibly deteriorates: worn offices, clear funding struggles amid escalating crises. The bundles end with promises to talk next month, until they simply stop.

The crew arrives at Opera, a planet almost entirely covered by ocean. Without special somaforming for its Earth-like conditions, Ariadne sees herself in the mirror as simply human and is unsettled by the signs of aging. There is still no contact from OCA. Jack proposes landing in shallow water, and the crew agrees. The next morning, parasitic animals cover the hull, blocking every window and the airlock. Their unpredictable shrieks and worsening storms trap the crew for months. The confinement devastates all four: Ariadne has severe sleep deprivation, Elena compulsively reruns hardware inspections, Jack spirals into self-blame, and Chikondi withdraws to his cabin, questioning whether their presence on alien worlds is ethically justified. After four months, a break in the weather allows them to escape.

In orbit, overwhelmed by sudden relief, Ariadne suits up for a hull inspection but deliberately leaves her tether behind. She lets go of a handhold, contemplating how easy it would be to drift away. Jack panics. Elena orders her to follow protocol. Chikondi takes the comms and gently talks to her about getting a dog when they go home, about the beagle he wants. After a long moment, Ariadne lets the airlock close. Her crewmates pull her inside and hold her as they float together.

They travel to Votum, a tidally locked planet with permanent day on one side and darkness on the other. The surface is a barren plain under an orange sky. Elena yields her dice roll to Chikondi, saying the honor of being first should be his. Ariadne lies down in the dirt and feels what her soul needs: quiet, stillness, neutrality. Over weeks, she begins to heal, reflecting on metamorphosis: She can never return to any previous version of herself, but change is the one constant.

A message arrives from Lei Jian, a fellow astronaut aboard Lawki 5, another OCA crew that has just reached Earth orbit. Lei explains the silence: A massive geomagnetic storm destroyed Earth's satellite infrastructure. There is no signal from the ground. Lawki 5 has hull damage but plans to land. Lei promises to call the next day. He never does.

On Votum, the crew rappels into a canyon and finds a thin river. Chikondi discovers single-celled organisms, and as the crew watches, a cell divides in two. Jack finds caves with subterranean pools warmed by steam vents. Extended analysis reveals something extraordinary: The organisms on Votum have no chiral preference, freely using both left-handed and right-handed amino acids and sugars, unlike life on Earth, which rigidly follows a single molecular "handedness." Combined with data from Aecor and Mirabilis, this suggests that chiral preference is not a requirement of life but a consequence of organic compounds delivered by meteorites, meaning life on Earth likely arose from ingredients that originated off-planet.

Ariadne proposes extending the mission to Tivael, a star system 13 light-years away with three habitable planets. The crew debates but reaches no consensus. Instead, Ariadne addresses the reader with a different proposal: After finishing their remaining years on Votum, the crew will enter torpor with the system reconfigured to await a transmission from Earth. "Yes" sends them to Tivael. "No" brings them home. No answer means they remain asleep until old age or equipment failure takes them. Ariadne insists four people cannot decide alone. The work required thousands to build and fund, and continuing without Earth's blessing would be ego, not service. She asks the reader to consider whether human spaceflight is still relevant. The novella closes with a quotation from the Voyager Golden Record, from which the book takes its title: "to teach, if we are called upon; to be taught, if we are fortunate."