They crawl out of the water at dusk—black figures, alone or in small groups that collectively drag ashore baskets filled with ocean debris. The screech of plastic on gravel cuts through the white noise of the waves. Masks off, the free divers collapse onto the rocks and gulp for air to refill their lungs with oxygen. The tiny, cliff-side beach becomes packed as more people surface. Soon it’s standing room only.

The last diver out is an old man. He stumbles and falls on his knees, but his teammates are unmoved. Assisting him is out of the question. Lucky Vid, as everyone calls him, is a proud man who won’t take a helping hand kindly.

With all thirty-four divers accounted for, the team captain signals for them to ascend. They pick up their baskets and start climbing the steep trail.

The old man revels in the salty breeze. His gaunt body straightens, revealing his massive chest and broad shoulders. For a split second he looks like he belongs to the group. The next moment he’s back to his decrepit self.

Up the cliff he goes, wheezing and coughing. His arthritic joints locked by the cold, he moves like a giant salamander, deliberate and slow despite using all his strength to propel himself forward. Every step he takes shoots pain down his knees. Fortunately for him, the bottlenecks in the narrow trail slow down his young teammates. After a much-needed pause, he catches up to the huddled figures—all bent double, if not by the weight of their baskets, then by the tonnage of their failure.

They are empty-handed despite the loot they carry. The megacells—blocks of energy left from Earth’s glory days—remain as elusive as a splash of light from their distant sun. One block can provide the colony with enough energy for an entire year, which is exactly how long it’s been since they last found one.

At the top of the bare cliff, the divers trudge toward a barrack made of composite glass. They pass a tall, spindle-legged stand, topped by a weather-bleached rain barrel dotted with plastic remnants of plumbing. That original shower station reminds Vid of the early days, when every able colonist would come to Galloway Shores to greet their heroes and bring them blankets, hot drinks, and food. The tradition died long ago, but a part of him still hoped that today, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Day of Phoenix, at least a few settlers would show up to commemorate the date when humans returned to their dead planet after a three-hundred-year hiatus.

Inside the barracks, the divers take off their wetsuits. In the diffuse incandescent glow from the ceiling, they are gray ghosts devoid of shadows. Some go to the showers; others put on warm clothes. Vid changes out of his wetsuit at a corner bench. His gnarled fingers move in slow motion; his eyes are distraught and distant. The holiday holds a special meaning for him personally. Sixty years ago on this day, he took his very first dive with a team. Nowadays he can’t even celebrate his achievement; the Council would ground him for sure if they figured out his true age. Seventy-eight—a living dinosaur in a youthful world where the average life expectancy is fifty-two years.

Vid spots a new face. She’s small, taut, and willowy. People’s arms and bodies block his line of sight, but she looks familiar. Must be a replacement for the diver they lost to the ocean two weeks ago.

He stretches his muscles, keeping an eye on the newcomer. Then his heart does a happy dance as he gets a good look at her pretty face, dominated by blackthorn eyes. Kora is the granddaughter he never had but always wanted. She’s grown up before his eyes, thoughtful and methodical, a chess master, a valedictorian, a champion debater. The space program enrolled her when she was just a sophomore in high school. She should have graduated by now.

To see her diving, however, is wrong on many levels. She must be invaluable, so why risk her life in the most dangerous job any male could do? The only two girls on the team are hardheaded nihilists of the Earth Our Home movement, who refuse to abandon their hostile planet. Not something he’d expect from Kora.

He approaches, mystified by her unannounced appearance, unsure whether to rejoice or dismay over her arrival. It clearly didn’t even occur to her to confer with him before taking on diving. She must have figured he’d try to talk her out of it, which he would have.

As if with a life of their own, his arms open out for a hug, but he quickly gets a hold of himself and lowers them. “Welcome to the team.”

She offers him a measured smile. “Thank you, Vid.”

The cold reception sends chills down his spine, as if he were still wearing his wetsuit outside in the wind. To hide his disappointment, he looks down and plays with the wetsuit’s zipper, pretending it’s caught his undershirt. “Have to say…I’m surprised to see you here. When did you start?”

“Today.”

“Oh.”

He takes off his knitted gloves and holds her bare hands in his—the traditional sign of unity. Her skin is warm and soft. In the pallid light she’s as white as a snow maiden, a true daughter of the generation that has barely seen the sun. In a year or so, the salt water will harden her skin. If she lives that long.

He puts on a smile. “May the ocean be kind to you.”

“Thank you.” She laughs nervously and pulls back. He probably held onto her for a little too long.

They begin their march toward Cape Canaveral and the massive contour of the Grapentine spacecraft looming over the horizon. Right on cue, the old man’s heart fills with sadness. Missing from the picture is the Argo. He stares into the void and goes back to the day when Argo took the hopes of humanity to the stars.

The air vibrated then with the sound of music. Beethoven’s Ninth poured triumphantly out of the loudspeakers. He held tight to his wife, Jenny, breathing in her scent, shaking in time with the rhythm of her sobs but keeping his gaze locked on their daughter, Rimma. His eyes itched from hours of unblinking stare, but he couldn’t afford to touch his leaden eyelids. If he did, he wouldn’t be able to relocate Rimma in the crowd of nine hundred astronauts clad in identical spacesuits.

The first astronauts marched through the gate. Something popped inside him. Rimma was at the end of the column, but in a few minutes she too would be gone. Gone forever.

At the gate Rimma looked back. Their gazes met, and she waved. He waved back. She blew them a kiss and disappeared inside the belly of the spacecraft. Jenny’s fingers bit into the flesh of his arm.

The hatch door closed, separating the youngsters from their parents. Behind the red tape, a howl of pain outshouted the loudspeakers.

The orange dot of Argo was soon swallowed by the endless blue, but Jenny and he kept staring into the empty sky. He couldn’t blink or feel his eyes. Neither could he hear the music or smell Jenny’s verbena, but somehow he sensed the devastation of the crowd. No one moved. All the colonists had realized they’d never hug their children again. What they didn’t know yet was that, over the next twenty years, not a single missive would come from the ship.

Vid shakes his head, trying to shed the memories, but the hated Ninth plays on.

The road they’re walking is unpaved sandstone; it used to be an ocean floor, before the receding water settled down two miles away from Cape Canaveral. His joints warm at last, Vid moves like a well-oiled machine, clumsy and steady. His knees still hurt, but they’ll get better with walking. Whether by intent or by coincidence, Kora stays by his side. He fights off a nagging desire to pester her with questions, and the itch injects pep into his step. It’s clear that she’s not friends with the Homies girls. He asks himself why he cares, ruminates, and trips on a pothole invisible in the anemic twilight. The torn ligaments of his right ankle plead with him to pay more attention to the road.

At the outskirts of the town, they pass rows of wind turbines, grim guardians of the perimeter that swing at them with a low, menacing susurrus. The crowd breaks into smaller groups, each heading to their respective tenements. Kora lives in the University dorm, but she goes with him to visit her parents in the old barracks, a two-story-high pile of incongruous blocks, put together in haste seventy years ago and still standing by some small miracle.

His stomach growling from hunger, Vid goes straight to the cafeteria.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Kora says.

“You’re not gonna eat?”

A muscle jumps in her cheek, and her face quivers, losing all semblance of beauty. He kicks himself for sticking his nose into her business.

“Actually I will,” she says defiantly, and follows him.

At a quarter to four, the room is empty. Today the virtual walls present soft shades of green mixed with random swirls of yellow, for an overall effect of ostentatious ugliness.

At a dispensary station Vid recites his order: onion soup, grilled chicken breast, and apple cider, extra hot. Kora chooses legume salad. It’s not much of a meal and won’t replenish the calories she lost during the six-hour dive, but it’s less than two credits and might be all she can afford.

Normally Vid would have AI send the food to his room, but today he sits down at a corner table to eat with her. “When did you decide you wanted to be a diver?” he asks when they settle.

She lifts her eyebrows. “I always wanted to be a diver. Just like you. And now I got my chance.”

“Glad you passed the tests. But what about the space program?”

She takes a bite of her salad. “I completed the prerequisites. Have to find a megacell to put all that knowledge to use.”

Finished with the tasteless soup, he reaches for the chicken under her watchful eye.

“Can I ask you something?” she says. “You always advocated oxygen tanks to expand our search capabilities. Can we revisit the subject with the Council? There have to be more megacells deeper in the water.”

“Maybe, maybe not. The further from Cape Canaveral we go, the less likely we are to find any. The megacell supply might be close to exhausted.”

She bobs her head, a hum of frustration escaping her tight lips. “We should’ve relied more on manufacturing. Resurrected nuclear. Made megacells.”

“With what resources? Where would we get the materials or the manpower? There aren’t enough able bodies to handle anything extensive. Even the space program’s short. Which is why I’m surprised to see you diving.”

“The space program’s changing.” She pins some salad leaves on her fork. “I’m surprised you’re still diving.”

“I’m just a kid with a dream…full of hope.”

“Hope’s good, but the cosmos doesn’t care about our feelings. We humans are inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, a misplaced abomination that lasted a fleeting two hundred thousand years, only to be devoured by the universe. The illusions of resurrection still lingering in our collective psyche won’t keep us alive. We need action, not hope.”

He smiles. “It’s good to have you back, Kora. I’ve missed the feeling of needing a dictionary when I talk to you.”

Red blotches break out on her neck and face. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. So what action do you propose?”

“Let me ask you first. Argo is already out there, heading for Teegarten C. Does Grapentine have to follow in its path?”

“That was the plan all along.”

“And you think it’s a good idea to consign all that’s left of our technological prowess to the same dubious cause?”

“Dubious?” The shock of betrayal overtops his inner levees, contaminating the joy of having lunch with his all-time favorite. Grimacing, he puts his fork down and sits back. His insides are filling with resentment—Argo’s expedition was not in vain.

After a long moment of awkward silence, he finds his voice. “I see you’ve joined the Homies. Is this why you’re diving?”

She sours. “I’m diving because I believe. Because we need to put up a fight and reclaim our rock of a planet. And why are you still diving? You’ve already seen Argo into space. What else is left to prove?”

Vid hugs himself, shrinking in his seat, his mind nearly derailed by the turn in their conversation. “I…I… Diving is my life. That’s what I do; that’s who I am.”

Kora fiddles with her fork, her mouth half open. She clearly has something to say, words that burn her from inside. After a brief but violent struggle, she lowers her gaze to her plate.

Sitting across the table, Vid fights the urge to pat her stooped shoulders. His girl is not a child anymore. Neither is she Rimma, so signs of affection wouldn’t be appropriate and could be misconstrued.

He goes back to his chicken, but it’s already cold. He moves his jaws and tries to figure out why her sudden appearance has unnerved him so. Apparently her absence left a bitter void he didn’t even know was in him until she showed up and began poking around the edges of his loneliness. But the first minor provocation stirred him up enough to bring to the surface his deep-seated resentment of the Argo debacle.

By five o’clock the cafeteria starts to fill up with people. Free dinners are a perk of communal living. The meals are meager, but every calorie counts, which ensures that all abled and disabled bodies gather each evening in the cafeteria.

The residents come over to greet Kora. Standing inconspicuously in the line, Kora’s parents and siblings wait for their turn. Her parents are a Nordic-looking couple, while their four children, Kora included, are a genetic hodgepodge from the fertility bank. Vid smiles. He had his kids the old-fashioned way, but nowadays preservation of the human race is of the utmost importance, so modern parents select their future children based on diversity.

Kora hugs her parents and siblings. They converse for a while, and then it’s their neighbors’ turn. Kora has spent no more time with her family, nor shown them any more warmth, than she has with the strangers. Earth’s new family dynamics are designed to promote independence and collectivism, the experts say. The attachment should be strong but elastic, allowing both the kids and their parents to experience guilt-free separation.

Vid goes to the dispensary for his free meal of the day. It’s the onion soup again—the same one he just consumed. He brings the bowl to their table. “The soup has taste. Try it,” he tells Kora.

She looks at him suspiciously. “I just ate.”

“I know. But you didn’t have the soup. I did.”

The argument is solid—no food should go to waste. She accepts his bowl.

To celebrate the Day of Phoenix, the Council has splurged on a sweetened iced tea. With the tea comes the overhead announcement from Councilwoman Greta Yoon about the sacrifices of their forefathers and the lessons for the new generation. The speech ends with a traditional minute of silence for the forty-six billion lost.

The fruit of the day is apples. Vid cuts the hard skin off a Granny Smith, slices it on a plate, and takes a bite, savoring the tangy juice on his palate. “Try, please.” He pushes the plate toward Kora.

At the table next to them, a kid named Michael refuses to eat his apple. Michael can be whiny, but the child has a point: Granny Smiths are tart. No wonder the Council came up with the sweetened-tea idea.

Vid catches the sidelong glances that all the kids at the adjacent tables are throwing his way. They’re trying to gauge if it will be worth returning at seven, the time when he usually comes down for his free dinner. He knows the kids don’t follow him because of his magnetic personality but because he shares treats with them. If there isn’t enough fruit or dessert for everyone, he’ll buy them a bag of caramels so that everyone can feast on the gooey goodness. Today the disappointment on the children’s faces means they’ve figured the answer is “no.”

Vid leans forward in his chair as if ready to pounce. A mysterious smile crosses his lips, while an audacious plan churns inside his head. He looks around. These people are his family; these kids are his future. What joy is left in their broken world if they can’t even have an occasional celebration? He gets up and heads for the dispensary. His move puzzles the youngsters and stirs a wave of excitement at the teenage table.

At the order station Vid studies his options. A bag of caramels is four credits, and he’d need at least two bags, since every child has showed up for dinner. The bucket of ice cream for twenty credits will not only feed everyone but also mark the special occasion; unfortunately, it takes half an hour to make. For him, the purchase, , will usher in lean times; he won’t be able to afford his usual portion of food. But the diving season is almost over. I can go on a diet, he tells himself, and orders the priciest item on the menu, the chocolate ice-cream cake. Twenty-five credits and no waiting.

The magnetic belt brings the cake, and a collective sigh of wonderment silences the room. This kind of treat only appears on the most special occasions, like birthdays, and requires many people to chip in.

“How many slices?” asks AI.

The old man looks around the cafeteria and estimates that thirty will be enough. The laser multicut divvies up the cake.

Vid carries the tray back to his table to the accompaniment of shocked murmurs from around the room. The kids have already formed a line. The oldest ones take a step back to let the smaller kids in.

Kora gets up. “I have to go. It’s my time to sleep.”

The old man nods, faking his understanding. He knows the dorms are overcrowded, but he didn’t realize that people have to take turns sleeping. Why doesn’t she move back in with her parents? He itches to ask but instead covers her hand with his and says, “Have some cake first.”

A pained expression flickers over her face. “I’m not going to steal from children.”

You’re a child yourself. He doesn’t utter the words. Out loud he says, “There are plenty of slices. You’re my guest. I insist.”

After a moment of indecision, she sits back down.

Kids carry pieces of the precious cake back to their own tables. Happy talking and the enthusiastic tinkling of spoons on china fill the cafeteria. The laughter rising from different corners of the room is music in Vid’s ears.

In that moment of euphoria, he asks himself why is he hiding his age and his diving record. August is his month—the month when both he and Rimma were born, the month when he came to Earth on board the Grapentine, the month when he officially became a diver. Once he’s dead, the Council can put up a memorial plaque and worship his name all they want, but while he’s alive, he’s going to enjoy himself and make sure everyone around him does too.

Vid gets to his feet and raises his hand, holding a cup of tea. The chatter quiets down. Talking about his achievements feels so unnatural that he kicks himself for trying. Too late—he can’t just sit back down.

He scans the crowd, as if looking for help, licks his dry lips, and croaks, “From fire and ice we emerge. Long live the human race. Happy Phoenix Day!”

“Happy Phoenix Day!” echoes the crowd.

He drinks from his cup. Then, shoulders down, he lowers himself into his chair, spilling tea on the floor. Public speaking has never been his strong suit.

Kora divides her cube of cake into small pieces, takes his spoon, and force-feeds him, heeding no protests. The cake melts in his mouth; its taste and texture bring back sweet memories. The last time he ate ice cream was on Rimma’s twenty-fifth birthday.

Kora licks her spoon after the last piece, a move that once again reminds him of his daughter. What is she doing at this very moment, ten light-years away from Earth?

His thoughts are interrupted by children and their parents stopping by their table to thank him. The line moves fast, until Michael asks if there will be more cake tomorrow.

“No, tomorrow’s a different day, with a different treat,” he answers.

“Apple?”

“I don’t know. It’s always a surprise; that’s what’s good about it.”

“I don’t want surprises; I want ice cream. Can I trade all my apples for one scoop?”

Behind Michael, another kid chimes in, “Yes, no one likes apples. Can we get more cake?”

“Uh…” Vid looks at Kora for an answer. She too is dumbfounded. He shifts his gaze to the parents in line, but all he finds are tears in women’s eyes. “I’ll see what I can do,” he mumbles. Hiding his own eyes, he curses himself for lying to the children.

Back in his block, he takes a shower and goes to his room. In front of a mirror he rubs oil on his shagreen arms and hands, his swollen knees, the calluses of his feet. His movements are automatic, his mind focused. There’s no denying that the Homies’ argument has reopened a hole in his heart—though “reopened” isn’t the right word, since his wound has never healed. It’s been festering, seeping, ever since Argo blasted off for the stars and took Rimma away. Then his whole existence stopped making sense when his wife died a year later—so much for the elasticity of separation. For a long time he too felt dead, inside and out, and yet, for reasons unknown, God kept him alive.

His fingers hit the tender ligament of his right ankle and pause, but his mind keeps racing. “Rimma,” he mutters to himself. Not a day goes by when he doesn’t think about his little girl on board that ship. Is she okay? Has she started her own family, had kids? Here on Earth she would be turning forty-five in two days, an old woman already. In space, traveling close to the speed of light and protected from the elements, she’s only thirty-one or thirty-two years old. Still young and fresh, with the baby-face he remembers. How’s her asthma?

He asks the AI for his bed. Lying down, he stares at the ceiling, blocks the pain from his joints, and waits for sleep to come. Time disintegrates. Rimma is by his side, putting on her fins and mask. The day is drenched in sunshine. She clings to his hand the way she did when she was a child, and together they go into the water. Bright-colored fish of all sizes swim leisurely between variegated coral, a picture he’s seen only in video chronicles. Beautiful.

He opens his eyes. There is no coral or fish left in the ocean, except in the deep waters perhaps. Rimma loved the ocean and longed to dive but couldn’t. Her asthma would never let her pass the tests.

All of this is irrelevant, of course. With a happy smile, Vid goes back to sleep. He doesn’t know why Argo can’t beam a signal, but what matters is that night after night, ever since the ship’s departure, he has received Rimma’s message of love. I’m alive and well, she tells him across the cosmic void.

If only she’d show herself on board the Argo, or at any point in the future…

This story was inspired by a documentary about a 95-year-old Korean haenyeo, harvesting sea life with an all-female free-diving team. THE DEAD MAN’S BALLOT is set in a dystopian universe in which the solar system is an unstable whirlpool, spiraling out of control because of the Ninth Planet.

The divers are searching for megacells—blocks of energy left from Earth’s prosperous days. The main character, Vid, is a veteran diver whose earlier find of a ten-block ignition battery helped to launch a space expedition to establish extrasolar colonies. On board that spacecraft was Vid’s only daughter, Rimma. Twenty years later, not a single message has come from the ship.

With the fate of humanity on the line, the political debate among the remaining colonists centers on whether to continue space exploration and save a selected few or to tackle the seemingly impossible task of changing the Earth’s orbit and thus saving them all. In either case, finding more megacells is the only way to move forward. However, the uncertainty of their future, combined with the difficulties of their current lives, splits the colony and creates deep tensions among the members of the diving team.

THE DEAD MAN’S BALLOT explores the morality and ethics of building a future for a selected few on the misery of others, using the lens of Vid’s personal journey. His mind is focused on the fate of his daughter, but his heart belongs to the younger generation. The choices he makes will influence the colony’s course of action and, ultimately, the future of humanity.