The Long Road
"Do you ever feel like ... I don't know, like we've got a raw deal?" asked Melanie Labtek. Her legs dangled from the balcony overlooking the hydroponic forest. Below her, the trees stretched off into the distance until they disappeared around the curve of the ship's surface. Above, the stars were visible through the impenetrable plexiglass screen, continuing their imperceptible migration from prow to stern. "Raw deal like what?" said Angela Cleaning, perched next to her on the balcony. "Like, I don't know. Trapped on this ship, our whole lives. I mean, we didn't get a choice in it, you know? Neither did our parents and neither will our children." "We do important work," Angela insisted earnestly. "Do we? Just running maintenance, keeping things ticking over until we reach Colony One? They reach. Because it won't be us. We'll be long gone. Our descendants get to be conquering heroes, and the people who laun