The world was full of green. Sweet, lush greens, dripping water, moist bracken beneath my feet, and a natural symphony serenading me as I pushed my way through. I heard the trill and chirps of half a dozen birds, the high yip of a nearby fox, and the rush of running deer. My hands pushed through the damp leaves, condensation running down my arms. The cool tracks of water spread goose bumps along my skin.

The branches gave way, spitting me into a sea of waist high wheat grass, sun-bleached to a pale gold. The tips tickled my trailing palms as I walked through, face raised to the sky. There was no sun there, rather a canvas of spilled ink swirling through water. The clouds were boiling, dark and dangerous beasts that growled, warning of their fury. All other noise fell away. The smell of ozone was heavy in the air. The heat was the velvety tongue of a jungle cat between my shoulder blades, leaving a trail of moisture. The grass beneath my palms felt brittle, fragile, nothing more than dry husks waiting for the spark.

The heat bloomed, rising higher and higher. I opened my eyes at the roar of fire.

I sat up in the dark, unable to get enough air. The sheets clung to my sweat.

"Lights," I gasped, calming in the flickering luminescence that bathes the room. I drew my knees to my chest, crushing the heels of my hands to my eyes. Another dream. That made one every night this week. What was wrong with me?

I reached a blind hand for the leather bound journal beside my bed nook, a relic really, the old skin butter soft to the touch. I wrote rarely, maybe recording the occasional introspective moment. It was a good place to record the dreams. They felt more...substantial printed in my poor scrawl. The door panel slid open with a soft hiss.

"Good morning, Eden," I said, not looking up from my writing as the ship's personnel android unit entered for my daily evaluation.

'Good morning, Lyra. Another dream I see?' She hovered around me, hand extended, my vitals fed into the scanners within her palm. 'Some of your body chemicals are imbalanced and your vitamin k is severely deficient. Might I recommend some time in the garden?'

"I'll take my exercise there today," I said, absently reading over what I wrote down. It was far too similar to the last few dreams. Dreaming of a distant Earth. What did they mean? Maybe Cass had a theory. I realized Eden was still in the room. Odd, she usually did her scans and left to attend other matters on the ship. "Something wrong, Eden?"

The irises of her eyes produced an unfocused whirring sound. 'Was it a good dream, Lyra?'

I blinked at her. As an A.I. extension of the ship, Eden was equipped with a nurturing personality, but the question seemed almost hesitant. It was so unlike her, I didn't think to lie.

"It was beautiful, different than the garden," I said, my voice soft. It was the smells that stayed with me. Something so fragrant and powerful it was almost like a memory instead of a dream, except I'd never set foot on the planet. No one had for decades. "Until the end."

'What happened?' Her flawless face evinced no emotion.

"It burned. It all burned," I said.

Eden folded her hands above her waist. 'Capt Leo wishes to speak with you before midday. Andromeda requires you to approve her new engine specifications. Good day, Lyra.' She strode from the room, pure business. I closed the journal, putting the out of place question from my mind. There was work to be done.

***

Andromeda tracked me down in the galley of sleepers, checking vitals and entering bio rhythm readouts into the ship's computer. It was a task Eden herself could have handled, but it had become vital to my sanity. Splitting the duties with her allowed the android more leeway to attend to other matters on board and helped stave off the endless hours of the day. It spared me from boredom.

"Oi, Lyra!"

I tried not to sigh. Andromeda had an unfortunate tendency to wear down my last nerve. "Yes, Andy?"

She held up her hands in mock surrender. "No battles today, chief, just need to you sign off on these adjustments." She handed off her tablet, letting me look over her latest round of tweaks to the engine to keep it running at maximum efficiency.

I frowned, studying the readouts. "More wear and tear than I'd like to see," I said. Something about the degradation of the ship's engine was unsettling. It was wearing out far faster than it should have. These engines were built to last for centuries, if properly maintained. "Could you run another diagnostic for me before you implement these adjustments?"

"Anything wrong?" Andy looked over her scans, clearly not as put off by the readouts as I was.

"I just want to double check something," I said, unwilling to make too much fuss over the issue. "Now if you would excuse me, I need to finish three more rows before I meet with the captain."

Andy gave me a sardonic three fingered salute. I rolled my eyes, reading the screen of the next pod. The numbers here were perfect, the same as yesterday, and the day before that, and so on. Thousands and thousands of sleepers, deep in stasis, drifting through the stars.

***

I avoided Leo almost as much as I avoided Andromeda. It wasn't a conscious choice, I simply didn't seek out their company unless absolutely necessary. If the ship wasn't breaking apart beneath our feet, I didn't find it necessary. The only person I sought out was Cass and she was easy to track down. Eden's recommendation of visiting the garden served a dual purpose. The garden served as the ship's bio dome, a vast stretch of various plant habitats in a grid layout on one half, acres of orchards and farm plants on the other. Artificial sunlight poured from light fixtures in the dome ceiling, specially programmed to deliver the necessary vitamin benefits as Earth's own sun once did, and according to an individual's needs. I felt my more energized within minutes as I made my way towards the center.

The grids were separated by a wide path that lead to the great tree, towering over everything else.

Our tree of life, both literal and figurative. Every cataloged plant species' DNA was stored at the base of its trunk for the eventuality of finding our new home.

To build a new Earth.

Aside from the benefits to my health, and the general beauty of the garden, I avoided it more than anyone or anything else. Perhaps it was the dreams, the garden a pale comparison to the landscapes in my mind, or the vague sense of guilt that dragged on my thoughts whenever I came here. It was too quiet. There were no birds, no animals, nothing but the hushed sway of the ventilation fans. The tree of life stored the DNA of thousands of animal species, whatever could be salvaged from Earth before it was abandoned, but none of them were alive in the garden now.

I followed the sing song humming, the only other sound in the dome, to find Cass amid the rows of green beans. Her careful fingers pinched away the ripe ones, leaving the rest undisturbed.

"You walk like a herd of elephants," she said, winking at me over her shoulder.

"You never even seen an elephant," I said, putting my hands behind my back to keep them from wandering. I wondered if the leaves were wet. Would they stick to my skin.

"Have too. Eden's database has plenty of images," she looked up, the usual faraway dreamy gleam in her hazel eyes. "Think they are as big in real life as the computer says they are?"

"I doubt we will see them in our lifetime," I said.

"A shame," sighed Cass, "Beautiful things should be seen."

I couldn't stop the fidgeting. "I had another dream."

Cass lazily scratched her forearm. "That makes every night this week. Same one?"

I hesitated. My first instinct was to say yes, except, they weren't, not quite. Many of the details repeated, but the locations changed. Often there were forests, exotic plants and wild beasts with dark glittering eyes. Sometimes there were vast wastelands, the desert air sucking the moisture from the skin. Once I dreamed of endless water. Places I'd only glimpsed in study through Eden's database, never once seen in person, but in those dreams, it felt...real.

"Why do they feel so real?"

"Perhaps they are," said Cass. I looked at her, but there was no teasing in her tone.

"An impossibility Cass, but a lovely sentiment," I said. Clearly, her current mood was far too philosophical for reasonable discussion.

"I have a meeting with the Captain," I said, by way of goodbye.

"Do you believe in reincarnation? Past lives?" Her voice was wistful.

"That sounds borderline religious," I said, my back to her.

"Life is energy. That energy doesn't disappear when we die, it merely transfers to something else. Dead plants yield back into the soil, their nutrients disperse, enriching new plants, the air, cycling back through the water. Perhaps souls do the same," she said. "Your dreams could be memories of another life."

I didn't turn around. "Except most of those souls were left on a dying world."

I left Cass there, to ponder her vegetables, avoiding a glance at the great tree as I made my way from the garden.

There were seven thousand sleepers in the galley. Seven thousand, a sliver, the barest fraction of the world population. Seven thousand were all that could be saved.

What happened to the billions left behind?