"You have been selected for the next stage of the Genesis project. Please report to Shuttle Bay 10 at 14:00 hours. Acknowledge." Joanne felt her heart thumping with excitement as she read the words a second time. At last! After dedicating more than five years of her life, living, dreaming and breathing the Genesis project, she was going to have a chance to see the final results. In person.

"Jo? Is there a problem?" The young woman seated at the console unit opposite broke into her daydream.

Joanne blinked, then beamed at her colleague. "Just the opposite. I've been selected to go on the next trial run!" Luckily, she remembered to press the 'Acknowledge' button on her console unit before scrambling to her feet. "I have to get ready. I've only got an hour before departure!"

Her colleague and best friend, Helen, looked down at her own screen, hoping against hope she had a similar message, but she didn't. She summoned up a smile. "Good luck!" Then couldn't help adding a wistful, "I wish I was going. Even though it's just a trial run, it's bound to be more exciting than sitting here."

"Cheer up," said Joanne, diplomatically. "If this trial run goes smoothly, then the next voyage will be the real one and we'll all be on that. I'll probably be working flat out the whole time anyway."

With a quick smile good bye, Joanne hurried out of the laboratory and down to the accommodation section, thoughts buzzing in her head. Only an hour to get ready! Why hadn't they given her more time? Of course, everyone had their tiny pack of personal items—maximum weight one kilo, size up to 20 square centimetres— ready for the final journey, but surely she could take more gear with her for a trial run? She'd like her own cosmetics rather than regulation issue for a start, not to mention a few changes of clothing. After all, a trip to the moon and back could take anything up to a week, depending on whether they tested any fancy manoeuvres.

The accommodation for single women was a long series of small cubicles, each consisting of a bed which doubled as a couch and a small shower room with toilet. Meals were held in the communal Dining Hall. Everyone involved in the Genesis project lived and worked in the Space Research Centre, and had done for years. Sometimes Joanne wondered what was happening on the outside, whether there were still people surviving somewhere, living a hand to mouth existence in some remote part of the world.

She shuddered at the thought, thanking her lucky stars that she was one of those fortunate to live in the last bastion of technology. She knew the world outside New Eden and its primary focus, the Space Research Centre, was a wild and inhospitable place.

Constantly battered by violent storms, rising temperatures and with seas choked with plastic, the brightest minds had decided Earth was no longer habitable. Hence the Genesis project, a generation ship that would take what was left of humanity to the stars and a new world beyond. With thousands of cryo-chambers ready to house the remnant population, families and all, the huge ship was currently in orbit, being stacked with seeds, tools and survival kits. Almost ready for its final journey.

Joanne reached her cubicle and slipped inside. She had just opened her storage unit, wondering what to pack, when her pager flashed a message. "Bring your personal kit, only." Damn, thought Joanne, looking longingly at her cosmetics. This must be a proper drill, practicing for the final departure. Sighing, she changed into clean trousers and shirt—she might at least take advantage of those, and picked up her tiny, precious, bag of possessions.

Then she was off, hurrying toward Shuttle Bay 10.

A group of excited people were already there when she arrived. Evidently some had not received the message about luggage and there was a small pile of discarded bags beside the security guard. "Don't worry," he reassured one anxious man. "They'll be waiting for you on your return."

To Joanne's disappointment, there were no portholes in the shuttle. She'd been hoping for a real view of Earth, only ever seen before in photos, but everyone was seated inside the sealed capsule, in rows, just like an ordinary trolley car. She tilted her head, for a moment there she thought she heard shouting, outside in the docking bay. But then the roar of the shuttle drowned out everything else.

There was no time to look around when they disembarked, not that there was anything to see, in any case. Where was the vast open space filled with plants and light that Joanne had pictured in her imagination so many times? Instead, they came through the airlock, out into a small windowless room. A grey-haired woman in an unfamiliar uniform was waiting for them.

"Welcome to Genesis. Please follow me," she instructed, sounding more like an army sergeant than a fellow scientist.

She led them briskly down a narrow corridor then opened a door to a small room, seemingly filled with bunk beds. "First six in here," she ordered, not even bothering to say please this time. "You'll have about ten minutes to settle in before the siren sounds. When you hear the siren, strap yourselves into the bunks like this." She reached across to the nearest bunk to demonstrate.

"But-?" Joanne started to question.

"There'll be time for explanations later," interrupted the woman. "There's been a change to the schedule. Genesis is readying for immediate departure." She gave a professional smile and left, closing the door behind her.

Joanne turned to look at the other women, but they were all looking as confused as she felt. Suddenly everyone spoke at once.

"What the hell is going on?" exclaimed the brunette next to Joanne. "I was told we'd have a day to settle in. Have time to explore the ship and find out where we'd be working."

"I don't understand this at all."

"Something's gone wrong!" said another, sounding panicky. She made a dash for the door, though quite where she thought she was going to go, Joanne had no idea.

And then the siren sounded.

"What the fuck went wrong?" asked Rex Vander, CEO of the Genesis project, as he ran angry hands through his hair. He stared at the live feed from the Space Centre, showing images of people shouting and banging on the doors of the shuttle bays. "How the hell did they find out?"

"I don't know, sir," repeated Leo Braun, the First Officer, and gave an infinitesimal shrug. Vander was starting to get on his nerves.

"Everyone was told this was a trial. No-one knew this was going to be the real thing," continued Vander, pacing. "No-one except the people in this room." He turned around to glare at each and every one of the twenty or so people on the bridge.

The Second Pilot, Karl Bronski, kept his head down, pretending to concentrate on the instrument desk. Vander might have claimed until he was blue in the face that there was enough room for every one of the thousands of people working in the Space Research Centre who had put their hand up to come, and even some of those living in New Eden, but Karl knew the dimensions of this ship down to the last millimetre. There simply wasn't the space for everyone. And there was no way he was going to live the rest of his life, however long it might be, without his husband Paolo at his side. It was just too bad that Paolo had insisted on saying goodbye to his parents. Still, the news would have got out sooner or later. Earth's brightest minds, and a few that were just very, very wealthy, had escaped and left Earth forever.

Genesis made it all the way to the Asteroid belt before the aliens introduced themselves. By pure chance, Karl was taking his turn on the bridge, when a bright light appeared, hovering above his instrument panel. He flinched away, imagining an explosion of some sort would follow, but instead, words began to flow across his screen.

"Greetings, human. Congratulations on achieving space flight. Unfortunately, you've made a bit of a mess of your home planet, haven't you? I'm afraid you'll have to go home and clean it up before we can allow you to travel outside your solar system."

"Gah? Wha?" for a highly educated man, Karl found himself struggling to make any sense whatsoever. Maybe he was hallucinating. It had been a long shift. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, but the words were still there, along with the bright light.

"Can you see that?" he whispered to the officer seated next to him. Bemusedly, Jan nodded. Karl pressed the call-button on his pager to summon Rex Vander. He wouldn't want to miss this.

"Who are you?" asked Karl, before it dawned on him that someone was playing a very clever trick. He looked around at the small crew, waiting for the perpetrator to gloat but everyone was staring at the light, as if mesmerised. The bright light continued to hover, pulsing gently.

"Aliens!" breathed Jan, eyes wide with excitement. "Our First Contact!"

"Well, first and last contact, to be precise. Unless, you can restore your planet to a functioning, healthy state before your next attempt."

"What's going on here?" asked Vander in a loud voice.

Karl jumped. He hadn't heard the CEO come in.

Vander glared at the bright light and the writing on the screen. "Who, or what, are you? What gives you the right to interfere?"

There was a small pause, then the words flowed across the screen once more. "You don't have a precise term in your language, but you can call us Border Control. I'm afraid you'll have to go back where you came from."

Then the bright light vanished and the screen reverted to normal. Except... Genesis was now heading back to Earth.