Another clock cycle of sleep is over, I woke up and released my seatbelt. Cube had already opened the music she had chosen for me in accordance with my wake-up clock a few minutes ago. It was an unknown soothing piano piece. For me, this was a pleasant moment. I had millions of clock times to spend like this. Dim Pluto was set against the faint Milky Way. Although I had seen this scenery thousands of times, every time I looked at it, it made me so calm. Any life in this indescribably vast time and space is so small, so small that any emotional ups and downs seem insignificant.
"Kurt, you have 23 messages, 21 of them are news and 2 are internal company emails."
"Okay, Cube, put them on the desktop."
"Okay, it's already done for you."
"Cube, what song is this?"
"It looks like it's from an anonymous composer. It's a work from about 7 years ago with only one title, 'Still'. I think you'll like it?"
"Hah, thank you, Cube. I like it."
I am floating above the desktop, which is essentially an interactive projection display terminal similar to a writing desk. I am flipping through messages from the mother planet and several satellite cities that arrived over a period of multiple clock cycles. Everything remains the same; politicians are still exposing each other's weaknesses and striving to prove themselves as the future's hope, trying to overwhelm their opponents in the next election. Celebrities have new girlfriends or boyfriends, some are getting divorced and suing their ex-partners. Who bought or sold a mansion in which satellite city, and the United Nations is still discussing how developed countries should bear the responsibility of providing food, medical supplies, and handling refugees in conflict areas. Occasionally, there is news of some local wars and conflicts... it seems that all human news is old news, day after day...
Opening the internal mailbox, the company's emails congratulate a group of pilots on obtaining KU-level airworthiness certificates. The young faces with smiles look even more handsome in their uniforms. After rigorous selection and training, all pilots will begin independent exploration in the asteroid belt closer to the mother planet (Note #1). This stage lasts at least 2000 cycles, although they have AI companions like Cube, not everyone can tolerate such loneliness. Behind every smile on the screen lies a journey of thousands or even tens of thousands of lonely miles. After this stage, they undergo rigorous secondary psychological screening and crisis testing, and the remaining people can obtain the KU-level certificate, which means they can begin farther journeys - exploring and collecting work in the Kuiper Belt (Note #2).
Before the KU level, interstellar exploration was limited to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. With the development of technology and the injection of capital, there are more and more exploration companies, and the competition is getting fierce. Therefore, some more financially powerful companies have turned to the more distant Kuiper Belt. In fact, exploring the Kuiper Belt does not yield much profit, but it is more like a "land grabbing" game for various commercial companies. Such an exploration journey will last at least 4500 cycles (equivalent to 3 mother star/Earth years) or even longer for each pilot, but at the same time, it also means higher rewards. In the mother planet where more and more manpower is being replaced by machines, young people who have lost their jobs and development opportunities are striving to enter this high-paying industry, despite the need to adapt to a life of solitude for thousands of clock cycles. In the first round of rigorous psychological testing, almost 95% of candidates are eliminated. However, stable salaries and comfortable life guarantees on deep-space spacecraft still make people on the mother planet flock to this industry.
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Note #1: Asteriod Belt, the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter
Note #2: Kuiper Belt, an asteroid-like belt outside the orbit of Neptune