Day 293. The meat is running out, which means it's time to think about restocking. The dilemma of my current situation is that Barbara was already dead, and now I'll have to kill someone. And the question is not whether to kill or not. Who exactly? That is the question.
As I ponder this, I walk around the ship over and over again. 198 capsules. 198 people. Just like me. Who to choose? That smug blond guy? Don't we have too many blondes? Or that mulatto girl with plump lips? Or that burly bearded guy? He'd definitely have more meat on him. Damn! Maybe I should just leave it to chance. In a couple of minutes, I could write a code that would simply give me a random number. I've already decided to do so and even turn around to go back to my lair, but then I stop.
No! I can't leave such a decision to chance. It may be simple, but it's extremely irresponsible. After all, I'm still conscious, I'm human, I'm a member of the crew. And we have a mission. What if the lot falls on the commander? Or, even worse, on some valuable medic, without whom the colonists in a foreign world would be doomed? Yes... It's a pity I don't have access to the databases with personal files. Such information is encrypted with the commander's password. It's a pity...
Nevertheless, I will have to choose. Why me? Because there is no one else here. True. But what right do I have to do this? Why not go back to the idea of painkillers? To die myself and not take on the burden of choice and... murder? Isn't it more noble to end my own life? No way! That's not why I survived this long. How am I better than them? Why do I have the right to dispose of their lives? By what right? By the fact of my existence. Because I survived. Because I am here. All this time, while they were just lying here, I was forced to fight for my life. Straining my will. My intellect. If we weigh our lives... Who, if not me, deserves the right to live? Who, if not me, has proven their superiority over the circumstances? Who, if not me, is worthy of living in the new world? Since I survived this hell...
Once again, I slowly walk along the entire compartment, lighting my way with an LED flashlight and peering at the faces through the translucent plastic on the cryocapsule lids. I met some of them during flight preparation, communicated more closely with some, and saw others only briefly. There were too many of us, and we couldn't know who would be chosen until the very end. Muscular and more subtle, with regular features and slightly repulsive asymmetry, blond and black-haired, men and women. Couples who loved each other as much as Barbara and I did... once upon a time.
Lost in my memories again, I don't immediately notice something strange. What? I suddenly realize what I've seen and go back. How many times have I walked past here without paying any attention? There are two guys lying in the neighboring cryocapsules. What the hell? A gay couple?! Why were they taken on a colonization mission? We were supposed to settle in a foreign world and start a new human civilization. We were selected based on a range of medical and intellectual indicators. For the sake of the very possibility of traveling to another star, we were put into expensive stasis, the ship was optimized, its mass was minimized, and at the cost of enormous amounts of money and fuel, it was accelerated to the required speed... And what? Among the 200 future progenitors of a new humanity, two are fags?!
What's the point? Who, and according to what idiotic law of tolerance, decided that 1% of the new humanity should be represented by faggots who can't even produce offspring? Obviously, this was decided by some bureaucrat or moronic senator responsible for the PR of the entire mission. He pushed through this political decision, breaking the smart scientists' will. Well, never mind. As it turns out, nothing in the universe happens without meaning. And here... I am a senator, and the president, along with all the prosecutors, lawyers, and constitutional judges combined. And now I will have food for another hundred days.
Without wasting time on a long choice, I unscrew the screws on the body of both cryocapsules and take out the oxygen regeneration hoses. Yes, I'll need oxygen. And you, my little darlings, will quietly turn into freshly frozen semi-finished products. Bye for now... See you soon... For consumption.