Free Pills and Starships by Lydia Millet

twelve. But now he’s direct again, suddenly.
    It kind of made me nervous, in fact, because he can be intense.
    “Well,” I said, “that may be true or it may not be. But even if it is, we can’t stop them! They’re 100 percent certain. And we don’t know how it is, Sam—we don’t know what it’s like to be them!”
    “Sure we do. They’re human. And so are we.”
    I was looking at him, shaking my head.
    Everyone old buys a contract, sooner or later. It’s their choice when. It has to be.
    “They’re sure what they want,” I argued. “The contract is already in. So why not give them some peace of mind now that they’re definitely going? Why not let them have their last days the way they want them?”
    I was thinking of my collection, and how my parents must want their last days to be like one of my items—perfect despite its tragic imperfections.
    Beautiful even when broken.
    Sam stared at me for a second, blinking. Then he ran a hand through his nappy brown hair. “Because it’s not right, Nat,” he said slowly. “None of it is.”
    But he’s still going to the survivor session. For one thing, he has to. And for another, he says he wants to keep alert and pay attention to everything.

    Here’s how it was at Survivor Orient: they put us in a different hearing room this time, a larger one with a kind of open space in the middle that had a cactus garden and quasi-artificial breezes and little hanging bells. There were twelve of us there, they keep the sessions small, and most of the survivors were in their twenties; Sam and I were the two youngest.
    And Xing was there! Xing from the ship. She smiled at me although she didn’t wave or say anything—we’re not supposed to talk before the session gets started. I was so happy to see her, though.
    The VR was LaTessa again. I guess we’re just assigned to her, and so are those other families. For this whole week she’s going to be our designated headshrinker.
    We started with five minutes of silent meditation, during which the fake breezes breezed and the real bells swung on their threads and rang tinnily. But then nearing the end of it some of the future survivors started to sniffle and cry, already.
    Strangers crying is embarrassing in a way I’m not quite used to yet. I mean, it’s embarrassing to cry in general, who wouldn’t feel that way? Even if you don’t get self-conscious easily it’s raw to be seen like that. But crying in public yourself is a different kind of embarrassment from watching other people do it. I have to admit I felt a bit stronger than them, since I wasn’t—right off the bat before anyone even said anything—showing my sniveling side.
    So then these masseurs and masseuses filed in. I don’t know if they’re corp or hotel employees, they all wore robes a lot like ours and they looked Hawaiian—a little dark-skinned, about like me, and fit and robust, like they don’t do much traveling but spend their time in one place in the sun. They went behind us and started to give us these massages.
    I don’t really like that. It’s too groovy.
    Sam shrugged his masseur off right away and said, “No thanks, man. Nothing personal but it’s not for me.”
    This was disruptive so I looked at the masseur guy Sam was blowing off. He was young too, maybe around my age, I thought, and I saw humor in his eyes, which, at this place, seems to be rare. There’s not that many people here who are big on laughing, they’re trained to focus on serenity and the solemn vibe of parting.
    “If you be gratefully welcoming,” said LaTessa gently to Sam, “you’ll find a forgiving space opening.”
    “That’s really rad,” said Sam. “Still, though. I’ll go ahead and pass.”
    This time LaTessa gave up easily—maybe because the other survivors were staring at Sam and getting distracted. My own masseuse was really digging into the shoulder area so I had to stop looking at Sam’s guy, who stood back patiently with this funny kind of