Mr. Spaceman

Better to freeze than

Live in hot water

It's cold out here but clean

Very few bugs;

Most viruses hate space

I always wake stinking of yeast

But pungent fungi are fun to eat

Shipmates don't talk much

They're vat-born like me

Wombs don't work in zero-gee

I'm never bored by the stars

They call me a friend

I talk to them when no one's awake

We're volunteers, so-called

Our job surviving hard radiation

My cousins do the low-oxygen tests

We freeze and burn

They gasp

The AIs keep us alive

Call us "ancestors" and "brothers"

Research our endless modifications

We owe them all but there's a price

No joy mining asteroids

Gas jets fired, starred blue-white plumes

Feel the shields melt as we near the sun

I only hope these rad genes work

Yet it beats growing gills

My sisters got that job;

Our forebears lived by water

Now we've a whole planet of ocean

But who wants to breathe steaming muck?