Induction (short story)

"Induction" is a science-fiction short story by Australian writer Greg Egan, first published in Foundation 100 edited by Farah Mendlesohn and Graham Sleight in 2007. The short story was included in the collections Crystal Nights and Other Stories and Oceanic in 2009. It also appeared in the anthology Year's Best SF 13 edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer in 2008.

Plot
Ikat has worked for three years on the technology for interstellar travel. Together with his friend Qing, they witness the first launch from the Moon precisely on midnight of the first New Year's Eve of the 22th century and later decide to go on an interstellar journey themselves. Their bodies are frozen and their brains taken out to be scanned for the information to be sent twenty light-years away using laser pulses. Ikat and Qing wake up on the planet Duty orbiting around the double-star Prosperity. Both feel fulfilment and begin to wonder about what to strive towards now, before they speak a toast for all generations to always start something they won't finish.

Translation
The short story was translated into Russian (2008), Japanese by Makoto Yamagishi (2011), Czech by Petr Kotrle (2011) and Chinese (2024). The Russian translation appeared in Esli in December 2008 and the Czech translation appeared in XB-1 in August 2011. The Chinese translation appeared in a translation of the whole collection Oceanic.

Themes
The main concept of the short story is the process of transmitting consciousness with the speed of light. Egan's other works also deal with this from different perspectives. This prominently includes the short story "The Planck Dive", in which digital copies are sent into a black hole as explorers, and the novel Schild's Ladder, in which humanity has colonized thousands of systems and travels in-between them by transmitting their consciousness.