I always thought space opened us up to possibilities. I never considered we’d just be exporting humanity. The irony of hindsight: to know best when it matters least.
My name is Adrian Tully, and I don’t know what to do except write this all down. I graduated from the Schillar Vocational School in Evanston, Illinois. There I learned how to construct and maintain power sources. Solar panels and hydrogen cells primarily. I went for an education I knew I could do well at, which made me dull instead of sharp. Rather than feeling pushed, challenged to excel, I went with what I could sail through. (People don’t make much sense to me, so I prefer machines. The parts align and function to one purpose or else something is wrong. And that something can usually be fixed. If not… well, no one minds throwing it away.)
I didn’t graduate top of my class, but I did alright. Suffice it to say no one came knocking at my door. So I went to the job fairs. Giant posters and banners hanging everywhere; recruiters calling from booths, “You there! Is your future on Saturn?” Or, “Do you have what it takes to mine the asteroids?” And always in some form or another, “Your fortune awaits among the stars.”
I remember passing a small man in a grey pinstripe suit. He smiled and nodded, let me go on, not once trying the hard sell. His passive approach made me curious, so I turned back to visit his booth. He shook my hand with a grandfatherly grip, firm but not challenging, and introduced himself as William Malken. He passed along a set of brochures, suggesting I “peruse them at my leisure.” I couldn’t make sense of the technical titles. CFBSIR-1459+11.
“It’s a binary star about 75 light years away,” he said.
“And there’s a planet out there?” I said.
Malken nodded, “Oh yes. Several in fact. The HARP-7 satellite returned some impressive photos, but we’re only interested in one world.”
“Which is?”
“We’re calling it Argentum.” He smiled at this, leaning forward waiting for me to get the joke. I turned up a lip corner and nodded, hoping he would continue. He said, “If you direct your attention to page three.” He tapped the brochure I held, pausing till I turned to the page before resuming, “It’s a world rich in rhenium, indium, palladium, and rhodium. Extensive deposits from what we can tell. The satellite only orbited two or three times before veering off but that was enough.”
Enough for the gamble, I thought. All space exploration is a chance. Hell, sometimes ships never come back. The disasters all make sense. Ships explode, outbreaks of indigenous disease, unanticipated extreme weather, but it’s the weird ones which stick in mind. The Grace, the Edda, the Celeste, all sailed off into the void. No signal or sign, as if the crew just chose to slip into the vastness and disappear. But there are billions waiting off world. So the risks are ripe for mythical rewards. Thumbing through the brochure I came to the final pages which outlined my pay.
Seeing what page I read William said, “You’ll be paid an above average 75k per year. Standard contract dictating you commit to at least six years. In addition you’ll be in a position to either purchase or acquire through hard work a percentage of the planet’s output. Say .0001% of a projected three trillion dollars.”
“What kind of crew are we looking at?”
“Standard colony start. Engineers, doctors, miners, techs, infrastructure construction, etc., etc., and a bare minimum of bureaucrats.
“You’ll be on the ground floor planting a stake on an alien world, extending humanity across the stars…”
I zoned out as he went into his spiel. I appreciated the soft sell but decided to pass. My interests inclined to more local arenas, Mars or maybe even Titan. So I nodded, thanked him, and walked off. Six years is a long time to commit to anything, especially when two are just for the trip there and back. Never mind there’s no guarantee you’ll make it home.
But the rest of the fair didn’t go well for me. Recruiters sized me up too quick, started ignoring me the second I opened my mouth. Their thoughts practically screamed out their eyes, “Why is this guy wasting my time? I need top tier not second string.” So that night I went home, opened a bottle of bourbon, and listened to my neighbor’s fight through the wall. It’s better than TV… which I can’t afford.
Around midnight I dug into my pockets for cigarettes only to find Malken’s brochure. For a laugh I did the math. .0001% of 3 trillion is three million. Not a bad start for a twenty-three year old.
The next morning I signed up for Argentum.
***
We took a Daedalus Class ship. Z-pinch fusion pulse propulsion and type-4 Bussard ramjets. Not exactly state of the art, but the Arcadia looked like a solid enough ship.
The reality of my situation didn’t sink in till Jupiter started receding in my porthole view. I used to think, at sixteen when I ran away to live with my Uncle in Chicago, five hundred miles is a long way from home. Yeah, I don’t really get along with most people, but despite the three hundred fifty individuals aboard ship, I couldn’t help feeling like this trip meant leaving humanity behind. After all, weren’t we a different type than those still on Earth? Or at least we wanted to think so. I didn’t come out for adventure, curiosity, or despite my job, to build anything. My prospects on Earth seemed too grim, and the money William Malken offered sounded too good to pass. In a way I felt like a fraud. These people seemed like they wanted to make the universe more, leave a mark behind, that sort of thing. I just wanted to make some money, not have to worry about bills for once; I didn’t think I belonged here.
Almost two months in, keeping pretty much to myself, I sat in the canteen drinking green tea to calm my nerves. Alcohol isn’t allowed between worlds. People tend to get strange. A man sat down across from me. He ate with ravenous passion for a few minutes before looking up. Not expecting anyone, he flinched and said, “You been there the whole time?”
“Yeah.”
“You mind if I sit here?”
“No.”
“All right then,” and he returned to devouring his meal. He wore grease stained overalls and a dirty orange vest. Underneath he wore no shirt (I suspected on purpose) allowing his muscular build to be more obvious. The crags in his face made his angular visage seem the result of erosion. A mirthful glint in his eye almost belied the hardness lurking beneath the surface. When finished eating, he leaned back and slapped his stomach, “Oh boy.” Threading a cigarette between his lips he said, “There’s, or I should say was, a problem with one of the ramjets.”
My eyes went wide. A problem with the engines this far out sounded catastrophic.
“But no worries,” he said, lighting up, “We’ll get there sooner now.” He reached a hand across, “Mick Lenehan.”
“Adrian Tully.” We shook hands.
“Pleased to meet you. Smoke?” I nodded, he offered his, and I took one. Pointing at my cup he said, “Whatcha drinkin’?”
“Green tea,” I said sounding none too thrilled.
“Okay.” He slipped a hand into an inner vest pocket. Pulling out a flask he said, “You want some whiskey?”
Making sure no one saw us, I pushed the cup towards him. He said, “That a boy,” as he filled my mug with several ounces.
Taking a sip I said, “I thought we weren’t supposed to…”
“Fuck that.” Mick cast a dismissive wave, “As long as I’m the one keeping this heap running, I can do whatever the hell I want.”
“Fair enough,” I grinned.
He smiled back, “Goddamn right. And it isn’t a fair world to begin with.” He raised his flask and openly drank from it. Leaning forward, an elbow on the table and chin in his hand, Mick said, “So tell me something. You play poker?”
***
“You sonuvabitch!”
“Calm down Joe.”
“Shut up Mick. I’m gonna throw him out into space.”
“What did I do?
”
“Ace, King, full house? That’s bullshit!”
“Let him go Joe.”
“Mick, I swear to God…” Joe didn’t get a chance to finish. Mick cranked him across the back of the head with a wrench. Joe the giant fell onto his knees, unconscious, though his hands still gripped my shoulders.
Mick pulled him off me saying, “This is why folks out here aren’t supposed to drink. They can’t handle the crazy. Me? I can handle all kinds of crazy.” Glancing at me he said, “Hey Tully. Don’t forget to breathe.”
I sucked in a lungful.
The next morning, eating my breakfast, Joe came right to my table. He leaned in close and said, “Sorry about last night.”
“It’s alright,” I said, holding a fork tight, ready to stab.
Joe smiled and slapped my shoulder, almost knocking me over, “Just make sure I get a chance to win some back.” He headed to the chow line grinning.
After a while Mick joined me. I told him about Joe. He said, “That’s how it can go. Just keep in mind, you two play again, don’t let him win a goddamn thing. Like on purpose. Don’t give it up.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Lets say you bleed him back some cash, to be a nice guy. Now ol’ Joe knows if he presses on you ya’ll bend. Anytime he wants his way over yours alls he’s got to do is put on some pressure. That’s how the screw turns… soon enough crushes.”
“Good to know,” I said.
Something about the way I stared into my coffee made Mick add, “Joe’s great to have on a crew, but he’s useless when it comes to people. That’s why he can’t get a good job around Earth. I mean, why else you think he’s out here? Or any of us for that matter.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, leaning forward.
“These people want to call themselves pioneers or some shit like that. Whatever. But if things were going well for them back home you think they’d be blasting off a billion miles to nowhere? This is a risk taken by desperate people with no prospects where they were. Stick around back home in a shitty situation or head for the stars and a chance for better.” He held up his hands like teetering scales, “You know what I’m talking about. We all made the same choice.” One hand dipped low.
“Yeah. I know what you’re saying.” From then on out I didn’t feel so out of place.
I stuck to Mick for most of that year. He didn’t mind, said he liked having someone around who hadn’t heard all his stories. Mick spent most of his life planet hopping with his parents. Born on Mars, now forty-two years old, he’d never even set foot on Earth. At first I thought he belonged to the Arcadia’s crew. He laughed at that, “Na, I overheard the captain and engineer going over some problem with a ramjet. Engineer didn’t know what he was talking about, so I stuck my nose into it. When you know somebody’s wrong you got to be willing to call them out.” And that was Mick.
The year passed. It didn’t go smoothly. Cabin fever set in around the third month. People got twitchy. Fights broke out too regularly, usually over petty things. The passengers avoided eye contact with one another. One wrong look would set someone off. And it wasn’t just being confined to the ship (though some corridors barely opened wider than a person’s shoulders). The ship’s rotating core provided light gravity, enough to keep your feet planted, but it tended to wax and wane making your innards float up and down inside you. That took a while to get used to. You’d get accustomed to the sounds – the muffled roar of the pulse propulsion, like several freight trains passing in a few seconds; the ramjets’ titanic sizzle; sometimes the sound of the hull groaning, briefly, under some new stress – only to find one noise suddenly… not quite right. Are the engines failing? Is the hull about to breach? The nerves crackle, and the heart beats painfully. You get used to the idea of dying, but then life goes on leaving you to wonder if next time, the time you don’t tense, is when your fear becomes reality. Even Mick, with all his laid back manners, cracked a bit under the strain. This would be his longest trip ever, which made me nervous considering this as my first. And of course, we all knew the only way home would be to endure this again. Sometimes knowing the future isn’t comforting.
But eventually, we arrived at Argentum.
***
I should really be getting to the point quicker. But when I look back I can’t help dwelling on the good times. It keeps the present at bay.
From orbit, Argentum looks like a great silvery ball wrapped in shadowy threads. Craters pock the surface. Every so often a field of volcanic activity rolls into view as the planet turns. The molten rock provides some of the few colors on the planet’s surface. Clouds quickly circle the world in ominous spiral bands, easily miles across. Like any lifeless sphere, made mostly of rock and metal, it can look intimidating… provided you haven’t spent 377 days in a steel shoe box… that feels smaller every day. After that, Argentum is a paradise.
The expanse of the mare-like plains is almost overwhelming. The term “breath taking” finally makes sense to me. Mountains rise up reminding there are no limits – no ceiling to bang your head against. The horizon doesn’t end in a bulkhead. We almost didn’t want to put up the temporary shelters. Those seemed like another confinement. But knowing there’s something out there, some place to go, we settled in and smiled collectively for the first time in months.
The funny thing is this all gets experienced inside a full body suit and helmet. There isn’t much oxygen on Argentum. What little there is we couldn’t breathe for risk of indigenous disease. But we’d made it which is all that mattered then.
Time went by quickly. I wish I knew how to make it sound epic, but it was all really cut and dry. Crews divided and started their respective duties. One group set up an arboretum, installing a variety of young trees and plants, to start harvesting oxygen as soon as possible. That and grow food. I spent the first several months putting together solar panels and establishing power lines. Mick worked on the construction crew, setting up sturdier more permanent shelters. Survey teams crisscrossed the plains, explored craters, and put together maps of the area. Techs made sure the computer systems worked and manned communications. Once power flowed the miners, well, mined.
We lost fifteen people the first month. Dust storms took seven. We weren’t even prepared. One afternoon the wind howled, everything went dark, and five minutes later the cloud moved on like we never mattered. The storm left behind five bodies striped to the bone. The other two it carried off to god only knows where. Afterwards, precautions went into place.
Mick and Joe set up a watchtower. It looked crude, but it survived the next storm. From then on someone always took a watch during the day, scanning the horizon for any sign of a storm. But on occasion communication equipment malfunctions, and somebody doesn’t hear the warning…
The Arcadia’s crew stayed with us for two months. They helped out from time to time, but no one expected them to work. We knew the trip they’d be taking all too soon. When they left we could see the ship from the surface, and Melissa Jones, a tech, started walking along like she planned to follow the Arcadia home. Some guys managed to stop her, but the next morning… the tracks from her temp. shelter led to Melissa’s corpse. She ran out of oxygen.
Before the completion of living quarters two dozen temp. shelters malfunctioned in one night. The occupants died in their sleep. Mick worked double shifts for the next several days to finish the dorm style residences sooner.
Other accidents happened, some suicides took place – by the end of the first year we’d lost almost a third of the colony for a variety of reasons. A hundred people gone, most of the graves just crude markers. And somehow those are the times I remember fondly. The colony felt close after a loss. Like we pulled tighter together for fear one, and in a way all of us, might slip away. After a memorial – a few words over a piece of scrap metal with a name on it – we’d go back to the mess hall to talk. Conversations started
with recollections of the dead, eventually evolving into Get-to-Know-You chats. I learned about Jim Gates’ ex-wife in Orlando. Sandy Brimm’s stepdad on Titan. The Litwiller’s plans for a family, a life, on Argentum. Yeah, we’d chat sometimes on the Arcadia, but it never really turned into anything other than cordial conversation. But in those first months, for a while, we stopped being strangers.
***
Aldus Cranston worked as a geological surveyor. He mapped out, what he considered, the best locations to start mining. One day he’s out charting a vein of rhodium and ends up out of communications range. So when the warning goes out that a storm is coming he doesn’t hear it. Some people kept their fingers crossed, but realistically Cranston is dead. Joe the giant went looking for a piece of scrap to make a marker. Then, a half hour after the storm clears, Cranston comes back.
Of course everyone is overjoyed. It feels like someone beat this world. He gets asked how he survived, and he says, “I saw this cave and just thought, ‘I should look in there.’ The storm came up while I was inside. I don’t know. I just felt – I knew it was the right thing to do at the time.”
Fair enough. Back then all I cared about is the fact another marker isn’t getting placed – the graveyard won’t grow. And the first couple of weeks it didn’t seem strange people gathered around Cranston in the mess hall. Hell, even I did it. Once. A person could sense this aura of luck, and we wanted to bask in it, maybe soak some up for ourselves. I also get the feeling we wanted to somehow make his story our own. Like what happened to him happened to all of us. Argentum didn’t seem so dangerous anymore.
About a month later I’m in Mick’s room, just killing time, and he says, “You hear about Jill Heller?”
“Yeah, she got zapped pretty bad. I guess her and Tommy Malort were connecting a power line when it happened. Or a junction box or something. I heard she’s going to make it.”
Mick nodded as he stared out the window. He pulled his flask out of his vest. I hadn’t seen him drink in weeks. He said, “Tommy was running around the mess hall earlier telling people all about it. How he told her not to touch the line because it wasn’t safe.”
“How did he know?”
“Cranston told him.”
I looked over, my face twisted in confusion, “Cranston?”
“Yep. He and Tommy have breakfast together almost every day. Tommy’s getting ready to go to work when Cranston says, ‘Be careful.’”
I shrugged, “So what? I say that to like half a dozen guys all the time.”
“Yeah, but” – Mick tapped a finger against his temple – “You never saved your own life.”
“The hell you say.”
“You know what I mean.” Mick’s brow furrowed, “The whole cave thing.”
Yawning, I got to my feet, “Tommy Malort’s got his head up his ass. People’ll probably roll their eyes if he blathers at them about the magic of Aldus Cranston.”
Folding his arms across his chest, Mick leaned with his shoulder against the wall, “I worked this asteroid once. I musta been younger than you. Lotta things went wrong out there. Lotta people died. And some of those that didn’t, they started to feel blessed. I’m not saying, I’m just saying: it could get weird out here pretty quick.”
“I’m telling you there’s nothing to worry about.”
Mick let the matter drop, and I went to get some food. In the mess hall I saw Tommy Malort with five people. When I came in they stopped talking for a minute. They eyeballed me as I got some stew then continued murmuring to one another after I sat on the other side of the room. I didn’t think anything of it.
***
I ran away from home at the age of sixteen. My Pops caught me smoking and beat the shit out of me. He didn’t do it because I was smoking but because I took his cigarette. One cigarette out of a carton. That wasn’t the first time I got a beating, but it was the first time I ever hit him back. I snatched this empty beer bottle off the coffee table and cracked him across the forehead. I didn’t wait for him to wake up. I just left, headed straight to Chicago and my Uncle Pete. The funny thing: in order to run away you’ve got to have somewhere to go.
That’s the kind of thing I remember thinking about during the second year.
The group eating with Cranston got bigger and bigger. Every morning Tommy would ask about the day, and Cranston would tell him whether or not to worry. This habit caught on, and soon the whole group sat waiting for Aldus’s prediction. Sometimes he warned them about an impending disaster which caused most of his flock to refuse to go to work. (Around that time dust storms occurred every other day, so if Cranston prophesied danger and a storm hit then the group presumed it would have killed them if not for Aldus’s intervention.) Instead of going anywhere they’d all just sit in the mess hall, gathered together, waiting to feel safe.
I’m eating dinner with Mick one night when in comes a mining foreman. He marches right over to Jim Gates, jabs a finger into his chest, and shouts, “I don’t give a shit what that fuck tells you. You miss one more day, and your contract is forfeit. I’ll send your ass back on the resupply ship with no pay.” He stomped out, and I remember thinking, ‘Maybe that’ll put a stop to all this.’
But Mick frowned, “Jim better not end up dead.” I asked him what he meant, but he wouldn’t say.
The next day Jim Gates went to work. Aldus issued no warning. The foreman who made the ultimatum… a premature blast literally blew his head off. It got blamed on a faulty fuse.
That night I saw Joe sitting by the edge of Cranston’s group. Within a week, Joe sat right in the heart of them all. Sometimes I even saw Cranston petting his head.
Soon after Aldus began delivering individual predictions. He told each person every morning whether or not they would be safe that day. The safe ones went out to work. The rest stayed in the mess hall with Cranston. Sometimes he picked one or two and took them back to his room. When they returned, usually hours later, the chosen ones would tell the others little tidbits. I overheard Bryan Vance telling a wide eyed trio, “He said, ‘Reason insists on doubt, but once there is proof there can be no doubt.’” And I’m like,
“We’ve got the proof.” The trio bobbed their heads, muttering, “Yeah. Yeah.” I didn’t finish eating. I just left.
I told Mick I’d be eating in my room. I couldn’t stand being in the mess hall anymore.
He said, “Don’t. Don’t be the odd man out. I can handle crazy, and I’m telling you, in this instance, that means acting like it’s not even a problem.”
“What happened to wrong is wrong and calling people out?”
“You wanna hear about wrong? How ‘bout this? Jim Gates is a fucking blast tech, and his boss got called by a blast. I am not calling these people out. And before you get all self righteous, ready to fight the good fight, take a head count. Because the whole colony is sitting on Cranston’s side of the room. There’s like twenty-five guys not with ‘em and that’s counting the two of us.”
“I don’t know how much longer I can stand this.”
“Five months. That’s how long. Then the resupply ship gets here, mainly to pick up what’s been mined, and we can leave on it.”
“So we just keep our heads down.”
Mick nodded.
Sometimes Cranston would whisper something to those close by, and his pronouncement then trickled through the assembled mass. A few might turn, looking over at someone apart from the group. They’d shake their heads, a sad expression on their face. I can imagine them thinking, ‘If only you were here, a part of us, you’d know when you aren’t safe.’ The sad looks underline an interesting thing: Cranston’s people are always smiling. They look calm at all times. I’m fixing a power line that got shredded during a recent storm. Dylan Hauser is helping me out. The line’s live, little mini arcs sparking out of it, so it’s tricky to handle. Hau
ser just grabs the thing like there’s no risk. He picks it up with his hands. We get it disconnected, and afterwards I say, “That was pretty ballsy, grabbing it like that.”
He just smiled at me, “He told me I’d be safe.”
Accidents go up. People die because of the dumbest mistakes. Rebecca Waits gets nicked with a welding torch, and it ignites the oxygen in her suit. The guy that nicked her, Steve Brooks, he just watched her burn, said, “She didn’t have enough faith.” A storm is coming in and Fred Mueller decides to go outside to get a spool of wire. I said, “Screw it Fred. It’s just wire.” He smiles at me and says, “I’ll be all right.” Three minutes. That’s how long it took for the wind and rocks to shred him to pieces. Things continued in that way for weeks. It felt like years passing. And every time someone died Cranston or one of his devotees would talk about the faithful. How doubt crept in when they needed to believe absolutely. I remember Cranston preaching, “We have not come this far by chance. It is our will that sustains us. I have told you when those outside our circle were in danger, and in a show of love and compassion you reached out with your faith to protect them. Faith in what we know – there is no reason to doubt.”
I heard Mick’s teeth grinding as Cranston spoke. But we only needed to make it two more months, so he kept his mouth shut. I did the same.
***
Bill Litwiller’s wife died surveying a crater. Her ATV flipped over, dumping her down a seventy foot slope. She broke a lot of bones and tore her suit open. There’re traces of O2 on Argentum but not enough to keep someone alive. She probably suffocated with the taste of oxygen in her mouth. So that night, when Cranston preaches about “a lack of faith” Bill (probably thinking about his wife’s agonizing death) punches him in the face. He hollers, “Maggie never doubted!” He might have said more, but Joe punched him. Blood and teeth spewed out of Bill’s mouth. He dropped to the floor. Joe didn’t stop. He kept hammering away at Bill’s head. Cranston recovered from the jab and stood behind Joe, watching. Only once it’s clear Bill isn’t getting up ever again does Cranston say, “That’s enough.”
Huffing and puffing, Joe said, “He shouldn’t have hit you.”
Petting Joe tenderly Cranston said, “It’s all right.”
They took Bill’s body outside and hung him from the watchtower upside down and naked. An example for others about lacking faith.
That turned out to be Mick’s last straw. He came by my room later to say, “Whatever happens, stay cool till the ship arrives. Don’t be stupid.” I wanted to help with whatever he planned, but he told me not to worry. He said, “Some roads you gotta walk alone.”
Mick waited till everyone went to sleep and cut Bill down. He dug a grave by Maggie’s and put Bill next to his wife. For whatever reason, someone must’ve been awake, caught sight of what happened.
Next morning two bodies hung from the tower. Bill by his ankles. Mick by his neck.
I wanted to kill the whole colony. I made plans involving explosives, poisoning the food, and mixing up a toxic gas to flood through the air vents. But I remembered what Mick said, so I kept it all in my head. Don’t rock the boat, just wait for the ship. It’ll be here soon.
Only… tests of faith have started. Cranston orders people out into storms. There’s no real choice – go on your own or Joe carries you out. Sooner or later it’s going to be my turn. Probably sooner. So I’m making a record and hiding it in a shipment of ore we’re sending back. I just want people to know what happened here. I don’t want to be a mystery. Like the ships that drifted off into the void.
Climbers
Alessio Zanelli