Collage. Pulsing crystal. Light shimmering on water. Jemma and Mila’s piping voices. Cornell, striding into the low curling waves, dark skin glistening, back muscles taut. Bouncer barking at gulls. Ebbing and flowing. The wash of waves.
‘Are you happy?’ Javel’s voice, warm, like the sun, deep, like the ocean’s darkest blue. The welling emotion surges, and stretches her mouth into a grin.
‘I’ve never been happier.’
Deep tingling. She feels it at the edge of her dream. In her chest. Unexpected.
Cornell holds a tiny bat, broken wings, ball of pain, cupped in his adolescent hands, a precious wonder. Dying. ‘What do I do with it?’
‘Put it back.’
‘I can’t. It’s hurt.’
She feels his pain. ‘There’s nothing we can do.’
‘Can we ring the vet?’
‘The vet won’t get here in time.’
‘But that’s so unfair. There has to be hope.’
She sees his tears, the pain deep in her own chest. ‘It’s in the nature of things.’ Her mother would have said it was all part of God’s plan. Cornell wouldn’t accept that reasoning any more than she had. ‘Give it to me.’
‘What will you do?’
I don’t know, she thinks, as she holds out her hands to take the pain from her son.
The tingling is insistent at the extremes of her fingers and toes.
‘Is everything packed?’ She casts her green eyes over the bags and equipment. Javel is fastidious and methodical, everything in its place. As she would want it to be.
‘Kiss me.’ She lets him pull her in, enjoys the crush of her breasts against his broad chest, and luxuriates in his embrace, the tender insistence of his soft lips. Then she remembers, pushes back, takes a breath to whisper, ‘The kids.’ He laughs his irresistible laugh that melts people, and makes him popular with everyone at the university.
And Mila pulls on her hands. ‘Are we ready?’
And she watches, with hollow prescience, the grey SUV rounding the corner at the end of their street, hands waving emphatically, glowing gold in the rising sun, voices blown away in the chill morning breeze.
The pain expands, and she sucks in a lungful of oxygen – cold, exhilarating.
‘You fully understand the enormity of your decision?’
She stares, first at him, then at her. Why this question at this point? It could be rhetorical. ‘Yes.’
‘Sign here.’
She reaches forward, presses the screen with her index finger, and a retinal scan flashes across her green eyes. She blinks. ‘When do we leave?’
The tingling is pervasive, painful.
A dark blue police uniform stands at her door. She thinks there should be two. There were two, originally, but now there’s only one. She can’t see his face clearly, but she thinks he looks like Javel. But he can’t be Javel. Javel died in the accident. That’s why the policeman is here. To tell her. Only, there were two of them before.
Overwhelming sorrow seeps through her soul. ‘That’s part of the waking effect you will experience,’ the young technician explains, during a pre-flight briefing. ‘Psychologists are fascinated by it, this inexplicable sadness generated when waking from an induced coma.’ The tingling throbs in her extremities. ‘There will be pain, but we’ve provided a drug to compensate. It will be administered automatically. Your pain will be brief.’
Bouncer is pressing his wet snout against her bare thigh. She knows it’s him, but she can’t look down. She can only watch Mila, long dark hair, like her mother, dancing in her new ballet shoes, spinning like a prima donna, like the dancer she might have become. The dancer she might have been.
She wants to open her eyes because she knows she’s waking. The synthetic pain relief hasn’t come, and she wonders, disconnected, whether there’s a malfunction. Then the surge rolls from her shoulders, through her head, and the pain dissipates, like waves on a shallow beach.
‘Are you sure it will function after that much time?’
The girl technician gives her advertising smile, brimming with trained confidence. ‘Of course it will. Test failure is less than one in a trillion.’
‘But you’ve never been out there to test it.’
‘Laboratory replication is rigorous, Major. If it was ever going to fail out there, it would certainly already have failed in here. And it hasn’t.’
‘Except for one in a trillion tests.’
Advertising smile. Perfect teeth and skin. ‘Less than one in a trillion.’
She opens her eyes. Blinks. Darkness. Sucks in another lungful of oxygen. Blinks again. Light envelops her. Her instinct is to sit up, roll over, but she’s strapped tight. Her response is to struggle against her invisible bonds.
‘That’s likely to be your first response,’ Doctor Alard advises her in prep. ‘You won’t remember where you are. Six years asleep will do that for you. Relax. Clear your head. Wait for the rejuvenator.’
Brittle liquid rushes into her veins, courses through her right arm, into her chest. It hurts. Her heart jumps. The puzzle coalesces. Consciousness snaps into clarity. ‘Welcome, Major Whenan. I hope you’ve had a restful and comfortable journey. When you hear this, Hope will be orbiting the fifth moon of Alpha Centauri Bd, the moon code-named Asimov. You, and your team, have successfully travelled across the 4.5 light year gap in just over six of our Earth years, and your team will be now engaged in revival and rejuvenation. Relax and enjoy the remaining preparation, before you open your pod to reunite with your colleagues.’ She knows that electronic voice. Jeni Stavic. She works in the program, and she personalised the experience when she programmed the ship’s computers. It’s good to hear a friend, she decides, even digitally, and she relaxes to let the automated processes finish.
‘As you all know, the essence of the mission is simple – to see if your team can determine what level of life, if any, exists on Bd.’
‘So all the results from unmanned probes sent to Bd suggest life is possible?’ Major Alan Wilkinson, who heads up the team, is asking the question.
Major Jorgensen runs his hand through his thinning grey strands of hair, looks at his program colleague, Professor Haran, shrugs, and replies, ‘The results are inconclusive.’
‘Why?’ Wilkinson persists.
‘None of the probes have been able to function in orbit above Bd, beyond a few minutes.’
She intervenes, curious. ‘Any clues as to why?’
‘None. They just go offline.’
‘They go permanently offline,’ Professor Haran adds.
‘Then why are we going? Wilkinson asks, but it’s a pointless question because they all know why, even before Jorgensen answers.
‘Because we have no other options.’
‘You should now focus your thoughts, Major.’ Jeni’s voice breaks in. ‘Your biological systems are stabilising. Continue to relax. In three minutes, your pod will adjust the relative atmosphere, and automatic functions will cease. You can continue the pod release process through manual voice control.’
‘Each pod runs from its own internalised energy source, and is individualised for your physical comfort. Intake of foods and liquids are regularly administered and monitored to sustain your ideal weight. Your muscles are digitally exercised throughout the trip to ensure muscle density and function is maintained. All bodily waste is removed.’ The doctor introducing the pod functionalities to the team smiles, a salesperson, like the girl technician.
‘Every care and effort is in place to ensure you arrive at Asimov trim, taut and terrific!’ his buck-toothed trainee adds.
Major Li is not sold on the concept. ‘Why the individualised power sources?’
‘Safety. It’s a long trip -’ Doctor Wynn begins.
‘- and something might fail in that time,’ the assistant adds again.
‘Calculated contingencies,’ says Li.
‘Insurance. Yes,’ Wynn confirms.
‘Nice,’ Li says, winking to the team. ‘We might not all
make it.’
‘You know the risks.’
‘Yeah. We know the risks. Just confirming them.’
The diffused blue LED, illuminating the pod’s glass screen, is annoying and her breath smears the glass. Relax, she tells herself. Too many thoughts. Stop compromising the procedures. Clear your head. She’s hyper-conscious of machinery massaging and manipulating her limbs, back and neck, preparing her for moving again. Relax. She repeats the mantra, over and over. Relax.
‘All of us have our reasons for taking this trip. So what’s yours?’
She looks at the team’s expectant faces. ‘I like space.’
They stare in disbelief, then smiles spread through the team. Norton laughs. ‘No family?’
‘No,’ she replies, her voice deep and sharp, but she realises she’s answered too abruptly, because she sees understanding in one pair of eyes. Tristan. ‘Complicated,’ she adds, to prevent questions, and she flicks aside a wisp of her brown hair that has escaped her ponytail band.
‘All of us are complicated,’ Tristan Weckert says calmly. ‘That’s why we’re here.’
‘Vital signs are stable, Major,’ Jeni informs her. ‘Automated pod checks are complete. Voice activation is now operational. We will dim the screen light. The Heads Up Display will appear on the glass, and the ship’s lights will kick in. Over to you.’ A pause. Jeni’s digital voice adds, ‘I hope it goes well, Rhee.’ She smiles at the unexpected personal message, and wonders if Jeni did the same for the others. A click and whirring begins behind her head. The blue light fades. She waits for the lights to come on in the ship’s chamber, but fog obscures the glass. She sees her reflection – a woman in her forties, skin pulled tight by her dark blue space suit – and wonders how she will face getting older. My family dies and I go on. How is that fair? She shudders. Focus, Rhee. You have a job to do. Moisture inside the pod is unexpected. Assuming, from Jeni’s automated report, the HUD is operating, she orders, ‘Adjust interior humidity to zero.’ Air moves gently around her face evaporating the fog. Lime green HUD lines and points appear on the glass, but her gaze rushes to the vista beyond – darkness, pocked with mesmerising starlight and coloured swirls of gaseous nebulae. Space. For precious seconds, she stares into the heart of the universe, into a quadrant no human eye has seen. Raw beauty overwhelms her. She gazes at the clusters, becomes aware of an anomalous empty patch to the left of her screen - before panic erupts. At the top corner, she spots jutting shadows of twisted metal. ‘Status report! All pod systems!’ she barks. Her pulse rate is rapidly rising. She waits, squinting at the peripheral chaos, the vast emptiness where there should be walls and light, terror gripping her throat and twisting her gut.
‘Pod systems fully operational,’ Jeni’s voice reassures her. ‘Biological responses erratic. I recommend you relax, Major Whenan.’
‘Oxygen status.’
‘Oxygen at ninety-three percent capacity.’
‘Estimated time for oxygen depletion?’ Her heart is thumping, her breathing sharp, ragged.
‘At current rate of consumption,’ Jeni reports, ‘pod oxygen supply will be at zero percent in two hours forty four minutes.’ The voice clicks, and adds, ‘Relax, Major Whenan.’
Relax, she mutters. You can’t see what I see. ‘Status report on Hope vessel’s systems.’ The reply takes longer than she anticipates, so she searches the star field for familiarity, patterns, shapes, but nothing prompts her memory. I’m too far out, she decides. No one has seen space from this point. How can I recognise anything? She notices another patch of emptiness, low on her screen, like the first she had spotted, an aberration in the star field, but she can’t fathom its cause.
‘Ship systems are offline,’ Jeni reports.
‘Try again!’ she orders abruptly, and then corrects her phrasing. ‘Status report on Hope vessel’s systems. I repeat, status report on Hope vessel’s systems.’
‘Ship systems are offline,’ Jeni repeats.
She pulls her gaze from the wider view to study the HUD glass. ‘Activate communication channel.’
A dull lime green light brightens into emerald. ‘Communication channel activated.’
‘Contact Major Wilkinson.’
The green light flashes, and Jeni replies, ‘Major Wilkinson is offline.’
‘Contact Major Wilkinson.’
‘Major Wilkinson is offline.’
‘Contact Major Li.’
‘Major Li is offline.’
‘Contact Major Tippins.’
‘Major Tippins is offline.’
‘Contact Major Weckert.’
‘Major Weckert is offline.’
‘Status report on pod communication system.’
‘Pod communication system is fully operational.’
They might all still be going through rejuvenation, she tells herself, but the vision beyond the glass tells her there has been a catastrophic event.
‘So,’ says Professor Michael Larkins, the Director of Deep Space Research, tapping the screen. ‘You will travel at slightly under the speed of light. The photon sails take a little while, when deployed, to pick up energy, but once they do you will move increasingly faster through space, until you reach maximum speed. Assuming all parts work as planned, you will arrive at Bd, orbiting the moon, Asimov, in slightly over six Earth years.’
‘Those sails are the size of a planet!’ Tristan exclaims.
Larkins laughs, his perfect white teeth gleaming, and nods. ‘Almost. That’s why the Hope was built just beyond the Moon. When we open the Mylar sails, it will be a big event. We’ll see you shining from Earth for a very long time.’
‘But surely sails that big have a higher propensity for damage?’ Li Zhou asks.
‘You won’t avoid some damage on a trip this far into space. But we’ve plotted a course to get outside the immediate Solar System that will help you dodge many of the dangers. In saying that, we can’t guarantee absolute protection from random or unpredictable events.’
‘Sounds like an insurance policy speech,’ Tristan whispers to her. She smiles.
‘Like?’ Jo Tippins asks.
Larkins shrugs. ‘We don’t know. A meteor we’ve never plotted? But the chances of anything big enough to cause structural damage to Hope, once you’re in deep space, are so astronomically tiny as to warrant zero care. The sails are so big that space debris will have minimal structural impact. But we have taken precautions. In fact, the Hope has many backup and individualised support systems, so that, if one component fails, or is damaged, another will take up the slack. It’s the most expensive space expedition we’ve ever undertaken, and you guys are the most expensive lab rats we’ve ever used.’
‘We’re going to be a new shining star!’ Jo Tippins declares.
‘Contact Major Wilkinson.’
‘Major Wilkinson is offline.’
She assesses her situation. If the pods are programmed to revive the team simultaneously, all ten team members should be online. ‘Open all communication channels.’
‘All channels open.’
‘Hey,’ she gasps, and takes control of her desperation. ‘It’s Rhee – Major Whenan.’ She takes a steadying breath, and remembers how her ninth grade teacher taught them all to pause, take a breath, and relax, before speaking to an audience. ‘Looks like we’ve arrived a little worse for wear. Anyone getting this?’ She waits. When no one replies, she continues. ‘Okay. So. All systems are operational on this pod, so I’m going to assume you can hear me, even if I can’t hear you. Okay? Everyone copy that?’ She waits. ‘Good. Okay. Well, I’m still secure, and I will continue manual preparation for disembarking.’ She stares at the stars, and controls her breathing to calm her nascent fear. ‘However, unless I hear otherwise, I will not activate pod evacuation. Copy that? I will not activate pod evacuation.’ She pauses, and hears her thumping heart. Okay, Rhee, relax. You need to relax. There’s much to do. She takes another deep breath. ‘Okay. So, listen up. I will link to the ship’s communication syst
em, and let them know back home that we’ve come online. Jo, if you can hear me, as soon as you can, get us an update on our position. If I don’t answer you, assume I still can’t hear anyone. Okay? Transmit directly to home in that case.’ She pauses. ‘I’m recommencing evacuation procedures now. I’ll close the pod communication channels, briefly, while I link to the ship, and then I’ll switch back in. Copy that?’ She pauses again, hoping for a reply, but the lines stay silent. Okay, she tells herself. This is why we trained so hard. This is not what we expected to happen, but now we deal with it. Now I deal with it. ‘Activate Home Base channel one.’
‘Home Base is offline.’
Panic niggles at her gut. ‘Activate Home Base channel two.’
‘Home Base is offline.’
‘Status report on ship’s communication systems.’
‘Ship communications systems are offline.’
‘Status report on Hope vessel’s communications systems,’ she repeats.
‘Ship communications systems are offline.’
She swears and strains against her restraints. Why? Why this? ‘Why!’ She hears static in hear headset. Then a voice.
‘Rhee?’
She stops. ‘Yes?’ She stares at the HUD.
‘Rhee?’ The voice is scratchy, crackling.
‘Jo?’ There’s no answer. ‘Jo? Jo? Hey! Speak to me.’
She hears crackling, a hiss, and part of a reply. ‘- Jo – penter – Ann – ter –’
‘I can’t hear you clearly,’ she says. ‘Repeat.’
‘- sAnn C – nter – nn Carp – ’
‘Ann? Ann Carpenter?’
‘ – s –’
Her excitement rises. Someone else is alive. ‘Ann, it’s me. Are you okay? Can you hear me?’
‘ – what ha – d’
She searches her screen, the peripherals, and spots a faint blue light, a tiny luminescent square, in a shadowy oblong shape outlined against the stars, far to her right, at the edge of her screen. ‘Ann, if you can hear me, what’s your status? I repeat, what’s your status?’
‘ – scared – someth – not work – leak – can’t –’
‘Ann, I think I see you.’
‘ – hel – don’t – this –’
‘You keep breaking up, Ann. Conserve your energy. Go through your routines. I don’t know what’s happened. I’ll try to get the ship’s systems online again. Copy that? Okay? Ann? Ann?’ She hears a whisper, crackling, and the line goes silent. At the corner of her screen, the blue light flickers, and vanishes. The oblong shadow is dark. ‘Ann!’ she cries. ‘Ann! Say something. Ann! Ann!’ Her anger and frustration set her HUD indicators ablaze with red warnings, and Jeni’s voice hums, ‘Relax, Major Whenan. Relax. Conserve your resources. Relax.’
‘I can’t fucking relax! Damn you! Shut up! Shut the fuck up! Shut up!’
‘Relax, Major Whenan,’ Jeni recites patiently. ‘Relax.’
She screams. She closes her eyes, and screams, and screams, until her throat hurts.
When she stops screaming, she opens her eyes to see the last vestige of fog fade from the screen and the crystal clarity of deep space restored. She gazes at the stars, a tear easing down her cheek. They circle across her screen as Hope slowly rotates. Did we make it? she wonders. Is one of those stars the Sun? Am I looking back at Earth, somewhere out there? A soft orange glimmer appears at the edge of her screen, backlighting the jagged wreckage, and she turns her eyes right as the glow slowly expands along the periphery. Alpha Centauri B. My first and only sunrise in six years, she thinks wistfully, mournfully. The orange light sharpens, and she squints against the glare, remembering that, while Alpha Centauri B lacks the Sun’s luminosity, this close it’s intensely bright. ‘Activate screen block,’ she instructs, and a deep blue light expands, leaving the HUD visible as it conceals the star-pocked background. I have to complete the checks, she tells herself. ‘Status report pod oxygen.’
‘Oxygen is currently at seventy-two per cent.’
‘Contact Home Base.’
‘Ship communication systems are offline.’
She sighs. ‘Initiate pod oxygen recharge.’
‘Ship systems are offline.’
‘Position report.’
The pod electronics whisper and her HUD morphs into a star map. ‘You are currently 1.34 parsecs or 4.37 light years from Earth, orbiting Asimov, the fifth moon of Alpha Centauri Bd. Calculations indicate that your orbit is diminishing under the moon’s gravitational pull. Your craft will collide with the moon in approximately eight hours.’
‘If an emergency arises,’ explains Wynn, ‘your pod can function independently of the main ship. You can initiate a sequence that will disengage the pod from the ship.’
‘You mean evacuate?’ Li asks.
‘Eject, actually.’
‘The pods are designed to act as escape vehicles?’
‘Technically, yes.’
‘What do you mean by technically?’ Wilkinson asks.
‘A pod will eject from the ship, but it isn’t designed to be self-propelled by voice activation for more than a few short manoeuvres. They’re meant to sustain life until a rescue craft arrives, and be able to be manoeuvre into docking position to effect the rescue.’
Wilkinson laughs at the irony. ‘That should be very effective four and a half light years from Earth.’
She checks her health systems. Satisfied that her body is coping, she rechecks each of the pod’s components, one by one, to make sure she’s missed nothing and left nothing to chance. That leaves the final step – open the pod, she decides. Which I can’t do in a wreck. ‘Dim screen light to fifty percent opacity.’ The blue light dims, until she sees the orange sun masked at the centre of her screen. I’m going to die, she reflects, and feels the chill in her core. Then she thinks, Poor Ann Carpenter. She was so scared. So am I. We never really believed we would die out here, did we?
Alan Wilkinson mutes the digital dance music in the recreation room and, as he strolls back to the maroon couches where the team is gathered, three nights before departure from Earth to travel past the Moon to board the Hope, he says, nonchalantly, ‘So, we’re all prepared to die then?’
Jo is shocked. ‘Are you kidding me?’
‘Why would I kid about that?’ Alan asks.
‘The statistical odds are stacked against us,’ Li Zhou says. ‘We’re not exactly taking a bus trip to Winslow.’
‘Yea, but it’s morbid to say it out loud like that,’ Jo argues.
‘The drink is talking,’ complains Anton Minz, the team physician.
‘But we all think about it,’ Tristan says, lowering his glass of cognac. ‘Don’t we?’
‘I don’t.’ Everyone turns to Ann, who seems surprised to become the centre of attention. She blinks, as if caught in a spotlight, and says, ‘Seriously, I don’t think about. I have no intention of dying out there, or anywhere.’
‘We all die sometime,’ Alan says.
‘Do we?’ Ann challenges.
Alan stares, snorts and shakes his head. ‘Did you do the psych test?’ he taunts.
‘It’s not about psychology.’
‘What then?’ Tristan asks.
Ann hesitates, before saying, ‘It’s about faith.’ She looks at Jo, and then at Rhee. ‘I don’t believe we will die on this trip. If I did, why would I bother to go?’
But we have died, she thinks, and another wave of bitter sadness oozes through her chest. ‘Oxygen status?’
‘Oxygen is currently at sixty-five percent.’
‘Estimated time before full depletion?’
‘One hour forty-seven minutes.’
She smirks as she recalls the facts about dying from oxygen depletion, as the doctor explained them. ‘You will lose consciousness within a couple of minutes, if you hold your last breath. There will be that terrible moment, before blackout, when your body will desperately, agonisingly try to suck in air in a vacuum. Then you will pass out, your brain cells will die, a
nd the process will be over within seven minutes.’ Clinical. Do we really die? she asks, and she tries to imagine Ann’s view of a universe with God, where death is simply transition, not an end.
The purple light in the Officer’s Lounge is surreal, the music annoying, the crowd dancing. She lowers her glass, unwraps her thin fingers from it. ‘You really believe don’t you?’
Ann smiles, and mouths, ‘Yes.’
‘But why?’
Ann sips at her cocktail, licks her lips, the joy in her face more than alcoholic, and says, ‘Hope. It’s all about hope. If we don’t have hope, there’s no point to any of this, is there? God gives us hope.’
‘I have hope,’ she argues, ‘and I don’t think any god runs the universe.’
‘It’s different,’ Ann replies.
‘How is it different?’ she challenges, but Jo shuffles between them, sweating from dancing.
‘What are you two serious pusses talking about?’
‘God.’
‘Hope,’ Ann adds.
Jo laughs. ‘Everyone has hope!’
‘You do?’
Jo grabs Ann’s arm, laughing happily, and nudges Rhee as she announces, ‘I definitely have hope! I hope I get that hunk Alan in bed tonight!’
‘Initiate eject sequence.’
‘Eject sequence initiated.’
She watches the thirty seconds countdown on the HUD, listens to the whir and clicking of the mechanics and electrics. ‘I’m not ready to die,’ she tells herself. ‘Not yet.’ The pod shudders and she hears an unexpected grinding sound.
‘Ejection in ten, nine, eight, seven…’
She closes her eyes, tenses, grits her teeth, but when the moment comes all she feels is a gentle motion, as if the ship simply loosens her from its shattered grip. She opens her eyes. The orange sunlight is shifting to the left on her dimmed HUD. ‘Restore display,’ she orders. The screen’s blue light dissolves. The star field is rotating faster, and more of the broken ship becomes visible. ‘Stabilise.’ The pod’s rotation steadily eases. Beyond the wreckage, there is another crescent of light, a shimmering reflection. Blue. Green. Orange. Alpha Centauri Bd. She glimpses a flash of white light at the edge of her screen.
Professor Haran shuts down the Alpha Centauri system hologram and activates the lights. She glances at her colleagues as the professor continues. ‘Research in the early decades of the Twenty-first century suggested there was an exoplanet orbiting Alpha Centauri B, but it appeared to be too close to its sun, probably mainly gaseous matter, certainly uninhabitable. Anomalies in orbits and gravitational forces led people to postulate there was another planet, a smaller one, at that point in time invisible to us. The second planet theory proved false, in so far as the second planet being habitable, but it led to the discovery fifteen years later of a third planet, one that appears to have the right astronomical conditions to imitate Earth. Recent studies indicate the planet is larger than Earth, rotates more slowly, a day being the equivalent of almost four Earth days. And it has multiple moons, much like Jupiter and Saturn. However, everything suggests that it has Earth-like conditions and, if any place can sustain biological life, this one sure should be able to.
You all know the Prime Imperative. Our planet is vastly overpopulated and its resources exhausted. Humanity is dying. The proto-colonies on the Moon are still dependent on Earth’s resources and won’t survive once the Earth dies. The opportunity to start afresh on another planet seemed plausible, but travelling to one in any vehicle we have and in a time span of a single human generation was a pipe-dream – until the discovery of Alpha Centauri Bd. You all know that probes have been unsuccessful in confirming the full extent of Bd’s habitability, but we can’t afford to wait for a successful probe report. Time is against us. So we’re sending your team to do what mechanical technology cannot.’
She stares at the emerging cusp, the promise for humanity, the last vestige of hope for a dying species, and sees the colours of oceans, of continents, of polar caps and deserts, clouds streaming across the atmosphere – sees the dream of a future – and she can’t stem her tears. So close. We came so close.
‘If your report on the state of Alpha Centauri Bd recommends it can support human life, we will launch a team of colonists who will set up the first community. They will pass you on your return journey, should you choose to return.’
Major Jorgensen pauses, and Jo raises her hand, like a school child, to ask, ‘We have an option?’
‘To remain on Bd? Yes. You do.’
‘How?’
‘I thought that would be obvious.’
‘Wait,’ Li Zhou says. ‘Proof that the planet can sustain life isn’t proof that we could survive there another six years.’
‘But I’m sure you could,’ Jorgensen counters, and he illustrates with a hologram of the Hope. ‘There are enough resources on your vessel to support a fifteen-year journey for all ten of you. You will have plenty of essentials to survive – oxygen, food, water – even if you find the planet less hospitable over a period of time.’
‘And if it isn’t? And we use the resources; we don’t come home, do we?’ Wilkinson says. ‘Because the colonist ship wouldn’t be set up to return, would it?’
‘I said it was an option. You will make a choice. As a team.’
The planet fills her screen, mesmerising her – until a shrill beep and Jeni’s voice breaks her reverie. ‘Alert. Impact imminent. Impact imminent.’ She checks the HUD. Red lines arc towards the centre. Beyond the HUD, she sees jagged lines of metal bearing down. ‘Forward forty-five degrees one hundred metres!’ she barks. The pod shudders and drifts in the ordered direction. She swears. I’m stationary, the wreckage is rotating. Stupid mistake. The ship’s metal strut skeleton swings perilously close. She braces. A metal finger taps the pod and starts it oscillating. ‘Stabilise!’ she screams. The pod settles, the screen facing deep space and the stars. She draws a very deep breath, and notices, again, an anomaly, an absence of stars in a small patch of her vision. She blinks to clear her eyes. The patch appears in a different quadrant, like a shadow stalking her. ‘Okay,’ she whispers. ‘Odd. Wrong.’ Am I hallucinating? She squeezes her eyes tight and opens them. The anomaly remains. ‘Oxygen status.’
‘Oxygen is at fifty percent capacity.’
‘Time to depletion?’
‘One hour, twenty-nine minutes, thirty-two seconds.’
She sighs. Three hours was all they gave a survivor to be picked up in an emergency. She snorts. Out here? ‘Status report on pod systems.’
‘All systems are operational. Non-life-threatening minor structural damage evident on the right exterior panel.’
She studies the star field, is aware the shadow has disappeared, and her suspicion deepens. ‘Status report surrounding life forms.’ The HUD sparkles and transforms into a tracking radar screen. And is empty. She sighs and makes her decision. ‘Rotate one hundred and eighty degrees horizontal.’
The pod trembles as the propulsion jets turn the tiny craft. When she sees the full view of the Hope, renewed despair overwhelms her. Whatever happened was devastating. The once vast Mylar sails are tattered shreds on shattered frames, tiny glittering golden fragments. The Hope’s white fuselage is torn open, shredded, as if a gigantic explosion ripped out the guts, leaving jagged, distorted remnants and slowly spinning particles.
How did I survive that? she ponders. Why did I survive it? What the hell happened? She examines the view, hoping against all odds to see a tiny blue light, an indication that one or more of her companions also survived, but the only light is sunlight reflecting from the wreckage. How did this happen? What else is out here? ‘Open log,’ she says. The HUD log lights deepen to emerald. ‘Voice report. Automatically log date and time. Commencing.’ She gathers her nerves and thoughts. ‘This is Major Rhee Whenan, Second Habitation Officer of SS Hope. I have woken in degenerating orbit above Asimov, eighth moon of Alpha Centauri Bd. The SS Hope has suffered an, as yet unidentified, catastroph
ic event. The ship is destroyed. It appears I am –’ She swallows, her mouth drying out – ‘It appears I am the sole surviving team member. Upon inspection of my situation, and unable to raise communications with other team members –’ She hesitates; the ghost of Ann Carpenter’s broken fear echoing in her mind. ‘I repeat, being unable to raise communications with other team members, or with Home Base on Earth, and given the degree of destruction of the ship, I have activated pod eject. I am now ascertaining the extent and cause of damage to the ship. I repeat, the SS Hope has suffered a catastrophic event and is no longer –’ What word do I use to describe this? Functional? Operative? ‘The ship no longer exists.’ She pauses to study the wreckage. ‘I will move closer to inspect the damage. The pod has limited manoeuvrability, and the rotation of wreckage poses significant risk. I will report what I find.’ What the hell am I doing? she asks. No one will hear this. I’m slowly being pulled towards the moon and when I hit it there’ll be nothing left to find. ‘But I have to do something,’ she says aloud. ‘I’m not dead yet. I’m not - dead - yet.’
‘Biological systems functional,’ the pod voice replies.
She laughs at the ironic misinterpretation, saying, ‘Thanks, Jeni. Good timing.’
She runs another check, and when it completes she says, ‘Steady forward thirty metres, descending twenty degrees, fifteen degrees left.’ The jets fire, and her pod shifts towards a large chunk of metal. I really wish I could release my hands and legs, she thinks as she approaches the target. The chunk is a portion of the crew deck, but it takes a moment to recognise – reduced to the outline –another pod, melted against the lining. Melted? Something attacked us? ‘Two metres, ten degrees right.’ The angle adjustment shifts her pod’s shadow across the wreckage, allowing her to see more twisted metal, fragments spinning with frictionless momentum.
Beyond the chunk, she spots another pod, floating, tethered by wires and tubes to a large piece of fuselage. ‘Twenty metres forward. Fifteen metres vertical down,’ she guesses, and lets the jets carry her to the next pod. As she closes the distance, she realizes the outer case is warped, again as if melted, and the screen is shattered. Hovering beside the pod, she sees Li Zhou’s grey face, eyes closed, as if asleep, a jagged shard of glass buried in his neck. She feels guilty for staring at the dead.
The doctor nods to the police officer, who looks away when he withdraws from the cold grey room. She is left standing at the mortuary tables. Her hands tremble as she fights fear and anticipation. ‘I know this is a horrible thing to ask,’ the doctor says calmly, ‘but we need to positively identify the vict – your family. Please?’
She looks at him, tear-stained cheeks, trying to control her quivering lips as she replies, ‘I’m ready,’ but she has never before seen a corpse, and now she has three to view.
She struggles with tears and sniffs. ‘Turn forty-five degrees right. Up forty metres,’ she tells the computer. She spots a larger remnant rolling slowly against Asimov’s bright backdrop. ‘Forward thirty metres.’ The metal shines with moonlight as she nears it, but she instructs the pod to manoeuvre carefully until she can study the damaged edges. Again, she sees that the metal is punched inward and melted, not torn. Scorch marks stain the white exterior. ‘Open log,’ she says, as she watches the spinning debris. ‘Major Rhee Whenan. Second entry. Having inspected portions of the SS Hope, I can confirm that the ship was exposed to intense heat and was almost certainly damaged by an external source. The scatter of debris confirms that the ship exploded. There is absolutely no sign of life.’ She checks the pod’s systems carefully, recording the readings. ‘I have less than one hour of oxygen. The pod’s jets have less than five minutes fuel. I am caught in a slow spiral towards the moon’s surface, along with the Hope wreckage. I will use the remaining jet fuel to shift the pod into a stable orbit above the moon, although I suspect that won’t work. If it doesn’t, then I guess no one will hear this log.’ She sighs and shuts her eyes. I would really like to move my arms and legs, just move around. This is like being buried alive. And she remembers the Edgar Allan Poe story that haunted her childhood nightmares – about a woman who feared being buried alive - The Premature Burial. ‘Now I am that woman,’ she murmurs.
She opens her eyes, checks the instruments, and orders the pod to rise out of the falling flotsam and jetsam to a point where the moon’s gravitational pull will let her tiny craft become a satellite. When the jets expire, she sighs again, and contemplates the wonder of Alpha Centauri Bd drifting against a starry backdrop. So close, she repeats to herself. So close. The future is so close. ‘Open log,’ she says, and maintains her gaze on the planet. ‘It might be a romantic assessment I’m making, at this point in time, in these circumstances, but Alpha Centauri Bd looks beautiful from up here, very Earth-like, on a grander scale. It looks habitable, for all humans. It’s a shame the probes failed. I think we would already be sending colonists, if we’d known.’ She pauses, reflecting on the conundrum of the brevity of the probes’ existence. What destroyed them so consistently? Were we destroyed by the same thing? And if we were, what could it be? ‘I suspect we are not the only ones here.’ She considers the point of her statement, the impact it will have on anyone who hears it. ‘I don’t think we will be welcomed.’ She searches the stars for the shadow, the anomaly, the cause and the effect, but it’s not in her field of vision. ‘I don’t think we’re alone.’ She pauses to check her oxygen supply. Plenty of time left, she decides, and wonders what it will be like to die, whether it will be as clinical as they’d been told, or whether it will be something entirely else. If there’s a God, I guess I will know, Ann.
‘Why the faith?’ she asks.
Ann Carpenter smiles. ‘It gives me strength to face my trials.’
‘You don’t need faith to do that.’ she argues. ‘We all face our trials with strength, in our own ways, but we don’t all believe in a god.’
‘It will make a difference when you face the trial of death.’
‘Why?’
Ann’s smile fades into a serious expression. ‘People without faith are afraid of death. They see it as the end of everything, worse than emptiness. That terrifies them. It terrifies me to even imagine thinking like that.’
‘It’s just death,’ she counters. ‘I’m not terrified of it. We die. There’s no ongoing pain or regret. It doesn’t matter.’
‘That’s so very sad that you don’t have hope.’
‘Hope? In death? What hope?’
‘That there’s something more to come. That death isn’t the end, but a new beginning. We don’t die in desperation. We can die with dignity, knowing God is waiting for us to return. Hope gives us the strength to face death with dignity.’
She blinks. Die with dignity. Ann had her faith, but when death came she – She changes the thought to a decision. I will die with dignity if I have to die now. At least I can do that. She stares at her reflection in the screen. Reduced to a thinking, talking head, she considers and chuckles at her sorry state. It would be good to stretch my legs, brush my hair, wash my face, just one more time. She smiles grimly, remembering how she, as a child, wondered what people condemned to death thought about as they were about to die. ‘Now you know,’ she murmurs. ‘Little things.’ She draws a breath. ‘Pod status report.’ Jeni rolls through the systems – external damage, oxygen remaining – and Rhee closes her eyes. Perhaps the only real hope we can have is to die with dignity. Perhaps that’s all we really have left in the end.
‘You are beautiful,’ Javel whispers, close to her ear.
‘I didn’t expect to die like this,’ she murmurs.
‘Hush. I love you –’
‘Alert. Imminent collision. Alert.’
Her eyes snap open. ‘Evade! Evade!’ she yells. The HUD flashes red from the left. Spinning junk rolls towards her – a gigantic mass, a quarter of the original ship. She should be out of the debris field. Something has gone wrong. ‘Evade!’ she screams. And remembers the pod’s jets are deplet
ed. And braces. The lump hits like a silent hand, spinning the pod violently on its vertical axis. The HUD green lights explode red. A crack rips across the screen. She shuts her eyes, grimaces, opens her eyes to a madly spinning star field, and shuts them again. Screams.