Slipping the headphones over his ears, he began to scan, adjusting the controls in the soft glow of the flickering kerosene lamp. The static was soothing—it obscured the utter silence of the Arctic, a silence so complete it seemed unnatural. The lapping of the water had ceased, the air was still, the birds had all gone. The silence of winter had descended. The terns had left their beautiful nest, flying south toward the other pole, and the musk oxen and caribou had returned to the wide-open tundra. Every now and then the quiet was punctuated with the long, trembling howl of a wolf, but otherwise the lake was wrapped in hushed stillness. The white noise of the radio waves was a relief, a soft crackle to obscure the loneliness. He set the receiver to scan automatically and closed his eyes—let his consciousness drift. He’d fallen asleep when he heard it: a voice, slipping through his eardrums and into his dreams. He bolted upright and pressed the headphones against his ears. It was so faint Augie wasn’t sure he’d really heard it. But no, there it was again—not words, just syllables, interrupted by static. He strained to make out what they were saying and pulled the microphone toward him, suddenly unsure how to respond. The language of amateur Q codes abandoned him in his excitement, but it didn’t matter. The FCC wasn’t listening anymore.
“Hello?” he said, then realized he was practically shouting. He waited, straining to hear a response. Nothing. He tried again, and again, and finally, on the third try, he heard her. A woman’s voice, clear as a bell.
SIXTEEN
MARS WAS BEHIND them and the pale blue dot of Earth was growing larger by the day. They began to spend their spare moments in the cupola, watching the color of the atmosphere become more vivid as they moved closer—everyone except Sully. She kept long hours in the comm. pod, dividing her time between tracking the Jovian moon probes and listening for signals from Earth as they drew closer to home. She barely interacted with the others. She usually slipped out of the centrifuge early, as the artificial sunrise began to dawn, and returned to it late, when the others were already in their bunks. There was nothing, not so much as an errant cable news broadcast or a Top 40 countdown, but she kept listening. The nearer they came, the more likely it would be for their antenna to pick up a signal. In times of disaster, ham operators were always the first to get information flowing along the airwaves; surely, she thought, there would be some chatter. There had to be. There was still no theory that made sense, no possible explanation for the silence. But gradually they had accepted it.
They were close enough to see the moon circling their little blue planet when Sully finally lost track of her probe on Io. It wasn’t unexpected—the conditions on Jupiter’s closest moon weren’t kind, and the probe had already outlasted its expected life span. It was an overachiever, yielding extraordinary data, but Sully was nonetheless saddened by the silence. There were only so many signals out there, and having one less to keep track of—first Voyager, now this—made her feel even more lost. There were so few things to hang on to. The universe was an inhospitable place, and she felt fragile, temporary, lonely. All of their tenuous connections, their illusions of security, of company, of camaraderie, were disappearing. Judging by its last transmission, the probe had strayed into volcanic territory, away from the sulfur dioxide snowfields they had set it down in. Its final temperature readings suggested submersion in lava—and even NASA didn’t design things that could survive that.
Sully left the comm. pod for the night and floated down the corridor toward the cupola. At least they were nearly home. Regardless of what waited for them, it was good to see their little planet through the heavy glass, its silvery moon whirling around and around like a lazy pinball. Tal and Ivanov were floating in front of the view side by side when she arrived. They made room for her in the cupola. The three of them drifted there, suspended in space, watching the blue dot where they’d begun their lives loom closer. There was a barely discernible prick of brightness near the surface of the planet, there and then gone, and Ivanov’s hand shot out to point at where it had just been.
“Did you see?” Ivanov said. “Just there—the International Space Station, I think. It must have been.”
The spark had disappeared over the edge of the earth before he could even raise his hand. Tal shrugged and buried his fingers in his beard in contemplation.
“Could be,” he said.
“Could be?” Ivanov sputtered. Two drops of indignant saliva left his lips and hovered in front of his face. “What else would it be?”
Tal shrugged again. “I dunno,” he said, “a satellite, maybe. Hubble. Space trash. Could be a lot of things.”
Ivanov shook his head. “Not possible. Too big for that.”
Sully began to back out of the cupola, not interested in playing the referee, when she saw Tal put his hand on Ivanov’s shoulder. “You could be right,” he conceded. “I’m just saying—we’ll wait for it to come round again, yes?”
Ivanov nodded and they continued their vigil, watching their looming planet. Sully was surprised to see them compromise this way, surprised and pleased—a new connection, in the midst of all this loneliness. She slipped out of the cupola. Neither of them noticed her go.
When she arrived back at the comm. pod Harper was waiting for her. She felt ambushed. She tried to hide the irritation she felt at finding him there, in what she thought of as her private space. He pointed at the last transmission from the Io probe, the telemetry she had left on her main screen when she wandered away.
“The Io probe finally kicked the bucket, eh? Death by volcano?”
Sully nodded. “Yeah, it quit on me yesterday.”
“Wanna take a break? Make some food? Play some cards?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I have some things to do in here, and I just took a break. But thanks.”
“I get it. It’s just that I haven’t really seen you in a while. I wanted to ask how you were doing.” Harper’s face was wide open, an invitation for her to unload, to emote, scrawled across his forehead. He wanted her to talk to him, but somehow it was infuriating. She didn’t want to be rude, or unkind, but she didn’t know how to respond, and the question itself irked her. How was she? How were any of them? They were in an impossible situation, doing whatever they could to get through—to pass from one moment to the next in a single piece: staring at Earth, listening to Earth, playing games while they thought of Earth.
The pause dragged on. Finally she said, “I’m a little out of sorts for all the obvious reasons, but I think you know that. Otherwise, I’m fine.”
“Sure, sure.” He seemed uncertain all of a sudden, as though the script he’d rehearsed in his head was no longer relevant to their conversation. “I just miss seeing you. But, you know. Take your time. Maybe we’ll see you for dinner.” He pushed past her and out of the pod. One of her machines chirped to signal an incoming telemetry delivery. The rest buzzed softly—nothing but empty sine waves.