“So you don’t really know my father is okay!” Rachel was oscillating between hysterical anger and plain old hysteria.
“Word from Lucas was that your father and Natalia are still safe and sound.”
“But they’re inside! That’s where something just killed Mr. Downey!”
“Come on, Rach—you know your father. He wouldn’t have stayed if it were still dangerous.” Even as he said it, Harley knew that was a mistake. “Anyway, his suit’s going to run out of oxygen soon. He and Natalia will be back in sight before you know it.”
Rachel was hugging Amy. It was clear she really wanted to believe Harley.
She just didn’t.
It is with profound regret that I must report the death ofDestiny-7astronaut Patrick Downey. He was killed a short time ago when his EVA suit failed during an excursion to the interior of the Near-Earth Object Keanu. His loss is a constant reminder of the risks astronauts face in exploring other worlds. Colonel Downey was born in Bend, Oregon, and graduated from the United States Air Force Academy. He served with honor in Afghanistan and Pakistan before joining NASA in 2011. I offer my condolences to his widow, Linda, and his children, Daniel and Kerry.
PRESIDENT’S REMARKS ON COL. DOWNEY’S DEATH,
AUGUST 22, 2019, AT WHITEHOUSE.GOV
Zack Stewart had little time to ponder the mind-blowing impossibility of seeing his wife’s likeness inside a Near-Earth Object two years after her death in Florida. At least three other Beehive cells around “Megan” were active, too, each one extruding another human-shaped object. To the extent he could see faces, he recognized no one else. Which made him doubt his instant conclusion that he was looking at Megan.
What the hell, he could be suffering from shortage of oxygen, or too much. Either one would likely result in hallucinations, and suggested that the smart, immediate move was to put his helmet on and get the hell out of this chamber.
“Bozhe moi!”
From his time on the ISS, Zack knew a lot of Russian: “My God!” Natalia was farther along the face of the Beehive. From Zack’s point of view, she was a funny-looking creature in the thick suit topped by her smallish head in its skull-hugging communications cap. At the moment, with her face to her hands, she looked even odder.
Zack half-jogged, half-slid toward her. “What is it?”
She pointed at one of the other swollen pods. “Zack, I know that one!”
“What do you mean?” He didn’t want to influence Natalia by telling her what he thought he’d seen.
“It’s my coach. Konstantin Alexandrovich! He taught me to ski and shoot!” Zack remembered that Natalia had been an Olympics contender in the biathlon as a college student.
“It’s just an illusion.” He was trying to convince himself at least as much as he was trying to convince her. “Your brain is superimposing familiar images on alien structures.”
“He was not familiar! Konstantin died in January. I haven’t seen him in ten years.” Natalia uttered a worried whimper, like a dreamer in midnightmare, and backed away.
Left alone, Zack forced himself to be analytical and scientific. This pod thing was indeed human-shaped, just like the Megan-thing. And, yes, clearly possessing a face. Obviously a human male. Closed eyes, nose, mouth.
Some of the thin film covering the face suddenly split open, exposing a “mouth” that displayed what any reasonable observer would call teeth. And a couple of them looked shiny, like steel.
Like old Russian dental work—
“Zaacck!”
Hearing his name, Zack turned. Natalia was a few meters away, sitting on the ground, eyes closed, hugging herself. “What is it?”
“What?” she said, looking startled.
“You just called me.”
“I did not.”
“Then—”
Zack had no need to complete the question. He could see the Megan-thing less than a dozen meters away . . . still lying on its side in its Beehive cell, but using its hands—and they were clearly hands now—to claw away the brownish covering.
Revealing a pink face underneath, skin as pure as a newborn baby’s.
And those brown eyes, open wide again, blinking in confusion and terror.
And a mouth, white teeth, tongue.
The Megan-thing coughed and wheezed, less like an asthmatic trying to catch its breath. More like a newborn after the first slap.
Now it—she—looked at him. “Zack,” she said. The voice was Megan’s.
Zack disconnected his gloves, dropped them, and began clawing at the second skin that still bound the thing to the cell.
She was warm to the touch. Although her hair was cropped, even in her writhing struggles she looked and felt . . . familiar.
Zack pulled her free. Gently in the low gravity, both of them settled to the slimy mud of Keanu, the Megan-thing still largely covered in her second skin, essentially in Zack’s suited lap.
Then the Megan-thing began to thrash like a panicked drowner . . . and scream.
I can’t be more specific because I could get fired. But STRANGE SHIT IS HAPPENING UP THERE—!
PARTIAL POST BY POSTER JSC GUY AT NEOMISSION.COM
“How are you doing, Venture?”
“I’m maintaining, Houston,” Tea Nowinski said, on fifth thought. Her first through fourth thoughts had been How the fuck do you think I’m doing? In actual fact, she had been trying to use the bathroom, a procedure dreaded by all space travelers, with good reason. But with Yvonne sedated, in dreamland, and the comm links quiet, Tea had figured she had fifteen minutes to uncover the noxious little chamber behind the curtain—
She had almost completed this mission-critical task when Houston called.
The Venture cabin, in spite of its oddball height, now seemed cramped and crowded to Tea. That might have been due to Yvonne’s hammock, which would normally have been stowed this time of day. The radio hissed and crackled constantly. There were pumps and motors.
It was far from comfortable, though it was obviously more comfortable—not to mention a lot safer—than being in rover Buzz, or in an EVA suit.
Nevertheless, Tea was growing restless. Yet it was a violation of the astronaut code to let your emotions show, unless they were just forced giddiness at the wonders of weightlessness. And Jasmine Trieu, the new capcom, was just too nice to be the recipient of much nastiness.
It was now ninety-four hours mission elapsed time, EVA plus nine of the Destiny-7 mission to Keanu, and Tea was beginning to get a bad feeling about things.
That, of course, was the half-joking way astronauts dealt with the threat of death in space. It went all the way back to test piloting. Cheating death.
Tea had grown up in the United States at the turn of the twenty-first century knowing that throughout human history, people faced death frequently and inescapably. They died in foxholes, they drowned when ships sank, they were struck by cars, they were lined up and shot, they burned to death in fires, they choked in mine cave-ins. . . .
But, like most first-world citizens, she had managed to reach the age of forty without ever having been in serious fear for her life.
Setting aside the fact that launching on a rocket and making a flight into space dramatically increased one’s chances of dying—the current probability of a fatality was between one in fifty and one in twenty—Tea’s most memorable near-death experience had been in an airliner landing in Minneapolis during a summer storm. A sudden crosswind had tipped the 737 forty degrees right, then a similar amount the other direction . . . twice . . . before the pilot applied power and aborted the takeoff. Had the wing hit the ground, the aircraft would likely have cartwheeled across the runway, disintegrating on the tarmac and likely slamming into the terminal, impaling fragile humans on jagged metal or crushing them.