Zack couldn’t believe he was having a conversation like this. He liked to believe he possessed above-average mental flexibility. He was willing, possibly eager—likely too eager at times—to think outside the box. But this situation . . . “Would you answer a question for me?”
The Megan-thing actually smiled, then nodded.
“Do you know this? ‘Perhaps if death is kind, and there can be returning—’”
“Yes, yes, Sara Teasdale, my favorite poem, which ends, ‘we shall be happy, for the dead are free,’ which strikes me as pretty goddamn funny at the moment. You used it at my funeral, right?”
She seemed to draw energy from the idea—no wonder, since it suddenly seemed to Zack that somehow his wife had cheated death. “Who was there? Who cried?”
Her familiarity with the poem and questions about the funeral confirmed Zack’s decision moments earlier: He would have to operate on the wildly improbable assumption that he was, indeed, face-to-face with his formerly dead wife.
ISRO mission Brahma continues to stir mixed emotions in the population, from eager pride to surly indifference. Pride in the role of vyomanaut T. Radhakrishnan is obvious. The indifference is also understandable. In a nation of one billion souls, most of them still living in poverty, what is to be gained from an expensive space mission? But if the past thirty years have taught our nation anything, it is the value of information. We have invested in Brahma’s mission for that reason.
COLUMNIST KULDIP SANGVHI AT E-PAPER VIJAYA TAMATAKA, 23 AUGUST 2019
Natalia heard Zack call her name but did not respond. She did not want to see what he was doing with the creature from the cell. She wanted to get out of this chamber, back to Brahma.
She wanted to return to Earth and never think about Keanu again.
It was unprofessional, she knew. She had worked so hard to become a cosmonaut, one of the few women ever to fly for Holy Mother Russia, and had always believed that she wanted to explore the solar system, work and live on the Moon, visit Mars.
And she had made it to this place, to the interior of a Near-Earth Object, where against all rational expectation, the environment was suitable for life.
It was, in fact, almost comfortable. Though there was still a warm mist in the air, the wind had died. Bizarre plants seemed to spill out of the ground, blossom, die, and then be replaced by something entirely different.
Of course, this was not exploration . . . it had turned into a nightmare.
Knowing she would need it—hoping it would be soon—Natalia went in search of her helmet.
She had left it at the base of the Beehive wall, not far from the cell where “Konstantin” had been writhing. As Natalia bent to pick up the helmet, she heard a voice, in Russian and in agony, scream, “Help me!”
Natalia couldn’t help looking. And there, outside a cell, dripping with ichor and shivering like a naked man at the North Pole, was the very image of Konstantin Alexandrovich Fedoseyev, world champion cross-country biathlete, a man she had trained with from the ages of fourteen to twenty.
She stepped closer, though not too close. The Konstantin-thing was twitching and writhing . . . but also trying, pathetically, to take steps.
Now she could see its face . . . pink-skinned, bright-eyed, complete with the signs that it was growing a mustache.
Even spasming, it reached out to her—and called her name!
“Stay away!”
“Natalia!” it said. “I’m alive!”
“Stop using my name!”
The creature lunged at her, but was still so unsteady it fell at her feet. Natalia stepped back. This was strangely familiar . . . like that terrible night during training in Osterland, when her coach and friend—Konstantin some twenty years ago—assaulted her.
If this “Konstantin” got too close, would he have the same smell of stale liquor on his breath? “I said, stay away!”
The Konstantin-thing rose to its knees and continued to whimper. Largely covered in a second skin, it was nevertheless the perfect replica of the coach as he must have been in his later years. Jowly, pot-bellied . . . the shape of his penis and dangling testicles visible through the covering.
She would not look at it. She would certainly not meet this thing’s eyes. Her aunt Karolina, a villager from the woods near Kaluga, had given her a tool for such situations.
She crossed herself as best she could in the suit.
Then she raised her hand to “Konstantin,” index finger and little finger extended. “Stay back!”
Instead it lurched at her, clutching her ankle.
She hit the creature in the head with her helmet. But its hand still held her booted leg.
So she hit it again. Now she was free.
Then she hit it a third time, a fourth.
The Konstantin-thing stopped twitching and lay still at her feet. One side of its head was flattened, pulpy.
Had she killed it?
She hoped so.
With one last look around, she examined her helmet for damage . . . found none except squashed fragments of second skin.
She wiped those off, then put the helmet on again.
I am moved to post the words to the Navy Hymn, suitably updated:
Lord, guard and guide the men who fly
Through the great spaces of the sky
Be with the travelers in the air,
In darkening storms or sunlight fair;
Oh, hear us when we lift our prayer,
For those in peril in the air.
POSTER UK BEN AT NEOMISSION.COM
Very appropriate! Well done!
POSTER JERMAINE, SAME SITE
Nice sentiment, but Pogo Downey would be spinning in his grave if he knew you’d used the Navy Hymn.
POSTER JSC GUY, SAME SITE
Lucas Munaretto had hated to leave Zack and Natalia behind, especially with Downey dead. But orders were orders, and he had seen the wisdom in sending one member of the team back through the membrane.
Not that he wanted to stay in that horrifying environment. He was happy to say good-bye to Keanu and its little red glowworms and chaotic weather and murderous machine. He just wanted Zack and Natalia to come with him.
Reaching rover Buzz and the link, he had told Bangalore and Houston everything he had seen, then followed their orders to enter the rover, eat, rest, and recharge his suit.
Exhausted, he had essentially passed out, waking two hours later with sore muscles in a sitting position, the suit cold and ill-fitting. It was only static-distorted shouting from the earphones of his headset that penetrated his fog.
“We’ve been calling you for half an hour!”
“I had my headset off.”
“Leave it on.” He tried to remember who the communications operator was in Bangalore. One of the crew training team—Sergei? Nair?—he couldn’t tell. A familiar voice was supposed to be comforting to a flight crew member.
“Who is this, please?”
“Vikram.” Shit, the flight director himself. “Can you function?”
Lucas had trained on the NASA rover only once, during a crew exchange in Houston. Whereas he knew every instrument and metal seam in the Brahma cabin—knew the sounds and smells—rover Buzz was an alien environment, a squat cylinder eight feet high, and not much wider or deeper. It was cramped, and because in addition to forgetting to turn on the radio, he had also neglected the interior lights, it was quite dark.