Miller looked at him without saying a word and then sat down. They watched the container slowly fill up. They did not even notice they had already been soaked to the bone.
“Amy, one person has to stay here and tend the fire,” Miller finally said.
Martin smiled. Miller probably did not want Amy to be present when they inspected the squirrel traps.
“You others come with me to check whether we caught anything.”
Miller went ahead. The ASCANs were moving a bit more slowly than before. Apparently no one wanted to be the first to reach the traps.
“You see? We got one!” Miller whispered excitedly, even though there was no reason for quiet. He picked up the first three empty traps and pressed the loops flat. Then he showed them the dead squirrel in the fourth trap.
“Don’t worry, it died very quickly.”
No one said anything.
“Now we are going to need a tree stump that’s as smooth as possible. By chance, there is one right around the corner. We cannot cook the squirrel in its fur. We have to skin it first.”
He bent down. The tree stump was about 25 centimeters high. The instructor placed the dead animal on the smooth wood, inserted the knife slightly above the anus, and cut a few millimeters along the fur. Then he pulled firmly on the skin above it until a piece of it separated. Miller looked around. He found a clean spot on the ground, put the animal there, and stepped with one foot on its tail. Then he pulled strongly on the fur, which rolled up centimeter by centimeter until he had reached the front legs. Here he cut off both the fur and the head.
“Finished.” Miller wiped the sweat off his forehead. His hands were not bloody, as Martin would have expected. Without its fur the squirrel looked even smaller. It seems to be lonely and in need of help, almost like a newborn, Martin realized, and he was starting to feel nauseous. He took a few quick steps to get behind a bush, where he threw up. What kind of life did this animal have? he wondered. Did it feel something like happiness, or at least satisfaction? Did it have any idea how it would have to die someday?
Martin returned to the group. He saw the others had also reacted with shock and disgust.
“It’s not worthwhile gutting the animal because it’s so small. Grill it whole, but only eat the meat off the legs, breast, and back.”
Miller noticed his audience was not at all enthusiastic about their prospective meal.
“It’s your life or the animal’s, that’s what it’s all about.” He sounded serious. “You probably won’t crash-land in a forest, and as far as I have heard, there are no squirrels on Enceladus. There could be a situation, though, when you have to decide between your life and the lives of others. You should be prepared for that, at least a little. Such decisions can be very painful, and the consequences of your decision will follow you for the rest of your life.”
They returned to the camp in silence. Amy had already prepared some fresh coffee. They had hot-in-the-can food for dinner. They sat around the fire to get warm. Inner and outer warmth began to drive the moisture out of their clothes. Today, no one was in the mood for telling stories of other times. The flames sputtered as long as someone kept the fire alive. The wood was crackling while it dried in the heat. There was a smell of soot, moss, and wet dog fur, even though there was no dog nearby. No one even noticed when the sun set behind all the clouds.
At some point, Martin wrapped himself inside a piece of tarp, his backpack serving as a pillow. In reflection, he replayed the events of the day just before he fell asleep. This day has made me think twice about wanting to quit. I now realize it would be a mistake for me to call off this journey. My curiosity has been piqued, and I think it would be worth my while to get to know the people I will be traveling with. I no longer have the feeling I will endanger them.
December 20, 2045, Tiangong-4
Saying farewell had been easy for the mission crew. They were all glad to finally leave the confines of Tiangong-4. The Chinese space station, currently occupied by 17 people, had become an international meeting point, so they felt like they didn’t belong, and were only in the others’ way. No one aboard had said anything negative to the crew because they were all too polite.
Yet Martin sensed a mixture of envy and admiration: envy, because aboard this space station were taikonauts, cosmonauts, and astronauts with considerably more experience who might feel more qualified for this mission; and admiration, as it was clear to everyone how small their chances for a safe return really were. There simply had never been a space expedition lasting two years, so far away from any help. Without ongoing delivery of food, water, and spare parts, Tiangong-4 itself would cease to function in less than four weeks. ILSE, the craft that was supposed to fly to Saturn, would spend 30 times that long with only the supplies the planners managed to stow on board two spacecraft. ILSE’s full name was in fact ILSE 1, to differentiate it from the supply ship, ILSE 2.
After leaving the Dragon capsule that had brought them into space, they met Dimitri Marchenko and Jiaying Li for the first time. The Russian, athletic and not quite young anymore, seemed to have the respect of the entire crew. The Chinese woman is very reserved, Martin thought, and I have no idea what to make of her. He tried to find out whether there were any rumors about her here at the space station, but apparently there were none. On the other hand, everyone aboard had already heard about Marchenko’s legendary vodka parties.
The days stretched on. Martin felt exhausted and no longer even noticed his own body odor. He could hardly sleep due to all the noise on board. They did not expect to be able to leave this year. Yet five days before Christmas Eve, NASA finally released their decision—the mission would start the next day, December 20.
The hatch of the airlock separating ILSE from Tiangong-4 had just opened. A technician waved at them and said something in Chinese. Jiaying answered him and walked ahead. Once he had followed her inside, Martin breathed in its air. Finally, our own spaceship, he thought. It smells fresh—no comparison to the stench of Tiangong-4. Of course it smells of oil and ozone, but it reminds me of the fresh air after a thunderstorm.
Amy took charge. “CapCom says we should just stay here.”
“They are suddenly in quite a hurry,” Hayato remarked.
“The sooner we leave, the sooner we will be back,” Amy said. “So, everyone, please buckle in.”
Martin followed her instructions. His place was in a corner of the command module. Amy and Francesca, the pilots, were busy steering. He leaned back, closed his eyes, and sighed. Soon afterward, a force pressed him into his seat. It was the inertia of his own body that resisted the change in velocity caused by the engines at the stern of the ship. He had no idea what was happening up front. No big speeches, no slogans, no good wishes, he thought. He had never been sent on a journey with so little ceremony. One might even suspect the organizers of this trip were embarrassed for some reason, but I do not regret it. In the end, who needs all that hoopla, anyway? He went to sleep.
June 25, 2046, Space
The stone had been on its way since ancient times. It possessed no memory, but if it had one, it would remember a giant, flat cloud of gas and dust coalescing through its own gravity, rotating faster and faster, until it became hotter and hotter inside, and at some point igniting a sun. One of these dust particles still rested inside it, the seed from which the stone was born. The heat had made other particles stick to it. The particle grew into a stone by colliding with others, but it circled the young sun at the wrong place. While its siblings grew from centimeters to meters and kilometers, forming asteroids, planetoids, and even planets, the stone remained a stone. It would be called a ‘meteorite’ by humans, of which it knew nothing. They would not even give it a name, as with its diameter of 20 centimeters it was far too small and too unimportant. There are millions this size, yet space is so huge that the chance of it ever meeting one of its siblings, or anything else for that matter, is close to zero.