Pluto's Ghost- Encounter Edition

by B. C. CHASE

  In the center of the module surrounded by the plant life, is a couple, nude. They are engaged in making passionate love, the sweat glistening on their bodies in the pink light as they slowly roll together in midair. The woman is Nari, but the man has his backside to me. I assume he’s Tim.

  Embarrassed, I hurriedly push myself away and soar up the tunnel.

  Commander Tomlinson has called us all to the Service Module. With ten of us, it’s cramped.

  He says, “Houston has just given us the flight plan for the next couple of days. They are uploading the computer instructions for the maneuver around Venus. I brought you here so you could all read it for yourselves.” He directs our attention to the laptop screen.

  MCC: This is Administrator Hogarth. Because of the importance of this decision, I wanted to personally speak to you. First, some housekeeping. Whether you return to Earth or not, we are devising new systems by which we are confident you will have the capability to sustain yourselves. We will also be launching a spacecraft containing a brand-new antenna array which will rendezvous with your station at a future time and restore full communications without the need for an EVA. It will connect to the Z1 truss.

  MCC: Now let me tell you what you’ve so patiently waited to hear these past thirty-eight days. The President, in coordination with all his senior staff, and having the nearly unanimous endorsement of the House and Senate, has directed that the mission to Pluto will proceed as scheduled. You are to be Earth’s first ambassadors to life beyond our planet. In this, you will have the full strength, support, and resolve of the United States and our alliance member nations. All eyes look to you with the knowledge that you carry the destiny of the world with you on the International Space Station. No matter the outcome, we are with you to the end. Godspeed.

  Katia, Tim, Nari, Shelby, Commander Tomlinson, and Sarah are smiling. Commander Sykes is cupping his face in his hands.

  Commander Tomlinson asks, “Any questions or comments for Administrator Hogarth?”

  After we leave, I approach Commander Sykes, “What do you think about the decision?”

  “I thought they would send us home,” he says. “I understand the importance of the mission, and I will do what’s required. But I really, really wanted to see my kids and my wife.”

  “I’m sorry. Maybe it would have been better if we hadn’t heard from Houston after all.”

  “Maybe.”

  ∆v∆v∆v∆v∆

  MCC: Let’s make a truce. I won’t ask any more questions that make you uncomfortable if you agree to tell me the truth.

  ISS: OK. SHOOT.

  MCC: Did you pick your nose today?

  ISS: NO.

  MCC: Liar.

  ISS: YOU CANT GET AWAY WITH ANYTHING ANYMORE CAN YOU?

  MCC: Did you know Neil Armstrong said that when he was on the moon?

  ISS: NO.

  MCC: Fun fact: he was tossing the portable life support systems to discard unnecessary weight before the lunar lander launched off the moon. Houston had reported to him that the seismometers they had left on the surface registered the shocks when the PLSSs hit. Seriously, though, how are you doing?

  ISS: I WISH COMMANDER SYKES COULD GO HOME. HE MISSES HIS FAMILY.

  MCC: Your file told me you had a daughter. I’m sorry she passed away. I bet you miss her, too.

  ISS: BETSY. EVERY DAY.

  MCC: I’m sorry. You really have no other family?

  ISS: NO

  MCC: And your wife?

  ISS: TOOK UP WITH ANOTHER MAN. THAT WAS PROBABLY LONG BEFORE YOU WERE BORN.

  MCC: Did you ever think about starting a new life, I mean with another woman?

  ISS: NO. HURT TOO BAD TO TRY AGAIN.

  MCC: Wow. I can understand that. How is your arm?

  ISS: PAIN COMES AND GOES.

  MCC: And the food?

  ISS: STILL HEALTHY

  MCC: Oh, come on. I know they sent snacks up there for you guys.

  ISS: YOU CAUGHT ME AGAIN. I LIKE THE M AND MS

  MCC: Haha. Peanut or plain?

  ISS: PLAIN. NOT MUCH FOR FANCY EMBELLISHMENTS

  MCC: Peanuts are not fancy. I think I’ve covered everything. I’ll see you again in two weeks. I’m always here, though. Just let CAPCOM know you want to talk.

  ISS: THANKS, ALEXANDRA

  Twenty-one

  “Encompassing most of my view is a giant, black circle that blots out all the stars behind it. To the left is the sun, brighter and more illustrious than I have ever seen it, a beacon of white light much different from the yellow orb that rounds the daytime sky of Earth. The speed of our approach is apparent as the black globe grows larger and larger until even the sun, with a dying spark of yellow as it sinks into the atmosphere, vanishes behind it. Now we can see nothing but darkness, an enigma of beauty waiting to be unveiled. Earth is a distant memory. Venus is our whole world, the apple of our eyes, the here, the now, and the only. Named after the goddess of love, beauty, and seduction, she is true to her name, first flirting, then tantalizing, and finally captivating us with her wonder.

  “As we move around her body, the station roars with the fire of the engines. She seems so alone out here without a moon. And yet, as we near her, we fear and respect her, for she is a powerful mistress, seducing us with her gravity and casting us towards the sun at twice our current speed.

  “On the far side, the sun bursts into view. Venus’s atmosphere, pale and golden, is like a flash of blazing fire that trails the curve of her surface. The farther we go, the more she reveals until, through haze, towering clouds and rare flickers of lightning tease us from within the pallid skin of her air.”

  “That was dumb,” says Nari. “Not your worst, but dumb.”

  “I already know what you think,” laughs Tim, putting down his tablet from which he was reading.

  “I thought it was beautiful,” says Katia.

  “Thank you, Katia,” he says.

  Shelby remarks, “You’re a romantic, that’s for sure, Tim.”

  Nari rolls her eyes, “You have no idea.”

  We start our game of cards. Venus is in our rearview mirror, and we are charging full-steam ahead towards the sun at a whopping 77,248 kilometers per hour. In fifty-seven days, we will reach the sun.

  ∆v∆v∆v∆v∆

  MCC: How was Venus?

  ISS: BEAUTIFUL

  MCC: Soon you’ll have to close the shutters. The sun will be too close.

  ISS: NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO THAT

  I find my single-digit typing is improving with these sessions.

  MCC: You miss Earth?

  ISS: YES

  MCC: What about it?

  ISS: EVERYTHING. THE GROUND UNDER YOUR FEET. THE WAY THE WHEAT ROLLS IN THE WIND ON A HOT DAY. THE BLUE OF THE SKY.

  MCC: The feel of a woman?

  ISS: ALEXANDRA, I TOLD YOU IM NOT TALKING ABOUT THAT.

  MCC: Call me Lexi.

  ISS: NO

  MCC: YES!

  ISS: DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO ASK ME OR ARE WE JUST GOING TO ARGUE?

  MCC: I have a list of questions I’m supposed to ask you: How do you like your quarters? How is the food? How is the gardening? How do you like your crewmates? But really, there’s only one question that means anything, only one question I’ve been wanting to know.

  ISS: WHAT IS IT?

  MCC: Do you remember me?

  ISS: NO. I NEVER SAW YOU.

  MCC: But I was at the mission control center. You must have seen me during the tour.

  ISS: SORRY. IF I DID I DIDNT KNOW WHO YOU WERE.

  MCC: You would have remembered. I’m 5’5”, I have brown eyes, brown hair. I was staring at you.

  ISS: DOESNT RING A BELL SORRY. HOW OLD ARE YOU ANYWAYS?

  MCC: 28. That’s the first question you’ve asked me about myself.

  ISS: DONT I GET ONE AFTER YOUVE ASKED ME ABOUT ONE MILLION BILLION?

  MCC: Haha. One quadrillion, you mean? ;) You can ask me whatever you want.

  ISS: YOUR HUSB
AND MUST NOT KNOW YOUR JOB IS TO CHAT WITH HANDSOME OLD MEN IN OUTER SPACE ALL DAY

  MCC: No husband. Are you ever going to learn to stop shouting with that keyboard?

  ISS: I HATE COMPUTERS NEVER USE THEM. YOURE LUCKY IM TYPING TO YOU AT ALL. PLUS I ONLY HAVE ONE GOOD HAND TO WORK WITH

  MCC: Let’s see how much better you can do with it.

  ISS: GOODNIGHT, MISS IARA

  MCC: MS is the appropriate title nowadays.

  ISS: MISS SMARTYPANTS

  MCC: I usually wear skirts.

  ISS: GOODNIGHT MISS SMARTYSKIRTS

  MCC: Goodnight, Pointer.

  ISS: POINTER?

  MCC: That’s what you use to type, isn’t. Your pointer finger?

  ISS: WELL I WOULDNT USE MY THUMB NOW WOULD I? GOODNIGHT

  MCC: Goodnight.

  Twenty-two

  As I float in my sleeping bag in the darkness, my mind is busy.

  I have skipped my last two psychiatrist sessions. Her flirting is inappropriate, and I can tell I am starting to lose my resolve to reject it. I find that, in the lonely void of space, I have a longing for her companionship, if only on the computer over a distance of 108 million kilometers. In fact, I look forward to it more than anything. I don’t know who she is, really, or anything of any importance about her. But she seems to like to talk with me, and I know I like to talk with her.

  The constant threat of danger, the distance from our home, the isolation…all of it seems to be peeling open the heart of this old man and laying it bare before her. And… Why not? I think. It’s harmless chatter.

  Because, I lecture myself, it’s unrealistic. It’s inappropriate. It can’t be true that a young, female psychiatrist in Houston is flirting with a seventy-five-year-old man who, in all likelihood, will never return to Earth. I can’t lie, though. If it is true, something inside me feels flattered. But she is immature. You’re being immature, too. My mind is at odds with itself. Rationally, I know there are a million reasons why this isn’t right. Emotionally, I’m like an idiot in a canoe with one oar about to plunge off a waterfall.

  ∆v∆v∆v∆v∆

  I wake to a blood-curdling scream. I wrestle with my sleeping bag and, once free, fling open my hatch.

  Another scream.

  It is coming from outside the Habitation Module. I kick my feet against the rim of my hatch, sending my body soaring down the lounge to the module exit. Once in the tunnel, I see that the door to the Centrifuge Module has been left open. I pull myself to the doorway and enter. Katia is floating there, wiping tears from her eyes, her face contorted in anguish.

  “What is it?” I demand.

  She rushes to me and throws her arms around my torso, burying her face in my chest, “He’s dead! He’s dead!”

  Commander Tomlinson arrives, along with Commander Sykes and Shelby. Katia abandons me for Commander Tomlinson. I propel myself towards the shower doorway, my heart racing.

  Suspended in midair in the shower is the naked body of Kurt Drexel. Undulating, rippling blood clings to him like a living garment.

  Commander Sykes, after glancing at the body, pushes his way past Commander Tomlinson to go back into the tunnel. I follow him. He floats before the door, and jabs a button. The digital display on the hatch, which had displayed 0, now shows a different number:

  37.17575847384448

  ∆v∆v∆v∆v∆

  We held a ceremony and used the small airlock in the Japanese Lab to dispose of the body. Commander Tomlinson said a few words which sounded remarkably like the ones he said for Valentin. Commander Sykes said nothing.

  Now Commander Tomlinson, Commander Sykes, Shiro, Shelby, Katia, Tim, and I are in the mess hall for a meal. I don’t feel hungry, and apparently neither does anyone else except Commander Tomlinson and Nari. Nari, in fact, seems very hungry, and has been eating more than usual over the past days.

  Commander Sykes says, “It’s The centrifuge is supposed to rotate nine times a minute to produce one g. Instead, it was spinning thirty-seven times a minute. That’s fourteen g’s.”

  “That’s the price of making something quickly, no matter the cost,” says Commander Tomlinson. “The new additions to this station were slapped together and launched to orbit before anyone really knew how reliable they were or how safe they were. It’s like STS all over again.”

  Commander Sykes shoots him a disapproving glance and says, “STS wasn’t slapped together, and you know it.”

  “STS was a bad idea from the start. Let’s put our astronauts right beside the rocket, shall we, so if it explodes, they face certain death. And you, of all people, should know how dangerous it was.”

  “Everything is dangerous the first time.”

  Commander Tomlinson noisily chews his food and then says, “I think it’s time to deploy the SPHERES.”

  “Why? What good would that do?”

  “If a SPHERES had been with Kurt, it would have recorded what happened. We might know what the cause was.”

  Commander Sykes says, “I don’t think spying on everyone all the time is the solution to any of the dangers we face.”

  “I would have agreed with you. But now Kurt is dead. Valentin is dead. Yury is dead. I want to know what the hell is going on. The centrifuge didn’t power up to fourteen g’s all by itself. Someone had to override the system. The SPHERES are the only way to know what is really happening: whether these are technical malfunctions or self-inflicted harm.”

  Commander Sykes cautions, “If we do that, any semblance of privacy we now have will be lost. We will be under surveillance twenty-four hours a day. There will be nowhere to hide.”

  “Nobody here should have anything to hide.”

  Commander Sykes asks, “What do the rest of you think?”

  Shiro says, “I don’t object.”

  Shelby says, “If this environment is causing people to end their lives, we might be able to catch anyone else before it’s too late. It could be anyone of us.”

  “I’ll deploy the SPHERES,” says Commander Tomlinson.

  Commander Sykes warns, “This is how freedom is lost: to fear.”

  “We don’t have any freedom here,” Shiro remarks. “We’re like rats in a laboratory experiment.”

  ∆v∆v∆v∆v∆

  MCC: Hi, there. Long time no see. But don’t worry, you can’t hurt my feelings. :-

  ISS: I need to talk

  MCC: No more capitals! My hero! ;-)

  ISS: Found a typing tutor on the computer in my CQ. Ive been practicing.

  MCC: Not your punctuation, I see. Lol.

  ISS: Dont push it.

  MCC: So...What’s up?

  ISS: Kurt.

  MCC: I know. So sad. And a god-awful way to die. Hard to believe he would choose to end his life that way, but I guess they made the space station impossibly safe, otherwise. And, Jim, between me and you, I’m having a really hard time dealing with this. I feel responsible. I’m supposed to be the one who keeps everybody happy. But with Kurt, I failed.

  ISS: Dont worry. Its not your fault.

  MCC: But I’ve been chatting with him every two weeks. I didn’t pick up on anything. I had no idea. I’m thinking about asking NASA to replace me.

  ISS: Dont do that. Nobody can be blamed when someone takes their own life except that person. And, to tell you the truth, Im not sure it was what it looks like. We now have only two extra crew members

  MCC: Yes.

  ISS: Im worried.

  MCC: I understand why.

  ISS: You do?

  MCC: Yes. You’re afraid of who might be next.

  ISS: I think it might be me.

  MCC: Why?

  ISS: I have no value to NASA or the crew

  MCC: Don’t say something like that. You have more value than you know. Like I said, more than one person has spoken to me about you. You’re very popular. Don’t let death get to you. Deaths are ripples in the fabric of life, like raindrops on water. Just as with Columbia and Challenger and all the other tragedie
s of spaceflight, they can pave the way for advancement in the future. I trust you won’t be going into the centrifuge anytime soon?

  ISS: No. Commander Tomlinson shut it down until Houston diagnoses the problem.

  MCC: So you have nothing to worry about. Trust me, you’ll be fine. I care about you more deeply than you know. I have since I saw you.

  ISS: Lexi?

  MCC: What, Jimmy?