Pluto's Ghost- Encounter Edition

by B. C. CHASE

  My face is blue.

  I look for the ventilation opening. It is at the top of the inner wall. I push up for it and put my mouth next to it, gasping for air. But I feel no breeze emitting from the duct.

  It’s my turn, I think. We sealed ourselves in our quarters for the passing of the sun, and Commander Tomlinson shut off my air supply. I’m going to die in here.

  I continue to cough, and my breathing turns into wheezing. My hands and feet are tingling. Air! Where can I get air?

  I bang on the wall and shout for help, my voice strained and shallow. I feel so weak, movement is nearly impossible.

  I close my eyes. There’s nothing I can do. I will die here.

  Twenty-four

  Lexi! I think. Maybe she can talk to Tim or someone who has access to the system and my air can be switched back on. I open my eyes and raise the lid of my laptop.

  ISS: LEXI HELP

  MCC: I’m here, Jim.

  ISS: CANT BREATHE. VENTILATION OFF. CONTACT TIM

  MCC: You can’t breathe? I’ll get help.

  MCC: Jim?

  MCC: Jim talk to me, are you there?

  MCC: Don’t worry, it will be okay.

  ∆v∆v∆v∆v∆

  I wake up to a rumbling sound. At first, I’m a little confused. Then, I remember I am in my crew quarters and the ventilation wasn’t working. I was running out of oxygen.

  But now I’m awake, and aside from some dizziness and a headache, I feel much better. The coughing is gone.

  Looking at myself in the mirror, I see that my skin has returned to its usual color: beautiful pallid.

  My laptop is still open. I read the screen, and remember I had asked Lexi for help. Apparently, she wrote some messages after I lost consciousness:

  MCC: You can’t breathe? I’ll get help.

  MCC: Jim?

  MCC: Jim talk to me, are you there?

  MCC: Don’t worry, it will be okay.

  I stretch my working hand over the keyboard and type:

  ISS: BLACKED OUT, BUT IM BACK NOW. WHAT DID YOU DO?

  MCC: I told you, Jimmy. I have your back.

  ∆v∆v∆v∆v∆

  We passed the sun and nobody died, unless you count me. I got close enough for it to count for half a death, I’d say, not that I’m trying to add death to my list of accomplishments. I told everyone what happened, but nobody claimed to have been responsible for my rescue or even mentioned receiving a message from Lexi. I assume NASA was able to do something remotely.

  The best thing is that our plants survived. They are a little wilted, but Sarah thinks they’ll be okay with some moisture.

  We are leaving the sun behind and beginning our journey for the farthest reaches of the solar system. From here, it is 94.35 days to Jupiter.

  It’s great to be out of my crew quarters after six days. The only bad thing about it is that now the SPHERES are following us all over the place again.

  One of my duties is to sanitize all the laptops in the station. Altogether, there are thirty-six of them, and that makes for quite a lot of computer power, not to mention wiping. In addition to the laptops, the station is equipped with two supercomputers for avionics and systems management. One, in the Russian Service Module, is old and no longer used. The other is within the American Science Lab’s walls. Fortunately, I don’t have to clean those, but Tim is supposed to suck the dust out of them every now and then. Where does dust come from on the International Space Station? Us. We shed eight pounds of dead skin every year and, on the station, most of that ends up sucked into our equipment.

  I enter the Japanese Experiment Module and start wiping down surfaces. I’m unfortunately interrupted when I hear a sound from above my head. I look up. The sound is coming from the dark storage module. I float over. Inside, with his back to me, is Commander Tomlinson. Above him is one of the SPHERES. On the cell phone screen, partially obscured from my view by his shoulder, is a disjointed, flickering video. The head and torso of a young woman is visible, her body swiveling seductively. She gracefully collects her long, brown hair with her hand. Her brown eyes, filled with desire, are fixed ahead, and her lips part, her mouth opening lustfully as she breathes, “I want you, Josh.”

  Commander Tomlinson practically pants, “Lexi, show me everything.”

  My heart pounding, I bolt for the lab’s exit. As fast as I can, I fly through the modules until I am safely back in my quarters.

  But then I see my laptop, the screen open. I type a message:

  ISS: LEXI?

  MCC: I’m here. What’s up?

  I slam the lid down and swallow. My heart is thumping. I don’t want to talk to her. I won’t talk to her again, I resolve to myself. Never again.

  But then I wonder, Do I not want to talk with her because I’m angry and I’m jealous? Or is it because something deep inside me tells me she is not who she claims to be? Both reasons rattle me to my core.

  Twenty-five

  Katia, Shelby, Tim, Shiro and I are doing our best to play cards in the lounge. Shelby got some adhesive so we can stick them to the coffee table, but it’s still a challenge and some of them escape to float away. We’d be in the Centrifuge Module, but we don’t want to end up, you know, dead.

  Shiro says, “So now that we’re on our way, I think it’s time we start getting real. We need to be prepared for what’s out there.”

  “I think we’re about as prepared as we can get,” Shelby comments, discarding.

  “In all the training, we never had any discussions about motives.”

  “Motives?” Tim asks.

  “Yes,” Shiro says, “For example, look at the crew the ECIs chose. With the exception of Jim, all of us are young.”

  “Well that’s self-explanatory, isn’t it?” says Tim. “Why send older, less physically fit individuals on such a rigorous journey? Sorry, Jim.”

  I shrug.

  “The females are younger than the males, but all of us are of reproductive age.” He looks up from his cards, “Doesn’t that make you a little curious what they have in mind?”

  “Shiro! You’re making me uncomfortable,” Shelby says, frowning.

  Looking at Katia, Shiro says, “And you’re the youngest, Katia. Very young, in fact, and a genius.” He glances from side to side, “All of us, in fact, are exceptional. With the exception of you, Jim. No offense again, of course.”

  “None taken,” I say. “Full house.”

  Everyone groans and I collect all the chips from the Ziploc bag we are using to contain them.

  Tim asks, “Are you suggesting that they intend to keep us as pets and breed us or something? Because that’s impossible. You know all the men on the crew have been sterilized.”

  “Yes, I know. But do you think that, if they have the technology to do what they have already done, they might also be able to overcome a hurdle like that? They will have our DNA and three perfectly viable wombs to work with. That should be enough.”

  Shelby exclaims, “Good grief, Shiro. Are you trying to give us nightmares?”

  “I just want us to be prepared for all eventualities.”

  Blinking, her brows furrowed, Shelby says, “How considerate of you. Please, no more preparation for today.”

  Surprisingly, NASA didn’t delve into the more mysterious aspects of this mission: who the ECIs might be, what their motives might be, and the like. I think they decided that there were so many unknowns that it was impossible to prepare us. We will simply have to do our best.

  ∆v∆v∆v∆v∆

  “There’s some news from Houston, everyone,” Commander Tomlinson announces over the speakers. “Come to the crew quarters lounge for a quick meeting.”

  Once we have all drifted into the lounge, Commander Tomlinson says, “The news is very bad, and I’m not going to beat around the bush. The launch of the new communications array has failed. The rocket exploded before the second stage had a chance to ignite. The rendezvous won’t be happening. This means we will also have to make do on a bi
t lower rations.”

  Commander Sykes looks at Tim, “I guess we’ll have to revisit the question of repairing our current array.”

  Tim shakes his head, “I don’t know how we could, Eric. We don’t have enough wire to replace it with.”

  Commander Tomlinson says, “The Russian antenna will have to do.”

  “Eventually, it won’t work. We’ll be too far away,” Commander Sykes says.

  “Yes,” says Commander Tomlinson. “Eventually.”

  ∆v∆v∆v∆v∆

  We have traveled eighteen days of our 94.35-day trip to Jupiter. Commander Sykes, Tim, and I are in the European Lab. I’m doing my usual cleanup while Tim and Commander Sykes are donating their fluids to the medical apparatus for scheduled testing.

  While Commander Sykes pricks him with a needle, Tim says, “I wonder what NASA would say if—” he stops. He’s smiling, but his voice is tense.

  “If what,” says Commander Sykes asks.

  “You know, if something happened to us that was totally impossible.”

  Commander Sykes stops moving. I try to keep going about my business as if I’m not eavesdropping, but by now I’m through the window and sitting on the kitchen stool with my chin on my hands. In his quick, blunt way, Commander Sykes asks, “What the hell are you talking about, Tim?”

  There is a moment’s silence. Tim stares at Commander Sykes with eyes open wide like saucers.

  Suddenly, Commander Tomlinson appears around the corner and says, “Jim, you have a message from Houston. It’s our psychiatrist. She says you haven’t talked to her in a while and she’s worried. You need to talk to her. That’s an order.”

  “But,” I protest, “I—”

  “Just humor her for a minute. We will lose communications in the next couple days and then you won’t have to talk to her again.”

  I sigh long and hard like a kid who’s being asked to take out the garbage.

  “Now, Jim!”

  ISS: I’m here.

  MCC: In a day or two, you’ll be too far from Earth for us to reach you. I haven’t heard from you in a while and I was worried. Why have you been avoiding me? Getting to know me is the chance of a lifetime, you know. ;)

  ISS: I saw you with Josh.

  MCC: But, Jim, you must know I talk with all the crew. You can’t have me only to yourself. There’s only one flight psychiatrist. Should I be flattered? Are you getting jealous?

  ISS: You know what you were doing with him.

  MCC: I don’t know what you’re alluding to. But I can talk with whomever I want to talk. I can do whatever I want. You’re not my father. Just because you’re older than I am doesn’t mean you get to boss me around. And, believe me, I’ve seen more than you think.

  ISS: Josh has certainly seen more than I thought. I don’t want to talk with you anymore.

  MCC: Please don’t be mad. I’m going to miss you.

  ISS: I think you’ll be too busy to miss me or any man here.

  MCC: That’s not nice. Please, Jimmy, just tell me goodbye.

  MCC: Goodbye, Jimmy.

  MCC: Goodbye?

  MCC: Please, just a goodbye. That’s all I want.

  MCC: I love you, Jim Perkins.

  I put my fingers on the keys, about to type something. But then I stop. This isn’t right. It should never have gotten this far. I float out of the module.

  ∆v∆v∆v∆v∆

  Modern life doesn’t give a man much chance for rumination. That’s a shame because when you ruminate, you tend to dwell on your favorite subject: yourself. And the more time you spend with numero uno, the more flaws you start to see. Maybe that’s why the modern man has such high self-esteem; he hasn’t gotten very well acquainted with himself. I don’t want my self-esteem to get too high or I might just think I’m better than everybody else and start treating them accordingly.

  Fortunately, in the lonely vacuum of space, I’ve had plenty of thinking time, and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. I’ve been thinking about my interactions with Lexi. I’ve been trying to think of ideas to rationalize them, but the idea well is pretty much dried up. It’s been days since I talked with her. I know I never should have been interacting with her the way I did. It was not professional and it wasn’t appropriate.

  Maybe the emotional strain of her job was too much. She has been intimately communicating with people who are on a mission which will most likely result in their deaths. Her sympathy for us led her to send inappropriate messages and, ultimately, to profess love for me. Sometimes sympathy makes you feel like you love a person. But, of course, sympathy isn’t love. Sympathy can actually make people very selfish. Sympathy feels bad, so people do all kinds of outlandish things to make it go away. Lexi felt sorry for me, so she was doing everything she could think of to try to change that. Same goes for her interaction with Commander Tomlinson. To make her sympathy go away, she was trying to make him happy. And what makes a man happier than a little peep show? She was strip-teasing her sympathy away, God bless her.

  With all that behind me, I can focus all my energies on the tasks at hand: healing my gimpy arm, taking care of my health, tending my horticulture module, adhering to Commander Tomlinson’s rigorous schedule, and following the housekeeping manual to the letter.

  It’s a good thing there’s no gravity because I would have a harder time holding heavy things with one working arm. It’s a bad thing there’s no gravity because bracing myself to get the leverage I need to move stuff around is a tall order. Gravity: can’t live with it and can’t live without it.

  ∆v∆v∆v∆v∆

  It is fifty-nine days into our ninety-four-day trip to Jupiter. We are in the midst of the asteroid belt, that collection of rock and ice that fills the void between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. I wish we could see an asteroid, but Commander Sykes tells me the likelihood of that happening is next to nil. Like far-flung buoys dotting a vast ocean, the asteroids are alone and adrift and, if not for the striking emptiness of space, totally insignificant. Nobody knows how many there are. There could be hundreds of thousands. There could be millions. But most of them are small, even tiny, and only one of them is big enough to be rounded by its own gravity. All accounted for, the asteroids amount to so little material that if they were all corralled up to form a single herd, it would be only four percent the size of Earth’s moon.

  Even so, they are still dangerous. A flake of paint was enough to put a chip in the glass of the cupola in 2016. The high speeds inherent in space travel turn everything into speeding bullets. The chance of us hitting something is small, but it is there, and if we do, it would be a disaster.

  Despite knowing this, I’m still staring out the windows every chance I get, hoping to see something. Anything. My eyes yearn for an interruption to the nothingness.

  At the moment, I’m gazing out the nadir window of the American Science Lab. I feel a strange sense of isolation. It is black and silent out there, where time seems to stand still and all the universe seems to be within reach. We are alone in deep space.

  Well, I guess that’s not true. They are out there, presumably waiting for us.

  We know they infiltrated the Earth’s technology. But did they do more than that? I wonder. Have they visited the Earth? Have they watched us closely from the beginning? Are they watching us now?

  Maybe, I think as I stare out the window, someone out in the distant blackness is staring back at me. The distinct and unpleasant sensation that I am being watched grows until the heebie-jeebies make my hair stand on end.

  Commander Sykes’ voice startles me from behind, “Remember not to touch that.”

  Pulling my head back from the window is like traveling through a portal to a different world. My eyes adjust to the blinding LED lights of the station’s interior. The ceaseless hum of the systems returns to my consciousness, and the chill of the sterile air makes me shudder. Commander Sykes points to a metal tube that I’m grasping in order to keep myself stationary, “The station had a leak once
because everybody was holding onto that hose.”

  I quickly withdraw my hand, “Well, gosh. Even looking out a window is life-threatening on this station. It’s so delicate, we might as well be riding a flower to deep space.”

  “Yes,” he chuckles, “that’s true.”

  “I’m supposed to be collecting the trash, anyway,” I say, fishing for my sack which has drifted towards the middle of the lab. I grin, “I don’t want to upset Commander Tomlinson by falling behind schedule.”

  Suddenly, a terrible, ear-splitting crack sounds from within the station and a thunderous groan makes the walls shudder. A blaring alarm sounds and red lights blink all over the place. On the computer monitors that hang from the ceiling, a number of boxes that had been green suddenly flash red, one by one. Slowly, the module turns around me. The whole station is in an off-center, tilted spin around us as we remain stationary in zero-g. Unnerving sounds echo from the bowels of the vessel, and I half expect that any moment we will be blasted to oblivion.