by Nick Lake
after maybe 5 minutes or longer, Soto reappears. there’s a cardboard box in his hand & he pops it open as he walks over, tilts it so i can c in.
i look. little white balls, nestled together.
“Ping-Pong balls,” he says.
“Ping-Pong balls? where did u get those?”
“there’s a table. down in the rec room. i kind of stole them.”
“& what are we going to do with them?”
“we’re going to throw them. come on.”
he marches me back over to the east side of the roof. immediately below is a strip of concrete, cracked, & then a fence & then a kind of moat of grass & then a bigger fence, topped with rolled barbed wire. i shade my eyes with my hand—the sun hurts them.
he takes a ball from the box & holds my hand, so that i remain stable. then he swings his other arm back & throws the ball—it arcs up, up, up & then when it reaches the apex of its curve thru the air—its invisible curve but i c it anyway, the inviolable formulae of mass & force & angle & velocity that govern its flight—it begins to fall, the indescribable beauty of it, glistening math written on the surface of the air, & it falls & it falls but still following that flattened curve &
bounces,
with a
ping,
& bounces again, ripples described vertically, little arches as it hops along, decreasing bridges, plink plink plink,
& stops.
“wow.” i say. “it might sound stupid but that was amazing.”
he smiles. a full smile this time, lights going on. flash. “when u were up there u could make a ball from water & float it around. i’m trying to turn that around, to c thru ur eyes, & no, i don’t think it sounds stupid.”
something turns inside me. no one has tried to c thru my eyes before. maybe Libra & Orion, i suppose, but they’re…family. they’re not friends. & Grandpa. but he doesn’t need to try. he gets me already.
anyway, the point is it unlocks something, it turns a key.
“thanks,” i say.
“de nada,” he says. & he offers me the box.
i take a ball. i wind my hand back & throw, not nearly as well as him, not nearly as far. i have had precisely 0 practice, but it arcs up & falls just the same, & bounces on the pavement below.
& he throws 1.
& i throw 1.
& we throw all the balls, 1 after another, & they go ping ping ping ping ping on the ground, they rain down, & they’re all white & the ground is gray & the grass is brown & the sky is blue & it’s a moment i can still c, all these beautiful colors & sounds, whenever i close my eyes. i’m alive, in that moment, i’m on earth, & i’m taking it all in, all this sensation. i can hear birdsong: high, clear, stitched invisibly on the air.
then suddenly i think of Brown, how he can’t take anything in now, how he’s floating up there even now, like i was. i think of his family. how they’ll be sitting around now, getting used to him not being there. to his empty chair at dinner.
the ball stutters from my hand, falls short.
“let’s go in,” i say.
Soto helps me down the stairs. it’s slightly easier than going up. only slightly.
as we descend the steps he turns to me. “what have u eaten so far?” he says.
“i don’t know,” i say. “they bring us food on trays.”
“that stuff,” he says. it’s kind of a question. “can’t be that different from what u ate on the station.”
“no, not really,” i say.
“u had any ice cream yet?” he asks.
“no.”
“come on then. we’re going to the canteen.”
“i don’t think that’s allowed,” i say.
“nor is going on the roof,” he says.
which is a fair point.
we collect the chair at the bottom of the stairs, & Soto wheels me down the hallway & then down in an elevator to a wide, busy, noisy room where people sit in rows on benches & eat & talk. clash of cutlery, a sea-sound of conversation. i have never seen so many people in 1 place.
it’s overwhelming, but then everything is overwhelming.
Soto wheels me to a space. there is no one else at the table right now. “BRB,” he says.
i sit & wait.
soon Soto returns with 2 bowls. he sets 1 in front of me. there is a ball of white, a ball of pink, a ball of brown.
“vanilla, strawberry, chocolate,” he says. “holy trinity.”
i look around at the staff, the hundreds of people in this big hall. i wonder if i should be recognizing anyone. i glance around to c if my mom & Virginia are here but am not surprised they’re not: those 2 are not sociable canteen types. they’ll be working on something, somewhere. there’s no one else i know. actually, it strikes me, there are very few people i know, period. Libra & Orion, a few astronauts. plus the core ground team: Boutros, Stearns, Ravzi, Santiago…
people keep looking at me, then looking quickly away.
that name makes me wonder what became of Santiago. i’d never known that before: someone being taken out of a sim & not coming back. the Company doesn’t operate like that: sims are important, especially death sims, & everyone knows it.
“u hear of someone in PR called Santiago?” i say to Soto.
he shakes his head. “nope. lot of employees here tho.”
hmm. i wonder about this. are there that many people who—
“Leo?” says Soto.
i snap back.
i pick up the spoon & take a mouthful of chocolate.
my brain explodes.
seriously: here is a thought experiment. imagine that u have never eaten anything that didn’t come out of a packet or a can. imagine that everything u have ever eaten has been dried or preserved.
now imagine putting ice cream into ur mouth.
the coldness.
the sweetness, the freeze, the way the whole thing is shot thru with air, little bubbles, as if inflated. then the way it melts into liquid.
cold, sweet, air, liquid, the state of being frozen: these are all things that existed on the station. but never together, never combined in this…this…
“oh my god,” i say eventually. then the taste hits me: i’ve had chocolate before but this is different, this is coating every taste bud on my tongue & it’s like an explosion, a detonation, but everywhere, lighting sparks in my head.
“right?” says Soto.
i lift the spoon again, take too much, &—
“aargh!” i clutch my head, where a spike of ice has just been driven into my cerebral cortex.
“ha,” says Soto. “brain freeze.”
the sensation dims. “that’s a thing?” i say.
“yeah.”
“but u still eat it?”
he laughs. “it’s kind of worth it, isn’t it?”
“yes,” i admit, taking another mouthful. but slower this time.
i feel a hand on my shoulder. i turn & look up & there’s Dr. Stearns, stern look on his face. i almost laugh: stern Dr. Stearns.
“Leo,” he says. “u’re meant to be in quarantine. back to ur quarters.”
“oh come on,” says Soto. “what’s the worst that could happen?”
here’s another thought experiment:
imagine that u have never, ever been sick. imagine that u grew up in a hermetically sealed environment & no one was allowed to enter it without being entirely, completely free of viruses & bacteria.
now imagine that u get a cold.
imagine that ur head is aching, ur throat is a bag of knives, ur nose is apparently now something like a faucet, ur limbs are aching, & u don’t know where the ache from learning to walk ends & the ache from the virus begins.
i lie in bed for 3 days. or rather in a corner of the room. Libra & Orion try to keep away but it doesn’t help—they get it too, & then we sleep together. their mother brings them soup, hot tea with lemon, that kind of thing.
my mother brings me nothing.
Orion sulks. “u weren’
t even as excited as us about coming down here,” he says. “u & ur astronaut obsession. but u’re the 1 who breaks quarantine & gets us sick?” he sighs. “couldn’t u have just stayed in the quarters?”
“u guys went outside to meet ur mom, i noticed,” i say.
“shh, both of u,” says Libra. “this isn’t helping.”
she sneezes.
at times we wonder if we might be dying.
totally worth it tho.
at first, once we recover from our colds, they check us every hour. heart rate. blood pressure. CAT scans.
then twice a day.
then once a day.
then every other day
the time passes very slowly.
1 morning, just casually, i unroll my screen & call the switchboard on vidlink, which is 1 of the numbers preprogrammed into it. a woman answers, or at least i think it’s a woman. i don’t c her. the camera is switched off: operational security, i guess.
i ask to speak to Santiago in PR.
“we don’t have anyone working here by that name,” says the woman on the other end of the line.
Libra & Orion’s mother stays for another week or so. my own mother is still testing flight suits or running sims, whatever it is she does—sometimes i c her, when we go down for meals, or when we’re in the medical bay, being tested.
the rest of the time is pretty boring. we watch vids on a screen—films, sitcoms. i try to check the news on the screen but it’s blocked; we still need time to adjust to the here & now, to the world. it’s like they think we have PTSD or something. maybe we do, i mean, it’s all pretty hard to adjust to.
every morning we take our pills: stuff to keep our bone density up as much as possible. to maintain adequate blood pressure. iron supplements. potassium. lots of them, all different colors & shapes.
sometimes we read. sometimes we wander the hallways, tho wandering makes it sound very casual & actually there is often a crutch or a wheelchair involved.
we’re getting stronger tho. with every step we take we are less shocked by gravity’s force, less weighed down by it. our movements are becoming smoother, more fluid. they are happy to check us every 3 days now.
no one really speaks to us. we pass people in the hallways & they lower their heads & go about their business. i haven’t seen Soto since the day on the roof—it’s as if he’s avoiding me. & we’re not allowed outside, or at least they discourage it for more than a minute or 2; they say the sunlight is still too much for us.
then, maybe 3 weeks after our first walking MRI scans, Dr. Stearns comes to our common area. Libra & Orion’s mother is with him, my mother too.
“Leo,” she says.
“Mother.”
she gives a businesslike nod.
Stearns comes forward. “so!” he says. “today is a big day.”
“it is?” says Orion. “do we get 2 blood tests? oh please say yes.”
“very funny, Orion,” says Libra.
“no, we want to try u in a new environment,” Stearns says.
“a new environment like…?” says Orion.
Dr. Stearns looks at the mothers. Libra & Orion’s mother has wet eyes. she’s wearing a suit today, & makeup. she looks like it’s a special occasion. “well,” he says. “we were thinking of…discharging u. provisionally. with lots of safety checks in place.”
“oh,” says Libra.
“as in…we’re leaving?” says Orion. i feel the same surprise that i c on his face. i think i had started to believe we were going to live in these gray rooms forever.
“yes,” says Dr. Stearns. “for a month, initially. we need to keep monitoring u. u will each be given blood-testing kits, & will have to upload ur results once a week. u’ll have to keep taking ur meds of course. we’ll also be sending a nurse every week to take scans, plus lung-capacity measurements, that sort of thing. after that month we’ll need u back here for bone scans, to test the density. but for now…u’re free to go.”
“we weren’t free to go before?” i say.
“it’s an expression,” says my mother. neutral.
“personally i would have preferred a longer supervision period,” says Dr. Stearns. “u 3 have physiologies entirely different from anyone on earth & it behooves me as a doctor to make sure u’re safe”—he glances at my mother, at Libra & Orion’s mother—“but i have been persuaded that the best thing for u is to be in a home space. for now. with monitoring.”
a home space.
whatever that means.
“so…where do we go?” says Libra.
“u 2 will come with me,” says their mother. tho her cheeks are wet, she is smiling. “back to Miami.”
Libra grins & goes & hugs her. it makes me wince inside. even Orion is smiling.
“& u’ll be living with Grandpa,” says my mother.
“u’re not coming too?” i ask.
“i’ll join u. in a week or 2. i have some things to take care of here.”
“oh. ok.”
this is all so weird. all presented so stiffly & awkwardly, like protocol has been suspended & no one is quite sure who is making the decisions. on Moon 2, everything was logical, everything followed rules, everything followed the manual. now it seems like no one quite knows what to do with us. i look over at the window, at the scrubland beyond.
getting out. going to the ranch.
being a real person.
i feel weightless for a moment, an instant of 0 g—i reach out a hand & grab a chair arm to steady myself. i hadn’t realized, until this instant, how much i have been feeling like a prisoner, how much i wanted to get out of this building, this compound.
to actually visit earth. where we have been, but not been, for over a month.
“u should wear sunglasses any time u go outside,” says Dr. Stearns. we have been given special prescription sunglasses to limit the light hitting our eyes because our retinas developed entirely indoors, in artificial light, no outside light. “& factor 50 on ur skin of course.”
“sure,” says Orion. “but do u think we could get, like, a more stylish frame for those glasses, because really…”
his mother laughs. i laugh too. the glasses are terrible: round, blocky, made of thick black plastic.
Dr. Stearns does not laugh.
pause.
“when?” i say. “when do we go?”
“today, if u like,” says Dr. Stearns. “ur grandfather flew in yesterday & is arriving by helicopter within the next hour. he’ll take u back to the ranch. he has been fully briefed on ur medical needs.”
“to the ranch,” i say.
“sorry?” says Dr. Stearns.
“u said back to the ranch. but i’ve never been there. so it’s to the ranch.”
“oh, yes,” says Dr. Stearns. “of course. to the ranch.”
“& then what?” says Libra. “he goes to the ranch, we go to Miami, & then…what happens then?”
Dr. Stearns blinks. “what?”
“what do we do after that?” says Orion.
“well…u live. i suppose. ur mother”—he turns to me—“ur mothers will have to enroll u in school, i imagine; i’m not clear on the legalities. i’m sure Boutros or his office will advise. as for the rest…that’s really up to u.”
“oh,” says Orion. it’s becoming a catchphrase of ours.
for some reason, i had always thought that at some point we would go back up to Moon 2. i don’t know why i thought that. i mean, earth was the promised land. we were always told: when u’re strong enough u’ll go down to earth. so that was clearly the end point, the goal, & yet somehow…somehow i saw it as a circle. saw myself back up there.
“a problem, Leo?” says my mother.
“no, nothing,” i say. “i just…i guess i always thought i’d go back up, 1 day.”
she nods. “i c.”
“&?”
now she shrugs. “i guess u will have to apply urself, & try to become an astronaut.”
yes. yes, i suppose that makes
sense. we are not astronauts. we are people who happen to have been born in space.
Libra & Orion & their mother go to start getting things ready, but my mother walks off with Dr. Stearns, which i suppose i should have expected, & i am left to prepare to leave the base.
to go home. to a home i have never known.
so i:
–pack. this does not take a long time. i don’t have anything. just a watch. some Company-issue clothes. i do have to go down to medical & pick up a kit: it contains home blood tests, a pair of crutches, a foldable wheelchair. it all goes in a trunk thing so when i say pick up i do not literally pick it up. someone checks all the stuff & then it is put on a cart & 1 of the orderlies wheels it to my room.
–wait.
–wait.
–say goodbye to Libra & Orion. this takes longer than packing. tho much of the time is taken up with awkwardly standing there & not really knowing what to say. we try to find Virginia, to say goodbye, but she must be working still, & Boutros doesn’t know where exactly.
“i don’t really know what to say,” says Libra.
we are standing in our living area. i have just had a message on my screen that Grandpa is here, that his helicopter has landed—they told me he could come down to the rooms but i said i would rather go up to meet him.
i want to meet him for the first time in real air. outside air. i haven’t spoken to him since i got sick. they’ve now disabled calls on our screens too—said that it was better for us to not have too much direct contact with the outside world until we were settled. to help with the transition. a quarantine for the mind as well as the body.
“nor me,” i say.
“nor me,” says Orion.
“i just thought we’d always be together, u know?” says Libra. she is twisting her little bottle of earth. she still wears it, even tho she’s on earth now. tho maybe she’s like me. maybe it won’t feel real for her till we’re out of here. out of the base. “it seems stupid now,” she says.
