“No, just thinking,” Ethan said. She looks good in black, he thought to himself.
“Care to share?”
“Dreaming of the future. Where I’ll be in say…five, maybe ten years.”
“Well, you know where I’ll be. Forever serving coffee and apple cinnamon flapjack stacks at the Down Home Brew Club.” She gave him a playful wink.
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I think you have a lifetime of adventure ahead of you.”
“Ha. What makes you that?”
Ethan just smiled and sipped his coffee.
She put a hand on her hip. “What’s that look for? Do you know something I don’t know?”
“You like birds, right?”
“Well, yeah.” She wrinkled her eyebrows.
“I bet I can show you a bird you’ve never seen before.”
“It is a local bird? Or something you saw online? If it’s local I know it already.”
“Only a few people have seen it. People like me. It’s a rare bird.”
“Okay. Where can I see this rare bird?”
Ethan looked at his watch. “What time is your shift over?” He then locked his gaze onto her eyes as if they had known each other for years.
“One o’clock. Wait. Are you asking me out?”
He beamed and took another sip of coffee. It was the best cup of coffee he had in years.
Starcatcher Eight
Adryk maneuvered the robotic arm to a ninety degree angle and readied its pincer for the flyby of the drifting Dragon IX engine. He glanced down at his controls and let the index finger on his left hand hover over three separate buttons: drop, throw, and pocket. Figuring the engine was too big to send back towards the Indian Ocean, he hit the throw button. Seconds later the gray and white engine tumbled past, caught forever in a slow spin on its z-axis. A magnetic rocket disc snapped free from the pincer and clicked onto the side of the engine. The rocket disc fired its tiny thrusters and tilted the engine so that its trajectory lifted it upward and into the blackness of deep space.
Next, a black rectangular solar panel from a long-defunct weather satellite slid into view. The panel was the size of a surfboard but only a half-inch thick. He lunged toward the panel with the robotic arm and caught it with the pincer before it plowed into the side of his starcatcher ship. The force of the capture almost tore the robotic arm off. He then reared back and pitched the panel toward deep space. Unfortunately, the pincer refused to open and the panel smashed into one of the bay doors on the spacecraft.
“Starcatcher Eight, stat check,” a deep male voice said over his headset. It was Russ, a dispatcher back on Earth and frequent confidant for Adryk on these missions.
“Two drops, seven throws, and no pockets,” Adryk said. His felt a twinge in his right arm and took a deep breath. He reared back with his arm again and this time the pincer opened. The panel spiraled off into deep space. “Eight throws.”
“Tell me you’re using the rockets and not your arm.”
“I gotta test the ol’ arm out once in a while.”
“Panels and boosters aren’t baseballs.”
Adryk stared at the robotic arm and cringed as another metal spring broke free. The spring did cartwheels as it fell away toward Australia. “Make that three drops.”
“Is that a record?”
“They don’t call me the fastest starcatcher for nothing.”
“The seven other cowboys before you said the same thing. And racked up huge repair bills to show for it.”
Adryk fired the ship’s thrusters for ten seconds to push his craft closer to the edge of a dense debris field that came to be known as the Icarus Graveyard. It contained the remnants of multiple disabled satellites, a handful of rocket boosters, paint flakes, heat tiles, two pliers, and a Phillips screwdriver. Over the years, some of the debris plunged to Earth as fireballs, while the rest remained a cluttered minefield for collectors and starcatchers like him. It was a thankless but necessary job to keep the orbital pathways open for future missions throughout the Solar System and beyond.
An unmanned AI-driven space tug worked the opposite edge of the field and wrestled with a microsatellite. It used one of its four robotic arms to lasso the satellite and reel it into a metal collection cage.
“You alone out there today?” Russ said.
“Our ol’ buddy Antares 16 is out working the field with me. I could pocket ten times the amount of debris in the time it takes that thing to grab a panel.”
Russ laughed. “Says the cowboy who can’t even change the oil on his car.”
Adryk fought with his ship’s robotic harness. The harness captured his arm’s movements and reproduced them with the robotic arm. He hated the harness and its tangle of hydraulic cables because they limited his range of motion. Tonight proved no different.
A metal box the side of a microwave oven drifted by his port window. It was soon followed by a hand-sized chunk of solar panel and a silver thermal blanket. The blanket reflected the sun into his eyes and made him wince. A white plastic hose drifted by next and after that a book with singed edges. Behind that a small brown object tumbled end over end.
The object grew in size as it approached his window and to stop it from hitting the side of his ship he used the robotic arm to pick up a rope basket inside the cargo bay. He wheeled the jerky robotic arm into position so that it caught the object just before is smashed into the window. “That was close.”
“Panel?”
“No.” Adryk rubbed his right shoulder around where his old rotator cuff injury occurred. He stared at the object before deciding on its fate. “It looks like…a stuffed teddy bear with a yellow ribbon around its neck.”
“You didn’t drop it on your last flight did you?”
“Did Starcatcher Four lose something up here?”
“Drop or throw?”
Adryk studied the bear in the rope basket and could not imagine sending it into deep space or firing it back to Earth as a fireball. It had beady, brown, glass eyes and a smile stitched onto its face. He knew it belonged to someone and he was determined to find its owner. “Pocket,” he said after a moment of thought.
* * *
Adryk returned to his apartment on the outskirts of Melbourne, Florida, with a clear plastic bag and the teddy bear inside. It was the first time he brought any artifact home from his job in months and he braced himself for ridicule from his roommate. As he swung the front door open with a crash, his roommate, Aaron, rose up from the couch.
Aaron rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, “Could you keep it down over there?” He then put his head back down on a pillow and passed out.
Adryk stepped into the living room and surveyed the situation. A half eaten sausage and mushroom pizza lay in a greasy box on the coffee table, crushed beer cans dotted the floor, and the television droned on with a commercial about a blender that was so powerful it could shred an aluminum can. He picked up one of Aaron’s dusty high school football trophies off the floor and set it on the table next to the pizza box. He shut the television off with the remote and went into his bedroom.
“What’s with the bear?” Aaron said in a monotone voice.
Adryk walked over to his paper-covered desk and propped open his laptop computer. He turned the machine on and set the bagged bear on his dresser. “I found it out in the field. Thought I’d check it out to see if it belonged to anybody.”
“You mean like a ditch? Why would you do that?”
“I meant the Icarus Graveyard. It’s not every day you find a bear floating around in outer space.”
Adryk sat down, ticked away at the keys on his laptop, and researched all the spacecraft accidents he could find. He sifted through numerous accounts of the doomed shuttle missions of Challenger and Columbia. He sorted through endless video documentary descriptions and questioned if watching them would be a waste of time.
Aaron appeared in the doorway to Adryk’s bedroom and leaned against the doorframe. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair look
ed like he had not showered in weeks, and his maroon University of Minnesota tee shirt was stained with pizza sauce. “Who would launch a stuffed animal into space? Was it strapped to a rocket or something?”
“I think it was part of someone’s belongings. Probably from an astronaut. Didn’t see any pizza boxes, though.”
“Yeah, sorry about the living room. I’ll go clean it up.” Aaron reached over and picked up the bagged bear. He turned it over in his hands. “What if the owner is dead? What would you do with this? Sell it to a museum?”
“I’m sure the family would want it back. That’s what I’m looking for now.” Although Adryk kept his focus on the screen in front of him, out of the corner of his eye he watched his roommate’s reactions.
Aaron set the bag back onto the dresser but held on to it for another half minute. “How much do you think they’d give you for it? A few hundred? A thousand?”
Adryk stopped typing and looked up. “I wouldn’t put a price on something like that.”
Aaron gave him a look of disbelief and walked away. The next sound was that of aluminum cans hitting the inside of a trash can.
Adryk turned back to his laptop and continued his quest to find the bear’s owner. An hour passed before he discovered videos and articles detailing the ill-fated Juniper II mission. The goal of the mission was to bring more construction materials to the Lilypad I station. Although the orbiting station went on to great success as a refueling point for spacecraft travelling to the Moon and beyond, the mission’s disastrous outcome put its future in doubt. Halfway to the station, one of Juniper II’s booster rockets cracked and exploded. The crew of four never had a chance.
He soon stumbled on a video that featured the astronauts climbing into the Juniper II capsule. One of the astronauts, Zack Moller, hugged an object in his left hand and waved back at the crowd with his right hand. Adryk paused the video and enlarged the frame. He advanced the video a few more frames and paused it again. The color of the object matched the bear but what cemented the connection in Adryk’s mind was that both objects had a yellow ribbon tied around them. For the rest of the afternoon he read all he could about Zack Moller.
* * *
Two days passed before Adryk drove to Port St. Lucie and parked out in front of the last known residence of Mr. Moller. The yard was immaculate, the split-level home newly painted, and a white octagonal sign on the boulevard warned of a security system in use. With a sigh, he grabbed the bagged bear and marched up to the front door of the house. He rang the doorbell and waited.
Seconds later the door opened and a man in his early forties stepped out. The man wore an obnoxious red-and-white Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts. His brown hair was slicked back, his jaw was chiseled, and his impatient eyes darted about. “Can I help you?” The man said in a calm yet cocky voice.
“Hi, name’s Adryk Meyers. I’m a starcatcher. I was out working the field and I found this.” Adryk held out the bear inside the plastic bag.
The man did not budge from the doorway and did not reach out for the bag. “What is that? A bear? What did you say you were? A star…what?”
“Catcher.”
“I’m not familiar with that. Enlighten me.”
“I…go up into space and clean up the junk in orbit.”
“Oh, right, right. So you’re a glorified trash man.”
Adryk sighed again. “I found this the other day and I think it belongs to this family. This is where Zack Moller used to live, right? The astronaut?”
The man glanced to side with an annoyed smirk. “I think you have the wrong address. He doesn’t live here anymore. He’s been dead for years.” The man looked as if he wanted to spit and turned his back on Adryk.
Adryk stepped forward only to have the door shut into his face. In humiliation, Adryk returned to his car and slumped into the driver’s seat. He stared at the family’s mailbox and read the names to himself: Kendricks-Moller. He got back out and returned to the front door. He pressed the doorbell and waited again.
The man with the Hawaiian shirt returned but whatever patience that was in his eyes before disappeared. “You still have the wrong house, buddy”
“No, I don’t think so. Dr. Moller had two sons, four and five. The youngest one gave him this bear and he took it with on the Juniper II mission. I’ve seen the footage.”
The man glanced back over his shoulder and then stepped down off the landing. He pulled the door shut behind him and lowered his voice. “I don’t know who you are or where you came from, but my kids have dealt with enough already. If you really did get this from space, can you just dispose of it? You said it was in a pile of junk.”
“When a spacecraft explodes the debris has to go somewhere, right? If it is his son’s don’t you think his kid would want it back?”
“I have enough competition as it is being their stepdad. I don’t need the legend of Zack to get even bigger. What did you say your name was? Meyers? Hey, I remember you. You were that all-star pitcher that tore his rotator cuff in the state championships. How is that arm of yours? I’m Dr. Kendricks, a sports surgeon.” He held out a hand to shake. “Maybe you’ve heard of me?”
Adryk shook his hand but pulled it back just as fast. He wanted to hold the bear out again to Dr. Kendricks but thought better of it.
Dr. Kendricks leaned over and whispered, “If that arm is still giving you trouble, I can hook you up with some good stuff. It’d take the edge off.”
The front door opened up behind the doctor. An eight-year-old boy peered out. “Dad, who is it?”
Dr. Kendricks turned to look back. “Nothing to worry about son. Just a prospective patient. Go run along inside.”
The front door closed with a click. Adryk said, “I don’t need any meds. I was just here for the kid.”
“Right, right,” Dr. Kendricks said. He backed away from Adryk and grinned. “That’s right, I remember reading about you. Didn’t you fall into drinking for a while? Went to AA and all that.” He chuckled. “Once an addict, always an addict. Oh and what’s that other one you talked about? Celebrate…getting high? Drugs?”
“Recovery.”
Dr. Kendricks reached into his shorts pocket and withdrew a handful of one-hundred-dollar bills. He held the bills up for Adryk to see and fanned them. “If you ask me, this is the real higher power. Think it through, I can help you,” he said as he backed away toward the front door.
A black rusted-out Buick Century pulled up and parked behind Adryk’s car. The driver was a male teenager with a gray-hooded sweatshirt. The teenager flipped up his hood, and stepped out. He shoved his hands into his pockets, stood by the rear passenger side of his car, and waited.
Dr. Kendricks looked past Adryk and at the teenager. He motioned for the teenager to drive away. After a minute, the teenager crept up the driveway all the while looking from side to side to see who was watching him.
Adryk departed and clutched the bear tight under his arm. His heart raced as he passed by the teenager. His breathing turned shallow as his right arm twitched. When he made it to his car, he threw the bear to the side and slammed his fist onto the passenger seat. Frustrated, he drove off without looking back.
* * *
The following morning, Adryk rose late and sat up on the edge of his bed. He glanced at his dresser but noticed the stuffed bear in the bag was gone. He bounded out into the hallway and called out to Aaron. When no reply came, he searched the apartment and found his roommate was gone. A small pile of shirts and pants lay on Aaron’s bed as if he left in a hurry.
In the living room, the beer cans were gone but the pizza box still sat on the coffee table. The football trophy disappeared and the television played in the background. Adryk reached over to turn the television off, but froze when he heard Aaron’s voice. He stumbled backward and sat in the recliner to watch.
“…Aaron says he couldn’t believe his fortune when he discovered the box in the woods,” the female reporter said. “And inside the box was this: a tedd
y bear with a yellow ribbon.” The video showed a picture of an opened burnt metal box and the bear. Then it switched to a view of the crater in the ground. The crater was five feet in diameter and only a foot deep. From a distance, the ground around the crater appeared charred but up close Adryk imagined it looked freshly dug.
“I was just out for a walk,” Aaron said as he pointed into the woods. “…and I saw something that didn’t look quite right.” The look on Aaron’s face was that of innocence offset by a hint of smugness.
The video then showed broken and burnt tree branches next to the crater as if the box fell out of the sky and crashed into the woods. The video then cut to a scientist explaining how such a box could have survived the trip through the atmosphere.
“…as to the owner of the box, Aaron says he has some good theories,” the reporter continued. “One theory is that the box belonged to the family of Zack Moller, one of four astronauts killed on that fateful night in February when the Juniper II mission met its end. We contacted the Moller family for comment, but no one responded. Aaron says ‘financial arrangements will be made’ if he finds it does belong to them.”
When the news story ended, Adryk turned off the television and hurled the remote at the wall. It shattered into several pieces and two batteries flew back at him. He burst out the front door and ran out into the parking lot of the apartment complex to search for Aaron’s car. Finding nothing, he made a list of places in his head where he could find his roommate.
* * *
Adryk drove his beat-up Dodge Dart past two of the places where Aaron could be found on any given evening—Dave’s Old Town Club and Meredith’s Sports Bar. He searched their parking lots but found no sign of his roommate’s car. Frustrated, he drove on to a Shell gas station on the edge of a wooded area. As he parked, his right arm twitched until he clenched the steering wheel tighter. It was then he spotted Aaron’s car across the parking lot.
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