Astrid doesn’t push for details, or how I came to access the gas. Instead, she says, “One recreational use of a dissociative anaesthetic. Noted.”
Dissociative anaesthetic. Dissociate. Disconnect. Separate.
I squint, then close my eyes. My head pulses as if my heart is above my eyebrows. Light streaks past the back of my eyelids. And there, replaying. A time-lapse recap. That night … on the rocket. That night. When time sped up and stood still. The night laughter echoed and bounced off the stars. Fear trembles in my fingers and turns my stomach. What were we thinking?
I open my eyes and Astrid is staring at me, questions furrowed on her brow, but then she just says, “OK, back to food and drink today? No surprises here, I hope.” This time, she looks at me sideways, the concern gone.
Earlier this morning, Astrid sat across from me in the cafeteria eating what everyone ate. Nutrient rich soy porridge that tastes just as bland here as on Earth. Little flavour. Less scent. Both minimised in the Martian atmosphere. Still, remembering the pungent aroma of coffee, brings on a resurgence of bile. I swallow it.
“Same as you.” I answer.
“Last sexual intercourse. I’m sorry. I hate how hetero-normative these questions are. They imply sex can only happen with men, and only in one way. Remind me to complain about it at the next conference with Earth.” Then, with a wink and shrug, she whispers, “On the other hand, I guess I don’t have to include what we got up to this morning.” My nerves pulse with excitement—and fear.
Intercourse. Exchange. Sex.
Nausea rolls in, a thick fog smearing first my sight, then my hearing. Sex. Men. This … they … were not necessary, nor intertwined in my world. Unlike some of my lesbian friends, who tried it on with a guy, I never had. My life was—is—complete. So, why would I? Except that I did … on a rocket. Guy.
“Nitrous oxide has no colour,” Guy had said after cracking into the supply cupboard. “Slightly sweet smell and taste. Though who knows what it will be like up here.”
I inhaled from my belly, pulling a breath. I struggled to hold the gas deep in my lungs, as I imagined it to be … what? A subtle, almost buttery flavour? The word ‘buttery’ made me laugh. I giggled until I hiccupped. I inhaled again. Everything was funny—the whiteness of his teeth, the weight of my earlobes, the way he pressed his teeth into my earlobes. The way the tips of my nipples pressed into my shirt. Pressed against him. The tip of him pressed against me. My skin melted into the softness of light and air.
“Have you ever?” he asked slyly.
“Ever what?” I giggled back.
“Tried a guy?”
“Why?”
“Good point,” Guy conceded sucking back another sweet breath of gas, “I have never even seen a girl naked.”
I sucked deeply from the canister. Something about the innocence of his words, the candour. I peeled off my clothes, my eyes never leaving his. I felt like a teenager again. Everything close to the surface, playful, raw, and alive. I tapped into the adventure I wanted from Mars, this opportunity to try something new, something different, and something that we all hoped would bring a better future.
Guy’s gaze followed my hands as I removed each piece of clothing. After I was fully naked, he joked, “I feel awkward.” Then he pulled off his clothes. Both of us naked. Another suck at the gas.
“How do you think straight people even do it?” I asked, eyeing up his parts, then my own.
Under an oddly placed window, we fooled around as space flew by. We arranged ourselves, as though Cirque du Soleil’s next theme was Naked Space and we were the main act. The combination of the laughing gas and microgravity made for multiple laugh-worthy attempts at acrobatic coupling. The awkwardness of our inexperience with the opposite sex melted into the sweet buttery gas.
The size of and power of his hand on my back, the thickness of his limbs, so different than a woman’s, the sheen of sweat shone over his rough skin. We twisted and turned, oblivious to anything else. We sucked the sweet noxious gas. We sucked each other. We laughed so hard that my ribs hurt for two days. So did the space between my thighs….
“Yoo hoo. Earth to Nat. Ha! Mars to Nat doesn’t have quite the same ring.”
Astrid. The medical pod. The present.
“There you are. I’ll take a sample of your blood and urine, then run tests. I know it is hard not to imagine the worst, but there is no reason to assume this is anything more than a persistent virus. Come back at the end of the week, O.K.?” Astrid’s eyes return to silver as she ties a bungee cord around my arm and waits for an engorged vein to pop to the surface.
As I leave the health centre, I turn again for the toilet. I vomit. My body convulses. There is only emptiness. Still, anxiety and bile line my throat. Blood vessels in my face throb. Between heaves, I wipe the sweat off my forehead with the sleave of my shirt. Survival comes down to simple math, and this equation has too many variables.
The morning after, Guy and I meet at our usual workout spot. He is already warming up on the specially designed rowing machine when I jump on the treadmill.
Enroute to Mars, all would-be inhabitants are required to exercise at least three hours daily. Cardiovascular health is as important in space as it is on Earth. The real impetus behind the exercise is averting bone density issues, osteoporosis being a greater health threat.
I feel some solace in Guy’s haggard appearance, which matches how I feel.
Guy looks over at me. “You look like shit.”
“I feel like shit.”
From there on, as we usually do in the mornings, we laugh and gossip about the other inhabitants. Neither of us feel the need to discuss things further. Or more precisely, whether we feel the need or not, neither of us speak of that night. Ever again.
At the week’s end, my feet carry me dutifully past the exercise pod to the medical pod. It is early, so I wait, my stomach churning. Astrid arrives and punches in the code. The cloud cover around her irises suggests turbulence. I sit down to brace myself for the crash.
“I don’t even know where to start.” Astrid’s words thud. I breathe deeply, grasping at calm.
She turns to her computer and reads aloud her official diagnosis.
“Natasha has infectious mononucleosis. It may take some time to recover from the virus. Minimal risk of colony outbreak, as virus is not airborne.”
I don’t realize that I have been holding my breath. I exhale. I am relieved. But only for a moment.
Astrid turns off her computer and spins around, facing me. Sneering. “Nat, you don’t have mono.” Her next words are like the hisses of a cat. “You are pregnant. Like really pregnant. I just … I mean. How? When?”
The climate control rattles rhythmically and sets the beat. The blood pounding in my ears keeps time. The whirling of oxygen overhead howls the melody. Astrid’s words fall lyrically between notes, in the offbeat syncopation.
Syncopate. Disturb. Interrupt.
At some point in the conversation I hear myself respond to Astrid. At least it must be me, because who else knows when I last had unprotected sexual intercourse with a man?
“That night in transit. The nitrous oxide. The stars.”
Astrid flattens her already tightly secured hair. Her eyes turn to steel. Her voice assumes a professional lilt.
“There are options for women who find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy. However, these options are quite limited in our current situation.”
Astrid sounds like a medical student reciting rehearsed lines during role-play. Stoic, no hint of emotion in her words. Only, her downward gaze gives her away. This woman, who has crawled beneath the slippery layers of my skin, cannot even look at me. I shrink.
“We are not equipped to facilitate a birth, nor are we equipped to abort.”
Abort. Terminate. Die.
I sit. I stare. A thick silence settles over the sterile surfaces within the confines of the medical pod. Astrid’s sentences come slow and steady.
“I
assume you—as we all know—are aware of the precarious balance of our system. It is not just a matter of whether or not the system could sustain another life, but whether we could sustain the inevitable complications that will arise with a life that has not been selected.”
I try to wrap my head around the reality of what has happened. What Astrid is telling me. I curl my arms around my middle and rock. A thunderstorm of emotion flashes through Astrid’s eyes and then clouds over. “Besides, who will be able to forgive you for this?”
Her words tumble into a pit somewhere deep inside of me. I remain silent. I nod, at times, with bewilderment that I know is mistaken for acquiescence.
“You will birth the mass growing inside you,” Astrid stands up and says, “then it will be euthanized.”
As consolation, Astrid offers increased meal allowance and reduced exercise. I am not consoled.
I flee the medical centre as if in slow motion, weightless, searching for solace in the bio-dome. The damp heat swallows me. I float in on the humidity, then drag a couple weeping figs and a few heart leafed philodendrons, to a small nook.
So much planning went into this mission. Losses like unrepairable equipment, or losing power, were accounted for. Each with a backup plan. Losses, the human kind, were also planned for. But no one accounted for this. The risk had been minimised to zero. Or, more precisely, almost zero. For whatever reason, no one accounted for another mouth to feed, air to breathe, or waste to manage. Not even me.
Overcome, my body, fatigued and weary, gives way. I grab additional air filtering plants to complete my cover. Immediately, sleep envelops me.
Weeks pass between waves of denial, sadness, and rage. I nap frequently. In sleep, the fantasies and desires pour faster than in wakefulness. Movies project themselves on my eyelids. My favourite: me mixing a lethal cocktail of fertiliser in a shiny silver milkshake cup, complete with a straw. Relics of my old life, my Earth life, fuse with my new desire for an easy fix to this growth inside me. The potential threat of my own demise would be a pesky side effect to manage, but possible with the right mix. Then again, why even manage the risk? No one needs to know; no one else is involved. I disappear and the problem disappears. Except that there is nowhere to run, and as the fairy tale movie ending unfolds in my mind, I see the emaciated figures of those I leave behind crawling through the periphery. The colony is without the knowledge or means to maintain the food supply without me. Even if Earth shipped cargo right away, it wouldn’t reach Mars before they starved. Even in my dreams, the solutions are complicated.
Guy storms into the bio-dome. I hide behind some plants.
“Nat? You here?”
I don’t respond. I am out of polite conversation. As always, he finds me and pulls me to my feet.
“You look like shit.”
“Thanks. You look gorgeous as ever.” My flattery distracts him for a moment, but not long enough.
“Did you change workout times? I haven’t seen you for a few days. I miss you.”
The truth is, beneath my rage, I miss him, too. I want to hate him. I want to find a way to justify plunging the lethal injection into his body for his part in what we have done. But then he wraps his arms around me, laughs, and everything seem easier. He has a way of keeping things simple.
“I’m fine, just a little under the weather. Want to have lunch?” I offer.
“I’ve already eaten, doll.”
“Are they hooking you up with good meds? If Astrid isn’t treating you right, I’ll take her out.”
An air kiss, a spin, and a slide out the door, Guy is gone, just like that—subtraction—take away one. Simple maths.
I make it to the cafeteria in time to grab the last soggy soy patty. At the table in front of me, a group of inhabitants is eating their less, wet lunches. I squeeze between two of them, a man and a woman.
I can’t help but tally their worth to the colony. Soraya is older and has not adjusted well since leaving Earth, although not poorly enough to be considered a drain on our resources. The question, however—has she earned her keep? Beside her is Prateek: quiet, hard working. In the evenings, he recites poetry in three languages. I struggle to find any reason to not consider him.
Across from me is Barry, who tells us to call him Bazza. As a solar panel technician, he believes that he who powers the place, holds a place of power. Wafts of his sock-sweat swirl upward into my nostrils as he makes a comment about what women are good for. And though I miss it, I can guess that the joke was neither feminist nor funny. I look at the creases on the side of his eyes, deep and lonely. The mangled whiskers in his moustache hold pieces of his not-yet-finished lunch. Anger froths in my oesophagus. I am suddenly convinced Bazza does not deserve the privilege of this opportunity to colonise Mars; that we could easily go on without him. I imagine each blink he takes getting longer, until he no longer opens his eyes. Minus one. Plus one. Equilibrium.
I force the dripping soy patty past my lips, despite the renewed surging of my stomach. I drink two large glasses of water, and then need to use the toilet, again. I receive no reprieve from my transgressions, against myself, against the colony. I pee. I wipe. I weep. Vengeance dissolves as rage turns inward. I am responsible for this mess. It would be so easy to let go. I am just a breath away from being gone.
Time wears on. The journey continues. It becomes difficult to hide the tumescence of my middle, but I find ways to arrange myself behind plants and tables, or anything that disguises my size. Besides, it is easier for people to believe a version of the truth that fits with their precarious view of reality. The inhabitants see me growing rounder, and want to believe I am skimming food from the bio-dome, or cheating on exercise. The truth doesn’t matter, I tell myself, if you can’t conceive of it.
Cramps ripple along my abdomen one afternoon and I know I am close to the end. I stop by the medical pod to let Astrid know. Without making eye contact, she thanks me for the information. At dinner I eat a few bites of carrots and cress, then pause to breathe until each contraction passes. When I am able, I resume eating. There is a steady increase in the cramping—and in my desire to have it all finished. But it is just the beginning.
I spend the night on my hands and knees, alone in my sleep chamber, rocking between fright and fire. The ceiling presses into my back, and my knees push into the thin mattress. The night smells like damp fur, an animal prowling through a storm. I am not sure if I am the storm, the animal, or the wet smell. The noises of midnight shake my chamber. One wall vibrates with a neighbour’s snores. The climate control chugs, but it is the sound of me that is most surprising—a hum, a stifled yelp, a guttural groan from the quivering centre of me.
I hear the breakfast bell, then feet climbing from the stacked sleep chambers. I hear silence. I bite my lip until the tinny taste of blood floods my tongue. I make my way to the medical pod. Astrid is already there, sipping from a mug, which she puts down as I enter. The pod door closes behind me and locks.
“Did you get into a fight?” For a moment I feel her affection wash over me the way it used to, like a spring sun after a long winter. I close my eyes and let the warmth soak into the pores of my skin. I wonder if I have made a mistake, if she does still care, if I have misinterpreted her steely stares and emotionally void directives. Then another set of cramps washes over me and I bite my already jagged lip.
You did this to yourself.” Her tone is like concrete.
I can’t formulate a response.
She continues, “Do I need to review the procedure? Do you remember how this is going to go—the clean-up and disposal of the body?”
We have run through what will happen multiple times. At my request, we acted out each step. I watched Astrid measure the morphine, just enough for an infant. I flinched as she plunged the syringe into an unripe tomato. When my time came, I wanted to move swiftly and surely, no pain.
“I’m ready.”
“This will all be over soon,” Astrid says robotically.
Astrid con
tinues to pave the road she has mapped for me. She remains steadfast, clearheaded, certain. I slip further out of reality with each cramp, stronger, longer, less time between. In the brief moments of absolute silence between contractions, there is a space inside me, velvet warm, where I am wrapped in and around myself. I go backwards, the smell of gum trees shedding their strips of skin, the crackle as water evaporates off skin before it can form sweat, the sound of my mother’s lullaby humming A Home Among the Gum Trees. For a moment I am still. I am home.
I hold on to the scent of eucalyptus, and to the slippery wrinkled skin of an infant as Astrid stitches me. I hear the crinkle of paper as Astrid unwraps the syringe. I hum, the vibrations of my chest rocking the pile of flesh in my arms. Astrid’s movements are smeared by the slow motion of my eyes and ears. Morphine fills the syringe. She moves towards me. I place my hand on her, on the syringe.
“Give me a minute,” I ask.
“It will hurt more later. Just let me do it,” she halfheartedly argues, leaving her arm limp. I grab the syringe.
“You have a minute.”
Anger clenches at my ribs, at my teeth. It shakes the cells of my body. Any remaining logical thoughts melt in the embers of my rage. My fist clamps on the syringe. I can solve this. My body chants its mantra. I can solve this. Louder. A directive.
“Time’s almost up,” Astrid says as she leans forward, reaching for the blood pressure cuff behind me. The concave dip between her shoulder blades is exposed, vulnerable and enticing. There is ample room to plunge the syringe of morphine.
In deference to shock, or slow reflexes, Astrid stands frozen for some time before she collapses. The low dose of morphine merely induces a high. She is not dead. Her breath is even, slow. Her eyes stare at the ceiling. I wrap the infant in a towel and place it on the floor. It squirms for a moment, then settles. In front of me is an impossible equation.
Mission Mars Page 10
