She glanced over at Parker. Parker was doubled over and holding her stomach. “Maria, are you OK?” she asked, while pressing on Col Quesen’s chest. Parker shook her head violently and then vomited. She must have been doing everything she could to keep it down, but finally lost the battle.
Dish let go of the first aid kit that he had taken from Matthews to collect the blood. He pulled his shirt off and caught the stream of vomit in the shirt.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Parker repeated, crying.
“It’s ok, Parker, Dish has it.” She glanced at Dish. He had caught it all, in his shirt, and had returned to collecting blood without missing a beat. Amazing. The first aid kit was full and he was using cleaning cloths to corral all of the blood into one place. It glistened and wobbled like a solid, opaque, soap bubble. She returned her attention to Col Quesen. The compressions were not working. His head was flopping back and forth like a rag doll with every push, and the blood was soaking through the bandage around his neck. She stopped pressing on his chest.
Matthews looked at her, aghast. “What are you doing, Lennon? Keep going!”
“Matthews, it’s been twenty minutes. He’s dead.”
The room was silent. Everyone traded between staring at each other and at Quesen.
“Queasy’s dead? What…?” Dish’s voice trailed off. “What are we gonna do now?”
No one had an answer.
TRANSMISSION: START
Mission Control Station
Incoming message from Seeker 3. Receipt time 2115z, 1715 mission time
Subject: Crew casualty
From: Major Jonas Matthews, Commander, Seeker 3, and Dr. Rebecca Lennon, physical and mental health officer, Seeker 3
Attached is a compilation of multiple messages due to loss of high-speed antenna.
----
*BREAK*
Crew status: Degraded
Individual status:
Lt. Colonel Nicholas Quesen—Deceased. See notes.
All other crewmembers are grieving but healthy.
Notes:
The crew was attempting to remove the condenser to access the battery bank when the condenser broke
*BREAK*
loose unexpectedly. The resulting inertia drove the condenser into Lt Col Quesen, and a portion of the metal casing of the condenser container penetrated Lt Col Quesen’s right common carotid artery. The crew performed first aid and C
*BREAK*
PR but the attempt to revive Lt Col Quesen was unsuccessful.
High-speed communications remain down.
End of report from Seeker 3. Please advise.
----
TRANSMISSION: END
The crew assembled in the ChowBucket, avoiding looking at the body of Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Quesen, which floated silently in the next room.
“I can’t believe Queasy’s dead,” said Dish quietly.
Parker said nothing; she simply looked at her hands. Abrams was fidgety and nervous, unable to stay in one place.
“We need to decide what to do with the body,” said Matthews. “I sent a message to Earth over low-speed comms, but I don’t anticipate receiving a reply soon.”
“I guess you’re in charge now, huh?” asked Dish.
“I guess so,” answered Matthews.
“Well, whoop-dee-do.”
“Cool it, Dish,” said Lennon. “We’re all in shock right now, but that’s still no excuse to lose your professional bearing.”
He looked away and did not respond. Matthews cleared his throat. “So, what do you want to do?”
“We need to bring him back home,” said Parker. “His family would want that.”
Matthews nodded. “We need to store the body, then. Any ideas?”
“There will be significant health concerns for the rest of us,” said Lennon. “It would have to be a sealed container. The only suitable sealed container that we have is one of the space suits.”
“Good,” said Matthews, “we can do that.” One extra space suit was available in case one of the others failed—redundancy ensured highest chances of mission survival. In addition, Queasy’s death would free up an additional suit, so there would still be a spare.
“Hold on,” interjected Lennon. “As the body decays it will generate significant amounts of gas. Abrams, how much pressure is the suit able to contain? Is there a risk of it bursting?”
Abrams threw his hands in the air. “How should I know? The pencil dorks never tested these suits as coffins. I have no idea what the out-gassing will do. I have no idea what the chemicals generated by a decaying body will do to the seals. I don’t even know if a body will decay in a sealed container—there’s no air for bacteria to use, right?”
Lennon sighed. “Are there any other options? If the suit fails, it could be very bad for us.”
Each of the crewmembers shook his or her head ‘no’.
“It looks like that’s the best method, then,” said Matthews. “Dish, Abrams, help me suit him up. We’ll store him in bin 3.”
The crew pulled his suit from storage and after a moment of silence, put him in it, and attached his helmet. Abrams and Matthews checked all of the seals. “We’ll need to do weekly checks to make sure that the suit is not failing,” said Matthews. He straightened his shirt. “I guess that’s it.”
“Shouldn’t we say something?” said Parker. The crew agreed, and one by one, they each shared a memory or a thought about Lt Col Quesen. Then they placed him into the storage bin.
“We should say a prayer or something,” said Matthews. Everyone’s head turned to Lennon.
“Why are you looking and me?” she asked.
“We all talk big, but we all know that you are the one that is practicing,” said Abrams. “It just seems right. Most of us go to church every now and then, but not regular like you.”
Lennon nodded and said a small, clumsy prayer. After the prayer, Parker reached up and closed the sun shield on Queasy’s helmet, blocking his face from view. His call sign, ‘Queasy’, was stenciled on the helmet above the visor, a cruel reminder that Queasy was not coming back. Parker turned and left the room.
With that, Major Matthews closed the door over Col Quesen’s floating body.
Lennon slammed the door shut to the Women’s Quarters, gasping for breath. Her heart was pounding and she was sweating profusely. She knew what was coming, and the anxiety attack only worsened as she prepared for its arrival. She grasped her knees and floated in a fetal position, trying to keep from hyperventilating.
There was a knock on the door. “Lennon, you OK?”
It was Parker. Lennon squeezed her hands into fists. “Go away,” she snapped.
“You just, kind of went away quickly. Do you need to talk?”
Lennon huffed. How could Parker help her? “I’m fine. I just need some space.” She wished that Parker would go away.
“Ok, uh, could I come in for a minute? I sort of need someth—”
“I said go away!” Lennon yelled. She hit the lighting control panel and the lights dimmed. She needed silence. She was experiencing more sensory input than she could handle, and she felt like she was going to snap. Thankfully, Parker did not answer. After a few minutes of silence, Lennon assumed that she had left.
Lennon was definitely not ready for this. This was her first major test, and she had failed. Badly. Lt Col Quesen was dead, and she could not do anything about it. She banged her head on the wall in frustration. What was she doing here? How could she face the crew?
Suddenly she was back in West Virginia. She would realize later that she was experiencing a flashback. A true flashback is not just a memory quickly brought to mind; instead, it is a re-experiencing of an event in a person’s life. Normally, flashbacks occur to individuals who have suffered a traumatic event. Psychologists had completed a great deal of study on flashbacks with veterans from World War II, many of whom suffered with the curse of reliving horrific events repeatedly through flashbacks. Unfortunately, whi
le Post Traumatic Stress Disorder has made war veterans primary sufferers of flashbacks, scientists understand little about the causes or reasons for flashbacks. Studies have shown that PTSD relates to an unusually high number of occurrences of flashbacks; yet, it is not the only link to flashback episodes. There have been cases of flashbacks in individuals that did not suffer from PTSD.
Because flashbacks can involve all senses, including sight, they can be very debilitating. Generally, a person may not even realize that he or she is having a flashback and that person becomes unable to function at all in the real world until the flashback episode is over.
She was sitting on the edge of her mother’s bed. IV stands and other various types of medical equipment lay around the room. An in-house treatment service was taking care of her mother, and a nurse was in and out of the room attending to various duties.
Her mom was gaunt and pale. She had been a strong woman. It hurt Lennon to see her this way. She held her mother’s hand. “How do you feel, mama?”
Her mom groaned and smacked her lips. It was not in response to her daughter’s question; instead, the action was a symptom that had developed as her health degraded. Tardive dyskinesia, the doctor had diagnosed. Initially, the doctor had suspected that Lennon’s mother was suffering from dementia, and had prescribed a neuroleptic. Unfortunately, the problem was much worse than dementia. The antipsychotic that the doctor had originally prescribed had caused the side effect called tardive dyskinesia, defined as involuntary lip smacking. Once the medical team discovered the true cause of her symptoms, they terminated the neuroleptic. Unfortunately, the lip smacking continued. Lennon hoped that the effect was not permanent. It was incredibly distracting.
“Don’t leave,” Lennon’s mother said to her.
“I’m not, mama, I’m right here.”
She smacked her lips and spoke weakly. “Don’t go to space, honey. I don’t want you there.”
Lennon squeezed her hand. “Mama, I have to,” she asserted.
“No, you want to. You can turn your back. You don’t need to prove anything.” She licked her lips. Her eyes were sunken into her head, giving her the appearance of a skeleton.
“I’m not doing this to prove anything, mama; it’s just something I have to do.”
“I may not be here when you get back.”
“No, don’t say that.”
“Please don’t go. Stay on Earth.”
“I can’t.”
Lennon gasped for air as she found herself back on the ship, voluntarily locked in Crew Quarters. She felt cold. She shivered and rubbed her arms and felt goose bumps.
This was, by far, the worst of the anxiety attacks that she had experienced. It was also the first time that she had experienced a flashback. This was not good. It had incapacitated her. She closed her eyes and tried to control her breathing.
After an hour, the attack began to fade. She relaxed slightly, put some headphones on, and started some music. Chopin: Prelude in C Sharp Minor, Op. 45 scrolled across the display on her media player. She closed her eyes and let her body float freely in the room.
There was another knock on the door. “Lennon?” called a male voice. It was Matthews. “Can I come in?”
She twisted around and opened the door. He came in and they looked at each other for a few minutes.
“I just wanted to see if there is anything that I can do,” he began. “Maybe I could just be someone that can listen? Everyone comes to you, and you can’t unload yourself. Maybe I can help share the burden.”
Lennon smiled. “Parker told you I yelled at her, didn’t she?”
He nodded. “You’re not immune, Lennon. We are all going through this together. Believe it or not, some of us don’t even feel that we deserve to be here.”
It was the perfect thing for him to say. She nodded and put her media player away. “Thanks, Jonas, I appreciate it. I just needed some time to myself for a bit.” She gave him a quick hug, and after she assured him that she was fine, she headed towards the Atrium.
Day Thirty-Five
“There are so many stars.”
Parker was at the viewport again. Since the incident with Queasy, she had been withdrawn and quiet. Lennon had only seen her studying her crystals in the Atrium once in the last few days. Crystals grow differently in microgravity, and the creation of new types of crystals is possible without the strong influence of gravity. This is of great interest to many people, particularly those in the electronics industry.
“No one has ever seen them from the angle I am looking right now. It boggles my mind.”
Lennon moved next to Parker and looked out the small window with her. It was a strange sight; there were so many stars but it seemed so empty. She suddenly felt small and insignificant. She pushed away from the window. Parker did not move. Lennon studied her. She was thin; the loss of muscle from microgravity made her slender appearance more pronounced. She had wavy brown hair that she normally had to contain with hair ties. Today, it spread around her head in the shape of a giant afro.
After living together a while, the crew began to think of each other like family and most of the astronauts simply stopped wearing the paper clothes. Today, Parker was wearing only a tank top and underwear, two of the three clothing items available that were still made of cloth. The third, which Parker was not wearing, was a pair of socks.
The ability to wash clothes in space is a significant engineering challenge. Therefore, astronauts simply throw clothes away when worn or dirty. As shocking as it might seem on earth, in space astronauts wear the same clothes for weeks at a time. Surprisingly, astronauts do not get very dirty in space. Aside from underwear, the everyday clothing on Seeker 3 was made of a thin, paper like substance that did not significantly differ from the primary material in hospital gowns. Because of this, a large amount of unisex clothing could be stored in vacuum-sealed boxes that take up very little space.
There was a large section of more traditional clothing packed for when the ship landed on Mars. In addition, the crew would be able to use a clothes washer that waited on the surface, ready for the astronauts to use as soon as the crew assembled and activated the full sized water recycler at base camp.
Parker’s legs were smooth and tan. Seeing them gave Lennon a sudden memory—she and Parker had just received notification of their appointments as primary crewmembers for the Mars trip. Within a few days of the press release, hundreds of companies had sent mailings, telephone messages, and emails. Some had even sent personal agents. All of these actions were for the goal to try to secure product endorsements by the astronauts. Out of all of the inquiries, Parker had stumbled upon a simple letter and showed it to Lennon. As the only two women on crew, they shared a natural bond that had developed into a friendship. The two were inseparable during the training.
“What is it?” Lennon asked, noting her friend’s excitement over the letter.
Parker giggled and shoved a similar letter at Lennon. “You got one too,” she said.
Lennon opened it up. It was an offer for laser hair removal. “Come on, are you serious?”
“Are YOU serious? Don’t you remember the stories about how difficult it is to shave in space? I hate shaving my legs on earth.”
“Most women don’t bother in space.”
“Do you want to be most women? Most women didn’t go to space for two and a half years.” She stuck her chin out and playfully lifted it into a haughty pose. “I don’t want to be a gorilla up there.”
“What are the terms?” Lennon capitulated.
Parker squeezed onto the chair next to Lennon and read it while Lennon followed along. “Ah, let’s see, film one commercial, a photo shoot, use of our likeness for advertising, blah blah blah. Did I mention it’s free? Free?”
“Nothing’s free, Parker.”
“You are always so practical.” She looked at Lennon eagerly with her big brown eyes. “Let’s do it! I don’t want to do it without you.” She made a pleading face. “It’ll make yo
u feel good.”
Lennon thought it over. The idea of living in space, without being able to perform the hygiene practices she was accustomed to… Well, that would be hard to deal with. Besides, Parker was right. Who wouldn’t want to feel attractive, even out in space? The idea of never shaving again was compelling. “Ok,” she conceded. “Let’s do it.”
Parker squealed with glee.
The company was ecstatic to have the two sign on. As promised, they performed laser hair removal with no fee. Afterwards, commercial filming appointments were set up and the two arrived at a studio for pictures for the print campaign.
“I don’t like these clothes,” Lennon complained, holding up a piece of clothing that was, essentially, lingerie.
“They have to show our legs,” Parker argued. “They said that’s all. They are going to focus on the legs.”
Grudgingly, Lennon accepted and let the studio take the pictures. Unfortunately, Parker was wrong. The pictures were very risqué, and the studio sent them to a major men’s magazine, who immediately published them. When Lennon contested, the company referred her to a portion of the contract that she had not remembered reading. She sued, but it never went to court. The magazine agreed to relinquish rights to the pictures to Lennon and Parker so that no other magazine could publish them again without express authorization. In addition, the magazine agreed to a princely sum of money for both Lennon and Parker. However, the distribution of the pictures had already caused irreparable damage. Parker and Lennon became known as the ‘sexiest women on Mars’ and were given unrelenting and exhausting media attention. Parker became the subject of a stalker, who, luckily, caught the eyes of security guards outside the space complex where Lennon and Parker were training. At the time of his discovery, the man was in possession of knives, duct tape, flex cuffs, and a computer that had over two thousand pictures of Parker on the hard drive. The man, eerily, had personally taken some of the photographs. The rest were from news stories, press releases, and, of course, the magazine. Both women ultimately regretted the decision, although they enjoyed the results of the hair removal.
Single Event Upset Page 7
