"Easy."
"—from a kilometre away."
"Oh, right. Thanks, Tom," Ben said sarcastically.
"You're welcome."
Tom then guided Ben to position the tug at the correct distance and angle to get the assist from Jupiter underway. By the time they were in position, Jupiter was small enough for Ben to cover with his hand.
"Are you ready?" Tom asked.
"Yes. No. Probably not. Yes."
"When you are ready, please align the craft with the starting latitude of fifty-two point two degrees and the longitude of five point eight degrees, bearing two-six-three."
Hands trembling, Ben negotiated the craft into the starting position, one eye on the view of Jupiter outside, the other on the instruments feeding back his position. A yellow warning sign told him, as Tom had just done, that the position data was as estimate based on the last connection to the IGS over twenty hours ago.
"Full forward thrust whenever you're ready," Tom said. "Good luck."
"Thanks," Ben replied. He pushed the left stick forward full, hearing the whoosh of propellant and feeling the thrust against his back. As the speed built, Jupiter began to grow, slowly at first. It was difficult to know just how fast they were travelling, and a quick glance at the instruments showed Ben that they were now speeding along at over five thousand kilometres per hour.
The push was relentless.
"Correct bearing point one left," Tom told him.
Ben looked down at the instruments as he made a small adjustment with the right stick. At first the correction made no difference, but with an increased nudge, the tug was aligned back into position.
"Correct latitude point six degrees up."
Ben was sweating, and his arms were cramping from sitting so rigidly. He gritted his teeth as he made the adjustment, but this time he overcorrected. He reacted quickly to bring the tug back in line.
Jupiter was now the size of a football, and it was growing fast.
"Correct bearing point zero one right, latitude point zero three degrees up."
Ben made one correction, and then the next. Jupiter was growing fast enough to make the panic rising through him feel almost painful.
"You're on target," Tom said as the swirling mass of Jupiter quickly filled Ben's view.
They plunged deeper towards Jupiter than Ben had ever been before, tipped over so the planet appeared overhead. What looked before to be small, gentle swirls, rushed overhead as huge waves of colour, the long tendrils flecked with tendrils of their own that threaded among one another.
As they skimmed the outer edges of the gas giant's atmosphere, which glowed hot on the upper edge of the cockpit and sent shudders through the tug, Ben could feel the pull of g-force growing on his shoulders.
"Correct latitude three degrees down," Tom said urgently. "Correct latitude five degrees down," he corrected himself.
Ben could feel what was happening. They were too close to the surface, the atmosphere catching the edge of the tug and pulling them closer. He pressed against the right stick to dip the nose away from burning heat forming above him, the atmosphere resisting him and trying to pull him in further. A black fuzz began to form around his vision as his heart fought against the growing g-force.
"Correct latitude eight degrees down. Ten degrees down. Eleven degrees down."
The tug was shaking violently now, numbing Ben's fingers as kept the left stick hard forward, adding increasing amounts of directional thrust to the right stick to pull them from the atmosphere. But the short bursts weren't doing enough. As the orange line of heat crept further down the cockpit, swelling into Ben's view, he gave the right stick a long blast of maximum thrust.
"Correct latitude twelve degrees down," Tom said.
It wasn't working. Ben had both sticks fully forwards but the craft wasn't breaking free of the atmospheric soup. His vision had shrunk to two tunnels.
"Correct latitude thirteen degrees down."
Ben held both sticks down hard, resting his head back to let his burning neck muscles rest a moment. There was nothing more he could do. He looked up at the gaseous mix streaking by at tremendous speed through the trail of flame licking the cockpit.
"Correct latitude fourteen degrees down."
The orange glow was too bright now, even with the corrective dimming. He shut his eyes. The shaking and g-force had numbed his body so much that he couldn't even be sure that he was still pressing the sticks forward.
"Correct latitude thirteen degrees down."
He opened his eyes, straining his neck and groaning to see the readout.
"Correct latitude twelve degrees down."
Could it be true? The instruments certainly agreed. Ben was sure the glow was receding, too.
"Correct latitude ten degrees down."
They were definitely pulling free of the atmosphere. The vibration was reducing, feeling coming back into his whitened fingers.
"Correct latitude seven degrees down."
Now the orange glow only grazed the cockpit.
"Correct latitude four degrees down. Three. Two. One. No correction needed."
Ben released the right stick and let his arm drop to his chest. Despite the punishing g-force still pressing against him, he felt relief, but it wasn't for long. As per Tom's plan, they were now accelerating even harder, the streaks of colour overhead turning into one single brown blur.
With the rapidly increasing speed came an onslaught of g-force, compelling Ben to let everything fall flat against the seat except the hand controlling the forward thrust, which he gripped as tightly as possible to the left control stick.
It was becoming a real struggle to breath, and he was forced to take short gulps of air whenever he could. He could feel his vision fading completely.
"Squeeze your leg muscles, Ben," Tom advised.
Trying as hard as he could, Ben tensed to try and keep the blood flowing into his brain, but it was no use. The blackness was saturating his vision.
"Hang on, Ben," Tom's voice came from somewhere distant. "Only ten seconds more to go."
It felt like someone was trying peel Ben's skin off, only it didn't feel like it was his skin any more. It was more like having someone else's skin on top of him, piling up and smothering him, leaving only two pinpricks of light to see by.
"Seven seconds."
He couldn't even breath anymore. Any effort was useless. His left hand felt like it may well have been on fire, if only he could feel it properly. He was too busy falling backwards into a pit of nothing to really know.
"Five seconds."
Someone else was in the cockpit, not him. He was somewhere different, far, far away. Somewhere warm and peaceful. Somewhere where he could sleep.
"Four."
Welcoming sleep.
"Three."
Peaceful, relieving sleep.
"Two."
Ben never got to hear "One."
Chapter 15
Ben soared up into the sky, wind whipping past him, buffeting against his ears. He had speed, great speed, but as he flew higher into the darkness the speed began to wane. He could feel gravity's claws sinking into him, pulling him back, until he was hanging motionless in the air.
Then, he was falling. The black-tinged sky tipped away and the speed built once more, but this time it was towards the relentless draw of gravity rather than against it. Clouds streaked by him one by one, soupy globs of brown and red. Around him, huge sections of metal and composite were too drawn into the clouds, blistering and burning. He and they were plunging deep into a swirling cauldron of colour, until that colour began to fade and darkness enveloped him once more.
Ben opened his eyes.
Ahead, darkness, pinpricked by stars. Around him, the cockpit of the tug. All was quiet.
Tom spoke. "Ah! You're awake."
Ben sat up, rubbing his eyes. "What happened?"
"I believe you succumbed to the g-force."
Still feeling a little woozy, Ben recalled the pu
nishing onslaught of the gravity assist. "Did … did we make it?"
"It seems so, yes. Well done."
"So we're on our way?"
"Yes. We're on our way."
* * *
The next two months felt like a long time. A very long time. It was long enough to develop a routine, a process to occupy Ben's mind for long enough before it needed to rest again.
He awoke, climbed out of the space suit—a habit he could now not unstick—and made himself some breakfast. He had three recipes down—scrambled eggs, porridge and yoghurt. There had been some experimentation to try and replicate fried bacon and eggs, but that had ended in a rare episode of food wastage. Breakfast was not had on that day.
After he'd eaten his scrambled eggs, Ben cleaned himself off with dampened insulation material and let himself dry naturally over the exhaust pipe. The bruises on his side had almost completely faded and no longer hurt anymore, which was a relief. As those disappeared, small, wispy chin hairs had begun to sprout, and every day Ben performed a ritualistic pinch of those hairs to see how long they'd become. He was pleased to find there had been almost a half-centimetre of growth.
Clean, he put the insulation material in a small net to take out into space with him when he next collected more supplies. He would fasten it in the container, where the cold vacuum of space would kill off any bacteria that might have been growing on it over the week's use. That had been Tom's idea.
Following his ablutions, much to Ben's chagrin, were lessons. Tom insisted on keeping Ben up to speed with his curriculum, filling five hours of every day with math, science, engineering, history and all the other things that dulled Ben almost to death. In the back of his mind, however, Ben knew that it was for his benefit not only for his educational wellbeing but his mental one too, and Tom seemed to enjoy teaching, so he rolled with the punches.
Occasionally the day would be broken up with a small course adjustment, an announcement that for some reason fired Ben up with more excitement than it should have. Perhaps it was the idea of a destination, a goal, a physical point where he would be able to say he was done with all of this. Perhaps it simply broke up the monotony.
Later in the afternoon was usually calisthenics, a routine that became easier as the week's supplies began to dwindle and make more room. It involved stretches, jumping jacks, press-ups—Ben could almost do ten now—and something Tom said were called "burpees."
It had taken a while for Tom to explain to Ben what a burpee was, and it went something like this: a burpee is started in the press-up position, and makes its way to a standing position through the jump forward of the legs into a crouch and the explosion upwards to fully upright. Ben had to be careful not to bang his head doing those, and had manufactured a specific spot for doing them by taking an access panel off the ceiling.
Burpees hurt the most, and that's why Tom seemed to like them. Ben had decided, after the first round of burpees, that Tom was cruel. Tom insisted he was only doing it for Ben's health. Ben didn't believe him.
Once a week, however, calisthenics were set aside for a routine restock of supplies. That day was today. Just like he'd done that very first time, Ben donned the space suit, decompressed the tug and went outside. Fastened with the safety line, he negotiated his way back to the container—which was still secured by the large net—carrying with him the smaller net filled with the empty food packaging from the week. Tom suggested it was a good idea to keep those, "Just in case."
Ben then reloaded his small net with fresh supplies—including the sterilised piece of insulation material he'd hung up the week before—and returned to the tug. By now, it was all surprisingly normal to him.
And every day, that blue smudge of light got slightly bigger.
That evening, after dinner—which had consisted of a strangely fruity chicken curry—Ben and Tom settled in to play some games. Tom said they helped Ben unwind before going to sleep, and although Ben complained that they were stupid, he did sort of look forward to them.
Tonight's game was Twenty Questions, a word game where they would take it in turns to think of an object, then challenge the other player to guess what it was by asking a series of questions that could only be answered yes or no.
"Is it something that lives in the sea?" Ben asked.
"No."
"Can it fly?"
"No."
Ben was becoming more confused by the minute. "Can you eat it?"
Tom didn't respond immediately. "Yes."
"Wait," Ben said, holding up a hand. "Do you mean 'yes' as in 'yes it's something people eat,' or 'yes' as in 'it isn't something people eat but you could if you really wanted to and it wouldn't kill you or make you sick'?"
"I can't answer that question within the perimeters of the games," Tom said simply.
It was times like this that Ben didn't know why he looked forward to these stupid games at all. Playing with Tom was like playing with—well, a robot. "Okay, so is it something traditionally consumed by humans?"
"Yes."
"Is it a chicken?"
Ben knew as soon as he said it that it wasn’t going to be a chicken. He'd had chicken for dinner; Tom would never make such a simple connection. Or would he? Was it some elaborate double bluff, Tom picking something so obvious he thought Ben would never choose it? Ben waited for Tom's answer with baited breath.
"No."
Deflated, Ben leaned back against the wall, chewing on a stick of sweet apple he'd fashioned earlier that week. Somehow, the texture had gone all wrong while trying to make an apple pie based on his very first concoction, and he'd ended up with a chewy paste instead. So he'd rolled the paste into sticks and let them harden, and they'd turned out to be pretty tasty after all. Tom said they were too sweet and that Ben shouldn't have too many of them, so Ben reminded Tom that there was nothing he could do to stop him, so that was the end of that.
"So it's not a chicken, it's not a cat and it's not a book?"
"No. Three questions left."
"That didn't count!" Ben protested. "Surely you can tell the difference between a real question and a rhetorical one, right?"
"Apparently not. Two questions."
Ben groaned. He didn't need to remind himself that he'd never actually won a single game against Tom. Even the games that relied heavily on chance were victories that would be better termed as slaughters. That was disadvantage number two of playing games with a robot: they never lose.
Still, the challenge kept it entertaining, along with the complete absence of anything else to do.
"Is it something found on Earth?" With this question, half of those left remaining, Ben was embarrassed to be clutching at straws in quite this fashion.
"Yes."
Last ditch chance for glory. "Is it a peanut?"
"No. Would you like to play another round?"
"What was it?"
Tom harrumphed. "The rules are clear: you must guess the answer. You did not guess the answer. I may wish to use this answer again in a future game, and so revealing the answer does not benefit my chances of success."
"You say that every time."
"You ask that every time."
Rolling his eyes, Ben said, "Fine, another round. My turn." He thought hard. How about a … a carbon atom! Yes, that would be it. Tom would never get it. Probably. Maybe. "Okay, go."
Tom was instant with his questioning. "Is it a man-made object?"
"No."
"Is it alive?"
"No."
"Is it larger than a metre?"
"No."
"Is it smaller than a millimetre?"
"Yes."
"Is it an element?"
"Yes."
"Is it carbon?"
"Yes …"
Ben had been beaten in less than twenty seconds. It was the fastest annihilation yet.
"Would you like to play another round?"
"How do you win so easily?"
"I'm sorry—perhaps you'd like to play a different game?"
/>
Ben hugged his knees. "Like what?"
"How about I Spy?"
"Sure, okay. You go first. Ten guesses per turn."
Tom paused. "I spy with my little electro-optical sensor—"
Ben snorted. It was an old joke by now, but Tom kept on with it.
"—something beginning with S."
Peering around the tug, Ben tried to guess what insignificant and obscure object he could find that began with the letter S. He looked at the netting first. Supplies? No, too easy. Perhaps the tubes the different bases came in were called something beginning with S? Squeezy tubes, perhaps? Nah, that was stupid. His eyes wandered to the cockpit, to the cluster of screens and switches and … the seat. Could it be any of those? No way, too easy.
"Is it seat?" he blurted without thinking.
Tom let out a whistle of joy. "That's correct! You win."
Ben narrowed his eyes. Something didn't add up. There's no way he could have won this easily. "Okay, my turn," he said. "I spy with my little bio-optical sensor, something beginning with—"
He looked around, trying to find something really hard. Then he changed his mind. Instead, he picked something really easy.
"—B."
"Hmm …" Tom said. "Let me see …"
Ben let his eyes drop out of focus—as he often did when talking to Tom—while he waited for Tom's first guess.
"Is it—is it brace?"
"Brace?"
"As in, structural brace?"
Ben looked around to see what Tom was talking about.
"There, to your left, welded up in the top corner."
It was a triangle of titanium or something that presumably stopped the structure of the tug warping under stress. "Nope."
"Hmm …"
There was no denying it—Tom was now going easy on Ben.
"Is it—"
"You don't have to make it this easy for me, Tom."
A moment of silence. "What do you mean?"
"You're letting me win."
"I thought that's what you wanted?"
Ben was beginning to feel frustrated. Deep down, he knew it was because of the situation he was in, the claustrophobic and seemingly endless journey he'd been forced to embark upon, but for some reason he wanted to believe it was because Tom was letting him win. Somehow it made his frustration more manageable.
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