My Sweet Satan

by Peter Cawdron

  She turned away from the mirror, wondering if it held a camera by which Jason was reading her facial expressions.

  “Not the launch?”

  Jasmine looked down, seeing her feet drifting just inches from what could have been the ground were it not covered in rungs like a ladder.

  “Not even the training?”

  She pushed off the wall, reaching out for a handhold by the vast glass dome displaying Saturn like a prize exhibit in a museum. The sunlight reflecting off the distant clouds terminated abruptly, revealing the spherical shape of the planet disappearing into darkness. To her, Saturn looked like a slightly flattened sphere, and she wasn’t sure if it was an optical illusion caused by the slender rings stretching out into space, or due to the planet's rapid rotation. The rings surrounding the planet appeared broken. On the sunlit side, they glistened like a golden necklace, but they too disappeared in the shadow of the great planet.

  “Not the arrival of the entity in 2027?”

  Silence betrayed her.

  “Not the missions of 2020? The Lunar colony?”

  Jasmine breathed deeply.

  Jason's voice softened.

  “Oh, Jazz. I am so sorry. I understand how upsetting this must be for you.”

  Her lips tightened in a vain attempt not to give away any more information.

  “You told Mike, but he didn't listen, did he? He didn't understand. He knows, but he doesn't realize.”

  Jasmine glanced at her white knuckles gripping the handrail on the wall, still trying to hide her feelings.

  “I understand.”

  “Please,” she said, her voice barely a whisper, tears again welling in the corners of her eyes.

  “Your secret is safe with me,” Jason replied, and Jasmine believed him.

  Mike may not have believed Jason was capable of human emotions like empathy and compassion, but in that moment, Jasmine did. She felt secure in his confidence. It was irrational, and in the back of her mind she knew that, and yet she trusted Jason just the same. Trusting a machine made no sense. A machine would do what it was programmed to do regardless of feelings or emotions, morals or principles, and yet she couldn't help feel an intelligence beyond what had to be millions of lines of computer code. Jasmine couldn't explain why, but she felt as though Jason weighed her predicament with compassion rather than as a cold, dispassionate calculation.

  She looked over at Mike. A hologram of Saturn appeared above the navigation console, but it looked small, no larger than a marble. Dozens upon dozens of tiny dots appeared scattered around it. Some were far flung, but all of them moved in orbit around the gas giant. There had to be at least sixty moons, Jasmine thought, and she wondered about the significance of the hologram, wondering what Mike was talking about with Jason. She was tempted to ask Jason what the two of them were discussing, but Jason spoke first.

  “Why did Mike wait so long?” Jason asked, apparently picking up on her attention having settled on Mike. Jason's voice was quiet, almost conspiratorial, as though he were uttering a secret. “He's been awake for weeks. Why wait till now to shave?”

  Jasmine was quiet. Jason's question had to be rhetorical, as the computer must have known she'd have no idea, and yet the question seemed genuine. Jason was trying to understand Mike's motives, his rationale.

  “Do you think he's nervous?”

  “Yes,” she responded in a whisper.

  “It was Houston's call,” Jason added, although Jasmine had no idea what he meant. “He simply followed orders. And you, why you?”

  “Me?” Jasmine asked in reply.

  “Why wake you early?” Jason continued. “Mike knew the crew were being woken remotely, and yet he wanted to wake you up before them. Why? Why wake you early? Was there something he wanted to tell you? Something he couldn’t tell you after all that has happened? And why wake you now when he could have woken you at any point over the past few weeks?”

  “I—I don't know,” Jasmine confessed.

  “Strange.”

  Not as strange as a talking, thinking, rationalizing computer, Jasmine thought.

  “I think,” Jason said, pausing for a fraction of a second, and she really did consider him as lost in thought in that moment. “Yes, I think he's worried about what the others will think of him. I think he wanted to wake you first so you could provide him some moral support in front of the rest of the crew.”

  Jasmine fought to breathe deeply, but her breathing hitched. She couldn't hide the tremors in her body. A warm breeze circulated around the command deck and yet she felt cold.

  Nadir Indiri was the first astronaut to come sailing down the sterile, white corridor in his blue NASA jumpsuit. Like Mike, his name was embroidered in white, inch-high letters. It was almost as though NASA thought the astronauts were going to forget each other's names and so had added these reminders. Ordinarily, forgetting wouldn't have been likely, and yet Jasmine welcomed the sight of Nadir’s name.

  Although Nadir had the classic NASA logo on his shoulder, a small Indian flag sat on his chest next to his name.

  Jasmine didn't recognize him, but there was no mistaking his features. Bushy eyebrows, dark skin and deep-set eyes spoke of his origins on the Asian subcontinent of India. In the weightlessness of space, his long hair was a wild tangle around his head. It was almost as though he’d been touching a Van de Graaff machine and static electricity had forced the strands to stand on end.

  Nadir remained on the edge of the corridor, almost as though he didn't want to be seen. Jasmine wondered what it was that tipped him off, not that she thought there would be a physical ambush, but she could see he too knew something was wrong with Mike.

  Nadir held on to a rail just outside the command sphere.

  “What is going on?” he asked in a whisper, looking across at Jazz as she floated on the edge of the spherical module. His accent was soft, unlike the stereotypical Indian accent. There was just enough inflection to reveal his proud ancestry in Mumbai. His tone was neither accusing nor threatening. He seemed concerned. Jasmine was surprised he'd asked her and not Mike who was over by the flight controls. Mike had his back to them still talking to Jason, but he had to know Nadir was there. Why was Mike ignoring him?

  Instinctively, Jasmine felt at ease with Nadir. She couldn't explain why she felt that way, but she felt safer with him present on the bridge. Jasmine pushed off and sailed over near him. She could see him glancing at the pitch black of space beyond the dome as though it were somehow menacing, and yet he didn’t seem intimidated, he seemed up to the challenge.

  Jasmine didn't spot Mei Changi until she sailed slightly above Nadir. She too had her name emblazoned on her chest. She had her hand out, catching the loose fabric on Nadir's jumpsuit as she slowly drifted the length of his body, gently using him to come to a halt. There was a sense of intimacy in her touch. Jasmine could see they were companions by their combined body language. In space, body language seemed to scream and shout, being much more pronounced than it was on Earth. Jasmine intuitively understood Mei was the reason Nadir had waited at the entrance to the dome. He had his hand out, gently bringing Mei to a halt before she drifted into the command deck.

  “No, Mei,” Nadir said softly. “Not yet.”

  Mike kept his back to them, but he must have heard the whispers. Jasmine was sure he knew they were there even though his head was down, looking at a console. Given that he was in space, Mike could have oriented himself in any manner he chose. Facing down seemed deliberate. Jason was still talking to Mike as he punched his fingers against a touch screen, but Mike wasn't talking back. He was conspicuously silent.

  “Jazz,” Mei said with a look of concern on her face, her voice barely above a whisper. “What happened? Why was the flight plan changed?”

  Jasmine had no idea what the original flight plan was, let alone the extent of any changes. She wasn’t sure what to say in response. The blank look on her face must have spoken more than any words could, as Mei’s brow furrowed with concern at
her silence.

  Like Nadir, Mei had a flag next to her name: China. Four small yellow stars sat in the upper corner of a red flag, set next to a single dominant star. The appearance of the fire-engine red flag on Mei’s blue jumpsuit was striking. Jasmine had no idea what constellation was being depicted but the blood red color dominating the flag struck her as ominous. Perhaps it was paranoia, but being American she had a distrust of any national interest other than her own. Home of the free, land of the brave, she thought. But how did these other cultures see their own countries? What rallying point of pride could there be in communism? She couldn't think of one, and yet she knew China was a proud nation with a culture going back thousands of years. There must have been something, but that point of difference seemed to divide the two women like the Great Wall. Mei, though, didn't seem to have any of Jasmine's apprehensions and quickly set Jasmine’s mind at rest with three simple words.

  “Are you OK?”

  Jasmine hadn't expected that. Most people thought about themselves first and foremost, focusing on their own interests or on the tension of the moment, she thought, but Mei seemed genuinely concerned for Jasmine.

  Jasmine looked down at the dark purple welts on her skin, partially covered by her tank-top. It was only then she realized she was practically naked compared to both Nadir and Mei. Up until that point, Jasmine hadn't given a second thought to the fact she was only wearing underwear and a flimsy top.

  A tiny flashlight flicked in front of her eyes. Mei had moved down beside her, orienting herself on the same plane as Jasmine. She had a medical pack on her hip and had pulled out a flashlight, shining it in each of Jasmine's eyes. Jasmine squinted, not wanting this level of attention.

  “Jesus,” Mei said unexpectedly in her Chinese accent. “Your pupils are dilated. You're in shock. What happened to you?”

  Mei reached out and touched at Jasmine's cold, clammy forehead. Normally, Jasmine would have recoiled at such a rash invasion of her personal space, but Mei had the tenderness of a doctor working with a sick patient.

  Mei gently lifted the straps of Jasmine's tank-top, examining the welts and bruises on her chest. She looked at Jasmine's arms, looking carefully at the red marks around her wrists and a large bruise on her right forearm.

  “Come. Let's get you back to medical.”

  “I can't leave,” Jasmine replied, seeing that Nadir had drifted beyond the two women, positioning himself between them and Mike as though he were protecting them. He whispered under his breath.

  “This is wrong. We should be facing out toward Bestla, not back at Saturn. He’s got the craft facing the wrong way.”

  “I have to stay,” Jasmine insisted as Mei took her pulse at her wrist. Mei looked down at a handheld computer displaying the time. She was concentrating, counting quietly to herself as the seconds past.

  “Her pulse is erratic,” she said softly to Nadir. He didn't respond, focusing intently on Mike.

  Two other astronauts drifted past cautiously. Jasmine struggled to catch their names as they floated by. Like Nadir and Mei they stayed close to each other, and neither was in a rush to enter the command sphere. Their name tags identified them as Chuck Davies and Anastasia Liso. The flags on their uniforms were American and Russian.

  Jasmine wasn't entirely sure about her assumption that Anastasia was Russian, but for now, curiosity grounded her. In her strange, dream-like state, the smallest detail seemed to shout above the voices around her. The white, blue and red horizontal stripes on the flag beside Anastasia's name looked Russian, and she racked her mind to think of any other possibility, distracting herself for a moment.

  Anastasia was a Russian name, but her long blonde hair and pale, Nordic features meant she looked more like a Scandinavian beauty queen than a Russian scientist. To Jasmine, she was Anastasia the Beautiful. Jasmine found Anastasia’s striking looks intimidating. If they’d met in high school, Jasmine would have felt threatened by such natural, magnetic beauty, and she had to fight such feelings in orbit around Saturn.

  “What's going on?” Chuck demanded with a voice that commanded authority. Chuck wasn’t going to whisper like Nadir. He was clearly after answers. “Jason says we're off-course, that we’re over three hundred thousand kilometers away from Bestla. What the hell have you done, Mike?”

  Chuck was the only astronaut to proceed into the command sphere, but Jasmine saw that he drifted over to the flight desk some fifteen feet from Mike.

  “Why aren't we on approach to Bestla?”

  Mike replied in harsh tone. “Oh, yeah, blame Mike. It’s all Mike’s fault.”

  “Mike,” Nadir said in a softer, more reasonable voice than that of Chuck’s Texas drawl. “We need to understand what’s going on.”

  “What’s going on?” Mike cried, snapping in reply as he turned to face him. “I’ll tell you what’s going on. NASA changed their goddamn minds and dropped me right in the shitter. You guys weren’t supposed to be woken until we dropped back into a Martian orbit.”

  “What?” Chuck cried.

  “Plans changed,” Mike said. “The first moon you were supposed to see was Phobos, not Bestla, but Houston got cold feet yet again.”

  “What does he mean?” Mei whispered. Jasmine had no answer for her.

  Even at a distance of twenty feet, Jasmine could see Mike’s hands shaking. She wasn't sure if anyone else noticed. Mike grabbed at the console in front of him, but it wasn't to anchor himself. He was trying to hide his nerves.

  Anastasia drifted over toward Jasmine and Mei with something in her hands. She was carrying a folded blue jumpsuit. She handed it to Jasmine, who mouthed “Thank you,” without any words leaving her lips.

  “That makes no sense,” Nadir said. “Why send us all the way to Saturn only to scrub the mission at the last minute?”

  Mike ignored him, saying, “They should have left you asleep. Would have been simpler for everybody, but no, they can’t make up their goddamn minds!”

  He was talking to himself. He seemed unhinged, as though he was talking to an empty ship. His eyes drifted.

  “Mike!” Chuck yelled, snapping him out of his daydream. “You’re not making any sense.”

  “Oh, I’m the one not making sense?” Mike replied. “But you. You make sense, do you? You have no idea what you’re dealing with. Do you really think they’d scrub the mission without a reason? They have their reasons, but no, you just want to blame me for this clusterfuck.”

  Jasmine gave the jumpsuit a light flick and it unfolded like a flag in front of her. She slipped into the jumpsuit as easily as she would have jumped into a sleeping bag back on Earth, feeding both legs into the suit at the same time. If there was one thing to be said about life in free fall, it was that it was easy to get dressed.

  The fabric was warm. Jasmine hadn't realized how cold she was until the warmth of the cotton jumpsuit brushed against her skin. She zipped the jumpsuit up the front, already feeling like she'd been given a shot of painkillers along with that simple act. The name on the chest read: Jazz Holden. The US flag was as comforting as the warm material.

  For Jasmine, the confrontation between these men seemed to play out on two levels. She heard everything that was being said, but she was in her own world, dealing with her own neurosis, getting lost in the minutiae of detail bombarding her. Both her underwear and her tank top were made from clingy, stretchy material hugging her skin, but the jumpsuit was loose. It wasn’t baggy, and yet it felt baggy. Rather than wearing a jumpsuit, she felt like she was in a hollow shell. The only point at which the jumpsuit clung to her was around the elastic waistband. Like everything else in the Copernicus, the jumpsuit was in perpetual free fall. Her blue jumpsuit floated around her, responding to her motion as though it was suspended in water. The sensation fascinated Jasmine.

  “Goddamn it,” Chuck replied to Mike. “Stop playing games. I’m the mission commander. Why wasn't I woken?”

  “That's classified,” Jason replied in his distinctly electronic voice,
cutting Mike off before he could reply.

  “Classified from me?” Chuck asked.

  “Not from you,” Jason said, clarifying his point. “From the rest of the crew.”

  “What the hell?” Nadir cried. “That's madness! Mike, what is going on?”

  “I was given orders,” Mike replied coldly. “I followed them.”

  “Damn it, Mike! You should have woken me!” Chuck yelled, the anger in his voice carrying within the vast command sphere.

  “I was told to act alone. I was told the mission parameters had changed and we were to conduct a contingency abort.”

  “That makes no sense,” Nadir said. “We're a billion miles from Earth. We were supposed to have complete operational autonomy.”

  The look on Chuck's face suggested he was struggling to contain his anger. His lips tightened. His nostrils flared. The veins on his neck strained. He spoke with deliberate pacing, saying, “Jason, what messages are there from Earth?”

  “You have an encrypted personal message from Houston.”

  “Play it.”

  “I can't,” Jason replied. “It was not received on the normal channels. Notification of the message arrived via space-net, but the message itself was transmitted on the telemetry network and as such is outside of my network.”

  “Mike?” Anastasia asked, drifting over beside Chuck. “What is going on?”

  “Something's got them spooked,” Mike replied. “I don't know what happened out there with Bestla. All I know is the mission has been scrubbed. We've been told to head home.”

  “And you just obeyed? You didn't question the order?” Nadir asked.

  “This isn't something I take lightly,” Mike replied, still defensive. “Mission Control told me to move the vessel to a safe distance, something they deemed a preliminary orbit leading to a return course. I trusted their judgment.”

  “Without reason?” Anastasia asked, challenging him.

  “You didn’t think you deserved an explanation?” Nadir asked.

  “You’re lying,” Chuck said coldly, staring down Mike.

  Mike gritted his teeth. His fists were clenched, his knuckles white.