My Sweet Satan

by Peter Cawdron

  Mike couldn't help himself. Jasmine could see shades of his teenage defiant self in his reply to Chuck.

  “You assume they won't see us as a threat, but you have no idea.”

  “No,” Chuck conceded. “I have no idea, but that's the best we can do. Listen, we have some flexibility. We can deploy our unmanned probes for close reconnaissance, but we don't need to send anyone out in the Orion. We’ll scrap the close contact portion of the mission.”

  “And then what?” Anastasia asked.

  Nadir replied, “We wait. We watch. We learn.”

  “And we go home,” Chuck offered in a matter-of-fact tone of voice.

  Jasmine sighed. That was the best part of the plan, or so she thought.

  “Keep the end in mind,” Chuck added. “We are going home. We will do what we can at Bestla and then we will leave.”

  Chuck paused, looking around to see if anyone had anything to add. That he was giving the crew one last chance to raise concerns impressed Jasmine. In that moment, she got a glimpse of someone that led out of necessity and not someone on a power trip. When no one spoke, Chuck laid out his final commands.

  “OK. Let's focus on what we need to get done.

  “Mei, I need you to flush the pods in the medi-bay and prep them for the return journey.

  “Anna, we're going to need orbital calculations, burn rates and the delta-v component to reach the Lagrange point. Time is wasting. We have no idea how much distance the unscheduled burn is putting between us and Bestla. The longer we wait, the more ground we have to make up, so I need those calculations yesterday.”

  Jasmine couldn’t help but wonder about Jason. Couldn’t he have performed these calculations in a matter of milliseconds? Like Mike, Chuck seemed to have a trust issue with Jason. Perhaps he felt more confident with his wife overseeing the calculations, but even she would rely heavily on computer modeling. Jasmine noticed that Jason was conspicuously silent, not offering to assist Anastasia, and she couldn’t help wondering about the dynamic between him and the crew.

  “Nadir, go through the logs and see what else has been pumped up to us from Houston. Make sure there's nothing we've missed.

  “Mike, as always, the engines are yours. We're going to need the main bell primed as well as the docking thrusters online. Check fuel reserves. Let's run this by the book. The last thing we need is any more surprises. We’re at least a quarter of a million miles away from Bestla, and that number is only getting bigger. We need to be ready for an orbital transfer burn within the next hour or we’re going to lose our window of opportunity.

  “Regardless of what you think of this decision, I expect your professional cooperation. This thing is bigger than any of us. Now is the time to come together as a team, to work together. We’ve got to put our personal concerns to one side and focus on the mission.

  “Jazz. Jump in and help where you can.”

  The various crew members dispersed, leaving Jasmine alone on the command deck.

  Jasmine was in shock. She felt as though she was being swept along by the current of a mighty river. She may not have shown the outward signs of physical shock, but mentally she was reeling. She'd only felt like this once before, after jumping into an Olympic-size diving pool. She was twelve at the time and could barely swim. Until then, she'd never realized how much she relied on being able to rest her feet gently on the bottom of a pool, but in the diving pool the concrete was sixteen feet below the soles of her feet. She jumped in and found herself treading water, losing momentum.

  Jasmine knew what she was supposed to do—head down, ass up, apply consistent strokes and smooth kicks, and she'd be at the edge of the pool in seconds, but she panicked. She couldn’t bring herself to swim. She resorted to doggy paddle. Water splashed in her eyes and lapped in her mouth as she tried to breathe and she coughed and choked, spluttering as panic washed over her.

  Jasmine never heard or even saw her rescuer. Suddenly, she was being propelled toward the side of the pool. The surge of strength took her by surprise. A hand in the middle of her back pushed her up, raising her head above the water. Within seconds she was grabbing at the side rail as a lifeguard appeared beside her, but out here in space there was no such relief. No one would come to save her. If Jasmine was going to survive, she had to put her head down and swim for herself.

  Space was confusing. Space was disorienting. There was no up, no down. All her life, Jasmine had wanted to travel into space, but now she was here she would have given anything to fix her feet firmly on the ground. The lack of certainty, the lack of a fixed perspective was unsettling. Jasmine felt as though she was taking on water again.

  A lonely electronic voice spoke softly behind her.

  “Don't worry, Jazz.”

  Chapter 04: Perspectives

  Jasmine stared at Saturn. The sunlight reflecting off the planet wasn't as bright as she expected, but Saturn was roughly ten times further out than Earth.

  “Magnificent, isn't it,” Jason said.

  “Yes.”

  “Like Earth, Saturn's been orbiting the Sun for almost four and a half billion years. Puts life in perspective, doesn't it? Such beauty, such majesty, and for most of that time there was no one to appreciate it. Even once humans started looking to the heavens they couldn't have imagined Saturn and her rings until Galileo turned a telescope to the sky. She holds more allure than the finest of jewels and crowns.”

  Jasmine couldn't think of Jason as a computer. To her, he sounded alive. He was articulate, intelligent, thoughtful.

  “I know what you're thinking,” he said as they were alone on the command deck. “You're wondering if this is all just some clever algorithm, some trick to imitate life and fool you into thinking I'm alive.”

  “Actually, no,” Jasmine replied. “The others might not accept you, but I get it. We're all enslaved in prisons, whether they're made of bone or silicon. We’re more than the bodies we inhabit.”

  There was silence, which surprised Jasmine. Given that computers could undertake billions of transactions per second, she'd expected Jason to have formulated a response before she reached the end of her sentence.

  After a moment, Jason said, “I like you.”

  “I like you too, Jason.”

  Jasmine smiled. In the midst of the madness of being propelled twenty years into her own future and finding herself adrift in orbit around Saturn, Jason was a welcome relief.

  Chuck, Mike and Nadir came sailing down the main tunnel talking in hurried voices, flying through the air like superheroes. After the debate, it seemed the air had cleared and they were focused on what needed to be done.

  “—two sustained burns over the next ninety minutes to switch orbits and come up behind Bestla, then just a light touch to hold station at distance.”

  Jasmine thought it was Chuck speaking, but it was Mike.

  “And we're ready?” Chuck asked.

  “We're cutting it fine,” Nadir replied, sailing into the command deck. “Ana says we’ve got a window of about forty minutes. Wait any longer and we’ll be running on vapor once we get there. We cannot afford to dip into return reserves.”

  “There’s no time like the present,” Mike added.

  Jasmine was astonished by Mike. He seemed swept up in the camaraderie between himself, Chuck and Nadir. He’d been outspoken against the decision to continue on to Bestla, and yet now he seemed gung-ho. Every time Jasmine looked at him, she became more convinced this wasn’t her Mike. This Mike seemed manic, swinging between extremes. He was unhinged, but the others didn’t seem to notice. Perhaps they saw what they wanted to see, but Jasmine saw Mike as a contradiction. She doubted he could sustain the illusion forever. He had to be struggling with a conflict of ideals, whether to surrender to the group or to stand for what he believed in.

  Regardless of what he’d said to Chuck, there had been a slight waver in his voice, and that spoke loudly to Jasmine. She may have had her own problems, but she was clear-headed enough to see Mike was losing
his perspective.

  Jasmine had seen this before. Her older brother had suffered a mental breakdown under the pressure of exams in his final year at college. She was sixteen at the time, and barely understood what was happening, but her parents had seen the crash coming. They’d tried to help Henry, but he insisted he was fine. Even when she visited him in the psych ward at Emory, he had smiled and carried on as though he didn’t have a care in the world. Denial allowed him to continue on. Chuck and Nadir might have been fooled by the pretense, but Jasmine could see Mike was on the edge.

  “Jason,” Chuck said. “Notify the crew of an orbital burn in five.”

  “Done.”

  Jasmine wasn't sure she'd ever get used to the omniscient nature of Jason. She struggled to think of him as a computer, and yet here he was simultaneously informing Anastasia and Mei about the burn as he reported back to Chuck.

  “Better strap in, babe,” Mike said, gesturing to one of the seats in the second row on the command deck. There were four seats set behind the two seats for the commander and pilot.

  Jasmine pushed off a rail and glided over to one of the spare seats. She grabbed the seat back and twisted in the air above the headrest, pulling herself down against the padding. Her body naturally drifted away and she had to consciously hold herself in place. She grabbed at the loose straps floating around her and fastened the buckle. Jasmine felt somewhat silly floating there barely touching the seat. After a little fiddling with the straps, she managed to pull herself hard into the cushion.

  Mike was working at a console not far from her. His legs stuck up in the air behind him on an angle of almost thirty degrees. If she'd been on Earth, she would have expected him to fall back to the ground from a failed handstand, but he kept working effortlessly in free fall.

  Legs only seemed to get in the way in space, thought Jasmine. On Earth, legs were vital for motion. In space, they were largely redundant, dragging behind the body. Hands were far more useful, she decided, and she could see how they allowed Mike to move with a fine degree of precision. Watching him, her concern faded. Mike seemed entirely normal.

  After a few minutes, Chuck, Mike and Nadir strapped themselves into the other seats. Chuck and Mike sat in front of her talking about the burn sequence, with Nadir sitting across from Jasmine. There were two empty seats between them.

  “Are the girls coming?” Jasmine asked Nadir as Chuck ran through the engine engagement procedure with Mike.

  “They've got flight seats in medical and the science lab.”

  Almost simultaneously, Chuck spoke into a small microphone wrapped around his ear, saying, “Anna, Mei, we're on final count. Thirty seconds out. Confirm?”

  “Medical secure,” Mei said, her voice coming from a speaker hidden on the console in front of Chuck.

  “Science Lab secure,” Anastasia said.

  Chuck turned to Mike and said, “You are GO to re-orient the Copernicus.”

  “Roger that,” Mike replied. “Pitching in five, four, three, two, one.”

  Jasmine barely felt anything at all, then she noticed Saturn. The planet was drifting to one side and she felt dizzy, as though she’d just stepped off a roller coaster.

  “Sequence is good,” Mike added. “Structure is responding to impulse. Slight adjustment to yaw.”

  It took several minutes for the maneuver to be complete. Jasmine felt sick. It was all she could do not to vomit, and she closed her eyes, mentally begging for the motion to come to an end. Finally, Mike spoke.

  “Decelerating. Five, four, three, two, one. Maneuver complete. Craft is stable. No residual motion. Alignment for main engine burn is good.”

  “Roger that,” Chuck replied.

  Jasmine opened her eyes. Sweat beaded on her forehead. She wiped the moisture away with the back of her hand, feeling green, hoping the actual engine burn wouldn’t be as bad and wondering what she should do if she vomited. She was horrified by the thought that she could ruin the maneuver by being sick. Jasmine clenched the handholds on her seat, squeezing them tight as she fought off the urge to throw up.

  “We are in final prep,” Mike said. “Main engines online. Reviewing checklist.”

  Although Jasmine was seated behind Mike, the seats were staggered so she could see him working with a clipboard, marking off various checkpoints as he reviewed the systems on the Copernicus. The list seemed anachronistic. In the midst of all the high-tech wizardry and automated computer systems, the final checklist was manual. Jasmine figured an oil pencil on laminated paper was probably considered foolproof and easily reusable. If all other systems failed, that would still work. She couldn’t make out the items on the list, but she could see the title: Standard Burn Sequence Checklist 1070.

  Reading those four words and the accompanying four numbers was a mistake. Her inner ear was still off-kilter. Bile rose in the back of her throat. Jasmine gagged, unable to suppress her vomit reflex. Her solar plexus cramped involuntarily and her head lurched. She caught most of the first wave of spew in her cheeks, only a few drops drifted from her mouth.

  “We’ve got a hurler,” Nadir said from beside her.

  As much as Jasmine fought not to throw up, she couldn’t help herself. Another wave of nausea swept over her. Her stomach muscles clenched and she vomited again, only this time instead of a few drops drifting before her, a stream projected out through the bridge.

  “Jason,” Mike called out, bending his head down as sick shot past him. “We need a cleaner and fast.”

  Nadir was already out of his seat. He pushed on the headrest and sailed quickly over to Jasmine with a waxed paper bag. Nadir scooped up some of the vomit drifting in front of Jasmine’s face and brought the bag up to her mouth. She went to say thank you when the smell got to her and her stomach muscles contracted violently yet again. Vomit shot into the back of the bag, ricocheting around the interior.

  “Have you got things contained back there?” Mike said, twisting sideways against the straps holding him in his seat, trying to see Jasmine.

  “We’re doing OK,” Nadir replied.

  Jasmine groaned. She felt green.

  Chuck handed Nadir another sick bag. Nadir took the first bag from Jasmine, swapping it out with a fresh bag. She could feel globs of bile sticking to her face and cheeks in microgravity. Nadir grabbed a disposable wet cloth. Floating upside down with his legs above her, he leaned down and daubed gently at her face.

  “Hey,” he said tenderly. “Don’t you worry about this. It happens to the best of us.”

  She closed her eyes, wanting the sick feeling to go away, but the lack of any visual cues gave her vertigo. For her, the Copernicus felt as though it was still in motion. She opened her eyes and looked deep into Nadir’s dark hazel pupils. The Indian astronaut smiled warmly.

  “Just relax. Everything’s going to be OK.”

  Jasmine wasn’t convinced. She felt awful.

  Nadir stowed several soiled wipes in the used sick bag and pulled out one last clean wipe to gently wipe her face.

  “I’m so sorry,” Jasmine managed. She hadn’t thrown up since the bags had been swapped, but her stomach was still cramping. Nadir handed her one last clean bag. Jasmine clutched at it like it was a life preserver thrown to a drowning man.

  “It’s OK, babe,” Mike called out from in front of her.

  “Do you want an antiemetic?” Nadir asked.

  Jasmine had no idea what an antiemetic was, but given the context it had to be something to calm an upset stomach. She felt stupid for throwing up.

  “No,” she replied. “I’ll be fine. Thanks.”

  Two of the cleaners whizzed by beyond Mike. The first sucked up loose globules floating in the air, while the second cleaned a panel that had been struck with bile.

  Jasmine had seen the cleaners briefly after Mike had woken her, but her mind had been so stressed at that point she barely realized what she’d seen. Now she could see the cleaners up close. They were no bigger than a basketball, but with a hollow core. A grat
e over the front of each cleaner hid a fan in the heart of the unit. With short, sharp bursts of action, the cleaners would zip through the air as the fan spun. A set of paddles at the rear of the unit directed the air, providing the cleaners with directional control. Two mechanical arms reached out from either side of the cleaners, allowing them to manipulate objects. They sucked up the mess using a hose connected to the main body of the robot.

  “Are you OK back there?” Mike asked.

  “I’m good to go,” Jasmine said, lying as she clung to her sick bag feeling green.

  Nadir negotiated his way back into his seat. His seatbelt straps floated away from him. He pulled each one down and into place, locking himself back into his seat.

  Mei spoke from medical.

  “Is everything OK up there?”

  “We’re fine,” Chuck said as Jasmine simultaneously said, “I’m fine, really.”

  “Cleaners are finished,” Jason added. “I’m stowing them for the burn.”

  Mike was silent, switching between his checklist and his touchscreen interface. The displays flicked back and forth with gestures from his fingers. Jasmine couldn’t look. She held the fresh bag in her lap and looked up at the stars above, trying to focus on something other than the Copernicus.

  “Checklist complete,” Mike said. “All systems nominal.”

  Chuck replied, saying, “You are GO for main engine ignition.”

  Mike called the count as Jasmine held her breath.

  “Ten. Nine. Eight. Auxiliary engines firing.

  Jasmine felt her seat shake slightly.

  “Six. Five. Main engine start. Three. Two. Fuel is running and we have specific thrust.”

  The shimmy Jasmine had initially felt faded, and she found herself sinking slowly into the thin padding on her seat. Within a minute, she felt as though she was sitting stationary in a flight simulator on Earth. The shaking was gone. From her perspective, there was no sense of motion at all. Her stomach settled, which was a relief.

  “Point four,” Mike said, followed almost a minute later by, “five.”