Orphans In the Black: A Space Opera Anthology

by Amy J. Murphy

  Needless to say, my father wasn’t the best at offering any kind of moral encouragement that a boy would actually appreciate.

  Bob was the one exception. He was there before Frankie Johnson moved in two houses down the street, swore that Risk was the best board game of all time, then moved further south a year later. Bob was there before Sean Winston moved in across the street, turned me into an addict of comic books, then moved again a couple months after that.

  He was there with me when I cried, and he never made fun of me. He was there when I got mad at my parents and displayed my anger by refusing to leave my room. And he was there with me when my parents punished me by sending me to bed without dinner. He never judged me. All he wanted was my friendship and to be around me and to be loved.

  Bob was my cat.

  Mars is a beautiful planet. Most people think of it as being a reddish orange but depending on where the sun is, Mars can actually be a deep gold. Also depending on the direction of light, it can look like swirls of marble or it can resemble a colorized version of our own crater-ridden moon.

  I’d been aboard the Legacy for three hundred and four days when I got to Mars. Mind you, it’s possible to get there in less than forty days. In 2006, NASA’s New Horizon mission sent a probe past Mars at 36,000 mph. If Mars and Earth were at their closest point in their respective orbits around the sun, that probe would have gotten to Mars in thirty-nine days. More typically, vessels had been getting there between one hundred and two hundred days. The Legacy is taking so long because it uses less fuel, which is critical for keeping me going on the trajectory the scientists and engineers have set.

  If I had been going to the opposite direction, toward the sun, I would have passed Venus in nearly half the time. In comparison to Mars, I have it on good authority—most of the people who worked on the mission—that Venus is unspectacular.

  One of the engineers said of Venus, “It somehow has hazes of white, grey, and cream while also managing to look monochromatic.”

  Another said, “Compared to Earth and Mars, Venus looks like a black and white movie that was made decades after color films were possible.”

  Or, as one of the scientists described it to me after sharing his excitement that I would be flying away from the sun rather than toward it: “Have you ever looked down at the bottom of a clogged toilet and seen the mass of filth that combines to form one spectacular piece of crap? That’s Venus.”

  Thankfully, I got to see Mars instead.

  3

  I didn’t get close enough to Mars to be affected by its gravitational pull. Even so, as I passed the red planet it was large enough to fill the entirety of the side window of the Legacy. Up close, any romantic idea of Mars as an alternative home for humans instantly loses its appeal. The terrain is stark and desolate. It looks like Earth might if the end of mankind came not from a slow extinction but from global nuclear war. Everything is covered in dust. Craters litter the surface. There is nothing tantalizing about it other than its size, almost the same as Earth, and its proximity to our own world.

  Somewhere on Mars there are roughly two dozen people living in a tiny settlement. I couldn’t find them from my viewport, not even with my telescope. They went there a couple years before the Great De-evolution began, the idea of an eccentric billionaire. Each of the volunteers knew it was a one way trip. The few reports I heard weren’t encouraging. The exotic and alien life they thought they were in store for is actually one of extreme hardship and isolation.

  I’ve heard that the people in the tiny Mars settlement are aware of my voyage and that I’d be flying past them. I thought they might have some kind of sign for me as I passed. Maybe rocks arrayed to say H-E-L-L-O or something like that. There was nothing, however, and it made sense that if they were miserable they wouldn’t want to celebrate someone else flying past them.

  From the time I got him as a kitten when I was ten, until I was twenty-two, Bob slept above my head every night. He would reach a paw out so it touched the side of my face, his way of ensuring he knew exactly where I was. Then he would sigh and go to sleep.

  Sometimes in the night he would have terrible dreams that made him cry in his sleep, and I would put a hand on his side and gently stroke him until he awoke to the comfort of knowing he was safe and protected.

  The other kids I knew all slept in until late in the morning. It’s what kids do. I, on the other hand, got up before five o’clock in the morning and was often times awake and watching TV for an hour before my parents came downstairs for their morning coffee. This was due to the wet kitty nose that would be pressing into my eye or my ear. It was Bob’s breakfast time and he was letting me know in his sweetest possible way that while he loved me and surely wanted me to sleep as much as he did through the day, he also loved food. No matter how tired I was and how much I wanted to close my eyes, I couldn’t help but stroke him behind his ear, listen to his purrs, and get out of bed.

  It never entered my mind to ignore him and go back to sleep instead of feeding him. The truth was that while my friends might not be getting out of bed for another couple hours, they also wouldn’t be around for long. Their parents would pack up their belongings and they would head further south. And when that happened, Bob, along with his whiskers that tickled me awake, would still be there, the one constant in my life while everything else around me faded away.

  The first couple times a friend left the neighborhood to go south and join one of the final collectives, I cried and thought I’d never make such a good friend again. After the third or fourth time, I found myself going upstairs to my bedroom, resting my face on Bob’s soft belly while he slept, and listening to the motor of his happiness as he purred at knowing he was loved and appreciated. After that, people disappearing in the night didn’t bother me so much. Bob didn’t want to go anywhere except where I was, and that was enough for me.

  Of course, nothing lasts forever. The human population going extinct over the course of my lifetime is proof enough of that. It was inevitable that Bob would become an old man in cat years, that he would play a little less, breathe a little louder. And then, one day, instead of waking up to a wet nose or tickly whiskers I woke up because the sun was shining into my eyes.

  I reached over my pillow in search of Bob. He was still there, still with his paw against my head. He was no longer breathing, however.

  The same day Bob died, I applied to go out into space. I hadn’t intended to. It was just something that happened.

  I’d been in the middle of blowing my nose for the tenth time when I saw it: an advertisement for someone to become the last astronaut. It was a banner ad at the top of the webpage I was looking at, which was the number of Bob’s vet so I could call and figure out what to do with his little body, still resting on my pillow above the spot where my head had been.

  Something in my browsing history must have made me a viable target audience for the ad. One thing I can say is that if there’s a bright side to the human race dying out it’s that IT companies no longer track and dissect every single thing you do on a computer. Those dummies, like everyone else, have finally realized there are much more important things in life than per-click-ads and browsing histories.

  Funny how the end of the world will do that.

  The advertisement was simple enough. The words, “Fulfill a dream. Go into space... Win a chance to become the last astronaut!” were next to an image of a traditional spacesuit floating outside a shuttle. I had no idea why the mission was taking place or what it entailed. Small text at the bottom of the picture said the contest was open to everyone and that no specific education or experience in space flight were necessary.

  I looked at the ad and then back at my bed. Every time I turned around and saw my best friend’s tiny unmoving body, his paws no longer reaching out to make sure I was there, I began to cry again.

  The ad was paid for by Anderson Industries, which was owned by Travis Anderson, a billionaire many times over. Travis had made his money first th
rough a tech start-up that he sold for millions, then an internet search engine that he sold for hundreds of millions, then a more effective operating system, which made him billions. Now, that same guy, who was only ten years older than I was but already a billionaire while I still lived at home, was funding a mission into space.

  Clicking on the ad brought up a new webpage with a bunch of information I had to fill out. Who I was. My height and weight. Where I was from. Why I wanted to go to space. It was simple enough.

  I had no idea why some of the questions mattered (“Have you ever lived in the desert?”), had a decent notion why other questions were being asked (“Are you a smoker?”), and some were so obvious that even a dunce would be able to ascertain their importance (“Are you claustrophobic?”). After twenty minutes I had answered everything they were looking for and clicked SEND.

  Only then did I call the vet. I lifted Bob’s limp and lifeless body from my pillow and for one last time I hugged him against me so his front two legs were draped over my shoulder and the fur of his cheek rested against me. I carried him downstairs like that, then placed him on top of an old blanket.

  My parents were at the dining room table sipping their coffee. Both of them saw the tears in my eyes and Bob’s hind legs dangling, and both of them knew what had happened.

  “I’m so sorry,” my mother said, getting up and coming toward me.

  I didn’t want to be hugged, though, didn’t want her to take Bob out of my arms. Instead, I turned and gently put him down on the blanket so he was resting on his side. His eyes were still open, which made me remember the way he looked at me in the mornings when he wanted food. And that only made me cry even more.

  My father gave me a sympathetic look but said nothing. Nor did he get up from the table. My mother, tears in her eyes, bit her lip and watched as I pulled the edge of the blanket over Bob’s body. I knew he was dead but I couldn’t bring myself to cover his face. Even in death, his expression of innocence was greater than any human I had ever known.

  The vet arrived half an hour later and carefully picked up the blanket containing Bob’s body.

  “Cremation really is the best option,” he said.

  I didn’t know about that. All I knew was that there was no way I’d be able to bury him in my back yard. I could dig the hole. I could even place Bob inside it. But there was no way I’d be able to push the dirt over him and fill the hole again. I’d have rather torn all my fingernails off. I’d have rather smashed a hammer over my head.

  I’d have rather run away from everything I knew and gone into outer space. Which is exactly what I intended to do.

  I didn’t tell my parents about the contest or the fact that I had entered it. That wasn’t the type of conversation I needed to have, especially when my chances of winning were probably slim.

  As the weeks passed and I didn’t hear back, I became convinced that someone else must have been selected. That shouldn’t have been surprising—it had probably been a very popular contest. To compensate with the idea that I’d be stuck in the same place where I’d created a life with Bob, where we had shared twelve years of our lives together, I tried to convince myself that entering the contest had been a rash decision. Better to stick around here, I told myself, and make sure my parents were okay as the human population declined and the infrastructure became unreliable.

  The trouble was, every part of my life on Earth, everything that made me smile, was tied to Bob. That was why every place made me want to cry, made me miss those constant purrs and content face. Going to the other side of the world wouldn’t help. There would be cats there and they would remind me of him. The one place I could go where I wouldn’t have any associated memories with Bob, nothing to remind me of his fur on my face in the morning as he tapped on my mouth in his sweetest I’m-trying-so-hard-not-to-beg-for-food manner, was outer space.

  Four weeks went by and I heard nothing. Then the phone rang, a woman I’d never spoken to before asked if I was still interested in being a part of the Anderson Industries space mission, and after I said yes she told me where to go and what to bring with me.

  I remember telling her that I couldn’t believe I’d been picked. I could hear the smile in her voice when she said, “Just how many people do you think volunteered to leave their friends and families at a time when we all need each other the most?”

  I didn’t have an answer.

  “Mom, dad,” I had said.

  Even though grocery stores were still open in those days, we were eating three different types of cereal from the newly installed food processor. My father was excited to see how the device worked. My mother was skeptical of any machine that created food which wasn’t grown, picked, or baked. Both of them looked up at me and let their spoons rest against their bowels.

  “I’ve decided I’m not going to head south.”

  The exact same morning I’d finally heard back from the contest, my parents had, of course, finally decided to go ahead and join one of the next caravans that passed through the city. Two-thirds of the houses in the neighborhood were empty and fewer people were stopping there on their way to Los Angeles or San Diego. As much as my parents had loved that house, they knew it was better to be around other people if one or both of them fell ill.

  My mother frowned and shook her head. “You can’t stay here, it won’t be safe.”

  “I’m not going to stay here,” I had said.

  Having never heard about the contest before, it was understandable that my parents wouldn’t be enthused about the prospect of their only child rocketing up into space “on some foolhardy mission” as they called it, especially not when there were so many more important things to do.

  “Like what?” I had asked.

  They both opened their mouths as if a thousand different answers were ready to jump out. Then both of them looked at the other, let their lips gradually close, and neither of them said a thing.

  That evening, as I was packing, my mother stood in the doorway of my room. “I know Bob meant a lot to you, but there are tons of other cats that could use your love.”

  There were plenty of other cats. That much was true. However, Bob wasn’t replaceable. Suggesting he might be was an insult. Not only that, it was the only proof I needed to know that no one, not even my own parents, understood what Bob had meant to me.

  I left for the Anderson Space Center the next day.

  The same way Earth’s population is fading away, so too is my view of the planet.

  From Mars, Earth appeared to be smaller than a golf ball in the distance. I could still make out its blues and whites without the telescope, but only barely. Months later, still flying in the direction of the solar system’s edge, Mars also rapidly shrank in significance. As I travelled away from it, Mars lost its reddish color and became a dull yellow. If I didn’t know what I was looking at I could have confused it as being Earth’s moon during a particularly clear night sky.

  Mars was one of the anomalies during the mission. Most of space travel doesn’t involve breath-taking views of celestial bodies. Seeing Earth from outer space made it difficult to breathe. On the approach to Mars, I stared for maybe an hour before blinking. But in between are months of nothing but sparkling dots in the distance. Most times, the only thing outside my windows were millions of stars, all roughly the same color and size. I know that in actuality some are blue, others are red, many are white and that they vary in size from dwarfs to orbs that are thousands of times larger than our own sun, but in space they all look the same.

  When this happens, it’s easy to lose perspective. The Legacy, even though it’s hurtling through space at an average speed of 17,500 miles per hour, doesn’t actually feel as if it’s moving. If I am adrift in an infinite sea, the planet I lived on until I was twenty-two has become my Northern Star. When I spot Earth in the distance I know which direction I’m going and which direction I’m coming from. For hundreds of days it will be this way, until I reach the next stop on my trip.

 
; This is the part of space travel they never portray in movies or TV shows. Imagine how boring a movie would be if instead of getting from one planet to another in a matter of seconds, the audience had to watch the monotony of heroes travelling through space for months on end, with nothing but blinking stars in the distance and the crew growing incredibly bored, before they got to their next adventure. No one would watch that. But it has become my life.

  4

  Agoraphobia is not necessarily a fear of being in public; it’s a fear of being in open places, regardless of whether they’re public or not. Outside the Legacy, there is nothing but billions and billions of miles of open space in front of me. If I were inclined to be agoraphobic I would have gone insane by now.

  Until you’re out in space you can’t comprehend exactly how large the galaxy and the universe are. And when you’re amongst the stars by yourself, you don’t truly appreciate exactly how alone you are until you realize that the next closest person isn’t miles away or even hours but tens of millions of miles.

  An ocean seems vast when you stand on the shore and look out and see nothing across the horizon but water. And yet you know, even though you can’t see it, that something is out there. The same cannot be said in outer space. I look out the window and the majority of the time the closest thing I can see are stars that I couldn’t reach in a hundred lifetimes, not even if I were travelling 50,000 miles per hour. I could travel for the rest of my life and never see another human face.

  Now that is the type of thought that could make someone become agoraphobic for the first time.