Alien Rain

by Ruth Morgan

  To see rain, real, natural rain descending from the skies, was achievable and would be wondrous, nothing any of us students had seen before.

  At last we reached the spacecraft, standing alone in the middle of the desert. A little further off was the Dome which housed the huge factory converting the liquid hydrogen fuel for each journey from underground water ice. After a further round of safety checks, we climbed a staircase and entered a low chamber, larger but in other ways similar to the launch simulator we’d been practising in at the SSO. Two circles of chairs pointed outwards like a starburst. We were packed together snugly with lots of cushioning. After some final encouragement, the base team left and I felt the heavy door close and lock behind them. For six hours we’d have to stay in these chairs. Our suits would deal with bodily functions. After that, we’d be free to move.

  My heart was hammering as the ship’s engines powered up. For the first time, I had to concentrate to bring my breathing under control, which was made more difficult when you were lying down. A deceptively fragile-looking cage structure closed over us. There was a deafening roar and the whole chamber started to shake. The seconds felt like hours. I shut my eyes and breathed and counted and waited for the G-force to kick in.

  All sound fell away. My whole body was crushed back into my seat as the ship shot forwards. I could not move a muscle. It felt like I was about to explode. Tears streamed down my cheeks into my ears. I tried taking my mind to a calm place, like I’d been taught.

  My place was the Museum. I tried to imagine myself wandering about in its marble rooms, bare feet padding across the cool floor. I tried to visualise myself among the rocks and fossils … the metamorphosed basalt … the crinoidal limestone … and tried desperately to feel at peace.

  It had to stop soon. If it didn’t, I was going to die.

  I was going to die.

  The horrendous pressure eventually began to subside. It lessened, bit by bit, over the next twenty minutes and when the launch was finally over, everyone clapped and cheered in their muted, muffled way. The cage released with a hiss and rose up to lock on to the ceiling of the chamber. Our seats began to tilt up. Halley gave me a double thumbs up, as far as his gloves would allow. I was so glad it was over. Glad I hadn’t died.

  Aside from the launch chamber where we slept, the four other chambers were for scientific work, exercise and recreation and were loosely timetabled, though nobody seemed to mind if anyone spent longer than they were allowed in one. Students were granted more time in the recreation rooms than other astronauts, but we were expected to continue our studies each day, concentrating mainly on the natural history of Earth and known history of human beings. We were supposed to make weekly group transmissions to school and I knew how exciting it was at school when we received broadcasts from mission students. We’d also receive feedback from our Professors.

  I already knew a little of the history of previous SSO missions to Earth, but Nisien helped me fill in the gaps one afternoon when the four of us were talking in the smaller recreation chamber.

  ‘Do we actually appreciate how lucky we are to be on board the Byd 33, as opposed to the Byd 9?’ Nisien asked.

  ‘No, but I guess we’re about to.’ Halley winked at me.

  ‘Well, to start with, the earliest expeditions took twice as long to reach Earth.’

  Robeen gave Nisien a sidelong look, as though she was waiting for her chance to jump in. She never let Nisien get away with knowing everything if she could help it.

  ‘Wow, I didn’t know that,’ I said, cursing myself when I saw the smug look creep across Robeen’s face.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Halley. ‘Imagine keeping each other company for that length of time.’

  ‘Indeed.’ As usual, Nisien hadn’t picked up on Halley’s not-so-subtle irony. ‘But much worse than that, on the Byd 9 the artificial gravity failed, so the astronauts spent most of their time weightless. No gravity, no weight. There they were, floating around and when they got to Earth…’

  ‘When they got to Earth,’ Robeen jumped in, ‘where the gravity is three times that on Mars, half of them died. It’s quite a famous disaster story. Simply put, their bones collapsed under the strain. They’d been losing bone mass for the whole trip anyway and with the effect of the extra gravity…’ Robeen did a sort of crumpling mime with her fingers.

  ‘Your face…’ Halley sniggered at me.

  ‘No, come on, it’s not funny,’ I said. ‘It’s horrible.’

  He carried on laughing and I gave him a shove.

  ‘Ah, but actually the really clever thing,’ Nisien held his finger aloft, ‘and this is why you mustn’t worry, Bree, is that the artificial gravity on board the Byd 33 increases subtly over the period we’re travelling, which means that when we get there…’

  ‘…because we’ve continued to exercise…’ Robeen added.

  ‘We won’t notice the gravity difference between Mars and Earth.’ Nisien and Robeen uttered this last sentence together, rushing to get to the end first. They glared at each other and Halley had to bite his lip to stop himself laughing.

  ‘I wasn’t worried,’ I said. ‘I knew all that stuff, well, most of it. If there was a risk of us getting crushed, we’d have been warned. I just feel sad for the ones who made those early trips and didn’t survive. They gave their lives, didn’t they, so we could be doing this right now?’

  This was fairly typical: discussions between the four of us normally became a boringly predictable competition between Robeen and Nisien and although I occasionally learned something new, I found it tiring. I sometimes stepped in to try and keep the peace, but Halley did his utmost to whip up the competition between them, then he’d sit back and enjoy the results. Of course, there were no full-blown arguments. This would have broken one of the fundamental rules aboard the Byd: arguments between crew members were not tolerated because they endangered the mission. We had to be professional at all times. The tension between Nisien and Robeen simmered, but at least we always worked out who was going to say what in our weekly broadcasts to school, when it was vital to put on a good show and appear a harmonious team.

  Clever as Robeen was, no one could match Nisien on knowledge not just of the present Byd ship, but of every single Byd ship ever. He probably knew more than any of the engineers who worked on the present craft. It wasn’t just the big differences like the number of chambers on board or the types of thrusters in the engines. He knew all the little details: the number, shape and exact position of the windows, the fact that the doors on board two of the Byds, numbers 14 and 27, opened to the left rather than the right, the subtle changes in the logo, currently a silhouette of the SSO dragon, only with a larger glittery eye. The length and breadth of Nisien’s knowledge was staggering. Much of the detail seemed of no use, but it was all equally fascinating to him.

  So our journey continued…

  The tension between Nisien and Robeen only got worse. Silly, knockabout ball games in the larger recreation space became as hotly contested as the inter-Dome Olympics, particularly when only the four of us were taking part. In sports, Halley had to slow down to give the rest of us a chance, but even if he was winning comfortably, Nisien and Robeen would fight for second place as though their lives depended upon it.

  Boredom could be a problem, but as with everything else, we had been trained to spot the signs and deal with it. Nisien was never bored because he could always retreat into his spaceship studies and Robeen played a lot of Kyrachess on her tile. Halley struggled most, but he and I soon established ourselves as the ship comedians and spent much of our free time chatting about nothing or teasing the friendlier astronauts when Captain Calamus wasn’t around, making up jokes and just being stupid. You could kill quite a bit of time being plain stupid and somehow it never felt like a waste. When we’d had enough of this, we’d retreat to the second, smaller recreation chamber with its floor-to-ceiling viewing deck, and gaze out, our faces pressed right up against the glass, imagining that we weren’t on
board the Byd at all but drifting together through the immensity of space. Sometimes, if no one was about, we held hands.

  We were standing like this one afternoon, just looking out and saying whatever popped into our heads. On Mars, you never get a great view of the night sky. You can see Phobos, the larger of the Martian moons, quite clearly and sometimes the smaller Deimos, but only light from the brightest stars can pierce the dusty upperDome.

  ‘The thing about space is … everything’s so far away from everything else.’

  I didn’t mind what I said to Halley any more. Nisien would have patronised me and Robeen would have looked smug, but I felt comfortable enough with Halley to risk saying something stupid. Pretty much everything you said sounded stupid when you felt so small.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ he replied.

  ‘When I first imagined travelling through space, I kind of pictured us whooshing right past stars, out into the middle of them, but they’re just as far away as they were before.’

  ‘There are so, so many,’ marvelled Halley. ‘And to think, this is only a bit of one arm of our galaxy.’

  ‘You can’t even call it sky any more, can you?’ I said. ‘I mean it’s sky when it’s above you. When you’re looking up at it.’ We laughed.

  The velvet blackness was infused with stars and the Milky Way rippled through the centre. Everything was so far off. We felt very, very alone.

  ‘I can’t wait to see the Earth moon,’ I said. ‘It’s supposed to be huge.’

  ‘Have you been having any more of those nightmares?’ Halley turned to me. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask.’

  ‘No, thank goodness. It’s weird – they stopped as soon as I came on board. I asked Grace if they were anything to do with this.’ I touched the celephet at the back of my head. ‘But she kept saying no.’

  ‘They said it wouldn’t hurt to take it off but … I don’t know.’ Halley touched his gingerly and made a face. His didn’t seem exactly like mine. When I looked at him in profile, it didn’t seem as flush with his skin.

  ‘Can I touch it?’ I asked.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just curious.’

  Halley nodded. When I probed it gently with one finger, the edge felt loose.

  ‘Turn right around,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’ But Halley shrugged and did as I asked.

  No, it definitely was not my imagination. Halley’s celephet wasn’t embedded in his skin the way mine was. I tried giving it a little wiggle.

  ‘Hey, stop it!’

  ‘When did Doc Carter last check yours?’

  ‘Why? Is there something the matter?’

  ‘I just wondered. He checks mine daily.’

  ‘Aren’t you the lucky one!’ Halley grinned. ‘Can’t remember. A couple of days ago?’

  ‘Why would he check mine so often and not yours?’

  ‘He likes you more?’ He dug me in the ribs with his elbow.

  I was being serious. This was the same suspicion I’d had the day of the launch and several times since, in fact every time Doc Carter came towards me with that dangerously handsome smile. He only seemed bothered about my celephet, which unlike Halley’s was now more firmly rooted into my skin than it had been when we left Mars. He didn’t check the others as frequently or as conscientiously.

  Halley was staring out at space again. ‘Check with the Doc if you’re worried,’ he said.

  ‘I will. But first I’m going to take a look at Nisien and Robeen’s, only don’t tell them why. You know what they’re like, Nisien will kick up a fuss because I’m getting checked more often than he is.’

  ‘And then Robeen will make a fuss to top Nisien’s fuss.’ Halley laughed.

  It struck me that Halley didn’t seem particularly bothered that my celephet looked different from his.

  So I did a little investigating. I nosed about behind Nisien as he sat drawing plans of the ship and I peered beneath Robeen’s hair as she took the Krynian rook with her Kyrion bishop. Their celephets seemed loose, just like Halley’s. Whenever he moved, Nisien’s wiggled. I decided to see Doc Carter.

  I found him working in the lab.

  ‘Bree? Are you all right?’ He rose to his feet.

  ‘I think so,’ I replied. ‘I’m a bit worried about my celephet.’

  ‘May I?’ He walked around me and I lifted my hair to let him take a look. I felt his fingertip slide over its surface and around the edge.‘It looks fine. What’s wrong? Nightmares again?’

  Why would he suggest nightmares when I hadn’t mentioned them to him? Grace must have done. Yet she’d dismissed them so completely, why would she have bothered to tell Doc Carter?

  ‘Not nightmares,’ I said. ‘But mine looks different from the others. It’s really sunken into my skin. Halley’s is loose and so is Nisien’s. Robeen’s doesn’t look like mine either, I checked.’

  Doc Carter offered me his seat, so I sat. ‘Uh-huh.’ He folded his arms and smiled his glossiest smile, although he didn’t meet my eye. ‘The fact is, Bree, yours is the only one still working. Yes, that’s right. There was a high chance they wouldn’t “take” and it’s mighty lucky for us that one of the four did. That yours did. I’m very pleased with you, Bree, the celephet seems to have melded perfectly with your body and we’re getting great results. Would you like to see this morning’s?’

  He pointed at the holoscreen behind me, which was covered in squiggles. ‘Here we are: oxygen absorption rate here … oxygen delivery rate to stomach … right ear … left foot… There are sixteen other graphs in this one set alone, all looking pretty similar. Would you like to see them?’

  I tried to decipher the squiggles but soon gave up. ‘So all this is going on right now?’ I reached behind my head and fingered the celephet again. It felt so thin and insubstantial, it was amazing to think that it was somehow connecting with all these different bits of my body and sending the computer all this information. ‘I can’t feel anything.’

  ‘You shouldn’t,’ he said. ‘And it’ll be whipped off when we get home, just like that, as though it had never been there.’ He looked at me, giving me another of his very pronounced smiles which were beginning to set me on edge.

  ‘But what about those nightmares I had? Did Grace mention them to you?’

  ‘Hmmm? Oh yes, she did. Are you getting them now?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. No need to worry then,’ said the Doc. ‘Possibly it was some small side effect but it’s over now. There’s absolutely no need to be worried, I promise.’

  As I was about to leave, I asked, ‘If I hadn’t found it out, would you have told me? That mine was the only one still working?’

  ‘Probably not. There, I’m being honest. Only because we scientists never interfere if we don’t need to.’

  ‘And are you going to tell the others?’

  ‘Tell you what, let’s leave that up to you.’

  I struggled with what Doc Carter had told me, how something so important had been kept from us all. I didn’t much fancy a full-on inquisition from Nisien and Robeen, but I was going to tell Halley. First I needed some time alone and the best place was the launch chamber.

  I paused as I was about to go in. It sounded as though someone was in there already. Crying.

  I found Robeen curled up in a chair. As soon as she saw me, she straightened up and swiped the tears from her face.

  ‘Robeen? What’s wrong?’ I walked across to her.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Something must be.’

  She made a huge effort to stop the tears, but finally overcome, her mouth crumpled and she buried her face in her hands. ‘Go away,’ she moaned.

  I wasn’t sure what to do. Robeen wasn’t my favourite person and I was tempted to leave her to it, but then I remembered why I’d been chosen for the mission: my talent for Empathy. Painfully aware that Robeen looked down on me, this felt like a golden opportunity to demonstrate I had some skills.

  ‘You can tell me what it is.’ I
spoke slowly and soothingly. ‘You should tell someone. Remember what our counsellors at the SSO told us? You need to share it, Robeen, or it could do you some harm.’

  I sat down next to her. Slowly, her shoulders stopped shaking and she turned to me with red eyes.

  ‘It’s my cello practice,’ she whispered, barely opening her mouth.

  ‘Your cello practice? But you’ve been practising on the virtual cello, I’ve heard you.’

  ‘It’s not the same.’ She shook her head, her expression utter despair. ‘I need to practise for at least two hours daily, but the virtual cello is rubbish, it has no tone and I have to keep the volume right down. It’s worse than useless.’

  I was at a real loss to know what to say. Her reaction seemed so extreme. ‘I suppose a virtual cello’s better than nothing. There’s no room for a real one on board, is there?’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I’m supposed to get a double distinction in my next exam and I won’t if I don’t practise properly. I’ll fail, I know I will.’

  ‘But surely you won’t fail if you don’t get a double distinction, you’ll just get a lower mark.’ I knew I was treading on dangerous ground. Her expression was changing from grief to annoyance as if I was controlling it with a dial. ‘And what’s the worst that could happen?’ I blundered on. ‘If you did fail, you could always try it again, couldn’t you?’

  Robeen glanced at the exit and I could see her physically swallow her anger. It wouldn’t do to let anyone know that any kind of argument was taking place.

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘Talk of failure is ridiculous. You’re brilliant at the cello, Robeen. You’re terrific! If you went a whole year without practising, I bet you’d still scrape a pass. And if you don’t get a double distinction this time, everyone will know it’s because you’ve been on this mission. There’s no shame in that.’