The Life Below

by Alexandra Monir

  “I would have recognized that their bodies could not withstand it had I been given the opportunity to review their DNA sequencing,” Greta says crisply. “But by the time Takumi and Sokolov chose them for the initial group of finalists, I was already off the mission. And the doses you all received at ISTC were significantly higher than I prescribed.”

  DNA sequencing. My mind slips back to the other night, and I wonder if that’s what she was doing—checking my DNA to make sure I could handle the RRB. But why the coded messaging?

  “To answer your second question,” Greta continues, “this alien bacteria is the only shield we’ve got—and not just from radiation.” She meets my eyes with a firm gaze. “Now hold still.”

  This time I don’t move away. But as the RRB seeps through my veins, so does a growing sense of unease.

  Cold fingers are running down my neck. Someone is breathing behind me, the same person whose clothes I’ve been wearing. He doesn’t like it, doesn’t like that I’m here. And then I see another face behind him, one that’s been missing for too long. It’s my sister, Angelica, crying out to warn me.

  I wake up with a gasp and find my shirt soaked in sweat, despite the cold chills running through my body, making me shiver uncontrollably. For a second I have the crushing thought that I’m getting sick and Greta will be forced to cut me from the mission, since only astronauts in perfect health get launched into space. But then I feel the tenderness on my arm, and remember the shot. It’s only side effects. The first injection is always the worst.

  The dream is harder to shake off—it had an urgency to it that felt so real. After ten minutes of tossing and turning, I give up on sleep and climb out of bed. A small voice in my head, one that sounds an awful lot like Naomi’s, urges me to sneak back up to Greta’s private floor and see if I can get my questions answered, but I settle for killing time in the guest floor lounge instead. With the way my body feels, I don’t think I have it in me to do much investigating right now.

  But when I get to the lounge and see the row of framed photographs sitting on the piano, my pulse quickens. Maybe somewhere among them, I’ll find a clue?

  Before I know it, I’m riffling through the picture frames, hunting for the face from the bedroom upstairs. To my disappointment, it’s one photo after another of Greta with different Nobel Prize winners and world leaders. There’s not a single sign of a personal life here.

  “Leo? What are you doing?”

  My head snaps up at the sound of Lark’s voice. I turn around and find her standing in the doorway in a robe and slippers, her eyebrows knitting together as she watches me.

  “Um, I—couldn’t sleep,” I answer, wincing at the thought of her reporting this scene to Greta in the morning. “Sorry, did I wake you?”

  “Well, you were banging around in here,” she says wryly. Her eyes flit to the frames. “Looking for something?”

  I hesitate. Just as I’m about to fib my way through this, it occurs to me that Lark might be the closest I can get to the truth.

  “Did you know Greta has a son? What happened to him?”

  Her mouth falls open.

  “I—that’s not what I was expecting you to say.”

  “Tell me.”

  Lark’s eyes dart back and forth, as if Greta could be within earshot.

  “It’s sensitive—I shouldn’t be talking about it. She’s never even spoken to me about him. I only know because of—of what happened the same week as the Athena disaster.” She fidgets with the ring around her finger anxiously, and it’s only then that I realize it’s a diamond. An engagement ring from the fiancé she lost on the mission.

  “He died—didn’t he?”

  Lark nods and my stomach coils. For some reason, I can’t help viewing my fate as linked to his.

  “His bedroom upstairs . . . everything is untouched from five years ago, like she thinks he’s coming back,” I blurt out. “Believe me, I know what grief is like. I also know it can make you—not right sometimes, mentally. I’ve been there myself.” I take a deep breath. “I want to go to Europa, there’s no question about that. But I need to know how much of what she’s telling me is real—or in her head.”

  Lark smiles sadly.

  “It’s both, Leo. Every proven scientific fact was once a wild idea or hypothesis in someone’s head. The only thing that makes it ‘real’ is proof, and in our case, that proof can only come from you.”

  She’s right, I know. I’m not expecting her to say anything more, but she glances at me with compassion, and then starts to speak in a low voice.

  “His name was Johannes. Greta kept him shielded from the public eye because she always feared him becoming a target, but those in her inner circle knew he was the center of her world. Everyone thinks of Dr. Wagner as being totally work obsessed, and she is, but she also always wanted a child. And as time went on, it started to look less likely. She’d had a few relationships, all with women, but nothing lasting. It’s hard to be in a relationship with a genius who’s always preoccupied. I know that myself.” Lark glances down at her ring. “Anyway. She eventually found a donor and had her baby, and for eighteen years, things were good.”

  “So then what happened?”

  “Johannes always wanted to be involved in Greta’s work, and she mentored him from an early age to follow in her footsteps. When Wagner Enterprises completed production on a new fusion-powered spacecraft, he lobbied hard to take the first flight. All the preliminary checks looked good, and Johannes had flown to the ISS before, so Greta agreed to let him take the new ship on a test flight there. What happened next was—” Lark’s voice catches. “It was a freak accident. The air braking system used for atmospheric reentry deployed prematurely, and the ship . . . it disintegrated in flight.”

  I cover my mouth in horror. The room starts to sway around me.

  “Greta was destroyed over it. And then, it was only a few days later that the Athena went dark.” Lark turns away from me now, and it’s a few moments before she can speak again.

  “We were all shattered by it, but the NASA leaders at the time pushed the blame for Athena onto Greta. It’s the reason they cut ties and canceled all their contracts with Wagner Enterprises. Leadership said she was too grief-stricken over Johannes to do her job monitoring the mission, and must have missed something. Even I, who needed someone to blame, knew that was completely unfair. I mean, there was a whole SatCon team monitoring the Athena, too. It wasn’t just her.”

  My head is spinning. Greta’s son didn’t just die—he died on her mission, her spacecraft. And I’m about to walk into his footsteps.

  “I always felt for her, after that,” Lark continues. “Greta lost everything that mattered to her in the span of a week. The way she coped was by drowning herself in her own work. That’s around the time she started the Space Conspirator, and became more and more consumed by what Dr. Takumi called ‘fringe theories.’ When the Europa Mission was greenlit, she tried reconnecting with the ISTC to warn them about the likelihood of extraterrestrial life. But Dr. Takumi and the general just wrote it off as the ravings of a scientist whose tragedy had turned her ‘mad.’”

  “You believe her, though.” I look closely at Lark. “You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

  “I do,” she says simply. “The science is all sound. And I think someone who went through what she did is more likely to tell the truth than anyone on the other side. She has nothing left to lose.”

  “Do you think . . .” My voice falters. I don’t know how to phrase what I want to say without coming across like too much of a coward. “Do you think it’s safe, what she’s planning for me? Or could I be another . . . tragic story like him?”

  Lark puts her hand on my arm.

  “If I thought that, I wouldn’t be here trying to help you go. If anything, the Wagner ships are that much more carefully constructed and perfected after Johannes’s accident.” She pauses. “But I also know the old NASA motto is true: ‘Risk is the price of progress.’ There are n
o guarantees.”

  “I know.”

  It’s the chance that I said I was willing to take. So now it’s time to stand by my words—and just hope I can end up with the reward instead of the risk.

  Eight

  NAOMI

  TODAY, OUR SEVENTH DAY IN SPACE, IS THE FIRST MORNING I wake up knowing where I am. Instead of instinctively calling out for my mom and dad, or expecting to open my eyes and see my space camp dorm room, this time there’s no shot of surprise when the lights flick on. I know that the slightly annoying pop song I hear isn’t coming from my phone, or Sam’s room, but from Mission Control. I know that when I roll over in bed and pull up the window shade to look outside, it’ll be more about what isn’t there than what is. No ground beneath us, no clouds above us. Just the never-ending stretch of black. So I guess I can say I’m making progress in the “seven stages of Earth-grieving” that our NASA psychologist lectured us about before we left. I’ve officially crossed out of Denial.

  It probably helps that, one week in, our days on the Pontus have fallen into something of a pattern. Mornings start with breakfast as a team, while Dr. Takumi or General Sokolov joins in over the squawk box telecom to run through the day’s agenda. Usually we’ll have one big VR training simulation as a group—a multisensory rehearsal of our upcoming Mars maneuver, or troubleshooting a hypothetical emergency—followed by a block of solo training and tasks around the ship tailored to each of our specific roles. My role as communications and technology specialist means I spend a few hours each day alone under a pair of heavy-duty headphones in the Communications Bay, interfacing with NASA and the Europa Mission leaders, downloading uplinks from Earth, and deciphering any coded messages that come in from the International Space Station or other satellites in orbit. When I pretend that it’s not forever—that I’m just living out my grandest science-nerd fantasy, and can go home whenever I want—then the truth is that I love what I do here. But even then, beneath the thrill of cracking codes and standing at the helm of all this next-level tech, is a quiet that gets under your skin. Space camp was a bustling hub of people and activity, a place where you never felt alone, no matter how hard the homesickness hit. Here, we might as well be wearing our isolation like a uniform. All it takes is a glance out the window to know we’re fatally far from everything we know and love.

  Dinner is when the six of us regroup, and as I zip up the elevator pod after three hours of tracking satellite signals, I’m craving human conversation almost as much as food. But I’m the last arrival in the dining room, where I find my crewmates split up into two tables: Sydney, Dev, and Jian in one camp, and Beckett and Minka in the other. I’m obviously not about to sit with Beckett, but as Sydney and I make uneasy eye contact across the room, I can tell she doesn’t want me at her table, either.

  It feels like junior high all over again, only this time there’s no escape. I grab my tray and slide into an empty table alone, pulling a notebook and pen out of my backpack. At least I can pretend I chose to sit by myself, that I have things to do. I start jotting down a message to type up for Sam before bed, but I’m soon distracted by the sound of Dev’s and Sydney’s chuckling.

  “You weirdo,” I hear her call him fondly, like it’s the biggest compliment.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, imagining for a moment that things played out the way they were supposed to—that instead of sitting alone, I’m next to Leo, and it’s his laugh I hear. And then it hits me that I can’t even really remember his laugh, even though it’s only been, what, ten days since we were separated? Maybe if I’d had a voice or video message from him by now, it would be less hazy . . . but he’s been more silent than I want to admit.

  “Hey. You okay?”

  I glance up at the sound of Jian, who’s stopped by my table on the way to dump his empty tray.

  “Yeah.” I manage a smile. “Just . . . tired, I guess.”

  “Well, if you’re up for it, you should join us for a movie tonight,” he says. “We’re screening an old classic I think you’d like. Hidden Figures.”

  “That’s my favorite, actually.”

  I was hooked on that movie even before I saw the first frame, just from Dad’s description back when I was ten. “It’s about women whose brainpower changed the future of science and space travel. That’s the kind of woman I know you can grow up to be, azizam.”

  “Good. So you’ll be there?” Jian grins.

  I push away the pang of loneliness for my dad, for home.

  “Yeah. See you in a bit.”

  “Naomi. You’ve got to see this.”

  My body stiffens at the sound of Beckett’s voice as I step into the living room, a den-like space on the top floor of our Astronauts’ Residence, with a couple of bolted-down couches and armchairs facing a cinema screen. I almost bailed on joining them up here—there’s something a little less lonely about being by myself with a good book than surrounded by five people I don’t belong with. But then I thought of Jian’s kind expression, and I forced myself into the elevator pod. Now, though, with Beckett’s voice like a threat, I wish I’d followed my first instinct.

  “I thought you guys were watching Hidden Figures.” I squint at the screen, where a grave-faced anchorwoman addresses the camera. “Why is the news on?”

  “Trust me,” says the last person I would ever trust. “You don’t want to miss this.”

  And then I see him. Leo. His deep blue eyes and dimpled smile fill the screen, reaching straight into my heart. For one horrendous moment, I think the worst has happened to him, and I imagine myself running out to the airlock, throwing off my helmet, giving myself to space.

  But then Lark’s face and Asher’s join the frame, and the air whooshes from my lungs. They must be together somewhere.

  “Rumors are swirling about the missing Europa finalists, where they’ve gone, and why they’ve taken an ISTC employee with them,” the anchorwoman says, her voice dripping with drama. “Stay tuned at the top of the hour for an exclusive statement from Dr. Ren Takumi—”

  I turn away from the TV, not wanting to hear a thing he has to say. The others are watching me, gauging my reaction, and I force a tight smile on my face.

  “There’s a good explanation for this. I know it.”

  “Naomi—” I hear Jian start to say, but I don’t wait for him to finish. I’m already running, out of the room and into the elevator pod, my stomach dropping as it swoops me down to the Communications Bay. If ever I needed a message from Leo, it’s now.

  My legs practically fly to the nearest touch-screen desk, where I swipe my thumbprint and log in to my email in the span of a breath. All week, I’ve been telling myself that his silence must be just because of the tenuous Wi-Fi situation back in Rome—but what if it means something else?

  The sight of the boldfaced new message at the top of my inbox fills my eyes with relieved tears. He’s okay. He’s safe.

  He didn’t forget me.

  I reread Leo’s words twice, my eyes lingering on the sentence about him having to disappear for a while and his promise that it’s all for a good reason. I don’t know how I can possibly wait to find out what he and Lark and Asher are up to, and I feel a pang of regret that I’m not there—not a part of it.

  I click on the song file he included with his message, and a stirring voice and melody break the silence in the room.

  “Te voglio bene assai,

  ma tanto tanto bene sai.”

  My cheeks fill with heat as I recognize what the first lines of the chorus mean. “I love you very much, you know.” As I take in every note, every chord, I can almost feel Leo sitting beside me, murmuring the same words in my ear.

  I’m dying to understand the rest of the lyrics after my first listen, and I quickly enter the song into the translator app on my desk. My breath catches as the English rendition appears, describing feelings I never dreamed anyone would attribute to . . . me.

  Everything else falls away—the ship, the rest of the six, the loneliness in here, the terr
ors waiting out there. For one magical moment, all I hear and see is him. And even though we’re worlds apart, even though we’ll never stand in the same room again . . . for as long as the song plays, I feel like the luckiest girl in the universe.

  I don’t even remember getting back to my room that night; I was in such a giddy daze. The logical side of my brain tried to poke through my bubble, reminding me that this is a love story without a happy ending. But for once, I let my emotional—possibly delusional—side win. I went to bed still floating, his song still playing in my head. So it was that much more jarring when I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of urgent knocking.

  I pull the covers up to my chest like a shield. What time is it? I riffle through the bedside shelf for my tablet and switch it on, the numbers on-screen blinking through the dark: 03:15:08 UTC. A decidedly creepy time of night for someone to come lurking by my door.

  The knocking starts up again, but this time I hear a pattern—an almost rhythmic series of taps. I close my eyes, focusing in on the length of each tap, matching it to a letter in the Morse alphabet. S. Y. D—

  I grab the flashlight next to my bed and jump up, stumbling toward the door. Sure enough, I find Sydney on the other side, dressed in sweats and clutching a flashlight of her own. As the light reflects against her face, I catch her expression—frozen with panic.

  “What’s wrong?” I motion her inside, but she doesn’t move. “I thought you were done talking to me.”

  “I tested the RRB,” Sydney whispers. “I didn’t want to believe you, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said. So I decided to check it out for myself, only I . . . took it a step further.”

  “What do you mean?” I stare at her.

  “Just come with me. I need you to see something, before all the lights and cameras come back on in the morning.”

  “Okay . . . Give me a second.”

  I rummage through the drawer under my bed for a pair of socks and a hoodie to throw on over my pj’s, and then I follow her through the sliding door of my compartment. A wall of darkness is waiting, and my hands shake as I aim the flashlight higher, its thin glow barely penetrating.