by M. R. Holman
hands shook violently as he reached down for another letter.
‘…won’t you…’
Ringing filled his ears, punctuated only by the metronome of his beating heart and each ragged breath that forced its way down his constricting throat.
‘…please!’
The man was on his knees, though he had no recollection of lowering himself. His hands were flat against the floor on either side of the final note.
‘Until we meet…’
He was gone. He was out of the recreation room. He was walking down the dimly lit hallway. His boots echoed off of the bare metal walls that surrounded him, but it did not register with him. He accidentally kicked the tiny vacuum cleaner, courier of his messages, and deliverer of his only escape from loneliness. He walked up a flight of narrow steps, then he walked up another.
An entranceway lay before him, framed in orange light. It was the entrance to the female sector of the ship. It was completely sealed, aside from a small slot in which the automated vacuum cleaner could zoom in and out between the male and female sectors. He alone could open the door, but had been trained never to do so unless there were life threatening emergencies taking place in that sector. A computer chip embedded beneath the skin in his wrist held the “key” to get in.
He weighed his options as though he was making a move on the chess board. He still had his hand on the piece as stood at the door. There was no going back if he crossed through the doorway. Even now, the cameras aboard the ship were streaming information back to Earth at the speed of light, and if he pressed his wrist to the locking mechanism, a special alert would be sent to ground control. When they paired the video with the alert, ground control would interpret the act as a compromise to their mission. Another cadet would be awoken and briefed, and he would forcefully detain the man for the entirety of the mission. He would likely be arrested when they reached Earth again. In that moment, he decided that that was a small price to pay. He approached the door and placed his wrist against a small, shiny metal box. The lock clicked and the orange light framing the door went out. He walked through the door, his hand was off the board.
The women’s sector was set up just like the men’s. The only difference, aside from being occupied by women instead of men, was an indeterminable scent that subtly floated upon the air and greeted his senses like a warm embrace. It brought to his mind a vague, hazy memory of walking into his warm, ancestral home on a cold autumn evening long ago. It smelled like comfort and safety. It smelled like satisfaction. It was something he never thought he would need when he had it, and something he had not realized he had been missing until this very moment.
The man tried to put his hands in his pockets, but he did not have any pockets. He had not had pockets for the entirety of the mission. He passed the dormitories where the bodies of the rest of the female crew rested in suspended animation. Across the hall from that was the bathroom, and to the right of that was the recreation room.
If she, the White Queen, was still awake, if he was not too late, she would be there. He ran his hand over his shaved head, took a deep breath, and walked into the women’s recreation room. It was identical to the one he had left only moments ago in the men’s sector, down to the arrangement of the pieces on the chess board and the stack of notes beside it. There was, however, no one there – there was no White Queen.
He sighed deeply and closed his eyes. He wondered for a moment if he would pass out. He did not, however, so he walked to the chess board. He looked down at his own handwriting facing up from the notes on the table. He made his final move on the White Queen’s chess board and then toppled his own king.
He picked up the white queen from the board and held it up in front of his face. Its silhouette was gilded with stars in the porthole behind it. He picked up the black knight and held it beside the queen. He was so engrossed with the pieces in his hand, lost in thought of what he had just done, what he had sacrificed, and above all – what he had missed, that he did not notice the young woman that was now standing next to him.
“You shouldn’t have come,” she said, causing him to fumble the pieces in his hands before composing himself and turning to look at her. Her voice was like cool water, startling at first contact but then refreshing and worthy of the yearning that can only be brought on by thirst. She too had a shaved head, but he remembered during their training on earth that she once had long, dark hair. She was gorgeous. She smiled weakly, as though it pained her to do so as she looked from his face down to the chess pieces in his hands.
“I know,” he spoke down toward his hands after what felt like a long time. “But I,” he paused, his eyes burning, and his throat aching as though it was collapsing in on itself. “But this was the only move that made sense to me.”
She was looking directly into his face when he looked back up. Her eyes were green. They were probably the only instances of the color green on the whole ship, the only time he had seen the color since they had left Earth. In that instant, he was transported to tree covered hills and windswept fields, ivy covered columns and coastal seas before she blinked and he was once again in a capsule floating through space, struggling to make sense of the lifetime of beauty and tranquility he had experienced in that one moment.
She did not reply, but she reached out and touched his shoulder. Her hand lingered there for a moment before sliding down his arm and grasping his hand that still held the chess pieces.
“I have to go now,” she said, her voice quavering. “You understand that, right? And you… you have to go too.”
He nodded slowly, looking down at their joined hands. “May I come with you?” The eagerness in his voice made him feel childish.
“You know that’s impossible,” she said sadly, frowning as she squeezed his hand.
His throat felt tight again, and he was sure that he would not be able to form a word, let alone a coherent response, if he even had one to give. He compromised by squeezing back against her hand. She began to walk, maintaining her grip on his hand and leading him out of the recreation room and down the hall to the dormitories. It was lined with closed off pods which contained the female astronauts that were in suspended animation – the computer and chemical regulated serenity and absence of being that she would soon enter, and that he would likely be entered into involuntarily when he returned to the men’s sector. She took her place in the only unoccupied pod.
She sat down on the bed and he lowered himself to his knees so that they were at eye level with each other. She began to fiddle with the tubes and needles and the knobs and buttons all protruding from a display by the bed.
“What do you think will happen to you? Once they find out…” she asked as she laid back onto her pillow.
He thought of the electronic signals that were speeding to earth from the cameras in the ship and wondered if they had reached the ground control yet. “Hard to say,” he replied, although he was quite sure what would happen when he returned to the men’s sector.
She looked at him thoughtfully, a reluctant tear rolling down her cheek. “Just tell them that you had to get a glimpse of the girl who beat you at your own game,” she said with a mixture of playfulness and anxiety.
A chuckle broke through his strained throat. “How about another game soon?” he asked. She nodded and he released her hand, leaving the black knight piece in it as her eyes began to glaze and her eyelids began to sink.
“So long, Black Knight,” she said warily as the pod door lowered. He lingered for a moment, until the pod was completely shut, thinking about what was coming next. He stood up and wal
ked out of the dormitory as another pod door began to open. Hastily, he walked along the hallway until he reached the doorway. He locked it once more by passing his wrist across the locking mechanism and then made his way down the stairs and into the men’s recreation room.
It was, of course, just how he left it. The signals relaying the events that had just taken place had not yet reached Earth, and even once they had, he would have to wait until they made a response before anything else would happen.
He sat down at the table, his hands oddly steady. He placed the white queen piece he had taken from the women’s chess set and placed it before him on the table. He changed the pieces on his chess board to reflect the moves he had made on the White Queen’s board and toppled his own king once again. He interlocked the fingers of each hand and placed his chin upon them, gazing down at the white queen piece.
The man drifted in and out of lucid thought over the next hour or so, his mind passing between instances of staring at the chess piece sitting before him, and fantasies of he and the White Queen untethered from the rigid structure of the mission and unbound from the titanium walls of the spacecraft.
And the green… The green of her
