Pluto's Ghost- Encounter Edition

by B. C. CHASE

  A beep sounds in the shuttle cabin. Commander Sykes points to a row of gauges above the windshields, “Tell me what the level on the cabin pressure gauge is.”

  “Sure. Which one is that?”

  “Seven from the left.”

  “Gotcha.” I count seven over from the left as he indicated and see that the gauge has “CABIN PRESS” printed above it. There is a green line with red ones above and below it. The green line points to 13. “It’s 13,” I say. That wasn’t so difficult.

  “We have leaks up here, too,” Commander Sykes says. “We took hits from the ring particles.”

  Shiro asks, “Should we try to patch now?”

  “What’s DP/DT look like?”

  “It looks—” Shiro’s voice is interrupted by silence.

  “Shiro?”

  “The SPHERES, sir. I just saw two of them pass from the Japanese Module to the European Lab. One moment.” There is a pause, then Shiro says, “One just entered the shuttle airlock. Do you copy?”

  Forty-one

  “You say a SPHERES is coming in the shuttle?” Commander Sykes shouts.

  “Two of them. Must be in middeck now.”

  Commander Sykes launches himself out of the corner and tells me, “Unbuckle your seatbelts.”

  Over the speaker, Shiro says, “I am following into the European Lab.”

  I’m fumbling with my restraints.

  “Copy,” says Commander Sykes. “We’re heading down to middeck.” To me, he says, “Hurry.”

  I’m having trouble with the button. Seeing my struggle, Commander Sykes impatiently sails over and gets it loose for me. By the time I am out of the straps and we’ve turned around, a SPHERES is rising up through the flight deck’s left-side floor entrance. Another joins it from the right side.

  We stare at them as they pause and orient themselves to face us.

  “Watch out,” I warn, looking around for something I could clobber them with.

  Shiro’s says, “Commander?”

  “Yes?”

  “The SPHERES are, uh… Oro?”

  “They’re what?” demands Commander Sykes.

  The SPHERES inside the flight deck ignore us as they diverge and slowly hug the walls of the shuttle. It appears that they are looking for something.

  The move methodically starting at the top and traveling back and forth until they reach the bottom. Commander Sykes and I make way for them as they float over the front of the flight deck. One of them pauses over the right-side windshield. A third SPHERES startles us as it passes from behind us where it had entered the flight deck. It is carrying a nylon bag which the other SPHERES helps it to open. The first SPHERES extracts a piece of gauze while the other takes two tubes. After sticking the gauze to the tiny chip in the windshield, together, they squeeze a small amount of the contents of the tubes out over the gauze.

  Commander Sykes utters in disbelief, “They’re using an epoxy to repair the hole.” Then he says, “Shiro? Are you seeing what we’re seeing? Are they using a depressurization repair kit?”

  “Not yet, but they went into the airlock in the Japanese Module. They’re going outside.”

  “You say they’re going outside?”

  “Yes, they are exiting the station. They took a repair kit and they’re leaving the station. Do you want me to try to stop them?”

  “No, don’t stop them. If they want to fix our leaks I sure as hell won’t stop them.”

  There’s a pause and Shiro says, “You know what this means?”

  “What does this mean, Shiro?”

  “It means this isn’t our station anymore.”

  Tim stares into space as we drift with him into the European Lab. His legs feel limp and lifeless and his pants are soiled. While Shelby and I work to clean him up, he continues staring at nothing as if he is in another place. Once he is clean, Shelby transfers him to the medical table and begins to gently strap him down. He abruptly grips her wrist. Clenching his teeth, he meets her eyes and whispers, “Kill me.”

  Shelby gazes at him with compassion and touches his hand.

  “Just kill me, please.”

  “Tim, you know I won’t do that.”

  He looks at me, “Have you got any bullocks, Jim?”

  I am silent.

  “I’ll be a burden to the mission.”

  Shelby says, “That’s not true, Tim.”

  “Please. I can’t live this way.”

  Suddenly Katia’s voice comes from around the corner in Node 3. “Can I come in? Tim?”

  Tim seals his lips and shakes his head.

  Shelby says, “Come on in, Katia.”

  Katia sails into the lab to Tim’s side, “How are you?”

  He doesn’t acknowledge her, staring straight ahead.

  Her face creasing with worry, Katia looks questioningly at Shelby.

  “He can hear you,” Shelby says. She nudges Tim.

  “Please. I want to be left alone.”

  “I’m going to give you some pain medication and I’ll need to insert a catheter.”

  Tim closes his eyes.

  Shelby prepares a needle and inserts it near his wrist.

  It doesn’t take long for the medication to start working and he falls asleep.

  Shelby says, “He’ll never walk again. Bladder control will be a problem. It’s going to be very difficult—for all of us.”

  Katia starts to cry.

  Commander Sykes’ voice comes over the speaker, “Can you guys come to the American Lab for a quick meeting?”

  “Yes, we’ll be there,” says Shelby. To Katia, she says, “Would you mind staying with him?”

  “Of course not,” replies Katia.

  “If he wakes up keep a close eye on him. He doesn’t see the point of living right now. If we can get him through the initial shock, that will change.”

  “I understand,” says Katia.

  We congregate in the American Lab and watch the external monitors as the SPHERES methodically examine the exterior of the International Space Station and make repairs. A gang of six of them is out there. Beethoven’s music is pumping out of the speakers all over the station. Commander Tomlinson is now conscious, conveniently. I’m suspicious that he was never actually unconscious.

  Indicating to the SPHERES on the screen, I remark, “They’re really working as if they own the place.”

  “Yes,” says Commander Sykes, “they are.”

  “At this point is there any doubt that they do?” says Shiro. “I think it’s rather obvious that we have no control over our own station anymore. They have even been playing their own soundtrack.”

  “You think the music that’s been waking us up every morning wasn’t preset by NASA?” challenges Commander Tomlinson.

  Shiro says, “When you adjusted our schedule to GMT time, the music adjusted, too. If NASA had programmed the computer to wake us up with a preset playlist, there’s no way they could have predicted that change because we launched unexpectedly.”

  “They’ve been shadowing us since the beginning,” says Commander Sykes.

  We are all silent for a moment. Shiro’s right: NASA couldn’t have predicted our unexpected launch from low Earth orbit or Commander Tomlinson’s decision to switch us to GMT at the time he did. If it is true as he claims that he has not been switching on the music, then it would mean they have been serenading us all along.

  “The ECIs love classical music,” I observe. “That’s a heckuva bad sign.”

  I travel back up into Atlantis’s flight deck so I can look out the windows. We are heading for the underside of the rings where they disappear into the mighty shadow of Saturn’s spectral dark side. The rings are like a massive cover of iceberg and ice particle clouds. In the gap between two of the rings directly above where we will transverse, I see an oblongly shaped moon. The ice of the rings is rippled into waves on either side. I gaze breathlessly until we pass into Saturn’s shadow on our way towards the lonely edge of the Solar System.

  For
ty-two

  It’s been three days since we passed Saturn. It’s the size of a golf ball held at arm’s length. When I got my first look at Saturn’s back side, I was amazed to see clear blue skies in the southern hemisphere. Commander Sykes told me that in winter the clouds dissipate, revealing Saturn’s hydrogen-rich atmosphere. He said that when it is winter in the northern hemisphere, the same effect would take place.

  “When will that happen?” I asked.

  “In seven years.”

  “Wow,” I said. “That’s a long winter. Too long for me.”

  “Well the good news is you can have the whole planet to yourself and be a seven-year snowbird if you like.”

  Now as I get another look at the planet out the habitation module windows, Shelby interrupts my reverie. She appears solemn, “You need to come to the European Lab.”

  Tim, I think. Something’s happened to him.

  Shelby is silent as we float through the darkened station. I wish she would just tell me what’s going on.

  Once we reach Node 3, I can see that the sterile lights are on in the European Lab. We drift through the American Lab towards Node 2. When I round the corner of Node 2 to face the hatch of the European Lab, I am startled as a collection of voices yell, “SURPRISE!”

  Shelby plants a kiss on my cheek, “Happy birthday, Jim!”

  Katia hugs me, Commander Sykes nods, Tim waves from his post on the medical cot, Shiro says, “Happy Birthday,” and Commander Tomlinson and Nari wish me well.

  “We don’t have candles,” says Shelby, “but we do have cake!” She hands me a pouch with a fluffy brownie-like substance inside. “Now tell us what you wish for!”

  As I look around the room at all of them, there are a lot of things I start to wish for. Tim’s legs to work, for one…that the mission would be over and we were heading back home, for another. That I could see Betsy again… But there’s only one wish I feel like sharing: “I wish y’all knew how much I hate parties!”

  Saturn has been in our rearview mirror for over two weeks, now. It’s nothing more than a little dot—a little dot that almost killed us.

  When the SPHERES finished patching up the tiny holes in our ship, they went back to their charging stations and went to sleep. We decided that they deserved a break after saving our lives so we allowed that. But we did discuss what we should do with them while they were sleeping. We are entirely at the mercy of whoever is controlling our ship and our SPHERES. We’d like to be in control of our own equipment again, but the inescapable truth that our equipment is now in the capable hands of intelligences a whole dang lot smarter than we are is giving us pause. After all, if it wasn’t for the ECIs, we’d all be dead and the International Space Station would be nothing more than dust in Saturn’s atmosphere. Freedom is usually lost a little at a time to promises of safety, cash, or ease. That’s no less true here except that we have the added motivation to complete our mission for the sake of the Earthlings who sent us. Having the ECIs’ help in doing that isn’t against the rules. Still, though, having their helping hands (tentacles?) hasn’t made me any more inclined to believe that the ECIs are benevolent. For all I know they are ensuring our preservation because they have some devious plans for us.

  One area where Commander Sykes decided he was not ceding control is his own body. Shelby has been struggling to find a way to eradicate the nanobots. So far, he’s out of luck.

  Shelby performed an x-ray on Tim. He has a fracture in his thoracic spinal cord. She is not able to perform any kind of surgery that would help, so he will never have the use of his legs again. In space this probably won’t be as much of an impediment as it will be if he ever gets back to Earth. But we don’t have enough diapers for him and that means a lot of washing. I don’t think we should blame NASA for not preparing for this possibility. None of us saw this coming, least of all Tim. He isn’t asking for anyone to take his life anymore, but Shelby has been making sure that somebody is on “suicide watch” 24/7. Mostly, that somebody is Katia, so they are having a lot of time to get to know one another. When it’s my turn to watch him (which it is right now), I talk a lot about Betsy. He’s probably sick of hearing about her. But the closer I get to Pluto, the more she seems to come to mind. And the more I think about avenging her.

  “Jim,” Tim suddenly says as I take a breath.

  “What?”

  “I know how important Betsy is to you. And I understand how upsetting it must be that she died. And it makes perfect sense that you would blame them for her death.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “If I were you I would be planning something. Revenge of some kind…”

  “Yes,” I acknowledge.

  His face is grim as he says, “Have you thought, though, about the ramifications of such an action?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If the first thing you do when we meet them is, you know, something violent or what have you…it could set the tone for mankind’s relationship for the rest of time.”

  I twiddle my thumbs like a schoolboy. I suppose this possibility was in the back of my mind somewhere, but I have been suppressing it.

  “What I mean is that it’s not just you and the ECIs we’re talking about, here. The whole world is depending on you. It wouldn’t necessarily be good for our people back home if we do something to upset the ECIs right from the start.”

  “I see your point,” I say.

  “I would never do anything to stop you,” he earnestly says. “It was your daughter who was killed, after all. But I thought perhaps you hadn’t considered the stakes. If I were in your shoes I wouldn’t have.”

  “Thank you,” I say, my heart sinking into an abyss. Tim has brought up a good point. But it’s the last thing I wanted to hear. I feel like I have a right to avenge Betsy’s death. Would I be willing to give that up for the sake of, well, everyone on Earth? Floating here next to Tim, I must admit I’m just not sure.

  Forty-three

  It’s April. We passed Saturn forty-four days ago. I’m craving a soda, a gigantic American soda from a supersized American gas station with a straw as long as my arm.

  “I wish we had more than just chips to gamble,” I say. Katia, Tim, Shiro, and I are floating at the table in habitation module playing poker. Tim is learning to drift around pretty effectively using only his arms.

  “You know shuttle Enterprise?” remarks Katia. “They named it after Star Trek.”

  “Is that a fact?” I say. “I assumed it was named after the aircraft carrier.”

  “No, it was the show. There was a petition from fans. The band played the theme music during the rollout.”

  Suddenly Shelby’s voice comes over the speakers, “Katia?”

  “Yes, Shelby.”

  “I’d like you to come take a look at this, please.”

  We accompany Katia to the European Lab where Shelby has been working. Commander Sykes is already there. Shelby says, “It’s much more extensive and elaborate than I thought. It’s remarkable how many there are and all the functions they seem to be capable of performing. They have infiltrated your bodies to such an extent that it’s like…well…you have a factory operating inside each of you.”

  Katia and Commander Sykes exchange a repulsed glance.

  Shelby continues, “From what I can tell, there are five different groups of nanobots. Among the different types, there are possibly hundreds of varieties which are each equipped for a specific task. The groups are pharmacological, surgical, neurological, and two others which I’m just not sure about yet. The pharmacological ones are capable of delivering drugs. The surgical ones are able to perform surgeries at the cellular level, or at least that’s what I think. The neurological ones appear to be capable of causing neurons to fire.”

  Katia asks, “And these are all in my blood?”

  “Yes, they travel via your blood, but they appear to enter and exit the vessels.”

  Commander Sykes asks, “Any guess as to what the other two are for?
”

  “I’m just not sure. I feel like in some way I’m Hippocrates trying to decipher 21st century medicine. But I have a hunch one of them is for protein synthesis.” She points to a monitor and says, “But look at this.”

  On the monitor is an image of a collection of black shapes touching one another to form one big circle.

  “It looks like they can work together. They are capable of communicating and cooperating. I watched this chain for hours. I wasn’t able to figure out what it was doing, if anything.”

  She turns away from the monitor and looked directly at Commander Sykes and Katia, “Every time I took a sample from you, the results were different. It appears that they are increasing, somehow. And there are more types.”

  Commander Sykes says, “Any idea of how we might get rid of them?”

  “I’ve had several, but only one of them is really viable. Let me explain them and if you guys have any input, I’m all ears. We could try to filter your blood, somehow. But since these nanobots are not restricted to the blood vessels, we could never capture all of them that way. I’ve been thinking about using electromagnetic pulses, but in talking with Tim, we’re worried about destroying the space station’s equipment in the process—not to mention the fact we’d have to make a device capable of generating the pulse. So that leaves us with the last option.”

  “What is that?”

  Shelby says, “I could try—”

  Shiro slams his palm over her mouth, “Stop! Don’t say anything!”

  Shelby grabs Shiro’s hand and pulls it away, “What are you doing?”

  His voice hushed, Shiro says, “They are listening. They know everything that happens on this station. It’s very likely they know what we’re saying. If you have a way to stop the nanobots, you should keep it to yourself. You have to bear in mind who is controlling the nanobots—and who created them.”

  We are all silent. Shiro is absolutely right. It is obvious. And yet none of us had considered it before now. If we intend to contradict what our ECI hosts are doing in anyway, we shouldn’t be blabbing about it openly. The thought that we are being monitored so carefully and consistently makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.