I did.
None of us watched the news that day.
None of us watched the news for four years.
I had thought that our time on Mirabilis would feel slow, that it would drag along with our bodies against the pull of the ground. But my memories of that world are a blur – no, blur’s not the right word. I remember it all, distinct and clear. A flipbook, then. A thousand distinct images, rushing past my eyes so fast they take on a life of their own.
Images like: waking in the data lab, sleeve lines pressed deep into my cheek, neck creaking as I raised my head from the table, Chikondi asleep across two chairs beneath a sketch board overflowing with tapestries of thought about legs and lungs and trophic structure. His headphones were hanging around his neck, and I could hear music flowing tinnily. I thought about waking him, but I knew he hadn’t slept the night before that, either. He was a phoenix, burned to ash for the moment, resting in anticipation of the next spark. I turned off his headphones, covered him with my jacket, and tiptoed out.
Like: following Elena in the dawning hours to collect water from the fog fences down at the Al-Ijliya shoreline. An animal had damaged the netting at one site, too vigorous in its sucking of the condensed salt. The unexpected damage frustrated her; I fixed it on the spot. She told me when we got home that she missed when my hair was long enough to pull, then let me sit with that thought as she disappeared behind a microscope for the rest of the day. I fell asleep that night with her curled around my back like a protective shell. I knew she was still pondering the fragile things that live in clouds, and it made me press my spine against her all the harder.
Like: Jack hooking his gloved fingers through my toolbelt loop and tugging me out the airlock, me catching the shovel he tossed through the air, us digging down, down, down to where the living soil turned into slippery clay that wept warm and wet when pressed between our palms. Water began to pool around our feet, and we climbed back into the sun with our samples, racing to see whose strapping arms could ferry them the faster. We tied. We laughed.
Like: Chikondi waking me after midnight with an apology and a grin and the news that he’d finally, finally figured out where Comusporcus dakaii laid its eggs.
Like: Elena standing against a sunset, watching gliding hunters coast on thermals, dropping into dizzying dives after their airborne prey.
Like: Jack whistling as he straddled a boulder to unearth an embedded skull, cleaning out its fossilised eye sockets with a dental pick.
Like: early mornings, late nights, failed naps, wild dreams, quarrels, epiphanies, shouted answers, excited questions, hands that ached from work, eyes that burned from staying open, bruises that made me smile, thoughts that raced and never slowed.
People say things like ‘if we’d found only one new species, it would’ve been enough’. I said something very like it on Aecor. Nothing was ever enough on Mirabilis. Every discovery made, every hour spent in someone else’s sheets, every conversation and collaboration and new vista taken in made me want more, more, more. We were alive on that world. We were kings without enemies, children removed from time.
We should’ve known better, as students of the universe. There’s no escaping entropy.
To understand what happened, you must first understand decontamination protocol for bringing gear used outside back into the Merian.
Step 1: Retrieve all gear from the field. Check meticulously to ensure no items are left behind.
Step 2: Remove any dust, dirt, organic matter, or other visible contaminants using the cleaning kit. (This includes an arsenal of tools for any sort of clean-up, everything from a concentrated air blower to hydrogen peroxide to a handheld UV wand.)
Step 3: Securely latch all boxes, crates, and other storage containers.
Step 4: Proceed into the airlock with your gear. Orient all storage containers so that Side A is facing upward. Activate the airlock’s cold plasma system to sterilise storage container exteriors, as well as the exterior of your TEVA suit.
Step 5: After the first sterilisation cycle is complete, orient all containers so that Side B is facing upward. Activate the cold plasma system. During this cycle, sit on the floor in order to expose the soles of your boots.
Step 6: Open each storage container. Activate the cold plasma system to sterilise your equipment and the container interiors.
Step 7: If any visible contaminants have been discovered during this procedure, clean and sterilise the equipment again. Place any collected contaminants into the incineration chamber.
Step 8: Securely latch all storage containers. Proceed into the spacecraft.
This process is a time-consuming pain, but a vital one. Nothing that originated outside can be allowed within.
All four of us were present in the cargo hold that afternoon, our last day on Mirabilis. I was taking inventory of the storage stacks, ensuring that every crate and strap was where it should be. Jack and Elena were carrying in the last of the equipment from the clean lab (this, too, has its own airlock and plasma chamber). Chikondi was in the ‘front door’ airlock, placing his camera trap crates on a dolly after the final sterilisation cycle. Through the large window, I could see the last of the plasma ebbing around him, a luminous purple fog retreating into wall vents.
I took a box of lab tools from Jack and slid it into its designated place. We’d been at it for hours, and even with their extra strength, my arms and legs were beginning to protest. ‘Hey, anybody want to order pizza after this?’ I said.
Elena gave an amused smile as she stacked. ‘And beer?’
‘Of course beer,’ Jack said. ‘Who has pizza without beer?’
I checked their items off the list on my tablet. ‘Olives and mushrooms?’ I asked.
Elena made a face. ‘I hate mushrooms.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
I’d never noticed that, but then, we’d spent far more time eating spacecraft salad together than we had eating normal fare back on Earth. ‘Jack?’ I asked.
Jack shrugged as he lifted another box. ‘Not much of a fungus man, but I’ll eat them.’
‘Hmm.’ I turned my attention to Chikondi, who was coming out of the airlock with the dolly in tow. ‘Care to weigh in on the mushroom debate of 2162?’
‘They’re okay, but why on pizza?’ he said. ‘Stick to the classics. Cheese, sauce, pepperoni. Why mess with—’
His words ceased as one of his boxes crashed to the floor.
Jack and Elena turned their heads. I frowned; so did Chikondi. The errant object on the floor hadn’t fallen from the top of the pile. It had dislodged itself from a middle row. There was only about a second or two to process this before the box jolted itself several centimetres to the right.
Chikondi jumped back.
‘The fuck,’ Jack said.
The box moved again. It kept moving, shuddering this way and that without clear direction.
Elena covered her mouth with her hand.
Chikondi took a breath, then another, then another. Slowly, he inched forward, reaching a hesitant arm out, keeping his body as far from his hand as physically possible. If the source of the movement had been a malfunctioning machine suddenly activating on its own – maybe one of the rotational drivers on a camera trap – it would continue moving at Chikondi’s touch. It would buzz against his hand, clatter chaotically out as he got the box open, maybe result in a bandage or two, provide us with a funny story we could tell at speaking engagements down the road about the glitching gadget that gave us all heart attacks.
But fingers touched metal, and the box held still.
There was nothing Chikondi wanted to do less than pick up that box. His face made that fact plain as day. But he crouched down. He picked it up. There was a loud rustle from inside as he did. ‘Oh, God,’ he moaned.
Elena made it to the emergency panel before I did. She slammed her hand against the big red button labelled Containment. The doors to the modules and the upper decks quickly closed. The air filters s
ealed themselves off, no longer pulling air from the cargo hold. ‘Airlock,’ she shouted.
Chikondi dashed back to the airlock with the box, as if it were ablaze and a bucket of water was waiting. He hit a button; the door slid shut behind him. The rest of us hurried to the window and watched as Chikondi bent down to the box to unfasten the latch. He swung the lid open and got the hell out of the way.
I pressed as close as I could to the door, trying to get a good look. The glass fogging up wasn’t a concern, because for the moment, I’d stopped breathing.
Something about the size of a sock leapt out of the box, arcing away from Chikondi. It scurried to the far edge of the airlock, darting back and forth, trying to find a way out. Its movements were frantic, but bit by bit, I managed to process its shape. Six stout legs. A dainty brush of a split tail. A flat-faced head atop a serpentine body. Delicate, soft-looking quills festooned its back, and the white fur of its sides was peppered with a stunning spray of multi-coloured dots. Gill-like flaps surrounded its snug mouth, and from these it vocalised, letting out a plaintive trill as it tried to escape.
We catalogued nearly ten thousand macroscopic species during our four years on Mirabilis. We’d never seen anything even remotely like this one.
‘I don’t know,’ Chikondi said, answering the question none of us would say aloud. ‘I – I don’t know how. I checked, I checked the boxes after I got the traps in, I always check—’
‘Did you turn your back on an open box?’ Elena asked.
‘No,’ Chikondi said.
‘You must’ve,’ she said.
‘I – I mean, I – I don’t remember doing so—’
‘How did you not see this during decon?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Did you not run plasma on the interiors?’
‘Of course I did!’
‘He did,’ I said. ‘I saw. Three cycles.’
‘Then how did he miss that?’ Elena demanded.
‘Maybe—’ I scrambled for an answer. ‘Maybe the – Chikondi, can you see inside the box?’
Chikondi moved tentatively toward the box, and thus toward the animal, but he had nothing to fear from it. The animal was far more afraid of him than the other way around. It wailed and scurried to the opposite end of the airlock. Both of them were breathing heavily as Chikondi checked the box. His head sagged. He lifted the box, showing us the spot where the foam liner had begun to pull away from the side, creating a little pocket. It wasn’t much, but something quick and flexible might get curious about such a cosy space.
Chikondi looked haggard. ‘I thought – I must have – I could’ve sworn I—’
Elena rubbed her face and turned away. ‘This is why protocol exists.’
‘Jesus, Elena,’ Jack snapped. ‘Look how fucking fast that thing moves.’ He turned to Chikondi. ‘Could’ve happened to any of us.’
The animal was in a full panic now, digging with futile frenzy at the seam of the wall.
Chikondi sat down on the floor and held out his palm. ‘Shh,’ he said to the animal. ‘Shh, shh, it’s okay, it’s okay.’
Elena walked off in search of something.
‘It was in the box,’ Jack said. ‘It was just in the box. He didn’t open the box in the cargo hold, it didn’t breathe any of our air—’
I shut my eyes. I knew where he was going with this. I wanted to go there, too. ‘Those boxes aren’t airtight,’ I said. ‘They’re not specimen containers, they’re just storage—’
‘It was in here for half a minute, if that.’
‘And it’s in an airlock full of our air now,’ I said.
‘Plus it went through plasma cycles,’ Elena said, returning to the door with a device in hand.
‘Shit,’ Jack said, shutting his eyes. We all knew what that meant. An airlock plasma cycle isn’t like medical plasma treatment, where a light dose is targeted on a patch of infected skin. This was full-body, heavy-duty exposure, never intended for living tissue. Beyond eradicating whatever symbiotic dermal bacteria this animal needed to stay alive in its natural biome, there was no telling what side effects the animal itself might suffer, or what mutations it could carry with it. Release was out of the question.
‘Shh, shh,’ Chikondi said to the animal. ‘Come on, come on, you’re going to hurt yourself—’ He shook his head at himself. ‘I checked—’ he whispered.
Elena put the device in the equipment drawer and slid it through the wall. ‘It’s right here,’ she said.
Chikondi did not look at her, or the drawer. On his knees, he inched closer to the animal, palm outstretched. ‘Come on, it’s okay.’
‘Chikondi—’ Elena said, terse with concern.
He whipped his head toward her, eyes shining with tears. ‘I don’t want it to die afraid,’ he said.
Elena pursed her lips and looked down at the floor. Her disapproval was plain, but she said nothing further. Behind us, Jack paced, hands folded over the back of his neck.
Chikondi closed his eyes and gathered himself. He pulled his palm back and leaned against the wall, folding his legs beneath him, trying to stay calm for the sake of them both. They remained that way for several minutes, the grieving man and the frightened alien. Eventually, the animal’s movements slowed down, and though it still searched for an exit, its cries and digging began to ebb.
‘Camera,’ Chikondi said. His voice was hollow. He took a shaking breath as he began to record. ‘Specimen is hexapodal, and both fur and body shape are Mammal Approximate. However, it does not resemble any of the other MA species we have catalogued here. Further study would be needed, but I find it likely this is a new phyla.’ He leaned his head back against the wall. ‘It’s a very beautiful animal.’ A few silent seconds passed. ‘Stop camera.’ He looked through the window at me. ‘Ariadne, would you get me an exam kit?’
I did. I dropped it into the drawer, beside the device Elena had deposited: a stun gun. Chikondi retrieved her offering first.
‘Do you want me to do it?’ Elena asked. ‘I can suit up fast.’
‘No,’ Chikondi said. Yes, his voice said. ‘I should do it, it’s my fault.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Jack said.
Elena did not second that comment.
The animal ran from Chikondi’s approach, but not fast, and not far. It was keeping its distance, but was seemingly in the first stages of understanding that he wasn’t a threat. It held still in the corner, turning its face toward him. It rose up on its back legs, sitting like a meerkat, the structures around its mouth rippling steadily. Smelling him, perhaps. Figuring him out. It is impossible to know what it was doing. To assume that it was curious would be pure speculation.
But to me, it felt curious.
‘I’m sorry.’ The words ripped themselves from Chikondi’s throat. ‘I’m so sorry.’
We watched through the window as Chikondi raised the gun. I watched him turn it up to a level that would’ve killed an Earth animal twice its size. He raised the device and pulled the trigger.
The animal screamed. A moment of this was to be expected – an involuntary cry at the end. But it continued screaming, and flailing, too, an obscene dance of fear and agony. It hadn’t died.
So Chikondi shot it again.
The fur began to smoke, and it screamed.
He shot it again.
Its legs spasmed, and it screamed.
He shot it again.
And still, it screamed. Despite the spittle that leaked from its mouth, despite the charred fur and the splitting blisters beneath, it wouldn’t stop screaming.
Jack turned away. Elena swallowed thickly.
Chikondi was shaking by now, the stun gun rattling in his hand. ‘I’m sorry!’ he cried. ‘Please – please just—’ He hit it a fifth time. There was a squeal, a shudder.
Finally, the animal was dead.
Chikondi threw the weapon aside and stumbled into the corner opposite the mess we’d never be able to fully scrub from the floor. He propped himself against the wall as he retched misera
bly inside his helmet.
Elena shut her eyes. ‘We’ll need to do decon again for all the boxes,’ she said. ‘Everything that’s in here, and ourselves, too.’ She sighed. ‘I’ll write the report.’
‘No,’ I said. I was angry at her, for no reason other than I needed to be angry and pragmatism was the best target on hand. ‘I’ll write it.’
The next morning, I awoke alone. My body was stiff and weary after the business of sterilising the contents of the entire cargo hold, and I had no desire to write anything, let alone get up. But I got up. I went to the comms console. I wrote the report. I sent it off.
I glanced at the comms inbox. The number forty-three hovered over the news download folder, indicating all the bundles we’d blissfully ignored. I’d seen it hundreds of times after filing reports, a nagging nuisance out of the corner of my eye. I’d long stopped paying attention to it. It had been there for so long now that it was just background noise, a graphical element. But that day, the number glared at me in accusation. The spell of Mirabilis had been broken, and guilt was seeping in around the seams.
An emergent thought itched. Forty-three. Forty-three. The number bothered me, for no readily available reason. I frowned at the screen for a moment, then finally opened the folder.
Merian news bundle – March 2162, the last file read.
My frown deepened. In Earth time, the date was November 21, 2162. Given the amount of time it took for messages to reach Mirabilis, and given OCA’s comms output schedule, the last news bundle would’ve been sent on November 1. That’s why forty-three was bothering me. Given the time we’d been on that planet, we were seven bundles short.
The Merian hadn’t downloaded a news bundle in seven months.
The emergency folder had no number hovering over it – a message received there we never would ignore – but I opened it anyway. Empty. Same for the mission updates folder. Empty. This wasn’t unexpected. When we arrived at Mirabilis, Earth would’ve only just received confirmation of our arrival at Aecor. But given the gap in the news folder, a sinking question arose: were those empty folders simply empty … or had something crucial been lost in the ether? If the news wasn’t making it to us, what else had gone missing?
To Be Taught, if Fortunate Page 7