Adam's Rings

by Matthew D. White

  The crowd evidently missed Adam’s concern and stayed engaged to the end of the night. Retreating off the platform, he reunited with Erin and Sergey who waited at the side.

  “Well done!” Sergey exclaimed, beaming as he approached. “You did great. Did you see their faces?”

  “Yeah, I can hardly believe it. They really look up to us,” Adam said, looking to Erin.

  “I told you so,” she said with a laugh. “We’re rock stars to them.”

  “But they think we’re just like them,” Adam said. “A few of them probably think that with enough effort, they’ll do what we do. It’s a lie.”

  “You don’t know the future,” Erin insisted. “There will be a place in the universe for them, just as there is for us. For all we know, we could be the first and the last before Dreher changes his mind and something even better comes along.”

  “Don’t be fooled, this is exactly what you’re needed for,” Sergey insisted. “There had to be a hundred future astronomers, physicists, and astronauts in that room tonight.”

  “I hope they understand.” Adam sighed. “By the way, did you remember?”

  “Of course!” Sergey said, fishing into his jacket and passing over a set of keys. “Just come back in one piece.”

  Erin looked quizzically at the exchange and raised an eyebrow at the captain. “What’s the meaning of this?”

  “Come on. You’ll see,” Adam replied with a growing smile, leading their way out the back of the venue.

  At the front of the lot waited a low, black sports car reflecting starlight from the evening sky. Adam opened the passenger door and stepped aside for Erin.

  “You want me to get in?”

  “That’s what I’m going for, yes,” Adam said with a smirk.

  “Did you hit your head? Since when do you even know how to drive?”

  “I had some time at the clinic while you were busy doing real work. You’re gonna have to trust me.”

  “This had better be good,” Erin relented. “But if you crash and kill us all, you’ll be in serious trouble.”

  “Don’t worry,” Adam said again, still beaming, and hopped down beside her. The engine growled to life; he dropped it in gear and missed the clutch. The gears ground, the engine sputtered and stalled.

  Erin sighed and rolled her eyes. “Yup, this is really the end of us. I can see it now.”

  “First time,” he said and hit the ignition again, this time hitting first gear and lurching the car forward.

  “You haven’t even told me where you’re planning to take us.”

  “You’re pretty smart; you should be able to figure it out,” Adam insisted, taking a right out of the parking lot and meandering to the highway. The tires gripped the dry road well without a hint of body roll. As he gathered courage, Adam let it pick up speed.

  “How do you think you know where you’re going?”

  “You forget I used to live out here up until a couple years ago. Where are we?”

  “State College, Pennsylvania.”

  “What’s the date?”

  “Nine August.”

  “Then you have all the pieces.” Adam grinned wider. Outside, the overhead lights faded into the background, leaving them on a darkened stretch of road illuminated only by their pair of white headlamps. “I still find it hard to believe,” he finally said.

  “What? That you’ve lost your mind?”

  “No, besides that,” he replied. “That we would be respected this much.”

  “Hey, I’m the one who told you and you didn’t believe me,” Erin said, scanning the roadway for any sign of civilization. “Like I said, we give people hope. They’ll look up to us, even if we don’t deserve it all the time. All the heroes we’ve ever idolized have just been people like everyone else.”

  Adam nodded, taking an exit and proceeding onto a barren country road surrounded with low trees, until it broke out into farmland. “I’m surprised. This hasn’t changed at all.”

  Erin ignored the quip which bordered on the irrational, until Adam pulled the car into a dirt lot at the edge of a meadow and killed the engine. “So, where are we?”

  “Here. You’ll see,” he said and led them from the roadway up a gentle incline to the stone wall adjoining two parallel fields. The rocks were broken, worn and weathered from the decades of exposure, but still occupied the tallest hilltop in view in what was clearly an artificial formation.

  “What is this?” Erin asked again

  Adam didn’t respond but held tightly to her hand as he stood in place, looked up, and held his breath.

  Before the doctor could voice another objection, the first glint of light sparkled overhead, burning up a moment later in the clear atmosphere. More continued to fall with each passing second as Adam kept his eyes locked on the sky.

  “I’ve seen this before,” Erin whispered.

  “No, you haven’t. Neither of us have,” Adam replied, holding her tight. “It’s the first time for our eyes.”

  Erin wrapped an arm around Adam’s waist without looking away from the rain of light high above their heads. “I would have never thought to… Thank you,” she added.

  He smiled at the memory, the feeling of completeness which he had long ago forgotten. Here in the present, it was as if not a single second had passed since he had last stood upon the same hilltop beneath a far more artificial sky. Adam hated to call it home, but it was the closest approach he had made to the concept in what felt like forever.

  If only nights on Earth lasted as long as they did elsewhere.

  ***

  “That was rather productive,” Adam remarked as he, Erin, and Sergey exited the conference center. The NASA staff had been working for weeks on analyzing the fourteen petabytes of data he had brought from Saturn on top of the ice cores and numerous samples from Titan’s surface. The fidelity provided by the specimens had given the team fodder to overhaul their previous estimates as to the formation of the planetary system.

  “Agreed,” Erin said without looking back. “How much more damage do you think is left for us to do?”

  Adam stopped and stared her down, surprised at the question. It was more reasonable than he let on, as they had made more than twenty appearances across the academic space and even more with a month-long session dedicated to the NASA engineers. “You mean, before we go back?”

  She nodded. “I think we’re nearing the end of our usefulness on this planet, unless you have other ideas.”

  “No,” Adam replied, “I think you’re right.”

  “Well, make your decision soon. The next launch window opens in two weeks,” Sergey reminded the pair. “Time to get moving, unless you want to be here for another six months.”

  The pieces fell together quickly, and they were soon cleared for the flight to Ecuador, the biological reset in the isolation chamber, and the flight aboard the elevator. Amidst the preparations, the final summons to Dr. Dreher’s office was unexpected, to say the least.

  It was the first call Adam had received to report to the director’s office as by his own admission he spent the preponderance of his time in the labs or on the road. Past the pair of heavy doors, the space was apportioned like a game hunter’s trophy room, decorated not in hides but in the trophies of a lifetime spent in the pursuit of space travel.

  Artwork and photographs graced the walls, showcasing launches from the Mercury capsules up through the twenty-first century’s heavy boosters and on to the deployment of the elevator. The cowl of a solid booster rocket rested in the center, adorned with a round plate of glass to create a conference table, and to all sides rested prototypes and fragments of the systems, which were invaluable to the organization’s mission and the vision of its leader.

  Task lights above the director’s desk bathed the rest of the room in shadow, and Dr. Dreher got to his feet as Adam entered. “I can’t believe we’re finally here,” he remarked, shaking the astronaut’s hand. “Six months ago, I wouldn’t have given us a gnat’s chance at su
rvival, but here we are. You’re viable along with Gemini and Hydra. We’ve got enough public support to buoy missions for the next thirty years. Before I retire, I think we have a strong shot at putting a mission beyond the solar system.”

  “Congratulations, sir,” Adam said. “For your vision, it is an honor well deserved.”

  “That’s less important than you might think,” Dreher admitted. “Whether you take one step up the mountain or a thousand, we all only play a single part in humanity’s evolution. I didn’t give us the dream of going to the stars; all I had was the courage to say it out loud until enough people heard it. We just had to make them believe it was possible. That’s what’s made your work so important.”

  “Come again?” Adam asked, surprised at the compliment.

  “You have my gratitude for seeing the project through to this point. I don’t think it’d have been possible any other way,” Dreher said. “I know you didn’t choose this life, but you have my gratitude for all that you’ve done.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

  “That goes the other way. Before today, I’m conscious that I never gave you the chance to make that choice,” Dreher added, “but today that changes.” He scanned down the wall of paintings covering a hundred years of space travel. “Wheels go up for Ecuador in seventy-two hours, but that’s up to you.”

  Adam froze. “You’d… You’d let me stay? Here?”

  “If it’s what you wanted, yes.”

  “On Earth.” Home, Adam thought. Every distant memory cascaded back upon his mind, contrasted with the circle of tin cans which consisted of a prison a billion miles away. Every stolen chance, every regret was returned and rested in his hands.

  “I’d honor any decision you make. You have my word.”

  The green fields of spring, the silent mysteries wrapped in snowy winter mornings, the images dashed against his head. Adam looked to the director who had fallen silent. His mind moved to the sight of his planet on the first day, its blazing atmosphere radiating through Draco’s observatory. He saw Erin’s face above his own after she had pulled him from the transport capsule, her dark hair hanging just above his eyes.

  “I’ll go,” he stated finally.

  “You, you will?”

  Adam smiled. “It’s as I’ve always known. This is what I was born to do.”

  Dreher shook his hand again. “Thank you. I’ll make it worth every breath.” He paused. “I have one more appointment for you to attend. I need you in the Apollo Conference Room at fifteen-hundred today. For Dr. Moroder as well.”

  ***

  Adam opened the door for Erin once they reached the facility’s premier meeting space and held it aside until she passed. “He really didn’t say what this was about?”

  “Not a word,” Adam replied and stopped at the sight of two figures seated at the table. They were older than the pair of astronauts, but not to an immediately discernable degree.

  The man got to his feet as they entered. “Adam,” he said. “It must be you.” He looked between the two confused faces. “I’m Paul. This is Terry,” he added, gesturing to his companion who stood slowly, a tear forming in her eye. “We’re your parents.”

  “How?” Adam asked in a whisper, his eyes equally wide.

  “We were interns for NASA during grad school and were the best match for the Orbital Genesis program,” Paul explained. “I never had a doubt that you’d be brilliant.”

  “You never even met me. How could you know that?”

  “Faith, more or less,” Paul said, shaking his hand. “We never thought the chance would come to meet you, and yet here you are! With Dr. Moroder of all people.”

  “You knew my parents as well?” Erin asked.

  “That we can’t say for sure,” Terry said. “There was a short list of donors who were part of the program, half of which we knew, but not the identities of their offspring. When we heard about the success of the Saturn missions, we knew it must have been you.”

  The conversation waned long into the evening on topics from their homelife to activities since their involvement with Orbital Genesis. “As much as I’ve enjoyed this honor,” Adam began, “I think we need to be on our way. We don’t have long to complete our preparations.”

  “Of course,” Paul said, getting to his feet along with Terry and Erin. “I’m so glad we were able to find you.”

  “And I the same,” Adam replied. “We’ll be in touch once we get back to Draco.

  “Absolutely. It will be another long three years,” Terry said, hugged him tight and kissed his cheek. “This has been a dream come true.”

  ***

  The last of their preparations were a blur, between finalizing the manifest for the transport, passing data to the engineers, and beginning the biological sterilization to again occupy the station. Before he knew it, Adam was safely contained inside his suit as he watched the door of the isolation chamber unlock and swing aside. It had been a long day, eating nothing but a bland paste to reset his digestive tract and scrubbing himself constantly to kill the innumerable bugs which had likely attached themselves to his skin.

  Outside, Erin, Sergey, and Colonel Setser waited for him, each one also suited and sealed against contamination. “Ready to take a ride?” Setser asked with a laugh through the radio.

  Adam nodded. “Bittersweet, but yes, it’s time. Until next time.”

  “Only if you’re lucky,” Setser said. “By the time you get to Draco, I’ll be down on the beach and fresh out of cares to give.”

  “In that case, thank you for the hospitality.”

  “You’re very welcome,” Setser replied. “You’re contact here isn’t quite as lucky, I’m afraid.”

  “At least I’ll catch you online,” Adam said, turning to Sergey.

  “Absolutely. I’ll be with you every step of the way. Onward to new adventures.” He shook Adam’s hand and turned to Erin. “Doctor, it’s been an honor. Please help me keep him out of trouble.”

  “No promises; you know how he is,” Erin said with a laugh and sideways glance.

  The group split at the elevator’s train, with Sergey insisting on returning to Mission Control before the transport’s launch. Adam, Erin, and the colonel made the trip in silence, with Adam training his eyes on the far blue horizon, watching as it trailed to black, never to return. He found the sight more peaceful than upsetting, as if he had again crossed into his element and was one step closer to the environment he knew best.

  Once on the transport, Setser flashed a final salute from the hatch before swinging the airlock door closed, locking it in place with a sharp retort. Adam released the clamps and edged the capsule away before picking up the equipment pod and lining up for the opening burn.

  Erin had remained next to him in silence for most of the trip, letting the elevator’s station drift steadily out of view outside. “Are you alright?” Adam finally asked.

  “Yes…” She sighed absentmindedly before turning to face him. “You know those weren’t your parents, right?”

  “Of course,” Adam said, never taking his eyes from the controls.

  “And that didn’t bother you?”

  “No, I’ve had time to think about it since I asked,” he said, letting his hands fall and finally facing his companion. “We don’t have anything close to the normal definition of parents, at least not as far as it’d have any meaning for us. We probably carry genes from a hundred different donors. We went straight from the lab into space.”

  “But they lied to you. To your face.”

  “They only did what they thought was right,” Adam mused. “I doubt Dreher wanted to risk that conversation. Paul and Terry’s actions closed the door on the inquiry, and I bet they’re never brought up again unless I ask, in which case I’m sure they’ll turn up incapacitated.”

  “And you still gave them what they wanted.”

  “It’s not for me and it’s not for them,” Adam said. “I did this for you, for the Hydra team, and for all the m
issions to follow. For everyone down there. They’ll need this.”

  “That’s incredibly selfless,” Erin admitted.

  “Don’t say that. I’m no martyr; I’m just doing what I was made to do,” Adam replied and turned to Erin. “You once said you found a way to call us human, beyond all this.”

  “To a point.”

  Adam leaned forward. “Before we go under, I’d like you to tell me about it.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Erin said. “I don’t remember much, but we’ve got plenty of books if you’d like to find out together.”

  “I like that idea.” Adam nodded. “Thank you for being here with me.”

  “I love you too,” Erin replied, smiling. “Captain.”

  Adam smiled as he tightened his back against his seat, his finger wavering above the engine’s controls. The starfield gently turned in space outside the windows before him. The universe had indeed offered him a single life to spend unlocking its secrets.

  And he would honor that commission.

  Break/break

  As always, it is my honor to have shared this time with you and that for a few short hours I’ve been able to share a story of youthful exuberance meeting the bleeding edge of discovery. You might have noticed a definite lack of sinister aliens, galactic wars and all matters of #pewpewpew, but for once, I think everything fit exactly as needed.

  Thank you again for following along and I hope we meet again.

  *Oh, and did you find the Easter Egg? By my count, twelve passages of significant importance. If you figure it out, shoot me a message at MissionSRX@gmail.com and let me know what you found. There’s high praise to be earned! 

  -MDWhite

  www.mdwhiteauthor.com/launchpad