by Meg Howrey
“There are lots of polar bear clubs that do New Year’s plunges in the States,” Helen says. “I know that’s not quite the same as what you’re talking about, but you’ll find a place in the States to take them, next year.” Because Helen is not often soft, her softness is sweet.
She finishes counting Yoshi’s screws.
“Good news, Yakov,” she says. “You’re getting your wish. You will be an astronaut when you grow up!”
Sergei thinks that Helen must be a very wonderful mother, and that her daughter is lucky.
“Your turn, Sergei,” she says, repacking the sock with screws.
Sergei looks at the window. Earth is an undistinguished disk now. Always there has been this question: how will it feel when the Earth cannot be seen, when the cosmonaut travels so far away that he cannot see his home? The answer is that he will mostly stop looking out the window.
What will fuck you up is never what you think is going to fuck you up. Maybe nothing will fuck you up. Anyway, he’s not thinking of Earth, he’s thinking of his sons. For this, also, he must not gaze mournfully at that which he cannot see. Sergei turns from the window.
“Make a wish,” says Helen.
YOSHI
Yoshi wakes up retching. He vomits on his sleep sack before he can reach for anything else. What else does he have? He has no bag or bucket in his wedge. There is a very real possibility he is going to vomit again. Yoshi tries to kick himself out of the sack without letting the mess he has made spread any further. He cannot see his watch, or the door; it is unaccountably dark.
No, he is still wearing his sleep mask.
Yoshi shoves his sleep mask upward and lurches out of bed, banging an elbow on his clothing locker. He does not think about letting the sheets cool before making his bed. He moves quickly into the hallway and heads to the Lav, then realizes he is going the wrong way, also that he seems to be hugging the curved wall of the corridor. Anyway, he should not vomit into the toilet because this is connected to the Chute, and stomach acids are not the same as urine or fecal matter—he needs a bag.
When Yoshi reaches the Science/Lab wedge he finds Sergei already there, scrabbling in the bin that holds the nausea bags and, like Yoshi, naked except for disposable underwear. Sergei flips a bag to Yoshi, who grabs it and then lurches into Sergei, who half catches him and half loses his own balance, and they stagger into a table in a clumsy tango.
“What’s going on?” Yoshi can see Helen in the doorway over Sergei’s shoulder. He hardly recognizes her, she looks like a shocked little girl. It also appears as if she’s standing sideways, then not, and then she’s pulling Sergei upright.
“I fell,” Yoshi says. “Into Sergei. Dizzy.”
“Sick,” Sergei says. “Are you sick?”
“Yes—no,” Helen shakes her head. “Dizzy, headache. Something happened.”
“No alarms.” Sergei nods at the console. “Nothing.”
“We were hit,” Helen says. She is in front of the console board.
“Nothing, I see nothing.” Yoshi means that he sees no evidence of a breach on the console, but that is only because he cannot see the console. He sees stars, figurative stars, five-pointed. His head is pounding.
“What could hit us?” Sergei holds his bag up to his mouth and then continues speaking through it in Russian as his eyes scan the console. “Life support is nominal.”
They have not been hit; there are no alarms, no sensors, no warning lights.
“No.” Sergei coughs. “Yoshi, you are nauseated?”
“Yes. I woke up sick.”
“The alarm system failed,” Helen says. “Something happened.”
“I can’t read the fucking telemetry.” Sergei knuckles his eyes.
“Look,” Helen says. Her voice is calm. “We course corrected. Poorly. Incorrect amount of thrust, and it caused a slack in our centrifuge tether. Then a correction, then another course correction to compensate for the earlier one.”
“No alarm?” Sergei is furious. “If someone sneezes in the toilet we get an alarm, but this?”
Yoshi looks at his watch. How quickly can an astronaut go from deep sleep to high performance? Helen is already there, she is already alert and solving problems. He must get to that place immediately.
“Look,” Helen repeats. Her finger traces a line on the screen. Yoshi swallows the acidity in his mouth.
“Helen is correct,” he says.
They read the board, reassuring themselves, checking systems.
They must face this. To fly in an automated ship is to be at the mercy of automation, in a place where there can be no failure. Primitus has made decisions on her own.
“I will now send a very nice message to Ground.” Sergei tosses his nausea bag onto the table. “And say they should maybe install a little bell that lets us know if computer decides to make course correction like drunk person and maybe I will also ask them what the fuck. Someone look outside window. Is there comet? Is there alien death squad? Is there space wildebeest?”
Helen is now smiling at Sergei, who—in his disposable undergarments—does look very amusing, and is clearly enjoying his own wrath.
“I have too much adrenaline!” Sergei shouts.
They must wait now for Mission Control.
Yoshi volunteers to bring clothing for the crew. He would also like to rinse his mouth. While he does these things, he reviews his performance.
Sergei had reacted in nearly the same way as he had. Helen—and presumably the Observation team—had seen him naked and flailing. He is not worried about the near nudity; he is proud of his physique (Sergei is quite hirsute), but he’s concerned about the lack of coordination. Additionally, there is the bother of vomit on his sleep sack. Odors on Primitus have a way of lingering.
Mission Control informs them that they are aware of the problem, which originated with a computer error at Mission Control, and not on Primitus, that the problem was quickly identified and corrected, and a decision was made not to alert the crew during sleeping hours.
“The language,” Yoshi notes, “is somewhat starchy.”
“Life Systems Support is recommending we have a cup of decaffeinated tea,” Sergei says. “I think this is maybe joke, but still, good idea.”
“The thing I’m curious about,” Helen says, when they are gathered in the Galley, “is the nausea.” She has put her hair back into its short ponytail. It was being loose that had given her the appearance of a little girl. Helen’s hair is very curly. Her ponytail is more like the tail of a poodle. She reaches for the whiteboard and starts scribbling.
“The explanation is not sufficient,” Sergei says. “I do not understand the game that is being played.”
“Our symptoms make sense if the balance of the centrifuge was disrupted,” Yoshi says. “Displacement of the inner ear fluid would cause us to be nauseous.”
“We were nauseated,” Sergei corrects. “Helen—who was constructed in a secret laboratory hidden in James Bond villain cave—only got a little dizzy.”
“And disoriented, apparently, since I thought we’d been hit.” Helen laughs. “I was staggering down the hallway. Maybe because, in the movies, when the spaceship gets hit by something, the crew staggers around.”
“But it wasn’t staggering,” Yoshi persists. “Your body, and ours, did exactly what might happen if the speed of our rotation was disrupted.”
“It’s not nothing,” Sergei says, leaning over to look at Helen’s calculations. “If Prime can create the sensation of acceleration on a stationary platform. It seems a lot of effort just to see who vomits. Or to get picture of Yoshi in underwear for astronaut calendar.”
“I’m more interested in the how,” Helen says.
“Eppur si muove.”
Helen and Sergei look at him.
It is a beautiful thing, when understanding comes. Amon
g other things, it makes you realize that your subconscious operates continually, not like a ghost in your machine, but like the parts of your program that are kept hidden just so the central console won’t be too cluttered. Not only has Yoshi understood what just happened, but he has understood why. He and his crew, they have forgotten that things are not entirely in their control, and this was Prime’s way of reminding them. On their way to Mars there may—there will, surely—be things they cannot account for. Prime is reminding the astronauts—moving so smoothly, so confidently in their imaginary craft—that they don’t know everything, will never know everything. Was not this entire mission a test of faith?
“Galileo’s supposed last words.” Yoshi points to the floor. “We’re not on a stationary platform.”
The astronauts look down at their feet.
“Eppur si muove,” Yoshi says. “And yet it moves.” Galileo’s supposed last words.
Primitus was not sitting in the desert in Utah; it was on another structure, which was capable of doing things. They were not stationary. The whole thing—the spacecraft—was alive, was active.
Prime was Junya’s hand over his eyes, testing his endurance, making him prove that he belonged here, that he was one of them. Prime is swinging the bat in front of their faces. But he is no longer a child, he can take this and much more. Prime has done something, perhaps more than they intended. They have revealed himself to himself. How will the crew behave when they encounter a mystery?
More, he addresses Junya. More, he says to Mission Control. More, he demands of space itself. Do more. I am not afraid.
LUKE
When Mireille appears on screen, she is sobbing. Luke waits, occasionally saying, “take your time” and “it’s okay.”
It is not okay. The Chinese astronauts are dead, all of them. They did not reach the moon. A fire in the cockpit killed the crew eighty-one seconds after launch. Nobody knows exactly what happened. The Chinese launch from a remote and closely guarded location in Inner Mongolia; the craft and the remains of its occupants were brought down in the Sea of Japan. They were being recovered now.
Mireille’s face is jammy from tears and makeup. She cries openly, not covering her mouth.
Luke is not the one who is supposed to talk to Mireille, who normally communicates with Kyrah, the liaison assigned to handle Helen’s family members. But Kyrah is having an emergency root canal, Dr. Ransom is in a meeting with Boone Cross, and Mireille needed to be contacted.
“I don’t know,” Mireille says. “I don’t know why I’m so . . .”
All over the world, people are expressing their grief and solidarity with the Chinese, even though almost nobody, except the Chinese, truly wanted the Chinese to land on the moon. Nobody wanted this, a horrible explosion, deaths, but probably not a few people would be consoled by the thought that, for a little bit longer, they could look at the moon in the night sky and not have to imagine people drilling for Helium-3 on it. Luke might have felt something like that himself, before he came to work at Prime. Before, he would not have imagined the bodies. Would not have imagined the devastation of the people at the Chinese space agency, their sense of responsibility, their guilt.
At Prime, there is absolutely no time to even comprehend the event in China. Red Dawn II is about to land on Mars. Prime is putting another craft on a planet where most of the things that are sent to it crash. This needs to happen successfully or there is a chance this crew will not be the ones that go to Mars. This crew, that is now in areocentric orbit of Mars, and six hours ago was given the go-ahead to begin the Entry, Descent, and Landing Simulation. Four hours ago, Weilai 3 blew up.
“It’s that awful thing,” Mireille says, “that awful video that someone took secretly and is everywhere and you can see the flash in the sky and the person holding the camera going, ‘Oh,’ and you can’t actually see anything and it’s worse, almost, than if it were some graphic thing, it’s like, we don’t even know, like it’s not even real.”
Luke has seen this footage, not official, terrible in what it wasn’t showing, what had to be imagined.
Luke is nervous. He has observed Helen reading and viewing messages from Mireille. He’s reviewed both sides of their correspondence and looked at Kyrah’s reports and summaries. He has come to think of Helen’s daughter mostly as a possible source of tension or stress: a person Helen will miss, worry about, could be hurt by. And now this person is nakedly, more than nakedly, skeletally distressed, in front of him. He isn’t trained for this.
“I want to talk to my mom,” Mireille says.
Luke nods his head.
“No, I really want to talk to my mom.”
“I know it’s very hard,” Luke says, “not to be able to communicate right now, but—”
“Do not tell me what is hard.” Mireille stands up and moves out of frame for a moment, knocking her screen downward. Luke can see part of her kitchen floor, the bottom edge of a stove, a pair of high heels, one shoe on its side. The screen jerks upward and his entire visual field is nothing but green fabric curved from some part of Mireille’s anatomy and then her face, quite close-up.
“What, you didn’t tell them?” Now she looks angry.
“The crew was about to begin the landing sequence.” Luke makes an effort to speak gently, but not in too measured a tone. Kyrah had said something to Luke once about how Mireille was “quick.” Also, Mireille has been an astronaut’s daughter for most of her life; in many ways she is much more familiar than he is with the world and the language and these kinds of conversations. He has a list on his knee of things he can’t say to Mireille, and things he can. He is supposed to let Mireille know that she has support and resources available to her.
Mireille scrubs a fist across her face, smearing more makeup. Oddly, she looks quite pretty like this. He guesses—from the hour and the dress and the shoes—that she was on a date. Maybe there is a guy in another room, waiting to pat her back.
“They don’t know what happened, right?” Mireille’s throat and mouth are constricted for shouting, but her voice is at half-volume. She is whisper-shouting. Someone might be in the other room. “They don’t even know. God.” Mireille knocks her screen down again. Luke looks at Mireille’s fallen shoe and listens to the sound of banging. The walls of Kyrah’s cubicle are covered with paper calendars, one for each member of Helen’s immediate family. Next week is Helen’s sister’s birthday. Her brother Phil is in Albuquerque at an IT conference. Helen’s mother has a doctor’s appointment at the end of the month.
“The landing sequence. They’re in fucking Utah.” He still cannot see Mireille. Her voice is muffled. Luke looks down at the list on his knee. He has a bad feeling about what might be coming next. He needs Mireille to not make this difficult, because there isn’t any way to make it easier and he’s out of practice for confrontations with people who aren’t professionally obligated to keep it together.
The screen tilts and Mireille moves partially back into frame. The green fabric is a dress. He is looking at her hips now, and waist. The screen jerks again and it’s Mireille’s face. She’s holding a huge blade to her throat.
“I want to speak to my mother. I want to tell her the truth.”
Luke laughs before he can do anything else, feels his face go instantly hot, chokes, notes clinically: tachycardia and some sort of penile reflex, and leans forward, knocking the list off his knee.
“Okay. Mireille. Okay, I want you to listen—”
“Oh, relax.” Mireille flourishes the blade in front of her face. “It’s a bread knife. You think I would slit my throat with a bread knife?”
They blink at each other for a few seconds. Jesus, Luke thinks.
Mireille sniffs, swipes at the makeup under her eyes. Shakes her head. She’s not crazy, Luke thinks. She’s ahead of him, somehow, she knows what he’s trying to do, what’s expected of her, and is going big before he forces
her to be small, and reasonable.
“Right,” he says. “Right.”
“What happened to Kyrah again?” Another shift now: a demonstration of calm.
“She’s having root canal surgery. I’m sorry you have to—I mean, we did want to reach out to you as quickly as possible, but I know Kyrah wanted to be able to speak to you herself.”
“No, poor Kyrah.” Mireille takes a breath. “Quick” doesn’t begin to cover Mireille. This is her talent, of course. Professionally compelling, watchable, interesting. But Luke had assumed—without thinking about it too much—that Mireille wasn’t a very good actress. But why shouldn’t she be? Why shouldn’t she be the astronaut of actresses?
“You know,” Mireille says, “before, it’s been my mom that picks who the Kyrah person is. I mean, at NASA, the family always has a person, but my mom always picked one of her male colleagues. I always thought that was weird, that she didn’t pick another woman. Astronauts are very competitive, so maybe she didn’t want us—my father and me—to see that another female astronaut was better than her at nurturing-type things. Mostly the family person just ends up driving people around at launches, although you know what happened with my uncle Phil, right? You’re on the psych team, so probably you know everything about us?”
There’s nothing on Luke’s piece of paper—now on the floor—that lets him know how much he is officially supposed to know.
“Everything here is treated with the strictest confidentiality,” Luke says, wondering if he could manage to message in with Ransom without Mireille noticing, and get a little advice here. But Ransom is with Boone, figuring out, probably, what to say to the crew. The astronauts, focused as they are on the landing sim, are still aware of the lunar launch that was meant to happen, will be expecting to get news in one of today’s uplinks.
“Well, my uncle Phil tried to kill himself when my mom was on the space station.” Mireille is not looking at Luke, and her voice is controlled, thoughtful. “He overdosed. My mom didn’t know until she got back. It was my grandmother’s decision not to tell her, and there was this sort of family conference—my father and I weren’t involved, I only learned about it later—about how to keep my mom’s liaison at the time from knowing, or anyone at NASA. And apparently when Phil found out that they didn’t tell her, he was completely pissed. He was like, ‘I almost died but nobody wanted to disturb Helen.’ He didn’t speak to my mom for a couple of years. He still doesn’t, much. But it wasn’t her fault. She always wants to be informed of any family illness or emergency.” Mireille pauses, clears her throat. “That’s actually even harder to deal with than the idea that she wouldn’t want to know. Think about it: if I die, my mom wants to know about it.” She looks directly at Luke, through the ruins of her makeup. “If I die, if I’m lying in a hospital having just overdosed, if I get raped, if my life hangs in the balance, my mom wants to know. Which means that she knows it won’t impair her ability to do her job. It won’t trip her up. She won’t miss a fucking beat.”