Then she spends a thousand hours playing Minecraft with him, and after he goes to bed, she spends her late-nights staring at his laptop. Lucas says she spent like six hours last night on that silly little green screen! Where does she get the energy and patience?
Tomorrow afternoon's our simulated launch in prep for the actual space jump on Friday. What in the world... man, even saying that... “We're launching our capsule into space.” Space! An FTL jump from Antarctica to a catch in orbit. Is this my life? Wow! I get to say things like “in orbit.”
The simulation is supposed to be pretty realistic. Apparently I'm to look forward to some exciting sim weather patterns. The truth is, most of the weather-related nonsense isn't really my task anymore, but I've become accidentally fond of it. I will certainly apply for the job if Mars is colonized and the local news station needs a weather reporter.
Chapter 57
After less than his expected time on site, Colonel Edwards was ready to go home. The upheaval of the accident was enough to disturb the crew's rhythm, and he could tell his presence only made the days seem less ordinary for the team members trying to get back to work. He decided to cut his trip to Antarctica short, citing that his leadership was needed stateside to manage the fallout from the project's first serious injury.
They’d determined that the culprit behind the explosion was nickel oxide from the antiferromagnet metal that Riddhi had been trying to further manipulate. As was her nature, Riddhi was pushing the limits of metal manipulation into unknown territory. Under the dangerous conditions she’d inadvertently created, it was concluded that the rest of Semotus was lucky she’d been working with such miniscule amounts.
On the morning of his departure, two weeks into Split Horizon’s third season, Colonel Edwards held a final debriefing, encouraging the team to persevere. After shaking hands with as many people as he could, Cheyenne directed him out the door.
“Any chance I could land something to eat before I leave?” he asked.
“Of course! I'll be right back,” Cheyenne said, pointing. “Go grab a seat in my office. Coffee? Sandwich?”
“Anything’s great. A little cream in the coffee, please. Thank you.”
Cheyenne smiled and walked away. Edwards walked into her office and looked around. Very few papers were anywhere to be seen. No books either, he noted. A reading tablet and her computer lay on the desk next to an empty clipboard.
“Cheyenne, did they say if we're going to—Oh! Hello, Colonel!” Jane said as she leaned into the office. “I thought you were headed out.”
“Shortly I am, Dr. Whyse,” Edwards said, rising to greet her. “I think I was bad luck coming down, so I’ll be happy to be out of your way.”
“They're saying things are looking up for Riddhi,” Jane offered.
“I can’t imagine what that's like,” he said. “By the way, I keep hearing from everyone that you’re taking up a lot of slack, so thank you for your service, above and beyond, as always.”
“Well, you can’t help but become a family down here. Riddhi’s been here since the beginning.”
“I know,” Edwards said. “Did you hear anything more from her family?”
“After we talked to her brother, I sent him an email reiterating the same information about the accident,” Jane nodded. “Ian’s been sending updates every day or so.”
“Good.”
“They'll meet her stateside once she's cleared for travel,” Jane added.
The Colonel nodded. There was a moment of silence until Jane said, “Can I bring you anything for the road?”
“Thanks, no, that’s where Cheyenne went.”
Jane turned briefly to see who belonged to the passing footsteps in the hallway, and Edwards noticed she seemed jumpy.
He sighed gently. “I’m no stranger to scientific accidents, but it never gets easier. I’m glad no one was lost.”
He stared at the small window as he spoke, not at Jane. After a pause, he added, “I hate to be pragmatic at the risk of sounding calloused, but what kind of redundancy do you have here with staff? Are we at a complete stand-still? Is Split Horizon continuing forward?”
“She has a good staff this year,” Jane said with a nod, “and honestly, she is the most advanced part of the team as far as the timeline, I mean. She works the farthest ahead. She was working to further enhance the magnet metal for higher temperatures, but it’ll work fine, especially in space.”
“Space is cold,” the Colonel said awkwardly. “Sorry to make you talk about her as replaceable. I am very concerned for her well-being, but I'm also in command of a lot of people and money, so it’s my responsibility to make sure this project keeps rolling.”
“I understand,” Jane nodded.
“Any loss to the team is a tragedy, and I'm glad Riddhi's going to be ok.”
Jane nodded but didn't feel excused. Something in his stance indicated Colonel Edwards had more to say. He spent a few minutes asking about the mental and emotional state of the team, which Jane didn't feel qualified to offer an opinion on. She skirted the question by pointing out that MILO tracked very healthy nutrition, exercise, and sleep patterns for most of the crew, and that everyone was doing their required video personal log entries. He pressed a little harder until she opened up about a Bible study Lucas led for a couple interested parties, Candace's casual yoga and pilates groups, and Riddhi's 'art breaks' as she’d called them where a few people painted, knitted, or crafted with a stash of contributed supplies.
“I also think having kids on base keeps the morale up, too, if I can say that, being one of the moms,” she concluded. “Nothing like a kid laughing or singing to break a stressed mood or remind you of what real life is back home.”
“And they like making the very expensive robot quote Humphrey Bogart and Patrick Swayze,” Edwards added with a smirk.
Jane raised her eyebrows and laughed, surprised that the Colonel had seen their antics the first year, and even more surprised that he received it with good humor.
After a chuckle, the Colonel sighed and gently rearranged the objects on Cheyenne’s desk. Just as Jane was about to excuse herself to avoid watching a grown man fidget, he said, “Dr. Whyse?”
“Yes?” she said anxiously.
“I wanted to—” he paused for a moment, “Well, tragedy is common to all. Why did you come back here after yours?”
Jane felt the now-familiar lurch in her gut whenever someone brought up Emily. She took a breath.
“I don't mean to pry,” he said. “Of course, we're all glad you came back. But… why?”
Jane stared at her fingernails for a moment. “At the time,” she began, “I needed to be away from everything at home. I needed some distance. But then Semotus also made me feel close to her. We found out I was pregnant here... I carried her around my whole first season. Happily.”
Jane sank to the chair but looked up to make eye contact. “I came back because science is what I do. I thought it was who I am, but I guess I've grown up since then. I know who I am now. But, it's a great career, and Sebbie loves it here. Plus, in a way, Split Horizon is the first child Lucas and I created together.”
Edwards nodded, then adjusted Cheyenne's tablet to be squared in the desk corner, as if his hands sought out papers to shuffle but found none.
“So, why aren't you angry?” he asked. “I still see your church's web stream on the weekly communications logs.”
Jane smiled. “Oh, everyone wants to ask why I still believe in God. I'm a scientist and someone who's grieving an untimely death. It's a paradox from all angles.”
Edwards looked at her but did not respond.
“There isn't an easy answer,” Jane said after a moment of silence. “I sometimes wonder if people think I have a little speech or a poem or some Bible verse that I'll rattle off and they'll either 'get it' or shake their head and feel sorry for my religious delusion. But… it's much more than that. Deeper. More real.”
Jane smoothed out the pant legs at her kn
ees as she chose her words. “Colonel, I didn't stop believing because my belief in God isn't a choice. I believe in Jesus because he is real. I can say I don't believe in this desk, but it's still there. My belief or unbelief doesn't change the fact that the desk is there. God is real.”
Edwards stared at her as she went on.
“To me, 'still' believing in God is nonsense,” Jane said. “There is no 'still'... the belief just is. Now, the faith and trust, well, that's another matter. It's hard to believe that Someone can have a bigger grasp on my life than I do, or that there’s some bigger plan at work. How can something so powerfully significant to just me play a role in something even bigger yet? But that's how God sees each life. Wildly, passionately significant, and yet still part of a larger plan.”
“I understand leadership,” Edwards said, leaning back in his chair. “I know what it's like to balance one individual against a whole plan.”
“That's in your job,” she nodded.
“But... so then, what role did this, uh, loss play in a plan?”
Jane smiled ruefully and nodded, looking away. “I'll never know,” she said. “But I don’t believe it’s her against the plan, like she was some noble sacrifice to make His plan work.”
“So you think it was worth it?”
“Oh man,” she said, feeling her face flush. “The truth is, maybe I don’t want to know why. Because nothing would ever be an acceptable trade-off. There isn't some value God could reveal to me that I'd say, 'ok, now I get it; good call.' But the difference is that we're looking at today between 2 and 3 pm, and he's looking at all of space and time. He's looking at eternity. Time is so much bigger than us. He understands and empathizes with my pain, but He wants me to see tomorrow... see the future. See the forever. There is an eternity awaiting where my daughter and I will experience complete fulfillment and joy in Him, together. So it's more than 'she lost her life'... it's that she gained everything that matters. I will be with my daughter someday. I will walk with my daughter, holding her hand, and this won't matter anymore.”
Colonel Edwards said nothing, and his eyes were full of confusion.
“I know I'm an alien,” Jane smiled. “A scientist who believes in God and heaven and talks about seeing her dead daughter. But that is who I am. Before everything else. That is who I am.”
Edwards nodded his head, prompting Jane to stand up.
“I'll see you in a few months, Colonel. Safe travels.”
Jane left the room, somehow feeling lighter than she had in a long time. Turning left out of Cheyenne's office, she didn't notice Candace silently weeping in the alcove where she'd been listening to their conversation.
That night, Jane reclined in her bed with her eyes open in the dark, the green laptop untouched for the entire evening. She prayed in the stillness: Lord, I want to come back. Is there a way back home? Where are You? Can I come home?
Chapter 58
“Well, that was a waste of time,” Jane said to Ana as the two women walked down the hallway the next day. She’d slept so uncharacteristically well, she’d actually woken before her alarm rang. The little green laptop had never left its charging cradle last night, and she lied to herself that the light from its screen before bed each evening had been what was making her so restless this season.
“And on the morning of our sim launch, that’s how we had to spend an hour?” Ana agreed.
They’d just enjoyed an ethics seminar where Bonnie had showcased a graphic of labeled concentric and overlapping circles created by some oversight team at NASA. It showed some possible uses of the Split Horizon technology: nice things like space exploration, deep sea discovery, world travel, and expedient medical care, as well as not-so-nice things like weapons deployment, espionage, kidnapping, and assassinations.
“At least the NASA higher-ups proved themselves to be as nerdy as we’d always hoped with that nonsense about a shrinking machine, dimensional shifting, state of matter displacement, and time travel.”
Jane laughed harder than was necessary as she opened the door to the console room.
The sim launch included rehearsing each protocol a dozen times with different variables. Tedious as it was, the exercise really drilled into the Split Horizon team how not-in-Kansas-anymore they truly were. A launch into space was very different than a little jaunt across an uninhabited continent, no matter the speed.
The final straight run-through simulation countdown started at T-minus five minutes, and the Florida team came online with audio and video to observe this last step.
“Good afternoon, Semotus,” Colonel Edwards said. “Just pretend I’m not here.”
“Good evening, Sir,” Bonnie replied with gusto, despite looking haggard. “Thanks for observing. We look forward to your feedback. Cape Canaveral, let’s begin the check-in comm procedures.”
Each station manager in Florida and his or her counterpart inside The Dome verified their direct link while everyone else listened. Each person’s video feed temporarily appeared on the main screen in the opposite location so the staff could ‘meet’ each other. It was a boring routine full of small talk and pleasant nods until Lucas’ turn.
“PGO, Semotus, go for verify,” he said.
“PGO, Launch Control, verified,” a young man said in return, then waved at the camera.
Lucas was obviously surprised by the voice and face on the other end. “Cornell?”
“Good to see you again, Dr. Whyse!”
“Well, if I’m Dr. Whyse, you’re Dr. Scott,” Lucas said with a smile. “Did someone get sick?”
“I was a last-minute addition,” the man replied, “They just brought me up to speed this week. And, may I say… Wow.”
Lucas turned to address the console room. “Everyone,” he said, pointing to the screen, “This is a former student of mine who I was happy to make defend his doctoral thesis after our first season.”
“Well, I’ve had two years in the field now and haven’t regretted your difficult questions,” the young man replied. “But I haven’t seen you guys since then! How are your kids liking Antarctica? I bet your little one’s walking and talking by now!”
The group fell silent and still. Lucas’ face turned white. “Oh, man, buddy, it has been a while since we talked, hasn’t it?”
Lucas rubbed his chin, wishing he hadn’t drawn the group’s attention. “We actually, you see—our son Sebbie’s five, and doing great, but his sister, we actually lost her shortly after we last saw you.”
“Jane seemed so good, though—oh no, is she there?” the young man was red-faced and covering his mouth. “Oh, Lucas, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know. I never would have asked. I’m so sorry.”
“Cornell, it’s ok,” Lucas said. “Thanks for asking. I’m sorry I never followed up with all of you from school. It’s… uncomfortable news to share.”
Bonnie tried to recover the energy of the room to finish the simulation, but everyone was speaking in lowered voices, avoiding eye contact with Jane and Lucas.
Ana felt how red her cheeks were but didn’t know if she should say something to Jane. Finally, the simulation concluded after a long countdown, and Ana reached over to squeeze Jane’s shoulder.
Chapter 59
MILO Personal Dictation: Candace Hartwell
Well, it’s in. I submitted the stupid project. Now I just have to wait. I’m so sick of writing it. I don’t even remember how many extensions they gave me. It’s funny that working with the famous Doctors Whyse seems to be a magic phrase that no one in academia will fight.
I hope it's that and not my last name. Ugh. “The Senator’s daughter gets special treatment” is just today’s upgrade to what I've heard a thousand times before: “The NASA administrator’s daughter gets special treatment.” Even that was the upgrade to “the star athlete gets special treatment” or “the pretty girl gets special treatment.” Any possibility that it’s just the girl who works her tail off day after day, night after night?
Yes, pity party.
/> Ana’s already finished, and I started before her. And I won’t even be a doctor! Do people really understand the difference between a nurse and a nurse practitioner? Ugh.
I’ve Skyped with the counselor twice since I’ve been down here. It’s been really good. I know not everyone regrets their choice, but it’s good to know I’m not alone with my regrets. She prayed for me the second time. Sometimes Ana or Jane does that. Do they pray for me because I look like I need it or because they think it will help?
I would like to have a kid someday. Another kid, I guess. With someone like Jane has Lucas or Ana has Ian. Not because I’m weak and need a man, but because I deserve to be with someone great. And because I want my kid to have a family like theirs. Dám and Sebbie are really lucky.
Dad’s agent sent me an email requesting a photo or two of me engaged in my work for their PR use. I toyed with the idea of sending him a selfie in a push-up bra since that’s how America chooses to see me… I’m a sex icon, aren’t I?
I guess I’ll ask one of the newbies to follow me around tomorrow morning. Maybe the country would give me a second chance if I’d just come out and say I was glad I had an abortion.
I swear if the liberals weren’t naming me a lying, anti-feminist sell-out for admitting I have regrets now and the conservatives weren’t calling me a slutty murderer for my life then, I might actually be able to leave Antarctica.
Chapter 60
Lucas whistled as he watched the robot work on the morning of the first space jump, five weeks into their four-month season. His computer was running a diagnostic on the entire system so he was making notes on paper with a pencil, which appealed to him. He’d always enjoyed making actual notes rather than just swiping or typing.
“Indiana Jones?” Jane said, walking into his lab and adding the next line of the song he’d been whistling.
“What? Yes, sorry. Sebbie and I were playing the video game earlier and that song is so catchy.”
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