Light from Other Stars

by Erika Swyler

  The rest of the crew was playing poker in the kitchen before Marcanta hooked in for a two-week sleep cycle. Evgeni won more often than not, and his price was making everyone clean up after him. Nedda used the rungs to pull herself across the module, back to her cabin.

  Marcanta asked, “You all right, Papas?”

  “Fine. Just a call from home.”

  “Come, see if you can get Singh to tell us where he hid the chocolate,” Evgeni said.

  “Sleep it off,” Singh said. “A good nap always helps. Or you can help me take a look at the Amadeus stuff Evgeni can’t read.”

  Marcanta smacked Singh’s head.

  “I’ll just do the sleep thing,” Nedda said. “You know where to find me if you need a hand.” When he needed a hand.

  She crawled into her sleep sack, let the hologram run, and tried to pick out shells—an angel wing, a surf clam—but found none. She listened to waves crash until they started to make her crazy; then she listened to the dark, to the module. Chawla had a heartbeat, a life support system fueled by Amadeus. She listened for power spikes and tried to stop thinking about home, about Denny, about her parents.

  It had been a full lifetime since she’d last seen her father. Her love for him was cleaner for the distance.

  He was thought. Light, moving through the universe.

  As was she.

  1986: Seven

  On the night of January 27, 1986, Nedda Papas sat with her father on the hood of his gray Chevette, the long barrel of a telescope occupying the space between them. They were pulled off the road by the Merritt Island Causeway bridge, attempting to escape the light. The night was edged with waves and wind cold enough to make her ears hurt from the inside.

  “We’d have to go out on the water to get any darker,” her father said.

  “Why can’t we?”

  “Because it’s a school night, we don’t have a boat, and I don’t know anybody who’d lend us one.” He patted her head, his hand a warm weight. “See anything yet?”

  “Nope.” Halley’s Comet was close. They took turns with the telescope, hoping to see a blot of light, a cotton ball stained faint yellow. Nedda recognized Orion’s Belt, the Big Dipper, the Seven Sisters, and could read them like a map; it was harder to look for something that wasn’t usually there. “Why do people call space the ‘heavens’?”

  “Oh, I suppose it’s because people like to feel like there’s someone running things and Heaven is part of that idea. People think of the sky as where God is, that they see God, and God sees them.”

  “We don’t think that.”

  “We do and we don’t. We don’t know. Isn’t it more interesting to ask what stars are? What they’re made of? That we can answer.”

  As he positioned himself behind the telescope, his cheek brushed her hand, beard bristles scratching against her fingers. Her father’s beard was wiry and soft all at once, black without a hint of godly white, but he, like God, knew everything. He explained things and the world opened. Last Christmas, Aunt June had sent a card with a picture of God reaching His hand to a man who was supposed to be Adam. For Nedda, touching God was the gentle scrape of whiskers on the back of her hand.

  Her father pressed the telescope lens up against his glasses, cupping his hand around it, trying to block light. “I can’t see much either.” He wasn’t built for telescopes; wearing his Coke-bottle glasses meant smudged lenses and light bleeding in, and if he went without, adjusting the focus couldn’t compensate for his eyes. Without his glasses, Nedda was a softened version of herself, and stars were beyond him.

  “I’m setting my alarm for four A.M.,” she said. “I want a good spot tomorrow.”

  “Hm?”

  “The shuttle launch. You said you’d take me.”

  “I did?” He surrendered the telescope, lifted his frames, and squinted before setting them back into well-worn divots.

  He’d forgotten, actually forgotten. She’d been crossing off the days on her calendar since November, and he’d forgotten. “Yes, you did. You and Mom said Denny and I couldn’t see the new Freddy movie and I said it wasn’t fair because we already saw the first one. You said it was a trade. You’d take me to this launch, special. You promised.”

  “I did say that, didn’t I? I’m so sorry, but I forgot.” He put his arm around her shoulders, squeezing gently. “I can’t tomorrow, Nedda. I have to be at school early. Next time though, I promise.”

  “You always have to go to school early. And you already promised and forgot. How do I know you won’t forget next time?”

  “I’ll write it down.”

  “You said you wrote it down this time.”

  “Remind me, then. You can remind me every day.”

  “I will.”

  “How about this? If you don’t tell your mother, I’ll let you watch that movie when it’s out on video.”

  “Fine,” she said, just like her mother did, so he’d know that it absolutely wasn’t fine. She’d already seen the movie, anyway. Denny’s mom had dropped them off at the theater on a Saturday afternoon and gave them money to see whatever they wanted.

  “I’m sorry, Nedda.” He looked it too: tired, his mouth turned down like a sad dog.

  The comet came once every seventy-six years. There were other nights they could view it, but he’d chosen this one. He’d borrowed a telescope from another professor. He’d let her eat two peanut butter sandwiches for dinner instead of the beef stroganoff Betheen had planned on making. He’d cut the crusts off the bread. She’d been allowed to pick the music in the car, and he’d let her listen to Wham!, then Madonna. When they’d gotten gas at the station by Jonny’s Jungle World, he’d given her an advance on her allowance to get a baby alligator head. It was stuffed in the pocket of her blue satin jacket. She pressed her fingers to the tiny teeth.

  He was trying.

  “Okay,” she said. She forgave him, but added it to the tally of things her parents needed to make up to her.

  Hours passed. Nedda’s corduroys gave her little padding against the metal, and her bones started to hurt. Once in a lifetime was hard to understand when it was impossible to imagine being old.

  Her father rubbed his back like he was stiff.

  “It’s getting late.”

  “Just a little longer?” She swung the telescope around, searching for sky she hadn’t checked yet.

  “I’m sorry, this isn’t working out, is it? We could try another night.”

  She shut her eyes. There probably wouldn’t be another night. No launch or comet, just a cold night and sore elbows from leaning on the car hood. “Five minutes, Dad?”

  “Five,” he said. Softly.

  Jupiter, Venus, the Pleiades, everything was where it was supposed to be. Nothing was extra or new. She pressed the eyepiece tight to her skin, lashes bumping against the lens. The words came without thought, like breath.

  “I see it!”

  Perhaps she did see something, stars or planets, but the sky was mostly clouds and cold. She’d never wanted to see something more. Because her father could not see it, because she would never see it again, because he’d tried and seemed like he did feel bad, and there was a baby alligator head in her pocket and crustless sandwiches in her belly, because they were watching together.

  The next morning, sitting in her classroom, ten miles and half a marsh away from Kennedy, Nedda was freezing, despite her heavy sweater. Lacelike frost covered Easter, Florida, killing a quarter of the oranges in Prater Grove. It felt like she’d never warm up. She’d write that down later, scrawling cold in a marbled notebook. A list would take shape, cataloging all the things she’d try to remember. She’d fill a notebook with her father, letters, and everything she could recollect, knowing that the thoughts would eventually fade. But, right then, Nedda just noticed it was cold for a shuttle launch and wondered if astronauts wore sweaters under their jumpsuits. She’d read nothing about that in her books.

  Mrs. Wheeler crouched at the media cart—a large brown
industrial trolley with a television belted to it. As she fiddled with the cord, the screen vacillated between snow, static, and waves that looked like rainbows with stomach flu.

  Nedda squirmed. She should be there, at the launch. All morning, letters and numbers beat their wings inside her: Mission STS 51-L. That was OV-99. Orbiter vehicle. Judith Resnik flew OV-99. Nedda would fly it. OV-99, STS 51-L. STS. Space Transportation System. STS. STS.

  “Oh my god, are you hissing?” Tonya Meyers whispered.

  “No,” Nedda said.

  Tonya, with the permed bangs. Tonya, who set up rows of Weepuls and dog-shaped erasers on her desk. Nedda at least kept her My Little Pony hidden in her book bag, much as she wanted to keep Cotton Candy in her desk. She knew she was a little old for ponies, but at least she knew it. Cotton Candy had fallen out of her book bag at recess once. Once, and everyone knew. Her face had burned so badly she wanted to cry. Tonya had laughed. Punching people was stupid. Stupid people did it, but she knew that one time, just that once, it would have felt so good.

  She’d forgiven her father for not taking her to the launch, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t still be angry. Lately he was too busy for lots of things—dinner, TV, books. His time went to his classes, his lab, and his project. Nothing made you angry like missing someone. She’d asked her mother to take her, but Betheen was working on a cake, the three-day kind, and wasn’t going anywhere until every piped line and icing rose was set and perfect. The house stank—sour with solder from the downstairs lab, thick with vanilla and fat from the kitchen. Vanilla was fine, unless you lived in it all day every day. Nedda’s mother took the joy out of cake.

  News 14’s Tuck Broderick swam into view, his skin tanned to a rich purple.

  A blur sailed across the room, striking Nedda’s cheek with a sodden sting. Spitball. Jimmy La Morte sat to her left, holding the clear plastic tube of a hollowed-out Bic. Great. Jimmy’s family drank slough water. His spit probably had bacteria that could rot her skin through. Full of road runoff and decades of pesticides from defunct orange groves, the sloughs were polluted, and anything that survived in the water was tough by necessity. She wiped the gunk from her cheek with her sleeve.

  Tuck Broderick backed out of the shot and the camera panned across the crowd. Thousands of faces. She slid her hand into her jeans pocket and took out a small circle cut from paper. A mission patch, like the ones stitched onto the astronauts’ space suits. Later, her dad would take her to get a real embroidered patch from Kennedy, but she loved staying up the night before a launch, sketching the patch from pictures in newspapers. She’d had her pony on her desk with her, in its astronaut suit. Betheen had bought it for her, which was the nicest thing Betheen had ever done. This mission patch was good, but not her best. She hadn’t had much time after getting home late. The apple on it didn’t look right. Maybe she’d gotten the proportions wrong.

  On TV, the shuttle was clumsy, an airplane grown too big on good food and lazy beach days. Nothing like the slender rocket she dreamed of—silver like an Agena, but sleeker, shinier, with a room at the top for books, and a steel lab table with microscopes, beakers, lasers, and specimen slides. She dreamed of a jump chair cradling her when g-forces pressed her insides to her spine. She dreamed of a bay window, Pyrex to withstand heat and cold, and watching the air change color until blue faded to black stippled with distant stars. Her father said watching stars was looking back in time; the light she saw had left some star millennia before. She imagined other planets’ dinosaurs, and that on one of those distant lights, another Nedda watched Earth, Florida even, and saw the rubbery snout of an elasmosaurus as it raised its head from a swamp.

  The countdown began. She tapped her fingers with it. Ten. Mission control sounded like a phone call from 1950, raspy and tinny. The classroom clock hiccupped and lost a second. Nine. Clouds billowed beneath the shuttle.

  “That’s steam,” she said. “They use water to dampen the sound.” Nobody listened. Eight. Everything inside the shuttle would be shaking. She pressed her tennis shoes flat against the floor, hoping to feel the rumble.

  Tuck Broderick held the T in T-minus for two full counts. Mission control was at seven by the time he caught up. Six. Nedda ran her fingers over her patch, feeling the marks from her pen. Five. Jenny Demarco screamed the numbers, just for the chance to yell. The last seconds were lost to OV-99’s engines rumbling. Combustion was the boldest chemical reaction. Nothing else had the same excitement. When her dad let her light flash paper, she felt a burst of adrenaline that matched the flame. Nedda folded down one finger for each second left. Four. Pinkie. Three. Ring. Two. The fuck-you finger. One. Pointer.

  The floor trembled as if waking to shudder off the desks and students it had accumulated while sleeping. Linoleum rolled under her and she laughed. The ground should shake when someone left it. It was like swimming and flying at the same time, like at any second her desk would fall away and she’d fly on the shuttle’s trail of fire and steam. Nedda began counting again as pencils rolled from desks. Five. Six. Seven. Mrs. Wheeler braced herself against the television. The classroom smelled like dry-erase markers and sweeping compound, and Nedda wished someone had opened a window. Easter smelled smoky and good after a launch.

  The shuttle’s black nose was an ink blot against the clouds on television. Later, she’d remember the clouds and write them down. Behind her, Keith Wilmer made a fart noise and someone giggled.

  “Shut up,” Nedda whispered. Forty-five. Forty-six. The first two minutes after takeoff were the most important. After two minutes, anything that could go wrong would have already gone wrong. Anything else would happen in space, where no one could see it, or on reentry.

  Another wet splat, this time on her neck, just missing her braid. She spun to face Jimmy, whose too-wide-set eyes were full of venom and stupid. He twirled the Bic in one hand and flashed the middle finger with the other.

  Last winter, in a fit of attentive parenting, Betheen had demanded that Nedda clean up her language. To do it properly, Nedda wanted to know every single forbidden word and derivation. The shelf by her bed began accumulating lists of every cuss she encountered, and her mother’s reaction to them. Gradually the project became less about documentation and more about the evolution of swearing. When she’d exhausted standard swears and their traditional permutations, she invented new ones, compound swears, swears that were only swears on certain occasions, and swears for things most people didn’t understand were awful. A stack of pages grew, list after list of a filthy, silent scream. So when Nedda called Jimmy La Morte a cunt, it was based on long hours of copious research.

  All movement stopped. The word hung, solid enough that she almost reached for it. But there was no taking sound back—it fanned out like an earthquake. Jimmy’s swamp-puppy face went slack and his spitball shooter fell. The clattering mixed with the shuttle launch and the plosive T of cunt.

  “Nedda Susanne Papas,” Mrs. Wheeler shouted. All three parts of her name, which only Betheen had the right to use.

  Nedda’s face went red, but before she could protest, a loud pop came from the television.

  Marilyn Ellison screamed.

  The picture on the TV was wrong. There should be afterburners, condensation from crossing the sound barrier, the silhouette of the shuttle breaking free from the atmosphere. It didn’t make sense.

  There were eight smoke plumes; smoke, not condensation.

  The camera shifted, tracking one streamer, at the head of which was a burning piece of—she didn’t know what. Part of the shuttle. She bit her tongue, chewing it between her molars. Combustion changed the state of things and everything wound up as carbon or gas. What was left wasn’t a shuttle. It was gas, carbon, metal, and … what?

  On TV, Tuck Broderick chanted, “Oh, god. Oh, god. Oh, god. Ladies and gentlemen, something’s gone wrong.” The picture bounced as the cameraman jockeyed for position.

  She rubbed the patch drawing, pushing ink into the ridges of her fingertips. The shutt
le was gas, carbon, and warped metal. Judith Resnik’s shuttle, and everyone inside it. Judy Resnik. Sweaters didn’t matter, she thought, and immediately felt sick.

  Stillness stretched the moment into a flat image of a classroom filled with students. No breath. No movement. Then Kim Wallace’s Trapper Keeper fell from her desk, and the tiny crash shook life back in.

  Nedda didn’t know the math of how long it would take soundwaves from the explosion to reach the school, not with the humidity, not with being close to sea level. She rubbed the patch. Her dad would know.

  Mrs. Wheeler turned off the television and the knob made the same plastic-sounding click it always did. She kept her back to the class. Nedda stared at her blouse, which was champagne pink. She knew the color; her mother had the same one from Dillard’s, and she’d been wearing it that morning. Mrs. Wheeler wasn’t making noise, but she was crying all the same. Marilyn Ellison was too, and she sounded exactly like a cricket frog. Liza Nuñez hiccupped. Nedda could almost see the soundwaves floating, dizzily knocking into shoulders and backs.

  They’d watched seven people die.

  The PA cut in. Through cracking and hissing, Principal Lauder announced that all classrooms were to report to the auditorium for an assembly. His voice broke on the word auditorium. Maybe his back shook too.

  Nedda jostled to the front of the line, next to Mrs. Wheeler. The C word incident forgotten, Mrs. Wheeler squeezed every shoulder as she counted down the line, then back up. Her eyes were puffy and the tip of her nose had a faint sheen. Her blouse sleeves caught the light, and Nedda pictured her mother walking up and down the line, clasping shoulders. If she said the C word again, Mrs. Wheeler would yell at her. She’d be sent to the office. Principal Lauder would call her father and she’d be sent home. Maybe that would make things feel normal again.

  She stayed quiet.

  Following the line from Mr. Stanza’s room, they shuffled down the hall, passing the fifth-grade corridor. She wrapped the patch drawing around her thumb, then locked it into a fist. If she hit someone with her fist like that, she’d break her thumb. How much would it hurt to break a thumb? Not enough. They rounded the corner by the art room and Mrs. Wheeler started gulping like a fish. The drapey bow on her blouse quivered.