Across the Void

by S. K. Vaughn

  “May, I . . . we all love you and miss you. Everyone sends their best. I’m not supposed to say this, but try not to worry. Everyone is working so hard. I’m here at Ground Control every day, along with Raj. We’re going to do everything we can to help get you home. I’m . . .”

  He paused, gathering courage.

  “I’m here. For you. We have your back. Know that. Okay? And please reply as soon as you can. Take care.”

  The screen switched back to the observation window. Stephen’s afterimage remained there among the stars, still fresh in May’s mind. With it, more fragments from the past flashed in and out. She was determined to do whatever it took to stitch them together, and to make sense of everything that didn’t.

  26

  Bournemouth, UK

  August 12, 2066

  May and Stephen married outside her hometown of Bournemouth, on the south coast of England. The small affair, consisting of a dozen or so relatives and friends, took place at May’s grandparents’ country estate. Their three-story Georgian home, built in the late 1700s with light tan stone, was perched on a hill overlooking a dozen acres of wooded gardens and pasture, dotted with ponds and divided by a stream. They held the ceremony near an old stone bridge May had loved as a child. The ivy covering its ancient stones had been woven with multicolored garlands of rose mallows, bird’s eye gilias, everlasts, Cape daisies, and pansies.

  May wore her mother’s simple, white-beaded wedding dress and held a bouquet of freshly cut flowers from the garden. Eve had lost the battle to get May to wear a veil, but was victorious in seeing to it that Stephen wore a light-gray morning suit with a black woven silk tie and cerulean forget-me-not lapel boutonniere. May had laughed when Stephen refused to wear the accompanying top hat, saying he wasn’t willing to get married “looking like the Monopoly guy.” Raj stood between them in a smart black suit and tie of May’s choosing—having won the job of officiant after weeks of passionate lobbying and agreeing that if he did or said anything off-color in front of her mother, May would crucify him on the carriage-house trellis.

  Eve was holding court in the front row of folding chairs with Aunt Lynn, her sister, and Uncle Bertram, her brother-in-law. They’d both been very close to May in childhood, Aunt Lynn often caring for May when Mom had to fly after Dad had passed. Stephen’s parents had died when he was a child, but he claimed Raj was more than enough “family” for him to manage.

  As Raj enthusiastically mastered the ceremony, mercifully sticking to the script, Stephen and May both cried, but as a result of stifling laughter. For May, it was surreal. She’d never expected to even sleep with someone like Stephen, let alone cross her mother’s marriage picket line and make him her husband. But although it was odd, as both would admit for the same reasons, everything about it felt right. He embraced her, truly for better or for worse (the poor bastard), and she did the same. For both, that was the definition of love. It was not about sacrifice or “work” as people often said. That was a nonstarter for them. Stephen said that there was no point being married if you weren’t enhancing each other’s lives in some way, making their experience better than it would be if they were alone. May agreed, and added her philosophy that remaining fiercely independent was just as important as their bond as a couple. If they weren’t happy and fulfilled as individuals, they would be resentful, compromising bickerers like pretty much every other married couple on the planet. This, in a nutshell, was the content of the ceremony Raj was reciting, and Stephen and May had no reservations about committing to it.

  The only thing that made them nervous was thinking about the time they would be apart during the mission. It wasn’t going to be forever, but the inherent risks of the voyage weighed on May more than she let on. In fact, that was the one thing she didn’t like about really being in love with someone. All her life, she’d never thought much about the dangers of her work, especially when it came to her own self-preservation. She had Eve to thank for that—for better or for worse. But ever since she’d fallen for Stephen, she thought about her own mortality, and his, more often than ever before. For the first time, she understood why her mother had worked so hard to divert her from relationships. Love was possessive, and if you weren’t careful, it could consume you.

  Looking at Eve, May wondered how her mother had felt when she met her father. Knowing how fiercely she had fought for her own career, she thought he must have bewitched her in some way, persuading her to marry and to have a child. Was his loss the real reason Eve had tried to steer May down a different path? She hadn’t thought of that until this moment, but it deserved her credence. In the past few years, she’d seen her mother in decline, slowly succumbing to a degenerative brain disease that could only be managed with medication, not cured. It showed itself with the tremors in Eve’s hands that she was trying to conceal under her own bouquet. Vulnerability was weakness, in Eve’s mind. She rarely spoke of her illness, so May was not even sure how much it had progressed. That weighed on her too. Being so far away for so long, thinking about her mother dying and not being able to make it to her side was her worst nightmare. Every moment from this point on is more important than the last.

  “You may kiss the bride.”

  Stephen leaned in and touched the back of May’s neck gently, something she loved for him to do, and kissed her. It was an incredible kiss, one that May had not expected; he had been advised to keep it short and sweet for the British attendees’ low tolerance of public displays of affection. Along with the missing top hat, the kiss was Stephen’s subtle act of rebellion, a small measure of revenge for Eve while being a large dose of aphrodisiac for May. “You’re in trouble now,” she whispered in Stephen’s ear before they walked down the stone-lined path under a shower of flower petals.

  The reception was back at the house, in the drawing room May had been forbidden to enter as a child but that she had often snuck into. It had tall, narrow windows with heavy tapestry drapes that had gone threadbare over the years. Guests danced on the wide, tongue-in-groove wood floors, laden with decades of lacquer. As a child, she’d spent hours in there playing and fantasizing about being a princess, but mostly ended up playing the part of the wicked queen.

  After dining in the fading summer light, digestifs and cigarettes were had outside, under the stars. To her horror, May saw that Eve had cornered Stephen near the bar, no doubt to impress upon him her many pearls of wisdom, whether he liked it or not. May drifted in to rescue him, but Stephen smiled in a way that assured her he could handle it. He’d never kowtowed to Eve, even knowing how little she liked him, which was one of the reasons she’d learned to like him so quickly.

  “You were married before?” her mother was asking bluntly, sipping her wine with the hand that had the slight tremor.

  “Yes. I’ve been divorced for seven years,” Stephen said, slightly uncomfortable.

  “I never knew that,” she accused.

  “You never asked, Eve,” he said, smiling.

  “What happened?” she said, deflecting.

  May rolled her eyes to the point of straining.

  “We met when we were young, and over the years, as we matured, the relationship changed, and we decided we were better off just being friends.”

  May smiled at the white lie.

  “That’s a very American answer. Now give me the British answer, please.”

  Stephen took a moment to pretend he was formulating a well-crafted reply. “All right. She hated everything about my work, which has been my life’s passion since I was a boy. She was suffocating, condescending, and, despite being pretty on the outside, she was a hideous troll on the inside.”

  “That’s more of a French answer, but I’ll take it,” Eve said, smiling and patting his hand. “And now you love my Maryam.”

  “More than anything. I feel incredibly lucky to have found her.”

  “That’s because you are incredibly lucky. She may be my daughter, but she is also one of the most exceptional people I’ve ever had the privil
ege of knowing in my life.”

  “Mother!” May finally protested.

  “I feel the same way,” Stephen affirmed.

  “What about children? What are your views?”

  “We’ve talked about a rent-to-own plan.”

  May laughed. Eve stifled a grin. “Don’t be cheeky with me, son. Unless you want your ears boxed.”

  “Sorry. The only thing I have to say on the subject of children is that I never considered having them until I met your daughter.”

  “That’s all fine and dandy, but let’s keep that particular horse in the stall till she returns from the mission. Wouldn’t want to erase her name from the history books before the pen ever hits the page, now would we?”

  “Heavens no,” Stephen said with a grimace.

  “Mom! What’s gotten into you?”

  “May, it’s okay,” Stephen said, trying to help. “Let’s not—”

  “Hush now,” Eve warned. “The women are talking. Speak your mind, girly.” Eve pinched May’s cheek and annihilated her makeup.

  “This is my wedding. Tonight you will do what I want. You will smile, and laugh, and dote on me. You’ll tell me how beautiful I am and how handsome he is. Everything you eat will be perfectly prepared and delicious, bordering on ambrosial. And most of all, you will speak only of pleasant things that lighten the mood. Is that crystal clear, Mother?”

  “I could use a drink,” Eve said pointedly to Stephen.

  “Allow me,” he said, eager to escape.

  “Make mine a tranquilizer dart,” May said.

  “Coming right up,” Stephen said, jogging away so fast that he tripped on a stone garden rabbit and nearly landed on the buffet table.

  Eve saw the fire in May’s eyes and softened, too fatigued to fight. May helped her to a chair, and they sat for a moment in silence. Eve tried again to conceal her tremor, but in vain.

  “Mom, what have the doctors said about—”

  “You do look beautiful,” Eve said, tears welling. She took May’s hand, and May was overcome with emotion. “I just hope one day you’ll have the privilege of sitting at your own child’s wedding and saying the same thing.”

  27

  “If everyone could get settled, I’d like for us to view the transmission from the Hawking II, which arrived a little over an hour ago. I haven’t viewed it yet, so please prepare yourselves accordingly.”

  At the Ground Control Center in Houston, Robert Warren had assembled the team, along with Stephen and Raj, to watch May’s video transmission on one of the large screens. On the adjacent screen, the Mission Control team at Wright Station stood with Glenn Chambers, also ready to view. Stephen gritted his teeth until his jaw ached. The incredible tension of not knowing what to expect was murderous, and he could feel it radiating off everyone in both control centers. For him, there was the added stress of unpredictable emotion. Since Stephen had opened up that part of himself, as part of the penance he felt he needed to pay, there was no telling when it would attack and overpower him. It didn’t help at all that he felt all eyes on him, studying, wondering if he would be able to keep it together.

  “Roll it, please,” Robert said.

  The screen was black for a few seconds, building the suspense to a boiling point. Then May appeared, standing on the bridge.

  “Hello, friends,” she began, attempting to smile.

  Stephen felt his breath being sucked out of him as a wave of silent panic surged through him and everyone else around him. May was emaciated and sickly. Her head was shaved to stubble, the skin on her face drawn, her eyes red-rimmed. She had the appearance of someone suffering through the last stages of a terminal disease. Raj patted him on the shoulder and tried to give him a reassuring look, but he had the same look of fear. Stephen could feel the eyes on him again, both rooms scouring him for a reaction. He focused on May, blocking out the rest of the world, and held on for dear life. But that wasn’t much of a comfort. What had happened to her? Stephen had seen images from the very recent Europa landing. In that time, she had gone from normal, healthy Maryam to a ghost of herself, barely recognizable if he saw her on the street.

  “This is the best I can do for a video transmission right now. I had to repurpose one of the EVA cameras to shoot this. Please forgive the low quality. I know you’re all anxious to hear my report, so I’ll skip the pleasantries and dive right in. I’m going to run a series of video clips addressing all major issues. Stand by, please.”

  The screen went black again, prompting an angry beehive of nervous murmuring among both control teams. The screen glitched, and May’s footage started playing. First stop was the trashed infirmary, which elicited a collective gasp.

  “Here we are in the infirmary. This is where it all started for me. And it’s the reason I look like this. On Christmas Day I woke up, having been intubated in a critical-care module. Actually, the reason I woke up was that the module basically spat me out. I’m not sure why, but I’m glad it did. The feeding tube and IVs had run dry, so I would have died of dehydration or starvation if it hadn’t revived me.”

  She filmed the intensive care pod she’d crawled out of on Christmas Day.

  “Yay, Happy Christmas to me.”

  Cautious laughter broke some of the tension. Stephen was happy to hear that May’s sense of humor was still intact.

  “According to the partial medical records I’m able to access, I had some kind of unidentifiable illness and was put in a medically induced coma to stabilize me, presumably while the med team tried to figure out how to diagnose and treat it. I have no recollection of that event. In fact, my memories of the illness itself are spotty at best. The last thing I remember is being taken to the infirmary after I had some kind of episode on the bridge. I think I might have even stopped breathing or gone into cardiac arrest. The next thing I remember is waking up in here. AI thinks I might be suffering from retrograde amnesia. I can’t remember the events closest to my illness, but long-term memories are intact—mostly, anyway.

  “As you would expect, I attempted to piece together what happened by reviewing the ship logs, but it appears all data collection ceased around the time I became ill. Presumably others would have been ill as well; an aggressive pathogen would have spread very quickly. But I wouldn’t know, because there’s nothing in the infirmary logs or ship logs in general. AI has done a thorough search. It’s just not there. Oh, and here’s a martini for your olive: the MADS recorder is gone. The housing is empty, connection wires frayed, bolts blown. But that could have jettisoned if the mechanism sensed the ship was in fatal decline.

  “I know you’re all bewildered right now, and I can assure you I share that sentiment. I’m hoping Mission Control received its redundant packet transmission prior to data loss so we can attempt to make some sense of this. Please tell me you guys know something.”

  Stephen’s sadness and worry turned to rage. What May was describing was inconceivable, not even believable as a joke. He looked at Raj. The poor guy’s jaw was hanging open. God only knew what part of his slaughtered “baby” he was ruminating on. If the scenario was absurd to Stephen, it was earth-shattering to the man who had designed the vessel. Now it wasn’t just Stephen the eyes were on anymore. They were fixed on Raj, questioning everything about his ship. Some old-guard team members on Wright and in Houston were boring a hole in Raj’s skull with their stares.

  But that didn’t make sense to Stephen. What May was describing couldn’t possibly be related to design flaws. The vessel had been tested countless times in the moon’s orbit. Flaws would have been found then, especially those capable of yielding this level of destruction. What had happened to the Hawking II had been one thing. Why it happened was another altogether. NASA would prioritize solving the problem, but that wasn’t going to be enough. If they didn’t identify the source, it could easily happen again.

  The scene then cut to a walk-through of the corridors. The emptiness was a haunting antithesis to the vibrant ship filled with passengers and crew t
he world had seen in the many historic video dispatches sent home during the voyage.

  “I searched all seven decks and found no survivors, or even any signs of life.”

  The scene switched again, this time to the landing-vehicle airlock. May was wearing an EVA suit.

  “The last place I looked was the landing-vehicle hangar, which, for reasons unknown to me and the AI, lost all atmosphere and gravity while I was asleep.”

  She took a deep breath, trying to keep it together and prepare herself.

  “I’m . . . It’s hard to put into words what you’re about to see. This is where I found what appears to be a majority of the passengers and crew . . . deceased. Please prepare yourselves, as what I’m going to show you was very traumatic for me. Our friends and colleagues . . . I’m so very sorry.”

  She opened the airlock and floated into the hangar.

  “Again, please prepare yourselves. Switch on pod landing lights, please,” May said.

  The bright landing lights from the pods came on, flooding the hangar with bright, ghostly light, revealing the floating corpses. Another collective gasp rippled through both teams and people stared in horror, their faces frozen into grimaces similar to the dead. It was surreal, reminding Stephen of World War II footage showing an underwater view of hundreds of dead sailors whose battleship had just been destroyed by a German bomber. They had the same look of morbid shock.