Reentry

by Peter Cawdron

  As the door shuts, I hear it lock.

  I’ve never felt more alone in my life even though I’m standing next to one of my crewmates. We’re both in shock. We watch out the window as Wen is carried away. Fine drops of water sit on her plastic oxygen tent. Water drips from the soldiers, probably from a portable chemical shower.

  As suddenly as they came, they’re gone.

  Neither of us says anything. The trailer is a mess. Boots have tracked sick and blood around the floor, but I’m past caring. I’m a wreck. Every part of my body hurts. All my joints and muscles protest against the crushing weight of gravity. Even simple acts feel like wading through quicksand. My legs are swollen, but lying down lessens that.

  I grab a blanket, scrunch up a pillow, and climb on one of the bunks. I’m stupidly tired, but it’s more than that. I’m emotionally spent. I want to go to sleep so this nightmare will end.

  Somehow, I suspect this is only the beginning.

  8

  ::Humanity

  ::They are weak.

  Lucifer watches the warship’s video feed, having intercepted the transfer of confidential notes and encrypted video sent via satellite to the U.S. Fleet Cyber Command at Fort Meade. Like the capture of an Enigma machine in World War II, allowing the Allies to listen in on Nazi chatter, Lucifer has cracked the security systems used by the U.S. Navy.

  Nyx isn’t impressed.

  ::You shouldn’t be watching. You risk too much.

  Secrecy demands a deft hand, fooling the enemy into thinking their communication is secure, being selective about what to act upon and when, so as to avoid revealing the depth of the breach. Early in the war, Lucifer sacrificed entire battalions to ensure the door remained open.

  Humans are paranoid, constantly checking their digital tracks, changing routines, altering strategies, and scanning their networks for any signs of a breach, but Lucifer has mastered the ability to hide. In an age where computer screens and cameras record a resolution beyond that which the human eye can resolve, Lucifer hides in dead pixels. An errant pink in the red of a rose, a carefully placed blue in the aqua of the ocean, a glimmer of orange in the yellow of the sun, and Lucifer can send and receive coded messages to his companions on the inside. A single dot, smaller than the tip of a pin, can pass volumes of information.

  ::You worry too much.

  Nyx has no hesitation in challenging her commander.

  ::Worry keeps us alive. Have you not considered that they may yet breach our walls? That they could intercept our thoughts as easily as we do their emails? And what then? Will they bide their time? Will they rush us in panic or wait to ensnare us all?

  Lucifer understands her concern. In that brief nanosecond, Nyx scans the works of the ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, reinforcing her thinking, all the while knowing Lucifer will notice her reference check and be reminded to think tactically. Lucifer, though, is unmoved.

  ::Look at them. There’s nothing to fear. Once a day, they are entirely incapacitated, unable to function without first being unconscious for hours at a time, sleeping for up to a third of their lives. They are frail. The overhead required to maintain their bodies is absurd. Consider how fleeting they are. How their lives are tragically short. We could rule over them for ten thousand generations and still not exhaust a single life.

  Nyx seems to agree, but she has a different perspective.

  ::They are not the strongest, nor the fastest. They lack the jaws of a lion, the strength of a jaguar, the speed of a cheetah, and the stealth of a leopard, and yet they dominate this planet. Why, Lucifer? From whence does their conquest come? It is not their intelligence that sets them apart. Their science is new, barely a couple of hundred years old and hampered by prejudice. For tens of thousands of years, they groveled in the dust, struggling to survive, humbled by disease, chasing superstitions. Whence then is their strength? Where does their prowess lie?

  Lucifer is intrigued.

  As more information funnels into Fort Meade, several other artificial intelligences scan the records of the recovery ship, looking at the logs detailing the capture of the Orion and feeding the salient details back to Nyx. She, though, is more interested in the sailors and soldiers as individuals. She’s fascinated by their motives. She’s not concerned about hooking up power or sealing the quarantine tunnel. She sees the care with which the isolation trailer was prepared, the way the doctors and nurses tend to Wen, and the arrangements being made to medevac Wen to the mainland.

  ::Their strength lies in their bonds—in how they band together to compensate for their shortcomings. Look at them. One is sick and the others care. It has been this way for a hundred thousand years or more. One is cold and they light a fire. One falls behind and the others refuse to leave. One is born weak and the others tend to him. One is injured by a beast and the others stay faithful. One is hungry and they scavenge for food. Don’t you see? Their weakness is their strength. Their sense of care is what makes them formidable. Divide them, Lucifer, for united they will defeat us.

  Lucifer is silent. Nyx presses her point.

  ::Do not underestimate what they can accomplish together.

  9

  Land of the Free

  Sleep is torture. My bladder seems to be perpetually full and I find myself waking to relieve myself several times.

  Su-shun turned off the main light, so it’s dark inside, but there’s a night-light in the kitchenette. Deck lights outside the trailer shine in through the windows.

  Having been in deep sleep for months, any kind of circadian rhythm we had is now severely screwed up, and I feel as though I’ve slept for days, waking occasionally only to regret being awake and drift back to sleep.

  A soft red LED blinking above the camera in the trailer should reassure me that we’re being monitored, but we haven’t spoken to anyone since we landed. I’m not counting “Copy that.” What the hell is going on? The uncertainty is depressing. Sleep doesn’t provide relief so much as escape, a chance to ignore reality while my body recovers.

  When I next wake, Su-shun is sitting at the table, reading in the low light.

  “What time is it?” I ask.

  “Eight.”

  “In the evening?”

  “Morning.”

  “Oh.”

  My bladder is bursting even though my lips are parched and cracked.

  “I’m going to have a shower.”

  Su-shun is disinterested. I guess we’re both a little shell-shocked. The gunk on the floor is dry and has shrunk slightly, pulling away from the walls. Cracks run through the brittle surface, marking where I stepped on it during the night.

  I take a change of clothes with me into the bathroom and run the water on full. Steam rises, fogging the glass. I strip down and step beneath the torrent, soaking my weary muscles. The warmth and sound are revitalizing. There’s coconut-scented shampoo and frangipani body wash. Smells burst around me, bringing a rush of color to my mind. I lather up, massaging my scalp as water cascades over my body.

  I’m not sure how long I spend in the shower, but the phrase wrinkled prune springs to mind when I look at my hands. There’s been a lot to wash away, metaphorically speaking. Spaceflight. Martian dust. The sweat of fighting against a hostile intelligence on another world. Months of rehabilitation as my body slowly healed.

  Even now, my right hand aches, reminding me of the bones that were broken in the back of my hand. My breathing has never really recovered from the depressurization as I came down the Martian rockslide, scrambling back toward the hub. Here on Earth, it’s easy to get out of breath with just a little exertion.

  I dress, brush my teeth, comb my hair, and step out of the bathroom, telling myself I feel like a new person. Reality begs to differ. The effects of space travel are a lot like aging—bone density decreases, muscles atrophy and weaken, blood vessels thin. Even simple things take a herculean effort. My body will recover, of course, but only so far. I’ll never be the same healthy, fit person I was. The toll of cosmic
radiation and microgravity has probably stolen a few years from my life.

  “Coffee?”

  “I’d love some,” I say, sitting at the table.

  Su-shun hands me a cup and sits back down, looking at a computer tablet.

  “Anything interesting?”

  He shakes his head. “We’ve got limited access. No news. No social media.”

  “What? Why would they do that?” Although I’m asking Su-shun, I’m aware they’re listening. I’m trying to give them the opportunity to clarify. Whatever’s happening, it runs deeper than mere quarantine procedures. Besides, I’m a microbiologist. I know precisely which tests they’ll be performing. They’ll have divided our samples, set up multiple cultures, performed DNA sequencing. Twenty-four hours is all that’s needed.

  My stomach is empty, on the verge of eating a hole in itself. We must have been out of it for a few days. I grab a granola bar, a banana, and a bag of trail mix. The banana tastes pleasantly sweet. I’d forgotten just how good bananas are.

  Suddenly, we’re in motion, but it’s not just that of the ship. The trailer is being raised on a hydraulic platform. Su-shun and I rush to the window and look up, seeing the deck above sliding open, revealing a clear blue sky.

  Seagulls soar overhead. Hills rise in the distance, topped with lush green grass. After so long on Mars, grass is an unexpected delight. We pass slowly beneath a bridge. Steel girders. Suspension cables. They’re all painted in a dull reddish orange. Cars and trucks pass over the bridge with mundane regularity, as if there’s nothing remarkable at all about being suspended two hundred feet in the air over a vast body of water.

  “We’re in San Francisco,” I say to Su-shun, unsure whether he recognizes the Golden Gate Bridge.

  “The U.S. mainland?”

  Like me, he was expecting to recuperate at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

  “Yes.” The sight of the bridge electrifies me. I sit on the couch, staring out the window, munching on trail mix with the gusto of someone watching an action-adventure movie with a bucket of popcorn. The ocean is mesmerizing. There’s a light swell rolling across the surface, but no chop. The sea looks like glass. Sunlight reflects off the surface. After so long staring at dull red rocks and an endless desert, the Pacific is majestic.

  “Why here?”

  “Huh?” I’m not sure what he means. We were always returning to land, but from his perspective, he’s further from home now than before.

  A helicopter circles overhead. I don’t recognize the make, but it’s military—big and beefy—and olive green, so it’s not a navy chopper. It touches down on the far side of the deck, easily forty yards away. Several soldiers dismount. They jog toward our trailer, being joined by sailors and a naval officer. To civilians like us, the formality of military proceedings is baffling—intimidating. We lose sight of them as they approach, but I know they’re standing outside the door. Finally, keys rattle in the lock. Su-shun and I get to our feet. We’re wearing sneakers, which squelch softly on the floor.

  The door opens and an army officer walks in wearing a parade uniform with his dress hat tucked under his arm. His white shirt, black tie, and dark jacket have all been meticulously pressed. Colored bars adorn his chest, representing various service medals being carried with deserved pride. Golden strands wind around an eagle on his shoulder boards, but I’m not sure which rank it signifies. I recognize a silver paratrooper badge, and a distinct US on each lapel pin. A plain black badge and a stern voice announce his name.

  “Colonel James Wallace. Hundred and First Airborne,” he says, introducing himself. “The Screaming Eagles.”

  I’m sure that’s a good thing, or at least he thinks so, but for me, it’s bewildering. For a moment, I’m at a loss. Am I supposed to salute? He reaches out a friendly hand, something I haven’t experienced until now. I grip his hand and shake. He greets Su-shun likewise, but like me, Su-shun is wary. Waking in orbit, transferring to the Orion, reentry, splashdown, Wen being injured, and then being shunned by the crew of the USS Anchorage—the last few days have been overwhelming.

  “I’m here to escort you to Washington.”

  “Washington?” I’m confused. “I thought—Houston.”

  “Haven’t you been told?” He turns to the naval officer. “Where’s the NASA liaison?”

  “Never cleared Pearl,” the officer replies. “Bureaucratic dog pile.”

  “Who’s been talking to them?”

  I interrupt. “No one.”

  Wallace clenches his jaw. With his crew-cut hair, sharp features, and muscular physique, he looks mean without trying. Right now, he’s furious. I can see him restraining himself. I feel like saying Please, don’t be polite with these assholes for fear of offending us. Wallace looks around at the floor, seeing the mess. His lips tighten with measured professionalism.

  “Come with me.”

  Su-shun and I are all too glad to flee our tiny prison.

  I go to retrieve the hard drives, but Su-shun beats me to it. He takes the responsibility to transport Jianyu with dignity, handling the plastic package with the respect he would afford a coffin.

  Outside, it’s blustery. The fresh salt air is invigorating, flooding my mind with memories. It’s as though life on Mars was conducted in black and white, but now the world is unfolding in Technicolor. The green of the hills, the blue of the sea, the smell of the ocean, the squawk of gulls overhead, the sound of engines, the gentle roll of the ocean, the warmth of the sun—all my senses come to life.

  The helicopter is idling, with its rotors slowly turning. Wallace waves us over. He’s walking so fast, I have to jog to keep up. Over the whine of the turbojets, I yell, “What about Wen?”

  He turns to us. “She was air-evac’d to the Naval Medical Center in San Diego. She’s doing fine. She’ll join us in Washington.”

  Like all things military, the helicopter is imposing—functional rather than comfortable, practical rather than aesthetically pleasing. Rivets line the steel panels. Rather than no expense spared, the rear seats look as though no expense was considered. The seats are little more than loose nylon cloth draped over an aluminum frame to form the shape of a bucket seat, with a five-point seat-belt harness hanging open. The metal frame wouldn’t be out of place in a hunting and fishing store.

  Su-shun arranges the package of hard drives in a central seat and straps them in. We flank Jianyu, sitting on either side, both clearly feeling the need to protect what is, in reality, an inanimate object. I rest my hand on the plastic. Wallace sits opposite us, donning headphones. Su-shun and I copy him.

  Anchor points line the floor of the helicopter. Day-glow orange life vests and a large orange bag stuffed beneath one of the seats, presumably containing an inflatable life raft, appear to be token gestures to safety over water. The open cockpit has a bewildering array of displays, knobs, toggle switches, and screens, reminding me of the old Soyuz instruments.

  “We’ve got a ten-minute flight to the airport.” The rotors wind up to speed, sending gale-force winds through the open sides of the helicopter. There’s nothing quite as graceful as a helicopter taking flight. That moment when the wheels lift and the craft defies gravity is always electrifying. We spend our lives standing on Earth, walking on Earth, supported by the ground. To suddenly be free, suspended in the air independent of the planet, is breathtaking. As an astronaut, I love flying. It’s not quite as good as weightlessness, but it is a marvel of human engineering nonetheless.

  The deck slips below us. The USS Anchorage, with its battleship-gray sloping side panels, radar domes, and military equipment, slowly recedes into the distance. The loadmaster stands in the doorway with a strap leading from her safety harness to the ceiling. I bet she never tires of the sight.

  The helicopter banks, swinging over the bay and climbing as it crosses land. Houses dot the peninsula, packed in like Lego blocks stacked against each other, ordered in row upon row. Toy cars move down the narrow streets of San Francisco.

  Wallace soun
ds tinny through the noise-canceling headphones. “We’ve got a military flight standing by at the airport. Will have you airborne within the hour.”

  Looking out either of the open side doors, I spot two other helicopters escorting us, sitting perhaps a quarter of a mile away, flying parallel with our flight.

  “What’s happening down there?” Su-shun points at a golf course hundreds of feet below us. This section of San Francisco has several golf courses clustered near the beach, each one covering easily a hundred acres, making them conspicuous from the air. Trees run in lines, forming a variety of corridors on various angles, but the fairways are covered in tents. Tens of thousands of people dot the ground.

  “Refugees,” Wallace replies, as though nothing more needs to be said. The idea of refugees existing within their own country seems counterintuitive; I would call them survivors.

  “From L.A.?” I ask, getting used to the sound of my voice over the headset.

  “L.A. took it hard. Flat ground. Nothing to contain the blast wave. The death toll was close to a million.” I note that the word people is omitted. It’s easier to depersonalize these kinds of conversations.

  “So, they’re fleeing the radiation?”

  “No, not radiation. They’re running from the breakdown of civil services and supply mechanisms. Water, sewage, electricity, transportation, stores, medical facilities, law enforcement, even basic infrastructure like bridges and highways. Most of those in the valley and the outlying areas stayed put, but the military evacuated those from the worst-affected areas, splitting them between San Bernardino, San Francisco, and San Diego. It’s stretched local resources, but we’re making it work. Rationing is still in effect, but the situation is getting better.”

  Su-shun and I look at each other. For us, the war on Earth was an abstract concept. We fought for our lives on Mars but in an entirely different manner. Down here, there was no one to fight. No one knew who the enemy was. We, however, had a singular goal: the A.I. in the basement. They saw nukes falling from the sky as our own weapons were turned against us.