In the Blackness of Space

by Robert Kuntz

  I don’t know how long I sat there, looking at the words.

  Suddenly, I’m frightened. I slam the Bible shut and leave it on the table. I walk out past the workroom and pace the corridors until I end up in the crowded mechanical tunnel next to the ocean biome, armed with a scraper. I attack the algae scrubber, slicing the stinking mess of red, green, and brown algae from the mats so more algae can grow to clean the sea water and remove carbon dioxide from the air.

  As I’m scrubbing, I can’t get the story out of my head. He was a good man, but they tortured Him. Hanging there in pain, was He helpless and terrified from being left alone in the darkness? As a child, I was.

  I hear His voice in my mind, “I could take those.”

  I scrub harder.

  ****

  May 19, 2052 (Launch plus 120 days), 17:39 GMT.

  I load the last of the weeds into the bot-barrow and punch the DUMP button. The electric cart whirs down the gravel path toward the compost heaps at the far wall. Next to the strawberry plot, water trickles into the rice paddy. The growing shoots will be putting out seed soon. I turn on the spigot, wash the dirt from my hands, and head toward the corridor and the Tri-Comm. Ginger and Mouser follow from a distance, sniffing around trees and benches. Will these two ever realize that there are no other dogs and marking their territory is useless?

  When I talk to Jepler the manipulator, he’ll insist I go to the Beta Ring and read his letter. Like the odor of a road-kill skunk, he’s persistent.

  I’m not going to the Beta Ring. The last thing I want is that twisted number 27,513, full of death and the too rich, too sweet, gagging stench of rotting flesh. So I’m not reading his letter. I know it’s denial. So what? I don’t want to be enticed by whatever two-hundred-pound package he sent me. He’s a schemer, conniver, and crook. He doesn’t care about me.

  I glance back at the poodles. “We’re going home. The data’s being transferred, and when it’s complete, we’re going home. Back to open skies and north and stars in their places.”

  Ginger and Mouser bristle.

  “What am I supposed to do, stay up here? Be vet and pharmacist and mechanic and everything else? It’s too much for one person.”

  They cock their heads and wait with sympathetic looks. They’re thinking that I’ll get it soon, that Houston can run the ship through the new pulse comm link, that all I have to do is stand up for Carmen and her bassoon.

  For a moment, I remember being on the space walk. As I drifted through the inner core and looked up to the stars, one star beamed in the frosted blackness: Regina 27, our first destination. Regina’s a Sol-sized, yellow star with five planets, the second of which was projected as an Earth-analog. I see her in my mind. Then, I hear the long mournful sound of Carmen’s bassoon. Why am I remembering this now? Suddenly, the thought comes to me that it’s not memory. I’m hearing Regina 27 singing in the darkness, welcoming me. I feel a shiver of excitement. I want to orbit this star and see what her planets hold. Then my heart sinks. “I can’t. I can’t come.”

  Regret washes over me, and shame. I want to argue with her, “I’m just one person. I can’t keep this ship going.”

  Ginger and Mouser look at me as if to say, You saved us once. Why do you doubt yourself? It makes me mad and I stomp away before I shout at them. They’re poodles; what do they know? They don’t have the responsibility of this whole blasted ship. They don’t work from lights bright to lights dim without pause. They don’t have to go in that cramped box with the ocean and regulate pH.

  “If you like it so much, you mutts can stay on the Gal when she’s sent back out to FarSpace.”

  Ginger barks. I look back. Both of them are looking at me with incredulous faces, as if to say, Don’t you get it? The Gal won’t go back out. The president will shut her down faster than kids grab cookies.

  “Well, what can I do about it?”

  I arrive at the Tri-Comm. Ginger and Mouser settle in a far corner and glare at me.

  “Houston, this is Grant Chapman.”

  Ferris comes on. “Dr. Chapman, the data is amazing. Everyone’s poring over the sensor reports from low-g. They’re talking all sorts of breakthroughs.” Then his voice sobers. “Of course, no one knows when we’ll use any of them. But someday, when someone has the guts to get us back in space, we’ll be ready.”

  I hear voices in the background. Then Ferris says, “Dr. Jepler and Dr. H are both here.”

  “Let me talk to Jepler.”

  “Grant, did you read my…”

  I feel his energy, like a surge of giant 919s, and I talk over him. “Jepler, what did you work out for Carmen’s niece?”

  I hear the rapid clicking of a ballpoint pen. “Grant, I know you’re mad at me, but you have to read my letter. There’s so much you don’t know.”

  “I’m not falling for your con games, Jepler.”

  “Grant, you haven’t been to the Beta Ring. You have to go.”

  “Shut up about the Beta Ring. Tell me about the bassoon.”

  He sighs. “I’m talking to new buyers. I’ll hear from four of them tomorrow. The original buyer won’t budge. His deal was for so much per year. It’s not going to be that many years, and Carmen died tragically. The way he sees it, he’s not getting full value for his money. But there’s one part of the contract that’s iron clad: the full amount for the full journey.”

  “So you don’t have enough money for Ángela?

  “Grant, I did the best I could. Now, if you bring me back a poodle born in space, your worries about Ángela would be solved. Did Dremenev have those dogs neutered?”

  I don’t tell him. I don’t want the pups to be bargaining chips like I was a bargaining chip.

  “Grant, read my letter! It’s not just your two-hundred-pound package, it’s about failsafe redundancy. Your situation is not what you think.”

  I’m not letting him push me around. “Jepler, I don’t have time for your blather. You lied, conned, and bribed people to stuff me on this ship, and now you can’t find a way to save a little girl’s life. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Comm off.”

  15

  Ginger and Mouser look at me.

  “I don’t care that Dr. H is waiting. I don’t want to talk to anyone right now.”

  I should be happy. If Ginger’s pups take care of the cost of Ángela’s treatment, I can go home without it costing Ángela her life. But I’m not happy. I feel confused, stuck, like my gravity is off and I don’t know what thruster is malfunctioning.

  That spawn of squirrel sweat wants me to continue the mission. He’s got something in his letter to entice me. He doesn’t care that I’d be a hermit in space, never seeing people again, never having a sky overhead. He doesn’t care that I’ll never get a sixth date with Marsha.

  When I was growing up, I wasn’t like other kids. The first time I ever felt like I fit in was when I got to NASA. There, if I said something worth listening to, they paid attention.

  Marsha was even more attentive. I didn’t have to be busy with her. I didn’t have to say anything. I could sit in silence and still feel she was with me, paying attention. Sometimes in the muted silence, it felt like there was a soft humming coming from deep within her.

  Jepler, that’s why I’m done with you. You stuck me up here, away from Earth, away from Marsha. You don’t care about me.

  Mr. Mission-Comes-First, Disease-of-Squids Jepler, this mission wasn’t designed to seed planets. What if the four target planets are methane-heavy, their blanket of oxygen floating over poisonous air? What if they have land and water, winds and tides, but an atmosphere that’s oxygen deficient? Does my fabulous two-hundred-pound package contain stores of prokaryotes to give the planets a massive infusion? Am I supposed to watch videos for centuries while they crunch CO2 to set O2 free? Or am I supposed to hope it will happen in the blink of an eye?

  The ecosystem is more complex than any computer code. Yes, clover enriches the soil, but you need bees to pollinate the clover. I know, we’ve got be
es. But they need all sorts of flowers, early blooming to late, plants that we don’t have on the Galileo.

  Jepler, no one knows what we’ll find out there. Maybe those planets are bursting with life. But what if they’re sterile rocks?

  Where will kestrels roost if there are no trees? I know there are trees in the rings. But what do you expect me to do, redesign farm bots so they can drive off a landing ship and plant orchards? I suppose while they’re at it, they could unroll acres of sod and put up boxes with time-release pouches so seeds explode over the turf at the proper time. And I could just circle the planet for a couple of years, waiting for the seeds to grow and the oxygen to surge. Then I could send the animals.

  Yes, people would be drawn from Earth to a world with dogs. But that doesn’t get fish in the ponds and earthworms in the soil. Do I send compost heaps down to these planets? Maybe I could have a twenty acre plot of rich loam and mangrove muck, full of worms, teeming with mice. And it could soar to the ground on a glider as big as Houston.

  For crying out loud, it’s one thing to go exploring for planets. But how do I stock them with life? How do I get kestrels and mice to the ground safely? Do I ferry them on paper airplanes? Do I make the dogs edible parachutes?

  I know we have landing craft. But they were built to take mobile labs to the planet for soil analysis, air testing, surveying. They aren’t air tight. Animals couldn’t breathe and survive the trip. Do you understand I’d have to tear out an airlock and fit it in the lander? Do you think one man can do that?

  Besides that, I’m not a pilot. I can’t learn that in some virtual helmet. What if I blacked?

  And, pus-laden, turkey-spit Jepler, spawn of toxic-waste dumps, it’s a one-way trip. You can land, if there’s a stretch of beach or a smooth length of ground. But once you’re down, all the horse-trading in the universe can’t get you back to the Galileo. You need fuel and fuel tanks and booster rockets. They didn’t stock that stuff in zero-g storage in the center of the Galileo. Do you hear me, you hyena snot? One man can’t do all this!

  I can’t get Billy’s voice out of my head. So I flip the comm switch back on.

  “Houston, Grant here. Is Dr. H around?”

  Ferris says, “He thought you’d call back. Hold on. Here he is on a private circuit.”

  When I hear his voice, it’s like a spring breeze. I don’t feel as angry and stressed out.

  “Grant, you got the pulse comm fixed. And Ferris is telling everyone about your space walk. You were out there for over five hours and you almost ran out of oxygen?”

  “I couldn’t go back in the main air lock. SINDAS let Ginger and Mouser in there, and they would have died.”

  “So you were outside, in space, and you nearly ran out of oxygen because you had to get to another air lock?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great job, Grant. Amazingly clear thinking in a crisis.”

  “Dr. H,” I’m hesitant, but I’ve got to tell him. “I had an experience out in space.” I struggle to find the words. He’ll think I’m crazy if I tell him I met the One with a crown who loves me.

  “Grant, what kind of experience?”

  “Not a scientific one, that’s for sure.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  His willingness to hear draws the words out of me. “Dr. H, I met God.”

  “Oh?”

  “Are you going to doubt me? Tell me I’m crazy?”

  “Why should I?”

  With his question, I’m hit with another one of those unsettling thoughts that don’t come from my mind. You’re afraid he’ll say you’re crazy because that’s what you’ve said when other people told you they’d met God.

  “Grant,” he says, “it’s probably difficult to talk about, but it’s important. Tell me what happened.”

  So I tell him about how the universe blinked and I didn’t know where I was, but I was with the sturdy One, Who filled me with warmth, Who bore the thorn-marred crown, and Who had a patient, unshakable love for me. As I’m telling him, I feel foolish, vulnerable. He’ll think I’m crazy.

  The words burst from my lips before I think of what I’m saying. “Do you think this is hogwash? Do you believe in this bleeding man wearing a crown?”

  “He has a name, Grant.”

  I know He has a name. Uncle Ralph and Aunt Clara taught me His name. But I can’t bring myself to say it.

  Somehow, Dr. H understands. “We can leave that until another day. You’ve opened a new part of yourself, so I’ll do the same. Yes, Grant, I believe in Him. I met Him, in an experience that was nothing like yours and everything like yours. I was six years old. I was in church with my parents and grandparents, and the minister talked about a man sent from God with love that only God could have. He said that man loved me. And I saw Him in that church, standing behind that minister, looking at me. And I knew He loved me and that His love would never let go of me.”

  “That’s what I felt.”

  “You can trust it.”

  “By myself, I can’t, Dr. H.” But hearing him say that he believes has made a difference. And, for a moment, a touch of God’s light warms me, and I know that what I experienced was real.

  The words rush out before I know what I’m saying, “He wanted to take my nightmares and my dad’s abuse.”

  Dr. H’s voice is calm, “What did you say?”

  “I couldn’t let him. They’re mine.”

  “Yes, Grant, they are.”

  “But, I turned Him down. Don’t you think that was wrong?”

  “What do you think, Grant?”

  “He told me nothing could ever change how He feels toward me.” As I say the words, I remember the moment, the otherworldly love of the Son of God warming me.

  And, with that, I know there’s something I have to talk to Dr. H about. “I’m getting too angry. I’m not blacking as much, but I kicked Ginger. I don’t like it. It’s not safe.”

  “So what’s next, Grant, punching SINDAS in the gut?”

  I laugh. “That’s a null capacity.”

  “So you’ll become the terror of the ag biome, a goat-stomping, poodle-kicking, chicken-throttling maniac of wrath.”

  “Dr. H, this is serious.”

  “So you want to shove Billy Jepler…”

  “Into a live volcano. That I could do. Or carve long slits in his skin and fill them with leeches, or tie him down in the desert and let buzzards gnaw on his bones.”

  Dr. H laughs.

  My thoughts are tangled, and I struggle to find words. “But what if I blew Jepler’s brains out? What kind of beast would I be? I get angry like my father. I’ll lose it and be cruel like him.”

  “I’m not afraid of that, Grant. I’d put you in a room with Billy and a bazooka and never worry for a moment.”

  “But…”

  “Hold on, Grant. Hear the lecture first: there’re four ways people deal with compassion and anger, how they treat other people, and how they stick up for themselves.

  “Some people trust only anger. They fill themselves with it and reject compassion. The only thing that matters to them is what the fire of their anger drives them to do. Life is all about them. They don’t care about others. They become users, abusers, and murderers. That’s your dad.

  “Others are enablers. They have what they think is compassion, and they totally block off anger. In the name of caring, they let others walk all over them. Other people matter to them, but they don’t matter to themselves. They never stand up for themselves. They become doormats.

  “Some people don’t trust anything. They reject both anger and compassion. Other people don’t matter and they don’t matter. There’s no fire in them, no life, nothing. They become shriveled husks.

  “But the fourth way: people trust God. They put themselves in His hands and risk both love and anger. They care about others and stand up for themselves. When they get angry, their compassion keeps their anger from being destructive. This is maturity. It’s also a gift from God. We don’t come to
this on our own. The Almighty opens the door and helps us.

  “Grant, you’ve been given that gift. Before you ever asked for it. You’re not as mature as you want to be, but none of us are. It’s good that you’re getting angry. It’s even better that you’re expressing it. But you’re no murderer. You’re too grounded in compassion. You risked your life for Ginger and Mouser. You’re worried about Carmen’s niece.”

  Hearing his words, I feel shaky, like the floor is wavering. My vision narrows, and for a moment, I’m afraid I’ll black. I replay his words in my head. I don’t know how to take them in. I have never seen myself like this. Then something jolts inside me, like a door opening and a dark closet filling with light. I lashed out at the dogs, but I care about them. I care about Carmen’s niece. My father didn’t care. Not about his life, my mother’s, or mine.

  For a moment, I feel sky overhead. I can almost see vast heavens, thick with masses of cumulus clouds. I feel wind in my face and smell the scent of clover. I look down and my hand is full of seeds, little fellers full of life. I feel warm and safe. That vast, warm presence of the Son of God is with me, watching me. Then, it’s gone. But something in me is changed; something is different. I’m not my father.

  ****

  May 20, 2052 (Launch plus 121 days), 02:29 GMT.

  My father was high and drunk. He grabbed me by the arm, shoved me up in a tree. He screamed in my face, “You useless brat. You ruined my life. Everything was OK until we had you, you worthless moron. I’m never coming back. I’ll never take you down. The only way you’ll get out of this tree is to fall and break your neck…”