Dish floated past Lennon to the other side of the room, and then pulled himself back to admire Parker. He lingered in the doorframe. Lennon rolled her eyes. “Hey, Parker,” she said.
“Yeah?”
Lennon moved next to Parker and whispered, “You may want to put some shorts on.”
“It was so cold, wandering in the void,” whispered Parker. Her eyes were glassy and unblinking.
Lennon touched her arm. “Are you ok, Maria?”
Parker flinched and blinked. She turned and looked behind her at Dish, and then back to Lennon. “Right. Yeah, uh, thanks.” She pushed past Dish towards Crew Quarters.
Dish watched Parker leave and then shot Lennon a dirty look. He left out the opposite door without a word.
In the afternoon, Lennon had a weekly assessment scheduled for Dish. She purposely avoided mentioning the incident with Parker; instead, she decided to let him lead the conversation.
“I miss my family,” said Dish, opening up for the first time since the launch. “Me and my brother, we used to do everything together. I can’t believe I’m not gonna see him for so long. I was always the big brother, you know, watchin’ out for him when he got drunk or did sump’n stupid.” He paused, and started again with a slight waver in his voice. “I guess I just never thought it would be this hard, ya know? Not being able to see pictures or video of my family, it’s just killin’ me.”
Lennon understood how he felt. Her mind drifted to her mother, who had been in ill health before she left. She could see her mother’s face, sitting in the living room in her house in West Virginia, with the sun spilling through the windows and dancing on her flowered dress. Lennon closed her eyes. Now would not be a good time to cry. She pulled herself together and continued the interview. “Would it help your spirits if you could see your brother? Even if the video was not real-time, but recorded?”
“I would kill for a clip, a sound, sump’n. I’m serious. It would make all the difference.”
After the interview, she sought out Major Matthews. “Sir, can I speak with you?” she asked.
“Sure, Lennon.” He motioned for her to follow and she went after him into C2. They were alone. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Crew morale, sir. It’s dropping.”
“Can it be dealt with?”
“I don’t know, sir. The crew misses home. They need contact. They need the high-speed antenna. None of the attempts to fix it from the inside have worked.”
He stroked his chin. “You tell me, Lennon, is it safe? An EVA, I mean.”
“Abrams might be a better person to ask about that. There could be all kinds of issues… the possibility of radiation exposure from coronal mass ejections, is one. I would normally want to avoid the risk, but I think the crew needs a ‘win’, if you know what I mean. On the other hand, if the EVA fails or if there is another contingency, it could be devastating.”
He looked at her carefully. “I think that the fact that you are bringing this up is an indication that you think that the situation is dire enough that the risks of an EVA are warranted. Is that correct?”
She sighed. “I don’t know, Jonas. I just know that something needs to be done.”
He reached over and pressed the intercom button on the wall, then leaned in towards the metal grill of the microphone. “Attention, Seeker 3. All crewmembers, report immediately to C2 for a crew meeting. This is Major Matthews.” After the announcement, the crewmembers slowly began assembling in C2.
“Why are we all meeting in the Bridge?” Abrams asked.
“It’s called the flight deck, you Trekkie nut,” said Dish. “Or Command and Control.”
“I like ‘the Bridge’,” Abrams responded, sulking.
“Alright, listen up,” said Matthews, “Lennon has pointed out to me that you guys are all a little homesick.” He took a moment to look each of them in the eye. “I want to know how many of you would be willing to risk an EVA just to get high speed comms back.”
Dish cheered. Abrams hollered along, and Parker laughed and clapped.
Matthews smiled. “I take it that means you are all for it.”
“Heck yeah,” shouted Dish. “Let’s do it.”
Matthews lowered his voice. “Ok, here’s the deal. If we do this, we would be disobeying a direct order. I need a hundred percent on this. If anyone is against it, we won’t do it. We are going to do a silent vote so that nobody feels pressured.” He collected five plates and handed them out with a dry-erase marker. “Ok, everyone write either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on your plate. Keep it secret. Go into the ChowBucket and float your plate in here without letting me see who you are. If we get all ‘yes’ we’ll do an EVA.”
The process went quickly. Dish made no secret of writing ‘yes’ in bold letters on his plate. In the end, every one of the crewmembers voted to fix the high-speed antenna.
Matthews selected Abrams and Dish to perform the repair. They suited up. Matthews, Lennon, and Parker checked the suits to make sure that the pilot and engineer had donned the suits correctly and sealed them tightly. Dish and Abrams picked up their tool satchels and moved into the airlock. Dish gave a single wave before the inner door clanked shut.
“Seeker 3, this is Abrams.” His voice sounded tinny and scratchy, a result of the small microphone in his helmet and distortion from the low-quality radio transmission.
“Go ahead, Abrams,” Matthews answered.
Heavy breathing came over the ship’s speakers. “I, uh, wow, this is scary.” There was silence for a few seconds. “There are no hand holds leading to the conduit—that’s probably an oversight I’ll have to mention—ah, I’m having to use magnet grips. Pressing forward.” There were several loud clanks, each a few seconds apart, as he attached the magnet handles to the ship and used them to propel towards the damaged conduit. “Seeker 3, I’m uh, assessing the damage right now.”
“Y’all should see this,” said Dish, “I don’t know if I have ever felt this lonely and insignificant in my life. There ain’t nothin’ out here. Not that I can see anyway. Just a bunch of little light specks; probably stars or galaxies. They’re everywhere. The sun and the ship are my only points of reference—the sun looks the same, except for seein’ it with the black sky around it. That’s weird.”
“I told you to stay on the dark side of the ship,” reprimanded Matthews.
“Yeah, we are. Still, I can see it as I cross to other modules.”
“Limit your exposure. I’m serious.”
There were a few clanking sounds as he moved to Abrams’ position. “I can’t see the Earth,” he continued. “It must be beneath… or maybe behind the ship. This is so… it’s unsettling, is what it is.”
Matthews pushed a button and leaned in. “You need to focus, Dish. Get done and get back.”
The radio was silent for a few moments. It seemed like an eternity. Then Abrams broke the silence. “The situation is actually better than I thought,” he said. “Give me thirty minutes.”
In reality, it took him twenty-five, with assistance from Dish. The remaining crewmembers greeted them with cheers when they returned to the ship.
“That was incredible,” Abrams gushed. “I can’t explain it. It felt so…”
“Lonely,” finished Dish.
“Yeah, lonely. Wow, I’m glad to be back in.”
Matthews was the first to test the high-speed comms. He took all of the heat for the decision to do the EVA. He would not tell Lennon what Mission Control told him, except that they ‘weren’t happy’. The smile on his face told Lennon that he really did not care.
Day Forty-Eight
“I feel so lonely,” Parker began, starting off the weekly meeting with Lennon in the Atrium, “and I know I’m not the only one to ever feel this way.”
Lennon studied her. Parker’s eyes were watering and her voice had a slight tremble. Lennon was worried. Parker had been acting increasingly distant. “I think I’m going insane,” Parker continued.
“Do yo
u really believe that, Maria?”
“Out of my head, gone crazy.”
She got a sudden feeling of déjà vu. Had she had this conversation before? She was sure that she had not. “We are all a little stressed out. You need to understand that you are not insane, you are just feeling the normal pressures that any person would feel in your situation.”
Parker dabbed at her eyes with a cloth. Even the simple act of crying was strange in microgravity—the tears just welled up until the person that was crying could not see anymore. “No, I don’t mean really crazy. I’m just having a hard time adjusting. But I really do feel lonely.”
Lennon was disappointed. She had hoped that restoring the antenna would help more with crew morale. Unfortunately, it would be a while before Mission Control allowed family members to use the newly restored communications. “Of course you do, Maria, that’s why it was the first thing that you told me. Listen, if you ever need someone to talk to, about anything, you can talk to me. We can even make it ‘off the record’, if that would help you to feel more comfortable.”
Maria offered a courteous smile. “It would. Thank you, Rebecca. I appreciate it.” She blew her nose in the cloth that she was holding. “Wow,” she commented, “It’s really hard to breathe if you cry.”
“Is there anything specific that you want to talk about now?”
“No, thank you. I just needed to vent. Thank you.” She patted Lennon on the arm and left the Atrium.
Lennon frowned as she watched her go. Something about the whole interaction did not seem right, and she could not place her finger on why.
Twenty minutes later, she had moved to Crew Quarters to be alone for a little bit. Parker and Lennon lived in a section that the men did not. Their ‘beds’, or ‘personal areas’, as the crew referred to them, were simply four by eight foot boxes with sliding privacy doors. They looked a lot like breadboxes. The ship’s designers aligned the personal areas lengthwise with the ship to help give the impression that the astronauts were ‘lying down’ but the designed orientation made little difference once in microgravity. Inside, occupants anchored a sleeping bag to one side so that during the night, they did not float around. If they did, they risked colliding with things while sleeping or drifting over the vents, which might create a dangerous situation if air movement was restricted. Under the personal area—the word “under” refers to the area relationally closest to the wall that the engineers had dubbed the “floor”—each astronaut claimed a personal storage space. The storage space was the same size as each sleeping area and aligned parallel to it. In Lennon’s storage area, she kept all of her personal items as well as some of the items related to her primary medical duties. Parker’s quarters were directly across the room from Lennon’s, a distance of only about five feet away.
She approached the door to her bed. The sleeping areas were all white, aside from the doors, which were bright red. She did not know who came up with that idea but she hated it. It was probably one of Abrams’ nerdy friends.
She slid open the door and was surprised to see her media player floating above her sleeping bag. She was very careful about keeping a clean personal area and was quite sure that she had put the player away the last time she used it. She looked behind her towards Parker’s bunk. Parker was floating quietly with headphones on, reading. Lennon pulled herself into her personal area and slid the door shut.
She took hold of the player and examined it, finding nothing abnormal. She turned it on and noticed that someone had obviously been using it, because someone besides her set it to play music from the ‘90s. She hit ‘play’ and a song that was already in progress began again. The display showed the song: Tesla, What you give. 1991. Album: Psychotic Supper. It was definitely not her kind of music, but it was not bad. The beginning of the song played. Impatient, she skipped ahead to the first verse and was surprised to hear the words:
I feel so lonely and I know I’m not the only one, to ever feel this way.
She backed up the song to listen again, making sure that she heard the words right. Wasn’t that what Parker had said? She slid open the door to her sleeping area and peered out at Parker, who looked over, smiled, waved, and then went back to reading her book. Lennon shut the door.
Gone Crazy, out of my head, gone crazy…
The song continued. Lennon switched it off. Parker knew not to borrow Lennon’s things without asking—it was an unwritten rule that they had actually discussed verbally—and she was not acting suspicious in any way; however, during the interview, she had quoted the lyrics to the song on Lennon’s media player. Was it a coincidence? Had Lennon heard Parker incorrectly? She had avoided recording the sessions. Maybe she should start. No, it would cause anxiety and it would keep people from opening up. She could hide a recorder; there was one in her storage area. However, as a doctor and confidante for the other astronauts, she felt it would be unethical. Maybe Parker borrowed her player and subconsciously remembered the lyrics.
She leaned out of her personal area and called across the room.
“Hey, Maria, did you borrow my media player?”
Parker looked at her, shrugged, and pointed at the player in her own hand. “Got my own,” she said with an aloof declaration of the obvious, then appeared to realize that she might have sounded rude. “No,” she explained. “I didn’t borrow it.”
Lennon decided to that she did not want to stay in her room. She headed out find Matthews so that they could go to the Box for some exercise.
Day Fifty
Abrams tugged on Lennon’s shirt. “Hey, uh, Lennon, have you seen my comb?”
She shrugged. “No.”
He went past her and stopped by each of the crewmembers, talking quietly. Lennon watched him while she ate her lunch. He floated over to Dish, and after a few words, the conversation appeared to become a little bit animated. Finally, Dish hit his hand on the table.
“Dude, I’m trying to eat, ok?” Dish said loudly. “Nobody’s seen your stupid comb. Stop buggin’ me about it.”
“I’m not bugging you, I just wanna get my comb back,” Abrams retorted.
“You are bugging me. You asked me twice. Nobody has the comb. Just admit that you lost it.”
“I didn’t lose it. I know my stuff in the room looks like it is a mess but I keep it exactly the way I like it. How am I going to lose it, anyway? Where’s it going to go in this tin can? I’m telling you, someone got into my junk and took my comb.”
Lennon spoke up. “Someone got into my things the other day as well. They used my media player.”
“Lennon, back out of this,” Dish said. “This is not your fight. I used your iPod. I didn’t have the ’90s on mine. However, you still have it. Therefore, I didn’t steal it. We already agreed to share.”
Dish was the one that played the song? That made no sense—it did not answer why Parker had quoted the lyrics nearly word-for-word. Regardless, she did not appreciate Dish getting into her property without her approval. “But you didn’t ask,” she argued. “You had no permission to get into my things!” Lennon said. “I have very personal items in there. I keep private health records. You don’t have a right.”
“I didn’t look at anything! What’s the big deal?”
Major Matthews stepped in. “Hold on, guys. Let’s not get into a fight. Lennon, you should have those records locked up—”
“This is not about me!” she said, exasperated. “I shouldn’t have to lock them up!”
He held his hand up. “Lock them up, ok? That’s an order.” He looked at Dish. “Dish, can you explain why you were in the Women’s Quarters?”
Lennon noticed that Dish shot a look at Parker, who looked away. His face turned red. “I, uh, I told you that I was looking for ‘90s songs. My dad used to listen to ’em.”
“All right,” Matthews said. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Stay out of the Women’s Quarters. Also, in case anyone didn’t know this, ask before getting into anyone else’s gear.”
“
What about my comb?” Abrams asked.
Matthews sighed. “Has anyone seen his comb?”
Each astronaut shook his or her head ‘no’. Abrams’ face clouded over and he left the room.
“That’s it?” Lennon asked.
“What else do you need, Lennon?” asked Matthews.
“You’re not going to do anything? He knows not to go into the Women’s Quarters without invitation.”
“That’s all, Lennon. We’re all adults here.” He looked at each of the crewmembers. “Lennon, can I talk to you privately?”
She followed him into the Atrium, frustrated. “What is it, Jonas?”
“What was that? What you just did back there?” he whispered.
“What did I do? What about you? Dish was wrong, Major. You did nothing.”
“Lennon, as you know, this crew is on edge. You are the health officer.”
“So?”
“So, a lot of the crew looks to you… More than you know, I’m sure. The crew is not all religious, but they know you are. They confide in you. They almost consider you a chaplain.”
“I’m honored, but—”
“But nothing, Lennon. If you stir the pot, it will boil over. You need to keep the crew stable.”
“I will not let myself be wronged—”
He shushed her. “You should have come to me, Lennon. In private, so I could correct the problem. The way you handled this situation was completely unacceptable.”
He was right, and that made her angry. She put her hands on her hips, but could not think of a retort. She exhaled. “Ok. You are right. I’m sorry. I was just really unnerved by it.”
He put his hand on her shoulder. “I will take care of Dish, alright? He won’t do it again.” He rubbed his temples. “Listen, I didn’t want this job, alright? I didn’t want to be commander. Things happened, you know, and…” He never finished the sentence. “We are all stressed out. I know that. I just want you to know that even though I didn’t ask for this position, I will do it the best I can. If you ever have problems, I want you to come to me, ok? I will take care of you. I just need you to help me hold the crew together.”
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