Explorations- First Contact

by Nathan Hystad (ed)

  In an instant, the air is sucked out of my lungs. I guess I always thought of space as cold, but it’s not—at least, not initially. I’m spellbound. Fear should seize my mind, but the novelty of dying in a vacuum overrides my emotions. I guess I simply can’t believe what’s happening. Saliva boils within my mouth, seething and bubbling on my tongue, but without any sense of heat. My eyes are dry—my eyelids, stiff and heavy. My arms and legs feel swollen, while my stomach is bloated, protruding slightly from beneath my tracksuit. They say we’ll have thirty to sixty seconds of useful consciousness in a complete vacuum, but for me, it’s all over in under ten. The last thing I see is flashes of light erupting from within the Intrepid as she orbits an alien world.

  The rings.

  The rings surrounding the planet are beautiful. Tens of thousands of tiny lines curving through space like scratches on the vinyl records of old. Although there are colored bands, the rings look impossibly thin, as though they’ve been etched on a silicon wafer by the finest razor—no, a laser beam. Yes, I decide with my final thought, the rings are beautiful.

  Darkness descends as my life fades.

  Chapter 02: Rinse and Repeat

  My gloved hand slides effortlessly across the hull of the Intrepid as she sits in a low Earth orbit. An entire planet drifting by so calm and serene beneath my boots is hypnotic, distracting me. I was just thinking about something, but what escapes me. Something beautiful—majestic. This particular spacewalk just hit eleven hours, and even though I should feel fatigued, I’m not. I feel as though it has only just begun. Swirling white clouds, deep blue seas, jagged coastlines, and rugged mountains slide effortlessly beneath me—beautiful.

  “Coming up on the terminator,” a voice says over my headset, reminding me that a day in orbit is barely an hour long. Night falls fast in orbit—within seconds.

  I’ve been working with a power wrench, and only have my glare visor partially lowered to lessen the brilliance of the sun reflecting off the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean. I’m in the shadow of the craft, so I don’t need to worry about being blinded by our nearby star. I raise the visor and pause, allowing my cordless multi-tool to drift weightless in front of me. Day five in space is coming to a close—it’s not a literal day, but rather the close of our fifth orbit during this particular spacewalk.

  “In four, three, two.”

  Darkness collapses around me. The spotlights on my helmet come on automatically, and I continue on, working my way along the outside of the Intrepid. There’s something strangely familiar about my spacewalk. I’ve been working on mock-ups of the Intrepid in FCF’s neutral buoyancy tank on Earth, so I’ve learned where every access port is positioned, even little things like the spacing and frequency of rivets are familiar—but this is different. It’s as though I’ve reached for this exact handhold in this exact way before. Strange.

  “What’s the status on the cooling pumps?” Commander Jansen asks over the radio. I knew she was going to say that. Quietly, I whisper, “Still getting patchy readings,” in perfect unison with MacArthur almost half a mile away down by the engines of the Intrepid.

  “Well, that’s weird,” I say, forgetting I’m on transmit.

  “Say again?” Jansen asks.

  “Nothing,” I reply.

  I reach an access panel for the communications array and go through my checklist. Everything looks good. I work around the scaffolding and over to a vent from the shuttle bay. Although the repetition I was subject to in training makes my movements almost autonomous, there’s something different about my motion. I’ve done this before, and I don’t mean while submerged in a training tank on Earth with support divers swimming close by in case any technical emergency should arise.

  My scanner detects an inconsistency in output readings from a nearby component. I want to say something about what I’ve found, but I don’t. I feel an overwhelming desire to say, “I’ve got two faulty sensors on the emergency exhaust manifold,” but I refuse to utter those words. It’s as though I’m compelled to speak, and it takes all my might to keep my lips shut. Like an itch I have to scratch, I agonize, fighting against those words drifting from my mouth. It would be easy, so easy to give in and let them flow.

  “Have you got something?” Jansen asks over the radio, and it’s then I know. We’re trapped. How? Why? I don’t know, but in the back of my mind there’s a vague memory of dying, of being sucked out into space without a spacesuit.

  “No. All good,” I say, lying.

  I shudder at the thought of dying in space, quickly assuring myself I’m fine. I’m suited up. Supplies are good. Electrical power is good. Cooling is good. Computer is good. I’m good. I’m good. And yet the notion of being dragged into the depths of space is too hard to ignore. Am I developing a deep-seated fear of death? A phobia specific to dying in a vacuum?

  With thick, clumsy, gloved fingers, I punch the details of the fault into my wrist pad computer, trying to ground myself in the reality of the moment.

  “If she was a car, she’d be recalled,” MacArthur says, although his comment is out of context as I didn’t complain about anything. He’s speaking as though in reply to something I said, but I never spoke. We’re two days out from lighting the fires and leaving Earth’s orbit. Everyone’s feeling some pressure. It’ll take a year before we’re beyond the orbit of Jupiter and able to engage the displacement drive to jump to light speed. Firing up the drive closer to Earth is not an option. Too much energy involved. We could irradiate Earth if the damn thing went nova, but that doesn’t bother me. My mind is bouncing between what I should be thinking about and what I want to think about. I don’t want to think about the journey. I should, but I don’t. Something’s wrong. I can sense it.

  Jansen says, “Stow it, Jess.”

  “I didn’t say anything.” There’s silence on the channel. “You were waiting for me to say, we’re not ready to launch, but I never said that.”

  “Stow it, Jess.”

  Something is horribly wrong.

  “MacArthur?”

  “Yes.”

  “Deaf two awe hoo-mans.”

  MacArthur laughs. “I was just about to say that.”

  “I know,” I say, feeling a shudder run down my spine.

  “Say again,” is the response from Jansen.

  “That’s the slogan in the Proc,” MacArthur says. “Death to all humans.”

  Jansen says, “MacArthur, you’re not helping.”

  “This is wrong,” I say. “Everything’s wrong.”

  “I said, stow it, Jess—and I mean it.”

  “No,” I reply. “Not the launch. I’m not talking about the launch. Don’t you get it? We’re on script. All of this. It’s all happened before.”

  “What have you been smoking?” MacArthur asks.

  “Check the drive inverter,” I say, not sure where that thought came from but instinctively knowing it’s important.

  “Way ahead of you. Already ticked it off the list.”

  “Check it again.”

  “What?” MacArthur says.

  “Damn it, Jonathan. Check the goddamn inverter. It’s leaking H3.”

  The radio crackles slightly. “Intrepid, we confirm your assessment.” It’s an incoming message from Houston, but we never provided an assessment. “Flight says hold. Eight hour rest cycle and continue. Over.”

  “WHAT?” Jansen cries, but I cut her off, telling mission control what they want to hear.

  “Copy that, Houston.”

  Jansen madly switches channels. I can see the feed on my wrist pad computer. She’s switching from the open channel to the internal intercom, accessible only by those of us on the Intrepid. MacArthur will be listening. “What the hell is going on, Jess?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” I say.

  “Sweet Jesus,” MacArthur says. “We’re venting H3. If that shit gets near the fusion core, we’re going to go up like fireworks on the Fourth.”

  “How did you know?” Jansen
asks.

  “We’ve been here before?”

  “Here?” Jansen says. Here is a nebulous term in space. We’re racing around the planet at tens of thousands of miles an hour. Technically, we’ve been here several times already in the last twenty-four hours. Here is rushing by at several miles per second.

  “Bring it in,” Jansen says. “I want to see both of you on the bridge.”

  “Roger that,” MacArthur says. Neither of them get it. They’re still thinking about the political pressure we’re under to launch on the Fourth of July. They think this is about our safety in orbit, or our scheduled departure, it’s not. Something else is happening. I feel as though I’m on the verge of understanding what, but like a forgotten dream, the details are just out of reach.

  I turn, beginning to make my way toward the airlock. The rings of the massive gas giant are spectacular, reaching out for hundreds of thousands of miles beyond the planet. Tight rings curl inward, shepherded by dozens of tiny moons. Out beyond the shadow of the planet, the rings shimmer like sterling silver. Here in the darkness, they’re wafer thin but still visible. Millions of tiny strands cascade around each other in an intricate orbital dance. I blink and they’re gone. I turn back, watching as Earth glides silently beneath the Intrepid.

  “Anyone else see that?” I ask. There’s no reply.

  Is it the pressure of the moment? Am I hallucinating? I wonder if I’m delusional, and yet it feels as though I’ve never been more lucid in my life.

  I make my way back to the main airlock, working hand over hand. My fingers are sore. The gloves are stiff. The effort is exhausting. As I wait by the airlock, I close my eyes. Darkness descends, but there’s an eerie glow in the shadows.

  Thousands of eyes stare at me—each with an individual pupil set within the white eyeball. Tiny arms reach for me, peeling back my chest and dissecting my innards. Strands of intestines drift in the weightless environment, floating just above my open stomach. Blobs of deep red blood sail past like tiny planets. Two of them collide, coalescing into a larger sphere. Still the eyes watch, shifting slightly as they examine different parts of my body. My arms drift aimlessly in front of me. One of the thin spider arms pulls my left hand to one side, but I don’t feel it. I don’t feel anything. I try to speak. My lips move, but no sound comes out.

  The field of eyes looks up, locking with mine. They’re alarmed—panicked. The spider arms and legs pull away, leaving my internal organs floating freely in front of my open rib cage.

  “Are you asleep?”

  “What?” I say, opening my eyes and seeing MacArthur in front of me. His head is tiny within his vast helmet with its crystal clear glass dome, white protective backing, and spotlights.

  “Everything okay?”

  “No.”

  “Come on, let’s get inside.”

  “No,” I reply.

  “Say again,” is the reply from Jansen in the control room, listening in on our conversation.

  “You don’t get it,” I say. “There is no inside. There’s no Intrepid.”

  “Are you feeling all right?” MacArthur asks.

  “Feeling,” I say, lost in the moment. “Can’t you feel it? We’ve been here before. Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands of times.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asks, with more empathy than Commander Jansen who only cares about the mission.

  “The things we’ve done. The words we’ve spoken. We’ve lived through this moment so many times before. Can’t you feel it?”

  I can see the realization in his eyes—the sense of reaching for a deep, distant memory, struggling to recall something important.

  “Proc,” he says.

  “Yes.”

  “Sit rep,” Jansen says, interrupting.

  “We’re in orbit,” I say to MacArthur, gesturing to the rings surrounding the massive gas giant. He follows my gaze. He can see them. I’m sure he can.

  He mumbles, “Procyon Alpha A.”

  “Yes,” I say, but the dream is fragile—the vision fleeting. I blink, and again Earth drifts lazily beneath us.

  “I don’t understand,” he says.

  “Sit rep,” Jansen repeats, but I ignore her.

  “Don’t you get it?” I say. “We’re here. We’re already here in the Procyon Alpha A system.”

  “But how?” he says. I understand the struggle in his mind. “We never left Earth’s orbit.”

  “We’re already there,” I say. “But something’s horribly wrong.”

  In the distance, down by the engines, there’s a flash of light. Violent plumes of gas escape in a fiery explosion that is almost instantly doused as the expanding gas dissipates rapidly in the vacuum of space. Explosions ripple up the superstructure of the Intrepid.

  “Don’t you see?” I say, watching with fascination rather than horror as a chain of explosions breaks the back of the Intrepid. “We’re dead. We’re already dead.”

  The hull of the Intrepid flexes, buckling beneath us. Explosions race toward us in silence, threatening to consume us. There’s no time to react. There’s barely time to utter one last sentence before we’re killed.

  “We’ve probably been dead for centuries.”

  Chapter 03: Heaven & Hell

  My gloved hand slides effortlessly across the hull of the Intrepid as she glides through space in a low Earth orbit.

  “Coming up on the terminator,” a voice says over my headset, reminding me that a day in orbit is barely an hour long. Night falls fast—within seconds. I’ve been working with a power wrench, and only have my glare visor partially lowered to lessen the brilliance of the sun reflecting off the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean.

  Wait. I’ve been here before, and not just on previous orbits. Dark memories come flickering into my conscious awareness. I’m trapped. I need to escape. That thought is fleeting, and not based on anything tangible, but it persists in the back of my mind. I’m not one for paranoia or nerves, and fell asleep while sitting on the launch pad at Kennedy during a countdown pause—much to the amusement of the rest of the crew. The heart rate of most astronauts during a launch is around 130, mine was 80 beats per minute, only slightly above my resting pulse—and why shouldn’t it be? I was lying on my back doing nothing. But I guess the thought of a stuck valve causing a catastrophic failure is too much for most people, and adrenaline flows. Me? I don’t worry about things beyond my control. If it’s going to blow, I hope it’s quick and painless.

  The thought of an explosion on the launch pad conjures up images of explosions in space—flashes of light, brief fireballs quickly extinguished in the vacuum of space, violent shudders resounding through the superstructure of the Intrepid. This is no premonition. As confusing as it is, it’s a memory. How can I remember something that hasn’t happened?

  “In four, three, two.”

  Darkness collapses around me. The spotlights on my helmet come on automatically. Although I feel compelled to complete my tasks, I have a longing to get out of here—to get to safety. I feel as if my life is following a script and I have to break the cycle.

  “She’s going to blow,” I mumble to myself. If anyone hears me over the radio, they don’t say anything in reply. The feeling of dread within swells like a storm on the ocean.

  Instead of continuing on along the side of the hull, I unclip one tether line and then the other. There’s no up in space. Up is wherever I want it to be. I decide up is parallel to Earth. That’ll do for now. My tether lines float freely around me. The metal buckles bump into each other without making any noise. Carefully, I bring my legs up. Legs are useless in space—but not today. Although there’s considerable resistance from the stiff material in my suit, I crouch, pressing my boots against the hull of the Intrepid, and holding onto a support rail with my gloves to generate an opposing force. To anyone watching, I’d look like an Olympic weightlifter about to undertake a snatch-and-grab at a barbell. Honestly, I don’t know what I’m doing. I only know I have to do something. I can’t keep goin
g on as I have countless times before. Something has to change. If I’m destined to die, it’ll be on my terms this time.

  “Hey, Commander,” I say. “Look out the port window.”

  I spring out with all of my might, determined to break the cycle. Although my relative motion is probably only around two or three miles an hour, I soar away from the Intrepid, drifting freely out into space.

  “Jess, I’m getting notification of a proximity failure, can you confirm your location?”

  “Hah,” I yell, surprising myself with how loud I sound within my helmet. “I’m out of here. I’m free.”

  “Jess, confirm your last.”

  “I’m leaving. I’m not waiting around for this thing to explode.”

  “Come again?” MacArthur says. I was waiting for him to chime in. He saw it. He saw the planet on our last cycle. I know he did.

  “What the hell, Jess?” Commander Jansen cries aloud. I can just make out what I presume is her silhouette blotting out one of the windows on the side of the cockpit. “Lost astronaut. I repeat. We have a lost astronaut. This is not a drill.”

  “We’re already dead,” I say, drifting further from the Intrepid and getting a spectacular view of the entire starship. Its long, thin body is mainly comprised of scaffold structures, keeping the crew compartments away from the radiation emanating from the engines so far below.

  “Intrepid, Houston.”

  “Houston, stay off comms. We have a class one emergency—lost astronaut. Initiating recovery protocols. MacArthur, get to a pod. I’ve got a visual on her, but she’s going out of range. I’ll lose her in less than a minute.”

  “Copy that,” MacArthur says.

  “Come and enjoy the view,” I say. “I’ve got front row seats for the fireworks.”

  They must think I’m mad. I am. Madness is all I have, but I know what’s about to happen. I have no doubt the reality I’m presented with is a fabrication. But how? I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t understand. But I’ve been here before—too many times before. I refuse to die again. I want answers.