Noumenon Infinity

by Marina J. Lostetter

  Just as Divit had said, Vanhi’s face took up the screen. They’d landed on some news channel, and below her mouth—which hung wide, midsentence—was the headline:—entific Shakeup of Our Time; Twelfth Planet United Mission Canceled. New Mission to be Assig—

  “What is this?” her father asked. “Why didn’t you tell us you were going to be on the news?”

  Where on Earth did they get—? The cogs in her brain slowly rolled into place. It took her a moment, but eventually she recognized the clip. This wasn’t one of the recent interviews she’d given in Dubai. Her clothes, her hairstyle—they were from years ago.

  I’m going to murder him. They won’t send me into space if I murder him.

  It was a portion of a vid she’d help make in grad school. Some informational such-and-such they used in U of O recruiting.

  She’d signed a waiver; the university could do whatever they wanted with the footage.

  Apparently they wanted to hand it over to Dr. Kaufman to use as academic propaganda.

  “What new mission?” asked Swara, inching up to take her son. She was Vanhi’s closest sibling, and not just in age. “They’re canceling the mission to TRAPPIST-One? But I thought that was our best bet for finding multicellular life. That was my favorite mission.”

  It was the world’s favorite mission.

  Dozens of expectant eyes tracked Vanhi’s every twitch. She hadn’t meant for this to come up now. Didn’t really need it to come up for years. Because she knew as soon as she tried to explain—

  There would be so many different reactions. So many questions to field. She didn’t want to deal with them now. She got to come home so rarely; this was her first visit back in two years. She wanted to talk about Leah’s college applications, and Divit’s promotion, and Swara’s new engineering company. She wanted to play with little Hannah and give Ryan his bath.

  She wanted to go fishing with her father and simply watch the river. She wanted to endure her mother’s never-ending attempt to clean out her closet by forcing Vanhi to take every pair of churidaar she owned—no matter how threadbare.

  She wanted to casually mention her involvement in the new Convoy Twelve, to ease everyone into it, to reassure them.

  She knew if her brother pressed Play that her face would swiftly disappear, followed close by Kaufman’s. Damn Kaufman and his need to make everything about him.

  Behind her, Vanhi’s ma gasped. “You’re not—you’re not leaving are you?”

  Vanhi’s heart constricted. Her mother sounded so pained. “No. I know what you’re thinking, and it’s not like the others—”

  “So, you’re not going to space?” asked Parth.

  “No, I am, but—”

  Her mother clutched at her chest, spoon still in hand. “Arey!”

  “It’s not like the others,” she insisted.

  “Vanhi,” her father said sternly. “May we see you in my office?”

  “Papa,” she groaned.

  “Now,” he insisted, hoisting himself off the sagging couch.

  The double doors closed heavily behind her papa, but they sat high off the wood floor, and the juncture between the two had no seal. There was nothing airtight—or, more importantly, soundproof—about the room. Her parents had long used this room when they wanted to “privately” chastise one of their children. It was part of how they kept the Kapoor pack in line.

  But none of their children were children anymore. And yet old habits had a way of clinging, unnoticed, like mites.

  The office was warm, the lights dim. Papa’s heavy oak desk took up the majority of the space, leaving only a cramped pocket for guest chairs. No one sat.

  “I will let you explain,” her papa said. “But you must answer me this first: Why did you not think to discuss this with your family?”

  Her ma’s eyes were wide, expectant.

  But not patient.

  “I was going to, soon. I’ve been under a gag order, though, and the consortium just lifted it. I wasn’t allowed to until now, and I was waiting for a good moment to tell everyone. But you need to understand, this new convoy isn’t like the others. It’ll be close enough for Earth-to-convoy supply runs. I’ll be up there for two years at a time, with six-month breaks back here. It’ll be no different than my living in Dubai. You won’t see me for a few years, but I only get to visit every few years now.

  “We’ll be just outside the Oort cloud. I know that sounds far away, I know. But it’s not, and that’s what’s—what’s amazing about being alive now, working now, studying now. Distance doesn’t matter, it never has. Only time. It’s the time it takes to reach a place that makes it seem close or far away.

  “They’re going to allow visitors, too. I get special passes. You won’t have to worry about the price of tickets or anything. So really, it’ll be better than now. We can see each other more often.” Maybe. Hopefully.

  Tears cradled her mother’s eyes, but did not fall. She was difficult to read: Were these happy tears, scared tears?

  Her papa’s face was blank, his gaze turned inward. “Isn’t space dangerous?” he asked.

  Suddenly overwhelmed, Vanhi flung her arms around both her parents, and they squeezed her back. “Life is dangerous,” she said, with a laugh that covered a sniffle. “But you’d never expect me not to live it.”

  December 14, 2124 CE

  The path from outside observer to Head of the “Littlest Convoy” (a nickname used both as an endearment and slight these days), felt longer than it had been, but by most measures was still shorter than it had the right to be.

  All of the other mission leaders were gray by now, having devoted nearly the whole of their life’s work to this. Many were retired, and all but a couple had watched their ships disappear into the night.

  Vanhi was still fresh, though. Not young by most standards, but nowhere near the end of her professional endeavors. For others, the P.U.M.s had been the entire book, but for her, the convoy was just a chapter, and an opening one at that. She’d taken up the reins as an outsider, not building from the ground up, but reassembling, reusing. It gave her a perspective the other heads didn’t have; she could be more objective, in a sense, as the convoy was not the only legacy she intended to forge for herself. It wasn’t even fully her idea—she wanted it, definitely, but she didn’t quite have the same level of emotional investment in her mission as others did in theirs. It was a job—an amazing job, but still a job, not a piece of herself. She knew there were plenty of colleagues that resented her position, and that made tomorrow’s “unveiling” all the more important.

  The trip to the Moon had been a day’s jaunt—graviton-based systems were far quicker and more efficient than rockets—and she’d spent the evening in solitude, pouring over her speech notes while others wined and dined in the base’s mess hall.

  Maranas Moon Base served as one of twenty in a network of staging grounds for the ships’ construction workers. Once the bases had served their function for the missions, they would be converted into colony habitats. The ships themselves were built and housed in construction yards set at two Lagrange points between the Earth and the Moon. On her ride out, Vanhi had caught a sharp zing of sunlight bouncing off something in the distance, and was sure she was looking at Twelve’s three ships. It was the same gleam that denoted a space station streaking across the sky on Arizona summer nights.

  When she was sure the festivities had died down, and that all reasonable people had gone to bed, Vanhi left the base’s library. The room they’d allotted her was small and cramped—normally her favorite kind of working environment, but not this evening. She’d paced for most of the night, back and forth in front of the pressure-sealed shelves (the base’s collection of first edition books was one of its boasting points for intellectual tourists), repeating the key points of her speech over and over.

  The base, though fifteen years old, still retained a strange, fresh-plastic scent. There was a sterile newness about it all, and an alien strangeness. It prickled her ne
rves.

  The heels of her tennis shoes did not clop-clop-clop through the domed halls like pumps would have, which was a saving grace with her head already pounding. She needed some water, and at least four hours in snooze-town, and a big-ass breakfast before the press conference tomorrow.

  C heard her mumbling about food. “There is a breakfast on tomorrow’s itinerary, though there is no indication of whether or not it will qualify as ‘big-ass.’”

  Vanhi snickered as she slid her key card through the reader at an airlock door before proceeding into the next hall. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  “You’ll be happy to know idli is on the menu. I’ve noticed that, when it’s available, you choose to consume it as a first meal seventy-eight percent of the time.”

  “Are they serving it with sambar?”

  “No. Coconut chutney.”

  “Monsters.”

  She traversed the majority of the hall before the airlock she’d come through hissed open once more. Figuring it was none of her business, Vanhi didn’t turn to see who else was keeping late hours.

  Their shoes made a sharp tit-tat on the cement floor.

  The noise was irritating—like a mouse scratching or a sink dripping—but she was only a few more hall lengths from her door, almost within sight of the narrow cot that took up most of her room. She was so ready for her head to hit the pillow.

  But then the tit-tat of the stranger’s shoes picked up their pace. Vanhi’s heart rate jumped in response, matching the rhythm.

  You’re on the freaking Moon, she reminded herself. This isn’t some dimly lit parking garage that anybody can slither into.

  But she knew that stride, the focus of those steps. Every woman who’d ever been alone in an alleyway with a figure close behind knew those heavy, quick footfalls meant danger.

  Her room lay one more hall away. Not far at all. She slipped her card through the next airlock reader, scurrying by, hoping the door would shut and the seal would take before her follower could slide in after.

  No luck.

  Almost there, almost there.

  The footfalls trailing her came faster, fell heavier.

  She picked up the pace in turn, heart thumping like timpani in her ears.

  “Stop,” slurred a high-pitched voice behind her.

  Vanhi did not stop. Her quick steps evolved into a jog.

  Coming to her door, she took a breath, but did not look up. Sometimes not making eye contact was the key. Just get inside and everything will be fine.

  She pressed her thumb to the ID pad, trying to keep calm. Trying to look calm.

  “Unable to process, please try again,” chirped the lock.

  She scraped her thumb down the textured paint of the hall wall, hoping.

  “Unable to process, please try again.”

  “Son of a—”

  “You.”

  It didn’t matter that Vanhi was prepared for the fingers digging into her arm. Didn’t matter that she knew she’d be spun—that immediately after she’d be pushed against the wall or yanked down the hall. Her gut still roiled at the audacity, sank like a stone because of the intrusion, burned like a coal knowing that no matter how prepared she was for an attack, she was never really prepared.

  Her heart hammered in her ribs, and she drew in a sharp breath. A hot, quick flash of panic flared through her extremities as she tensed.

  Her shoulder blades cracked solidly against the metal door as a woman trapped her against the frame. Vanhi could have fought back, could have struggled, but she wanted to de-escalate. Her blood thrummed in her body, flushed her cheeks, flooded her muscles. She bit back the immediate swell of rage, the urge to kick and punch.

  “I told myself I wouldn’t do this,” the woman gritted out centimeters from Vanhi’s face, Australian accent heavy. Sour whiskey fumes rolled off her in waves. “But I have to know why. Why me? Why did you and Kaufman ruin my career, out of all the . . . What did I ever do to you?”

  “I don’t know who you—” Vanhi stammered to a halt, realizing that wasn’t true. “Doctor Chappell?”

  She was the xenobiologist in charge of the original Convoy Twelve mission. The one who’d falsified data.

  A surge of anger roared through Vanhi’s arms. She shoved Dr. Chappell away, fuming. The larger woman stumbled into the far wall. “You’re not involved in the missions anymore, how did you get in here?”

  The answer dangled from Chappell’s neck: a construction badge. Either she’d gotten a job as a ship builder, or she’d stolen the creds off some poor worker.

  “Did you seriously come all the way from Earth to get in my face? You ruined your own damn career,” she said darkly.

  C beeped from her purse. “Should I call security?”

  “Absolutely,” Vanhi spat, turning to the door once more.

  Dr. Chappell wailed, sliding heavily down the wall until she slumped in a pile of akimbo limbs. “It should be me giving that speech tomorrow. Me.”

  “Yeah?” Vanhi kept her tone haughty, but she was rattled. She couldn’t keep her hand steady as she tried the lock again. “Maybe you shouldn’t have cooked your books, then.”

  Thump.

  Something large, but not weighty, struck Vanhi in the small of her back. For a moment, she froze, assessing the damage—but she wasn’t hurt. Holoflex-sheets now littered the hall. The manila folder they’d come in lay at Vanhi’s feet.

  “How many times are you going to spew that shit line?” Chappell shouted. “You fucking liar!”

  “That is not appropriate workplace language,” C chided.

  Of course I get the confrontation with the psycho lady. Of course. Not Kaufman, oh, no. Because he’s the big important dude. Who wouldn’t choose to pick their fight with the little Indian woman instead?

  His assigned rooms were just a hall over. Not far. Not far at all.

  Vanhi’s door finally opened. She didn’t go inside.

  “You know what?” she said, turning around.

  Mascara ran down Dr. Chappell’s face.

  “Screw you. Screw Kaufman. Screw everyone. I haven’t done a damn thing to you. So, screw off back to Earth.” She bent to swipe a sheet off the floor. “What even is this?” she demanded, creasing it in her fist. “What am I supposed to do with these?”

  “They’re the original results of my study—not your doctored bullshit, which I have for comparison.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Dr. Chappell gathered her legs under her, pushing herself upright, swaying like a rag doll from the waist up. Here on the base, the air was thin, the pressure low—it probably hadn’t taken more than a single shot of whatever she was drinking to get her in this state. “You and that figjam got ahold of my work—stole my work—and you’re going to stand there and deny it?”

  A little seed—one that had long ago been buried in Vanhi’s gut—sprouted. Its little spring-green tendrils pushed up, up, budding leaves with labels on them: doubt and recognition.

  “I don’t know where Kaufman found your original work, but he had a duty to expose you. You put all of us to shame.”

  Chappell’s indignant “Ha!” echoed in the narrow hall. She shook her head, eyes rolling back to gaze forlornly at the ceiling. “You won’t even admit it to my face. Why did I think you would?”

  The pressurized hiss of a heavy airtight door emanated from the far end of the hall, around the corner. Two men in gray camo approached—one wore a badge of the Mongolian Admiralty Enforcement, the other of the United States Coast Guard.

  “English,” Vanhi said to them, preempting their request for the party’s common language.

  “We received an automated call for aid,” said the Mongolian security guard.

  Dr. Chappell rubbed her eyes, smearing away the streaks in her makeup. “Yeah, yeah. Throw me in the brig. Whatever, stickybeaks. This mongrel and her mongrel mentor keep ruining my life, what else is new?”

  “You assaulted me,” Vanhi said.

 
; “And I’ll face the damn consequences, unlike you.”

  “Ma’am, we need you to submit to a sobriety test,” said the U.S. guard.

  “Like it’s a crime to get legless when your life is stolen from you?”

  Both guards tried to steady her when she took a step up and forward, but she batted them off. “I’m coming with you. I’m leaving her alone. Don’t you put hands on me.”

  “Ma’am, I’m going to need you to not be belligerent with us.”

  “Doctor,” Vanhi said, not sure why their form of address bugged her. She never corrected anyone when they called her ma’am or miss. “She’s a doctor.”

  “Shut up,” Chappell said, turning her back on Vanhi. “Take me to the brig, or whatever you’ve got up here. I don’t want to look at her anymore.”

  Vanhi crouched again, sweeping the stray sheets into the manila folder. “Don’t forget your file.”

  “Keep it,” she said. “Maybe if you stare at them long enough you’ll develop a twinge of empathy.”

  “We’ll need you to give a statement,” the U.S. guard said as Chappell was led away. “But I know you’re under a lot of pressure, Doctor Kapoor. If you want to do it sometime after your press conference tomorrow, that’s fine.”

  Hand tensing around the folder, she realized she was shaking. “Yeah, okay.”

  “Do you need anything? Would you like a guard outside?”

  “Um, sure. Thank you.”

  “All right. We’ll send someone. They can call you when they’re stationed.”

  “Got it,” said C.

  The guard looked skeptically at her purse, but said nothing.

  “Thank you. Good. Thanks.”

  “There’s nothing else you need?”

  She waved him away. “Some sleep. That’s all, thank you.”

  He nodded curtly, hurrying after his colleague.

  When he was gone she slipped through the door and shut it swiftly, collapsing against it for half a beat. She dropped her purse and clutched the folder to her chest.

  “I’m so stupid. Why did I think I’d never have to talk to anyone from the original mission?”