by A. L. Mengel
She hung her head down between her knees and saw the images of Mars flood through her memory. She saw the empty suit. That had been Jeremiah’s suit. And now, she was sitting in a cosmic ice cavern, millions upon millions of miles away from that space suit, again wondering where Jeremiah had gone.
But where had he really gone?
For he had been lost to her since Mars – and even after, during the days on Vega One – he had seemed somewhat different, yet the same.
But where had he really gone?
She shook her head and opened her eyes.
There was a dark patch in the water.
She crawled a few steps back, and reached her arm out for the closest light stick. She slowly rose to her knees, never taking her eyes off the dark patch in the water.
It appeared to be moving, slowly, perhaps hovering.
She caught her breath in her throat. It could not be. It just could not be.
She drew the light stick over towards the water. The blue glow reflected back towards her, but its illumination was sufficient.
There was movement!
She leaned closer, just a small bit, sliding closer to the edge of the water on her knees. “Ohhhh….”
She gasped.
The small white orbs…could they be eyes?
The movement at the edges of the dark patch…were they gills?
And then, it moved closer, looking up at her through the liquid, as if…observing her.
There was a face!
Her mouth dropped open and she gasped again.
She shook her head as tears streamed down her face. “You…are…beautiful!”
She stared at the being.
At the life before her. At the life staring back at her, through the lapping water, as two species encountered one another for the first time.
She started to signal at it, running her fingers up and down. Could there be communication? Would this creature know about the portal?
Was it intelligent?
Her mind was suddenly flooded with questions that she could not answer. She had remembered, as a student back on Earth, how the common assumption of extra-terrestrial life would be some form similar to a two-legged mammal, but had she ever thought of the first encounter be with amphibian extra-terrestrial life! She had not.
She looked over at AMPHIBIA.
It looked primitive and clunky compared to the swirling black cosmic creature in the water next to her. The creature had long protruding tentacles – dozens of them, it appeared, and one of them splashed upwards through the water. She froze, watching the tentacle appear to beckon her forward.
She took a cautious step back towards the hanging tow line.
Trust Abby.
She heard the words ring through her mind. Believe in yourself and you are capable of anything.
She stood and stared at the creature.
It did not move.
It did not attempt to retreat, or attack in any way.
She went to the water’s edge once again, and made eye contact with the creature. Its outer fins were swirling like blowing curtains in the wind, as it hovered, waiting patiently.
It cocked its head to the side.
What are you waiting for?
Why are you so afraid?
She fell to her knees.
Jeremiah was gone.
He had to be. There was no more contact. Only a crackling on the communicator.
But there was no ship to go to anyway.
What other choice did she have?
Take a leap of faith…
She stood, feeling her heart beat in her chest. She concentrated on each breath…in…and out…as she brought her left foot forward, close to the water’s edge.
As her boots were covered by the laps of the tiny waves, multiple tentacles surfaced, bending in the middle, forming a seat. She stood at the edge of the water watching, her heart beating fast, her eyes open wide, not knowing what to think.
Take the leap of faith…
The sea creature moved closer, as close as it could be while still under the water. Tentacles reached up through the water, now closer, beckoning for her to sit.
She took a deep breath.
And she turned back, looking at the cryobot sitting, just feet from her, and AMPHIBIA, lying on the ice, unused, probably never to be used. And the tow line, her last lifeline to what was somewhat familiar.
She turned back to the waiting creature.
Should she go?
Should she take the leap of faith?
And she took another step forward as the water quickly reached up half her suit.
She felt her heart race as the creature moved the tentacle seat closer towards her.
It’s time to trust.
She spilled into the seat, as the creature swam gently back, away from the ice shore, and she saw the equipment grow smaller. It held her as it swam just beneath the surface, holding her tight as several of the tentacles wrapped themselves around her. As they approached the far end of the cavern, she looked down, made eye contact with the creature, and it cocked its head to the side once again.
The tentacles tightened somewhat, but still gently, and she was not in pain. She looked back at the shore, it now seemed distant. And she held her stare, for what seemed like just a moment, as all of the tentacles wrapped around her and pulled her under; and they splashed under the water, deep, rapidly, and forcefully.
*****
She felt the pressure of the water as the creature pulled her through the deep underwater caverns.
She saw the flashes of lights outside her visor as water started to fill her suit. Had there been some sort of a breach? Was there a flaw in their mission specific design?
The water filled her legs, and then her arms and torso, and finally into her helmet as she held her breath.
Would this be the end?
Would this be the finality that she may have been destined to experience; to discover the ice moon; its cosmic under-surface ocean; its life.
But then she shot out of the water with an enormous splash, and onto a sandy beach in a cavern covered in rock. Her legs felt heavy, her muscles fatigued, but she managed to crawl to her knees under the weight of the water she had taken on.
She unlocked her helmet and the water splashed out. Any minute now. It was bound to happen at any given moment. But she could no longer hold her breath in the seawater that had penetrated her space suit.
She dropped her helmet to the sand.
And took a deep breath.
And she exhaled.
Air!
Her head fell back as she closed her eyes, feeling the drips from her hair against the sides of her cheeks. She breathed in, and out again. And she heard the water lapping against the sand.
She mustered the strength to turn around and opened her eyes. The creature was still floating underneath the water, its outer gills still looking like fans blowing back and forth.
It levitated and looked directly at her.
Shouldn’t she be dead?
How could there be breathable oxygen deep in the under surface caverns of Europa?
Look deep within.
She studied the creature.
She saw it look beyond her, behind her back, as if gesturing for her to turn around. And when she did, she saw: it was a cave, similar to the one she experienced back when lowering into the ice, but here, there was no ice.
It was dirt, and rock, and there were trees, somehow growing deep beneath the surface of the ice moon.
And there was light.
Shining through the trees.
Emanating towards her, towards that tiny, isolated beach somewhere deep within the sphere.
She finished removing her space suit, still amazed that she could breathe in this cavern. Once her suit was off, she stood in the light clothes that, when she had first put them on, the small white t-shirt and shorts, seemed like a lifetime ago, back on Vega One.
But it was warm in the cavern.
; And the air was breathable.
There was no need for artificial protection.
She turned around and looked at the sea creature, patiently waiting and watching at the water’s edge.
Fall forward.
She removed her boots as water spilled from them. She tossed them aside and removed her socks, tossing them across the sand.
The sand felt so soft, so warm, wet and inviting. She hadn’t felt anything like that since she was a child.
And then she took a step forward.
The brilliant green leaves in the trees blew with an unseen and unexplained wind. And as she walked towards the brilliant light, the light that filtered through the trees, her thoughts were permeated with all that she could remember.
Flashes coursed through her mind; and it wasn’t just recent memories of the Vegans, or of Winston, or of Jeremiah or Eli; it wasn’t even memories of Sector B, back on Earth, all of which had encompassed her most recent memories as a human being.
They were those well before the others; of when she was a little girl, looking up at her smiling parents; of a little girl looking up towards the stars and the planets and admiring the heavens.
Take a leap of faith.
She opened her eyes and saw the rustling of the leaves; could this be the portal to Vega? Is this what Copernicus had spoken of? Were the trees somehow “spilling out” of a new world?
So many questions remained with her, and new questions formed. She looked back one last time. She saw the dark patch in the water; the sea creature was watching over her, waiting. And she saw her space suit lying on the beach in a pile. No need for that where she was headed, right?
But she didn’t really know, did she?
She took a step forward.
And all will fall into place.
1
BEYOND
*****
MOSES HAD SAID THAT SHE HAD BEEN HEADING THERE.
Vega.
She saw a flash of his smiling face, watching her with his piercing eyes, after the pull. And the flames. She closed her eyes, and could still hear the screaming.
Make it stop! Make it stop!
Let it go, Abby.
Let it go.
She soared through darkness as lights flashed beside her. So fast. So fleeting. And then darkness once again. Was this another worm hole? Was this the portal that the Vegans believed to be?
Would she be catapulted to Vega?
But she wasn’t yet given an answer.
She opened her eyes.
There was a certain infiniteness about her vision; the colorful pallet – painted with pastels and lightly colored wisps and pinwheel variations – soared ahead of her. But there was a continuation. Not only of the colors reaching towards the dark heavens, but of the creative force ahead of her.
The mystery that existed beyond her grasp was the certain feel of mystique that washed over her as she floated forward, in a determined motion, falling forward, but ever so lightly. As if fainting in slow motion.
And she kept her face towards the vast darkness of interstellar space; her eyes remained open as she saw the painted pastels stream past her; the venting of a star, the reaching of a planet; outwards into the darkness, the mystery, the cosmos.
Her movement appeared motionless; she was surrounded by tiny, white stars which blanketed her. Countless and vast, reaching beyond to the unexplored and uninitiated obscure regions of the galaxy. But she was moving; drifting; a single, solitary woman, the heavens and the cosmos soaring just on the other side of her vision palette. She didn’t know how fast she was moving. Or how distant the MACA 1 was from her now.
But she did not care.
All she could do was smile, and as she closed her eyes, a single, solitary warm tear streamed down her cheek.
And through the darkness, she closed her eyes. She felt a light wind blowing across her face. But it was a gentle wind. Refreshing. The air smelled good. Breathable. She took a deep breath. Opened her eyes.
And exhaled.
She propped herself up on her elbows.
The place looked familiar, yet different.
She looked down.
She was in red sand.
The soaring color kaleidoscope faded as she heard the light howl of wind behind her. As she slowly opened her eyes, she saw the red sand. Her hair was mussed on the side of her cheek, pressed against the cold, red sand.
She eased herself up on her elbows and looked around.
The same mountains surrounded her in the red, sandy terrain.
Mars.
But no helmet.
No breathing apparatus.
She should have certainly asphyxiated by now, shouldn’t she have? She took a deep breath. There was something different about this planet.
The air tasted different.
And was processed differently.
But her lungs seemed to be processing it just fine.
Mars.
It could only be.
There could be no other.
She turned around.
She peered in the distance. She could even see the same old familiar ROVER where she had last left it at the Red Outpost.
She remembered now.
But the skies were blue.
She could breathe.
Was this the Mars on which she had been, or was this a Mars of the distant past?
What had changed?
There was an atmosphere.
There was wind, but it was a light, refreshing breeze, not the ferocious winds she had encountered or remembered.
But the same ridge surrounded her as she remembered. And as she rose to her feet, she focused on the edge where the dark ridge met the sandy surface; she saw the three mounds – the three graves in the distance next to the ridge.
She moved forward, never taking her eyes off them. And as she got closer, light shined in her eyes, causing her to stop for a moment, cover her eyes with her forearms, and lean forward. She panted, trying to catch her breath.
After a moment, she looked back up.
The light continued to shine towards her, like someone holding a mirror up to the sun and reflecting a vast beam.
Discover the key…
A voice rang in her head.
It wasn’t Copernicus.
Or even Moses.
Someone was speaking to her, penetrating her mind as she moved closer.
Discover the key…
She stopped at the base of the mountain just in front of the three mounds. They were rectangular; they definitely looked to be graves. They were just the right size.
“Is this where you are? Is this where you have been?”
She caught herself for a moment. Her voice sounded different; in this vastly different version of her past.
“Who is speaking to me?”
Discover the key.
She stared intently at the middle grave. The mound of dirt looked exactly as it had when she had been there before – perhaps at least fifty years previous – and it hadn’t looked like anything had changed.
But she could not get the thoughts out of her head.
She turned around and saw the light pouring out from the side of the mountain.
She dropped to her knees in front of the center grave, cupped her hand, and pushed some of the dirt to the side. And then she took some more dirt and pushed it to the side, until she tore the dirt away in a frenzy, again and again, flinging dirt with her hands, over her shoulder; as the hole formed, deeper and deeper, she dug. The soil was loose and sandy, easy to move with her hands, but what after seemed like hours, she felt the familiarity of a space suit.
She worked with intensity, leaning forward, brushing the dirt off.
She reached the visor, cleared off the sand and gasped as she saw a skull.
A space suit full of bones.
But Jeremiah’s suit was lying just a mere few yards away at the base of the mountain. So where was he?
She brushed more dirt and sand off of the suit and uncovere
d a triangle made of stone – or rock – held by the corpse. Bones that were once fingers still gripped it after so many years; and, perhaps, it had been lying here in this grave for many years or even decades before she, Jeremiah, Winston and Eli had ever arrived on the Martian surface.
She tugged at the finger bone and pulled it away. They fell apart but she lifted the triangle up and examined it. It was dark, appeared to be carved from rock, and much heavier than it looked.
The voice rang in her head again.
Discover the key…
She turned around and rose to her feet. She walked along the edge of the mountain towards the light that fought its way out from the side of the rock, closer, and closer, until she was standing in the light.
It blinded her, but only for a moment.
For then she saw; an indentation, and as she lifted the stone triangle up towards it, the light swelled; it grew, it intensified, but it did not blind her. For in it, she felt deep love, and warmth, and saw many people, but they were concealed by the light, and the mist.
Their identities were not physically certain; but she felt a warm familiarity. For the light was not blinding. It was not foreign.
There were the planets.
The many Earth like spheres that might harbor life.
And those she knew.
Those floating globes of rock, which orbited the shining stars. But she didn’t remember the one planet that she wished she had. For she remembered the water and the waves, the sand and the beaches. The mud between her toes, the blue reflection of the water and the sun.
She felt a tear stream down her cheek.
There were the soaring plumes of pastel colored gases; reaching for light years and beyond; rising through the billions of years in the past, where there had been all that had surrounded her, before there had been life.
She looked at the swirling, white hot sphere: “But you said you didn’t want me to come…”
She waited for an answer.
You will always be invited to come. But the choice will always remain with you.
She turned around.
A dark, vast sea of stars remained.
“Are you really what you are? Are you the wandering star?”
And had there still been life?
Had the life remained with the planets? On the watery shores of Earth? Or underneath the rolling hilltops of Mars? Underneath the layer of ice on Europa?