Heaven's Shadow (20 page)

But, like most first-world citizens, she had managed to reach the age of forty without ever having been in serious fear for her life.

Setting aside the fact that launching on a rocket and making a flight into space dramatically increased one’s chances of dying—the current probability of a fatality was between one in fifty and one in twenty—Tea’s most memorable near-death experience had been in an airliner landing in Minneapolis during a summer storm. A sudden crosswind had tipped the 737 forty degrees right, then a similar amount the other direction . . . twice . . . before the pilot applied power and aborted the takeoff. Had the wing hit the ground, the aircraft would likely have cartwheeled across the runway, disintegrating on the tarmac and likely slamming into the terminal, impaling fragile humans on jagged metal or crushing them.

It hadn’t. The moment of stark terror had lasted perhaps five seconds.

Of course, the insidious nature of death on space missions was that it either got you almost instantly—
Challenger
,
Columbia
,
Soyuz 11
—or not at all. The truth was, near-disasters like
Apollo 13
, with its five-day nail-biter of a loop around the Moon with three astronauts huddled in the lunar module “lifeboat,” or the 1997 collision between an uncrewed supply vehicle and the
Mir
space station, had given flight controllers and crews the confidence to feel that, given time, they could salvage any situation.

Tea hoped she was in one of those situations now. But just because no astronauts had died some hideous slow death until now didn’t mean it couldn’t happen.

Look at where they were—parked on the exterior of some kind of gigantic alien spacecraft. One crew member was already dead! Another one had been seriously injured.

Two more were . . . where? Alien captives? Dead?

One of the missing was a man she had come to love. Poor Zack! So sweet, so smart, so handsome! He had turned out to be the most stable relationship Tea had had since grade school. Until the past two months, when her
Destiny-7
mission turned into his, she had looked forward to taking the next step with him, to get married. It was time; Megan’s death was two years past. Zack wouldn’t forget her, and Tea didn’t want that. The tragedy had shaped him, made him somehow more human, less the brilliant super-astronaut.

Besides, Zack’s astronaut career had seemed to be over. And with two lunar landings, one as commander, behind her, Tea would have no reason to risk another rocket ride, either.

But now? Lucas was recharging his suit from rover
Buzz
supplies, but where were Zack and Natalia? Tea could read consumables status; they were at or beyond the redlines for their suits.

And what
had
happened to Pogo? One hour he was here in
Venture
, his big, goofy self . . . the next he was some kind of space-age statistic! A snap of the finger—gone!

Killed by something inside Keanu.

It was suddenly okay that Houston had interrupted her private moment. Tea needed to know what was going on. “So, what did I miss?”

Jasmine seemed relieved to have her talking. “Josh is asking Lucas if he can drive
Buzz
through the membrane.”

“Why would he do that? Zack and Natalia need to be out of there!” Too much frank emotion, but if the flight director was talking to
Brahma
, it would be overlooked.

“Believe that’s what’s driving the drive-through option,” the capcom said. “If they can’t come to recharging, we take it to them.”

“If that’s the only option, then I like it better.”

“Flight wants you to talk to Home Team.”

For one moment—God, she was getting tired!—Tea wasn’t sure what or who the Home Team was. “Sure, put Harley on.”

“Harley is out of pocket at the moment. The next voice you hear will be Dr. Sasha Blaine.”

Tea had some vague picture in mind—Blaine was another bright young woman, much like capcom Jasmine Trieu, in fact. Smart, sure, pretty, but socially awkward. Too wide-eyed. “Copy. Hello, Sasha. Please catch me up.”

“I hardly know where to start,” Blaine said, then disproved her statement by quickly recounting the latest thoughts on Keanu’s artificiality and on the markers. “We’re torn about what message or messages they carry.”

“They might just be signage.
Close Before Striking
kind of stuff.”

“That’s high on the list. They also seem to be transmitting a set of beeps and clicks.”

“What band?”

“Several, from high to low. Something we detected, obviously.”

There was more, none of it particularly informed. Rather, Sasha Blaine just seemed to be giving Tea the latest notions and gossip . . . which was not typical NASA policy with crews in flight.

She wondered why. What was Houston hiding from her?

As soon as Sasha Blaine clicked off, flight director Josh Kennedy was on the line. “Tea, Josh. You should get some sleep.”

“Knowing it and doing it, not so easy.”

“Take a sleeping pill.”

“Hard to play nurse that way.”

“We’re monitoring Yvonne. And Dennis is preparing to come back when you wake up.”

Here it came: “What’s the plan, Josh?”

“
Brahma
has agreed to another tag-team EVA. You and Taj. Rescue and retrieval.”

She felt sick. Oh God, no! But she forced herself to sound calm, she hoped. “It’s usually one or the other.”

“The mission is to rescue Zack and Natalia, retrieve Pogo’s body. While you grab a couple of hours sack time, we’ll upload a timeline and map.”

Tea realized she had been crouching. She straightened up, looked around the cabin. Uncomfortable, yes. Time to go out for a walk.

In her mind, however, this would be rescue only. Pogo was beyond her ability to help.

Her priority was Zack.

The horror that this mission has become is further proof that
NASA
can’t handle
ANYTHING
more complicated than a weekend barbecue, and maybe not even that. One crew member
DEAD,
others out of touch, spotty communications, rumors running rampant. They should have let one of the commercial teams do it.
GO SPACEX!

POSTER ALMAZ AT NEOMISSION.COM

The Megan-thing was still thrashing.

Zack Stewart held on to it for what seemed like minutes. He knew it was probably a few seconds. “Natalia!” he called, his voice little more than a croak.

Natalia pulled herself away from her own private horror show and rushed to Zack. “What is it?”

“I don’t—” Zack couldn’t answer; he didn’t know what this thing was, and it was taking all his strength to keep it—her—from tearing both of them apart. “Just . . . grab hold!”

Natalia hesitated for several seconds. Then she grabbed the Megan-thing’s legs. But one of them slipped free and a foot smacked Natalia’s face. “Shit!” She was bleeding, but regained control.

Zack had a death grip on the creature’s upper half, pinning its arms to the torso and trying to keep clear of the head, which jerked so violently he half-expected to see it snap off.

Then, as suddenly as if a switch had been thrown, the Megan-thing went limp. Natalia felt it, too. With blood covering her face, making her look like a flesh-eater from a horror movie, she said, “Can I let go?”

Exhausted, Zack nodded, relaxing his own grip on the Megan-thing.

It was resting against the wall below its cell, legs out, arms open as if in welcome.

Then it opened its eyes. “Took you,” it said, still wheezing, “long enough.”

“Jesus!” Zack couldn’t help it. Natalia let out a screech, too.

The Megan-thing whispered, “Don’t shout.”

“Sorry.”
Sorry?
What the hell was this? He was treating this creature like a human being! “Uh,” he said, struggling to find the right tone—the beheading of Pogo Downey still fresh in his memory—“who or what are you?”

“My name is Megan Doyle Stewart.”

That was impossible, of course. Megan Stewart was two years dead, buried in a muddy grave south of Houston.

This was . . . some construct, some machine, some . . . thing.

Zack glanced over at Natalia. Still bloody-mouthed, she was on her feet, walking away from them. Zack wanted to shout at her,
Stay here!
But not with this creature identifying herself as his late wife.

All right,
he thought.
Take a breath. Play the cards you’re dealt.
This thing claimed to be Megan. Nothing to lose by acting as if it were. “Shouldn’t you be asking, ‘Where am I?’ And maybe a few hundred other questions.”

“Yes.” She closed her eyes briefly. In their years together, Zack had nursed Megan through several cases of the flu. That was what she looked like now: weak, pale, with flashes of life. She seemed to gather herself. “But . . . I already know where I am. I’m inside Keanu.” She smiled then.

Zack couldn’t believe he was having a conversation like this. He liked to believe he possessed above-average mental flexibility. He was willing, possibly eager—likely too eager at times—to think outside the box. But this situation . . . “Would you answer a question for me?”

The Megan-thing actually smiled, then nodded.

“Do you know this? ‘Perhaps if death is kind, and there can be returning—’”

“Yes, yes, Sara Teasdale, my favorite poem, which ends, ‘we shall be happy, for the dead are free,’ which strikes me as pretty goddamn funny at the moment. You used it at my funeral, right?”

She seemed to draw energy from the idea—no wonder, since it suddenly seemed to Zack that somehow his wife had cheated death. “Who was there? Who cried?”

Her familiarity with the poem and questions about the funeral confirmed Zack’s decision moments earlier: He would have to operate on the wildly improbable assumption that he was, indeed, face-to-face with his formerly dead wife.

ISRO
mission
Brahma
continues to stir mixed emotions in the population, from eager pride to surly indifference. Pride in the role of vyomanaut
T. Radhakrishnan is obvious. The indifference is also understandable. In a nation of one billion souls, most of them still living in poverty, what is to be gained from an expensive space mission?
But if the past thirty years have taught our nation anything, it is the value of information. We have invested in
Brahma
’s
mission for that reason.

COLUMNIST KULDIP SANGVHI AT E-PAPER
VIJAYA TAMATAKA
, 23 AUGUST 2019

Natalia heard Zack call her name but did not respond. She did not want to see what he was doing with the creature from the cell. She wanted to get out of this chamber, back to
Brahma
.

She wanted to return to Earth and never think about Keanu again.

It was unprofessional, she knew. She had worked so hard to become a cosmonaut, one of the few women ever to fly for Holy Mother Russia, and had always believed that she wanted to explore the solar system, work and live on the Moon, visit Mars.

And she had made it to this place, to the interior of a Near-Earth Object, where against all rational expectation, the environment was suitable for life.

It was, in fact, almost comfortable. Though there was still a warm mist in the air, the wind had died. Bizarre plants seemed to spill out of the ground, blossom, die, and then be replaced by something entirely different.

Of course, this was not exploration . . . it had turned into a nightmare.

Knowing she would need it—hoping it would be soon—Natalia went in search of her helmet.

She had left it at the base of the Beehive wall, not far from the cell where “Konstantin” had been writhing. As Natalia bent to pick up the helmet, she heard a voice, in Russian and in agony, scream,
“Help me!”

Natalia couldn’t help looking. And there, outside a cell, dripping with ichor and shivering like a naked man at the North Pole, was the very image of Konstantin Alexandrovich Fedoseyev, world champion cross-country biathlete, a man she had trained with from the ages of fourteen to twenty.

She stepped closer, though not too close. The Konstantin-thing was twitching and writhing . . . but also trying, pathetically, to take steps.

Now she could see its face . . . pink-skinned, bright-eyed, complete with the signs that it was growing a mustache.

Even spasming, it reached out to her—and called her name!

“Stay away!”

“Natalia!” it said. “I’m alive!”

“Stop using my name!”

The creature lunged at her, but was still so unsteady it fell at her feet. Natalia stepped back. This was strangely familiar . . . like that terrible night during training in Osterland, when her coach and friend—Konstantin some twenty years ago—assaulted her.

If this “Konstantin” got too close, would he have the same smell of stale liquor on his breath? “I said, stay away!”

The Konstantin-thing rose to its knees and continued to whimper. Largely covered in a second skin, it was nevertheless the perfect replica of the coach as he must have been in his later years. Jowly, pot-bellied . . . the shape of his penis and dangling testicles visible through the covering.

She would not look at it. She would certainly not meet this thing’s eyes. Her aunt Karolina, a villager from the woods near Kaluga, had given her a tool for such situations.

She crossed herself as best she could in the suit.

Then she raised her hand to “Konstantin,” index finger and little finger extended.
“Stay back!”

Instead it lurched at her, clutching her ankle.

She hit the creature in the head with her helmet. But its hand still held her booted leg.

So she hit it again. Now she was free.

Then she hit it a third time, a fourth.

The Konstantin-thing stopped twitching and lay still at her feet. One side of its head was flattened, pulpy.

Had she killed it?

She hoped so.

With one last look around, she examined her helmet for damage . . . found none except squashed fragments of second skin.