Bodies of Light (3 page)

She should do something about the bodies. Standard procedure in the case of a death required her to notify Earth then wrap the corpse in a pressure suit and eject it into space. But there were nineteen corpses! Plus any message she sent today wouldn’t arrive for forty years.

Then there was the problem of the hole in the hull. “Request status of oxygen leak,” she called out as she flipped open the dispenser on a carton of orange juice. She sucked in a mouthful of the sugary liquid.

“Minimal leakage has been detected so far,” the computer answered. “However, the breach has grown by six-point-five centimetres since last report. Probability of complete atmospheric loss in the next twenty-four hours is point-five-three. Recommend EVA for repair should commence as soon as possible.”

She really didn’t feel like making the effort. What was the use? She’d die anyway, of starvation or madness. In the past, she’d always scorned people who committed suicide. Killing oneself had seemed both cowardly and grandiose. Now, at last, she could understand. It might be easier just to give up.

Suffocation, however, was supposed to be a horrible way to die.

It was her duty, too, to do whatever she could to further the mission, despite the enormous setbacks it had encountered. The primary objectives—a viable colony, a beachhead on a distant world—were obviously impossible to achieve, but she could observe and record and transmit her logs back to the home planet. Perhaps her data would be useful to future interstellar crews. Perhaps she could even figure out how they’d ended up so far from Earth in only four years—that at least was a puzzle for a physicist like herself.

Christine had never been the sort of person to neglect her duty.

With a sigh, she made her way to the antechamber near the exit bay and extricated her pressure suit from its locker. All of the crew had been trained in EVA procedures in case of emergencies. She wormed her way into the clumsy suit and fastened the collar around her neck, checking carefully that the seals were tight. Then she settled the transparent helmet into the collar and adjusted the microphone panel and earbuds.

“Download repair instructions,” she instructed the ship. A 3D virtual image of the
Archimedes
appeared, seeming to float just inside the helmet. She flicked her gaze to the right. The image rotated in response. Bright orange flashed on the surface of the hull, indicating the location of the rift. “Demonstrate repair sequence.” A tiny humanoid figure became visible next to the ship. She blinked twice and the image zoomed. She watched as the cartoon-like figure made its way to the glowing breach area.

“Recommended repair medium is nano-carbon foil,” the ship intoned. Christine checked that the tool pouch at her waist contained a roll of the super-strong material. “Fuse to the hull with hi-vo generator.” She pressed a button on her bulky sleeve and the paired electrodes poked out from her gloved palm, as expected. “Use two layers. Wait one hundred and eighty seconds between applications.”

The holographic display illustrated the procedure, which looked straightforward.
 
Christine reviewed the steps three times, until she was confident she could execute it smoothly. She closed her eyes for five seconds to dismiss the display.

Well, there’s no point in waiting,
she told herself.
When she punched the oversized airlock button the iris-like door dilated to allow her entry. Once she had stepped over the threshold, it contracted behind her. The evacuation process started automatically. A gauge on the wall showed the pressure steadily dropping as air was siphoned into the ship.

Christine fought her panic, resisting the urge to gulp down air. Inside the pressure helmet, she could breathe normally. It was just hard to remain calm when the indicator showed she was surrounded by near-vacuum.

Finally the air pressure level reached zero. Christine unfurled the tether cable from the airlock wall and clipped it to the hook at the back of her suit. Her hand was steady as she pushed the exit control. The airlock spiralled open. Christine stepped out into space, her magnetic boots anchoring her to the hull.

The lack of familiar objects induced a profound sense of disorientation. Up and down had no meaning. She focused on the pitted metal surface of the ship and pulled herself along the huge spacecraft, using the hand patches as she had been taught.

Archimedes
was shaped a bit like a doughnut impaled on a cigar—a disk-like structure mounted on the end of a cylinder. The disk-shaped section, about thirty metres thick and two hundred in diameter, housed the crew quarters, the hydroponic tanks, the suspension bay and other facilities for the human occupants. It rotated, producing a weak gravitational field. The cylinder that served as its axis contained the nuclear-powered engines, the water and air recycling plants, the guidance systems and similar mechanisms, as well as a launch area for the escape shuttle. Both sections bristled with sensors, antennae and other protrusions.
Archimedes
was intended to travel through the frictionless reaches of space. It didn’t need a streamlined profile.

The airlock exit was located on the backward-facing surface of the disk. The breach to be fixed was on the forward surface. Christine clambered over the edge of the disk and on to the front, towards the location pinpointed by the repair simulation. The tether snaked behind her like a kilometre-long tail.

The tear in the hull was small but obvious. Traces of escaping gas had tarnished the normally silvery metal. Christine retrieved the foil and tore off one pre-perforated sheet. Clumsy in her bulky gloves, she smoothed the ultra-thin material over the rift, then extruded the high-voltage electrodes. Fierce sparks ripped through the blackness as she sealed the foil to the hull. After-images swam in her vision while she waited the necessary three minutes before applying the second layer.

The second stage of the process posed no problem either. The carbon sheets were fused to the
hull
, closing the gap and rescuing her precious oxygen. The repaired section was probably stronger than the original material.

Letting out the breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding, Christine allowed herself a moment of self-congratulation. She turned away from the ship to appreciate the emptiness around her. Her eyes had adapted. Now she could see the twinkle of distant stars, like gems studding the velvet blackness, the pale blurs that were galaxies.
No one has ever travelled this far from home
, she thought. Rather than fear, she felt a strange sense of exhilaration, akin to the excitement that gripped her when she resolved some knotty mathematical issue or confirmed the validity of a proof.

A memory from her childhood popped into her mind—sitting in the backyard with her grandma, peering into the glittering night sky. “I saw the first American go into space,” Nana had said. “Alan Shepard. I was in fourth grade. The whole school piled into the cafeteria to watch the launch on television. Black and white television,” she added with a laugh. “I was so excited I could hardly breathe. I decided that day that I wanted to be an astronaut. I had to see those wonders for myself.”

Of course, Nana hadn’t lived that dream. She’d become a teacher instead. Now, though, Christine was making that old fantasy real, floating free, embraced by the stars. It was amazing—awe-inspiring.

Then a delicate sadness crept over her. She’d never be able to share this feeling.

A red symbol flashed in the periphery of her vision, a routine warning that the suit oxygen supplies had reached seventy-five percent. That was enough for another four hours of EVA, but still, since her work was complete, she’d better get back inside.

She needed to reverse her orientation in order to climb back over the edge of the disk. Grasping a bracket with one hand, she gestured with the other to temporarily turn off the magnets in her boots. It was a gesture she’d practiced a hundred times during training, but something went wrong. She must have put too much force into the arm movement. The reaction tore her other hand from its grip and drove her body away from the ship.

The distance between her and the
Archimedes
grew wider by the second. Christine cursed her carelessness. She knew that one had to move slowly and deliberately at all times when performing EVA. Newton’s third law, that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, applied in space just as it did everywhere else. In space, though, there was no friction to slow objects down.
 

Christine was more annoyed than concerned. She knew she could pull herself back to the airlock using the tether. That’s what it was for. She reached behind her to grasp it, where it clipped to her belt. Only then did she feel fear. Her lifeline was gone.

She twisted to look behind her. The end of the tether dangled in space, metres away. How had it come undone? Had she failed to fasten it properly? She flailed about as she tried unsuccessfully to grab it.

Christine squeezed back the tears that threatened. They’d just float around inside the helmet, making it harder to see and breathe. She had to think. Her suit included mini-jets that could be used to propel her back towards the hull. However, she’d need to activate them at just the right angle and for just the right duration, or she’d fly past the ship and into space on the other side. The necessary vectors depended on her own speed and direction as well as on that of the ship. If she didn’t solve the problem, she’d soon be as dead as the rest of the crew. No one would ever know what had happened to any of them.

It was difficult to focus when she was terrified. She shut her eyes, trying to concentrate on the calculations.

All at once, she felt something behind her, despite the insulating layers of the pressure suit. Her eyes flew open. She jerked, trying to look backwards. The sudden motion altered her trajectory, sending her parallel to the ship’s motion.

What?
She gunned her jets, working against the momentum.

Strong arms clasped her waist. “Do not worry, Christine.” The familiar voice came from behind her. She twisted around to see the silver-haired god from her dream. He offered her a glorious smile as he somehow propelled her in the direction of the ship.

“You’re safe now,” said the other voice. Christine knew before she turned that she’d find the stocky, bronze-skinned man at her side. He took her arm, swaddled as it was in the multi-layered pressure suit, as though to guide her progress.

It was only then that she realised that neither man wore any sort of protective garments. Their limbs were sheathed in some clinging, reflective material that showed every detail of their magnificent physiques. Their faces were unmasked. Their heads were bare. In the vacuum of space!

“How…? What’s going on?” she cried, assuming they could hear her despite her helmet. “Who are you? Why are you here?”

“We’re here for you, love,” the heavier man answered. “To take care of you.”

“In this case, to save you,” added Silver-Hair. Alyn. That was the name he’d used in her dream. Sure enough, they’d brought her back to the open airlock. Alyn pushed her in first, then followed. The burnished man—Zed was his name, right?—brought up the rear. He flipped the switch to close the outer hatch. Pressurisation commenced immediately.
 

As soon as levels reached something near normal, before the inner door activated, Christine tore off her helmet. “What’s going on?” she demanded. “You were out in space without suits, without helmets! How is that possible?”

The airlock spiralled open. Christine stumbled out, almost collapsing on to the bench that paralleled the wall. She didn’t resist as Alyn and Zed stripped off her pressure suit and stored it away. She just sat there, shaking her head, not believing her eyes.

“I thought I dreamed you,” she whispered. “Am I still dreaming? Am I dead?”

Alyn crouched at her feet and grinned up at her. “You definitely look alive to me.”

Zed seated himself beside her, his arm around her shoulders. He nuzzled at her neck, sending tiny shivers down her spine. “You’re certainly still warm…” He rested his palm over her pubis and brushed a finger through her cleft. “Wet, too…”

Languid desire threatened to overwhelm her once again. Christine pushed it away. Springing to her feet, she backed towards the opposite wall. “No! Don’t try to distract me! I need answers!”

“What you need is love,” murmured Alyn. He took a step in her direction, but Zed’s hand on his shoulder made him pause.

“I understand,” said the darker man, sounding serious for once. “You’re a woman of great intelligence. A scientist. You are bothered by the unexplained.”

“Damn right I am,” she replied. “So—explain yourselves!”

“What do you think?” Alyn’s voice was gentle. “Do you have any theories?”

Christine looked from one to the other. Each was perfect in his unique way. Alyn’s grace, Zed’s power—they were practically unearthly. How had they made their way to the ship, without a vehicle of their own? How had they survived outside, without suits or helmets?

They might be figments of her imagination, but their bodies felt as solid as her own. She could smell them, a paradoxical mix of spring flowers and autumn leaves. She knew if she ran her hand over Zed’s swelling muscles she’d feel the warmth of skin under his thin garment. She guessed that if she gave in to her desire and pressed her lips to Alyn’s ripe mouth she’d taste some intricate bouquet of flavours, far too complex to be imaginary.

Perhaps the whole ship was an illusion, along with all her memories and sensations. She knew that electro-stimulation research was making rapid progress back on Earth. But she didn’t think it had reached this level, where selective electrical impulses piped into the brain could create a complete, consistent, tangible world.

So what were the alternatives? Angels? Alyn and Zed certainly fit the bill physically, but if angels were this horny she was sure the stories people told about them would be very different.

Or aliens? Could Alyn and Zed be creatures from another world?

“That’s right,” said Zed, nodding as though she’d spoken aloud. “We knew you’d work it out.”