Cris Jolliff

Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11

Two weeks had passed, and nobody seemed capable of thought. The entire crew, myself included, refused to talk about the news coming from planet-side. It came to us in ever-decreasing regularity, until Canaveral stopped responding altogether. Other stations occasionally checked in on us as the hours and days passed, but the news was always bad. Catastrophic, actually. Even the stalwart Zagovich was an automaton, drudging through his daily routine without even remembering to shout, or glare, or be his usual unwelcome self.

Alone amongst us, Captain Jackson seemed to be a reflection of herself. It was she who coordinated the retrieval of wastes that were normally jettisoned downward to provide upward thrust in order to power the micro-singularity. This was more efficient, but it meant that we had to store the waste onboard longer than we used to. This was going to affect the smell of our little tin-can home drastically. Pavel and I adjusted the hydroponics systems and increased their production by nearly 20%, which meant that we could go for at least 8 months on the air we currently had stored. The food and other supplies we needed were always overstocked, because of countless flight groundings from Mission Control. We had plenty of food for 8 months. Knowing when you will die does strange things to a person, though. Some of the crew were exhibiting bizarre behavior as a result of our unique position.

The captain was doing routine inspections of our changes when she happened upon me working on the carbon dioxide scrubbing system. I was feeding the huge plates of plankton that ate our exhalations and spat out cleaned oxygen for us to breathe.

“How are you holding up Mr. Brown?” She said. I thought she seemed too preoccupied with her thoughts for small talk, but I engaged her nonetheless.

“Spot on, skipper. Everything is coming together, though I think Juliette…er, Dr. Bonhomme…is regretting having to euthanize so many animals, just to save our air.” I was thinking of her nonstop, now, because I knew as we all did, that there wasn’t much time left to share.

“Don’t worry about your relationship with Dr. Bonhomme, Mr. Brown. It’s a small station, for all of its size, and there are only six of us. It was inevitable that some of us might pair up, and I’ve been aware of your discrete relationship with the doctor almost from its inception.” She didn’t appear to be upset, so I inquired further, to assess her mood.

“Yet you said nothing. Is this common for spacers? I’m still learning the ropes, you know.” I gave a little smirk, intended to disarm her further. With only a little smile of her own, she turned and drifted out of the room, saying nothing more about that or any other subject.

“Shocking,” I said quietly to myself as I returned to my work.

“Indeed,” came a reply, almost from nowhere. A blue-clad shape drifted in foot-first through the thick hedges of the hydroponics plants. As it emerged, I was relieved to see that it was Pavel, and not Juliette. I could just imagine the fireworks of her overhearing such an encounter.

“You are some kind of fellow, David Rubenovich,” said Pavel, using the strange Russian surname of replacing my own surname with my father’s first name, Ruben, and ‘-ovich’ which, roughly translated, meant ‘son of.’

“Whatever do you mean old man?” I reached uninvited for his shirt pocket, Pavel’s most recent “hiding place” for his flask. Everyone on board had a standing offer to drink as much as they wanted, and his production of vodka had skyrocketed along with the new demand. Almost everyone took him up on the offer. Everyone but Dr. Noell, the uptight Astrophysicist. He disapproved of the drinking, but couldn’t say much when Pavel was doling it out in small and mysteriously-replenished quantities, and the captain was openly approving, even going so far as to ask to pass the flask during our meetings, which had become a regular part of daily routine since the…news. I never did find out what he meant though—

“All hands to the command center on the double,” Zagovich’s voice rang clearly through the old speaker system. This couldn’t be good news, I thought. Considering the last time this had happened.

Pavel and I made our way towards the command center. I had improved greatly on moving in microgravity, and was keeping up with Pavel.

“I bet dinner tonight this call is about waste management system again, eh, tovarich?” Pavel was being dinged almost hourly about ways to store the waste that were more sanitary. Pavel suggested just feeding the waste to the micro-singularity all at once, but Dr. Noell had poo-pooed the suggestion, saying it might overload. “The brightest candle burns twice as fast.” He would say, and then spout off long mathematical equations just to shut down any possibility of argument. Personally, though I disliked the man on a personal level, his knowledge of the subject was impeachable, and I was inclined to side with him against poor Pavel. The commander and Juliette hated the stink that was building up, but there was no recourse for it. It meant more work, but it also meant more certainty on our ‘expiration date.’

“No, I’m not taking that bet, with your luck, you old Russian goat.”

“Dr. Noell was acting like jackass yesterday, I think maybe he does this just to piss on me.” You mean, piss me off, I thought, but on afterthought, he probably meant it just like he said it. Like all of us, he had enough on his mind without having his English attacked, anyway.

“Yes, he has been losing his grip this last week. I hope that he doesn’t—“ I was interrupted by the station’s tinny intercom system.

“Dr. Bonhomme, please bring a medical kit…code blue, Command Center!” He was completely panicked. It was the first and only time we had ever heard Jim Zagovich panic. It was terrifying. None of the rest of us had remained as composed as he was at the beginning of our ordeal, but the commander had fallen the farthest, even so. Now it appeared that something even worse was about to reveal itself. We ran into the captain and Juliette as we raced towards the module, and we met the commander at the door to the command center. His face was ashen, and he was sweating through his thin blue jumpsuit at the armpits. Dr. Noell was nowhere to be seen. The door to the command center was locked, its red “No Entry” symbol clearly lit in the now-reduced lighting of the control module. The captain pushed past Zagovich and attempted to enter a code into the door’s locking mechanism.

“What the hell is going on, Jim?” shouted Captain Jackson as she furiously entered a long string of numbers and letters.

“I have been expecting something like this. It is unfortunate that I had to be right this time. The doctor has lost his sensibilities. He says he will land the re-entry vehicle himself and take his chances among the population, rather than die here. He will kill us all with this foolishness.” The burly Czeck punctuated each sentence with a soft slam against the hull where the door joined the outer chamber to the command center.

“Oh, my god, he’s gone insane,” said Juliette. I wondered whom she meant for a moment. I moved to her to attempt to comfort her, but she rejected my offer, withdrawing into herself visibly as she curled her arms about herself.

“David, help me break through door,” Pavel suggested. It seemed like a sound idea. I moved to an outside wall and began to uncoil one of the small welder/cutters that was in every compartment in the case of hull breach or other problems. Captain Jackson stopped me short of the door, though.

“No, I don’t want to risk burning through this door. It will compromise the airtight integrity of the entire station. Think people, what if he commits a hull breach in there, and we burn this door open? How the hell would we stop that kind of leak?” Stalled, we all foundered for a moment, searching for another idea to present.

“This door has been reprogrammed, Mr. Kosov. You have worked with Dr. Noell the most. Will you try to open the door electronically first?” Before Pavel could voice assent, he was interrupted by the speaker system.

“I know what you’re all trying to do. Don’t try to stop me, or I swear I’ll kill myself right here and now!” Dr. Noell was completely frantic. His voice was high and cracking, and sounded very unpleasant and not at all sane.

“Dr. Noell, open this door. This is the Captain. I realize how much stress you are under, but you cannot seriously expect me to allow you to harm this station and abandon everyone aboard just to satisfy your own need for self-destruction.” She banged on the door with her balled fist, her long legs spread wide to prevent her from pushing herself backwards in the low gravity. She looked much angrier in that position than her words belied, I thought.

“Self-preservation is what I seek, captain. I don’t think that your commander clearly understood what I was doing when I threw him out the hatch. I’m merely starting up an emergency module and preparing for my own egress. To hell with the rest of you. If you want to die out here in the vacuum, go right ahead.” Pavel had been peeking through the tiny glass observation window mounted in the door, and said, “Holy Mother of God, he is doing it. We must stop him now, or not at all.” He and I looked to the captain, and saw resignation in their eyes. With that, I struck the engage lever on the cutter. Captain Jackson and Zagovich looked at each other and then back to me briefly, then they both parted and gave me access to the door.

“Don’t you fucking do that, you goddamn limey bastard! I’ll fucking kill myself, I swear it!” Now, names don’t really bother me, normally, but for some reason the insane ranting of Dr. Noell actually spurred me to a greater pace. I frankly was less concerned that he would kill himself than the thought that he would steal our only remaining reentry module, or Heavenly Mother forbid, damage it or the station. Nonetheless, I carefully slowed my progress to be sure that I did not accidentally hit an O₂ line—or worse.

Juliette snapped out of her shock long enough to press the transmit button on a nearby intercom and scream, “You go right ahead and kill yourself, you selfish prick. See if we care! It would be better than you screwing up the station and killing us all, now STOP FUCKING AROUND!!!” She was nearly as apoplectic as the man inside the command module.

The captain grabbed her and yanked her away from the intercom, and in an attempt to return to some order, she spoke slowly and calmly into the device. The picture of confidence: “Dr. Noell. I know that you’re frightened. We are all frightened. You can see what your actions are doing to the rest of us. Please stop what you’re doing and just talk to me for a minute. That’s all I ask.” A lone bead of sweat ran down the captain’s forehead; the only indication that she too had begun to worry.

“Tell Brown to stop cutting the damn door up, and I’ll consider it.” I looked to Jackson and she made a cutting off motion to me, so I snapped the cutter off.

“There, the noise is gone now, Richard. Please come over to the door and talk to me. She gave the commander a strange look that I didn’t understand, and Zagovich began fumbling around the cut that I had already made, trying, it appeared, to peek through the cut. He reached into his jumpsuit as my attention was drawn back to the captain, her face practically pressed against the tiny window.

“Come and talk to me Richard, face to face. There’s no need to panic. We’ll just talk, okay?” She was much more nervous than she sounded. Her hands flexed and balled of their own accord, as though they were creatures in their own right, coiling to strike.

“Fine,” came the voice through the intercom. I couldn’t see Dr. Noell, but I could tell by his voice that he was anything but fine. “You should know that there’s no way I’m going to just sit around and wait to die. I’d rather die in a fucked up re-entry than just sit here and suffocate, or starve to death. Do you have any idea how long it takes a person to starve to death, Commander? DO YOU?” It was evident that communication wasn’t going to last long. Dr. Noell was raving like a cuckolded Frenchman.

“Richard. Please reconsider your methods. I’m sure that if we all sat down and put our minds together, we could come up with a solution that satisfied everyone. None of us wants to die. None of us is waiting to die, either. If you do this, you take away everyone’s choices. Please think carefully about this.”

“Okay, I’ve reconsidered.” He sounded like he was doing anything but thinking…sounds of him shuffling around came through the speaker. “If I just point us directly downward—“the station lurched suddenly, and we all felt a bit of centrifugal force as the entire station swung around. Pavel began to look around wild-eyed, as though the station might come apart at the seams if he didn’t watch them all himself. “—then I’ll just press a few more buttons, and we’ll—“

“Now, Jim.” The captain stepped aside just as she spoke, averting her gaze. I heard a sharp crack, and immediately smelled burnt gunpowder. A GUN! Sweet Jesus, I never thought anyone would do something so outrageously stupid. Firing a gun onboard was suicidal! Has everyone onboard gone insane? As I looked down, the commander rose slowly, the slender barrel of a small-caliber pistol smoking gently in the cool station air. He had aimed it through the cut and shot the poor balmy doctor!

I was appalled. I could do nothing but stare in disbelief as the captain and commander frantically worked to get the door opened, the captain loosed a single fat tear which mixed with the sweat on her face and was quickly lost. Shocked and frustrated, I stood there watching the entire scene play itself to my eyes. Pavel finally cut through the lock on the door, but by the time we had access to the room, it was too late for Dr. Noell. He had died of blood loss.

It was a strange sight. In the low gravity, the blood had pooled deeply around the doctor’s body. He had crumpled rather slowly into a fetal position, covering his wound with his thighs. The surface tension of the blood had soaked nearly every inch of his garment before pooling on the scratchy Velcro-covered floor. The blood had then pooled, rather than spread, in the low gravity. It was nearly a ½ inch deep, and surrounded him in a perfect red-black circle. We were all strangely unaffected by his death, as gruesome as the final sight was. What gathered our attentions instead was a small blinking red light on every console in the control room. Everyone knew, or rather, should have known, what that light meant.

Pavel clearly did. He walked over to his station and pointed. He mutely looked to us for some consolation, or some negation of what the blinking red light was telling him. His eyes welled with tears that did not fall. However, each of us in turn inspected our own red lights, and turned to each other to confirm what he had already known, even as our bodies became buoyant in the absence of a gravity well. Doctor Noell had not started the engines and pushed us into a dive as we had feared. That would have been bad, but it would have been correctable. He had turned the station and dumped the micro-singularity power supply into space. We had no power.

Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11