Fantastic Voyage - Part 2

CA-55 arced downwards. It was as graceful as an Olympic diver. If one could witness the shuttle’s entry into the atmosphere, one would describe it as an arrow soaring through a sheet of vapour. Gone were the days of turbulent entries and departures. The crew might as well have been strapped into their armchairs at home. Ephemeral clouds whizzed past the shuttle’s window. After a few seconds, CA-55 broke through the layer of clouds, and the astronauts were treated with their first clear view of X-Terra’s surface. CA-55’s familiar hum pierced the thick silence generated by the crew members’ collective awe. They were landing on a tropical island.

From this high up, the crew could see the entire circumference of the land mass. It was somewhat small in the grand scheme of things. A white border of sand surrounded a dense cornucopia of foliage. The deep blue ocean emitted recurrent white lines of foam near the shore. The gentle waves curved onto the sand before the white foam dissipated. CA-55 was on track to land on the beach. Rita turned to Barbara and noticed that she was sobbing. Rita smiled. She looked at the clear blue sky and had to shield her eyes. The sun was blazing through the window, its rays enforced by the layers of thick glass. Mid-morning in Honolulu, Rita thought before chuckling to herself. She glanced at Alexei, who met her gaze and reciprocated with a hearty laugh.

The thrusters caused white sand to blow in all directions. When CA-55 touched the ground and disabled its thrusters, the airborne grains of sand floated to the ground in synchrony with each other. The shuttle doors slid open with a whisper. The astronauts unbuckled themselves and lunged towards the sand. The sun bore down on their helmets. Alexei was the first to take his off. The familiar scent of saltwater transcended the air and tickled Alexei’s nose hairs. Before long, the three astronauts had stripped down to their underwear and had charged into the ocean.

The trio had been basking in the sun in silence for 15 minutes before Alexei let out a satisfied breath of air.

“I don’t believe this place. It’s unreal,” he declared in a breathless whisper. “But alas, we only have an hour and a bit left, we’d better get some work done.” He pointed at his watch, which was programmed to bleep out a warning every 30 minutes. He and his crewmates stood up with dissatisfied grumbles of feeble protest. They surveyed the beach and the borders of the central foliage for two more bleeps of Alexei’s watch. They reconvened to discuss their findings.

“It’s wild,” Rita said. “I found fruits. Pears I think. Well, they looked like pears on a pear tree. I saw flowers that looked like marigolds… it’s uncanny, guys.”

“Yeah, I have similar findings. I tested the seawater. I found significant levels of salt, it’s comparable to Earth,” Alexei remarked.

“Did any of you find any animate lifeforms?” Barbara enquired. Her audience shook their heads.

“Look, guys. This is obviously huge,” Alexei said. “We can’t do any more recon. The way I see it, our mission is complete, and we have around… 40 minutes to spare,” Alexei squinted at the screen on his watch to make out the time through the sun’s glare. “I say we enjoy the rest of the time CA-55 gave us by making the most of this place.” Alexei looked at his crewmates with raised eyebrows.

Rita and Barbara smiled before walking towards the ocean. Barbara decided to explore the coastline, and Rita and Alexei lay down near the gentle heartbeat of ocean waves breaking on the shore. The steady sounds of the ocean lulled the resting astronauts into slumber.

As Rita dozed off, she dreamed of her last few months on Earth. She recalled how she was forced to replace real food with space-food; dice-sized cubes packed with nutrition and terrible taste. One cube was enough to sustain her for a day. Rita remembered the torture of watching her family enjoy chicken dinners and steaks while she ate her bite-sized cubes. She chuckled as she remembered spending time with her extended family on their farm; her uncle tended to the bulls by his run-down old barn, her cousins chomped on corn cobs and made exaggerated ‘mmmm’ sounds, and she popped another cube. Rita imagined that Alexei was reminiscing about similar things. But instead of being on a warm farm, he was probably back in Omsk, skating on frozen lakes and ponds with his family while popping his cubes.

Eventually, Rita dozed off. But before long, her dreams were accompanied by a soundtrack of bleeps. It took a few seconds for Rita to realize that it was Alexei’s watch beeping. She opened her eyes to see Barbara’s looming shadow blocking out the sun like an emotionally unstable eclipse.

After squinting at Barbara’s silhouette for a moment, Rita turned to Alexei. “How long do we have?”

Alexei shook himself out of his drowsy stupor and checked his watch. “15 minutes. We should get ready to --”

“Guys,” Barbara’s voice trembled as she spoke. Her crewmates turned towards her. “Guys… I’m staying.”

An eternal silence followed Barbara’s declaration. Rita and Alexei slowly stood up and stared at Barbara. Her eyes were dark and solemn. Alexei was the first to speak.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Alexei scoffed.

“I’m staying here. I can’t spend another minute on that ship, let alone five more years.”

“Are you out of your --”

“Alexei.” Rita’s stern voice tamed Alexei’s outburst. She turned back towards Barbara. “Come on, Barb. This place is identical to Earth, yes. But it’s not home. Let’s go back to CA-55, we’ve done half the mission, don’t you want to finish it?”

“No. I’m not leaving here.” Barbara crossed her arms. She was a picture of resignation. She reminded Rita of a toddler who refused to go to bed at her mother’s command. “There’s food here. Fruits, plants… I could even start a farm! I’ll take care of myself.”

Alexei was putting on his spacesuit while his crewmates argued. He was done with this conversation.

“Look guys,” Alexei said. “We only have ten minutes to get back to the ship. Come on.”

Rita’s pleading eyes were fixated on Barbara, but Barbara just looked down and shook her head, arms still folded.

“Alright, fuck it, stay if you want. Come on, Rita.”

“Alexei, we can’t just --”

“I said let’s go, Rita!” Alexei’s voice was tainted with a threatening tone. “Get your suit on, time’s running out. Unless you want to drag Barbara, we’re going.”

Alexei walked towards the ship. For a fleeting moment, Rita considered dragging Barbara to the ship. She started to put on her spacesuit. When she was finished, she gave Barbara a pleading stare. Her expression brought definition to the frown-lines on her forehead and between her eyebrows. Barbara responded with a stare of her own. A stare that was accompanied by upturned, apologetic eyebrows. Rita turned away and followed Alexei into the shuttle.

Rita looked down at the diminishing speck that was Barbara on the beach of X-Terra. When Barbara vanished into the diorama of the planet, Rita felt anger burning in her stomach. If Alexei had been more helpful, maybe they could have convinced Barbara to come with them. Instead, he had acted like an asshole, and it helped them lose a veteran of the Canadian Space Agency.

When CA-55 cleared the atmosphere, the remaining astronauts unstrapped themselves and walked towards the bridge to report what had happened.

Before they reached the control panel, Rita grabbed Alexei’s shoulder and turned him around to face her. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You couldn’t help me at all back there? How could you be so okay with this?”

Rita’s barrage stunned Alexei. They never shared an intimate bond, but they had never really argued either.

“We had to move, Rita. Did you see her face? There was no changing her mind.” His calm demeanor baffled Rita. “Look. Barbara was on the brink of losing her mind. What would be waiting for her at home? The rest of her life in a mental hospital? If I were in her position, I’d choose Hawaii 2.0 as well.”

Rita let out a frustrated chuckle.

“Rita, come on! We had to go anyway. If we’d stayed five minutes longer, CA-55 would’ve left without us.”

He paused, waiting for Rita to respond. After a few seconds of silence, Alexei continued. “Ok, I get it, you’re mad. But Rita, we’ve got five more years of work together. You still have to live with me ‘til we get home. You can’t hate me that whole time or we’ll both be insane by the time we get back, won’t we? Now, let’s get some food. I’m starving, come on.”

“…no.”

Rita’s response was barely a whisper. She couldn’t move. She didn’t know how to process what was going on. A couple of hours had passed since they left Barbara on the beach, but it felt like it had just happened a second ago. Alexei strode towards the food storage room and opened the door.

“Rita?”

“I said no, Alexei. I don’t want any food.”

“No, come here,” Alexei said.

The solemnity in Alexei’s voice caused Rita to turn towards Alexei. She slowly made her way towards the food storage room and looked inside. Her eyes widened, and her lips parted. The once bountiful storage space was barren, save for one pouch wrapped in brown paper. Rita stepped forward and removed the tape securing the brown paper. It revealed one food pouch containing thirty cubes; enough to feed one person for a month. The brown paper had a message inscribed in permanent marker on its surface. Rita held up the paper and read the message:

“I had to.”

The message was signed off by a single letter. “B.”

Alexei walked behind Rita and looked over her shoulder. Immediately after reading the message, he began to tremble and violently turned away. He stormed out into the common area. “That bitch! She stole our fucking food while we slept!” Alexei’s bellows echoed across the spacious corridors of CA-55. When he yelled, his Russian accent came through much more.

Meanwhile, Rita was captivated by the message. Her unblinking eyes were staring with desperation while her hand gently shook the final pouch of food. The peripheral blur of an enraged Alexei barely registered in her mind. This was the end, and she had to find a way to come to terms with it. Rita headed to the bridge to tell control what had transpired.