Whom the Gods would Destroy

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. But when I heard a woman’s voice shriek in terror outside of Circe’s titanium hull, my neat, scientific world shattered into hundreds of mismatched pieces. A moment later Dante warned me to strap in and brace for collision. As I fastened my lap belt and shoulder harness, the ship shook several times in rapid succession.

With Circe in a high orbit of roughly thirty thousand kilometers around our mission objective and traveling several thousand kilometers per hour, Dante’s maneuver options were dependent on the warning time prior to impact. But the radar had failed to identify the threat until it was already too late. The next object struck the ship with sufficient force that Circe began to wobble. My heart in my throat, I yelled “What the hell, Dante! How did Circe’s radar not see that coming?”

But he only repeated “Brace for impact,” and we were struck hard again, the wobble increasing still more. The third strike hit us a few seconds later and the wobble quickly turned into a wild spin.

“Firing aft and port thrusters,” was Dante’s only answer as he worked to slow the spin before the orbit decayed to the point that we would breach the atmosphere at an angle that would almost certainly lead to our death. As I prayed to Saint Jude, Dante mechanically announced “Twenty-thousand kilometers,” and again a few minutes later “Ten-thousand kilometers,” as warning bells began to sound and I resisted the temptation tell Dante how to do his job.

When the thrusters finally slowed and straightened the Circe into a low orbit of roughly five hundred kilometers, I waited till my nerves calmed sufficiently to ask him why the impact warning was late.

“Reviewing imagery prior to impact,” was his only comment for the next several minutes.

“Well?” I finally asked in exasperation.

“Radar detected the objects at approximately seven point three seconds before impact.”

“And before that?”

“There was nothing before that.”

“But something was there before that, right?”

“There was nothing before that.”

“What does that even mean?”

“At seven point three zero one seconds there was nothing; at seven point three seconds there was something.”

“Meaning?”

“Unknown.”

“Did Circe’s instrumentation record the scream that proceeded the impact warning?”

“Sound does not carry in space, Bea. You know that.”

“So, I imagined it?”

“Only three weeks have passed since your revival from the cryogenic preservation. Until you fully recover your sight, side effects may include auditory hallucinations.”

“How is hearing what cannot be heard in space different from objects suddenly materializing in our path?”

Instead of answering, he changed the subject. “Communications are down.”

There is nothing that either one of us can do about that for now. I need the full return of my vision and former energy prior to attempting a spacewalk to inspect the Hull for damages or to make any repairs. Although I prodded him for additional information regarding the nature of the objects that struck the ship he declined to speculate.

Unstrapping from the seat, I stood and began to walk gingerly across the floor grid, carefully sliding my booted foot till it locked in place and then repeated process with the other boot. “One step,” I grunted. “Two steps.” The process is exhausting. It is much easier to use the absence of gravity to float about the main cabin, but I need the exercise in order reduce my recovery time.

Once I finally reached the comms desk, I ran my hands across its surface until I found the recording switch. Although I can store a message for now and send it after I repair the comms micro dishes, I have no intention of sending this one. I simply feel the need to say the words aloud that I should have said to Gemma before we launched. Taking a deep breath, I flicked the switch and began to speak.

“You warned me that cryogenic preservation changes a person, Gemma, but I only skimmed the consent form prior to entering the cryochamber in preparation for our launch into deep space. Once revived, I experienced every major side-effect listed on the form save for death: amnesia, loss of sensory perception, immobilization and vertigo.

“If you have ever had fingers or toes that have gone numb from the cold and experienced the pain of blood flow returning to your frozen digits you can imagine the pain of plasma pumped back into your body as the cryochamber returns it to a life sustaining temperature. Without anesthesia, the agony is indescribable. I know, because the anesthetization system failed midway through the hours long warming process.

“It’s difficult to speak of it, even three weeks later. The heat traumatized my frozen flesh as it thawed. I did not remember the mission; I could not see, hear or move. Pain was the only sense that functioned during the long hours required to restore my body to 98.6 degrees. Even after the pain began to subside, terror of the void haunted me until I finally heard Dante’s comforting baritone three days later and wept with relief. I reexperience the white and soundless void nightly in my dreams till the remembered pain awakens me with a start.

“It took two weeks of cognitive therapy before I experienced my first unassisted memory of you. Do you remember the first day we met in the mission briefing room, Gemma? Seeing your frank and jolly gaze, I could not help but laugh. You were so at ease while I was such a tangle of nerves.

“What will I do without you? In the quiet stillness of the cabin, I like to remember the warmth of your embrace as if you were the sister I always wished for but never had. At others, my skin pricks with sensual desire, the memory of the tender pressure of your breasts upon mine rousing long suppressed desire. But more than either of those, I’ve always felt in your arms the steadfastness of a true friend, someone who would never betray me as so many others have done.

“When I learned that I was assigned to the advance party for the mission and you to the main body, it was one of the worst moments in my life. I tried to tell you before I left that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. But my old fear of commitment stopped me short of the words I longed to say. As we clung together and wept, I prayed that you would say the words that I could not. If you had led in this, I would have followed you to the ends of the universe. Were you waiting for me to lead or are your feelings for me only those of a dear friend?

“When Dante allowed me to play the messages you had sent while I was in Cryo, my heart lodged in my throat during your third and final message when you said the main body departure was delayed and mission command had not committed to a new launch date. I wept aloud each of the many times I listened to it. When I told Dante it must be a mistake and demanded that he let me play the other messages from you, he seemed embarrassed for me and he’s not even human.

“What happened, Gemma? What calamity prevented any further messages from reaching me? I should have shared my true feelings for you when I had the chance. Now I fear that I will never experience the touch of your lips on mine or hold you in my trembling arms again.”

Pushing the switch to store the message, I covered my face and wept. Gemma once told me that the sole significance of time is founded on an existential preference for one moment over another. But I could not imagine finding any lasting pleasure in any moment without the hope of seeing her at the end of each day. Of the five crew members aboard the Circe, I was the only one to revive from Cryo. Dante will not confirm whether they have died or some small hope to revive them later still remains. How we can accomplish our mission now I cannot imagine.

But when I awoke this morning, I experienced a glimmer of hope. I noticed the difference in my vision almost immediately. For three weeks my vision was awash in meaningless color and light, my visual cortex incapable of giving my environment meaning or coherence. But as I opened my eyes in my hammock I could make out features in my sleeping berth even though they were still blurry. Too excited to strap on my unwieldy boots, I slipped out of the hammock and floated across the room. Once I entered the main cabin, I cheerfully greeted Dante before he could scold me for not walking.

As I floated toward the viewing port I turned playful somersaults like a little child. But when I grasped the port’s ledge to steady myself, my brow wrinkled in confusion. Instead of the red planet I had expected, the planet five hundred kilometers below us was aquamarine; its surface covered by water from one far distant horizon to the other.

Anguish washed across my flesh in a violent wave of heat, like a huge weight pressing downward on my chest. Passing out, I do not know how long I floated unconscious at the port. When I revived, my head gently brushed the floor as my feet faced the terrifying blue below. Pushing the floor with my palms, I righted myself.

Confronting Dante, I tried to remain calm but in truth I was dizzy with rage. “Why aren’t we orbiting Mars?”

“What a strange question, Bea. Why would we go to Mars when Proxima B is the mission?”

My body trembling, I blurted – “Where in heaven’s name is Proxima B?”

His voice filled with seeming concern he replied, “Am I correct in assuming that you do not remember the mission parameters?”

“Goddamn you Dante! Where are we?”

“I apologize, Bea, I do not wish to offend. Proxima B orbits Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to Earth.”

Pulling my head defensively toward my knees, I pinched both thighs as hard as I could, hoping to prevent the darkness from overcoming me a second time. In a flat voice I asked, “How far is Proxima from Earth?”

“Four-point-two light years.”

As I felt my insides grow hot and perspiration begin to bead on my forehead, I asked in a weak voice “When did the main party leave?” But Dante did not know. He had not received any communication from mission command since the second year of the journey. When he told me yesterday that our comms were down, he did not bother to mention they had been down for over seven thousand years.

Everyone I have ever known is dead. If the main party mission was canceled or Gemma pulled from it, she is dead as well. I believed the news would break me, but instead my flesh tingled as if my entire body was losing feeling. Floating in trembling exhaustion, I lost consciousness a second time. When I awakened later, I would have considered taking my life if I had the energy for it. Instead, I retreated to my hammock for two days without eating.

I think I finally understand why the cryonic revival of the other crew members failed. What I do not understand is why mine had against all odds succeeded. In my mind, the likelihood of a successful revival after such a timespan was staggeringly small. It seems a miracle that anything in the Circe functions at all.

Although I slept very little during those two days, I had three recurring dreams of the Circe encountering a derelict ship above Proxima B. The first time I dreamt it, I realized as our ship closed the distance between us that the derelict was the identical twin of the Circe. As I donned a space suit to enter its twin, I awakened in surprise. The dream had felt so real that I was overcome with the strange sense that I had seen not the Circe’s twin, but its future.

The second time the dream was essentially identical to the first, ending as I prepared to board the derelict. But the third time, the dream began as I stepped into the darkness of the twin ship’s main cabin, the lamp atop my helmet sweeping the stillness within until I saw an astronaut in an identical space suit standing in deep shadow. Slowly approaching the figure, I stopped when my lamp weakly illuminated the face within the helmet. But she stared fixedly forward as if looking at something or someone behind me. I stared at her in fascinated horror, as if seeing my reflection in a cataclysmic future. Then I awoke with a terrified intake of breath.

When I was a girl, my grandmother told me a story about meeting a phantom version of herself when she was a young woman walking through the wood near her home. ‘A doppelgänger?’ I asked, but she shook her head fiercely no.

‘It was my spirit that I saw,’ she replied, ‘a Vardøger. She walked hand in hand with a handsome man I had never seen before.’ With tears in her eyes, she said, ‘A Vardøger is a good omen, not bad like a doppelgänger. I did not meet the man I saw with my spirit self until three years later. He was your grandfather, Bea.’ Pausing to wipe the tears from her eyes, she smiled. ‘He died before you were born. I wished you could have met him. He was a good man.’

My grandmother’s story returned forcefully to mind after awakening from the third dream, my skin tingling with a combination of fear and anticipation. In the moment, it felt like the dream might be wisdom disguised with folly, or a truth so cleverly hidden it could not be found either in the heavens or on earth. But my exhaustion soon overcame my eyes as well as my strange thoughts. I soon fell asleep but did not dream of the derelict or the Vardøger again.

The morning of the third day, I arose and walked to the ship’s galley to eat. When Dante greeted me, I surprised myself by saying hello. After I finished eating Dante asked me to examine images he had taken with the Circe’s bow camera. Within the field of view of the camera, the Circe’s hull was pock marked in several places, but one in particular drew my immediate interest. In the curve of bow I could see that an object with perpendicular surfaces like the corner of a large box had imprinted the titanium surface. Gasping in surprise I exclaimed, “We were hit by a manmade object!”

“It looks like something or someone made it,” Dante agreed.

On one small dent, the camera had managed a closeup and I could see a small piece of metal embedded in the hull. “What do you suppose that is made of?”

“When you are strong enough to inspect the hull, you can go out and retrieve it and we can find out.”

“I’m ready now,” I answered breathlessly.

But before the argument had even begun, Dante’s attention was diverted by a warning of a large object moving in a synchronous orbit with the Circe. “Strap in Bea. I need to maneuver the Circe into a higher orbit to avoid a collision. Since the viewing port faced the object as we sped passed it, I gasped in surprise. It was the derelict ship from my dream. All thought of convincing Dante to approve a spacewalk fled my thoughts.

Since the ship was traveling at roughly half our speed, we passed it twice before the bow thruster had slowed us enough to attempt docking. As we closed the gap, I held my breath as I recognized Circe’s contours. Dante docked with the ship without comment and I found myself wondering if I was still in my hammock asleep as the Circe’s hull trembled, the ports of the two ships locking together.

Dante scanned the derelict for life for over an hour. When he finally said, “There is no evidence of life aboard the ship,” I felt a combination of relief and disenchantment. Anticipating my desire to explore it, he insisted on sending an automated vehicle to determine if there were radiation leaks or other hazards on board. That ate up another three hours before he approved a short visit fully suited with a fifteen-meter tether that would allow him to winch me back to the Circe in the event of trouble.

As I slowly donned the suit the power of the recurring dreams began to fill me with a nameless dread. It wasn’t until Dante sealed the door behind me and I spun the circular handle on the derelict’s docking port, that a novel thought occurred to me as I began to crawl through the entryway. Perhaps this was not a spirit twin of the Circe as I initially feared. What if it’s the Circe’s twin, the Calypso, the lead ship for the main body. The thought filled me with such terror, that I paused before fully entering the ship. What if technology had increased the speed of the four main body vessels and the Calypso at least had reached Proxima B before us?

I was soon dizzy with terror and wasting precious seconds imagining one terrifying scenario after another. Had Gemma traveled to Proxima before me? Although I had no rational expectation to learn that answer, it increased my fears just the same. Our collision a few days earlier suggested the destruction of at least one ship, its debris almost carrying the Circe with us to a water grave on Proxima B. And where are the other two ships? In route or already stranded in the water five hundred kilometers below me?

Steeling my courage I took my first step in the surrounding darkness, the lamp atop my helmet shakily flashing about the heavily damaged interior. But there, its likeness to the third dream ended. Once forty-five minutes had passed, I explored the main cabin, the galley, the crew rest facility as well as the room with five cryonic chambers – all empty. Given the poor performance of the Circe’s chambers, this greatly surprised me.

“Ten minutes, Bea.”

“Wilco. The ship looks abandoned. I did not see any bodies or violence, not even in the Cryo chambers.”

“Roger. I expect you back in five.”

Reentering the main cabin, I realized that I was sufficiently exhausted that I might not make it back to the Circe in five minutes. “I’m pretty tired, Dante. I think ten is more realistic.”

“Roger. If it takes any longer, I’m winching you back.”

That’s when I saw the figure blocking the entryway back to the Circe and was flooded with an impossible hope. As I walked slowly toward the figure, we each raised are arms in greeting. Without any air aboard the ship we could not speak without returning to the Circe.

Drawing closer to the figure, the lamp atop my helmet weakly illuminated her face as hers lit mine. Thinking I recognized my beloved and forgetting that sound does not carry in space we each yelled “Gemma!” before our screams filled the cabin with terror.

As my eyes swam with tears, the tether yanked me off my feet and begun to pull toward the entryway. I reached out to the Vardøger in supplication too late. She had already disappeared into the shadows. I half expected to awaken again from yet a fourth version of the dream as Dante winched me through port a back aboard the Circe.

But I did not awaken. As I stripped off the suit in trembling exhaustion, I wept aloud. I cannot know if all four of the main body had rendezvoused with Proxima or more importantly if any have even survived to begin their mission. I only know that if any chance exists that at least one of the ships remain, that Gemma may still live. I will not rest until I have found her or died in the effort. In spite of my Grandmother’s soothing words, I fear that my Vardøger is a bad omen rather than a good, and that insanity rather than happiness awaits me.

Those whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad.