The Other Astronaut

Her heart stopped and I was only halfway through getting dressed. I looked up from my heavy boots, one set of buckles fully strapped the other bouncing to the side obscenely and saw it on the big monitor. A flat line in place of the mountainous peaks we expect of life.

“Jesus Christ.” Somebody behind me said. I saw the chemist’s face go taut.

The Biologist put his hands up to his mouth. A prayer maybe, though we were further from any church than anyone else in history.

“We still need to go get her.” I said, finishing strapping in. “Pass me my helmet. This doesn't change anything.”

“Of course it does.” Our Chemist said. “It’s not a rescue mission anymore.”

“She built this habitat.” I replied. “She’s in every joint and every panel. It’s because of her all this is possible. We owe her a proper burial at least.”

“We don’t even know what killed her. Whatever happened to her could happen to you. All due respect, Commander, but losing our Joiner is one thing, risking you is another. Or any of us for that matter.”

“Duly noted. Now pass me my helmet.”

I took a deep breath of filtered air and stepped into the red wastes. The sun on my visor. Inches between me and lifelessness. The feel of sand and rock underfoot. If I closed my eyes, I could almost remember beaches many miles away. The sea. The wind. The feeling of a planet that cultivated my life, and all the life in the universe. I climbed into Rover-Two and strapped in.

“Comms check, Habitat.” I said to the empty carriage. A moment. Sickeningly lonesome. Then:

“Habitat here, we’re reading you Commander.”

I sighed.

“Get her transponder up on the nav computer.”

Another moment and the centre console blinked, yawned with a machine roar, and staggered on. I saw the contours of inhospitality. Stretching on infinitely. There was a grain of sand which was the habitat. And a smaller one which was the rover. And an even smaller one which was her. A sun was setting in the east, another rising behind me. I pressed the ignition and drove.

I was almost upon her when I heard the sound of tinfoil and burning wood crackle.

“Habitat, repeat that last message.”

The sound of grinding bone.

“Habitat, say again.”

The sound of rusted gears turning.

“Habitat?”

My screen went dead. I flicked it once. Again. Then the underside of my fist. Nothing. No map. No macabre marker. I opened the door and stood, propping myself up on the roof. Looking out at the crimson vista. In the distance I could see dust being kicked up. A big dark cloud like pyre smoke. As it got closer, I saw it. Rover-One. Driving quickly. Well above regulation for cross country. It passed me, sending dust and stones flicking across the windshield. I slid back into my seat.

“Rover-One, status report.”

The sound of bark breaking.

“Rover-One, respond.”

The sound of dragging a chair.

“Rover-One, talk to me.”

The sound of tires over stone.

I followed behind, faster than I would have liked but still not fast enough to catch up with her. By the time I arrived back the Rover was already plugged back into the generator. As I opened the airlock and stepped inside, shrugging off my cumbersome suit, I could hear laughing. I found them all around the dining table. She was in the centre, a blanket around her shoulders, but much warmer than I thought I’d find her. Our Biologist was taking her blood pressure and frowning at a monitor but then the Chemist made a joke, and he was laughing with the rest. I walked in and she looked at me. Dark eyes like black glass. She didn’t say anything as I came and sat down beside them.

“Now I know why you’re the commander, Commander!” Our Physicist said to me, clapping me on the shoulder. “You brought her back from the dead.”

“Biomoniter malfunction.” The Biologist says. “Must have been the interference in that sector. You experienced it yourself, we were trying to tell you that her monitor’s signal came back online while you were out that. Perfect vitals.”

“Could have saved me the trip.” I said and she smiled at me. Wide and filled with teeth. It made me feel cold.

“What caused the interference?” I asked.

“Electrical storm coming in. Should be on us tomorrow. Control are keeping an eye on it, shouldn’t be a problem.”

“All the same, make sure our comms are fully operational, don’t want them to tell us to evacuate and get it lost in the ether.”

“Aye, Aye, Commander.” He said grinning.

“And you,” I said to her. “I’m glad you’re alright. When you feel up to it, check your handy work. Any issues, let me know. I don’t want us weathering the storm with all this coming down around us, okay?”

“Okay.”

That night I dreamt of a pair of tracks, winding their way through the sand until they stopped abruptly. Taken flight. I woke quickly, already sitting up before I realised my comm channel was chiming. I rubbed a knuckle into one of my eyes as my other hand click receive.

“Go.”

“Commander, sorry to call so late but I need you to see something. In the Medbay.”

I looked out the cabin window. A vast horizon was somewhere behind the night.

“On my way.”

Our Biologist was sitting upright staring at his monitor. A sequence of vitals bumping rhythmically. He didn’t even look up as I sat beside him.

“These are her vitals aren’t they.” I said after a while.

“They are.”

“Sixty beats per minute seems fine to me. Nothing wrong with blood pressure either. What’s the problem?”

“It’s been like this since her monitor came back online.”

“That’s good.”

“No, you don’t understand. It’s only been like this. Not a blip out of place. Sixty beats, minute after minute, hour after hour.”

“Okay, so the readings off, have you run a diagnostic?”

He nodded.

“Four times now.”

“And?”

“All systems are green.”

“Well, that can’t be right. Maybe it needs replacing.”

He shook his head.

“Once implanted they should be good for a decade at least.”

“This one clearly isn’t.”

“I’ll say. Take a look where it’s transmitting from.”

He pressed a button and a moment later a silhouette appeared. There was a small pulse by her wrist.

“Looks fine to me.” I said.

“It would. But I was the one who implanted it.”

“And?”

“It’s moved.”

I waited for him to continue. He didn’t.

“Moved?”

“I implanted all of them in all the crew. Every one of them three inches from the wrist. Hers is closer.”

“Any chance the move was natural?”

“None. It’s designed to stay put to give a consistent reading.”

“How far off is it?”

“A few millimetres or so.”

I looked at him. Saw myself reflected in his glasses. He saw me thinking.

“It’s not a mistake.” He said.

“A few millimetres isn’t the end of the world and human error-”

“Commander, I’m telling you, it’s in the wrong place.”

“It’s late, why don’t you get some sleep.”

He sighed and ran his hands over his shaved head.

“I’ll run another diagnostic in the morning.” he said. “Sorry for getting you up.”

I smiled and squeezed his shoulder.

“It’s what I’m here for.”

I walked back to my quarters, my footsteps bouncing off the metal walls. A reverberant echo. A double beat like a heart. I stopped abruptly and turned. I looked into the darkness behind me.

“Who’s there?”

Nothing answered me back.

She was already gone when I woke. Out on another patrol.

“Left half an hour ago. Said she was eager to get back to work.” Our Analyst said to me. “Guess she’s worried about sick pay.”

“Hah Hah.” I said dryly. “Any coffee in the mess hall?”

He hefted his own stainless-steel mug.

“Last of it.”

I scowled.

“Oh, and that storm’s getting bigger. Control haven’t said anything but if it keeps growing like it has, we may have to bug out.”

“Understood, I’ll prep the shuttle. Just in case.”

I turned to leave and stopped.

“Hey, could you send the patrol route she went on yesterday to my terminal?”

“Sure, wanna see if there was anything you missed?”

“We missed. Don’t sell your own failings short.”

He laughed.

“Never skipper. Sending now.”

I sat down at my desk, cracking the numbness out of my fingers. I flicked the power and a map stared back at me. A thick line from the habitat ballooned out, arcing through the rock and dunes. I leant out of my chair and shouted over.

“Hey, could you send me her comms transcript? With location pings.”

He gave a thumbs up and moments later I saw the document. I scrolled through the initial chatter, radio checks at the beginning and some banter with the base interspersed with basic reports. I scrolled to the end. There were gaps from the interference, increasingly hard to gauge what she was saying. The last coherent message simply said. “Checking it out.” I checked the annotation next to it. Compared the numbers to the screen. Traced my fingers across the surface until I hit my mark. I checked the map. I checked the numbers. Then back again. 100 feet off course when she sent her last transmission.

I found our Chemist in his lab, a pipet balancing precariously over a grain of dust in a petri dish.

“Got a minute?” I asked.

He held up a finger. I watched him silently place two drops, three into the mixture. Slide it under a microscope. Pressed against his eye. He smiled and looked up at me.

“How can I help you Commander?”

I handed him a tablet.

“What’s this?” He asked taking it.

“Just some mineral data taken from the Rover-One’s sensors. Just wanted to get your thoughts.”

He looked down and a second later grinned.

“Did someone put you up to this?”

“No? What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on, this data? The hydrocarbon composition? Heat levels? Nice try.”

He handed the tablet back. I stood still.

“Commander?

I reached out.

“Got the caffeine shakes already?” He said as he passed it over.

“No, just something came to mind. Can you round up the crew? I want to have a word.”

The first of the winds were rattling the windows by the time everyone was gathered.

“What’s the word?” The Biologist said. “Are we scrubbing?”

“Control still haven’t got in touch; that’s probably the interference.” Our Analyst said.

“How high do the winds need to get for evacuation to be mandatory?”

“Two hundred miles per hour.” I said. “It’s at one eighty now. I don’t want to risk it. We’ll pack up after this and take our positions in the shuttle. Launch if, and when, it increases.”

“Okay,” Our Chemist said. “So, what else is it?”

“It’s her.”

“She’s done all her checks. This habitat is joined up perfectly, it’s a work of art.”

“That’s not it.”

“She’ll be back any minute, well ahead the worst of the storm, don’t worry.”

“It’s her I’m worried about.”

Outside, flashes of brilliant blue lit up the sky. -A red mist of sand and dirt was swirling behind the glass like some huge god had opened its mouth and breathed out over all this rust.

“Worried how?” The Biologist said.

“What you showed me yesterday. I figured it was an honest mistake. But there was something about it that bothered me. So, I pulled her patrol log.”

I pressed a button on the centre console and the map came up. The same thick line I had seen. A wide oval path. I pointed to it.

“That’s her path. I checked it with her other patrols. Besides minor deviations, she’s not once moved off it. Until yesterday.”

I pressed another button and a dot appeared. The Habitat shook.

“Storm at one ninety.” Someone said.

“That dot is where her last transmission came from. It’s also right next to the last spot her bio-monitor pinged before it went off. Over a hundred feet away from where she was supposed to be.”

“So, she took a detour to check something out. When she’s not putting our base together that’s what she’s supposed to do.” Someone else said.

“What’s the sensor range on the Rovers?”

“Fifty to seventy-five feet.”

“Between the range and the interference, she couldn’t have picked something up on the instruments. She had to have eyeballed it.”

“And?”

“And everything out there looks the same. She’d been driving a while when she stopped. It gets repetitive after a while. You wouldn’t notice something sitting there. But you’d notice if it moved.”

They were silent.

“We lost contact long enough to mount a rescue mission. Her monitor read no pulse for half an hour before coming back online.”

Another flash. The roof rattled.

“Since then, it hasn’t moved from sixty beats a minute. Not once. Diagnostic reads fine. But the monitor is also out of place.”

“What are you getting at?”

“I pulled the sensor data from her rover. The storm scrambled most of it but I can still make sense of it.”

I pulled it up on the monitor.

“This part is the basic composition of the planet surface, right?”

“Right.”

“And this data is consistent with a human body.”

“It is.”

“What about this data?”

They looked at the screen.

“You weren’t joking before.” The Chemist said.

“I wasn’t.”

“I don’t get it.” Said the Analyst.

“It’s consistent with what we theorise silicon-based life forms would be composed of.”

“In other words, you think this garbled data is telling us she found an alien?”

“Yes,” I said. “And I think it’s why her vitals went down for so long.”

“You think it killed her? Then what? Brought her back?”

“Not quite.”

They let that sit for a minute. The screen went red. A counter showed one ninety-five miles per hour. Outside, even with the tempest swirling I could hear the rover pulling in.

“We need to get to the shuttle and prep for evac.” I said. “But I need a unanimous vote first.”

“To leave?”

I shook my head.

“To decide if all of us get to go.”

The airlock opened and she stood in the doorway.