Work Text:
when you look up at the stars in the middle of the night, out in the fields England. you only ever hear silence from the void. space is quiet, that's what natural. but humanity had the hubris to enter that silence, bringing with them the noise of carbon scrubbers and rocket thrusters. the truth is humans can't live without noise. even on earth, when you close your eyes and just listen on the most silent night. there is still noise. even the deaf can hear, each tiny vibration on their skin. Humans need it, they always need it. they need to feel it or else they go mad. Dave is glad he can still hear noise. an explosing of a fuel tank out in deep space sent his and his copilot tumbling off course with no thrusters. Dave blames himself really. he's the one who bought the spaceship. he should have been patient, saved up more money, bought something better. but no, he had to be impatient and buy a cheap model to just get the job done. his brother lives on titan, one of the moons of jupiter. he wanted to get there and live the paradise like life he's heard about in correspondance with his brother. His Copilot, Sarah, had a similar dream. she wanted to be a space traveler, see the stars as much as she can in her lifetime. but now, we've been flying off course for so long we're running out of food. Sarah has scurvy pretty bad, I honestly don't know why. at this point she's already lost a few teeth, and her hair is falling out and she's getting real thin. the loose strands of her hair have ended up everywhere in the small pod, in every crevice in every article of clothing. everywhere. thanks to the explosion we were hit into a spin, meaning we had some centripital force that caused the hair to fall to the outer surfaces.
Dave did his best to clean it up. Sarah helped but with her deteriorating condition she was practically able to do nothing. she just floated lislesly in the pod, doing her best to keep her food down. I somehow had enough energy to keep cleaning though. I cleaned for many days. I tried using my analog watch to keep track of the days and keep myself on a sleep schedule. but the watch got slower and slower until it stopped. and then I just started sleeping when I was tired. like Sarah had been. she'd have short conversations with me here and there. but the conversations were always just hollow and depressed. then she would be silent for some time. and then she would sleep. then she would wake up. then she would eat her rations. then she might talkt. then she would be silent for some time. then she would sleep. I didn't have that problem, I was awake all the time. it hardly felt like I slept at all. I was constantly exhausted but board to the edge of madness. So I invented a new time increment. I'm calling it the PodUnit. at this point in our journey I can see one of jupiters moons. I'm fairly certian it's europa. I studied the maps like hell before we lauched off. I knew where all the moons were gonna be. and now We're by Europa. I can see it out the window. and because out capsule is spinning at a consistant rate relative to Europa I can use each passing of Europa over the window as a single unit of time. perhaps instead of PodUnit I can call it one EU. short for Europa Unit. it's not like I have to name it anything brilliant.
Sarah would sleep for aroun 7 EU. if I'm assuming she's sleeping for eight hours at a time, then I can try and work out a conversion. I did the decimal division in my head, the task of crunching numbers and memorizing doing wonders to occupy my mind while I wait. I wait I wait I wait. I ended up with an hour being 1.142 EU units. while an EU unit ended up being 0.875 hours. I got very good at doing the converstions in my head. and soon I was thinking in both EU units and Standard hours. after so long it felt like Intilectually I had acended. after 1000 EU units, which is 875 hours, which is 35.4583repeting days. after studying Europa for so long through the window, I could see we were in an eliptical orbit with Europa. in our wildly off course accident we ended up orbiting this wonderfully beutiful moon. simply divine. I knew what Craters going by means it was hand and EU, and as the orbit around Europa meant we were comeing closer, it also meant that my EU units would change. So before the time was thrown off any more I memorized the exact length of and EU. I practiced at the window for a long time. Sarah thought I was being annoying.
just saying stuff to stay stuff. but she didn't understand my brilliance, she didn't undnerstand it at all. she just always looked at me with this dreadful expression any time I bring up EU units. I tell her I swear by them, they're whats keeping me sane while waiting for rescue from Titan. they must have heard the distress beacon. but who knows if they'll be able to get a spaceship in the sky fast enough? no no, don't let Sarah's negativity get in your head. just think about the EU. right now, that's all you need. Just the EU. it was EU 1258 when I heard her for the first time. we were experiencign our closest point of orbit to Europa, to the point that it was taking up the entire view of the small glass window. up this close I could see how beutiful it is. smooth and cracked and glisteningly gorgeous. I'm so glad the sun is around and we can keep on looking at Europa. even when turned away from Europa I could feel it's glow.
Actually come to think of it, I can feel a lot more things. I can feel the ice layer of Europa hiding what I know to be a vast and deep ocean. fabeled to haeve more water than on earth, it's theoretically home to life. although that theory has bever been proven. however the ammount of radiation on Europa is so strong who knows what kind of crazy life mutated down in it's depths. when I started pondering what kind of alien might be down there. I'ts up to me to speculate. the ocean down there had to be relatively warm. it would be freezing to me but could definitly habitat animals with more blubber. or whatever alien equivalent to blubber there is. they would need to be able to swim, and eat microbial life, if they got that big at least. I don't know why but I imagined them as looking like smooth eyeless seals. without sunlight they wouldn't need eyes, and without evolving light sensing organs I don't think they would have a head. they would just end up being a meat torpedo. possibly with echo locaiton. oh and all the energy in their biosphere would come from the intense geological activity feeding warmth into the ocean.
I wonder what it's like down there. and when i wonder that I can hear her. at first I think it's sarah. but I quickly realize Sarah's asleep, and also her voice doesn't sound like that. it's a note, a long long note that sounds almost akin to a foghorn. but somehow it's melodic, somehow it's beutiful. I turn towards the noise. I don't see it but I feel it. I can just sense that it's there. it's smooth pill shaped body of white semi translucent flesh. it doesn't have a mouth, but it does have a surface on what I would call its stomach that reminds me of a snail. that's interesting. even out here biology converges.
"Sarah can you hear it?" I ask my copilot. she doesn't answer, deep in sleep. of course she's sleeping she's always sleeping. "Sarah!" I shake her awake and she tumbles away, opening her eyes grogily to look at me but not controling her gentle tumble around the pod.
"Leave me be Dave." She grumbles, her voice dry and croaking.
"can you hear her?" I ask, motioning to where the creature is in the spaceship.
"have you finally lost it?" she acuses, snagging her hand on a rope to stop her momentum.
"no, I can hear her. I really can." Dave says, turning towards the alien. he still can't see it. "can't you feel it? it's beutiful." he says with quiet reverence.
"sure." Sarah says, turning away from me. that's fine. she doesn't have to see it. the beuty can all be fore Dave. all for dave. I can't even remember at this point if I am dave or I'm just watching what he's doing in this pod. like a little hamster in a wheel, witnessing things larger than he can comprehend. my mind wanders outside the pod, and I watch dave through the window outside, he has a look of complete bliss on his face, staring at an empty corner of the pod. he's convinced that's where the alien is. maybe I did lose it. after what must ammount to weeks of this, weeks of recyled air, recylcled Urine, and the last scraps of food, I'm losing it.
I lose myself in that thought, staring at myself floating in the pod listlessly. I'm so focused on myself I don't even realize how close we've come to Europa. what tips me off though is the computer buzzing to life. we haven't been able to turn it on since the explosion. but it's finally turning on. I return to my body and pull myself along to begin investigating. the computer UI is different. it's dark and there's only two options: send and recieve. I glance over my shoulder at where the alien is. it's body twists in the air somewhat, and I get the feeling that it wants me to receive. so I push the receive button.
I revceive something. it floats by my head. I grab it. it's a candy bar. I swear to god it's a candy bar. unwrapped and floating in front of my face. I grab it and eat it without a second thought. it tastes divine, it melts in my mouth, and it has crunchy delicious nuts in it. I've never had something so good in my life. I turn back to the computer, hoping for more. I press the receive option again and again. by the time I've hit it nine times there's nine chocolate bars floating around the spaceship. I only manage to stomach two more before I collect the rest and put them away. I need to pace myself, to ration in hopes of surviving longer. A single bite of a chocolate bar, every fourth EU should be enough. at least that's what I hope.
I try to get more chocolate bars, but when I click the button the computer makes a quiet buzzing sound like a buzzer that tells you your incorrect on a game show. so I turn the mouse to hover over the other option. send. what will happen is I send? Perhaps I should send. this intelligent life gave me a gift, shouldn't I reciprocate? after two EU's of deliberation I press it. I watch as one of the fixtures on the outside of the pod detaches and floats down to Europa, becoming no more than a pinprick before dissapearing. I hope they use it well.
nothing interesting happens for a long time after that. I slowly eat my chocolate bars, Sarah refuses to eat them. and at this point the two of us haven't showered in... a long time so the pod absolutly reeks. but I don't care. I made first contact. some average shmuck like me made first contact with aliens. I can't help but smile at that. when we get rescued I'm going to be remembered as something great. I go to sleep on the 2000'th EU. and when I wake up I no longer see Europa. I blink in confusion. even as a single EU passes the moon we're orbiting isn't Europa. it's titan. I recognize it from all the pictures I saw of it. the Europans have given me a gift I will never be able to repay. they gave me food, and they sent me home. our Pod has even stopped rotating. it's a horrible waste of water but I shed a few tears. I'm finally going to be saved.
***
when an unidentified object appeared in orbit sending out a weak distress call, I was the astronaut on call. as much as I hate this job now, it is still my job and duty to the colony of Titan. the gravity around here is 1/7th of earth about. to somewaht compensate for how much resistance a human body needs to maintain muscle mass we wear heavy magnetic shoes that do their best to simulate earth gravity while we're down in the underground tunnels. but my left shoe is on the fritz and I'm having somewhat of a hard time pulling it off the metal walkways of the tunnels. I still manage to make it down the stoney tunnel to where my ship is. the escape velocity of Titan is laughable compared to earth, so I'm basically flying up into orbit in a glorified plane. the plane does have a jet on the back but it's still just an airtight plane.
"this is captain Clark, departing from port seven to intercept the distress call in upper Titan orbit." I say into the radio headset once I have it on. While I buckle in and turn the engine on Flight control responds and tells me I have a launch window in around 15 minutes. teh computer onboard receives the coordinates and the flight path. that was my least favorite part of school, doing those calculations by hand. now I just get to have a computer do it for me. quickly enough the window comes in and the port doors open in front of me. I push on the throttle and the wings of the spaceplane catch onto Titants atmosphere and lift me into the skies above the rocky planet. even after a few years of doing this I have to admit I think the surface of the moon is beutiful. once the atmosphere starts running out I switch to my thruster and accelarate up to speeds. I enter into an eliptical orbit set to intercept the distress signal. for the time being I enjoy a little bit of microgravity. the ship isn't very big so I don't get to do much, just sort of float in my seat. I guess I could go to the airlock to float if I wanted but the airlock is hardly bigger.
In any case I'm intercepting it fairly soon. it appears in the distane, it's a space pod from an older model of spacecraft. it reminds me of the old Nasa appolo days. so many spaceships used this design for a long time. but it's pretty outdated at this point. what's also odd is that it's just the pod and nothing else, ever so slowly turning end over end. It has a standard spaceport at the tip of the craft however, so it shouldn’t be a problem to connect.
Something’s off. We haven’t been receiving this signal for very long so these people haven’t been stuck for long, but I feel… strange? Something just feels off. Thanks to the slow turn of the pod im able to use the spaceport magnets to pull the pod towards my ships own port. I cancel out the spin and make sure one more time that I’m in a stable orbit. The automatic systems whirring to life and begin to connect to the pod. While that was happening I put on my environment suit. Can’t be to careful out here, who knows I’d their ship is going to be properly pressurized?
eventually the ping on the computer comes through that the door is safe to open. I pull the lever on the round hatch and pull it open, revealing the pod door that had a small jar lid sized window in it. It was dark so it was hard to make out, but nobody on the other side appeared to be moving to open the door. I knocked on the door with the hard part of my suit over the knuckles. I see a lurch of movement and suddenly there’s a man with his face smooshed up against the window. His eyes are wild and bloodshot. I make a motion for him to open the door from his side. The only response I get is him disappearing from view. There’s a creaking sound through the door, and it’s slowly un latched. The door swings outward and I can hear the man grunt with the effort it takes to move it. I plant my feet on whatever surface I can and yank the door open. Then suddenly there he is.
he has a scraggly beard and horribly tangled hair, his cheeks are hollow and I bet if he wasn’t wearing his jumpsuit I could count his ribs. I’m shocked as he just looks at me and smiles, pitting his hands on my arms like he’s checking if I’m real. He’s been up here a long time hasn’t he?
“Sarah were saved!” The man croaked out. I look behind him, prepared to meet another similarly malnourished person. What I do find is much worse. A rotting corpse, floating aimlessly through the pod. Ber mouth is open, revealing hardly any teeth, her hair has all but fallen completely out, her skin and soft tissue have all but rotted away, and worst of all? Shes missing every single one of her fingers.
***
”this doesn’t make sense.” The general says, his magnetic boots clicking against the floor as he moved closer to the chart.
”we ran diagnostics and the black box hasn’t malfunctioned.” I say, hardly believing it myself. From the information on the black box the story is quite clear. The ship set out from earth, taking a slingshot past Mars, there was a catastrophic fuel tank failure that led to an explosion near Jupiter, the pod was thrust into an elliptical orbit around Jupiter's moon Europa, and then at its closest point of its orbit it just vanished and appeared in a stable orbit around titan.
”the how did it happen?” The general asks.
“Dave still won’t talk, he just talks about the wonderful gifts Europa gave him.” I say with a sigh.
“what’s the autopsy report on the girl?” The general asks.
”she’s been dead for at least two months.” I say, shivering at the thought, “she died from a blunt force trauma to the back of her head. We matched up the shape of the wound on the back of her head to a one of the handles attached to the interior of the pod. It wouldn’t have been possible for Dave to do that to her, in the explosion she must have slammed the back of her head.”
”Jesus Christ.” The general swears, taking off his hat.
”sir… I think we need to go to Europa.” I say, “something out there did… that.” I point to the chart where it shows the black box freaking out and draw a straight line from where it was at Europa to where it ended up near titan. “Whatever did that, makes the crazy things Dave is saying easier to believe.”
“Pray to whatever god you want, and pray that he’s just a crazy bastard.” The general says resolutely.