Ian Sales - The Eye with Which the Universe Beholds Itself

He slides a corner of the photo under an edge of one of the control panels. Judy will watch over him during the next thirty days as he flies towards Mars in this box with walls twice as thick as a soda can’s. Apollo was dangerous—Apollo 13 proved that. But Lovell, Swigert and Haise got home, the pencil-necks brought them home. That was easy, that was local.

There is no hope of rescue on this mission.

I see we got a regular hero visiting, says the man in the docking adaptor. The nametag on his constant wear garment reads Parazynski. It is not a name Elliott knows, but then he has been out of the Astronaut Corps for nearly two decades.

Parazynski puts out a hand and grasps the hatch coaming just behind him. His other hand he raises in a salute. Welcome aboard, sir, he says; and this time his voice has the deference due to a person of Elliott’s rank and achievements.

A second astronaut appears in the module through the hatch behind Parazynski, a woman. Her dark hair floats about her head like a sable nimbus.

We got us the first man on Mars here, Parazynski tells her, his gaze still on Elliott.

The only man on Mars, Elliott corrects. He is trying to keep the tone light, but there is a bite to Parazynski’s words and Elliott wonders what he has done to deserve it.

Yeah, damn shame we never went back, Parazynski replies.

Could it be envy? It has been many years since Elliott was a member of NASA and he does not know what narrative has been written internally about his missions, past and present. Ares 9 may have been a one-off, he wants to say; but Americans have visited other stars, there is even an inhabited base on an exoplanet orbiting one.

Elliott knows this because that is where he is going.

Parazynski spins about and pushes himself through the hatch, bringing himself to a halt by his fellow astronaut. She has one foot to the floor and one hand to the ceiling—according to Elliott’s orientation, that is. Elliott can now see her name tag: it reads Weber. Another name unfamiliar to him.

Elliott follows Parazynski and Weber from the docking adaptor and into the module, a long cylinder walled, floored and roofed with lockers and screens and loops of wires. A tied bundle of cables and a slowly undulating fabric duct run along one corner and then dive down and through the hatch at the far end. Weber leads them into another docking adaptor, and as he joins her, Elliott looks up, sees an open hatch and, through it, what appears to be the interior of a Lunar Module. They are hundreds of thousand of miles from the Moon, and no one has been on the lunar surface for almost thirty years. He is about to ask, when Weber arrows down through a hatch in the floor, closely followed by Parazynski. Elliott pulls himself across to the hatch in the floor, then with a yank of both arms propels himself into the module below—

—and suffers a moment of vertigo as what was a vertical shaft full of clutter abruptly becomes a horizontal tunnel. Weber and Parazysnki have already disappeared through another hatch at the far end, and Elliott wonders how extensive this space station is. True, it has been in place now for fifteen years, and has been added to on a regular basis…

He is surprised the space station does not smell; all those years and its interior looks tired and battered, with its snaking wires and hoses and far too many broken consoles, strips of duct tape and pieces of cardboard. But there is no odour at all, and he belatedly realises the air he is breathing is constantly on the move. Perhaps in some niche, where a pool of still air has gathered, some strange smell specific to freefall living might be found.

Through the hatch and this is the largest and untidiest module yet. The far end is sealed; it is the end of the line. There is a low table covered in velcro strips and double-sided duct-tape on the “floor” in amongst equipment Elliotn cannot identify.

I guess, Parazynski says, you can tell us what brings you here.

Elliott reaches for something to halt himself, and puts a hand to a rail running along one wall. Once he is stationary, he says, The Robert H Goddard is taking me to Earth Two.

You must be a real important guy.

No, I have a real important job to do.

And they picked you because?

Elliott does not answer but looks about him and wonders why there is no window in this module. Do they not want to look out? He remembers a famous photograph of the Earth rising above the lunar horizon, taken by the crew of Apollo 8, Christmas 1968. A blue marble, so small and fragile, and the greatest distance from which the planet had ever been seen at that time. The Earth in that photo would be approximately the same size as the Earth seen from Space Station Freedom.

You’re USAF, right? asks Parazynski.

Elliott nods, then watches as Weber consults a wristwatch and then porpoises about and launches herself at the open hatch. She swims from view.

Parazynski continues, You ever been to Area 51?

Again, Elliott nods, but cautiously. He has visited Groom Lake Air Force Base several times in his capacity as commander of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB. He has even seen some of the classified aircraft projects being developed and tested at Area 51.

Parazynski says, That’s where the Serpos were invented, right?

A part of Area 51, yes, Elliott replies, called S4. But I don’t have clearance for there.

Is it true, Parazynski asks, the Rocks use technology reverse-engineered from some flying saucer shot down in New Mexico in 1947?

Rocks? he asks.

The Goddard, the Webb and the Paine—the Rocks.

Elliott knows for a cold hard fact the secret Serpo engine which allows the “Rocks” to travel faster than the speed of light has nothing to do with any flying saucer, but he is not about to reveal it.

That’s classified, he says.

He has heard of the crash at Roswell, New Mexico, and knows of the part it plays in UFO lore, but he’s always believed it was a weather balloon. But if USAF wants to use that myth to hide a bigger secret, the true origin of the Serpo engine… It’s typical of the creative use of misinformation with which the US military protects its most closely-guarded secrets.

Someone appears in the hatch and, grateful for the interruption, Elliott turns to watch them enter the module. It is another member of the space station’s crew. He is wearing a communications cap and his nametag reads Young. He is older than Parazynski and Weber, but still a decade or so short of Elliott’s own fifty-eight years. The man’s mouth is a tight line, his face expressionless.

You going on the Goddard? he asks.

Yeah, replies Elliott.

It’s not due to depart for three weeks, Young says.

Elliott tells him, This is urgent. They should be prepping now.

Young scowls. They don’t tell us shit, he complains. I guess you can’t either?

Elliott shrugs. Classified, he says. You know how it is.

Yeah, says Young. Fuck.

After twenty days, Elliott smells a little ripe, as does the interior of his spacesuit. Three times now, he has undressed and given himself a sponge bath. And each time, it has taken an effort of will to struggle back into his A7LB. He would sooner wear a CWG, of course, and shower regularly, as he did aboard the flyby spacecraft. But the MM’s cabin is only 235 cubic feet and he has to spend seventy days cooped up in it and all he has is a sponge, recycled water and a bar of soap. He has to wear his spacesuit constantly because the walls of the Mars Module are so thin a micrometeorite could easily pierce them. The five layers of his spacesuit also provide a better shield against radiation than the thin cotton of a Constant Wear Garment.