Yves Giraud - Kahnu

Ladli O’Connor, an Irish woman from Dublin who had discovered at an early age her sexual attraction to both men and women alike, had taken her teammate’s joyful news with mixed feelings. Although Ladli had never openly admitted it, the Team Two crew medical officer felt a strong attraction for her South-Korean female colleague. She had struggled to keep her feelings hidden during the early years of training, but Liu’s new-found happiness wasn’t making things any easier for the buffed redhead.

Nonetheless, Najib and Liu’s relationship had grown, and one summer night, while the two were gazing at the stars and talking about their future on Mars, the Indian had asked the unexpected question: “Liu, will you marry me in space?”

The brown eyed Asian had been completely taken aback, not only by the proposal itself, but also by the last few words of Najib’s question, “in space.”

“Wh… what?” she had first replied, looking at him somewhat at a loss.

He repeated the question, still staring at the starry sky, “Will you marry me in space?”

“In space?”

He turned to look at her, “Liu, will you marry me?”

Her eyes filled up with tears and with a huge smile on her face, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him passionately, “Yes, I will.”

After the initial euphoria of the moment, the south-Korean leaned back and asked what Najib meant by “in space.” Najib envisioned the wedding taking place soon after their launch to Mars, during the flight there.

“That’s still years away and there is no guarantee we will be on the team selected to go first anyway. I don’t think we should wait that long.”

He knew she was right. Dedrick’s team was already the preferred choice by many, which probably meant they would have to wait until 2027, if everything stayed on schedule, before the next ship left Earth.

Three months later, the two lovebirds were getting married on the ISS, thanks to Lars who had managed to convince his good friend Sir Richard Branson, owner of Virgin Galactic, to fly the couple to the international space station. Lars would later admit that convincing the famous entrepreneur had not been hard once both Branson and the ESA, the European Space Agency, had realized how much the publicity alone would benefit them. Branson had insisted on performing the ceremony, and Ladli had come as maid of honor, and Lars as witness. The event had been highly televised, and the newlyweds had been said to have loved the experience, even if Liu had felt a bit space sick for part of it.

“Did you ever think you would be here today?”

“Honestly, no. I really liked the idea, but I never thought they would pick me. It’s still surreal…”

Both men were seated, legs crossed on the floor of a small terrace overlooking the hillside. Arms around their knees, they were reflecting, staring at the distant panorama.

“Did you?” asked Dedrick.

“I don’t know… I think, in some way, maybe… I had a feeling 2013 was going to be special for me, you know?”

“Do you miss anything?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, like your family or friends? A woman?”

“A friend, maybe…” François cracked a smile. “Yeah, my friend Christophe. We had some fun times together.”

“Where is he?”

“Still in L.A. I believe,” seeing the questioning look on Dedrick’s face, François added, “Los Angeles, California.”

“Ha, yes, I’ve heard of it, of course. Never been, but I would like to visit, some day.”

“It’s OK, you didn’t miss that much. It’s just another city,” he paused a moment. “Well, actually, I’m lying. L.A. was cool. I think I had the best three years of my life there. Christophe and I used to work at this place, “Mask Art.” We printed t-shirts. They had this cool technique where they had us bleach black shirts, and then print on the bleached part of the fabric. It was a real bitch to use bleach, though. It got everywhere, on our boots, our pants, our hands. I had holes everywhere. It was a nasty job. But the printed shirts looked really cool, I must say… I remember my last day there as if it were yesterday.” François’ thoughts wandered back to the distant memory…

The business was on the first floor of a two-story building, smack in the middle of Hollywood, Los Angeles, the famous Californian movie capital. The large space was mostly filled with screen printing equipment, dozens of paint cans of various colors sitting on shelves, freshly painted shirts drying on their hangers, and stacked up boxes of shirts waiting to get their turn on the quad screen machines. About half a dozen employees were busy pressing down screens on stretched out shirts and sliding squeegees across mesh applicators. A few others were setting t-shirts in place or filling mesh screens with a thick colored ink, lining up squeegees, and getting ready to start a new batch. François had just reached the last step of the building’s only staircase, an outdoor concrete stairwell that showed more cracks than the dry beds of the Black Sea in late July. He entered the doorless room with a smirk on his face.

It’s not every day you see someone tell their boss ‘I quit!’ with a big smile on their face, but it’s even less likely you would ever hear them add, ‘I’m moving to Mars!’ Yet, that was exactly what François Menardais had just said to his employer, Paul Wemlock, the man behind the only desk in the room. Christophe, standing in front of his quadcopter machine at the other end of the room, almost lost his balance when he realized his friend was serious. He knew he had applied for some crazy online astronaut program, something to do with Mars, but until today, he had never expected François would hear anything back. Plus, this whole going to Mars talk of his was simply ludicrous. Who in their right mind would spend billions of dollars on a space program, and then put it all in the hands of someone like François? Of course, he loved his friend, but he knew him too well. The nineteen-year-old Frenchman was disorganized, had no job experience whatsoever, no career aspirations, no real accomplishment of any kind to his name, knew nothing about being an astronaut, and hadn’t even finished high school. François Menardais was a wannabe musician who had come to Los Angeles from France just a little over a year ago, seeking fortune and fame, and now worked part-time for a small screen-printing company that sold images of famous people and movies printed on bleached t-shirts. In fact, it was Christophe who had helped François get this job in the first place. And now, he was talking about flying off to some distant planet. If the endeavor was genuine, Christophe was happy for his friend, but in his opinion, selecting such a volatile character was not giving much credit to the company behind the project.”

Paul was staring at his French employee with suspicion, “What do you mean, you quit? Why? And you’re going where?”

For a moment, he even thought he had misunderstood the young man. It happened a lot, especially since Paul was British and François still had a fairly heavy French accent.

“Mars. The red planet… You know,” he replied, pointing at the ceiling with one finger and a big smile on his face.

Paul stared at him a bit longer with a puzzled look. Then, realizing there was probably an inside joke he was not getting, or that François simply didn’t want to tell him why he was really quitting, he said, “Well, I guess, if that’s what you want… OK. Sorry to see you go. But you must stay ’til the end of your shift, at least.”

By now, most of the other employees in the shop had stopped what they were doing and were attentively following the conversation. François looked around the room and replied with little enthusiasm, “Yeah, I guess so. Can you give me my money before I go tonight?”