Jaroslav Kalfař - Spaceman of Bohemia

“Other humans look up to you, skinny human,” Hanuš noted over our next dinner session, “as if you are the Elder of your tribe.”

TIME BECAME CHOPPY, like a scratched cassette tape. Tasks took longer to complete, I was always behind schedule, and lyrics from songs whose rhythm I had long forgotten returned to my mind and would not leave. It was as if the closer proximity to Venus was bringing about time warps, slowing my brain functions to a crawl while harvesting the most useless of memories—information that had no practical purpose, those simple pieces of living, like scraps of fabric that do not become part of the dress and are left littering the floor.

I checked email obsessively. Another update from the ministry arrived:

…cannot determine whether subject is engaged in sexual relationship with male acquaintance, Zdeněk K., age 37, slightly overweight but good-natured and clean-faced with secure job as bank teller…

…apartment does not allow visual access to determine nature of meetings. Ministry is able to order deep surveillance, which would allow agent to access apartment when empty, gather evidence such as semen…

…subject purchased a package of peanuts and frozen stir-fry, resulting in a cleverly rigged kung pao…

…living a seemingly peaceful, ordinary life, as if she has taken on another identity…

…motives remain largely a mystery, deep surveillance recommended.

I replied with Deep surveillance a go, thanks. I gave Hanuš the rest of my dinner, sick with shame. She had run off and begun living elsewhere, anonymous, or so she had hoped. I felt no happiness over her seeming satisfaction, her peace in solitude—my mind was filled only with vanity, a thirst for reassurance, guesses about what I had done to drive her away. Could I get Central to force her to communicate with me? But such imposed communication wouldn’t be worth anything. No, I would have to be patient.

A FEW DAYS into our dinner tradition, Hanuš started following me around on my Chopra preparation tasks. As I ventured into the small chamber that contained Ferda, the cosmic dust collector and the crucial component of the Chopra mission, he asked whether he could assist. I unfastened the thick screws securing the outside shell of Ferda’s grating and removed the layer of metal protecting the finer design of the filters inside the bulky cube. Hanuš’s eyes traveled wildly between me and the grating I held, the tips of his legs touching the underside of his belly. He was always eager to help, to hold a piece of human technology. When I extended the grating toward him, with a smile he offered a leg as a temporary holder. I could see the filters now, pads covered in sticky silicone meant to capture particles, the pads themselves attached to rails that would eventually guide them back inside the ship for manual analysis.

“Skinny human, may I ask a question that could cause emotional distress?”

“You can always talk to me,” I told Hanuš.

“Why do you wish so strongly for a human offspring? I have discovered from your fictional television programming about soap that your species does not always utilize sexual intercourse solely for breeding.”

I removed the motherboard cover and it floated toward me like a heart still attached at the arteries.

“I guess it’s insurance against being a nobody,” I said.

“Who is a nobody?”

“Well, it’s the opposite of being a somebody. Of having a body people can ask about.”

“The written records of your language do not explain the word well. Is every human not a somebody?”

I plugged my tablet into the motherboard and ran diagnostics. Ferda’s sensors and analytics were 100 percent functional. Hooray, Petr messaged via my e-tablet.

“It’s about doing things that matter,” I said. “It’s about loving things and being loved in return. Acknowledged.”

“It is love that counters your luxury of breeding by choice. I’ve had many pieces of offspring, skinny human. On every Eve, we shoot our seed into the vacuum, and wait to receive it as it showers down. The ceremony is law, and refusal to engage would mean death. One must shoot well into the distance to ensure one does not receive one’s own seed. This would cause severe embarrassment. The entire galaxy glows on Eve. We carry the smaller me’s until they hatch from inside our bellies. One does not miss an Eve. It is a very refreshing day. The consistency, the moisture, the solidity of seed. To you, an offspring is a choice, but the pleasure of this freedom is negated by the blackmail of love. If you love a partner, you crave to breed. Once you receive a human offspring, you are bound by love to care for its needs. Such attachments go against the concept of choice as defined by humanry, yet the planet of Earth is filled with these obligations. They define you.”

I replaced the grating and fastened the screws. These tasks—tinkering with Ferda, the diagnostics coming back at 100 percent—were supposed to be the climax before the climax, the great pleasure of the mission as I anticipated the dust cloud and its possibilities. But without Lenka, my excitement for Chopra was muted.

“Someday, I’d like to see your Eve,” I said.

“That won’t be possible.”

“Why not?”

Hanuš never answered. In fact, he ceased speaking entirely, and seemed to disappear from the ship altogether until the next morning.

FOUR DAYS UNTIL my arrival at Chopra, between my many videoblogs and interviews with the Czech media (Mr. Procházka, what do you think of the man behind your mission, Senator Tůma, becoming prime minister of the country? Fantastic, I told them, or something like it. Will your wife be present at the national screening event of your triumph, or will she watch from the comfort of your home? Certainly, yes, she will be watching very closely, I told them, or something like it. As you await the encounter, can you tell us—do you have time to watch football? What did you think about the country’s performance in World Cup Latvia? What is the polite version of “I don’t give a shit about any of this, don’t you see I can’t say what I really want to say”? ), Hanuš said, “I have observed you dreaming of death. There is a pleasure to it. A sense of relief. Why is this, skinny human?”

In place of an answer, I brushed my teeth and opened yet another disposable towel. I regretted not having kept track of how many I had used since the beginning of the mission. The compost container holding the soiled towels was too full to count, with the towels not producing enough bacteria to properly dissolve along with my underwear.

The question followed me around. I was mostly silent during my dinner with Hanuš.

“What is troubling you, skinny human?” he asked.

“You keep asking questions,” I said, “but you don’t tell me anything. Where you come from. What you think, feel. Where your planet is, and all of your… tribe. Yet you get to browse my thoughts whenever you please. Is that not troubling?”

He left without an answer. I watched a video of Norman the Sloth visiting a cooking show. Norman dipped the tip of his finger into Alfredo sauce and curiously licked it. The studio broke out in laughter.

The dreams Hanuš had mentioned not only continued but intensified, until I lost the ability to sleep at all, even with the help of medication. As I sat in the Lounge, a newly minted insomniac, and played solitaire on the Flat (the simplicity of the game soothed me; I no longer wanted to play complicated computer games, watch complicated films, or read the news; it all pertained to Earth and Earth did not pertain to me; I was a telecommuter), a shadow passed by the observation window, an interruption to Venus’s golden glow. I floated to the glass and again the object passed, this time so close I recognized a small canine snout, a white line leading up the dark forehead fur, ears perked up, black eyes wide-open and reflecting the blinking lights of infinity, a slim body bloated at the stomach, strapped into a thick harness.