Jaroslav Kalfař - Spaceman of Bohemia

I took comfort in his orders. Someone was in charge. As long as Petr was providing clear steps to follow, things could still be okay. I didn’t need to think about anything else.

I turned off the earpiece. “Hanuš!” I shouted into the Corridors. “Hanuš!”

The mainframe panel was cold and dark. At Petr’s instructions, I removed the panel cover and checked the wires inside. They were untouched, disturbingly clean just as they were when the ship was assembled. I took the panel apart, looking for burned-out motherboards, misplaced plugs. Everything was just as it should’ve been. I gave Petr a chance to say it before I did, but he was silent.

“Either the solar panel wiring got eaten through,” I said, “or the solar panels are gone.”

“Go put your suit on,” Petr said.

“The suit?”

“I don’t want you fainting when the oxygen drops. Put it on. I have to… I have to brief the people upstairs.”

The line went quiet.

I dressed first in the cooling garment, a sophisticated onesie that circulated water through a hose system to regulate body temperature, then pulled the thick mass of my space suit over my body. It smelled faintly of thrift stores and burning coal. On Earth, tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of humans were gasping at their televisions, obsessively refreshing the front pages of media blogs, their minds attuned to a single thought: what would become of their spaceman? Yes, it was more than likely that my journey on JanHus1 had captivated the imagination of all of humanity, well beyond my countrymen standing on Petřín Hill and groaning at the dark screen ahead. Show must go on, even when it is not seen.

While I trapped myself inside the suit, I did not worry, as the task of living remained methodical—pulling at straps, placing the Life Support System on my back, securing the helmet, greedily inhaling fresh oxygen. My toothache pulsed brutally along the right side of my jaw, now that my senses were renewed. Once the suit was on, however, I found myself without tasks. I shone the flashlight into the ship’s dark corners, almost expecting a daddy longlegs to crawl out.

I made my way into the Sleeping Chamber and I reached inside a drawer, feeling around underneath the sweatpants and underwear. I removed the cigar box and slid it inside the pocket of my suit. More than likely, this was the end, and I had to keep my grandfather close. Briefly, I considered hiding inside the spacebag, using the same invisibility cloak that had protected me from monsters in the night when I was a boy. I did not.

The Life Support System on my back was to give me three hours of oxygen, and those hours seemed like a lifetime. So much could be done. Within three hours, wars could be declared, cities annihilated, future world leaders planted within their mothers’ wombs, deadly diseases contracted, religious faiths obtained or lost. I returned to the mainframe and tugged at cables, kicked at the dead panels, saliva dripping from the corner of my mouth and soiling my helmet glass. Finally, a voice came back to me, but it was not Petr’s.

“Jakub,” Senator Tůma said. “Can you hear my words?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I’m speaking to you on behalf of the president and your country. I have taken this unfair burden from Petr. I sent you on the mission, Jakub. It is only right that we have this conversation together.”

“You sound calm,” I said.

“I am not. Maybe what you hear is how much I believe in your mission. In your sacrifice. Do you still believe?”

“I think so. It’s hard to think about a higher purpose during decompression. You’re a diver. You know the strange ache in your lungs.”

Tůma told me that sensor readings captured seconds before the ship’s power source had failed showed twenty different points of damage in the ship’s internal wiring, and two of four solar panels were disabled. The dust had cut through them like a saw. “Do you understand what I’m saying?” he finished.

I let go of the mainframe cables and hung my arms loosely along my body. “Yes.”

Replacing all the damaged wiring would take approximately twenty hours, he said, for which I had neither the oxygen nor the supplies. And more damage could have been done after the ship had shut down. Comms could fail at any minute—the independent battery powering it was also damaged and wouldn’t last much longer. “Do you understand?” he repeated.

“Senator. Of course I understand.”

My chest felt hollow. It was a strange sensation, the opposite of anxiety or fear, which to me was always heavy, like chugging asphalt. Now I was a cadaver in waiting. With death so near, the body looks forward to its eternal rest without the pesky soul. So simple, this body. Pulsing and secreting and creaking along, one beat, two beats, filling up one hour after another. The body is the worker and the soul the oppressor. Free the proles, I could hear my father saying. I almost cackled. Tůma breathed quietly. Don’t lose it on me now, I heard from a distance.

“Jakub. I could not be more sorry.”

“Senator. What happens now?”

“Tell me what it feels like up there, Jakub.”

“Is my wife there, senator?”

“She is not, Jakub. I’m sure she’s thinking of you. She will be there when I declare you the nation’s hero. She will be there when I establish a holiday in your name, along with scholarships for brilliant young scientists.” His words were interrupted now and then by echoes, scratching, an occasional mute pause. “I will make sure these people don’t forget your name for the next thousand years, Jakub. Tell me what it’s like up there. Pretend I’m a friend and you’re telling me about a dream you can’t forget.”

Tůma’s voice was terribly nice, I decided. Like silk wrapped around a stone. A soothing timbre that could break empires. Not bad to die to. Yes, the word at last came out. Die die die die, I whispered. Tůma ignored it.

I made my way to the observation window. In front of the purple core floated a torso of fur and sagging legs. Like a worshipper kneeling at the stairs of a shrine, begging for entry. He looked back at me, all thirty-four eyes glowing. His irises did not change when illuminated by the flashlight.

“It reminds me of a time I almost drowned,” I said. “I looked up through the murky water and saw the sun. And I thought, I am drowning, and yet the star of light and warmth is burning itself up to keep me alive. Now I’m thinking the sun too looked purple back then. But who knows?”

“That sounds good, Jakub. I’ll tell it to all the people outside who wish they could hear from you.”

“Tell it to Lenka. Tell her how glad I am that I didn’t drown back then. So I could go on living and meet her in the square.”

“Go to… Sleeping Chamber. I need… give… thing,” the senator said. The transmission was so weak now that I could hear only every other word.

I floated into the Sleeping Chamber, wound up the flashlight lever, and shone it into the corners, expecting to find something new.

“… emove… sleep… small hook…”

I removed the sleeping bag from its hinges and let it float away. I would not be in need of sleep anymore. There, just as Tůma had said, a seemingly random hook was placed in the midst of the sleek wall, an apparent design flaw. I pulled at it, and a book-size box slid out.

“… bite down… immediate…” Tůma said.

I opened the box. A clear packet containing two black pills entered free zero gravity space, along with a small printed leaflet issuing a stern warning: Consumption strictly forbidden without permission from Central.

I gave a loud exaggerated laugh to ensure Tůma heard me. “Thank you, senator. I have a better way.”