Berit Ellingsen - Not Dark Yet

When the group had settled, the representative called their names one by one from the sheet on her clipboard. As each person answered, the group turned toward them with curious looks, like a class of students meeting for the first time. At first he tried to memorize the names and faces, but gave up when it became clear that there were too many people to remember without knowing something more about them to use as a mnemonic. Most of the prospective astronauts seemed to be in their late twenties to early forties, with a few younger and several older, and seemed to come from all over the continent.

He remembered what Katsuhiro had said when he told him about the medical certificate necessary for the testing.

“Isn’t that a little ableist?” Katsuhiro said. “No handicapped, ill, or slow people need apply, no glasses, asthma, or rheumatism in space. I’m surprised they allow women, gay, and people of color.”

“Space is sadly not accessible for everyone yet,” he had replied. “Only for the able-bodied or the extremely rich.”

“Yes, as I said,” Katsuhiro finished.

Now he recalled his brother’s words, but none of the candidates looked super-human; they seemed like people he saw every day in the city.

After the roll call the space organization’s representative asked them to turn on the computers at their desks. A few candidates couldn’t find the switches and had to glance at the others to see where they were placed.

“Is this the first test?” someone asked loudly, and everyone laughed, even the representative.

“When you have all turned on your computers, please click our logo in the upper left corner of the screen,” the representative said. “Then start by filling out your name, date of birth, and address, and choose ‘send.’ After that you may start the first test when you are ready to begin. This test is in our intranet only, but will be timed and look quite similar to what you have completed earlier online. We’re testing you electronically and individually for easier and faster scoring.”

ALTHOUGH THE TESTS RESEMBLED THE ONLINE versions, they were longer and more complex, and the time to answer them was shorter. As before, attention, memory, perception, and intelligence were tested, with the addition of basic mathematics and engineering. He added and subtracted, divided and multiplied, predicted the next symbol in the sequence, read black and white dials, and memorized colors and patterns. After a few challenging hours during which the only sounds in the large room full of people was the clattering of keyboards and the clicking of mice, the representative asked them to finish up the test and follow her to the cafeteria in fifteen minutes.

“Please leave your bags,” the representative said when the break started. “They are perfectly safe here. I will hand you tickets for lunch, but any extra beverage you must pay for yourselves, so do bring money if you would like something extra to drink.”

A few people muttered under their breath, but joined in the rest of the group as they rummaged in bags and wallets after payment.

The representative led them through more corridors to what looked like the main thoroughfare of the building, a long and wide hallway with a lot of traffic, their footfalls and voices filling its space. From here smaller corridors branched off to more peripheral parts of the facility, the openings interspersed with narrow floor-to-ceiling windows which looked out on the winter-stripped garden and the gray clouds outside. Lining the corridor’s interior wall were display cases and miniature exhibitions. The main hallway ended in a circular atrium filled with chairs and tables and potted indoor trees beneath wide skylights. Along the wall stood a row of counters with stacked trays and plates, cutlery in plastic cases, bread in baskets, cereals in bowls, bottles of soda, beer, and wine, jugs of coffee and hot water for tea, juice in dispensers, jams, lunch meats, mixed salads and fresh fruits in chilled bowls, and steaming pots and pans with a variety of soups, fried fish, baked vegetables, and grilled meat.

The space organization’s representative handed out meal tickets to the group and the candidates lined up by the counters. Some of them were already talking with each other; perhaps they were from the same city, work place, university, or organization.

He chose a generous helping of fried salmon, baby asparagus, green salad, and ice water, loaded the plates up on his tray and carried it to the counter.

“Any extra beverage?” the employee behind the till said as she took his lunch ticket.

He shook his head, took his tray, and started looking for the other candidates. A sizeable group of them occupied one of the largest tables in the dining area, by a window facing the garden.

“Is it taken?” he asked the woman at the end of the table.

“No, please join us,” she said and smiled.

More candidates arrived at the table and the small talk started up. As expected in a group of strangers, the chat consisted mostly of introductions, talk of home city, job, education, but also why they had applied to the program. After a short while the conversations were surprisingly easy for a large group of people that had never met before. They already had several things in common, not just the two previous rounds of tests. Most had been interested in space science and exploration from an early age, and had pursued their education and job opportunities accordingly.

“I love science and know how challenging exploring space is, but I also call myself a space romantic and will always be one,” the oldest of the candidates said, a tall man with a thinning hairline who worked as a teacher and journalist.

“Me too,” several others said and laughed, clearly identifying with the description. There were too many names to remember, but he already recognized several of the candidates by their faces or clothes.

“What happened with the project that planned to land people on Mars as a one-way trip?” someone said.

“They had a website to apply at, but there were rumors that you had to donate to the program to be considered for selection. After the finalists were picked, there was no more news about the project.”

“Did they go bankrupt?” someone asked. That had been the fate for numerous companies in the current economic downturn, which seemed to have no end.

“They were probably a scam from the start. They claimed they were sending people to Mars, but had no spacecraft, no solutions for radiation and nutrition, no habitat modules, and no scientific experiments, or backing.”

“That’s reassuring,” another candidate said.

Laughter rippled through the group.

“How about the astronaut training program on the eastern continent that was broadcast as a reality show?”

“I think they ended up with three or four candidates who are still waiting to be launched,” another said. “No idea to where.”

“Best to go with someone who’s actually sent people into space before,” someone else remarked, to more chuckles from the others.

IN HIS DREAMS HE WATCHED THE FULL MOON flare like a star, licking the sky with long protuberances that died down momentarily to cascade new lunar ejections. The moon flares pulled at him like magnetism, crackled on his skin like electricity, and burned like the sun.

Cosmic radiation, he thought and scrambled like a rodent to find shelter, anywhere, everywhere. While he scuttled along a barren stone plain, a helicopter veered into the radius of the searing tongues in the firmament, the aircraft black and silhouetted against the glare of the raging moon, and exploded in a plume of fire, the rotor blades and fuselage dissolving, melting, dripping to the ground.