SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

Only seconds after the bay doors close the comm-bots ping me. The Beacon relay ship beat me here by weeks.

The "Beacon" is a misnomer really. It’s not setting up an actual beacon so much as connecting two points in space, allowing instant transfer of data four light-years away. It’s revolutionized our ability to work with the Mars teams, but this beacon is the farthest out by far. Some of the pressure on my chest lets up with anticipation of communication with Earth.

Another ping, call it a virtual knock on the door, this time from a human-controlled computer back on Earth.

The Beacon works.

As the systems connect—thank God they connect—I pull up my avatar file, look it over, and decide my face doesn’t look quite right. I sharpen the features and add a different hairstyle. I remove my once-beautiful braids and give avatar-Natasha short hair.

I’m done in nanoseconds and wait a few more before the channel opens and two video feeds of Mission Control come into view, one an overview of the room, the other near ground level.

In fifty-two years Mission Control’s design has changed little. A redesign with dark wood paneling and comfortable-looking leather desk chairs gives the room a warmth it never had before. Three rows of desks have given way to a more spacious two and the room is packed with people smiling at the camera in anticipation. In a couple of seconds their visual feed kicks in and they break out in applause and cheers and clinking champagne glasses.

I send a smile to my avatar face and their cheers grow louder. Don’t act crazy, don’t act crazy.

"Can you hear us, Natasha?" says a man’s voice.

I send back and hear it spoken in Mission Control. "Nice to see the human race hasn’t changed much."

They all laugh in delight even though it wasn’t funny and I search the crowd for familiar faces, albeit much older ones. Three individuals stand in front of the up-close camera: a man and woman in lime-green uniforms with United American Space Agency splashed garishly across the front in neon orange and a young woman in a tan business suit. It looks like something my mother would have worn.

"I’m Commander John Cook," the man in the garish uniform says. He reads from the palm of his hand and clears his throat. "I see you’re sending us your data already, that’s excellent. Have you already reached AB.4?"

"Yes sir, but I’m afraid the news isn’t as we hoped."

Cook looks at his companion. The crowd murmurs.

Halfway through briefing them on AB.4 and AB.6 there’s a hiccup in my processors so I restart and reconnect.

When the cameras come back online Cook stands frowning at me, his arms folded. "Did you go offline for a second?"

So much for hoping they wouldn’t notice. I feel remarkably like a child standing in front of the class. "I’m back now," I say, sending a toothy grin to avatar-Natasha.

"You were telling us about AB.6," he prompts. "You’re in orbit now and there was some reason you couldn’t send us pictures. Something about the ship’s cameras?"

"Not functioning," I say. My throat clenches and avatar-Natasha brushes her neck without me directing it to do so.

"But you’ve deployed the probes."

"My communication with them is down. I have to wait for their return."

"Damage during the journey?"

"Diagnostics tell me it’s not a physical problem." Avatar-Natasha runs her hand over her throat again, as if trying to remove something that’s not there. Get a grip.

The faces in the crowd are all too young to be anyone I know. They stare up at their screens with rapt attention. No one seems to have noticed that my cartoon avatar has a nervous tick.

"Care to explain in more detail?" Cook says.

"Can I talk to Howard?" My voice comes out sounding too high pitched.

Cook glances at the people around him for clues. "Howard?" He shifts from foot to foot and reads something on his palm. "Howard Vine? The lead compu-psychologist in your training?"

The uniformed woman at his side turns and addresses the crowd. "Can we clear the room of all non-essential personnel, please?"

In the minute it takes the people to file out I run through video files of hang-gliding to calm my nerves.

Cook straightens his uniform and speaks slowly, as if I’m a nut job. "Natasha, you understand you slept fifty-two years, right?"

I go through my defensive excuses in nanoseconds, discard the childish ones and settle on the mature response. "Actually the compu-psychological team might be of some help."

Cook nods to the woman in the business suit who steps forward. "Hi Natasha, I’m Dr. Najim, the lead psychologist for your team and a theoretical compu-psychologist."

I get her caught up on the basics, trying not to sound too crazy: the panic when I awoke, the choking sensation, the problems communicating with the Little Guys.

She stares at my avatar.

My avatar clears her throat. "This problem can’t be new to you. Sure, the technology was cutting edge when I left but—"

"Uploading was banned over forty years ago. This was for political reasons, not because there was something wrong with the technology, Natasha. A problem like the one you describe was never reported. Before the ban, we had scientists volunteer to have themselves copied for upload and sent on space missions within our solar system, and others who were shut off for long periods of time, as you were. None have reported problems."

"What are you saying?" Cook asks.

"I don’t know how to help," she says.

I stood at our dining table back home in Phoenix, with friends crowding around me as I prepared to blow out six tall candles on a princess cake. Mom’s perfume made my eyes water and I felt her close behind me, leading everyone’s singing in her off-key way. Dad stood across from me, taking pictures with his phone and grinning like a fool. Matthew James looked at me with sad eyes and I wondered why. I wore a pink frilly dress that I had always loved before, but now it feels wrong, and my cheeks flush in embarrassment.

On the real day I didn’t dislike the dress, did I? I wore it for years afterward. The others at the party must see that I look ridiculous wearing this. They’ll make fun of me for being a girl.

No one seems to notice.

AB.6 is a thing of beauty. The first pictures from the Little Guys show all whites and blues and a deep purple I can’t help but speculate is plant life. Its atmosphere is eighty percent nitrogen and nineteen percent oxygen. The surface temperatures estimated in fifty locations ranged between negative twenty Celsius near the winter pole and a max of positive forty. It’s roughly three-quarters the size of Earth, with slightly more land mass. It is, in other words, just right.

I call it Goldilocks.

"So how ya feeling?" Whitaker asks with his deep, ninety-year-old vibrato. He’s a colleague from my team back before takeoff and the only person I’ve met who was alive when I lived on Earth. His sagging eyes water with thinly-veiled emotion at being allowed the visit. I didn’t anticipate how good it would feel to see someone I know, even someone I didn’t know well. I’ve wondered about the other Natasha, how she’s doing and if she’d be able to tell me what’s wrong with my memories.

Despite the tears, there’s laughter in Whitaker’s eyes and in those around him. Everyone is in a better mood today after the news about Goldilocks.

I smile. "I’m ready to get out of this metal box and down to that damn fine planet."

More chuckles.

Dr. Najim says, "All in due time. Protocol, after all."

While I have the ability to run the mission on my own, protocol dictates that Mission Control authorizes the landing. They say they’re waiting for the Little Guys to finish their flybys and perform preliminary safety tests, find a suitable landing site, what have you. Easy for them to say. They’re not suffocating in this box.