Alexander Smith - The Final Expedition

“Most of Africa and South America have hardly been hit.” I commented. “In a strange way, those so-called third world countries may well be better prepared to survive. They are already used to surviving day to day and their bodies will already have built up a greater resistance against disease.”

“You’re certainly an optimist.” Aki smiled. “I’ve heard projections that a nuclear winter will last for many years, the ash filling the sky and blocking out the sun, quickly killing all plant life. Temperatures will fall several degrees. Anyone left alive will either freeze to death, or if they are lucky enough to be nearer the equator, die of starvation.”

“That could equally be true.” I conceded. “But I like my version better.”

“So do I.” Aki smiled. “Maybe hope, even if it’s false hope, is better for the soul than no hope at all.”

I glanced up from the screen of the laptop at the sound of a door above me creaking open. I was in the process of editing the camcorder footage I had shot so far.

“Good morning, Carter.” Morrison smiled down at me as he climbed out of his sleeping compartment.

“Morning Wes.” I replied, instinctively glancing through a nearby porthole. The surface of the Earth was in darkness, so it was actually the middle of the night below us. Still, with a complete orbit every ninety minutes, the station would soon emerge on the day side of the planet and it would be morning in a real sense for a few minutes at least and not just according to station time.

“What’s the plan for today?” Morrison asked, running his fingers over his stubbly jaw before reaching for a razor.

“Shoot some more footage of the dead planet below us.” I shrugged. “Take some photos, upload them to the station server. Basically, same shit, different day.”

“It may seem dull,” Morrison replied, “But what you are doing might be more important than any of the experiments the rest of us are carrying out. The spread of the ash clouds across the planet will be important information to pass on when we return to the surface.”

“I guess so.” I sighed, reaching for the camera.

As I entered the cupola, Natalya was already there, gazing down at the planet below us. The path of the station was taking us close to the north pole and we could see the green haze of the Aurora Borealis capping the planet, the shifting green patterns moving over the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere.

“It’s so beautiful.” She murmured. “Have you ever seen the northern lights from Earth?”

“No.” I replied. “It’s always something I’d have loved to have seen, but this is the first time.”

“I saw it once when I was a little girl, visiting family in Murmansk in the north of Russia. The whole sky was filled with this amazing swirling lightshow. I felt like I was on another planet. To my relatives, it was quite a commonplace occurrence, but I stood in the freezing cold, staring up at this amazing sky in wonder. I remember turning to my father and asking him what it was. He tried to explain, but I was too young to understand. It was my next birthday when he gave me the telescope I mentioned before, so I suppose that night in Murmansk was my first step on the road to becoming a Cosmonaut.”

“It’s certainly quite a sight.” I replied, raising the camera and taking a few shots, glad of something other than the dark ash clouds to photograph. “Makes you optimistic that perhaps everything’s not quite as bleak as it looks down there.” As I lowered the camera, I glanced over at Natalya. She was gazing thoughtfully down at the surface, the golden glow of the sunlight playing over her face. I quickly raised the camera and framed her in the shot. The click of the camera caught her attention and she glanced over at me quizzically.

“A nice shot.” I smiled, turning the camera around and showing her the picture. She smiled and blushed.

“I… I should get back to my experiments.” She stuttered, brushing a loose strand of her blonde hair away from her face. “I have a busy day ahead of me.”

“Of course.” I replied, pulling myself out of the way and catching a pleasant hint of her perfume as she pulled herself past me and through the hatch.

I pulled myself through into the Kibo module where Aki was hard at work.

“How is the hydroponics experiment coming on?” I asked her.

“Take a look.” Aki replied, gesturing to the hatch in the ceiling. The hatch led up to Kibo’s Experiment Logistics Module, which was a small storage module. It had been emptied and set up as a hydroponics area three weeks earlier. I pulled myself up towards the hatch and peered inside the short cylindrical compartment. The walls of the cylinder were lined with long tubs of soil while a large lamp was clamped in position at the centre of the module, shining on all the tubs. The heat from the light was considerable, reminding me of the feeling when entering a green house. Each of the long tubs had a series of green shoots protruding from the surface.

“All looking good.” I called back through the hatch at Aki. “We can expect fresh vegetables with our meals next week then?”

“Not quite.” Aki replied with a smile as I pulled myself back down into the main Kibo module. “But it’s definitely promising.” She turned back to the experiment rack she was working on and began quietly singing a song in Japanese. I didn’t recognise it and wondered if it was a J-Pop song.

“I admire your cheerfulness in the face of all that’s happened.” I told her. “You seem to be coping with it all better than anyone.”

“Do I?” She replied thoughtfully. “I think I try to push it all to the back of my mind. Perhaps it’s a bit of your British stiff upper lip that’s rubbed off one me?” She smiled. I nodded and returned her smile. “I sometimes think about my friends in Tokyo who are probably gone and that makes me very sad, but I don’t have any family left to mourn. No brothers or sisters and my mother raised me on her own when I was little. She passed away last year.”

“Sorry.” I replied. “What happened to your father?”

“He died in a traffic accident when I was six.” Aki told me. “I was very close to him. It broke my heart when he died. He was training for the Astronaut programme himself and I think his death spurred me on when I got a bit older to emulate him and finish what he had started.”

“It must have made you very proud to have succeeded.” I replied.

“Yes.” She nodded. “My mother lived long enough to see me accepted for Astronaut training, but I would have given anything to have my father there too.”

Yawning, I climbed out of my sleeping compartment in the Harmony node. I stretched before closing the compartment door which was in the ‘floor’ of the module and had been nicknamed ‘The Coffin’ by the many expeditions prior to my own. I reached for a packet of wet wipes and began to clean my body with them. Using water was extremely tricky and the first time I had tried had caused chaos with droplets of water floating off in all directions, so I tended to use wet wipes for most of the week. Having given myself a good once over, I reached for my toothbrush and carefully applied some toothpaste and some water to the bristles.

“Carter!” Morrison called out as I began cleaning my teeth, carefully brushing while keeping my mouth as closed as possible to avoid any stray droplets of water from floating off. I turned to the American as he emerged from the Destiny Lab. “What do you have planned today?”

“Same as yesterday and the day before and the day before that I expect.” I replied, wiping my mouth with a flannel. “Couple of hours exercise, lunch, shoot some video and take some pictures of the dead planet we’re orbiting, dinner, enjoy the company of my fellow astronauts and cosmonauts in the evening, go to sleep, repeat tomorrow.”