Christian Kiefer - The Infinite Tides

Keith stood looking at the telescope. “I don’t really know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“A man, Messier, made this list long ago of things he thought were not stars, so I go through this list and find them.”

“OK,” Keith said. “Sounds good.”

“No, this is stupid thing.”

“Oh,” Keith said. “Well, OK.”

“There is nothing of challenge. Like swimming laps in pool. Like exercise. But what else to do here?”

“I don’t know,” Keith said. “Can’t see the comet?”

“Funny,” Peter said. “Comet is on other side.”

“Too bad.”

“In Kiev maybe but not here.”

“That might have been interesting,” Keith said.

“Yes, I think so. You want to look?”

“At what?”

“I don’t know yet. I can find something.”

“OK.”

Peter looked up at the sky. “Sometimes I just feel like nothing,” he said. “I just stand and smoke and try not to think.”

Keith followed his gaze. Then he said, “I guess that’s the same thing I’m doing out here.”

“Yes. You too, then.”

Keith was silent. He kicked absently at the dirt with the toe of his shoe. Then he said, “I saw a big bird come up out of this field the first day I was here.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, maybe an eagle or something. It was huge.”

“How much huge?”

“I don’t know. Big. I don’t know what it was. I wondered if there was something out here it was eating.”

“Eating?”

“You know. Like a dead cat or something.”

“Oh,” Peter said. “No, I do not think anything was here. I would have smelled some dead cat, maybe.”

Keith was silent again. Then he said, “We could use some chairs.”

“Ah yes. I bring chair most times. Not this time, though.”

Peter went to the telescope and adjusted and readjusted it. He was silent as he did so, his hands deftly working the various dials and knobs, a few times making brief groans and sounds to indicate that the telescope was not quite working as he expected or wanted it to. When Keith had seen it on the passenger seat of Peter’s car, it looked like something destined for the trash heap: a battered white tube pieced together with duct tape. Now, though, it was an instrument being utilized by someone who clearly knew how to wield it. After a few minutes, Peter stepped back as if surveying his work. “This telescope is hard to keep steady,” he said. For a long while he did not say anything more. Then his voice returned: “I thought about what you said last time,” he said. “About my work that is problem to be solved.”

Keith had mostly forgotten the conversation but he nodded anyway.

“I think maybe you are right about this,” Peter said.

“Maybe.”

“I will be trying to find better job, I think. Something that’s more what I want to do. Maybe Luda does not want to move.”

“You’d have to find that out.”

“I think so.” He adjusted the telescope again. “It’s a big good house for us. We have some money saved from Luda’s family and then this house is foreclosure so we have money for it. How you say … timing is everything.”

“I guess that’s true,” Keith said. “I’ll probably never get my money back on mine. We bought at the height of the market or something.”

Peter did not speak for a long moment. Then he said, “You tell me good thing to do, I think.”

“Well, if it helped I’m glad. I’m not really someone who gives advice.”

“It did help. Very much.” A pause. Then he said, “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Thanks,” Keith said. He was mildly embarrassed by Peter’s honesty but then there was a sense of gratitude as well. At least someone was glad he was somewhere.

“Maybe you tell me something of space mission?” Peter said then.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m trying not to think about that stuff so much.”

“But this I would like to hear.”

Keith looked at the ground. In the darkness the dry thistle seemed to glow, spindly and white, like a field of tiny bones. “Well,” he said. Just that.

“Maybe you tell me about first walk into space?”

Silence for a long moment. Crickets continuing their endless sine wave.

“OK,” Keith said at last. “The first one was to install the new robotic arm. It was to replace the previous model, but the other arm was already removed and had been taken back to Earth on one of the shuttle missions before us.”

“Yes, but when you go outside what is this like?”

“Like?” He thought for a moment, his mind stammering. He might have stopped then but instead he said, “It’s like falling without moving.”

Peter was quiet. Keith expected him to ask for elaboration but he did not do so and after a few seconds Keith said, “I don’t know if that’s right.”

“No, I think that is right,” Peter said.

Keith looked at him, his dark form there in the night. “In math it’s the normal vector, the line from your position to Earth. But it’s like there is no normal vector when you’re actually there. So you’re moving forward, falling forward, along the path of the ISS, but it doesn’t feel like you’re moving except that Earth is spinning below you. So you’re falling but it’s not like you’re afraid because it’s also like you’re not really falling.”

“Yes,” Peter said. “Like falling without falling. And you are in suit with falling.”

“Yeah, falling without falling. In the space suit. EMU, we call it. It weighs close to two hundred pounds in Earth’s gravity.”

“Heavy.”

“Very heavy.”

It was silent for a long moment, neither of them speaking, Keith wondering what he could say that would somehow describe the sensation of being in orbit. The depth of stars. The depth of the universe itself.

“And Earth you see below?” Peter said.

“Yes, down the normal vector. That’s down there and it looks like it’s moving fast and you’re still because there’s nothing that feels like forward motion. So it’s like there’s a tangent vector but it’s an illusion. There is no tangent vector. Earth is down there and it’s moving and you can see everything there is to see. It’s all super clear even through the atmosphere. The clouds and the continents. You can see everything.”

“Cities?”

“Yes, cities too. Especially at night when you can see the lights.”

“That is interesting to me,” Peter said, pausing, and then adding: “You are lucky man to do this work.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Not lucky maybe,” Peter said, pausing, and then adding: “Good enough. Good enough to do that work.”

Keith said nothing now.

Peter rummaged in a pocket and brought out something that Keith could not see in the darkness. “Do you mind?” he said.

“Do I mind what?”

“I have something to smoke.”

“That’s fine,” Keith said.

Peter worked at something small and after a minute there was the light of a flame and Keith could see Peter’s face illuminated, a small pipe in his hand. A moment later, the sweet scent of marijuana smoke filtered through the air to him. Keith smiled. “You’re out here smoking pot?” he said.

“Yes, do you want?”

“No, not for me.” The idea seemed absurd and he actually laughed at the thought. “Does your wife know that’s what you’re doing out here?”

“Not really,” Peter said. “Maybe. She knows more than she tells me sometimes, I think. You do not approve?”

“No, I don’t care. It’s just funny, that’s all.”

“Funny how?”

“I don’t know. Just funny.” There was a pause and then he added: “I could use a beer. And I need to sit down. Seeing you smoke makes me want to sit down and have a beer.” He was silent again and then he had the solution: “Wait. Wait a minute,” he said. “I have an idea. Will you help me with something?”