Russ Franklin - Cosmic Hotel

No one knew her condition, especially not him.

“Leaving,” she said, fanning away a group of monarchs fluttering about her cabin. Her sleeping bag was hung on the wall like a giant chrysalis itself, butterflies decorating its outside, hundreds of pulsing wings. It was nearly impossible not to occasionally smash a butterfly, and the crew was constantly vacuuming up carcasses, an experiment on growth and flight that had gotten out of control.

Ruth floated her duffle down the trans-tube, then followed it, and then Cosmonaut X followed her to the bay where orange monarchs were disturbed into confetti fluttering up, down, and sideways. She braced her feet on each side of the escape pod’s hatch and strained to open it.

Cosmonaut X went to the intercom and said, “We have a crew member loading her things into the emergency capsule.”

In seconds the other five crewmembers were watching her entering information on the computer.

“It’s been rough on everyone,” Jane said.

“I can’t do it again right now,” Ruth said, “I just can’t.”

The station began emerging from Earth’s shadow and the sunlight hit the station’s skin and began creaking.

Cosmonaut X floated in the high corner, arms folded. Ruth stuck her head in the escape capsule and scanned to make sure there were no butterflies there. What would butterflies born in zero gravity think of gravity?

“You volunteered for that walk,” Jane said. “You don’t have to go out anymore, okay? Don’t do this.”

Ruth’s hair floated like the Bride of Frankenstein. “It’s not that,” she said. “I’ve got other reasons.”

There was a loud pop as the sunlight intensity peaked on the space station’s exterior.

Ruth quickly gripped the handle and went into the capsule feet-first, stuck her head back out like an angry gopher. “There’s shit going on that none of you can imagine. I’m getting the hell out of here. There are two more seats on this thing, anyone else want out?”

No one spoke.

“Then start the sequence.” She reached to pull the hatch closed but the leverage was awkward.

“That is a big mass,” Cosmonaut X said, not uncrossing his arms, as if the hatch would stop her.

“You don’t know where you’ll come down,” Jane said. “Give us twenty to come up with trajectories.”

“And then I’ll have to wait for a window and have time to think about this? No.” She struggled with the heavy hatch but no one helped until finally Cosmonaut X pushed himself off the wall in a flutter of butterflies and grabbed the hatch. He touched her hand first. “Because of me?” he said.

“Jesus, don’t flatter yourself.” His flight suit was smeared with more black protoplasm than the others. “A port in a storm,” she whispered, looking around to see if anyone else heard or understood this slight of intimacy.

When the hatch was shut, through the round window she saw everyone exiting the airlock. In six minutes, after she was buckled in and the pressure had fallen inside the airlock, she watched through the porthole as the butterflies froze into unrecognizable specks, and when the pod separated from the station and the tiny boosters hissed, stabilizing her into a decaying orbit Earthward. The computers came up with an emergency-landing target, and she heard Uree over the com say, “How’s your Mongolian?” and the signal faded as Infinity continued over Earth’s horizon and Ruth’s pod fell behind like a dropped buoy and her porthole began to glow in the fire that separated space and Earth, and she felt the first g grab her in her center of mass where it always started, in her gut near where this thing lived inside her, and the pod began shaking, and Ruth began grunting, contracting the muscles in her stomach and legs. She had always grunted “monster” when reentering. Everyone had his or her own g-load word to grunt. She grunted “ monster ” to dam the blood flow in her head—“ Mmmmmmm-onster. . ” taking a quick breath and repeating, straining, “ Mmm - onstersss .” She flinched when something fell out of the instrument panel, and she watched the cosmopolitan butterfly beat dying in the crook of her arm as she began to pass out.

When his house was quiet for the night, Van Raye and Ruth made love, and she fell asleep, but his eyes were wide, trying to listen for signs the dog was downstairs, but there was only the hiss of distant interstate traffic coming through the open balcony doors. He tried to shut his eyes. No more dog. Problem solved, but then he was thinking about the freeway and the possibility of the dog wandering into traffic. He bolted upright.

He got dressed, left Ruth sleeping, and as he slid on his bedroom shoes he noticed a pack of cigarettes on the dresser. He thought he’d secretly taken them all. What is she doing? He grabbed the pack and wadded it into his pocket and went quietly down the back steps to the first floor and through the grand dining room. He held his breath for a few minutes, listening and watching the tiny lights of power tools recharging, and he looked around for the animal. Dog, be safe, he begged, and then: Why do I care? A black shape on the kitchen floor raised its head. Van Raye fumbled around to find the leash on the counter.

In the middle of the night, he took the bus to the animal shelter, the dog riding obediently in the aisle. At the front of the shelter — a strikingly modern building — he peeked through the glass doors into the dim waiting area inside and saw one luckless night watchman at the desk. Van Raye took a circuitous route to the rear, the dog walking slowly on his leash. A single tube flickered over a loading dock and cast purplish light on the wall of empty cages and the words NO QUESTIONS DROP-OFF.

Van Raye pulled his lighter out to see the list of instructions by the cage. They were too long to bother reading. He wasn’t stupid. It was simple. He opened the mesh-steel doors and kneed the dog to get inside the cage. He pushed its neck to keep him inside, the dog swallowing against his hand. He tried to think about all the work he had to do, his upcoming book tour, finding an easy way to get rid of Ruth before the pregnancy or another decision became an issue, deciding what message he would send to Chava Norma, and reminding himself that this wasn’t his dog. You couldn’t abandon what didn’t belong to you.

He got the door shut and secured the latch, smelling the dog’s sour panting.

He went down the dock stairs and through a gate at the back of the complex and into an open-space park, a long expanse of grass sparkling dewy in the moonlight. He headed toward the electric whine of a bus in the distance and the warm glow of campus beyond. He saw a clump of something he’d thought were bushes but were actually resting cows. A beast disturbed, stood. A glint of stray urban light shown off the cow’s side and Van Raye stooped forward to see. He’d been waiting for the dog to bark in the cage behind him but nothing happened, and he found his lighter and flicked it on so he could see what was on this cow’s side. The cow — a good research cow from one of the dark pharmaceutical companies surrounding the field — was patient and still, let Van Raye get closer with the lighter. There was only the sound of grass being ripped from the ground and the crunching of cud in molars. The thing on the side of the cow was a porthole, a medical porthole into the gut of the animal. Van Raye saw gummy pink intestines smashed against the glass. Van Raye let the lighter’s flame go at the exact moment the cow startled and began to trot, Van Raye high-stepping in the other direction, stopping only when he was out of breath and realized his right shoe seemed heavier than his left.