My Sweet Satan Page 16

  “The first of our probes have already passed Bestla at a distance of a fifty kilometers and there’s been no interference. Telemetry and scan results are being routed through the relay satellite to Earth, with a record being captured here as well.”

  “You launched probes without telling us?” Anastasia asked.

  Chuck made out as though it was no big deal.

  “We stick to the plan. We catalog, we document, we observe and we let the folks back in Houston know what the hell they’re dealing with.”

  “And what are they dealing with?” Jasmine asked.

  Chuck searched for a file and brought up several images as he spoke.

  “This is Bestla in the visible spectrum. There’s not much to see in the low-light, but you can make out symmetry. She’s no natural rock. Ultraviolet reveals more detail.”

  Jasmine couldn’t help but hold her breath at the sight before her. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to see, but all the talk of Bestla being a moon had left her with the impression the alien craft would look somewhat spherical, like Earth’s Moon. She wasn’t ready for the cylindrical shapes, the spheres and domes stretching along the interstellar spacecraft. There were craters, dusty plains, and the odd section devoid of any debris, looking sleek and smooth. Bestla had been out here a long time.

  “It’s all guesswork,” Chuck continued. “But remember the size you’re looking at here. She’s seven kilometers in length, almost five miles, with a diameter of well over three kilometers. She’s damn big.”

  Anastasia spoke. “Why have you kept this from us? Why didn’t you show us these images sooner?”

  “I didn’t want to freak you out. We’ve been dealing with too much already. I didn’t want Mike’s feverish ideas to spread.”

  “I thought we agreed the probes were a contingency,” Mei said with a hint of annoyance in her voice. “We were supposed to discuss this. We were supposed to conduct a passive flyby. How many probes have you sent?”

  “And the Copernicus will maintain radio silence, I promise,” Chuck replied. “So far, we’ve had four passes, all on different paths. Bestla is still transmitting its signal but doesn’t appear fazed by the probes, even when active radar maps are run.”

  “You went active?” Mei cried. “We should have been warned.”

  “So we could do what?” Chuck asked, trying to appeal to reason. “We’re out here to learn everything we can from this thing. We’ve got to take the opportunities that are open to us.”

  From her body language, Mei wasn’t impressed.

  Chuck brought up another image. The way the dim sunlight fell on the alien spacecraft made it obvious this image had been taken from a different direction. The image was slightly blurred.

  “We’re getting some interference,” Chuck continued. “Radar imaging is clearer, but it’s sporadic, something is messing with it. I think this is what knocked out the Iliad, but I don’t think it’s intentional. This side of the alien craft appears to be damaged. She’s radiating.”

  “Radiating what?” Mei asked.

  “Alpha-particles, beta-particles, x-rays, gamma rays, you name it. It’s powerful enough to mess with our instruments, but the source is unknown. Whatever it is, it’s highly energetic, but has an extremely narrow focus.”

  While the first images Jasmine had seen of Bestla looked structured, this picture showed a chaotic, crushed hull. Instead of smooth curves pockmarked with craters and accumulated dust, there were jagged edges. Large gouges ran the length of the craft. Jasmine couldn’t help but remember backing her dad’s car out of the garage and scraping one of the side panels barely six months ago by her reckoning. She’d had her music blaring from the stereo and had been so busy nodding her head to the rhythm and thinking about a party that she hadn’t realized what was happening. Her heart had sunk when she saw the side beam of the garage door buckling. She pulled forward, but the damage had been done.

  “Damaged?” Jasmine said. “If it’s damaged, it’s not a threat.”

  “We don’t know that,” Mei replied. “In China, we have a saying: a wounded tiger is the most dangerous of all.”

  Jasmine felt her heart race. Reality was all too close to her. Fear seized her mind. She wanted to close her eyes and wake up in her own bed back on Earth. If she had, she would have told Mike about her strange dream and how everything felt so real. He’d laugh at her. He always did when she came up with something quirky that revealed a little more of her heart. If she told him he was the bad guy in her dream, he’d go all Sigmund Freud on her and psychoanalyze her in a lighthearted manner, telling her fears are always misplaced.

  She missed her Mike. She wished he was here with her on the Copernicus and not this Mike. Her Mike would have been level-headed and pragmatic. Her Mike would have been confident. He would have been supportive. What had happened to this Mike? Twenty years had changed him. Thinking about it, she could see how the two Mikes were similar. One was an extension of the other, but why had this Mike become so passionate, so insanely committed to undermining the mission? What was it that caused him to snap?

  “And if we’re wrong?” Jasmine asked.

  “We die,” Mei replied.

  Chuck nodded.

  “We’re buying time,” Anastasia added. “In Russia, they teach every school kid about the Battle of Stalingrad. Every child knows the story. One rifle between five soldiers as they charged the German lines. So long as one soldier was left to pull the trigger, losses didn’t matter. At Stalingrad, the peasants bought time for everyone else, and not just for Mother Russia, for the English and the Americans. Without Stalingrad, Hitler’s armies would have remained at strength and continued to ravage Europe.”

  Chuck spoke, saying, “So this is our Stalingrad?” He seemed to know the answer already.

  Anastasia nodded.

  “We must remember,” she said. “Even with this damage, Bestla has broadcast its live-and-die message. There’s no mistaking that intention.”

  “I agree,” Mei said, “If it costs us our lives to warn Earth, then so be it.”

  “And Mike?” Jasmine asked.

  She was drifting near the navigation console, reaching out every thirty seconds or so during the conversation to grab at a handhold to steady herself. Staying still in space was nearly impossible. The slightest motion imparted while grabbing at the rail to correct her drift would cause yet another slight yaw or pitch in the position of her body. Staying still was a constant battle. As Jasmine steadied herself, Mei reached out and touched gently at the back of her hand.

  “Mike’s your husband. We all know that. We all know how difficult this must be for you, but you must do what is right. You must help us talk him down. He cannot be allowed to sabotage the Copernicus.”

  Anastasia added, “There’s no telling what damage he could do.”

  Jasmine nodded.

  “He thinks he’s doing what’s right,” Mei continued. “We all do, but the pressure has gotten to him. He’s not thinking straight.”

  Jasmine nodded again. Although she wasn’t responsible for his actions, she felt as though she should have or could have done more to stop him. But was stopping him really her role? Jasmine felt as though she had been swept up in the current of a mighty river and dragged along helplessly.

  “He has to be going for the core,” Anastasia said.

  Chuck replied, saying, “He’s had several hours head-start. I'm afraid any damage he wants to do is already done.

  “Anna, you stay here with Jazz and keep an eye on the bridge. Mei, you come with me to engineering. Stay together as much as possible. Move in twos. Let’s not give him any more opportunities to disrupt the operation of this ship.”

  Once again, Jasmine nodded, feeling guilty, as though Anastasia had been left to keep her under house arrest.

  Chuck pushed off, working hand over hand as he began descending the shaft heading down toward engineering. Yes, down, Jasmine thought. The shaft had become a proxy for her own optimism or pe
ssimism. What had been neutral moments before, feeling as though it was horizontal tunnel, now felt like a mine shaft descending into the bowels of the ship. Jasmine had a sinking feeling in her stomach. She hated Mike for putting her in this position.

  Mei drifted past, speaking softly as she said, “It’s going to be OK, Jazz.”

  The irony was not lost on Jasmine. It was Jasmine who should have been comforting Mei, bereft of her husband, and yet here was Mei clearly seeing the stress Jasmine was under.

  “Are you OK?” Anastasia asked once they were alone on the bridge. It was a question Jasmine wanted to answer, but the one person she wanted to discuss this with was Jason, not the Russian beauty queen. She wondered, am I jealous? Am I intimidated by Anastasia’s perfect looks? She’s the whole package. She’s cool, collected. One thought brought a small smile to Jasmine’s face: I bet her farts don’t smell.

  “That’s the spirit,” Anastasia said, seeing her slight smile but oblivious to her teenage attitude.

  Jasmine wanted to talk to Jason, to ask him about Anastasia and Mei. The two women were obviously close to her personally, but she had no idea what kind of relationship they’d had prior to the last twenty four hours.

  Jason was the only person she felt she could trust. It could have been paranoia on Jasmine’s part, but she couldn’t help feel that Anastasia was probing for weaknesses, looking to see just how committed she was to the team. Anastasia had to be wondering where her allegiance lay. Jasmine didn’t know herself, and yet she had been the one to raise the alarm, that must have counted for something.

  “Breakfast?” Anastasia asked with warmth in her voice.

  Jasmine scolded herself for overthinking things. Fat fingers, she thought, looking at her hands and remembering a lesson from the past. The real Jasmine probably wouldn’t have related to that thought, but the displaced Jasmine needed something to cling to. Fat fingers reminded her not to stress over stupid things, not to read too much into stuff. The irony was, in low-gravity, her fingers really were swollen.

  “Breakfast?” she repeated back to Anastasia. Such a banal concept didn’t seem worthy of a spaceship over a billion miles from Earth, but she was hungry. “Sure.”

  Anastasia drifted over to the galley. Jasmine followed, reaching out and grabbing at a rail. She noticed Anastasia had taken hold of a similar rail, but with her feet, leaving her hands free. With a soft touch, Jasmine copied Anastasia and was surprised by how much surety such a simple posture could bring. There was something about being anchored. Perhaps it was that life on Earth was anchored by gravity, and being locked into one orientation allowed her inner ear to settle. Jasmine really liked using the handrails in this manner.

  “Smoothie?”

  Anastasia handed Jasmine a small plastic bag that looked surprisingly similar to the ziplock bags her mother used for freezing leftovers. She didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out how these worked. A small perforated line indicated where she should tear the pack open and she could already feel a small straw inside the plastic.

  “Yes,” Jasmine replied enthusiastically.

  Sucking on the straw, Jasmine could taste a blend of apple and cinnamon. The packet didn’t contain a smoothie. It was more of a mushy breakfast cereal, but that was the way Jasmine liked her breakfast—soggy with milk. She’d never known euphoria to come from such innocuous items as food and drink. The muesli bar she’d had yesterday had tasted bland. Chewing cardboard had come to mind, but she wasn’t one to complain. Today, though, her taste buds seemed oversensitive.

  “Latte? Cappuccino?” Anastasia asked, probing.

  “Yes,” Jasmine replied, catching herself mid-sentence and realizing yes wasn’t an answer. “Latte, thanks.”

  “I don’t get Mei,” Anastasia said. “We’ve got a proper coffee machine up here, and she still drinks that dehydrated powdered stuff. I guess it’s what she grew up with.”

  She watched with amusement as she held a thick, transparent bag beneath a spigot. Slowly, coffee percolated into the bag, mixing with a thin stream of milk. The bag expanded, inflating with the fluid.

  “There you go,” Anastasia said, handing the bag to Jasmine. She’d pinched the top of the straw that had been attached to the spigot, putting a crimp in the thin tube. “Careful, it’s hot.”

  Jasmine could feel the heat radiating through her hands. The smell of freshly ground coffee wafted through the air. The aroma was overwhelming, like coffee she’d get from a barista. She finished her breakfast cereal and deposited the empty wrapper in a recycling chute.

  Anastasia turned to face her, shifting the way her dangling feet slipped under the handrail. She smiled as she sucked on her breakfast. She was warm and friendly, thought Jasmine.

  “I know this is hard on you,” Anastasia said with what Jasmine could only perceive as kindness.

  Jasmine would rather not think about all that had happened. She felt an unusual bond with home in the earthy taste of her breakfast and the coffee. Engaging the senses of touch, taste and smell with such earthy pleasures had been refreshing. She sipped at her coffee, closing her eyes, and felt as though she’d been transported across the solar system back home.

  “Do you remember Oslo?” Anastasia asked.

  Jasmine felt nervous. She knew Oslo was in Norway, but what significance it held for Anastasia was lost on her. There was no memory to be recalled. Her face must have looked mystified, as Anastasia clarified her question.

  “Do you remember that silly survival training session in the woods?”

  Jasmine nodded and forced a smile, assuming that was the appropriate response.

  “I mean, how silly,” Anastasia continued. “We were headed for Saturn not Siberia, but our mission planners determined we had to be able to survive in the wild if our reentry point got screwed up, or something.”

  This was water cooler talk. Jasmine could do this. She understood what Anastasia was getting at and felt she could bluff her way through.

  “Why couldn’t they assume we’d land on the Las Vegas strip?” she asked.

  “Ha,” Anastasia cried, clearly preferring that alternative. “Can you imagine it, the descent capsule drifting down on three candy striped parachutes, firing its landing rockets some fifty feet above the Palazzo fountains? Now, that would be a sight!”

  “Yes, it would,” Jasmine agreed.

  “Fighting over the roulette wheel would have been much more fun than fighting off wolves.”

  Jasmine smiled. Had that actually happened? She looked for Anastasia to continue leading the conversation.

  “I think that’s what’s going on here,” Anastasia said.

  Jasmine had no idea what she was talking about.

  “Chuck wanted to wait with the capsule. Mike was determined to set up a beacon on the ridge,” Anastasia said, and Jasmine could see the glazed look in her eyes as she recalled the details of something Jasmine felt she had never lived through.

  “Who was right?” Anastasia asked Jasmine. “They were both right.”

  Anastasia sucked on her coffee, and Jasmine felt as though she was giving her an opening, an opportunity to provide her perspective, only Jasmine didn’t have one. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what had transpired.

  “Chuck did things by the book,” Anastasia continued. “Mike improvised and a couple of wolves lit up like roman candles. If we’d needed those flares to signal a search chopper we’d have been screwed.”

  Jasmine nodded.

  “They should have known back then that this kind of command structure wouldn’t work,” Anastasia said. “Neither of the men argued, but it was clear they saw their priorities differently and weren’t afraid to act on gut-instinct. I think that’s what’s happening again.”

  Anastasia wasn’t critical, thought Jasmine. If anything, she was strangely detached.

  “I blame Jorgensen,” she said, turning to one side and addressing the galley. “That’s right. I know you’re listening, you old bastard.”


  Jasmine wondered if she wasn’t the only one with mental health issues.

  Anastasia continued.

  “Oh, it’ll be years before the flight recorder is downloaded, but I know you’ll catch all these comments. You and your complimentary dissonance-in-decision-making bullshit! Look where that’s got us. You’ve got both Chuck and Mike convinced they’re right. You should have left it up to us women. At least we wouldn’t have killed each other!”

  Jasmine’s eyes were as big as saucers. She had no idea who Jorgensen was, but at a guess he had to be either the senior flight physician in Mission Control, or a psychiatrist responsible for the crew composition. Anastasia wasn’t shy in voicing her dissent.

  “You were supposed to give us options in a crisis, not a game plan for mutiny!”

  She turned back to Jasmine shaking her head.

  Jasmine sucked on her empty coffee bag, wishing it were full so she could hide from what she felt was a socially awkward position. The bag shriveled as she drew out the last drops of coffee. There was nowhere to hide. She felt she had to agree with Anastasia out of a sense of camaraderie, but she didn’t want to. She wanted to arrive at her own conclusions, but once again she had been swept along with the current.

  Anastasia sighed.

  “This is, what do you Americans say? Fucked up always?”

  “SNAFU,” Jasmine replied, feeling as though she finally knew something of value. Questionable value, really, but valuable to Anastasia. “Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.”

  “Yes, yes,” Anastasia replied in her soft Russian accent. “That’s it SNAF-FOO.”

  Jasmine couldn't help but smile at her pronunciation.

  “What do you think it all means?” Jasmine asked. The question had been burning away at the back of her mind, and knowing Anastasia was an intelligent, determined woman, Jasmine felt sure she had thought about the message from Bestla in considerable detail. From what she could tell, Anastasia wasn’t someone short of an opinion.

  “My sweet Satan?” Anastasia asked rhetorically. “Well, I don’t think there’s a guy in a red suit with a pitchfork waiting for us down there.”