KOLYA'S DREAM

Okay, so, I just got back from work. Um...

Look I almost don’t know where to start. Because no matter where I start you’re already behind and I want you to catch up but in order to catch you up I have to talk about something, or more specifically THINK about something my therapist has told me NOT to think about.

What kind of advice is ‘Don’t think about it’? I mean, especially when thinking about not thinking about it makes you think about it even more. I mean, you know, the truth is I don’t WANT to think about it. I want someone else to think about it and tell me what the hell is going on.

Someone smarter than me, my therapist, or my mom - who, by the way, just threatens to put tape over my mouth. When I tell her that’ll only prevent me from talking, not thinking, she threatens to ‘put tape over my brain’ so, you see what I’m dealing here?

So this is me bringing it up. This is me thinking about it.

And IT is this; a dream. A recurring dream that I have had every night since I got back from...

Well let’s not get into that just yet. But the point is, I’m ready to stop having it, alright? I would like it to end, please. I’m ready to get back to regular programming, you know? So if anyone can help me make it stop, not ignore it, make it STOP.

First let me tell you how it always starts. With Alma.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

So weird, right? I mean, the same dream every night. Like, that alone is not normal. But a dream where a minor character has my name and turns out to be some Russian genius.

Well, I'm very much alive in Austin. Well, if you can call working at a bookstore and being alive, but it's just bizarre, right? So I guess this is probably a good time to talk about taking mushrooms.

So about two months ago, I go to a wedding in Northern California.

Distant cousin. Barely know him. My mother wants me to go because she thinks that I'll somehow meet someone and it'll result in grandchildren.

Anyway, so I take this super saver flight that gets me to Sacramento a few days before the wedding, and I stay with my distant cousin.

A long story short, it turns out he and his bridal party are going to go into the woods, into some national forest for some kind of ceremony. And it's really just them all taking mushrooms and tripping together. But...

he asks if I want to go, and I'm like, hey, what's the worst that can happen? God, such a big mistake.

That was nine weeks ago. And while the mushrooms was interesting, it wasn't good or bad. It just felt strange, and I didn't. But then on the night of the wedding, I have this dream. The dream with the space people and the dead Russian me.

At first, I think, weird, but okay.

But then it keeps happening. Exactly the same every night.

Exactly the same. It's every time I close my eyes, even if it's just for a nap. Boom. Same dream.

It's like my brain only has one channel, and this channel only plays reruns of one show.

At first, I think, okay, well, it's the weird side effect of the mushrooms, right? It'll make a funny story when it's over, but then it keeps happening, and it becomes annoying and it keeps happening. Like, now I'm deeply concerned because I start to think maybe I broke something in my brain.

So I go to the doctor, I get tests, scans. They even plug me- my brain up while I'm sleeping.

All that stuff, totally normal. They say, Excuse me, how can it be normal to have the same dream every night?

I close my eyes and they agree. It's not normal, but it's not a medical problem. It's a mental thing, right? So I get sent to a therapist, and this therapist listens and says that he doesn't think it's the mushrooms. He says, I've created a self sustaining psychological fixation.

And the key to overcoming this is first acknowledging it and then learning not to focus on it and eventually letting it go. But I've tried that.

Really, I've genuinely tried that. But it keeps coming, all right? And let's be honest.

This is not a normal dream. Like, all these different people, and it's like, from their point of view, that's not like any dream I've ever had in my life. I mean,

if every time you closed your eyes and you had some messed up dream that was sort of about you, but mostly not and then the you that was in there committed suicide, then you might develop some psychological fixation as well, okay?

My mother is very upset about the mushrooms and is sure I've given myself brain damage. My father, anytime I have a problem that's even that can only happen to an American, he starts complaining about immigrating here. Did I mention he's from Russia?

Super weird, right? I don't know. Anyway, all another way of saying I don't talk to him about these dreams. Which I guess is why I brought this story to you. Like surely out there somewhere someone's been through similar episodes with mushrooms, been stuck in a loop.

Someone can tell me it's some kind of repressed childhood trauma or that there's a weird trick I can use to break the cycle. Like when you have hiccups and you have to drink from a glass upside down.

My therapist says even spending time thinking about how to stop thinking about the same thing in itself is a form of thinking about the same thing. And no matter what I'm doing, he says I'm always wrong. Like thing is, no matter what he says, I'm the one who can't change the channel every night.

Astronauts, darkness, a missing code every night. So, yeah, that's my story and I guess well, I would like it to end, please. If you have ideas, incantations even strange recipes I can drink while holding my nose, I would be grateful.

ENDLESS MIRRORS OF THE INFINITE

I’m floating alone at the end of my tether having just completed a multi hour EVA (extra vehicular activity) whose sole purpose was to prepare for another EVA that’s just several hours away.

Between now and then, as the current Mission Commander, I’ll have a myriad of things to do, and normally, with the actual work at hand behind me, that’s what I’d be thinking about - what’s on the list, what balls have been dropped, what problems and surprises await, how will I navigate the never-ending ‘next’.

But as I allow my suit to twist away from the station and float there, weightless, for a brief moment the only thing in my field of vision is the entire universe itself. And in this brief moment the sheer scale of what I see doesn’t leave room for thoughts of next.

And what I think is:

At least I think I think this until I hear the voice in my comms say:

at which point I realize I haven’t thought it, but said it out loud, something I feel like I’ve been doing more and more of lately, maybe even something to discuss in the next session with the doc, because -

And like that I’ve rotated so that the station fills my view, and the infinities around me disappear and collapse once again into a string of singular, solitary nexts.

THERAPY IN SPACE

Every mission has safeguards for the mental health of the crew, from rigorous psych evals pre launch to crew check-ins with the Mission Commander, as well a psychiatrist on the ground.

This is something different.

Dr. Bauer is running the first detailed longitudinal study of how extended time in space affects mental health and personality in an effort to anticipate problems that might arise on much longer future missions, like trips to Mars. He’s spoken at length with every living astronaut from around the world, and tracked them as a population for years. He will tell you all of this, not only upon introduction, but often several times in a single conversation.

I don't dislike him exactly, it’s just that I have lots to do and feel like an unjustly large portion of my time is devoted to what amounts to ‘therapy in space’. And given even small amounts of time I feel like Dr. Bauer is uncomfortably good at getting me to detail thoughts and ideas that I consistently regret having shared.

This is one of the areas I regret ever letting him steer me into. At some point I mentioned that, even with all of my responsibilities up here I could find myself feeling… distracted by my conversations with my husband and two children.

Somehow the utterly banal and pointless minutiae of their days - who said what to who at school, the endless series of go nowhere “jokes” my daughter, Kane, is always somewhere between sharpening and recycling, the sound of those little red wrappers from her favorite candy crunching in the background, these little things that infected my thinking and held my attention long after I’d said goodbye.

Reminders of my family were this drop of food coloring in the water of my mind and even the smallest amount would diffuse and change the hue of everything.

I constantly reminded them that I was in, you know, fucking SPACE. That the thing I’d pursued for most of my life was happening, and not only that, coming closer to ending, at which point it would be hard to argue that the single most incredible thing I’d ever be a part of would be behind me, so why was I spending it replaying literal knock knock jokes, longing for experiences that were universal while in the midst of one that was singular.

The truth is I’m a little concerned that my answers on this subject are painting a picture of me as too emotional, too ‘homebound’ for the mission I’m on, let alone any others that might become available.

Worse, I’m afraid the doc might generalize my experiences to other female astronauts, and my palpable desire to run a brush through my daughter’s hair will end up in a report about the ‘challenges to extended human space exploration’.

With only two weeks to go until the end of my mission, I’ve increasingly relied on recording quick messages to my family rather than getting into conversations. I tell myself this is fine and appropriate. That pulling away for this last little stretch is the only way to ensure absolute focus during the critical final phase.

But for years now my son, Walsh, has never ended a conversation without a specific hand gesture where he and I bump fists and when we make contact our thumbs suddenly pop out in a ‘thumbs up’ gesture.

I’ve continued to do my half of the sign off, but for the first time I can remember since the little move became part of our routine, Walsh has failed to end the last two responses from their end with his half. That's hit harder than I’d have anticipated.

Am I imagining things or does he look disappointed? Hurt? Can he feel me avoiding conversation? Am I scaring my kids and planting the seeds of abandonment issues or-

Dr. Bauer has the supernatural ability to see all these thoughts just under my surface, even when I’m just a face on his Earthbound monitor, but as he prepares to pry them out -

I decide we’re not opening this can of worms today.

Dr. Bauer gives me a little smile. If anything I’ve just signaled that he’s close to paydirt with all the family stuff, but his digging is a problem for another conversation.

Part of his study requires me to give Dr. Bauer observations on the actions and attitudes of the rest of the crew. Sensing that he’s not getting more out of me today, he quickly pivots...

Marcus Rhoder might be my favorite person on the crew if I weren’t mildly jealous of him. Like me, he’s in his early 40’s. Unlike me, I feel Marcus looks ten years younger. Like me, he’s an engineer by training, but unlike me, being an astronaut has almost become his side gig.

Marcus was an early and talented mover in the Youtube Educator space. His channel now boasts millions of subscribers and provides orders of magnitude more income than his lowly day job of going to space.

It should make him easy to hate, but he also happens to be endlessly positive and upbeat, and his videos really do an incredible job of making a host of nuanced and complicated scientific topics not only understandable but downright entertaining. I’ve even referred my own kids to them. Marcus does a better job of explaining something than I ever could.

I wonder if Bauer is going to try to explore this. Another vein I’d inadvertently exposed in my previous sessions was that my jealousy of Marcus wasn’t from the fact that he was a celebrity per se, it was more that he’d managed to turn what was once a hobby into an identity that would still persist and be meaningful when space was behind him.

I have a secret passion of my own. Well, not secret so much as just something that no one else seems to care about.

I paint murals.

Or I want to. Always have. And no, I’m not interested in paper or canvases and no, I can’t explain exactly why an entire wall or side of a building is different, but it is. And yes, I believe there’s evidence I have talent.

But either the world disagrees or they just can’t see past the fact that I’m first and foremost a wildly successful engineer who’s made it through the funnel of the astronaut training program and is currently leading a mission on the ISS.

My husband, Greg, is incredibly supportive, although I can’t tell if it’s because he believes in my ability or just sees that it keeps me sane. Greg works in commercial real estate and he’s been able to leverage his connections a handful of times to get me, if not commissions, at least walls where the tenants were happy enough to let me do my thing.

But as far as I know all of those have been painted over, and no one I’ve done work for has ever asked for more. When he saw how devastated I was after the first one got painted over, Greg suggested I do the back of our house, just turn the entire thing into an enormous mural that could live on as long as we wanted it to.

Which I did. Although now I’m not sure how I feel about it. Every time people come over I’m in a heightened state over how they’re reacting or not reacting, and at some point I’ve started to feel like it would be nice to be able to call a plumber without feeling like my entire ego was on the line if they step in the backyard. I have socials for my mural work, but my follower count is in the double digits.

Grace Blevins is a flight officer from somewhere in Georgia with two degrees from MIT and a family that seems either threatened or embarrassed by her success.

She’s the first and only person in her family to go to college, but rather than that being a source of pride her family seems to consider it a rejection of their values and way of life.

Apparently the family has a quite successful farm (actually Grace referred to it as an Agribusiness) and both of her brothers opted to learn at their parents' knees, favoring real world experience over exploring anything unrelated.

In Grace’s telling it wasn’t the fact that she went away to college that upset her father, it was the fact that she didn’t come back. There’s no doubt that of the three kids Grace got the bulk of the brains and the fact that she forced her father to hand the business to her less intelligent brothers rather than her clearly upset him.

It’s that or the fact that she came out while she was at university that led to the break. She’s brought partners home before, for holidays or events and everyone goes out of their way to pretend they’re fine with it, but she says her mother is certain that her sexuality is something she picked up at school, like an elective, and won’t be convinced otherwise. None of her family came to the launch.

I look at the time and decide I have to wrap this up.

In a much longer conversation, perhaps months from now and back on Earth, I might mention that this is what I wanted to believe, but something about Az’s panic at the first failure gave me the sense that it was a result of something he did or didn’t do, though I genuinely couldn’t say what.

Then again, that experiment had something to do with cultivating a type of cell that might be used to treat optic nerve damage, and I know that Az is incredibly close to his father who’s blind, so maybe the failure just hit too close to home.

Either way, the fact that the other experiment failed just after led me to believe it had something to do with Az being on tilt from the first failure and I’m worried that if he doesn’t get over it there’s plenty of time for him to have more problems.

Az and one of the Russians are not scheduled to rotate out with the rest of us in two weeks. He still has months of work ahead of him.

Grisha Petrovich - one of two representatives of the Russian Federation.

The ISS is cramped, noisy, and tense while also finding a way to be isolating and monotonous. Keeping morale up and the crew friendly is technically my responsibility, but I can’t imagine doing it without Grisha. There doesn’t seem to be a room or situation that Grisha could walk into and not immediately infect with joy (well, with one important exception, but that was a longer conversation).

Grisha had learned that his wife was pregnant with a girl just before liftoff and he pulsed with such ‘new dad’ energy that I could not imagine what he’d be like after the kid was finally here. This is why Marcus could cure cancer on camera and still not be able to displace Grisha as my favorite member of the crew.

Bauer said it with a shrug of his shoulders as if it was an idea to take or leave, but it was very good advice and I wished I’d already thought of it.

Elliot Reilly, didn't get on the ISS through a national program. He just bought a seat. A billionaire many times over, he supposedly walked away from his businesses on a 'spiritual quest'. Mostly he seemed like someone who'd simply purchased every experience available on Earth, found himself bored, and decided to try space.

Ironically, he seemed to be regretting the decision, bitching about the cramped quarters, awful food, and lack of ‘anything to do.’ I have no clue what he thought the trip was gonna be like, but his misery entertained me almost as much as Grisha’s joy.

Bauer nods in a way that tells me that despite my efforts, he is going to begin poking around my feelings on this subject, but for now he simply says...

Despite my rush, I take a moment, because in truth I would welcome an extended conversation with Bauer on Jora Andreevich and any and all advice on how to handle him.

Bauer looks at me gravely and for a moment he seems unsure what to say.

No, I realize, it's not uncertainty about what to say, but whether or not to say it. But after a moment, he does.

GOING VIRAL

As I begin to gear up for my second EVA of the day, Marcus swings in grinning.

I have no idea what he’s talking about, but before Marcus can respond I hear Az making the discovery in a neighboring module.

I look at Marcus.

He smiles.

Az rockets in holding out his phone.

I try to look at his phone, but his momentum carries him right past me so all I really see is a blur and his grin. Before I can turn, Marcus is there, handing my own phone to me.

I want to say that all of this is unimportant, especially given the matters at hand, but I can’t help myself when I realize that even as we speak the phone is continuing to vibrate with new alerts.

but I trail off because when my phone opens I’ve truly never seen anything like it. I’ve got over six figures in likes, or shares, or, honestly I don’t want to look at it long enough to figure it out, lest anyone realize how much I’m enjoying it.

But just when I’ve gained the discipline to close it all down for later I realize that lots of these notifications are for new followers. And not just for my official handle. My mural accounts have… 20,000 new followers? Is that possible? And there’s comments already. Oh Jesus.

The internet is not known for kindness, but I can’t help it. I click on a comment from a checkmark account that itself already has thousands of likes.

It’s under a photo of the mural on the back of my house. It reads: Looks like Commander Alma Cooke has always had an artist's soul, we just missed it somehow. #discoball

I feel tears forming and do an amateurish job of pretending there’s something in my eye while forcing myself to get a grip. Marcus, bless him, gives me space, though not before tapping my shoulder and saying:

I take a big inhale and go stoic, promising myself I can revel in all of this until my heart’s content when today’s work is over, but until then...

I actually would swear I feel Jora enter the module before I see him. He floats right past, suited up, ready, and silent. Without acknowledging anyone, he drifts straight to the airlock module and disappears inside. And just like that, I’ve genuinely forgotten anything but the work at hand.

PREPARING FOR EVA

As we wait in the airlock, neither Jora nor I says a word. It would be one thing if Jora were simply unfriendly, but I couldn’t care less about being friends. The issue is that Jora does not seem well. From the moment he arrived he’s been virtually silent. Sullen. Depressed.

He speaks to no one, even his gregarious countryman, Grisha. He eats, but only when I insist and literally watch him. He hasn’t used a minute of his personal comms time. Every member of the crew does mandatory exercise to keep their muscles from atrophying in the zero gravity environment, but Jora hasn’t logged a single rep.

If I ask, he’ll lie and dare me to fight him on it. I don’t know if he’s having some Russian male response to the idea of having a female in charge, but at best that only seems like part of the issue, and whatever else is going on, he isn’t talking about it.

It’s been clear to all of us since he arrived that no other agency would have sent someone in his condition. But the Russian Federation has its own guidelines which it appears they can ignore when it suits them.

The word is, Jora spent most of his career working on the upgrade we’re about to install, which will largely replace the brains in the original Russian modules and allow a quantum leap in the whole station’s processing power.

Given that I’ve only got two more weeks and Jora isn’t rotating home with me, I’ve mostly opted to avoid confrontation and hope that the next guy has better luck. But Bauer’s concerns seem to echo my sense that a simple personnel switch isn’t going to solve Jora’s problems.

In truth, I’ve never met anyone like him. Never experienced someone who radiated such apathy and darkness. If you asked me what keeps me up at night, it’s this - the fact that I’m stuck in a series of tiny metal cylinders floating in space with six other people, and Jora is one of them.

Grace says through the comms.

I take one last look at my equipment.

I look at Jora. He doesn’t say a word, and his expression makes it clear he’s not going to. I hesitate, briefly considering calling the whole thing off. Instead I say:

And with a heavy thunk, the airlock opens and I step into the directionless void with the last person I want to follow anywhere - Jora.

JORA’S MEMORIES

I had come of age in just enough of the Soviet era to become indoctrinated with its zero sum, backstabbing, kill or be killed ethos.

This actually suited me fine. While others my age lived in fear and sometimes poverty as their industries were privatized or dissolved, I plowed ahead on a rise through Roscosmos that didn’t look much different than it would have at the height of communism.

In addition to work that thrilled me, a healthy wage, and an opportunity to travel that was unknown to the generation before me, Roscosmos also brought me Yulia.

She worked briefly in the agency in a non technical capacity, and although other obligations and opportunities drew her away, it was not before I was convinced that we belonged together. Yulia was less certain, but in a time of chaos, she was initially attracted to the stability I offered, and eventually to the boyish and silly charm that I mostly kept hidden from all but those who I trusted completely.

This really amounted to just Yulia and my brother, and by the time Yulia and I were married, my brother had died, leaving Yulia as the only person left who knew I could be something other than the hard nosed climber who showed up at Roscosmos everyday.

Then came Kolya.

He was hired as my research assistant, but as soon as we started to work together, I felt as if the two of us shared a single mind.

We slayed projects and problems that grounded others’ careers to a halt, and as we ascended we grew only closer, with Kolya initially coming for dinner, and eventually staying with us for days or weeks at a time so that we could work whenever inspiration struck us.

Yulia set Kolya up with friends, a couple of whom even seemed like they might stick, but Kolya’s first priority was always me. He lived to please and impress me, and he succeeded beyond all reasonable expectations.

Which is where the problems began.

When an opportunity for advancement or to grab hold of a high profile project presented itself, I was utterly ruthless, and more often than not, successful, due to in no small part to Kolya’s contributions.

In fact, as the years went by I realized that Kolya actually possessed talents that far surpassed my own. Where I ultimately excelled was in making sure no one else, including Kolya, ever realized this.

Twelve years ago an assignment became available, the sort of assignment that could lead to an agency directorship, or even a position that transcended Roscosmos.

I was aware that my relationship with Yulia had begun to suffer as a result of my relentless striving, but I told myself that it would be all worth it in the end and that any damage done today could be paid back many times over once we joined the ranks of the truly elite.

Even the time when I hit her for questioning the plan, I still believed it would all balance out if she would just let me see it through. Even when she left me, I told myself she could be won back.

Kolya was different. No matter how hard I pushed him, or how uneven the workload, Kolya never wavered. In fact, it was under those conditions that he seemed to do his best work, until eventually he delivered a breakthrough so elegant and inspired that I, for the first time, found myself truly in awe of another human being.

If I had simply said that the breakthrough was a shared effort, Kolya would likely have accepted it. But a shared effort would not get me where I needed to go. A shared effort would just open the door to Kolya’s ascension and my dead end, and then everything I’d done would be for nothing. So I sacrificed even more.

I took full credit for the work, and when Kolya dared to question me I alternated between shouting him down and assuring him that this was all for the best, that from my new heights I would make sure that we both got everything we'd ever dreamed of. Unfortunately it was clear that Kolya’s dreams didn’t really go beyond what we already had, which I was now throwing away.

While he eventually accepted his fate, our bond was irrevocably broken, and Kolya slowly became a shadow of himself.

I received my promotion, and then another and another, all while we did the work of turning Kolya’s theoretical breakthrough into a functioning prototype and eventually a set of nine carefully engineered pieces that would, when installed, dramatically alter the capabilities of the ISS, among a myriad of other classified uses closer to home.

When Kolya finally left Roscosmos two years ago it was clear that the only place my efforts might finally propel me was to space, which ironically had been Kolya’s dream, not mine.

And two months ago, when I was confirmed for this mission to install the nine pieces of metal and silicon that it turned out I’d sacrificed everything for, Kolya killed himself.

At the funeral I wept like a child, not just over the loss of what I belatedly realized was the only true friend I’d ever had, but over the fact that this sparsely attended event was the only memorial to what I knew was one of the great minds humanity had ever produced, a fact that was only unrecognized because of my own tirelessly selfish efforts.

In the depths of my despair I saw Yulia coming toward me, aged but somehow timeless. I noticed a man hanging back with two young children that could only have been hers, and the ledger of all I’d lost only grew.

Still, to speak to her, to have a moment to commiserate with possibly the only other person who could really appreciate all that Kolya had been, gave me something, no matter how small, to cling on. I straightened myself and cracked a sad smile as she approached.

I felt a wave of affection and regret so strong I wanted to throw my arms around her. I felt weak, like I literally might fall, and as if reading my mind, she embraced me.

The warmth of it, the memory come back to life, helped me find my strength and as I steadied my legs and held her tight the bizarre thought occurred to me, even as I stared at her husband and children in the distance, that this tragedy might somehow reunite us, might somehow be the thing that pulled me back from the black hole I’d opened at the center of my life.

Then, only inches from my ear she whispered:

And then she turned, went to her family and left without once looking back.

INSTALLING THE UPGRADE

I snap my eyes up and see Alma’s helmet is facing me.

I look at the open bay on the outside of the station module, the carefully placed and organized tools, the old components and the nine new pieces I’ve come to install seated precisely in their new home.

I’ve told myself that placing these pieces will provide me with some measure of redemption, will at least honor the work my friend had done. But as this moment has drawn closer I’ve been enveloped by the sense that it will not matter.

That rather than redemption this moment will bring only confirmation that everything I’ve done has been for nothing at all.

I look at the pieces and then down at a small screen on my suit. I mash a button and a moment later the screen displays a green check. I’m not aware of it, but I must nod ever so slightly because Alma says:

As we await the answer I turn my head from the station and look out toward what feels like everything and nothing.

In the background I can hear applause from the rest of the crew, and in my comms I hear Alma sigh with deep relief.

Grisha says.

I hear their laughter, even Alma's, who’s been deadly serious and intensely focused for the last six hours. And then, without acknowledging me or asking for my assistance, she turns her attention to closing up the exterior bay.

That’s when I move my hand along the handle on the exterior of the station until it finds the clip securing my tether to the side, I unlock it, and release myself.

Then, with just a small kick, I set myself adrift, flying away from the station and towards the only ending to my story that feels remotely just.

The crew sees it unfold on the external cameras before I do, but when they realize what’s happening, all their voices crowd the comms at once.

By the time I processes the message at the heart of the overlapping voices, Jora is twenty feet away and the gap between us is opening rapidly.

I flail pointlessly in his direction for a moment, and then whip my attention around to my own tether. But as I reach for it-

It’s been long enough since he’s spoken that his voice cuts right through the others.

I hesitate for a second, processing what I’ve just heard, and for reasons owing entirely to my training I make a decision I will eventually come to deeply regret. As I unclip my tether I can hear Marcus in my comms.

But I already have. And with one good kick I hurl myself away from the safety of the station and put myself on a vector roughly in line with Jora’s drifting form.

I hear Reilly’s voice in the comms.

I’m not sure who screams it. It might literally be all of them.

I let loose a short burst from the small jet in my sleeve. I’ve had extensive training with the system, but there’s nothing like the real thing and I’m shocked how much it accelerates me. Not only am I racing away from the station, I’m now slightly off course for reaching Jora.

The last thing I want to do is touch the jets again, but I have no choice and I give myself a sharp burst from the other arm, which has the effect of lining me up with Jora again, but also further increasing my speed. I feel like a car approaching a pedestrian.

Jora senses something in his eyeline and only has time to say:

before I slam into him like a linebacker, wrapping him up with all my might as the impact starts the two of us chaotically tumbling.

He gets an elbow between us and with a force that surprises me, shoves, and I find I can’t hold on. He slips my grasp, but only with enough force to start a relatively slow divergence. I look at him as he starts to drift away.

And in that moment I decide, you know what, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

But as he trails away, his tether comes behind him like a tail, and when I see it whipping by me I snatch it without thinking. The tether yanks me in his direction, but I hold tight, and as soon as I’ve survived the jolt, we’re floating together, separated by the fifteen feet of tether.

Jora is cursing in Russian, but I ignore it, clipping the end of his tether to mine. As soon as I’m done, I twist and turn, looking for the ISS and when I spot it I can hardly believe how small and far away it is.

Without a second thought I start firing blasts from my jets, working us around into a trajectory back toward the ISS.

But just as the station starts to mercifully grow in my field of view I suddenly feel the tether yank me back, and I turn to see Jora firing his own jet from one of his sleeves.

He stops, moved, at least momentarily by the terror in my voice.

I see him move both arms toward his helmet and start to fumble with the latches. He pops the first one and I hear alarms go off in my comms.

I say it as calmly and caringly as I possibly can and in the process I realize it’s not an act. Whatever is wrong, I don't want to see him die. Not like this.

As he gets his hand around the final latch he says:

But I don’t. I just look at him.

And then there’s a pregnant pause where it’s clear he’s giving me a last chance to look away, and equally clear that for some reason I can’t bring myself to do it. And then

A flash of light arcs past us, almost like lightning or a strobe has gone off. It’s so fast I’m not sure it was real, but I see Jora hanging there, equally stunned, and then our comms explode with voices and alarms.

As I start to rotate my position to find the Earth, I notice that Jora is actively doing the same. I have to rotate a full 180 degrees before it comes into view.

And after it does, it takes a moment to register that the Earth is in fact what I’m looking at. Because where earlier there was a constellation of lights mapping the cities and civilization, now the entire globe is completely dark as if every sign of humanity’s presence has been snuffed out in an instant.

OFF COURSE

The next hours are a blur.

As Jora and I literally rocket ourselves back to the ISS, most of the crew remains at their stations desperately trying to reboot communications and restore basic systems that rely on contact with the ground or other satellites. None of their efforts work.

Grisha alone ends up managing the airlock and the frenzied attempt to catch Jora and I who, we all belatedly realize, are coming in far too fast. Grisha makes a belated attempt to swing a heavy bulkhead door between himself and us as we come in like bullets.

This gives us something solid to crash into and the door successfully absorbs the blow. Unfortunately, by the time we hit it, Grisha has not removed his hands and they end up crushed in the hinges.

It’s clear Grisha’s broken numerous bones in each hand, but even he seems less focused on this than the fact that the Earth has gone as cold, dark, and quiet as every other object in the endless blackness all around us.

Our collective thinking moves in stages. First it’s about what could have happened? Perhaps a solar flare has thrown Earth into prehistoric darkness and silence? Or some sort of disaster? An EMP? We debate the unsatisfactory nature of each explanation, the things we’re seeing that don’t fit, or the things we’d expect to see but aren’t.

The next thoughts are about our own situation. How long can we continue in this state? Which of our systems are reliant on contact with the ground? What do we do if we can’t reestablish contact?

Grace is the one who slips out of the conversation first and starts silently doing calculations.

Eventually Marcus looks over her shoulder and not only seems to pick up on what she’s thinking, but to wordlessly begin doing a set of calculations of his own. Marcus looks at Jora and I.

I’m confused, but before I can answer Grace is showing Marcus her work.

I seize the opportunity to stop playing catch up.

ACCESS DENIED

Grisha jumps in, as much to keep Reilly from interrupting the rest of us as to eliminate the billionaire’s confusion.

Means if we decide we need to evacuate and try for Earth, we are at increasing risk of hitting atmosphere with wrong trajectory and bouncing off or… burning up.

I’m staring at the numbers because the numbers are facts and facts are supposed to guide my decision, but when I hear Grisha put it in simple terms the numbers become meaningless swirls.

They become abstract. They become the scratching of human hands and before I know it my mind has conjured the artwork of my children pinned to the refrigerator with magnets. I see Kane's crinkly candy wrappers and pictures drawn in chalk that they’ve scrawled across the driveway to greet me after weeks away for training.

I see their faces.

And despite believing it’s only a thought in my head, I hear myself say:

He holds up the mass of bandages at the ends of his arms.

There’s a moment of silence. Then from off to the side -

I stare at Jora, imagine putting all of our lives in the hands of someone who just tried to commit suicide. He stares back as if daring me to ask the question. I choose not to bite.

The fact that I choose not to ask the question doesn’t stop the others.

Az says Jora might simply want to pilot so that he can steer us to a quick and fiery death rather than having us remain in the station for who knows how long.

I project confidence in Jora and point out that the longer we argue the further we drift off course and the harder the job we’re asking Jora to do becomes. Therefore, I suggest, action rather than delay is our best hope. I cling to that idea with my heart and soul.

Until Jora takes it away.

He tells me. He shows me the logbook with the numerical combination used to release the evacuation vehicle

I try punching in the numbers myself. The code is updated from Mission Control every three days along with coordinates that reflect the latest calculated reentry windows. Without the up to date code, the evacuation vehicle can’t be detached.

Sensing something is amiss and that Jora is at the center of it, the rest of the crew collapses on the keypad, and quickly the air is thick with questions and accusations.

When were the code and coordinates last updated? Yesterday.

And who was responsible for confirming the update? Jora.

Reilly says, which is blunt, but largely in line with the arguments flowing from the others.

Eventually I pound the wall of the station and demand silence. What I know is that the code I have doesn’t work, and while they could manually try to dislodge the evacuation vehicle, it would require another EVA and I’m almost certain that by the time we did it we’d be far enough off course that it wouldn’t matter.

I look again at the confirmation code and the updated coordinates that accompany it. It looks correct. It’s time stamped for yesterday, which means it shouldn’t be updated again until tomorrow. This should work.

So why do I have the gnawing feeling that somehow Jora is not telling me something?

I decide that continuing to back him into a corner is going to get us nowhere.

We need to start digging in the system, looking for evidence of another code that might have gotten orphaned in transit, or for a way to work ourselves around the whole mechanism and just get the system to release.

I look at Reilly, but I see my kids.

I turn to Jora, trying to bring him into the fold.

Jora doesn’t say a word. Instead, he rotates and pulls himself out of the main module, then floats away towards his bunk.