Dust

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. But I can tell you that belief is wrong.

I was outside the ship when the screaming began. Comms fully functional. I heard the scream. I will hear it until the moment I die.

That won’t be long now.

“Miko! Miko, what’s wrong? Miko, come in—”

“Saira, it’s me,” Fenn, the ship’s biologist, was at the comm. “Saira, we’ve got a problem.”

If Miko had dropped off comms, then something was wrong. Seriously wrong. And her scream…

“What’s happening in there?”

Miko and I had just moved into partners’ quarters on the Surefire, after months of dancing around each other in the close confines of the ship. At our last stop—on Hexos III—she’d made it official, buying me a big bouquet of starflowers in the marketplace and dropping to one knee like an old-fashioned marriage proposal back on Earth.

Of course, I’d said yes.

“Saira, are you all right out there?” Fenn was following protocol. Assuring the safety of the person doing the f***ing spacewalk.

“I’m fine! What is wrong with Miko?”

I was repairing some minor damage to the solar array, a job requiring only one person on comms, to monitor me as I worked. Miko had been alone in Command, but now—besides Fenn—I could hear other voices through my headset.

“I’m coming back in,” I said, reaching a gloved hand to untether my umbilical and reel in the extra length. “Fenn—”

“No! Don’t come back in! Not yet—”

There was no way I was staying outside while the gods only knew what was happening to my girlfriend. Slowly, cautiously, I made my way hand over hand, coiling the extra length of my umbilical, using the handles attached to the skin of the Surefire to pull myself towards the airlock. The repairs could wait.

As I floated awkwardly in the vacuum of space, I listened to the babble of voices coming through my headset. It sounded as if our entire crew of six—I was the seventh—was in Command, no doubt alerted by Fenn when he heard Miko’s scream from the biolabs across the corridor.

“Get her pants off,” that was Pyotr, the ship’s doctor.

“Miko, try to stop moving—” Kallen, our engineer, was apparently trying to restrain her.

“Damn! She’s nearly clawed through her uniform.” Captain Dretschwiller was in Command, too. Good. He kept a cool head in an emergency. But— “What the motherloving f**k is that?!”

“S**t! Cut the comms, Fenn! Cut the f***ing comms!”

My blood was ice in my veins. Something was seriously f***ed up inside. I finally made it to the airlock, but the control wouldn’t cycle. Momentary panic flashed through me, and I could see my vitals spike on the viewscreen of my helmet.

Deep breath. In. Out. In. Out.

I punched the control again. Nothing. The airlock control had been disabled, locked down in Command. Why the f**k would they do that?

“Command! Command! Come in! Will somebody f***ing tell me what’s going on? Open this f***ing airlock!”

I hung on the outside of the Surefire, peering in through the airlock’s small viewport, waiting for one of the crew to come. It had been seventeen minutes since Miko’s first scream. Seventeen minutes of terror, wondering what was happening inside the ship. Seventeen minutes until Baz, the young geologist we’d picked up on Ruumei, appeared inside the airlock. Her eyes were huge, reddened, as she stared out at me.

“Baz! Baz, open the airlock!” My lips were moving, but I could tell she couldn’t hear me. When she reached up to punch the comm button on the airlock controls, she was shaking, fingers twitching uncontrollably.

“Baz?”

“I’m so sorry, Saira,” Baz’s face was wet now, crying. “I’m so so-sorry!”

“What—” Whatever had happened to Miko, it was bad. Worse than anything I could imagine. I had to get to her. “Open the airlock, Baz!”

She glanced over her shoulder but through the open inner door, I could see nothing in the corridor behind her. Her head drooped, and she raised her other hand to her forehead, but then

as I

watched her

index finger

turned

black

and

fell away

a shower

of dust

Baz raised her head

raised her hand

looked at her hand

didn’t look at me,

hovering outside the airlock viewport.

“I’m sorry, Saira,” she whispered. “I touched her. Tried to help Pyotr. We couldn’t…

couldn’t

help.”

In that instant, I flashed back to the night before, when we were tumbling into bed, Miko and I, heady with desire for each other. When I slid my hands along her outer thighs. When I felt a rough patch on her right leg. A rash of some kind. She said it didn’t itch. Didn’t hurt. She said she’d check in with Pyotr if it got worse.

“Her leg,” I said, looking in at Baz.

“Pyotr said…” her voice was hoarse. “Pyotr said it must have been something she picked up on Hexos III.”

As I watched, the black on Baz’s hand spread to her palm, her wrist, her forearm. Her fingers were gone, disintegrated into black dust. Was that—

Was that what happened to Miko?

I couldn’t ask. I didn't ask. I knew the answer.

“Fenn said not to let you back inside, Saira,” Baz said. “Not that it would matter. If you come in you die, with us. Miko is gone. Fenn is gone, and Pyotr, and—” She choked, the words trapped inside her throat. “If you come in you die. If you stay out there, you die. I’m sorry, Saira.”

“Baz, let me in! Let me in!”

But she raised her other hand, the one she’d been pressing the comms button with. Lifted it in front of the viewport for me to see. Her fingers were gone, like the other hand. White bones splayed across the glass in front of my eyes. White bones, then black. Black dust.

She couldn’t press the comms buttons anymore.

I couldn’t look away.

I couldn’t look away as Baz disintegrated before my eyes. Her screams didn’t last long. The dust took her throat quickly, then her eyes, then—

She sank to the floor of the airlock, out of sight. Her legs were gone. Just as I knew Miko’s legs had gone. Miko. One night of loving Miko, with a rough patch on her outer thigh—

A rough patch of skin, which I had run my fingers over. A rough patch of skin, rubbing our legs together, entwined when we made love.

*

*

*

*

*

No one heard my screams in the vacuum of space.

There was no one left to hear.

***

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I intended to write a new story for every day of the New Worlds Challenge, but unfortunately, life happened. I only made it through three stories before I was forced to admit defeat. Well, three stories is better than none. This is New Worlds Story #2. If you enjoyed it, please feel free to take a look at Story #1: Dark Stars.