Echo

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. It was proven, however that in the cyclonic circulation of a tornado it is unbelievably noisy, when it was thought to be silent. We are frightened by the things we do not know and so we give them stories to let them feel more terrifying. Can you imagine being inside a vortex of death and hearing nothing? You’d believe you were dead.

A scream unheard in space is more terrifying than one that is loud, yet heard by no one. Nobody can breathe in these cosmoses, not yet anyway. There’s no way, not yet, for us to test this theory unless we sacrifice ourselves. Sure, we know sound waves are mechanical, they require air or water to bounce off of, but what of the air in my lungs, the water in my body? Does that not make a noise if I were to scream into my helmet? If my body exploded, would the action of my flesh colliding with the air left in my lungs be enough to reverberate and scream for me?

And what if we do? What if I were to float out there and remove my helmet? Would my blood boil and burst in my chest before I even had the chance to scream? Would I just pop like a can of soda in a lonely freezer? Would you hear my brains pierce through my skull? I think it’s best, for now at least, we don’t find out. Let my screams be unheard, for if it is me that is the one screaming, everyone else will already be dead anyway.

My name is Echo. E for short. I realized early on most people need to learn things twice to make it stick. I always have to repeat myself, tell others what to do, over and over again, and still, they never listen. I have always felt unheard. Perhaps that is why I’m afraid of this theory that no one would be able to hear me scream. But that is also what forces me to be the best. Now that I am the most respected scavenger in the galaxy, no one will forget my voice, my thoughts, my ideas anymore. What I say is law now and what I do is for myself. I mask my intentions in the desperation of others. If I were to concede to the undoing of the universe, I will achieve glory that is selfish, yet seemingly compassionate. Don’t let any hero fool you to believe they use the term for themselves. We are all expert masqueraders, enjoying our dance in the shadows of our cloaks, pretending to be a savior.

What I do is go after lost ships. Ships that sped too hastily towards the exploding stars, too close to the asteroid belt, too dim-witted to believe they could fly a ship without expertise. I rescue those without the skills to save themselves. A hero to others, a scavenger for myself.

The riches that are acquired in this type of work are, well, to be polite, well-endowed. Humans will do anything to bring their people back, and humans who can get up here have money.

Anyone can do what I do. There are no laws here, no governments, no police. We’re all rogue. As long as you get up here, you’re free. Everyone is rich here, for all you have to do to make money is gather materials you find. Trade for others, bring them back to Earth, sell your findings to those afraid to fly. They’ll pay any price for a moon rock that you can convince them will cure their cancer. And the rich will give away ships to anyone daring enough to make the journey for them.

Star-dust, meteoroid shavings, a screw from the first satellite, even alien droppings (you can sell these people anything). So long as it comes from the skies its value means something to someone and not everyone is bold enough to come up here.

You see, we only recently began our endeavors of coming up here. And now that it’s more accessible, more people are coming. Which means, more jobs for myself. On Earth, I’m Echo, the bringer of voices once thought were lost, the reminder of frailty we often forget about in our youth, the hallow sound in an otherwise void of senses to alert you back to life. I don’t fear diving into the cosmos’ silence so long as I’m compensated for it.

I write now to remember, for the days in space are different. I cannot account for the sun and moon’s alignment; I’m far too engulfed in my work to realize where I am half the time. I also don’t want to lose myself to the solidarity.

Recently I’ve been tasked to help a future carrier ship that is testing its abilities to travel with both human and industrial cargo. How far can it get, how fast can it actually travel, etc. It was supposed to fly to Mars and return so an analysis could be done to see how feasible the trip is on such a large ship. Of course, everything in space travels slower than you’d think. It’s not easy to propel here. There are no tailwinds, hills, or slopes to speed you up, you rely on pure fuel. This is partially why this ship needs to bring people to Mars. We have to start drilling into the chasms below its ember surface to gather resources to travel further. Once oil was found on Mars, the race to become the first to colonize it took a matter of weeks. Russia reached it first, but given their old technology, they got themselves stuck and they all died before any other country had a chance to get there. That’s the instability of humans: we’re so focused on being the first to do something we never account if we can do anything after it’s done. Most of my work is spawned from this fatal flaw.

This American cargo ship is stuck, and I’m to repair its engine and help it on its return trip. These giant companies pretend to be so prominent, so dedicated to the cause, that no expense is too much. They claim they hire the best people and they pay the price for it. If only that were true. They use the weakest materials and keep the money for themselves in their safe mansions on Earth. They’ll never put money into the lives of other—it is not profitable. It’s cheaper to hire me, a space nomad, than it is to form a team of their own engineers for this task. The corporate greed does not disappear at the interstellar level.

I’m a few days away from reaching the ship, but my own engine is starting to become temperamental. This morning it shut off while I was still asleep, and I woke to stagnation and tardiness. This hasn’t happened before, and I’m beginning to wonder if there was something else besides human error that shut-down the cargo ship. Problem is, there are no humans on that ship; it was purely a remote test. I keep thinking about the noises in space and how there aren't supposed to be any. I know the science, I know the maths, and I know that space travel can make one hallucinate. The endless tunnels of darkness are enough to make anyone go mad, and so anyone experienced knows how to compensate for the loneliness. I exercise, I journal, I make my favorite lemon tea every morning, I read poetry aloud into the emptiness.

They say space doesn’t make a sound, but we have recording of screams from the early universe. We have noises of the big bang. We have noises from life we do not know. Do not believe everything you hear. Everything at one point with that specific time’s information can be disproven with new information. These galaxies are not tested. These foreign places are uncharted. Question everything, even me, because I am hearing sounds from outside my ship. I have proven to myself how impossible, improbable it is, but still the steel thumps.