Grasping at Space Dust

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

That’s why a spacewalk is Theta’s location of choice to have a good think. And a good scream. She gives her tether one last yank, and steps out of the space station’s artificial gravity into the nothingness. Twelve years of training have made her accustomed to the way her organs shift when she leaves gravity behind, the way the pressure on her lower back releases as her vertebrae stretch out.

She can be herself out here, not like inside Headquarters. In there, she has to be golden girl Theta, the top graduate from Kepler Intelligence Academy. Expected to continue slicing through ciphers like they’re soy butter. Able to impersonate anyone in the known universe with a 99.9% accurate appearance shift and voice adjustment. The most promising Academy graduate to come to HQ since…maybe ever.

It would upset the natural order of things for Theta to stage a level-ten freakout in the middle of mess hall. So she comes out here.

She waits until she gets to the end of her tether, and then lets out the sound that’s been boiling up inside her for days. It’s a feral yell, an explosion from deep in her core. In it, she’s packed images of Senator Stewart’s too-white smile and Tau’s presumptuous arm around her shoulders and the prickling ickiness of what was supposed to be her dream job. The top HQ position that everyone in her Academy class has been jostling for since they were five years old. Where you get to work on missions that deal with the security of the entire star system. The important stuff.

She lets out a puff of compressed air from the canister in the back of her EV suit, rotating herself away from the space station and towards the nebula. Giant columns of gasses sparkle green and gold. The towering shapes always remind Theta of an early memory from back on Earth—a room with all its furniture covered in sheets, light from the window illuminating the dust. She felt small then, tottering on tiny legs around her family’s home for the last time, and she feels infinitessimal now. No matter what Theta does, the nebula will carry on taking old matter from dead stars and re-forming it into new ones.

That’s the comforting thing about space. Out here, nobody’s expecting her to demonstrate a perfect one-octave voice drop, or solve an impenetrable cipher in under two minutes. It’s just Theta, the nebula in front of her, and the dusty mauve surface of the planet Ariadne beneath her feet.

Kind of like her very own nature documentary. Like the ones she would make Rho watch, projected on the ceiling of their dorm room, showing all the long-extinct beings from Earth. Rho patiently nodding along as Theta squealed every four seconds at a baby bear tumbling down a hill, or a time-lapse of mushrooms devouring a dead thing and recycling its nutrients.

Rho always complained that the docs made her sad, knowing that the beautiful things were gone. But for Theta, watching the complex life made her think of possibility. The things that could be, again, if given the right care.

She pitches her voice low, puts on a British accent to match the narrator.

“And we see here a lonely specimen of human. She has achieved every goal she’s ever had in her young life, and now feels a deep emptiness inside her. Her best friend is down on the planet Ariadne on assignment, and she is left alone with the nebula to contemplate her strangely comforting insignificance.”

Theta sighs. It feels less pathetic in the narration voice. Like it’s funny-sad instead of just sad-sad. This is where Rho would chime in with her own impression, making it increasingly melodramatic until the two of them collapsed into a fit of giggles.

“That’s pretty bleak,” a voice crackles over her comm.

Theta nearly jumps out of her EV suit.

It’s impossible to whirl around in shock when you’re in space. The air canisters allow only the slowest, most controlled movements. So Theta has to wait way too long to see who’s out here with her, rotating slowly back around towards the space station.

“Tau?” Theta squints at the figure floating a few meters away from her, trying to make out the face inside the helmet.

The squinting isn’t necessary, though. Theta would know the body language anywhere. Tau manages to look cocky even in zero gravity, like they’re leaning back against a wall that isn’t there. Theta imagines the exact expression Tau is making inside their helmet—the little half-smirk on their annoyingly full lips, one thick, dark eyebrow raised.

If Theta were someone who got embarrassed, she’d be mortified that someone overheard her sad-girl monologue. Instead, angry heat rises from somewhere completely separate from the environmental controls in her suit. Plunges into her freckled chest like a piece of hot starstuff debris.

“What the fuck, Tau?” Theta tries to cross her arms, but the suit only lets her bring her straight arms together in front of her stomach. Like a seal clapping its flippers. She settles for clenching her fists.

Tau manages to shrug.

“I thought you might like some company out here,” they say. “It’s pretty romantic.”

They let out puffs of air to push themself towards Theta.

“Tau, I come out here, very specifically, to be alone.”

Theta scoots back around to face the nebula, cursing herself for having slept with Tau back at the Academy, on that last night of celebration after final scores were given out. It was a serious lack of foresight. But Theta didn’t know what it would be like here at HQ. Back at the Academy, there were twenty-four students in Theta’s class, and each of the classes above and below her. And all of them were potential romantic partners whenever Theta needed a release. Especially since the Academy tacitly encouraged them to sleep with as many of their classmates as possible. Practice. You never knew when you’d need sexual skill on an assignment.

But here at HQ, it’s just the top five from each class, and the non-Academy agents who are mostly old and boring. So her options besides Tau are slim. Which would be fine, if Tau didn’t think that Theta would fall in love with them every time they slept together.

But Theta’s always needed that area of her brain stimulated. The part in charge of romantic and sexual encounters. So Tau still gets Theta’s late-night messages, even as Theta knows it’s a terrible idea.

“Isn’t this amazing?” Tau arrives next to Theta at the ends of their tethers, joining her in gazing at the nebula. “It’s like, all the potential of the universe harnessed in one place. Reminds me of us.”

Theta wishes she had a drink in her hand to do a dramatic spit-take. But as it is, she settles for floating upside down relative to Tau, orange-red eyebrows raised as high as they’ll go.

“Excuse you?” She says.

Theta swears she sees Tau’s tawny face turn pink, even through the UV filter on their helmet.

“Not like, us us,” Tau sputters. “Us like, at HQ. We can really make a difference in the safety of the star system, you know? Help make it a better place to live.”

Theta lets herself float all the way back around, until her head is facing the same way as Tau’s again. How long has it been since Theta truly believed what Tau is saying? Did she believe it as a five-year-old, when she was first told what she was training for? What about when she whizzed through information downloads, or sweat through her training suit in hand-to-hand practice?

If Rho were here, Theta would whisper her doubts to her, the way they always passed their anxieties back and forth until the sharp edges dissipated. But Rho’s down there somewhere, on the dusty mauve surface of the planet. And Tau is here. And if Theta doesn’t talk to someone about the way she’s feeling, she’s going to spend the foreseeable future out here, screaming into the silent vacuum.

Fuck it.

“I don’t know, Tau. HQ was always the end goal. And now that we’re here, I kind of…wonder what the point was.”

Tau’s eyes widen, the whites glowing green in the reflected light from the nebula.

“Theta, what are you talking about? We have the most important job in the universe. The Effort on Ariadne could save humanity. And it’s up to us to keep it safe.”

“Okay, sure. Maybe. Theoretically. But are we doing that? I’ve been surveilling that group, The Collective, and all they’re doing is trying to get throat filters to more people.”

“Theta, they blew up a magellium refinery!”

Theta sighs. This is nothing like talking to Rho. Which, she knew it wouldn’t be. But on some level, she was hoping Tau might surprise her. That Tau might be able to fill in some of the holes between Theta’s ribs.

“It’s just…where do we go from here?” Theta tries again.

Tau is opening their mouth, probably to explain how here is the end game, the terminus, the place where all points in time and space converge.

But a sharp beeping comes over both their comms. All agents to mission control. Theta’s body reacts instinctively, jumping to press the retraction on her tether. The gentle pull draws her back towards the station, lackadaisical against the urgency of the alarm. Theta thinks she’d be pulled back in even if her tether spontaneously dematerialized. Against all laws of physics, HQ would keep a hold on her.

She watches the back of Tau’s head as they bob in front of her on their own tether. Somehow, their visit has deepened her loneliness, so now it stretches from the toes of her boots to the most distant dots of light. The strings connecting her to the rest of the universe fray.

Theta turns back to the nebula, reaching out for the comfort of her insignificance that it usually settles in her chest. She stretches out a gloved hand, but all she can grasp is dust.