Have-nauts

The International Space Station now sported elbows and wings and warts of nearly twenty nations, afloat a gravity wave that kept it falling forward on that thin line between smashing into or forever escaping its planet.

The current stalemates among China, Russia, and the USA and its allies resulted in the complete suspension of the ISS agenda. The mission sat inert 249 miles above all of these incorrigible children. Inert was the wrong word, implying the station was inanimate; it was not. The ISS roomed and boarded forty astronauts, cosmonauts, takinauts, and other xenonauts who sat resentfully on vacation, their orders suspended until further notice.

Inertia was better--a hodgepodge contraption resisting any change in its uniform motion, but accomplishing nothing. (Back to inert.)

“Idleness is the devil's playground,” said Astronaut Parks, his Texan drawl making it take twice as long to say.

“We read you, Captain Parks,” came the reply from Houston. “Please stand by.”

“As we have,” Captain Parks repeated again this morning, like the previous mornings. Standing by, now, meant until tomorrow and a word-for-word repeat of the same conversation.

Captain Parks had been the first person to acknowledge the sudden absence of a mission, and the rest of the ISS occupants became more frightened than their Earthbound brethren who were in their own strange orbits.

Captain Parks' doctoral thesis had been on Cepheid Variables, by which the universe's age and distances were determined. Now there were no variables out there that would be funded; there would be--no variation.

His scientific counterpart, Dr. Alan Thiel, an ecologist, had done his thesis on the doomed reliance on colonization to allow the Earth's people to escape the soiling of their planet, an extinction event, a nuclear war, or even a catastrophe of their Sun. Based on his thesis, he and a collaborator, Dr. Cydney Haas, had written a New York Times bestseller that delighted the environmental movement by stating the case that relying on colonization was an empty promise and we could never accomplish it. This was tantamount to announcing there had better evolve a better plan for preserving the world we have, for we had nowhere to run. Dr. Thiel cited technological barriers, religious intolerance, economic roadblocks, and political realities. The book had made it very difficult for him to end up on the ISS, yet, here he was, investigating the sky, to him that final barrier to colonization.

Now, it seemed, he should get busy with a changed attitude about escaping extinction events, since Russia abdicated fom START II, the US had begun sending Ukraine jets, and Europe was going to overreact very soon to being oilless.

Brian Parks was an Air Force pilot and a veteran of a Space Shuttle mission in the nineties. Dr. Thiel was the only other American, and both had been prepared to receive three more Americans in exchange for a return home on the Soyuz. All of that was put on hold, which Capt. Parks and Dr. Thiel could not understand, because it was a metaphysical hold. Nothing had really changed except a lot of posturing below. Everything beyond the Earth was exactly the same.

Day after day they all stood by.

After 120 days of standing by, the other nations’ spacefarers on board the ISS were keen to Dr. Thiel's idea to have a multinational meeting on board. Its purpose was to establish a position that they could propose to their respective nations together. It was hoped that such a unified approach would get the governments' attention in the matter, since they were now on a 30-day countdown for running out of food.

The Russian oxygen generator, dormant, had needed the replacement parts that would happen with the astronaut exchange that was to see the Americans home. Now all on board were relying on the pressurized tanks, but even they had a low-amount alarm due to go off in 45 days.

Certainly, everyone agreed, they won’t just let us all die up here. But certainly, everyone also agreed, it didn’t look like anyone down there would do anything until they had to.

All of the ISS inhabitants were confused as to the little or no interaction from below, and so they were all present and participatory at the meeting, held in the “Big Tube,” the long, large cylinder that had been installed the previous year. It had been meant to be used for medical experiments that required some amount of distance, and it was a welded 2-piece construction which was 20 feet in diameter and 100 feet long. All 40 were in attendance, each floating gently but tethered by a holding strap to one hand.

“I'd like to call this meeting to order,” Dr. Thiel announced. “Let it be recorded that members of the following nations are present: United States of America, Russia, People's Republic of China, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, South Africa, Pakistan, Japan, and India.

“I have called this meeting so that we could present our position and concerns with one voice. While politicos philosophize down below, we have become a minor concern. They've put more funding into Hubble and Webb than into our ISS here. I find this ironic, because we're one of the brightest objects in the sky right now. While they posture themselves to deal at the international, national, regional, and even neighborhood levels so that they can navigate the by-products and side effects of patriotism, sanctions, and oneupmanship, we risk all of the consequences of neglect. When a lot of money is being gobbled up in the phantom jaws of wars--cold and hot--there is none for us.”

“I make a motion,” offered Leonid Restov, the Russian biologist, “that we form a committee to draft our requests and needs, and we need to emphasize a timeline.”

“We're the committee,” Capt. Parks said angrily, and after a moment of murmuring, Dr. Restov withdrew his motion.

“Right,” agreed Dr. Chun, who wondered if his nation would be upset with him for not taking a leading role in this meeting.

The astronaut from Great Britain, Dr. George Kendall, a cosmologist, kept to himself as the discussion shifted back and forth from committee proposals to budget demands to a proclamation on how important the ISS still was, especially now that the civilization that made it may cease to exist soon. He just floated there with a half-grin. The talking went on for a half hour before he cleared his throat, the last among the 40 to interject. He raised his hand along with the cough.

“Yes?” Dr. Thiel asked.

“Do you want to get their attention?” he asked to all present. There were a few affirmative grunts. “How do you get anyone's attention? Especially these governments—our governments—who have had legacies of manifest destiny, usurpation, divine right authority, colonialism, imperialism, and a lot of other isms?”

“Go on,” Capt. Parks said.

“You do what they've always done--you take something from them that is theirs. That's how,” Kendall said.

“I don't get you,” volunteered Jacques Boudreaux, the Parisian.

“What's the only thing we can take from them that is theirs and ours to take?”

There were grins of realization rising en masse in the Big Tube.

“You mean us? The ISS?” asked Dr. Chun.

“But we already have it,” pointed out the South African, Dr. Machlachlan.

“No,” explained Dr. Kendall. “We declare ourselves a sovereign nation, independent of any nations of Earth. We close all correspondence with them until they come to us. Then we initiate diplomacy only after their act of good faith—I'm talking about getting us the hell out of here.” Silence ensued.

“I like it,” grinned the Texan, Capt. Parks.

“A Declaration of Independence,” Dr. Thiel said softly.

“A new Bastille,” added Dr. Boudreaux. “I move we name the free and independent ISS the Bastille.”

“That was a prison,” Parks said.

“Exactement!” the Frenchman exclaimed.

“I move we call it the Alamo,” Parks said.

“There's a motion on the floor, Brian” Dr. Thiel said, but this went nowhere—only one vote was cast for “the Bastille.” The Eastern hemisphere astronauts couldn't get behind the “Alamo,” either. But it didn't take long for them to finally decide on the name of their independent, sovereign nation.

Babel. This time, however, the tower that reached for creation was built from the top down.

A final motion was made, discussed briefly, and then voted into law—Babel’s first—by affirmation: whatever they would do they would do together, unified, and without any show of being distracted from below.

The ex-Vice President, the newly promoted President of the United States, conferred with his advisers, left over from the previous President who had resigned unexpectedly. He had become painfully aware of the difference in responsibilities between the Vice Presidency and the Presidency, a weight he now bore with considerable effort and some pain.

“Tell ‘em to keep it,” a wiry bald man advised.

“Tell ‘em to just have patience,” advised another who had some hair.

“Tell ‘em to ask the Russians,” chimed in a hard-faced woman. “They’re the ones with the taxi.”

The President rapped his fingers on the shiny, heavily waxed table.

“So what I’m being told, then,” he said to the woman in particular, “is that it’s really the Russians’ responsibility?” He sighed. “The fucking Russians. Having to depend on the fucking Russians to empty that tin can of air up there. Thanks, Barack, for shutting down the Shuttle.”

“Not that again,” said the wiry bald man. “He had to. It cost too much in lives.”

“No,” said the President, “it cost too much.” No one had a comeback. “So, the Russians?”

“Certainly,” she answered.

“I’m sure they’ll insist on bringing their cosmonauts home first.”

“How many seats does the Soyuz have?”

“Three, Mr. President,” said the woman.

“How many cosmonauts are there up there?”

“Two, Mr. President,” answered the man with hair.

“Well, at least they could bring another person down on the first trip.”

“Or they could be fair and do a lottery to see what three go first,” said the woman. “After all, we’re the ones who built the whole damn thing with our Shuttles.” The wiry bald man groaned.

“Well, Mr. President,” he said, “they’ll bring theirs home first, f’sure. I mean, what can anyone do? They’re the Russians. You know how they are.”

“And of course they’re not going to hire out their taxi for free,” added the woman. “They’ll run the meter the whole time. They’ll count the time in dog minutes. And paying the tab only means paying for their bombs.”

“Yea,” said the wiry bald man, “and guess who’s gonna pay that fare for everybody else?”

“Do we have any other options?” asked the President.

“We could restock it,” said the hard-faced woman, “but that would take an act of Congress.”

“Yes, I know how difficult it is to get something like that to happen,” the President agreed.

“No, Mr. President,” she corrected him, “it would literally take an Act of Congress. All NASA business has now been reassigned, under the auspices of the Science and Technology Committee.”

“How soon could we convene that committee?”

“On break, Mr. President,” said the man with hair.

“Till when?”

“Well,” added the man without hair, “the whole committee’s been tabled, what with needing all that science and technology for...other things.”

"And Space-X?" offered the President.

"Elon's in China, Mr. President," replied the woman.

"In China! Really? Doing what?"

"Touring factories or something. It's all about US-China trade, which is dangling in a fragile balance. Chinese arms may be in Ukraine right now."

"Are they?"

"Might be," she repeated.

"So, you don't know. Hmm. Would Space-X be ready for when he returns?"

"No one starts getting it ready until Elon gets back," the wiry man said.

“The Russians,” the woman offered again.

“The fucking Russians,” said the President. “O.K., then. New business.”

249 miles above the Earth, Leonid Restov decrypted the message he had just received. He and his comrade, Mikhail Anatolov, read it to themselves. The message from Roscosmos was brief but astounding:

Comrades Restov and Anatolov will—alone—take the Soyuz back to Earth immediately.

The Soyuz had three seats.

Anatolov looked at Restov. “I know,” Restov said.

“I don’t get it,” Anatolov said. “Russians only on the first trip. Just us? Is this some sort of statement of superiority? That we do it our way—or else?”

“That’s thinking left over from the old regime, Mikhail. Actually, it might make sense. Picking a third person from another nation--which?”

“Chinese?”

“How would Russia explain its choice to the other nations? What geopolitical gaffe might come out of such a misstep? Alliances could be made or destroyed. A most-favored nation could be assumed and might ruin whatever international strategies were afoot. These are dangerous times.”

“I guess,” agreed Anatolov.

“Especially,” added Restov, “since the other nations could fight it out for the repeat trips, leaving Russia out of the political drama.”

“I don’t know, Leonid,” Anatolov said, still unsure. “An empty seat is a pretty tough sell for diplomacy. In fact, my friend, it’s stupid.”

“We could simply disobey,” Restov suggested. “Just take one of the others.”

“We would be disciplined severely for insubordination; or if international strategy were jeopardized by choosing one nation over another, we could be tried as traitors.”

“We could send three of the others down; insist we go last. It would be hard to discipline such magnanimity.”

“Or,” concluded Anatolov, “we could just follow orders. The others understand orders.”

“Will they?” Restov asked. “They’ll know something’s up as soon as we engage the pre-flight protocols, which I remind you are very noisy. It can’t be done by sneaking around. And when everyone finds out a seat’s going empty, it could get very ugly when everyone starts jockeying for that third seat. I can only imagine.”

Restov outranked Anatolov, so he would be the one to make any decisions, although the Russian space agency had already commanded them what to do. Could the rest of the ISS be reassured that Soyuz would return, over and over, even with a sister vehicle, to finally get them all down? If that were the case, any rational, thinking passenger would surmise, then why waste a seat on such an expensive ride home now?

Later into their shifts, Restov and Anatolov met again at their console in their quarters. They each punched in codes and whispered in Russian to their loved ones from each corner of their com unit. Both men finished their calls within a minute of each other. They each placed their headsets back into their cubbies. Their faces had gone white.

“Do we know why, now, Leonid?” Anatolov asked. “I think we do.”

“You heard the same thing I did, then, Mickail?”

Restov and Anatolov had worked out their code long before liftoff from Kazakhstan. Their children knew it and their spouses knew it. The information came to them in no uncertain terms. The two cosmonauts learned what the unconscionable plan was. Their disguised conversations with family revealed to them that there were no additional launches being prepared: the Soyuz at the ISS was being commissioned for only a final one-way trip.

The old regime thinking was alive and well, in the capable hands of President-for-Life Putin.

Anatolov’s thinking matched Restov’s thought for thought. He looked into Restov’s eyes. The orders were highlighted on the screen. If they ignored the message from Roscosmos—like it never existed—they knew that either Russia would change plans or that they would be waiting forever for any different offers from below.

They fully expected the latter.

He followed Restov’s keystrokes, and finally he watched Restov’s finger linger over the delete button. Restov searched Anatolov’s expressions for any objection.

“Do it, Leonid,” Anatolov urged him. "Delete the orders. We never saw them."

Dinner that evening included heavy sedation for Anatolov and Restov, who slept soundly through the secret meeting among the others.

Hours later, it was the loud disengagement of Soyuz from the ISS docking clips that finally woke them up, both of them bolting upright in immediate recognition of what was happening. They scrambled to the next ISS segment, a supply section which had a window. They saw their Soyuz falling away toward Mother Russia. They strained to see through the small Soyzez window. Who was going?

It was Babel’s final gesture toward humanity—a selfless gesture toward the humanity on board, and a sarcastic one for the humanity below:

Soyuz had been jettisoned empty.

Pasted to one of the three vacant seats was a simple note, courtesy of the Frenchman: Répondez s'il vous plait: regrets only.