CONCEPCIÓN

"Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. They say so many things like, 'Rome wasn't built in a day,' 'Ignorance is bliss,' 'Love is blind,' and that thing about death and taxes. They must be in politics with all that blather.

"The thing about the scream, though, is completely true. Science! To be clear, nothing can be heard in space—scream or otherwise. Like a vacuum cleaner sucks up dirt and dust, space sucks up air. With no air there can be no sound, no scream."

"Andi, it's 0630."

"Yeah..." Andi frowned.

"I just woke up."

"Too early for science?"

"Too early for anything. Anything but—" Terra said as she raised her nose to catch the faint scent of brewing coffee, "ah, rocket fuel."

"All right. Let's go get you ready for blastoff," Andi said, jumping out of bed.

"Ha ha ha.” Terra rolled her eyes at the old joke.

Grabbing her friend by the arms, Andi’s voice exploded with propulsive rumbles until they were through their dorm room door and into the hallway. "Pohh-sssh!" Andi whispered.

Terra scowled at Andi then laughed, and the two young women bounced down the hall toward the Abaddon Unit commissary.

“Terrace, Terra?” Andi asked, motioning to the large glass doors leading to the large sitting area, spattered with tables and their caffeinating colleagues. Andi kept numerous quips in her quiver, as she would say, with which to tease her best friend of more than a decade. Since becoming roommates here at the Global Academy of Space Settlement (GASS), this was one of her most frequently used puns in rotation.

“Duh, Andromeda!” Terra said with an emphasis on the last syllable of Andi’s full name, rolling her eyes once again.

Andi snorted. “Not bad, not bad. We’ll work on that.”

The two took their favorite seats—the molded, glass bench with the best view of Earth—and sipped their coffee silently for a few moments.

“All right. Now, be honest. How was it?”

“The coffee?” Terra asked with a smirk.

“You know—my speech! Do you think the kids will like it?”

“Honestly?”

“Of course!”

Terra curled her legs up underneath her and turned to face Andi. “It’s great. Very informative. But—”

“But?”

“Well, it’s a bit too…too…”

“Nerdy?” Andi offered.

“Yes,” Terra said and grabbed Andi’s hand, “but that’s not necessarily a bad thing! Not everyone, but a lot of those kids are going to be fascinated by the scream thing. I just think, well, you might lose most of them with that politics thing.”

“What? It’s a great joke! I mean, you got it, right?”

Terra grimaced. “Well…”

“Stop it! You can’t be serious. C’mon…politicians, blowhards, fluff, lies, placation, tr—”

“Of course, I got that part, Andi. I mean the Rome stuff and, I can’t remember, but you said something about taxes.”

“You can’t tell me you don’t know those sayings.”

“Maybe? But, Andi, you’re speaking in front of a bunch of thirteen-year-olds. Most of them won’t even know what Rome was.”

“I think the group is supposed to include up to fifteen-year-olds,” Andi said, rubbing her hands together and cracking each knuckle individually.

“That’s great, but you know that’s not my point. Look, I know you would be just as straightforward with me, so I’m just offering you the same courtesy. You’re not mad at me, are you?”

Andi sighed. “No, of course I’m not. I just—well, you know.”

“I do. And it’s not like you can’t use some of that material at all. I would just stick with the majority being about the vacuum of space. After all, it’s one of the things—”

“—the main thing—”

“—yes, the main thing that got you into this field.”

Andi’s eyes fell, and she held her lips taut.

“Listen to me,” Terra said, leaning over until Andi reciprocated eye contact. “Your mom’s work was groundbreaking. She made your work possible.”

“By dying…”

“By sacrificing her life for thousands of others!”

Andi slunk from the bench and kneeled in front of the window, placing both hands on the glass and leaning close, waiting for her breath to fog. It didn’t; it never did in space. Back on Earth as a child, this was one of her favorite things to do. She would breathe onto a window until it fogged and then write, “I love you,” on the glass, a message to her mom.

She did it on all glass: house windows, bathroom mirror, in the car—initially to her mother’s dismay, but that faded faster than the words. Her mother, Nevaeh, had come to look forward to these love notes and soon began to join in. She would breathe hot, new life into the text then add below it simply the word, “more.” This continued until there was to be no “more.”

Andi ached to leave the message for her mother now. The GASS Moon Base, however, had taken extra measures to insulate their unearthly home from its many challenges, its risks. The base’s windows—proprietarily called GlASS, colloquially GASS Glass—consist of a fogless, scratchless, shatterproof interior layer that, despite its strength, is no thicker than that of an old storm window back on Earth. On the exterior is a meter thick material lab-proven to handle temperatures as low as 0 degrees Kelvin to as high as 20 million, hotter than the interior of this galaxy’s sun.

Was this range necessary for living on the Moon? Probably not. However, no one was taking any chances or sparing any costs—not this time.

Additionally, there is a middle layer of GlASS which regulates the temperature between the other two layers, filters light from the sun as well as any other potential source, and prohibits the passage of radiation. All this and more with but a negligible effect on image quality, made possible by the work of Andi’s mom and her team, both before and after her death.

No, there would be no way to leave a foggy love note on a window, no message to send to the beyond. A satellite passed through Andi’s vision, the second this year. She rested her head against her hands then flinched when Terra touched her shoulder. “Come on, Andi. Come here.” Terra knelt too, and Andi folded into her arms, perhaps to sob or maybe vomit, but all that came was a ghostly groan—an apropos sound byte for the base’s audible dictionary under the word, “Mourning.”

Several others came over either to offer help or witness the train wreck, but Terra shooed them all away. Only when the digitized voice of Dr. Boeing, GASS’s first director, rung out over the comm system announcing first sessions, did Terra help her friend to her feet, give her one more hug, then escort her to their class: Martian Soil II with Professor Albright.

Andi was trapped in a daze for most of the class—that is, until Albright appeared at her side, leaned down, and said, “I’ve just asked everyone to select one aspect of lunar regolith and one of Martian regolith then to compare and contrast the two. You may start now with a two to three-thousand word essay due next session.” They paused before asking, “Have you heard what I’ve just said, Cadet Blare?”

Andi turned the glasspad on her desk toward them and pointed to the words she’d written. Albright stood straight as a pin. “You do impress me, Cadet Blare. I look forward to your essay,” they said before returning to their desk.

Terra leaned over. “How did you catch all that? Word for word! You were in a total trance.”

Andi answered flatly, “I think I knew what they were going to say before they said it.”

“Wait, what? That’s ridiculous.” Terra chuckled, but her voice shook. “Andi, what—”

“It’s nothing, Terra. I didn’t mean anything. Let’s just get to work.”

So they did. The two young women scrawled their thoughts onto their glasspads, the devices shrinking the text, making it clear, uniform, and correcting any errors. Andi had none.

The following day Andi arose early, as usual. This time she did not wake Terra. She readied herself quietly and slipped away before 0600. She didn’t need to be to Earth until 1700, but Andi always liked to give herself a few hours before heading down to Transport. Reflecting on the day before, specifically her cherished memories of her mom and the potential edits to her speech, Andi rode the T-Plat to the SimLab, which she expected to find empty at this hour.

She scanned her palm for entry and found it as she expected. Glad not to have to wait for use of the equipment, Andi settled in at the main controls. Her steps activated the power sensor, lighting up a translucent grid suspended in the air all around her. From there her movements grew and sped, data flying about her, positioning itself in her orbit.

Andi placed a pair of simtrodes on her temples and closed her eyes. When she reopened them, the simulation began. She was inside the Concepción, the vessel commanded by her mother and final witness to her demise.

As the entry bay door closed, Andi waved at a younger version of herself with her mother’s hand. She could recall both her own and her mother’s emotions as they waited for the wall to rise between them, neither knowing it would be for the last time.

In her mother’s body she walked the ship for one final check-in with each of her team’s factions. Everything, they promised, was perfect. They were ready to begin their mission: to construct the TUBS (Transmutation Unit for Breathable Space). The TUBS was Dr. Nevaeh Blare’s brainchild and, if successful, would be revolutionary in the way humans explore, experience, and exist in outer space. According to Dr. Blare’s hypothesis, a sort of bubble could be created which would surround a person, a group, an area, perhaps an entire building and allow their matter to survive in space outside of a station, ship, or even a suit.

In reality there would be a minor barrier between that which needs protecting and space, itself; however, to whomever or whatever was inside the bubble, it would be as if there were none at all. The bubble could be manipulated in size and shape, while inside it. It could be breathed in, seen and heard through as if it were nothing but air—actual air in space. “Impossible,” everyone said. Dr. Blare didn’t believe so, and once she presented the science, many others didn’t believe so either.

Inside the sim Andi occupied her mother’s body through take-off, the excited call-and-response of those on the Command Deck with her. She’d engaged this sim countless times before, but then came the scene she’d always end it: the terrible trumpeting of the alarm notifying all on board of an emergency. The subcutaneous wristbands worn by the entire crew simultaneously vibrated, accompanied by an automated message, repeating, “HULL SHIELDS BREACHED!” in both text and audible readout.

This go-round Andi gritted her teeth, stayed her fears, and moved forward with the simulation.

Surrounding the body of the spacecraft, the hull was purported to be impenetrable. The initial issue was not the spacecraft’s body; it was its windows. Through her mother’s eyes, Andi heard the details from the chiefs of engineering and security as well as officers from various decks reporting back via their comms. Andi’s mom had already suspected the true crisis; these accounts only reinforced it.

Dr. Blare ran to the nearest emergency shaft, shouting orders through her comm to be heard above the still-clanging alarm. “Security, I need you to spread yourselves across all decks. Search every room. Move all non-essential personnel to the CSU. Deck chiefs, assist. On my order take them through the cargo hatch to the EEVs, board, and get the hell out of here!” A voice began to dissent, but Dr. Blare, catching her breath, forged on, both with her journey and instructions.

“Engineering staff and officers, meet me in Forward Engineering.” She paused, screeching to a halt in front of an aft window. Her fingers fluttering, she touched the glass. There was a crack running from the upper-left corner nearly to the bottom-right. She could touch the fissure. Her breath left her.

No, not left. It was removed. The sensation was so real, Andi felt her own throat parch and grabbed her chest in response and time with her mother. Just then, in the sim, a second alert chimed in: “AFT SECTION LIFE SUPPORT FAILURE!”

Andi was confused as to why there had been no near-failure warning, according to its design. It seemed her mother equally was shocked. Nevertheless, she drove her oxygen-starved body ahead to the next emergency shaft where, thankfully, life support was still functioning. She gasped and held her body against the wall until the disorientation passed, precious seconds later.

As they tripped together down the ladder, Andi wondered why her mother had gone into the aft section at all, having told her team to meet her forward. She willed her mother to change direction, while unwillingly being dragged further into the depths of the aft section of the Concepción.

The ship had been named by Andi’s father before he passed. He’d had an incurable form of Saints’ Disease; at the age of forty-four, he’d already long outlived the previous oldest Saints’ patient, who died at forty-one. Andi had hoped her mother would change the name to honor her father, using his name, Luis, instead of their mother/daughter, shared middle name. But she refused, not wishing to go against her late husband’s wishes for fear of bad luck, she’d said. What more bad luck can you have than dying? Andi had thought, at the of the loss of her mother and the staining of her father’s legacy all in one tragic instant.

That juncture was soon approaching in the sim. Even though she’d never remained this long inside, Andi had read the full reports given by each surviving officer, chief, and even some of the others onboard who had insight into what occurred in her mother’s last minutes. Her second in command, Officer Jemm’s booming voice filled the comm, threatening to burst through: “Captain, all requested personnel are in Forward Engineering awaiting your arrival. ET—”

A shrill, panicked voice cut in: “Sorry, sir, umm, Captain? This is Chief Harold, Fifth Deck, and I’m afraid we have a, um, an insurmountable issue here with, in the EEV Unit.”

“Continue,” ordered Officer Jemm.

“Yes, sir, well, EEVs Neptune, Uranus, and Jupiter are out of commission. They won’t—they cannot fly. Not today.”

Although Andi had known this information already, hearing it firsthand was shattering. She nearly stopped the sim, on the verge of breaking down. There had been eight Emergency Escape Vessels (EEVs) aboard the Concepción. They were outfitted with only the bare minimum, their primary purpose to save lives—as many lives as possible. The Concepción carried 5,280 people into space that day. Without Neptune, Uranus, and Jupiter, three of the largest EEVs, nearly half would not survive—perhaps more, perhaps all.

Having reached the bottom of the shaft, Dr. Blare quieted her body, slowed her breath, and spoke quickly but clearly over the comm—all channels: “We haven’t much time, so I will be brief. Aft is lost, but the Concepción does not have to die today. You, her crew, do not have to die. Not today.”

Dr. Blare opened the hatch in front of her and came face to face with a large panel. It was not linked to the mainframe. Andi’s mom had told her about it, but Andi had never seen this centuries old technology in person. There were two, large metal doors, hinged at the sides and connected at the center by a large cylinder which Andi recognized from drawings to be a barrel lock. Barrel locks required physical keys—small, metal, tech-free tools—in order to be opened. Dr. Blare, herself, her top three ranking officers, and the chief of engineering were the only crew members with copies of this key. They kept these keys on their person at all times, no exceptions.

As her mother stepped up and unlocked the cabinet, Andi could swear she heard a noise behind her. She wanted to turn but, being at the mercy of the sim, she could not. She attempted to train her ears toward the noise she heard, but it was immediately drowned out by her mother’s voice—her penultimate comm message: “My dedicated team, my friends, do not grieve the losses of Neptune, Uranus, and Jupiter. I have found the source of the hull’s compromised state in C-Section.”

C-Section had been Dr. Blare’s idea—a part of the ship furnished with its own, artificial gravitational pull. It wasn’t new technology, per se, but this was its newest application. Its purpose was to “attract peril,” not by drawing none where none would have otherwise existed but to localize any dangers the ship might be confronted with during its crossing between the Earth and the Moon, which back then took approximately twenty-four hours one way. The C-Section tech had not yet undergone a live test—something theretofore intended as a side mission for a time during which work on the TUBS would not be possible. It would face that test prematurely.

“Cap…Nevaeh,” Officer Jemm said, all professionalism drained from his voice, “what are you doing? Get over here!” The separation of C-Section had been designed to be performed remotely. It was an important defense, yes, but one that could be sacrificed for the sake of the ship’s superstructure.

“The remote controls have been disabled. I will have to perform the separation manually. In the event I am not successful, please have all functional EEVs boarded as you see fit, Officer Jemm. It has been an honor working with all of you.” Dr. Blare took a deep breath. “Tell Andi, ‘I love you more.’” Andi had been played this part of the message once all communication had been retrieved and examined. Although she knew it was coming, she nearly split in two upon hearing it, the experience being as if in real time.

Dr. Blare tore her comm badge from her suit, tucked it back inside the emergency hatch, then walked into the separation bay. Andi knew—had been told many times—there had been no reason for the remote controls to be disabled other than human error, a malfunction, or pure chance. Andi thought about the noise she’d heard, gone silent, and shivered.

There was no time to don a suit, no time to circumvent the issue or solution. Andi’s mother used her key once more to access the override panel. Not one more moment to spare, she reached inside with both hands, grasped the switch, and pulled.

No one had ever told Andi how violent it was. She’d always presumed her mom had screamed and, with time, had developed a mental film between fact and emotion. Her mother’s irrefutable terror somehow was made more palatable by a hypothetical scream, one which Andi imagined in slow motion, enveloped in stars—almost beautiful. But there was no beauty in reality.

At the severing of C-Section from the rest of the Concepción, Dr. Blare’s hands were caught inside the mechanism. Her arms ripped from her body within a nanosecond as she was sucked into space. A trail of sublimated blood exploded in space, its tiny crystals like red snow in her body’s wake.

Andi’s mouth inside her mother’s was opened wide, to the extent she thought her jaw might crack—worse, that she would die too.

The sim began to pixelate, reaching its end. Andi’s head felt as if it might burst. Woozy, with the sim over and nothing to grab onto, she toppled. The last thing she heard before losing consciousness was her mother’s voice—her scream.