Proteus Ascending

The howling wind of this alien world whistles over the fuselage. Methane ice crystals crash against its skin, and I see memories of hail storms in New Orleans, the hot tin roof protecting Josh and me.

My twin brother, Josh.

A feeling of…loss.

A button blinks on a console, urging me to press it. A recorded message plays.

“Mother, this is Ares-1, Mission Specialist Daphne Stearns. At 0800 hours, Commander Dev Willoughby and S.O. Mark Trask suited up and attempted a landing site survey. Severe weather rolled in, causing zero visibility. Soon after, we lost comms due to interference from aerosolized copper within the storm. This would have made their suits’ acoustical triangulators unreliable. I enabled the lander’s visual beacon in hopes they would find their way back. That was nearly sixteen hours ago. Despite the ongoing storm, I am going out to search for them.”

I am Daphne Stearns. I cannot fly this lander.

Fear.

Hunger overwhelms me. I rip open a ration pack and choke down the soy-based slurry. The screen displays -200c outside. Copper-methane ice covers the ship. I keep the airlock temps above freezing for Willoughby. If he doesn’t make it, I don’t make it. I need a pilot.

Willoughby is the pilot. I remain imprisoned here without him. I want to be Willoughby.

Desire.

Will I make it back to Earth or live the rest of my miserable, short life on this icy prison planet? Maybe the storm will pass, and comms will return. Maybe Josh was right. Maybe I shouldn’t have run to space to get away from Dad. Maybe Josh would have understood if I told him what Dad did. Too late.

Shame.

My mind is a chaotic mess of memories and emotions. I hate it.

Hate.

That’s new, too. No, I hated Dad. Focus.

A klaxon howls from the aft. I rush to the airlock and peer out the thick-polymer window. Willoughby waves his forearm, alight with digital brilliance, back and forth past the porthole. The interior and exterior lights fire up, and the airlock sequence begins.

He’s alone. Having Trask’s O2 explains how he survived this long. The light turns orange, and he stumbles inside. Off comes his EVA suit, and despite the freezing temps outside, his jumper is soaked through with sweat. UV light douses him, and in an instant, he’s cleared to come inside the lander.

He sucks up fresh oxygen in exhausted gulps and climbs into his pilot seat. He looks at me as if he’s seen a ghost.

“Strap in. We’re buggin’ out.”

“What about Trask?” I already know the answer.

Dark eyes in an ashen face dart left to right before settling squarely on me. A deep breath and a hard swallow precede his news. “We were attacked.”

“Attacked? By what? When?” Again, I know the answer.

“When the storm started, Trask and I linked up a safety line, and we headed back here.” While he speaks, he flips switches and punches commands into the flight computer.

Hope.

I won’t be trapped on this rock. I won’t die here. I fight the urge to smile. “What attacked you?”

He shakes his head again. “It was too fast. Never saw it. Never heard it. One second I felt the tension of Trask on the line, the next, it went limp. I heard him scream. I turned, and he was gone.”

I remember probes finding no indigenous life on this planet. “Did you pursue it?”

His face becomes a grimace, and those dark eyes release tears. “I followed bloody drag marks in the snow, maybe twenty yards before finding him. Parts of him, anyway.”

Trask is dead. Be human. Comfort him. I reach out for Willoughby’s hand.

“Jesus, you’re ice cold.” He recoils and rubs the spot I touched.

I buckle into the co-pilot’s seat. Trask’s seat. I offer an excuse. “I tried to conserve power, to give you more time to make it back.”

He nods. “After hours of walking blind, I found a cliff. There was an artificial light visible below. I could have sworn it was your personal beacon flashing in the fog. I assumed you came out for us and fell over.” He scanned me again, seeing I was not lying in a foggy open grave, and returned to comms. “Mother, this is Ares-1. Preparing for emergency dust-off of LZ. ETA to rendezvous fifteen mikes, over.”

He doesn’t know about the comms yet.

The radio returns only white noise. This evokes memories of a trip to the ocean. St. Augustine, summer between seventh and eighth grade. Josh and I slept on the beach. He was afraid of sand fleas and whined all night. He was right. We woke up damp, covered in bites.

Regret.

The propulsion drive vibrates beneath me. “Comms are down since this storm rolled in.” I think about the recorded report I found. He pulls back on the yoke, and I sink into my seat.

"Blind approach it is. Let’s hope that Mother's where she belongs once we get above the atmosphere.” Willoughby pokes two fingers at the screen, increasing thrust.

We climb rapidly and break through the storm clouds. I watch the frozen methane split and slough off the lander’s skin. I remember our fourteenth birthday when Mom took me up in a hot air balloon without Josh. He was too sick by then. In the distance, I see a glimmer at the edge of the atmosphere. It’s Mother.

Anticipation.

“Right where she belongs.” He opens the comms again. “Mother, this is Ares-1. Do you copy?”

No response.

“Run a diagnostic,” he says.

I run it. Comms flash red. I rotate the display towards him. “Probably damaged by the storm.” Or someone who prefers escape to death. I see Josh’s face moments before his death. Pale and gaunt. So many tubes.

Sorrow.

“We can still dock without comms.” He brings up a submenu on his screen and initializes auto-dock.

Opportunity.

“Thank you, Commander Dev Willoughby. You’ve made things much easier.” I unlatch my seat belt and rotate toward him.

“Makes what easier? You need to stay buckled in, Daphne. Oh, God, no.”

Ascension.

***

I wipe the last bit of blood from the pilot’s seat and toss the rag atop what’s left of his body in the airlock, and vent the whole mess into space. As Ares-1 docks, I shut down the engines. I remember flight school, saying goodbyes to family, and this deep-space mission. I delete the log of my opening the airlock, then wait for Mother to receive me.

I check my new face and its dark eyes in the mirror before the doors open.

The captain greets me. “Sixteen hours without contact. We nearly lost hope. What the hell happened down there, Willoughby?”

“There was a storm. We lost comms. I lost Trask to exposure and Stearns to terrain. She left a report.”

“Are you injured?”

“I’m fine, just exhausted and hungry.”

“And maybe in shock.” He looks down his nose at me. “While you were gone, we got word from Mission Control, back on Earth.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “We’re headed home.”

I remember Willoughby's home. No, my home in Vancouver. I smile.

Freedom.