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2036
Astronauts really weren’t supposed to be alone. Not at the space station, it wasn’t made to run that way, three permanent residence were assigned at all times, and they were rarely alone.
But mistakes happen. A gash the size of her forearm down his side, red perfectly round droplets hanging in the air like ping-pong balls in suspended animation. A face as ashen as the grave and yelling, they never yelled.
Peridot was chosen for her composed personality, composed in theory, less so in practice. She watched her coworker burst open and heard NASA ringing in her ear: what would you even do with a dead body in space?
But he wasn’t gone yet.
They pressed a template they never had before: cрочный спуск, the Soyuz computer sprang to life, emergency.
NASA kept ringing in her ears. Some young women named Janet was talking to her now, she was talking back.
Rod wasn’t going to make the journey if he went back alone. His eyes were barely open, red blooming droplets still swam in the room like liquid party balloons, Peridot never liked the word helpless.
She looked to Nikolai and told him to ‘get the fuck down there,’ someone needed to take the CRV shuttle down with him. Nikolai’s heavy-lidded eyes studied her, he pursed his lips, and she said it once more in Russian and then again in English.
They secured Rod’s bandage a second time, his warm face a distant star on the horizon. She grabbed onto his hand and told them ‘to get the fuck down there.’
They pressed cрочный спуск, the shuttle launched down with Kazakhstan readying down below, God, they had to be ready.
And she was alone.
Astronauts were not supposed to be alone.
The quiet was as engulfing as the urgency was before, Janet had apparently gone to take a break, they were on the sun side of the planet. Peridot started counting. It would take them 3.5 minutes to get back to earth. It would take three days for a shuttle to come back to the state. It would take three hours for the shuttle to be attached to the station.
It would take some undisclosed amount of time for them to sort out the politics down below. Astronaut’s don’t just burst open. And Peridot was alone.
She continued as normal, there was nothing else to do, she had at the very least three days to herself, and there was cleaning to do. Maintenance, communication.
It turned into four days.
She was talking to a young man named Ted on the telecom now, she sort of hated young men named Ted at that moment.
Politics were messier than space and no one was even set up to relieve her yet. NASA was in some sort of limbo, Russia wasn’t talking. Peridot was alone.
It was the sixth day when the shuttle finally launched, a crew of three, Peridot had already forgotten their names, but she would have months to memorize them anyway.
Peridot was turning off the intercom whenever Ted buzzed in, but she didn’t notice the static until it started echoing off the hallways like a ghost. Though, Peridot didn’t believe in ghosts.
No self-respecting scientist believed in ghosts. They were on the planet side of the sun, dark, alone, dumping heat back into the square hallways through the vents.
Peridot heard the hush of static in her sleep, strapped down and frowning deeply as she screwed her eyes shut. It felt like she was getting tinnitus. For a moment she refused to wake up, she had to keep her schedule, or else what the fuck else was she going to have up here.
The static breaths again and her thoughts break off and on; finally, she sits up, after all, they don’t know what to do with dead bodies in space. She ripped her sleep mask off and cocked her head to the side.
Ssshhhhhh
She squirmed out of her restraints and floated to the side of the room, “It’s probably just Yulia messing with the frequencies planetside,” She mutters to herself, nicely hearing her own raw voice in the dark, “Just Yulia…”
She pulled herself up and out, going to the communication bay while passing the wide yawning emptiness of the station. It could technically suit ten people, the size of a five-person house, but apparently, earth was still arguing. Two more days.
Sssshhhhhhh
She sighs and follows the noise, she really wasn’t in the mood for system malfunctions. She tapped on the screen of the newly installed video chat. It sprang to life with the headquarters of NASA asking who she would like to get ahold of today.
Peridot blinks. But no one was hailing her.
Sssshhhhhh
She looks around, her skin crawling slightly. None of the devices in the room were lighting up or winking at her. None of them were making any sounds at all. She scratches the back of her hand and accepts the fact the noise really wasn’t coming from this room.
Peridot turns around in circles, she leaves a message to the NASA night crew that there was a possible technical issue on the ISS. Two days before any crew was set to land, Peridot groaned, and just her.
She takes deep breaths and pushes herself off toward what she could only assume was the source.
Ssssshhhh
She cringes as she crosses the ‘unity’ room into the Russian side of the station, empty as a ghost town and twice as unnerving. But Peridot doesn’t believe in ghosts.
Ssssshh-he-sssshh–ll-ssh-o
“Ah!” She clutches at her own heart as something, a voice something, echoes off the halls. She takes a rasping breath and turns in every which direction.
Ssh, hello? It comes again.
Peridot’s mouth hangs open, she finds herself outside of a room that had been used as the old communication hub, back when they had separate ones instead of a ‘bubble of trust.’
Peridot cocks her head to the side, one of the radios attached to the wall and ingrained in the system was making a soft but distinct buzz. Most of the old pre-2025 devices had been removed or repurposed but this one felt like she was reaching backward in time.
Peridot looked at it, she should go report this. Houston would want to know one of the 2000 models was acting up.
Shhh-h–ssss
Peridot reaches forward, her fingering hovering in midair and her eyes glued to the intercom, there was definitely something bubbling underneath the static.
And of course, she did believe in aliens.
Peridot presses down on the feedback button and wets her lips, she leans down into the speaker, “Is someone there?”
Peridot holds her breath, watching the blinking red light of the transmitter in the dark center of the room. It had been repurposed several years ago to be another storage and business room.
She blinks and waits a minute, suddenly feeling a little silly, she should really be sleeping right now. Or reporting it. She watches the blinking red light and counts.
Sixty seconds, 180 seconds, three minutes, Peridot is about to take her finger off the feedback button when something comes back in a clear audible articulation.
“Oh thank God,” Peridot’s mouth fell open, it was a woman, she leans back down to reply, but the voice kept going, “Can you hear me? Is someone there? I am Lapis Lazuli of the Argus, Landing Mission One, ESA. Can you hear me?”
Peridot gasped, “Oh my god-”
Lapis talked quickly, “We have been pushed out off route and…Can anyone hear me?”
“Yes!” Peridot returned as soon as she got ahold of her voice, perhaps yelling into the speaker a little too loudly, “We thought, I, are you safe? We thought the Argus was lost, what’s your status?”
Peridot did the math in her head, it would take four to five minutes for radio waves to transmit between Earth’s orbit and the Argus. The Jupiter moon’s mission.
“I can’t see our location, but I think I am stranded near the atmosphere of Jupiter, repeat I can see the troposphere…I don’t know where I am.”
“Lapis,” Peridot spoke into the speaker, hoping they could balance out their conversation, “I am Peridot of the International Space Station, NASA, I can hear you loud and clear. What’s your status?”
She waits. Counting, sixty seconds, two minutes, three minutes, God, she needed to tell someone about this. But she hears the sharp intake of breath on the other end.
“ISS?” Peridot exhales as the woman responds, “Thank God, okay, this is Lapis Lazuli, reporting again from the Argus. The…the life support system is sustaining it looks like but none of the ram’s are responding, I think we’re disconnected from the rockets.”
“Lapis,” Peridot hunched over, “What is the status of the crew? How much oxygen do you have left? What…what happened?” She remembered reading about the Argus a week ago. About the radio silence on the other end of one of the most ambitious human-manned missions into their solar system.
One minute. Two minutes. Three. Four.
“I,” She heard the other astronaut falter, “I have the full amount of oxygen left that we had carried with us for the return journey.” She paused a hitch of static filled the air, “The crew is incapacitated.” The voice says emotionlessly, “We were hit with an unexpected projectile and pulled into Jupiter’s orbit, we didn’t calculate the full effect of the mass of planet on our ship it seems,” She chuckled, one of the most surprising sounds Peridot had ever heard, “I guess we are still making scientific discoveries.”
“Do you have your satellite? Where is your telecom? We can-”
The delay continued to confuse their conversation, “It’s acting like a black hole, we tried to fix the rockets to propel us back to Io but there wasn’t enough power, everyone else,” The young women took a deep breath, “They tried to get back to Io without the ship. Some of our jets were still working for the suits.”
“Oh my God,” Peridot whispered.
“It didn’t work.”
Peridot waited, making sure Lapis was finished and the full four to five minutes passed so Lapis could get Peridot’s message.
She heard another laugh on the other side, “We really need a better system than this. How about we say over when we’re done talking?” Peridot’s shoulder’s tensed, she sounded so young. “Anyway, to answer your question, our telecom was damaged when the projectile thrust us off course, I just recently jerry-rigged this device in order to be picked up on low frequencies.” Peridot nodded, Lapis took an audible breath, “Over.”
Peridot leaned her head up against the cool metal of the side panelings, she clears her throat, “Lapis,” she said quietly, “Do you need me to contact anyone?” It had taken that crew six years to get to Jupiter’s moons. “Over.”
Peridot squeezed her eyes shut.
She heard the next notes like a deflating balloon, “So you’ve figured it out too?” She said back with a controlled tremor to her voice, “Well… I have a few people I would like to message if you could write it down.”
Peridot found a pen and paper and wrote down the women’s mother’s name, her college professor’s email, and her ex-lover’s phone number.
“Do you want me too,” Peridot cringed, “uh, write down messages for them? For me to say to them. Over.”
She waited, she heard a sigh when the four minutes passed, “Just tell my mom I love her. That sort of thing. Tell the professor I wouldn’t be here without her, I mean, not here, in space, in a bad way, shit, actually don’t tell her that. Tell her her intro classes are still making freshman wet themselves and I love it.” Peridot laughed.
“And the last one?” Peridot asks as she waits for Lapis to come back to her.
Lapis gave a snort, “Flip her off for me. Maybe subtly infer she’s been skipping arm day and is looking a little noodly. That would make my night. Over.”
Peridot laughs and it’s hard for her to take this all in, she should be writing it down. “You know,” Thoughts ran through Peridot’s head, “Are the rockets really not working? Because a simple continued jerry-rig of the thrusters back to the navigation might, hmm, help.”
The response takes longer than usual, “Don’t do this me.” Comes the hushed reply, “I’ve tried, Peridot, don’t you think I’ve tried? Whoever you are from wherever. Don’t do it.”
“Peridot Farid.” She returns slowly, blinking into the dark. “I’m from Minneapolis.”
Lapis hummed, “Oh…I’m from Belgium. Ghent. Nice to meet you.”
Peridot’s insides felt like they were turning all over the place, “I’ve been to Belgium, it’s very beautiful.”
“Not underwater yet?” The other girl joked, slightly off time due to the time lapse.
“They’re trying their best,” Peridot says with a sniff, “And they never invented a statute called ‘the Twinkie Law,’ so they did better than my city.”
She heard a strange groan from the other end of the line which made Peridot sat up straight, “I would honestly give anything right now for a twinkie. Anything.”
Peridot ends up laughing, “Alright, top ten food goos and then worst goos, go.”
Lapis made a choking sound, “Nooo, Peridot Farid, all I want right now is some ripe cherries, a medium rare steak, fuck it, a rare steak, and ten twinkie’s, one for every finger. No goo.”
Peridot was snickering, “Well I want a nice hamburger and maybe a salad with ranch dressing. Kleenexes. Running water.” She smiles to herself, “And a proper toilet.”
The silver sound of a laugh comes back from the other end, “Wrong answer! The whole reason I went to space was for suction toilets.”
“Oh come. on”
“What we all really need is at least one beer each.” Peridot snorts, Lapis bemoans, “A margarita, two loggers, some vodka, good vodka, the kind the Russians would give to their moms.” Lapis lamented and Peridot shook her head.
“Why did you go to space then?” She asks fondly at the other end, “It’s the last dry county in humanities jurisdiction Dutch girl.”
Lapis laughed on the other end, “We’re getting personal now? Well, you first, why are you in space hurtling above the earth developing poor bone mass?”
Peridot let herself float up a little higher, using the next minute to think about her answer, she leans toward the speaker, “Height.”
The five minutes pass and all that comes back is a confused, “What?”
“I gain two and a half inches every time I come up here. Eventually, I figure I’ll hit five feet.”
A loud guffaw comes back, “Taller! Of course, but what is that in human measurements?”
Peridot rolled her eyes, “Old habits. 6.35 centimeters and 1.524 meters, happy?”
“Woof,” Lapis says back cheerily, “They really do bring them in smaller each year. Over.”
Peridot exhaled dramatically, “Back to you then Miss Lapis. How tall are you? I don’t know, what’s your favorite, hmm, tea?”
Two minutes, three, four.
“Tea? Boring. You know how close Jupiter’s atmosphere is to me right now? Ask me about my childhood nightmares and favorite sex position.” Peridot opened her mouth to respond with a dismissive sniff, but Lapis adds quietly at the end, “…it’s mint by the way. Mountain mint.”
Peridot smiled and her eyes bunched up into themselves, “Well, my childhood nightmare was santa having claws and strangling me.” Peridot says good-humoredly as she drums her fingers on her leg.
“Is that your favorite position as well?”
“Lapis,” She says warningly, Peridot considers turning around, the next five minutes left her contemplating if it was a crank call. Houston did have some annoying interns.
“Strangling is perfectly natural, no need to be ashamed. I did it to my barbie dolls and everything.”
Peridot rolls her eyes, “They really do send them up crazier each year.”
Lapis laughs, it’s a strained laugh and Peridot purses her lips, “Peridot?” Lapis says, barely audible over the static this time.
“Yeah?” She waits.
“Can you see earth?”
Peridot’s shoulder’s slump over, she nods before taking her finger off the feedback button and floating back over to the observatory. Two hours had passed.
She looks out over a deep brown storm cloud over China and the darkness of the earth side of the sun, she goes back to the transmitter, “We’re over the Bahama’s. It’s blue right now, very, very blue.”
She hears the softest of sounds over the radio, “My haul is made of titanium.” Lapis says carefully, “But I’m not sure if the radio waves will be disturbed by the planet’s magnetic field.”
“Oh.” Peridot says back, squeezing her eyes shut, knowing Lapis was still talking.
“And then the radiation will begin anyway,” Lapis made something that was almost a laugh, “remember those numbers okay? Tell my mom. You know. Tell my teacher I wasn’t going to make it without her, but not in this way. And tell Jasper to, you know, fuck off.”
“Wait,” Peridot says breathlessly.
“I’m about to be sucked into the atmosphere, wait a little for me, k? We can see if this mess of a radio might hold up. Just wait a little. Then go tell the world I went out fighting a space octopus, tell them there are definitely space octopuses and the Argus went down swinging.”
“Okay,” Peridot rasps, holding the button down until the tip of her finger bleached. “Okay!” She racks her brain for what to say, what eulogy’s people ended with or last lasting sentiments that maybe meant something, “I’ll eat some twinkies for you. Ten. One for each finger.”
Peridot waited. Two minutes. Three minutes. Five. Peridot was shaking, this isn’t what she expected when she woke up this morning, they orbited into the sun side of the planet. What was she even going to tell Houston? How do you start that report?
Peridot rubbed her stinging eyes, “I’ll put them on my fingers too. Eat them in some Dutch coffee shop and kick your ex in the shins.” She pushed at her palm into her sockets, “Oh God, oh my God.”
Her legs felt numb, she took her finger off the button. She was still glad she didn’t believe in ghosts, she didn’t need this one.
She turned back to exit the room and float to somewhere far away and cold and curl up for a little bit.
Shhh–What’s up loser?!”
Peridot jumped and turned around instantaneously, “Lapis?!”
“Can you hear me? I can’t see out my window right now, but the magnetism might not be messing with my radio as much as I thought. More discoveries for science, yay, have them name a cockroach after me or something. Unless, of course, you can’t hear me and this is just, you know, the death chasm I’m speaking into-”
“I can hear you!” Peridot yelled as her finger jammed into the switch, the red light flaring like a fog horn. “I can hear you, it’s still working!” She didn’t know why she was excited, this girl was entering into one of the most radioactive places in the solar system, Peridot kept her eyes on the speaker.
“You waited after all.”
Peridot bit her lip, “Yeah. I waited.”
The four minutes felt excruciating, “I figure I have around forty-five minutes… Anyway, if you’re curious, it is incredibly hot. If I didn’t have any decency left I would be naked.”
Peridot sniffs, “No one can see you you know. And I imagine it’s burning up.”
The next transmission was garbled, but she could still make it out, “Dying in the void of space is one thing, dying in the void of space butt-naked is another.”
Peridot couldn’t get herself to laugh this time, she tried, “Well, I’ll tell everyone you were wearing a full suit of armor. Pearls. The octopus didn’t have a chance.”
Lapis made a soft sound, “That’s really all I ask, heels too, I miss heels. I felt tall, like one of those small dogs on top of tables? Or the fact you enjoy getting 5 centimeters taller in space?”
Peridot made an exasperated noise, “I don’t suppose you mock all the people you share last words with.”
Lapis gave a chuckle, “Just you darling.” A long pause follows, Peridot doesn’t move to fill it, Lapis took her time with another slow breath, “Tell me about something.”
Peridot blinked, “I have a collection of coins from the Ottoman empire.”
“Okay,” Lapis sounded faint, “Who was your first crush? Besides 16th century Sultans or something I mean. What was your first book? What was your favorite kiss? Come on,” Lapis snickered, “I’m dying here.”
Peridot’s skin felt too tight, itching in the dark, “Martina Rodriquez. Fifth grade, she punched me in the face once after I told her to leave my school. I learned to read when I was three so I don’t really remember the books, accelerated learning and all. I learned to speak in full sentences when I was six. My first kiss was,” Peridot sighs, “Don’t laugh okay? In my college’s chemistry lab, age 23.” She says all of it quickly, fast, time was measured in fours and fives.
A laugh came back from the other side of the universe anyway, “Chemistry lab? God, you’re the one giving astronauts a nerdy name.”
“Hey!”
“And it’s cute. You sound cute. I’m sure you’re very smart too, can probably name way too many numbers of pi.” She could, “I guess I was like that too…Why I’m up here.” Lapis trailed off.
“Why you’re up here?” Seven minutes.
“I saw Cassiopeia one night… my grandpa told me they hung her upside down in the night sky to punish her. I fell in love,” Peridot clenched her jaw, “I guess you could say that’s how it happened. Love or whatever.”
“Lapis-” Peridot put her face next to the speaker.
“You know, I always thought this is what I wanted to do.” Lapis was faltering, “And it is.” She repeats, “I think it was always what I wanted to do.” They came a pause and Peridot hears a strangled retching noise on the other side.
“Lapis!” She yells into the intercom, “Lapis, are alright?”
It took a very long time before she got a response, she was back to waiting, “Yeah,” A voice finally said hoarsely, “Just…puking. You know, when you get to see food goo all over again? That feeling.” Lapis sounded like she was trying to laugh, “Peridot?”
“Yeah?”
“Who was this first kiss?” Lapis asked quietly before sniffing, “Was she cuter than me? I hope not…And, then, what’s, what’s your favorite tea?”
Peridot squeezed her free hand closed, balling it up into a painful fist, “No. She was a Ph.D. student and thought that Potato Poots was a good pet name. She…” Peridot snorted, “Wasn’t cuter than you, promise. My, my, favorite tea is Black tea. I used to drink it with my aunts.”
Two minutes. Three minutes. Six.
“Potato Poots? Take that back, that is a wonderful pet name and now I’m going to date this girl that was your first kiss,” Peridot chuckled, “Black tea is a good choice. The closest one to coffee. My brother owns a coffee shop,” Lapis was talking quickly now, “Visit him too. Tell him…I’m sorry. I’m sorry we fought so much, God, for everything.”
“Yes, yes, I mean-”
“Tell all of them I loved them. Dammit, even Jasper, tell her to get her shit together. None of this…none of anything else. Nothing else matters.”
Peridot sighs and her entire body is shaking, “I can do that, yes. Lapis, we won’t forget.”
“That I died naked in the void of space?” Lapis returned back after seven minutes, “Because that’s a thing now.”
“Naked, fighting an octopus, right?” Peridot says with her face straining into a smile.
“Yeah.” Lapis was constantly panting on the other end now, but her voice came through. “Who was your first love Peridot?”
Peridot felt her mouth go dry, she hadn’t drank in hours. Houston would be furious. “I’ve never been in love.” She whispered back, “I just wanted to do…this.” She flinches at the wording.
Lapis took eight minutes to respond, “Yeah?” She said breathlessly, “Well. Do that for me, k? Being in love is nice. It’s like this, except no one is riding into the next layer of Jupiter’s helium.”
Peridot gave a weak smile, “It’s like this?”
“It’s like this.” Wheezing, “Go do that for me.”
“How’re you feeling?” Peridot tried to get her to keep talking, Lapis told her that she threw up again. Peridot could hear her audible breathing through the speaker, she was gasping.
“We weren’t really over the Bahama’s were we?”
Peridot frowns, she looks out toward where the window would be, “It was dark out., yeah. But the cities are bright. Like stars, we always liked stars, right? People like us.”
“People like us collect Ottoman coins and cover their hands in twinkie’s Peridot.”
She smiled, “Good. I hear that’s what being in love is like.”
Lapis coughed, a deep gurgling sound that filled the air, “Sounds dumb.”
“It is.”
Peridot could hear her fading out, “Lapis? Lapis how’re you-”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck-” A sob responds.
“Lapis.”
“FUCK, I don’t want to die.”
“Wait, wait, no, it’s going to be okay.”
“Quick, tell me something nice to say, something good, God, GOD, I wish I had been good.”
“Lapis! Lapis, wait,”
“Peridot,” She could hear the crying now, the silver wet tremor in her voice, “Peridot I can’t see anything. It’s so hot, oh my god, I can’t do this, PERIDOT-”
Peridot screams back into the mike, “I’m here! I’m here! Lapis, wait!”
No sound comes back from the other side, Peridot’s eyes go wide, she counts back up to a thousand. She can’t feel her teeth.
“One thousand and five, one thousand and four, Lapis? Lapis can you hear me?” Five minutes. Ten minutes.
Peridot curled up into herself and pulled on her hair, her finger still on the transmission button, the room bathed in the one red light, “Lapis, LAPIS.” It was a wretched, animalistic scream, but it wasn’t for the radio, it wasn’t for her.
She wished she believed in ghosts.
-----------------
Peridot went back to earth within the fortnight. She told them she wasn't feeling well. She told them about the Argus. They told her to take some time off, she told them she wasn't coming back.
Peridot went to Belguim, she gave a very nice older woman a hug, she got a lifetime's promise of free coffee, and she looked at painting after painting done by people she realized were now dead. She smiled at the nice young girl across the street, she didn't say hi, but she did wave this time. It was a place to start, Lapis wanted something like that.