Vessel Read online

  'How did you get here?' she asked him, watching his every move with fascination.

  'I don't know,' he said, looking around.

  'Do you remember anything before being here?'

  'No.' He narrowed his eyes, as if trying to dig up an old memory. 'No, wait, I do. I remember a feeling of — I don't really know how to describe it. Warmth, I suppose. Safety. Like I was being protected. Then I was here.'

  'Nothing else?'

  'No. Nothing at all.'

  'Do you know where you are? Do you recognise any of it?'

  Mikhail shook his head. Sally couldn't help but be intrigued by him. This man had Mikhail's looks — his hairstyle, his nose, his stubble, everything — but he remembered nothing. All this time she had been trying to communicate with UV One without success, and now — now it was communicating with her. There was no way Mikhail could have got on board without it. The thought made her heart leap, and she had to tell herself to calm down before she spoke again.

  'We're in space,' she told him.

  He looked blank.

  'Space — in orbit. Not on Earth.'

  'I don't know these things.'

  'Earth is home.'

  At the word home, the last of the fear and rigidity in Mikhail's body seemed to melt away. 'Home …' he repeated.

  'That's right,' Sally said, smiling. 'Home.'

  Mikhail smiled back, a boyish grin that gave his middle-aged features a wash of youth. Sally felt a rush of warmth at the thought of having someone to talk to again.

  'I know where you've come from,' she said, watching to see how he reacted. 'Where you've been all this time.' She had always thought that an encounter like this would make her scared, or at least nervous, but she was neither of those things. She was excited.

  'Where?'

  'Do you remember the vessel? UV One? You could see it through the window where I found you in the MLM.'

  Mikhail looked as though he was about to speak, but he didn't. His grin faded, and he stayed silent.

  'You do remember, don't you?'

  He nodded. 'Home.'

  Although Mikhail seemed to know and understand very little, he caught on fast, and over the next couple of days he and Sally became something of a team. He helped her with her experiments, setting up the equipment and logging the results, as well as assisting with her daily housekeeping chores, which she was now able to do in half the time. He even livened up her exercise regime, which he joined her for. Explaining to him that he needed to exercise to stay healthy and fight off muscle atrophy took some doing, but he got it after a while and they laughed about it together afterwards as they got themselves something to eat.

  'It's entirely true, I swear,' Sally said through a mouthful of macaroni cheese. 'I used to be a little fat kid.'

  'No way! I don't believe it.'

  'All the other kids in school used to call me Fat Sally. Not a particularly original or creative nickname, granted, but it stuck with me for a long time.'

  'How'd you get slim again?'

  'We'll, I'd like to say I joined a gym and got really healthy,' Sally said, ignoring Mikhail's confused frown at the word gym, 'but I actually got so involved in my research that I just damn well forgot to eat. It's amazing how hard it is to stay fat when you eat as little as I do.'

  'What do you research?'

  'Long-distance communications, mainly. NASA has me working on a little project to develop faster-than-light comms, but I don't think it's possible, at least not with any technology we have today. Made a few breakthroughs along the way, though. But what I really love doing is searching for life.'

  Mikhail, whose pouch was halfway to his mouth, stopped. 'Life?'

  'Yeah. Extra-terrestrial life. Aliens,' she said, emphasising the last word with a wiggle of her fingers.

  'Am I an — alien?' Mikhail asked, looking apprehensive.

  The topic seemed to concern him; Sally could see his body language change almost in an instant. She felt a pang of sympathy: he was neither man nor alien. He was more like a confused and frightened boy. 'Don't let it worry you,' she said. 'You're back, you're safe, and that's all that matters.'

  He smiled again, and ate the rest of his macaroni cheese. His good humour soon returned as they tucked into dessert. 'I like this,' he said, squeezing the apple puree and breadcrumb mix into his mouth. 'What is it? It's really good.'

  'Apple pie. You should try the real thing. It's much better.'

  'When? Now?' Mikhail said, his eyes bulging at the idea.

  Sally laughed. 'No, not now. When they come and get us.'

  'They? They who?'

  'The RFSA and NASA, I suppose.'

  Mikhail looked at his coveralls, at the logo on his chest. He pointed to it.

  'That's it,' Sally said, nodding.

  'What do they do?'

  He was like an eager child, wanting and willing to learn about everything.

  'They send people like me and you into space to do research.'

  'Me?'

  'Yes — you're a cosmonaut. A spaceman.'

  Mikhail swelled with pride. 'I am,' he said, then squeezed some more apple pie into his mouth.

  They cleared the table together. When they were finished, Sally led Mikhail through the station.

  'I've got something I'd like to show you,' she said as they wormed their way through PMA One and into the American side. Ducking into Node Three, they surfaced in the Cupola, which was bathed in shadow. 'Watch this,' she said, and released the window coverings one by one. They fell away to reveal a view of blue, green and white: Earth.

  'It's beautiful …' Mikhail whispered, touching the glass with his fingertips.

  'That's home,' Sally said.

  They looked out at it together, watching the clouds change shape and formation as they lazily navigated the globe. Sally hadn't much thought of home since she'd been left up here, and she realised she missed it. She wasn't sure what she missed about it, but whatever it was it left an aching hole in her chest.

  * * *

  The lobby was hot. Really hot. A wall-mounted fan arced back and fourth, but it did little to disperse the sweltering humidity. Sean approached the reception desk where a woman was sat reading a gossip magazine. 'Hello?' he said, trying to catch her attention.

  She held up a finger, scanned through the rest of the page, then turned to Sean. 'Yes?'

  Her voice was familiar. Sean realised it must have been her he spoke to on the phone. 'I'm here to see Ruth. Ruth Shaw.' Sweat trickled down his neck, slow and sticky. The moment of truth had arrived.

  'And who might you be?' the receptionist said, raising her eyebrows.

  'I'm her great-nephew,' Sean lied. 'I just flew in from Europe this morning, and I thought I'd pay her a visit.'

  'Is that so?' the receptionist said, folding her arms. 'I ain't never seen you before.'

  A scratch of metal on wood came from a doorway behind the reception desk, where a scrawny, sweaty man with a gleaming bald head now stood. 'I couldn't help but overhear your conversation,' he said, dabbing his brow with a grubby handkerchief. He put it in his pocket, and reached across the counter to shake Sean's hand. 'I'm Todd, I'm the manager here.'

  'Hi Todd,' Sean said. 'I'm Pete.'

  'Well, Pete — I'm afraid I have some bad news. Do you want to come into my office? We'll get a bit more privacy in there.'

  Sean followed Todd around the reception desk and into his office, feeling the receptionist staring a hole into his back. Todd shut the door and the temperature went up even further.

  'Please, have a seat,' he said, directing Sean to the only chair in the room. Sean sat, and Todd leaned against his desk, which was covered in paper, mostly bills.

  'Did you have a pleasant flight over?'

  Small talk before the heavy stuff, Sean thought, his stomach sinking. 'Yes, thanks. A little cramped, but fine nonetheless.'

  'You're telling me. Those airlines don't mind cramming 'em in.'

  The man had no idea just how cram
med Sean had been. 'No, they don't.'

  There was an awkward pause before Todd said, 'I'm sorry. That's not why you're here.' He sighed, folded his arms and looked at the floor, examining his shoes. 'This is against protocol, and I hate to be the one to tell people this sort of thing, I really do, but I don't think there's any harm in it now. Ruthy died a couple of weeks ago.'

  Sean was already certain that she had, but hearing it out loud made him feel sick. The miles travelled was one thing, but Ruth was the only door to an answer left, and it had been slammed in his face.

  Todd mistook his disappointment for him being upset. 'Oh now, there's no need to be sad,' he said. 'Ruthy lived a good life, a long, strong existence and died peacefully in her bed. She was a happy woman if ever I saw one.'

  Sean nodded, not really listening. 'How did she die?' he asked.

  'Doctor said it was natural causes. She just stopped breathing in her sleep one night.'

  'Was there anything suspicious about her death? Anything at all? Did anything unusual happen just before she died? Did she say whether she'd met anyone new recently?'

  Todd eyed him with caution. 'Who did you say you were, again?' he asked, wariness in his voice.

  'Never mind — I'm being silly.' Sean said, and Todd seemed to settle back to his normal, sweating self. 'I'm a journalist; I always look for the hidden agenda, even if there is none.'

  Damn. He shouldn't have said that. Hopefully it would be a detail that Todd overlooked.

  'A journalist? Now that is interesting. What publication do you write for?'

  Double damn. 'I work freelance. I mostly write for music magazines.'

  'You ever get to go to those after parties? With all the girls?'

  'No, not really. I'm not that rock and roll.'

  Todd nodded. 'Probably for the best.'

  Sean thought hard. There must be something he could find out while he was here. After all he was a journalist, and he did always look for the hidden agenda. 'Hey,' he said, 'do you mind if I have a look through her things? We were very close when I was a kid, and it would be nice to, you know — catch up with her memory.'

  Todd smiled. 'Of course.'

  They left the putrid humidity of Todd's office and wandered the halls.

  'Ruthy really liked it here,' Todd said. 'She said it was her favourite place. She loved to sit in the lounge and tell stories. She had this one story about a scientist and an alien spacecraft that she used to tell. Boy that woman had a hell of an imagination. She could've made it as one of those science-fiction writers by my reckoning.'

  This sounded interesting. 'Could you tell me that story?'

  'Ah, well — I forget most of it …'

  'Please try. It's very important to me.'

  Todd stopped and scrunched his eyes up, thinking. Then he opened them again. 'Gah, I don't know. Tell you what — why don't I show you her room while I think about it, see if I can remember?'

  They turned off the corridor into room twenty-four. It was a modest but tidy space, with a small bed in the middle and a big glass window overlooking the desert.

  'Great view, huh?' Todd said, looking out with his hands on his hips.

  'Sure,' Sean said, giving it a cursory glance before scanning the room. There was a desk opposite the bed, so he opened the drawers and looked through them.

  'Let me see then, the story,' Todd said, scratching his neck. 'There was a scientist — a whole bunch of them in fact — and they found a box in the desert. Or was it a box the size of a house? I can't remember. Anyways, they find this box and they take it back to a top secret laboratory.'

  Sean rifled though the sheets of blank paper and stationary littering the drawers, but besides that, there was nothing. He closed them, and moved on to her bedside cabinet.

  'Say — are you looing for anything in particular?' Todd asked.

  'No,' Sean said, looking through a drawer of socks. 'What happened after they found the box?'

  'Ah yes, the box. They took the box back, but they couldn't do anything with it. It was solid — no way in, no way out. Come to think of it, that box must've been the size of a house or they wouldn't have tried to get in it. A house is pretty big though, don't you think —'

  'It doesn't matter. What happened next?'

  'Er — no, I suppose it doesn’t matter,' Todd said, sounding a little flustered. 'Well, after a while, the scientists began seeing things, having visions. Like, real powerful stuff. Then one day the box takes one of them, and he was gone, just like that. But he returns, and he's not the same as before he disappeared — he's changed. It's like he's become one with the box. But the box makes the other scientists lose their minds, and so it's decided that the box should be destroyed. They do, and the scientist that came back from the box dies with it. And that's it.' He shrugged. 'I'm not too good at telling stories. Not like Ruthy was.'

  Sean had stopped looking through the drawers and was fixed on Todd. 'So it's true …' he whispered.

  * * *

  'What do you think it wants?' Sally asked, gazing out the window of the MLM at the colourless cuboid.

  'I don't know,' Mikhail said, watching it with her.

  'It's beautiful in an odd kind of way,' Sally said, watching a star flicker as it passed behind it. 'I think it wants to communicate with us, but it just doesn't know how.'

  Mikhail leaned closer to the window such that his nose touched the glass. 'Do you think it wants to communicate through me?'

  Sally looked at him, at his squashed nose, and laughed. 'I don't know,' she said, still chuckling a little. 'Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. Maybe we'll never know.'

  Mikhail pulled back from the window and turned to her, the tip of his nose bright red. Sally burst out laughing again and pushed him away.

  'What?' he said smiling. 'What is it?'

  'You're so silly.'

  Instead of doing her usual experiments, Sally spent the rest of the afternoon explaining to Mikhail about the stars. It was a strange experience; the more she talked to him, the more he seemed to be growing up, as if the youthful brain trapped in his adult body was maturing at an accelerated pace.

  'There are three hundred billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way,' Sally explained, 'and about five hundred billion galaxies in the universe.'

  'And how many universes are there?' Mikhail asked, hanging onto her every word.

  It was a good question, she had to give him credit for that. 'No one knows. Most people think there's only one.'

  Mikhail wrinkled his brow. 'That's not right,' he said.

  Sally blinked. 'How many do you think there are?'

  He leaned back, touching his head against the canvas wall. 'It's not really a thing for numbers. Other universes exist in a state that numbers can't describe.'

  At first Sally thought what he was saying was nonsense, but the look in his eye changed her mind. 'Have you been there?' she asked. 'To the other universes, I mean.'

  Mikhail's face went blank for a second.

  'I can't remember.'

  Then his grin returned. 'Do you have any more apple pie?'

  Sally shook her head in humorous disbelief. They went for some more apple pie.

  'Back on Earth,' Sally said, putting her finished pouch in the waste, 'we have pies in many different flavours. You’d love it.'

  'Like what?' He was still licking the nozzle of his pouch, having squeezed every last morsel of the pie from it.

  'Anything you can think of. Rhubarb and raspberry, blueberry, peach, pumpkin — the list is endless.'

  'Wow. I would love to try all those.'

  'Maybe one day you will.'

  Sally looked through the tiny porthole on the bottom of the service module, where a glimpse of Earth shone through.

  'When are they coming for us?' Mikhail said, somehow echoing Sally's own thoughts.

  'I don't know,' she said, sighing. 'I don't know.'

  The atmosphere became sombre. Sally and Mikhail did their chores together as usual, but they did
them with a whole lot less laughing and joking. It was as though Mikhail was feeding off Sally's sadness, her longing for home, reflecting her emotion back at her. She'd been okay the whole while she was alone, able to ignore her real feelings, but now she had someone whose company she enjoyed, the beckoning call of planet Earth seemed to tug harder at her heartstrings.

  'You miss Earth, don't you?' Mikhail said as Sally ran through the readings for the water reclamation tanks.

  'Yes, I do.'

  'What do you miss most about it?'

  Sally stopped to think. There was so much she missed: silly little things, mostly. Seeing the leaves turn a beautiful burnt orange as winter rolled in. The smell of barbecued ribs coming from the neighbour's garden. Laughing at TV re-runs of Frasier that she'd seen a thousand times before. 'I guess I miss everything.'

  Mikhail gave her a reassuring smile, and said nothing.

  They didn’t talk again properly until the next day, while Sally was running through some gamma ray readings from a nearby star, Wolf 359.

  'Did you know it's possible to create faster-than-light communication?' Mikhail said, out of the blue. 'I know that's something you're interested in, isn't it?'

  Sally stopped what she was doing. Had she heard him right? 'Really? How?'

  'Not how,' Mikhail said, 'where.'

  'Okay — where?'

  'You're limited by the speed of light within this universe, you know that much. But punch through to the next and you can move in infinite directions and speeds all at once.'

  Sally shook her head, confused. 'I don't — I don't know what you mean.'

  Mikhail took her hands and cupped them into a ball. 'You understand your universe to be like this,' he said, 'and so it takes time to travel from one side to the other.' He indicated his meaning by tracing a line around the ball of Sally's hands. He then spread her hands open so she held them flat together, as though she were praying. 'This is how your universe really is, and it moves between the other universes like this.' He placed his hands over the top of hers and slid them across. They were warm, soft. 'You can leave this universe, enter another and return at any point in an instant.' He released her hands and grinned. 'Just like that.'