Out There

“America killed us, Sam.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“They’ve written us off. It’s like we don’t exist anymore.”

I gazed out through the command room windows over the bow, at the uncountable millions of stars that surrounded us. “We’ll be back. Our kids’ll be all grown up!”

Randy laughed. “Little Anita was just five, bright as a sixpence. She’ll be twenty-seven, maybe with her own kids!”

“Hard to imagine!”

“I want to go home, Sam.” Randy’s voice trembled.

“Come on Randy, you signed up. No one forced you to. You’ll be home before you know it!”

Exactly to what I was unsure. We were five years into a mission to Nephthys, a small rocky planet circling nearby Barnard’s star. It would take us ten years, nearly all of that in hyper-sleep, Randy and me waking up once a year to check the systems. When we eventually arrived, the rest of the sleeping crew would awake and we’d descend to the planet to find a mining station prepared for us by androids, scheduled to land a year ahead of us. That was the plan anyway.

“See all these stars, Sam. There must be people, aliens, on the planets around ‘em.” Randy said the same, every time we ‘awoke.’

“I guess so.” Detectors on Earth had found Nephthys to be rich in rare earths, the metallic elements needed to make advanced handheld devices – videophones, holographic projectors and the like. The plan was to spend two years mining and refining the ores, then, with the holds full, back into hyper-sleep for the trip home. In our twenty-two-year absence, our families would be amply compensated.

These annual ‘awakenings’ felt weird, it took hours to reorientate oneself to the surroundings and to remember how to work the interfaces. But I enjoyed them. Just me and Randy wandering alone in the colossal ship, constructed in Earth’s orbit over a decade. Gazing out in wonder at the infinite universe.

“Jesus! Did you see that?” Randy shouted.

“What?”

“Something just went past! Out there!”

“What?”

“I dunno, some kind of light. It went across the windows, upwards.” He made a gesture.

A couple of minutes went by, and then, “There! D’you see it?”

Sure enough, something like a ball of light came from below us and shot in front and upwards. I felt excitement and fear in equal amounts.

Suddenly there was a beeping from a control panel on the far side of the room, about ten metres away. Red and yellow lights flashed rapidly. I raced over. “There’s an incoming signal!” My training took over. Calm down! I addressed the computer. “OK, Max, switch the decoders on.”

The computer responded. “Incoming signal is video. Recording. Should I display it, Sam?”

Randy had joined me and we both faced a large screen. “Go ahead, Max.”

We both gasped as an ariel shot of New York appeared, the viewpoint zooming around the Freedom Tower, sunlight reflecting brightly off its endless windows, before flying along the Brooklyn Bridge and up over one of its towers.

“Wow!” we both exclaimed in unison.

Now over St. Louis, it skimmed beneath the Gateway Arch before heading over sweeping plains with huge herds of cattle, then we were flying over snow-capped mountains, finally zooming into and along the Grand Canyon. Suddenly, it stopped near a group of hikers. A girl pointed towards us, her face a picture of curiosity, and their smiles vanished. She took a few paces towards us before the viewpoint took off again, soaring into the sky. Then it headed rapidly outwards and the canyon receded into the distance below, finally becoming a tiny speck. The blackness of space began to encroach on the brilliant blue northern hemisphere and the screen went blank.

We stood speechless, in awe of what we had just witnessed.

Finally, I said, “Max, play it again.”

There was a silence, and then the computer spoke. “I’m sorry Sam, the video could not be saved.”

We looked out of the window again for a while. Nothing moved. Finally, with the heaviest of hearts, I realised the show was over.

“Looks like someone’s looking out for us,” said Randy, eventually.

“Someone … or some thing,” I replied.