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  Three of the astronauts stood at the long window, enjoying the view of 51 Golgotha. They wore suits designed to assist the body’s re-accommodation to a full gravitational environment, even if the gravity of 51 Golgotha was roughly equivalent to the gravity of Mars, which was about a third of Earth’s gravity, and also was the gravity setting of the Anchor’s living quarters.

  Close to the Hab, the OGRA (Operational GRound Assist) robots worked at repairing the DSMUs and transitioning supplies from the DSMU storage holds to the habitation module. Emily noticed that, like some of the crewmembers’ uniforms, the OGRA robots had the “Titan Space” logo, a large, blue letter T with a yellow bolt of lightning across it.

  “When do we get to go out there?” C.C. asked as he stepped away from a bipedal OGRA robot. OGRA had been collecting blood for bone loss studies.

  “Mission protocol,” Emily responded. She sipped her green tea while she continued typing her log entry. “The requirement is at least 24 hours to acclimate to 51 Golgotha. Plus, medical testing has to be completed.”

  In the distance, steep mountains rose over the mountain jungle. On the other side of those mountains lay the pyramids, and the alien civilization.

  “I just want to be there already,” C.C. said. “Doesn’t anybody else feel the same way? Today, we could be putting our hands on an alien civilization’s empire instead of being cooped up here all day like a bunch of kids in time-out.”

  “Patience,” Emily said. “Space travel is hard on the body, and OGRA and JEVS need to verify that all of us are mission ready before we can conduct any operations. If you’re eager to move around, there is plenty of low-impact cardio tests to conduct.”

  “If we had a health problem, they’d have found it by now. We were chosen in part because our bodies are so unbreakable. I was an Army Ranger. Anna, an Olympian. We’re good. We can go.”

  “According to NASA’s Human Research Program, there are over 1000 ways for you to die because of interstellar travel.”

  “Don’t be like that.”

  “And some of those are just risks, not necessarily ‘kill you immediately’ problems, but risks, like pancreatic malfunction, kidney stones, renal stones, vertebra damage, brain damage, ocular damage that could cause blindness, inner ear problems so you lose your balance. Your gut and intestinal bacteria could be ravaged, you could develop osteoporosis, your heart could get arrhythmia. The little ends on your chromosomes could be damaged. Need I go on?”

  “Come on, Em,” C.C. said. “Don’t tell me you don’t want to be out there. Not you.”

  “I do want to be there, C.C., but let’s not get jumpy. I want to survive the encounter. That means our bodies need to rest and adjust. There will be plenty of time for exploring later. In the meantime…”

  She slid an electronic medical questionnaire across the table screen to C.C. “You’ve got questionnaires to fill out.”

  C.C. filled out the first half, then said, “Can I talk to you in private, commander to commander?”

  “Sure.”

  C.C. walked her back to his private bunk. He tried shutting the door. Emily stuck her arm out. From the corner of her eye, she saw Cole watching them, his face flush with concern, and maybe jealousy, too.

  The bunk rooms were no penthouse suites. There was barely enough room for a bed. Emily was so close to C.C. she could see the scar on his chin that he got from their travails in Palo Duro. It was no more than a ghost of a scar now, so many years later, but it was as real to her now as it was when he first got it.

  Under his breath, C.C. said, “There was a time you’d be the first one running out the door, Em. Leading me and Brian up the side of Palo Duro and down into some playa lake. What happened to you? Do I need to dare you to jump off a rock?”

  “The only thing you need to do is drink plenty of fluids and keep your strength up, C.C. We’ll get to Ximortikrim soon enough, and we’ll have plenty of time for you to jump off as many rocks as you like. But until then, don’t get cabin fever on me. And get your task list done.”

  Emily returned to Cole and Anna in the main room. She caught Anna saying, “Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had to wait 6 hours before taking their first steps on the moon. We can wait a day.”

  Cole reached for Emily’s hand. “You okay?”

  She nodded. “Fine.” She looked around. Something had seemed off, and now she could place it. She opened the door to the exercise and testing room, then the bathroom. She turned to Anna and Cole. “Where’s Mathieu?”

  The two astronauts glanced around. “I thought he was in his room,” Cole muttered, while crossing the Hab to check. The small room was empty.

  “There he is,” C.C. said, exiting Mathieu’s room and pointing outside.

  Mathieu was sitting on a cargo bin next to Cole’s broken DSMU. His backpack leaned against the bin. Inside was an emergency kit of pliers, wrenches, and ratchets. Two robots held the leg’s outer shell back while he worked on the broken piston. He reached for the torque wrench in his pack, but instead grabbed air. He tried, and failed, a second time. He looked at the robots, but they stood there stoic, without answer or judgement.

  Anna pressed the com button on the wall. “You good, Mathieu?”

  “Everything’s sharp sharp.”

  He wasn’t going to miss again, especially with the doctor watching. Three misses in front of everyone would mean his hand-eye coordination was suffering from the effects of gravity, so he squinted his eyes and slowly reached for the wrench. His fingers wrapped around the handle. He’d be okay, he assured himself.

  Emily pressed the com button on the wall and said, “Mathieu, you need to get back in here You need to rest so that your body can acclimate to the gravity. And I hate to break it to you, too, but everybody seems to be forgetting that they have reports to fill out.”

  “I’ll be done in a minute,” he said into his helmet’s microphone.

  “Mathieu.”

  “Commander, hey, I couldn’t let this beautiful machine go another minute without repair. Sorry for not saying anything. I wanted to get outside. You know, get a little fresh air.” He took a deep breath of recycled suit air to light-heartedly emphasize his point.

  Anna laughed. As the exo-biologist who’d spent years studying the atmosphere and flora of 51 Golgotha, she knew better than most the dangerous repercussions of the alien planet’s highly toxic atmosphere. At the surface, 51 Golgotha had very little breathable air, but plenty of carbon monoxide. Sure, the first few breaths would feel alright. Your head wouldn’t explode and your lungs wouldn’t turn to fire. But after a few deep breaths, any human not wearing a life support system would start getting a bad headache. If they were outside of their AXES suit, they’d be asleep inside of five minutes. They’d be dead within ten.

  4

  The five astronauts sat at a circular table in a simple, low-lit room at Kennedy Space Center. Lift-off was scheduled for the next morning at 1000 hours EST. The past five days they had received visitors from politicians and NASA administration, as well as family and friends. Always from a distance, though. While exo-planet missions were long duration, and the chances of sickness almost certain, NASA still required healthy astronauts on liftoff, and they had placed a lot of funding and time into ensuring the health of the astronauts. From 90 days out, testing started. The astronauts’ healths were assessed and reassessed as they got closer to lift-off. Blood, urine, spit, hair follicles, cheek swabs. Everything was collected to develop that all-important medical baseline before they stepped foot in a space ship.

  Despite the advances in technology, liftoff was still the most dangerous part of the mission. Should anything happen on the six-minute voyage to low earth orbit, NASA needed quick-thinking astronauts to make instantaneous decisions. There was no time for fuzzy-headed, runny nose symptoms.

  That morning, each crewmember been given enemas. It was still a two-day trip to the station with nothing more than diapers to take care of evacuations.

  But tradition
was tradition, and the astronauts had their last meal that night—an uninspired menu of water and oatmeal.

  Cole spooned his oatmeal and let it plop back down in his bowl. “This is our last meal on Earth?”

  C.C. said, “Well, we didn’t come here for the food, did we?”

  Anna smiled. “You could’ve chosen steak and baked potato if you wanted…and crap your diaper on the way up to Space Station Hephaestus.”

  They all laughed.

  Emily said, “Listen, before we go up there, C.C. and I wanted to say that training with you three has been the pleasure of our careers. It is so odd saying goodbye to our parents and siblings and nieces and nephews and cousins. We all know the risks, and we all know that some of these people could be gone to us, and we wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. We probably wouldn’t know about it for twelve years. But I am comforted by the knowledge that I’ve gained a family in all of you.”

  Anna wiped a tear from her eye. Everyone looked to C.C. with at least a little mistiness.

  “I am not as inspiring as Emily. I blame it on my military background. I was eight years old when this kid in jeans with rips in the knees convinced me to climb rocks in Palo Duro Canyon. I was 26 when I found out she joined NASA as an astronaut, and when I was 28 I discovered we would both be commanding the first human landing on 51 Golgotha a. Mathieu was in my astronaut selection class, and we quickly became great friends who enjoyed feuding over barbecue and beer. Anna I met, strangely enough, doing PR at Comic-Con. Only one of you I don’t like—Cole,” he said with a smile, “but the rest of you I can tolerate. Seriously, I can oscillate between a heartless taskmaster and the guy who just wants to get to the mountain summit first. You all remember how I was in Colorado. NASA calls me a commander, but I feel it is you who lifts me up.”

  He raised his glass of water. “May the next meal on land be better than this one.”

  5

  That night, the crew ate their first meal on another planet. As tradition dictated, the meal was spaghetti. The tomatoes for the sauce had been grown in the greenhouse months before their arrival. When Anna discovered there was no oregano manifested, she threatened to cancel the whole mission until she got some. The favorite, though, was the meatballs. Fresh ground beef rolled up into little balls. It was the first fresh meat they’d had in years that hadn’t been synthesized protein. C.C. and Anna’s plates, in particular, were mostly meatballs with a few noodles thrown in for good measure.

  While the others laughed at Anna’s pretend threat, Cole sat in a corner looking at photographs of the ancient civilization’s hieroglyphs and practicing his language skills.

  “Dee tlick-ikik. Mopneefrrrik.”

  Emily came over with a plate of spaghetti. “I made it heavy on the marinara, just as you like.”

  The spaghetti smelled delicious. Even though the meals on the Anchor were as good as anything he’d ever had, there was something about printed food he struggled with. The texture was always a little off. Also, all foods were fortified with iodine, vitamin E, and several other radiation-resistant chemicals that the astronauts had to take at every meal. Of course, they’d all gotten used to the taste. Still, the heaping pile of noodles and marinara in his wife’s hands smelled like everything that was right about food.

  He pecked her on the cheek and thanked her for the food, quickly clearing a spot among his binders and tablets.

  “Sreenap,” he said in thanks.

  “Is he speaking in bug again?” Mathieu asked from the eating table. “Cole, say something in bug. Say ‘C.C. is a tool.’”

  “Don’t be crass. You know better. They aren’t ‘bugs.’ They’re Jedik-ikik.”

  “Homo-insectus,” Emily added. She pulled up a photo on one of his tablets and expanded it on their wall. The photo showed the dusty remains of a man with two legs, four arms, and mandibles instead of jaws.

  “Second,” Cole continued. “I don’t know their equivalence for ‘tool,’ at least as you mean it, which is more like ‘douchebag.’ I don’t know how to say that.”

  “Well, say something cool.”

  He thought for a second. “Mathieu p’rok l’tik berrrininimi zree, zree berrrininimi p’rockiz.”

  “Wow. That sounds really weird. What’d you say?”

  Cole had a big smile on his face. “I’ve been teaching you this language for more than half a decade. You should be fluent in it by now. You tell me what I said.”

  “I think he cussed you out, Mathieu,” C.C. said.

  “No way. I made sure to learn the curse words. C’mon, Cole. What’d you say?”

  “I think if you spent more time learning grammar and less time studying vulgarities, you wouldn’t have this problem, Mathieu.”

  The crew laughed while Cole crossed to his room. “Good night, everyone. Big day, tomorrow!”

  “Big day for you!” Mathieu hollered back. “All we had to do was get you here.” He looked at Anna and Emily and C.C., who had all gone silent.

  “Give it a rest,” Mathieu said. They laughed harder.

  “Hang on, Cole. Get back in here,” C.C. said.

  Cole walked back into the main room.

  “So, for posterity’s sake and for all the cameras positioned around us,” C.C. said, twirling his finger to the cameras in the room. Every room had at least three cameras, and the main Hab room had twenty. “Tell me what you are thinking on the eve of this historic expedition, Dr. Musgrove.”

  To nobody’s surprise, he said, “I’ve got a lot of nervous energy, C.C.” With less levity, he then said, “It’s totally unprecedented, participating in an expedition like this. And I don’t just mean that from a space exploration standpoint. What I mean is, in terms of human archaeology, usually we know almost nothing of the civilization before we enter its tombs. All we have are ghost stories and regional folklore warning us to beware entering the tomb or else suffer the curse, that sort of thing. We might have some knowledge of their language based on study of the people who currently live in the vicinity of the ancient temple, but not much else. This time, thanks to robotics, we’ve already explored a good chunk of Ximortikrim. The catacombs in the pyramids are mapped, as is the layout of all the buildings. We’ve been able to study the Jedik-ikik and learn about their language, history, and culture from old stone manuscripts. So we’ll have a much greater knowledge base when we enter the ancient city. Setting foot into an alien culture, physically and metaphorically? It’ll be amazing.”

  C.C. looked at Anna. “‘Amazing?’ Can you believe this guy? I ask him to say something nice, and all he comes up with is amazing. Some linguist. What are your thoughts, Anna?”

  “One small step for womankind, one giant leap for women.”

  Emily wooted and raised her glass of water.

  “And you, Blondie?”

  Mathieu said, “Een klein stap vir Suid-Afrikaners…”

  “'N reuse-sprong vir alle mense,” Cole finished.

  “Very good, Cole,” Mathieu said.

  Cole gave him a thumbs up. “I’ll be here all night.”

  C.C. said, “I’m guessing that was something very poetic in Afrikaans.”

  Mathieu said, “I’m a techy. Screw poetry. No offense, Cole.”

  “None taken.”

  “And you, our fearless commander?” C.C. asked Emily.

  “I’m just happy to be here with all of you.”

  She received a round of awws.

  Emily added, “But now you, C.C. We’ve saved the best for last, right?”

  “Sure,” he said, and then belched.

  After the laughter died down, Emily said, “This is it. This is why I live and breathe, and I think you are all very much like me or you wouldn’t have sacrificed your lives to be here. You live to explore. To walk where no one else has walked, to find the adventure after the trail ends. This is more than strange planets and alien civilizations. It’s about discovering what’s out there, and unraveling the possibilities of the universe.”

  Th
ere was silence and nodding. And then another belch.

  6

  OGRA was scheduled to wake the crew at 0600 hours Local Crew Time. But the opening bars to R.E.M.’s “Stand” found the beds empty and the astronauts gone. As Michael Stipe sang about knowing your direction, the crew was already up and pulling gear and reviewing the daily activities. OGRA turned the song off half-way through. Later, she had to remind the crew to eat breakfast before leaving for the site—fresh eggs, bacon, and brewed coffee thanks to the Animal Station.

  Not everything could be trained and practiced down to the minute. That was a change between old NASA Apollo and Space Shuttle missions that lasted days or weeks versus missions spanning decades. But the events could be planned and scheduled.

  The team reviewed the Daily Activities List for their second day on 51 Golgotha a. Everything with specific time requirements was written in red: Depart in the DSMUs for Ximortikrim at 0800, arrive at Ximortikrim at 1000. Visit the primary site at 1100, a small pyramid close to the entrance that showed a lot of archaeological promise. Lunch at 1200, followed by a one-hour rest, and then an afternoon touring several other buildings and gravesites. There would be no sample collections of fauna or geology. Day 2 was purely a one-giant-leap moment, fully documented by drones and robots. First dinner at 1600. At 1900 they would depart from Ximortikrim for the Hab module. Second dinner at 2000 hours. Review, communication, and debrief until 2400 hours, when they would go to bed. For people on Earth it was a long time to be awake, but ever since leaving Low Earth Orbit, the crew had been preparing for the planet’s 32-hour day. The human performance psychologists at JSC had come up with the new plan, which called for two small dinners as well as a mandatory nap, or “space siesta” as Cole called it.