Chapters:

Prologue, Chapters 1 and 2

The Infinite

Prologue

“Rocket science is easy.”

A screw reflects starlight as it floats through empty space.

The screw rotates slowly, its trajectory unhurried, it nears another shape in the void.

Something long and white.

“While, it is certainly complex and frustratingly daunting at first glance. If you take the concept apart, it’s not that complicated.”

The screw’s edge nudges the shape and both objects revolve after a gentle collision.

The flat white shape reveals a serrated edge, like it was broken in half.

Frayed wires hung from the cracked edge.

“You just have step back and think about the problem. In space flight, the problem is that we want to go as fast and as far as possible, yet, we are fragile creatures. Heck, we’re lucky to exist at all. It’s so rare to find a planet with a comfortable climate and a breathable atmosphere.”

As the flat white shape rotates, the other side appears.

The light reveals the chunky contours fit along the shape — long rows of useless buttons on a broken control panel.

At the top edge of the panel, a broken plane of glass lines the metal shape.

As the panel drifts through empty space, starlight gleams across the glass, following the curve of the molded material and soon, the soft light illuminates the buttons on the panel.

Payload Bay Flood

Arm Input

Wireless Video On/Off

As the destroyed control panel glides softly through the vacuum of space, light hits a small, dirty blue logo painted on the damaged metal:

NASA

“But, here, comfortable in the womb of Mother Earth, humanity has found a home perfectly hospitable to our lives. But, in order to learn about the universe, we have to escape the womb that birthed us. How do we do that? Well, really, if you take the idea and break it down, anything is possible.”

The spinning, shattered control board continues its aimless spaceflight as it bumps into a thin, curved sheet of metal with a black underside.

It’s the entire back fin of a Challenger-era NASA shuttle and, it’s nearly intact.

The fin looks like it has been ripped off at the bottom edge and it’s now surrounded by space junk.

“There are many functioning parts in any working machine. Think about everything humans must overcome to reach the stars, then, break it down into pieces.”

Against the large tail fin, which is lit brightly, reflecting the light of a million stars, shadows begin to form across the flat side.

Four lines, thin parallel shadows stretch along the broad side of the fin.

They are soon joined by a fifth.

“We are on a very large rock, spinning about 1,000 miles an hour, revolving at about 67 thousand miles an hour, trapped in the orbit of an enormous, continually exploding hydrogen bomb. We need to take everything into account to escape the atmosphere and enter space. “

The shadows grow, beginning to take form against — what must be — the remains of a NASA shuttle.

The five long lines connect at a central mass, then continue as one line of shadow.

An arm?

Fingers on a hand?

Just beyond the wreckage — silhouetted against the sun — distant figures in spacesuits cast these shadows on the broken shuttle fin.

“In rocket science — like anything, really — to achieve your overall goal, just take your problem and break it down.”

The human forms — what’s left of this ship’s crew — drift amidst the wreckage, lit from behind by a massive star.

A severed arm casts the shadow against the shuttle fin.

The arm floats away from a legless torso.

The rest of the body is wrapped around a long tether as it disappears behind wreckage.

“Break it all down into pieces”

Chapter One

“Let’s go!”
— Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space moments before liftoff.

In a brightly lit warehouse, one man sits alone, dutifully working, hunched over a small steel box. He’s sitting at one of the room’s many long white tables, all most covered in tools and unassembled pieces of machinery. The man, wrapped in a white lab coat, has graying brown hair, beginning to thin, and his glasses slip down his nose as he focuses on his work.

He’s whistling.

His fingers arc, bent and strained as he carefully manipulates a small precision tool on a panel in the steel box marked “NASA.” He’s peering through a magnifying glass mounted to a table, the kind a clock maker might use.

“At least, that’s always how I have done it.”

A NASA company ID badge dangles from his coat pocket as sparks fly from the box he’s working on. The badge reads:

Guest, William

Shuttle Engineer

“Any problem can be solved in this way. In rocket science, we need to build a rocket ship that can sustain the lives of the delicate humanity inside. While pushing away from the planet that birthed us and sustained us for millions of years, we need to fly away. Fly away as fast and as far as possible.”

William fades into darkness and a young boy appears.

He is joined by an older man, both sit together at a dinner table in a dimly lit living room of a well-furnished house.

Another place, another time.

Seventies era décor fills the room around the pair. A tube television presents a commercial for the AMC Gremlin to an empty living room as the boy and his father sit at the dining room table. They work together to glue the delicate balsa wood fins on a model rocket — the kind you fire off with one of those powder ignition rockets and is supposed to float to the ground on a parachute.

The boy is bent over the table, working diligently, just as William Guest was at the work bench.

There is no doubt that this is William and his father.

Both are smiling.

“I’ve always thought about rockets and their pieces. Then again, I grew up addicted to model rockets, so, I’ve always worked on the tiny little parts that make up the whole sha’bang.”

William’s dad reaches over his son’s shoulder and grabs a fin from a box of parts on the table.

“Bill, be careful. Don’t rush this. You need to keep the fins flush here or it won’t fly straight,” Bill’s father says as he reaches over his son’s shoulder to press the fin against the rocket.

Young William concentrates on putting on the fin his father is holding as he attaches it to the hull.

“Any problem is simply the sum of its individual parts.”

An adult William’s face reflects a bright yellow light as sparks flying from the box ricochet off the magnifying glass in front of his eyes.

His pose mirrors that of his younger self.

“To construct a rocket, we determine how to manipulate those parts to get it to do what you want. Then, we strap in, fire it up and aim at the sky.”

William’s face again.

His pose is the same, but his skin looks pale.

His glasses are gone and he’s not in the warehouse anymore.

He’s not smiling.

“It takes a lot of planning, a great deal of calculation to make sure it will do what you hope — that, and a bit of luck.”

His eyes stare into the distance. His mouth hangs agape.

His thin hair moves unnaturally, swaying like seaweed in a soft current, his face covered in a shroud of darkness.

He’s reaching his sole remaining arm over his head, stretching desperately for something out of reach.

The fingers of his extended right hand spread. His severed left arm floats just beyond his grasp.

William Guest is a dead body floating in space.

He’s dressed in a torn orange NASA space suit.

The glass in his helmet is shattered and pieces of it float in front of his vacant eyes.

“But, if you do it right, no gets hurt.”

At the warehouse, William has finished his work and he lifts the box off the table. It’s about the size of a computer monitor. He struggles a little as he tugs it off the table top and the heft of it slacks his shoulders. He moves his head to the side to see around the awkward box as he moves out of the room and into a hallway with the thing.

“That’s how I do it. You need to be somewhat meticulous sometimes, but it works for me.”

The hall opens up to a well-lit, glass lined walkway between warehouses. William carries the box through the wide open space as a large satellite model looms overhead. It’s a round fat cylindrical tube in the middle with a satellite dish stuck to the side. There are two long, rectangular solar panels on each side and it has an antenna coming out of the bottom. There’s a plaque that reads “Mariner X” as William walks past it and several other NASA employees wander by.

“Then again, I spend a lot of time thinking about how to solve problems. I mean, it’s my job making sure every part of a shuttle works correctly. But, I’ve been working here since ’93. This is the first time I get a chance to fly in a ship myself. ”

William glances up at the model as he walks under it.

“That’s the Mariner 10. We launched it in 1973 to get pictures of Mercury and Venus. It stopped transmitting a signal in 1975 after its battery died.”

William’s footsteps echo on the hallway floor as he hefts the box and turns away from the satellite, moving into an adjacent hallway.

“We heard from it again yesterday.”

William enters a room with three other astronauts.

A tall, brunette woman, Gina Gomez, wears an orange jumpsuit and fixes her glasses as she takes a manila folder from a middle-age man in the center of the room.

After handing the folder to Gina, Steve Cooper turns to see Guest enter the room. Cooper, captain of NASA’s next trip into space, stands tall and speaks clearly.

There’s little doubt that he’s in charge.

In a chair by the door, Dave Everest, shuttle pilot, barely acknowledges William’s entrance into the room. Everest is thin and looks like he hasn’t shaved in weeks.

He too is holding a manila folder and flipping through the contents.

“The satellite should be little more than burning space debris in orbit around the sun. But, it’s intact and has been seen floating out near Venus. Yesterday, it started sending back faint signals.”

Silently stepping into the room, Bill walks to the corner and sets down the box he has carried all the way over.

“Really, it’s not even much of a signal. Barely noticeable. Not even static. It’s a nearly inaudible — but, sustained — tone. But, it’s something and we’re going to check it out.”

Absent in thought, Bill is shook when he hears the captain say his name.

“Hey Bill, you done tinkering with that junk? I’m trying to go over a little flight prep before launch.”

“By “junk” you mean the oxygen compressor for our life support system? Sure. I’m sorry if I missed anything.”

Bill moves closer to Cooper and the captain produces another envelope. He hands it to Bill.

“Whatever, look, I want to go over some last minute prep. Now, first rule of space travel – and, you’ve all read Douglas Adams, I assume – is: Don’t Panic. Liftoff will be jarring at first, but if you stay calm, watch your instruments and do it like we have in the simulator, it will be fine.”

Bill opens his envelope as he listens to the captain. He produces a flight-map of the upcoming shuttle flight.

“If we follow the plan and everything goes well, we should be able to be up and back within three weeks."

Bill reads the flight plan, tracing his fingers along the dotted path from the Earth to the orbit of Venus.

“It will be my first time up there and I can’t wait."

A week later the astronauts prepare for their mission. Bill, along to repair or retrieve any working parts of the satilite orbiting Venus, is joined by Gina Gomez. Gomez, the shuttle’s chief science officer, has brought a team of three — Max Edington, a botanist, Rick O’Donnell, an entomologist — who is bringing insects to study in zero gravity — and Daniel Hu, an engineer like Bill, but, he is in charge of their team’s equipment.

It’s the first time Guest has met any of Gina’s team, as the seven astronauts gather in a small tunnel on the tarmac at Kennedy Space Center. William smiles and nods as they gather together, silently saying “hello” and wanting to shake hands, but he’s juggling a helmet under one arm and carrying a bag of tools in the other.

Before he can speak to anyone, the team begins stepping into the sunshine, and they walk down a long runway. In the distance, a Challenger-style space shuttle looms large.

“Everyone here has flown before.”

William stumbles over his own foot as he follows the group.

“Into space, I mean. It’s funny. But, by now, this is almost routine to them. Cooper’s been on three missions, Dave’s flown at least two other missions that I know about. The rest have orbited Earth for a series of experiments that they are continuing here.”

As the team approaches the shuttle, the metal scaffold structure holding the shuttle in place shimmers on a bright and sunny day.

The crew walks closer towards it.

William has stopped to stare as the rest of the group moves on.

“But, me. I’ve never flown anything but coach.”

William Guest is a dead body floating in space.

His corpse twists amid the wreckage of a space shuttle as his torso is tugged by the space junk.

William smiles as he looks up at the shuttle before him.

“I mean, who knows if I’ll ever have another opportunity to do something like this again in my life?

The astronauts enter an elevator that leads to the top of the shuttle. The pilot, Dave, smiles at Gina as William steps in behind them.

“Our mission is simple.”

“I think we can probably do this in less time than they think,” Dan says, looking at Gina.

“Yeah?” says Gina.

Bill thinks about the mission ahead as he eavesdrops on his fellow astronauts.

“We are heading up to the satellite to see if we can amplify the signal.”

“Yeah, we’re supposed to just float near Venus for a month? Why don’t we bring the satellite aboard and take a look at it once we get back?” Dave asks.

Bill turns to look at the sky as the elevator moves, quickly sliding up the side of the shuttle.

“That’s one thing funny I noticed once I started training for this flight.”

“Heck, why don’t we just do that?” Gina replies.

“It’s that all astronauts specialize. I’ve got my mission. I’ve got my own duties and so do they. Cooper’s in command, Dave’s our pilot. Gina has a whole team to watch over.”

“Yeah. On the way back, if we use Venus’s orbit to speed up the ship and if we aim just about seven or eight degrees closer to the planet’s southern pole, we could cut our travel time by a few days, maybe even a week, I think,” says Dave.

“He flew over Afghanistan and Iraq for more years than he’s willing to remember. At least, that’s what he says.”

“We can’t do that Dave,” interjects Cooper. “Not if we want to keep the satellite in its orbit.”

“Cooper has been an astronaut for years. If you ask, he’ll tell you about the time he stepped on the moon and smudged one of Armstrong’s footprints.”

“Once, he circled the Earth in a cramped orbiter for three whole months. I don’t know how he did it. He’s one of the old timers.”

“To tell you the truth, I’m really glad he’s leading this mission. If I’d have to follow anyone, anywhere, I want it to be a seasoned astronaut like him.”

As Cooper and Everest talk, Bill turns to Gina.

“Excited to visit Venus?” he asks, finally making his voice heard.

“Well, I’m looking forward to getting to work. I’ll relax once we are in orbit,” she says.

Gina brought her own team of researchers. They are working on a study to see how different animals behave in a zero gravity environment. As the astronauts ride to their place aboard the shuttle, several crews load boxes into the bottom of the shuttle. They carry small cages, several filled with birds and some spiders, There’s even an ant farm.

They are testing various environmental conditions, too.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know what they are hoping to find out. All I’ve been thinking about is that satellite.”

“I don’t know why you guys want to get back so quick,” Guest tells the captain and Everest.

Cooper scoffs.

“You’ve never been in space. Once you’ve spent a little while cramped in that tin can, you’ll feel different,” he says. “Besides, taking shits into that vacuum bag gets old after the first time you do it”

The elevator stops with a ‘thunk’ as it reaches the top of the shuttle. Bill is as nervous as he’s ever been in his life. He’d be scared if is wasn’t so excited. It’s this excitement that helps keep him motivated as he steps into the cabin with the rest of the crew.

Guest’s eyes are wide as he looks over the machinery before him.

“You gonna strap in?” asks Cooper as Bill is suddenly the only astronaut not in his seat.

Bill sits and fumbles with the buckles to his seatbelt.

“Alright everybody. Sit down and strap in. We’re lifting off in two minutes!” shouts Cooper.

Everest begins clicking buttons and moving switches, as the shuttle starts to hum to life.

“We will see the bare face of the Earth, exposed to the stars. Floating miles and miles away from the rest of humanity.”

Dave Everest’s body hangs loosely strapped to what remains of a shuttle cockpit seat. His arms hang at his sides, one hand grips a shuttle joystick that was once connected to the shuttle’s control panel.

Starlight against the bones jutting through Everest’s spacesuit make the bones seem to glow in the darkness.

“We will be long gone.”

In the ship, each crew member is preparing for launch. Cooper hovers near Everest, watching the pilot as the sounds of activity in the massive machine they inhabit prepares for its journey.

“Alright mission control, we are locked and loaded,” says Cooper, speaking loudly into a headset against his ear.

“Let’s light this candle,” he says into the headset.

As the shuttle starts to rumble and smoke begins to pour from the rockets below, a smile curls around Bill’s face as his fingers grip the seat.

“It’s really happening.”

In a darkened mission control room, a hundred employees watch the shuttle on video screens over dimly lit computers. A man, dressed in a thin, short sleeved dress shirt and a tacky, red tie, has a headset on as he talks to Cooper.

“Alright Captain Cooper, we are go for launch,” says the man in the control room.

Cooper begins to settle in, holding the headset to his ear.

"Roger that Mission Control. We are go," says Cooper.

"Lift off in 10," the operator’s voice rings in Cooper’s ears.

Guest moves nervously in his seat, his weight shifting as he tugs a little on the too tight seat belt.

“10…9…8…7…6…”

Everest’s fingers tense around the throttle.

"5…4…3…"

Sweat beads on Guest’s forehead and he reaches to wipe his face.

“2...1”

Bill’s fingers grip the seat as fire erupts from the rocket engines. Everyone in the cabin gasps as they are thrust to the back of their seats.

Everest screams something unintelligible, but Bill thinks he heard Dave say his wife’s name.

“And we have liftoff,” Copper hears in his headset.

The seat belt tight around his chest, Bill tries to move. He can’t lift his head off of the headrest as the force of acceleration is just too high. He breathes deep and a smile crawls across his terrified face.

“WHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!”

Before long, the shuttle had escapes the Earth’s pull and was able to settle in, reaching the once-dead satellite that was stuck in orbit just beyond Venus.

"I have never been so excited, I don’t even notice how long it’s been before we get here. We expected it to take about several days, but it felt shorter than that."

The crew climb around the shuttle as it moves closer to the satellite. Cooper grabs Guest’s shoulder, pulling him away from watching Gina as she studies a spider weaving a web in zero gravity.

“Ok, Guest. You know what to do. We’re going to get as close as we can to the satellite. You’ll have to space walk a bit so we don’t damage that thing," says Cooper.

Guest nods and turns away, walking to grab a spacesuit from a nearby locker. He seems to barely be able to contain his excitement, his fingers tremble as he pull the straps tight, around his wrists as he pulls a sleeve over his arm.

“Ok, ok, let’s see what’s going on out there.”

He pulls on the comically over-sized pants of his spacesuit and clips them to the chest piece, taking time to make sure they will seal before he turns to grab his helmet.

Once he’s suited up, Bill puts his gloved hand on the handle to the hatch outside, looks back over his shoulder at Copper, and pushes down the handle.

As the hatch opens, William Guest steps out to the emptiness just beyond the safety of the ship.

Moving carefully, he grabs a tether that runs from the ship’s edge to the tip of the satellite. Guest inches out, his eyes glued to the control box on the tip of the satellite. He can see the flickering of a small green light coming from under the housing on the tip of the decades-old satellite.

As he gets closer, William looks over his shoulder at the ship, about a football field away, connected by a tether to the satellite, and floating in space, millions of miles away from anything else.

And, Bill notices that the ship and satellite seem shrouded in an orange mist that crackles with the blue snap of electricity.

"Static electricity?"

Bill mutters to himself as he takes in the view, then turns to the satellite, ready to return to why he came out here in the first place.

The words, “Mariner X”, etched onto the housing of the satellite, reflect off of Bill’s visor as his gloved hands move across the steel housing.

"See what it’s doing?" crackles Cooper’s voice in Bill’s helmet.

“Yeah, everything looks like it’s working. But, there’s, like, smoke out here. It’s all foggy.”

The panel under Bill’s fingers slides open and he gets a look at the technology. While the hardware inside the satellite isn’t ancient, it is incredibly outdated as technology has moved in leaps and bounds since the 60’s when it was launched.

This thing shouldn’t be working at all.

But, as he twists a small wire connected to a circuit board, Bill can’t help but be surprised that everything seems to be on and functioning.

“It’s like, I don’t know. This cloud must be some kind of static electricity, maybe. There’s no reason for this to have power unless it’s being generated by this space dust.”

Guest leans in closer, small indicator lights reflect against his eyes after refracting off of his visor.

“The batteries in here should have died years ago.”

As Bill holds the wire, sparking in his hand, he works with the connection points, the orange mist, thicker than it was, weaves through his fingers and the circuitry.

“Huh? It’s like something brought this to life.”

The mist builds between Bill and the circuitry and he stops his work, looking closely at the strange color as it fogs his view. As he studies the sight before his eyes, behind Bill, the mist has moved to surround the ship.

Above the shuttle, electricity crackles through the moving mist.

“You guys should see this. It’s so weird.”

Bill’s study is broken by the sounds of screams.

Over his headset, the sound of Captain Cooper shouting shakes Bill’s concentration and he turns to look back at the shuttle behind him.

"Get an extinguisher!... Put it out!" he hears Cooper yell.

"Calm down!" Everest can be heard saying in the background.

Looking back at the ship, Guest watches as flames fill the windows of the shuttle cabin. He can’t even see his fellow crew members due to the flames.

“Guys?”

Bill grasps the tether and pulls hard, moving his floating body back towards the shuttle.

“Get in here, Guest! We’ve got to go," the captain screams into Guest’s headset.

Inside the ship, fire is everywhere. The orange mist, still crackling with electricty, has bled throughout the shuttle. Captain Cooper hunches over a table, screaming into a headset radio to Bill, while the rest of the crew struggles to fight the flames.

As Bill pulls himself closer, he can see the fog surround the ship.

“Get in here quick. Something’s shorting out the equipment," Cooper says into the radio.

Reaching the shuttle door, Bill extends his arm.

“Everything’s fried. We’ve got fire in the cockpit….Relax Gina! Get in here, Bill. Now!” the captain’s voice fills Bill’s headset.

Bill puts his hand on the handle, pushing it down. Though the screams, Cooper’s voice is commanding and clear.

It’s calming.

The ship explodes.

The shuttle door, as it flies off, thrusts Bill backwards, knocking off his helmet.

The satellite technician gasps for air as his eyes grow wide with shock.

"The explosion is nearly silent. But, I can hear the click of the clips on my helmet as they snap when it’s pulled from my face. It’s the last thing I hear."

"I don’t hear Cooper anymore."

"I don’t hear a thing."

Bill’s arms flail as his form floats amid rubble.

"It’s all been blown apart."

A body glides past Bill. It’s Gina. She’s lost an arm and a leg. She may still be alive. She floats by, reaching out to grab her severed arm.

"It’s all been blown to pieces."

Unable to breathe, Guest looks around, trying to see if anyone else is alive. He see’s Cooper, his body still, looking calm as he glides, dead in space.

"He can’t save us."

Bill’s eyes begin to fade. He’s given up trying to breathe. Instead, he turns his head, wanting to get a last look at the Earth.

"It happened so fast. I don’t even feel panicked. It’s more of a numbness, really."

"It’s shock. Death creeps in so quietly."

"It’s comfortable."

The Earth reflects off of Bill’s retina.

"I think of my family."

The image of a beautiful young woman, with brown hair and eyes, fills Guest’s mind. She’s college-aged. Dressed in a red sundress with a checkered pattern as she reaches to grasp a bouquet of flowers from his extended hand.

"I picture my wife, Emily. I’ll never see her smile again. It’s unique. She does this little bite of her lip when she grins. I remember how happy she was when we first met. She smiled that way when I told her I was taking this flight. She was so proud."

He thinks of her holding their daughter, sitting in a hospital bed near his waist. She’s older, though still smiling same way as before.

"Oh God… I’ll never see Amanda. I’ll miss her grow up. She’s three. Maybe she’ll still remember me?"

A shard of what is left of the shuttle slams into Bill’s shoulder and shakes him from his thoughts. He barely reacts, except to let his eyes close a little more.

Nearby, Dave Everest hangs in space, his eyes wide looking at Bill. In a last bit of effort, Bill tries to wave at the pilot.

"I reach out, trying to make some sort of communication with the others. But it’s no good."

Bill blinks, his eyes straining to focus on the face of the man in front of him.

"Losing oxygen…."

"They say that the vacuum of space is cold."

"It is."

"It’s cold as ice."

Without a sound, with no movement — not even the light flutter of his eyelids closing — Bill lets his life slip away.

"It’s as cold as a grave."

Chapter 2

“ Our fish are your friends”

In a stark, white room, a pair of groggy eyes blink open slowly, cringing at the shine of a light overhead.

Blinking again and wincing, William Guest’s eyes slowly adjust to the light in the room.

A light? Wait, I’m alive?

As his vision clears, William focuses on the light above his face. It’s a clean, steel fixture on an arm. The light itself is surrounded by a mirror, similar to what you’d see in a dentist’s office, but this one is much larger.

No.

There’s no way. Is this a hospital? A morgue?

Blinking again, a bluish hue tints the edge of William’s vision as he shuts his eyes tight again and moves to raise his fingers to wipe away at his weary eyes.

He’s already touching his face when he realizes he was just able to lift his arm.

I’m really alive?

Bill’s face lights up as he smiles. He sits up a bit, resting on his elbows and sees that he’s lying on a table in a barely furnished room. At one end of the room, there’s an open door, outlined in a clean, steel frame. The place isn’t much bigger than an average bedroom.

Bill’s eyes trace the walls, all are white and devoid of any signs or decoration. If this is a doctor’s office, there’s no sign of the person who it might belong to or what the physician might treat. Next to the table that Bill is sitting on, there’s a chair and a small end table. These too show no signs of identifying marks or use.

Bill looks down at himself and he sees that, not only is he dressed in the same orange jumpsuit he wore when his shuttle exploded, but on his feet, he’s wearing the same size nine boots he wore before he put on a spacesuit and died.

Well, it’s either the same suit and boots or reasonable facsimiles.

He sees a scuff on the left boot that he remembers trying to buff out with his palm before he went out to check on the satellite. William can barely contain his excitement as he sits up fully, and, crossing his legs, he reaches down to rub away that smudge on the boot on his left foot, and in that moment, he sees his right hand.

He notices that his skin is pale, nearly white as marble, but there’s an inner light beneath his flesh that seems so foreign. He looks at the ivory palm and skinny, white fingers sticking out from the long orange sleeve of his jumpsuit and, as he does, just below the skin on the back of his palm, Bill sees a spark of electric light, quick and bright, under his skin.

It is a flash of blue he’s seen before.

The same azure shade has colored the edges of his vision since he awoke.

He stops and stares, watching a small lightning storm build on the back of his hand and travel down through his snow white fingers, then back up his wrist and under his sleeve. His eyes - once brown - are now a bright, electric blue. They study his skin as he moves his fingers in front of his face.

Sitting up on the table, the electric sparks continue, snapping through his arm, up his neck, and coursing throughout his cheek, the blue energy disburses throughout his skin.

Opening his long dead mouth, Guest gasps, tasting air that his lungs haven’t had in so, so long and he begins to scream.

“I’m alive!”

Bill rubs his eyes again and he sees that, in the corner of the room, there’s – what looks to be – a window. Outside, there’s nothing but empty space with a few stars in the distance.

“Hello?! I’m alive!”

No, I can’t be alive.

I don’t feel right. Something’s different.

My chest feels, sort of hollow and uncomfortable. My skin itches.

No, it’s not an itch. It’s like that unpleasant tingle you get when your leg falls asleep. I have that all over – it fills every piece of me.

My eyes tingle.

Bill pulls his hand away from his eyes.

“I’m okay!…I’m awake!”

I’m still in space? Is that possible?

Hearing no reply, Bill keeps staring at his skin, watching as electricity pops as he moves his fingers. Flexing his thumb causes branches of electricity to grow under his knuckle then spread down through his hand.

The blue of the electricity illuminates his skin and Bill can see the light glow against the orange fabric of his sleeve.

“I’m…I’m…” What happened to me?

“Um, and where am I?”

Still, no reply to his voice as Bill turns, letting his feet dangle off the table. He finds himself lost in thought as he moves, slowly, not wanting to rush.

This isn’t right. I’m dead.

I died. I felt it.

I saw the ship explode.

I felt the heat of the blast and the force of it that blew off my helmet. My lungs ached for breath and I was aware of it the entire time.

Looking down at his boots, Bill carefully steps to the floor, just feeling around for the ground, like he’s dipping his toes in bath water.

I felt the vacuum of space steal away everything I would ever be.

Eyes open and awake, I let space itself inside my lungs and felt it take away my life. I let go.

I’m dead. I know it.

When Bill’s feet touch the floor, the boots make a soft, scuffing sound that makes him grin. He turns, a little surprised that he feels no pain or stiffness in his body while he moves.

With a careful step and a push off the table, Bill climbs out of bed, and steadies himself on his feet.

I’m dead and yet, I walk.

Bill moves to take a step, and feels his movements are as natural as ever. He turns to look back at the window, and seeing nothing more than stars in a black field of space, he steps towards the open door.

And, it seems, I’m alone.

“Hello? Is anyone here?”

Stepping through the door, the satellite engineer examines his surrounds as he walks. White tiles, all identical, line the floor and the walls are decorated similarly, except for a long silver band of metal, etched into the walls at about waist height.

“Hello?”

Well, I’m on a spaceship or, maybe a space station? I can hear the soft, dull hum of machinery behind these walls, so it’s up and running.

Bill enters a hallway, seeing a room at the far end, he steps forward.

My legs are able to hold my weight. There’s a warmth and a tingle – it reminds me of the way the air feels when you hold your hand near a balloon charged with static electricity.

You know the way that balloon tickles the hairs on your arm? That feeling travels up my spine with every slow step.

Bill’s hand rests on the wall and he lets his weight press against it, using the wall to help move him forward. In his shadow, reflecting off the wall, Bill can see the glow of blue sparks snapping on his skin as he moves.

How long have I been here? How long has it been since I’ve walked?

It feels like forever.

How long have I been on that table? How long have I been dead?

William begins to lean heavily against the wall as he moves. Each step feels more arduous than the last as he carries himself forward, his right shoulder slumped against the wall as he inches closer to the room at the end of the hall.

Everything feels new, yet worn out, as he tries to piece together what is happening. Guest looks down at his forearm, held crooked against the wall as he leans on his shoulder.

And why does my skin look like one of those cheap plasma lamps they used to sell at the mall? I keep flexing my arm just to watch the electricity jump through the muscle fiber.

It dances just beneath the surface of my skin, like a firework trapped in glass.

As he reaches the door, Bill halts, taking a moment to compose himself and prepare for whatever is ahead.

Wait, I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I just need to find someone and I’m sure they will be able to help explain what’s going on.

Gripping the metal frame of the door, Bill leans forward and steps inside, pushing off the wall to stand, unassisted in the open doorway.

He’s greeted by silence as he stares into a large, sterile white, cafeteria. Long benches and tables line the walls and at the back of the room a silver steel counter top sits unused. At the top of the counter there are several open holes where a chef could set hot pots of food to keep them warm.

Stepping into the room, Bill takes in the area. It looks like it could seat about thirty – forty people, he determines as he walks along the dining area.

Someone has to be here.

“Hello?”

He walks past the counter at the back of the room to another open door, finding an immaculately clean kitchen area. It’s spotless and nothing is out of place.

He moves to open a drawer to find an array of silverware. Taking out and inspecting a spoon, Bill finds no identifying marks on the smooth, silver utensil.

Curious, and wanting to know more, Bill quickens his steps. His legs feel more sure and he doesn’t feel a need to grip the wall as he walks through the kitchen to a door in the back.

He finds a small room with a long white couch and a silver coffee table. He looks around the new room. It’s a lounge without out a TV or magazines.

Leaning over and looking closely, the engineer sees the cushions smooth and pristine, like no one has ever say on the couch. He moves, turns and flops onto the couch heavily.

It’s so quiet.

How can this be? Maybe if I start looking for markings on wall panels or under this couch or the table - anything - that could be some kind of clue?

He bends and flips the table. Nothing. No marks of the table’s maker on the thing at all.

He climbs to his feet and steps out of the room, curious to see if there’s anyone at all in this silent ship.

Shouldn’t there be some sign of life? I can hear that the ship is running, the electronics are certainly on, but are we moving?

Maybe I’m in some secluded area of this ship that the crew doesn’t use? But, how big could this ship be?

As he’s about to step from the room, the ship fills with a piercing noise.

An alarm.

The incessant whine and grating chirp of it causes Bill to smile wide.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WAAAAAAAAAAAAA

In the hall, red lights lines along the hallway ceiling fill the space with their ruby glow, flashing with every screaming alert.

Bill can’t stop smiling as he rushes down the hall towards the source of the sound.

That’s it! That’s got to be it.

The crew is in trouble. I must have been woken up as some sort of fail safe. Like, a reanimated, zombie safety valve ready to help if they are off the ship and get into trouble.

Right?

“Hold on. It worked, I’m alive ….I’m alive…again. I can help….”

In trying to shout, Bill begins to gag on the words. He coughs and sputters, grabbing at his throat. Words are barely being choked out.

What? Where’s my voice?

“Hey! Hey! I’m here!”

He tries to shout, but the words are barely audible. Bill falls to his knees, holding his throat.

I can’t speak…I can’t …the hollow feeling in my chest… worse than ever.

Curled on the floor, William starts to cough, in short, soft, breathless bursts, then the cough grows into a gasp and soon his lips curl into a knowing smile.

Wait, you need air to speak, moron.

I forgot to fucking breathe. I think I took a breath when I opened my eyes, but after that…

Yeah, I’m definitely dead. How could I have forgotten that?

As the alarm blares overhead, William moves to sit on the floor, laughing at his own forgetful stupidity. He leans his head back and laughs, making sure to breathe in deep as much as he can.

He looks around a bit, and when he feels ready, Guest climbs to his feet and moves on.

It’s like blinking your eyes. You don’t think about until you need to.

I can’t believe I forgot to breathe.

Continuing down the long hallway, the screech of the alarm overhead wears on him. He rushes forward to find out where it’s coming from, and – almost as importantly – how to shut it off.

“I’m here, I’m here, hold on!”

William grins, hearing his own voice echo through the hallway. The air would have been a lifesaver, had it a life to save.

I know what’s happened.

It’s just a problem waiting to be solved. I’m a fail safe. I’m dead, sure. But, I bet that I’m here because to someone - someone smart, someone who thinks just like me - my death was a problem and they solved it so that I could help them.

And, I woke up when the alarm went off. That’s what it is. That’s got to be it.

I’m the human element. I’m the ghost in the machine - the wild card that can think logically in dangerous situations.

Since I’m dead, you can just pack me away and then zap me back when you need an engineer to get you out of trouble.

“I’m coming, I hear the alarm!”

Reaching the other end of the hallway, Bill finds the source of the alarm. He steps into a wide open control room. The inside is as stark white and just as unlabeled as everything else in this ship, but in the middle of the room, on a huge, rounded white wall, there’s a big black window looking out at the stars outside.

That’s got to be it. There’s no other reason for me to be alone here.

Someone must need me to save their life.

In the room, there are several seats in front of white – are they desks? – waist high tables scattered around. In the middle of the room, there’s a similar white table, not a marking on the whole thing, with two chairs behind it.

They need…wait, what?

As the alarm blares the large window in the middle of the room flashes. The thing turns solid white for a split second, then clears to show the stars outside, then back to a full, white screen again.

The screech of the alarm seems to cut out and start back when the window flickers.

William stares, hearing the alarm play:

Beep Beep Bop - Bop Bop Beep – Beep – Bop Bop Bop.

The white flashes illuminate the room as he stares at the screen. The alarm screech continues.

Beep – Beep Bop Beep Beep – Beep Beep Beep – Bop Bop Beep

“The fuck…”

What the? Wait…wait a second.

Bop Beep – Bop Beep Bop – Bop

Guest’s jaw drops as he stands in the middle of the room, his crisp, electric blue eyes studying the flashing window.

“That’s Morse Code!”

Not wanting to look away, Guest begins looking around the room, cautious at first, then frantic. He needs something to write with.

Beep Bop Bop – Bop – Bop Beep – Beep Bop Bop

On the floor, near the molded plastic edge, where the table in the middle of the room meets the floor, Guest spots a small – about the size of his palm – screwdriver. It’s a Phillips head.

Fuck it

Guest drops to the floor and hurriedly grasps the screwdriver, then he jumps to his feet and walks to the wall, near the window.

The satellite engineer raises his fist and begins carving into the white tiles that cover the wall. As his fingers curl to grab the tool, Bill listens to the stops and starts of the alarm and begins talking aloud.

“W..E…we…r.. e..g..r..e..t..f…”

He writes as he sounds out the code.

“We regretfully deny you peace in death… we have lost our fish…”

Finishing a line, Bill moves to scrawl under where he started.

“…our fish are lost in the sea…you are our fisherman…”

As he writes, Bill cuts paint chips off the tile. The white paint flakes off, showing some of the shimmering black material that the wall is made of as he continues carving out the message.

“…our fish are your friends...”

“…bring them home and we will provide the peace we’ve refused you…stop. …start...”

A smile cuts across William’s face as he continues to scar the walls with the message.

“…guest, you are dead…we regretfully..”

“…deny you peace in death…”

Satisfied, William Guest stands back to look at what he has done. He re-reads the message as the screen continues to flash and the alarm sounds its deafening tones.

“Fish?”

Whispering to himself, Bill turns, walking to take a seat near the table in the middle of the room.

“Ok, Ok, I got it message. Stop repeating it”

Beep, Bop…Beep….

The alarm continues and Bill starts looking for a way to stop it. He runs his hands along the table, there’s no buttons or controls. He starts tapping the table top, lightly at first, the harder, hoping something will light up or react to his touch.

Nothing. It continues until he’s frustrated. He finds himself humming along with the Morse Code beeps as they repeat, once, twice, twenty times.

Then, the alarm stops.

In the silence, Guest looks at the window and the millions of stars beyond, and he speaks to his view of the abyss.

“Ok, there, now, how do I find these fish?”

No reaction. The machine sits silent. The only image other than the starscape in the flat black stare of the large window is the unsettling reflection of Bill’s face, alive with the shimmer of blue lightning beneath his skin.

He stares at his own reflection, watching the spider veins of electricity crawl across his face. Then, he tries again to communicate with the ship.

“Um, Hello?”

Waiting again, he smacks the tabletop in front of him.

“Hello? Who is this? How do you know me?”

No response.

“Where are the fish? How do I find them?”

The computer screen is silent in reply. Bill is getting frustrated and he starts pounding his electric fists on the table.

“Where am I? Where do I need to go?!”

Nothing in return. He bangs his hands hard and a crack grows in the edge of the molded table. He stands and kicks the chair he was sitting in sending it across the room. He grabs the screwdriver that he scratched the message into the wall with and hurls it across the room.

When it hits the floor and rolls back towards him, he looks down at it, dejected.

“And, how do I fly this thing?”

Hours pass. But, Bill isn’t keeping track. He’s fixed the chair and he’s sitting, hunched at the table. Holding the screwdriver, he taps out the Morse Code message as he talks to himself.

“Our fish”

He taps with the screwdriver handle.

“Are your friends”

How long should I sit around waiting for that monitor to start back up? I’m good with electronics, I really am, but, nothing’s marked. I mean, there’s not even a keyboard or anything.

“Guest…you are dead”

He says, still tapping it out. Then he slaps the screwdriver down against the table.

I can’t just sit here and wait. Can I? What is this thing I’m riding around in? They couldn’t leave a manual? And Morse Code? What was that?

“Fuck this”

Guest hops to his feet and grips the screwdriver, tucking it into a pocket in his spacesuit. He heads out of the room and down the hall, back toward the room he woke up in.

As he walks back, he finds an ancillary hallway and marches in.

William Guest was never the kind of man to wait for someone to tell him what to do. No. He’s always been the kind of person who takes initiative and gets it done.

Even if he’s not sure what needs to be done at the moment.

This is nothing. It’s like anything else, look at the whole problem and break it down.

Let’s get a look at the problem.

Wanting to get to know the ship that he’s in, William wanders down the hall in search of an engine room. Instead, he stumbles into a huge open space with a wide door, at least thirty feet tall on a far wall.

It’s a hanger.

Perfect. I’m going to go outside and get a look at this ship.

Might as well see what I’m driving. And, maybe there will be markings outside that will tell me something about this thing.

Along a far wall, Bill finds a set of lockers…empty lockers. He slams the doors shut with frustration.

They couldn’t at least leave me a spacesuit?

He continues to search the area, then looks out a window next to the hanger door. He can see the edge of something jutting out from the side of the ship. It looks miles long and curves around the ship. It’s so dark, Bill can’t make out what it might be.

What am I thinking? I’m already dead. I don’t need a spacesuit.

Next to the wall of lockers, Bill finds a long, thick cable. It’s connected to something inside the wall while the rest is coiled in a large pile. He finds the end of it and hefts a length of the cable up onto his shoulder and walks towards the hanger doors.

He throws the length of cable onto the ground, grabs an end and ties it around his waist.

Ok, let me get a look.

Stepping to the hanger door, it opens automatically. As Bill nears the door, looking for a way to open it, the tall hangar opening has decided to cooperate and it opens for him.

Thinking for a moment that he’s going to have to figure out how that works - just to make sure it doesn’t open to the vastness of empty space at a whim - Bill tightens the cable on his waist and steps to the edge.

Confused by that message, frustrated by not being able to communicate with whoever sent it and angry that there’s no one to help him figure everything out, Bill takes a determined step off the ship to find out for himself just what kind of situation he is really in.

William floats out away from the ship and he turns, letting the starlight illuminate his new home. He stares at it, silhouetted against a star as large as the sun, as he hangs from the long cable.

It’s large and sort of oblong. The hatch he exited is on the bottom edge of the thing and, looking back, Bill can’t help but think the ship itself looks like a submarine pushing its nose through the center of a circle of saggy pizza dough.

The curved structure he saw from the inside seems to be an enormous, round, sail – there’s no other word for it.

Bill looks up at the massive structure that juts out of the ship and surrounds it, connected just behind the nose of the main body of the ship.

The entire thing looks like a half opened umbrella, with folds in the sail where it looks like it could expand. One side of the sail is bright, shimmering gold and the other, the same side that he saw when he was inside the ship, is black as night.

Look at this thing. I don’t see any thrusters, no engines.

William tugs on his cable and his body moves closer to the edge of the sail. He reaches out, trying to touch the material where it sags a bit.

There doesn’t seem to be anyway to propel this thing. Unless, this is just what it looks like, and works as some sort of sail.

Moving slowly across the hull, Bill’s outstretched fingers can reach the material.

It feels like a metal net, but this black side is sort of slick. It’s greasy almost.

Just as Bill touches the sail, he hears a familiar sound as the alarm inside the ship starts to blare. He turns his head, his hand still gripping the sail’s material and suddenly, the sail unfurls.

The massive arms of this “umbrella” extend as the ship sparks to life.

The sail pulls taught, ripping itself away from Guest’s hand. As he tries to hold on, his fingers tear right through the material. Bill looks down at the small piece of gold and black material is left in his hand and puts it in his pocket.

I guess I’m taking some of this with me.

As he pulls himself along the cable, Bill watches in awe. He can still hear the alarm inside and, when he looks back, he can see lights flashing from beyond the hanger doors.

The sail, it….it’s huge.

And, wait, there’s lights flashing inside. Something’s going on. But, what’s the ship doing?

As Bill watches, the ship begins to move. It turns slow, like a ship at sea. The sail, fully extended, spreads over and around the ship.

It’s magnificent.

The sail looks like its catching ambient light. Gathering it from the stars all around.

It’s….

The ship jolts forward, pulling Bill along.

It’s moving…is it catching the light?

Propelling itself like a solar sailboat? Wait, I remember this…

Letting the ship pull him, Bill thinks back to his youth. In a classroom in the past, he remembers studying a chalkboard covered in math.

Yeah, we had talked about something like this at NASA. We wanted to use light rays to recharge, and possible even gently propel, a small robotic craft to orbit the moon.

But, there wasn’t any material that could catch the light the way we needed it to.

As he thinks about the sail, Bill begins to pull himself back towards the hangar.

What we needed was an element that could work as, essentially, the polar opposite of sunlight.

Something that, when hit by light, wouldn’t reflect it back or absorb it. Instead, it needed to react differently. We needed to harness it. Capture it and not allow it to reflect, so that we could use the maximum amount of energy to charge the drone.

We tried to see if we could catch enough solar power to see if it could move something forward. Just like wind filling a sail.

Just like this…

But, nothing ever worked.

Pulling himself along the cable, Bill reaches the door and steps into the hanger as the doors shut behind him.

Untying the cable, William listens to the alarm and begins walking back toward the main room with the window. As he walks, he reaches into his pocket to feel the slick, shimmering fabric that makes up the sail.

But, that’s impossible, right? It didn’t work for us because the laws of physics don’t allow you to use light in that way.

Can this sail harness actual starlight so that we can ride with it? Is it just catching light and riding it like a wave, or, in the right conditions, could it be carried by beams of light, and….would that mean this thing can go the speed of light?

When Bill enters the control room, he’s greeted by a map drawn against what he had believed was a window.

Now, it’s showing some kind of map of the galaxy. There are yellow and red dots all over and constellations he recognizes are tucked behind space stuff that he doesn’t recognize.

The alarm stops the moment Guest enters the large room.

On the screen, there’s a prominent yellow line from a green triangle in the middle that leads to a red dot on a map of stars.

A fish?

William sits to look at the screen. He takes time to look at the things he can recognize. First, he finds the North Star, then he can make out the location of the stars that make up Orion’s Belt.

But, he can’t make sense of the direction of the map. It’s not calibrated to be facing north and Orion’s Belt looks to be out of place when compared to the location of the North Star.

Looking at the map, Bill watches as the yellow line moves, shifting to aim at the one read dot it leads to. And, even if some of these things are unfamiliar, Bill knows the relative distance of several objects in the sky.

He looks closely, trying to calculate the distance from the center of the map to the red dot indicated by the line, Bill rationalizes that, even at light speed, if that red dot is this ship’s intended destination, it could take years to get there.

Looking up at the screen, Bill leans back in his chair and retrieves the sail material from his pocket.

“Well, I’ve got time. Maybe, now I’ll have time to figure out how this stuff works.”

Speaking to no one in particular, Bill studies the material and begins prying the black and gold sides apart between his fingers.

That’s my problem, I’m way too impatient. I can’t just let things happen. Ever since I was a kid, I always needed to break things down to see how they work instead of letting it be.

As he sits, the green triangle slowly inches closer to the red dot on the screen above. He loses track of time as he investigates the material.

His curiosity bleeds out as he finds no answers in the material, he starts looking closely at the lightning snapping under the skin of his palms.

And that’s another thing I want to know. How is it that I work?

What’s keeping me from simply being a corpse rife with rigor mortis?

He moves the fingers of his left hand against the forearm of his right. He presses and pinches his pale flesh, trying to impede the current below his skin to no avail.

He reaches into his pocket and finds the screwdriver he’s been carrying. Bill takes the end of the screwdriver and slides it up his arm.

I need to know what’s in there. One way or another, I need to know.

Besides, it shouldn’t hurt, I’m dead right?

The tip of the screwdriver breaks the skin and lightning - looking almost like a liquid – spits out, sticking to the tip of the screwdriver.

He can barely feel the screwdriver break his skin and the lightning bleeds out slowly. Along with the blue plasma, a current courses between his skin and the screwdriver. He sits and states at the bright blue fluid. It sparks as electricity spits from the new wound and licks at the tip of the screwdriver.

He’s transfixed. It’s strangely beautiful.

Then it cracks, the electric current sparks wildly, shocking Bill. A jolt goes through his whole body as he flings the screwdriver to the floor.

Ka-Rack!!!

“Oh God!”

Bill falls to the floor. His eyes close.

Bill opens his eyes, waking up off the floor while the alarm, again, blares in the room.

Sitting up, he groggily checks his arm where the lightning poured out.

There’s no mark, there’s no liquid lightning on his skin. But, on the table, there’s a black char mark where his arm was before the lightning shocked him. The energy must be unstable when removed from his body, as Bill just found out.

Sitting up on the floor, Bill tries to get his bearings. The incessant alarm making itself impossible to ignore.

That’s what it feels like to pry electricity out of my arm with a metal screwdriver, huh? I’m not going to try that again anytime soon….

Then his eyes move to catch a glimpse of the star map on the screen above his head.

“Oh, shit…”

On the screen, the red dot, that was so far away on the star map, is now so close that it is now actively moving to merge with the triangle.

“Oh shit, it’s already here. It’s coming aboard…”

The undead astronaut hops to his feet and runs toward the hanger bay. He’s sprinting.

“I can’t believe it. I caught one while I was passed out. I missed the whole thing. I can’t believe I missed it!”

Bill enters the hangar bay to see a small, single pilot shuttle beginning to land in the ship. The hangar doors shut behind it with a hiss. The ship is thin and gray.

There’s an oval cockpit window that looks clouded and dirty. The shuttle has short wings on each side and a longer, thicker fin on top that leads back to the tail. This fin extends beyond the end of the shuttle, and a cone on the bottom looks like it controls the direction of the propulsion engine spitting fire from the back of the shuttle.

Stepping closer, Bill sees a form in the shuttle cockpit’s window. As it moves, he can see a small bump on the front of – what must be – its head.

It’s like a horn…or a nose.

It’s human!

“Hello? Can you speak English?”

Bill screams at the shuttle as the cockpit hatch cracks open.

The nearly skeletal form of a human looks back at Bill. Its skin is pulled tight and the ridges of the skull are obvious. The shuttle’s pilot looks like a mummy that has been dried in the Egyptian sun.

Bill steps closer to inspect the body.

Then, a spark of electricity curls across the forehead of the skeletal form. It sits up and a smile cracks across the ancient skin.

And, maybe it’s the way the boney skull turns a bit to the side as it grins, or the thin remains of a mustache along the mouth, but Bill recognizes the body.

It’s….It’s Dave

As Bill steps closer, he inspects Dave Everest, the NASA Pilot that died with Bill in the accident.

Dave is now a corpse.

His skin sparks and flickers with an inner electricity, like Bill, but Dave looks much more pale, more lifeless and lean.

His body looks ravaged and malnourished. As Guest steps closer, Dave’s head turns and the eyes open on the corpse in the cockpit.

Piercing blue eyes, flickering with electricity, look back at Bill and Dave Everest’s jaw drops open.

“Bill, is that you?” he asks with a dry cough.