Planet Eleven

You’d think that having a superpower would be great. 

I’m sure anyone in their right mind, upon discovering that they were a real life Superman, wouldn’t hesitate to jump into those primary colored-spandex suits and take off. Everyone has fantasies of doing something heroic, of being lauded and praised, of proving to everyone around them that they really were special all along, see? 

But it’s not all roses and applause. Don’t believe me? Let me tell you. How brushed up are you on your history?

You probably know that in 2076, the International Space Travel Committee sent a series of manned probes to the nearest galaxies in an attempt to finally make contact with those elusive aliens we all hope to be hidden Out There Somewhere. You probably know that these were solo missions, and out of the twenty that were sent, only two survived. And, if you had any worldly knowledge at all, you’d probably know that I was one of those two. 

I have to tell you that, first of all, space is ridiculously big. You know that, but you’ll never really know that. I mean it. You’re just some tiny little ant on a tiny meaningless planet and space is infinitely, infinitely larger than you could even comprehend. I’d look out of my window every day and I’d just see….nothingness. Nothing at all. Just that, every day, for years and years. That alone was enough to drive anyone crazy. 

We were assigned to twenty of the forty planets in the nearest two galaxies at random. The twenty were picked based on information that the ISTC’s initial unmanned probes sent back. Oh no, they didn’t just dump us on a planet and say good luck. They were prepared. Or so they told us. 

Day 1, I landed on a deserted yellow rock of a planet. The climate was closest to that of Earth’s, so I suppose I was lucky. Asha, over on planet Nine, said hers was boiling hot. Like, literally would boil her alive if she left her ship. Apparently it’s got a joined-elliptical orbit that--here, let me draw it out for you. You see these two stars? Most of the planets in the galaxy orbit around both in an oval, like we do to our Sun on Earth. Planet Nine, however, was in a sweet spot that at certain points in the year, it would get caught in orbit and pulled in between the two stars, where it’ll sit stuck in their gravity for a few months. Evidently, the ISTC’s unmanned probes weren’t as observational as we thought. 

I’d talk to her over the radio sometimes. She was one of the more chatty of my peers. 

“How’s Hell?” I’d ask her whenever I was feeling particularly bored. 

“Fucking hot,” she’d respond. It was our thing. 

“Any interesting samples brought in today?” I’d say jokingly, even though I knew the answer was probably no. “I’ve got some orangish rocks today, as opposed to the standard puke-yellow.” 

“Still nothing over here,” she’d usually say, it was our routine, but this one time she hesitated. “Actually, there was something….” 

I let her talk. Silence was enough to prompt her to continue. 

“I boiled my tea today.” 

“Congratulations.” 

“Ha ha smartass. No I mean… I poured water into my cup and got the condensed tea packet and when I went to pick the cup up it boiled. As soon as I touched it.” 

“Has this happened before?”

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

It began to happen more and more often. Other astronauts were reporting strange phenomena on their respective planets. Planet Eighteen said he was able to move aside a boulder as large as him with just so much as a touch of a finger. Planet Two found out after a particularly nasty accident that he could breathe underwater. Planet Three swore that he could make the wind speed pick up or slow down at will. 

“Hey, has anyone discovered any living specimens on their planet’s yet?” Planet Six asked one day over the radio. 

“You’d know if we did, Six.” 

“I know, I know. It’s just… I have the strangest feeling that something is watching me.” 

“It’s probably just your imagination.” 

“Probably…” 

And as they discovered their powers, one by one they began to go radio silent. Something was causing them to drop sheer off the face of the Earth--well, not Earth. Soon enough, it was just Asha and I left on the coms. Any message that we could try to send to ISTC would have taken years to reach them, we were that far away. 

“Sure has been quiet lately,” I’d say. 

“Sure has,” she’d respond. She got less and less talkative as time went on. I worried for her. “I’ve been thinking…” 

“That’s dangerous.” 

“My internal body temperature has been rising. In some way that’s sustainable. I think I’m adapting to the climate somehow.” 

“Like… rapid evolution?” 

“Something like that. I think I might actually be able to go outside.” 

“Asha. Are you sure?”

“Yeah… yeah I’m sure. It’s about 300 degrees Fahrenheit  outside and I’m at about 210.” 

“210?! Holy shit Asha! That’s a little more than your body temperature ‘just rising!’” 

“I know, I know. I want to try going outside though.” 

“Just… be careful. We don’t know anything about these powers, why we have them, or--.” 

“I will. I will.” 

“Radio me as soon as you’re back, okay?” 

“I will!”

So I guess that when I say that two of us survived, I was being optimistic. In reality, I’m not certain if she’s still alive or not. I can only hope that she was safe and happy in her new volcanic home. For now, though, I’m collecting rocks and charting wind and trying not to think about what Six had said that one day. 

Oh, you ask what my superpower is? Well, after Asha went radio silent, I began talking to inanimate objects in her place. First the ship, then some rocks, and one day, a small little creature appeared. An ant. 

It was you. I made you. 

I haven’t made anything else since. This is what happened to the others. It started with something small, and then something bigger, and then… nothing. Maybe they got too cocky and pushed themselves too far. Maybe there’s something in the universe that sought to rectify the imbalance of power being distributed. Maybe that something would go after me if I tried to create anything more. 

Whatever the truth is, I’m not going to go down that path. I’m going to stay here and collect my rocks and data and hope that I’ll last until it’s time for me to go home. 

But hey, thanks for listening. Lord knows I’d go mad without someone to talk to.