A Place in the Sun

The metallic surface of the Cleveland Company logo glimmered faintly as the space station became slowly bathed in the dim glow of moonlight. Eileen sat in the control room chair looking straight ahead, not distracted by the sight of Umbriel passing the window; she’d seen it a thousand times. Her eyes were fixated by the 50-inch rectangle of light above her head. “He never takes me anywhere” she sighed. Prodding the remote control repeatedly at three second intervals, she continued browsing images of the inner Solar System - far off places, close to the Sun, but she knew it was hopeless. Ted hadn’t agreed to leave the space station since their honeymoon in 2159, and no matter how many light-years she spent dreaming of one last planet getaway, it came no closer to reality. Ted was just not interested; he had his mind of other things. 

   At the opposite end of the space station, the sound of clinking and clunking would be absolutely maddening if there had been anyone else around to hear it. The only person there was Ted whose hearing had started to go a long time ago. Pieces of twisted metal and dusty electronic chips were strewn around the floor of the station’s West Wing. A screw with a worn down thread went scuttling across the metal table skimming its surface like a stone across a lake. Eventually dropping to the floor and finding its resting place through a tiny air vent under a cabinet. “Blast!” Ted exclaimed staring into his empty hands. He looked up at the calendar above the workstation and his chest started to tighten. 

     It was November 4th 2212. The arrival of J-Boy, their beloved grandson, was imminent. The young explorer was about to make his annual call. Visitors were rare these days. So rare that they hadn’t had a visitor for 10 years, except J-Boy of course. His visits were guaranteed like Earth’s orbit around the Sun. He could arrive at any moment and yet the satellite was still not fixed. Ted just needed to re-attach a panel to cover the inner circuitry and the dish would be ready for installation. He reached into the screw box and grasped at the fresh air inside. He picked up his magnifying glass to see that the box was in fact empty. Ted slumped back into his chair, realising he would have to go to the East Wing to get a new one. That meant bumping into Eileen. He wasn’t ready to face her, especially as he hadn’t finished the job yet, but he couldn't stay away any longer. Ted hoped she’d forgotten about the promise he made last month. It was unlikely though.

     Eileen peered through the small round window in the door of the East Wing. The faint sound of footsteps had interrupted her mid-afternoon daydream of exotic star trails and asteroid showers. She watched as a frail masculine figure emerged from the long dark corridor that connected the wings of the space station. As he got closer, the light from the East Wing window cast a spotlight, revealing the silhouette. There was no doubt who it was, it couldn't have been anyone else. He was holding a shiny box. 

     "A gift?" she wondered. 

     “Oh, Ted …after all this time, finally he has something to offer, something to show he still cares after all these years." 

Eileen excitedly pressed the big red button causing the door to slide out of view. With a childlike grin, Eileen opened her arms. 

     "For me? Ted, you shouldn't have.” 

Before Ted could speak Eileen reached forward, snatched the shiny box from his hands and ripped off the lid. Eileen's cheeks were suddenly yanked down by invisible draw strings when she saw the box was empty. 

     “You're a mean bloody sod, you know that? Bringing me a shiny thing, getting me all excited then smashing my dreams to pieces with a box of empty promises.” 

Ted peeled back his lips to reveal his crooked gnashers. 

     "Give over, would ya? Screws! I need bloody screws...for the satellite.” 

     “Screws? I'll give you screws! I'll bloody screw you!” she said, waving her fist and reluctantly stepping aside to let him through the doorway.

     "Chance would be a fine thing!" he chuckled. 

     "Wash your bloody gob out, you. J-Boy will be here tomorrow and I don't wanna hear you opening your potty mouth in front of the lad.” 

Ted carried on shuffling toward the storage hatch without saying a word.

     “Anyhow, haven't you got enough screws from all that bloomin’ junk you spend all your life scavenging from outside?”

     “I keep droppin' 'em. My hands aren't what they once were.”

     “Nowt's what it once was. Remember when you took me to see the rings of Saturn? In the pod, just you, me and a nice bottle ginger wine, billions of stars and endless possibilities. 

Now look at us. Cooped up in either ends of this station like a prison, but worse. No bloody excitement here! Just the same old orbit in the darkest, dullest end of the Solar System. We've been dwelling about this Uranus moon for all eternity. Saturn was a previous life…”. 

Eileen continued ranting and reminiscing, but all Ted could hear was the sound of boxes crashing together as he rummaged around. He picked up a silver box and and grinned.

     “I've told ya before, there's a lot of good discarded satellite material on this orbit. These young uns dump it and bugger off t' Jupiter on a jolly. Perfectly good stuff, it is.” 

     “You know why they dump it 'ere, Ted? Cos there's nowt 'ere. Nowt but bloody junk and darkness, and that miserable moon locking us into the most awful orbit anywhere in the Universe. Round and round and round and round. I'll tell ye Ted, if I have to…”

     A sudden blast of white noise flooded the control room. 

     "Come in, Cleveland Company station X14, this is Cleveland Craft 0187, permission to engage"

     Ted and Eileen looked at each other and froze. 

     “J-Boy?”

     “You daft apeth, Ted! He's already here! You've wasted all your time meddling with that bloody monstrosity… Oh dear! Oh dear, oh dear.” 

     “Put the kettle on. I'll get the satellite.” Ted hurriedly made for the West Wing. 

     J-Boy felt a warm tingle in his stomach as his spacecraft neared the docking hatch of the space station. Of all the places passed Jupiter, his grandparents space station was the place he looked forward to visiting the most. A loud mechanical bang followed by a gentle hissing sound indicated that his craft and the station were locked together. When the gravity light turned green, he released the door.

     “Here he is. Where’ve you been, stranger? Come ‘ere!”

J-Boy was smothered by Eileen’s warm embrace. It was here he always received the warmest welcome of anywhere in the Universe. Clevelands X14 always felt like home. 

     “I’m great”, J-Boy managed to say amidst the big welcome squeeze.

Over Eileen’s shoulder, he could see Ted holding a large metal dish which was covered in wires and electrician’s tape. 

     “I got a present for ya, lad. Here you are. What d’ya think?”

Ted handed the gift to J-Boy. 

“Ooohh, thanks, Ted. Eh…wha...what is it?”

“It’s a satellite, of course. A retro type but it works a treat. You can pick up all sorts on this: Earth war documentaries, alien life programmes, sports from other galaxies...”

“Aw, sounds great. Thanks, Ted”. J-Boy said smiling warmly.

“Put that junk away, Ted”, Eileen intervened.

“What does he want that old thing for? Pay no attention to him.” Eileen said, gently nudging J-Boy down the central corridor towards the East Wing where a fresh pot of tea was brewing. 

     The control room was a spacious, octagon-shaped area. From the entrance, various doors and hatches could be seen around the back and sides of the room. Directly ahead was a window spreading across the entirety of the front wall, displaying the darkness of space. In front were two swivel chairs facing hundreds of dials, switches and buttons that controlled the station. Above the controls was a single 50-inch screen displaying images of a much younger looking Ted and Eileen by the window of a capsule pod, peering out at different coloured planets. Like everything in this space station, it looked like it was made at the start of the millennium. It was all fairly dated, but J-Boy liked the homely feel of it. He sat in one of the chairs with Ted and Eileen sitting directly across from him, awkwardly jammed into the opposite chair which was clearly designed for one. Between the chairs was a small table, on it a metallic teapot along with three steaming mugs.

     J-Boy began recounting tales of distant galaxies and far off parts of the Universe that Eileen could only dream of visiting. Eileen had been to many places when she was younger, but nowhere as far and exotic. “ How do you communicate with people outside of the Solar System?; Isn’t is dangerous crossing the Kuiper belt?; What’s the food like on Earth?"

She could listen for hours, asking questions and imagining what could’ve been.

     “I can show you some snaps if you like?” J-Boy said looking for something in his bag. 

     “Aye, go on then, I’ll hook ‘em up to the big screen.” 

     “It’s OK, Ted. I don’t use screens anymore. I’ve got holograms now.” J-Boy held up a small black cube no bigger than a matchbox. 

     “Holograms? Bloody marvellous! Nowt like this in our day. Us oldies can’t keep up anymore”.

The elderly couple looked like children again as they sat with their mouths and eyes wide open, staring at the hologram projection in awe. They gasped as J-Boy waved his hand in the air to call upon hundreds of spectacular images of planets they’d never heard of and galaxies they didn’t even know existed. Eileen was completely engrossed. The more pictures she saw, the more questions she asked.

Ted wasn’t quite the conversationalist that Eileen was. He would just nod and chuckle upon hearing the wondrous tales. Occasionally chipping in with "Bloody marvellous". He enjoyed listening, but was always happier when he was busy doing something. Without saying a word, he got up from the chair and pottered over to the control room kitchen in the corner. 

     “What would ya fancy to eat J-Boy?”, Ted called over his shoulder.

     “Oh, nothing thanks, Ted. I ate on the cruise control around gravitational pull.” 

     “How about some cherry tomatoes?”, 

     “No, I'm OK, thanks.”

     “Grown with martian soil in our space garden”

     “I’m good thanks, Ted.”

     “Lovely and sweet they are”

     “No, I don’t really like...”

     “I'll go get them now.” 

     “But…”

     “Eileen!  What's the key code for the space garden? J-Boy wants some cherry tomatoes, he’s starving! 

     “Eh? No...I'm fi…”

      Eileen frowned and looked up from the projection looking deeply concerned. 

     “Oh poor lad! What are we like, eh? Here I am gabbing away and you’re starving to death. I'll get 'em J-Boy. Hold on to your rockets, kidda.”

     "Don't be daft. He wants me to get them.”

      “Not with your grubby hands. You've had them all over that dirty dish and God knows where else.” Eileen gently elbowed Ted’s forearm away from the keypad and prodded the numbers on the glass, saying them aloud as she did. “3 1 7 5 2”.

     Eileen entered the space garden and quickly picked up a bucket full of cherry tomatoes that had been freshly picked a few hours earlier. The bucket was overflowing. Eileen groaned and stumbled, but regained her footing and waved Ted out of her path. 

     “Give it ‘ere”, Ted demanded.

     “Don’t be daft. I’ll take it"

     “No you won’t”

J-Boy rushed into the garden behind Ted and Eileen. 

     “I’m alright. Really! I’m not hungry.”

     Despite J-Boy’s pleas, Ted and Eileen continued to struggle. Both had one hand on the bucket handle, fiercely insisting they should be the one to offer the tomatoes to their indifferent guest. 

     Eileen grabbed the handle with her free hand. Now with a two-hand grip, she pulled the bucket towards her, causing both bodies to lurch further into the garden. With one emphatic tug, she pulled the bucket free from Ted’s withering hand. The force of her pull was so great, she let go. The bucket looped over her head for what seemed like an eternity before it landed in the sink behind. 

     Like a set of lottery balls, the tomatoes bounced around before being rapidly sucked down the sink hole. The sink was in fact a funnel attached to a waste pipe. The three of them stood silently with their mouths open as, through the window, they watched hundreds of cherry tomatoes implode and explode in the vacuum of space. The Cleveland Company logo turned red as tomato juice plastered to the side of the station. 

     Of course, Ted and Eileen blamed one another for the tomato incident. From where J-Boy was standing, they were both at fault, but it was Ted who agreed to go outside the station clean up the juice. Meanwhile, not to be seen making less effort than Ted, Eileen insisted on inspecting J-Boy’s craft to check it was safe and sufficiently re-fuelled for the onward journey. Guests always left Cleveland X14 with a full tank. 

     J-Boy watched on from the control room window as two spacesuits attached to the station by an umbilical cable floated out into the alien atmosphere. Eileen could be seen inserting a fuel rod into the J-Boy’s craft which was docked on the right of the window, and Ted could be seen on the left rigorously wiping. 

     Without warning, a cigar shaped object collided with the door of J-Boy’s craft, but left no mark. 

     “Bloody space junk! What nuisance!”, Eileen muttered into her radio which J-Boy could hear in the control room. 

Suddenly a cluster of antennas, tubes, rocket motor shells followed, relentlessly pelting the space station. A solar panel spinning like coin cut through Eileen’s umbilical cable sending her suited body into a spin.

     “Teeeeed!”

     Ted could see Eileen was untethered and drifting. Without any hesitation, he leapt from the safety of the station into the infinite space. Their spacesuits collided. Ted’s umbilical cable pulled taut as it wrenched the spacesuits back. The relief of catching his wife was short lived when he realised they only had a few minutes before Eileen’s suit’s backup oxygen supply would run out. 

The silent onslaught of satellite debris continued to shower down near the entrance; it was too dangerous to go back in just yet. Holding Eileen in one hand, Ted used his free hand to pull his umbilical cable causing them both to float in the direction of the capsule pod.

     “Quick, get inside.”

In the pod, Eileen removed her helmet and immediately drew in one huge breath.

     “Bloody space junk” she exhaled.

In the safety of the pod with oxygen and protection from the junk cloud outside, Eileen and Ted watched as J-Boy’s craft took a battering. The space station was a giant. It could withstand a severe assault from any decommissioned satellite cluster, but J-Boy’s craft was tiny and in danger of catastrophic damage.

     “We have to do something” Ted said as he climbed into the driver’s seat. He hadn’t used the pod since he was courting Eileen in another lifetime. 

     "Where's the wha'd'ya me call it?"

     “The what?”

     “The wha'd'ya me call it” 

     “The wha'd'ya me what? The ignition?”

     “That's it!”

     “There! Bloody 'ell, Ted - it's not rocket science.”

     “I think it bloody well is!”

Ted flipped a switch and the wall of controls sprung to life.

"Ere we go!"

The propulsion rockets launched the capsule pod up and away from the under fire space station. Ted hauled a lever to change the direction of the rocket boosters. A blast of flames spluttered from under the pod, propelling it in front of J-Boy’s craft and into the path of the debris. 

     “Come in Cleveland ex, one, four. This is Cleveland CapPod.

     “Ted, Eileen, What happened? Are you alright?”

     “J-Boy, d’you hear me, lad?”

     “Yes, Ted.” 

     “Listen, we took a hit from some bloody debris. The door’s knackered and so is Eileen’s suit. We’re not going to be able to connect to the docking hatch.”

     “I can come out and help!”

Eileen abruptly leaned into the radio

     “No, you won’t, you stay right there. It’s too dangerous.”

     “But…”

     Ted held Eileen’s hand and a sudden calmness came over both of them. 

     “We’ve had our time. A great life! We’re gonna get out of this dark end of the Solar System as far as this little pod will take us. We’re going to find a place in the Sun. I made a promise”

     J-Boy eyes filled with tears. He was devastated but somehow, he understood. He always knew this time would come. 

     “Ol’ Cleveland X14 is all yours, lad. Take her anywhere you want. She a bit dated but she’s a good one. A bit like, Eileen”

“Oi!”

Ted chuckled.

Eileen fought the tears, “I'll miss you, J-Boy. We love you.”

     The pod lifted up over the space station and accelerated out in the opposite direction of the Umbriel moon for the first time that century. 

     J-boy sobbed into his left forearm resting on the space station control panel. His eyes were red and sore. He lifted up his head and with his right hand, reached out to switch off the radio. His hand stopped and hovered over the button.

     “It’s this way. I’m sure of it.”

     “We should’ve left this orbit half an hour ago, where are we going? You daft apeth, Ted. You’ve got the map upside down!

     J-Boy smiled and laughed through the tears. He knew everything was going to be just fine.