Who's There?

It happened on day ninety-three.

Seven days before we were due to return to Earth. I suppose Fate is out there somewhere laughing at the irony of it all, but I haven’t managed a smile since it happened.

It’s only been a day, but it feels like a lifetime. Like a gaping hole has opened up in my chest and is hollowing me out. The habitat AI’s soft computerised voice prompted me to complete the routine tasks, otherwise I might not have bothered at all.

Once I was finished the AI suggested I rest, and that was when my thoughts finally caught up with me. I padded to the small enclosure that was my sleeping pod and cocooned myself in blankets more for comfort than warmth. The habitat remains a constant twenty degrees Celsius.

My eyes closed tightly against the images burned into them. The replaying of scenes that made me clutch my blankets even tighter.

They’re gone. But it’s not my fault.

Replaying those phrases like a mantra my body began to relax, inch by inch, and I was drifting off when I heard a strange thudding sound, coming from the thick glass window in the airlock.

Knock, knock, knock.

My eyes flew wide open. The knocking had been too regular for more space debris. It sounded like…like somebody was there. Outside. Wanting to come in.

Knock, knock, knock.

With each tap a chill ran down my spine. Despite the warmth of the recycled air, I felt cold as ice. My blood pounded as I lay perfectly still, waiting to hear the noise again.

Nothing. Just the soft whirr of machinery and the occasional beep of a console panel.

This was silly. Who would be knocking at my door in the middle of space? I had been on the verge of sleep; it was obviously a dream. Or a reaction to the trauma.

Knock, knock, knock.

Before the third knock I had thrown back the blankets and was hurrying to the door, my bare feet slapping the cool plastic tiles. I ran into the door and pushed my face up against the reinforced glass, straining to peer from side to side and find my mysterious guest.

Of course, there was nothing. Just the deep, vastness of open space. I couldn’t even see Earth, so there was just an endless void of nothing. My face was reflected back at me. Ghostly pale, hair a mess, dark rings under my eyes.

I had to wait, Ground Control had said. The next crew was due to arrive at day one hundred and there wasn’t enough time to bring it forward. I had to survive another six days in isolation, then I would be on a shuttle back down to Earth.

Just six more days, with only my raw memories to keep me company.

-

It had been a simple job on the habitat, to repair a communication antenna that was giving us a fuzzy video feed. Imran and Hannah had suited up, I was inside offering support.

That was the rule; only two out at a time. I was the research scientist, they were engineers.

No matter how many times I reminded myself, it didn’t get any easier. I practiced saying it in front of the little mirror in the bathroom, noticing how the corners of my mouth quivered as I tried to stop my lips trembling. How my eyes shone with unshed tears. But it was true.

Would NASA put me in a room with their grieving relatives and explain step by step what had happened? How I had sat and watched in horror from the viewscreens as Hannah screamed into her mic that her suit had been pierced by debris.

What could I have done? The scanners had not shown a debris field approaching but then they don’t have to be large enough to detect to be dangerous. All it took was a rod of metal about ten inches long that in the vacuum of space, caught in the gravity field of Earth, flew at speed straight through Hannah’s midriff like a knife through butter, finally lodging in the habitat exterior wall itself.

Her scream still echoes in my mind. The initial confusion, then the rising pitch of her voice.

“It went right through! Oh god it went right through me! I’m hurt and my suit is open! It went right through.”

“Hannah? Hannah, stay calm,” I said, studying her vital signs on one of the bank of screens. Her blood pressure climbed quickly, along with her breathing rate.

“I am calm, but I have a hole in my suit!”

With a sigh, I switched my attention to Imran. “Imran? Can you get close to Hannah? Get her back to the airlock, I’ll open it ready and get the med centre prepped.” Rolling my chair back I rose to my feet to do just that, concerned – obviously – but not in any real panic. If the debris had cut right through Hannah then hopefully it would be a simple wound to fix.

“I’m trying to get to her but…there’s more debris,” Imran was saying as I punched my code into the airlock to open the outer door. “Shit! Shit that was close. The debris is getting bigger. We need to get inside now. Hannah, can you step toward me? It’s going to take too long to come and get you, come on Hannah, you can do it. The door is opening, can you see it?”

“Um…yeah. I think. It’s going blurry.”

I looked up from the labelled box I had started to sort through. Hannah’s voice was lower now, weaker. I hurried back to the panel and swore under my breath as her blood pressure plummeted.

I switched on the intercom. “Hannah? The door should be open. Step toward it, Imran will help you. I’ve got the medical centre prepped ready, I just need my patient.”

“Okay.” Her voice was tiny now.

“Is that blood? Oh no, Hannah’s suit is leaking a lot of blood. I didn’t see…it just kind of floats away. Hannah no, don’t let go!”

With horror I watched on screen as Hannah’s eyes rolled back in her head, then her body began to drift away. I switched cameras, to watch as she floated off into the dark voice of space, then stopped with a jerk as her tug line kept her from escaping. She lay lifeless in her giant white spacesuit like a macabre balloon tethered to our ship.

“Imran, can you pull her back in?” I asked desperately.

There was a moment’s pause. “I can try. It won’t be easy with her unconscious. And there’s so much debris now, it’s like a metal rain shower out here.”

“Please try, Imran. She might just be unconscious, if we can get her back inside, I can give her a fighting chance.”

“Okay. Of course.”

Those were the last words I heard from Imran. Then just the smash and a stifled scream, cut off before it even really began.

I shook myself of those memories. There was no use running over them again and again. They were gone I was alive. There was even a name for it my NASA-appointed psychiatrist told me; survivors guilt. I was guilty because I had survived and they had not. What a strange thing, I thought, to feel guilty for simply being alive.

I’m not sure I have survivors guilt. I don’t feel guilty that they died and I survived. I feel guilty that they died and I’m happy it was them and not me. Of course I don’t tell my psychiatrist this. I drone on about how I wish it had been me instead of them.

Does that make me a bad person?

Of course it does. It must do, because as I sat cross-legged on my bed playing a silly mindless game on my phone, I heard it again.

Knock, knock, knock.

This time I was so surprised that I dropped my phone onto my lap. Like a startled deer I sat perfectly still, every cell in my body on edge, as I waited to hear it again.

Was I hearing things?

Was there something wrong with the habitat?

Knock, knock, knock.

No. Once again it is far too regular, too strong. It is a knock. It is someone wanting to come in.

Or someone wanting me to come out.

Cautiously I rose from my bed and crept over. I plucked a screwdriver from a toolbox. I’m still not sure why I did that. Did it say something that I was actually expecting to find someone out there, some four hundred kilometres from the Earth?

What was I expecting, a UPS parcel?

Step by step I approached the thick window in the airlock door. Holding my breath, I adjusted my grip on the screwdriver, ready to attack if needed. My hands were slick with sweat, my pulse was racing and I could hear my heart hammering against my ribs.

When I peered out, Earth waved back at me. We had turned, the glow of the planet was as breath-taking as always. We were over Europe now and I imagined young couples kissing on the Eiffel Tower.

There was nobody there. I refocused my gaze to take in my ghostly reflection.

And gasped, falling backwards in my shock.

Smeared on the outer window of the airlock, barely visible in the darkness, was a bloody handprint.

-

“And sleep?” the man on the screen pressed. “How is your sleep?”

Terrible. Awful. Dreadful. Horrible. Frightful.

“Okay,” I said, swirling the last dregs of my coffee in the back of my grey mug. The filter needed changing; there were lots of grains in the bottom. If I stared closely I could make out images. Perhaps I could tell my fortune from them? Or was that only possible with tea leaves?

“How much sleep are you getting? Our records show that you only slept for three hours last night in total. You were up early, the data records show you were performing maintenance at 3am US time. Are you still keeping to US time?”

“Yes. I just wasn’t tired anymore, so I thought I’d get a head start on the day,” I mumbled. The coffee grinds were shifting as I swirled. They looked like Munch’s “The Scream”.

“Well, make sure you get proper rest and nutrition.”

The psychiatrist rifled through some papers, then sighed and removed his glasses. He leaned forward toward the camera and instinctively I shifted back.

“Only four more days. The next crew will dock and you can take their shuttle back to Earth. Don’t worry, we have a whole team waiting for you here and your family miss you very much. Did you get the video message from your parents?”

“I did, thank you.”

He nodded, looked down at his papers then up again. “Four more days.”

“Four more days,” I repeated. Each word felt long and heavy, like and millstone around my neck weighing me down.

Once my mandatory session was complete, I shuffled over to the sink and tipped the coffee remnants. Splattered out on the shiny aluminium surface I was sure I could see Dalí’s melted clocks drooping and sagging against the passage of time.

What would the new crew be like? Three fresh-faced, happy astronauts. Eagerly unstrapping from the shuttle, feet tapping as they waited for the air pressure to normalise in the airlock. Wide eyed as they caught their first glimpse of their new home.

Rich, dark coffee poured into my cup from the dispenser. Little specks of grinds bobbed on the surface. I really needed to clean it out. But I sipped and crunched my coffee and stared out at nothing.

Four days and nothing to fill my time with other than watering the plants, running routine maintenance reports and cleaning the coffee pot.

I sank against the kitchenette counter, my gaze softening as I inhaled the warm scent of coffee and mentally ran through my meagre to-do list. Perhaps it was because I was so relaxed that I dropped my cup.

Knock, knock, knock.

Not again.

The cup was in pieces, the largest part rocking gently back and forth, still cradling a pool of dark liquid.

Knock, knock, knock.

There was no denying it. I wasn’t dreaming or imagining things, I could hear a knocking. And it was coming from the airlock again.

Knock, knock, knock.

They were insistent. The knocks were loud, purposeful, urgent. “Let me in!”, they cried.

Let me in. Let me in. Let me in.

With each knock I heard the words, pounding in my head like the fist pounding on that thick, reinforced glass. Someone was out there. Someone was desperate to come inside.

My last words had been encouraging my team into the airlock, to be enveloped in safety and warmth, out of the cold void of space. What if they were returning? Had I actually seen any bodies?

How long could someone survive in a space suit?

My feet were cold against the tiled floor. Little shards of ceramic cut into my soles but my brain didn’t register the pain. My eyes were focused on the final space suit, staring at me from the rack, next to the two empty alcoves where its siblings should have sat.

Suiting up is not easy. This time I fumbled my way alone. Fingers thick with gloves slotted my helmet in place. My breath misted the glass as I took my first breath, then a second.

Each step was a chore. I struggled to lift my foot, then it thudded down silently, the sound muffled by my headgear. It felt strange to hear nothing of my actions as I stomped toward the airlock and keyed in the access code.

The hiss of air was as silent to me as my footsteps. I slowly moved into the airlock and the doors snapped closed behind me. A small timer ran down, then the outer doors released and I was facing the most beautiful sight in the universe.

There is nothing quite like it. Standing on a ledge, watching the world loom big and bright beneath your feet. And knowing that as soon as you step out there is nothing. Literally nothing. You will just float, suspended, forever and ever, in a sea of that very nothingness.

I tethered my suit to one of the reinforced loops, noting the two straps already anchored beside mine. The rough, tattered edges glided smoothly.

They were gone. Lost. Or were they? Perhaps they had broken free of their tethers and were clinging to the side of the habitat? I just needed to push away and find them. That was all.

So I did. I stepped out and my stomach flipped, my adrenaline spiking as my brain panicked, thinking there was nothing there to step onto and I would fall and fall for all eternity.

But of course there is no falling. Only floating. So I kicked the side of the habitat and floated back a few feet.

There was nobody there. Of course there was nobody there.

I wished with all my heart that Hannah hadn’t been speared by the debris. That Imran’s microphone hadn’t cut out after that terrifying smash of his helmet, with his split-second scream frozen in time forever, perhaps echoing now among the stars.

Debris had killed them. Not me. I had tried my best and I was out here now, on a fools errand, hoping to save them even now. Even though I knew they were completely and utterly dead.

And yet still I expected to see them, clinging to the side and asking me what took so long to open the door.

-

I floated for what felt like hours. Just in case they had tried another viewport and were circling the habitat. My eyes started to droop and my muscles began to cramp as the oxygen bar on my suit read low.

Time to go inside. They really weren’t out here. I had stayed as long as I could but the sad drifting cords were evidence enough that Imran and Hannah were now simply part of the debris field.

I placed my clumsy hands on my own tether and began the slow crawl back to the habitat. As I did, something flicked my shoulder. Then there was a sharp pain, almost like I had been stung by a wasp. A light flashed on my suit.

Oh. Debris.

It was like a rain shower; at first a few playful drops, then before I knew it thick twisted metal parts were slamming into the side of the habitat, like they were magnetically attracted.

Hurrying, I pulled myself along inch by inch but it was a Herculean effort. Sweat beaded on my forehead and my body recoiled every time something flew past me.

In the end, it wasn’t a direct hit that ended my life. I was almost within reaching distance of the habitat when I tugged on the tether and there was suddenly no resistance. The tether was still in my hands but it was no longer tethered. Cut through by a piece of sharp metal.

I let the tether go, watching as it snaked through my gloves and drifted off into space. I didn’t bother swimming; there was no point. I couldn’t fight against my momentum now. All I could do was watch my safe haven grow smaller and smaller, as my body grew weaker and weaker.

Lights flashed in my helmet. Beeps buzzed in my ears.

And as I began to drift I noticed the communication antennae was loose and flapping every so often. I watched for a long time; it flapped in sets of three.

Hah.

Hah hah.

Knock, knock, knock. I thought.

It was the last sensible thought I had, as I watched the habitat fade away, and watched Earth spin slowly. And then I became just another part of that damned debris field.