The Sound of Music.

"Hi look I see two." I yell and float to the window furthest from the cabin. Yuri floats up to me as well. We see the twinkle in the distance, in the all encompassing darkness. The twinkle fades away within thirty seconds. Yuri looks as disappointed as I feel inside. I feel my body tipping towards the floor and I panic momentarily. Yuri is now at the coffee machine. He tips the pot the wrong way and bubbles of Black liquid float up into the air. No need to panic. We still have no gravity, and there is nothing wrong with the spaceship, but there is a lot wrong. We have flown into some strange ecosystem. 

  There is the usual debris, cluster of stars, some twinkling galaxies very far away, but it's been dark for so long. We haven't seen the sun in almost ten days now, nor have we been able to see earth. I don't want to panic yet. It is the first mission I am leading and I don't want to get it wrong. Yuri is from Russia, I am from the US. We have two others on board, a horticulturist from India and a cellist from Mexico. Yuri and I are the only true astronauts, well I studied engineering and Yuri studied physics. We don't know what purpose Nishi and Inez will finally serve, but there we are, the foursome.

  Yuri wants to take a look at the thrusters, so I decide to accompany him. He mumbles something about not needing my help, but I mumble back about learning from him and float past him. Nishi and Inez exchange a surreptitious glance, which doesn't escape me. They think I am hot for Yuri, and they are right. Except for the fact that I am an American woman leading this highly classified mission, with a Russian astronaut forced on me as my associate, we would have been highly compatible. Our spaceship is supposed to orbit the planet every ninety minutes, but Nishi and Inez don’t know that. They don’t seem to understand the darkness is an anomaly. Nishi talks to plants and Inez practices her music. They mostly stick to their cabins, or are in each other’s cabins.

  I catch Yuri at the Hubble scope. He swears in Russian. He looks at me and nods his head. I still go to the Hubble scope and look through it, hoping to see some of those vibrant red objects, the galaxies traveling far away from us, the extreme distance reassuring me that the objects are from thirteen billion light years away, their light traveling to us thirteen billion years ago. I want to feel part of the ever expanding universe, but it's not to be today. Yuri comes close to me, and somehow we get entangled, my legs straddling his, the heat from his body reaching mine, even through the layers of our spacesuits. I want to abandon the mission, I want to make love and feel alive, but I know we can't. We have a mission to complete. He looks at me apologetically, his breath drawn, his lips dewy, tantalising. All that knocks now are our helmets.

  " Is this smart?" he asks me. It's probably not. We are going to take a space walk, leaving the horticulturist and the cellist inside. I feel like we are adventurers of the Gods, out there to find some mysterious planet. We get close to the airlock. He exits first, shuts the door and opens the second one. As soon he exits out the main door, I open the airlock, shut it tightly behind me and go out the second door. It is pitch Black now and I can't even see the stars. Maybe the twinkling was in my mind. I can see Yuri look at me disappointedly. I start giggling, what an absurd situation to be in, the American and the Russian, each hoping the other saves their ass.

  We are tethered well. We walk around the spacecraft. We both have jet thrusters attached to our backpacks. If we lost our tether, we could propel ourselves back to the spacecraft. We can just feel the tug of the tether, which is firmly attached to the spacecraft. Yuri wonders if we have entered a Black hole. I want to hit him for saying that. The world is a Black hole he says, the wars, the disease, the corruption. He could be in space forever. I almost succumb to that vision, but I love Earth too much. If only I could see it.

  Suddenly I get a thought so wild, I dare not suggest it. It's unscientific, but the mysteries of space are so deep, we have to try it all to unearth it. "We have to bring Inez out here." "Why on earth would we do that, why would we risk her, she is only but a cellist,” he says. The rational part of my mind agrees with him, the curious part of my mind wants to know more about Inez and Nishi, about their purpose. "Trust me," I say and he looks at me confused. We walk back to the spacecraft, get safely through the airlock, we are dog tired and collapse in our respective cabins.

  That night I hear whispers of laughter, and I see Nishi dancing, while Inez plays a mournful tune. The tune almost brings tears to my eyes. I look out of the window and suddenly see those two twinkling stars again. I know now why Inez is here. I have a slight case of the bends, pain in my joints, while the nitrogen leached out of my body in space, while I breathed in the pure oxygen of my spacesuit. I waste no time, I tell Inez I need her to do exactly as I say. Nishi and Inez both stay silent, they do not protest.

  I put on the spacesuit again. I wake up a groggy Yuri. He is furious that I am about to take a spacewalk without him. It's too dangerous he says, Inez is too green he says. It's against protocol he says, I tell him to trust me, astronaut to astronaut, he finally shuts up and helps Inez suit up and get ready. He looks at me and I see the distrust. After two months of being on a spaceship together, two months of camaraderie, two weeks of sexual tension, we are back to being an American and a Russian. So be it. I have work to do.

  I guide Inez through the airlock doors, into the space outside. It is pitch Black, I see her tremble, and she starts breathing in gulps. At this rate the oxygen in the spacesuit will be used up in no time. I float close to her, whisper her name and gently rub her back. She doesn’t feel it through the spacesuit, but she senses me next to her and she calms down. She gently removes the cello tied to the suit and fumbles, as she tries to pin it to the ground. I remind her the end pin rod won’t be of any use here. There is no ground. She takes a deep breath and starts playing.

The notes go out into the universe, her music is of astounding beauty. She forgets where she is and plays and plays and the universe responds to the notes of music. The stars come alive, twinkling one after one, and then a brilliant wave of green and blues and purples play out underneath us, lighting up the space around us. There we are, just above the Aurora Borealis, we can see the resplendent Earth again. I catch Yuri’s eye through the cabin window. He smiles. We are so happy to see our planet, lit up like a Christmas tree.