The High Five

In the Moon's Shadow

When she got to trial 246, she couldn't believe what she was seeing. A twisted braid, like a miniature beanstalk, reached from the Jello-like layer of stock on the bottom all the way to the light source at the top. She checked its parameters. It was a poly-nucleated sample with multiple wire-stems sprouting in a ring. Rather than branching off in different directions, the wire-stems spiraled around and supported each other.

She pulled the cube from its slot and gave it a tilt. After flexing in the direction of momentum, it faithfully rebounded to its upright position. Amazing. She had grown the first artificial stem in space. The strength was not in the individual thread but in the braid.

* * *

Jess gave the Mars globe a shake, causing the reddish-gray "dust" to rise around the figure of Vikki Landry, the first Martian. Vikki's resolute face could be seen clearly through the bubble helmet of her lightweight, salmon-colored suit. Holding out her right hand, all around her stretched the plains of Mars, their rusty colors reminiscent of the Grand Canyon. If Jess tilted the globe in just the right way, she could get the dust to swirl like a miniature dust devil.

Jess experienced a mix of feelings as she gazed into the globe. Tenderness. Sadness. Pride. And now a secret guilt. The keepsake was a gift from her aunt in celebration of the day she was accepted into Project Liftoff. She said she had had it custom made after Uncle Henry passed away and was just waiting for the right moment to give it to her. Made of lightweight plastic, it weighed less than twelve ounces, well within the three-pound allotment for personal effects.

Every night before bed, her uncle used to read her biographies of the astronauts. Vikki Landry had always been her favorite. Vikki was an identical twin. Her sister was a scientist on the first Mars launch which had exploded during the separation stage less than forty seconds after takeoff. Vikki, who was a standby, went on to captain the second attempt.

When Vikki stepped onto the planet's surface, her head-mounted camera panned around the ancient landscape. With intention in every movement, she crouched down, scooped up a handful of Martian soil, and held it out at arm's length. Then she slowly rolled her palm over, letting it pour out. The wind spread it into a rooster tail. "We are stardust borne on the cosmic wind," she uttered. "The wind has taken us here. Where will it carry us next?"

In Landry's biography, she had wanted to carry her older sister's ashes to Mars and spread them on the wind, but the mission planners wouldn't allow it. Even if the ashes were inert, it would set a bad precedent. Later, when a crafty entrepreneur began selling space burials, "Turn the ashes of your loved one into a shooting star," it was made illegal to transport human remains to space. Traveling at orbital velocities, even ash particles could wreak havoc on satellites and vessels. Only deaths that occurred in space could be disposed of there, and then only under stringent conditions.

When her uncle died, he was cremated, and his remains were placed in a granite urn. Jess would never have considered taking even a pinch of his remains to space. Rules existed for a reason. It never occurred to her that she would become an unwitting rule-breaker.

The first thing Jess did when she got out of the bunker after the solar flare was call her aunt. "Before your uncle passed, he had one last request," Aunt Jillian told her. "He wanted to have his ashes laid to rest in space. 'Like dust on a cosmic wind,' he said. I remember when Far Horizon set up a launch base just outside of town. Your uncle was so thrilled. He talked all the time about how, when we had children, they would look out their window and watch the rockets go up. And maybe one of them or their children or grandchildren would become an astronaut and ride one of those rockets to space. He wanted to be a part of that journey even if he wasn't alive to see it. But since we never had a child of our own, it's up to you now to carry out his wishes. I'm sure you will find the right place for his ashes. He would be so proud to see you now."