It's February, yet the AC is running on high to render the indoor climate cool and dry in contrast to the warm and humid air outside. The Heroes and Legends building at the Kennedy Space Center has no windows, and I'm not sure whether the cold air or the heavy atmosphere is to blame for the goosebumps that cover my body.
Hundreds of luminated eyes are staring at me as I move across the room with careful, silent steps. I don't have to be quiet, as it is still hours before the center opens for visitors. But, somehow, I feel like I'm at a graveyard. The portraits captured in the circular glass frames that cover the walls from floor to ceiling commemorate every astronaut that ever contributed to the field of astronautics. Outside it is probably darker than in here, as the accumulated light of the astronauts' faces sheds a dull golden light on my otherwise darkened features.
I turn a corner to find the collection of people who were born in the 2030's and repeat the path that I have walked so many times before.
My blue irises immediately locate his brown, olive shaped eyes. His thick, dark hair lay on his head like a soft helmet, and if I ever cut my hair short, this is probably exactly what I would look like. Which is also the reason I never did have it short. I always fought to be different from him, yet here I stand. My father is looking back at me, smiling, as if he always knew I would be here.
He was never known to be an astronaut, but he had traveled to space a couple times to spend several months on the International Space Station, where he could work on his research in the environment of space. Mimicking the astronauts around him, he is portrayed wearing a space suit not much different from the one I am currently in. His helmet is off, and the round metal collar is resting against his chest. The frame cuts him off just below the collar to fit him in on the wall with all the rest of the NASA Hall of Famers. He looks exactly like I remember him. They couldn't have known that he was going to die the following week, when they had scheduled his portrait to be taken, but this photo was one of the last ones taken of him. He didn't even get to see his place on the wall. I was fifteen. I wish he could see me now.
"I thought I would find you here. He would have been proud of you," my mother has entered the room just as quietly as I had, but somehow her easy voice doesn't startle me. I hesitate to remove my eyes from my father's picture to look back at her with saddened regret.
"Please," I frown, "Maybe if he wasn't so busy sacrificing himself for science, he would've actually cared enough about me to be proud."
My words hit her hard. She doesn't tell me, but her eyes begin to hang a little and her lips are subtly divided. She really loved him. So did I, I guess. I just never quit being mad at him. Maybe someday I would understand, he always said. Maybe I wouldn't.
"Sorry," I grab her hand, "I know he meant well. And I wouldn't be here if it hadn't been for his efforts. It's just – sometimes he forgot to be a father too."
I have to be nice. And, while the words that come out of my mouth are true, his accomplishments as a scientist could never fill the void that the absence of my father has left in my life. Don't get me wrong, he was in our lives – physically. He would come home every day after dinner, spend most nights in his bed next to my mom, and then he would be gone early in the morning, sometimes before I would even be up. Occasionally, I wouldn't see him for days at a time. But his life revolved around space. Or floated around up there, or whatever.
My mom, however, was always there for me, compensating for the shortcomings of my father. There was this one time, Mom had to accompany me to my school's Father-Daughter Dance. She even wore a suit. To be honest, she kind of killed it – but of course, I never told her that. If I would have ever got married, she would probably be the one to walk me down the aisle, while my dad would arrive late to the event. That is, if he hadn't wound up dying so soon. But I won't be getting married. I gave that life up years ago.
I have to adjust my grip of the abnormally large, round helmet in my arms. I could have just let the people load it onto the ship with the rest of our gear and provisions, but I don't trust anyone with my helmet.
"I brought this for you," my mother says when she passes me a black binder that has my name written on the spine, "I thought you might like to bring it up there with you."
"Mom, you know I don't have a lot of room for personal stuff," I say apologetically, but as I open it, I understand.
"I can't believe you saved all of these," I feel my eyes lighting up as I look at her, humbled by her gesture. I flip through my chronologically arranged drawings, which she stored and kept through all these years. Who even does that anymore?
Around the age of four I notice something in the drawings. I seem to have developed an interest for natural motifs, but there's something about these drawings that confuse me. The plants and flowers get more creative in their expression, unlike anything I've ever seen. At least in reality. Actually, the drawings are alarmingly reminiscent of the hallucinations I have been experiencing. It must be my messed-up brain playing tricks on me. Drawings done by a four-year-old could look like anything. It's probably nothing to worry about.
"I thought it would be nice for you to have something to remember your life here by – even though these are just from your childhood," she says, and as she continues her voice is smaller, almost breaking at each word, "You sort of gave up on drawing when your interest in space began taking up all of your time. But maybe you will think of me, when you look at them."
This will be the last time I talk to her. If nothing goes wrong within the next few hours, that is.
"Mom," I pull her into a hug, and my words are muffled when I talk against her soft, knitted sweater, "I will always remember you. I promise, I will make you so proud."
"We have always been proud of you," she whispers through my hair. Even though it's been years, she is still speaking for both of them, as if my father has just been away for work all this time.
A treacherous tear escapes the corner of my eye. It quickly makes a run for it across my cheek and disappears into the web of threads of her sweater. I wipe away the shimmering trace of its existence, so she doesn't see it when I let go of her. Maybe she will notice the little, wet mark it left on her shoulder later, when she goes to the bathroom to cry by herself. But for now, I force a smile onto my lips and clench the binder tightly against my chest.
"Goodbye, Mom."
All I can read from her face is how proud and how happy she is that I am chasing my dream. But this is the moment where she will give me away to the universe like she did my father. I know she is hiding her sorrow, and I am too.
I don't know if I'll ever come back. If I do, everyone I have ever known will be gone and long forgotten. Maybe they'd soon put my picture up on the wall next to my father's so that Mom could come here and mourn her loss like this hall was a graveyard. She won't have any bodies to bury. Every single person in these pictures has sacrificed nothing short of their lives – like hanging their smiling portraits on this sad wall could ever repay them for what they gave up.
"Be safe, my Polaris."
"I promise. This is bigger than us." I take a few steps backwards.
She nods, and that reassuring nod is the last thing I will ever see of her. I leave her to join my crewmates at the docking station.
The clinking sound of metal against metal echoes through the tunnel structure as my feet move across the access arm that attaches onto the hatch of the orbiter. I am the last one, as usual, though I'm not late. I could never be late for this. Davis is here, shaking the hand of our Commander. I can tell that he's giving a small motivational speech, but his words are dulled by the constant traffic of thoughts moving through my head. I find Itai's eyes looking towards me, and I quickly lower my head to avoid is attentive gaze. It's been months since we've really spoken. I should be over him by now but seeing him every day has made it unnecessarily difficult. I take shelter behind Nari, my only place of comfort right now.
"Are you okay?" Nari whispers at me, and I appreciate her effort at not drawing attention to me, however my lips are pressed together to keep the raging feelings inside my body, and all I can do is nod. She squeezes my hand softly, and for a moment I find it a little easier to breathe.
It is finally time. I follow the rest of my crewmates through the hatch, and the surroundings seem to become more familiar as we separate ourselves from the outside world. I have to climb into the crew cabin, which is not that easy considering that the orbiter is rotated 90 degrees to be vertical, and I am wearing a quite large pressure suit. But I manage to lay down on my back in the seat behind Itai, just like when we practiced the simulations. However, this time I am not sitting in the back row.
"This is even better than all the video games," referring to the simulations, Solo drops into his seat behind me. I shake my head and lock my harness at my chest.
I can't really move around a lot, but if I lean an inch to the side, I get a peek outside the windshield in front of Commander Sánchez and Pfeiffer. The night has broken into dawn, a few clouds lit on fire by the sun still in hiding behind the horizon. Soon, we'll be up there burning with them.
"T-minus five minutes," a pre-recorded memo sounds in my earpiece. I lock my helmet in place pull down my visor.
"On behalf of the American government, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the people of the world, I want to thank the Tellus XII mission crew," I hear the voice of the President speaking to us as well as to the public through all the screens broadcasting the launch, "Thank you for your sacrifice. But more importantly, thank you for the hope that you bring us all. We promise to do our best in taking care of the Earth that you are leaving behind. I would like to wish you a great mission. Good luck."
"SRBs firing chain is," the computerized female voice takes over the channel to communicate the pre-launch check-ups, "Armed."
"Sound suppression water system – armed. T-minus ten," the countdown initiates, and I reach to my left to grab Nari's hand, my fingers fat and clumsy inside the pressure suit gloves, "Nine."
Our trip will be 5 hours and 45 minutes, during which we will orbit around our planet four times, getting to see every last bit of it before we leave for good. If we are lucky, we can still see our Sun on the night sky from Proxima d.
Eight
We need to reach a speed of 27,000 km/h in 8 minutes and 45 seconds in order to remain in orbit, and our peak gravitational force will be three times gravity. That is nothing compared to what we're trained for. We'll barely be feeling a thing.
Seven
We are sitting at the top of the shuttle at a higher altitude than the tallest flame of the torch in the hand of the Statue of Liberty.
Six
The rocket boosters ignite, causing a deep rumbling sound inside the crew cabin of the orbiter, and I let go of Nari's hand to prepare myself for the ride.
Five
Just breathe, Aris. We're not even moving yet.
Four
We are headed for the International Space Station, where the Calypso lies dormant but loaded and ready to go, just waiting for us to board her.
Three
Our last meal will be a bunch of medicine that will send us into cryonic sleep. They will give us a sedative as an appetizer to calm our nerves before the main course: a portion of neuromuscular block, causing paralysis, with a side of potassium chloride solution that will result in our hearts stopping. Finally, for dessert: an anti-freezing agent will replace the water in our bodies, which will prevent our cells from crystallizing and breaking, as our bodies are cooled down to match the temperature of liquid nitrogen.
Two
They call it sleeping. But, technically, we are going to die at the ISS. They will load us into our pods aboard the Calypso, and we won't know a thing. It will feel like we are waking up at our destination tomorrow. But I will have been dead for almost ninety years. Or, more precisely, eighty-nine years, six months, and twenty-seven days.
"One," the word falls off the edge of my lips with no sound, and the space shuttle starts accelerating, sending us into the air.