Halcyon's Wake: Faith

Stirrings

I never found that bottle of scotch.

A very decent thirty-year-old vintage of the Highland’s finest single malt must still be circling the planet. Or maybe little, frozen scotch-sicles now littered the surface of the stratosphere’s new mystery skin. A terrible loss, one way or the other - and sorely missed.

“PERIWINKLES?” I stammered, “You hit the triple word score twice - 144 freakin’’ points! How am I supposed to follow THAT?”

Ninety-seven days and counting since Halcyon arrived. Ninety-seven days of gazing at a semi-translucent, rippling inferno of purplish color floating above the stratosphere with zero communication from the planet’s surface - and the twenty-fifth day of my winless streak against the ever lovely, if overly astute, Major Elizabeth Hodgson, USAF. The chick was a walking dictionary. If Word’s with Friends® had been a gaming table in Vegas, she’d have bought the house with ease, smiling devilishly the whole time. I cursed the station’s massive internal server and all the distractions it provided -Words included. What I wouldn’t give for a lousy dart board. This chick would go down in some serious testosterone-fueled flames.

“Say it, Jarhead. A bets a bet. Time to eat some crow,” she cooed playfully, her auburn curls bouncing freely in the micro gravity - must’ve washed her hair today.

I caught the lingering scent of perfumed shampoo - green apple, maybe? - glanced at my watch, then reached over and flipped the intercom switch to public address mode.

“Good morning, campers, and welcome to day 97 of year one ‘Post Halcyon’ - February 5th for you Terran-purist types. The time on deck is zero-eight-oh-one hours. Weather forecast looks promising - our temp today is 74.5 ºF, one-tenth degree cooler than yesterday - so break out your mittens and parkas, campers. Today is officially Dr. Wayne Dennis day, and our genius, resident-engineer-extraordinaire turns a youthful and exuberant 62. Please wish him well and thank him personally for the hillbilly music you’ll be enjoying throughout the day.

“Operations reports no change in our status, all systems functioning in acceptable limits with one notable exception: please refrain from using the waste-collection station in lab two until the birthday boy has time to tone down the suction just a tad -- you have been forewarned. All those suffering from painful and colorful butt-hickey’s will be publicly ridiculed incessantly by yours truly.

“In two hours, all personnel please report to the hangar for a special announcement from Colonel Garner and President Bielski - a little bird tells me there will be cake and some of the really good coffee from the President’s own personal stash.

“At roughly noon our orbit will be directly over the eye and the boys and girls in Ops tell me we’ll remain there for at least an hour and twenty-seven minutes - our first long glimpse of the planet’s surface through the galactic Saran Wrapin almost three weeks - so please plan accordingly. All personnel are reminded that communication scanning protocols are in effect throughout the day - all other work is secondary and should be shelved until we successfully traverse the eye.” One gaping hole the size of the Mediterranean Sea afforded us a very limited and occasional glimpse through the looking glass - and all eyes were needed to focus on this ‘glimpse’.

I paused briefly, a devilish little grin splaying across my face, then looked at Beth as if to ask ‘anything else’? She shot me a playful and warning glare honed with a razor’s edge, cooled only slightly by the playful twinkle in her rich, hazel eyes.

“… I almost forgot an important public service announcement, campers. This is, of course, your favorite resident naval aviator, Major Zacharias Absalom Dalton, United States Marine Corps, and being a man of impeccable integrity and unsullied honor, I must confess -under slight duress- that Dr. and Major Elizabeth Hodgson, U.S. Hair Force, is smarter, better looking and has a vocabulary that my simple Marine mind will never be able to match…”

I could hear scant laughter echoing through the station’s corridors - more victims of Beth’s vicious word-smithing, no doubt.

She smiled broadly and twirled her right hand in a ‘keep-going’ gesture.

“… and when we once again get the opportunity to fly through our own atmosphere, I’ve no doubt… well, maybe a little…”

Beth shot me a scathing look of barely veiled contempt.

“Okay… doubtless, and I repeat, doubtless… she is probably a better pilot, too - even though most chair force aviators drag their knuckles across the ground when they walk and don’t have the luxury of knowing who their own parents were...”

I tried quickly floating beyond her reach, but Beth grabbed me and punched my upper arm - really, really hard - causing me to wince and guffaw over the loudspeaker, just as the station and shuttle Commander, Colonel Jim Garner, floated into the command module, grinning and shaking his head.

He neatly slipped my headset off as he drifted by, playfully shoving me into the bulkhead as I giggled and rubbed my genuinely tingling shoulder.

“Jim Garner here, folks - at this morning’s meeting we’ll also cast a vote deciding on whether or not to tar and feather our esteemed Marine and resident comedian and launch him into space- division heads please report to command - Garner out.”

Jim tossed the headset back to me and I switched the intercom to ‘off’. I pulled up birthday boy Wayne’s playlist on the command monitor and set it to random. Hank Locklin began twangily crooning his 1960 hit “Please Help Me I’m Falling in Love With You” over the station’s internal speakers.

Beth looked sated and relatively happy - for once, and I reveled in her simple joy - a nice change from the morose gray clouding her disposition the last few weeks. Smiles were good. Any smiles. Her husband, Colonel Mark Hodgson, a great mentor and dear friend of mine, was one of those unfortunate souls Colonel Garner - and I - launched into space on the President’s order as we left the planet. Beth and I had never spoke of it, but the animosity that hung between us the first few weeks on the station was pure, palpable tension.

We’d been friends for over a decade. The silly Word’s game was my own meager way of squirreling back into her somewhat good graces - but I knew in my heart of heart’s she knew I could have - and probably - no, definitely- should have somehow intervened and prevented such a grave atrocity from ever happening. Lord knows the ghosts in my dreams said the same thing to me - over and over, every night.

Beth and Mark had literally stood by my side four years ago when my wife Lisa had succumbed to cancer - and I’d seemingly paid their friendship back by sitting idly by while her husband was launched into the vacuum of space. Beth refused to speak with the President at all - and made a conscious effort to be as far away from him at all times as possible. If this meeting today didn’t require all hands I knew for certain she’d find a way to ditch it. And probably still might.

Avoiding the President - and anyone else for that matter - was becoming much easier these days. Work crews had logged more hours in EVA’s over the last ninety-seven days than NASA had accomplished in the previous ten years combined.

Seven prototype, inflatable modules developed by civilian corporations for the fledgling space-tourist industry had been steadily assembled and put into service around the station, affording more private quarters and a whole lot of breathing room for most of the station’s forty resident’s. Four of the inflatables were accessible through crawl-ways, the three others primarily housing the worker crews accessible only by spacewalking. Beth had aptly named them after the seven dwarves of Snow White fame. Sneezy, Bashful and Happy housed twenty-one crew-members and lazily rotated above the station; Sleepy, Dopey, Doc and Grumpy housed twelve people, positioned at four points along the station’s frame. I still hung my hat in Discovery’s crew bay, the remaining six, including Beth, were scattered in quarters throughout the station. Lots of elbow room, for sure.

“Let’s go run, Zack - I’ve got the treadmills reserved for us at 8:30,” Beth said, shooting off to the observation deck. She never looked at Jim, another casualty of her scorn. Although Beth was a career military officer and observed professional courtesies -somewhat- I could sense the discomfiture on Jim’s face as she shot up past him through the hallway without so much as a peep.

“Hell hath no fury, right Zack?” whispered the Colonel.

“You got that right, skipper. You know how hard it’s been for me to hold back and play dumb on Word’s for twenty-five days straight? Think I’m gonna quit takin’ it easy on her from now on... I do think she’s coming around, though.”

Jim laughed and eyed me thoughtfully.

“You guys have always been close, Zack. And I’m afraid the President is about to put your relationship to the test even further.”

I stared at him dumbly, awaiting a hint of what he alluded to, but soon realized he was going to remain tight-lipped.

“Am I going to like this?” I asked. “Or better yet, will she?”

Jim took a deep breath and looked at me long and hard.

“I think it beats the hell out of getting launched into space, Zack. That’s all I’ll say. The President will reveal all at the meeting.”

I nodded, wondering what the ghosts of my dreams would say - even though I didn’t have a clue as to what the President might have in store for us. I put a little more credence in the dreams. I started to head up the corridor when the commander stopped me.

“Almost forgot this,” he said, unzipping the cargo pocket of his flight suit and pulling out a king-size bag of peanut M&M’s. “I know they’re your favorite - found ’em stashed behind a monitor on Dopey last night - who knows, this might very well be the last bag of M&M’s in the world. Take ’em. I prefer the plain ones.”

He floated them across to me and I quickly grasped the precious treasure with a bevy of mixed emotions. If he was giving me the last bag of M&M’s in the world - whatever President Bielski had in store for us couldn’t be that great. Ghosts be damned, though.

“Not pleased, Zack?”

I floated silently a moment then pocketed the candy.

“Very pleased, sir, thanks a million -really and truly great - just wondering what this little taste of paradise is gonna cost me.” An image of Professor Vandenberg batting away M&M’s with a bottle of scotch like ping pong balls would no doubt haunt my dreams tonight.

Jim nodded in agreement and I went in pursuit of Beth, knowing the next few hours would be both sweet and enlightening. Of the sweet I was certain, I could almost taste the chocolate - but somehow I knew the enlightenment may prove a tad more bittersweet.