DAY 90: Message in a Galactic Bottle

By the time you get this message, I will no longer exist.  But rest assured, among my final thoughts will be the knowledge that you were right.
I made it to Cygnus, and was on my way back, when I detected a galaxy no one had seen before.  From home, it's obscured by the turbulence of Kepler's Singularity.   I almost missed it myself, or dismissed it as a faulty reading.  But it was real - a galaxy that no one knew existed... a galaxy I could claim for my own.  I could not see that she was already spoken for.  I set an approach that I intended would counteract the singularity's pull; I underestimated that force.
I identified a planet to crash on, and write these words.  I have tried to fix my ship, to no avail.  There is no escape from this planet, orbiting this final star, as we circle around the singularity.  But it is a beautiful prison: a constant pink sky, breathable air, resources for food and shelter, and no one to compete with.  I will die peacefully here.
If I remember my studies, I will die of old age here, in the space between your heartbeats.  The stars in my sky do not twinkle - they tear, jagged rips of light in the sky.  And in my time, I an half-certain that they are growing longer.  But I think I will pass before the darkness claims this place.  The only hope I allow myself is that each time I send this message, it may be the one to reach you.
You were right about so many things; I hope you are right about the rest.  As stardust or as I am, I will return to you...



inspired by Discover Magazine article, "The Tiniest Galaxy in the Universe"

DAY 88: The Grand Nomad

The shadow of the Grand Nomad had already covered the city.  From high up, Oliver saw the lights of traffic and skyscrapers blossom under the mountain's eclipse.
Katt joined him at the window.  "It's ridiculous staying all the way down there.  This time of year, they're only getting 4-5 hours of daylight.  If I was gonna get some real estate, I'd go up there-", pointing to an outcropping, straight across their view.
"So why don't they?"
"They think the Nomad's sacred.  I mean, you ever want to find Earth, just look where he's looking; Sol's our north star. Something about our rotation keeps it fixed in his gaze.
"That's why the pilgrims down there came here.  The first colonists - not those guys, the ones that made the first 50 mil LY trip - they came to this planet when they saw this face looking back at them; vanity of the species. This planet's a rogue, so there's no lifeforms anyway, but they were hoping there would be."
"Did there used to be?"
"No one found anything, besides the old man," and Katt pointed at the Nomad.  "It was the second colonists who went really crazy about it."
Katt flipped on the cabin lights as they entered the shadow.  "The second colonists left Earth just as the Pangeac Merge happened.  World going crazy behind them, the face of the Nomad in front of them - they thought he saw it happening.  They think he's alive, seeing things on the cosmic timeframe.  2 billion years to us could be 2 hours to him.  Which would suck; we're lucky to live to 200.  Thank God..."
"Yes" Oliver took a final glance at the summit of the Nomad.   "Yes, indeed..."




inspired by Discover Magazine article, "When Continents Collide"

DAY 87: 7 Years Into the Storm

Rebecca had to get up.  No matter how much it hurt.

She stretched her hearing past the sleeping alarm clock, past the hum of the electric lights, the air compressors, the gravity correctors... listening for the rain.  As soon as she heard it, she would know that she was still on base, still in the hexagon, and she could go back to sleep.

Once, she had dreamt that the rain had stopped; she went to the window, looking upon an orange fog as it began to dissipate, revealing the arch of Saturn's satellite horizon.  But the dream had not gone that way for a long time...

She had dreamt that she heard the rain stop; by the time she went for visual confirmation, the rain had started again...

She had dreamt that the winds caught in a structural flaw, pressing until it tore the base open, pulling her into the hurricane...

She had dreamt, over and over, of getting out of bed, fulfilling her morning routine, right up to the moment of checking meteorological status, only to find herself back in bed, anticipating the alarm...

Once, she realized she was standing in the rain, in her suit, ten steps outside the north entrance.  She couldn't definitively account for what happened between that moment and when she had gone to bed the night before.

She had consulted with her physician on Earth, who said she needed to divert herself with some entertainments, give her mind some sensory data to play with besides reorganizing her day's routine.  She had followed his advice, reading classic literature and trashy novels, watching movies and shows...  She had reorganized her sleeping quarters, and then started disguising or removing any vestiges of its extraterrestrial origins, making it look like a typically cramped apartment in Tokyo or New York.  The dreams adapted, inserting themselves between the dreams she wanted, and the reality she possessed...

She dreamt, constantly, that she was still in bed, waiting for the alarm to wake her for the day, or the alert to tell her that rain cessation was imminent; she lay in bed, against her body's will, not wanting to let go of sleep, not wanting to be fooled again, unsure if she was dreaming about dreaming...

She had to get up.




inspired by Discover Magazine article, "Storm over Saturn"

DAY 77: The Tiger's Tail

It had taken two months to reach the Point of No Return - but at least it had met them halfway.   The trajectory had actually been a straight shot away from Earth, planned with minimal gravitational interference from any of her neighbors.  Essentially, they had jumped off the Earth, and let the rest of the universe pass them.  By the time they entered Neptune's path, there was enough fuel to return to Earth three times.

Skupic was reading back her levels, doing a final calibration check.  Devereaux was waiting for the next draft, something the sails could catch onto and ride out into the uncharted.  But it was quiet, and there was nowhere to go.  So she checked her instruments with the last person she would ever speak to again.
"I'm good here, Skupic.  Your turn: you got a lock on home?"
"Been locked the whole time.  You sure you're ready for this?"
"I've been ready forever.  Just tell me when you pick up the heliotrail, it should be active in a few minutes..."
Skupic waited in the silence, listening to Devereaux breathe.

With home behind him, he turned his infrared view outward, seeing the endless destinations drifting.
"Dev, you're about to be history.  Did you prepare any words?  Anything I can take home?"
He heard her chuckle.  "I think I sent a copy of 'High Flight' to PR.  I saw it on Murphy's desk, thought he'd get a kick out of it...  I didn't think of any of my own.  And I don't have enough air to stumble some out now.  Saving it for the trip."

Skupic watched the monitors; still nowhere to go.  Finally, he said, "You always wanted this, didn't you?"  The alarm interrupted anything else; they were uncoupled.  He watched her sails extend and catch the sun's tail, and pushed off into the dark.



inspired by Discover Magazine article, "Our Solar System Has a Tail"

DAY 56: Subsea Exploration

No light.  No heat.  Mark had no idea which way to swim.  He closed his eyes and waited for the water to float him in one direction or another.
"Mark?" The radio crackled in his ear.  "What's your situation?"
"I'm alright, Liam... just give me a minute." Mark returned to the silence, searching for the tells. He had over 70 dives logged; he knew how to read a sea, to recognize its currents and sense the trails left behind by aquatic migrations.  But the subsurface oceans of Europa felt like no ocean on Earth. It went beyond lifelessness; it felt like he was swimming in a grave.
Mark opened his eyes and switched on his spectrographic goggles. "Are you seeing anything, base camp? I can't make any sense of this. I'd swear I was in a block of concrete."
"You're reading the extra mineral content." Alice, the team geologist, was speaking. "Try switching to sonar."
Another voice piped in. "Mark, you need to breathe slower. Your air adaptors won't be able to keep up."
Mark smiled. "You worry too much, Cam.  I'm reading ten minutes; guess I'm done in 9." He resumed radio silence and stretched out his arms, waiting for something to push back. Nothing before his eyes made sense, and nothing in his ears was as loud as his fearful blood rushing through his body.  He returned to his only reference point: the rock he had entered the ocean through.  Swimming quickly, he reached the rock abruptly, and his entire body collapsed against it.
"Mark!"
"I'm alright, " he grunted. Disoriented,  he picked himself up and stood on the surface.  The change in perspective revealed the ocean's first secret. "Guys? I think I woke up something..."


inspired by Discover Magazine article, "Life in Europa's Salty Ocean"

DAY 55: The Birthday Party

Everybody was in the mess hall for Dahlia's 12th birthday party. Flora was placing the finishing touches on the cake, and she had deputized Ivy to gather enough silverware and plates for everyone.  Lily and Violet were putting up the decorations that Rose could find, recycled from previous celebrations.  And Mari was preparing the tattoo gun.
Dahlia called from the hallway, "Can I come in yet?"  She rocked on her heels, waiting for the go-ahead.  She remembered when she was Flora's helper, and the family was preparing Violet's birthday party.  Everybody on the ship got one party. and after years of dreaming, it was her turn.  She even had her music list ready.
Ivy ran out and grabbed Dahlia by the hand.  "It's time!  It's time!"
The mess hall looked pretty, with streamers running the length of the dining room.  The banner with the HAPPY BIRTHDAY letters was spread out again; Dahlia saw the corner fold she had put in the letter D six years ago.  All other details were obscured from her view as the family converged to present the cake.  While they sang, Dahlia's eyes feasted on the chocolate iced cake with neon green trim, and "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" in letters crowning a fondant pink-and-red sculpting of her namesake.

There were almost enough pieces of cake for everyone before they had to cut into the fondant blossom.  Mari had not cut herself a slice yet.  Instead, she slid the piece square in Dahlia's view, and asked, "Is this one alright?"  Dahlia nodded and exposed her right shoulder.  Mari got out the tattoo gun, and began to trace out the blossom's pattern, as the rest of the mess hall watched.
Each wince made the younger ladies giggle, which made Dahlia swallow her tears back.  Rose patted her hand.  "It's looking real good.  I love it!  And if I love it, I know you're gonna love it!"
"Once the swelling stops," Violet said, from across the room.
Rose shot her a look, then returned to soothing Dahlia.  "Now, have you thought about what you wanna do now?"
Dahlia pondered for a moment.  "Well, I liked doing the navigation a lot.  Piloting's okay, but I like looking for the stars, listening for the different planets..."
"She's a very good student, too," Mari said.  "Although she's fixated on finding echoes."
"The other day, I found Jackson's 5!"
The mention excited the room; Lily turned up the music for a moment, which started the dancing.  Rose patted her patient's hand and drew her attention.  "What else would you like to do?"
"I don't know, there's so much!"
"I know, I know.  And you'll have time to learn it all.  But it's time to choose what you will do to take care of this family."
"And some jobs will choose you," Mari added.  "You're still going to help me with waste reclamation maintenance later."
"Marigold!" Rose scolded.  "Not everyone's finished their cake yet!"

After the celebration, it was time for one more ritual.  Dahlia ran ahead of everyone else to the garden, carrying Azaelea's piece of cake.  Ivy caught up in the time to open the door for her.
In the center of the garden, Azalea was misting the strawberries when the girls found her.  "We've been waiting for all of you to get here!"
"Here's half the flower for you," Dahlia said, offering the cake.
Azalea gave the pair hugs, and then said, "You know what goes good with chocolate?"  She snuck three berries off the stems, passing them out.  "A little something before the slowpokes get here."
"Is she awake yet?"  Ivy said.
"Nope. She's still in the soup."
Dahlia and Ivy ran over to the lab section of the garden, where the growing chamber was running.  They could see her curled up in there, floating in the 'soup'.  The girls were mesmerized.
Azalea tapped the top of Dahlia's head.  "Have you thought of a name yet?"  But she remained silent.

The rest of the family arrived, chatting excitedly.  Above the din, Mari asked Azalea, "Is everything alright?"
Azalea nodded.  "All we have to do is push the button."
Lily and Ivy nudged the birthday girl toward the control panel.  The others waited, remembering the tradition.  Dahlia looked over her family, her sisters all watching with electric anticipation.  She looked at her littlest sister, floating, waiting.  Dahlia took a deep breath, and pushed the button...
The chamber began to drain.  Mari looked over Azalea's shoulder, monitoring the baby's status.  Dahlia was still silent, prompting a curious look from Lily.  "...well?  What's her name?"
"Clover."  Dahlia watched the 'soup' recede, easing the baby downward.  "Her name's Clover." Dahlia took the baby in her arms, as she opened her very familiar eyes.


inspired by Discover Magazine article, "Privacy Pact for the World's Most Famous Cells"

DAY 38: Torn Apart

Jaeger was two minutes ahead of the police when he ran up to the lab, against the tide of panicking students.  He reached the door as the security guard was about to chain it..  "Let me in, Carl!  Let me through!"

"Dr Jaeger, it's not safe!  The police'll be here-"

"I know about Morgan!  I need to try before he gets shot!"  Jaeger stared Carl down.  "Lock up behind me!"

Jaeger kept up with the Twitter feeds of some of his cuter students, including Janelle Foster, who subsidized her education with provocative selfies sponsored by a domain website and a field-hockey league team.  But six minutes prior, she had posted the first words about Dr Whittier's rampage., across the quad from Jaeger's office.  

In the time it had taken him to run from his desk to the lab, Jaeger had rationalized how unsurprising Morgan's behavior was.  Morgan had grown more silent and possessive with the data coming in from the Swift satellite.  There were 47 scientists around the globe monitoring the results; he was performing due diligence, testing redundencies, seeing what others had seen.  But the man who lived and breathed his work had stopped talking, had stopped going home, had stopped visiting his friends and colleagues.  He had taken a deep dive.

Jaeger made it to Morgan's desk.  Morgan was sitting there, head in his hands, gun off to one side.  The phone was shot to pieces; his monitor had received similar damage.  Jaeger said Morgan's name, too softly at first, until he recognized Jaeger's voice and looked up.

"Are there any casualties, Morgan?"

"Jaeger, I'm sorry.  I'm sorry about all of this."

"What's this about?"

"I'm not sure I can do this anymore.  There's too much to see..."

Jaeger sat down.  "I remember a lecture in my second year.  Someone told me that we are not conquerors.  We are stewards of a infinite inheritence, and our greatest achievement is to contribute to that inheritence.  We struggle not for our persistence, but the persistence of truth."

"Well, that sounds pompous," Morgan chuckled.  "Jaeger, I am arriving at the conclusion that some things are beyond examination."

"Well, we can't know everything.  Not enough time, right?"

"That's not what I mean."  The faint echo of stomping boots came from down the hall; Morgan placed his hands over his head.  "I leave my work to you; you're too obstinant to accept otherwise.  And if you see what I've seen, please forgive me.  The abyss has looked back."

The police swarmed in, forcing Jaeger and Morgan to the ground, restraining them.  Morgan ignored their warnings, telling Jaeger, "The abyss is looking back!  The abyss is looking back..."

Inspired by Discover Magazine article, "Our Black Hole Lights Up"

DAY 37: I Saw Three Ships...

Yusef hummed to the Christmas muzak as he performed final checks on the shipping pontoons, added whatever half-lyric he did remember.  "...on Christmas Day, in the morning."  1,611 hours non-stop, and he still hadn't learned all the words.  The end of the season couldn't come fast enough.
"If you want to be an astronaut, you need to know your balloon."  Yusef said to himself, hearing his father's voice.  He studied the envelope as the sensors searched for gaps, cracks and warps.  It was inflating smoothly, without incident.
He checked the bins for Aechel and Bique.  Yusef had to make sure the weight readings matched with yesterday's submitted readings.  A couple of grams could make the difference between flight and failure.
 Sisi's Weights and Measures Department did their part to maintain system equilibrium, with the power of paperwork.

A package on top was wrapped in a Currier and Ives motif: two horses pulling a sleigh past skaters and sledders, as their riders wave to their neighbors.  Yusef looked at this conglomeration of fictions, wondering how it could elicit nostalgia for anyone.  There was no horses or sleighs here, no snow or ice rink, not even December.
It had been generations since the Mydeco system had been launched, and the center discarded.  The three satellites - Aechel, Bique, and Sisi - now careened through the cosmos.in a symbiotic tri-orbit, propelled and connected by their mutual gravity.  They spun like a hurricane, farther and farther from the spiral arm that had birthed their ancestors.
As their society evolved, they picked and chose which traditions to maintain and to discard; they had eliminated nights and weeks, but kept minutes and seconds.  Without the sun's tyranny, men had adjusted their circadian rhythms for 40-hour days, in the service of maintaining their way of life.  There were no more Mondays or Hump Days, although there was a TGIFriday's in one of Bique's cities.  And on the walls, you could still find artifacts from distant eras, offering memories their patrons never possessed.

Christmas had also evolved; now it aligned to the window in time when the three satellites were closest together.  Their orbit was peculiar, but constant; coming together every 8,760 hours.
For those with only a secular interest, it was the optimal time for trade between the satellites - for the obscenely rich or important, a rare opportunity to jump satellites.  For everyone else, the powers that be held celebrations that bonded their communities as one, while keeping everyone happy at home.  Gift-giving, of course, remained central.
For the faithful, Christmas still commemorated the birth of the child born under a heavenly star... a star that some believed they were destined to return to.  At their launch, the satellites had been placed on a trajectory for some distant system that had the highest probability of class M planets - but no guarantee.  They found a star in the sky, and spun toward it; in the generations since, it was the only fixed position in the sky that Yusef shared with his ancestors.  They sailed on, guided by faith, reaching for salvation.


inspired by Discover Magazine article, "Thirteen New Answers to an Age-Old Physics Puzzle"

DAY 25: Dis-entanglement

"Could I have everybody's attention?"  Ferdinand stood up on his desk, so everyone in their cubicles could see him.  "I know how everybody here likes to gossip - I'm looking at you, Gladys - and I just want to say my peace while I have the chance, before things get all crazy...

"We - and I should say, I in particular - have been watching you humans for quite some time.  For all your talk of community, togetherness and brotherhood, you seem like a schizophrenic people; chaotic and self-destructive.  The only things that unite you people are your fears.  And when your common fears are gone, you fear each other.  Top to bottom, that's every one of you people!"

"What do you mean, you people?" 

Ferdinand directed his invective in the direction of his heckler.  "I mean, Marlene, that before I go, I want to give you humans a little piece of mind.  A little piece of MY mind, you could say.  What you see standing here is just a vessel - we're sitting here on another star so far away, you haven't built a telescope big enough to see it!  And in case you're worried about invasion, don't.  Even if we had the technology to make the trip, you, me, and everybody else in reach would be long dissipated from existence.  It's easier and safer to make contact this way, before we decide to waste our time.

"So, to recap:  Are you alone in the universe? No.  Are you getting invaded?  Not interested.  Go back to destroying yourselves."

He hopped off the desk just as his manager reached him.  "Time to go; get your stuff."

Ferdinand walked the aisles, a step ahead of any hands that would grab him.  "I don't want them - Open season, people! - I got nowhere to take them. But you might want to take a step back.  Lynn, I got your stapler on my desk, be sure to grab-"

Ferdinand's form collapsed as his skeleton liquefied.  Shock gave way to puzzlement, as the remnants of their former cubiclemate shrank in its clothes into the size and consistency of a discarded candy wrapper.


inspired by Discover Magazine article, "A Leap in Quantum Computing"

DAY 21: Looking for Heaven through a Broken Telescope

It was lunchtime at the Green building; Sara had the department to herself.  It was Methany's birthday, and it seems that nearly everyone had been lured by free cake and the rumor of a strip-o-gram dressed in a Chewbacca costume.  Sara was happy to hold the fort, and pore over the latest Kepler data sets alone.  An argument had begun that the data sets were trending circumstances similar to what preceded the loss of the first two reaction wheels. If Carl's team was right, Kepler may already be a brick, and the team would be spending the next year and a half finding the exact day and minute that the data went bad.  It had taken long enough to craft the formulas to compensate for-

A young girl with a single side-braid was standing in the office.  She looked no older than 10, wore glasses, and appeared to have recently discovered the novelty of dressing oneself; every major component of the rainbow had been assigned its own article of clothing.  She was looking at the data pinned to the walls.

As soon as she caught Sara's eye, the young girl extended her hand for a shake, smiling widely.  "Hello.  Are you Doctor Sara Seager?  I saw your lecture on YouTube.  You're great."

"Thank you," Sara replied.  "Who let you in?"

"I was with a tour - my parents want my brother to go here, and I want to, too.  I guess I wandered off.  He's talking to an ROTC recruiter, but I've been wanting to see this place.  You're great."

"Thank you very much..."

"Jean. Jean Bowie.  Jeanie.  Whatever you like.  You're Doctor Sara Seager.  Can I get an autograph?"

Dr Sara rolled her eyes.  "Sure.  Do you have something?"

Jeanie produced a visitor's map of the MIT campus.  "I wish I'd brought your first book, but it's my dad's.  He reads it to me."

Sara accepted the pamphlet.  "Wow!  I never thought of my books as bedtime reading material."  She looked for a pen, while Jeanie continued to ramble.

"I know!  We only read a couple of pages, and Dad tells me what he thinks, and I tell him what I think about it, and we keep talking about all this amazing stuff!  It takes me forever to go to sleep, but I only read it on the weekend.  Is this from the Gemini?"  

Sara looked up from her searching; Jeanie was using one of the computers, scanning through a battery of extrastellar images from Chile.  Sara wedged herself between Jeanie and the keyboard.  "You can't do that, young lady!"

Tears began to build in Jeanie's eyes.  "I'm sorry, I got too excited, I'm so happy to be here!  I want to do what you do!  Have you found anything in the Vela system?"

"Th- the what?"

"The Vela constellation system.  I-I- My mom adopted a star for me, and it's in the Vela system, and I wanted to find it!" 

Sara took a step back.  "Kepler can't move, even if we wanted to.  Our view's locked on the Draco constellation.  Vela's being observed by another team."

"But I think you should really look, I mean really really look at it!"  Jeanie started typing and moving the mouse, scrambling to find a way in.  Sara reached for Jeanie's wrist-

Sara could feel a building wave of heat, like she had just stepped out the door to a Mississippi summer.  The radiating heat was coming from Jeanie's direction.  "Jeanie, please stop."

Jeanie exhaled, and got up from the chair.  "I'm sorry.  Please don't tell anybody.  I just wandered off, I'm going to leave now...  I just want to go home."

Sara nodded, and watched silently as Jeanie backed away to the door.  The girl took another deep breath; then she offered to the professor, "You should look for silicon.  The diffraction rate's different from ozone, but similar enough that it might be in your ranges.  You wouldn't know if you weren't looking, but it's obvious once you do.  There aren't a lot, so they stand out.  I really think you're great."

By the time Sara collected herself to walk to the door, all traces of the strange young girl had disappeared.  But the doctor could not be convinced that she was alone...


inspired by Discover Magazine article "Worlds Without End"

DAY 18: Let's Hit the Wall

Jaeger was happy to accompany Emily to the Institute, if only to break the news to Qadir.  The Voyager crash had been disastrous for everybody on the team, and now he was visiting the kid genius that stole his dream job before they even graduated.  It was Qadir's unabashed adoration of Planck theory that assured his residency at the ESA.  And spreading the misery by telling Qadir that everything he believed was a lie... that was the most silver of linings Jaeger could imagine.

Once again, Jaeger was disappointed.  After the shock, Qadir laughed even harder than Jaeger had ever heard.  "You realize what this means, don't you?"

"No!" Qadir said, between laughs.  "No one does!  Isn't that great?"

The laughter was starting to grate Jaeger; he pointed to the wall.  "How long were you guys working on that picture of the universe there?"

"I helped with the last couple of years - but so what?  If your Jesus knocked on my door today, saying 'Here I am, you are wrong about everything'- I would offer him a beer.  Everything is wrong, and that is wonderful!  No more re-proving generations-old theories - we are discovering now!
"I will share with you a koan, a Buddhist fable:  once there was a fish that was the smartest fish in his school.  He taught them all about their world.  Being fish, their world was water.  They breathe it, are surrounded in it, move through it, they think they know everything about water... and this fish, most of all.  'Fish that leave the water?  That's myth!  Things living above the water? Lies!  And so he believed, until the day he got caught on a hook, and pulled into a boat.  And as he lay dying on the floor of the boat, withdrawn and separated for the water he had known all his life - he began to understand what water was..."

Emily was shuffling through the thermal photomontages on Qadir's desk.  "I guess you understand why we're talking with you, Dr Tinibu.  Is there any work your facility's doing here that might-"
"Oh, no, this is all useless, at the moment.  I want to see the Voyager first, to see what undid it.  We build another one. And whatever wall we hit, we have to hit it again."


inspired by Discover Magazine article "Baby Pictures of the Cosmos, Now in HD"

DAY 6: Boomerang

Emily swirled the chardonnay, compelling it to climb to the lip of her snifter, without allowed thing it to escape.  She had heard it was what one does with a good chardonnay, and so she did, carefully.  She placed it under her nose to experience the bouquet, but the smell reminded her of communion wine and one of her preferred disinfecting cleaners.
The others had opted for hardier spirits.  Jaeger was drinking vodka, which was supposed to be funny, but no one told her why.  Harold and Li were working on a bottle of Jack Daniels.  Stu drank nothing, but stared at the shadows in the corner, wearing his calculating glare...
Finally, Morgan hoisted his beer in the air, calling their attention.  "Gentleman and lady, I don't think we've yet given a proper toast to Chuz, our fallen colleague.  As we chase after the secret he kept - the secret that killed him - I ask that we remember the man who brought us together, and allowed us to be our best.  We've had some vigorous discussions, but I think we can come to agreement that it was a burden he should not have borne alone.  As he brought us together, so he is among us.  As we see this through, so shall he.  To Chuz!"

The team downed their drinks and bowed their heads.  Lorraine the waitress took the empty bottle, and brought new shots.  "Sorry, boys, here's your last call.  And I'm sorry to hear about your friend.  What are you, hunters?"
"Actually, miss," slurred Harold, "we're rocket scientists.  But we are hunting tonight-"
"-for a meteorite!" Li interjected, stepping over the rest of Harold's words.
"You mean, that meteor coming down tonight?  I saw on the news a little bit ago..."
Harold grinned deeply.  "Yeah, your government's closing the forest for us, since it'll probably land there. Got our nets and yellow tape, and we'll see what the heavens brought down to us poor souls."
"Are you guys Americans?"\
"Yep.  You wanna do something a-boot it, eh?"
Li was patting himself down for his wallet.  "We'll be out of your hair in a bit."  He wandered over to Morgan.
As the waitress was about to walk off, Harold whispered, "We're not going after a meteorite."
He showed Lorraine his wristwatch, and pointed to its center.  "We're here.  We shot something all the way over here-" dragging his finger to the 3- "and it's coming at us from here."  He placed his finger on the 9, pulling it back to the center.  "Ain't that wild?" Lorraine shook her head, offering no response.
Stu returned his attention to the team.  "If you're all done, it's entered airspace. should be on the ground in two minutes."

The team climbed into the van: Stu at the wheel, Morgan navigating, the others doing final checks on equipment and watching the skies.  Emily was sitting next to Jaeger, whose lower lip was jutting out and resting against the window.  In a low voice, she asked, "Are you mad that Chuz didn't tell you?"
Jaeger collected himself, and measured his answer.  "No.  I mean, he inherited it, y'know?  He was still interning when the signal went crazy.  There wasn't any proof to call it anything besides mechanical failure, so that's been the truth enough.  No other answer made sense, so there's no reason to think of anything else without the data.  That's what messed Chuz up."
"That way lies madness," Morgan offered.
"And we have plenty of time to go crazy," Jaeger joked.  "First things first."

Harold's mouth diarrhea kicked in.  "Guys, I'm renaming the stars.  As long as all bets are off, I'll calling dibs on a couple of them.  I already bought one for my daughter, so she would think my job was cool.  I think I'm going to rename a closer one; maybe it'll work this time...  oh shit, are we still going to have jobs?  I'm serious, guys!  The universe - our universe is like, 85 years across!  We're living in a donut!  A dark jelly donut!"
"I think you're panicking, Harold.  I'm considering a wormhole as our culprit," Li countered.  "The theory's been around, it's suggested on the atomic level; if we find evidence of temporal irregularities, I think this discovery could be a real positive."
"Sure, you and the Mario brothers!"
Emily put her hand on Harold's shoulder, trying to calm him.  "Look, we're all thinking about it, let's just get it out there.  Now, I'm thinking it's premature to presume one dominant factor put it so off course.  We've got other scouts out there, after all, and they haven't returned.  It could have caught onto another current, and been redirected naturally."
"I'm considering intentional alteration," Stu said.  "Statistically, it's impressive that we send it out one direction in uncharted territory, and it happens to intersect our path, but not where it started, and do that unassisted.  I don't think it's an accident; I think it's a response."
Morgan moaned, "My wife will tell you who's responding: it's God.  He's swatting us back down where He wants us to be.  We asked our big question, and we got our answer: No."
Emily accepted the map, and took over navigation.

At the site, the authorities had already cordoned off the area; the team had it to themselves.  The radiation it had absorbed in space was distinct enough to find it in the forest, but Harold assured that it wasn't at lethal levels.  He and Li worked the perimeter to locate the smaller significant pieces; Jaeger and Stu loaded up the bulk of the guts, leaving Emily and Morgan to catalog.  Morgan was all business until Jaeger brought him the pieces of the gold disc; then, he cried like a baby.
But even as the autopsy continued through the night, Emily would still steal glances at the stars, and wonder what she was seeing.


inspired by the Discover Magazine article, "Voyager 1 Goes Interstellar"

DAY 1: The Rose Garden of Mars

Back in the MySpace days, I used to find inspiration from Discover's annual collection of their 100 most significant science stories; I would attempt to write a story of my own for every article, at a pace of one a day. Years later, in an attempt to reawaken my passion, I'm assuming the challenge again..., 

******

 STORY 1: The Rose Garden of Mars

"There's a story in here somewhere," he muttered into the dirt. Jon looked past the readouts - green for environmental readings, blue for material analysis, red for spatial calibration - to the image of those robot fingers sifting that red clay from 300 million kilometers away. His fingers and thumb moved in tandem with the screen, eight minutes into their future; his fingertips now soundly brushed against each other, wiping phantom dust off finger joints. Noticing the sound, he stopped and turned off the hand-scan.
Erica, behind him, smirked, "You break it, you buy it." She waltzed over to the monitor that cascaded the barrage of incoming data. The Hartz Roller's 'fingers' were breaking down the Martian dust, identifying over 47 elements in a variety of isotopes and molecular combinations. Erica's eyes raced along the data, alive with excitement.  But her words were still for Jon. "You watch Christmas logs on TV, don't you?"
 The comment was enough to pull Jon's attention momentarily away from his task. "What's that?"
"You're watching dirt. Yeah, you're the first living being to ever see that dirt, but it's just dirt. Your story is over here; look at all these rare metals. At this rate, two scoops of dirt could restock every cell phone on Earth-" Erica pointed at the screen. "-right there! That isotope's never been found outside of a lab. And look how much of our friends Carbon, Nitrogen, and Phosphorus that Hartz's practically tripping over out there. How much more of a footprint do you need?"
 "Something in the shape of a footprint, maybe?" Jon shrugged, as he continued fiddling with the monitor knobs. "That's all exciting stuff, I give you that. The computers will tell me all about it later. But they can't tell me about..." Jon's voice trailed off, his concentration on his adjustments. "Can you grab my lucky pen over there, please?"
Erica picked up Jon's "lucky" pen, constructed from pieces of the prototype model of the Hartz Roller. Jon held the pen up against the screen and asked Erica, "Do you know what color Mars is?"
 "I reject your trick question, and say 'red'."
 "Yes, red- but what kind?" The screen was noticeably greener, and still shifting. "Most people think of adobe brick, georgia clay..." On the screen, the shading of the fingers was starting to sync with the lucky pen. "...but that's like saying earth is brown. Of course it is, from far away..."
 The fingers began to slow down; Jon made his final strokes. "...but not from up close.,. Okay, Erica - does that look like brick?"
Erica looked at the red velvet dust, with hints of purple and clear crystal that caught the light. "They look like rose. Ground up rose petals."
 Jon pondered this, and studied the monitor. "Rose pebbles. It's not a new lifeform, but... it's catchy." He turned to face her inevitable retort, and was greeted with the sight of her staring in wondrous silence. Over her gaze, Jon could see the reflection of rose pebbles running through the robot's now-still fingers.

 When it was over, Erica let out a sigh and said, "This won't prove anything to them; it's nothing but dust." Jon smirked, "...but aren't we all?"


Based on the Discover magazine article, "New Signs of Long-Gone Life on Mars", January 2014