I hit the vent button over and over. Every time: a rush of air and seven pops.
Why are you doing that? Amelia asked. The processor’s good to go—
I just— I put my tools away quickly. I need to check something. I left her and pulled myself into the next module. I bumped into things; I caught my elbow on an open panel, knocked my head as I swung my body through the airlock between the SM and the galley.
When I reached the sleeping module I grabbed my locker, crawled into my bunk, and pulled the partition closed. My breath was warm and loud in the tiny space as I rummaged through the locker. I had it somewhere, the static log I’d begun five years ago after Inquiry went dark. I knew I did because I’d nearly thrown it out when I was cleaning out my dorm room after Candidate Group graduation. I’d found it at the bottom of an old duffel bag and laughed when I pulled it out.
I did have it, a dented green notebook with my name written inside the cover. I turned on the tiny reading light attached to the side of my bunk compartment, opened the book, and began to read. I scanned every page, squinting at my twelve-year-old handwriting in the lamp’s small spotlight, until I found my notes on G1 and H2. They included the dates I heard the static, the channel’s letter and number designation, AUX27, and the interval between the sounds, between seventy and seventy-four hours.
I stayed in my bunk and thought for a long time. No one talked about Inquiry anymore. During my training the Explorer program was rarely mentioned, and when it was it was handled in a clinical way. No one talked about the crew. No one said their names.
But since I’d arrived at the Sundew I’d thought about them a lot. They were with me as I floated through the station’s modules and airlocks, hauled crates and sacks from one hold to another, and ate breakfast with Amelia or Simon in the galley. When I strapped myself into a jump seat, the restraints tight against my chest, I pictured Anu secured in an identical seat. When I squeezed behind a panel with a tool in my hand, I wondered how many times she’d done the same on Inquiry.
It was a wild thought that they could still be alive, five years later. I pressed the notebook to my chest and swam to the SM.
Simon was there, strapped into a seat, doing a systems check. One of the gyroscopes is trying to die, he said. For real this time.
I hung in the air in front of him. I need to listen to something.
What?
The Inquiry feed.
He looked at me steadily and I remembered the day he sat next to me on the bus to Peter Reed, the picture of Anu he’d tucked inside his book. Why?
I’m just…curious about something.
Okay. He pressed buttons, and the screen lit up with the familiar communications log, the one-way conversation between mission control and the Inquiry explorer. Only now it was a no-way conversation because control had stopped sending status checks two years ago.
I belted myself into the seat next to him, opened my log, and pointed at the list of channels. That one. AUX27. Start it from a week ago, I said.
But he was unstrapping himself from his seat. I’ll leave you to it.
Stay. I started pressing buttons and turned the channel up loud.
His face was grim. I don’t want to.
But he didn’t leave—he hung on to the back of his seat, his feet waving in the air behind him.
The channel was a long unbroken fizz. I waited and nothing happened. I checked its designation again. AUX27. I skipped ahead several hours. And then a full day. Still nothing. No hums, no pops.
I let out the breath I’d been holding. That was it then. I turned the channel down.
What were you listening for? Simon asked.
It was stupid. I thought—
A low hum filled the room, broken by seven snapping pops. G1 and H2, just the same as I remembered them. Just the same as the sound I’d heard inside our own urine processing tank.
I pulled myself to the screen, skipped ahead three days. Again, a low hum and seven snapping pops.
Tell me what that is, Simon said.
It’s going to sound crazy.
Say it. He held the back of his seat with two hands.
Proof the Inquiry crew are still alive.
His mouth was a thin line. It seemed for a minute he might turn and swim out of the module. But he didn’t; he pulled himself into his seat, strapped himself in. Start from the beginning, he said.
The Sundew and Inquiry are the same age, I said. They have a lot of the same equipment.
Right.
They have the same urine processor. Same manufacturer, same model, installed within months of each other. Its brine reservoir has to be vented manually.
I played back G1 and H2. The vent makes a distinctive sound. Exactly like this—
NSP has been listening to the feed all along, he interrupted. There’s nothing there.
There’s static.
Interference that could be a million different things.
This channel— I pointed at AUX27. It runs through an antenna on the underside of the explorer. I looked it up. It was installed for a waveform communication experiment, and is right next to the urine processor’s vent.
If they were alive NSP would know it. They would have figured it out.
It’s not impossible they missed this.
Or they do know it, he said slowly. And haven’t said anything because there’s nothing they can do about it.
A fan near my right ear began to whir; cold air filled the module. Don’t say that.
They want to forget them June.
Something in the fan began to flap—a cargo tag stuck in its filter—and I unstrapped myself and swam to pull it out.
Simon’s hands floated. I told Anu she shouldn’t go, he said. I said the explorer wasn’t ready. The fuel cell needed more testing, a longer study. She said that if NSP did all those tests she might be too old to go by the time they were done.
She was probably right.
I said there was more to life than one mission. There was me. Her friends. Her family—
You couldn’t convince her, I said.
She convinced me. There are risks in every mission. If something does go wrong, who should NSP trust to make it right? Who would I trust? Anu.
That’s true.
But that stupid speech I gave got in her head, he said. The day of the launch I stood at the bottom of the elevator and waited to wave goodbye. When Anu walked toward us in her jumpsuit she looked so capable and strong. But when she got closer I saw doubt in her expression. Maybe fear.
I folded the cargo tag in my hands. What would she say if she were here right now?
She’d say— Oh I don’t know. She’d say we have to replicate it, Simon said. The static. But we don’t have an antenna anywhere near that vent.
You and Amelia could install one during your spacewalk. It would take ten minutes. Fifteen tops.
He didn’t say anything. He unstrapped himself from his seat. Amelia won’t do it, he said.
Why?
She wants to forget too.
I waited until the next day when Amelia was in the gym, strapped into the stationary bike and pedaling hard. I hung on to a handrail and told her what I’d discovered and what I thought it meant. I spoke over the circular whine of the bike.
As I talked she didn’t react. Her feet didn’t slow; she stared straight ahead out the porthole, sweat darkening her T-shirt.
I got to the part about the antenna before she said anything.
You think the Inquiry crew are alive. Despite her physical exertion, her tone was even. Unemotional.
Yes.
And you want us to install an antenna during our spacewalk so you can prove it.
It won’t take long—
Dimitri, Lee, Missy, and Anu are dead.
That’s what everyone thinks.
They’re right. Because the alternative is— Her pace slowed by a little, and she shook her head slightly. Unthinkable.
She sped up again.
I kicked my body forward in the air and put my hand over the porthole in front of her. If they’re alive we can save them.
She looked at me. She was so thin. Sweat had pooled in the sharp notch of her clavicle.
Did you talk to Simon about this?
My feet waved in the air below me. Yes.
She sat back in her seat and the pedals of the bike drifted slowly forward. That was a cruel thing to do.
Can we install the antenna or not?
It’s a waste of time.
You’re wrong.
I waited for her to round on me then, to tell me off. She’d done it before, when we disagreed about the fastest method to unload a shipment or the best way to fix a piece of equipment.
But she didn’t. She turned back to the porthole, gripped the handlebars of the bike tighter, and sped up. The only fuel cells that could carry an explorer that far failed, she said. And we don’t know why.
We could find out—
We tried. We were all on the Pink Planet for months—me, Simon, James, and Theresa. Taking the fuel cell apart and putting it back together, hoping the rescue mission could be salvaged. James and Theresa are still there. It’s driven them half mad and they still don’t have an answer.
My stomach pressed against my skin. I didn’t know that.
There’s no way to reach the Inquiry crew. If they’re alive—a little shudder moved through her body—all we can hope for is that they figure out how to save themselves.