Endurance

Elaine Burnes

 

CAPTAIN KATE RANDALL lies in a fetal curl, shivering. Voices chatter, yell, complain, plead. Clammy fingers pull at her. Sounds, cries, fill her small quarters. Ghostly forms swirl, shrieking. Wailing. The stuff of banshees. Are they in the room or inside her head? She can’t tell. They deserve her attention. It’s her fault they are here. No, not entirely. She wasn’t responsible for whatever tossed their ships through space like bits of tissue down a toilet drain.

How long has it been? A couple of months? Since she woke to the pounding, the loss of gravity, to formerly settled objects flying through the air. Go back earlier, to her last happy moment. When she’d sat in the observation lounge mentally flirting with Natalie, the expedition leader giving a talk about Saturn, visible overhead through the panoramic observation dome.

As Natalie pointed out Saturn’s E ring, and how it formed from material spewing off the second-largest moon, Enceladus, Kate finished her wine and slipped away. This would be a good time for rounds, while the guests were busy ogling Saturn and munching Martian cheeses. She always began on the lowest deck, in the engineering suite overseen by Edward. Never Ed or Eddie. “My mother named me Edward,” he’d told her when they’d met and he refused her handshake. Nothing personal, Marc, her first officer, had warned her ahead of time. Autism made him more comfortable around the powerful engines of a spaceship than the warm embrace of a human. And no one could finesse the Recyc-All like Edward.

“Everything shipshape, Chief?” she asked.

“Yes, Captain,” he replied, not making eye contact. “You know that. That’s my job.”

She smiled. “Yes, I do. And you do it better than anyone. Carry on.”

“Captain.” Said with a nod. The closest he could come to a thank you or good night.

On the galley deck, she refrained from snitching a snack. The staff were busy cleaning up and prepping for breakfast. She caught the eye of Miriam, the executive chef. “I can dry if you want.”

Miriam laughed. “Go on. You’re useless here and you know it.”

Between stops, as she roamed the hallways, she engaged her augmented reality chip and whispered, “Tara.” A woman appeared, visible only to Kate. Not suited for space, she wore casual clothes, like she did back when they shared a home on those brief leaves between missions. As they walked, Kate mentally chatted, told her about her day, how at dinner Mr. Singh grabbed her knee. Tara didn’t say anything, her quiet presence was all Kate needed.

Before entering the bridge, Kate blinked Tara off. Lucy sat at con. With Endurance in stationary orbit, just two other bridge crew monitored systems.

“It’s a beautiful night,” Kate said as she took the first officer’s seat next to Lucy.

“It’s always night, Captain,” Lucy responded with a sideways glance and grin. It was an old joke between them. “Should I relinquish con?”

“Just visiting. Carry on.” Kate fingered the ring on Lucy’s left hand. “Nice rock. When did that happen?”

Her second officer blushed, and her wide smile warmed Kate. Oh, to feel that again.

“When we were loading.”

Kate’s eyebrows rose in question.

“Rob said he had planned it for a romantic Christmas Eve, but decided he couldn’t wait.” She fingered the small diamond. “It feels funny. Kind of in the way.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

They chatted for a few minutes about wedding plans and honeymoons. Then Kate said goodnight and turned in. She changed into a fresh suit and put the old one in the Recyc-All. The downside of space travel was not being able to sleep nude, to feel the soft sheets. Her mind returned to Natalie. All that talk of weddings. Natalie was as off limits as Kate. One married, the other resolved.

 

KATE WOKE TO a brilliant flash filling the cabin and the pressure of the snug bedding that kept her from crashing into the ceiling. Her lamp, her helmet, everything not locked down spun and swirled like so many leaves in a strong wind. A shriek of metal tearing, glass shattering. How long did it last? A minute? Less? Like that earthquake when she was a kid, but worse. Even before things settled, alarms sounded. The staccato shrill warning of hull breaches. Red lights flashed. Life support systems failing. Instinctively she activated her suit, sealing her in, applying pressure against the impending void. She squirmed out of the bedding, locked tight as a safety measure for just such circumstances, and floated. It took maybe a minute to find her helmet, flung out of its compartment next to the bed and wedged under the desk chair. Snapped into place, she bit the com tab. “Captain to the bridge. Lucy, what’s going on?”

No reply.

“Captain to engineering. Respond, Chief.”

Nothing.

“Captain to sick bay! Activate!”

While she spoke, Kate floated, bouncing off walls and furniture, making her way to the door leading to the bridge. It didn’t respond from the control panel. She reached for the manual release, hesitating only a moment from what might lie beyond.

“Sick bay to the Captain,” Dr. Amos replied, calm. “Do you have an emergency?”

“Sure sounds like it from the alarms I’m hearing. What’s going on?”

“You activated me,” the doctor said. “I’m downloading status updates now.”

“Go to Code Red, and remain active until I release the order. Assist all injured.”

“Acknowledged.”

Kate braced her feet against the wall and heaved on the door. It slid in a stutter, its alignment off. Her training had prepared her for this, whatever this would turn out to be. But knowing a hundred tourists were relying on her, none of them trained, gave her pause as she pushed through to the bridge.

Two crew members floated, unconscious. Lucy, masked as a helmeted form, flew about, corralling her helpless colleagues, activating suits, snapping helmets into place, collecting loose equipment. Kate didn’t think to look out the window, just joined the frantic effort.

Once the bridge was secured, Kate opened a shipwide com line. “This is Captain Randall—”

What should she say? Normal emergency procedure required reporting to muster stations, but what if those areas were compromised? She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, calming herself.

“This is Captain Randall,” she repeated. “All crew, Code Red. All passengers, activate your suits and attach your helmets as we practiced. If you are in a safe place, remain there.” And if not? “Wait for a crewmember to assess your situation. Please remain calm. Although this is not a drill, we will regain control shortly. If you have a medical emergency, the Advanced Medical Officer System has been activated and is available to respond.”

Over the next hours, Kate accounted for her crew and passengers, gave orders, followed requests from engineering, sealed off damaged compartments, initiated diagnostics, and sent out an SOS. Deck by deck, the crew identified damage and initiated repairs. To her relief, Endurance lived up to its name.

It wasn’t until the next day that Kate and her first officer entered the airlock to the domed observation deck. Sightseeing was off the itinerary for now. The emergency hatches had slammed shut automatically.

Kate needed a ground truth observation of what her navigation officer insisted must be a damaged sensor that left them unable to mark their location in space. Their last known position had been orbiting Saturn. That should be easy to check, but the smaller windows hadn’t produced the planet or its rings.

Kate tethered herself to what had been the floor of the lounge but was now the outer hull and floated into open space. Walls rose to waist height, and where glass and frames would take over to allow an almost unfettered view, nothing remained. Nothing between her and infinity. And no Saturn.

Kate stared toward three suns where only one should be shining. She tapped Marc on the shoulder and directed his attention. “What the hell is that?”

A long pause. “It ain’t our sun, that’s for sure.”

 

KATE ASSEMBLED HER senior staff. Natalie, with a master’s in astronomy, was the closest Kate had to a science officer, so she tasked her with figuring out what happened. Could the shock that hit the ship have been the sun splitting into three? Ridiculous. Stars don’t do that. Why were the sensors out of whack?

“So where are we?” Kate had already read Natalie’s report. She wanted to hear it from her.

Natalie cleared her throat. Her voice shook. “Two of those stars are Alpha Centauri A and B, with Proxima over to the side.” She pointed needlessly at the photo in her presentation.

The room was quiet while this sank in.

“But I saw Orion out there,” said Sharyn, the hotel manager. She would bear the brunt of easing the guests’ growing anxiety.

“The angle is wrong,” Edward muttered. “The angle is wrong.”

“Both true,” Natalie said. She clicked to the next photo. “See Cassiopeia over there? Look just to the left. That star there.” Natalie pointed to a tiny speck of light. “That’s our sun.”

Gasps, right on cue. Murmurs rose to a chatter.

Kate tapped her coffee mug on the table. “We all remember our high school astronomy, right?” she said in an even tone. She leveled her gaze on Natalie. “Roughly, four light years, correct?”

She nodded nervously.

Kate turned to Lucy. “Our maximum speed is . . . what?” She knew the answer. She knew Lucy knew she knew the answer. But it needed to be said, and she wanted everyone participating.

“A million miles per hour.”

“Anyone care to do the math?”

Silence.

“I didn’t think so. I’ll do it for you. We’re talking a good three thousand years.”

Kate watched the expressions on her crew. They’d worked together for five years, ferrying tourists around the solar system, a fine-tuned machine, with never so much as a space-sick passenger, never mind a major malfunction or crisis. Lucy looked straight ahead, stricken, no doubt thinking of Rob. Marc closed his eyes and let out a breath. She’d come to rely on him for so much—advisor, friend, almost a brother. Miriam covered her face with her hands. She had family back on Earth. She didn’t need this. None of them did.

“How is that possible?” Sharyn said. Her voice hollow and thin.

“Not possible,” Edward muttered, shaking his head.

Kate didn’t allow herself to think about home. This wasn’t the time for grieving. She stood and crossed her arms. Her staff needed reassurance. “Something pushed us four light years in the time it takes the San Andreas fault to shift six feet. Maybe we can figure out how it can get us back.”

 

HERE’S WHAT WE know. Kate replayed the mental exercise each night as she fell into bed—gravity fully restored. The ship survived whatever this was well. The self-repair programs were making progress. A third of the hull breaches were sealed. The dome, made of self-replicating material like all of Endurance, was regrowing and in another week would be safe for passengers to enter. But should they? What will they think when they see no Saturn, no sun, three suns?

Back to what we know. No one died. Medical nanobots in the injured activated automatically as programmed, and bones were healing, cuts closing. All were accounted for. But passengers were asking questions. Questions without answers. Why can’t we call home? Why hasn’t a rescue vehicle shown up? When will we get back to port?

 

THEN MARC GAVE her news. “There’s a ship out there, Captain. Issuing a Mayday.”

We’re not alone. A cruise ship. Kate had seen it when they’d left Mars. The glittery Aphrodite had nineteen decks and eight thousand passengers. Endurance, with five decks and a hundred passengers, could fit in its botanical garden. Large cruise ships are built to provide a stunning entertainment experience. The Jupiter-class Aphrodite was a pleasure palace in every sense of the phrase. Large viewing windows, open interior space for waterfalls, zip lines, roller coasters, bars, restaurants. Kate wondered why anyone would bother to travel through space on these behemoths when they could do the same stuff on Earth with much less risk.

Kate ordered Endurance moved to within visual range. Maybe we can help each other, she thought.

Once she got a good look at the Aphrodite, however, everything that had been looking up went south. Built only for space travel, ships this size couldn’t withstand the stresses of launch or reentry, never mind whatever had hit it and Endurance. Half the ship was simply missing.

A well-trained officer is schooled in the art of compartmentalization. Deal with what you can in the moment. In this moment, Kate ordered a rescue mission. Not rescue, exactly, since there was no way eight thousand souls could fit on Endurance, assuming all had survived, and looking at it, that seemed unlikely. One of Endurance’s small lifepods, with Lucy piloting and Kate as co-pilot, circled the ship, assessing damage, looking for signs of life. Marc hadn’t wanted her to go. What if something happened to her? He was right, of course. Kate, more than anyone, knew that. But she’d also learned the hard way that no one else could take on this responsibility. Triaging injured was a mundane task compared to what awaited her.

A cloud of debris made navigating arduous. All decks were exposed, layered like a cake with a large center opening that in this case did not hold frosting or jam. Just a jam of a different sort. If the ship had any self-sealing capabilities, whatever hit her did too much damage too fast for them to close off. Conduits, wiring, and insulation hung shredded. The few bodies that floated past were in pajamas or nude. No one seemed to have been wearing a suit. They aren’t that uncomfortable. Did the company even provide them?

All that luxury came with a price, and the Aphrodite was a fragile egg now cracked open and spilling its guts. A Humpty Dumpty that was not going back together again.

Dread washed through Kate. She would have to decide what to do for any survivors. Could they fit on board Endurance? What if there were too many? Whom do you save? She adored her crew, but they were not survivalists. Not that she expected to find needed expertise on the Aphrodite. Any astrobiologists in the house? How about a propulsion physicist? Anyone know how to open a wormhole?

Lucy steered the small craft toward the bridge. If it survived, there might be command staff alive. Kate and Lucy peered through the windows as they floated along the wide bridge. Missing panes signaled a sad reality. Then they saw a figure, helmeted, suited, strapped into the command seat.

“Endurance to Aphrodite,” Kate said into her mic.

“Aphrodite here,” a faint voice gasped, adrenaline worn off, exhaustion remaining.

“What is your status?”

“Status? We’re fucked.”

Lucy skillfully docked onto the roof of Aphrodite’s bridge. The port view revealed an empty swimming pool, its protective dome gone. Thomas Philbrick, the third officer, came aboard. Nearly catatonic with trauma, he could barely speak. He told a story Kate knew. The captain had been sleeping, as had Kate, when something hit the ship or something happened to the ship. He wasn’t clear. It was the night shift, skeleton crew. They were parked below Saturn’s rings so they could illuminate the observation lounges where parties were in full swing. A Solar System Soirée.

Thomas hadn’t left the bridge since he’d made a minor exploration of the surrounding areas. The captain was gone, his quarters, with its domed ceiling, voided to space. There might be people alive. He could feel vibrations through the superstructure. Some banging. Not random like a swinging bolt. Frantic. Fading.

First tough decision. Ask Thomas to return to Aphrodite, or bring him aboard Endurance?

“I can’t make you go back, but you are the senior surviving officer,” she said in a gentle tone.

He looked stricken. “What am I supposed to do there?”

Kate didn’t know him. Had no idea of his background or training. “Let’s get you rested and fed. We have a lot of decisions to make.”

The third officer nodded, mute.

Back on Endurance, Kate called her senior staff together to discuss options. Follow-up reconnaissance determined there were approximately 600 souls alive, relatively safe in interior rooms that didn’t breach. Mostly passengers, but also a few crew members. Housekeeping, galley staff, engineering. Food lockers survived, but there was no way to distribute it, too many voids to cross.

Kate operated on autopilot as she doled out assignments. Over the next week Endurance teams located a dozen viable lifepods, filled them with food, and loaded survivors onto them, managing to assign one crew member to each. Thomas Philbrick reluctantly took command.

Meanwhile, repairs to Endurance continued. At first her passengers were understanding. Clearly a bigger emergency lay off the starboard side. Those with useful skills, like engineers, were asked to help. Most did. What she really needed were doctors, nurses, and therapists, all professions that had died out with the rise of AI service suppliers and medical nanobots injected into children like vaccines in the past. “Where’s a damn medic when you need one?” Kate grumbled.

By day, or by the twenty-two hour shifts Kate pulled, she operated smoothly, controlling what she could. The rest had to wait. Like the growing complaints among her passengers, asking why no one was coming to their rescue. She didn’t hide the fact of the three suns from them. The observation deck wasn’t open yet, but there were windows. Did they not want to see what was out there?

If Endurance had encountered a wormhole, she survived, but barely. A prototype military vessel never pressed into actual combat, the ship was kitted out for exploration. But not this kind. Exploration of the already known, not this unknown.

The Endurance crew salvaged everything they could from Aphrodite. Fuel, spare parts, Recyc-Alls. Not the roulette wheel, although they might as well have, given their chances.

As the fresh food ran out, Edward programmed the Recyc-Alls to make S rations. Miriam grumbled privately, but to the guests joked with a shrug, “It tastes like chicken.”

No repairs to Aphrodite were possible, little living space remained, the lifepods were full but not crammed. What next?

The question wrapped Kate in a shroud. She turned to Tara, consulting her former commander in the privacy of her quarters. Dr. Amos would not be amused to hear her seeking advice from a figment of her imagination.

“You know what you have to do,”  Tara said.

“Last resort,” Kate replied. The memory stabbed her. “Could you try to be more helpful?”

“What would Tara do? Is that what you want to know?”

“I didn’t sign up for this.”

“You know what—”

Kate turned her off. The problem with augmented reality was the infuriating lack of imagination. Projecting your own thoughts into the image of someone else wasn’t much use.

Kate considered. The pods were designed to support life for a month, the time it would take for rescuers to come from Mars or Earth to Saturn or elsewhere in the solar system. That solar system. Not this one. The pods were no sturdier than Aphrodite and not intended for long journeys or harsh conditions.

Natalie reassured Kate that there were bound to be planets in the area, likely resource rich, maybe habitable. Kate discussed the options with her staff.

“We can’t drag these people along like ducklings,” she said. “There isn’t enough fuel for that if we wanted to.”

The unspoken question tightened with each passing hour. Stay or leave? Look for help or watch each other die?

Kate composed her message to the Aphrodite survivors carefully. “We are not abandoning you,” she stressed. “We are going for help since help doesn’t seem inclined to come to us. We’ll be back. One month. We’ll be back.”

Earth’s solar system could be transited in a month. Kate chose to overlook the paucity of habitable planets back home. “We only need one.”

After she gave the order to depart, she disconnected the com link to the pods, so she couldn’t hear their pleas.

Natalie used the ship’s rudimentary telescope to find objects big enough to be planets or at least moons, and Lucy plotted the most efficient route past them. Each turned out to be nothing but rock or gas or gas or rock. Life might be possible with twenty years of ferrying supplies and building habitats, as had been done on Mars. Nothing to help 700 survive the rest of their lives or get back home.

Dejected didn’t even begin to describe Kate’s mood as Endurance finished its month-long circuit of the Alphas and Proxy, as they came to call the three stars.

“We’ve only checked a fraction of the possible candidates,” Natalie said, whether to reassure or complain, it wasn’t clear.

“We have to go back,” Kate said.

“And do what?”

“I promised.”

 

APHRODITE’S PODS HAD been left docked end to end, creating a long train. As they came into view, Kate saw only six. Where were the rest?

“This is Endurance. Can you read me?”

A pause. A crackle. Silence.

She led a team to check them out. Again, Marc protested. Again she ignored him.

At the Air Force Academy, Kate had studied how people respond in a crisis. The evidence showed that a strong leader increased the likelihood of survival. She’d left these people with no one capable in charge. It had been too much to ask of Third Officer Philbrick. The result was predictable. The six remaining pods were empty of humans but filled with clues to what happened. Bloody suits, smashed helmets, trashed equipment. In the last one they searched, a woman named Georgie left recordings. Kate sent her team back to Endurance’s pod and watched the messages alone.

It had taken just two weeks for civilization to shatter. Factions formed, groups disagreed on what to do. Some wanted to go back to the Aphrodite, others wanted to head back to Earth. Except they had no idea where that was, and although they’d been told how far, despair made them forget or disbelieve.

In the background, over the course of the daily recordings, arguing changed to panic, screams to moans. To silence. Equipment broke down, not designed for actual survival circumstances, meant only for a few hours floating. Georgie held up a broken switch. “This is plastic, for god’s sake.” Early in the month, she still managed fury. “Let this be a record that I hold Galaxy Cruises responsible. And Endurance. They abandoned us. Captain Randall refused to let any of us on board. Not even the children.”

Especially not the children. Kate needed adults. Space is no place for children.

Georgie’s last message, “Bryan, if this ever reaches you. I’m so sorry. I do love you. This was a stupid idea and you were right. I’m so, so sorry.”

Kate couldn’t wipe the tears that streamed behind the safety shield of her helmet. She rode back to Endurance in silence then called her senior staff together. She asked for volunteers among the passengers and sorted teams. “Collect significant personal items from each stateroom. Download everything possible from their computers.”

Marc pulled her aside to question her judgment.

“These people had homes, loved ones, families,” Kate said. “We can’t bring their bodies back, so we have to let their loved ones know what happened.”

“We’re three fucking thousand years from home! And we don’t have the room.”

“One small storage room for solid items. Recordings, photos, passports, all can be downloaded. Do it.”

After everything had been retrieved, Kate spent her evenings watching video, listening to diaries. Security cameras captured the event itself. Valuable footage in one sense. Possibly helpful in an investigation, if there ever could be one.

It was as though pulling the belongings and computer files onto Endurance brought the people aboard as well. That comforted Kate. At first.

She didn’t believe in ghosts. She thought she was hallucinating from the stress with the first fleeting images. A little girl running through hallways in her pajamas. An old man in a wheelchair. Brief. She’d blink, and they’d be gone.

Then she heard voices. She often thought they were real. She’d turn and say, “What?” but there would be no one there. Or Marc would look at her funny and repeat what he’d just said. Indistinct, quiet, just murmurs. Then one day, the old man, instead of sitting quietly by the dining room window, turned to Kate and shouted, “Why did you leave us to die?” Horribly angry. Kate froze. Miriam asked her if she was okay. They’d been talking. Of course Kate didn’t tell her what she saw.

At night, she’d hear party music, laughter, clinking glasses. She’d be alone in her bed. Could they be partying on the bridge? After several nights of this, it changed. Amid the music, there came a terrible crashing, a bright light, then screams. Horrible screams, of people being ripped apart like Kate had seen on the security camera footage. The whole ship ripped in pieces, shredded like paper.

She woke up drenched in sweat. That messed with the suit’s sensors, alerting Dr. Amos. He checked her out, wondered if she had the flu. Dr. Amos, being artificial, was easy to confess to, so Kate told him what was going on. He agreed it was probably stress and activated her antidepressant bots. Then sedative bots so she could sleep. Soon she felt like how she imagined a bot felt. Nothing. She hacked into the doctor’s computer and deactivated them. Better to feel rotten than nothing.

The visions and sounds worsened. Next she felt them touching her. Pulling at her. She wasn’t sleeping, hardly eating. She went to bed with a massive headache and then couldn’t make herself get up again. They entered her quarters like a jury, judge, and prosecutor, hovering, demanding, accusing. Dereliction of duty, abandonment, murder.

 

CAPTAIN KATE RANDALL lies in a fetal curl. Ghostly forms swirl, shrieking. Marc is among them.

Did I kill him too?

“Captain, are you all right? Should I call the doctor?” His voice fades into the background accusations.

A woman comes into view. Not a ghost. She can tell the difference now. The movies got that right. Ghosts are less detailed. Natalie.

“What can I do for you?” Kate says, pretending to sound normal.

“You may not have noticed, what with being holed up in your quarters for the last three days, but this ship needs a captain and that would be you.”

“I’m not a real captain. I ferry tourists around the solar system.”

“Your conduct since this emergency and your military service record would seem to indicate otherwise. You were a member of the elite Pulsar Force, correct?”

“How do you know that?”

“Ship’s records, Captain. You aren’t the only one collecting things. I know what happened on Enceladus.”

Enceladus?

Tara appears beside Natalie, dim, ghostly. Kate hadn’t called her up. “You know what you have to do, Kate.”

“What you made me do? No way.” Kate pulls the blanket over her head.

“They only think they know what happened. You know the truth.”

“The truth? That you sacrificed yourself and the entire team to save me?”

“Is that what you think?”

“You never should have gone down to that moon. I should have gone. For that matter, no one needed to go. The New Soviets had beaten us to Enceladus. You knew I’d be stranded.”

“But alive.”

“You knew you wouldn’t make it back.”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

Kate’s love for Tara had blinded her. The poorly planned expedition left Kate alone in the moon’s orbit. Supplies exhausted, no way to get back. Then the landing pod returned.

“Captain!”

Kate yanks the blanket down and focuses on Natalie. “You have no idea what happened on Enceladus.”

“I know that your commander and crewmates died on the moon, stranding you. That the pod returned on autopilot and you used it to make enough fuel to get back.”

“Fool. Believing that. Tell her the truth, Kate.”

Kate scowls at Tara. The truth. That the reason the crew’s bodies were never found on the moon wasn’t because of the terrible storm but because half the team died before getting there, and Tara refused to turn back. She went to the moon alone and died in the pod. When it returned to the orbiter, Kate, stunned, listened to Tara’s final message. “You know what you have to do.”

Kate dismantled the pod and filled the Recyc-All to make S rations. Only then did she put Tara’s body in. That gave her the fuel she needed to get within range of rescue. She left that out of the report. After Enceladus, she quit Pulsar Force and became a tour-ship captain and vowed she’d never again get involved with anyone she worked with or venture into harm’s way.

“Captain!” Natalie’s shaking her now. “We need you to decide what to do. Do we go home or look for a planet to stay on?”

“This isn’t a starship.”

“So make do. I did. I’ve modified the telescope to look for planets capable of life.”

“You did? Can you build a safe wormhole and get us back?”

“Not yet.”

“But you will.”

“I’ll try. If you will.”

Kate struggles to sit up, weak. The headache has moved into the rest of her body. She looks up to see Tara standing amid the crowd of Aphrodite passengers, all watching her expectantly.

“You know what you have to do.”

“Fuck you, Tara.”

“Captain?”

Kate looks from Natalie to Marc to the ghosts.

Something got us here, so something can get us back.

“I’ll do it for them.”

Natalie follows her gaze. “There’s no one there.”

“Oh, yes there is.”

 

~

Elaine Burnes grew up and lives in Massachusetts. After twenty years working and writing for a variety of environmental nonprofits, she wearied of reality and turned to writing fiction in her spare time, publishing her first story in 2010. Since then, she has had several more stories published in Wicked Things (Ylva, 2014), Best Lesbian Romance 2011 (Cleis Press), and online in Read These Lips Take 5, and Khimairal Ink. These stores are collected in A Perfect Life and Other Stories (GusGus Press, 2016). Her first novel, Wishbone (Bedazzled Ink, 2015) received a 2016 Golden Crown Literary Society Award for Dramatic/General Fiction.