The Echo. James Smythe
miles below in a part of Florida that seems as if it has only ever really existed for the purpose of launching humanity into space. Neither of us says goodbye. That’s how our conversations end, as they begin: one running into the other in a constant flow, as if no time has passed between us at all.
All of this was done before we came up here, the crew and myself. The ship was primarily constructed on Earth, then brought up for tweaks and reworking. The final layer of spit and polish. But we have only been up here a few days. We wanted to give our crew as much time on Earth as possible, as much time with their families. It’s a litany of ways that the last trip really messed these things up: they sent their people to space camp for months before. As if that would help! We relocated the families of the people that we wanted, the people that were best for the job, and we gave them houses and put their children in schools. We wanted them to have as much of their life as possible. A happy crew, Tomas has always maintained, is a positive and productive crew. Some of them have families: Hikaru Morgan, one of our pilots, has a newborn baby, only a few months old. By the time we return, she will be crawling. We have even paid the money to fast-track her, so maybe it’ll be more than crawling. Maybe talking. We wanted to make sure that they never resented us for taking them away, no matter how great the cause. Everything we have done has been to ensure that, yes, they are as efficient as possible.
I do not have a wife and children, or anything worth me missing. I am not well liked; I have no friends, no lovers. Tomas and I were nearly alone at our mother’s funeral, and it was only after she died that he began to look for women. I said to him, This is you seeking a way to replace her. He said, And so what? It’s better that I know that when I begin this. He found some women online, the sort of women he was looking for; the sort who were looking for the same thing as him. I told him that I couldn’t stand the thought of forcing myself to connect with people like that; that conventional wisdom, everything I have seen in my life, tells me that there needs to be something organic. He told me that saying that was an admission of how alone I was anyway, and how willing I was to stay that way. He said, A relationship forged on mutual desperation can absolutely work, because you both know that you are starting from rock bottom. You are both already as alone as each other. In this way he met his girlfriend, and they began dating. She moved in with him after I don’t know how many weeks. Far too few. She is a flake, and I don’t find her physically attractive, which makes me wonder if he really does. We have the same tastes in most other things, I know that. She doesn’t understand our work, also, which would be a barrier for me. She is a baker. She works in a bakery, and she understands cakes and breads. I sometimes think that she must find everything he says about our work so impressive because she cannot understand a word of it.
We have gathered the crew together for a meal, one last hurrah before we leave. I am uncomfortable with the lack of gravity: I am pitiably ungraceful, and I am forced to cling to the guide rails that have been installed. We have a system of magnetic carabiner clips that we developed to help us lock onto them, to keep us stable. They are all throughout the NISS, and they are all throughout the ship. Safety, efficiency: these are easy watchwords. The crew have all been told that today is free: no work. The safety checks are run by others. Today, they can talk to their loved ones, send messages, relax. The meal we have laid on is special: prepared by a chef from Earth, not freeze-dried and preserved, but something actually cooked for this occasion. He made it down there and we had it brought it up here on the last transport. We have champagne as well, and I pass out the boxes with the food in and the flasks with the alcohol.
‘Go easy,’ I say. ‘Remember that it will hit you like a wall, here. You don’t want a hangover for launch, do you?’ They laugh, and Wallace – actually Andy Wallace, but he likes to be called by his surname, as if he is constantly being ordered around – he mimes drinking it down in one. He even mimes the gulps, and he smirks. He is a funny guy. Not a practical joker, though, and usually dry with his humour, but he’s funny. ‘And remember,’ I say, ‘this is the last proper meal you’ll have for a while. After this, everything is vacuum packed or dried, okay?’ They groan, but really, it’s not an issue. The food that we have selected is fine for the purpose. We – Tomas and myself – have had control over every single aspect of this trip. The food, the way that the ship looks, the technology we have used inside it, the people that we hired. We made demands that the United Nations Space Agency initially balked at, but that’s the beauty of demands: they can cause a standstill until you get what you want. We insisted on extra fuel, because you cannot be too cautious where that is concerned. We insisted on the development of the proxy system, where Tomas can control the ship from the ground if needs be. Tomas developed the entire system, in fact, working hard on it from day one. We insisted on decent meals, privacy in the bed pods, the development of a far better communication bandwidth than had been previously afforded. We didn’t have to make many concessions either, because what were they going to do? We showed that we could bring the project in on time and on budget. And we were so up against the clock. That’s the crucial thing, I suppose: as soon as the anomaly became visible and on their radar, there was no way for them to back out. Something had to be done, and we would do it. So a huge amount of technology on the ship is ours, either developed by us, or in conjunction. We bought licences and patents and hired the people who would make what we needed. We made the ship exactly what it needs to be to do this mission. Anything less and we would be running so many risks, more than were acceptable, just as the Ishiguro did twenty-three years ago.
So I fluster and try to control myself, and I drift next to Wallace and I hold my flask up to clink it against his. He was chosen because he had a background on jets, which made sense. He used to work on the commercial atmosphere planes, and he was the one responsible for their fuel systems, their landing systems. He was the one who was developing the guidance proxy, meant to be able to be used to guide in planes in hazardous conditions, and to prevent terror attacks. We bought it, and him, because they will be invaluable. We may never use that particular aspect, but the fact that we have it and that it works is cause for such a sigh of relief.
On the other side of me, Tobi White. I am flanked by the Americans. She’s a pilot, absolutely the best that we could find. She flew as a teenager, taught by her father, who was a United States Air Force pilot, so she went that route herself when she could. Honours, all the rest. Top of her class. One tour of duty, injured – crashed, but survived – in Palestine, and we stepped in when she was healthy again. We had carte blanche to take whomever we wanted from the various armies and air forces, but we wanted the pilots to want it as well. We wanted everybody to see this as the opportunity that it is. What Tomas and I liked about Tobi is that she is driven by instinct. It’s innate and inside her: acting before she even knows what she’s doing. We liked that, and so we sought a balance with our other pilot, Hikaru. Asian by way of Wales, in the United Kingdom, and the single calmest man I have ever met. He is – and Tomas laughs at this cliché, always has done – but he is very zen. Something like that. He isn’t a Buddhist; instead, he follows one of the religions that sprang up in the last decade, one of those new ones designed to help organize your life, straighten out your way of thinking, promote productivity. It is not my business what you believe in or how you worship, only that you are good at your job. He eats nothing but white food, wears only white clothes. No pressure for us: we made sure that as many of the meal bars were bleached as possible, and he has his own supply. We are very accepting.
Next to him, my research assistant, Lennox Deng. He’s young and eager and irritating. Top of his year, I am told, although that means nothing to me. Tomas was top of our class, which leads to him believing that it’s a lofty achievement. I was third, but that was because I was attempting other things. I was pushing the envelope, trying to see further than just the research we were tasked with. Lennox, to me, is a follower, therefore. I see him as the sort of person who will do as I say because he wants to get the best report. Perhaps this is what you want from an assistant in a place like this. He is insistent and obsessed with the wonder of this endeavour, as a child might be. I am perhaps more practical now. Not that the stars are not magnificent, because they are: but I have seen them. I have spent my life looking at them. With this mission, perhaps there is a chance for something else? Answers, rather than wonder. What we will find out there might not be visually stunning, it might not be something that decorates a postcard, but it might be an answer to something. What is the question? Well, we don’t know that yet either. But Lennox: he is