Kallandra read the update note on her iPaq as she and Claude reached the pale green door leading to the Special Mission Meeting at the Johnson Space Centre, a day late.
“Mars Mission on indefinite hold.
Imperative you attend crisis-control meeting in Rm 426 at 10:00
Barringer”
“Good, we’re in time for this,” Kallandra said, while she made unnecessary adjustments to her hair.
“And only a day late for yesterday’s inaugural crisis meeting,” Claude said.
“What did Derek say about our Yosemite excursion?”
“Let’s say he wasn’t happy—I’d kinda only let him know we’d gone by text message. He was fine with it after I got home last night. What was your fiancée’s reaction when she found out you rushed off for the day with me?”
“She doesn’t know you were with me. Mon dieu, I value my delicate parts too much. Hah.”
Kallandra raised her hand to knock on the door, and then put her ear to it. “I can’t hear any talking. We must be the first here.”
She opened the door and walked in. The room was full of her astronaut colleagues from the delayed Mars Mission. They were quiet because apart from Colonel Dwight Disraeli, they were ploughing through hefty files of information. She could see pictures of spheres, maps, and pages of statements. Then she caught the Colonel’s baleful eye, and his beckoning finger. Like a naughty schoolgirl dragging her feet to the front of the class, she and Claude drew up chairs to sit at the desk opposite the Colonel.
“I have reports on you two, and they aren’t pretty.”
Kallandra attacked in her own defence. “What’s our visit to Yosemite have to do with the Mars Mission hold? NASA got a case of cold feet again, and looking for excuses?”
“Don’t butt in, Major. Obviously the Mars Mission is suspended while we have these damn spheres to fuss over. We were hoping to keep a dignified, scientific and level-headed corporate front over this, but you two have brought NASA into disrepute.”
“Excuse me?” Kallandra said. “How is being very early in the investigation of the spheres the wrong thing? Unless you’re referring to our overnight report and recommendation that bio-hazard suits should be worn by any investigators near to the spheres?”
The Colonel glared at her, then Claude, before flicking through a file. He then spoke quietly but increasing in volume until the whole room stopped to listen. “Not only did you commandeer a USAF helicopter without authority, you used my name to break no-fly zones, and most tragic of all, your lack of appropriate risk-assessment led to the destruction of a machine and the death of its pilot. Not only are you two grounded, but you could be on a court martial, possibly manslaughter by negligence.”
Kallandra and Claude looked aghast and confused. Kallandra blushed with indignation.
“You’ve been misinformed, Colonel. Lieutenant Lester Cobden was alive and well when he brought us back to San Diego last night. His UH sixty was functioning perfectly. What’s all this about, Sir?”
“It’s partly based on a call you made to San Diego requesting a second helicopter because, you said, the first had crashed, killing the pilot.”
The colonel, flustered, turned to his aide. “Check with USAF in San Diego. I want to get to the bottom of this.”
“Can we have a copy of the briefing notes, Colonel,” Claude said. “Not just to see what was written about us, but to catch up on what the spheres are doing.”
“And on the status of the Mars Mission training program,” Kallandra said, hoping she still had a place if and when it lifted off.
“Training is proceeding as scheduled—your leave, like everyone’s here, is cancelled. Pending the outcome of your statement being correct, you are still in the program along with the others. But the flight crew has not been chosen. And the go date is anyone’s guess now.”
“Sir, I hope my involvement, nor Claude’s and Derek’s, in the sphere investigation has jeopardized our inclusion in the Mars Mission.”
“Harvard, there are others here who did as they were instructed for this period of leave. Do you recall those instructions—the crucial element of them?”
Kallandra reddened, but didn’t waver. “It was imperative to relax without getting involved in anything that might bring NASA into disrepute. But—”
“No buts, Major, only your butts on the line for infringement.”
Claude tugged at her elbow in a vain effort to quieten her. She snatched it away, piqued at being remonstrated with when she felt they’d done nothing wrong.
“With respect, Sir, if a sphere lifted you up off your ass and threw you to the floor, and then down a hill, I bet you’d feel compelled to see what the hell was going on!”
Apart from a groan duet from Derek, sitting at a nearby desk, and Claude, the quiet room fell deeper into shocked silence. Before the Colonel could form a response, Claude spoke up for her.
“What our mademoiselle means, Sir.” he held a hand up to Kallandra, who knew that he’d launched himself over a line by referring to her in such a sexist way, though he’d meant it to placate the Colonel, “Is that your training procedures here work so well.”
Everyone looked quizzically at him.
“We are taught to be scientists, not just spaceship jockeys. To investigate rationally that which puzzles, and not walk away pretending not to notice. Sir, who better to consider the astronomical aspects of the spheres phenomenon than an astronaut on the spot—and one who’d actually touched a sphere?”
A gasp waved around the room, followed by flicking papers as evidence of his statement was searched for. Kallandra leaned to Claude—catching a whiff of spearmint, and whispered: “I haven’t actually touched it except with a spade—possibly.”
“Roll with me, Kal.”
The Colonel grumbled to his aide, then to Kallandra. “I’ll let your impudence go for the moment, Major. You might have a point with your valuable experience.
Laponte, to answer your question, the best people to investigate the spheres are properly equipped investigative engineers, and not expensive astronauts. Agreed?”
Claude stiffened while returning a, “Yes, Sir.”
The Colonel pointed them at the Mission schedule officer for continued training duties before he changed his mind. Kallandra swore with her allocation of yet more repetitive manual landing practice, while Claude laughed at his beloved Mars geological studies. Derek had duties with the engineering design team making modifications to the Apoidea.
“Derek,” Kallandra said, “You’ll have to go on the mission because someone would have to be onboard to continue designing it en route.”
He smiled at her assumption of his automatic inclusion on the crew, but then she spoiled it.
“After all, when the stabilisers start falling off, it’ll be your fault.” She laughed at his pained face, and then felt guilty. “I’m sorry, Derek, I’m only fishing for excuses to keep you on board with me.”
“I forgive you. I forgot, Claude said to be sure to meet him at coffee break.
Haven’t you two spent enough time together?”
“We are all in the same team, Derek. Honestly, there’s no cause to be jealous.”
“Me? Should I be envious of Claude? Just because he talks American with a French accent, is devilishly handsome in a weird kind of way, chases every piece of skirt—and catches them.”
“My God, you are as green-eyed as that Californian Senator whose wife tongued you at the New Year’s Party. You have nothing to worry about, honestly.”
“Her tongue, not mine. Anyway, that’s not the impression Claude gave me. But never mind, we have work to do. See you later.” He stomped off down the shiny corridor to scrum down with the other designers. Kallandra was convinced they had no serious designing work left to do, but in desperation to be on the mission, created work for themselves. She didn’t blame them. She pulled an involuntary pained face as she watched his left hand take a recreational break to his ear.
Moments later he called back to her. He approached with a cellphone clutched to his recently gouged ear. “Kal, we’re in really deep trouble. Blake didn’t arrive home.
He’s three days overdue.”
“Oh, and your sister’s blaming us. Tell her he’s probably shacked up with a Goth. Oh, make it a bunch of them, she might feel happier. And I suppose it would be good to know when he arrives.”
* * *
As soon as Derek was out of sight she called Claude on her cellphone.
“What the hell have you been telling Derek about us?”
“Ah, dear Kallandra, you are gorgeous, but you know I do not harbour longings for you. Derek simply misunderstood our brief conversation. But we need to discuss the report back from the Colonel’s aide on the strange message about the helicopter crashing.”
“What did it say?”
“Later. I’m overdue for my training session, as are you, and we need privacy to talk. Coffee time is in two hours, meet in the refectory, and we’ll walk and talk.”
* * *
Relief grew on Kallandra’s face as she and Claude took their coffee onto the sunny refectory patio. The atmosphere inside blistered with so many lines of accusing sight. It was as if the other trainees thought Kallandra was responsible for the enigmatic appearance of the spheres and the subsequent grounding of the Mars Mission. Derek, spared the condemnation because he hadn’t shared the Yosemite oddity with the crashed yet not-crashed event, sipped his coffee in the engineering designers’ clique corner.
“Go on,” she said, “tell me the report confirms we killed Lester even though he is walking around.”
“Kinda. It’s weird, Kal, there’s a voice recording at the San Diego USAF air base of me reporting Lester’s UH-60 crashing, and us needing another chopper being sent to us. I said it crashed onto the sphere and that Lester must have died.”
“We have no recollection of either that event nor of you making the call—right?”
“Correct, and yet it did happen—so…”
“It happened and yet it didn’t. But the only evidence that it did is the voice recording?”
“Not quite. Kal, we have no memory of Lester crashing, and the USAF confirm that the helicopter is in perfect condition. But Lester isn’t well. He has nightmares—the screaming abdabs.”
“About the alleged crash, I suppose.”
“Do you have nightmares since then?”
“Not as bad as Lester, apparently, but they have been weird. Up close to the sphere, and as if it’s calling me in.”
“I’ve had some, too, Kal. A persistent one has me reaching out to catch Lester falling, naked, out of the base of the sphere. I said it before, but you know what this means?”
“It happened. So, it was undone. Now we know nothing could reassemble a helicopter and pilot smashed to smithereens. So that leaves us with it happening at time X, that day. Only somehow time was rewound to X-30 minutes, or whatever. Then rerun as if the first reel never happened. Only it worked reasonably well for us, but not for Lester. Poor kid.”
“I agree. And that the likely outcome is Lester becoming a long-term patient in a Gulf-War syndrome wing of an armed services hospital.”
“And so will we, Claude, if we open up about this.”
“I can be the epitome of discretion ma petite fleur, but you have a tendency to burst your indignant righteousness on the world. Like when you attacked the Colonel this morning.”
Her eyes widened and her cheeks reddened. “We’ve done nothing wrong.” But then she laughed. “Oh, he can take it. You know Maureen, his secretary? She told me he loves the flirty S&M banter I assail him with.”
“Don’t we all, but I doubt he appreciates it so much in front of all the rest. Try to be discreet with the time and place of your vampire blood-letting in the future.”
“Agreed,” she said, opening her mouth and pretending to bite his upper arm, just as Derek came round the corner. “Oh, God, he’ll think we’ve been love-making again.”
“Pardon?”
“Derek, he thinks you and I are…you know?”
“Hello Derek, your gorgeous fiancée has been telling me how brave you were at Glastonbury when the boulders avalanched.”
“Ummph. Kallandra, they’re waiting for you at the prototype Apoidea hangar for another test flight.”
* * *
That night, Kallandra lay awake. Her lavender-scented pillow absorbed the overheating of her head obliging her to keep turning it. Derek softly snored beside her; a noise that comforted her with its repetitive predictability, and normally helped her active brain to settle. But the weird timequake and the inscrutable spheres kept her synapses busy.
She always slept with the curtains open, taking pleasure in the sight of the stars, planets and the moon. She’d flown the prototype Apoidea into space last month. At least she, and the rest of the test crew, took it above a hundred kilometres. The stars didn’t twinkle that far above the atmosphere, and the ochre-coloured Mars beckoned her. Supply and accommodation modules were already there, robotically assembled and in full working order, waiting for them.
She couldn’t vodka herself to sleep because she had to fly again the next day.
She lay on the rapidly warming pillow, stared at the stars and plotted a route to knit them all together. After the tenth star she fell asleep.
* * *
“Kallandra, bring me your intellect and spirited personality.
I am within many of your beloved planets.
In time take time while time lasts.
Your curiosity draws you to me.
You will be forever changed.
Blink and it’s too late.
Abyss dwellers shine.
Come here now.
Alight.”
“No!”
I am yelling at the poor pilot not to fly over the top of the El Capitan sphere.
There it shines in the bright Californian sunlight.
Is it rotating? And, if so, in which direction and about what axis? Another helicopter flies at us. It’s horribly distorted. Hey, it’s our reflection on the sphere. But why is it projected up in the air like a holographic display? It isn’t. And look it’s blurry, like the sphere. Proximity to the sphere doesn’t distort the image, but it does my mind.
The biggest problem remains: how am I to lower myself on top of the sphere without the turbulence over the sphere throwing the helicopter away, with me dangling on a line hurtling to the distance like a mad angler’s desperate last cast?
The minor problem of persuading a pilot to take me perilously close to the sphere depends on him being convinced I’ll survive sufficiently intact to be jumped on. I seriously doubt my survivability of this event so I feel simultaneous relief and guilt.
Maybe, if the helicopter flies far above the sphere, the electrostatic, magnetic or gravity waves won’t affect it. But there’s no need. I didn’t realise that the sphere’s invitation includes a free pass. Consequently, one moment I’m in the helicopter, a hundred metres from the sphere, the next I’m floating down—face up—onto its north pole.
I should be more than stomach-wrenchingly terrified, but I might as well be in a massage parlour anticipating a languorous experience. In full flight gear I sink slowly into the sphere, as if it’s made of a silver gel. My eyes shut as total immersion occurs.
A panic nerve jangles for a moment, but my eyes continue their refusal to cooperate: they remain shut—or there’s nothing to see, just as there’s nothing to hear.
What bizarre urge makes me do this? How could my famous self-will be so easily manipulated by this metal orb? Maybe I can swim out, but to where? Hell, I might as well benefit from this rare experience.
Soundless and visionless, I can feel the soft gel-like medium surrounding me, soothing me at a comfortable body temperature. There’s a sensation of falling through the sphere, but only slowly. Surely it cannot be composed entirely of a gel? There’s a slight metallic odour somehow detected through my mouth and nose even though breathing doesn’t seem necessary.
Should I be listening—reacting—is the sphere trying to communicate? I attempt speech, but my hello blubs incoherently. Ah, now I hear something, a low-level vibration. I’m probably receiving it from whatever’s making the sphere quiver. No, this is silly. I should be on the outside looking in, not within the very problem.
But there is a different sound. In between my increasing angst moments I hear a wavering high-pitch harmonic that sometimes meets the low sounds we think comes from the vibration. If only Pythagoras were in here, he’d know whether the musical ratios were right for perfect harmony—the music of the spheres.
I try to swim in the goo—backstroke—but without being able to see or feel movement, it’s like being in a sensory deprivation tank. But, no it isn’t. Something nudges me in the small of my back. Maybe I’ve bumped into a piece of this sphere’s inner workings, although I’m beginning to feel it has none. I try to move my hand to feel what’s there in my back but now I can’t move a muscle. It’s a kind of paralysis—it’s weird. I’m in suspended animation in a gel with my limbs moving slowly but to the internal pressures of the sphere rather than my own muscles. Ah, my back is all right now. But what’s this? Someone is touching the ends of my fingers. Who’s in here with me? Now my toes are being fingered at the same time—two others in with me?
Just a moment; how can my toes be touched? I entered the sphere wearing full flight gear; a green one-piece suit. I can’t tell if I’m wearing it now. My senses won’t tell me if my skin is touching this gel-stuff or my suit’s undergarments. This is so weird and yet I’m not as freaked out as I should be.
No! Whoever is feeling my extremities is exploring up my arms and legs. My stomach tightens with increasing worry as I try to wriggle any muscle. Come on you sinews, obey your brain. My developing panic must be causing perspiration to pour out of my forehead, but I can’t feel it. The fingers gradually creep up to my armpits, while others are on my thighs. It’s nothing like a massage, more an exploratory discovery.
The fingers that have now reached around my armpits and heading for my breasts feel like they belong to someone beneath me, while the upper thighs fingers ‘person’ is above me. I’m in a sandwich yet feeling their presence without any physical pressure.
Maybe it’s an illusion created by a robotic sensory device rather than humanoid creatures in this globular gel. Ah, the armpit explorer has found my breasts. That feels more like a human would: following the contours then an inward spiral gentle pressure until each nipple is simultaneously tweaked. They linger, continuing the erotic yet strange fondle. I’m both scared and aroused, but that wasn’t unusual with pre-Derek lovers. There’s nothing usual in here.
Now the fingers, and I hope it’s not another part of a male anatomy are creeping up my inner thighs and converge. Ah, something is inside me, and probing around.
Luckily the gel is like being immersed in moisturizer, but I don’t like this. I’m being violated. I seriously want out. I try to scream ‘abort’ but nothing happens. Another probe has just inserted itself in my butt! Has the pilot come in here with me? Lester is that you? Of course it isn’t. Lester is in the chopper. It’s not human is it? Good grief, I’m being raped, buggered and groped by alien jelly.
Struggling only results in the probes penetrating deeper. Squeezing anti-rape muscles doesn’t evict them either. This is fucking awful. Somebody stop them! They are hurting me now. My breasts feel they are being wrenched off, and the pain in my butt is excruciating. I think I might be bleeding—vagina and anus. Aaarrggghhh! Stop it!
I’m using every inch of my hazard training. After all physical means to extract myself, I block the pain. Damn, it’s not working. They’re pushing into me harder still.
Why can’t the bastards leave me alone? My face is as wet with tears as my ass must be from blood. At least that’s what I feel is happening. Sweat mixes with tears. I can hardly struggle now; all my energy has drained. When will I come out of this torture chamber? Stop it you fuckers!
* * *
“Kallandra, come on, wake up. You’re having a terrible nightmare. You’ve been restless all night. I’m going to sleep in the other bed tomorrow night—my pyjamas are soaked with your sweat.”
Her eyelids cranked open to see Derek’s disgusted look. She raised herself up on her elbows and looked around. A moment ago she was inside the El Capitan sphere, so how did she become transported to their NASA apartment at Johnson? It felt too real to be a dream, but Derek said she was here all night. But why would her desire brain cells want to be inside the sphere? Did her subconscious harbour ridiculous fantasies?
Her own pyjamas were drenched, but at least it was with perspiration. She had a quick feel under the satin, resulting in a smile that she was in as healthy a condition as she ever was.