SciFriday Challenges (Anthology)

Challenge 18 - Space Exploration

Every time I return it's the same. A hard slap to the face which feels like a two-by-four struck me. I've failed again. I don't blame her for slapping me. I am one of the senior deck hands after all, therefore in charge of my crew, so if I fail, we all fail. Our situation is dire and being a female leader on the ship, she has to remain in control and create a sense of fear among us deck-hands, I know she feels bad.

I've failed because I've returned from my journey to Tanis without any proof that life can be sustained on the planet. We tried to grow vegetation. We tried to desalinate the water from wells we created. We tried to construct buildings and dwellings that were oxygenated... however, none of it worked. The air is too dense on Tanis. Deck hands began coughing up orange phlegm and developing a yellow hue to their skin. Others were getting headaches daily or muttering nonsense to themselves. Tanis was not the environment we were hoping for to restart civilization.

Plus, I've been to nine planets in twelve years and it's starting to show. The worst of it all, I'm having a hard time carrying life. While on Tanis I had my third miscarriage. I'm only twenty eight years old, a prime candidate to lead our mission which has been a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I'm young, smart and a great scientist. We need people like me to develop a new civilization. Yet my age is also a curse since I'm young enough to spend lightyears of time traveling to other planets, unlike the older people aboard the ship. Traveling has not been kind to me physically and unfortunately I am vain. My reflection tells me I'm forty eight and let's not get started on my insides... I'm now at the beginning stages of menopause, which is why I'm having a hard time carrying life.

Soon enough I will be forced to retire and if I'm lucky I'll get to sit back while other young candidates go off into the dark abyss of space. But at the rate that we age from being lost in time, our mission to find a new livable planet seems hopeless and this ship more and more crowded.

Just yesterday my partner, who I've been paired with to explore planets and hopefully procreate with, received bad test results. His system is aging just as quickly as mine. His testosterone levels have dropped since returning from Tanis. I doubt we'll be able to get pregnant again. This isn't good for either of us. By the time we return from the next planet, we'll undoubtedly be told to hang up our space suits. I've watched others go through it and you see their faces go pale. They know they'll be considered useless now and a waste of space.

We know what's coming next if we can't find a new home soon. Rumor has it that people will begin getting booted from the ship. Kicked into space and good luck to you!

Just as my cheek is starting to no longer sting from her slap, I get news that may as well be another slap.

"Your next assignment is a dwarf planet near one of Mercury's moons." Our leader says as she pulls up the graphics which virtually unfolds and hangs in mid air. "Everything we've been able to gather through satellites appears promissing. You ship out tomorrow and have a week to provided results." Even though she is speaking to a group of us, her eyes narrow on my partner and me. "Only a week. Twenty four hours equals three years on that planet, so use your time wisely."

And there it is. My partner and I will most definitely be retired upon our return and yet we won't even have kids to carry on our legacy. It will die with us. By the time we return I will be physically and internally sixty nine years old and my partner will be seventy one. His finger's brush against mine as we stand there still staring at the virtual layout of our latest assignment. I know what he's thinking, because I'm thinking it too. We began these missions when I was sixteen and he eighteen, but in a matter of twelve years we've skipped through time and have catapulted to the finish line. We will certainly die before our parents do. Our sacrifice so that they can live out their lives since their own bodies cannot survive such explorations. I remember clearly how proud I felt for being picked to save our ship. I remember the promises of how easy it would be to go from planet to planet. How our bodies wouldn't suffer. Even worse how they lied about pregnancies being able to withstand the foreign climates and travel through space. They lied to us.

My partner can sense how tense I am, he's grown to know me better than anyone so he places his hand on my face and caresses the hair away from my eyes. Now he can see the water collecting in them.

"We'll be fine." He says and presses his forehead to mine. "I have a good feeling about this one."

"I'm going to be older than my mother once we return." I frown and I can hear my own voice cracking as the knot in my throat gets bigger.

"You'll still be twenty eight to me and just as beautiful as when we were first paired together."

I close my eyes and let the tears trickle down. "I wish our babies could have lived."

He wraps his arms around me and holds me close. I can feel his chest expand and collapse as he breathes in. He doesn't have to say a word. I know what he's thinking. In another life, we could have had a family and lived happily for years.

But we're not in another life. We're not even in another world. We are in the present and our present has flashed by at the speed of light, through time and space.