Dust

Chapter III: Dust

Arik and Esaul sit like stones with their eyes fixed on the blank screen. The gentle hums of the ship thrusters and soft blows of the air circulation system are the only noises until Arik speaks up, "This video is proof that Becada didn't perish in the darkness of space. I always wondered why they never came back, and as it turns out, not enough of them cared about the world they left behind."

Esaul says nothing, and then asks: "Arik, do you believe in life from the planets beyond?"

Arik fixes his slouch and straightens his back. "Up until watching this footage, no. I truly thought there were no others like us. Before departing on our mission, I used to watch video recordings from before Becada's rule. They were video recordings about people encountering outsiders from space. But they weren't real. All the speech and actions that take place in the video were planned out and practiced by the participants ahead of time before the recording. And the outsiders were never real outsiders. They were people wearing suits and equipment, or digital editing to the video file designed to give the impression that what you were seeing on screen was real, but at the same time, you know it wasn't because everybody knew that these videos were for leisure viewing. The mystery and wonder from these video recordings spoke volumes to me. I can understand why Earth had a large economy around the business of making and distributing these videos. Up until now, the idea that there are people from other planets were just fantasy stories. And for a few minutes, that idea became reality. And now it's history."

Esaul looks over at Arik's camera. Arik notices and tells, "It's actually the leisure-viewing videos that inspired me to take up photography." Esaul tilts his head and furrows his brow at Arik. Arik continues, "You don't understand, these videos are breathtaking works of art. They contain shots that are visually stunning. They combine colors, shapes, and frame the subject and theme of the story in a way that pull the viewer into a river of admiration, and it doesn't stop there. The video continues, pulling the viewers along with the images and into the story. It is looking at a photograph that morphs and changes, so that you can never pull your eyes away. Not only that, but these videos tell stories that I became so attached to." Arik takes his camera. "I signed up for this mission so I could share with the people of Earth stories of the cosmos that they could only dream of."

Arik sets down his camera and stands up. "I got what I wanted. We checked out that metal disc. We should continue to mine for hydrogen. We're going to have to work into our sleeping schedule to make up for this break." Esaul places his hand on Arik's forearm as he tries to walk away. "Arik, you have to tell Earth the story of the people who used to live on this planet."

Arik looks over at Esaul and affirms with a nod and a smile. "We will, Esaul. The first thing we'll do is make copies of this video and hand them over to The Council of Earth."

"No, Arik. I said you have to tell the story of the people who used to live on this planet." Esaul pushes Arik's camera into his hands.

Arik closes his mouth, and with a solemn face says, "You do know that this will delay us beyond schedule? We won't even come close to hitting our goal for hydrogen yield."

"This is more important." The two men head over to the cockpit and cut power from the ship's main thrusters. They use the ship's steering thrusters to push their trajectory into the planet's orbit and reactivate the main thrusters. Their ship slowly accelerates to the dead planet. Arik leaves to turn the gravitational field generators off, and gently floats back to watch the ash planet get bigger and bigger in their cockpit window. Once they are caught in the planet's orbit, they angle their ship with its largest surface area facing the direction of their velocity. "Hey Arik, I just realized this ship, being designed to take off and land on Earth's moon, doesn't have any heat shields for atmospheric entry." Arik, with panic in his eyes, curses out loud and turns on the landing gear thrusters to slow their descent. "There we go. Just enough force to slow our descent with the atmospheric drag and not melt our hull." Arik curses again. "We're going to burn a lot of fuel to escape this planet's gravity, too."