one
“Houston, there seems to
be a problem…”
two
“Bodger, this is Houston,”
Capcom responded, “We confirm an anomaly with the Murry drive. Conduct emergency shutdown.”
Dr. Gabriel Shepard
replied tersely, “Negative response to shutdown. The drive jammed during the mid-course
correction.”
The voice of the Capcom
remained steady. “Bodger, the Flight
Director is consulting with the mission engineers. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
“Oh, I certainly hope so,
Houston, because it looks like I’m going to be home a lot sooner than we
figured.”
three
Flight Director Alyce
Byrne took a deep breath and looked at the anxious faces around the table. “Okay, where are we?”
The scientists looked at
each other, discomfort crossed their faces. Finally, one of the engineers on the team blinked
several times and said nervously, “This is serious.”
“Well, Roger, of course
it’s serious,” the Director said calmly.
“We wouldn’t be sitting here if it weren’t. Can we be a bit more specific?”
The lead engineer,
Spencer Holt, pressed his palms down on the conference table and said quietly, “At
2055 hours, Bodger fired her engines for a scheduled mid-course
correction. The course correction was
successful but instead of shutting down, the engine locked open and caused the
spacecraft to accelerate out of control.”
Holt wiped his face with his hands and continued. “The onboard computer failed to shut down the
engine. Dr. Shepard attempted to
manually shut down the burn but was unsuccessful. Mission Control’s computers also had a
negative response.” His head gave a
little shake. “He’s going too fast…”
There was a long silence before
Byrne spoke. “Can we get Bodger to slow
down enough to bring Shepard home safely?”
The answer was almost a
whisper. “No.”
four
“Houston, this is Bodger. Come in Houston.” Shepard’s haggard face appeared on the view
screen.
“Go ahead, Bodger.”
Shepard’s voice crackled
over the loudspeaker. “I was just wondering
how things are going down there, Houston.”
Capcom glanced up at the
Flight Director, who was standing behind him.
She frowned and gave him a small shake of her head. He took a deep breath then switched on his
mic. “Umm, Bodger? The engineers are still exploring some
options-”
“Cut the crap, Houston,” interrupted
Shepard. “I know I’m just one guy, not a
panel of engineers, but I think I have this figured out… My name is going up on
the wall, isn’t it?”
Byrne involuntarily
glanced at the Memorial Wall. It was a
silent reminder of the dangers of space flight with the names of astronauts who
had perished in the space program. She
placed her hand on Capcom’s shoulder then toggled on her own mic. “Shepard, this is Byrne. I won’t mince words here. It doesn't look good. But we haven’t given up hope and we’re still
looking at all the options.”
Conflicting emotions
crossed the astronaut’s face. He looked
away and blinked several times before he turned back to face the camera. His expression was blank, and he cleared his
throat. “I kinda figured.” A vein in his forehead throbbed. “Look, I have tons of data from Proxima
Centauri. I should download all that
information before… before…”
The Flight Director gently
cut him off. “I’ll let Telemetry know. SETI and the Neo-Earth group are really
looking forward to getting their hands on the Proxima Centauri b data.”
Distracted, Shepard
nodded slowly. “PCb is really
interesting. That planet looks
promising. Let me know when Telemetry is
ready, and I’ll start the download.”
Byrne glanced over to the
Telemetry desk, where the engineer gave her a thumbs up. “They’re good to go, start it up,” she said
to Shepard. “I’m going to turn you back
over to Capcom. I have to see about
getting you home.” She turned to leave
and said quietly to herself, “Don’t lose hope, Gabe.”
Shepard’s voice answered
from the speaker. “I’ll try not to. Thanks for talking to me, Flight.”
Dammit! She had forgotten to turn her mic off. She stopped in her tracks and regained her
composure. She turned back to face the
screen. “Call me Alyce.” She took a deep breath then said, “We’ll
figure this out. I’ll talk to you
later.”
“I appreciate it, Alyce.”
“Don’t mention it, Gabe,”
she replied awkwardly. She gave a little
wave and toggled off her mic. She walked
out of Mission Control to a nearby hallway where she slumped heavily against
the wall, her shoulders heaving.
five
Once Alyce Byrne had
collected herself, the Flight Director made her way back to the conference room
for an update. She took her seat and
looked around the room. “Okay, where do
we stand? How do we get a spacecraft
home safely that is accelerating toward earth, and has no fuel for a re-entry
burn?” The engineers and scientists around
the table avoided her gaze. “No one? No one has come up with anything?” The room was quiet until one of them finally spoke
up.
“We discovered something
that we weren’t expecting.”
Byrne took a deep breath,
“We weren’t expecting any of this, Dixon.
But go ahead.”
Dixon cleared his throat
nervously and said, “Everything that we’re seeing is new territory for us. We didn’t have a contingency plan because
frankly, we never expected anything like this to happen.” He looked helplessly at one of his colleagues
who nodded and blinked his eyes rapidly.
“Go on…” said Byrne.
“Well, his clocks are off…” Dixon replied.
The director wrinkled her
brow. “You mean they’re not working?”
“I’m sorry, that’s not
what I meant. Bodger’s clocks aren’t in
sync with our clocks here at Mission Control.”
He looked nervously around the room.
“They’re slowing down.”
The other scientists
exchanged puzzled looks. “So, what are
you saying?” asked Byrne.
Dison stepped up to the
whiteboard and drew a straight line on it.
“You know how the Murry drive folds space to allow us to travel great
distances.” He redrew the line with a
fold in it, positioning the end of the line close to the beginning. He stared at the board. “What we didn’t really pay attention to, what
we didn’t think about, is that not only were we folding the three dimensions of
space, but we discounted the fourth dimension of time. We’re folding time as well…” He turned back to look at the director. “Bodger is accelerating, and time is slowing
down in Dr. Shepard’s space. At some
point, time is going to seemingly stop for him and then, we theorize, he will
start moving backwards in time.”
The director stared hard
at the scientist before she spoke. “And
what? He’s going to magically show up…
yesterday?”
“Actually,” the scientist
ran his hand through his hair and turned back to the board, “we crunched some
numbers and ran some simulations. We
think he is going to end up -” He extended the line to the left and wrote a
number. “Somewhere back here.”
The room was silent. After a few moments, Byrne said, “So when
Shepard goes back in time, magically appears, and gets out the capsule, they’re
going to think he’s some sort of -”
Somewhat
matter-of-factly, the scientist cut her off, “Oh not at all. At that speed, Bodger won’t survive
re-entry.”
six
The past couple of days
had taken a toll on the Flight Director, and in the middle of the night, she
found herself in the relative quiet of Mission Control. Only a few necessary monitors were manned at
that hour, and Alyce took a seat at the Comm station. “Bodger, this is Houston. Come in, Bodger.”
Gabe glanced up at the
camera. His eyes were red; his face was
haggard. “This is Bodger. Go ahead, Houston.”
Capcom looked over at the
Director, who looked down at her hands before tilting her head to one side. He pursed his lips, turned off the video feed
to the main screen, and took off his headset.
He stood up and said to no one in particular, “I think I’ll get some
coffee.” As he passed the Flight
Director, he powered up the view screen and camera at the Comm station. “Take your time,” he murmured.
Alyce nodded and gave him
a grateful smile. As the picture came
into focus, she keyed her mic and said simply, “Hi, Gabe. It’s Alyce.
I’ve muted the feed, so it’s basically just the two of us. How are you doing?”
He blinked a few times
and rubbed his face. “As well as can be
expected I guess.” His expression seemed
to soften a bit, and he paused for a moment before saying, “Thanks for muting
this. It’s hard being live with everyone
watching my every move.”
“I’ll pass that along,”
she said.
“Thanks for that,” he
said before clearing his throat. “I
guess you’re not here just to exchange pleasantries.”
She looked guilty and
answered, “I’m sorry, Gabe…”
He leaned back and looked
away. After a moment, he turned
back. “Not your fault. I appreciate it though.”
“I wish-” she started to
say.
“Yeah, I get it.” He swallowed hard then continued, “I’ve been
trying to make some sense in it all.”
Alyce sighed, “I don’t
think any of this makes sense, Gabe.”
“Maybe not. But I’ve been thinking. Do you believe in fate?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Do you believe in
fate? You know, destiny. Maybe there’s some reason that I’m here in
this capsule, hurtling toward certain -”
She cut him off. “Don’t say that. We don’t know for certain what’s going to
happen…” her voice petered out. Clearly
flustered, she started up again. “I’m a
scientist, Gabe. I don’t believe in
fate.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Alyce. I think there’s room for spirituality in that
secular scientific world,” he ventured.
“I can’t think that
there’s a reason for what’s happening.
This accident -”
It was his turn to cut
her off. “There are no accidents…It’s
just a thing that happened. I think
there must be a reason.”
“I don’t see it,
Gabe. I just don’t see it.”
“Who knows, Alyce. Maybe somewhere down the road it will all
make sense. I DID get the data from
Proxima Centauri. That HAS to stand for
something.” Gabe gave her a wan smile,
“I have to believe that it stands for something.”
seven
They watched as Bodger re-entered
the atmosphere. Beyond all hope, if
everything was to happen in a perfect world, Bodger would slip into time, miraculously
slow down, and pop right back into the present.
It would appear as if nothing happened, and the spacecraft would make
its re-entry and return to the space center.
However…
“Three…Two…One…”
There was a soft splash
of light and then…
“Bodger, this is
Houston. Come in Bodger… This is Mission
Control, come in Bodger…”
The sound of static spilled
from the speakers.
They waited for three
days.
At the memorial service, Alyce
spoke of her conversations with Gabe.
She admitted that perhaps his fate was to touch the lives of others in
some small way. “He will never be truly
gone. He touched the lives of others,
and he will always live in those memories.”
eight
Melchior looked up into
the sky. There was a soft splash of
light, then a long fiery trail in the heavens that pointed to the east. The three wise men followed the star and
ended up in the small town of Bethlehem.
There, they paid homage to a baby lying in a manger, a baby whose
parents had named Jesus.
epilogue
Gabe awoke to the sound
of someone tapping on the hull of his spacecraft. He blinked as a soft splash of light streamed
through the opening hatch.
“Where am I?”
author’s notes
= This was another
challenge for me. I wanted to write a
counter-Christmas story, something that went against the typical Christmas norms.
= The title of the story
is a dead giveaway. 31.706083 North,
35.202457 East are the co-ordinates for the city of Bethlehem.
= Gabe Shepard gets his
name from the angel Gabriel, of course.
And Shepard, a nod to Alan Shepard, the first US astronaut in
space. Also Luke 2 8In that region there
were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by
night. 9Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the
Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10But the angel said to
them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for
all the people: 11to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior,
who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12This will be a sign for you: you will
find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”
= The spacecraft Bodger
gets its name from the old English bull terrier from the story, The
Incredible Journey. I’m showing my
age with that reference, but for those who are familiar with the story, I felt
like it was a fitting name.
= The epilogue is
purposefully ambiguous. Feel free to
believe whatever ending you wish. 😊
