Straying From the Path

I couldn’t get her voice out of my head.

Alvy convinced me to lie down and take a sedative. A double dose knocked me out, but when I woke up the next day cycle, I heard the crystal singing again, louder than ever. I heard it more than I heard Alvy when she sat me down for a conference over breakfast.

“I finally got through to Command. I uploaded to them what data I could scrape together and downloaded all incoming messages. Including this one.” She slid a hand terminal toward me. I glanced at it, but the words looked messy, indecipherable runes. “The transmitter convinced them to close the mission. We’ve been recalled. We start the burn out of Jupiter space in a week. Barrie?”

Hyperspace, vibrations in a higher dimension: music of the spheres, Aristotle was right.

“It’s not over. Murphy is appealing the decision, going straight to the Presidency to apply for Natural Preserve status for Europa. The Guild won’t get here before then. Barrie—do you have to take it this hard?”

Just one more time. I’d go out just once more. Just to get it out of my head.

I went to medical, leaving Alvy and breakfast.

Something held Alvy back this time, I didn’t know what. Medical and our cabins were in the same direction. Maybe she thought I was upset about the mission’s failure, that I needed time alone and went to my cubicle. Under different circumstances, I probably would have done just that.

I managed to get the suit on by myself. It can be done, given enough determination, enough practiced dexterity with the gloves. I put the helmet on, clicked all the seals in place by feel, and attached and sealed the gloves last. Airlock, the hiss of decompression, the open door to starlight and music.

Our rotation had brought the airlock away from both Jupiter and its moon. All I saw were stars, they filled my vision, and she was waiting for me.

She beckoned me to her home, the place she belonged, where she wanted me to follow. Starlight. I pushed off from the open airlock and drifted. I hadn’t attached the tether.

Her hands sketched graceful movements, her pale arms formed an arc. Her skin gleamed.

“Shit, Barrie, what the hell are you doing? Get back here! Get back here!” My helmet speakers were on; Alvy interrupted.

I drifted toward the woman in the stars. I could touch her, I could almost touch her. She wanted me to kiss her. Her smile told me so. If only I could reach out . . . .

With bulky, shaking fingers, I fumbled at the catch sealing my left glove.

“Oh, no Barrie. Don’t you dare. Don’t you do it. You’ve got some rapture of the void thing going, but I’m not going to let you do it!”

The left glove seemed stuck, so I tried the right. With my right hand free, I could unlatch the left more easily.

Still the woman sang. I heard words now: Yes, yes, come to me!

“Please, James. Come back to me.”

Alvy’s voice did something I’d never heard it do before. It turned soft. It begged. Her ever-present anxiety became quiet, desperate.

“Come back to me, James.”

Her use of my first name made me pause. I’d always been Barrie; she’d always been Alvy. I almost forgot that we had first names. James Barrie. Teresa Alvarez.

Twisting, I looked over my shoulder. I was drifting away from the probe, untethered. Teresa called to me over the radio.

“Listen to me, James. Please.”

I would have done it. I would have taken off my helmet, to better hear the music of the stars. Compulsively checking my suit’s joints and readouts, I found I was safe. Everything sealed, air still flowing. I shut my eyes and relished the sensation of breathing.

Cold light of the stars—I once heard about a man who walked out of an airlock at Artemis Base on Luna, plainclothes. No suit, just his uniform, skin, and lungs. He’d been up for some kind of reprimand, the story said, and he decided he’d rather face the vacuum. That was one explanation. But maybe something drew him. Seduced him into taking those fatal steps.

There wasn’t anything wrong with the oxygen mix. I wasn’t buckling under the stress of watching our project get sucked down Jupiter’s gravity well. It was more like—Odysseus, hearing the Sirens.

“Alvy, give me static.”

“What?”

“Feed some static over the line, the audio output of the electrostatic readings from Jupiter or something. Just—just fill the line with noise.”