Short Story: Flowers Below
NUCLEAR WAR. KILL GAGARIN. SAVE YOURSELF.
I stare at the words on the screen as though they’re written in a language I can’t comprehend, my heart pounding in my chest. It must be a prank, I tell myself, hands shaking as I type out a reply and hit send. You’re joking, right? I ask Connie. A few seconds later there’s a ping as the email bounces back to me. Failed delivery. I hit send again. Another few seconds, another ping. Over and over again I press the button and get a message telling me that the email can’t be reached. What the hell is going on? I wonder to myself, mouth dry.
Gagarin is a nickname that my friend, Connie, uses to refer to Russian cosmonauts on the ISS. Cosmonauts like the only other person up here with me, Nikolai. Connie, who doesn’t like people killing spiders. Connie, who’s a vegan. Connie, who drunkenly admitted to me one night that she joined NASA because she thought it was humanity’s best chance at finding common ground and peace. That Connie just told me to kill another human being. And now I can’t reach her. What the goddamn hell is going on down there? A voice screams from within my own skull.
My mind races. She wouldn’t joke about something like this. Maybe one of the other guys got into her email? No, no one would be that dumb, that’s the kind of shit that would get them blacklisted from every major aerospace company on the planet. Hacker? I dwell on it for a moment. A hacker would kind of make sense. Someone playing around, trying to cause chaos. Maybe a provocateur trying to put further strain on international relations. Yeah, a hacker makes sense. It must be a hacker. I resolve to go ask Nikolai about it, maybe he’s gotten a similar email, something that tingles his spider-sense.
I pull open the small privacy screen to my sleeping unit, the coffin like chamber where I’d been reading my emails as I got ready to go to bed. Due to heightened tensions over the war in Ukraine, Russia had made the decision to pull out of the ISS two years ago, in 2027. With their withdrawal, Japan and Canada had quickly followed, disillusioned by the US’ failure to guarantee funding. A week ago, Jiro and Roberta had headed home, leaving just Nikolai and I to finish the decommissioning of the station. In three days time a Soyuz was supposed to arrive to take us both back down before the the station entered its final decay orbit, the modules’ securing locks and the connectors blown by remote detonation to ensure that the station was in small enough pieces to disintegrate in the atmosphere as it came down.
As I leave the Harmony module, heading through the lab to Unity, I mull over it in my head. Something still isn’t sitting right with me. Nikolai is already in Unity when I get there, pulling out a half dozen gray plastic packets from the heater as I pull myself into the module. He turns and grins as I enter, three weeks of thick brown stubble surrounding his mouth, saying, “Since we have all this extra food, I figured why not enjoy a little feast tonight?” while waving one a pair of brown packages that contain tortillas at me. I feel my pulse quicken as he turns back to pull more pouches from the heater, and I swallow to wet my mouth which is as dry as a desert. Nikolai hated food prep, always lobbed it off on others, never offered to heat your stuff up if he was doing his own. So why was he doing it now?
That thing in the back of my mind, that thing that has been bothering me, buzzing in the back of my thought processes, keeping me on edge, finally becomes clear; what if the message was genuine and Nikolai received something similar? What if he’s going to kill you? It whispers to me, slithering in between the protests that crop up to try and shake it off, sliding around my self-reproaches, smothering my empathy and trust. Would he give me the same benefit of the doubt? Would he tell me if something had come up? I’ve known him for almost five years now, gone on training missions with him, hell, I was at his fucking wedding, I’ve held his goddamn son in my arms. But would he really choose me over them? No. Says the voice. Something in my face must have given me away because he’s looking at me now, staring at my face, a curious expression twisting his. Is it confusion? Is it fear? I can’t tell anymore.
“You okay?” He asks me, attaching the pouches he’s pulled out of the heater to a large red lunch tray, an invention of his with two velcro strips on each side of it so that it can be secured to the food station table and pouches can be stuck to it for transport.
“Y-y-yeah.” I manage to stammer, licking my lips. “Just got some bad news from home.” The lie is perfect; simple and quick, easy to say, close enough to the truth to sound honest.
“Oh?” He asks, curiously. His eyes seem colder now, harder, like he’s readying himself for something. “What happened?” Nikolai turns back and pulls the open the tiny refrigerator door as he queries me, pulling more packets out.
“My cat… he died.” I tell him, keeping the lie easy. “Connie was looking after him.”
“I didn’t know you had a cat.” Nikolai says, frowning slightly. Oh god, has he caught on already? Am I that shitty at lying that he saw right through me? I can feel my hands trembling as he regards me for a moment. “Water?” He asks, casually holding up one of the pouches he pulled from the fridge. Since the tap for the stations water only gave us ambient warm or hot water, putting it in the fridge was the only way to get cold water. It was what I preferred to do. Which meant that it would be easy to get me to drink something without realizing it. Nikolai is trying to poison me.
I could see it now. There’s a glint in his eye, a curious fear, as though he’s resolved himself to something grim and terrible. Oh god, the bastard is really going to kill me! I have to remain calm. I tell myself as I try and slow my heartbeat and breathing. If I panic he’ll know the game is up and he’ll pounce. He may-- no, he must have a weapon. I need to get one myself before he kills me. I need to defend myself. “I’m good for now.” I tell him, my voice level and calm. Good, good, can’t let him see me worked up, if he sees I’m worked up, he’ll attack. Gotta keep him thinking I don’t know what’s going on.
“Oooh, you know what? I want to eat in the cupola.” He tells me, smiling wistfully, trying to keep me from realizing he’s up to something. “Gonna be one of the last few times I get the chance.” His lie is a good one. I love eating in the cupola too, it gives you an unrestricted view of the Earth, one of the most breathtaking things I’ve ever seen in my life. We used to drink coffee from silver pouches and talk in there. It’s too perfect a trap. “Come on!” He shouts as he grabs the tray and then pushes himself towards Tranquility and the cupola.
“I’ll be right there!” I respond, searching frantically for something I can use as a weapon. Regulations prevent sharp objects from being brought up, and the lack of gravity made swinging at someone almost impossible. I spot one of the short ethernet cables plugged into the computer by the warming ovens that connects to a jack in the wall. It’s right by the door to the Tranquility module, so I can pull it out as I head by without taking too long and raising suspicion. As I head to the door, I slip a hand down to the laptop’s back and push the small plastic clip in, unlatching the cable from the back of the computer. I reach down and quickly do the same with the end that’s in the wall before stuffing the whole length in one pocket. My hands are sweaty, I can feel beads of it slipping down my palm, coating the rubber exterior of the ethernet cable as I keep my right hand in my pocket, ready to grab the wire so I can attack Nikolai when he least expects it.
As I enter, Nikolai is already in the small bubble of the cupola, the tray of food floating over his head. His face has gone white as a sheet as he stares beneath him through the canopy window. “Nikolai?” I ask, hesitating by the door. Is this some kind of trap? Is he trying to lure me in so he can get me?
“Bozhe moy…” He whispers, tears falling from his eyes and floating serenely away as he looks up at me. “The fools are killing each other.” One hand covers his mouth as he looks back down, undisguised horror filling his face, the other pointing down towards the Earth. I follow his finger and see blossoms of orange and black on the globe below us, Europe and Asia bathed in nuclear detonations. My god, the message was true.
It was night below us, the lights of cities filling the familiar forms of the continent we’d spun above for years. From here it seemed almost beautiful. Brief moments of red and orange and then blackness where once there’d been light. Nikolai is crying now, openly weeping, guttural sobs wrenching their way free of him. I don’t know if the tears are just for his family, or if they’re for all of us, but they’re genuine. The voice quiets, dispelled by what I’m seeing. “They’re killing each other…” He whispers once again, gasping in agony as he watches. I float to him, pull him into an embrace, the cable in my pocket forgotten about, and watch the death of our world with my friend.
