The Only Words That Are Worth Remembering (22 page)

I typed a password, which was
snowballschance
, and watched the numbers rise and fall inside the grids. At the bottom of each screen a cursor blinked. I would have to type two numerical codes simultaneously, one on each keyboard.

I typed 811118. I typed 922229.

The final prompt appeared:
PRESS ESC TO INITIATE LAUNCH SEQUENCE
.

“We're inside,” said Faron. “Restart the clock.”

I touched the two escape keys and drew a breath that I would not exhale for many seconds. Outside I heard a loud rush, as of rain through a busted downspout. High on the wall the countdown clock flashed once, then went black. A pause. When the digits reappeared days and hours had vanished, all the months of terror and misgiving that began in that ruined zoo—erased. Everything, I thought, was about to start over.

00:00:04:00, read the clock.

“Wait!” said Sylvia.

“What?” I said.

“You said you'd tell us,” said Sylvia.

“I did,” I said. “I did tell.”

“I thought there would be another step. I thought you'd say something else.” I had not heard her like this before, that hard voice broken by fright.

“What's happening?” she said. “Is it supposed to shake like this?”

Now I jabbed at the escape keys, retyped the numbers, the password, yanked the keyboard from the wall. I wanted to stop time, just for a moment, so that we could all catch our breath.

Then came my brother's voice, calm: “Rowan. It's too late. We're already gone.”

The clock read 00:00:03:34.

“Is this right?” I shouted. “Is this what ought to happen?”

Sylvia's voice returned, shaking from what might have been fear or only the vibrations. “You're doing good.” But I knew she was only trying to make me feel right. Light spilled through the gaps in the steel blinds.

When I opened them I saw the mound of launchpad 39B set ablaze. Smoke piped out of the flame trench, higher than the tower, giant, ghost, genie. I watched the rigging tremble; I watched the air tremble. And for the first time that morning I felt certain: they were going to Europa; I was helping.

When the clock ran down to two minutes, I returned to check the monitors. Sylvia and Faron were strapped in. My brother showed his tongue in a dirty laugh, but Sylvia just stared. I stared back knowing she could not see me. I should have said something, but nothing came; any words would have been too small. I have endured lonely mornings since, but when I looked into Sylvia's face on the little gray screen, that was the most sorrowful of all. Everyone was leaving.

*   *   *

“It's your uncle lives there on Europa. Him and your pretty Aunt Sylvia.”

“Sylvia,” you say, made happy by the coincidence.

*   *   *

At one minute, twenty-six seconds to liftoff, I walked out of the control room carrying the Bushmaster. I leapt down whole flights of stairs till I reached the bottom, but as I rounded the hall to enter the lobby, I stopped.

“Don't shoot us!” It was the Bosom goons. They looked more frightened of me than I was of them. I had a gun. I don't recall leveling it at those men or if I even bothered to switch off the safety. Anyway, their hands were in the air.

I backed toward the entrance, where a blue tarp hung over the busted frame. To my left I saw the men's room. Bill's instructions were to force the guards inside and padlock the door behind them, but I'd forgotten the lock and had no experience forcing anyone to do anything. I recall making a vague gesture toward the toilet. They looked at me, confused now as well as scared.

“Kid,” said the one who liked word-search puzzles, “we're not going to do nothing. If this is when you need to run, go for it.”

I sprinted across the parking lot until I hit a stand of scrub palms, where I followed the indolent little creek to our trailers. There I heard Bill Reade howling. I pictured his sock popping free like a cork, and almost smiled at his stupid rage. Then I heard what he was shouting: Terry Nguyen's name. He was in the Reades' trailer and Bill was begging him not to do something. He said it was me, all me.

In my panic I tripped over Pop's brogans and realized I was lying atop Umma's grave. Before running on, I slipped the rifle into the water. Deep in the mangrove the noise grew intolerable. I pressed my palms to my ears and watched as the gantry arms swung free. The rocket pushed up on its pillar of steam; sheets of ice slid off the booster.

Inside Orion the pressure would be cellular; flesh and bone, organ meats, eyes, nerves, and tubing, every bit of their bodies clinging to the Earth where they had been made. Sylvia and Faron could see nothing but approaching sky, an eternity or else a sudden stop. Sylvia might tell herself she no longer believed in the Night Glass, but a fear so carefully built is not easily broken. Eight minutes after liftoff, though, when the gray arc of the upper atmosphere showed through the window, as the black spread out to describe the whole of the Earth, the planets and distant stars, they would believe. They had left sorrow and solitude miles below. Ahead lay Europa.

I stood on Old Cape Road as the sun mounted the sea and realized I had nowhere to go.

*   *   *

Now, after eight years' travel, as we watch from distant Chilly, they prepare to land. Here is what they do: They check the couplings to the Habitat, the SEV, and the Penguin, strap themselves into the Lander, and initiate de-orbit. They land beside a thermal vent on the surface of Europa, disengage the Penguin and the Habitat. They check the water spinach in its substrate, feed the rabbits, fix themselves a mug of tea. Eight years it took them to reach Europa. Eight years before I knew where I was heading. Here, with you, Little Sylvia, waiting for a signal.

 

19.

This morning comes as a surprise. Most days the sun rolls up slowly, a blue glow behind the Andes. It teases between the distant peaks, a game of galactic cat-and-mouse. My work requires total darkness, and though I am exhausted by sunup, I'm always sad to see the day come. But today it sneaks up behind me, taps me brightly on the shoulder. Imagine: me, an Astronomer surprised by the sun.

Down the white steps I carry you outside the Control Room. In the glare of the platform you strain to open your eyes. I stand you on your sleeping-bagged feet and your head falls sleepily against my leg. Then you remember, and your eyes spring open. You are now three, and your wish is to spend the day with your father, playing among the buildings of base camp, your favorite place in this abbreviated world.

“Hop!” I say. “Hop, birthday bunny!” Another sight I have deprived you of, the rabbit with its buttered fur, its lean, rich meat and preposterous ears. We could raise them here, I think, if we rebuilt the chicken coop. We will need something to barter when the money gives out. I should talk to Penny.

Below the observatory platform, the entrance to the Residencia peeks out from the slope. The road is the easiest way to reach it, but you insist we take the Star Track, a switchback trail the Astronomers used for long contemplative hikes. The stones along the path are etched with alien images, of stretch-neck horses like they kept at Zoo Miamy, of human figures with multiple eyes and radiating heads, chiseled gray astronauts. You call them your “rock guys.” They wave hello from the past, hello to Little Sylvia. You always wave back.

I turn one over to show you its damp underside, where lichen whitens the stone. A tiny insect hurries into a shadow. Life insists, even here. Our first summer in the Atacama—you would not remember—a rainstorm blew in from Bolivay and the most remarkable thing happened: flowers. By the millions. One face of Cerro Paranal broke out in a rash of toy lilies and delicate blue poppies. Raoul thought it was obscene, a desecration. I made sure you danced among them, gathered a bouquet to give to grumpy Uncle Chips. In a week the flowers had returned to the sand to wait for rain's return.

The Star Track is pitched and slippery. You make a big show of whipping your arms back till you slide downhill on your corduroys. I chase after shouting; you must be more careful. You are all I have. But you just laugh at the minor avalanche you have caused.

In the lobby of the Residencia we find Raoul posted at his usual spot, legs dangling in the empty plunge pool, not sipping his coffee. Chilly has little in the way of food, but coffee is plentiful. Penny roasts it in a former lima bean can with an acetylene torch. I haven't developed a taste for the stuff, but I wouldn't make it through the long nights without a thermosful. It is no coincidence that Astronomy vanished with coffee.

The Residencia has twenty suites, each with a cramped bed, a miniature desk, and a washing-machine window. Less elbow room than the Gables, perhaps, but at least you don't get shanked on the stairs.

Nobody gets much sleep in the desert. It's the quiet wakes you up. No crickets, no traffic, no weather. Only the watery rush of the cryostat to assure you that you haven't gone deaf. The air is so dry, you can hardly breathe. We dream of dust, in our throats, in our eyes, and wake up choking.

When the Gunts stopped sending money, and food or medicine could not be had in Atofogasta, the caretakers simply drifted away, leaving piles of journals, a crate of whiskey, and a closetful of board games that are now yours. One woman must have refused to leave. We found her desiccated corpse stretched out on the chaise longue beside the pool, a heavier sleeper than you. She had wrapped herself in duvets so that only her face showed in the folds. She had made her own shroud and lay down to wait.

Penny declared her pretty, though I could not see the appeal. The skin had gone stiff as Pop's wallet. The woman's name had been Lieben, Jennifer, and from her journals I gather that she studied the formation of gas giants around distant stars of a certain magnitude. There was great concern in those dying days for how things began.

She wore on one mummy middle finger a ring set with a milky white stone. It had taken some effort to remove it, but for your second birthday I strung the ring on a piece of twine for you to wear around your neck.

This year, I gave you a moon, milky white.

Raoul likes to joke that he will die like Jennifer Lieben, dried up beside an empty pool. You hug him good morning, he wishes you another fine birthday, calls you his monkey, and then stiffly climbs the stairs to his bed. I fill two cups of coffee, one for me and one for you, with extra powdered goat milk. Our habits here are not numerous but they are ironclad. We sip and walk carefully the final stretch down to the base camp.

The buildings have been a trove of relics. A book of pressed flowers, photos, an entire housecat taxidermied by the desert. I once found a jelly donut so hard, I used it to drive a nail through plywood. We call base camp Sylvia's Toy Store. But you already have the best birthday present I can give, Europa, where Sylvia and Faron will one day send us a sign, and we will be a family again.

I say run. Three times around the Mirror Building, one for every precious year you have lived. I time you, counting one one thousand, two one thousand …

When you finish your final orbit, I catch you, damp and out of breath, in my arms, and tell you what I know.

“Have many happy birthdays, Little Sylvia. May you die before you are alone.”

 

Thanks to my Hunter College teachers and friends, especially Jason Porter, who kindly read this story when it was still a lump. Thanks to Dr. Franck Marchis, of SETI, and Dr. Mike Wong, of UC Berkeley, for preventing certain embarrassment about matters astronomical. This novel would not have crept out of the primordial ooze had my agent, Nicole Aragi, not coaxed it forth with patience and encouragement. Thanks to So Caroline's own Duvall Osteen for keeping the machine flapping smoothly. My unparalleled (seriously) editor, Riva Hocherman, improved this book in ways I could not have imagined. Thanks to my family for their steady support. For reading every word and giving her unerringly good advice, thanks to Margaret. For knowing that I'd misspelled
Ptolemy
, thanks to Felix.

 

About the Author

J
EFFREY
R
OTTER
is the author of
The Unknown Knowns
and
The Only Words That Are Worth Remembering
. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in
The New York Times
, the
Oxford American
, the
Boston Review
, and elsewhere. He grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, and is a longtime resident of Brooklyn, New York, where he lives with his wife and son. You can sign up for email updates
here
.