Maybe the aliens wanted to bring me back here, like the ones you imagined when you were my age.
[Eva. The part of your DNA that isn’t from Earth is a tiny, tiny part of your genetic code. Imagine that you are that code, your whole body, then the alien part of it would be … smaller than the nail on your little finger. It’s not impossible that they brought us here because they wanted to meet you, but I seriously doubt it. If they wanted to meet any of us, they would have come when we arrived.]
Dr. Fran … Rose?
[Yes, Eva.]
How long can we survive without food?
…
Rose?
[Vincent, I think you should be the one to answer that one.]
{It’s OK, Rose. You can tell her.}
[I’d rather you did.]
Tell me what, Dad?
{We can go for a couple more weeks without food, but we won’t last long without water. You can probably go for another three, four days. The rest of us had all been drinking alcohol, so …}
So what?
{So less than that. Do you want to try Themis again?}
We tried an hour ago. She won’t move.
{Do you have anything better to do?}
I don’t understand. These … whoever brought us to this place, they’re just gonna let us die up here? Why won’t they come?
…
Rose?
[I don’t think they know we’re here. I think they brought back Themis, and we just happened to be inside.]
Dad, what do you think?
{I think … I think we should try to move Themis again. I know it won’t work, but they might pick up that there’s someone inside.}
What if they don’t?
{I don’t know what else to tell you, Eva. We can’t jump. We ran out of stuff to throw outside.}
We have to do something. I think the general is getting sick.
{She’s right, you don’t look so good, General.}
<You worry about yourself, Couture. I’ll be fine. It’s that damn champagne.>
{You—}
<You what? I need water? Tell me something I don’t know. Make yourself useful. Go and empty the ice bucket. It stinks in here.>
Don’t look at me. I’m not touching that thing again. Ever.
FILE NO. EE003—PERSONAL FILE FROM ESAT EKT
Personal Journal Entry—Vincent Couture
Location: Inside Themis, on unknown planet
Dear Kara,
I wonder what you’d hate more, that I’m writing to my dead wife, or that I’m opening with Dear Kara? This isn’t the first time I picked up a pen and paper to write to you. Rose said I should, a couple days after you died. She said it would help me to deal with the loss. I told her I didn’t do stupid. Truth is, I tried that very night. I just stared at that piece of paper for an hour, then I gave up. Second time’s the charm, apparently. Everyone’s asleep. I didn’t want to wake them up using the recorder, so this seemed like a good idea. You should see Eva. She looks so peaceful.
I miss you so much, Kara. And I want to believe in God right now. I’ve never wanted anything so badly. I’ll be dead soon, and I want to believe you’ll be there waiting on the other side with something snarky to say. My whole life, I thought that just being a part of the universe was grand enough. I thought it was much better than my little self sticking around for eternity. I suppose I still do. I don’t care what happens to my “soul.” I don’t care if there’s still a me, but I really want for there to be a you. The world makes more sense if there’s a you.
I know what you’d say if you were around. Stop whining, Vincent, and find a way out of this mess. I’m trying. Believe me, I’m trying, but I’m running out of options. We’re stuck in a ball of metal fifteen floors high with no food or water. The controls have somehow been turned off, and Themis won’t move. We can’t call for help, we can’t get out. Kobayashi Maru. I’m all for not giving up, but I can’t just will us out of here. It seems so anticlimactic. Fight an alien invasion, get whisked away to another planet, then slowly die of thirst in a room that smells like piss. What was the point of getting this far? I could have just stayed with you.
I’m not complaining. I guess I am. But one hundred million people died last week. What’s four more if this is the end of it, right? I’ve lived plenty. I know Eugene has seen his fair share. Rose … Well, Rose lived twice and saved a planet. That’s hard to top. I mean, really, what do you do after that? Stare through a microscope all day? Open a restaurant? When we realized no one was coming to get us, I could tell the three of us were ready for what comes next. But Eva isn’t. She’s scared shitless. She wants to live. We all do, but she wants it in a pure, animal way. She’s a lioness. She’s like you. There’s such strength in her. It’s beautiful to watch, and it’s heartbreaking.
She’s just a kid. She’s been through more grief in her short life than most war heroes, but she’s still a kid. There’s no “good death” for a ten-year-old, but she sure deserves better than this. This is a shit way to go. I feel like I’m failing her, again. That’s what hurts the most. I want her to live, of course, but I wish I could have given her a normal ten-year-old day, one week, something of a regular life, if only for a short while. These aren’t normal times, I get that, but I wish we could play pretend.
It was probably never in the cards for her to be a regular kid. Imagine those robots never came. Maybe we broke Themis? I don’t know, but let’s say you and I were together, raising Eva. Can you picture us with a regular job, coming home after work for a family meal? Neither of us can cook. Poor kid would be raised on pizza. This is going to sound insane, but I think the end of the world is the only thing that remotely qualified us as parents. We could have done well, though, you and I, under extreme circumstances. I don’t know how we’d fare at a PTA meeting, but we sure could rock World War III together, “together” being the operative word. Without you, I’m not sure I can do anything.
Don’t tell me I’m being too hard on myself. Believe me, my standards as a single parent are about as low as they can be. She didn’t come with a manual, but if there is one, I’m pretty sure there’s a bit in it about not stranding your child on another planet, dying in front of her, letting her deal with your body. I know. Keep her alive. But part of me sometimes wishes she would go first. We haven’t had the how-to-survive-a-plane-crash-in-the-Andes talk yet. I’m not even sure what I’m going to tell her. I don’t think there’s enough water in human flesh to keep her going. Is there? I wish we had Internet. How do you even start that conversation? “I’m not hungry, but you should eat Eugene, honey.” I don’t know if I’d do it. Would you? Yeah, you would.
It’s hard to test your principles against hypotheticals. We’ll know soon enough, I suppose. Eugene won’t last the day. He just moans, rambles for a few seconds, then he’s unconscious again. I wish there was something we could do for him. I wish Eva didn’t have to watch.
It’s frustrating. I don’t mean the we’re dying part—obviously, that is—but I feel like I’m missing something, like someone’s explaining things to me and I’m too stupid to understand. What was that thing Wittgenstein said? Something about a man imprisoned in an unlocked room because it doesn’t occur to him to pull instead of pushing on the door. Blame the scientist in me, but I want things to make sense. This doesn’t. Themis has been gone for thousands of years. You’d think they’d be curious enough to inspect her, hose her down, something. They have to know she’s back. They’re the ones that brought her back, they must be. We didn’t do anything in the sphere.