“Yes,” Sergei. “Still amazing. All these things.”
Helen reaches behind her and unfurls a square of paper from the roll, hands it to Sergei. His shirt is too dirty to wipe his eyes with. Helen pats his back. Then she pats Yoshi’s back. They all touch each other, gently, almost tapping, not quite consoling, more like asking for permission to enter.
“We’re okay,” says Helen. “We’re okay.”
“We have done very well,” Yoshi says. “We are not done being tested, but we have been very successful.”
“If it should happen that this was only—” Sergei stops clears his throat, “I am not going to tell Prime anything it does not need to know. We have done our jobs. You know what I mean. I am not going to ask questions.”
“I suppose we have no idea,” Yoshi says, “what will happen next.”
The astronauts press their hands against each other’s shoulders.
“I have been worried that I was the obvious weak one,” Sergei says.
“Not at all,” says Helen, and “No, Sergei, truly not,” says Yoshi.
The astronauts are silent again. Perhaps they are thinking of the letters they wrote, and never sent.
“Prime is very deep,” Yoshi says. “I have begun to wonder how deep. Everything seems to have been arranged to work with great precision upon our emotions, to cause us to investigate ourselves and root out that which might obstruct our mission.”
“I don’t know.” Sergei shakes his head. “This is poetic thought, and I like it, but would Prime take such a risk for poetry? They could not predict what we would find. And we could go in two years and have all new feelings.”
“Oh god,” Helen says, and then laughs. “I can’t have any more feelings.”
The crew nods and taps one another.
“My fear is that they won’t send us in two years,” Sergei says. “Even if this was or wasn’t, you know, anyway, we should still go. Or go again. Whatever. We were hardly on Mars at all, no time for proper work. I want the full trip.”
“Yes.” Yoshi shakes Sergei’s shoulder. “But I believe we’ll go in two years. Go again, or go for the first time. But we will go.”
“I guess there’s no use pretending we are exactly the same people now,” says Helen. “I don’t know if that’s a problem or not. Do we hide it? Do we act like how we were before Eidolon? Or do we think Prime is very deep and engineered a kind of process, as Yoshi suggests, so that we would get all these thoughts and feelings kind of out and done with so the next time we are one hundred percent solid?”
“Or was it to make us more humble?” Sergei asks. “I should say right now, that I actually don’t know what’s wrong with either one of you. You both seem pretty good to me.”
“You guys can tell when I’m struggling, right?” Helen asks. “I mean, at this point?”
“There is a voice you use,” Sergei says.
“I know. I call it PIG. Polite, Interested, Good humored.” Helen turns a little pink.
“That’s very funny,” Sergei says. “I’m glad it has a name.”
“PIG.” Yoshi nods. “But, Helen, it is a nice pig.”
“I think all of us are fundamentally sound,” Helen says. “And everything breaks in space.”
“That’s true.”
“That’s very true.”
“It is exciting,” Yoshi says. “This has been a very wonderful trip.”
“I’m so happy,” Sergei says. He cries a little more, and the astronauts hold on to one another, lightly, and then it’s time to go.
HELEN
How does it feel? Does it feel real?
This first part is not unlike other landings. Red Dawn has detached from her tether and they are once again weightless. They have been looking forward to this, the beautiful drifting, with Earth visible in the screen. Helen instructs herself to truly feel this moment, memorize it, leave nothing out, and then realizes she will fail in this exercise. She can think “Oh” and “How lovely” while she prepares for the next thing, but she cannot take in everything.
She is, she finds, afraid. Not of making a mistake. This is fear of dying. Helen tries to locate the fear in her body, give it a space to exist. It is not in her throat or chest, it is lower. The fear is new and must be welcomed like any newborn, held in two hands. Helen wishes she could ask Sergei and Yoshi if they are also afraid, because it means something, this fear, and she is a little proud of it too.
Red Dawn begins her burn. It is time to slow down, to fall with the intention to hit. It is an odd sensation, as if someone were shoving you in the stomach and instead of going backward, you went forward. You know the direction you are going, but it doesn’t feel like you are going there. Going, went. None of the words do the work you want them to, they are all clumsy and contradictory. Sergei’s “Pfff” says it all. Helen tunes in to Yoshi, who is speaking to Mission Control, narrating the things that are happening. He sounds like a chanting monk, intoning wisdom. She is happy and afraid.
Landings take time. They are going to do a little tumbling now, a little jostling. This will last almost an hour, as Red Dawn makes her adjustments and begins her elliptical approach, touching the outer atmosphere of Earth.