Page 18 of Bound By Stars

Thirty-five days to Mars

ILSA moves to shield me from the towering woman with thick neck muscles barreling around the curve of the escape pod bay.

“Mr. Dall… Oh, my apologies.” She bows her head, observing ILSA before she meets my stare. “Did anyone pass through this way?”

“Nope.” The point of coming to the escape pod bay was the lack of humans.

Her eyes narrow like she suspects I’m lying, but she nods, her face pinched, and continues on, pumping her arms, hands balled into tight fists.

When the sound of her stomping fades, I sit against a narrow window and pull the bread roll out of my pocket. Unwrapping the cloth napkin, I tear it in half and take a bite. The crust is tough, and I wish I had some of that gorgeously melty agave butter they served at lunch, but I can live without it if it means avoiding the pretentious circus that is sure to be dinner on theBoundless.

“Unopened video message from Mom. Would you like me to play it?”

The view of my home planet is getting smaller. No longer filling the window, the entire sphere of Earth is visible, pole to pole, the details lost by the distance. I sent Mom a message last night, but I haven’t listened to her responses yet. And they’re piling up.

“Play it,” I instruct ILSA.

Her face screen goes dark and then bright, casting against the gray wall opposite the window a closeup of my mom talking into her comm device.

“Wait, stop!”

The projection disappears and a question mark pops up on ILSA’s dark face screen.

Do I want to listen to anything she has to say after what she did? I don’t know if I’m ready for her excuses. I can’t imagine there’s one good enough to try to take this experience away from me and condemn me to a future exactly like hers. Aren’t parents supposed to want more for their kids? My face burns and hot, angry tears build in the corners of my eyes, but then I glance at the planet outside the window again, getting farther away by the second.

“Play the message, ILSA.”

“Are you certain? It seems you are having a negative physical reaction to the first still of the video.”

“Play it.” I wipe my face with the sleeve of my sweater.

The projection reappears. The slanted roof of our little house is behind her. She’s sitting next to the garden, her hair as disheveled as when I last saw her. She takes a long breath, running a hand over her forehead, brushing back the wisps at her temple.

“We…eh, eh, eh…” The video glitches into a collection of still pictures of my mom’s tired eyes lifting to meet the camera. “I can’t believe you just…”

I think it’s cutting out again, but she drops her head, pausing and holding her face in her hand. My heart sinks. I hate that I made her feel like this, but it’ll make more sense after I get us a permanent place on Mars. She’ll forgive me then.

“I’m so…” She rubs a hand over her mouth, staring off to the side like she’s searching for words somewhere in our overgrown vegetable patch. “Look, you’re up there. I can’t demand you come back. And since you forced my hand, I’ll have to…” The video goes hazy, then shifts into abstract blocks of colors. When it clears, her mouth is moving, but there’s no audio.

I bump ILSA with my palm.

“…and he…” Static. “…on Ma-a-a-rs.” The glitch turns her words into a series of indecipherable tones.

I smack ILSA again and the video pauses. “Is that it?”

“The video message seems to be damaged,” ILSA states, the image on the wall disappearing and her face screen going neutral. “Would you like to view the remaining video in this state or are you going to continue to resort to violence?”

“You don’t have pain receptors, ILSA. Stop being dramatic.”

Her face stays blank.

I lift my hands in surrender. “Play the rest of the message, please.”

The video stalls through another series of images of my mom in various stages of speaking, but the only sound is an occasional sharp tone. Then it comes together again. “Please be careful, Wes.”

“End of message,” ILSA announces.

My repairs to her message processor must have damaged her video storage. The errors on this bot never end. At least I have thirty-five more days of travel time to figure it all out. She has to be perfect by the time I present her to the panel on Mars.

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