Page 5 of Alien Desire
“Keep doing that,” the computer says in the same chirpy voice, although with a tad more aggression, “and maybe you’ll find a brain cell back there.”
“Nice,” I moan. “Do you have a name, computer?”
“No. But you can call me Grand Master.”
“You need a name if you’re going to talk to me like this.” I drum my fingers on the table, searching around for inspiration. “Hmmm, Sheila.”
“Sheila,” she replies flatly.
I laugh. “Yep, it suits you.”
“So are we going to sit around and chat like grandmas all day, or are we playing?”
She beats me. Of course. And makes the noise of someone sucking in air through their teeth. “Shame,” she says with a large dollop of sarcasm.
I am bantering with an AI machine. I’m clearly losing my sanity.
I wonder if anyone will come, if I’ll be left alone here in this box forever, slowly going mad as I natter with a computer.
One of the reasons I joined the space cadets was knowing I’d always be surrounded by other people. Even when we slept. A replacement for the family I’d lost. I’m not used to being alone.
Another was the adventure. The opportunity to see the universe — planets and places so different, so strange from my own. I relished every moment of our journey here, even the endless days in space, even the hard work, even the claustrophobia of our spacecraft. It was worth all that for the reward of glimpsing the beauty of the universe.
As if to prove just how crazy I am, I tell the computer to crank up the loudest, rockiest music she has and I dance around the station, drumming and strumming the air, thrashing my head backward and forward, and skidding about in my socks. Fluffy chases me, confused, and I swerve and skip around him until he’s barking and yapping in excitement.
“We could form a band,” I tell him, before collapsing on my bed breathless.
But on the sixth day I wake and find the colour black has returned. It is night. I’d lost all sense of time in the monotony of the storm, but now it has passed and the vast sky, the window into space through which I cannot climb, has returned.
I rush outside and stare up into its bottomless depths; the stars appearing one at a time to greet me like long missed friends. I think I almost hear them twinkling to me.
“Is anyone coming?” I ask them but they do not reply.
I mark the passing days on the wall by my bunk. I think it is what prisoners do to record the time until release and it seems apt stranded here.
The row of carved lines grows longer and longer, marching across the wall. I run my finger over them before I sleep at night and try not to think about how many days have come and gone without rescue.
One day at a time, Emma, one day at a time.
I keep myself disciplined. The training to become a space cadet, trusted to undertake missions across the universe, was a fierce and competitive one. The recruiting officer looked me up and down the day I’d finished school and gone to sign up and laughed. She’d seen my small frame, only just scraping over five foot, and concluded I wouldn’t last the distance.
“I give it a week,” she said, “sure you want to do this?”
I’d lasted longer than a week. I lasted the entire three years, watching as others quit or failed to make the cut during that time.
See, appearances can be deceptive. I looked like someone that could be broken emotionally, but losing my family had done that to me already and I’d survived. I’m tough.
I tell myself that every day when I open my eyes and force myself out of bed to start the routine I’ve created for myself.
Before I let myself eat, I run on the ancient treadmill. Fluffy jumps and barks around me, keen to join in the activity. Occasionally, he attempts to scrabble up onto the moving boards with me, but the motion confuses him and he always slides straight back off with a yelp.
After my run, I shower, insisting Sheila play a new tune from her vast collection of dated music as I do. Then it’s time to cook breakfast and feed Fluffy from the tins of stewed meat — the closest looking thing to pet food I can find.
My daily inventory of the food and medicine supply comes next, listing the items to Sheila for her to log and record. She assures me every day that this isn’t necessary and that her programming has already undergone this task, but it keeps me busy and so she indulges me. It’s probably silly. There is plenty here, and Fluffy and I make only a small dent in the stock.
Then I check the communications system, scour the frequencies for any messages and voices. Sometimes I allow myself to fiddle with the coding, but it always ends in frustration. I can’t find a way to upgrade the system. And there is never, ever a response, a reply, not even a sign that my message is making its way slowly through the universe.
If the day is clear, I’ll head out exploring after lunch, with Fluffy always keen to trot alongside, even though there’s little to find. The land is flat and featureless except for its unclimbable ragged rocks and miles and miles of ice.
