A Spinning Force
“What am I gonna to do with this feeling?” he wondered as he was coming back to Asterius.
His thoughts were slipping in the zone of dreaming with open eyes, wanting to know more about her, despite being aware it wasn't allowed. He couldn't stop seeing her in his mind, until he got more conscious of the imminent meltdown of his thinking instead of the approach of the Alpha cluster. Disintegration and change in his atoms had already begun by meeting the presence of the voice behind the microphone. He knew he could never go back to being indifferent to her, the moment he had seen her eyes and had felt the kindness beyond her fragile but elegantly determined posture. It was an irresistible encounter that he couldn't forget. Communicating with her would never feel the same again after having been so near. As much as he had admired her intelligence and determination, he had become equally spellbound by her complex and mysterious personality.
For a while, it seemed as if his shuttle was drifting into space and he didn't even worry if he would land back on the planet or be engulfed by the spinning force in the distance. His cabin was lit up by the neon sun, then the blue moon was back in sight, finally the view expanded to the light vortex... the shuttle was rolling on, just as his mind. Conflicting emotions appeared and disappeared with each second.
Flickering flashbacks, brief pieces of images and instances of the encounter were passing through his mind.
He knew his interaction with the tower agent was restricted to receiving information about the mission as it was most certainly forbidden to become emotionally involved in any way. He also feared she would assign someone else to deal with him, once she realized he cared about her as a real person.
He knocked his fist on his head.
“What to do now? What, what?”
The answer was obvious: nothing. There was nothing to do about it: no way to stop it and no way to solve it either. He had to just go with the flow and accept the reality of it.
The shuttle landed in the colorful ocean with a splash, but soon floated to the surface.
As he unlocked the door, he saw someone on the beach.
“Hey! Welcome back!” Yuri shouted.
Rony jumped in the water, swimming past the hexagon pillars.
The cool splash of foam was refreshing, taking his mind of the endless labyrinthine thoughts.
“Why are you here alone? Where are the others?” he asked, emerging from the waves.
Yuri explained:
“While you were gone there was a fight between Martin and Zenna. First, Joey and Buddy told the others something was threatening their lives. Penelope sneaked into your tent and accessed the data from the control tower. She actually hacked into their database through your laptop and learned about Alpha cluster coming this way. Then the kids decided to take action to save themselves. Martin wanted to be the leader and make them run away. Zenna challenged his leadership and they eventually started a fight. Then us adults broke the fight of and sent them to their tents.”
“What about Zenna and Martin? Are they okay?”
“They're fine. Martin has a sprained elbow from when Zenna knocked him to the ground. And she's got a bruise because Martin threw a rock at her. Nicole's taking care of them both, they're in the medical tent. You should talk to them about what's going to happen. They're disoriented. But first, Sheena wants to talk to you.”
“And Evgheni? Has he caused any problems?”
“No. He received a message from the control tower while you were on the moon. He's grumpy about it, but cooperating. He hasn't argued anymore since then.”
Rony looked up at the pale blue moon in the afternoon light. He remembered Vera's mysterious eyes as she was returning to the hall.
Yuri's question woke him up:
“Did they replace the battery?”
“Yeah, they did.”
“Did they tell you what's coming?”
Rony stared at the neon sun.
“Yeah.”
“And? What is it?”
The pilot placed a reassuring hand on Yuri's shoulder.
“A new life is coming, Yuri. A new universe with it.”
And he smiled, feeling suddenly liberated and exuberant.
He had finally understood something essential: it was up to them to decide what was going to happen. They had the power. It was as simple as that: it would be as they imagined. Vera had tried to tell him the truth for a long time: life was flexible and it would arrange according to their wish. They only had to wish hard enough – and know what to wish for.
“Let's tell the children”, he said cheerfully. “Come on.”
The children were having dinner, so he let them eat while he discussed with Sheena.
“How was the trip?” she asked him, relieved to see him at the camp again.
“It was interesting.”
“Did you find out anything that can give us hope?”
“I think so. The people at the tower believe we're gonna be able to change our lives in any way we want, once we enter the light. We'll be masters of atoms and arrange space, time and matter just the way we want.”
“That would be wonderful!”
Sheena's eyes lit up with enchantment.
“And do you believe it too, Rony?”
“Yes, I want to believe it. It's just...”
He hesitated.
“What? Tell me”, she said confdently. “I'm listening.”
He looked down at his boots.
“I'm afraid of feeling too much. I'm afraid I'm imagining too much because of it. I'm sorry I can't stop it.”
Sheena smiled.
“Life is not real life without feeling anything. Don't apologize for what you feel. It's the path to the truth. You should trust yourself.”
“But what if I'm not allowed?”
“Holding back or burying your emotions is not the answer. How you feel and how you act are two different things. You decide what to do and what feelings to keep. In time, you will know.”
The children accepted his story that the storm that was coming could be vanquished by having a good shelter against it. The shelter would be the greenhouse.
“We must make more space in the greenhouse, to protect the plants and make room for us”, Buddy said.
Penelope had an idea:
“Let's split the space in circles, so we can grow more plants.”
“What we need are not circles”, Zenna spoke audaciously, somehow bored by the lack of confidence in everyone's speech. “If you want more space we must make hexagons. Have you ever seen a bee hive? That's how they make the most of it: by hexagons.”
“Yes! You're right!” Joey applauded enthusiastically. “We'll make a hexagon greenhouse.”
Rony thought about the hexagon pillars on the beach. He wondered what they had been, and what had the previous inhabitants of Asterius tried to achieve or build – a greenhouse? A shelter? A landing site? He wondered if they had failed or simply gone to another place. Were the pillars a gate to a different universe? Were the sparkling dots in the ocean what had remained of the entities, like billions of shiny bees, tiny stars in the galactic liquid? And who had built those pillars? What force had destroyed the construction?
That night he had a dream that he was walking through a hexagon corridor.
From the other end he could see Vera walking towards him, in her silver uniform, advancing in slow motion, determined, silent, her eyes watching him. And then the metal walls around them started to collapse. He woke up abruptly, as the tent was shaking from a storm. Rain was turning to snow and white dust was thrown onto the tents.
The teenagers were outside, alarmed by the falling snowflakes and stones.
“What's happening?” they asked in the stormy dark night.
“Get inside the tents and stay there”, he told them.
It had never rained or snowed on Asterius before. Rony realized it meant the beginning of change: Alpha cluster was already approaching with devastating effects.
In the morning he checked the greenhouse. The roof had been damaged here and there, but the plants inside were still intact. Small green leaves were adding color and hope to the barren planet.
Other phenomena were soon rising from above: the sky turned a mixture of colors, from orange, to purple and sometimes crimson or copper.
They started modiflying the greenhouse to make it a shelter of hexagons. Rony hoped the teenagers believed in it hard enough to make it come true: to turn it into a strong shelter against what was about to happen.
The storms became more frequent in the coming weeks. The sky was constantly changing. Sometimes there was a rain of meteorites at night and it looked like a fireworks display. On certain nights the ocean would roar and splash agitated waves against the rocks and the fallen pillars; other times the snow would cover the beach in a thick layer of cold fur that would melt in the morning, leaving patches of icy water on marble pebbles.
One day, the blue moon changed its color from blue to purple. On that evening he got an unexpected message from the control tower.
“I'm coming tomorrow to check your camp”, Vera's voice said in the microphone.
Rony was surprised. Nobody from the tower had ever visited Asterius before.
“It's just a routine visit to monitor your progress”, she added, sensing his fear through the silence.
She was getting way too good at reading his emotions. After their encounter he kept feeling that she had a different approach, guessing his thoughts too easily.
Besides, she wasn't so severe anymore. There was something cautious in her tone, he could swear it was a caring protecting attitude.
“Let me know where your shuttle is landing, so I can come and pick you up” he said.
He was impressed she would dedicate so much attention to them - she was actually coming to the camp in person.
Something must have happened at the control tower, since the moon turned purple, he thought, but didn't dare ask her what was changed.
“I'll contact you tomorrow morning before landing”, she said. “I might need your assistance to show me the way to the camp”.
“I'll be there with a boat”, he said.
She was a guest of honor, so he made a raft from a solar panel. He couldn't let her swim to the shore and get wet.
Rony was happy and anxious at the same time, thinking about her arrival. He felt actually more eagerness than fear, although he kept thinking she might not evaluate positively what he had done to set up the greenhouse and the equipment around the camp. He knew her perfectionist attitude would easily find missing pieces and decided to have everything in order by next day. If it could ever be enough.
He announced to the others that the control tower was sending a visitor to monitor their activities and he needed to tidy the base.
“I'll take the children for a walk, so you can show the agent the camp without having to worry about them doing something unpredictable”, Sheena offered.
“That's a good idea”, Rony agreed.
He spent the afternoon arranging things around the camp. Yuri helped with moving the equipment outside the tents, closer to the greenhouse. Rony was confident she wasn't coming to take his head of. He sensed she wanted to help him by personally checking the base. He was already grateful for her anticipated assistance.
The next morning he waited for Vera to call. It was like having a date with her and an exam at the same time. He was happy and nervous without realizing it. He wondered if she would really come. It seemed like such a big step, he worried she might give it up. He hoped she wouldn't change her mind, canceling the trip. If he knew one thing for sure about her, it was that she kept her word each time, without any doubt. He counted on her doing as she had promised - and her call finally arrived.
“I think I'm going to land in the ocean”, she spoke a bit shyly, which was unusual for her. “Can you come and get me? I see some pillars in a hexagon shape.”
Rony's face lit up with joy.
“I know where that is. I'm coming right now.”
As he started going over the hill, he saw a bright light falling slowly from the sky, above the beach. The sound of the shuttle engine was replaced by the waves. He carried the raft to the shore and jumped in the ocean, rowing with the paddle he had made from a water pump propeller.
The shuttle's door opened and Vera appeared, climbing out. She looked even more beautiful than he remembered. Her determined eyes turned to him, serious and observant.
Rony extended a hand to her.
“Here, let me help you. Step on this raft”, he invited her.
She agreed to take his hand. As he briefly touched her delicate fingers, he noticed a golden wedding ring on one of them. “Damn, she's married” he thought to himself with a bit of regret. Her eyes instantly saw what he was looking at. There was nothing he could hide from her – he was exposed to her sharp attention and nothing went unnoticed. Either she had a higher sense, or they were so synchronized that she had access to his thoughts and understood each gesture. She didn't appear upset that he had noticed her ring, even if it was something strictly personal. She seemed unaffected by the fact that his attention went beyond official boundaries.
She sat down on the raft, looking around attentively. The solar panel was gathering the sunbeams, warming up its metallic shiny surface and reflecting light in her hair and her silver uniform. She looked like a creature of light, glowing above the ocean, swaying with the waves.
Rony tried not to think about the implications of the little object he had seen on her hand. He was reasonably aware it wasn't his concern and from a logical perspective, he realized he didn't really know much about her as a person – however, he couldn't help feeling a sort of melancholy, as if the golden ring was another implacable barrier that kept Vera out of his reach. After he had helped her get on the raft, he let go of her warm hand, despite the elating feeling of being able to touch her for real. He hoped once again that he could conceal how he felt in her presence. He started rowing towards the shore, being silent like an awkward teenager on a first date. Her eyes watched him seriously, but there wasn't anything hostile in her attitude. She was almost curious and interested in the visit - and him.
“Did you make this raft yourself?” she asked casually.
“Yes.”
And then he was silent again. In a few minutes they stepped on the beach and walked towards the camp.
“How's everything going?” she asked him eventually, because he wasn't saying anything to encourage conversation, but he answered her questions without reserve.
“Everything's going great. We built hexagons in the greenhouse. The children learned to take care of the plants.”
“That's great. Are you prepared for the Alpha State?”
“I believe we are.”
“Can you show me the files with calculations about the speed and time until Asterius merges with Alpha cluster?”
He was caught of guard. He blinked, looking in her eyes.
“The files with calculations?” he asked feeling like a schoolboy without homework.
“You're supposed to have calculated the time until impact.”
“I don't think it was mentioned at the meeting.”
She was still serious.
“It was mentioned. I specifically mentioned it.”
He couldn't remember. He remembered the tone of her voice and her eyes...
but calculations? No. It was lost in the many words she had said, while he was dreamily contemplating her.
She stood in front of him, waiting.
“Do you have them or not?”
“I don't... I'm not sure. I might have calculated something... I don't know.”
He stared in her eyes and couldn't help smiling, hopelessly without answer. She could have slapped him in the face, and he wouldn't have protested. But she didn't say anything reprimanding. She shrugged and then sighed, as if resigned to the situation, and her eyes went darker. She didn't seem to want to punish him in any way at that moment – and somehow he instinctively knew she was on his side.
“You should do those calculations as soon as possible,” she concluded, realizing that no matter how severely she might have behaved, he would have been still smiling at her, for a completely different reason than the monitoring process.
“And that's a recommendation you should follow” she added, in case he missed the meaning again.
He hoped she wasn't too disappointed that she hadn't found everything she had expected.
“I'm not perfect like you” , he wanted to say, but continued to smile.
He was just enjoying her presence.
It was unique to be able to see her move, blink, glance at him with those deep unpredictable eyes, after so many months when she had been only a voice. She was much more interesting as a real person.
They walked around the camp, as time went by without either of them realizing it. Before they knew, many hours had gone by and the evening was coming.
“I must get back to the tower”, she said eventually.
He knew he would have to watch her go.
“You can stay more if you want”, he said casually, only expressing how he felt.
He wished she could have remained longer. She smiled.
“No, I've already stayed too much. If there's anything you want to ask me, you know you can ask me now - or call me anytime. It's not a problem.”
He couldn't think of anything. His mind was overwhelmed by her standing so close. He smiled silently and shrugged. She looked at him in disbelief.
“Isn't there anything you want to ask? Go ahead.”
She was still waiting, somehow disappointed he was silent. So he said the first thing that he could think of:
“Can we go wherever we want, once we enter Alpha State?”
He was thinking of being able to fly to the moon in an instant, to be near her again.
She nodded.
“Yes, if that's according to what you wish for. You must have a purpose for it.”
I have a good reason and purpose for it, he thought.
They started walking back to the beach.
Rony was getting more courageous and asked another question about something that had been on his mind and he needed confirmation to it: “Why did you choose this camp for the visit?”
“I didn't choose it”, she replied simply and to the point, somehow slightly amused by the implication of his question. “We're checking every base on Asterius, to make sure everyone is prepared for Alpha cluster arrival.”
He had remotely hoped she had visited his camp because she was interested in him and his activity. And yet her answer was again in tune with the control tower instructions.
Before stepping on the raft, they looked at the sky. The spinning disk of light was already visible, hovering by the neon sun, immense in its menacing greatness, getting bigger with each hour.
“Look at that...” she said, staring at the brightness in the distance. “It's getting closer and closer.”
“Why did the moon change its color?” he asked, staring at the little purple globe that paled in comparison to the huge light vortex.
“It's just an optical effect generated by many particles from Alpha cluster entering the solar system. It's nothing to worry about.”
They climbed on the raft. Rowing back to the floating shuttle, Rony wondered if he would ever be near Vera again, as they were right that moment.
“We'll meet again soon”, she said as if guessing his thoughts effortlessly. “The control tower has already planned it”.
“When will that be?”
“When we reach Alpha State.”
He wondered if they would be the same persons after the galaxies merged and changed everything in their path. He looked at her. She returned his glance silently.
Change was something not even she could predict. The only guarantee was the present moment.
Vera got inside the spacecraft, closing the door. He retreated to the shore, as the shuttle started spinning, sending concentric waves on the ocean, in a whirl of speed... and soon it ascended to the sky. Rony remained on the beach, watching her fly away, feeling inexplicably connected to her in his mind and soul.
That night he had another dream: he was standing on a marble hexagon platform above the ocean. The tall pillars sustaining it were rising to the sky, like an ancient temple. Purple waves were splashing against the marble. The hexagon edge was adorned with red roses, swirling around the columns and across the sculpted vault, as if they were growing from the ocean water. Rony was waiting there for something or someone. The sky was light pink and peaceful in the horizon and everything seemed serenely blissful. He was happy and he didn't know why. And then he saw her, climbing the stairs of the platform one by one. She wasn't wearing her silver uniform, but a long gown of white lace and a bouquet of flowers. She was breathtakingly beautiful. Rony realized he wasn't dressed in a pilot uniform either: he wore a light blue suit that felt like silk on his skin. The dreamy atmosphere was interrupted by a spinning vortex of light zooming in from above, an open funnel engulfing everything like a tornado of colorful beams. The ocean waves started splashing higher, wildly beating against the pillars. Rony grabbed a marble column, almost swept away by the tornado. Vera's bouquet was taken astray into the waves; while she staggered to remain on the platform, her eyes turned to him with an alarming calm and an intense meaningful glance. She whispered against the roar of the ocean:
“Do you see it now?”
Rony woke up startled. There was a storm outside and the tent was shaking its metal bars. He was certain her voice had resonated in his ear – the dream seemed so real. He wondered if he imagined it or it was a vision she had sent him somehow. If there was anything he was certain of, being connected to Vera was an effective interaction at a deep unconscious level, for both of them. There was something impressive and powerful about the magnetic link between them, as if the entire universe would open its infinite possibilities above them both when they advanced towards each other like the spiraling energy of the Alpha cluster merging with Asterius orbit.
He realized the vortex was approaching fast and there was something he hadn't finished yet.
“The calculations!” he said out loud and jumped to his feet, grabbing the laptop.
He introduced the data, the estimated speed and distance. The result was disturbing.
“One week! Only one week before we turn to dust...” he said, staring at the screen.
His thoughts went to the children and his colleagues. He had to tell them.
And then he looked around, noticing it was still the middle of the night. He couldn't wake them up. He let his head fall back on the pillow. Images of the marble columns, the roses and Vera's eyes came to his mind. He wondered who she was married to. Maybe a man from the control tower, with a higher rank. Maybe some big authority. He could only imagine it was someone with power and influence.
What it meant to her was another unknown enigma. “It's not my business”, he told himself.
It was better not knowing. And yet he couldn't forget her delicate fingers and the irrevocable presence of her locked commitment. He tried to dismiss the memory. The most intense feeling was that he could sense her thoughts through the distance, in an endless open transmission directly to his mind. And he knew she was thinking of him. Wanting to be close to her was enticing and overwhelming. It became an unresolved wish to know her mind, her dreams, her feelings and daily existence. Rony felt mesmerized by her and couldn't deny it to himself anymore. It was as powerful as the approaching galaxy collision.