The stars were becoming transparent as light crept over the horizon. Greg hissed in frustration. If he didn’t get the fans on this part of the atmospheric controller fixed before sunrise, the whole module would begin to heat and the six point eight million varieties of seed stored within were at serious risk of heat and moisture damage.
He ignored the continual mist of fine snow that whirled before his face like white noise and moved to the next unit. This was the final panel. If the problem wasn’t behind here, then Greg had no idea what he’d do next. Find the designers and throw them from a rooftop. Go back to that geyser and gnaw on some more of those tasty sulphur deposits. Who knew?
He had just gotten to work on the second locking bolt when the wrench snapped in his hand. Surely it hadn’t gotten that cold? He checked his wrist. Wind-chill factor of 96° below. Maybe I should have worn that hat Greta knitted for me, he thought, reaching for his adjustable spanner. Wherever it is now.
The inside of the unit was a blackened mess of broken fan blades and shards of shattered metal. One of the props had come lose and been buffeted around the inside of the chamber until it was a twisted lump of metal and every other fan in the unit was jammed to hell. The engine, obviously thinking all was fine and dandy, had gamely continued to do its thing until it finally expired, looking something like an overcooked turkey from a robot Christmas party.
Greg looked at the mess in dismay, then at the swathe of stars that twinkled in the Western sky like fading magic. He had less than twenty minutes to perform a full engine refit. And that was before he got to work replacing the fans. With a sigh, he propelled himself off the ledge and glided down to the container where the spare parts were stored. If he’d only started working from the right, he’d be back at the hot pools by now, munching on breakfast[RE1] .
A little over twenty minutes later snow gave way to trackless leagues of forest as Greg flew south over the Arctic Circle. The coastline was a madman’s jigsaw; sheer walls of slate-colored [RE2] rock that plunged into the heaving sea, conifers clustered atop heights inaccessible to man and cataracts of water that flung themselves, suicidal, into nothingness. The roads, when they came, made as much sense from Greg’s vantage as slug trails. They wound through troll-blighted tunnels, switched back on themselves to cross elegant spans of government-bankrupting bridge and abandoned unsuspecting travelers on cliff-side trails that no SatNav would ever make sense of.
Greg had left Svalbard as soon as he’d received Greta’s message. Old man not doing well. Come home. He wondered how she’d finally managed to track him down. Never mind. Maybe the old man was about to do them all a favour.
The house, perched on an exposed shoulder of rock like some golden-age rendering of a UFO, was difficult to miss. Greg touched down on the curved driveway, folded his wings and crossed to the front door. It would have been quicker and easier to enter via the roof terrace, but Greg preferred to do as little as possible to highlight how different he was, even here. Especially here.
The house hadn’t changed a bit. It was a playground of curving white walls, thoughtfully designed perspectives and stately reserve. It was a house where cognoscenti sipped priceless whiskey and discussed the ontology of the post-information age in lamp-lit pools. It was a house where photographers for Wallpaper magazine marvelled in hushed tones at the view from the living room windows. It was not a house where people lived, except for the old man and Greta, of course, but they didn’t count, in the same way Greg hadn’t counted.
Greta. The sound of her playing drifted from the parlour—Dvorak’s Concerto for Cello in B minor. Greg followed the strains like some starving creature following the scent of food.
She sat in her usual spot, facing the ocean with her back to the door. The years fell away as Greg watched her, hypnotized by the minute movements of her head and the gentle curve of vertebrae climbing from the low collar of her kelp green dress. A pallid bust of Ibsen looked on in silence, all forehead and muttonchops.
“I came as soon as I got your message,” said Greg. The last chord was still vibrating in the air.
Greta took the time to lay the cello flat in its case before answering. “Good. It’s been pretty tough around here.”
“That’s why I came back. For you. Not for him.” The vox unit messed up the intonation on the last part and it came out harsher than Greg had intended, almost robotic. His words were answered by a sudden racket from the corner. Greg glanced over and saw a caged white egret, startled by the sound of his voice, beating its wings against the bars of its cage. Of course. The birds.
Greta stood and turned to face him, smoothing her dress across her stomach as she spoke. “Is that the best you can do?”
“Yes.”
The disappointment in her eyes hit him hard. “Fine. You’d best go in and see him. He’ll know you’ve arrived.”
Greg didn’t move as Greta packed up the cello, folded the sheet music and left the room, her back as stiff as a conductor’s baton. He didn’t want to see the old man. He wanted to see her, to wrap her in his arms, to [RE3] smell her hair and taste the salt tears of reunion on her lips. He wanted to apologize for leaving her alone with that desiccated piece of trash[RE4] . He wished for the millionth time that he had a normal face. She’d take one look and know how sorry he was.
But things didn’t work that way. Greg walked over to the windows, leaving wet footprints behind. Outside, the boiling rain was like the wrath of some crazed weather mage. Funny. He hadn’t really noticed it when he came in. He looked down at the growing puddle at his feet with something approaching guilt.
An antique brass telescope that hadn’t been used in ten years stood on a tripod beside him, pointed out towards the heart of the squall. Greg wondered if the comet was visible yet.
The egret, now settled again, regarded him solemnly as he passed. Looks just like the old man, he thought as he walked from the room.
Dr Henrik Berg lay propped up on a raft of foam [RE5] pillows, arms crossed over his chest like some bleached parody of a dead pharaoh. Various machines and apparatuses were stacked to either side of the bed: the latest in canopic jars. An albino kestrel perched to the left of the bed watched Greg as he entered the room and came to stand beside his father.
“Grehhh,” wheezed the old man. Henrik had always sworn Greg had been named for Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics. Greg had never believed that. Not since he’d finished Kafka’s Metamorphosis, anyway.
The effects of the stroke were written clearly across his father’s face. It was as if an invisible oblique separated the animated, living side from the paralysed, drooling side. Greg didn’t know what to say, so he sat down in the chair beside the bed. Two books lay on the nightstand: Peer Gynt and Beowulf. So Greta had been reading to the old man. The Peer Gynt was probably his choice, even though it was a favourite of hers too. She’d always loved the boyg. But Beowulf was her favourite. She’d probably read it hundreds of times, each time trying to find a way for Grendel to avoid her fate. Greg had always hoped her love of the character came from some sympathy for him.
“You came back.” The fact that his father was typing into a vox unit made Gregor want to crow with triumph.
“You sound like me.”
“I should. This is one of your old units. I didn’t want the one from the clinic. Anyway, I’m familiar with the workings of this one.”
“But you didn’t think to change the pitch.”
“Why should I? It serves its purpose. It’s only meant to enable me to communicate, Gregor. Why should it matter what I sound like?”
“Don’t you think Greta would find it strange, you talking with my voice?”
“No. Why should she?”
Greg took a mental deep breath before replying. He’d only been in the room twenty seconds and they were at it already, falling into their roles with ease. “Never mind. How are you doing?”
“Bad. Very bad.” The old man would have said that with a hangover or a cold. A cold-hearted pragmatist he might be, but he was not one to suffer in silence.
“What did the doctors say?”
“Hehh,” replied the old man, using his real voice, then: “The doctors. What do they know? According to them I should have been gone years ago. We’re not all made of as stern stuff as you, you know.”
Greg was struck with a vision of him standing, pulling the plug on every bit of life support machinery he could find and stalking out of the room. He typed F… U… C into his armpad, then backspaced and settled for “Gee. Thanks.”
“Well, it’s true you know. You are a very lucky young man. Not many people have had the opportunities you’ve had.”
“Not many people have had to live their life as a monster. The Mothman.”
“Moths are very beautiful creatures, son.”
“I make children cry.” For an instant, Greg was dizzy with rage and indignation. Was that all the old man had to say for himself?
“It’s not the children’s fault, Greg. They don’t have the intelligence to see you for what you really are.”
“Or maybe they do.”
“You’re an evolutionary leap forward. The first child of human and extra-terrestrial DNA.”
“I didn’t evolve. As far as I remember you describing, you grafted some of your cells into a test tube and spliced in the DNA of some louse the Brendan Probe picked off an asteroid. While the endeavor may have gained you a Nobel Prize, all I got was to live my life trapped in the body of a goddamned insect.”
“Uhhh, Grehh,” said his father. Then, through the vox unit: “Yes, but what a body. Engineered to withstand the cold depths of space. Able to synthesize ATP through hydrogen, sulphides, ammonia, metals. What other creature can digest rocks? Who else do you know that is capable of anerobic respiration?”
“That’s just the point. I’m a freak, and all that other shit is useless.”
“That’s because you never went up there. How many missions did I line up for you, only for you to turn them down? You made a fool of me.”
The left side of Henrik’s face was ruddy, suffused with blood. His eye bulged madly like some grotesque character from a Poe story. Greg knew he should probably stop.
“That was your grand design, not mine.”
“So what have you been doing, then? Geological surveys in Greenland? Fixing swing-sets in Antarctica?”
“Everybody’s got to earn a crust. Even me.”
“Hehh.” Greg couldn’t tell if the old man was laughing or coughing. “You’ve more money in trust that most people earn in a lifetime. You like the work, because you enjoy using your gifts to help others. It’s just that you can’t admit it.”
“You know I haven’t touched that money. That would be the last thing I’d do.”
“I know you”re denying your essential nature. I know that you think you’re spiting me, but all you’re doing is denying yourself the life you should be leading, regardless of your genesis.”
“If there were any ethical standards in genetics these days, you’d have been locked up for what you did to me.”
“I did what I felt best, Gregor. How many times must we have this conversation?”
Gregor felt his hands itching to wrap themselves around the old man’s neck.
“Until I get a satisfactory answer.”
“It’s been a lifetime, Gregor. I don’t have any other answer to give you. I did what I did, and it is my job to live with it. Yours too, if you only stopped running away.”
“Running away? What am I running away from?”
“Your feelings for Greta, for a start. She can’t ever love you the way you want. She’s your sister.”
“She’s not my sister. And I’m not your son. I shouldn’t have to remind you. I’m a clone, remember. I’m you. And she’s not your real daughter. You inherited her from Inga.”
The old man visibly flinched at that one. “I think you got your cruelty from your mother’s side of the family,” he said. The oldest joke they had between them, and still not funny.
““You know you should be up there. Remember how you used to spend hours looking at the stars? We used to say we’d have to get you surgically removed from that telescope. They’re sending a team to look at it, you know.”
“To look at what?”
“Huh huh,” the old man shook with something analogous to laughter. “C/2091- U1. Callista. Don’t try and tell me you don’t know every last thing about it.”
Greg knew better than to answer.
“I can get you on it, you know. Galbraith is picking the team. I could get him to put your name on the list.”
Greta came in then, carrying a tray loaded with Henrik’s afternoon medication. Her hips
swung to and fro like a metronome as she moved across the room.
“You should let him get some rest now,” she said, furiously trying to avoid looking directly at Greg. Greg noticed the tiny spots of red in her cheeks. He followed Greta downstairs into the utility room.
“How much did you hear?”
“Not much.” She bent to open a cupboard and removed a plastic bucket of birdseed, which she handed to Greg. “I think I’ve heard most of the argument before, anyway.” Her cheeks reddened again. She’d never been a good liar. She pulled out a sliding tray containing a translucent tub with air holes in the lid. White mice scurried about inside, scrabbling in the corners and sniffing the walls.
“Are they…”
“Yep. We go through more than a dozen a day, so we breed them ourselves. Come on.”
Greg followed her as she made her way through the house, feeding each of the birds. She’d stop and talk briefly to each, rubbing their feathered necks with a curved forefinger before doling out the feed with a small grocers measuring shovel.
“So how have you been doing, anyway?” He hated making small-talk when he had other things to say, but it was easier that way, especially if Greta had heard all of the conversation.
“I was in the second year of a Master’s down in Bergen, but it was just too difficult trying to look after father and keep it up, so I deferred the year.” She dangled a mouse by the tail for an ivory-colored peregrine.
“I’m sorry,” said Greg, surprised that he actually meant it. “If I’d been around…”
“That was two years ago.”
“I’m sorry. I suppose once I got out of here it was easier to stay away.”
Polished spruce gave way to a carpet so plush and deep it almost tripped Greg as they moved into the reading room.
“You still could have called.” Greta shoveled a half measure of seed into the cage of a pair of medium-sized parrots.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why didn’t you call?”
“Because… I don’t know. At first because I was angry, and then because I knew that somehow I’d end up getting dragged into one of his schemes.” Greg caught a glimpse of himself in a full-length mirror. He looked ridiculous standing there with a bucket of Birdy Tweets in his arms, like a two-metre-tall statue of some cricket-headed space opera villain. His folded wings formed the cape, and his knee-high black leather boots completed the picture.
“And?” Greta wasn’t going to make this easy for him.
“And I was sick of being another creature in his menagerie. I was just another freak. Me and the stupid albino birds.”
“That was your construction. You were one of us, a part of us.” She blinked away tears and marched angrily down the hall, calling back over her shoulder. “I didn’t even know where you were. You could have been dead.”
“I sometimes wished I was.” As soon as the statement was out, he felt like cringing. What a melodramatic thing to say. Greta had gone out onto the walkway and was feeding a milk-white crow.
“Really. You’ve no idea how lonely I was.”
“Father never meant for you to be alone. You know that. If the ethics busybodies hadn’t pulled the plug, you’d have been one of many.”
“Well, they did pull the plug. And I’ve been on my own since the day I left here. I had a few people that I chatted to by avatar. That’s how I got work. But I can’t remember the last time I slept indoors, or spoke with a person face to face. You only see one or two people rummaging for their rifles before you get the message.”
“You had us, here.” Greta finished with the crow and came back inside, sliding the glass door closed after her.
“I’m sorry. I’m here now.”
“Only because you know the old man is on his last legs and thought you’d finally get an apology from him.”
“You were listening at the door.”
“Yes, I was. I didn’t mean to, but it just happened. I couldn’t walk in and interrupt you, but equally, I couldn’t walk away.”
“So you heard everything.”
“Yes.”
“Whatever I said, I said to hurt him, not you.”
“I know. But that doesn’t make it any easier to hear.”
Greg had no reply to that.
“Good night.” Greta stood on her tip toes to give him a quick hug, then disappeared down the corridor.
#
“It doesn’t look too good.” The doctor looked as if he couldn’t get to the front door quickly enough. He’d seen pictures of Greg, but the real thing was obviously quite a bit more than he could handle.
“How long does he have?” asked Greg.
“Difficult to say. But the fact that he’s complaining of blurred vision could mean that there are a number of smaller clots that the medicine hasn’t taken care of.”
“Days? Weeks?” Greg was glad that Greta was back in the room with the old man. He’d never have been able to speak so frankly if she were here.
“Days. A week at best.” The doctor almost shivered with relief as he stepped out of the front door. “All we can really do is make him comfortable. I’ll call again in the morning.
Greta appeared at the end of the hallway. “He wants to see us. Together[RE7] .”
#
“I hope you both know how much you mean to me.” The old man had obviously typed his speech earlier. His eyes locked on them as he spoke, tapping the return key with a frail finger to continue the monologue.
Greta nodded, followed a second later by Greg.
“I don’t have much longer left.” Indeed, he looked deflated, as if someone had snuck into the air and let some of the air out of him during the night.
“Greta, you’ve been cooped up in this house long enough. Sell it or do whatever you want with it, but go back to college. Finish your degree and maybe you’ll find yourself a nice young man while you’re at it.” He let his gaze linger on Greg to punctuate what he’d said.
“Greg, I’ve placed a call to Galbraith. There’s a place for you on the Prometheus mission. You’ll need to ring him before the end of the week to confirm. If I have any power over you, then do this one thing. It’s what you were born for.” He tapped the return key.
“Sorry, created for. I know you’ll pick up on that one.”
“But…” started Greta.
“Thank you both. I need to rest now.”
Gears shifted in Greg’s head as he and Greta made their way to the door. Even that last sentence had been written in advance. The old man had planned to cut them off as soon as they made any attempt at replying.
Henrik died shortly before dawn the following morning. Greg had spent most of the starlit night gliding about the luminous fjords before latching himself high on a granite cliff to feed and rest. He sped back to the house as soon as he received Greta’s message. As he spiraled lower over the property, he saw her forlorn figure out on the widow’s walk, the wind from the sea plucking at her hair and clothes like a malevolent spirit. The dark jade of her eyes glittered with tears.
“He’s gone,” was all she said.
The funeral took place early the next day, high on a mossy hillside overlooking a craggy inlet haunted by the eerie cries of black-headed gulls. Greta stood off to one side, hemmed in by a small circle of friends from Bergen. Greg watched as one, an arrogant-looking Viking [RE8] with a goatee and long hair, made every effort to catch her eye or touch the sleeve of her jacket. The priest and the dozen or so mourners had all acknowledged Greg upon arriving and then spent the rest of the time desperately trying to avoid looking at him. He’d worn a mask, a pale prosthetic made all the more unsettling for its complete lack of expression. However bad that was, Greg was sure it was better than what lay beneath. Behind it, he ground his mandibles with a force that would have pulverized rock.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” After what felt like hours, the priest sprinkled soil on the lid of the coffin and stood back to allow those gathered to say their farewells.
Greta, sobbing, leaned forward and let the single white rose she’d been holding fall. The Viking was quick off the mark with a consoling arm.
Greg was seized with a sudden rage. He wanted to scream, but he had been born without a voice. He seized the mask from his face and flung it on to the grave. A sharp inhalation chorused from the mourners. Greg ran.
It was late evening when Greg returned to the house. The orange pools of light cast from the windows of the homes he passed had always made him feel wistful and lonely, but this time the lights were coming from his home. The old man had finally done the decent thing. Greta would be inside, sipping a brandy by the fireplace, ready to take him in her arms. They’d talk until dawn and fall asleep on the rugs, his hand on her hair, her lips curved in a faint smile as she slept.
But as he circled closer, Greg saw that Greta had brought her friends back from the funeral. There were ten of them. They stood in small groups by the windows, chatting in somber tones, sipping wine and nibbling crackers. Greta and her long-haired friend were out on the walkway. She appeared to be doing all the talking. He was nodding patiently, pursing his lips and casting his eyes to the ground in commiseration and agreement to whatever Greta was saying.
Seeing them together, Greg felt a chill run through his bones. Greg furled his wings and dropped into the upper branches of a spruce tree. Had his physiology allowed it, his chest would have heaved with emotion. Hot tears would have stung his eyes, and he would have gasped and panted as if in physical pain. As it was, he watched through dry and glittering orbs as the Viking led Greta back into the house. He watched as they said good night to the others. He watched as they entered the bedroom and Greta let her dress fall from her shoulders.
Shortly before noon, Greta’s friends drifted kitchen-ward from the various corners of the house, tousle haired and hungover. They brewed strong coffee and lit cigarettes, pulling their bare feet up under their housecoats as they planned the day. Greg remained unmoving in his perch. His keen hearing caught snippets of the conversation: “Pack for a couple of days… Well leave him a note if you need to… Don’t worry about the birds, I;ll call somebody to come and look after them…”
They emerged from the house showered and fresh half an hour later. Greg waited until he heard the automatic gates swing closed before hurling himself from the tree.
Sure enough, Greta had left a note for him. A single sheet torn from a refill pad awaited on the kitchen counter:
Greg, this is the hardest letter I have ever written. I think you were right to stay away all that time. You have too many unresolved issues. You’re even angrier than I remembered. You scare me.
I can never be with you the way you want me to be. I really can’t see a way for us to move forward, and I know we can’t go back
I have to think of myself for once. I’m going to go back to college. Arne says I can stay with him until I get my own place. I’ll write you when I get settled in.
All my love, Greta.
Greg crumpled the note and flung it into a corner. His fury boiled over and he staggered, seething, to the egret’s cage. The bird, sensing danger, began to flap its wings in distress. Greg seized the cage and tore it in half. The egret lunged upwards in a wild bid for freedom. Greg batted it to the ground. It landed squawking in a flurry of feathers, then began to hop towards the open door, dragging a pathetic and useless wing. With one step, Greg was upon it. He punted the poor creature with his foot. It rebounded from the window in a tangle of limbs and feathers, dead.
Minutes later, Greg stood gripping the terrace railing. A jury made of the remaining birds looked on from the relative safety of the trees that ringed the house, silent in their recrimination. The decking by his feet was littered with bloodied white feathers, interspersed here and there with a plump but lifeless body.
Greg stood in his dock until the melted ball of the sun began to pour into the sea to the west. He looked down at the railing. It had been bent completely out of shape. A noise from the trees made him look up. The stork had launched itself from the spruce and was flapping off into the dusk with the languorous strokes of its powerful wings. As it disappeared, some of the smaller birds began to hop closer to the house, wondering where their next meal was, or eager to explore the strange new statue. One landed on the railing not two feet from Greg’s elbow and cocked its head to regard him with a beady eye. It was too much. Greg fled into the house, locked the door behind him, and began pulling the curtains shut.
The last thing he did before he left the house was call Dr. Galbraith.
“Greg? Yes, I’ve been expecting your call. Henrik told me you’d be in touch.” Greg almost hung up at that.
“Greg?”
“Yes, yes. I’m here, Dr. Galbraith.”
“Tim.”
“Tim.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your father. He was a great man.”
“Yes.”
“You must be sick of hearing that.” A pause. “Greg?”
“Yes. I’m here. So when do you want me over there?”
“We’re ready to go when you are. We need to allow as long as possible for basic training and for me to find out what I can about your capabilities. Callista isn’t going to wait for us. She’s got a couple of months in our neighborhood, and then she’s out of here. When can you leave?”
“Send me your location and I’ll leave tonight.”
The pencil bounced off Greg’s wing and floated upward, rotating end over end in a lazy arc.
“He’s asleep. I told you,” said the Russian, Cherenkova. She had the body of a gymnast but the voice of a power-lifter.
“He hasn’t moved in more than twenty hours,” whispered Mitchell, pushing softly against the hatchway with his stockinged feet. “Perhaps we should get the skipper to take a look at him.”
Greg watched the two astronauts behind him in the reflection from the viewport. The fools couldn’t even tell whether he was awake or not. The pride of Earth! He toyed briefly with the idea of spinning and grabbing the American by the throat. That should take the wind out of their sails. Perhaps put their coupling back a couple of days.
“You two looking for something to do?” The skipper’s voice jerked him from his reverie. He had floated silently up while the two were watching Greg.
“Er, yes, Sir,” stammered Mitchell.
“Heh! Thought so. I want every air filter fully checked, ASAP.”
Mitchell, realizing his mistake, grimaced. “Yes[RE10] , Sir.” Kicking out again, he followed Cherenkova into the next compartment.
“Remind me of kids throwing coins on a ’gator’s back just to see if he’ll move. You all right, there, Berg?”
Greg has asked them to use his first name, but this was a military mission. First names were for pansies. Greg turned from the window and keyed a response on his arm. “Yes, Sir. Just trying to stay out of the way, until it’s my turn to contribute, Sir.” He didn’t know if the skipper would buy that kind of horseshit, and frankly, he didn’t care. They’d bounced a pencil off him, for chrissakes.
He’d learned enough from the psych evaluation to know that nobody had the slightest idea what was going on in his head. All the way through the Rorschach test he’d said whatever he thought they’d want to hear. Who were they to judge his physiological reactions, anyway? Make a note of that, Jones! He just moved his mandibles in response to Card 57. A shadow of wings on the moon. A moth sitting on a rock. How very interesting…
“Yes, well, it wouldn’t hurt for you to join the others. Good for morale. Probably give them a chance to see you’re not all that different from them.”
“Yes, Sir,” said Greg.
Greg had watched the Earth recede until it was nothing more than an anonymous point of light, lost in the starfield like a grain of sand on a beach.
Greta’s last words still hung in his ears. Her message had been brief. “I never thought you were a monster until I saw what you did to the birds. How could you? I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for up there. Don’t bother to return my call.”
That wasn’t what kept him glued to the viewport, however. It pained him to admit it, but he was transfixed by the slow crawl of the stars. Perhaps his father had been right all along.
“Berg! Get strapped in! You’re going EVA.” Greg understood now why the military stuck to protocol when it came to addressing one another: it gave them a way to communicate when the situation would have dwarfed them.
Greg nodded and began to wrestle his way into the harness. They had agreed that when his hands were busy, Greg would nod yes or no to show acquiescence or disagreement. Cherenkova and Wilson, the Science Officer helped him shrug his way into the straps.
“Right,” continued the skipper. “Are we ready?”
“Sir!” answered the two.
“Good. Now, Berg, we don’t want any heroics out there. This is no different from one of your practice walks. All we want you to do is attach a line to that hunk of rock and let the remotes on the unit do the rest. Once we get a reading, we’ll decide on whether or not it’s safe for you to go over there. Remember we don’t have much time.” The skipper clapped him on the back. “Godspeed.”
Greg turned to look at the assembled crew. For the first time, he saw something close to respect in their eyes. He gave a curt nod and stepped into the lock. As the hatch slid into place, he felt the impact of the moment overwhelm him. His knees suddenly grew weak, and he had the sudden urge to curl up into a ball.
A red light blinked on to warn him of the depressurization, then the outer lock cycled open and he was standing on the edge of space. The silence was crushing. A nebulous yearning blossomed deep in his breast.
The comet spun slowly on its axis, trailing a tail that stretched back for thousands of kilometers. The coma arced ahead, a silver pale wash of superheated gasses. He understood now why the planets were called heavenly bodies. Callista was a goddess. Greg raised the harpoon and sent the titanium claw racing across the divide. The guide wire went taut and thrummed with the impact as it made contact.
“Good work, Berg,” came the voice of the skipper over his headpiece. Greg thought he heard a ragged cheer from the assembled crew. “Now we need to get that unit over there pronto. If there is any change in the axial movement of the main body, the auto release will free the tethers and we’ll have missed our chance.”
Greg looked down at the remote. It was made up of a cylindrical unit mounted on a set of electrically-powered rollers that would carry it across the gap and onto the surface of the comet.
“Berg? Are you receiving? Please respond.”
Greg nodded once and clipped the unit onto the taut wire of the tether.
“Remote in position. Good work. Now get that thing over there.”
Greg opened the panel that covered the controls for the unit. Greta’s words came unbidden to his mind… I hope you find whatever it is you are looking for up there. He looked across at the elongated walnut shape of the comet’s body. Rock studded with glistening veins of metal. Deep fissures lined with a cocktail of frozen chemicals. You were right to stay away…
“… damn it, Berg, are you receiving?”
Greg made no attempt to signal that he had heard the question. Instead, he leaned forward and thumbed the unit’s ignition. The high whine of the motors went unheard in the vacuum as he was whipped away from the ship. The body of the comet sped closer, growing as it filled Greg’s vision. He manually slowed the unit and spread his wings, floating the last few meters to the surface.
“… the hell?” drifted through the static on his headset as it drifted off into the darkness.
Buffeted by superheated gasses, Greg lay down on the body of his new mistress. Using the retractable hairs in his palms and feet, Greg grappled his way into a deep crevice and put his mandibles to a smooth nub of rock. It was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted. Settling down in the furrow, he spread his wings so that he was pressed into the surface of the rock.
It was going to be a long ride.