No One Can Hear You (Original Short Fiction)

Nobody knew what had happened. The mission was proceeding as planned: the new long-range infrared telescope had been installed and the data uplink with HQ, and consequently with the live online video stream, was fully operational. It was when the rotors that would allow HQ to operate the telescope remotely from Earth were being installed that something went wrong; the mechanical arms that we could see finishing the installation on the video stream suddenly went dead. All communications with the shuttle ceased. It was presumed that there had been some sort of systems failure. I knew better than that. If the systems had failed, why was the stream still live? Sure, it was operating on an independent circuit, drawing energy from the solar panels on the body of the telescope, but the data stream itself still needed to run through the gravitational relay field of the ship. If that had failed, the data stream would have switched to the analog link and begun emitting at light speed towards the nearest relay station instead -- a process that would have taken several days at the very least. Yet there it was, for anyone with access to HQ's private server to see: the cosmos, in all their effulgence, reeling slowly as the ship casually somersaulted through the heavens.

For the first few days we still had hope that it really was merely a mechanical error; that something in the control circuit had malfunctioned and had taken the communications system down with it. We hoped, and we prayed, and we stayed in contact with HQ, sure that some new development would put our fears to rest. But that development never came; our prayers were never answered. HQ's condolences were hardly comforting; they were merely out a few million dollars -- I was out a father.

I stayed in touch with Michael Bronson, one of the supervising engineers on the project. He had been a close friend of my father, and was one of the few people at HQ who truly understood the pain of our loss. He had been the one who had given us the link to the video stream in the first place -- something he could very well have lost his job over. It was frustrating knowing that he had as little information on what had happened as we did. At first we thought he was hiding the truth from us, through some misguided attempt to protect us, but soon it became clear that HQ truly had no idea what had happened. It seems HQ has a policy for this situation: if, during a mission, all communication is lost and not restored within five days, the astronaut is presumed KIA. The day that Michael showed up on our doorstep, five days after losing communication with the ship, was the worst day of our lives.

The following weeks were agony. We had a funeral service for my father; a cheap and meaningless gesture without a body, I thought. My mother was an emotional wreck for weeks, and I was still in denial. My older sister Janine was the only one who seemed able to cope with the loss. Thank God for that. My mother spent her time crying and shuffling around the house with a vacant expression on her face. I spent my time watching the video stream.

It was truly beautiful. The last thing that my father had done before his mysterious disappearance was enable the telescope feed. I kept that open with the ship's installation feed alongside it. In one, there were the limp mechanical arms, still gripping the tools that my father had been using; in the other, entire solar systems and nebulae across the galaxy drifted slowly by, various temperature signatures and statistics being attached to the visuals by the onboard computer. My screen was awash in ever-changing colors and patterns, like a cosmic kaleidoscope. For days, that's all I needed. I told myself that my father was merely as captivated by it as I was, and that any moment he would return to his work. For a time, I honestly believed it.

Gradually, I began to accept that my father was not coming home. I still could not move from my computer, but began keeping my eyes on the installation feed more and more, hoping fervently that I would see the arms come to life again. Many times, the tears that welled up uncontrollably would distort my vision and make me think, for a split second, that one of the arms had moved, but a quick wipe of my face and my heart would sink again.

It was like this for days, my depression overwhelming me. I no longer sat staring at my computer screen because of hope, but because I simply did not have the energy to do anything else. My sister would bring me food and try to talk some sense into me, but I just sat there, still, vacant, silent. I felt completely empty, like my mind had simply switched off. The feed was all I knew.

After what felt like a terrible eternity of this, something caught my attention. In the corner of my eye, I saw a bright sparkle of light. I shifted my gaze to the telescope feed and saw what looked like a brilliant fireworks display. Unlike the various star systems that drifted on and off screen, this had no accompanying data, as though the computer did not even recognize that it was there. The spectacle lasted only a few seconds, after which my heart leapt into my throat -- there was movement on the installation feed. I fumbled with my phone and quickly sent Michael a text, telling him to check it for himself. I was worried that I had gone crazy after so long. Shortly afterward he sent me a link to a communications patch between HQ and the ship. My heart was racing as I connected to it. I put on my headset and nearly blacked out from shock as I heard my father's voice crackle through the earphones.

"n't have a lot of time. I can finish the rotor hookup but then I have to get out."

I heard Michael's voice crackle in response.

"Pat, what's your current situation? There has been radio silence for three weeks. Simon, are you listening?"

I choked on my words as tears streamed down my cheeks.

"Y-yeah. Hi, dad." My sobs garbled most of my speech. I had to mute my microphone just so I could hear the conversation over them.

"Simon? Why are you patched in? Michael, what do you mean 'three weeks'? It hasn't been a few minutes?"

"No, Pat, it's been three weeks. What has been going on?"

The arms stopped moving as the rotor clicked into place.

"Look, Michael, just check that the remote connection is operational."

There was a moment of silence and the telescope feed started to shift from side to side.

"Yeah, it works, Pat. Good job. Now do you mind filling us in?"

There was some rustling in the background.

"Okay, well, as near as I can figure it, our hyperspace relay feeds caught somebody's attention. Somebody non-human. Shortly after I initialized the telescope feed, I was transported from the ship somehow. If it's really been as long as you say it has, I'm assuming that wherever I was taken was inside some kind of massive spatial distortion. Possibly near the galactic center, on the edge of the event horizon. How I'm still alive, I have no idea. All I know is that one minute I was here on the ship, and the next I was in some bizarre and disorienting place. Now that I think about it, everything there seemed odd. Like, the geometry was wrong. Things curved into the distance at weird angles. Maybe that had something to do with the distortion."

There was some clicking in the background.

"Pat, are you starting up the escape pod?"

"Yes. I don't know if those...things are going to transport me back. To be honest, I don't even know how I got back here in the first place. One of them approached me with some sort of device in its...in one of its appendages. I rushed it and snatched the device from it. It looks kind of like a walkie-talkie, or a mini ham radio or something, but the writing on it is unintelligible to me. I thought maybe I could use it to signal for help. As I fiddled with the buttons, I suddenly ended up back here. I finished the mission, but I'm not taking the time to disengage the on-site warp field generator and connect it to the telescope. The whole damn ship can bloody well stay here and the next guy, God help him, can do it himself."

"Understood. Godspeed, Pat. I'll have a pickup rendezvous with you at the relay station. I'm sure HQ will be anxious to get a look at the transportation device. Just please stay in contact with us over the next couple months so we don't have to go through this again."

"No problem. And, Simon?"

I wiped my nose and did my best to clear my throat before I turned my microphone back on.

"Yeah, dad?"

"I'm sorry about this. I love you, son. Please tell your mother what happened."

I struggled to keep my throat open as my nose started running again.

"Okay, dad. I love you, too."

I switched my microphone back off. It was going to be half a year before my dad got home. I didn't have the heart to tell him that mom had killed herself earlier that week.

---

Well, that was depressing. You know what's not depressing? Following along with SNOWBOUND. It's a lot of fun, but it's going to come to a very swift and untimely end if people don't participate, so let's get some comments going. What do you want our protagonist to do next? Catch up on the story and submit some ideas! Nothing is too crazy -- just have fun with it!