Pet Rocks

• 4 •

I wait to inspect the box in the airlock, back at the beacon. If there’s any contamination, I can purge the airlock and decontaminate myself before entering the living space or removing my suit. I’m not hopeful though. The blip of life on my display was already fading fast when I brought the object inside. I’m starting to think someone’s order for a pet frog or worms to go fishing with was cracked open when that container took a tumble.

I set the box down on the changing bench in the airlock and drop the medkit satchel on the floor. Rummaging through the medkit, I find the biogen scanner. There’s a massive red warning stamped on it: “DO NOT REMOVE HELMET BEFORE USE.” Which makes me think they should have the warning on the inside of our visor, not on the scanner. By the time you’re reading this warning, you’ve already acted responsibly. I fumble with the infuriatingly little power switch on the scanner, wondering how many space monkeys have removed their thick gloves before operating this thing and how bad a job NASA does at creating and placing warnings.

It finally powers up. I wave the scanner over my suit, around my helmet, up and down my arms, then slowly bring it toward the box. I orbit the box twice. I can feel the scanner humming in my palm. An amber light flashes while it takes its readings, and then, finally, the light goes green.

Green means everything is okay. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what it means. Or does green mean, Yes, we found something hazardous? No, that wouldn’t make any sense. I’m just second-guessing because this is scary shit, and I remind myself that if there was anything in the air that would react with my body, it would’ve reacted with the scanner. What I really want right now is a second scanner to scan this scanner. And maybe a third.

My hibernating little OCD self seems to be stirring. He only does this when he’s pretty sure I’m about to die a horrible, grisly death. I saw a lot of this guy in the war. But during the last week, he’s been that old college roommate who just drops in one day, crashes on the couch, and next thing you know he’s living with you and leaving the milk out on the counter.

Ah, fuck it. I either die in the airlock breathing in some toxin being mailed to a politician, or I sit around until a large hunk of debris punches a hole in the wall, sucking out every bit of my atmosphere. I debate whether or not to hold my breath. Is the massive, wheezing inhalation that follows worse than all the small little puffing breaths I might take instead? (I often debated this when a squad mate would lay a fart with a howl of laughter. Breathe normal? Or put it off and then risk sucking that fart so deep into your lungs that it stays there forever, little fart cells melding way inside the core of you?)

I go with the sipping breath technique, lips pursed, almost whistling as I breathe in little gasping bits of air. Trusting that damn scanner, I pop my visor. The breathing technique makes me a little dizzy. At least, I think it’s the breathing. My OCD roommate is screaming in my skull, yelling, “Told you so!” and assuring me we’re both about to die and that it’s all my fault for not listening to him.

I pop my helmet and tug off my gloves. I breathe more normally, and the dizziness subsides. My roommate shrugs, munches on a cold slice of pizza, and turns back to the TV. I return my attention to the little box.

There’s a pair of shears in the medkit for cutting gauze and snipping away walk suits. I use these to cut the cardboard box that’s still partially concealing the gleaming wood. I’m careful not to destroy the label, as I’m sure NASA will want to know who the package was going to and where it was coming from. Glancing at the name, I see that it was heading to a university on Oxford. The initials are SAU. Never heard of it. But there are only a few thousand universities on Oxford, and I could probably name two. The recipient is a Prof. Allard Bockman. The sender’s name was damaged by the impact, but I’m sure NASA will be able to track the barcode.

I set the cardboard aside and study the box, which is gorgeous even in its damaged state. An ornate pattern carved around the perimeter looks like a chain of links, all intertwined. It’s imperfect enough for me to imagine it was done by hand, but it’s precise enough that I recognize the talent and care put into it. Or maybe a machine made it with just enough variation to fool me into thinking it was done by hand. You never know what’s real these days. How do cynics find joy in even the simplest of things anymore?

The first thing I inspect is the damage. I probe the destroyed corner with my thumb; there are jagged splinters everywhere. It occurs to me, suddenly—my roommate drops his slice of pie and jumps from the couch in alarm—that the hole may have been created from within, rather than punched from without. Maybe something escaped!

I set the box down and take a step back, nearly tripping over my helmet. The sight of one of my gloves out of the corner of my eye looks like a giant white spider for a moment. I shriek. I remember the fear I used to feel in the army from seeing a sword-leech in my bunk—and then the much greater fear from no longer seeing the sword-leech in my bunk—and electricity rushes up my spine.

There’s an itch by my knee.

And something moving along my hip and up my ribs.

I claw at the suit I haven’t taken off for a week, trying to remember where the buckles and zippers and snaps are. Working my arms and legs free, I realize the itching is probably from having the damn thing on for a week, and that I’ve been itching constantly for days. And that the only thing likely to kill me in that suit is the damn stench.

Naked and sweating, breathing hard, a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of NASA garb inside out and scattered like a tux on a wedding night, I try to remember a guy who used to pick up a rifle and run toward a legion of Ryph with balls of plasma blooming on either side of him, eruptions of dirt, dogfights in the atmo, and kinetic missiles zipping down from orbit.

Who is this limp-dick, shell-shocked, mamby-wamby space monkey I’ve become?

Was this me before boot camp?

This was me back in high school. The real me. What the hell did the army do to me?

That’s when I hear the scratching noise. Coming from the box sitting on the airlock bench.

And a small voice that does not seem to be coming from inside my head.