NEBULA (Part I)
NEBULA (Part I)
By Christine
The moon is about to enter a massive nebula with its deadly radiations. The inhabitants of moonbase Alpha decide to transfer to underground facilities to avoid particle radiations, but their hope for survival is tenuous, in face of the tremendous forces ahead of them. The only one holding the secret of their survival goes missing during the busy transfer... It is Helena…
Chapter 1.
"It is so pretty". He said his voice subdued.
"It is our death" She stated matter-of-factly. They were standing quietly by the window of the commander's office. She was leaning against him, her back on his chest and he had wrapped his arms around her shoulders. The couple was looking at a strange glowing object in the distance, a massive cloud of bright gas with swirls of darker regions, expanding and shifting in most gorgeous colors.
"I thought we would be able to survive" She heard the tears in his voice and turned around to look at him with tenderness.
"Is our survival that important? We have left a legacy behind us already. We have changed so many universes" Her voice was soft and resigned.
"Helena, I just wanted more" She looked up and gently kissed him on the lips. His comlock beeped and Helena pulled away from John as Victor entered.
"That's it. We basically are ready to go down to the shelters. We are all set. All systems have been transferred in the underground technical sections. All essential personnel is already settled, research labs are operating. Helena, what is the status of medical?"
Helena answered, back in her professional manners.
"Victor, we are set. All medical equipment brought down from the surface is functioning. Dr. Mathias and I have set up all of the underground facilities; we will be ready to receive patients as soon as needed. All we have left is an emergency station, here, in the surface medical center. I am going to go get it and transfer control and files down to the underground facility before we all go down." Helena had worked several weeks in a row to set up the medical facilities and her new private quarters down in the underground level, since they had first detected the nebula. They were progressing relentlessly to the nebula and it had been clear early on that they would not been able to avoid it. It was a dark nebula, reflecting star light and glow of a surrounding expanding radiating nebula.
"I think we are ready to transfer computer control completely to the lower sections. I will ask Kano to start the procedures" John Koenig looked at her decisively, and then turned to Victor.
"What about the force field, Victor?"
Victor hesitated
"Well, it protected us from the black sun against all odds. But here we are dealing with something quite different. Enormous levels of radiation, shock waves, soaring temperatures, dark matter, atomic and ionized hydrogen and other atoms, ultraviolet and X-rays, and most likely fast neutrons, electrons…. Quite honestly, I do not know" Victor looked gloomy.
"Victor, we do not know what protected us from the black sun anymore that we know why we survived all these years in the strangest encounters" John stated "But I believe that we have a chance, just as we did then"
The nebula with its radiations and heat was showing the most wonderful bright colors, as if a cosmic painter had dropped splashes of glowing paint on a dark background.
Victor continued: "it is difficult to predict what will happen when we penetrate its vicinity. It most likely will fry our electronic equipment on the surface. This is why we transferred downstairs."
"And fry our DNA" Helena interjected.
"But under protection of meters of rock, lead and force shield, we might stand a very slim chance" Victor sighted. "Unfortunately, if we get out of there alive, the surface buildings will be too irradiated for us to come and live there"
"How much time do we have before we approach the nebula?" John asked.
"The radiation levels have been increasing rather rapidly. Even if we just edged the nebula and did not fully penetrate it, it would be quite lethal very soon. I think we ought to go down within the next five or six hours, if we want to remain within safety limits. But in fact, we will not enter the densest part of the nebula for another ten days. By then, who knows…" Victor replied.
The glowing cloud was now taking most of their visible horizon. For weeks, all kinds of solutions had been attempted, but with little fuel to attempt a course change, the only way seemed to try and protect their people from the radiation harmful effects and hope for the best. This time, John Koenig had decided against sending a survival Eagle, as he had tried when they faced the black sun, as such an attempt seemed even more futile in the hostile environment they were now facing. So they had watched the beautiful and deadly cloud of star dust grow in their horizon with a sense of desperation. During one particularly stressful brainstorming session, they had decided to move the base in the underground levels, normally used for storage, with the hope that layers of moon rock would somewhat protect them. Nobody really addressed the real motive for this move: to keep everyone busy in the face of destruction and to give an ultimate goal and hope to the survivors of moonbase Alpha. Indeed, it had been hard work. They had to transfer life support systems and computer control. They had to rebuild hydroponics and move technical sections down below. It took several weeks of implementation following a strict schedule along several phases. The work had busied their lives and minds. But now at the last phase, they would have to move down and say goodbye to the surface sections. The reality of the eminent contact with the nebula felt like a last dance. They would have to wait with hope, in the logical mind of these scientists, for their death. For now, the ultimate test had to be performed with the complete transfer of computer functions to the underground command center, where the databases were being installed. Once this was completed the main computer would be dismantled and the hardware brought to the lower sections. Restarting the computer systems then would restore full functionality.
Kano had calculated that five hours would be necessary to complete the computer transfer.
"Kano, start computer power down" John turned back to Helena and Victor. "Helena, how much time do you need to transfer medical files and get the last emergency system downstairs?"
Helena replied "No more than four hours, John" Her eyes locked with his. She knew how pointless this move was. She was playing well the game of hope, without really believing it. It is a game of futility, she had said to him privately. The medical scientist knew too well the effects of radiation at the level they were about to encounter on living systems. Even if they did not fully penetrate the nebula but skirted it, radiation would reach lethal levels quickly. The solution to this impending destruction, she intuitively knew, laid somewhere else. But John, in his command role, with the desperation to survive and save his people, had no time for philosophical discussions with her. John pushed the intercom button. "This is Commander John Koenig. All non-essential personal should have reported to the underground level. If you have not, do so immediately. We will be shutting down all Alpha surface sections at 18:00 hours. That is six hours from now. Countdown started." He looked down, cut off transmission and whispered: "And now we need to close this command center permanently" He looked around at his office and the double door open to the command center, which usually would have been busying with activity, but which was strangely quiet with most of its systems already switched off, and he barely could contain his emotion. In his office, all that was left was his big chair. Victor put a comforting hand on his arm. "Let's go John, we need to transfer the computer files" John turned to Helena, seeing in her green eyes a reflection of his own emotions. His voice was soft: "when you are done packing the entire emergency unit and powering down medical, go immediately to the underground command center. I will meet you there". He added: "Be careful. You will not be able to communicate after the command center is deactivated"
"Be careful too" she whispered. His fingers trailed her cheek as a soft caress and she smiled a silent goodbye of unspoken love. Then she left the room swiftly to go to the now empty medical center.
The corridors were dark already as most of the power had been redirected downstairs. The silence and darkness of those once lively corridors was unsettling. An eerie light, originated from the nebula, illuminated her path. She paused to contemplate the beauty of the multicolored rainbows reflecting on the walls of the base. The bright colors were swirling in a dance like sunshine passing through stained glass windows of a giant cathedral, but more vivid and much more intense. It was unlike anything she had seen before. The radiant light was coming from the windows and she approached to look at the stunning display offered by the nebula. "Who would have thought death so beautiful" she whispered in wonder. Then she turned and made her way to medical where she kept herself busy packing the last emergency unit. It took about three hours for the file upload, during which she finished loading the last boxes. A technician came over with a rolling cart and picked up the material to bring it down and Helena just waited for the last files to upload to the new computer system. Alone in the medical center, as the time approaching the end of the countdown was drawing near, Helena powered down the medical systems. "Medical center life support units, turn power off, section M, ICU.". Lights went off completely and the glowing from the nebula became more vibrant as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. It was odd to see all of the systems off, after having lived and worked here so many years. "Computer, unlock doors, deactivate after this message. Dr. Helena Russell signing out". She keyed in the code and the computer went off line. After a long sad look around the now completely empty and dark medical center, she turned around and left.
Chapter 2.
An exhausted John Koenig made it down the stairs to the underground command center. All surface areas were now off line and powered down. The procedure had gone smoothly without any major faults and the main computer had been rebooted successfully. Everyone was relieved that no major system failure had threatened them.
"Four, three, two, one, zero. Countdown completed. Seal the radiation doors" All doors were locked and the only communications with the outside were established through cameras, satellite transmission and the scientific sensors left on the surface. John released a big sigh. Now the wait had begun, and it was quite a wait; it would take several days to find out if their move downstairs was able to protect them efficiently from the radiations. It would take about two weeks to enter the center of the nebula and much more to completely traverse it. They would have to see if they would make it through the nebula alive. Victor came over, excited at the readings he was already receiving from the sensors. "John, this is unbelievable, look at this…"
"Victor, have you seen Helena?"
"She must be in medical getting the files up and running"
"I told her to meet us here" John, worried, went over to Sandra's desk.
"Sandra, where is Dr. Russell?"
"I have not seen Dr. Russell at all" Sandra replied puzzled. "Last time I saw her was when we still were upstairs". John frowned suddenly nervous and picked up his comlock.
"Dr. Russell to command center… Dr. Russell, please, come in… Helena!" Victor turned around at John's tone of voice, feeling his rising panic.
"Medical have you seen Dr. Russell?"
Mathias replied: "No commander, I thought she was with you"
"Computer, locate Dr. Russell"
"Dr. Russell is not on moonbase Alpha"
John's face turned very pale. "That is not possible".
Victor came over to him. "If she was still upstairs, the computer would not be able to detect her comlock. All surface sections are now off-line". And he added: "we know she handed the emergency unit over to one of the technicians and then turned the power off in medical, so she was done and probably was making her way downstairs"
John's reaction was immediate: "I've got to get back up there. Something must have happened, Victor" His voice was shaking and everyone turned to look at him. Victor was computing rapidly. "She should have been back one hour and a half ago. That means that she has been exposed to high levels of radiations in the past half an hour. The data that we are getting back is showing a sharp increase in radiation levels, John. The doors are sealed, if we reopen, we will contaminate the underground levels. We cannot risk that. If you go out now that way, nobody will make it" Victor lowered his voice in sadness. "She has been exposed to levels of radiation that are above limits, John" John turned to face him, his face flushed with anger. "What are you trying to tell me, Victor?" Embarrassed, Victor lowered his eyes and shook his head. "Victor, she is not dead. I know it." He was incensed. "I feel it…right here!" And with his clenched fist, he banged at his heart, and then left the command center raging. After a minute of hesitation, Victor followed him. John paced several minutes in the technical section, blaming himself for leaving her alone. Abruptly, his decision made, he started to undress and put a spacesuit. He could not reopen the sealed radiation doors without contaminating the underground sections, but he could exit through the door leading to the catacombs and walk back on the moon surface to reenter the surface areas. It would take a long time and expose him to radiations, but he did not care. He just wanted to get to Helena. Victor found him at last, when John was putting on the spacesuit gloves. "You are not going out, are you?" John looked at him, eyes burning with determination. "Victor, I am not leaving her alone up there to die. She must be injured. I will not leave her. This is final" He continued to set his suit busily. "John, this is suicide" Victor stated. John turned to look at him and grabbed both of his arms as he answered: "Then let it be. Without Helena, I would not want to live anyhow"
"John, you have a duty to this base"
"I have a duty to my family. Helena is my family". It was the first time stated his relationship with Helena explicitly to Victor. The couple had been very private about their growing feelings for one another, but their love had been obvious to Victor.
As he realized that John would not give up, Victor consulted the computer.
"At this point with the current radiation level, you should not stay exposed more than 10 minutes in the open. Once you are inside, the shields might protect you some more, but I would keep your exposure under 20 minutes. Any time beyond this and you may get exposed to dangerous radiation levels and risk all kinds of side effects. You will have to go out by the catacombs, on section D and walk over the moon surface to… hum…" he paused "to section E, yes, section E. There you should find an airlock with a manual mechanism to open it from the outside. Do not attempt to get back through the sealed doors, they will not reopen from the outside. If you find Helena, you will have to bring her back the same way, so she would have to be in a space suit. Your communication systems will not work out there, as the radiation interferences will be too great." He thought for a moment. "If she is badly hurt, I do not know how you will bring her back"
"I know how…" Both men turned around surprised to see a smiling Carter. Alan said beaming: "Commander, do you think I was going to let you go out there alone? If we are going to fry from this nebula in the next days, I'd rather take a chance and fry up there trying to help you" He added: "Let's take a moon buggy, it will shorten the amount of time we spend exposed. Let's also take a pressurized emergency stretcher in case Helena cannot walk"
John nodded appreciatively "Thanks". Alan gave him a slap on the back. "Let's go mate. We have an appointment with your lady"
Chapter 3.
With the moon buggy it was easier and faster to cross the moon landscape from the entrance of the catacombs to section E of the surface buildings. The nebula like a giant cat eye was watching over the two men as they made their way along the grey moon surface, now illuminated by beams of glowing colorful light.
"Time elapsed?" John asked.
"3 minutes and 45 seconds" Alan answered.
"Not bad"
The airlock of section E opened without resistance and both men penetrated the now dead surface sections of the base. Once they were inside and the airlock closed, they were able to remove their helmets, since breathable air was still distributed.
"We've got to find her, but where" Alan questioned.
"Well, she was working in medical and we know she disconnected the computer system. So logically, she would have left and made her way back to command center to find the stairs to the lower sections. She knew that the elevators were put off line, so she would have gone to the emergency stairs."
"We should start in medical" Alan commented. Both men made their way to medical to find the section empty as Helena had left it. Then they took the corridor going to command center. "No signs of her". As they made their way back, John got more and more silent, deep in his thoughts. He was now shaken by her absence. He simply was walking automatically, searching the darkened corridors as if he was in a middle of a terrible endless nightmare. Every second passed reduced their chances to find her and exposed them to more radiations.
"Commander, look over there" Alan pointed to a darkened section of the corridor. "It looks like this section collapsed".
Clumsily impaired by his suit, John ran over. "She is probably trapped under there".
Alan was puzzled. "I wonder why the structure collapsed. There was no tremor, no impact of meteorite. And besides, there is no decompression. So the outside seals held"
"Are you sure Alan? How is the air pressure?"
"Normal, commander"
Alan continued to inspect the rumble. "There are signs of scorching. There must have been an explosion"
"Alan, I hear something" Both men became very quiet to listen. From under the block of cements and the torn beams they heard a barely audible low moan.
"Helena?" John called and ran over in the direction of the sound.
It took John and Alan several minutes to clear up some of the rumbles in their way. John's strength had multiplied under the stress and the determination to find her. And then they saw her. John froze, when he saw her body with a leg bent at odd angle and tangled under a beam and wires. A puddle of blood had spread on the floor from her abdomen and her torn uniform was soaked. She had burn marks on her shoulder, arm and face. The uniform sleeve had melted and coagulated into a synthetic blob under the heat, leaving the skin and flesh of her arm and shoulder raw, blistered and exposed. He slowly kneeled down beside her. "Helena" he whispered. She was breathing fast and shallow. Her face was dangerously pale and the burned marks were sharply contrasting with the whiteness of her skin. She weakly opened her eyes and looked at him with a sense of recognition.
"So beautiful…" she murmured in a shallow breath and added "John…"
John, tears streaming down his cheeks, turned to Alan. "We've got to get her back quickly".
"Is it safe to move her?" Alan questioned.
"Probably not, but we do not have any other option. If we leave her here any longer, she will die"
Alan ran back to get the pressurized stretcher, while John slowly started to move the beam blocking Helena's legs. With much effort, he managed to dislodge it and free her.
Then he came back by her side and tried to comfort her. "We are going to take you back now, Helena. You are going to be ok". He was never really good at lying and did not want to insult her intelligence. Most certainly, if Helena was aware of her condition, she would know how seriously hurt she was. Helena opened her eyes slowly to look at him and whispered "John". He bent and very gently kissed her mouth with tenderness. When Alan came back, she had slipped out of consciousness again. Both men lifted the torn body of Helena onto the stretcher and doing so revealed a puddle of blood under her back, her hair pasted by the dry blood and the fabric of her uniform sticky and wet. They placed her carefully in the pressurized stretcher and closed the air tight lid. John turned a valve and established air pressure inside. As the men secured back their gloves and helmets, John realized with an unsettled feeling that his hands were sticky from her blood. It took all of his concentration to keep the nausea away. He had to save her; it was the only important goal. They raced back to the moon buggy with Helena safely protected in the back in the pressurized stretcher and started to drive back to the catacombs entrance. As soon as they reentered the radiation shelter, communications came back. "Dr. Mathias, we found Dr. Russell, she is badly hurt and has lost a lot of blood. Have medical ready"
Suddenly, every nurse, every technician and every doctor on the team came in and they rushed Helena, now unconscious, to the intensive care unit. One nurse was cutting the torn fabric of her suit to expose her wounds and setting up an I.V. with a bag of blood, as they were walking to medical. John removed his space suit quickly and followed them to medical, apprehension etched on his face.
Chapter 4.
She lay bared on the table of the medical center, a thin sheet covering her injured body up to her shoulders. It was cold and dark. He was sitting by her, holding her now cold hand, his face washed by grief, his heart still shaken by disbelief. He knew all of their friends would come, slowly one by one, to say good bye. But for now, he was alone and would not have been able to bear anyone else's presence. He was lost in his thoughts and wanted only peace.
"I will join you soon, my love" He whispered to her, referring to the nebula they were about to reach and his exposure to radiations on the surface.
In this small community of Alpha, the 250 persons had become a large family of close-knit friends. With nowhere to run or hide, survival had been dependent on their friendly partnership and understanding. Each death was a tragedy. How many more would die in this dangerous and wild exposure to deep space? Space exploration was dangerous. No doubt. Subfreezing temperature, deep vacuum, intense particle radiations, instrumentation failures in this harsh environment, long term life support, meteorite showers, psychological disorders of the personnel facing constant danger and the unpredictable events of deep space had made their survival quite improbable. Of course, they had met many unknown events and also phenomenon, which, back on earth, had been predicted, but were still the domain of speculative astrophysics, such as time-space warps, tears in the time-space continuum, or Einstein-Rosen bridges. Worm holes, as they were commonly known, were a lot more frequent than expected. It seemed that star systems were linked by a network of worm holes, were they natural or built, no one knew. But indeed, the worm holes had provided a mean for the moon to be thrown to distanced regions of space and different time frames, as it fell through that network, just like the holes of a giant sponge. It was the only way he could explain the fast way they encountered star systems, without spending years traveling empty regions of space. In fact their survival was nothing short of a miracle. Or wasn't it?
John looked down at her pale peaceful face, her eyelids closed, like a marble statue frozen in eternity. Maybe those who died were the lucky ones. The survivors were submitted to an uncertain fate, a long agony among the universe, without a hope of reprieve. No relief of duty for anyone, no chance to build a normal human life. They were lost perhaps millions of years away from earth. Without any control on their course, they were submitted to the capricious derive of their moon through worm holes. Maybe Helena was the lucky one. No. He wanted her alive; he wanted her as his companion. He wanted to build a life with her, have children, age together. Perhaps it was just mere wishing. They would not be any children. They would just die here slowly suffering from radiation sickness or fast, torched in a nebula. Who in their right minds would want to give birth, and submit children to such an uncertain fate and an eternal agony? But, what if they were the only survivors? What if the earth had been destroyed in the cataclysm that pushed the moon out of orbit? Then they had the responsibility to carry on the human civilization. Helena. She certainly would have argued that he should allow people on Alpha to procreate. So many memories of friendship and love. He knew he loved her at that very first moment he met her, at that first look. Their first professional fight revealed her as a woman of conviction, resolute to fight for what she believed in. As a commander, he appreciated that. She stood strong and she held a tight grip on her emotions, professional in all circumstances, a skeptical scientist only influenced by logic. She was extremely competent, yet capable of admitting her limits and her errors. He remembered the dignified way she reacted to the illusionary come-back and death of her husband, shielding her private life and emotions behind the mask of logic, even when there was no logic to this situation. Her courage facing the most dreadful situations revealed her as a cold-blooded person reliable and capable of making decisions in the worst conditions. She was a leader. Her fights, her strength and her vulnerability, but also her resilience, her competence attracted him. Yes, she had made judgment mistakes in the past, but never denied them and accepted them, as being human. She was also full of compassion for others, which led her to her medical profession. Threatened by a black sun, he had made a desperate attempt to save her along a few others, revealing for the first time his feelings and attachment for her. It had made her furious that he would consider her above the 300 other lives of Alpha. Her anger was barely contained: she wanted to choose her own life and her own death, or at least the place of her death. But did one really have that choice? She refused to be treated any differently than anyone else because of any emotional involvement with him. But in that Eagle taking her away from Alpha, barely containing tears of frustration, she realized what he meant to her.
Their journey brought them close to destruction many times. She faced it each time with courage and faith, getting closer to him. And then, there was this intense moment, when through a tear in space and time they had met their doubles on another earth and the other Helena had died in his arms. It was a confirmation that they were soul mates in any universe. Many hopes had been destroyed, when at each encounter with another world, they found it unsuitable for life and survival. But at the same time, they had given so much to the worlds they encountered. Indeed they had changed the universe and many of those worlds by the very actions they took while trying to survive. But they never had found a planet to settle. He wished that he would have started a new life with her. He wished. But wishes and dreams are not reality.
Helena had been very shaken by the events on the spaceship of the Darians. She was haunted by the death and cannibalism, she had witnessed there in the name of survival. Taken prisoner, stripped forcefully of her clothes and left naked on the frozen floor next to a pile of rags to wear, she had been offered to a fictitious god during a primitive religious ritual. She had collapsed out of fright, when multiple hands had explored her exposed body in search of visible signs revealing genetic mutations. Violated, she had passed out unable to cope with her fear. Finally declared 'pure', she had been dragged to a recycling plant for organ donors. She immediately understood what this facility was from the surgical material she saw as well as the bodies lining the morgue. In her struggle to escape, she had realized her hopeless position. She did not know where the others were and the ship was enormous. They drugged her and kept her heavily sedated, while they harvested samples of stem cells and oocytes from her ovaries. She had remained unconscious until John and the rest of the team found her in the organ donor facility. John remembered his fear, when he saw her laying there, being prepared for a major surgery. Reanimated and wrapped in a warm blanket, they took her back to the Eagle and she remained silent and strangely numb during the entire trip, the sedative still affecting her mind. On the ship, Helena avoided everyone's eyes, not making any personal contact, silent, and looking down. When he realized how shaken she was, unable to hold anyone's gaze and walking like a zombie, John placed a confidential call to Doctor Mathias. Upon her landing on the base, she was immediately hospitalized for a thorough check up. It is during that check-up that Dr. Mathias realized the extent of her trauma. Clearly, eggs had been harvested through the natural ways, which confused any rape evidence. She bore bruises and cuts over arms and legs from a struggle. She had a scar from a spinal tap and they clearly did harvest bone marrow from her hip. While these procedures did not endanger her, as long as she remained infection-free, John could not begin to imagine the pain and fright she must have lived. He felt horribly shocked and upset that his decision to respond to the distress signal from the ship led to this terrible ordeal for her. Helena was kept in the hospital for several days, administered fluids, pain medication and antibiotics, to prevent any further infection. The first time he came to see her, he was shocked at her physical appearance. Her eyes were sunken and she looked thinner. His first words were: "I am sorry for what happened." She replied way too quickly to be sincere: "I am Ok. It was not your fault, John." But she lowered her head avoiding his probing eyes and she kept her gaze downcast. John very gently brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the tip of her fingers, and then he left her. He came back to visit her very often, showing to her more openly for the first time his affection, sharing his meals with her, and keeping her updated on the base events. On Dr. Mathias advice, he never brought up the events which happened on the Darian ship and mostly he kept on talking about other subjects, often lightly. She remained very quiet, talking little and refusing to expand on her traumatic experience. John found her strangely disconnected from anything happening around her, and often he just sat by her on the bed holding her hand in silence. Dr. Mathias held therapy sessions for her and she started to reveal some of the horrific details of her ordeal. It took a long time for her to recover and she was experiencing all the symptoms of post traumatic stress, nightmares, anxiety and panic for which she was prescribed anxiolytics. She went back to work on a light schedule and came back to her apartments for an apparent return to normality with nightmares as her only reminder of her trauma. She started to write a diary of their day to day experiences, a way to exorcize her pain and feelings that Dr. Mathias had suggested. She became quite enthralled in the writing and developed skills in literature, which she never knew she had.
One particular night her fright and scream in her nightmare was so loud, it triggered a medical alert. Mathias had rushed in to find her drenched in sweat and shaking. John, who was finishing his turn of duty and was on his way back to his quarters, heard the alert and stopped by, as his affection and concern for her had grown strong. Helena had quickly regained control of herself, and put a professional mask of calm on her face. John would have fallen for it, if not for the beads of sweat on her skin, her damp hair and her drenched night shirt. She kept on repeating to Bob Mathias that she was fine now and Bob eventually left after prescribing her a calming medication. John lingered for a while, not believing a word she said.
"Aren't you going to take these?" He said pointing to the pills.
"A miraculous pill to forget everything?" She had sounded bitter and sad. "Thank you, but no thanks!" She stayed there by the window and looked into the infinite blackness of space silently, her entire body tense and her arms wrapped about herself. She started to shiver. John gathered her in his arms and held her tightly. A heavy silence fell on them for several minutes. He always had been tactile person, holding hands, padding backs and hugging friends. But this was different, there was tenderness and warmth. There was love. It took a few minutes for her body to start relaxing. And as she did, her control started to ebb. His touch affected her such that she suddenly broke down in tears and collapsed in sobs. Buried in his arms, she wept her pain out. She wept her loneliness, her distress, the loss of her long dead husband, the loss of her planet, the loss of her future, the violence imposed on her body by the Darians, her anguish. She wept years of tight emotional control as a medical doctor, confronted to the harsh reality of space travel. When she calmed down, he spoke for the first time.
"You are soaked, Helena. You are cold." She looked at him as if she was seeing him for the first time. "Why don't you change into a dry shirt and wash up" He took her hand gently and led her to the bathroom. There was no argument. Her emotions had wiped her strength and she felt exhausted. She changed into dry pajamas. Then he laid her down tenderly on her bed and she cuddled in his comforting embrace until she drifted off into a safe sleep. He slowly pulled a blanket over her and closed his eyes. She woke up the next morning with her face hidden in his shoulder, a little embarrassed to find him there, maybe even more embarrassed by the crying of the night before. He took her face in his hands and buried his blue eyes in hers with so much love. The kiss that followed was shy and tentative as if forbidden. He recalled the taste of her lips, salty of dried tears and sweet of tenderness. Trembling of barely contained emotions, she was conflicted between her desire for him and her professional restrain. "John, I…" He looked up. "I am sorry, I shouldn't have" He nodded. "I am going to go now and let you rest". But of course, circumstances were quite different on this rogue planet deriving in an unknown universe. Even worse maybe, if this would go bad there was no way to escape that place. There was so much solitude and despair here where the only living beings were stranded in this strange bubble resting on this lifeless rock. "No". Maybe it was time to let go of the masks she put on herself. "No, John, please stay. I need you." She let go in his embrace and the floodgates of her restrain breached letting her emotions and feelings for him loose. Strangely released, she kissed him with all her passion.
Their love was fierce and intense. It was also uncompromising, with many fights, as their strong personalities would clash. She refused to be possessed by his will. He needed desperately to protect her. She would not accept to be placed in a special position, because of their relationship. He would not bear to expose her to danger. Yet she boldly faced danger, taking risks unacceptable for him. She would freeze in anxiety each time he would step on an Eagle. He would refuse to delegate his command. Their responsibilities and duties toward the personnel of Alpha were tearing them apart as much as they would bring them together. Their survival forced them to take risks. Danger was the price to pay. During the day, facing ordeals, they would often exchange tortured looks, when they had to part from one another, their love expressed silently in their gaze. Then they would meet at night unbeknownst to anyone and consume their fear of losing each other in intense passion, fusing souls and bodies in eternity, only to be torn from each other in the fake daylight of the artificial morning. It took a while for the personnel of the base to realize of their relationship. Victor was the first one to know, in fact he had known almost since the first day they met and confirmed it when confronted with a black sun, John could not even mention her name. On Arkadia, in the shock of discovering their long lost ancestry, John and Helena had hoped to find a place to live an uncertain future, as the power loss they experienced on the base threatened their very survival. They had spent the night around a small campfire with the rest of the team. Victor was reconsidering the tremendous impact of their discovery on their past scientific knowledge. The reality seemed very grim. That evening in the gloomy light of this dead world, everyone was quiet, lost in their thoughts. They set up to sleep outside, as the temperature was not too cold and so they placed sleeping pads and bags in the clearing by the fire. For the first time, Helena, ignoring the puzzled looks directed at her, set her sleeping bag next to his and lay in his arms to sleep. Alan had a small understanding grin on the corner of his mouth as he turned over to sleep. John still remembered the whispering conversation they had that night in the darkness. She had voiced her concerns about moving down on this planet and her fears of the future. But at the time it seemed to be the only acceptable solution. They slept little that night, anxious about their immediate unseemly future. They kissed softly and held each other in their fear. He was worried about making the wrong decision. She was twisting every possibility in her mind to come back to the same conclusion. But the planet seemed to be full of ancient ghosts and the atmosphere of dread completely prevented anyone from relaxing. John and Helena found solace in each other's tender embrace and waited for the pale yellow sun to rise, drifting on and off into a shallow tormented sleep. In the morning, Luke saw them entwined, Helena's head resting on John's chest. And maybe, that was why he knew to take Helena, when he and Anna decided to remain on Arkadia. John had hurt deeply, when Helena was taken hostage. He was worried, it would bring back to her the difficult times of her traumatic Darian experience. John felt guilty that his love for her was responsible for her current predicament. He knew he could not let her go, yet, he could not let his command and Alpha down. That day, it became obvious to all how they felt for each other. When Helena came back, they looked at each other lovingly for a long time. There was Alan, granting them a few precious minutes in private before he knew they would go back to their duties at her return from Arkadia.
"John" She had whispered. "What?" He said gently, touching her hair. "I love you." He remembered the emotion he felt, when he bent to kiss her. "I love you too."
Not enough kisses, not enough time together, not enough love. He sighted at the memories of their passion, the funny parts, the tender parts, the embarrassing parts. Like when Paul, bursting in a rush in John's quarters when a brief power failure happened during one night after they had left Arkadia's vicinity, had found them asleep in each other's arms. John recalled with tenderness the look of embarrassment of Helena as she grabbed the sheet to cover her exposed nude body. Paul with dignity never commented on the incident.
Chapter 5.
As he looked over the shape of her body barely concealed by the satin sheet, his grief and love for her overwhelmed him. Her body had been badly hurt. Her face still bore burns, bruises and wounds. She was serene now, her pain gone. John had spent every minute at her side since the terrible accident. When was the last time he slept in his bed? He could not remember. He could not remember either all what happened that night after he brought her back from the surface regions of Alpha. He just remembered the chaos he experienced, when all the medical staff took her to the intensive care unit and started to work on her with this incredible sense of urgency. He had felt as if the ground had opened under him and time stopped as he fell a slow and infinite fall. For the first time ever, he felt lost. Victor had quickly assumed command in his place for John could not focus on anything but Helena. John did not worry about the nebula anymore. He heard often alarms and comments on the intercom system about how the radiation levels were rising, but the entire outside world came to him through a dense fog. This was a reality he did not belong to anymore, just some kind of sick dream. He felt bereft, as if he had been dumped on the edge between life and death, and life was just passing by without touching him like an insensitive running river, while he was waiting numb next to the intensive care unit, where Helena was laying.
They had spent hours trying to save her, surgeries after surgeries. He had spent hours waiting by her, or next door, praying, crying and hoping. And at the end, they knew they would not be able to repair the damage to her spleen and intestines and she still was bleeding internally. She also had suffered radiation burning and even if the hemorrhage was contained, the radiations effects would claim her. She would have needed the best medical facilities on earth, but they were far away from earth. Dr. Mathias came out of surgery with tears in his eyes, losing with her a colleague and dear friend. With only one look the two men exchanged, John knew. They had given her blood transfusions, repaired her broken leg, closed her abdominal wounds, cleaned, stitched and bandaged the cuts on her arms and shoulders, and they had dressed her burns, but they were barely managing to keep her alive. In a painful discussion, Bob had told the details of her injuries and how little they had been able to do to help. The irony was that Helena was the better surgeon and Bob was devastated about his inability to save her. All John could remember from Bob's statement was: "She does not have much time, commander. She has received strong doses of radiations and we cannot stop the internal bleeding. She will need you to be here for her." Beyond that everything was a blur. John could not remember what his answer was. He recalled only his pain and the deep confusion in his mind.
When looking at her extremely pale face with the skin burned and bandaged on one side, he had then understood Dr. Mathias words. As a fighter, grasping for her own life, she stayed alive and conscious for another three days, growing weaker and weaker by the hour. But Helena was a competent doctor and she did not need any explanation of her condition. She just knew and was peacefully accepting her fate. John attended her constantly, catching sleep one hour at a time in the chair next to her bed. Her skin started to become dry and rough from the exposure to radiations with the top layer of skin cells dying as if she had powerful sunburn. Her lips chapped, despite the heavy hydration she was getting from the intravenous line and so he asked for some cream for her. He took to massage her body gently with moisturizing aloe cream to relieve her from the irritation of the inflamed and peeling skin. He would rub the cream lightly with the tip of his fingers on the skin free of bandages of her cheeks and forehead, caressing her face lovingly while she would look at him in silence often falling lightly asleep from the comfort of his touch. His thumbs would run over her chapped lips tenderly. He would massage the cream on her hands, arms, shoulders, legs and feet, carefully avoiding injured and burned areas, her cast on the leg and intravenous line. He was soft and delicate. He would also wipe her face with damp cloths, give her ice pops and brush her hair gently. She would open her eyes and bring his hand to her lips, comforted by his caresses. His fingers on her skin mirrored his devotion for her, in a way that was deep and intimate, like a prayer. She would smile weakly and whisper to him in return. His lips would brush her skin in light kisses, over her fingers, face, hands, feet and arms. Often, nurses, who used to work with Helena, would move out of the room, tears in their eyes over the overt display of this intense love. John had stopped caring about other witnessing his passion for her. And so Helena and John locked themselves up in this bubble of love, having only eyes for each other in what they knew would be their last moments together.
She started to refuse pain medication, to be able to keep awake, but, even so, her desperate efforts to keep conscious were in vain and her conscious moments were becoming more sporadic. She received brief visits from Victor, Alan, Sandra, Paul and her friends from command center. She accepted the visits with understanding. She whispered to John: "I am glad, I got to say goodbye". During her very few aware minutes, she spent trying to console him, repeating to him that she would be alright, that she was not hurting anymore, that she loved him. She would talk soothingly and softly, as her strength was fading; he would reply with all of his love, kiss her and hold her tenderly.
"I am dying, John" she had whispered.
"No, you will be fine. You will recover and we will have a lot of good time together" he had assured her. "We will…."
"John… Don't lie to me" She took a painful breath, frustrated. And he steadied, paying attention finally. "I am dying." He was shaking his head. "John… But it is not really death." Her voice was determined, but so soft he had to bend over her to hear her words. "Everything changes, John. Nothing stays the same. Molecules, atoms do not die. In the nebula, atoms are created from pure energy, strings of energy combine, I saw it, John. The nebula is not our death, John… It is the opposite. The nebula is life. I did not understand until now. Molecules, atoms, they just change form to something different. When I die, I will still be here with you. It will still be me in energy… Nothing is ever permanent, everything changes… And when you go in there…we will be together again. So much love cannot go away, you know. I am already part of you, and you of me." She had looked at John' eyes and saw tears. "Are you scared, Helena?"
"No, I am not scared anymore. So, don't be." She added and smiled slowly, then lifted weakly her hand to wipe his cheek. Then she closed her eyes briefly in exhaustion.
He looked down, burning tears running again unleashed down his face at the memory of her last moments. Later she had briefly reopened her eyes. And when she did, her eyes had locked with his, sharing her most intimate feelings of love and tenderness in a few seconds. She had given a soft squeeze on his hand and he had managed a smile through his tears. "Helena". She had smiled and whispered weakly "John, I love you". He had kissed her mouth with more love than he ever expressed and he took in her breath, her last breath. When he had lifted his face from hers, she was gone, a lonely tear caught in her eyelash. Just like that. John had screamed her name in grief, letting out his pain in a long cry. Victor ran over but froze when he saw John hugging the limp body and shaking in uncontrollable sobs. Then John collapsed in his seat, hiding his face in his hands and weeping. Victor left him alone with his grief and waited patiently in the next room for his friend. It would take time for John to compose himself. And so John stayed with her, his fingers entwined with hers, not ready yet to leave her.
Chapter 6.
He was numb from too much crying. He felt helpless without her. And he knew that he had to let go. But his legs were weak and each beat of his heart was painful, threatening to crush him. Victor entered the medical center. "John, now, come! It is time. You have been here for hours" He took John by the arm and strongly helped him up. "No, Victor. I want to stay with her". But one look from Victor and he knew that there was no argument. "John, you have to let her go". So John bent over and kissed Helena one last time on her lips, shivering at the cold touch, realizing for the first time the reality of her death, and he followed Victor. "I think it is best if you get some sleep. Mathias will give you something to help"
"The nebula?" John managed to say, his voice shaking.
"We are getting close to penetrating it. There is not much time." Victor sighed. But John was already lost in his thoughts and did not answer, wishing only to follow her wherever she went. He took the pills without resistance and Victor stayed on his side until he saw him drift away.
His sleep was light and agitated, populated by dreams of her. He would reach next to him and feel her body. Her smile would light up the room and his soul. Her eyes, her beautiful deep green eyes…. She was there and he turned around to hug her, longing for closeness and warmth. Then the nebula would come and take her from him, closing colorful arms made of stars on her and dragging her away and everything around him would be engulfed in flames. Then she was gone and he woke up screaming her name, his pain returning to stab him as his dream drifted away and the reality came back like a shock. He tried to fall back asleep to be with her, but he could not. So he got up and paced in the room. He missed his old quarters, with the windows out to the stars. Underground quarters seemed completely cramped and he felt the walls close on him like a shroud. "Helena, where are you?" But only silence answered. He could almost touch her. She was so real, so close. All he had to do was to close his eyes to make her appear in front of him, her silver hair, her lips so near his, her warmth… No, that was not real. He reopened his eyes and looked around in the darkness of his room. She was not here, she would not be here ever again. Painfully, he rubbed his face as if the physical pressure of his knuckles would sink the reality back into himself. But still he could feel her presence, not in the room, but within himself, as if she was part of each molecule of his body.
"I am hallucinating" he murmured, as if the sound of his voice would dispel the feeling.
"That is a classical defense against an unbearable grief, John". Now, he could hear her voice, sounding with the authority of the doctor and the tenderness of the lover. He smiled. Yes, that is what she would have said. Now, there was no way he would fall back asleep. Without thinking, he got dressed and stepped out in the corridor. He walked without determined aim, but finally, almost to his surprise, his steps led him to Helena's door. He stared at the door, reading the name he knew so well slowly, hesitating. Then, he entered her quarters.
The room was dark. Nobody had dared to come here since the fateful accident. It felt like a century ago. Helena had moved there from her surface quarters almost as soon as these quarters were available to be inhabited. Her rationale was that she would be close to the medical center to be equipped and soon ready to take patients. It had driven him crazy to know she was so physically far from him until he was himself ready to move downstairs as well. She had replied with humor that true love would not suffer from long distances and that their reunion would be even more passionate. He turned on the night table lights. It was as if she never left and he thought she just would enter at any moment, coming home from a long evening duty. In the dim light, he saw her pajamas, neatly folded on the bed, ready for an upcoming night. A book was left opened on the night table, a bookmark leaning across the pages. He looked around, mesmerized. On her desk, medical reports laid scattered, scientific papers marked with notes, reports on tasks to do to implement a successful move. There was a pen, and internal medicine manual, an immunology and infectious diseases textbook and a number of handwritten pages in notebooks. She seemed to have been working on something else unrelated to the move of the surface sections of the base. He smiled at a little fuzzy stuffed animal nested on the side of her desk. A rabbit? A mouse? He could not really tell in the darkness. On the shelves, books were lined up tidily. What was he looking for? A confirmation of her death? Or a confirmation of her living? The closet door was not closed. He could see spare uniforms and lab coats, dresses and civilian earth clothes. On the side shelves, pajamas, night robes, undergarments and socks. His fingers caressed the silky fabric of a turquoise blue evening dress, which used to match her eye color perfectly and which he remembered removing clumsily from her eager body on a passionate evening, one of those rare evenings without interruptions. They had been so busy trying to survive. These moments had been too few, as if stolen from their public lives, more often caught between shifts and emergencies. He regretted not making more time for her. He moved toward the bathroom. The sink was lined with essential toiletries, a toothbrush, and a hair brush. He looked down on the hair brush at the strands of blond hair, which remained trapped in the bristles. She had taken a shower. A large towel, now dried, placed hastily on the rack was still wrinkled. A bottle of shampoo was left opened inside the shower. He took the towel in his hands, handling it like a sacred object, and slowly buried his face in the soft fabric still bearing her scent. Surprised by the intensity of the sudden grief he felt, his eyes filled with tears. Moving out of the bathroom, he sat on her bed, his legs weak, and his chest tight, barely able to breathe. He felt so weak, so alone, suffering. He had laid down on her bed and cradled her silky pajamas in his arms as if he would hold her, his face rested on her pillow, feeling the soft fabric against his cheek. He cried tears of grief and regret. He could smell the faint traces of her perfume, of her shampoo, mixed with her skin. She was everywhere in this room. He closed his eyes, to take her in deeper, so that her ghostly presence would invade his soul. Holding her pajamas, he fell asleep, like a little child holding his blanket.
His commlock was beeping insistently, an intrusion of the real world. Could they not leave him alone? "Commander Koenig, please respond"
"Yeah" he mumbled in his half awake state.
"Are you alright?" Paul was concerned.
"Paul. I am fine. I would like to be left alone, if that is possible. Do not disturb me again unless if is of critical importance"
"Sorry commander" Paul replied, not delivering the news that they were starting to enter the immediate vicinity of the nebula. After all, there was nothing to be done and the command center personnel knew too well that John Koenig was lost in a deep grief. John heard the intercom alert from command center and displayed the message of their current status. All of this seemed so far away from another world, a world he did not want to belong to anymore.
John sighed, fully waking up with his sorrow taking over the cloudiness of his sleep. He rested on Helena's bed, unable to move just now, still holding in his hands her pajamas. He felt so unbelievably tired. Yet the soft light of the morning was bathing the room. It almost looked like real sunlight. A long silver-gold hair, caught in the pillow's fabric, reflected the light just near his open eyes. He carefully picked it up with his fingers. He wished he had something to save it properly, an envelope maybe. He got up, still holding the lonely hair and went to her desk. She must have envelopes, but where? With his free hand he opened a drawer and search through her papers. The first envelope he found bore his name. In surprise, he let go of the hair to grab the envelope and stared at it astonished. It was sealed and he hesitated before breaking the seal. She had left it for him, but still, he felt he was violating her privacy by opening the note. Submerged by fear and sadness, he tore the paper open and read the handwritten letter.
"My dear John,
This is the most difficult letter I ever wrote in my life. If you have found it, it means most certainly that I am dead. I can only imagine the pain you must be feeling, because I would feel the same way, were it reversed. I am sorry that you have to go through all of this because of me. I hope dearly that you will forgive me for this pain. If it is any consolation for you, I can assure you that my death will not be in vain. It will bring us our most cherished desires. With all my heart and love, I want to tell you that I am with you, within you, and I will remain there as long as you need me.
John, my love, I had to do this. In time, you will understand…
I love you in eternity,
Helena"
John lowered the letter solemnly, tears flowing. He bent to pick up the hair, he had dropped and let it slide within the envelope.
"What will I understand, Helena?" He whispered. "What did you have to do? What does it all mean? In vain? Which desires could I have that does not include you?"
He realized suddenly, with shock, that maybe her death was not an accident. A suicide? How could she? She was not depressed at all. No, that would be impossible. Not Helena, not after all they went through together. John struggled with many questions and no answers. Clearly, she had foreseen her death, if not planned it. There was no date on this letter, was it old? How long did it rest hidden in that drawer? It had to be recent, she just had moved there. He needed answers. If there was anything going on, Helena would have left him some clues. But why not tell him in the letter?
He sat down puzzled, his gaze sweeping the room in search for answers and stopping on the night table. In the despair of the previous night, he never really looked at the book. Why would she leave it open? Why not mark the page and close it? The book mark, a thin metallic strip engraved with Chinese characters, rested across the pages like a ruler underlining a paragraph. Without moving it, he bent cautiously over to read.
"She studied the sharp contours of her own pale face framed by that impossible hair which defied any style but nature's own, but beyond that face was the apparition of another girl. Suddenly the other girl began to wink frantically with both eyes, as if to signal that she was really in there on the other side" The book was Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder.
Why would Helena leave him such a puzzle? She was not a woman who played games. He could not understand. He took the book, carefully marking the page and shuffled through. Helena had underlined several sentences. The book was essentially a lesson in the history of philosophy throughout the ages. But the passages she had underlined related to our perception of the universe. Reality existed only through our perception of it, in fact it existed only because we were able to perceive it. He moved over to her desk and for the first time since he entered her room he paid attention to the notes on her desk. Some of them had to do with the recycling systems and hydroponics utilities, and regarded enzyme systems, others, drastically different, seemed to be reflections on the universe. Another set of notes were annotations to a very long DNA sequence, arrows pointing to sections of the code, and amino acids correspondences. He took in his hands the pages related to her reflections, not keen to read heavy duty biological work. His background was in space engineering, physics, and management, not in molecular biology. He was not sure he would understand her work.
Could universe be just a mathematical creation? She had reflected on those pages. Some kind of self-regenerating theorem within the very fabric of the universe, with an randomized element, which would after billions of years have grown so complex as to create an emergent property, known as life? If then, there could be others universes, with slightly different parameters. They would harbor life. They could be just around us, but we would never know of them and they would never be able to find out about us, unless they found a way to translate the algorithm. If Helena was working on something, why wouldn't she have talked to him about it? Even if those were just metaphysical reflections of a human being confronted to the mysteries of space and the proximity of death, Helena was intimate enough with him and always discussed her ideas, problems, opinion and even private ideas referring to religion and beliefs with him. Helena did not hide any secrets from him, did she? Didn't she? He was beginning to wonder.
"John, we need to get ready for Helena's funeral" Victor, on communication, took him out of his reflection. "How are you, John?"
"I will be alright, thank you". John decisively left Helena's quarter, overriding the password and encrypting a new one to prevent anyone from entering without proper authorization. He walked back to his quarters, still holding her letter in his hand. Victor was expecting him. "John, I am so sorry. But we have to prepare for the funeral; Of course you will have to say a few words as the commander"
"And as the friend, the companion, the lover… Yes, Victor, I know" The tone of John was caustic. "I just want to be left alone".
"Look, John. We all can understand how you feel. You do not have to say a lot, only a few words will be necessary."
And so, John isolated himself in his quarter to rest and think. But then, thinking proved itself a lot more difficult. He had never experienced such a disabling pain in his soul. After the many tears, his mind and body were numb. He rested on his bed, with his fingers still clasped around her letter and closed his eyes, only wishing for emptiness.
The time of the funeral came a lot faster than he wished. But then, time really stopped as he entered the room and saw her body. He could see himself walk across the room where people started to assemble, as if he was disembodied. He could not feel and all sounds came to him as if through cotton. It had been difficult to find a room large enough to fit everyone in the underground sections of the base. Most quarters and labs were really cramped, so was the command center. But fortunately, one larger storage room was hastily cleared up for the occasion. They had placed Helena on a white table and dressed her in a white robe of soft cotton. Even in death and with the marks of her injuries and radiation damage, he was stunned by her beauty. He closed his eyes for an instant, fighting the tears and the pain taking him like a storm and took several deep breaths to steady himself. He was unable to disengage his look from the sculpted profile and her blond hair falling gently around her face. He felt the others continue to assemble behind him in silence, but nobody dared to address him and all kept respectfully their distance. John never turned back. He never looked to anyone; he never took his eyes off her face. Some stayed at their post voluntarily to keep Alpha in function and monitor the increase of radiations coming from the nebula, but the majority of the personnel were here.
Victor started his speech, visibly shaken by emotion.
"Dr. Helena Russell was a respected member of our community, a trusted doctor and a dear friend. She was a woman of many talents, an accomplished scientist and an artist. She has made many contributions to our community and on many occasions helped us with our survival. She had a very big heart and was full of compassion and empathy. To me, she was a very dear and close friend. She was a competent colleague full of humanity. I had a very deep affection for her.
Helena, you will always be with us and in our hearts. Rest well.
Godspeed".
He lowered his eyes and discreetly wiped off his tears and remained silent. The silence was abyssal, deep of grief and thoughts. Sandra was crying in Paul's arms.
Bob Mathias told of her knowledge and her competence. He spoke of her humanity and compassion. He spoke of her strength and will. More than anyone, he felt that he failed her, because he was unable to save her. When the silence fell again like a lead cover, John slowly moved forward without taking his eyes of her. His steps echoed in the room. He choked back the tears with difficulty, such that it took a few minutes for him to even be able to speak. They all looked much moved by his grief.
"Helena, you are my light in the darkness. You are my friend and my love. You mean the world to me. We had many fights, Helena, because you were so strong and always so logical… and I would not listen to you enough.
Helena, I have so many regrets. I regret the children we never had, the world we never found, you and I. I regret not seeing the wind brush your face, or your smile in the sunshine. I regret not kissing you in the rain.
I regret the moments we never had, these human moments on a normal world.
Helena, I do not know where you are. But if you hear me, wherever you are, please know how much I love you, know, how much I miss you"
He was now whispering through his tears.
"Helena. I love you."
Many were wiping tears. John stood, almost in a trance, not paying attention to anyone around him as they passed slowly to pay their respects to her and say goodbye. Then they left slowly, leaving only John and Victor. Victor took his friend's arm. "Time to go. I will wait for you outside"
John walked to Helena, trying to form a memory of her face, a precise image, her eyelids, her lips, the straight nose, the curve of her chin. But as he looked at her, he realized she really was not there anymore. She was just an empty shell. And so his goodbye was not as hard as he thought he would be. "Goodbye my love".
The words of Helena in her letter were ringing in his ears like a repeating endless tune, which was driving him crazy. He barely slept over the next couple of nights. Six days already since they found her, injured under the rumble. Six days, it might as well be an eternity stretching into infinity. Six days and the world had changed, the universe had shifted. Reality did not exist anymore. Six days driving John into extinction. Doubt was distilling in his soul like a perverse poison, parasite eating at his grief like bacteria on the perfect culture medium. Helena, the woman he had loved more than anyone else, had left in her death a trail of shadows, a shroud of mysteries surrounding a life of secrets, he was only now starting to discover. Helena seemed to have decided to reveal herself only partly to him. He was hurt and frustrated that she had deliberately concealed part of her life. Why would she do such a thing? The gentle Helena, fair and open, his confident and lover, the repository of his soul, had secrets deep enough to drown him. The letter was telling him that much. The book, her notes, the cues, she left him, were suddenly revealing another side of herself. She had not shared anything with him. His pride was wounded. His trust was shattered and he could not recover. It was not as if he could confront her… She was dead. Indeed she was very much out of his reach, very much departed. And John was crumbling under the pain of his losses, the loss of his beloved companion, the loss of his confidence, self-confidence, the loss of his memories in which he had now to decrypt and decipher like an alternate reality, a truth that until now had escaped him. He had lost a certain idea of her. Certainly there was more about Helena that he had known about, much more and maybe a more complex and sinister side. He stared in disbelief at the words she wrote in that fateful letter. From fragments, like a tedious puzzle, he set to reconstitute, without any idea where this would lead him, the hidden Helena, the one she had taken such care to conceal. He felt lost and deeply scared, as he had never felt before. He felt that she truly had left him in more than one way. Maybe, she never had belonged to him at the first place. It occurred to him that he had spent all his time near her without really knowing her and that thought deeply disturbed him, like being thrown in an entire new universe without a known frame of reference. Each memory with her now had to be reexamined under a different light. Helena was not what she appeared to be. Helena knew something he did not and did not share with him. John was grieving, deeply oscillating between sorrow, despair and rage. She had misled him while assuring him of her endless love. He was fantasizing, leashing at her in anger, for being dead and thereby escaping any confrontation and a few minutes later collapsing in grief for losing her. He was an emotional mess driven only by the desire to shine the light and expose the truth about Helena. But did he really want to know? Part of him was intensely frightened of what he might discover. Part of him could not resist the challenge.
Everyone was surprised to see John attend his post in the morning at the command center. Technicians were analyzing the latest data on the nebula. It seemed now that they were edging to enter its immediate suburbs. Temperature and radiations had reached very high levels and outside cameras were showing stress on the surface structures. Any higher and all electronic equipment would start to fail leaving them blind and deaf on the outside conditions. "The beginning of the end" John thought "I will be with you soon, Helena". Knowing his sometime difficult temper, everyone stayed clear of him except only for a few words of condolences. He maintained a stern face throughout the day attending dutifully his work and managing a series of emergencies generated by the higher temperatures. Yes, the underground base was now reduced to an oven, baked by ultraviolet, particles and heat. Shields were deflecting most of the radiation, but as it increased they were starting to become less effective. John was numb; he was doing what was expected of him, issuing the orders, discussing the situation with the other officers. They had an emergency situation on their hands and he knew soon that it would be intolerable. Just, he did not matter to him; he felt his life had already ended.
to be continued in Part II...