Compelling Science Fiction Issue 13 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Compelling Science Fiction Ltd.
Published: 2019-05-31T05:05:32+00:00

What We Remember

by Mark Salzwedel

Raisa awoke to the glare of a strange star painting a streak across the top of the clear visor of her helmet and fuzzy, indistinct red, blue, and green flashes near the bottom of it. She thought they looked wonderfully pretty. Then the cyborg lenses of her eyes corrected after the usual five seconds of light exposure, and she was able to read the various status messages at the bottom of her visor. She had been unconscious for almost two hours, there had been no loss of pressure in her space suit, and her oxygen reserves were still nominal.

She became aware of her arms and hands and pushed herself up to a sitting position on the yellow-and-orange, omelet-like fungus she had been about to sample before blacking out. The fungus covered most of the ground she could see, irregularly shaped and spaced dusty gray patches of the newly discovered planet where it did not.

Lying near her was the other passenger to the surface of G2456a from the orbiting warp harness, Dr. Terrence D’Agostino. He seemed unconscious. She slowly brought her awareness to her legs and feet and then slowly slid and hopped over to where he was lying. His readouts were nominal for being unconscious: half red, half green, and only one blue. She turned on the radio mic near her chin. "Terry? Terry? Wake up, guy. We have to get back to our mission."

Raisa and Terry had been called down to the surface of the planet to investigate what was happening to the original landing party and whether the fungus was responsible. She tried to remember where the computer had landed the shuttle in relation to the first party’s camp, but before she could recall the direction or distance, a stray memory grabbed her attention:

I have been away from Earth for two years, and my mother and sister traveled all the way to Libya from Moscow to welcome me home. They are at the front of the gate area when I emerge from decontamination, big smiles on both faces and waving frantically. "We’re over here," my sister Petra calls out, as if she were worried that I might not see or recognize them.

"What happened?" Terry asked as he rolled onto his side to get a better view of Raisa sitting beside him. More of his readouts were green.

"We also experienced the fainting the base camp crew reported," Raisa said. "How are you feeling?"

He pushed himself up to a sitting position, tearing pieces of the fungus beneath him as he did so. "I’m a little foggy, but I seem healthy. My oxygen level is good. My implants are all reading nominal. I still have a bit of rapport with a dream I was having when I woke up."

The two of them stood up and surveyed the landscape. The shuttle they had arrived in was where Raisa expected—about fifty meters away. There was no sign of base camp.

Terry crouched down to look at the fungus at his feet.

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