In the Blackness of Space by Robert Kuntz

Author:Robert Kuntz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: christian Fiction
Publisher: Pelican Ventures Book Group
Published: 2014-09-24T04:00:00+00:00

10

The wide, white doors wrench apart and slide into the walls of the ship. The doormat slides out from the air lock, taking me into space. I feel it jolt as it stops beneath me.

Space is empty and endless. But it’s not pure black. It’s frosted with stars, the immense Milky Way so full of stars the universe can’t possibly hold them all. The expanse stretches out forever, more vast than the heavens above Earth. It’s unsettling in its immensity, too open, too far-reaching; it will pull me apart. I feel like I’m dwindling to nothing. The void is expanding relentlessly, and I’m shrinking to a speck with the air leaking out of me.

The stars are piercingly brilliant, angry number 51s, silver, orange, red, bluish white, grumbling and snorting as if they want to shove me out of their domain. The void of space takes on a tangible quality, becoming a thick black wall forbidding me to pass. I shudder and shrink back. A knot forms in my stomach. Suddenly, I sense motion, the Galileo’s slow rotation, and I’m engulfed in panic. My heart races. My vision narrows. If I don’t do something, I’m going to black. “Jepler, you road kill slime.” I shout. I focus on that overweight glob of aardvark snot and let my anger burn until it shivers white-hot in my chest. My panic fades and I stop screaming.

As the Galileo rotates, stars slip from sight and new ones appear. They are angrier, as if shouting, “Haven’t you gone back inside, yet?” Their brilliance is cold and threatening. “If you come into our domain, we’ll trap you in the endless cold of space.”

It hits me: what about cold radiation? What if it’s waiting for me out here? What if I go back inside to die?

There’s no choice. If I don’t restore gravity, we’ll all die.

At least, I’ll know by icy-cold pricking that I’ve been exposed to it.

“Prepare for outer lights.” SINDAS’s calm voice shakes the thoughts from my head.

I struggle to croak out a word. “Affirmative.”

Brilliance erupts around me. Galileo’s hull is dotted with light towers. They’re tall number 4s, ruler-straight with cranes thrust to the side at sharp angles. In the light, the Galileo doesn’t look at all like one of Jepler’s donuts. It’s metallic, shining sheer white, stretching into the frosted blackness of space. Rows of structural rigging, girders, ladders, sheds—more orderly, precise number 4s—glisten in the light. A distance toward the stern, I see a wide, neon-orange band painted around the hull and assume that marks the beginning of the Beta Ring.

I realize I’ve been all through Rings One and Two, the mechanical passages, biomes, storerooms, workshops, labs. It’s a sobering thought, how immense and small the Galileo is, how complex and fragile, both at once.

“Time until half gravity is four hours, three minutes. Prepare to step off doormat.”

My throat is nearly too dry to speak. “Affirmative.”

“Step off.”

I can’t do this. It’s too empty out there. It will be worse than being stuck in a tree.

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