‘When I Close My Eyes’ is out now in the excellent online SF magazine, Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores.
The story first appeared in Interzone #271 in 2017. It was at the time my ‘hardest’ SF story yet – with a bereaved astronaut trapped by a rockfall in a cave on Titan, encountering some fragile but peskily well-organised Titanian aliens. (There’s still a ghost in it, though, which I guess means that as SF goes, it isn’t that hard!)
The story has shown some staying power – it was also in the ‘Best of British SF 2017’ from NewCon Press, and was podcast to great effect by Starship Sofa.
The podcast is still available for free, and you can read the text version free at Cosmic Roots. So there’s really no excuse if you have the slightest interest in hydrocarbon weather systems and the remorseless power of grief.
Here’s a taster:
WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES
The rock fall killed me. I just didn’t know how long it would take to die.
I was face down with something heavy on the back of my legs. My visor display was dark. If the suit had lost power, death was already at my elbow.
“Tak, confirm operational.” A soft insect buzzing. “Repeat, confirm operational.”
“[buzz] – [click] – confirm. But I’ve had better days, dude.”
“You and me both. Run full systems check.”
“Running, dude.” Some joker programmed the suit computer with the voice of Keanu Reeves in Point Break, squinting in the sun and waxing his surfboard. Usually it cheered me up.
I chinned the radio switch. “Willis, this is Darlo. Do you read?”
Static.
“Willis. Darlo. There was some kind of cave-in. I still have power. Checking systems. Are you OK?”
More static. I chinned off the radio. Willis should be fine. She stayed in the crawler, after all. It was another poor sap who entered the cave. Me. I tested the movement in my limbs. Both arms were free. I could lift my left leg but the right didn’t budge. I had sensation in it, but something pinned it down, something with some serious mass; with gravity less than a tenth that of Earth, I could expect to shift a sizeable rock unaided.
“OK, dude, systems check complete.” Tak sounded as businesslike as he ever did; like he’d just spotted a shift in the swell and zipped up his wetsuit. “Batteries seventy-six per cent, oxygen sixty-five. Suit intact. Heater cycling between sixty and ninety, nitrogen scrubber -.”
“Wait, what’s with the heater?” The suit’s heating systems normally ran at around fifty per cent.
“Losing heat fast. Possible radiator vane compromise.”
That figured. The suit had fantastic insulation and in normal use some heat got vented away through tiny metal filaments on the back. If the rockfall had damaged them, the heater would need to compensate.
“So how long have I got?”
“You can lie here for nearly five hours, dude.”
“Yeah, but I plan to get moving.”
“Hey, did I mention that the GPS sensors are damaged and I can’t get a signal from the crawler or the base?”
“Lucky I know the way out. How long have I got with normal motion?”
“Probably four hours, but that heater’s a bummer. Might need to go easy on other power.”
“Is that why we’re lying here in the dark? You didn’t say the lights were damaged.”
“They’re not.”
“Main flash on.”
The beam lit up in front of me. I was face down on a layer of ice. Where my visor touched the surface, the ice fizzed and crawled upwards as if tiny worms were escaping. Probably traces of frozen methane in among the water ice, melting in the slight heat given off by my suit.
I lifted my head, directing the beam horizontally. There was about six feet of icy ground ahead of me, ending at a wall of rubble and ice. I pointed the light higher, but could see no top to the obstruction. So far, so bad. But that way led deeper into the cave. That was where I’d been heading when the cave fell in, and I certainly wasn’t going that way now. I wanted to go back.
I had a simple plan. Walk back through the tunnels to Willis and the crawler and then take it easy with a hot drink while she drove the four miles back to Ligea Base. All I had to do was remove whatever was trapping my legs. And hope the tunnel behind me wasn’t blocked. And hope my power lasted long enough to stop me freezing in the -180C temperature. Simple.
“Tak, main flash off. Save power while I decide what to do.”
The beam cut out and darkness sprang on me from the shadows. My head was still up and I saw her clearly. She sat with her back against the pile of ice and rock, her legs stretched before her and her hands in her lap, as if she were at a picnic. She wore the blue dress with white polka dots that we buried her in. She smiled at me.
“Not here. Dear God.” I lowered my head to the ice. “For Christ’s sake, my eyes are open…”
(To read more, check out Cosmic Roots…)
