It had been a long voyage. Longer than the time that had actually passed. A small eternity trapped within the confines of a spaceship hurtling toward a planet hostile to life, but that had valuable minerals tech billionaires were willing to pay good money for.
He’d boarded the ship full of dreams of future wealth. Hadn’t even minded the tight confines of the quarters he’d been given–a single bunk with a small locker within a dormitory cabin he shared with 49 other men–and had seen the shared amenities as the price to pay for the work he’d accepted.
When his two years of service were up, he would go back to Earth and his family with a hefty bonus to add to the fat monthly paychecks his family would be using to survive while he was gone. He would be able to get a nice house on a large plot of land and he’d be able to sit out in his yard enjoying the open sky and the sweetness of mother nature. Two years didn’t seem like such a sacrifice.
Except it was more like five years, as the voyage from Earth to Mars would take a year and a half each way, the company not wanting to use more expensive fuel than they had to. It was easier to have the ship travel at slower speeds, as the time of the people aboard ship was cheap to the executives running big companies.
He had accepted the sign on bonus and that was that. Ever since his signature went on that piece of paper, he’d been a piece of equipment to the company rather than a possible consumer of their products.
In the darkness of his sleep cycle, resting within the cramped confines of his bunk with the curtain drawn closed, he would wonder if he was ever going to be allowed to go home.
Once he finished his term, how willing would they be to ship him safely home? Or would it be cheaper for them to "have an accident" that resulted in his death? A one-time million dollar death benefit paid to his family was much easier than taking him all the way back to Earth.
He didn’t know if it was the depression of living within the confines of the ship, with its recycled air that always had a bit of fart smell to it, but he was beginning to worry about whether he would ever see his family again.
He wished that he’d studied more about spaceflight. The things he’d learned from the friends he’d made amongst the other miners… It terrified him.
Sometimes when he was alone with his own thoughts, he would think that he could feel the cancer growing inside him. His bones decalcifying. His organs shifting and warping within the blood filled bag of his skin.
He would make himself scared when he let himself think of his growing doubts about the company and the company’s plans for him. He would wonder if maybe he needed some extra vitamin D. If maybe the lack of sunlight was giving him depression or something. But he knew that the hull of the starship barely offered any shielding from cosmic radiation, which was why the company had made the decision to forego windows altogether.
There was no looking out at the barrenness of space. No gazing at the blinding light of the sun. No fantasizing while gazing at stars "whizzing" by the porthole windows.
Space travel was nothing like he had imagined as a child. And maybe he had lied to himself about how things were going to be when he’d accepted this job. But here he was: On a spaceship headed toward a poisonous planet that was bombarded with more radiation than was good for long-term survival.
And once there, he would be given a narrow bunk and a tiny locker in a shared dormitory of the underground habitat that would be his home for the two years of his work term. A human tool used by the company to make more money than he had ever seen or would ever see in his entire life.
Lying on his bunk, he imagined himself as a saw or a hammer mounted on the wall of his garage above his workbench. And if he closed his eyes hard enough and quieted his breathing, he could imagine the sounds inside his house, of his wife talking to the children in the living room while the TV played his favorite show in the background.
Homesickness was a real sickness. Like the cancer he feared would grow inside him. Both brought the shadow of death into his mind. Both made him wish his family were near at hand, for him to hug and kiss and talk to. But they were on Earth, and he was here. Somewhere between Heaven and Hell. Hurtling toward a strange planet that would never be his home.
=END=
~Harper Kingsley
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