Gwendy’s Final Task

16

“I ONLY GOT THERE right at the end,” Adesh says, keeping his voice low, “but it sounded like you were whimpering. I thought perhaps you had injured yourself.”

Both he and Gwendy are once again strapped into their flight chairs on the third deck of Eagle Heavy. The steel box marked CLASSIFIED MATERIAL is tucked safely beneath her seat. Gwendy cradles her iPad in her ungloved hands, the screen silent and dark.

“Winston said you sounded frightened and were calling out … something about a ‘black box.’ He claims he couldn’t understand the rest of it.”

Gwendy doesn’t remember falling asleep and dreaming, but the very idea that Gareth Winston could be telling the truth makes her feel lightheaded and causes her stomach to perform an uneasy cartwheel. She carries too many deep, dark secrets inside to start talking in her sleep now.

She steals a glance at Jafari Bankole, who’s busy studying one of the overhead monitors, and at the opposite end of the craft, Gareth Winston, now buckled in tight and snoring loudly in his flight seat next to the porthole. His porthole. Is he really asleep? For the second time since boarding, the same crystal clear thought surfaces inside Gwendy’s muddled head: that man is smarter than he appears.

“What was he doing down there in the first place?”

“He said he was going to use the toilet, and maybe he did,” Adesh tells her, leaning close enough for Gwendy to smell cinnamon on his breath. He drops his voice to a whisper. “But when I went down a short time later to check on my specimens, I found him standing there with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar.”

Gwendy waits for him to continue, dreading what’s coming next.

“He was fiddling with the latch on your cabin door.”

NG, Gwendy thinks. Not good at all.

A smile comes onto Adesh’s round face, and not a friendly one. “When he finally turned around and saw me, his eyes bugged out—pardon the pun—and he practically jumped out of his pressure suit. That’s the nice thing about being weightless. No one can hear you coming.”

“Well, I’m grateful you came along when you did. I … I …”

And just like that her brain short-circuits and shuts down. All the information that was stored there just a moment earlier suddenly vanishes as if an invisible eraser has been swept across the inside of her head. Where has it gone? She doesn’t know that. All she does know is that her name is Gwendy Peterson and she’s a passenger on a spaceship and she’s trying to save the world. But save it from what? She has no memory at all of that, nor what she was just talking about or whom the person is she was just talking to. The abrupt and overwhelming sense of loss—of abandonment—frightens her so badly that sudden tears bloom in the corners of her eyes.

“Senator Peterson? Gwendy? Are you okay?” Adesh asks. His eyes narrowed in concern, he appears on the verge of calling out for help.

“I’m …” she begins to answer, and then, just like that, everything is back where it’s supposed to be. She’s talking to Adesh Patel, the Bug Man, about Gareth Winston, the nosy and noisy lout sleeping just over yonder. Winston’s a billionaire with a capital “B,” and Gwendy isn’t sure he can be trusted. Judging from the look on Adesh Patel’s face, the Bug Man’s not entirely convinced Gwendy can be trusted, either.

“I’m fine,” she finally says. “I was in the middle of a thought and something my late mother used to say came along and hijacked my brain. I’m not sure why, but it’s happening more and more often these days.”

Adesh’s brown eyes immediately soften. “Oh, Gwendy, I’m so sorry you lost her.”

It’s a nasty trick on Gwendy’s part and she knows it—but she has no regrets. “Don’t be. Please. It was a lovely thought and I’m glad I had it.” She thumbprints her iPad and the blank screen flashes to life. “I just wish I had better control over when those sort of memories resurface. It can be a bit … embarrassing.”

“Please, don’t be. I’m sure you miss her terribly.”

Gwendy sighs. “And you would be right about that.” She musters a half-hearted smile. “To tell the truth, I’m more embarrassed that it’s my first day in the up-above and I’m already off-schedule.” She studies the read-out on her iPad. “I’m not due for a sleep break for another six hours.”

Adesh wrinkles his brow and pish-toshes her. “You took a twenty-minute nap. So what?” He looks around furtively and gives his stomach a couple of gentle pats. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. It’s still an hour or so until my first designated meal, and I’ve already snuck two protein bars.”

“You did no so thing!”

“I most assuredly did.”

She takes a peek at the level above them. “You better not let the boss hear you say that.”

“What happens on third level stays on third level,” he says, shrugging his shoulders against the restraining belts.

Gwendy puts a hand to her mouth and stifles a giggle. Throughout the four weeks of intense training and twelve days of close-quarters quarantine, she’s gotten to know several of her fellow crewmembers rather intimately. While Kathy Lundgren and Bern Stapleton are like old and trusted friends by now, she feels like she’s barely scratched the surface with many of the others, including the Indian gentlemen they call the Bug Man. She knows that Adesh Patel is quiet and polite and brilliant. He’s traveled the world and speaks several languages. He’s happily married to a beautiful woman named Daksha, which means “The Earth” in their traditional culture, and they have twin fourteen-year-old sons. She’s seen a number of photographs, and the family is always smiling. She also knows that neither of the boys wants to follow in their parents’ footsteps and become doctors. Instead, they’re determined to become professional baseball players with lucrative shoe contracts and seven-digit social media followings—a fact the humble entomologist admits often keeps him awake at night.

After today Gwendy believes she’s learned something else, something very important, about Adesh Patel. He has a kind heart to go along with his kind chestnut eyes, and she likes him a great deal. She believes she can trust him on this journey—and she needs all the allies she can get. Even those—perhaps even especially those—with a pet scorpion and a creepy tarantula.

Across the deck, Gareth Winston begins snorting in his sleep, a cacophony of wet, gurgling, slobbering sounds, not unlike what you might hear from a pair of horny prize hogs going at it in the midst of rutting season.

Gwendy and Adesh gape in astonishment at the blubbering billionaire, then glance at each other and crack up. Jafari looks up from his iPad. “What? What did I miss?” The mystified expression on the astronomer’s face makes them laugh even harder. “What? Tell me.”

There’s a sudden buzzing sound and Kathy Lundgren’s amused face appears on the middle screen of the three overhead monitors. “Hate to be a buzzkill, folks, but some of us are trying to get a little work done up here.” She gives them a friendly wink. “A little quieter, please.”

“My apologies,” Gwendy says, her cheeks flushing. “I started the whole thing.”

“No worries, Senator. I’m glad you’re enjoying the trip.”

Kathy’s face disappears from the screen, and is immediately replaced by a series of data charts and multi-colored graphs.

“What’s all the ruckus about?”

The three crew members turn and stare across the deck. Gareth Winston is rubbing sleep from his eyes with one chubby, balled-up fist. His usually neat short brown hair is sticking up in sweaty spikes. Before any of them can manage an answer, he whips his head around and peers excitedly out the nearby porthole. His porthole. “Hey! Are we there yet?”