Space Inc (anthology)

The Siren Stone by Derwin Mak

Colonel Matthew Chang sat aboard the spaceship Long Island and stared at the sensor map, which showed asteroid 20 521 Odette de Proust flying steadily toward Space Station Reagan—and the two hundred and ninety people he’d had to leave there.

A video transmission from General Boyd on Olympus appeared on a monitor.

“Colonel,” said Boyd, “all our fleet—what’s left after the Mars disaster—is still carrying refugees away from Olympus. The soonest any ship can get to Space Station Reagan is seven weeks.”

“Odette will hit Reagan in six,” said Chang plainly.

“Are you confident the demolition crew will blow up the asteroid well before that?” Boyd asked.

Chang shook his head. “They’re still behind schedule. Two days now. Something’s wrong.” In the asteroid demolition business, rock blasters did not linger on an asteroid by choice. If they were late, they had run into trouble. A failed bomb, a premature explosion, a crashed ship, a collision with another asteroid, an injured crew… there were endless possibilities of how the mission could fail.

But these problems occurred on asteroids that wobbled erratically in orbits crowded with other rocks. They seldom occurred on asteroids like Odette, rocks that rotated smoothly in orbits with few neighbors.

“Rock Blasters, Inc., are the best in the business,” said Boyd. “But if they’ve failed, you and the Long Island must be in position to blow up the asteroid.”

“I should be evacuating the station. It’s not worth risking anyone—” Chang protested. “We’re not the experts—”

“I’ll take full responsibility. I’ve put the order in writing,” said Boyd. “Remember, the Long Island holds only ten people. Time isn’t on your side—to save the personnel or the station itself. That’s why I’m sending you to make sure that asteroid is destroyed. It’s the only way to save all three hundred people.”

After Boyd’s transmission ended, Chang muttered, “We should’ve blown up Odette years ago. Those stupid civil servants don’t take anything seriously until it becomes a crisis.”

A lieutenant turned to Chang. “Sir,” said the lieutenant, “we’ve reestablished contact with the Rocky Road.”

“Finally,” said Chang. “What’s going on now?”

“The crew is still acting crazy. They insist there are people living on the asteroid.”

“Impossible,” Chang growled. “How can anyone live on an airless rock?”

The lieutenant pointed at a monitor. “We’re getting a transmission from the blasters now, sir.”

On the monitor, the image of Andrew Lundman appeared, beamed from his ship the Rocky Road, now on Odette.

“Lundman, when are you going to blow up that rock?” said Chang.

“Not while there are people here,” said Andrew.

For Andrew Lundman, owner of Rock Blasters, Inc., and captain of the Rocky Road, the project had seemed clear and simple: land on Odette, bore a hole into its core, plant a couple of nuclear bombs, leave, and detonate the bombs. Odette would break into pieces of varied trajectories instead of slamming into Space Station Reagan six weeks from now.

Scavengers would follow to pick up the chunks of iron ore and pay a commission of five million gold units to Rock Blasters, Inc. Along with the twenty million gold units for blowing up the asteroid, Rock Blasters, Inc., would make a good profit.

20 521 Odette de Proust, named after a character from the novel Swann’s Way and the novelist who created her, should have been a routine assignment. Odette was small and deemed safe enough that the United Nations Committee on Asteroid and Meteor Collisions had simply outsourced the job to Rock Blasters, Inc.

On schedule, Andrew Lundman, George Hodding, and Ed Benton had landed on Odette without problems. Just another asteroid demolition. Or so they’d thought.

The first ghost had appeared when they were drilling into the asteroid. Andrew remembered the moment in every detail. They all did.

“Oh, God, look over there!” George shouted.

Ed gasped and pointed at the figure. “What’s that?”

“Then you see her, too?” demanded George.

Andrew turned off the drill. “I see it, too,” he said. “What is it? An alien?”

“No, it’s Rachel,” said George, both mystified and excited. “Rachel, my wife.”

As he watched the figure walk closer, George muttered, “Rachel, Rachel. But Rachel is dead.”

Andrew turned and stared straight at her so that his helmet camera would capture her image. “Reagan Mission Control, there’s another person on the asteroid. I’m aiming my helmet camera at her. Do you see her?”

“Negative, Lundman,” Mission Control replied warily from Space Station Reagan. “We don’t see any person other than you and your crew.”

George began walking toward Rachel. As he passed by, Andrew saw the dumbfounded look on George’s face and the hesitant way he approached Rachel.

Mission Control addressed George: “Mr. Hodding, why are you moving away from the drill operation?”

“Investigating an anomaly,” said George as he approached Rachel, who was now smiling.

Rachel put her arms around him. “Oh, George, it’s been too long,” she cooed. “Don’t look so shocked. Look happy.”

“Rachel, how—how on Earth did you get here?” George blurted.

“We’re not on Earth,” Rachel reminded him. “Just hold me for a little while.”

Over his helmet radio, Andrew heard George and Rachel talk. “Mission Control, Hodding is talking to his wife. Do you hear them?” he asked.

“Negative on that. We hear Hodding talking to someone, but we don’t hear anyone talking back to him,” said Mission Control. “What’s going on over there?”

Even if she were alive, she should have been dead because she had no space suit and no air. Instead of any protection from the cold and vacuum of space, she wore a red jacket, a short black dress, and high heels. It was the outfit she had worn on their first date twenty years ago.

She also looked as young as she had been on their first date. Behind her, the stars shone like bright white pinpricks against the black fabric of space. The searchlight from the Rocky Road lit half her face, leaving the other half in shadow.

“George, it’s so wonderful to see you again,” she repeated.

George shook his head. How could she talk through the vacuum of space, and how could he hear her voice on his helmet radio? How could her wavy black hair blow in a wind that couldn’t exist?

“Rachel, is it really you?”

Rachel smiled. “In the flesh.”

George reached out and touched her again. She was solid.

“How can you stand there without a space suit, how can you talk to me?”

Rachel shrugged. “I don’t know. I was suddenly here. I don’t know how I got here or how I can live here.”

She swung her arms around and danced. “But I feel so alive!”

Even though you died seven years ago, remembered George.

“George, how is Megan?” she asked.

“Megan’s well. She turned fifteen a month ago. Listens to those Euro-rock groups. She got an A in English. Her teachers like her…” he rambled.

Rachel squealed. “Oh, how I wish I could see her grow up! And how about Crystal?”

George smiled. “She’s well, too. Crystal’s an athlete, pretty good for a twelve-year-old. Came in second at a school track and field meet. She got a blue ribbon.”

Rachel pointed at the Rocky Road. “Can we go inside the ship? Did you bring photos of the girls? I want to see them!”

As they walked to the ship, George wondered how he would tell his wife’s ghost that he had betrayed her.

Ed’s father, who had died of lung cancer five years ago, appeared next. Ed had seen photos of his dad’s last days, when he looked scrawny and wasted by disease inside an ill-fitting green hospital gown. But here on Odette, he looked healthy and fit, as he was in Ed’s childhood, and wore his favorite red plaid shirt and blue jeans.

Ed walked slowly, cautiously, to his dad. Ed felt his throat go dry with fear and surprise, but he managed to talk.

“Dad, how did you get here?” Ed asked.

“I dunno. Suddenly appeared here. Glad I’m alive again, though.”

“So you know—you know that you’re—dead?” Ed asked.

His dad threw a pebble. It soared silently through the beam of light from Ed’s flashlight and into the black depths of space.

Dad nodded. “Yeah, I know I’m supposed to be dead. I don’t know how or why I’m here with you.”

The final ghost to appear to the rock blasters was Sally, Andrew’s sweetheart at the University of Oregon. She had died when terrorists bombed her train in their last year at university. Yet on Odette, Sally was alive and well, as young as she had been in her senior year, wearing the white, green, and yellow uniform of a University of Oregon cheerleader.

“Go, Ducks!” she yelled, referring to the University of Oregon’s football team. After dropping her pom-poms to the ground, she jumped into a pike, kicking her legs up parallel to the ground and bending at the waist to touch her toes. When she landed in front of Andrew, a small cloud of rock dust rose from her feet.

With a gasp, Andrew stumbled and fell backward onto the ground. Up and down his spine, he felt both the heat of shock and the cold of fear. As he looked up at Sally, he saw and heard her laugh.

“Klutzy, just like at the spring dance! You haven’t changed a bit!” she teased him. She bent and reached down to help him get up on his feet. He felt her solid hands grab his arm.

“Hey, Andy, let’s go into the ship,” she suggested. “You can take your space suit off in there. You’ll be more comfortable. Yeah.” She smiled. “Why don’t you take some clothes off?”

Back aboard the Rocky Road, Andrew took off his space suit and led Sally to the control room. Used to a mere three-man crew, Andrew suddenly felt crowded in the control room, with George and Rachel holding hands in one corner, Ed and his dad huddled over a monitor at another area, and now he and Sally walking into the room.

Andrew had never seen George’s green eyes so happy and bright as now, as Rachel ran her hands through his brown hair. Andrew also noticed that Ed’s blond hair was thinning in the same spot, at the back of his head, where his dad had gone bald.

He turned around and saw Sally put her pom-poms down beside a computer console. As she sat down in a chair and stretched, he noticed how lifelike these ghosts were. Unlike the transparent spirits of horror movies and stories, these looked opaque and felt solid.

He saw his reflection in a shiny metal control console. Gray hair, induced by time and hard living. He’d aged so much since Sally died. What a contrast with her ghost’s hair, still as blonde and shiny as it had been in college.

“How can you exist?” Andrew demanded. “Without air? Without food? Without, uh—”

“Without life?” said Sally. “Yes, I know I’m supposed to be dead. I don’t know how I got here. Buy why does it matter? We can just pick up where we left off.” She rose from the chair, put her arms around Andrew’s shoulders, pulled his lips toward hers, and kissed him. It was a deep, wet kiss, full of love and longing and hunger.

Andrew gripped her and returned the kiss. Her skin felt warm and soft and smelled of the lilac perfume she had worn on their last date, two weeks before she died.

On Space Station Reagan, Mission Control still could not see Sally, Rachel, or Ed’s dad through the Rocky Road’s cameras, nor could Mission Control hear the ghosts’ voices. After Mission Control and Andrew had argued for hours, Colonel Chang, the station’s commander was called in. Like his staff, the colonel could not see the ghosts either.

“All I see are you, Hodding, and Benton,” said Chang. “I can’t see anyone else.”

“How can you not see them? They’re right here beside us,” said Andrew. He turned to Sally. “Sally, say something to the colonel.”

“I can’t explain this, sir, but I am here,” said Sally.

Chang said nothing. Hadn’t he heard Sally? Andrew wondered.

Finally, Chang spoke. “Lundman, who were you talking to a minute ago?”

“Sally,” said Andrew. “Didn’t you hear her?”

“Hear who?” Chang asked. “I heard nobody.”

Over at another corner, Rachel sighed. “It’s so stuffy in here, George. Can I go back outside? I feel more comfortable on the asteroid surface.”

“Soon, Rachel, soon,” said George as he rubbed Rachel’s shoulder to soothe her.

On the monitor, Chang looked puzzled. “Hodding, what are you doing? Rubbing the air?”

“My wife,” George said. “Her shoulders are a bit sore.”

“Your wife? But Abby’s in New York,” Chang protested. “She called Mission Control last night.”

“Not Abby. Rachel,” explained George. “I was talking to Rachel.”

“Rachel?” Chang said. “No, that’s impossible.”

Ed’s dad waved dismissively at Chang’s image on the monitor. “He doesn’t believe we’re here,” he said. “He just wants you to blow up the asteroid.”

“Don’t worry, Dad. We won’t blow it up,” said Ed.

“Mr. Benton, did I hear you tell someone that you’re not going to blow up the asteroid?” Chang erupted.

Ed nodded. “You heard correctly,” he mumbled.

Andrew looked at Chang’s image on the monitor. “Colonel, I know how incredible this all seems to you. We’re very shocked and surprised, too. I think we shouldn’t destroy the asteroid until we’re had a chance to study it.”

Chang looked alarmed. “You must blow up that rock.”

“We can’t blow up this rock. It’s different.”

“What do you think you’ve found?” Chang protested. “A Siren Stone? You know they’re just a deep space myth.”

As mermaids had been to ancient mariners, Siren Stones were to modern spacers. They were a way to explain the space crews who turned crazy and disappeared without a trace. In the vast deepness of space, what lonely spacer could resist the beautiful spirits who haunted the Siren Stones? Andrew hadn’t taken the myth seriously—until now.

“Maybe there’s some truth behind the myth,” said Andrew. “That’s more reason to preserve the rock until we learn more about it.”

“What about the three hundred people on Space Station Reagan?” said Chang.

“We can still save them. Let’s not blow up the asteroid. Let’s move it instead,” Andrew suggested eagerly. “We’ll plant explosives on the rock’s surface—the blast will nudge Odette into a new orbit, one that won’t threaten Reagan or anything else.”

Chang shook his head. “Attempts to move asteroids into safe orbits have a lousy success rate. The procedure is too complicated. That’s why we blow up the damn things. I can’t take the risk. I won’t gamble with three hundred lives.”

“We can move the asteroid into a safe orbit,” Andrew insisted.

“You have your orders, Mr. Lundman. Blow up that rock.”

Ed and his dad went outside the ship, back to the airless surface of Odette. Ed wore a space suit, but Dad did not.

“How is the family?” asked Dad.

“Mom’s okay. She moved to California about two months ago,” Ed replied. “Joan’s not at Georgetown anymore. She chose a contract position at Stanford because she likes it there. And Trim and I had a son last year. His name is Norman.”

“Wow, I’m a grandfather! Whoo-ee!” his dad yelled. “Too bad I couldn’t be there for the boy, Norman’s his name? It’s bad enough that I missed a few years of your life, and now I’m not around for my grandson’s.”

A few years of your life: the words echoed in Ed’s ears.

Ed’s dad quit his job at the car factory when Ed was five years old and spent the next five years moving from one bad business deal to another. During that time, Dad never had money, and Mom never smiled. After five years of financial failures, he had simply walked out. To support Ed and Joan, Mom worked two jobs, one cleaning an office building and another waiting tables at a restaurant.

Dad returned five years later, paler and thinner than ever before, but with a small amount he had earned in odd jobs in California. He was ready to lead his family again, he announced sheepishly. Mom wouldn’t take him back, though. Without any argument, he gave her the money and moved into an apartment across town. He had exiled himself from his family when they had wanted him, and now they were exiling him when he wanted them.

He came to visit them from time to time, though. By the time Ed left to work on the Moon, Mom and Joan were just warming up to Dad again, starting to close the chasm in the family. Eventually, Mom and Joan forgave Dad for his disappearance. About seven years after his return, Dad and Mom renewed their vows, in essence, got married again, with Joan as bridesmaid. But Ed was away on the Moon and couldn’t come back. He had said that his employer had no room for him on the next shuttle back to Earth. In fact, he had not even asked for a seat on the flight.

Ed visited his mom and dad only twice in the next five years. Unlike Mom and Joan, he could not forgive his dad for leaving him when he was ten years old.

And then his dad discovered he had cancer. When Ed got the space transmission from his mother, he realized that if he wanted his father again, he was running out of time. But Ed was on a rock blasting team heading for Mars. By the time the ship returned to Earth, his dad had already died.

Ed wanted to tell his dad that all was forgiven—but was this ghost really his dad?

“Before you arrived here, what was the last thing you remember?” Ed asked.

“Dying,” said Dad.

Ed looked at the stars above them. Is this what heaven looks like? he asked himself. Is that where they were? In heaven?

“INCOMING TRANSMISSION” flashed on the monitor. Andrew watched the words fade out and Colonel Chang’s image fade in. The transmission was coming from the Long Island; Chang had left Space Station Reagan and was heading to Odette.

“You are now three days behind schedule on the demolition of Odette,” Chang said. “Do you intend to blow it up?”

“I repeat, not while there are people here,” said Andrew.

“There are no people there!” said Chang. He sounded agitated; Andrew had never seen him unnerved before.

Chang tried a more reasoning tone. “They’re all in your imagination,” he said.

Andrew looked at Sally. She straddled the floor, legs wide apart, and raised her arms over her shoulder to touch her feet. That was how cheerleaders stretched their hamstrings and calf muscles. He remembered seeing her do those stretches on a football field in Oregon many years ago.

She looked so warm, so lively. When they had kissed, he realized that he had never kissed as passionately as with her. Sally was a real woman again.

Andrew turned back to Chang. “No, sir, they are not our imagination. They are real.”

“So are the two hundred and ninety people now on Space Station Reagan,” Chang reminded him grimly. “That’s two hundred and ninety dead if you don’t blow up Odette.”

“We’re working on a way to move the asteroid into a safe orbit,” Andrew said. “I’m confident we’ll succeed.”

“You know that’s the riskier procedure.” Chang scowled from the monitor. “You leave me no choice, Mr. Lundman. I will demolish Odette and arrest you and your crew.”

“Arrest us?” questioned Andrew. “On what grounds?”

“United States Space Stations Code, section 52, ‘Willful Endangerment of a Space Station,” ‘ Chang stated. “Minimum sentence, ten years. Don’t make this mistake. Obey your orders.”

George and Rachel strolled outside on the asteroid’s surface, talking about the girls. Rachel laughed when she heard how her daughters had grown up.

“Oh, how I wish I could have seen all of it,” she said finally. “Oh, if only I could have been there for them.”

George nodded. “That has been the greatest sadness of my life, that you aren’t there to see them grow up.”

Rachel shook her head. “George, don’t feel sad anymore. I’ll always be with all three of you.”

“Are you in heaven?” George asked.

She took his hand and placed it over his heart. “I’m right here, in your heart.”

“You always have been,” said George as they continued walking.

“I got to hand it to you, George,” said Rachel. “It must have been hard to raise two girls by yourself for seven years.”

George sighed. “There’s something I have to tell you. I wasn’t alone all that time.”

“Oh?” said Rachel. “My mother has been helping out?”

“No. I remarried four years ago. Her name is Abby.”

Rachel stopped walking and looked at George. “Abby. Is she a nice girl?”

“Yes.”

“And how does she treat the girls?”

George said nothing.

“George, how does she treat the girls?” Rachel asked again, anxiously.

George took in a deep breath. “Extremely well. Abby loves them deeply, treats them as if they were her own daughters.”

Rachel crossed her arms and shifted her gaze to a rock beside them, as if to avoid looking him in the eye.

“Oh, I see,” she said softly.

For Andrew, Sally’s death had ended all of their plans: getting married, getting jobs, and starting a family.

“So you never went to that job you had lined up after graduation, the one with the City of Eugene?” Sally asked.

“No, I went into the Navy instead,” said Andrew. Without Sally, he had joined the U.S. Navy after graduation, hoping to fight the terrorists who had blown up her train.

He had felt a brief sense of joy when Navy missiles killed the last terrorist commander in Sudan, but it couldn’t erase the sadness of losing Sally. Afterward, he volunteered for service on the farthest, loneliest space station, and later, went into rock blasting.

“No children?” asked Sally. “Why not?”

“Hard to do with my job,” said Andrew. “I’m always traveling for months in space. No time to meet someone, much less raise a kid.”

He paused. He knew he had been making excuses for years.

“But, remember, I had wanted children,” he continued. “That’s what we had planned. We would get married after graduation. We’d live in Eugene. We would get jobs there. I would be a road engineer. You would be an accountant for the bakery. We would have children.”

Sally smiled. “We had our whole lives planned, didn’t we?”

“We sure did, girl,” said Andrew.

“Things didn’t go according to plan, did they?”

“No, they didn’t.” Words came out of Andrew in a rush. “I was looking forward to life with you. It was the most important thing in my life. Instead, I wound up alone, no kids, living anywhere but in Eugene, blasting space rocks for a living. It wasn’t what we had planned.”

Ed and his dad passed by the drill, now motionless but still stuck into the asteroid. His dad pointed at the drill.

“Is it deep enough to plant those nuclear bombs?” his dad asked.

“We’re not going to do it,” Ed protested. “How can we? We would kill you.”

“I’m already dead,” said his dad. “But think of yourself. That military spacecraft will be here any day now. If you don’t blow up Odette, they’ll arrest you and blow it up anyway.”

“We’ll fight them,” Ed declared. “I lost you once, I won’t lose you again!”

“Ed, you can’t have me forever. Stop clinging to me. Son, why do you keep clinging on to me?”

“Because, because,” Ed started. He couldn’t force the words out of his mouth. But it was time to tell him.

“Because I never got to tell you that I forgive you for leaving me and Joan and Mom,” Ed said.

His dad put his hand on Ed’s shoulder. “I know, son. I’ve known all this time.”

A tear ran down Ed’s cheek. “You mean, you died knowing I had forgiven you?”

“Sure did. Don’t let that bother you anymore.”

Ed heard a clicking sound over his helmet radio. He turned around and looked at the drill’s sensor box. The sensor box’s lights were lit up in red, blue, and green. He kneeled down to read the display.

“My, oh, my,” said Ed. “Dad, you’ve got to see this.”

He turned around to look at his dad, but his dad was not there.

Rachel uncrossed her arms. George remembered that she always crossed her arms when she was angry. Had she been angry? Was she still?

“Since Abby is the girls’ mother now, “ she said, “does she do everything that a mother should do?”

“Yes,” said George.

“Do the girls love her?”

“Very much. You should see the three of them together.”

“Ohhhh…”

“Oh, no, I shouldn’t have said that,” George said. “I’m sorry, so very sorry.”

“No! Don’t be sorry!” Rachel cried. “Oh, George, I’m so happy for you and Megan and Crystal! And Abby!”

She threw her arms around him and squeezed him. Even through his space suit, he could feel that it was the tightest hug she had ever given him.

“I’m thrilled that my family is happy,” Rachel said. “Why wouldn’t I want to hear that?”

George took a deep breath. “I felt I had betrayed you by marrying Abby. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.” She kissed his helmet visor. “You haven’t betrayed me. If anything, you’ve done exactly what I’ve wanted. You’ve raised our girls to be happy, confident young women. You’ve created a warm, caring family.”

“Really?”

“If you’re looking for my permission to love Abby and raise the girls with her, you have it. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

They hugged, they kissed, and this time, George felt her lips press against his.

That’s impossible, he thought. I have my helmet on. Oh, God, I better still have my helmet on!

He felt his helmet with one gloved hand; he was still wearing it. He looked around. He didn’t see Rachel anywhere.

Inside the ship, Ed scrolled through the graphs and figures appearing on his computer monitor. A three-dimensional computer graphic of Odette appeared, showing how animated waves poured from the core of the asteroid.

“Incredible!” Ed exclaimed. “The drill’s sensor detected electrochemical signals below the asteroid’s surface. The asteroid is hollow, and it’s emitting electrochemical signals.”

“Like a battery?” asked Andrew.

“More like a brain. Look at this.” Ed pointed at the animated image. “It’s also absorbing electrochemical signals.”

“From where? The only sources of electrochemical signals are us, from our brains,” said Andrew.

“I can’t prove it without further tests, but I think the asteroid is absorbing our brain waves and sending its own signals into our brains,” Ed guessed.

“Holy smokes. Sally, Rachel, your dad. Could the ghosts be based on our memories and thoughts?”

Ed nodded. “That’s possible. Dad’s ghost knew how I’ve felt since he died.”

They heard the sound of metal doors swinging open and boots pounding upon steel as George emerged from the air lock. After entering the control room, he began to take off his space suit.

“Funny thing happened out there,” he said. “One minute, Rachel is standing there, hugging me, completely alive—”

“No,” Andrew interrupted. “Rachel isn’t alive. The asteroid is. This is a Siren Stone.”

Aboard the Long Island, Colonel Chang returned to his usual calm, if humorless, mode after hearing Andrew’s explanation of the ghosts. To Andrew, this was as close as Chang would get to showing happiness.

“Finally. Now that you’ve determined that there are no living human beings on Odette, proceed to destroy it,” said Chang.

“Colonel, we still can’t do that,” said Andrew.

Chang glared at them through the thousands of miles of space. “Why not?”

“The asteroid is absorbing our brain waves and emitting its own brain waves. It’s some kind of living being. We can’t—we shouldn’t—kill it.”

“It’s a rock!” Chang snapped. “Unlike Space Station Reagan. Reagan has two hundred and ninety permanent residents: scientists, tradespeople, artisans, farmers, settlers, and children born on the station. Don’t forget that Reagan isn’t just a space station; it’s their home. You have to blow up the rock!”

“We’ve been working on the calculation for moving the asteroid. We’ll know how many explosives to use, where to place them, and when to detonate them. We can do it,” Andrew insisted.

“No, you won’t. You’re under arrest!” Chang yelled.

Andrew cut off the audio link to the Long Island. He could still see, if not hear, how Chang continued barking orders to restore the audio link.

“George, have you finished the prep for shifting the orbit?” Andrew asked.

“I’ve figured it out,” said George, “but it’s a complicated calculation. If I missed a variable, it might not work.”

“It’s a chance we’ll have to take,” said Andrew. “Ed, how’s our flight plan coming?”

“Just finished it,” said Ed, looking up from his computer monitor.

“Good, good,” said Andrew. He moved toward the crew quarters. “Excuse me for a minute. There’s one last thing I have to discuss with Sally.”

“We should have died together,” said Andrew.

“No, no,” Sally said. “We should have lived together.”

“But we didn’t,” he argued, “and that’s what’s haunted me for years. Life didn’t go the way I wanted. No house in Eugene, no job with the city, no cottage in the summer, no vacations to Disney World, no taking our kids to see their grandparents, no kids at all—”

“Hush,” Sally ordered. “Listen to me. You’ve had a good life without me. You’ve beaten the enemies of our country. You’ve saved lives by blowing up asteroids before they hit people. You’ve been all over the world and beyond, from Oregon to Polynesia to the Moon to the asteroid belt. You’ve done things, seen things, helped and saved people. Don’t ever think that your life was a waste of time.”

“Even if I’ve lived it without you, Sally?” Andrew said.

“Even without me,” she replied, smiling. “You’ve gotten on with your life, even if you don’t know it. Stop mourning my loss and the loss of what could have been. What you made instead is great and wonderful.”

“That’s what I finally needed to hear,” he said as his throat began to go dry, as the years of sadness ended with this moment of joy.

She kissed him, in the same deep, passionate way they had kissed in their college years.

Then suddenly, she was gone.

After they finished planting the bombs, Andrew, George, and Ed scrambled aboard the Rocky Road. An hour later, the Rocky Road soared away from the asteroid. They’d go beyond the range of the blast before detonating the bombs, but set them off soon enough to avoid danger to the oncoming Long Island.

A day later, the Rocky Road reached a safe distance from Odette. As planned, the Long Island was still out of range. Andrew smiled; they had outrun Chang.

Andrew typed the detonation code into the transmitter. He hit the “send” button.

“It’s done,” Andrew said. He began the countdown under his breath.

“We have a strong signal from the probe watching Odette,” said Ed. He sent the asteroid’s image to all the monitors.

They watched the bomb explode. Although fragments of rock flew in all directions, most of the asteroid stayed intact. Amidst a gray cloud of pulverized stone, slowly but surely, Odette shifted its path.

Aboard the Long Island, Colonel Chang and his crew silently watched Odette shift into its new orbit. Never before had they seen an asteroid move amidst a cloud of its own debris.

“This damn well better have worked,” Chang said, breaking the silence.

“Colonel, your orders?” said Major Peters, the ship’s first officer.

“Plot a course to intercept Odette,” said Chang. “I want to be sure this trajectory is completely safe. We still might have to destroy it.”

As the Long Island continued toward Odette, deep space probes monitored Odette and sent data to Space Station Reagan. With the data, asteroid trackers began mapping Odette’s new orbit. Would Odette hit something sooner or later?

A day later, Mission Control sent the answer to Chang. “A one in a million chance, and they got it,” he reported to General Boyd.

Back on Space Station Reagan, Mission Control sent the same relieved message to all ships and probes: Odette had changed its orbit and no longer threatened to strike Reagan or any other station.

The Long Island was preparing to head home, leaving Odette alone, when she received a distress signal from the Rocky Road. The rock blasters had returned to Odette for reasons unknown and now were in trouble. Calls to the Rocky Road only returned a recorded mayday message. Chang had no choice but to respond. What could be going wrong aboard the Rocky Road now?

Andrew looked around. George was telling Rachel about her mother’s vacation to Spain last year. At his station, Ed explained to his dad how probes and beacons sent images back to Earth and traveling ships. George and Ed were making up for lost time with their loved ones, talking about family and friends, hopes and plans.

Sally, still dressed as a Ducks cheerleader, came back into the control room. Andrew knew he could imagine her in other clothes, but he wanted to remember her this way. The college years had been the best time of their lives, when the present was full of life and happiness, when the future seemed eternally bright.

Sally sat down beside Andrew and took his hand. “Why did you return to us?” she asked.

“To bring Chang to the asteroid,” said Andrew. “I’ve known Chang for several years, and he’s always sad. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s someone in his past. If it is, he needs to come here.”

Shortly after the Long Island landed on Odette, Colonel Chang and six commandos quietly boarded the Rocky Road. As the commandos took control of the engineering sections, Chang went to the control room.

Chang raised his helmet visor. “We received your distress signal,” he said. “What’s wrong, is anyone injured—oh, my God.”

In addition to Andrew, George, and Ed, he saw other people on the ship: a woman in a red jacket; a man in blue jeans; and a girl in a cheerleader uniform.

“You’re just figments of my imagination,” Chan insisted.

“Captain Ross reporting for duty, sir!” someone announced from behind him.

Chang spun around. A soldier, dressed in green jungle combat camouflage, stood there. His name tag read “ROSS.” He was unscratched and alive, the way he had been when Chang last saw him.

Chang put a hand on Ross’ shoulder—his solid shoulder.

Chang tried fighting back the tears, but a single drop rolled down his cheek.

“Oh, dear God, why can’t you be real?” he asked. “Why couldn’t I take you home to your wife? Instead, I had only your dog tags to take to her…”

One night in the U. S. camp in Haiti, Chang had heard strange sounds, like someone stumbling through the garbage dump just outside the camp. Change had ordered Captain Warren Ross to investigate the sounds. As he walked into the garbage dump, Ross had stepped on a land mine and been blown to pieces. Ross had been married only ten months.

If only he hadn’t ordered Ross to investigate the sounds…

Chang had never fully recovered from meeting Ross’ wife Karen and their newborn son Daniel. He had given her Ross’ dog tags, and soon afterward, applied for space station service, away from Earth’s fighting nations.

After Chang ordered the commandos to return to the Long Island, he talked to Ross in the control room, oblivious to the others, both living and dead. Finally, Chang heard the words he had needed to hear for nineteen years.

“Karen knew the risks, Major,” Ross said, calling Chang by his rank during the Haitian War. “Her father and grandfather were both in the Army. She knew we could be killed in action anytime. I’m sure she never blamed the Army or you.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Chang said. “Let me say again that I was proud to have you under my command. I wish I had been able to tell you at the time.”

Chang and Ross exchanged salutes. The colonel sighed and closed his eyes. When he opened his eyes, Ross was gone.

Sally, Rachel, and Dad left again, leaving the three rock blasters alone with their memories—and Colonel Chang.

“I’m gong to drop the charges of willful endangerment of a space station,” said Chang, staring out the window at the stars above Odette.

Andrew joined Chang at the window. “Thank you, Colonel,” said Andrew.

“It’s the least I could do, considering you’ve lost five million gold units in scavengers’ commissions,” said Chang with a wry smile.

Andrew nodded. “That’s a lot of money, but we can’t put a value on this asteroid. It’s priceless.”

“And mysterious,” said Chang. “We know nothing about it. Is it one of the legendary Siren Stones? Could there be more of them? Where did it come from? Did someone send it to us? Is it alive?”

“Do you think the asteroid is alive?” Andrew asked.

“I don’t know,” Chang answered, “but it doesn’t matter. It does something wonderful, and that’s what counts. You’ve done the human race a big favor.”

“How’s that?”

Chang gazed at the stars again. “You’ve saved something the human race desperately needs: a place where people can make peace with their pasts.”

George and Ed joined them at the window. Up in the black sky, there seemed as many stars as there were lost souls in the human race, each wishing for a chance to say unsaid words.

“I have friends, family—we all do—who could be healed by coming here,” said Chang. “Too bad it’s so far from Earth.”

“You brought more explosives, didn’t you?” asked Andrew. “I think we can give Odette another nudge. Drop her in behind Mars, for instance. Not so close to Earth as to endanger anything, but close enough so people can come here.”

“I have the explosives,” said Chang. He gave Andrew a serious, questioning look. “Are you sure you can do it again?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” said Andrew without hesitating. “We’ve done it once already.” Behind him, George and Ed nodded.

“Fine. You can have the explosives,” Chang said. Then he became silent, deep in thought. “I have a problem, though,” he said after his silence. “How will I explain this to General Boyd? He’ll think I’ve gone crazy. I don’t want to get discharged as a mental case.”

“Don’t worry about the general,” Andrew said. “He’ll understand after he comes here, just as you did.”

“Of course,” said Chang with a smile. “And he will come here. This is a Siren Stone, after all.”

Derwin Mak lives in Toronto and writes quirky science fiction short stories. His stories are about ballerinas, tiny aliens, unlucky Titanic survivors, and vile U-boat captains. He was an anime correspondent for the Canadian magazine Parsec and has written articles about royal families and nobility for Monarchy Canada magazine and the Napoleonic Society of America. He has university degrees in accounting, defense management, and military history.