1. Phantasia

What is this? Where am I?

Descending around me are spheres of a pinkish hue, enveloping me in their mystical orbit. I tried… extending my hand into the – void? I can’t really say that… I can’t… It isn’t… like that. Pitch-black. Space. I’ve had far too much experience. The darkness seems fleeting – frightening, never fazing me though. But like, it’s sickening, you know? Perpetually hovering in the depths of the universe… And sometimes I’d surmise I’d see my limp form from above, pondering the scale of it all. 

But this is different. Enchanting, enthralling emptiness, without lack. Space lacks everything, but this – I witness nothing but cotton-candy-clouds for miles upon miles. I extend my hand… but no sensation replies. It’s empty. But it feels whole, you know? Like everything is falling into place when nothing really is.

I must not forget my mission. Caelum Hayes, lead astronaut of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. On the Odysseus mission to document extraterrestrial territory – ah. Geography, the scourge of the world – ascending from the reaches of the exosphere. Never thought I’d end up doing – this – plate tectonic rubbish – as an accomplished adult. Alas.

The landscape bathed in a bubblegum halo flickers before my eyes. All these procedures – which I undoubtedly disdain – are embedded in my veins. I watch my body meander through the motions and return to the spaceship – known as the Life-Sustaining Mobile Contraption, or the Limocon, dive into the airlock, and emerge from a portal. 

My time on the Limocon is bathed in monotony. I barely recall the flurry of days, time a mere travellator whose path I follow, marked by the thinning of the pages of my wall-mounted calendar and soon by the stash of calendars pressed against my bedside. Around once per kilogram of calendars will our mission undergo fieldwork – a glimpse of color amongst the grey. Soon, it’s another fieldwork day and the hour for discovery is upon us. I descend through the hatch into yet another bizarre realm – nothing new, I’ve seen too many.

 Well, it’s high time for me to introduce you to the other two chaps with me on the ship. There’s our mission leader, Cuthbert Montgomery. That uppity Englishman. All he does is swarm us with his flurry of incessant commands on useless stuff. ‘Caelum! Plot the Doppler redshift of Theta Leonis on a linearized time graph.’ All right Sir. Dr. Reverend. Cuthbert, who cares? And there’s the other guy, newbie Cooper Pierce, who I’d suppose came along for the thrill and sightseeing. I wouldn’t trust him with any crucial tasks — he can stick to mopping up my spilt coffee and making sure those airlock handles are squeaky clean. 

Cuthbert leads the way, hurtling through the puffy clouds into the fairytale plane. I plunge into the elusive pink – sky? Ocean? I don’t know. I’d describe it as a vast gulf of glitter gel. This locale seems eerily – ominously – familiar. I still recall this vivid sight from our prior fieldwork session a couple hundred pages ago. It just all seems a little more… grounded. 

“Cu- uh- Sir. Montgomery… What are we doing here again?”

“Hayes, thy memory stands clouded. Not once hath our feet been called hither, nor anywhere yonder that thy eyes behold. As we draw thither, behold the exoplanet JRC1800-19 Alpha Beta. Wouldst thou pick up the- pace- and document what thou witness?” 

Cuthbert and his eccentric speech of a scholar of ages past. I’d bet he thinks he seems really cool. He must have been extremely popular in high school.  

“Verily, pursuant to inquiry it is fundamental and paramount that ye register what ye eyes beholdst. It is our finest undertaking and vitally vital…” Yadda, yadda, yadda, I don’t care. All this talk about accomplishing something. My aural observations are going to be more in-depth than my visual ones. 

Anyway, I am still totally convinced I’ve ‘beheld’ all of this before. At least I’ve visualized it. I’m too well trained.  Heck, in the grand scheme of human experience, what is the distinction between fantasy and experience? Between imagination and observation?

2. Cogito

The Odysseus missions were a completely novel affair. In the year 2072, a drug was created that can let one live forever – sort of. Patients still pass away eventually; it just slows down aging by over 20 times. However, it was heralded as a gigantic step towards humanity’s greatest goal – immortality. The elixir of life that everyone, from the Egyptians to the Greeks, had failed to synthesize had finally come to fruition. Well, on a  

tangent, its inventor, a madman named Poon, attempted to feed it to some criminal besties and got himself stuck with them in the slammer. He got 20 life sentences for killing some inmates during his break-in– hence they just fed him his elixir and locked him up. I found it hilarious.

Afterwards, NASA confiscated the concoction and heavily restricted its usage. Us, the crew of the Odysseus missions were among the first humans to use that drug – to keep us alive throughout our journey through endless swathes of the galaxy. Thus, we were able to reach areas that prior generations could never even dream of exploring. After waiting. And waiting. And waiting. 

Well, with this much time what would we the crew be left to do? No amount of arithmetic could pile up enough to span the years we had between bouts of fieldwork – one could solve a trillion differential equations  and barely five grains of sand would have entered the lower phial of the hourglass. 

Instead of choosing to expand the minuscule peanut under my forehead, I opt to bide the time by staring at the ceiling. My mind takes me on a joyride through a vivid suite of lives. My circadian rhythm is like a piece played out of tune; I feel famished, I eat, yet I remain ravenous. Sometimes, it seems like night never ends, as I languish on a transpacific flight. One day, I have a gorgeous wife, two kids, a dog, and a cozy abode behind a white picket fence. The next, I am back here at work, venturing through this dreary abyss. Except that it’s fieldwork day again and we’re adventurers setting forth into dreamland – just my little way from emancipating myself from the endless slog of days. 

I’ve got too much experience. And I know what’s happening. 

3. Diffido

Cooper is coming for me. 

Why, I won’t know. Perhaps he feels that I’m stifling him, when I – rightfully, you know – withhold his responsibilities. I mean, he’s so young and inexperienced, it’s merely what I ought to do. And then, there’s Cuthbert. You’d surmise the wise, well-spoken old man would know how to speak for himself – well, apparently not. Lately, he’s just been sucking up to Cooper and giving his far-fetched ideas undeserved merit. 

For some reason, Cooper is eager to send the Limocon to the Whale Galaxy NGC 4631. His prior naïveté would have led me to assume that he has chosen the spot for visitation from its intriguing name- or his love for marine Mammalia- or both. Perhaps he supposes there are gilded whales hovering in oceans of methane. Cool. I wish. Anyway, that’s what he wants me to think.

“Let’s go to NGC 4631! I think we could be able to glean some intriguing findings to better life on Earth!” Urgh, Cooper’s jumping around again like a baby. A cunning, conniving, cruel baby.

“Cooper, you do realise that – bloody – place is just outside radar coverage… right?”

“So…? Is that going to hinder our pursuit for knowledge?”

Talking back to me. If I were Cuthbert, I’d be howling this spaceship down.

“Cooper, it is outside radar coverage. What that means is that Earth won’t have a darned idea about our whereabouts! We could just die, and no one will know! No one will come to our rescue!”

“If we were in deep trouble, even within radar coverage, would anyone come to our rescue? Who’d be able to speed over 29 million light years – in – fifteen minutes? Remember, it took us 600 years to get here.”

“Still, what- is- the- point? What’s there to study in the Whale Galaxy? Anthropomorphic whales?”

I have zero idea how to express this in an amicable way, but I think I understand the plan. Take me to that – whale place, out of the sight of prying Terran eyes, and dump me overboard. And return home merrily sans their greatest nemesis.  

I need to escape. Or bid my life farewell. 

**********

“Sir. Montgomery, don’t you think – that guy – seems a little crazy? All he does is mope around, day in, day out. Denying everything key to the mission while stuck in his deluded fantasies. Sometimes, he doesn’t even join us for meals!”

“Hear ye, hear ye, keep thyself composed. Nothing doth hinder this mission and us from glory.”

**********

I know all too well that Cuthbert backs Cooper. Quite unusually for him, he’s intent on sticking up for the youngster this time. Where was that when I was in training? All the ‘scientific’ talk here onboard seem now to me whispers, breath and wind scratching against a chalkboard which I can only feel from behind the veil they have cast before me. Blood is on their hands, as their vicious minds radiate signals of poison.

I have a plan.

4. Effugio

At this juncture, I am resigned to my fate. In the far-flung reaches of space, huddled in with the very danger you fear, there’s nothing much you can do. The goals of my final days are to compile the knowledge I have discovered, and document it. My masterwork cannot be lost to future civilizations. Then I shall pen my farewell note, and build myself a mini-vessel. I’ll wire the scientific stuff home before we leave radar coverage and spend the rest of my years as a hermit in the Whale Galaxy. 

Earth shall never forget me. 

A page on my calendar is marked in red. On that day, we pass from NGC 4627 to NGC 4631, at the perihelial point of Canes Venatici. On that day, connection with Earth is severed. My legacy is gone – unless I rescue it. And escape.

The following days are marked by a drab air of surrender – I have never felt this gloomy since the 200-year-long trek from to our first study site. I sense prying eyes on me at all times of day. I feel like giving up, yet I press on, set on escape and revenge. I mustn’t let my mark in history be erased, my story like a wrinkle on cloth ironed into the paths of glory hunters. 

**********

“Are you sure it’s alright? I can sense something is amiss about – him. Don’t tell me he isn’t planning something!” I’m just checking with Montgomery once more…

“Calm thyself. Nothing stands awry. Seek knowledge and glory.” Cuthbert’s so dismissive. Urgh.

**********

Soon, sheets of paper pile up upon my bedside, and the red mark begins to turn prominent through the translucent pages. Rrrrrr-rip. In a flash, the day has arrived. Every word I have added to humanity’s corpus of scientific knowledge preserved for good, with credit resting in my hands. No one shall wrest it from me. 

It’s now time for the final step of the plan – my escape. I’ve fashioned for myself a little pod. It was formerly some equipment we usually use for spacewalks, and to bridge the last mile to our fieldwork sites. I augmented the oxygen tank to be heavily enlarged; it would sustain me, hopefully, for the rest of my lengthened life. I packed in my spacesuit and a few of my favourite publications. I ensured enough rations were in order – especially my favourite waffles from the meal supply – by stocking up over the final days. 

I kept my best attempt at a façade of normalcy. Equipment Duty, Pilot Duty, Lookout Duty, you name it. And suddenly, I ‘behold’ it. I set my eyes upon the glimpse of azure that lay before me. This is going to be my final bout of Lookout Duty. 

I return to the airlock like a bolt of lightning, and prepare my vessel for launch. Now, it’s time for revenge, and my escape. I dash into the control room in a frenzy – a red button stands before me, and I push it with a smirk on my face.

Self-destruct. Revenge is sweet.

I strap myself into my vessel and take off, full speed ahead, rapidly putting distance between my vessel and the red lights. I steer myself into the vastness of space, as I am awestruck by its beauty. Holding on for dear life, I fire up the thrusters, making a beeline for the oasis below – sincerely and thoroughly clinging on to the hope that it isn’t a mirage.

At least… Earth will never forget me. 

**********

Disable self-destruct. I glanced at the button, then brushed my finger against it. The warning lights rapidly turned green and I steered the Limocon back on course.

“Where’s Caelum?”

“Ah, we’ll do without him, Cooper.” Sir Montgomery answered. 

“I think, Caelum, he seems to have gone a little mad lately.”

“That is of little relevance, my young apprentice. Remember, never cease in thy pursuit for knowledge and glory. We shall hence proceed on our Odyssey. ” 

I watched into the void as a speck of light hurtled into the distance, dancing merrily as it dropped ever deeper in the abyss.