“Cleared to dock,” Mae radioed to Michael as she buckled herself into the control seat.

Michael’s mic caught the end of his outward breath, and then he said, “Confirmed, Solace. Switching to manual control.”

The two were all business, communicating every few seconds during the dangerous re-docking procedure. If anything went wrong, the station was programmed to seal off the breached segment, whether anyone was in the section or not. If it meant saving Solace Station, Expectation might be jettisoned to be retrieved later or not at all. She’d risk everything to save Michael, and even with all the training, that complicated things.

The station shifted as the pod made contact with the airlock. Mae took a deep breath and then blew it out slowly. “Status?” 

There was a metal scraping sound then the whirring of the fasteners creating an airtight seal between the two vessels. The next whir was the heat shield extending around Expectation. 

If Michael didn’t answer…

“Docking procedure successfully engaged.” Michael’s voice sounded calm. “Mother, I’m home, and I got gravel for the driveway.”

Mae asked, “Anything interesting?”  She stretched in her seat. The tension was a lot worse than she’d expected. They’d told her it would be, but she hadn’t believed them. The stress alone had probably taken twenty years off her life.

“I think we also got some dust this time,” Michael deadpanned. “Though, I could be wrong. It might be kitty litter.”

“Oh, yeah? Figure the aliens keep their pets in the Asteroid Belt?” Mae recorded the reading from the dial as the pressure between the two vessels equalized. “Leo the Lion maybe?”

He said, “Preparing to pop the hatch.”

“Acknowledged. See you in a bit. Looks like we might have one ice cream sandwich left with your name on it,” she said with a smile as she flipped switches.

About ten minutes later, she could hear Michael loading the smaller sample containers into the larger containers bolted to the floor of the sample room. As the commander, she went over the new schedule for the week. 

Houston had updated their schedule to include a “sample exploration” later. First, they’d have to throw the Hazmat suits on and run a Geiger counter across them to measure radioactivity. They’d have a look through them, keep the interesting ones, and tuck the rest in the lead-lined barrels in the storage room for the astronauts coming and going from Solace. They had to be selective about what went back to Earth. Too much weight would burn too much fuel and throw off the calculated fuel needs for the voyage home.

Mae’s stomach growled. She consulted their new schedule. Every minute of every day was scheduled. An EVA walk around Solace had been added to the afternoon to check on the exterior connections. There had been a fluctuation in a redundant system that governed the airlocks. Michael’s EVA. He did the outside work.

She toggled the on-board communications and waited until the small red light above the switch turned red. She asked, “Hungry?” She released the dial.

“Yep,” came Michael’s clipped response.

In a stern voice, she said, “You may have your lunch when you’re done cleaning your room, mister.”

“Har-har,” he answered. “Re-hydrate me something delicious.”

“You got it.” But, first, she wanted to read what Abel had to say. Michael would be busy for another thirty minutes at least. Mae inserted her thumbnail sized memory stick in the tiny slot in the main on-board computer. She downloaded the letter, removed the card, and inserted it into her half pad.

Beside the email title, a little image glared fiercely. The white-haired man always reminded her of an older Ernest Hemmingway right down to the scruffy beard. He was gruff, but a big teddy bear of a man.

“Commander McNair,” the letter began. 

Mae frowned. He hadn’t used her formal title in months. Abel continued:

I don’t understand how you can believe that there is a god that cares or hears our requests. I believe in science. If there was some supreme being that began this whole mess we live in, it’s clear it doesn’t care about us. I’m satisfied there isn’t one, and even if there was, god deserted us a long time ago. Let’s just agree to disagree and consider the matter closed.
Have a safe return trip.
Best,
Abel Onizuka

Hunched over, Mae stared as the words disappeared in a blur of tears. With the way their communications were managed, she was surprised this one had made it through. It was a lot like a “Dear John” letter. Headquarters usually intercepted any incoming bad news. A distracted astronaut was more likely a dead one. 

Mae sniffed, cleared her throat, and straightened her shoulders. It wasn’t up to her to do the saving. It never was, but she’d grown fond of his snappy comebacks and his honest questions, and it sounded like he was ready to call off their friendship.

At the communications terminal, she opened the drawer with the full-sized QWERTY keyboard. It fluoresced blue as it powered on. 

She typed:

Abel,
When we lost Michael’s father, my world collapsed. There were days when I didn’t know how to continue, but help always arrived at the right moment. Somebody would take Michael to a ballgame or encourage him in his studies. As a widow, I saw the ways that God provided for Michael and me… It’s a repeatable phenomenon that has happened too often to be only coincidence.
You’ve asked before how I could believe that one big anything created the universe and then listens to my prayers with any sort of interest.
But I believe a mighty God placed His only begotten son on the altar for my sake. Why wouldn’t He, with just a word, fashion infinite heavens worth visiting? Or move in someone to send a word of encouragement in the midst of my darkest times? Or bring a home-cooked supper to a hurting woman trying to learn how to provide on her own?
In my mind, these acts of God are not so very far apart. It’s humbling to know that my Creator considers my ways and carries me through hard times, but it’s also the sweetest comfort I have ever known. Mankind can travel from one end of the galaxy to the other, but God is still there.
I don’t have to be able to explain everything with words and equations. In the way that you have convinced yourself that God isn’t, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that He is. He is with me wherever I go.
God cares for me, and He cares for you, too. And more than that, He’s listening, waiting to answer with His best. It’s not always what we think we need, but it’s His best.
Our conversations have been more precious to me than you will ever know.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Mae 

 

She read over her words and then placed the email in the outgoing box. It would be another ten hours before it went out. She pressed the drawer closed with the NASA engineer heavy on her heart. His abrupt conclusion to their ongoing exchange could mean so many things. 

“Bring him to You, Father,” she prayed. “Whatever You have to do, Abel needs You more than he knows.” She purposed to pray for him any time he came to mind, starting right then. She closed her eyes.

“Food ready?” Michael’s voice interrupted Mae’s unexpected rush of emotion. She glanced over her shoulder with a smile.

“Not yet, but headed that way.” Her stomach growled.

Michael raised his eyebrows as he floated by. “Sounds like she agrees with me.” Mae chuckled when Michael gestured toward her middle, but continued on toward the kitchenette.

“Definitely,” Mae said. She unstrapped and followed her son through the corridor.

***

Michael had settled on re-hydrated pot roast, and Mae was eating re-hydrated, but somehow still dry, lemon-pepper salmon. A fresh salad was going to be the first thing she ate when they got back, and she said as much.

She asked, “What’s your first meal going to be when we get back?”

“I want a burger. Fries. Shake. For every meal for the first week. And then grilled steak for dessert. Or Sushi. A buffet.” Michael reached into the silver packet and pulled out a square of pot roast. 

He said, “You know, the data was interesting this time. I think there might be unidentified metals in the recovered asteroids. The information from the buoy was enticing.” He tucked the bite into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully.

Mae broke off a pink piece of salmon. “What do you mean?”

Michael’s brows furrowed and the ends of his mouth turned down. “Hmph,” he tapped his index finger on his chin. “Come to think of it, I didn’t start the upload from the pod to the station.”

“Oh,” Mae’s eyes widened. “That’s unusual for you. Are you preoccupied, maybe?” She paused. “Thinking about a girl? Penelope?” She drew out the last word.

Michael’s jaw slacked. His eyes widened and then narrowed. “How did…” His words trailed away as he tried to gauge what she knew. They’d played this hand of poker many times throughout his growing-up life.

Mae had to bite her bottom lip to keep from laughing outright. “Where’s Expectation’s data chip?”

Michael squinted at her and crossed his arms, his eyebrows drawn down low over his eyes. “In the pod.” He moved to go around her.

Mae put up her hand. “No, no, please, let me. I’ll get it. Least I can do. The commute to the buoy must be rather boring.” 

Michael’s expression soured even more.

This time, Mae couldn’t help it. She laughed.

***

Mission Control
Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
Houston, Texas
1 July 2051 

Abel’s handheld processor pinged with the arrival of a new email, but he didn’t lift his head. It’d be another eight hours before he heard from Mae, and everything else could wait. He was a heel for dumping their… relationship? If that was what it was. He couldn’t be sure. 

It was a friendship, and that made it a relationship. He didn’t anticipate hearing from any of his other friends quite as much, and that made him nervous. Abel scrubbed a hand through his white hair. 

He straightened. He’d been hunched over the drafting table for hours. He was almost finished going over the hatch schematics for the next Mars mission, checking for safeguards and redundancies. Once he was finished, the plans could be sent on to production and into the testing division. The airlock plans were next. He smoothed his index finger and thumb in opposite directions over his eyebrows. The beginnings of a headache knocked against the back of his eyeballs. He needed a break.

He swiped the handheld from the corner of the drafting table and dropped into the black leather desk chair. He flailed as it kicked back farther than he anticipated. And he resisted the urge to hurl an insult at the office across the hall. E.A. “Funny Man” Resnik was snickering again. Abel should be used to that prank by now, but it got him every time.

He studied the mini-processor. That couldn’t be right. His inbox showed one email. He checked the time twice to be sure. The time was all wrong. It should have been another eight hours before he heard back from her. She took a big risk hi-jacking the com system for a personal message outside of the non-emergency normal upload/download cycle. 

It must be important. “Hey, Resnik, I’m going to get some shuteye.”

The prankster raised his eyebrows. This close to deadline everybody spent every minute at work. “Sure, thing, Abel. Feeling okay?”

“Yeah, just need some shuteye.”

Back at the hotel, he double-tapped the little notification circle and started to read.

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