A Flash of Words

Alanah Andrews - Earth II

Rose donned the clunky spacesuit and pressed the button that would release the first of the doors guarding the precious environment of the base from the arid air outside. Stepping through, the door closed with a slight whuff, and the second button popped out of its cavity abruptly. Rose hesitated.

Don’t leave the base.

The message had been drilled into Rose’s mind since she was a small child.

Don’t ever leave the base.

She knew that there was only a slim chance of success. Less, according to her father, who referred to it as a suicide mission. But when she asked him for an alternative, he had come up short. They had all come up short.

One working oxygen tank left. One volunteer. Rose tried not to tremble as she pressed her gloved hand against the release button and the second door slid back, revealing the shadowy and treacherous terrain outside.

Her mind protested as she took that first step out and onto the red-tinged ground. She was leaving the one place that had provided her with everything she needed for her entire life. Recirculated air and water; plants grown beneath complex lighting systems; wind-generated power to run the necessities. And it wasn’t only her—the base had sustained this small offshoot of the human race for nine generations.

Until now.

Until a vital component of the air-purification system had started to wear out and crumble. Until staying at the base meant death as certainly as leaving it. Twelve months. That was the estimate given by the engineers, give or take.

Rose sighed as she worked out her destination. The base was nestled within a large valley surrounded by uneven peaks, which protected them from the majority of the harsh weather. She set her sights on the closest hill rising from the ground to the north of the base. She was counting on being able to see the site of the original landing from the top of that hill. The Party wouldn’t have left them stranded; they would have planned for a critical moment such as this.

When she thought of the Party, Rose touched the front of her helmet briefly as she had done all her life and muttered, “For the good of the people.” Her voice sounded hollow within the clunky dome.

As Rose trudged towards the hills, she thought of all that she had been taught about that monumental moment. They had landed on a Sunday after plunging through space for seven days. Or was it seven months? The specifics weren’t important, thought Rose—what mattered was the Party and what they had done for the people of Earth.

She—along with all of the residents living in the base—had the Party to thank for their existence. When Earth descended into chaos and the fighting began, the Party had looked to the stars for a solution. Overpopulation was rampant, and nuclear war was likely to turn the Earth’s surface into an uninhabitable wasteland.

Not unlike the surface she was walking on now, thought Rose wryly.

A small group of select people had escaped the doomed world and fled to a new planet. Earth II, it was nostalgically named. That was nine generations ago. The founding members had long since perished, but their laws remained strong. Don’t leave the base. Don’t breathe the outside air. Two children per family maximum. Don’t waste resources. The Party is good.

The Party is good.

Rose sometimes looked up at the stars, wondering which of the glowing specks was the original Earth. In the best-case scenario, she would be able to contact Earth from the spaceship and have them send a rescue team. Party lore stated that one day they would be able to return to a cleansed world. Surely nine generations since the nuclear war would be enough for Earth to have recovered? Rose longed to set foot on the planet of their origin and finally smell the flower that she had been wistfully named after.

In the worst-case scenario, where Earth had not yet recuperated or the communication systems had been broken, Rose hoped that at least she would find some backup supplies. Additional tools, if she was lucky. A spare valve, if she was really lucky. It was vital to repair that ventilation system if they were going to survive for a tenth generation.

Rose reached the base of the hill and looked up. It was higher than it had first appeared. The innocent lights blinking on her oxygen tank told her she had an hour left. She hoped it would be enough.

But as she lifted her foot to begin her ascent, something at the foot of the hill a few hundred metres to her right caught her attention. A movement. The land was always a shadowy wasteland, but as the wind blew past in fits and gusts, something at the base of the hill had rolled over; she was certain of it.

She looked up at the hill and then changed her mind. Turning right, she hurried along the ground in the direction of the thing-that-had-moved.

She knew it couldn’t be an animal; the perpetual gloom and toxins in the air meant that no living thing could thrive outside. Even the hardiest of plants struggled to find nutrients in the barren ground. Perhaps, the thing-that-had-moved was a bit of wreckage from the landing, Rose thought hopefully. As she approached the small object, Rose stared in open fascination.

It was about the size of a boot, and it reminded her of the drinking vessels at the base, but, unlike those containers, it had a sealed top. She picked it up awkwardly in her gloved hands and studied the half-worn label. “Coca-Cola,” she read aloud. The object was made of some sort of transparent flexible material. She looked closer. “Made in Australia.”

Rose frowned. The container must have been made on Earth, so what was it doing here? Was the shuttle nearby? She needed a higher vantage point, but as she went to climb the hill, a quiet crunching sound came from beneath her foot. Bending down, Rose clawed at the dirt to reveal three more of the containers huddled together beneath the ground.

Was the entire hill made of these strange flexible bottles? Rose’s thoughts swirled together in confusion, and she started to feel sick. Things weren’t making any sense.

Rose began to climb quickly. Her breath grew short, and she didn’t need to check her oxygen metre to know that time was running out. Finally, Rose stood at the top of the hill and surveyed the land around her.

There were more hills beyond the one she was standing on. Some were sprouting metallic objects like a bizarre forest she might have seen encased within the pages of a picture book. Beyond the hills, the land stretched out—flat and sandy. Disappointment bloomed in her belly. There was no spaceship anywhere that she could see—no debris or hole where the craft had settled onto the surface of the planet either.

And then her eyes were drawn towards something far away in the distance, to the west of the base. She gasped and stared uncomprehendingly at the strange towering structures of that distant, ruined city.

***

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