“Go, Kodiak,” I say. “Don’t say anything more. Good luck!”
Kodiak gives me a tender smile as he fastens his helmet. His voice now comes out of the speaker around his neck. “Suit up in case I need you, okay? I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Of course I’m suiting up. I’ll be right there if you get into trouble,” I say, squeezing a neoprene shoulder. Then I plant a kiss on his helmet’s shield.
I get this horrible feeling that I’ll never be able to kiss him for real. That it’s too late.
Kodiak doesn’t seem to pick up on my rising dread. “Goddammit, you left a mark,” he says, a smile in his voice. “It’s reducing visibility.”
I wipe the smudge off with the sleeve of my jumpsuit, try to beam courage at Kodiak. It turns out I’m actually a goofball weirdo, so what? “I regret nothing.”
Kodiak chuckles static out of his speaker, then manually swings the door shut and slides the heavy bolts that seal the airlock from the passenger quarters. While I get into my suit, I watch him attach the tether to his own.
What will I do if he’s gone? How will I face these lonely rooms without him?
If he dies, I’ll never be able to tell him that I can’t stand the thought of looking up and not seeing him near.
I knock on the pane of clear poly between us. He looks up, eyes lighting visibly even behind the tinted barrier of his helmet. I press my gloved hand against the pane.
He presses his gloved hand to the other side and nods.
Kodiak works his hands around the hatch’s release and opens it, letting out a decompressive burst strong enough to judder the walls. He holds on to the airlock’s handle while his feet are blown outward by the releasing air, then makes his way outside.
He’s soon away from view, the only sign of him moreand more of the tether uncording, a metal snake slinking into space as Kodiak passes around the outside of the ship.
I clomp to 06, which has the biggest window. With my bulky suit on, I’m soon sweaty and winded. “How’s it going out there, Kodiak?” I gasp into my helmet’s comm.
“Okay,” he replies, breathing just as heavily. “Finished up the ship’s tasks.”
I check the list projected in front of the window and see that he’s right—it’s down to zero.
I spy Kodiak at the center of the ship, hunched over the makeshift radio receiver he installed on the previous spacewalk. He attaches a small box to it, and as he manipulates it, his voice rattles back over the comm. “No sign of the signal yet, let me see if I—”
His signal garbles and cuts out, as surely as if he’d been slashed across the throat. “Kodiak?” I say. “Kodiak, I think I’ve lost you.”
Maybe he’s catching his breath.
He looks in my direction and taps the side of his helmet. Because of the reflective surface, I can’t see anything of his face. All he can tell me is what I already know: we’ve lost comm.
I keep saying his name as I stare out the window.
“Kodiak.”
He hitches his feet into the rungs on the ship’s surface. It looks like such a precarious way to stay connected to theship, to stay near me. To stay alive.
“Kodiak.”
He faces my window. I think he can see my face, even though I can’t see his, so I send him a nervous smile. “Kodiak.”
He points to the antenna, then crosses his forearms so they make an X.
The antenna isn’t working.Got it.
Then he gestures into space, his finger pointing in the exact direction of Saturn. Its surface fills a quarter of 06’s window. The clouds are an even yellow, dusky with purples, the rings severe and perfect. Kodiak’s pointing, not at the planet, but at one of its moons. A tantalizingly green-blue orb, like a piece of the ocean at the Mari beach, molded into a sphere by a child’s hands. Titan.
He crosses his arms again.
“Kodiak, what are you trying to say?” I whisper, the words loud in my helmet.
