Tipping Stasis

The gargantuan planet named GINA-0076, skin of mottled aqua, deep blue, pinks and oranges, filled the abyss of young Isadora’s ponderous pupil. She stared at it through the Flight Deck display, which showed all of space beyond. She was a new scientist now, so she inspected it critically… as far as she knew what that meant. She wondered at all that life and flora down there, the likes of which she’d probably never seen before, including the one capsule of life she would help Dad bring back home, once he finally decided to return from the surface—or at least, for starters, when he came back into contact.

Once they both returned home successfully, the military would praise him for accomplishing yet another exploration and scientific breakthrough. Scientists would acclaim him. And perhaps, the memory of Mom would finally be put to rest in him, because at last, he would’ve saved Mom’s home planet, fulfilling her dying wish. That new plant life on GINA-0076, which Dad discovered last month, would be all they needed to change the growth patterns of their food back home, so life on Mom’s planet could continue to grow.

Isadora bit her lip, remembering the day he’d suddenly arose from his stupor, just before beginning his search; arose from that dark, soulless depression that had snuffed the life and growth in Mom’s home much more effectively and hauntingly than it already had been.

Dad never wasted time or effort on something he’d known to be a lost cause. It was how he’d excelled in the military so quickly. It was why this ship—which was his space—never had anything unnecessary in it. Dad never had to declutter; he’d never taken anything without immense purpose in the first place. Like his jobs.

Like with her, when he’d found her. A military cast-off from a long-ago experimental project she didn’t know much about. But he’d brought her home, cared for her, and raised her as his own, with Mom. She’d known a life, because of him—and not only that, a life filled with love and tender care; a care alike to what Mom had shown her plants.

She slid forward suddenly, and jammed the button connected to Dad’s shuttle on the planet, which would broadcast to his personal, mobile comm. “Isa to Sergeant Scientist Hugo.”

She listened to the return of static, the flashing red of the comm light pulsing like blood in her vision. She pressed the button again, “Isa to… c’mon, Dad. Just come back.” She cut off and stood abruptly from the chair, pulling her eyes from that large, unmoving display of GINA-0076.

She moved to her own side of the cockpit, flicking up a switch in the middle of the console between her and Dad’s chair, turning on the ship's intelligence. She leaned over her chair and picked up the potted plant she’d snuck on board, almost as effectively as she’d snuck herself on. When Dad found out, he was livid, before panicked; then depressed and soulless, before becoming inspired—then he’d hired her. So sneaking on his first mission after Mom’s death had made her a scientist.

“Hello. Are you in need of my assistance?”

“Always so straight to the point, Kno,” Isadora sighed, setting the pot on a side table, grabbing the little bag of water with a long, thin watering tube which she held above the soil. She hesitated, withholding the water. “What happens, Kno, when growth stops entirely?” she felt a purple leaf, before trailing the warmth of her finger down the bright green stem. “Is that… a state of tranquility, perhaps?”

“What do you mean?”

“The point of all this,” her grip on the water tube tightened, and she thought of Dad, down on that planet, “The point of all of this… work, this watering, this exploration or whatever—it’s to keep things growing. Expanding. Life, made new, over and over and over again but what… what if the plant stopped growing entirely? If every cell just stopped growing or working? Do we ever reach that point of, um… rest?”

“Hm, interesting. So what you’re proposing is what state do we reach when we stop growing? When everything stops growing?”

“Yes. Is that tranquility? Is that what people talk about when they talk of Heaven? No growing, no dying, just… completion?”

“Completion is often very hard to determine, from what I gather; but what I think you’re talking about is the stationary phase of, say, a cell?”

“Sure.”

“Well, it’s not quite resting, or complete. The body, the cells, are always constantly working—”

“Stop them from working then. Stop all of them from growing, or from being in a state of maintenance. What happens?”

Kno made the sound of a sigh, “Decay. Then death.”

“There’s no true plateau?”

“Growth and regeneration, once halted entirely, will bring decay.”

She frowned, then slowly, slid the tube into the soil, watching the water flow through it, wetting the brown sponge of nutrients.

“So life or death? Cultivate one or the other. But what about the in-between? How could we cultivate that?”

“This ‘in-between’ state you talk of would never be lasting. At some point, it tips in one of the determining directions. Always.”

She frowned, and glanced at the console where she’d turned on Kno. Her eyes filled with the image of GINA-0076 again.

She withdrew the tube of water. “You’re not the most professional sounding intelligence, y’know, Kno?”

“I do appreciate the emotional or philosophical questions more, I’d say.”

“Well,” she felt her lips just barely pull into a smile before the sound of a slammed door came from down the hall, outside of the cockpit. She flinched, but did not raise her head. Hands trembling, she lowered the water bag. Minutes passed before she continued, her nostrils flaring as she drew in air, quelling the thunder of her pulse in her ears. “Well, then… what’s the status on Dad’s shuttle, can you check?”

“Did you hear another sound?” Kno asked, its voice low, but humming with curiosity.

“I asked you to check the status of the Sergeant’s shuttle, Kno.”

She took a step back, finally turning towards the doorway to the cockpit. It was open. She wanted to close it, but then… she thought she heard a shink, like a coffee mug sliding across the metal table out there.

She took a step back.

“Probably the air system,” she murmured.

“Are you sure the sounds are not the beings of a deserted—”

“Yes!” She snapped, but her eyes stayed fixed on the doorway. At least Kno couldn’t see her, trembling and staring at the door. “Dad only ever discovered those in systems truly dead. Long dead.”

Her dad had once been acclaimed for having found proof of “beings” that overtook deserted, and utterly lifeless systems. Beings invisible—or at least mostly invisible, from what he could tell. Isadora, as well as everyone else she knew, had never cared to explore these beings further after what Sergeant Scientist Hugo had shown them to be. They overtook lifeless, doomed systems, and anything inside them; they were only encounterable there. That, of course, meant those doors shutting, those sounds, simply could not be them.

“Look outside right now, Kno. That planet is thriving with life. It couldn’t be those others… y’know, if they even exist.”

“Your father’s proof has been very concrete.”

Isadora quickly turned around and jabbed the button on the console which shut the cockpit door.

“I am not aware of any ship malfunction that could be the cause of those sounds, Isadora.”

She took the plant from the table, then sat in her dad’s chair. She swallowed, staring at the plant leaves before finally pulling her eyes up to the display. A huge planet, so incredibly full of life. The finding of GINA-0076 really had been unbelievable, and baffling. Nearly impossible actually, that in just a few week’s time, Dad found the perfect life-source for Mom’s planet, in a system not too distant from them.

She stared up at that display, inspecting it as the pot began to wobble with her hands.

And what if it had been impossible? What if Dad’s ‘finding’ hadn’t been a finding at all, but a forgery—a fib?

“He would never,” she whispered. She couldn’t even begin to think about that and what that could mean. She hadn’t let herself wonder, in the time she’d been waiting here. But those noises… “Would he?”

“Would he, what? I don’t understand the question, as it was quite disappointingly vague.”

She glanced over at the switch, forgetting that Kno was still on. She chewed on her lip, contemplating shutting it off again. Then she looked down at the plant, secure in her hands. A plant she’d decided to bring along and care for.

“Kno, did Sergeant Scientist Hugo really find what he claimed to have found on GINA-0076?”

“In order to confirm his findings, Isadora, he’d have to return with them.”

“Can you locate his shuttle?”

“His shuttle’s signal is still unreachable, as it was on day one of arrival.”

She swallowed, and slowly set down the plant next to the chair. She rose, her feet whispering over the pristine metal floor, and stretched out a hand toward the display. When her fingers pressed on it, she found it warm.

“Kno.”

“Yes, Isadora?”

“Wipe the display.”

There was only silence from the ship's intelligence, which Isadora found odd. Nothing happened, but the glass was still warm on her fingertips. There was one thing she suspected—one thing that simply could not be true. The pilot's display wasn’t only just glass, but capable of holograms and televised images.

“...I should’ve done this before, when I think about it.” Kno finally said. “Refreshing the display now.”

The screen gave a little flicker, before the image of GINA-0076, and all its colours, vanished, replaced by a very small, pale planet, covered in ice and streaks of black. It was so horrifying, so ugly and grotesque a sudden change, that Isadora stumbled back and fell into the chair, letting out a little whimper.

“Are you alright?” Kno asked.

“What does it mean? What is that out there?”

“If I’m correct, that is an uncharted planet. When I look through your father’s inextensive logs, I see simply that he found it about a month ago. No one ever cared to explore this system.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

“You have to be. You withheld that kind of information—what are you doing it for?”

“I’m not lying to you, Isadora. Might I suggest a highly-secure space-walk so you can confirm for yourself?”

“Confirm what? Confirm that Dad came all the way here and… and left on the shuttle to… to where?”

“The last known location of the shuttle was on the surface of that planet.”

She trembled, and turned her face away from the view. She felt bile rising in her throat.

“He thought Mom’s home was helpless, didn’t he?”

“I can’t confirm that.”

“He can’t have really left. Not like that. He wouldn’t leave me. He found me! It doesn’t make any sense. Wipe the display again.”

The image flickered, going dark before coming back and showing the same view of the little, blackened planet. There was no life there.

She stood abruptly, suddenly shaking. She hesitated, listening for any noise out in the halls of the ship before jamming the door’s button and stepping out, glancing down the halls, around corners, her breath coming hot. Was she in a deserted system? Were those sounds really those beings? Could father have really abandoned her for… for what? For his death? Surrendering himself to pain, all because his wife was gone? The woman she’d called Mom?

Then who had she been to them? Was she anything good? Why had they helped her grow? Hadn’t she been loved?

What could it mean that something someone had been caring for for so long, could just as easily be abandoned?

Did anyone want her to continue growing? But how? And for what purpose? If the Sergeant couldn’t care whether she lived or died, why should she? She had no one back home, then. Nothing.

Or… he was still out there, and she was fooling herself.

Something shifted in the vent to her left, next to the ship's exit. She told herself not to look—she didn’t. She stepped through the doors, and grabbed the space-walk suit, slipping it on, listening as Kno instructed her on what to do. She lifted the helmet, and secured it.

“These helmets are very old fashioned, you should know,” Kno said lightly, “they are entirely incapable of bringing up any kind of display or hologram.”

“Thanks for just telling me that what I see out there is what I get, and I don’t have to take my helmet off just to make sure.”

“Okay… so you need to be informed of what would happen if you were to attempt to remove any of your gear while in the vacuum of space—”

“Thanks, Kno. I know it’s as simple as I’ll die for sure. Don’t worry.”

She grabbed the cable, and attached it to her belt, stepping up to the lock and telling Kno to depressurize the airlock.

Once done, she closed her eyes, and listened for the doorway to click open. Open to the silent abyss of space. A space meant for exploration, but which (he couldn’t have) Dad had used as a means of escape. Escape from her.

So had she just been an experiment?

A salty tear squeezed out the corner of her eye and she raised a hand to wipe it, forgetting about the helmet as her glove fell off the dome of glass. She blinked her eyes open, and grabbed hold of the handles on the door, swinging it all the way open.

“The quickest path to view the planet is to make your way under the belly of the ship,” Kno spoke through the comm in her helmet.

“Thanks,” she muttered, sniffing loudly.

She moved down the rungs on the outside, lowering slowly to the belly of the ship, her breath loud in her ears. She felt her body begin to stiffen as slowly, the ship's belly vanished from the top of her visor, and the planet's bottom came into view in its stead.

From outside, it still looked large, though so much smaller than GINA-0076 should’ve been. This wasn’t a planet. This was a cold, hard rock. There was nothing here, and her dad would’ve known that.

“He could still be down there. He could be retrieving something he didn’t want to talk about. He could’ve been showing me a fake planet because… maybe so I wouldn’t worry.”

Silence, and the planet she didn’t want to see but which now she saw most critically.

Kno spoke, a calm voice in her head, “Do you want to hear his message now? He went down there nearly a month ago. Maybe it’s time?”

She placed a hand on the cable, which held her firmly to the ship. Slowly, she let go of the rungs, and pushed down so more of the planet came into view.

She blinked past her tears. “And so what if I choose not to?” she whispered, hand tightening on the cable.

“Choose not to listen to his message?”

“I think I already know what it says. Maybe that’s why I ignored it.”

Kno remained silent.

“And what if I choose not to believe his message? I could stay here. I would try to find him.”

“You would decay here?”

“‘Decay here’…,” That would mean Dad really was gone, that he’d chosen to tip his stasis, and pour the last of his existence into this system, dying on that rock. He’d chosen to stop growing. And if she stayed here, she’d be convincing herself it wasn’t true; because before that was the truth, she was loved. “Yes. I’d decay here.”

“You wouldn’t go home to… how would you say it… continue growth? Home is better than this. More answers there than here.”

“Go home. Stay here. Life and death. Growth and decay. Yes, if I believe the truth, Kno—if I were to act on that belief—I’d continue to grow.”

She drew in a breath, her voice cracking as the uncomfortable, hot tears clouded her vision of that dead, cold planet.

“But why should I?” she cried, “if I never did have anything, did I?”

Kno started to respond, but she reached up, and shut off the comm. The motion sent her drifting further from the ship. Her hand loosened on the cable, sliding closer to the latch on her belt.

“If I ignore the truth, do I tip my stasis the same way as you, Dad? Because you were my dad, even if you never loved me. Even if I’d just been an experiment,” she sniffed, and cried, her voice a slow vibration in the void. “Could I keep growing, if I believed… believed you did this thing to me? What would I do if I went home?” She blew out, closing her eyes, grip tightening on the latch. Funnily, in that new darkness behind her eyes, she saw the potted plant she cared for; she remembered the bright green of its new stems and leaves.

In the void of her absence, the plant busied itself with its given water. For hours it drank, and waited in stillness. Its leaves danced in the breeze of the ship's air circulation.

Its soil shifted when its pot was lifted. Its leaves brushed the back of the co-pilot chair as it was carefully placed. Its stems shook with the life of the engine which drowned the strange sounds that had accumulated in the month-long silence; sounds from strange beings the plant had never known. Its leaves glowed a fluorescent purple, as it grew toward the map on the display, and toward the voice which had returned, saying,“Well then, let’s go home.”