The Bends

_October 10, 1045 Earth EST, 1920.2 Europa LST_

Dear Bob, this is going be so bizarre for you to read, but I am 35 now, have rewritten this LSM at least a hundred times, and you have a 6-year-old daughter. I am so sorry you are finding out this way. People here have recommended I help you acclimatise with what you may experience. Confusion, anger, bittersweetness (apparently this is a legitimate feeling), regret, or maybe disappointment (this will depend on whether you feel like you have done something wrong — regret, or whether you will feel angry with me — disappointment). They have printed me a wheel of emotions, and I am told you have one, too, to help us process together.

Bob, I am so sorry. They tell me after seven years of stasis, it may take time for your nervous system to turn on all the controls. I hope they allow you to bounce to full Bobbing again before they relay this message. I have not yet heard from you. I hope our wires don’t cross. I know when I press ‘send,’ the message will take at least 40 minutes to reach you, and it will feel like the biggest liminal, uneasy space I have ever sat in.

They have informed me landing had been performed safely. A picture was attached, and it blew my mind. I just know you will love it when you come to.

I am rambling. Forgive me, Bob. You know me so you can probably tell I am dead nervous here.

About a week after takeoff, soon after you bounced off the Moon’s orbit and got propelled into the great darkness, I reported for my stasis procedure. They tested me every which way. You know the drill. I was pregnant. I heard a lot of words that day I had to look up afterwards, like agency, attachment theory, god only remembers what else. I said no, and no again. They couldn’t put me to sleep with the baby inside me, was the bottom line, Bob. And I didn’t want to go to sleep without it. I knew you’d be angry. I am now seven years older than you. By the time you return, who knows. Who knows.

Her name is Olivia. I named her after the tree because that week I found out, an olive branch hit me in the face as I was walking around aimlessly trying to come to terms with my fresh, unexpected reality, and make my choices. I laughed. I felt something stir inside me, yes, I know that’s impossible.

She’s beautiful. Beyond smart, like you. Got little of her mama. Your eyes, your smile. And so bizarrely, check this out, you’ll be proud of this, your love of water. She’s a fish. I tell her I will put her in batter and deep-fry her, just like I used to tell you, and it makes her chuckle.

When you’re ready, ask me questions. I don’t want to overwhelm you. She loves you very much, even if she’s never met you.

_October 10, 1051 Earth EST, 1922.2 Europa LST_

My love, my darling Nadine. The eagle has landed on the most incredulous surface, and I am awake. I have been up almost a week, searching in the darkness for memories, logic, proportion. They all seemed to have fallen sloppy dead, but finally here I am. Tell you what, I am not looking forward to stasis on my return. Hope your awakening is going more smoothly than mine.

I have finally remembered how much I love you, how much I love our life, and it has made me fall in love with you again. Would you believe that.

Here’s what I see looking out of the window: ice, ice, baby. Ice everywhere. There’s valleys and canyons and mountain peaks. There’s what looks like river beds, frozen. There was running water on this surface once upon a time. The sky looks like sugar spilled on our kitchen worktops, perfect dots of chemistry on black marble. The Milky Way shines across. And finally, best for last. Jupiter. Words cannot describe the otherworldliness of this view. Somehow, if I put my hand over it, I can convince myself I am still on Earth, and the night is clear and bright over Antarctica, back when we trained there. But when I move my palm, and there he sits looming and raging in the distance, suddenly I feel like I have died and was born into an alternate universe.

I am told you have been sent a picture. A picture says a thousand words, but this here would take a million.

I love and miss you, my darling Nadine. Hope to hear from you very soon.

PS the time here runs much slower so the strange stamp on the message just means for every minute of yours, I have three and a half. But they insist using the 24 system, so we have a different clock with a decimal. Isn’t that fun?

_October 10, 1434 Earth EST, 2027.1 Europa LST_

WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK NADINE WHAT THE LIVING FUCK

_October 10, 1438 Earth EST, 2029.2 Europa LST_

I want to say I have calmed down but I haven’t at all calmed down what the hell Nadine. Please send pictures of her pictures of you. Where does she go to school what she likes learning, what is she like, please Nadine. Fuck why, fuck it. How though. Oh Nadine. Oh Olivia. Hi Olivia my sweetest love, hi girl. I love you. Please tell Olivia she can LSM me, please explain to her Light Speed Messaging so she doesn’t think I’m just ignoring her when there’s a lag. Light has never traveled this slow. Please let me hear from her.

Nadine please. I know you’re not good at this sort of confession, I know it curls your toes, but now is the time to relax those toes. Please. Use the chart they gave you.

I am doing my first dive tomorrow Earth time so if I don’t respond it’s either because I’m high on helium a thousand feet under, or dead. They have detected these funny radio signals that could mean literally anything, in a very unusual pattern. Maybe space whales, maybe three-headed blood-thirsty tarantula squid.

Please Nadine. My love to Olivia. And to you.

_October 10, 1802 Earth EST, 2127.3 Europa LST_

I’m so sorry, Bob. We went to see your mum. Sorry I haven’t responded sooner. I need to be here physically to use the machinery. Feels like I’m using one of the first ever computers made, the machines fill nearly the whole room. Is yours like this, too? I wonder if one day it’ll just be LSM on our phones, like an app. And we won’t appreciate it.

Your mum said she dropped you a couple of lines.

Forgive me. You know me. I am a rambler, daughter of ramblers. Incorrigible. And very scared.

When I found out about Olivia, I agonised so much. Lonely. They didn’t want to take you out of stasis not to compromise the mission morale. I asked and asked until I was blue in the face and vomiting all over the place. I went to the mission head and hurled on his desk. I wish it was as funny as it sounds. Still he didn’t relent. ‘Your body, your choice, Nadine.’ They offered me abortion more times than I have fingers and toes to count on. And thanks, I am trying to keep them uncurled, hard as it is proving.

I didn’t want to erase our creation. A huge wave of nostalgia, love, and despair (I am using the shit out of this emotion chart). A huge wave washed over me like I was buried in sand on a stormy shore and drowning. Unable to move, unable to stop the wave from choking me.

I suffered and lay awake at night until I started to show, and then the decision was made for me. I couldn’t ever do it. Then she started to kick around and I was in love with her shenanigans inside me, and in love with you for making her with me.

Then she was born, in such a mess of matter, like a supernova bursting out of me. And we loved her so much, me and your mum, and my parents. They are dead, you know. Both. Those hereditary cancers, huh. Yes, I have been tested.

Tomorrow now, I’ll come here with a message from her. Silly me, it hasn’t occurred to me to take one. Maybe I worried you’d be too overwhelmed to hear from her. I will though. I will.

She likes sciences. Once again, a daughter after her father. She loves mathematics, and swimming. I like nails and eating out. She talks about division and odd numbers. I would often wish you were there to entertain those conversations so much better than I ever could.

I hope your first dive goes well. You have been waiting on this moment your whole life, Bob, in one way or another. Diving in that murky deadly lake by your house, that image still makes me tender, before you could even swim properly. I am sorry this moment you have been waiting for so long may have been sullied, somewhat. I hope you see wonders beyond human comprehension down there, and they make up for what’s happened here on Earth.

Good luck down there, Bob.

_October 12, 0820 Earth EST, 1145.1 Europa LST_

Hi Nadine. I am back from the first dive. Even with helium instead of nitrogen, I had to go in the chamber for twelve hours. I had one too many thoughts, and then I think they dropped something in the water, and knocked me out dead.

My screams sounded so pathetically funny down there. High-pitched like a little girl’s, but instead of laughing, I thought of Olivia. Please can I hear from her. Please tell me all about her. I miss you, both, so much.

Everything is classified. But I need to tell you anyway, even if they black it out about what’s down there. I can at least try. I wonder if they’ll allow me let you know what the censorship is all about at least. The bastards, the absolute bastards. I wonder if they had any idea. Let good old Bob McGill scream for them.

The ice here is only 100 feet thick, and they drilled me a hole. The Polish guy with us says there’s a word in their language that describes this more succinctly, more purposefully, przerebel. Means ‘hack-through.’ They hacked and hacked. 100 feet of ice, imagine that, Nadine.

Descending, I started to see *redacted*. It became darker, and darker still, until all I could see was a faint glow in the ice, no deeper than ten feet, from my bioluminescent suit. I was scared shitless by then. The glow changed in colour. They don’t know why. It became a greenish hue. Must be something in the water, they joked.

Then I was suddenly swimming. The przerebel reached its end, and Europian darkness enveloped me. The real image of this planet *redacted*

When I surfaced, they said they’d lost sight of me very quickly, and no devices worked. The cord snapped. They watched me move off at speed on the sonar, and then I disappeared.

Give my love to Olivia. I’ve had a thought in the chamber – what if you go into stasis on my return journey, and I don’t? That will make us even. Please think about this, Nadine. I’ll look out of the window for seven years and miss you. They’ve got enough food. They have prepared for the eventuality some of us may reject stasis during the journey. So it’s weird beans, pastes, and cosmic dust all the way, baby. Think about it.

_October 14, 1204 Earth EST, 332.2 Europa LST_

Oh, Bob. The bastards have redacted almost everything. All I got was that you screamed. And that they lost you off their radars. Those fuckers. I am so sorry for whatever has happened to you.

And Bob, oh, Bob. There’s one more thing. Do you remember Rick the technician that used to take care of the flotation tank? He’d reached out to me a few months after you set off. I was ever so pregnant by then.

We were friends for a long time. A couple of years, I kept my distance. You have no idea how rough it was trying to work full-time, with Olivia, my parents ill, you, hurtling past Mars, Jupiter, forever further from me, and I was more and more alone.

Long story short, because I’m not sure how much detail can even take, I am married again. They dissolved our union here based on our ‘very unique circumstances’. So I could have some normalcy.

I raised Olivia to remember, and she can’t wait to see you again. Here’s what she says: ‘hello, sleeping daddy. Send pictures from big lake. Love you.’

Hope you don’t mind sharing her a little. I still love you, Bob. I do. But I won’t be going into stasis for seven years, not with Olivia, either, I hope you understand. I can’t put a child through it. Your mother is still alive. Olivia needs family, all the family she can get.

I’m so sorry, Bob. I hope the next dive isn’t classified. In fact, I hope they don’t send you down there at all, ever again. And that they propel you straight back here.

_October 15, 0244 Earth EST, 1934.1 Europa LST_

Dear Nadine, we are very sorry to inform you that Robert McGill did not resurface on his second dive. Please rest assured we have searched far and wide. We are profoundly sorry for this loss of husband, father, son, and colleague. We would also like to extend our sincerest condolences to Olivia McGill. We can only hope our employer will strive to lighten the burden on this irretrievable loss for you on Earth.

_December 30, 1520 EST Earth _

Please find attached the unsealed version of Robert McGill’s LSM to you. The records on the status of the mission have been, as you may have seen on the news, released in full.

Descending, I started to see foreign shapes trapped in ice, very close to the surface. It became darker, and darker still, until all I could see was a faint shimmering glow settling on disturbing shadows, no deeper than ten feet, from my bioluminescent suit. I was scared shitless by then. The glow began to changed in colour, and became a greenish, lively hue. They don’t know why. Must be something in the water, they joked.

Then I was suddenly swimming. The przerebel ended and Europian darkness enveloped me. The real image of this planet. I saw something swimming, a shadow, so there is life here, I thought briefly through panic. Then I reached out to it, gently, as they trained me, and in response I was grabbed and pulled at speed. It pulled and pulled. I was screaming until I couldn’t scream. I have lost my voice completely. The cord that tied me to the surface snapped. I couldn’t tell if I was going down, or sideways, and terrified my lungs would just explode on resurface.

Whatever it was, the thing dragged me evenly behind it, as if it was propelled. Then I saw lights in the deep. Then something like a city emerged, but not a city, not human but sentient, fully sentient, in ways I cannot explain. The creature finally stopped and escaped any description, now I saw in the light. Life itself, unexpected, shimmering. I felt it think, ‘stay with us awhile, weary traveller,’ and I realised it knew of my journey, our child, if ever these creatures had children. That it had understood my emotion and empathised so profoundly my mind suddenly felt warm, like I’d pissed myself but in my head. Then we turned around, at some point, a whole era of humanity later. Satisfied now, it dragged back to the hole. Then it made a sound, or maybe not. I understood it all the same. We’ll be here if you need us.