Almost an hour passed, and still not a word had been spoken inside the Beginner’s Luck.
Sore from their prostrate position, Evelyn and Barney had risen from the floor and slumped themselves back into their respective seats… but besides that, nothing had perturbed the gloomy silence.
From Sander’s window, the far-off coastline that had started as merely a twinkle, had swelled to occupy most of his view. He rearranged himself slightly to look back towards the ground and realized with a nervous swallow just how high they had travelled. Pressing his face against the glass, he tried to make out any discernible features on the ground below, but was only met with a brown and green mess.
But just as he was about to settle back into a more comfortable position, a bell rang inside the craft as the altimeter’s mercury had reached its target... and sent a jolt through each occupant.
Evelyn was the first to stand and, after quieting the alarm, immediately told her children to return to their seats.
“OK guys sit down, it’s go-time.”
“What’s going on?” asked Lori apprehensively, as she strapped herself back in.
“We’ve reached altitude. Helmets on,” Barney said curtly, as Evelyn helped him up and he began to flick a row of switches.
Sharing a worried look, Sander and his sister both grabbed their helmets and began screwing them into place. As her wrist screen lit up and the air began pumping behind the suit’s seal, Lori couldn’t help but worry out loud.
“What if there’s another EMT?”
“EMP…” corrected Sander.
“Parachutes, remember?”
A cold sweat hit her in a flash, and Lori looked to her dad for some confidence… but with both of her parents fully focused on the Beginner’s Luck’s control board, all she could see was the back of their helmet-clad heads.
“Alright, I’m lighting her up. How’s it looking on your end?”
“It’s all good. Circuits lit, full power in both pods… Radar… Lori?”
Still lost in her worries, Lori jumped at the mention of her name and spun back around to check her suddenly blinking screens.
“Uh… Hang on.”
“All good.” replied Sander in her stead, shooting his frazzled sister a look as he twisted a dial on her console and leaned back to his own chair.
“Oxygen?”
“Getting there…”
The back and forth continued for a few more minutes and, in the lulls between their parents´ directions, the twins shot furtive glances out of their respective windows towards a slowly shrinking earth.
As the air pressure around them lessened and they started to leave the atmosphere, the Beginner’s Luck rose faster and faster until finally, the sky began to darken. Barney then tapped a small blue button, and they all sank into their seats in unison, as thrusters underneath the craft kicked in to give them the extra boost they needed…
The continent spread out beneath them, framed by both oceans through distant weather patterns... and from this altitude they watched the long, dark stain of the Rockies stretch from Canada all the way down south, until it disappeared beneath a swirl of storm clouds.
Sander reached over to nudge Lori and point at the curvature of the earth, but instead of awe, the infinite darkness that awaited them threatened to take her breath away... And this time, she wasn’t the only one to struggle against a rising wave of fear.
Somebody was breathing more and more heavily into their mic, and what Lori had initially thought was her own ragged breath, soon turned into gasps as they all turned to Evelyn, who had begun clawing at her helmet.
“Honey? Hey! What’s going on?” Barney barked, unbuckling his belt to kneel by his wife’s side.
“Can’t breathe!” She gasped back.
“Is your tank connected?” but he quickly saw that it was.
“We’re too high, we- I… I can’t do this! Barney! I’m scared!”
Looking at the vitals on her forearm, he saw that everything besides her heartbeat was fine… and, with a look towards his terrified children, Barney realized his wife was having a panic attack.
“OK... OK, we got this. Just breathe. It’s OK, everything is under control. We can turn back at any time.”
“It’s OK mom…” offered Sander, halfheartedly.
“We should go back! Turn around!” she barked back, oblivious to her son’s comforting attempts, as she clawed at Barney’s arm while he tried to hold her in place.
“Babe, come on… We just left. Let’s get a little farther out. If you can’t handle it, we come down again. OK?”
Shooting another glance to his children, Barney looked back to Evelyn and pressed his visor against hers. She looked deeply into his eyes, begging for some kind of help.
“Do you want to take off the helmet?”
“Yes! Please…”
Nodding quickly, Barney left her for a moment to check the oxygen levels on the dashboard and rushed back to her side.
“Air-filters… running. Yeah, we’re good. Go for it.”
But before he’d even said the words, Evelyn ripped the helmet off her head. Air whooshed out of her collar and, as she fought to catch her breath and look anywhere but out the windows of their craft, Barney let out a sigh and turned her oxygen tank off.
“Can we take it off too?”
Barney nodded again and removed his as well. Lori got up to hug her mother, and as they came together for a quick embrace, Evelyn slowly regained her composure.
“Wow...”
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The family turned towards Sander, who had remained alone near the window... and marveled with him, as infinity unveiled its sparkling, inky darkness.
The Beginner’s Luck rotated slightly, and Barney went to lower the blinds as the sun’s blinding orb came into view.
“Oof, hang on.”
Turning away from the glare, Lori realized they could see the outline of the North American continent from the other side of the craft and couldn’t believe how surreal it all felt. She leaned forward to get a better look, tilted forward... and, as her heart almost stopped, Lori began to float.
In an instant of pure exhilaration, the Schwabs left the floor and began levitating, as they experienced weightlessness for the first time.
An uncontrollable laughter overtook the twins, who finally released all the fear and adrenaline from their terrifying ascent in a burst of overwhelming giddiness. Barney and Evelyn felt it too, and the family spent the next half-hour enjoying the strange feeling of zero-gravity.
“Hey... guys?”
Looking to see why his sister had interrupted their impromptu game of flying tag, Sander lost control of himself and bumped into their father, The family slowly turned to Lori, who pushed herself from the wall that she had drifted into.
“I- You can keep playing, I just have to pee…” she smiled awkwardly.
“Sure! But we’re going to start the spin pretty soon… Can you hold it?” Barney asked as he slowly spun upside down, despite his best efforts. “I’m thinking you’ll want some gravity.”
“No! Come on, we barely even got to try it out!” protested Sander, only too happy to keep up his floating acrobatics.
But Evelyn made up their mind.
“I’m getting a little nauseous to tell you the truth… sorry honey.”
“Yeah, same...” chimed-in Barney, as he buoyantly sat himself down in his chair and strapped himself in.
“Dad, come on!” whined Sander, looking from one parent to the other like a lost puppy... But when neither of them returned his gaze, and Sander knew his cause was lost.
“Alright... Get comfy guys, I’m shifting it.”
With a click, Barney unlocked his seat from the metal ring that encircled the front portion of the hull and began cranking a little lever. Almost imperceptibly at first, his chair then began to gently slide up the curved rail, until he had tilted to a 45-degree angle.
Evelyn and Lori joined him, pulling out the pins beneath the consoles and screens in the cockpit, before effortlessly raising them so that they matched Barney’s sideways position. Finally, Sander sulked his way to the back of the ship and did the same.
“All good?”
Mother and daughter both replied affirmatively while Sander kept quiet, still sore about having had to curb his fun, even in space.
“Alright… let’s go…” Barney said, more to himself than anything.
And with a short blast from their side-thrusters, the Schwabs felt their inertia drift and pull them towards what was soon to become the floor. Barney let the rotation pick up speed and watched the carbon-fiber crawlspace on his control screen slowly stretch with each spin, as the distance between both halves of the Beginner’s Luck grew.
Lori found it odd to feel her perception shift along with the gravity. Noticing at first how strange it looked to see all the furniture and machinery sideways, it was as if she was feeling her brain adapt in real time to their change in orientation.
Once the centrifugal force had brought the chip to its full length, and the final floating specks of dusk and dirt had been drawn to the floor, Barney locked the acceleration and exhaled deeply, with a look towards his family.
Suddenly, it was as if they had been in this position the whole time. Lori stretched her feet an extra inch and pressed them firmly into the surface beneath her, grinning at her brother. Sander returned her grin sheepishly, as if admitting that this new experience was also quite interesting...
And not a minute too soon. Evelyn on the other hand, had not dealt well with the shift… Already looking quite pale, she spat her breakfast between her legs with a sickening splat.
“Aw gross!”
“Mom!”
“Are you OK babe?” asked Barney, looking over to his wife and she rose shakily from her seat, and had to take a knee.
“Yeah, just… Give me a sec.”
Forcing herself up, Evelyn got to the airlock, jammed her helmet on and opened the hatch. As she disappeared down the tube towards the Beginner’s Luck’s second compartment, she switched her air tank on as an extra precaution and grabbed onto a handle, in the middle of the passage’s soft frame.
Curious to see his mother switch hulls now that they had begun spinning, Sander unbuckled himself as well... and nearly fell into Evelyn’s vomit, as he struggled to find his balance.
“Hey! Careful dude!” shot back Barney, as his son tumbled on top of him.
Laughing at him, Lori did the same and carefully managed to stay upright, as she stumbled towards the back of the craft. Leaning down to look through the airlock, she saw Evelyn heave her lower body past the middle of the dimly lit passage and almost lose her grip, as the centrifugal force flipped and swung her legs to the other side of the ship.
Finally, she reached the second hull and removed her helmet to wipe her mouth.
“If you’re coming through, it’s helmet and oxygen... always.” Evelyn called back to the little faces, peering down at her from the deck “It’s the weakest part of the ship. Got it?”
“Yeah mom, no worries...”
Imitating her mother, Lori fastened her headgear and somersaulted across the divide, as she went to the use the bathroom.
Evelyn soon cleaned herself up and returned with her arms full of what seemed to be little pink bricks. After waiting for Lori to join them, the Schwabs swiveled their chairs to face each other for dinner and opened the vacuum-packed meals that their mother had numbered.
The food turned out to be shrink-wrapped burritos, with a tube of something Evelyn swore was “fruit slushy”… and despite the ridiculous faces Sander was making, it ended up being rather tasty. More importantly, the homemade cooking settled them down for their first night in space.
“Hey, gotta stay up a little more!” Barney winked, as he caught Lori yawning. “We’re getting out of orbit in twenty.”
She gave her dad a thumbs-up and slid her little food tray back underneath her seat.
Soon, the Schwabs had resumed their seated positions and Barney, eyes riveted to a screen above his head, gave a countdown.
“8... 7... 6... 5...”
Collectively bracing against Barney’s impending thruster-blast, necessary to “sling-shot” the Beginner’s Luck out of earth’s orbit, the seconds seemed to slow down with each number.
“4... 3... 2...”
Beneath their newly-oriented seats, the portholes flickered with a repetitive turquoise blur, as their home planet flashed again and again under their feet, with every gravity-inducing rotation.
“...1”
Barney tapped a trigger in his joystick and the Beginner’s Luck groaned slightly, as it lurched upward.
A silence overtook the family as they waited for a light to signal that the craft had stabilized, and after a few more seconds they unbuckled their seat belts. Suddenly, sleep seemed like the best option after the most exhausting day they’d ever lived.
With Barney still occupied with the controls, Evelyn led the twins to the other hull and showed them how to fasten their hammocks. Sander got his unrolled somewhat gracefully and had soon strung up the corners with some velcro, before explaining the trick to Lori.
“Do we have to wear the suits at night, too?” Sander asked, as he struggled to imagine himself fitting into the synthetic cocoon.
“I mean, if it makes you feel safer, go ahead honey,” Evelyn answered.
The answer sent a slight shiver of adrenaline down Sander’s spine, as he suffered yet another reminder that they were literally flying through the stars in what basically amounted to glorified storage containers.
“Now you’re on first shift tonight... remember?” Evelyn continued, as Lori looked for her toothpaste.
Barney ducked through the tunnel as he called to his son.
“Sander? You’re up!”
“I know! Jesus…”
Sander slammed his helmet back on and crawled to the cockpit, leaving the girls to get ready for bed.
Emerging from the tube, Sander watched his father pull out a pair of pedals from beneath a floor tile.
“You got that?”
“What?”
Sander saw that his father was handing him a bike seat, and snapped it in place at the end of an elevated, square pole. He then sat down with a quick joke, and began to pedal.
“You know what they say: you never forget!”
But his dad didn’t seem to have heard... Going down the circuit board, Barney checked each component one final time, and switched the cockpit console off. With a massive yawn, he then closed his eyes and reclined as far as the seat would go.
“You don’t want to use a hammock?” Sander wondered, as his cycling efforts charged the Beginner’s Luck’s battery cells and saved their precious fuel for landing.
“In a bit… first night, I want to keep an eye on things.”
In classic Barney irony, he fell asleep moments later. As his father snored, Sander pedaled and pedaled, and slowly fell into a gentle trance at the thought of him biking his way across the galaxy…
His eyelids heavy, he began to nod off... and it was almost as if he had never left the wooded wonderland behind the house…
A few hours later, a hand on his shoulder snapped him out of his reveries, and Lori came to replace him. Returning to his hammock groggily, Sander realized that he’d forgotten his helmet on the other side of the craft... and just passed out.