NEWMAN

The sea of hexagons was curving inward. The boundary was still quite large, but she could see both the inside and outside limits of the active border. She couldn’t quite see the other end. The ISS passed close, but outside of the last bastion of normalcy on the Earth below.

‟Next pass, it’s going to be closed,” Ivan said.

All five of the crew were gathered to watch the end of the Anthropocene. She’d been the one to name it that, although she doubted it was truly the end of the era of mankind’s hold on Earth. The human species was far too tenacious, adaptable, and, well, wily, to be held down by something that disabled technology.

Yaytsev had done a small test, trying to burn paper before they’d blown open the station, and that worked while over the Zone. If fire worked, people should survive. There might be famines or worse, but humans, as a species, would survive.

Of course, there was still the possibility that everyone down there had been Changed into weird shapes, based on whatever the intelligence behind the shutdown Zone intended.

‟Time to finish the inventory. We need to figure out how much stuff we have that we can eat or, well ‘drink’.”

‟Do we need to?” Shuko asked.

‟Ask our clothing. We ate it through our skin, so we clearly need some stuff to eat. Photosynthesis seems to be important, but I wouldn’t bet it does suffice.”

‟On it,” Ivan said.

‟More experiments. How far does our ‘radio’ work?”

‟I get to snag the record for farthest EVA distance, then,” Frank joked.

‟Don’t go so far you can’t find the station again,” she warned him.

‟Yaytsev? Still not tired?” she asked.

‟I’m not sure. But I seem to be okay.”

‟We got tired, but we were awake when the Change hit. Keep track of when you do get tired finally.”

‟While I work.”

‟Well, if you can do two things at the same time…”

‟Ware blue!” Frank suddenly said.

Juliana rotated slightly and spotted the pack of hexagons “drawn” on the atmosphere, and the blue plume stretching above. They had some time though.

‟Okay. While we’re waiting for it to pass… I’m going to make use of your body, Shuko.”

‟Well, we’re both married. And we both seem to be missing some parts,” the Japanese half-laughed.

‟That means we’ll keep it to demure,” she replied.

I wonder what happened to Jerry, she wondered, before shoving the thought deep under wraps. The only unmarried one among them was Ivan. All the others had spouses. And most had kids. Not her, thank god.

Focus.

She moved around, looking at Shuko’s body. Their shapes still puzzled her. The arms and hands, she could accept, although they had a clear back-to-front order. She reached, trying to feel Shuko’s bones, but it was hard. The tegument that covered the anatomy she was trying to probe was thick. And the underlying flesh was dense. Maybe even denser it was before, which would mean they’d all gained mass somehow during the Change.

It wouldn’t shock her. Once impossible things happened, anything was on the table, potentially. Although it still made some perverse sense.

Focus.

The fingers were the most striking. Three of them. One opposable thumb, two equal-length fingers. And while they felt like big sausages, they were thin enough that she could feel something if she pressed hard.

‟Does it hurt or anything?”

‟Nothing. I mean, I feel your fingers pushing, but that’s all.”

Blue light sprang. While she was busy focusing on the Spaceborne anatomy, the expanse of hexagons had caught them. Or rather, the ISS had caught up to them.

She tried to catch the streaming light, but there was nothing. Unlike the Earth’s magnetic field, there was nothing to focus upon, to grasp. She looked ahead, to where Frank was starting to move at a decent speed in front of the station.

‟Not magnetic,” she commented.

‟Don’t feel like it is,” he confirmed.

Thirty seconds later, the light show moved behind them and she turned back to the exploration of Shuko – and theirs – anatomy.

FULLER

If someone, say two days ago, had told Frank he’d been racing in front of the ISS naked in space, swimming in magnetic fields and taking in sunlight, he’d have put the wacko on ignore and moved on.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Funny how one’s perspective changed in so small an amount of time.

Still, he couldn’t deny there was a thrill to racing ahead of the space station – he was trying to keep the same orbit – without a real care in the world.

Well, maybe there were plenty of things to care about, but he was not going to dwell on those. Like the high likelihood they would never see the ground again. Juliana might be making all kinds of plans, but he doubted that option was open to them. Still, if anyone could find it, it would be her. She was his second commander on the ISS, and he knew she was the right one for the job.

The enhanced perspective of having a 360° vision was a good thing. He could watch the forward perspective and the first hint of eclipse creeping on them, and backward and the slowly receding shape of the ISS.

That was one of the things he’d learned late. Space was big.

As a fighter pilot, before he’d applied to NASA, he’d experienced the freedom of the skies. How he rushed at “incredible” speeds in his plane, moving across the free field of the sky, dodging his opponents – in training exercises, never in real fighting conditions – and reveling in the open expanses of the sky.

And then, he’d sat in the ISS’s cupola and learned about real expanses. The Earth, which seemed so remote below his plane at high altitudes, was even tinier. For all he’d done, he’d never been at a point where the horizon curved as much. The true blackness above, even in full daylight.

But he had been a passenger, not a pilot. The climb to the ISS was sitting on his ass, clicking on a touch-screen to see what was going on outside. And the space station, for all of the majesty of space and the spectacle of Earth below, offered only a passenger window.

‟Another batch of hexagons. Slightly off, maybe they won’t hit us,” he warned.

‟Noted,” Juliana’s voice came back.

Here, he plowed ahead, a vanguard in the darkness. He wasn’t the pilot of a spaceplane, he was the spaceplane itself. Pilots often talked about they were born to fly, but Frank Fuller was made to fly.

He would like to be able to thank the intelligence that made him. Before punching it for ending the world below.

NEWMAN

The feet did not make sense. Shuko’s legs were as short as their arms, a foot and half long, and ended with a perfectly recognizable foot. Three-toed, sure, but a normal foot. With a heel.

The Spaceborne shape was full of contradictions. If she had been in charge of designing a body suited for space operations, she would definitively have done things differently. Like radial symmetry, a starfish shape, with all vulnerable parts in the middle, and the “arms” useful for the rest.

Not this parody of a humanoid.

Not that she would complain. At least, they looked like caricatures of people, not alien beings. She suspected she was seeing the outcome of a truly alien mind, working on ingrained premises that she couldn’t guess at.

‟You can use the magnetic fields as sensors,” Frank said from the distance.

‟Meaning?” she replied, as she tried to probe – gently – the head attachment.

At least for that she could try to feel her own, not just massage Shuko’s. She couldn’t turn her head, but she could bend it a little.

‟I’m guessing I’m nearly three hundred kilometers ahead now.”

She mentally whistled – the voice didn’t seem to allow for that, not truly – and replied.

‟That far?”

‟Dragging yourself on the field isn’t that fast, but it’s cumulative,” Frank replied.

‟But the station is basically a point barely visible, and only because we’re not in the eclipse. So, I tried to see if I could reach with the magnetic fields, and get some feedback.”

She instinctively grasped, trying to feel the station. It was easy, but then, it was also less than fifty yards from where she and Shuko hung out in space.

‟How far?”

‟It’s very faint. I’m guessing it’s leaving some traces in the normal field. And the sensation is weird because it’s like touch and sight. At the same time.”

‟Maybe it’s like a drug trip?” Shuko commented.

‟Whatever. Anyway, I’m still pushing ahead. Oh, and there looks to be a small satellite on a slightly higher, but parallel orbit. If I interpret the sensation correctly.”

‟Handy. That might give us a warning mechanic,” Yaytsev commented.

She spotted the Russian moving out of an opening of the station.

‟So, how’s our dead home?”

‟Ivan is finishing to move all he can underneath. Without any coolant, the upper side is going to have significant temperature variation as we go in and out of eclipse.”

‟Underneath will be less susceptible.”

‟Assuming the station remains stable. We no longer have anything to compensate for motion.”

‟Supplies?” she asked, ignoring the risk. They couldn’t do anything about it, anyway.

‟Well, the next resupply was scheduled for next month, after the crew rotation. We’ve got the usual margins, so we had like 80 days. Of course, that’s with the full crew, so it’s larger. And we probably don’t need the oxygen, I guess.”

‟And it depends on how much we now need in terms of food or water,” she added.

‟Water is easier. It’s starting to freeze already, which makes it easier to handle. Food… well, the zero-pressure did a number on half the stock. It’s there but messy.”

‟We don’t need mouths. Got an idea, bring me some,” she added.

‟Got a preference?” Yaytsev asked.

‟Anything will go. Test 2, cotton, some cloth. Test 3… what do we have in terms of plastics?”

Shuko got it immediately.

‟Comparing nutrition? Absorption rates?”

‟We seem to have eaten our original clothes. I assume they’re tasty enough. Will processed plastic work? It’s all hydrocarbons.”

‟Man, I’m happy to be away. You’d find some weird slop for me to eat,” Frank said from ahead.

‟Don’t worry. You’re the control who fasts and eats nothing,” she replied, smiling internally.

With no response forthcoming, she focused on the upcoming eclipse. The horizon was already darkening. She looked downward, seeing another large batch of detached hexagons marring the atmosphere, not far from the terminator into the local night.

‟Think you can keep up, Frank?” she asked.

‟I’ve stopped accelerating. I’m on a slightly higher orbit already anyway, so I’m drifting up and away. Once we’re in eclipse, I’ll see how good I can feel the ISS without the help of the light. I’m guessing I’m three hundred and fifty now, getting on four hundred. Oh, and you sound pretty much normal. I can tell you’re away, but I hear everything fine.”

‟Same. Our voices got range.”

‟Ware blue. I didn’t pay attention and got hit by a field of blue. If I’m correctly aligned, you’ll hit it too.”

She spotted another block of hexagons underneath. It looked like it was growing, or forming as the border had been. It slid toward them, and with no surprise, blue streams filled their world forty seconds later.

Yaytsev came out of the station with packs in his hands, joining them. Juliana decided to wait until the blue immersion ended before starting to spread the experimental food tests.

The Russian had found a few metal cables, so she used them to wrap securely the “samples” on their tegument. Water ice, what had been pureed carrots before being made into a semi-repulsive mess, strips of a shirt, and some plastic that had been part of a cargo wrapping. She wrapped those on their torsos, Shuko helping put the carrots on her. Since they didn’t breathe, it was trivial to secure the test articles.

And the eclipse was upon them, as the station slid into Earth’s shadow, leaving the last bits of Ancient Earth, over the Indian Ocean, behind.

She wondered if it would come back to normal, one day.