ARTIST’S NOTES: As we approached the planet, it almost looked like we were returning home. A slightly larger Earth with blue oceans, and mountains and valleys the shade of coal. I wanted to join the expedition crew but had to settle for recordings. Maybe this was better for the story I have to tell the future–—how the black flowers as tall as houses felt like velvet, and the red star hung in a perpetual sunrise or sunset if you stood at the line of night/day on the planet, and tiny flying creatures that looked like squid lit up like fireflies, illuminating the world’s night side in swarms. I could tell the future it was beautiful and forget what really happened because I wasn’t there.
I was finishing a portrait of twin girls, sleeping side by side in their stasis pods, when I saw people rushing toward the shuttle bay. I followed the commotion and smelled the copper-tinged air before I saw the blood pooling beneath the body bags. Across the hall, the shuttle pilot lay fetal on the floor, sobbing. Grant was in his midtwenties, but he looked like a child, shaking and alone. I sat next to him and rubbed his back. He inched closer to me.
“They came out of the sand,” he said. “Never saw ’em coming.”
The medical teams sprayed the dead with a white foam to neutralize any foreign bacteria. One by one they carted the casualties off to the labs for further examination—Shawn Mitchell, private first class; Dr. Richard Pechous; and Grant’s brother, Chief Lemmink. I stood and peered into the bay, caught a glimpse of a dead creature lying beside the shuttle before security sealed the doors closed—a meter-long insect that looked like a giant millipede with the wings of a dragonfly, a head like a tunnel-boring machine. I sat back down with Grant. He was holding on to a family photo that had been folded several times.
“Do you need help with anything?” I asked, uncertain what else to say. “I don’t want to leave you here.”
“My brother and I signed up for the mission because we figured we didn’t have anything holding us back,” Grant began. “Mom and Dad died in the second wave.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Are you sure there isn’t anything I can do? Someone else on the ship I can call for you?”
“No, no,” he said, slowly getting to his feet and straightening his uniform. He handed me the photo of his family at the Grand Canyon—he and the chief must have been no older than ten at the time. “But maybe if you could include this in one of your murals.”
“Of course,” I said. I squeezed his hands and remembered the paintings I used to create for our neighbors back when people first started dying from the plague—how they’d come to my door with their pies and casseroles, ask for my help capturing their children or spouse as they used to be.
During such a tragic planetary expedition I had to wonder if we should have stuck it out back home. We’d rocketed out of desperation, our hearts filled with hope and wonder. We didn’t want to believe there could be so many near misses—too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, too dangerous, lacking in anything whatsoever that could keep us whole and build us up. But giant killer insects aside, Ross came close. The commander reminded us that even if Earth was okay, whatever we built out here might be humanity’s plan B should anything else happen. He reminded us that going back was not an option. We held a funeral service the following day. Everyone out of their stasis pods attended, congregating around three silver capsules on the observation deck.
“We’re gathered here, in orbit over an alien world, to honor the ultimate sacrifice of our fellow crew members,” the commander began. People read the personnel files on tablets as if they were programs, since many of us didn’t really know the dead. As the commander continued, Grant walked over to his brother’s capsule and opened it, placed a framed photo of their parents and a ragged teddy bear on his brother’s chest. Others who knew the dead followed, opening their capsules, placing mementos inside—letters, medals, the Bible, a cardigan sweater, a baseball glove. Guards carted the capsules away to a nearby airlock, and we waited for the commander to give the order.
“Release them,” he said. The room and the halls outside were suddenly awash in red light and a siren blared, warning that the airlock’s outer door was opening. One of the attendees, an astrobiologist, played “Taps” on his trumpet, washing out the noise. When the sirens stopped, we were left with the last lingering note of the trumpet and then silence, the view of the three pods drifting into the dark. For the first time in years, as I watched the caskets be enveloped by space, I thought about not being able to see Clara’s body when she died, how the Russians cremated her without consulting us and shipped her to America like a piece of mail. Sometimes I wondered if the ashes were really hers—I needed to touch and see for myself, to destroy the dream that my daughter was still alive. I trained myself to believe that the grains of bone were really her in order to move on. This is their planet, the commander said. We will not be exterminating alien life or making this world or any other bend to our will. If nothing else is out there for us, we may need to return.