Story: The Ezekiel Triptych

WE HAD A scheduled day off today, but the medusazoans showed up. Protocol dictates we have to make an effort to contact them whenever this happens, but there’s nothing said about recording or even logging the event when no one is on an active shift, as it is during our working days. Technicalities and such; our nominal peripheral sensors are designated as sufficient for documentation. It didn’t feel right to me, though, to officially ignore it. I was in the middle of suiting up to go wet when Delarose slipped into the airlock and complained at me. Might’ve made a threat after I started ignoring him. If I had paid attention I could register an automatic infraction, as we’re equal in the chain of command, despite my non-technical role. I know he’s let things go with me in the past. There’s honor among thieves and sometimes among shipmates. I didn’t go EVA. Nothing of note happened with the zoans.

* * *

Our last day. The zoanies gathered to see us depart, though I’m not sure it was coincidence or they had figured it out. We’re not sure—at least I am not sure—how exactly they gather information about us, aside from maybe our physical encounters, or in what manner they communicate with each other. The station’s perimeter sensors could’ve given us visuals but they couldn’t be online during the ascension procedure. Gemella, Delarose, and I ran around to the viewports of the station and merged our findings: the zoanies were likely in the same formations as during our physical encounters. I doubt there’s anything meaningful in that beyond something to notice as it happened. Sterkos was indifferent, though he pretended to be occupied with the flight crew’s maneuvers. He wasn’t fooling anyone.

* * *

My attempt to make contact, as the fourth and last researcher in our group to do so, was rescheduled today. Gemella’s idea. We’ve determined a rough schedule of the zoanies’ appearances. It’s a bit chaotic, and Delarose is working out more of the details, but they are clearly repeating a pattern. Gemella’s and Delarose’s encounters were, coincidentally, at the times they had scheduled. Sterkos’s attempt, obviously, was not. My original, planned encounter with them, today, was for a day and time when they are very likely to appear, and tomorrow is when they are very likely not to appear. Gemella’s idea is to try to force the zoanies to break their schedule. We don’t know the consequences, but I see it as an angle to get more data—any data. Delarose distrusts him in the first place, so his suggestion to throw plans out the window, and to “use” me as “bait” (his choice of words), was enough to elicit a little outburst. He agreed to the change, though, after hearing Gemella’s reasoning.

* * *

I’m not apprehensive about the encounter, but another feeling or state of mind like apprehension has been gnawing at the edges of my attention. At breakfast and everyone is being chatty as I write this. I need to be alone and think for a while about this; I will make an addendum. Addendum: I just noticed I couldn’t bring myself, earlier, to type out what we are calling them, neither their official name nor the silly nickname I came up with. I still can’t. We don’t actually know if they will appear, much less bother to make contact with me. What if our attempts to make contact created their pattern of appearances, rather than it being coincidental? We wouldn’t really know, as we don’t have any data from previous teams disclosed to us. I could just end up floating there, alone in the dark blue nether, like a child in punishment. That’s all I can really conclude right now.

* * *

Sterkos barged into my quarters with his bottle last night. We shared a shot, but he kept going. I read a book while he slurred in my lap about his childhood. He’s a quiet snorer, but drooled too much. When I woke up, he was gone. He took the zoanies’ lack of reaction to his presence personally, but the fact that the rest of us had much more active encounters made his aggravation blossom. I can’t blame him for wanting to feel something other than resentment. I also think he was getting even with me, to my benefit, returning the blackmail intel for the time he saw my Cesarean scar. The procedure was off-record; it may have disqualified me for the mission if the CO saw that in my psych workup.

* * *

They were named prior to our mission. I don’t know the etymology of that particular decision, but clearly no one had consulted the man on the street on the terminology. “Medusazoan” is not quite gentle on the eyes or easy on the tongue. Delarose mentioned that he just reads “me” whenever he comes across the word in written reports, and ignores the rest of it. I consider myself a decent verbal communicator, and even I have trouble pronouncing it. I have to go into strict elocution mode to articulate it, do a little mental clench when I know it’s coming up in the next sentence. There’s calculable fatigue after a certain point. I’ve now started referring to them as “zoanies,” both in writing and in speech. It’s been catching on with the other three, and I’ve overheard crew members use it a few times. Considering the seriousness of the circumstances, if feels a little too cutesy, but maybe that’s warranted. Ascribing too much seriousness to the creatures themselves can give them power we may not want them to have. Before space travel became so commonplace, “rocket launches,” as they were referred to, required lots of prep work and people involved, but the attitude of the team leading up to an actual launch were more like celebrations than careful, sober working sessions. Train for extreme difficulty, execute with casual ease. There’s also implications if the “zoanie” appellation leaks into household parlance. Even if I wasn’t widely known as the coiner of the term, I don’t quite feel comfortable with that outcome. Such are the consequences with which we mid-market journalists struggle.

* * *

A coincidence that needs mentioning. Delarose confided in me about hearing strange sounds in and around his quarters: creaking or small metallic notes ringing out, like ball bearings pinging onto a sheet of metal. I took him seriously, though I know for sure what he was hearing was simply the station’s onboard stabilization monitors compensating for the subtle shifts in pressurization. We had trained, though separately, with other candidates, for over a year to expect phenomena of this type. Delarose should know this, so I think he may not have explained himself thoroughly. He seemed genuinely worried but a bit guilty even bringing it up. Later, Gemella mentioned openly to all of us at dinner about experiencing similar sounds, albeit in much more excited, positive terms. Delarose walked away in the middle of his explanation. Sterkos listened dutifully, but, as usual, didn’t seem to give a shit.

* * *

Writing this as it happens. It’s a rare opportunity to do this, but the situation right now allows for it, and I take advantage when I can. Gemella is having his encounter with the zoanies right now. One of them floated very close to him and latched, if you can call it that, onto his EVA suit. The other zoanies, thirteen in all, followed in fashion, and now Gemella is now trapped inside a practical cocoon of the things. Everyone is in a low-level panic, despite nothing harmful happening at all in this process. Gemella’s vitals have been reading nominal the entire time; there was mild tachycardia when the first zoanies made contact, but that subsided. There is the danger of his air tanks running out, but that won’t happen for another day in the EVA pod. We could hook him up to the main respirator tanks on the station, but there’s no way to make a connection without breaking the cocoon. We’re under very specific instructions not to either harm or imply harm to the zoanies, even at the expense of harm to the crew or researchers. Delarose is understandably irritated.

* * *

Charles, my editor, encouraged me to write personal entries whenever I could, as a supplement to my “official” observations that would later become an article. Hence, my first entry here. The tablets we are issued have a proprietary operating system installed, for security purposes, I assume. We weren’t trained on it—at least I wasn’t—and it’s too different from what I am used to. It will take me a few attempts to get used to this thing. It’s too strange a situation not to mention: a journalist, trained for over a year in the basics of maritime discipline and performing in experimental EVA suits, but has trouble using the device to document her actual work.

* * *

Dinner on the first night after descension and settling into our quarters. We hadn’t at all prior to this; unorthodox mission prep, to understate the obvious. We all revealed our professions. Except for the actual crew, our areas of expertise are outside of the subject matter. Mine, as an industry journalist, is the furthest. Gemella played coy and never told us what he did. I wish I had the willpower to be reticent about sharing unnecessary information.

* * *

Sterkos reported a glitch in our sun room, while he and Gemella were having a concurrent session in it. We have onboard maintenance technicians as part of the crew that can handle it, but Delarose told the tech he could handle it. I don’t think he had the authority to do that, but the tech listened and returned to the bridge. I had free time, since I had finished the book I was reading and a new one wouldn’t be here until the next mail batch (we are on a federal diplomatic mail schedule), so I offered assistance. I don’t know much about hardware or electronics, and Delarose seemed to know little more. We worked through it. He made me run back and forth between the sun room and forest room to compare and contrast the circuitry, to see where the problem was. It was fun, in a childish sort of way, but that might be because I wasn’t ultimately responsible for the repair. Neither was Delarose, according to protocol. Gemella told us a joke every time I came back in with a new sketch of circuitry. Even Delarose managed a chuckle. Sterkos just sat there, annoyed the entire time.

* * *

Sterkos had remote therapy. His symptoms were increasing in intensity: interrupted sleeping patterns, dreams that continued into waking hours, little appetite. The psych wanted him to spend the next day in the sun room, and cleared him for pod time on the surface for next week. Everyone is glad for him openly, but clutching a secret envy close; Delarose, the opposite. Said the “bald bookish bastard” should come down here for a day and see how it is, but I can tell he wants to lord his small vacation over the crew members. We’re not dysfunctional, but I feel a distance growing, though it’s not the kind of distance that elicits a drain of sentiment or camaraderie between us. It’s more like we are settling into the individual roles we are forming down here. Ramparts building up, parts we are meant to play, or different, very slight, adjustments of perceptions we are forced to adopt. Sterkos may have secreted vodka in. Delarose suspects, too, but doesn’t know I know. He isn’t happy.

* * *

Gemella’s post-encounter report was sent to my tablet from the topside admins. I don’t know if any of the other crew members received it as well, as we’re not allowed to talk or ask about what we’re sent to our mission inbox. Gemella explains being “absorbed” with the zoanies for what felt like years, but he was only “in communion” (his words) with them for not even half a day. The external station sensors, cameras, as well as the temporal sense of us observers, and even Gemella’s internal EVA cameras were all in agreement with each other. I’ll talk to some of the crew to see if they noticed anything. There were direct quotes in the report of Gemella, not speaking gibberish, but trying to explain gibberish, if that makes sense. They were small written snippets, so I am going to request the raw interview recordings. The bottom of the report specifically pointed out they were available. There’s something different about hearing the actual words as they were being said, in comparison to a written account of them.

* * *

Though we had seen the medusazoans—er, zoanies—half a dozen times before, I trained my cameras on them much more closely than before during Sterkos’ attempt. What I thought were undulations in their membranes appeared to be more transformative, like the entrance and exit of tissue, a perpetual reshaping by way of dissolution and generation. The data report which came back from the topside team didn’t reveal anything unusual. I had even mentioned the phenomenon in my observations with the encounter’s batch we sent. Who knows? They may have dismissed it as a writer’s imaginative verbosity. Or they’re plain ol’ lying.

* * *

I spied on what seemed to be a highly-classified report Delarose was reading. He was in the bathroom and left his tablet in his quarters, door open. Why didn’t he just take the damn thing with him? There was a growing consensus among the topside team that the zoanies were bulk brane entities “in transit.” I know a bit about the idea but our network connection is routinely monitored and highly restricted. An immediate, direct search on the term would look suspicious. I’ll have to bring a tangential subject up in conversation at dinner in a few days, ask some questions, eke out some related words and phrases, scatter the search of the terminology to lead up to literally searching “bulk branes,” if it even needs to come to that. If I can generate enough interest, everyone else would be searching for the same. With some luck, Delarose would even outright mention it at some point soon, giving me a good alibi to poke around online anyway and I wouldn’t have to be so careful. Am I being overly cautious? Having to make myself be sneaky about reading public, theoretical, and frankly fascinating scientific information, makes my teeth itch.

* * *

My first memory, after the incident: I came to consciousness, naked, completely wet, standing in the airlock. Delarose was in mid-sentence, reprimanding me. No, he was pissed about something else: the situation in general, what led to all of this happening, to me ending up here. He stood sideways to make it impossible to stare at me. Gemella approached me gingerly with a large towel held up, right in front of him, Sterkos on the intercom, directing him, probably while watching over the security cameras. I get it. I broke about a dozen mission and safety protocols by being in there like that. Nothing criminal, but I would be held responsible if a disaster occurred. They didn’t want to add harassment or a volatile workplace accusation to the list. I entertained being hurt by that, if that were the case, since legal and personal vindictiveness is not one of my weak points. Delarose became quiet, but the shadow of his profile continued the tirade silently. Maybe he should’ve brought the booze insead.

* * *

Sterkos, Gemella, and Delarose, though they had all agreed to their designation as official researchers and the ones who were to attempt contact with the medusazoans, were all reluctant to be first. Mission control never gave a clear direction on the order. Sterkos volunteered to go first after a protracted discussion. I was relieved, and though I am technically the group observer and historian, I was qualified as any of them to use the EVA suits; I could attempt contact if needed and willing. Still, I’d rather not do it, but now I’m wondering if it was implied by the fact that I went through the suit training that it was all but official that I must go through with an attempt. There’s a lot of psych prep and acclimation one needs to perform, which starts well before mission launch, to ease into making contact. Someone higher up must have considered this in my case, right?

* * *

The surrounding waters become the depths of the universe; tardigrades and siphonophores become stars, sarcastic fringeheads transform into nebulae, grimpoteuthis are galaxies. Bodies upon bodies, like starships racing to the rescue, pushed against a dead metal skin encasing its alien body. Standing still, they send the familiar alien mind to distant realms, traversing a never-ending Möbius strip with wheels that will always spin. I snake my head up my birth canal and watch my son being formed, atom by atom, over the 40 some-odd weeks he was in utero. Blueberry balls of the feet, a halo of fireflies in obedient, perpetual procession. I then transformed into a vibrating loop of energy somewhere in the Boötes Void, grew, and exploded myself to fill the space with my essence. The particles of myself spread to the far boundaries of the universe, through its indescribable membrane (it had the faint scent of plain yogurt), and into I gazed upon the days of near-infinite kingdoms in these unnameable universes, long-forgotten by the cyclical stretch of existence, and incarnated myself into one of my particular choosing. There I was accompanied for my entire life there by a translucent four-dimensional hypercube, about the size of a sandwich, it’s perpetually rotating faces only a molecule thick. After I died, I watched its undulations ascend into higher and higher dimensions, so that it disappeared into a shatter of subatomic particles, which became a recording of my entire life’s actions to be deposited as one more stream of information in what we might call the Akashic Records, maintained by a race of crystal-based beings, acting as cross-multiversal historians. I experienced many more complete lifetimes as creatures from lands unheard of, sometimes retaining only a whisper of who I really was while incarnated, other times in utter unknowing until I passed away and my conscience collects itself and the bright threads of remembrance connect all the parts of me. All the beings I became were human in one fashion or another: an unavoidable pattern for those rational creatures carrying a divine spark. A quark in the void between universes flashed into existence and happened to float past me. I followed its path as it casually slipped from universe to universe, in search of a hadron to call its home. It never found one. Its death, the kind belonging to a contented being that surrendered itself to fate, came to it at the edge of a stray radio wave of Burl Ives clearing his throat before a Christmas Eve radio performance of “O Holy Night.” I etched a permanent eulogy for the quark, scripted in an ineffable type of anti-photon of my own extempore devising, at the inside-facing boundary of a newly-formed dimension. It is that last thing all the living beings that spring to life will see when they pass on. The bodies that sent me on this journey, perhaps sensing my time was ending, peeled off one by one, yanking me away and distilling every part of me that would exist forever, tying it back to my body of origin. Then I woke up.

* * *

One can eat the scroll and it will taste like honey. Another may eat the scroll and retch it back up. Still others may not even take up the scroll at all, as it was never offered to them. Gemella and I pass each other often in the station, on a schedule, as though our little encounters are planned, and a wave of unspoken understanding hits the both of us. We both know which of the three we all are.

This story was submitted to the Writers of the Future contest for the first quarter of 2021. It didn’t place, obviously. I generally like diary-entry format stories, and the chronological disorder here was meant to be a reflection of the narrator’s experience of the medusozoans. I also wanted an in-universe reason why the entries are out of place, too. As the title and the concluding paragraph heavily suggest, three of the characters have different experiences when researching the medusazoans (“eating the scroll”), and a fourth character has the same experience as one of those three. Who were they, and why do they have different reactions? Rhetorical homework question…I’m not soliciting comments.