Alone

DATE: Year 308-B, Sol 498

LOCATION: Somewhere between the Sun and Jupiter

To save power, Phoenix had killed the Sparrow’s main reactor.

It was Sunday by the church count. A threeday in the 8-day Martian week calendar. Phoenix liked when the Sundays fell on eightdays. The end of the week, it felt right. Keeping the church count always made Phoenix feel grounded.

There was a lot of space around him for much of his life. What was a threeday in an eternal night?

He unbuckled from the pilot’s seat and floated back into the living quarters.

It was freezing back there.

Phoenix opened his locker. He reached into the back and pulled out a small, leather-bound book. The missal he picked up at the start of every year, liturgical. There was a small closet off to the side, extra storage, he usually sat in to read and pray.

Since they left Venus he’s been going to the medical bay instead.

Himalaya Market lay strapped to the mattress. He looked like a corpse. The only color came from the geometric scars on his chest, which pulsed with a faint, rhythmic blue light, the wretched Black Box. Phoenix wanted nothing to do with it anymore.

-Wake up call, kid, Phoenix whispered. It’s the Lord’s Day.

But Himalaya was in his chemically-induced coma.

-The Solemnity of the Holy Spirit, Phoenix read from the missal. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirt.

He mumbled through the first reading, Proverbs.

He liked to read the responsorial psalm line out loud to Himalaya.

-O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!

He couldn’t sing so he kind of intoned the psalms and hymns. He skipped the last verse about the beasts of the field and the birds of the air. It seemed cruel.

He started to mumble quietly through the second reading, Romans. He remembered this one. There was a part for Market. He read it louder.

-We even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint.

Phoenix looked at his hands. He mumbled through the rest.

Then the Gospel, which he read out loud for Market and for himself.

He had a small wafer and the tiniest glass of water. No authority to turn it into anything.

He ate the wafer. He drank the water.

He stood there for a long time, floating in the silence.

He looked at the Black Box bolted to the floor. The thing that had started all this.

-Deliver us from evil, Phoenix whispered.

He reached out and tapped the boy’s forehead.

-And bring us to everlasting life. Or at least to Jupiter.

He touched his wrist again. One. Two. Three.

-Mass is ended, Phoenix said. -Go in peace.

He went back to his locker and tucked the book away.

He checked the boy’s vitals one last time. Heart rate steady. Brain activity... chaotic.

-Hang in there, kid, Phoenix said. We’re halfway there.

He floated back to the cockpit. He strapped into the chair and checked the scope.

Nothing. Space.

Phoenix stared. He felt a little lighter.

He engaged the heater for five minutes, just enough to melt the frost on the controls.

-Amen, he whispered.