“Thanks.” I nodded before pulling myself through the hatch and into the Russian laboratory docked beneath the service module.
“Good morning.” I smiled. Natalya, looked up from her laptop, meeting my gaze for the briefest of moments before her eyes darted back to her laptop.
“Good morning.” She echoed solemnly, continuing to study the screen in front of her. Taken aback by her frostiness, I decided to press on nonetheless.
“Look Natalya, about last night…” She cringed.
“I shouldn’t have done that.” She blurted out. “That’s not like me at all. I was just feeling…”
“Hey, it’s okay!” I reached for her, my hand closing over hers. “Look, I hope you don’t really regret what happened last night. I’ve felt really close to you over the last few weeks and I think I…” I winced, feeling my face flush. “If you want to dial things back and just be friends…” I added, stuttering a little. Natalya finally met my gaze, her eyes dewy. She smiled and I realised that for once they were tears of happiness rather than despair.
“You mean a lot to me too.” She admitted, holding my gaze. “I don’t know how I would have coped without you these past few weeks. I’m sorry about a moment ago. I woke up this morning and just felt so embarrassed.” I gently tugged on her hand. Natalya smiled and allowed herself to be pulled towards me. With a quick glance up at the open hatch into Zvezda to ensure they were alone, I placed my hand on the small of her back, gently pulling her body to mine. Her arms wrapped around me as my other hand slid up to the nape of her neck. Natalya’s hand slid up to the back of my head, her fingers running through my hair and with the most delicate of movements, gently pulled my face towards hers. We gazed deeply into each other’s eyes as we leaned into each other, our lips meeting, kissing tentatively at first but with increasing urgency. I could feel my heart racing as we floated there together, somehow feeling even more elated than during our illicit rendezvous the previous night. When Natalya finally pulled away, she smiled up at me, her eyes sparkling.
“I had better get back to my experiment.” She told me as she reluctantly broke our embrace. “But I’ll see you later?”
“You know where to find me.” I smiled, before kicking up off the floor, propelling myself back towards the hatch in the ceiling.
Day Fifty-Three
I puffed out my cheeks as I worked out on the weight training apparatus in the Tranquillity node. Aki pulled herself through from the Destiny module, pausing for a moment when she spotted me.
“Good morning.” She smiled. “How’s our resident Casanova?”
“You’ve heard then?” I winced.
“Let’s just say I’m surprised you still need the exercise after your nocturnal activities.” She grinned wickedly. I felt my face flush. “Don’t be embarrassed. It’s really sweet.” This time it was Aki’s turn to wince. “Sorry, that sounded really condescending. I just mean I’m really happy for you both. I’m sure it’s nice to have something positive to think about other than the end of the world. Besides, it’s given the rest of us a welcome distraction to gossip about.”
“Glad to have been of service.” I replied. Aki giggled and continued on her way.
Day Fifty-Four
I entered the Zvezda Module, where Karpov was going through the motions of his daily ritual of trying to contact mission control.
“Mission Control. Do you read me? Over.” His voice had taken on a flat, bored tone as he clearly knew in his heart that he was extremely unlikely to receive a response now or ever. Probably for the purposes of morale more than anything else, he would spend half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening every day trying to raise Earth. He nodded a greeting at me as I joined him. The big Russian checked his watch and appeared to have had enough for the moment. With a sigh, he reached up and switched off the headset, pulling it from his head and leaving it floating near the communication station.
“You catch them at lunch again?” I quipped. Karpov smiled humourlessly, weariness in his bloodshot eyes. There seemed to be a little more grey at his temples, two or three days’ worth of stubble on his jaw and he didn’t seem to smile as much as when I had first met him. He approached his sleeping compartment, putting his hand on the door handle, before pausing for a moment.
“Carter.” He growled, turning to me. ”It has been brought to my attention that Dr Varennikova and you have recently become… close. Generally, this fraternising would be very much frowned upon, however I appreciate that the circumstances we all find ourselves in are unique and think you both deserve any comfort you can find in each other’s company. I believe everyone is aware of the situation, but I think it best if you were to keep things low key when in the company of the rest of the crew.” He moved closer to me and his voice took on a solemn tone.
“I will say this though, Carter. I’ve got to know her well over the past four or five months. She is a nice girl and I’m glad to see her happy or as happy as she can be despite everything that has happened. My only reservation is that if your relationship was to sour, she might fall hard. If that was to happen, it would incur my displeasure. Is that understood?” I blinked, feeling like a teenager meeting a girlfriend’s formidable father and sternly asked what his intentions were towards his daughter. As I looked into Karpov’s eyes, I half expected to see a flicker of humour, but there was only steel.
“Yes.” I replied, momentarily considering adding: ‘and I promise to have her back by midnight’ but thought better of it.
“Good.” Karpov turned back to his sleeping compartment and disappeared inside, the lecture apparently over.
Day Fifty-Six
We were all congregated in Zvezda for our evening meal, each of us chewing thoughtfully on our food. Natalya was sitting next to me at the galley table, all pretence of the secrecy of our relationship abandoned, though we were heeding Karpov’s advice not to flaunt it. The others were sitting or floating around the module finishing their own food from the silver packets. Aki was gazing at the surface of the Earth through one of the windows in the floor, deep in thought.
“What do you think we’ll do when we finally run out of supplies and head back to Earth?” She asked, finally turning away from the window. “Do you think we’ll go our separate ways or stick together? I know it sounds morbid, but realistically we aren’t likely to find anyone we know still alive.”
“I know it’s a forlorn hope,” Morrison replied. “But I think I would have to at least try. I’d need that closure, that peace of mind.”
“I think staying together will depend on the state of things when we do return.” Karpov said. “I think it would be wise to try and stay together, at least until we are safe. Law and order are likely to be non-existent at this point.”
“It could be like the wild west down there.” Flynn agreed. “Survival of the fittest.” He shot a sideways glance at me.
“It will be a very different world, that much is certain.” Morrison nodded. “I think in the long term we will recover from this. I think the human race is too strong to die out. We will adapt and survive. Look at the harsh climates in which humans have already settled such as the arctic regions, the desert, the mountains, the oceans and all kinds of other environments you wouldn’t think we could possibly endure. It will be hard, but we can survive. We will survive.”
“It’s true.” Karpov drained the last of his water. “My Grandparents lived in Siberia. I am used to cold winters, but Siberian winters were something else.” He shuddered theatrically before smiling. “I used to visit with my parents when I was a boy. I hated it. It seemed no matter how many layers I wore, I never got warm. My grandparents used to call me a soft city boy and when I complained about the cold they would tease me and tell me that if I complained again, they would feed me to the huskies! Tough people, but survivors.”