90482 Orcus

There is a tape deck in the pod, but who uses tapes anymore?  They sent some with me, mostly big bands from a time long before my own.  Tapes will give you something to do, Franklin told me before I was on my own in space.  If they get ruined, you can just rewind them by hand.  I have been drifting for at least a week on my own after ejection.  They told me that I couldn't get any closer to the target.  I needed to know what seven days in darkness was like because there was a high probability that it would be that long until they could pick me up from the surface.

I'm rewinding a trumpeteer's work when I see the target.  It is dark enough to miss with one glance.  I saw its companion first.  It is large compared to the primary, orbiting in a small circular path.  The primary is a world from a fantasy.  It is the underworld, if the underworld were in outer space.  It is a shady rock coated in ice, seemingly floating among the stars and galaxies, painted by the gods onto the black backdrop of the universe.

"Preparing to land on surface, near the Niflheimr ridge.  Ending communication now, will resume once mission is completed."

Landings have never been my forte.  I just need to get out of the pod alive.  No need to stick it for an extra point from the judges.

Here, the sun is not a bright circle.  It is a spec in the sky that emits a little more light than the other stars.  We're approaching aphelion.

In the light of Vanth's torch, I can see the quiet base resting at the top of the ridge.  I have to walk up the paths carved out for rover travel.  Making each step on my own is crucial.  I need to know how to reserve my strength for the task at hand.

I can see a dim light in a window, where the mess hall is.

I enter through the loading docks and punch in the code while singing a song I invented to remember all ten numbers.  Humans have the ability to memorize seven digits, the length of a phone number.  Save for the area code.

Oxygen levels look good.  Once the door is shut behind me, I remove my helmet and strip out of my spacesuit.  With a gun on my hip, I begin moving through the dusty hallways.  It's been years since another pod, or anything for that matter, has landed here.  It has been even longer since the base was thriving.

A gas lamp has been lit in the mess hall, where the deceased are dark mummies still seated at the tables for lunch.  I can smell the rogue; the living amongst the dead.  He's close.

Franklin once told me, rule one, always watch your back.

There is the cold tip of a gun pressed to the back of my neck.

...

I wake with a start to see Franklin standing over me, ripping nodes off of my face like they are the heads of leeches.  I'm out of breath, barely able to utter a word.

"You won't have extra lives when you actually go out there," he reminds me.  "Watch your goddamn back if you want to stay alive."  He sighs.  "That's how he got the rest of them.  From behind."