The Silent Treatment

Mark walked across the brightly-lit galley, rubbing sleep out of his eyes as he made a beeline to the coffee-maker. He took his coffee cup - the black one with the UNASA logo against a field of stars - out of the sink. He groggily grabbed the aluminum coffee pot by the handle, instantly realizing that it was bone dry.

"You know, it's common courtesy when you take the last cup of coffee to make a fresh pot, Jeff," Mark sighed, glancing over his shoulder at his crewmate, Jeff Tilman. Jeff just sat there, pointedly ignoring Mark. They all did that these days.

"Jerk-off...if you're not going to speak to me you could at least look at me when I talk to you," Mark said as he got a coffee packet out of the drawer under the coffee-maker. He put it in the compartment over the pot and hit the "brew" button. Within a few seconds, the small galley was filled with the aroma of eight year-old, freeze-dried, Columbian coffee - a smell somewhere between sour chocolate and engine coolant. "See? It takes like 10 seconds." Mark poured a cup and walked out of the galley, leaving Jeff to stare at his back with cold hatred. They all did that these days.

Mark headed out of the galley and made his way to the engine room, where his duty station was located. He walked down a long, dark gray corridor, metal grating clanking beneath his feet with every step. Every six meters he had to simultaneously duck down and step up to get through the small, airlock doors separating the ship into sections. The UNASA Rugged was a Narwhol-class cargo vessel, responsible for hauling spent nuclear fuel rods from the Far-Space-Station near Pluto to a dumping point near Mercury. They were almost at the end of their nearly nine year-long journey. The crew would then have a relatively short, three month trip to Earth, at which point they would be relieved by a new crew heading back to the FSS. For Mark, the journey couldn't end soon enough.

He passed Maria Gomez in the corridor. Maria was wearing an orange jumpsuit, her lustrous black hair hanging loosely on her shoulders. He had to squeeze by her - she was just standing there, making a point of not looking him in the eye.

"Excuse me, Maria," Mark said sarcastically. Stuck up bitch...At the beginning of the mission, Maria had pretended to be his friend but she had joined in with the others in giving Mark the silent treatment. Now, she just stood there looking over his shoulder as he squeezed by in the narrow corridor. They all did that these days.

After several minutes, Mark came to the dead end of the corridor. Looking back, he could see the whole 300 meters back to command module doors. He turned back around and ducked into the open doorway to the engine room.

As he stepped through the hatch, his nostrils were assaulted with the familiar, heavy stench of stale engine coolant and the acrid scent of burnt circuitry. They had had a small fire in the room about three years ago, and the smell had never completely left. The fire had nearly caused a fatal reactor leak, which could easily have killed the entire crew. That was when everyone had decided to start ignoring Mark. They blamed him for the fire. They all did that these days.

"You know, you left the door open again, Steve. If there had been another fire, it could have spread outside the engine room," Mark said, chastising the crew-member he was relieving. He didn't care if it made him seem arrogant, nor did he care about the irony of him getting on to someone else about fire safety. It wasn't like Steve would even respond, anyway.

True to form, Steve didn't get up from his station when Mark walked in. He just sat there with a tablet in hand, probably reading one of his comic books as he usually did. As Mark sat down at the station on the other side of the reactor and booted up his computer, Steve stared down intently at his tablet, making sure not to look up at him. They all did that these days.

The next twelve hours were the same daily drudgery for Mark. He sat at the terminal, keeping an eye on the power levels, adjusting coolant levels as necessary, occasionally redirecting power from one ship system to the other to optimize energy use. After eight years, he felt that he could easily do this job in his sleep. He never allowed himself to give in to drowsiness, though. It was dozing off at his workstation that had caused him to miss the coolant leak three years ago. He was just lucky that he had been able to put out the fire before one of the fuel rods caught on fire. That would have caused a surely fatal radiation leak. Mark had woken up and contained the fire very quickly, however, so there really wasn't any call for everyone to be so rude.

"Whatever," Mark sighed. He would keep doing his job and let them be jerks if they wanted to. Soon enough this trip would be through and he could leave these people and this damned ship behind forever. For the time being, he would just keep doing his job better than anyone else. And, as sure as the engines kept humming and the ship kept moving, they would continue to ignore him. They all did that these days.

When his shift was over, Mark shut off his widescreen monitor and got up, stretching. He noticed then that Steve had already come in and was sitting at his station. He always managed to come in silently while Mark was intent on his work. He was sitting there now, still reading his tablet. It didn't even look like the thing was turned on, from Mark's perspective.

Maybe if he was polite Steve would be nice for a change. "Alright, Steve. It's all your's now. See you in twelve hours." Steve just stared down at his blank tablet, making quite a show of ignoring Mark. They all did that these days.

Mark sighed as he ducked out of the engine room and trudged back up the corridor. His quarters were nearly  on the other end of the ship, near the break room. He had eaten some of the nasty, supposedly chocolate-flavored protein goup that passed for food at his station six hours ago. He decided to skip dinner and go straight to bed. He just didn't seem to have much of an appetite these days. Plus, he couldn't stand to eat dinner alone, and the rest of the crew seemed to avoid the galley during his dinner time. They all did that these days.

Mark opened the doors to his quarters and stepped inside. His quarters were very spartan - a computer set into the wall, a single-sized cot with a very ratty, gray blanket, and a shower with a toilet and sink inside - all set into a space about 2 by 3 meters. He had no window - even if he had had a bulkhead room he wouldn't have had a window. Windows were too easily damaged and breached in a space ship unless they were made from transparent aluminum, a material too expensive for anything but the cockpit section of the command module. Sometimes when Mark got wistful and lonely - which seemed like all the time, these days - he would go into the command module and look out the panoramic window at the front of the ship. Even if it was just blackness and stars, that was better than staring into the mirror over his sink. Of course, the pilot, Captain Miller, would glare at him the entire time without saying a word. Sarah Coen and Lucas Releo would glare at him, too. They all did that these days.

Mark drank some water and then turned off the lights, slipping under his blanket and trying not to think of his lonliness as he lay in the dark. Sleep eluded him, however. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw terrible things. He saw Jeff vomiting in a corner of the galley, ugly red splotches covering his face. He saw Steve doubled over in pain at his workstation as he tried to shut down the reactor core. He saw Captain Miller and Sarah and Luke screaming in silence behind the windowed door to the command module. But mostly he saw Maria - his best friend, his secret love - crying as blood poured out of her nose and ears. And he heard them screaming -screaming for help, screaming accusations at him, screaming pleads with him to shut down the reactor. These phantom versions of his former friends and co-workers screamed at him and screamed at him every time he closed his eyes.

They all did that these days...