Infinity

     "The darkness stretched for infinity. It felt excruciating and heavy. I tried opening my eyes and failed before I realized they were already open. This caliginous void seemed to be stripping apart my consciousness. It felt suffocating. And It seemed that the veil would never end…."

Last century, we colonized Mars. It took us many years and pains, but we were successful. And now, we were headed to Saturn.

 For so many years, I had only seen the ringed planet from those vivid satellite images, holograms from the ISS and old, fallow textbooks. Now I was going to be the first human to set foot there.

"We are ready to land, Cap", Lowen said to me. A permanent smile was plastered on his face. I smiled back at him. 

The planet had been a puzzle to me ever since I learned about its mysterious nature in college. I wanted to be the first one to uncloak the enigma of this gas giant.

 And now, I was finally going to achieve my dream.I was going to be the first human on Saturn. I was going to be the first human who has gone beyond the veil of Saturn. I turned on the landing gear, getting ready to land whenever the core of the gaseous giant would become visible. 

We had crossed the tricky and intricate ringlets of debris and ice rocks. It was more arduous than I expected but we managed. It was an accomplishment worth celebrating. No manned spacecraft had done it before.

 Now the only thing between us and the planet core was the thick veil of ochre fog and haze with faded wisps of carmine smoke. The surface of Saturn was always hidden away from us, under the thick layers of this amber mist. The last unmanned spacecraft lost contact with Headquarters immediately after it passed through the mist. It probably got destroyed within seconds of passing the fog.

We suspected that the strong gravitational pull of the core had caused its destruction. Still it was disappointing that we couldn't even get a picture of the core…..or whatever lay behind the fog. Estimations, calculations, calibrations, all these led us to believe that a solid core was at the center of Saturn. 

Now we were ready to see if our calculations were authentic or not. We were ready to take risks and face any kind of peril. 

Backup batteries and reserve fuel were my utmost priority. I was ready to see what lay behind that thick fog. No trammel would stop me now.

Our connection to Headquarters was seemingly steady. 

"We are going to land on the surface, over", I reported back into the microphone. Behind me, Lowen and Park laughed quietly.

 Both of them were eager to discover Saturn. But they were not as eager as me. If everything went according to the plan,then I would achieve my life long dream. I had promised myself that I would celebrate my accomplishment on Saturn itself. A party complete with Earth champagne and Mars wine. I smiled to myself at the thought. I was pretty sure I had placed a corkscrew somewhere in my backpack. 

As we got closer and closer, the fog engulfed us wholly. Now instead of an endless abyss, we could see the twisting waves of the thick brume around us. Red, orange, vermilion ribbons of mist seemed to be glowing. Both my companions gasped as they looked outside through the small shuttle windows. Even I couldn't help but awe in disbelief as the view outside blurred to sparkly but murky haze. The glowing sparkles made intricate patterns and moved in daedal paths. We had not known about this twinkling smoke before.

According to my numbers, we would pass that fog in about an hour or so. We didn't. Even after 3 hours, we were surrounded by this thick veil. 

No longer encouraged by the view outside, Park and Lowen had sat back in their seats. Our excitement had faded into a dim view and silence occupied the fourth seat in the shuttle, right behind me.

My hands were turning sweaty. For some reason, the tiny space where we were seated was turning me nauseous. I had been in this space craft for almost a month. The buttons and levers and wires and screws crammed up around me made me dizzy. Although this same space held an unbreakable attraction to me a few weeks ago. I was turning nervous but curiosity got the better of me. Still, I had a bad feeling about all of this.

I checked the radar. It had stopped working. I knocked on the glass lens. Nothing happened. Maybe there was some interfering magnetic field or maybe the radar was out of order. Either way it had stopped working.

"Should we turn back, Cap?", Park's voice was hesitant. 

"No", I said, rather aggressively. No. Not now. Not when I was this close to achieve my dream. Not when I was this close to reveal what lay beyond the veil. 

"Cap," Lowen placed a hand on my shoulder,"something's not right".

I knew it. Something was definitely wrong but we had burned the bridges. I shrugged his hand off and turned on the fuel boost. We were now moving at the fastest speed possible. Our spacecraft leaned forward as our velocity increased. My palms were still sweaty. Drops of sweat pricked my eyes. But I was not going to give up. Not now.

The fog began to decrease. Or so I thought. The soft brume ended abruptly, replaced by thick opaque chunks of dark clouds. It seemed that the veil was thicker than I anticipated.

As if turned on by my sheer will, the radar magically started working. "Look!" Park pointed at the panel. The radar showed something solid. Something large and solid. Surface? My face lit up and Lowen let out a low chuckle. We thought we were there.

Just when I expected the core to come into my sight, the fog turned dark. The reddish hue changed to maroon and brown, finally turning black. Park shifted uncomfortably beside me. I turned on the lights. But the black mist seemed to absorb all the light. The view outside turned pitch black. The only light were the tiny specks of glitter floating outside the ship and the glowing buttons in front of me, on my panel.

"The fog has turned black. It seems we are still away from the core, over", I spoke into the microphone.

Suddenly the red light on the panel began to glow brightly. We were low on fuel. Oh no. I turned on the backup reserve fuel.

It would get us several more hours.Hopefully we would be able to land by that time.

But how can we run out of fuel? I made sure we had more fuel than it was necessary to make a detour from Mars to Saturn.

"Captain! There is a leakage!"Lowen called out to me. There was a leak in the posterior of our ship. Lowen pulled open the emergency kit and began to load himself with necessary equipment.

" You can't go out there, Lowen" I said to him

"We will lose all our fuel if I don't go out there now", he said and picked up his helmet.

" We do not know what is out there", I almost yelled. " Smoke and fog cannot drill a hole in a titanium tank".

That seemed to stop him. He stood there, looking a bit lost. I realized I was a bit lost too. 

I sat back in my seat. We thought we might encounter storms and hurricanes and falling asteroids. But we had faced none of it. Yet here we were, facing something we couldn't even see, let alone be prepared for.

At once the ship began to vibrate. At first, it was slow and steady rhythmic oscillation. Lowen opened the wire panel and Park turned on the screens to check the problem. Maybe we would have found it out and possibly solved it, if the whole frame didn't start to vibrate violently.

 I turned on the microphone, "we are having some mechanical fault here, over". But the microphone was not working. I turned it off and on. Nothing happened. We had lost contact with Headquarters.

The vibration stopped. And just then, all the lights turned off. The panel was shut down. The red light no longer glowed. The ship immersed in hollow darkness. We had lost power. I turned on the backup batteries. Nothing. They were not working. The batteries did not run off. They simply stopped working.

I fumbled with the switches and buttons, pulled the levers and turned the keys. Nothing.

We were no longer moving forward toward the surface. Instead we were being carried by the mist.

 Giving up, I settled down in my seat, with Park and Lowen beside me. We probably had several hours of oxygen left. It would be days before oxygen runs out.

  We buckled up. With no artificial gravity, everything seemed to float. The umbrage prevented us from seeing much. Apart from the occasional glow of the passing by sparkles, there was no source of any kind of light.

The corkscrew I had misplaced earlier, now hovered above my head, slightly illuminated by the orangish light from outside.

I sighed heavily. All preparations were in vain.

I was no longer nervous. Just curious and melancholic.

Maybe we would be able to peek a glance at what was behind the veil before we died. Maybe we would become a part of the veil itself, a tragedy mocked by the universe.

 The darkness stretched for infinity. It felt excruciating and heavy………