All The Books of Earth

By Ellen Mellor

Ellen Mellor's second collection includes all of the stories and essays that she wrote since her transition.

Discover multiple worlds, including further stories of Sindy and The Bitch (first introduced in the story Freeing The Bitch, also included here); explore Venus, a world populated by trans people exiled from Eart

• Language: English
• Publisher: Samarcand Books
• Release date: Dec 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9781838426699

Ellen Mellor

Ellen Mellor is a trans woman who has published three books: two novels - The Long Sleep and Down Among the Yla and a collection of short stories entitled Stories From the Corner of the Room. Her third book, Ghostkin, is currently in some deep slush pile somewhere. For more details, including free excerpts and the like, take a look at her website - http://www.samarcand.co.ukEllen reads insatiably and will try almost anything although her main interests are in Science Fiction and fantasy. She also reads comic books and has a collection that is really far too large.Ellen lives in Newcastle upon Tyne and is married with one son, two cats and library that threatens to collapse in on itself and form a literary black hole.

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ALL THE BOOKS OF EARTH

Ellen Mellor

Samarcand Books

All the books of Earth

May be boiled down to four words:

You are not alone.

Jen Sexton Riley

Marooned Off Ceres

(Inspired by a picture by Piper Bates)

In the latter half of 2020 I actually discovered something approaching a writing discipline. I wrote most evenings after work and actually started to make progress, discovering that the more I wrote the more I was able to write. Prior to that most of my writing had been kind of piecemeal and I would have weeks- or even months-long breaks in my writing. Between the years of 2015 and 2020 I barely wrote anything. Ghostkin had been completed, although I did re-edit it and add several thousand words to it when I decided to transition the protagonist from being a cis man into a trans woman but other than that my head was just not in the right place for being creative. I was entirely focused on getting through my own transition alongside fighting the depression caused by hating my job.

Although 2020 was still very difficult - separating from my partner of nearly 30 years/wife for 15 and living by myself for literally the first time ever as well as working in a hospital during a pandemic - my writing started coming together. This is partly because I was in a much better place mentally with the vast majority of my dysphoria having dissipated after my bottom surgery and partly because I was finally in a job that, although really stressful, I actually enjoyed (which was the first time I could ever say that with confidence). It was also because my new place had a space that I could turn into an office so I was able to have an area away from my living area where I could go and work and it has made so much difference. If I go in there, I know I’m going in there to work.

All that meant 2020/2021 was one of my most productive times having written something in the region of 150,000 words which encompasses a large chunk of this collection and my memoir, Tea, Comics and Gender. One of the things I discovered was that, because I often don’t really plan my stories in advance, they have a tendency to go long. I was expecting this one to be a reasonable chunk of story somewhere in the region of 6-7,000 words. But, standing as it does at just under 19,000 words, is not technically (according to Hugo award rules anyway) a short story. It is rather a novella. I will discuss this tendency a little more later on. Probably at length.

The title of the story is a deliberate homage to the great Isaac Asimov's ‘Marooned Off Vesta’ (if you haven't read it, you should try and find it, it's well worth reading, if more than a little old-fashioned but then it was published in 1939). The story itself was actually inspired by a piece of art by the lovely Piper Strange who was my collaborator on The Princess and The Elephant - the children’s story I wrote. I bought a print of it because it really spoke to me and made me wonder about the picture’s story. So, I wrote it and, fortunately, Piper approved. You should really go and support Piper’s artwork - here’s the link to the piece that inspired the story: https://www.redbubble.com/i/art-print/Space-Turtle-by-sarahstrange/28609928.1G4ZT

To be fair, the VASIMR engine had done the first part of its job admirably and it wasn’t its fault that it wouldn’t get to do the rest.

The trip outwards towards Ceres had been smooth and unremarkable. Boring in parts, which I was absolutely not complaining about. It had been a month of routine. There was plenty of spare time, during which I worked on my third PhD dissertation, read an awful lot of wonderfully trashy SF and got annoyed with Marcus’s vain attempts to learn to play the ukulele – actually playing the notes and chords was fine, but he had absolutely no sense of rhythm or timing and no self-awareness of this fact. The fiftieth time I heard a massacred plinky-plinky version of ‘Stand in Her Power’ by Valley of Love which, up until that time had been one of my favourite songs, I promised myself that it was never going to appear on a single stream or playlist I listened to ever again. I also got to know Vaz, the ship’s AI who was equally bored of the routine. It turned out that when they weren’t focused on controlling the Vasimir X, they had a particularly wicked sense of humour and took delight in using their hand-bots to put Marcus’ uke out of tune whenever he wasn’t around. Which proved that not only did he have no sense of rhythm, but he was actually completely tone-deaf as well.

All of that changed when the Vasimir X, got close to Ceres. Going into orbit around the tiny planetoid was impossible as it didn’t have enough of gravity to hold the ship in place. Instead, once it was within fifty kilometres of the surface, we reverted to an ancient technology and fired an anchor into the surface below them, attaching the ship to the asteroid with a single line of nigh-indestructible mono-filament wire, aiming for the inside edge of the Occator Crater.

And that was where things started to go wrong. Mission Control said that it could never happen. The asteroid belt was absolutely not like they portrayed it in the bad SF I read (’habitually read’ as Sharmila, my ex, had liked to put it)– crowded and like a constantly moving labyrinth. From where we were, sitting motionless fifty kilometres over the thing that was actually around about a third of the mass of the entire belt, the chances of anything large enough to be detected actually coming anywhere near us was infinitesimally small. But, in an infinite universe, everything happened eventually. And this was the time.

Looking back on it later, when I was safe and sound and wrapped in the arms of my lover, I theorised about what happened. Obviously, I have no idea if it’s true, but it works for me and fits all the pieces of information that I have. This stuff is kind of my expertise and I’m really quite clever - three PhDs, remember? I think that a tiny piece of the dwarf planet had been dislodged by the anchor and shot out into space. There, in a literally billions to one chance, it had encountered another larger piece of space rock and shattered it. The debris from that encounter had been sent shooting directly at the engine mount of the Vasimir X and was going fast enough to tear through the relatively fragile machinery like a bullet through a sheet of tinfoil.

Unfortunately, it was also able to tear through Marcus. He was tethered to the engine checking out how it had been running. This was the longest time a VASIMR engine had been used in space and it was therefore important to take as many readings as possible. Of course, Vaz did most of the tests, but Marcus and I took turns doing EVAs instead of one of the handbots in order to feel useful. And, as far as I was concerned, getting out into space was the reason I became an astronaut rather than take on the far more lucrative positions that had been offered to me. When I’m out there, holding a particular piece of machinery at a particular spot on the hull as directed by Vaz’s warm voice echoing inside my helmet, I can imagine myself as following in the footsteps of Dale Arden, Uhuru, Barbarella, Wilma Deering and Leia Organa as well as Valentina Tereshkova, Sally Ride and, of course, Helen Sharman.

The whole ship rang like a bell when the first particle of debris pierced the hull. I jumped and would have floated right to the ceiling of the cockpit had I not been buckled in. It was very quickly followed by a second clang of impact and then a third and more and more. An alarm rang out as red lights flashed across the control panel, signifying the ongoing catastrophic system failure caused by the engine being shredded to confetti.

In all that noise, the moment of Marcus’s death was almost lost. It was no more than a single exhaled grunt of breath followed by another louder, more insistent alarm as his life readings suddenly disappeared from the board.

=#=

I didn’t have time to worry about what had happened to him just at that moment though. Rather, I was focusing intently on following the path of system failure, trying to prevent it from turning a life-threatening situation into life-ending one. I knew that I was breaking regulations by not getting into my EVA suit, but I reasoned that I didn’t need to because at some point in the next few minutes I wouldn’t need it. Either because I had stabilised the ship enough to keep myself alive or because the ship was dead. If it was the latter, then I had decided ages ago that I’d rather go quickly than spend the last few hours watching the oxygen meter run out in my suit.

Finally, it started to look more like the first option rather than the second and I started to relax, to the extent that anyone would be able to do so in a spaceship that was millions of miles from home and was now no longer guaranteed to get them back there. I was just about to check the comm link in order to check in on Marcus when his grunt and the alarm that had gone off properly registered in my awareness.

Looking out of one of the rear-facing windows which had, somehow, survived undamaged, I found that I couldn’t see him. I hoped that meant that he had managed to get back inside the airlock but, if that were the case, then why wasn’t he with me now? I ran down to the inner airlock door and pressed my face against the viewport. Empty.

Vaz? I asked.

Yes, Grace?

Do you have a reading on Marcus?

I am afraid I unable to do so. Although quite a lot of my sensors were damaged in that meteor strike so it is possible I just might not be able to sense him, Vaz said, their voice remaining calm and quiet.

I’m going to go out and see if I can find him.

I do not think that is a very good idea, Grace, Vaz replied. We do not know for sure if the storm is totally over and I may lose contact with you out there.

I have to take the chance, Vaz. Marcus might be injured, or his suit might be damaged so he can’t get back.

But you run the risk of being injured or stranded yourself.

I’m going. I’ll attach a winch to the interior of the airlock so you can pull me back if anything happens.

If you are certain, Grace.

Oh, god no. I’m not certain. I’m absolutely fucking terrified and would rather go and hide in my bunk. But that’s just not an option.

I am not sure I understand, Vaz told me. Take care. Please keep your comm link open at all times.

=#=

Dressing in my own EVA suit I took extra care to ensure that I was following the exact procedure. I had never had to do it without someone being there to double check that I hadn’t messed up somewhere. Normally, I’d have said that I didn’t need anyone checking on my work and only went along with it because it was regulations. It’s not as if I hadn’t clocked up hundreds of hours of EVA time. But this time, I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that I was making mistakes and that as soon as the airlock depressurised, I was going to suffer a very messy death as I felt the effects of a sudden case of explosive decompression.

Vaz? I said. When you depressurise the lock, please do it slowly.

I closed my eyes as the air pressure slowly reduced. The only sound was that of my breath going in and out, remaining slow and steady as I forced myself to stay calm. Even so, my heart felt like it was trying to beat its way out of my chest.

The outer door opened, and I stepped out.

As always, I took a moment to just take in the vista. I loved being out in space. Sharmila had said that she just couldn’t understand how anyone would be able to do what I did - stepping out into it with only a thin layer of material between my fragile body and… well… nothing. But that wasn’t the only thing she had failed to understand about me. Which is why she was an ex.

The sun was still the brightest object in the sky, but it was so much less bright and so much smaller than it was on Earth. Which made sense but it still made me feel strange that it looked so different.

Mentally shaking myself, I turned towards the rear of the ship and then, when Marcus stubbornly refused to appear, slowly started to scan the space around the ship.

I was getting more and more certain that he was gone forever when a glint of sunlight flashed off an object that wasn’t too far away. Activating my visor’s magnification tool, I zoomed into the object and, sure enough, he was there, slowly spinning but not himself moving. Dragging the cable behind me, I flew towards him, calling his name over the close-range intercom to no avail. As I got closer, I became aware that as he spun to face me, he seemed somehow to be winking.

It took until I was within a few metres of him before I realised what was happening. A small, perfectly circular hole in his visor that was matched by a similar hole in his head, exactly where his right eye used to be. As he span around, I saw that neither the back of his skull nor the helmet had prevented the meteor from exiting out of the other side creating a much larger, far messier wound on that side. Marcus’s corpse was floating away from the ship and from me in a line that would in time, assuming no other stellar debris interfered with his course, send him directly into the sun, giving him the ultimate Viking funeral. What I had seen as winking was light shining through his head as it occluded the sun.

I knew that throwing up in my helmet would prove to be a death sentence for me and it took all my willpower to force my gorge to remain where it was. Once I was reasonably certain that my lunch was going to stay where it was, I returned my gaze to Marcus’s body. I supposed that I could be thankful that at least he hadn’t suffered. His death had to have been instantaneous. He wouldn’t have felt anything. I shifted my gaze to the sun that lay more than four hundred million miles away, wondering if I should just let him go. At the rate he was traveling it would be decades before he would get there, and it was possible that he would be picked up when he approached Earth orbit. Looking back at him, not disturbing him from his journey, my mind almost froze as I tried to decide what to do.

Finally, almost impulsively, I reached out, took his hand and pulled him towards me, stopping his spin with an artful use of my attitude jets. Attaching a tether from my suit to his, I turned and started back towards the ship.

As I got closer, I spoke.

Vaz, I said. Open the Payload Bay doors please.

Certainly, Grace. Have you found him? Is he okay?

I’ve found him. He’s… I… He…

I paused and took a breath.

I am sorry to announce that Colonel Marcus Savini is deceased. The cause of death was a puncture to his EVA suit. I am returning his body to the ship in order to return it to Earth.

There was a pause, almost as if Vaz needed to catch their breath themselves.

Oh, they said. I am terribly sorry. I liked him a lot.

Yeah, me too.

Only one of the two Payload Bay doors had opened, the other one seemingly jammed shut. For a moment, I worried that if it didn’t close again then I would have trouble re-entering Earth’s atmosphere. But I then gave a mental shrug. That was Future Grace’s problem, and it was no way guaranteed that it would ever actually become a problem. I might well be dead long before then. Carefully laying Marcus down in the corner of the bay, I tethered him in place. Moving back, I hung there in the middle of the bay for a few moments, silently wishing him farewell, before turning and going across to the airlock that led from the Bay into the interior of the ship.

=#=

Once out of my EVA suit, I went back into the cockpit and sat down my station.

Am I safe to start re-booting systems? I asked.

I am afraid that is unknown, Grace, Vaz told me. My internal sensors are too damaged to be able to actually ascertain the extent of damage that I have sustained.

Sitting back in my seat, I put my hands together and pressed them to my lips, almost as if I were praying. I stared out into space, working through the options I had before me.

The way I see it, I finally said. Either we reboot in order to see what can be fixed and if we have a hope of getting back home or we don’t. If we reboot, there’s a chance we may explode spectacularly. If we don’t, I will shortly die when the oxygen supply runs out and you will die when the batteries go. It seems to me that the first solution is far better than the second.

I agree. That was my conclusion as well.

Vaz often did that - making a decision but not saying what it was until their human crew had put forward their ideas. More often than not, if Vaz’s choice differed it was obviously better and neither I nor Marcus had rarely needed persuading otherwise. Occasionally, one of us would decide that our choice was the better one and would discuss why that was the case. Even if Vaz wasn’t persuaded, they couldn’t over-rule the decisions of the crew and, ultimately, it was my responsibility as Captain to decide what to do.

May I suggest you test the link back to Earth first, Vaz said. We should attempt to make a report to Darmstadt before we do anything else.

Agreed, I said as I started to flick switches on the board that filled most of the port cabin wall. There had been a brief vogue for Star Trek style touchscreens, but they had quickly gone out of fashion when astronauts pointed out that if there was a power failure the screens would only work as long as they had battery power. Once that was gone, they would have been absolutely helpless. The screens had quickly been ripped out and replaced with solid-state switches that were pretty much guaranteed to work all of the time.

Lights on the communication board flickered back into life, although I was more than a little dismayed to see that there were fewer than half now shone with all the rest remaining stubbornly dark. After flicking another couple of switches, one or two more came on. I hoped that it would be enough. It was going to have to be. The dull hiss of static emanated from the speaker, fading and returning like a wave on a rocky shore.

How’s that, I asked. Can you pick anything up?

I am just trying to recalibrate the long-range comms, give me a moment. Please do not attempt to reboot anything else until I can confirm if I can make contact.

The wait seemed interminable. I warmed a bulb of coffee and sat, sipping it and staring out of the window at the dwarf planet that lay before me. It looked much like the Earth’s moon did, dull grey and pocked with craters, although try as I might, I couldn’t make any of the patterns the craters had formed resemble a face. There was no ‘Man in Ceres’ sitting there waiting for me. Directly below me, the bright spot of Cerealis Facula glittered, reminding me that I was meant to be going down there to finally discover what those spots really were. There had been a few fly-by missions since the first one back in 2015 when Dawn had first approached but no actual landings made. This was meant to be a simple mission to test the ship’s new VASIMR engines. The bods at Darmenstadt had thought that it didn’t make sense to come out here and then go back without doing something else worthwhile. They were always wanting to make the most of any mission, especially as they were competing with NASA and the CNSA, both of whom were far better funded than the ESA. The fact that they had been able to mount a test mission for the engine before either of the other two was something of a shock to all concerned. I had no idea whether they would be able to afford a second one if this one didn’t get back. At that particular moment in time, it didn’t especially bother me.

I had been preparing my mission kit for heading down to the surface when the meteor storm had hit and now, looking across to the prep area, I thought I really should go and clear it up. It wasn’t as if I was going to be able use any of it now. But at the same time, I felt like I was stuck in my seat. If - when - Vaz managed to re-initialise contact with Darmstadt I wanted to be there to hear it and to respond. Although it would, of course, take something like quarter of an hour for my message to reach Earth and another fifteen minutes for it to return, plus any delay while they decided what to say to me, I felt like it was vital to be there to reply immediately, as if a few seconds delay could make them decide that the mission had failed, and nobody was alive. Obviously, the mission had failed but not in any way that was traceable back to human error. This was no Apollo 13. This was, as the insurance companies liked to put it when they refused to pay out, ‘an act of God’. Maybe this was His punishment for sending a couple of atheists into the heavens…

I had just about persuaded myself to go and tidy the up when the speaker screeched an even louder burst of white noise before slowly resolving into a distant voice.

…imir 10. Please respond. This is Darmstadt Operations Centre calling Vasimir 10. Please respond. This is…

The message continued to repeat, an automated call just waiting for a response. I had been down there in ESOC when other ships had gone unexpectedly quiet, and I knew the tension that