The crew upon the space station have long finished their breakfast around the designated block within a corner-room module, which to their delight was reminiscent enough of the taste of an omelet fried with onions, and a side of toast that only tastes slightly like cardboard.
Moving over the dark side of Earth was the crew’s least favorite part of their cruising route around it. It’s not that they hated the dark side – that thanks to frequent sunrises over the horizon of the big blue ball beneath them was never entirely dark for long – but with it being the closest thing to signify a natural day-and-night cycle in the vast darkness of space, it gave most of them the feeling of waking up in the middle of night. Even with the station being constantly lit on the inside regardless of what time it was in Greenwich, back on their home planet, it seemed that some of the astronauts were still trying to grasp at anything that could anchor them back to the circadian cycle that they left behind for a few months.
But if they managed to get used to orienting themselves around the modular corridors while floating in micro-gravity, they’ll eventually get used to the constant night-time seen from the observation spots, learning to appreciate and even admire the patterns of dotted lights that blinked into being as soon as the shadow loomed over the landmasses.
While cleaning out the bags their food came in, crew members were discussing their plans for the weekend, musing once again over the fact that they were being granted some days off at the end of week-long experiments carried out in space.
“Oh, hey Noah, you’re on a jellyfish shift today,” one of the astronauts declared as a matter of fact, her tied up blond hair floating like a small sun at the back of her head as she looked below her, prepared to push herself to the deck below.
“Wait— what?!” Noah spun around so fast that he kept spinning in place two more times until he managed to grab one of the handles jutting out from every wall of the corridor that they were floating in. Even months into his stay in the space station, he’d often forget about how inertia works up there. “But I was on jellyfish shift two weeks ago!”
“So?” she shrugged and looked over, unfazed by the whining protest. “That’s how rotations work, you know? Now you get to spend some quality time with them, again.”
“Come on, Lily…”
“We don’t want them to feel lonely growing up, now do we?”
Noah let out a frustrated groan, and with one hand still gripping to the handle he ran the other over his face and through his hair, that moved up and floated around his head like brown string-ropes attached to a ragdoll’s head. “The jellyfish don’t know—“
“So maybe you do your own little experiment and see if they look happy when you talk to them,” Lily joked, not giving Noah a chance to answer before pushing herself downwards with the grace of a synchronized swimmer, disappearing into another level of modular corridors beneath them, cube after cube lined with storage closets and machinery, that appeared to be floating around despite being held in place with adjustable metal arms.
Having no choice but to relent to his assigned role, Noah found the smallest of solace in the thought that it’s like a babysitting job, only instead of kids he’ll be watching over aquariums housing a small swarm of translucent invertebrates that looked more like colorful plastic bags, in shapes and colors that were so absurd and vibrant that bringing them to space felt akin to returning them to their cosmic ancestors.
The idea of giant space jellyfish turned and tumbled in Noah’s head, vision of glowing hunting tentacles dragging behind the glowing dome as it elegantly weaves between Saturn’s rings flashing through his mind as he pulled himself along the corridors to get to a door sectioning off a larger research module. These modules were made to be detached if something were to happen within them to prevent any contamination to the main hull of the space station, and the mere thought of getting locked up and ejected into space – as unlikely as it was – ran a shiver down Noah’s spine as he floated inside.
He wondered if that’s how jellyfish feel in the ocean, swimming around as if untouched by gravity or carried by the streams, almost like he was carried forward by the slightest of push as long as nothing stops him; if the jellyfish in the aquarium are even aware that they exist in a vastly different environment than where their predecessors have lived, or if they’re even aware of anything beyond their surrounding barrier.
“That’s one of the reasons we got sent these jellies in the first place…” he hummed as he floated around the research module, inspecting the pressurized tanks filled with sea water imported from Earth, housing the alien-looking creatures. The material rivaled in strength with the one the see-through panes on the exterior of the module were made of, allowing what was perhaps one of the best views of the planet below them, in Noah’s humble opinion.
Noah took the experiment’s brief, going over the details to check if something has changed in the past two weeks. The brief stated the same number of jellyfish as last time – all of them are of the “moon jellyfish” species, the name of which was either an interesting coincidence, or a proof that the teams sending other humans into space have a sharp sense of humor.
Despite his initial reluctance to take the shift at first, Noah found a certain serene calm being surrounded by the near-shapeless blobs, and once checking that everything was in working order, he floated back to the door to close it, turning off the lights as well.
The time it took for his eyes to readjust to the low light made it appear as though the marine creatures were charging up, glowing a soft bluish-purple to paint the water in neon hues that were cast across the room, just enough to still be able to navigate in the dark. It almost felt like floating inside of a lava lamp.
“So…do you come here often?” Noah looked over all the aquariums, trying to float up and reorient himself opposite of the direction he went in, so that as soon as he determined his new ‘up’ the jellyfish were the ones who’d be upside down. He was pretty sure the jellyfish don’t have good enough eyes to really see him in the dim light, but much to his surprise it seemed that one single jellyfish in a lone tank was turning around as well, making them the only two that were facing ‘up’. “Oh, so maybe there is someone to talk to here,” he smiled and floated closer, taking the magnetically secured tank off its shelf. “How about a little walk, huh? Or…I guess it’s a ‘float’,” he chuckled, holding the tank firmly as he pushed away from the wall, “Lily didn’t say I have to talk to all of you guys…or, girls? Jellies. Anyway, you look way more interesting that the rest of these plastic bags—“ Noah paused and looked around, hoping no one heard that and that no comment would be made tomorrow about how he’s desperate enough to flirt with the test subject.
“This is my favorite place, right here,” Noah eventually pushed himself towards the room’s floor, as a hatch hissed open at the push of a button, leading towards another separate capsule, a vertical one, the far end of which was made with a reinforced steel beams and several layers of glass-like material, making for perhaps the best observation spot in the station, right above the darkened Earth dotted with golden lights. He turned the lights off in that capsule as well, and it felt almost as if they were both floating through space, outside.
Noah thought it was just like talking to plants – even if the creature he’s addressing can hear him, surely its awareness to the speaker and to itself Is too limited to understand and react accordingly.
And so, he kept talking, once securing the tank to another magnetic self, until at some point he was listening to himself talk more than taking in the environment below. It was only when the glowing jellyfish moved abruptly that he directed his attention back at it, seeing how it swam to the bottom of the tank and looked like it was adamantly trying to swim through it, farther down and even outside.
Before he could even fathom where a jellyfish might possibly want to go and why, Noah became aware of a new source of light gradually spilling into the capsule through the observatory. He grabbed the handles on the walls to pull himself lower, to the very bottom, witnessing a spectacular display of lights that he never thought he’d get to see. He never saw the Northern Lights from Earth, and now they were spread beneath his feet from the heavenly angle of the space station. Rivers of bright lights spanning from the top of the pole like neon snakes of blue and green with flashes of pink, carving through the atmosphere as magnetic waves crashed against Earth natural shield in an awe-striking display which he felt extremely lucky to witness, especially from the best seat in the world…and beyond.
He wanted to call the rest of the crew to come and watch this wonder with him…but an odd sense of selfish entitlement rose in his chest, as if this was a finite resource, too precious to share with just anyone. Anyone besides his glowing companion, that appeared to have pressed against the side closest to him, almost as if it was the one studying the human’s reaction, in a weird twist of roles. Noah smiled and floated up to detach the tank, and then moving back down to let the jellyfish witness the lights from a better spot.
“Huh. Maybe I should watch over the jellyfish more often.”
