Something’s amiss aboard the Space Station Foundation! Professor Jonas Jupiter finds himself aboard a space station he supposedly designed, despite having no memory of it. Is the professor’s memory to blame or is Dr. Borg up to something?

“I don’t have a space station!” said the professor.

“What do you mean?” asked Dr. Borg. Kemalia and the rest of the crew looked from the professor to the doctor nervously.

“I mean what I say! You told me this was my space station, but I don’t remember anything about a space station. I don’t remember designing it. I don’t remember building it. And a space station doesn’t seem like the kind of thing a man just forgets!”

“B-but professor—you must have! This space station is your design, from top to bottom! Brain to bolt! What reason would we have to lie?”

Jonas looked at the professor’s face with his big round glasses and beady eyes. He seemed earnest enough. Kemalia looked concerned too—and completely bewildered by the professor’s outburst. Could I be wrong? Jonas asked himself. What state am I in that I completely forgot that I designed and built a space station?

“Look, professor,” continued Dr. Borg. “I don’t mean to tell you your own business in front of the crew, but you were drinking heavily throughout the entire process. Perhaps that has something to do with it? Alcohol has been your vice for many years but I believe you were at your worst during the design of the Foundation.”

The professor hissed and winced. “Damn, that’s bad. You’re probably telling the truth . . . can we perhaps . . . take a tour of the station? Maybe that’ll jog my memory a bit. And if what you’re saying is true, maybe it’s time I get some help.”

Dr. Borg and Kemalia shared a nervous look. “Of course, professor. It’s a research station, so we can’t just barge into any room, but I’ll show you what I can. Kemalia, you stay here and run every diagnostic available on the engine, then get us back on track. I’ll show the professor around the station.”

The two men walked together along the steel corridors of the Foundation. Soft white light came from the corners of the floor and ceiling. The doors leading off of the corridor occasionally slid open as they walked by, revealing an active and thriving station full of life and work.

“I must say I’m just as surprised as you are, professor. The Foundation may be one of your greatest successes . . . however, there are certain factors that may explain how you could forget such a thing. For one, you designed the entire station over the course of only twelve days, maybe ten years ago.”

Jonas nodded, “That’s pretty fast. Was it an independent project or a contract?”

“Contract. The government, of course—”

“Of course, they haven’t let me contract with anyone else since I refused to let them turn the vambrace into a combat weapon.” He touched the device on his forearm thoughtfully. Dr. Borg also looked at the device thoughtfully.

“Yes, well after you finished the design they paid you a remarkable sum and proceeded with the project on their own. You asked me to handle any consulting or follow up matters, you know, because you hate dealing with them so much. You didn’t want anything to do with the build.”

“That all sounds believable. I hate the government.” It all made sense to Jonas so far. So why did it still feel so off?

As they approached a turn in the corridor, a cat came trotting around the corner. It was as white as a ghost with blue eyes—pupil, iris, and all. Even more peculiar than its eyes were its two tails, split right at the base, each moving independent of the other.

The peculiar feline wound through Jonas’s legs with its tails held high, pausing to rub its cheek against the professor’s boot. Dr. Borg stared at the cat nervously. A bead of sweat appeared on his forehead. A young girl, perhaps eight or nine, appeared suddenly. She called out to the cat and demanded he come back, but he darted away. The girl followed and disappeared after him.

Jonas turned to watch them go and said, “Hm . . . that was odd.”

“Oh, the cat? It’s, uh, simply the result of an experiment to measure the effects of a non-terrestrial environment on physical development. Cats mature quickly and thus make good subjects for the experiment.”

“Cat? Hm, no. I meant the girl, Doc. Why is there a little girl on a space station?”

Sweat rolled down Dr. Borg’s face, “Oh, uh . . . she’s also here for an experiment. We’re measuring how family dynamics are affected by life at the edge of space.”

Jonas shrugged, “Good idea. If we’re going to traverse the stars one day, we’ll need to know this stuff. Any chance we can see the command deck?” Dr. Borg let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“Unfortunately, no. The project is in government hands. We don’t have clearance to enter certain sections of the station.”

“I see. Can you at least show me a map of the station so I can see if I still agree with my basic design?”

“Of course, professor.”

They found a map suspended in a clear plastic case on a nearby wall. It looked like a simplified blueprint, with a white-line diagram of the station against a blue background. The Foundation was shaped like a capital ‘A’ but with two lines across its middle. The engine chamber was placed at the center of the lower connection between the two legs. The airlock through which they had boarded was on the left leg, just beneath the bridge. They were currently standing in the crew deck, highlighted red on the map. The crew deck occupied the entirety of the second, smaller link between the station’s legs.

Jonas pointed to the very bottom of the left leg. “Say, doc. Any chance I can see the thruster housing? I bet it must have some pretty impressive stabilization systems in place.”

“I think that should be fine, professor,” said Dr. Borg.

The thruster housing was a three-story tall room occupied almost entirely by the thruster itself. There were several levels of scaffolding in place to access different parts of the thruster for repair and maintenance. One of the black pipes Jonas had noticed on the engine earlier connected to this thruster. There wasn’t much else there beyond several workstations and a row of lockers. Jonas looked around to make sure they were alone. No one else was in the room besides the professor and the doctor. He turned on the doctor.

“How long have you supposedly been my assistant, Dr. Borg?” asked Jonas.

Dr. Borg looked Jonas in the eyes, then he sighed. “So you’ve figured it out?”

“A while ago, I think. Don’t take it too hard, sport. I am a scientist. And I want to know what’s going on here.”

The doctor removed his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt. “I thought I might have a little more time. May I ask what gave it away?”

“That!” answered Jonas. He pointed at the titanic thruster in front of them, nearly ten times as tall as each of them. “That is not a thruster meant for stabilizing orbit. Something that big is meant to go somewhere. There’s a zero-percent chance this vessel was designed to be a space station. Just look at the shape! A true space station, especially one designed by me, would be much more modular—less streamlined.”

Dr. Borg looked up at the thruster. “It’s true that this ship was designed for long distance travel. Very long distance. But perhaps you designed a space station that was meant to move. An exploratory research vessel maybe.”

“I could have, but this isn’t a research vessel. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s not for research.”

“What do you mean, professor?”

“The child. Even if this were a research vessel, no one is going to approve putting a child in space just to see what happens. Her bones could turn into sponge. She could grow extra baby teeth. Maybe she won’t grow at all. There would be substantial testing and preparation before a child was allowed to live aboard a space station. At least more than two years worth.”

Dr. Borg put his glasses in the pocket of his lab coat and folded his hands behind his back. “I can explain everything. I would have explained from the very beginning if I had thought you would cooperate.”

“Cooperate? You didn’t think I’d cooperate, so you kidnapped me? How long have you been planning this?”

“Professor, please don’t be too upset.”

“Answer the question, Borg.” Jonas’s fists were clenched.

“I . . . was never truly your assistant. This was all part of the plan from the very first time I entered your laboratory . . . two weeks ago!”

Jonas’s mouth fell open. “Two weeks? But I’ve been working with Dr. Borg for years! What did you do with him?”

Dr. Borg shook his head, “You assume I am not myself. The truth is, that Dr. Borg—as in your assistant, Dr. Borg—never existed. Implanted memories, unfortunately. I monitored you from a distance for several days, then implanted a memory modulator to make you believe I had been working with you for several years. I know it’s unethical, but I promise I did what I did for good reason. You’ll understand everything soon enough, I promise. I must ask you a question though, for the sake of my own vanity. It was only a matter of time before you figured out my little space station ruse, but how did you figure out I was not who I presented myself to be? What gave it away?”

Jonas had become red in the face and his clenched fists were trembling, “When you were explaining the problem with the engine you told me New York was in danger, along with ‘all my friends and loved ones’. That was my first clue that any of this was not right. If you had been my assistant for all the past several years, you would never have said that.”

“Why is that, professor?”

“Because, Dr. Borg: I don’t have any friends!” Jonas punched the doctor straight in the face.

The doctor collapsed to the floor, knocked unconscious by the professor’s right hook. Jonas turned and bolted away. He burst through the door of the thruster housing and into a wide maintenance corridor. There was a worker standing there who was startled by Jonas racing towards him. He held out a hand to stop the sprinting professor.

“Hey! What are you-”

Jonas shoved the man to the floor, “Get out of the way! I’m trying to escape!”

Jonas ran as fast as he could down the corridor. He had picked the thruster housing specifically because it was close to the airlock and would likely be somewhat isolated. A few people in the ship’s corridor watched him run with wide eyes.

Moments later he smashed the button to open the airlock. Once he was inside he closed the hatch and snatched the nearest suit and helmet off the wall. He quickly suited up and sealed the helmet. He decided to skip the vacuum check. There was a good chance he was being watched by the ship’s security systems. If so, he had only as much time as it took the ship’s security to reach the airlock.

The airlock would take roughly thirty-minutes to depressurize. He didn’t have that kind of time. Did he need it? If the catapod was still pressurized, then the airlock didn’t need to be depressurized. They would have the same atmosphere. But, and it was a major but, if the airlock was pressurized and the catapod was a vacuum, then the sudden displacement of air could damage or even destroy the catapod, and possibly kill Jonas in the process. He tried to remember back to the launch process but he had been pretty hungover. Then it came back to him. The amount of time between sealing our helmets and launching was too short! They couldn’t have depressurized the catapod!

“A-ha!” he shouted as he smashed the button that opened the outer door.

“Hurk!!” he grunted as he was violently blown into space.

He was so occupied with figuring out whether or not the catapod was pressurized that he hadn’t stopped to consider that the catapod might not be there at all. As he was tumbling through space, he suddenly saw the Earth floating in the deep black field of space, small, blue, and half a million miles away.