The New Church: A Short Story, Page 3

the tunnels, there was an panel with a manual payload release, just in case the computer failed. He also knew that beyond that were the maintenance panels for the ship’s electrical systems.

  He pried open the maintenance panels one by one and began pulling cables and anything else that would come loose. Alarms began to sound, and were almost immediately silenced. Lights went out and emergency lights came on. All around him the ship became more silent, and sounds he didn’t realize he’d been ignoring were suddenly gone.

  It took several minutes, but he’d pulled absolutely everything he could from the maintenance panels. Bits of wire floated around him in the small space. Jonathan caught his breath, floating in the silence, then pulled himself back along the access tunnel and out into the cockpit.

  Nothing in the cockpit was working. Jonathan smiled. He was sure he’d prevented the payload from dropping. He knew he didn’t have long before the air would be toxic with carbon dioxide. He floated into the living quarters and dug out the art supplies they’d sent with him. He wasn’t much of an artist, and everything was still packaged, untouched. If anyone ever found the ship, Jonathan wanted them to know that he tried.

  He found a pencil and a large piece of vellum and began writing.

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