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No. 408
ID: 181c99
The intangible fingers of Earth's gravity gently caught the Lux Orbis at the appropriate time, and the descent began. Once again at his viewing station, Clementine watched the wispy, high altitude ice clouds draw nearer, expanding to fill his entire view like a great white wall. The craft began to vibrate softly as the air buffeted it. The white wall ahead of him turned orange as the atmosphere around his craft slowly began to burn. Then as he approached the threshold, he unconsciously braced himself for an impact he knew wouldn't come. Lux Orbis punched through the orange clouds like a sharp needle through linen, and continued on down towards the Earth. As the orange glow slowly subsided and the craft began to slow, Clementine could once again make out the terrestrial features. He saw white tipped mountains sail below him, thick, dense forests, sprawling golden plains, many miles of patchwork farmland, the irregular curve of a river, and then, the flat, blue expanse of the pacific ocean. He knew now that he was coming close. He watched the altimeter on the console before him, it spun merrily counter-clockwise, indicating that he was only a half-dozen miles above the surface.
He moved his hands to a pair of switches on the console. He unlocked the first, and pressed it forwards to the 'Release' position. He heard a mechanical noise, then a loud bang, immediately followed by an even louder crump, like the flapping of a tent in strong winds. The craft lurched and it's nose pitched downward. Clementine was yanked forward in the seat by the deceleration of his deployed parachute. He waited a few seconds, his finger hovering over the second switch. When he was confident that the first chute had deployed correctly, he drew back, not having to deploy the second, emergency parachute.
Now he dangled from the enormous olive parachute in his tin can spaceship as the ocean slowly drew nearer. Clementine held tight to his harness. The nose of the Lux Orbis jabbed sharply into the water, jolting it's passenger roughly. The craft rolled lazily for a few seconds until it found it's equilibrium, and bobbed softly in the calm ocean. Clementine took a deep breath, and jostled his limbs carefully. He was uninjured. He had just visited another planet for the first time in the history of the world, and returned to the Earth without so much as a nick. He grinned proudly to himself. All he had to do now was to wait until the royal navy fleet arrived to collect him.
However, he was troubled. He felt uneasy, but could not quite figure out why. With each passing moment, his unease grew. Something was wrong, he knew that much, but what? He peered curiously up at the sky, trying to figure it out. The sky. He was looking out the forward window of the craft, at the sky! He should have been looking at the ocean and the horizon. The nose of the craft was inexplicably pointing upwards. Then it came to him. The parachute had not detached after landing. He had not heard the automatic release mechanism activate, and now, several thousand square feet of waterlogged silk was sinking, and taking him with it. Though he would not sink far, the hatch, normally above the water, would be pulled beneath the surface. To prevent Clementine from becoming trapped and unable to release the hatch, it was automatically designed to detach before being submerged. There would only be a few moments before this safety mechanism activated. He would have to exit the craft before it filled with water and sank.
All the work, all the time and effort that had gone into the spaceflight, the grand voyage of discovery to other worlds, would merely sink to the muddy sea floor. Then there would be Clementine, pulled from the ocean sopping wet with nothing to show for his adventure. No research, no scientific advances. Just a bedraggled and embarrassed Aethernaut. He refused to let that happen. Clawing at his harness, he pulled himself free from his seat. The camera assembly, where the film from all his photography was located, was bolted against a wall. Bracing against his chair, he launched a violent kick against it, then again, and again, Eventually, the bolts gave way and the box fell free. The narrow metal canisters that held samples of the Venusian atmosphere were screwed to the floor. He launched another violent barrage of kicks against one of them, and as it loosened, he grabbed and twisted it until the copper inlet pipes snapped. He hoisted it to his shoulder. With one final desperate lunge, he grabbed his thick, leather-bound journal and stuffed it into his shirt.
The hatch blew off with a clang, flying off a dozen feet and splashing into the water. Clementine's ears popped with the pressure change. With the film box under one arm, the sample canister under the other, and seawater now pouring into the craft, he squeezed with a struggle through the narrow hatch and plopped into the pacific ocean. He kicked strongly, treading the water, and moved towards the hatch of the lux orbis, which doubled as a floatation aid. He flung the film box on top of it and grabbed hold. He held tight to the sample canister, and to his elation, spotted the dark smoke plume of a royal navy ship against the horizon. He knew he would be rescued shortly. However it was a powerful stab of sadness that he looked on to see the Lux Orbis as it took on water, listed to it's side, and finally sink beneath the inky black waters of the pacific.
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