One Big Step

By Michael T. Schaper

“Uh oh,” the cockroach said quietly, caught humming Bowie’s Space Oddity song to itself.

The astronaut, just come back in from his latest spacewalk, had just noticed the insect for the first time. He paused to stop and peer at it in amazement. “What….?”

The black-brown bug was sitting waiting patiently in a corner of the airlock chamber, passing the time on one of the many boxes and containers in the room.

“Looks like you’ve finally spotted me,” it finally declared.

The room was silent for a moment as the two studied each other.

“What is going on here?” Anders eventually asked out loud, more to himself than anyone else. The rest of the crew were scattered throughout the rest of the international space station, and well out of hearing range.

The astronaut silently looked around the docking bay: like the rest of the station, it was a mosaic of neat, gleaming white walls, carefully sterilised and sanitised. All designed to keep people safe and healthy, and their kit in pristine, top working order on their mission to the stars. None of it was intended to be home to an insect colony.

Anders rolled over in the ultra light gravity so that he could float across and look more closely. “You’re a cockroach!”

“Well spotted.” The insect seemed to be smiling a little wryly.

“What are you doing here?”

“Same as you: travelling. Found myself a comfortable little spot just before launch and settled in for the ride. Mind you, that blast off from Canaveral was kind of noisy.”

The vessel had already been in orbit for more than a fortnight. It seemed improbable that anything could last for so long. “How could you possibly survive up here?”

“We’re full of surprising attributes, don’t you know?” The bug looked at him somewhat condescendingly. “A little while without food or water is nothing. We can even live without our heads for several days. Not like you humans. Look at you, need to get all suited up just to go outside for a few minutes.”

Anders considered the situation for a minute, unsure about what to do next. “Well, I guess we can handle having to live with one surprise guest for a little while.”

“Thanks for the belated invite, but I didn’t need your permission to come on board. You think I’m the first of our kind in space? We’ve been on all your journeys since Apollo. We’ve gone up and come back plenty of times.”

Anders bit his tongue for the moment. No one likes a smug bug. He was tired and exhausted from his time outside the space station, and this exchange was quickly beginning to frustrate him.

The creature wandered over to the edge of the box and raised its wings. “Catch you later. I’m sure to see you around on board in the next few days.” Then it flew down gently in the light gravity to the floor, preparing to scuttle off to its hiding hole.

“Just think,” it said, turning around one last time to look up and goad the human again. “When you lot finally do get to establish your planetary colony, we’ll be there with you. Wherever you go, we can go. Eventually we’ll outnumber you, even out here in space.”

Anders rolls his eyes in disbelief. “As if.”

“Well,” the bug added, lowering its voice, “I might currently be the only cockroach on board, but I have a little present for you.”

“What?”

“Eggs. I’ve got lots and lots of them. Coming to a space station near you real soon. Here’s another one of our amazing attributes: we can breed without partners. Prolifically.” It smirked, and began humming Bowie again. Starman, this time. 

The astronaut stood still and thought for a moment. Suddenly he had a vision of the station full of these gloating little bugs, spending all their time annoying humanity on its great big step out into the stars. And after that, whole planets full of the things. But what to do? There were no cans of insecticide on the space station; no one had preplanned for this contingency.

“Before you go,” Anders said quietly, “I almost forgot one thing. I’m surprised your people didn’t remember it from the Apollo missions.”

“What’s that?”

“You know, there is one amazing attribute we have that you don’t. One thing we’ve got that you’ve never had, never will.”

“What’s that?”

“Boots,” he said, putting his foot down firmly on the creature, and grinding hard. Just one small step for this man, but a big step forward for humankind.” 

About the Author

Where you see strange dreams, cockatoos and other nonsensical nostrums congregate, there’s a good chance you’ll also come across our author.

By day he’s all manner of mundane things: a board member, business association manager, policy adviser, researcher and scholar - in Canberra.

At night he lets those wild ideas of his run, well, wild.