Mr. Sospel’s Lost Luggage

by Sarit Zadok

Part 1 appears in this issue.

conclusion

The Hubble Research Station orbited Mars and was named after the Hubble Telescope that Earth people had used for a very long time.

But Mr. Sospel thumbed his nose. “All those super-important researchers! Doing us great service by studying star systems and solar flares! Bah! And now they have their erudite fingers on my precious machine!”

“My taxes are paying them to think,” he thought. “But I’m not interested in understanding how to traverse nasty nebulas or construct a Dyson Sphere. I’m interested in why my ex-wife ran off with a mentalist and never warmed my dinner? Why my legs are short and arms so long? Why people are loud and animals quiet? Why old friends are lost, as lost as my bag...”

Mr. Sospel waited for word from Dusario, Hubble, Today Is Not Always, anything. After 36 hours, feeling ignored and forgotten, he postponed his appointment and finally took the buscraft back down to the Black Markets. Dusario received him like an old friend and like an old friend tried to sell him a scarf, a vest, even a robot baby camel.

“What of the Hubble Bubble and my bag?” asked Sospel.

“Well,” Dusario cleared his throat, which told Sospel that the news was not good. “My informant tells me that a recent research graduate from Frankia, Laurent, has joined the station.”

“Why should I care about a Frankish student?” asked Mr. Sospel.

“Well... to get an internship at Hubble and all this at the age of 19. He’s a space architect, specializes in constructing orbital stations...”

“What does this have to do with my bag!” snapped Sospel.

“This is the boy who was sent luggage identical to yours.”

“Great! You found him!”

Dusario waved his head in negation. “The boy insists it is his bag.”

“But it’s mine! Mine! He’s a liar and a thief!”

“Perhaps he has taken a liking to the contents of your bag, which he finds more useful than a hand-knit sweater from his mother in Normandy.”

“You think?” Sospel shot back.

All attempts to communicate with the Hubble Station failed. It was like a fortress. Not Dusario. Not the Deep Canyon Resort. Nor the Launch by Lunch customer service who originally lost the bag.

“There must be a way to breach!” Mr. Sospel complained to just about anyone. His stomach turned from the injustice.

Jake came by morning to persuade Mr. Sospel to join her for breakfast.

“But you don’t eat,” he said.

But Jake just forced a strange smile, and Mr. Sospel wondered if her lack of confidence now changed the way she smiled. She was growing on him. This robot tasked with making Earth visitors enjoy Mars. The way her guests bothered her all the time with minute questions they could easily ask their personal search bot.

“But they like the human interaction,” Jake explained.

“But you’re a robot!”

“People just want to know that they matter.”

Yes. That’s why I need my Confidence Machine.

“Are you all right?” Sospel finally asked, thinking it must be strange for a robot to lose the confidence it once had.

But Jake stood tall, stopped fidgeting and created a more natural smile to brighten the room.

“Today we are visiting the ice mines, Mr. Sospel. Why not come with us?”

“The ice mines,” he thought. “How can I show my face there? Perhaps I can do it. Without my Machine. Yes.”

In middle age, Mr. Sospel can find the courage to wean himself off the machine! If Jake can do it, so can he! He felt hopeful and invigorated. He accepted the invitation.

* * *

The buscraft landed at the narrow canyon floor in the clear domed base of the ice mines. The Californians lifted their head in awe. The massive cliff walls were pierced by dozens of small tunnels, each niche connected by bridges and lifts.

Mr. Sospel felt the walls closing in on him and the working robots looked like bees in a hive. He began to hyperventilate.

“You alright?” Jake’s voice quivered.

“Yes, yes, thank you,” Sospel said softly and wished with all his heart that he had his Confidence Machine with him.

Dozens of white robots went to and from and into the tunnels to clear regolith and expose the ice-bearing layer.

“Using satellite data, Martian ice miners detect subsurface ice,” Jake began to explain but then grew anxious and lost her thoughts.

“How is water collected?” asked a man in the group.

Jake took a deep mechanical breath and regained herself. “Excellent question, sir. Resistive thermal rods are inserted into boreholes. The ice melts and sublimes into vapor. This is then vacuumed out into condensers.” And she pointed to pipes running down the walls, to the Canyon floor into massive titanium tanks. “And here the water is collected.”

The group clapped in unison at the breakthrough achievement. And Sospel was happy for Jake.

And it was then when she saw a technician exiting the nearby mining control habitat and rushing toward the group.

“Oh! How lucky!” she beamed. “A scientist has come to greet us!”

But greeting was not on his agenda. His face was white and worried.

“I am terribly sorry, but we will have to cut the tour short. We have a malfunction with the tank warmers. I should have cancelled this tour, but was completely sidelined by the emergency,” he said.

“Oh, I am so sorry to hear that...” Jake said defeatedly. “I hope it’s not too serious...”

And Sospel was very impressed with how Jake maintained her composure despite the dozens of irate eyes that her tourists sent her way.

“It is,” the technician continued. “We had no choice but to dispatch help from the Hubble Station...how embarrassing...”

The mention of “Hubble” grabbed Mr. Sospel’s attention. A team from Hubble is here? Here!

He turned his head to scan the canyon floor. And wouldn’t you know it: a small craft marked “Hubble Research Station” was parked by the tanks. Two researchers aided by miners were working on the tank warmer system.

“Oh good fortune!” Mr. Sospel beamed and wasted no time.

He marched right over, while Jake looked on, helplessly.

“You! Hubble people! Did you bring my bag?” he demanded.

The Hubble researchers stared in concert at the strange short-legged man who was barking at them.

An ice miner said: “Visitor! Please join your group. This is a restricted area.”

“I’m no visitor! I’m a victim!” And he pointed to the researchers. “My bag is held hostage on the Hubble station, and I demand its immediate restitution to me, its rightful owner!”

Jake had itchy boots again. She was eager to intervene, help, manage, but she resisted her programmed urges. Sometimes, even tourists need to stand on their own two feet.

One researcher stopped his work. “Who are you and what is your bag about?”

“I’m Mr. Sospel and my blue, medium-sized luggage has been confused with a certain bag belonging to one of your researchers — Laurent — who is now holding my bag and claiming it as his own!”

The two researchers exchanged confused looks, then whispered between them, then laughed.

“What is so funny?” fumed Sospel.

“Laurent was sent a bag from Earth by his mother, featuring some very funny magazines.”

“Those are my magazines! And nothing to laugh about! And he has my Confidence Machine!”

“Laurent needs no machine. Seems very confident to us.”

“That’s because he’s using my machine while I remain a babbling, panicking fool here on Mars!”

Despite Mr. Sospel’s best theatrics, the Hubble researchers denied his claims. Eventually, the ice miners pushed him to the Visitor’s Center where Jake and her group were having lunch.

Mr. Sospel sat forlorn in the corner while his eyes travelled to famished tourists who oohed and aahed at meatball sandwiches and banoffi pies. “Just look at them! How can they eat when so much injustice is plaguing our solar system? When my poor luggage is held hostage by a Normandian pupil! No respect for the elderly these days. None at all!”

The tourists had completely forgotten that their visit at the mines was cancelled and that their visit presently consisted of a tour of the Visitor’s Center. They swarmed the souvenir shop to buy little ice-miner figurines that would immortalize forever their half-visit to the ice mines.

Mr. Sospel held back tears and, for a second, his eyes met Jake’s. She knew better than to interfere, because you can’t make all people enjoy all the time. Some things are just unenjoyable and best unenjoyed alone.

“What have I done to deserve this?” Mr. Sospel lamented. “My appointment cancelled. My Machine stolen. How can I go back to Earth? I am ruined.”

It was at that moment, through the vast window panes, that Mr. Sospel saw that the Hubble Researchers had finished fixing whatever was broken. They shook hands with the ice miners and made their way to the dining room, where they, too, could enjoy banoffi pies and curly fries.

The thought of being under the same roof with such vile conspirators revolted Mr. Sospel, and he ran outside. Dark shadows now covered the canyon floor and although it was midday, it appeared to be night.

He looked back at Jake, how she politely and confidently defused her aborted tour. Then lightning struck him. And the open hatch of the Hubble craft seduced him. “If my bag won’t come to me, I will go to the bag!”

Mr. Sospel never knew how he found the courage to sneak onto the craft without his Confidence Machine. But this very strange thing happened. And so he did. Under the cover of black shadows, while the researchers were distracted by salty-caramel milkshakes, Mr. Sospel climbed aboard the Hubble craft, where he found a “TINA was right!” sticker on a storage cupboard in the back. He tucked his short legs inside, and reached with his long arms to close the panel on top of him.

And so Mr. Sospel shut his eyes, put aside all his interstellar fears and quietly stowed away on the Hubble craft toward the station orbiting Mars.

Jake searched for a good half an hour for Mr. Sospel, and the whole return trip was delayed by the missing traveler. Tourists angered and chewed more candy. But Jake had a duty to account for all her guests. She was programmed to never ever leave anyone behind. Her robot eyes scanned the Visitor’s Center, the mines, the canyon floor. Nothing. Not a trace of Mr. Sospel.

She then raised her head and scanned the Hubble Craft up in the distance, outside the habitable dome, ascending out of the canyon.

And there she found Mr. Sospel. There was still time to dispatch the craft to turn around and bring him back. But, no. She smiled. And her mechanical heart turned faster.

Jake was trained enough to know that tourists liked the security of an organized group.

But now, she saw that some fared best as solo travelers full of confidence.

* * *

The Hubble Research Station orbited low, about 500 kilometers above the Martian surface. It spun like a lazy, giant metal donut. The outpost welcomed ten researchers and astronauts on rotational missions. It was the leader in gravitational surveys which could detect rogue planets, black holes and dark matter structures.

But the only thing Mr. Sospel cared to detect on the Hubble Station was his lost luggage.

As the craft docked and the crew disembarked, Mr. Sospel wasted no time and jumped out like a genie in a bottle ready to terrify the crew. “Aha!” He presented himself baring his teeth.

“Who?...who are you?” asked a shocked astronaut. “And where did you come from?”

“I already told your friends who I am. I’m Mr. Sospel, and I have come here from the ice mines to claim my bag from a certain Mr. Laurent!”

“You are trespassing! You have no clearance to be here!”

“My clearance is my bag and my Confidence Machine. As soon as it is restituted to me, I’ll be on my way. I do not wish to meddle in your exoplanets or interstellar comets,” he said.

Astonished faces rolled. And soon the entire team was present to witness the short man who had snuck onto the craft to claim his luggage.

“Your bag is not here!” the station’s Captain said. “This incident will be reported and you will be fined upon your return to Earth.”

“I am not leaving without my bag and until justice is served. In what solar system do we steal someone’s luggage? You spend all your holy time studying Kuiper Belts and measuring asteroids to save us from extinction, but don’t you have the common decency to return what is lost to its rightful owner?”

A hush. Baffled bespectacled looks. Long noses were rubbed. And hands dug deep into pockets. What do we do with him?

And then. “He’s right,” a young man’s voice said from the back.

He came forward and placed a cobalt-blue suitcase at Mr. Sospel’s feet.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Sospel. I’m Laurent, and I withheld your luggage here under false pretense. I hope you can forgive me.” And he stepped back.

Mr. Sospel rushed to open his bag and counted his books and clothes and various trinkets. And of course, he lifted a precious box and held it tightly between his palms: his Confidence Machine. Oh what joy!

Laurent was thin, with shaggy, clumpy hair that hasn’t seen a comb in days. But his eyes were piercing blue and full of energy and doubt.

“Young man, though it has been an arduous journey for me to come to this point, I see all of my things are here and in good order. I am willing to forgive this dreadful ordeal if you just tell me why a bright young man such as yourself would do such a thing?”

“Well, Mr. Sospel, I apologize for all the distress I seem to have caused you. Your Confidence Machine. I’d never seen one, could never afford one myself. And... and... I just wanted to try it... So I did. And it made me feel infinitely better. Like I could just build anything. I couldn’t let it go. But I realize now, it was never mine to have.”

“Yes, well...I know,” Mr. Sospel said. He was almost beginning to feel guilty.

“Because, Mr. Sospel, you may or may not know, but on our dear Earth, the happy and the sad walk equally among us...”

“They certainly do, young Laurent,” and Sospel looked down at the black cube between his hands.

“They hike on weekends if the weather is fine,” Laurent said, voice cracking. “And I see them in their cars sucking on wine... dancing at raves... then shopping in front of mirrors. They connect to all their devices on the train, with their heavy heads and the weight of their choices. So they board a craft for a trip to Mars and ask you for a light in Mageve’s bars. You never know, they might be sharing your bed. Or it could just be me, this thief in your head...”

And it was then that Mr. Sospel felt a tinge in his heart for this boy, who was accomplished and erudite but lacking belief in himself. The iron ladder of his youth was unimportant in his quest to find himself, and it would be a long road, Mr. Sospel knew. And Laurent was just at its head. And such a road, a journey, was best not forged alone.

Mr. Sospel stepped up to Laurent and extended the Confidence Machine to him. “I think it is time this be passed on to you.”

Laurent’s eyes lit up like two bright stars. “Don’t you need it anymore, Mr. Sospel?”

Mr. Sospel closed his cobalt-blue suitcase, held it by the handle in his right hand and said, “Please consider it my gift to you, young Laurent. Now I must be going. TINA was right. I have an appointment to meet... I think.”