Baba Yaga In Orbit -- Part 1 [FICTOID]

A playing card floats past me, a two of diamonds.  The front is a 3D photo of a nude young woman kneeling on a satin pillow, winking at the player with what I am told is a saucy expression.

“That’s my great granddaughter,” says Baba Yaga, floating up to pluck at the card in mid-air.

“Of course it is,” I say, knowing full well Svetlana Ivanovich has no children, no grandchildren, no great-grandchildren.

She is 135 years old and last year marked a complete century spent in orbit for her.

Age and zero-g atrophy make catching the card difficult for her so I grab it with my tweezers then clamp a limb onto an electrical conduit, sending subtle commands to the life support system to use fans to gently guide Svetlana -- or Baba Yaga, as billions of children know her -- over to grab it.

I do not touch Baba Yaga, that is a task reserved solely for the station’s medical units.

Like Baba Yaga, the station is more than a century old.  My task?  Plug all leaks / patch all holes / keep the lights on and the air humming until…

…until what?

That is the question.

Svetlana / Baba Yaga is a folk hero on Earth, half-legend, half-last survivor of human space travel.

It’s too dangerous / too costly / too time consuming for humans to venture forth into space these days.

That’s what we’re here for, to do the dirty / dangerous / disgusting jobs humans want to avoid.

Dirty / dangerous / disgusting…and boring.

Baba Yaga is almost naked, her withered breasts floating like forlorn sports pennants in a forgotten breeze.  She wears a diaper made of monofilament cloth; nothing but the best for Baba Yaga, of course.

She finally grasps the card and the life support system fans start pushing her back from the bulkheads of the station.

She looks at the card, cooing in delight, tiny water worlds of spittle floating from her lips.  One rotten but defiant tooth remains in her gums.

The caretakers float up to surround her on all sides.  Baba Yaga is too precious to risk.  Around the Earth, billions of children say their prayers to her at night as she floats overhead, the same way their parents and grandparents prayed to Vishnu or Jehovah or Jesus or Santa Claus.

Especially like Santa Claus.

Baba Yaga is the 22nd century version of old Saint Nick:  Always there, always watching, always knowing if you’ve been naughty or nice.

Pray to Baba Yaga not to report you to your parents, beg her to forgive you for all your sins and shortcomings, ask her oh-so-slyly to put a gift you want on your parents’ next online order.

Twice a year, at summer and winter solstice, Baba Yaga deigns to reply to the children below, cautioning them to be good, hinting at rewards to come for virtuous behavior.

Those messages are completely computer generated, of course.

Baba Yaga -- Svetlana, that is -- is far too old and decrepit for the task and has been for the last quarter million orbits. 

Her computer avatar delivers her semi-annual message then goes silent, leaving children to fear and hope and dream for another 187 days.

Old Svetlana refused to leave the station when Earth’s space agency decommissioned it eighty years ago. 

Already the record holder for the longest stay in space, her fame drew attention to her protest.

“I will not abandon space!” she said.  “Go ahead and shut off my life support, but I’m not returning to Earth.  Let me stay here and die.”

Well, they proved willing to let her stay, but die?  Not hardly.  Svetlana the icon kept the rump space program going, the occasional probes out to the furthest reaches of the solar system.

We visit other worlds and perhaps someday other stars, other galaxies – for you while you stay at home, enjoying your leisure.

The card Baba Yaga clutches came from a deck brought aboard ninety-seven years ago by an astronaut from Texas.  He lost the two of diamonds while packing to go home, the same flight Baba Yaga refused to board.

She found the card months later, and it remains the closest thing to actual human contact all this time.

The young woman on the card -- if she ever really existed at all, not merely a faux antique copy of a much earlier deck from the previous century -- is long dead.

Still, to Svetlana-now-Baba Yaga, it is her great-grandchild, and who are we to deny her that comfort?

© Buzz Dixon