We Have Always Been Here

by Lena Nguyen

  But is Fulbreech ever grumpy? Park wondered. Silly question; he was prone to all the flaws and foibles that any other human was. She couldn’t forget that—couldn’t put him on any kind of pedestal. But in ten months on the ship, she had never caught him in a bad mood. Or found him so unwilling to talk to her.

  “Could something have happened?” she wondered out loud. “Could one of the crewmembers have been—injured? Why was Boone talking about a body?”

  “I am not certain,” Jimex said placidly. Then he said: “Perhaps Dr. Fulbreech is homesick. Dr. Keller said that could happen, but that the symptoms are not always obvious.” He looked at Park. “Are you homesick?”

  “No,” Park said. Then she stood up and began to prepare the office for her next appointment.

  It was true, she thought later, after Jimex had left and she had pulled up the program on her inlays for dictation. ISF had never told her when she could expect to return home—colony missions could take years—and she had never particularly cared to know. She had still signed up without objection. Of course, she did feel the occasional pangs for fire, for sunlight, for silence—but those were material longings, trivial concerns. In terms of homesickness, she had no home on Earth to be sick for.

  But even Jimex didn’t need to know that.

  Her next appointment was with Eric Holt, the expedition’s physicist. At twenty-eight, Holt was one of the youngest people on the ship, and a little insecure about that fact, in Park’s opinion. He was constantly putting on airs, lazily drawling his sentences, trying to blend in with the more cynical and experienced academics. His insecurity was not entirely unfounded, either: the space-born, with their augmented and extended lifespans, tended to believe that adolescence ended around age twenty-five. So to many of them, Holt was just a young buck, brimming with testosterone—despite his two doctorates from Shoemaker University. In response, Holt tried to act as if nothing affected him, as if everything was perpetually just all right. As if it were all part of an interesting story he would tell someday in the future.

  But today, he had none of that self-assurance, pretense or otherwise. Before he arrived, Park’s inlays told her that Holt’s heart rate was elevated. And when he came in, his thin decksuit showed dark patches of sweat around the collar.

  “Good afternoon, Holt,” Park began. “I was thinking—”

  “I’d like to use the MAD,” Holt said rapidly. “Now.”

  Park closed her mouth. “Of course,” she said after a moment, her voice neutral, offering no judgment or rebuke. Meanwhile she was thinking: Something’s wrong. Holt was looking at her in a daze, as if he’d been drugged; his eyes were glazed over with fear like a dumb animal’s.

  Park reached over to boot up the Mood-Altering Device. Holt’s eyes followed the green spark of its activation sequence greedily. “Can you tell me what’s bothering you?” she asked him as it flashed to life.

  The physicist’s hands were shaking. His face had a bony, scraped look. “I was having a nightmare,” he said. His voice was faint and a little muffled.

  Park kept her expression pleasantly interested. “And what happened in the nightmare?”

  Holt didn’t answer; he just stood there staring at her, kneading the skin around his eyes. After another moment, Park held up the plastic helmet of the MAD and helped Holt with its dangling straps and buckles and sticky microsuction cups. She averted her gaze as the MAD began beaming its euphoric green light into Holt’s brain, slackening his body until he was slumped in his seat. His mouth hung open slightly. In Park’s opinion, there was something disturbingly private about using the MAD—as if she were witnessing someone reach orgasm. She turned away to set a timer on her inlays. Two minutes was usually sufficient.

  Then Holt gave a low groan. Park looked at him sharply—he should have been comatose with bliss—but instead he was plucking at the cables hooked to his helmet.

  “It’s not working,” he said. He sounded close to tears. “Something’s wrong.”

  This had never happened before. Park checked the helmet for malfunction, but the MAD was working fine. She angled it toward her face and felt the gamma rays bathing her brain in a warm cerebral massage. “It seems fine,” she said, trying to sound confident.

  “I can’t get it out of my head,” Holt said.

  Goddamn it, Keller, where are you? Park let the MAD rest on Holt’s skull again, though when he peered at her from behind the plastic visor, she could see that his expression was still one of distress—almost terror. His features were washed in eerie green light.

  “Why don’t you tell me what you dreamt?” Park said, hoping that enough distraction would give him time to calm down.

  Holt shook his head, then shuddered. “I don’t know. I was sleeping, and then when I woke up—I couldn’t move. There were all these lights flashing in my face. I tried to open my mouth to yell for someone, but—I had no tongue.”

  “In your dream,” Park couldn’t stop herself from saying.

  Holt shook his head again, but Park couldn’t tell what it meant. He continued, “My lungs were frozen; I couldn’t breathe. I was cold—so fucking cold. Like I was dead. Like my skin was peeling off. None of my organs were working. And I—I wasn’t in control of myself. I wanted to go outside. Leave the ship. But I was trapped inside my body and couldn’t move. I thought to myself that I’d rather be dead than keep feeling that way. I wanted to be dead.”

  He took the helmet off and covered his face with his hands. Park thought, Suicidal ideations? Isn’t it too early for this? Holt hadn’t even gone outside yet, as far as she knew. Was he already buckling under the effects of the isolation? Space psychosis?

  She said, “Nightmares are a normal reaction to stress, Eric. You are under an enormous amount of mental strain here, and this is a very common response to that.”

  When he didn’t respond, she continued, “Nightmares are a response to fear and anxiety. They’re a way for our psyche to release pressure and operate with less of those pent-up emotions. Sometimes we can look at them as tools to cope and feel better.”

  Holt still said nothing. When he spread his fingers to look at her through his hands, Park could see that the glaze was still in his eyes: a barely suppressed panic that made Park think, Something is really wrong here. They’d have to pull him off the expedition team altogether, give him some sedatives. They couldn’t send him out like that. She said aloud: “What else is bothering you, Eric?”

  “It didn’t feel like a dream,” he murmured. “Didn’t feel like I was asleep. It felt real.”

  “The human consciousness,” Park said, “is an extremely powerful force. Mere conviction and belief have made people ignore the pain of amputation, experience mass delusions—”

  “You’re not listening to me!” The sudden ferocity in his tone silenced Park—even had her pulling up Sagara’s contact on her inlays. In the green MAD glow Holt looked shrunken, his features deceptively ravaged and scarred. His breathing hissed. He said again, “You’re not listening! Don’t you listen?”

  Park sat, frozen, rapt. Her palms were slick; without realizing it she was gripping her own hand, tightly. It seemed to be melting out of her grasp.

  “What is it that you need me to hear?” she asked Holt, barely hearing her own voice.

  The physicist flopped back into his seat; his eyes floated away from hers. When he spoke again, his voice was as small and frail as a child’s. “I can’t tell if I’m still dreaming,” he mumbled. “I don’t know if I ever really woke up.”

  * * *

  —

  “So you want me to pull him off the team?” Commander Wick asked, sitting back. “He’s due to go out tomorrow.”

  “At least temporarily,” Park said. They were sitting in Wick’s quarters; she had avoided calling him to the counseling office, mindful of a power struggle, of making him feel like she was the school principal summonin
g a rascally student.

  Wick frowned into the middle distance. At forty-two he was punching into the upper limit of the age range on the ship, but he looked younger; his body was rangy and tough, and lean as a rake. His face was tanned by alien suns. He was a somewhat solemn, reserved man—not the charismatic, jovial sort that Park had imagined would lead an expedition—but at least he was sensible. Easy to talk to. She hoped that he wouldn’t ignore her recommendation; otherwise she would have to go to ISF and override him.

  “He’s disturbed about something,” Park continued. “Exactly what, we’ll have to find out in further sessions. But he’s far too distressed to be trusted under the strenuous conditions out there—at least right now.”

  “What’s your best guess about him?”

  “I’d prefer not to say anything with so little information. He may simply be—” She cut herself off.

  “Cracking under the pressure,” Wick finished. He worked his jaw. “Which is unusual. If I recall, Holt has been off-world before. We haven’t even been on the Deucalion that long.”

  “He’s been fine until today,” Park said, aware that the only person she should be discussing this with was Dr. Keller, who was still in absentia. “Until after we landed.”

  “But he hasn’t been outside.”

  “No. But going outside could only make it worse, if we don’t determine the cause of his . . . anxiety.”

  She’d been reading up on the effects that new planets could have on the human psyche: how there were sometimes feelings of inexplicable terror. There was one unproven theory that the sound of an alien planet’s rotation, something unnoticed on Earth, could cause serious mental disturbance in a person, without them even knowing it. She considered floating the idea past Wick, who was a veteran of new planets, but held back. No point for her to come off as clueless, blind. At least not yet.

  “All right,” Wick said, still working his jaw. He had a slightly nasal Lunar accent; watching him, she recalled that he had once broken all the bones in his face climbing Mons Huygens, the tallest peak on the Moon. “I suppose we can make do without a physicist, at least for now. And Holt is young. Maybe the responsibility was just too much for him.” She thought there was something accusatory in his tone, as if he were pointing out that she should have caught this long before the launch. Which was true: both she and Keller had vetted Holt in the preliminary testing. And cleared him. “You sent Holt to see Dr. Chanur?”

  “Yes.”

  He sat back. “All right, Park. I’ll back you up: Holt is off the team for now. Thanks for telling me.”

  She sensed her dismissal; she rose and gathered her things. Before she exited his narrow room, where he bunked with Boone, Wick stopped her and said, “Park—how are you doing?”

  She looked back. There was a rare sliver of sympathy in Wick’s face, which normally looked like a hatchet blade. She sensed he understood the difficult position she was in, without Keller, and the frustration of steering herself away from her own questions. The wall that lay between her and the rest of the crew. She felt a strange swell of warmth toward him—and then, alarmingly, a tight, achy feeling around the temples, as if she might cry. She said evenly, “I’m well, thank you.”

  Then: “Is Keller really not available for . . . advice, at least? Where even is she? I can’t find her anywhere.”

  Wick spread his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking off at something past her. “I couldn’t tell you.” She couldn’t decode what that meant, either.

  So she left. At first she felt the urge to visit the infirmary, where Holt was resting under the supervision of Chanur, and where Reimi was being held in her suspended sleep. Park had the ghoulish idea of gazing into her cryogenic tank, as if she were an onlooker at a twenty-first-century zoo. Observing her body floating in the dark waters, oblivious to the rest of the ship and its troubles . . .

  But she was so tired. Her own body felt swollen and waterlogged with weariness. Tomorrow, she thought, turning instead toward the long gray corridor that led to the residential section. I’ll look into all of it tomorrow . . .

  She trudged to her bunk, trying to keep her head from drooping. The floor lurched oddly beneath her, as if she were on a seaward vessel; she told herself it was the exhaustion, lingering nausea from her space-sickness. The other women were sleeping by the time she crept in and grabbed her night gear; they were on strict sleeping regimens, since Eos only had seven hours of sunlight for them to use. Park, who could sleep in later, hurried down the corridor to the empty showers and activated the water at its hottest setting. The steam formed strange, twisting clouds under the artificial gravity. She shed her clothes and stepped in. Heat blasted her as if she had stepped into a furnace.

  It must be heaven for the crewmembers who have to go outside, Park thought. One thing she did know was that Eos was cold—cold as hell. She’d felt it even through the super-reinforced shuttered windows on the bridge. The team had to ensure they were back before sunset every day: apparently nighttime on Eos meant almost-immediate death. Her stomach shuddered. Holt’s nightmare came to mind. Cold so extreme your skin might come off.

  She turned her mind to other things. The confrontation between Boone and Natalya in the cafeteria still troubled Park: she had the feeling that if enough friction developed between the flinty surveyor and hotheaded Boone, disaster of an explosive degree might occur. What had they been arguing about? What body or thing were they hiding from her—what was Keller hiding, or Fulbreech, or Wan Xu?

  And then there was Sagara. Cold and unreadable as stone. She didn’t even know if he was hiding anything, or if this was all just normal behavior for him. He was the wild card in the deck: she couldn’t predict him, couldn’t understand what his mindset or even purpose was. The big question mark over him scared her. Made him dangerous. And of course he’d done nothing to deter that feeling.

  What could defrost him? Sex, she supposed—but he would never be one of the ones who had a liaison in the escape pod. She nearly laughed at the thought. Then briefly found herself imagining leading someone—the eager Fulbreech, she tried not to admit—down into that unlit, buzzing space, thrumming with the warmth of the ship’s whisper engines. Undressing each other’s bodies in the dark.

  There was a mirror bolted into the far corner of the room. Park peered into the fogged glass and examined herself. Small, severe body. Harsh cheekbones, harsher eyes. Dark hair cut raggedly short. Not much to inspire interest, aside from perhaps her small nose, which she liked, and her long eyelashes. Better for him to pursue the svelte Natalya, or even shy and sweet Elly Ma. Despite the accompanying palavers, sexual encounters were generally encouraged for the health of the crew. Only she and Keller were exempt.

  Objectivity is key, Park told her reflection.

  “Dr. Park,” someone said through the steam.

  Park jumped, whirled; nearly slipped on the anti-slip floor. Hunter, Boone’s lieutenant, was standing there at the entrance of the shower, watching her. Park resisted the urge to cover her breasts and said calmly, “What is it?”

  “I think you need to come back to the room. There’s something wrong with Ma.”

  Park wrapped herself in her thermal towel and followed Hunter out of the shower. The other woman walked with long, brisk strides; Park found herself jogging slightly to keep up. Her feet left wet prints against the icy floor.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Hunter said. She was a hard, ropy woman, with a shock of curly red hair. Park often found herself wondering if she was related to Boone: they looked so alike. But nothing in her file indicated it. And unlike Boone, who loved to jeer and slam his way around the ship, Hunter was famously laconic. Park had heard there was a running bet on who was more close-mouthed, herself or the combat specialist. Hunter said, “I just woke up and Ma was going crazy.”

  Define crazy, Park wanted to say, a
s if Hunter were an android that she could command—but she knew that the other woman wouldn’t answer.

  From down the hall they could hear the sounds of Elly Ma screaming. It was a sound that made the back of Park’s teeth ache; her eyes prickled. She saw Hunter flinch. All along the dim-thrumming corridor, doors were opening and tousled heads were poking out. They glanced at Park as she passed; she wished she had taken the time to dress in her decksuit. When they reached their door, Hunter stopped and said, “Why haven’t you turned on the lights, Natalya?”

  The surveyor didn’t answer. When Park peered into the dark room, she could see her sitting on her bunk with her knees drawn up to her chin. She was looking at something in the corner. Park stepped inside and said, “Where’s Elly?”

  The keening sound was rising. It sounded like a scream of hysteria, with dry, creaking sounds puncturing it that could have been sobs or laughter. Park squinted and saw that the sound was coming from the corner, that Elly was in the corner, huddled up. She motioned for Natalya to stay on the bunk and knelt, keeping the towel tucked around herself. She said, as if she were coaxing a cat out from under a porch: “What is it, Elly? What’s going on?”

  All at once the keening stopped. The figure in the corner stirred and said, “What?”

  “Why are you screaming?”

  “I’m not,” Elly said thickly. Natalya made a noise of disbelief. Outside, Park could hear Hunter saying, “We don’t know what happened. One minute we were sleeping, the next, she was having some kind of episode. She got out of her bed and lay flat on the ground.”

  “How do you feel?” Park asked Elly. She reached out, felt around until she touched Elly’s ankle. The climatologist pulled her foot away. Assess for risks of violence, Park told herself. “You’ve been under a lot of stress,” she said gently. “It wouldn’t be unusual if you were to react to that.”