From Ice to Ashes

by Rhett C. Bruno

  “Us?” I asked. He ignored me and walked on ahead into the Ringer dorms. I wanted to follow, but my legs stopped working. Desmond was the last person I needed holding a secret over me, especially one that could get me killed.

  As I stood still, I noticed the two members of John’s security team down the corridor. They were helping him out of the med bay, each one holding a burly arm. Desmond had been right about the bandage. Mom would have slapped me for feeling proud, but after robbing his hand-terminal and gifting him with a concussion, I had finally given John what he deserved.

  The ship’s medical officer, Varrick James, was with them, probably explaining how John should be careful not to be too active. Varrick, a middle-aged Earther, was easy to deal with because he didn’t talk much, but he wasn’t capable of much more than setting a broken bone. The only way to wind up serving as nurse on an old harvester like the Piccolo was to flunk out of every important medical center in Sol.

  They walked directly toward me. I didn’t move.

  “Out of our way, Ringer,” one of them ordered, finally convincing me to step to the side. John and the others eyed me warily as they passed, but nobody said anything else. If any of them had seen me strike him, that definitely wouldn’t have been the case. I breathed a sigh of relief and entered the Ringer dorm.

  A minimal decon-chamber was constructed around the entrance. There was no need to strip down, but electrostatic cleaners tickled me before I was allowed in. Cold air blasted through noisy air recyclers directly above as the entrance sealed behind me. The sweat on my brow dried almost instantly. I could’ve fallen asleep right there.

  The Ringer dorms weren’t very impressive. A rec room was on one end with some areas to sit and watch an obsolete view-screen. The only entertainment it had programmed on it were a few dated shows, the best being about an explorer traveling to the more desolate parts of Earth. Another featured a female modeling ring on Mars, which was less awkward to throw on when Cora wasn’t around. She outranked everyone in the room and barely talked to any of us, so the crew was basically surrounded only by men for months, leaving us with certain…needs. As a result, most of us had seen every episode of that show. The others would talk about their experiences with women as we watched, but I’d stay quiet.

  We usually kept it set to the Ring-wide newsfeed, though. Reception on Saturn was awful, so the image was grainy and the sound quality poor, but it was enough to figure out what was going on around Sol.

  The most cherished feature of the space was the bar tucked into the corner. Desmond and the others were already crowded around it, getting a head start on knocking themselves out. The cabinets below stored the cheapest forms of synthahol one could buy—if that’s what all of it even was. I’d tasted an unmarked bottle once that made my throat feel like I’d swallowed fire. There wasn’t any potable water to wash it down, either. That was reserved only for the kitchen and communal showers.

  Cora sat alone on one of the rec room’s grime-stained couches, wearing a sanitary mask and gloves as was required of her in the Ringer dorm. Our gazes met momentarily before I took a seat next to her. A story on the newsfeed about the status of a Pervenio-owned asteroid mining colony called Undina was on. Apparently, they’d experienced an airlock failure a few months back, causing dozens of deaths and an entire sector to be devastated. Reparations were going smoothly, however.

  “There he is!” Lester shouted over from the bar, his words already slurred. “The conquering hero has returned!”

  He plopped down next to me and presented one of the two glasses he held to me. It was filled with something green, and the smell was so sharp it stung my nostrils. I pushed it aside as politely as I could manage. It might’ve felt good to calm my nerves and unwind, but I needed to stay focused if I wanted to figure out how to get my hand-terminal back to the command deck.

  “And here you thought he loved those mud stompers,” Yavik added from the bar. He stood next to a broadly grinning Desmond. The majority of the Ringer crew crowded around them.

  “Always knew he had potential,” said Desmond. He took a long sip of his drink, his face scrunching as he forced it down his throat.

  “And look.” Lester leaned over me and pointed to Cora, his drinks spilling onto my lap. His breath reeked. “He’s even won over our dear Cora!”

  Cora glared past him, right at me. It was obvious by her expression that she thought I’d spent the entire working shift boasting to the crew. She looked appalled.

  “I didn’t,” I whispered, shaking my head at her.

  She turned away, got up, and headed off to her bed. A narrow hall with beds were stacked on either side was adjacent to the rec room, but that wasn’t where she slept. Her bed was in a nook on the other side of the room, where an unused kitchen was located. A curtain latched to the wall separated her from the rest of us.

  Suddenly, I felt silly for telling her that she was one of us when the divide was so clear. I used to like to pretend she had her own area because she was a different gender and rank, but that was just naïve. Of all the times I’d seen her disappear behind the curtain, it was only then that I finally understood why she was so quiet. It wasn’t because of what had happened with her parents, but because she must’ve known she was destined to be alone. Earthers were skeptical of her, Ringers accepted her as a person, but neither would want her by their side. She was in a quarantine of her very own.

  “Never any fun with her,” Lester groaned. He leaned back and took a sip from one drink and then the other.

  “Leave her alone, Lester,” I said.

  “C’mon then. Prove me wrong. Get in there and let us know for once what hybrid tastes like.”

  “I said leave her alone!” I slapped one of the glasses from his hand. It hit the wall and synthahol splashed everywhere. Before I knew what was happening, I had him by the collar, my fist clenched.

  Desmond moseyed over and wrenched himself in between us. “He’s just messing around,” he said to me. He peeled my hand off Lester and lifted him from the couch. Then he told him, “Let Kale have his day.”

  “You two deserve each other,” Lester growled. He downed the rest of his remaining drink and then cackled all the way back to the bar. Yavik dumped a small pile of foundry salts he’d somehow smuggled through security onto the countertop.

  I stormed out of the room to my bed and took a seat without another word. I was too tired to waste any. The work. My mom. The crew. Cora. I was more exhausted than I could ever remember. I zoned out the racket of the people enjoying their time off and lay down. Doing so helped ease my sore muscles, even though the mattress was so flimsy I could feel the frame beneath and my pillow barely had any fluff left to it. It was like sleeping on a cloth bag filled with Titanian sand.

  I burrowed the back of my head into the bed and stared forward. I had a straight view of Cora’s curtain, and I couldn’t help but notice her pale feet through the open bottom. Her clothing dropped to the floor around them. It felt wrong looking, even though I couldn’t see anything more than her lower calves, but as I began to avert my eyes I noticed something hanging out of her crumpled pocket: her ID Card. The same card that was able to get us into the command deck at any time.

  Soon everybody would be drunk or high and sleeping for what passed as a night on the Piccolo. It was time for me to do what I did best. I could grab Cora’s card, sneak to the command deck, and be done with it. Whatever happened afterward, I’d take the blame. She’d probably help me if I explained the situation, but I didn’t want her involved. Maybe we could never have anything real, but I owed her.

  I turned my head toward the wall and kept my eyes open. My first task was managing to stay awake until nobody else was.

  —

  Not falling asleep wasn’t overly challenging. My body was drained and my eyelids heavy, but at a certain point the Piccolo entered a meager storm. If it had been worse, Cora would’ve been roused to take control in order to divert us from the course she’d plotted into the au
topilot, and my whole plan would’ve been ruined. The storm was still enough to have the ship’s hull shaking, and in the Ringer dorm that meant all of the exposed pipes rattling. Drunken Ringers also had a penchant for snoring. Together, there was enough noise to keep me awake and then to cover my movements.

  I slowly flipped my body over. What little light remained was emanating from the corridor outside, so it was hard to see. I slid my legs off the bed and lowered my feet without a sound. My head was groggy, but lying down had rejuvenated my limbs.

  I shuffled along, weaving through a forest of lanky arms and legs hanging from the upper level of beds. A tremor from the storm caused a hand to land on my shoulder. I think it belonged to Lester, but he was so far gone that I was able to remove it while he kept on snoring.

  I reached Cora’s curtain and knelt. The other side was silent as she slept, and her clothes were right where I’d seen them earlier.

  I took a deep breath, started to reach under, and stopped. I was clearly one of the few people on the Piccolo Cora had even a fraction of trust in, and I was about to break it. I was betraying my mom’s trust too. I told myself that they’d both understand. Unless I planned on including Cora, or sneaking into the captain’s quarters to get his ID, it was the only way.

  I shoved my hand in farther before I could second-guess myself. My stringy arms may have helped with cleaning, but my long fingers were built to dig into pockets. They brushed against her clothes, where I fished around for a few seconds before I found the card and slowly drew it out. When I pulled back my hand, it was sitting in the center of my palm.

  I took another deep breath to steady myself. When I was sure Cora hadn’t been roused, I stood and made my way to the dorm’s sealed exit. I remained extremely cautious: Lurking around the ship when shifts were all done was forbidden for maintenance crew.

  A swipe of Cora’s card over the control panel got it open in a hurry and bypassed the decon-chamber. I peered around the corner. The lights were dimmed, but I spotted one of John’s security team patrolling the central corridor about thirty meters up ahead. He was facing the opposite direction.

  I slipped out of the room. The door closed behind me, but the storm covered its whoosh. I stayed low as I crept toward the guard. I had to stay beneath the viewport on the door to the Earther dorms. As I got closer I heard the guard chuckling. He was watching something on his hand-terminal.

  Again, I wasn’t surprised by his lack of vigilance. There was nothing to steal on the Piccolo, especially since we still had months left with each other. No reason for anybody to purposefully damage any equipment, either. We were each paid off of a percentage of the gas we harvested, after all.

  A left at the central corridor would take me straight to the command deck, but the guard stood directly in the middle of it. Knocking out an Earther without a baton and a running start wasn’t going to happen, so I searched the walls for something to throw. I spotted a cluster of pipes, and one of the joints was filled with rusty screws.

  I located the loosest nut that could be removed without a wrench. The pipe wouldn’t miss it; ship parts often came loose during storms. I took the nut and flung it into the central corridor so that it bounced off of the wall and deflected in the direction opposite where I needed to go. The clank was loud enough to draw the guard’s attention.

  He turned to check it out. I slipped behind him like a ghost and moved as quickly as possible, not bothering to look back. There were no other branches or nooks to hide in, just a short, straight shot to the command deck. If he saw me he saw me, and there would be nothing I could do but outrun him. He didn’t.

  I reached the locked entrance, breathing heavier now, and leaned against the side wall. Another swipe of Cora’s card and I was through. The Piccolo was presently on Saturn’s dark side, so all I could see through the transparent dome were pale lines of gusting wind. The command console bathed the room in a greenish aura. Controls flickered and beeped.

  I took a seat at the console and fetched my hand-terminal from my pocket. The orange circle glared up at me, judging me with its silent fury. I would be as glad to get rid of it as I would be to complete my end of the deal.

  With my free hand, I located the slot beneath the front panel to insert the device. I closed my eyes, not sure of why I was so nervous. I inhaled slowly to keep my fingers steady, and placed it in. A soft chime indicated that the connection was established. After all the irritation, I half-expected there to be fireworks, or at least a message thanking me, but there wasn’t. A field of text popped up on a tiny screen above the port.

  UPLOAD IN PROGRESS…PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE DEVICE….

  That was it. I would’ve cheered myself if the result wasn’t so anticlimactic. I leaned back in the chair and waited. M wasn’t clear on what to do next.

  The metal structure of the dome whined and stole my attention from the console. The storm outside was getting stronger, or at least it seemed that way to me. If it got bad enough, Cora would be placed back on duty. I had no idea how long the update would take, but knew that if I got caught up here I’d have some serious explaining to do. As it was, I doubted anybody would realize the device was inserted unless they were trying to connect one of their own into the same port.

  I had to get Cora’s ID back to her. I was fully prepared to take responsibility if I got caught, but that wasn’t the plan I preferred. Everything I’d done was to save my mother, and I planned on actually getting to see her again, without glass in the way. Maybe, after all the progress we’d made, I could even convince Cora to come with me next time.

  I eyed the screen for a few more seconds, and then left the command deck behind. I hoped I wouldn’t be back soon.

  The guard in the hall had returned to watching his hand-terminal without bothering to move from the spot where the nut landed. I snuck back, passed him easily, and was in the Ringer dorm in less than a minute. The door resealed behind me like I’d never left. With Cora’s card in my hand, I approached her curtain. I was just about to return it when I heard Cora.

  “Kale, is that you?” she whispered softly, like she’d just woken.

  I suppressed a shriek as I slipped and fell onto my rear. Somehow I was able to keep the card in my grasp and return to a crouch so that I could hide the card behind my back.

  “Kale?” she said.

  “It’s…It’s me,” I stuttered.

  She unlatched her curtain and peeled it open just enough for me to peek inside. She sat on the end of her bed, a thin sheet drawn across her body. I could tell by her calves that she wasn’t wearing anything. She didn’t appear angry, just tired.

  “Cora, I didn’t mean to wake you. I just…” I sighed. I had no idea what to say.

  “It’s okay.” She waved me closer so that we could whisper more easily. I found moving countless times more difficult than connecting the hand-terminal had been. My legs felt like they were submerged in wet concrete. Somehow I managed to drag them forward a few steps before I remembered her card was still in my possession. I rotated my hand to face away from her.

  “I’m sorry I reacted that way earlier,” she said. “I know you wouldn’t have told them.”

  I exhaled so loudly I sounded like a leaky gas pipe. She didn’t see. “Don’t worry about it,” I said as I got closer, keeping the card out of sight. “They just don’t know when to stop.”

  “If anyone else found out…”

  “They won’t.” I kneeled beside her bed, slipping her card back into her pocket unseen as I did. “None of them would say a word to an Earther.”

  “I’d defend you if they did. All the captain cares about is the Piccolo running smoothly.”

  “I don’t deserve that.” A sinking sensation in my stomach over what I’d just done made me feel nauseous. I went to stand. Her cold fingers wrapped around my arm to stop me.

  “Yes you do.”

  I regarded her, confused. With her other hand she reached for my sanitary mask and pulled it down just enough to reveal
my lips. She leaned toward me, stopping a few centimeters away. Her silvery hair tickled my face and caused goosebumps to cover my entire body.

  My breathing stopped. My eyelids were probably drawn so wide that it looked like I’d stumbled upon a dead body.

  “I’m clean, Kale,” she whispered. “I promise. You’ll be okay.”

  I couldn’t manage words. Only a nod so subtle she wouldn’t have been able to see it if we weren’t so close. Her lips pressed against mine, and before I could control it my arms were wrapped around her. I longed to remove my gloves so I could feel the smooth cambers of her back.

  We didn’t make sense. It wasn’t safe. But in that moment everything else in the world, all of my problems, faded away.

  Chapter 11

  A violent tremor startled me awake. My eyes snapped open and I searched the darkness. I wasn’t sure what was a dream and what wasn’t, but when I felt my arm wrapped around another body I quickly remembered. Cora and I were squeezed onto her bed. Neither of us was wearing anything. Not even a mask or gloves.

  I touched her arm just to ensure she was real. She was still fast asleep, her head resting on my chest. I never wanted to move.

  Another tremor, this one more intense than the last.

  “What’s that?” Cora yawned.

  As I started to answer, the Piccolo lurched to the side. We were tossed out of the bed. Cups and other equipment slid across the rec room floor, clamoring against the walls like cymbals. The groans and confused shouts of the stirred crew filled the room.

  Cora and I peeled our tangled bodies from each other. My shoulder stung from crashing against the floor. She’d landed on me, so she was fine.

  “Storm?” I groaned. If it was, it was the worst I’d ever felt. Usually short-range scanners picked up a bad one before the Piccolo wound up too deep and Cora was woken to alter our heading.

  “Must be,” she said.

  She grabbed her clothes and stood, fully naked. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I felt like I was seeing the stars for the first time again. She caught me staring and giggled.