Tundra 37

Tundra 37 Page 5

by Aubrie Dionne

  Have we reached Para­dise 18?

  The thought was pre­pos­ter­ous. Para­dise 18 wouldn’t come for an­other two hun­dred years. Her bones would be dust, and her great-great-great grand­chil­dren would be stand­ing here in­stead.

  She spoke aloud out of habit, “Com­puter, loc­a­tion and time?”

  No re­sponse. Her fin­gers ran over the spot on her arm where her loc­ator clung ever since she was born. Her fin­ger­tips smoothed over fine hair and na­ked, tan skin. Tan skin? Her arms were pas­tier than tooth gel. Panic bristled the hairs on her neck. How long had she been miss­ing? How would any­one on the Ex­ped­i­tion find her?

  “Jenny.”

  A wo­man’s voice car­ried on the wind.

  “Still work­ing on your pre­cious num­bers?”

  Gemme ducked un­der­neath the tall grasses, her mind ra­cing through her pair­ing charts and fam­ily trees. No one on the ship had that name. She rose up slowly and peeked over the stems. A bob­bing head of al­mond hair, a shade lighter than her own, weaved its way up to the hill­side.

  A sweet voice sang the name in a taunt. “Jenny.”

  §

  “Gemme, wake up.”

  Dim fluor­es­cent lights stung the backs of Gemme’s lids. She rubbed her eyes and pulled her arm away from the tiny hand shak­ing it.

  “The lieu­ten­ant has an an­nounce­ment.”

  Gemme’s eyes flashed open. She’d never dreamed of Old Earth be­fore, and the jar­ring dif­fer­ence in real­it­ies took her a mo­ment to com­pre­hend. The Ex­ped­i­tion seemed cold and life­less, ar­ti­fi­cial. She hadn’t thought of it that way be­fore. The ship was the only home she’d ever known.

  “At­ten­tion all Lifers.” Lieu­ten­ant Brent­wood’s voice jol­ted her up­right. Vira sat be­side her, con­cern wa­ter­ing the poor girl’s eyes.

  She whispered, “You were asleep for a long time.”

  “How long?” Gemme rasped back while the Lieu­ten­ant re­viewed the dam­age to the ship.

  Vira shrugged. “Hours at least.” Her small hands held up a con­tainer of wa­ter. “Here, have some of this.”

  “Thank you.” Gemme struggled to pull her­self from the groggy numb­ness of sleep and listen care­fully. The cold wa­ter snapped her out of her dreamy haze. When her brain tuned in, Brent­wood already spoke of their fu­ture.

  “Tun­dra 37 is our only hope. The at­mo­spheric gases con­sist of 78.09% ni­tro­gen, 20.95% oxy­gen, 0.93% ar­gon, 0.039% car­bon di­ox­ide, and small amounts of oth­ers, com­pat­ible to Earth. The fourth planet in ro­ta­tion around the star Sol­aris Prime, the north­ern side is mainly ex­posed to the sun. Plant and an­imal life has been re­cor­ded in small amounts, and the me­dian tem­per­at­ure is neg­at­ive sev­en­teen point sev­enty-eight de­grees Celsius.”

  He placed both hands on the po­dium and stared into the masses as if he leveled with the audi­ence. The way his gaze traveled through the space between them and settled on her cap­tiv­ated Gemme like a trance she couldn’t shake. No won­der the Seer’s had chosen him for their speaker five years ago. He’d make any dire news turn to hope. Since she’d pressed the de­lete key, who would the com­puter have matched him to next?

  “It’s a damn cold planet, and not a para­dise, folks. I’ll give you that. But we can sur­vive. I’ve been do­ing re­search on in­form­a­tion col­lec­ted by scouts who first ex­plored this galaxy. Min­eral de­pos­its on the south­ern side would keep what’s left of the Ex­ped­i­tion go­ing un­til a suit­able shel­ter is con­struc­ted. Read­ings show the planet will warm up in the cen­tur­ies to come, and our chil­dren’s chil­dren will ex­per­i­ence the be­gin­nings of a massive gla­cial thaw. All we have to do is stay alive un­til then.”

  “The Seers usu­ally go through me with everything, but since time is short, they are down­load­ing new as­sign­ments dir­ectly to your loc­at­ors. Each one of you must work to­gether to es­tab­lish the colony. I know you weren’t pre­pared for any­thing like this. You thought, like I did, we’d live our whole lives on this cozy space­ship. But life brings sur­prises, and this one’s go­ing to be a heck of an ad­ven­ture. We’re all in this to­gether. Let’s get out there and build our fu­ture.”

  The crowd cheered and Brent­wood settled back, wav­ing away their gush­ing ap­plause. Gemme’s mind whirled with the news. What would hap­pen to her match­mak­ing? She looked down to her loc­ator and waited for the mes­sage to ap­pear. The screen lay blank, so she re­fo­cused on the Lieu­ten­ant.

  Brent­wood raised his arms and the crowd settled. “One more thing. Every­one must re­port to their per­sonal cells and se­cure their seat re­straints. The Seers plan to land this ves­sel within the next few hours. No one, I re­peat, no one, should be wan­der­ing the cor­ridors. The land­ing will be rough.”

  Gemme could see why he’d waited to de­liver the last bit of news. The mood hushed around her as the real­ity of the situ­ation sank in. They weren’t go­ing to be in deep space any longer, or ever again for that mat­ter. Tun­dra 37 held the rest of their lives. Her loc­ator beeped.

  In­com­ing mes­sage.

  A wave of beeps rang around her as the oth­ers re­ceived their new life as­sign­ments as well. She brought up her arm and clicked the but­ton.

  Ex­plor­at­ory team Al­pha Blue.

  An ex­plorer? Were the Seers out of their minds? Gemme had sat at a desk all her life. She scrolled down to read the rest of the mes­sage.

  Ana­lyze min­eral de­posit on the south­ern side of Tun­dra 37. For­mu­late best method for ex­trac­tion and trans­port­a­tion. Com­pile rough es­tim­ate of the size and com­pos­i­tion of re­sources.

  Ana­lyz­a­tion and num­bers. That’s why the Seers had given her the job. But on an ice planet in the middle of a gla­cier? Over­whelmed, Gemme’s thoughts reeled. She could hardly bear to walk through the un­heated cor­ridors, never mind trek across sheer ice.

  Wait, there was more. Gemme scrolled down won­der­ing how it could get any worse.

  Team leader: Miles Brent­wood.

  She scanned the po­dium where Brent­wood stood. His gaze locked on hers and he ig­nored the people crowding around him with ques­tions. They bumped him side­ways and pulled him for­ward, but his gaze re­mained fix­ated on her, his lips part­ing as if in a ques­tion.

  Em­bar­rass­ment and fear swirled through Gemme. Every pin­ing thought in her wild heart lay on dis­play. The com­puter had said he was hers, and since that mo­ment her emo­tions had run rampant. But she’d pressed the de­lete key and comets had shattered the pair­ing sys­tem in pieces all over deep space.

  She pulled away, hid­ing be­hind an older man push­ing his way through the crowd. Sooner or later she’d have to deal with her mixed-up feel­ings. But right now the ship ushered them for­ward to land on a new world.

  Chapter Six

  Golden Swirls

  Bysme, I need your help with the land­ing. Please come back to me.

  Mestasis re­peated her mes­sage, cal­cu­lat­ing the best place to land in a world covered in ice. Bysme had fallen si­lent after the shower, her mind chant­ing the co­ordin­ates of Tun­dra 37 as if it skipped in place.

  We’ve reached the damn planet. Now help me land this steam­ing hunk of junk. Mestasis sighed, sur­prised by her own venom. She shouted at her dis­abled sis­ter when she should be us­ing kind­ness and love to bring her back. The stress played on her nerves like Moz­art on the pi­ano. She de­cided to calm her­self and sifted through the data files from Old Earth, choos­ing an aria from Don Gio­vanni be­fore try­ing her sis­ter again.

  Bysme, please wake up. Then, she had an idea so twis­ted, she felt strange even try­ing it. Help me land safely to pro­tect the orb.

  Bysme stirred, the wires hold­ing her in place creak­ing like old bones. Land­ing co­ordin­ates ap­proved. Ini­ti­at­ing land­ing se­quence.

 
; Mestasis paused, con­cern nag­ging the edges of her psyche, but she didn’t have time to ques­tion her doubts any fur­ther. Bysme was talk­ing again, and they had a ship to land.

  §

  When Gemme reached her per­sonal cell, Tun­dra 37 filled the sight panel above her food con­geal­izer. Splotches of cerulean swirled above slabs of end­less white. She doubted the frozen rock held any means of refuge. Bleak as vel­vety deep space, scout ships had deemed it un­in­hab­it­able hun­dreds of years ago while search­ing for Para­dise 18.

  She strapped her­self into the wall seat with shaky fin­gers. She’d only used the har­ness once be­fore when they’d ex­per­i­enced en­gine tur­bu­lence and the grav­ity rings cycled down. A crash land­ing was much more ser­i­ous. As­tro­phys­i­cists de­signed the colony ships to land once, and only once on their chosen para­dise plan­ets, their heat shields dis­in­teg­rat­ing as they plummeted through the at­mo­sphere. For the Ex­ped­i­tion, this was it.

  The Seers’ voices res­on­ated through­out the ship, “Se­cure all seat re­straints.”

  She checked her seat re­straints and hoped the re­mainder of the ship would hold. The hull sup­plied their only means of shel­ter. For a mo­ment, she wished she still lived with her par­ents in their fam­ily cell so she wouldn’t have to be alone. The Seers had spread out each Lifer’s per­sonal cells to en­sure the ma­jor­ity of them would sur­vive if the land­ing dam­aged part of the ship. Gemme real­ized she hadn’t even said good-bye. Would Lieu­ten­ant Brent­wood sur­vive? She blocked the thought from her mind. He was neither a good friend or loved one. She shouldn’t even con­sider him in her thoughts.

  “Land­ing se­quence ini­ti­ated.” The Seers’ uni­fied voice echoed on the in­ter­com.

  Gemme wrapped the straps around her arms and held on as the ship entered the planet’s pull of grav­ity. The en­gines rumbled un­der­neath her feet as the deck tilted and Tun­dra 37 blot­ted out the sight panel. It had looked like a pin­prick from her of­fice, and now it loomed in a massive, bloated globe. She felt as though the world would swal­low the Ex­ped­i­tion alive.

  The rum­bling in­creased as the ship dove for­ward, en­ter­ing the at­mo­sphere. Heat pan­els fanned out in wings. Fire re­placed the stark white and Gemme closed her eyes. Hold­ing on for her life, she should have been in her of­fice, com­plet­ing the pair­ing re­port, sip­ping her cof­fee, and nib­bling soy­bean wafers for lunch.

  Why did this hap­pen to our ship? Was it a res­ult of an er­ror the Seers made? Or pure chance?

  A peek through her scrunched lids re­vealed bright or­ange-red light as the heat licked its way through the shields. She crossed her arms against her chest and clenched her rat­tling teeth. Gemme hated not be­ing in con­trol more than ar­rog­ant Lifers de­mand­ing lifemate re­as­sign­ments. Ever since child­hood, she’d strived to im­pose reg­u­la­tions on everything. That’s why she loved num­bers and ana­lyt­ics. That’s why the Seers ap­poin­ted her match­maker in the first place. She ex­celled at ra­tion­al­iz­a­tion, un­til of course her chance meet­ing with the lieu­ten­ant skewed everything she’d ever known.

  The walls shook and a DNA model crashed to the floor. A memory sur­faced though the chaos and Gemme clung to it, as if re­liv­ing the in­stant would save her from the pan­de­monium in­vad­ing her life.

  §

  Gemme’s mom stood at the food con­geal­izer, stuff­ing car­rots through the blades. The pulsing buzz covered the trick­ling wa­ter­fall on the wall screen. Golden swirls filled a com­pu­ter­ized sun above the falls.

  “Mom, you’re cov­er­ing my Gaia mu­sic!”

  Her mom shouted from the kit­chen, “I know, honey. I’ll be done soon.”

  Gemme sighed and threaded an­other blue bead of nuc­le­otide on the wire.

  The food con­geal­izer gurgled to a halt. She waited for the tink­ling mu­sic to calm her, but Fer­ris ran into the room, us­ing his fin­gers as a laser.

  “Pow, pow, pow. You va­por­ized.”

  “Fer­ris, stop!”

  Be­fore she could lift the struc­ture off the floor, Fer­ris stumbled through it. His little feet kicked the double helix across the room and the strands fell apart. She’d lost all the even­ings spent wir­ing the struc­ture to­gether. Life felt use­less, point­less, like she fought a battle lost many gen­er­a­tions ago.

  Gemme col­lapsed on the car­pet and lunged for the beads, scrap­ing them to­ward her with her arms.

  “Sowwy, G.” Fer­ris’s tod­dler lisp slurred the words. He bent down to pick up a cytosine and she swiped his chubby hand away.

  “Leave me alone.”

  Fer­ris wailed like he’d wit­nessed the end of the world. Her mom ran into the room hold­ing a dish towel and the plastic re­pos­it­ory for the food con­geal­izer with goopy mush still stuck to the bot­tom. Fer­ris ran over and hid his head in her util­ity ap­ron.

  “What’s go­ing on?”

  “Fer­ris knocked over my DNA model.”

  Their mom kneeled on the floor and pulled Fer­ris away to look into his red-blotched face. “Fer­ris, is this true?”

  He nod­ded, “G not lemme help.”

  “Hon­estly, Gemme. You’re twelve and he’s three. It’s only a plastic re­pro­duc­tion.”

  “But, Mom—” To her it was so much more, a means for san­ity, the an­swer to life.

  “Don’t ‘but, Mom’ me. Now let him help you pick it up.”

  She looked down at the car­pet where the re­pos­it­ory leaked food waste into a puddle. “And after that, you’ll help clean up your mess. I don’t have time for this. I still have to fin­ish the life sys­tem re­ports and your father will be home soon.” She stormed back into the kit­chen.

  Gemme glared at her little brother. “Don’t touch any­thing.”

  He sniffed, wip­ing his nose on his jump­suit, and she made a men­tal re­minder not to touch his arm.

  “Go sit by the air ion­izer.”

  Shoulders slumped, he dragged his feet over to the ion­izer and plopped on his syn­thetic-di­apered butt. “Wanna help.”

  “No.” A single strand had sur­vived the ac­ci­dent, and she held it to the fluor­es­cent lights, ex­amin­ing the bent wire. Maybe she could twist it back in shape and all wouldn’t be lost.

  A bead bounced on the top of the ion­izer. Gemme turned around just in time to see it rattle into one of the vents. “Fer­ris!” Why did she have to watch him every second?

  Her brother’s face turned red as an emer­gency light. He fell back­ward.

  “Fer­ris, what’s wrong?”

  Had he eaten a sec­tion of DNA? She scrambled over on her hands and knees and held her hand up to his mouth, heart ra­cing. No ex­hal­a­tion. She stuck her fin­gers in­side his mouth, but she couldn’t find any­thing in there.

  “Mom!” Gemme shouted, but her mom didn’t come. Fer­ris’s face drained of color.

  Why did she have such a busy mother? Gemme threw him over her knee and slapped him on the back. When noth­ing happened, she tried again, hop­ing she didn’t hurt him in the pro­cess.

  An im­age of a small coffin jet­tisoned into space flashed in her mind and she squeezed her eyes shut to ward it out. She had so much to teach him, so many games to play. All those even­ings she’d spent with her re­pro­duc­tion, Fer­ris played pre­tend by him­self. Guilt seeped over her un­til she des­pised her own fears.

  On the fourth squeeze, a chewed-up es­ter bond flew out of his mouth, skid­ding across the car­pet. Fer­ris took in a deep breath and slumped into her arms. Re­lief flooded her senses un­til she thought she’d melt into a puddle like the con­geal­izer sludge.

  “You all right?” She ran her hand over his curly blond hair.

  He nod­ded, his eyes still glazed over with shock.

  “You scared the neut­rons out of me. Why would you eat that?”

  He stuck his thumb in his m
outh and mumbled. “Sowwy.”

  “That’s okay. You’re all right and that’s what’s im­port­ant. You have to prom­ise me you’ll never eat one of my mod­els again.”

  “Okay.”

  “No, say it: I prom­ise.”

  He took his thumb out of his mouth. “I prom­ise.”

  “Good.” Fi­nally, the tight­ness in her chest let up and she could breathe again. “Listen, we’ll clean this up later. Let’s go play laser fight.”

  His eyes brightened. “Really?”

  “Yeah.” She placed him be­side her and jumped up, form­ing a gun with her fin­gers. “Come and get me!”

  Fer­ris scrambled up with ex­cite­ment. Giddy with a new sense of free­dom, she dashed into the kit­chen with him chas­ing after her. Space didn’t bother her any more. There were more im­port­ant things to worry about, like her brother.

  §

  Fer­ris had smashed her DNA model fif­teen years ago. If only she could let go now. Gemme watched the DNA struc­ture jiggle on the floor, feel­ing as though her own DNA shuddered along with it. Ear-pier­cing screeches and crash­ing bangs in­ter­spersed with peri­ods of whirr­ing hums. She stared at the wind­ing strand of double helixes and forced her­self to fo­cus on the memory and re­main calm.

  Think of Fer­ris. With his gradu­ation com­ing later this year, he still lived in their par­ents’ fam­ily cell, so at least the three of them were to­gether. In limbo between fam­ily life and mar­ried life, Gemme had to en­dure this land­ing alone.

  Why couldn’t the com­puter match me up when it had the chance?

  Brent­wood flashed through her mind and she real­ized the com­puter had its own plan for her. Too bad the shattered frag­ments of the main­frame floated in outer space. A life without the comets flit­ted through her ima­gin­a­tion, a life where she’d work on her match­mak­ing, marry Brent­wood, and live her elder years on the Ex­ped­i­tion.

  Why had it seemed so im­possible when she pressed the de­lete key?

  What was she afraid of?

  Star­ing out the sight panel at the white sky, the al­tern­at­ive proved much worse.

 

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