Tundra 37

Tundra 37 Page 8

by Aubrie Dionne

  Pla­cing her palm against the wall, she closed her eyes. The chrome stung cold as frost un­der her skin. Feel­ing up and down, she calmed her­self and al­lowed her thoughts to wander un­til they grasped hold of the in­ner work­ings of the ship. She fo­cused on the cables and wires con­nect­ing to their cell, run­ning be­neath the wall. She sensed their pres­ence like a nest of snakes just bey­ond her reach.

  In the black­ness un­der­neath her eye­lids, she iden­ti­fied strings of con­nect­ing im­pulses, much like the threads in her blanket. Some ran to the air ion­izer, some to the re­fri­ger­ator, and oth­ers to light­ing. Their chan­nels lay empty. The Seers had cut off the elec­tri­city.

  Vira paused, won­der­ing if the Seers would no­tice a small de­fi­cit in the re­channeled flow of en­ergy. She’d only need to reroute it for a few minutes in or­der for the vent­il­ator to fil­ter the smoke. The solu­tion lay within her reach. Her par­ents’ hap­pi­ness meant so much to her, so she took the chance.

  Squeez­ing her eyes shut, she re­dir­ec­ted a stream of elec­tri­city to the vent­il­ator. The con­cen­tra­tion made her dizzy, but she held onto the thread of thought un­til the con­nec­tion sparked. She heard the rat­tling of the air shaft as the va­cuum kicked in.

  “It’s work­ing!” Her dad’s voice squeaked with sur­prise from the other room.

  “What did you do, Al?” The re­lief in her mom’s voice made Vira smile.

  “I don’t know. I pressed the cir­cu­la­tion but­ton and voila.”

  “Thank good­ness the Seers are still up there do­ing their job.”

  Her dad’s voice turned bit­ter. “Sure, thank the Seers and not your hard-work­ing hus­band.”

  Her mom laughed. “I’m thank­ing you too.”

  She heard them kiss­ing and scrunched up her nose. Ew!

  Her mom spoke next. “Why don’t you go get Rizzy? I’ll start din­ner. There must be some­thing we can eat without the food con­geal­izer.”

  Vira con­sidered rerout­ing more elec­tri­city. Her stom­ach grumbled, crav­ing hot food. The Seers’ pres­ence lurked just mil­li­meters from her fin­ger­tips and her thoughts froze in place. Too many ad­just­ments would cer­tainly draw their at­ten­tion.

  “Should you go check on Vira? She’s been sleep­ing all day.” Her dad soun­ded weary.

  “Oh yes, I’ll do that.”

  Vira had only seconds to pull her hand away from the wall be­fore her mom slipped in.

  “What are do­ing on the floor, dear?”

  Vira shrugged and pouted, look­ing as sad as she could without pro­du­cing real tears.

  “You poor thing. Your legs must be freez­ing.” Her mom sprin­ted over to her and scooped her up in her arms.

  She lay her down on her sleep pod and mas­saged her at­rophied calves. Vira couldn’t feel her mother’s touch, but it gave her mom com­fort, so she smiled as if rub­bing her use­less legs made her happy. Really, hav­ing all this at­ten­tion from her mom made her happy. As for her legs, she’d rather just cover them up and for­get.

  “We should slip on your jump­suit. Daddy’s got the vent­il­ator run­ning, and soon all the smoke will be gone.”

  Vira ex­haled in re­lief. Not only had her plan worked, she’d pulled it off without her par­ents’ know­ledge.

  Her mom searched her face. “I know you’re con­cerned about the ship, dear. People are fix­ing it as we speak. Don’t worry, they’ll have the sys­tems back on­line.”

  “Okay, Mom.”

  Vira tried to give her mom an as­sur­ing smile, but a nag­ging doubt tickled the back of her mind. She’d left the elec­tric cur­rent run­ning, so she’d have to find a way to re­con­nect to the sys­tem and turn it off later. Hope­fully, the rest of the ship dis­trac­ted the Seers enough not to no­tice.

  Chapter Nine

  Quest for Hyperthium

  Gemme wondered how many pairs of po­lar fleece pants she could fit around her waist and still be able to walk. Look­ing four kilo­grams heav­ier, she flinched in the mir­ror and tried on a fourth pair. Good thing she had some stashed away just in case the heat­ing sys­tems failed. She was al­ways over pre­pared.

  Bet­ter to be warm and plump than sexy and freeze to death. Who are you try­ing to im­press, any­way?

  As she stuffed her legs in, she thought of Brent­wood and pulled off the fourth pair mid­way up her thigh. Even she had her lim­its. She kicked the ex­tra pair off and shoved it into her back­pack, along with a beacon light, a first aid kit, and sev­eral pro­tein bars. Brent­wood would pack enough food for the team for days, but she didn’t know how long they’d be out there.

  Plug­ging her last full en­ergy cell into her min­is­creen, she flicked it on and checked the time.

  Fif­teen-hun­dred and fifty-two minutes, twenty seconds.

  Damn!

  Why did she never have time to say good-bye? Did her par­ents even know about her new as­sign­ment?

  Prob­ably bet­ter for them not to.

  The portal beeped and she whirled around. Fer­ris’s voice came through the in­ter­com. “Just stopped by to wish you good luck.”

  She pressed the panel and the particles de­ma­ter­i­al­ized, re­mind­ing her of the snow­flakes whizz­ing by the sight pan­els. He stood in the portal frame, slouch­ing. She wondered if she shouldn’t have told him. He would have seen her name on Al­pha Blue on the re­as­sign­ments charts even­tu­ally, and she didn’t want him to be angry at her. At least she had time for one good-bye.

  “It’s not like I’m leav­ing and not com­ing back.” Gemme rolled her eyes. “Come in. I only have a few minutes.”

  Fer­ris frowned and dragged his feet. “I’ve brought you some­thing.” Reach­ing into the breast pocket of his wrinkly uni­form, he pulled out a glossy piece of pa­per.

  Gemme took the com­puter prin­tout in her hands, re­mem­ber­ing her gradu­ation ce­re­mony. A pimple-faced teen­ager stared back at her, his stringy arm hanging around a younger ver­sion of Gemme with wavy locks shield­ing one eye. Worry creased the skin around her other eye. The Seers hadn’t chosen her po­s­i­tion on the Ex­ped­i­tion at that point and the end­less pos­sib­il­it­ies had over­whelmed her. Un­for­tu­nately, end­less pos­sib­il­it­ies be­came the story of her life.

  She smoothed her fin­ger over the sleek sur­face. “You’d just passed your al­gebra test.”

  “Yeah, you helped me study.”

  “I guess, but you were al­ways good at math.”

  “Not as good as you.” He smiled, be­ly­ing his gloomy eyes. “That’s why the Seers chose you, Gemme. You’re spe­cial, and they be­lieve you can do this.”

  Gemme sighed. “I’ve never been more scared in my life. I don’t even like walk­ing in the biod­ome, never mind an en­tire new world.”

  Fer­ris shook his head. “You’re braver than you think. You saved my life once, re­mem­ber?”

  “I put you in danger by not watch­ing you like I should have.” Gemme looked away at the model on the floor. She still hadn’t moved it since the crash.

  He grabbed her arm so tightly, she met his gaze. “You did what it took and saved my life.”

  They sat star­ing at each other un­til her min­is­creen beeped and an an­dro­gyn­ous voice buzzed, “Six­teen hun­dred.”

  Gemme slipped the pic­ture in her jump­suit pocket, feel­ing as though she never had enough time. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Al­ways work­ing, aren’t you?” Fer­ris gave her an ad­mon­ish­ing quirk of his eye­brow.

  Gemme’s lips tightened. “It’s what I do best.”

  He stood, walked over to her and col­lapsed around her, hug­ging her tightly. “Be care­ful, G. And re­mem­ber, there’s more to life than bust­ing your butt.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Gemme pulled away, not want­ing to look into his wa­tery eyes. She left him in her cell, curs­ing him for com­ing.
His pres­ence made leav­ing the Ex­ped­i­tion all that much harder.

  The ship con­tained her en­tire world. She’d never ex­ited the hull. Be­sides the Seers, no one had. Gemme shivered, the fear creep­ing across her skin, and forced her­self into a jog to make up lost time and im­prove her cir­cu­la­tion to warm her cold fin­gers.

  The cor­ridors lead­ing to the load­ing docks at the stern lay empty. Al­though she reached the portal five minutes late, she paused be­fore en­ter­ing load­ing dock C, check­ing her re­flec­tion in the glass sep­ar­at­ing the bal­cony from stacked con­tain­ers and cranes be­low.

  Brent­wood had to be down there. He led the team. Gemme smoothed over her loose ends, feel­ing self-con­scious. She looked sleep de­prived, anxious, and hag­gard, and noth­ing she could do now would change her ap­pear­ance. Oh, well. It’s not like we’re matched up any­way.

  She took a deep breath and entered the load­ing bay, shuff­ling down the steps to the equip­ment be­low. The air smelled like chem­ic­als and the metal­lic reek of wet iron. A bear of a man in his fifties stood at the bot­tom, scratch­ing a grizzly black beard.

  “Hey there, you must be Gemme Reiner, Cu­pid’s other half.”

  She shook her head and tsked-tsked in re­proof. “You’ll have to come up with a new name. I’ve been re­as­signed.”

  He held out a paw of a hand, com­plete with thick hairy fin­gers and a scar run­ning from his thumb to his wrist. “Name’s Tech. And I know. You’re the new ana­lyst for Al­pha Blue.”

  She grabbed his hand and shook it tightly. “You’re on the team?”

  “Yup­pers. I’m the en­gin­eer. I work with your father down in the core.”

  She re­called her dad com­ing home and com­plain­ing about a guy show­ing up to work with too much wheat beer in his belly. Gemme coughed and then cleared her throat to cover it up. “Oh yeah, I think he men­tioned you be­fore.”

  “Me and him, we go way back. He’ll do any­thing for a fel­low core worker.”

  “Sounds like my dad.” Thank good­ness her father had covered up the in­cid­ent. At least she had one ally on the team.

  “Good, you’re here.” Brent­wood’s tenor voice, re­fresh­ing and melodic, echoed down from above.

  Gemme whirled around, pony­tail fly­ing. The lieu­ten­ant stood on the top plat­form, look­ing like the di­gital rep­res­ent­a­tion of a Ro­man God bask­ing on the steps of Maison Car­rée in her an­tiquit­ies text.

  Okay, now my ima­gin­a­tion is get­ting out of hand.

  She gawked as he worked his way down to them in his prim uni­form, com­plete with a shiny, golden lapel pin of the Ex­ped­i­tion and a pressed white shirt pok­ing out from a blue po­lar fleece top stretched across his hard chest. His minty af­ter­shave floated over, tingling her nose.

  “Ms. Reiner, I be­lieve we’ve met be­fore.” His fin­gers wrapped around her hand. Nor­mally she had a firm grip for hand­shakes, but her fin­gers turned to jelly in his grasp. The warmth of his skin trans­ferred to hers.

  “And I’m Tech Dougherty.” The older man chimed in, in­ter­rupt­ing Gemme’s mo­ment of bliss. Brent­wood re­leased her hand to shake the old man’s paw.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Dougherty.”

  “Naw, just call me Tech.”

  “Sure thing, Tech.” Brent­wood scanned the bay, dis­trac­ted.

  Tech fol­lowed his gaze. “Miss­ing someone, chief?”

  “Yes, one mem­ber of the team is late.”

  “I’m right over here.” Luna ap­peared the same time the vent­il­at­ors came on, and the air cur­rent flung her golden hair over her shoulders like an in­ter­plan­et­ary su­per­hero cape. She’d zipped her jump­suit to the great canyon between her breasts, and each curve popped out like the top of a grapefruit.

  Isn’t she go­ing to freeze? Gemme shivered just look­ing at Luna’s bare skin. Gemme tugged on the col­lar of the tur­tle­neck un­der­neath her uni­form. Along with the three pairs of po­lar fleece pants mak­ing her butt look like a marsh­mal­low, she had enough clothes on for both of them com­bined.

  Maybe I over­did it?

  “Ex­cel­lent.” Brent­wood smiled. “Nice of you to join us, Ms. Leg­acy. Now we can be­gin the brief­ing.”

  “This is it? The whole team?” Tech fur­rowed his large unibrow. “You’d think the Seers would send out an army. No of­fense, ladies.”

  “None taken.” Luna smiled and licked the curve of her up­per lip. She jumped down the last four steps and landed next to Gemme. “Nice to see you, Gemme, dear.”

  “Hi, Luna.” Gemme swal­lowed a lump in her throat, feel­ing mousy and plain. She wanted to reach over and zip the fi­nal few inches of Luna’s jump­suit, just enough so the swell of skin didn’t pop out and make them all gawk. Why would their mis­sion need a bio­lo­gist, any­ways?

  Luna leaned over and whispered in her ear, “I don’t sup­pose you still have my ticket?”

  Gemme shif­ted un­com­fort­ably. “I’m sorry, Luna. It was des­troyed in the comet shower. I barely got out of there alive.”

  “Pity.” Her eyes turned frosty and Gemme fought the urge to back away. Pity that I lost the ticket, or that I got out alive?

  Brent­wood cleared his throat to get them to pay at­ten­tion, and she and Luna turned their heads. “The reason for such a small team stands right be­hind us.” He lif­ted his arm and poin­ted to a vehicle with double sets of tires a foot taller than him. “Al­low me to in­tro­duce our trans­port.”

  The massive land truck stood be­fore Gemme like some mon­ster of the deep ready to bar­rel through any­thing in its path.

  “What is it?” Gemme circled the tire. The sheer size in­spired awe, mak­ing her feel a frac­tion safer than be­fore. As least she wouldn’t be trekking on foot.

  “A landrover.” Brent­wood leaned on the shiny sil­ver spoke. “The pro­to­type, the only one as­sembled on the Ex­ped­i­tion.”

  “I heard of these. They were meant for Para­dise 18.” Tech ran his hands over the bumper. “I never thought I’d ride in one.”

  “Yes. The Seers had planned for the landrovers to go into pro­duc­tion in the next gen­er­a­tion. That’s why we only have the single pro­to­type. It fits four people com­fort­ably and is cap­able of lug­ging the min­ing equip­ment be­hind it.”

  “How fast can it go?” Luna wrapped her fin­gers around a spike in the tire. She re­minded Gemme of Sleep­ing Venus prick­ing her fin­ger on the world’s axis. But in Gemme’s world, she’d be more like the evil queen of black holes.

  Brent­wood raised his hand. “Be­fore we ex­plore the landrover’s cap­ab­il­it­ies in depth, I need Tech to tell us about hy­perthium, the pur­pose of our mis­sion and the one min­eral that’s go­ing to keep the Ex­ped­i­tion alive.”

  He clapped Tech on the back. “The audi­ence is all yours.”

  “Well, lemme see…” As Tech rambled un­der his breath, Gemme wondered if they’d find any­thing with such an oddball team. More likely, they’d drive each other crazy and end up frozen in a ditch.

  Tech cleared his throat. “Hy­perthium is found in ig­neous rock, with the largest con­cen­tra­tion in gran­ite. Other hy­perthium con­tain­ing min­er­als are spodu­mene and petal­ite, but it’s mainly the gran­ite that we’re after. Due to its al­kaline tar­nish, hy­perthium metal is cor­ros­ive, mean­ing you shouldn’t touch it.”

  He poin­ted a fin­ger at Luna as if rub­bing her hands all over hy­perthium was all she dreamed about.

  “Got it, Tech.” Luna grinned like a pan­ther wait­ing to strike. Gemme straightened her crooked tur­tle­neck and fo­cused on Tech’s words. She felt more like a goose than any type of pred­ator.

  “Breath­ing in hy­perthium dust can ir­rit­ate the nose and throat. Higher ex­pos­ure can cause a build-up of fluid in the lungs lead­ing to pul­mon­ary ed­ema.”

  Gemme crinkled her nose.
With frost­bite, hy­po­ther­mia, and strange alien creatures, she had enough to worry about. Pul­mon­ary ed­ema, whatever that was, ranked low on her list.

  Tech rubbed his beard as if he’d hid­den the an­swers in the rat’s nest be­low his chin. “The first scouts to ex­plore Tun­dra 37 re­por­ted a large amount of hy­perthium on the south­ern side of the planet, twenty five meters be­low a layer of ice.”

  Brent­wood placed a hand on Tech’s shoulder and squeezed. “Ex­cel­lent warn­ings, Tech.”

  The lieu­ten­ant looked to Gemme and Luna. “We have the scout’s ini­tial co­ordin­ates. All we need to do is travel to the dig site and set up the equip­ment. Gemme, you must ana­lyze the size and com­pos­i­tion of the min­eral de­posit. Tech will set up the min­ing drill, and Luna’s with us in case any in­di­gen­ous spe­cies de­cide to show up. She’s on the lookout for any­thing we can eat on this ice rock. So if you see some­thing mov­ing, you go to her. All other re­ports must be filed with me.”

  “Got it.” Gemme nod­ded and gave Brent­wood a ser­i­ous stare to make sure he knew she’d pro­cessed all Tech’s in­form­a­tion.

  Luna laughed, her fin­gers wig­gling in the air. “Come on, let’s ride this crazy beast. I call front seat.” Gemme looked down at her space boots.

  Tech shrugged and glanced at Gemme. “Guess you’re stuck in the back with me.”

  She frowned, dis­ap­point­ment a heavy rock in her stom­ach. She’d rather sit near Brent­wood, but at least Tech provided a pleas­ant sub­sti­tute for Luna. Be­sides, she wasn’t sup­posed to be hav­ing feel­ings for him any­way. She’d agreed to keep far away.

  “Sure. You can tell me old war stor­ies about my dad.”

  He scratched his head and rolled his eyes. “Where do I start?”

  “Start at the be­gin­ning, we’ll have all day.” As Gemme stuck her boot on the in­dents lead­ing to the hatch, Brent­wood caught her hand. She turned around, think­ing she’d for­got­ten her back­pack or done some­thing wrong.

  “I’m glad to have you with us, Ms. Reiner.” His eyes gleamed like jew­els from Old Earth. She wanted to hold his hand forever, to never face the cold world out­side. His grip re­mained firm, giv­ing her strength. Blood flowed into her cheeks.

 

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