Tundra 37

Tundra 37 Page 11

by Aubrie Dionne

  She looked to­ward camp, her gaze grow­ing dis­tant as if she had some­thing on her mind.

  “You do­ing okay?”

  “Yeah. I can al­most feel my toes.”

  “Let’s hope Tech can help.”

  He stud­ied her pro­file in stray glances down, re­mem­ber­ing the curve of her cheek, the del­ic­ate bridge of her freckled nose, and the flut­ter of her long, brown eye­lashes. He wanted to ask her what troubled her, but he also didn’t want to pry.

  Tech met him on the edge of camp, fid­get­ing with his gloves. “Is she all right?”

  “I’m fine.” Gemme in­ter­rup­ted him as if all this at­ten­tion em­bar­rassed her. “It’s just my feet.”

  “She didn’t have time to slip on her boots.” Brent­wood ex­plained, try­ing to jus­tify her ac­tions and al­le­vi­ate some of her em­bar­rass­ment. “Could you take a look?”

  Tech nod­ded, un­eas­i­ness slip­ping into his fea­tures. “Sure, bring her into camp.”

  Brent­wood entered his tent and placed Gemme on his own thermal co­coon. Gemme pulled off her socks. Red­ness tinged her del­ic­ate toes. Brent­wood looked on as Tech mas­saged her feet gently.

  His heart skittered. “Will she be all right?”

  Tech nod­ded. “She’s fine. When they turn black and blue you have to worry.”

  “Good.” Gemme breathed in re­lief. “I can’t have you haul­ing me around for the rest of the mis­sion like an in­valid.”

  “We’d do whatever’s ne­ces­sary.” Brent­wood in­ter­jec­ted. “You’re an im­port­ant mem­ber of this team.”

  “You’ll have to stay off them for a while.” Tech ad­vised, giv­ing Gemme back her socks. “Let us pack up camp. You stay here and rest.”

  A rip cur­rent of frus­tra­tion came over Brent­wood as he saw Gemme so help­less. “You’d think they could have spared at least one medic to go with us.”

  Tech shook his head. “After the crash, my wife re­por­ted to the emer­gency bay to help, and I haven’t seen her since.”

  Brent­wood gave Tech a sym­path­etic smile. “You must miss her.”

  Tech waved him off. “Nah, that old witch. It does us good to be apart. No of­fense, Ms. Reiner, but that match­mak­ing sys­tem must have short-cir­cuited when it paired us to­gether. Why do you think I drink so much?”

  Try­ing to smooth over Tech’s re­mark, Brent­wood changed the sub­ject. “She must be work­ing hard. You wouldn’t be­lieve what the emer­gency bay looked like after the crash.”

  Tech sighed. “Let’s hope there’s still enough of us left to have a colony.”

  Gemme put her hand on Tech’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Tech. We’ll find a way. As the Match­maker, I know how many people ne­ces­sary to start a gen­er­a­tion, and the Ex­ped­i­tion had twice as many when it took off. We have more than enough people now.”

  Brent­wood’s min­is­creen blinked with an in­com­ing mes­sage. Work al­ways got in the way in times like these. He ges­tured to­ward the tent open­ing. “Let’s al­low Ms. Reiner some rest.”

  “Sure thing, chief.” Tech bowed to Gemme, and then ducked away. Sun­light flashed in and out as the tent flap slapped in the breeze.

  “Are you go­ing to be okay in here?” Brent­wood bent down be­side her. She looked up at him with her thin lips slightly par­ted.

  “I’ll be fine. Thanks for sav­ing me.”

  The sud­den urge to kiss her over­whelmed him and he swal­lowed his pas­sion, feel­ing vul­ner­able and stu­pid. He’d trained for his en­tire life for such a mis­sion, and this was the time to prove him­self. He couldn’t let a wo­man get in the way, no mat­ter how beau­ti­ful, brave, and in­tel­li­gent she was.

  How would he ever be paired with any­one after this? To think she’d be the one to do it, to make him marry someone that wasn’t her. Brent­wood couldn’t stand the thought of it. The very nature of her job stuck him in the ribs like an un­com­fort­able pain in his side.

  “Not a prob­lem.” Pulling away, he grabbed his min­is­creen and ducked out be­fore his emo­tions got the bet­ter of him. The bright­ness of the sun­lit snow brought him back to real­ity, and he squin­ted, try­ing to ad­just.

  Luna slumped over a sample tray, us­ing a syr­inge to ap­ply chem­ic­als to the gel and Tech loaded the heavy equip­ment in the landrover. Brent­wood chose a spot where he could read the mes­sage in private. The fa­mil­iar icon of the Seers flashed on the screen; a ret­ina with the hull of the Ex­ped­i­tion at its cen­ter.

  Jeez, what do they want now? A status re­port?

  He had noth­ing. A strange tentacled beast, snow, and more snow. What would he tell them?

  Brent­wood scrolled down to the mes­sage and pressed the Enter key.

  Al­tern­ate mis­sion ob­ject­ive.

  Squint­ing from the glare of the sun, he read fur­ther.

  Loc­ate and re­trieve a bio­lo­gical an­om­aly with the fol­low­ing spe­cific­a­tions:

  Col­la­gen forty-five point three per­cent. Pro­tein twenty-one point seven per­cent…

  The list rambled on, de­scrib­ing no spe­cies Brent­wood had ever learned about in his classes. He shook his head at all the gib­ber­ish. What did this have to do with his mis­sion or their sur­vival on the Ex­ped­i­tion? He scrolled down.

  Spe­ci­men loc­a­tion at 90 de­grees north lat­it­ude. Brent­wood checked the co­ordin­ates of their first mis­sion. The spe­ci­men res­ted less than a hun­dred meters from the min­eral de­posit. In­trigued, Brent­wood scrolled down.

  See at­tached pic­ture of cor­res­pond­ing orb.

  The strange, mys­tical ball in the Seers’ con­trol cham­ber eyed him haunt­ingly from his own min­is­creen. Even now, the cos­mic swirls and star­bursts chanted his name. A voice called to him. “Miles, come home.”

  He blinked and rubbed his eyes. Too much sun and not enough hy­dra­tion. He must be hal­lu­cin­at­ing. He cracked open a wa­ter bottle and con­tin­ued read­ing, wip­ing sweat from his brow des­pite the fri­gid tem­per­at­ures.

  Status of mis­sion is pri­or­ity one. Top secret. In­quire with Luna Leg­acy con­cern­ing the nature of the beacon: code Beta Prime. All other crew mem­bers must be kept ig­nor­ant.

  Ig­nor­ant? How would he keep an al­tern­ate mis­sion from the rest of his crew? Brent­wood itched with frus­tra­tion. Did Luna know about this mis­sion all along? He slammed down his min­is­creen and walked over to the blonde beauty as she packed up her trays.

  “Hey there, Lieu­ten­ant. Come to check on me?”

  Brent­wood kept his voice at a whis­per. “What do you know about the ‘orb’?”

  “What orb?” She clicked down the lid of the tray and gave him a wink.

  “Code Beta Prime. The Seers have me in the loop.”

  “I see.” She stuck the trays into a sup­ply con­tainer. “Let’s talk a walk, shall we?”

  “Please.”

  The way her arm linked around his re­minded him of a climb­ing vine of ivy in the biod­ome. Her grip tightened around his fore­arm like she lured him into a trap. She pulled him to­ward the back of camp, where the wind howled around them, blow­ing tips of snow­drifts in tor­na­dos over their heads. He kicked the snow un­til he brought feel­ing back into his toes.

  “The second gen­er­a­tion of Lifers on the Ex­ped­i­tion found the orb at­tached to the ship while nav­ig­at­ing near the galaxy of a sun-like star called beta CVn in the con­stel­la­tion Canes Ven­at­ici. The device, partly metal­lic and partly bio­lo­gical life, at­tached tendrils to the ship. They think the mag­netic pulse of the Ex­ped­i­tion’s en­ergy cores drew it in. Sci­ent­ists and bio­lo­gists stud­ied it for years, mes­mer­ized by the golden swirls, but only the Seers truly un­der­stood it, mak­ing con­nec­tions none of us hu­mans would un­der­stand.”

  He real­ized he leaned in too close, his face only inche
s from her red lips. But he couldn’t pull away now. “Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

  A stray wisp of blonde hair blew between them, tick­ling his fore­head and she tucked it away be­hind her ear. “Why would I? It’s con­sidered a dead case, an old wives’ tale. No one’s talked about for gen­er­a­tions.”

  Brent­wood stud­ied her eyes, cold as the wa­ter that al­most swal­lowed Gemme. No de­cep­tion lay in the depths, only con­fu­sion. If the Seers trus­ted her, than he had to lend her his trust as well. “The Seers just gave me a new mis­sion. Ap­par­ently, this orb is pick­ing up en­ergy im­pulses from a beacon on this planet, a mere two hun­dred meters from the min­eral de­posit.”

  Luna’s del­ic­ate blonde brow rose so high, wrinkles formed on her pristine fore­head. “No way.”

  “Yes. And they want us to find it. Just the two of us. No one else in­volved.”

  She smiled like he asked her to be his second-in-com­mand, or even his lifemate. Brent­wood squashed the thought.

  “I un­der­stand.” She poin­ted a fin­ger into his chest and twis­ted it against his col­lar­bone. “Your secret is safe with me.”

  Brent­wood didn’t like this pair­ing as much as he didn’t like the Seers, but he had no other choice. He longed to get back to camp and check on Gemme. Had she woken up? Did she won­der where he was?

  Luna eyed him ex­pect­antly as if she guessed who his thoughts drif­ted to. Brent­wood pulled his eyes away from the dir­ec­tion of camp. “That’s it for now. Pack your things. We’ve leav­ing in an hour.”

  “Yes, sir.” Luna dis­lodged her arm. “Let me know when our next secret meet­ing is. I’ll be look­ing for­ward to it.”

  The eager­ness in her voice made him squirm with un­ease. He watched her like someone watch­ing a tick­ing time bomb as she strode back to camp, her hips sway­ing with each step. What had he stumbled into? A secret alien pro­ject? De­cep­tion of his crew? A des­cend­ant of the Leg­acys breath­ing down his neck? Brent­wood rubbed his face with his gloved hand, feel­ing like Tun­dra 37 lumbered way over his head.

  Biggest mis­sion of your life: Day 2.

  Chapter Twelve

  Spy

  Vira stared into the sor­cerer’s deep vi­olet eyes. Rizzy’s ripped poster hung across their room, a large gash run­ning from his shoulder to his staff. She listened as her sis­ter’s breath­ing changed from short bursts to the long in­takes of deep sleep. The wires power­ing their fam­ily cell lurked be­hind those in­tense eyes, sur­ging with stolen en­ergy she’d dir­ec­ted all by her­self.

  Plop­ping out of her sleep pod, she squirmed her way across their bed­room floor. Rizzy’s day-old jump­suit tangled in her legs, and she stopped to pull it off. She wiped her hand on the car­pet, be­cause who knew where Daryl’s germs touched, be­fore pulling her­self for­ward.

  The chrome stood above her like a portal to an­other land, a place of im­pulses and charges, a place where she could travel without the means of her un­der­developed legs. She put a hot hand to the chrome, her fin­gers mak­ing mist on the per­fect, sil­ver sur­face. The wires coiled just where she’d left them that morn­ing, and she reached out with her mind, chan­nel­ing her en­ergy to con­nect with the charges within.

  It took only mo­ments to re­dir­ect the stream. She heard the vent­il­at­ors sput­ter out and peeked over her shoulder, mak­ing sure the ab­sence of their hum didn’t wake Rizzy. Her sis­ter’s pod re­gistered deep sleep mode. She was safe from de­tec­tion. Her mom would be angry in the morn­ing when the air smelled stale, but maybe the Seers would have the en­ergy re­dir­ec­ted to their fam­ily room soon.

  Vira pulled her hand away from the chrome and squiggled her way back, yearn­ing for the warmth of her sleep pod. She stopped halfway, cling­ing to the car­pet fibers. Could she find out what was wrong with the ship? What if she could help?

  She scur­ried back to the chrome and placed her hand in the same spot. The metal still em­an­ated heat un­der­neath her skin. She con­nec­ted to the ship, scan­ning status charts. Life sup­port sys­tems func­tioned at fifty-five per­cent, biod­ome hu­mid­ity levels were nor­mal, and growth rates were slow but steady. The en­ergy ca­pa­cit­ors were low.

  An­other pres­ence gripped her like someone wrap­ping their fin­gers around her neck. Vira stiffened at the men­tal touch and gasped, hold­ing her breath. She felt ex­posed, as if she lay na­ked on the con­greg­a­tion floor for every­one to gawk. But this scru­tiny was far worse. Her every thought lay on dis­play: her an­ger with Rizzy for sneak­ing out late at night, her love for pea­nuts, her over­pro­tect­ive streak for her mother. Everything.

  The pres­ence ana­lyzed her like a spe­ci­men in a jar, prob­ing every fold of her brain, pok­ing in every weak spot in her heart. Please. Let me go.

  This pres­ence had no com­pas­sion, no sym­pathy. It moved as if des­per­ate, search­ing for an­swers Vira didn’t have. Claw­ing at her weak­nesses, it spread through­out her body like a dis­ease. One thought con­sumed it above all else: a pulsing orb Vira had never seen.

  Like a mini uni­verse, the globe swirled with activ­ity, alive. It smelled of roses, ocean surf, horse­hides, and other im­possible things that only ex­is­ted back on Old Earth. Vira wanted to plunge into its golden depths and ex­plore, but the orb’s cap­ab­il­it­ies could not ex­ceed the cir­cum­fer­ence of its curving world. Just as the orb dis­ap­poin­ted her, it hin­ted at a much lar­ger ob­ject very near. She wanted to find the lar­ger ob­ject, but the im­pulses were too faint to track down. As much as the orb and the ob­ject it hin­ted at con­fused her, Vira em­braced it and the pres­ence weakened, loosen­ing its hold.

  That’s it, think of the orb.

  She filled her mind with it, fol­low­ing the cos­mic pat­terns as tiny galax­ies came and went and stars died in su­per­nova, only to be re­born in the crux of a black hole. None of it made sense, but hold­ing onto those eph­em­eral im­ages al­lowed the pres­ence solace enough to re­lease her.

  Vira snapped her hand away from the wall and fell, pant­ing, onto the floor. She squeaked as feel­ing jol­ted through her numb fin­gers in a thou­sand prickly pins.

  The lid of Rizzy’s sleep pod rose and her sis­ter’s head poked out like a turtle in a shell. She rubbed her eyes and fo­cused on Vira hud­dling on the floor of their room. Vira gasped, wish­ing she could be­come in­vis­ible. What would Rizzy think if she knew she spied on the ship? If she found out about her freak­ish powers?

  Rizzy’s face screwed up, sour as a rot­ten to­mato. “Are you try­ing to rip my poster down again?”

  “No.” Her voice came out weak from re­lief.

  “Yeah, right. I could call Mom and Dad right here on the in­ter­com and then they’d catch you red-handed. I know you tore it down in the first place. I know it!”

  Vira cringed, hid­ing her face in the car­pet. It reeked like Rizzy’s old socks.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, right you are. I know you hate it.”

  “He’s creepy.”

  “He has ma­gical powers. You wouldn’t get it.”

  Vira bit her lip. She got it all right, more than she wanted to.

  “Be­sides, it’s an an­tique, passed down from our an­cest­ors.”

  Rizzy jumped out of her sleep pod and crossed her arms. Vira tried to move to the kit­chen to avoid her, but her powers had sucked all her en­ergy, and she fell on her side into the car­pet.

  She ex­pec­ted Rizzy to smack on her head with her pil­low, but her sis­ter’s arms came un­der her, pulling her up. Her voice softened. “Come on. I can’t have you freez­ing out­side your sleep pod. It’s like neg­at­ive one in here.”

  Vira hated how her dis­ab­il­ity un­armed the people around her, mak­ing them feel noth­ing but sym­pathy and pity. Some­times, she’d rather have the pil­low smack her on the head like a reg­u­lar sis­ter fight. “You’re not go
­ing to hit me?”

  “No. But don’t do it again.”

  “I won’t.”

  Rizzy ten­derly laid Vira back in her sleep pod. She pressed the keypad and muttered, “Nighty night.” But Vira’s mind still raced with thoughts of the pres­ence she’d met. Was there a mind to the ma­chine be­hind the Ex­ped­i­tion?

  Im­possible. The Seers would have de­tec­ted it. Be­sides, this pres­ence lurked bey­ond the main­frame. Each im­pulse res­on­ated from one source: a real body be­hind the con­scious­ness, frantic and weak. She clutched her stom­ach as the lid of the sleep pod closed. She used to feel safe within its bubble-shaped dome, and now even the dark­ness in­side seemed threat­en­ing.

  One of the Seers them­selves caught her.

  Vira had al­ways be­lieved the Seers watched over them with the best in­ten­tions for all the Lifers. She held onto that thought late at night when she wor­ried about the black­ness of space around her and how they all re­lied on a ship built hun­dreds of years ago. At least the Seers hovered at the helm, mak­ing sure noth­ing bad would ever hap­pen. Vira clutched her pil­low in her hands, squeez­ing the fab­ric into clumps. The Ex­ped­i­tion sud­denly be­came a more men­acing place and even the lid of her fa­mil­iar sleep pod pressed down on her in the black­ness.

  She’d seen into this Seer’s heart; she’d seen her motives, iden­ti­fied her own fears and tri­umphs, just as the Seer ex­amined her. She had a name: Abysme. She was a per­son, just like her­self, with wants and needs, pri­or­it­ies and pre­ju­dices, strengths and weak­nesses. Un­der­neath all her Guide-driven ob­ject­ives, this Seer just looked out for her­self.

  Mestasis yearned for the numb­ness of sleep. Etern­ally con­nec­ted to the main­frame, her thoughts moved at light speed through­out the Ex­ped­i­tion, never ceas­ing. Each pulse stuck her brain like a pin­prick, and with too many holes her mind would turn to mush. Only when the ship ter­min­ated would her thoughts be her own again, and she’d be free to rest and, fi­nally, to die.

 

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