Tundra 37

Tundra 37 Page 12

by Aubrie Dionne

  Push­ing away her per­sonal con­cerns, she re­turned to the sys­tem ana­lysis. The ship sucked en­ergy like a vor­tex, drain­ing the re­main­ing ca­pa­cit­ors at an alarm­ing rate. She reg­u­lated the tem­per­at­ure down two de­grees and dimmed the ul­tra­vi­olet lights in the biod­ome.

  The Ex­ped­i­tion needed an al­tern­at­ive fuel source quickly to main­tain their cur­rent liv­ing con­di­tions. She checked on the status of Al­pha Blue. Halfway to their tar­get goal and driv­ing the only work­ing landrover, they provided a de­cent amount of hope shaded with worry. At least they’d sur­vived the ini­tial ex­pos­ure. People on Old Earth spent years in arc­tic con­di­tions, even set­ting up homes on the poles, but Mestasis didn’t know if the chil­dren of the Ex­ped­i­tion were as hardy after a life­time of light grav­ity and reg­u­lated con­di­tions. Peer­ing deep into their com­mu­nic­a­tions, an an­om­aly caught her at­ten­tion. She opened her eye and turned her head to her sis­ter.

  Bysme, why did you change Al­pha Blue’s mis­sion ob­ject­ive?

  Abysme hung tangled in the wires, re­mind­ing Mestasis of the dead pi­geons caught in Old Earth’s nets. She used to curse the rich who hung the con­trap­tions between build­ings to keep them from fly­ing into the hov­er­craft en­gines. She’d climb the es­cape lad­ders out­side the build­ings, risk­ing her life to pick the birds out. By the time her nimble hands threaded their bod­ies free, most of them were already dead.

  Bysme?

  Her sis­ter’s reti­cence had con­tin­ued since the land­ing and Mestasis wondered if a part of her had given up. Abysme’s com­mu­nic­a­tion with Al­pha Blue sur­prised her, send­ing jolts of op­tim­ism through her veins. At least her sis­ter cared enough to check on the ex­plor­a­tion team. But the il­lo­gical nature of the mes­sage con­cerned her. Why would her sis­ter put any goal above ob­tain­ing an al­tern­ate en­ergy source? On top of that, Abysme had given the ir­ra­tional or­der without con­sult­ing her, thereby de­fy­ing the Guide.

  Bysme?

  Her si­lence re­minded Mestasis of when the main­frame froze due to in­form­a­tion over­load. She waited, each second pulling at her nerves.

  Bysme’s fore­head wrinkled. The beacon points dir­ectly to a match­ing device. Iden­ti­fic­a­tion must be made to en­sure safety of crew.

  Mestasis thought upon her sis­ter’s re­sponse. It was a phe­nom­enal co­in­cid­ence the planet they landed on had a match­ing alien ar­ti­fact to the one on their con­trol deck. She cal­cu­lated the odds with an as­ton­ish­ing con­clu­sion, mak­ing her all the more un­easy.

  Yes, but we need en­ergy. Al­pha Blue’s mis­sion can­not be com­prom­ised.

  Bysme’s head jerked, wires twitch­ing. Neg­at­ive. Nature of ob­ject must be re­vealed be­fore any col­on­iz­a­tion ef­forts are se­cured.

  Mestasis paused. They’d never ar­gued about mis­sion ob­ject­ives in the past. But then again, the Guide had set their course in a straight line from Old Earth to Para­dise 18. The comets had forced them to break all the rules, and the lines of right and wrong had blurred.

  For the thou­sandth time, Mestasis con­tem­plated the threat level of the alien ar­ti­fact. The orb il­lu­min­ated the corner of their con­trol cham­ber, bathing their tor­sos in mys­tical light. She’d never liked it, and her gut in­stinct had kept her close enough to keep her eye on the spark­ling sur­face, but far enough to form a bar­rier, block­ing its en­tice­ment. Abysme had taken con­trol of mon­it­or­ing the orb, and she hadn’t men­tioned it in a long time, un­til after they’d landed, un­til she thought it was gone.

  Mestasis’s mind prod­ded the wires con­nect­ing to the orb, trav­el­ing the path she’d long feared. She had to learn the nature of what lurked in its misty depths. Her mind crawled to­ward it, climb­ing the tendrils it had thrust into the con­trol room floor. The pres­ence of the light loomed like a quasar in her sub­con­scious, its rays reach­ing to en­gulf her. Fear crossed her heart in a slash and she fought against it. She forced her mind open, al­low­ing the warmth in.

  §

  Her hand reached out, fin­gers wig­gling, all five of them, healthy and pink with heat. They moved in the air, drag­ging swirls of dust through a patch of sun­light. The golden swirls dis­persed and she en­twined her fin­gers in ring­lets of dark hair, loosen­ing knots, smooth­ing, and braid­ing into three thick strands. Eu­phoria bubbled through her as she moved again, feel­ing the world bey­ond her fin­ger­tips. Mestasis smelled the fa­mil­iar scent of burnt plastic from the re­cyc­ling fact­ory ming­ling with a whiff of cheap, syn­thetic peach per­fume. A lul­laby drif­ted to her ears, sung in the alto voice, calm­ing her like no one else ever could.

  The stars are too many to count.

  The stars make sixes and sev­ens.

  The stars tell noth­ing—

  And everything.

  The stars look scattered.

  Stars are so far away

  They never speak when spoken to.

  Re­gret panged in her gut, fol­lowed by a deep wave of mel­an­choly and the urge to set things right. Mestasis ached to ex­ist in the cos­mic swirls forever, to for­get her frag­men­ted body and her cold ex­ist­ence at­tached to a com­puter main­frame. Just as she clung to the memory, her ima­gin­ary fin­gers slipped, and the fab­ric of light, air, and touch dis­solved. The vis­ion faltered, the orb only strong enough to hint at the world it held in­side.

  §

  She pulled her­self away, tear­ing her heart in the pro­cess, leav­ing a primary com­pon­ent of her­self be­hind. The cold ship came back, reg­u­lated air blow­ing on her torso, wires plunging into her limbs. But Mestasis would never be the same.

  The orb held a memory of her mother.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ice

  Gemme smoothed her fin­gers over Brent­wood’s sleep co­coon. The thermal fab­ric smelled like his minty af­ter­shave mingled with a husky, manly tinge. Curi­os­ity over­whelmed her. She bur­ied her face into the fab­ric and thought about the warmth of his arms.

  Emo­tions swirled through her in a bliz­zard. The more she tried to squelch them, the more they raged in­side her, and she be­came more ob­sessed with him than ever. These feel­ings were no simple equa­tions to fig­ure out or string of num­bers to ana­lyze. They made no lo­gical sense, and that scared her more than any tentacled beast or ice planet. She wanted to dash as far away from him as pos­sible un­til she re­gained her ra­tional mind, but she also ached to rush into his arms and kiss the strong angles of his face.

  Tech had placed her boots and coat on a con­tainer by the tent flap. An hour had passed since they’d left her, and she needed to stand up and do some­thing. Her feet tingled with feel­ing and some sore­ness. She reached out for her boots and slipped them on, rel­ish­ing the way the fur in­side nestled her toes. Thank­fully the beast hadn’t stolen them as well. She didn’t know what she’d do without her min­is­creen, and she’d miss the pic­ture of her and Fer­ris. But, thanks to Brent­wood, she was alive and not some frozen chunk of ice on the ocean floor.

  Gemme emerged from the tent into the brisk wind. The rest of Al­pha Blue had already packed most of camp. The rem­nants of their fire melted a crater into the ice, and foot­prints littered the site like twist­ing foot­paths to nowhere. Tech stood next to the landrover se­cur­ing the cables around the min­ing rig. Where was Brent­wood?

  “Ms. Reiner, you’re up! Feel­ing bet­ter?” He didn’t even call her a name this time, which meant his con­cern out­weighed his sar­casm. Gemme would have ap­pre­ci­ated his kind­ness more if she hadn’t felt as though she had missed some­thing.

  She scanned the camp. With the two re­main­ing tents flut­ter­ing in the wind, it seemed so aban­doned and empty. She walked up to Tech. “Where’s the Lieu­ten­ant?”

  His eye­brows rose. “I saw him go over that snow mound with Luna.�
��

  “Oh.” Her chest tightened. What could they pos­sibly have to talk about again? The snow samples? Or was she still com­plain­ing about the Seers’ choices? Why did they choose such a se­cluded spot? Part of her wanted to climb the snow to spy, and part of her was too dis­gus­ted to care.

  She tried to re­main lo­gical and con­ceal her dis­ap­point­ment. “Thanks, Tech.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be back soon. If you want me to get him—”

  “No, no, no.” To have Tech in­ter­rupt their private meet­ing just be­cause she wanted to know where he was would be mo­ment­ously em­bar­rass­ing. She waved him back. “I have to pack up any­ways.”

  “Okey dokers. Let me know if you need any help.”

  “Thanks.”

  She dragged her feet to her own col­lapsed tent. Goop con­gealed in icicles on the fab­ric and her pos­ses­sions lay scattered in the snow. Slip­ping on a sheet of black ice, she cursed, won­der­ing if she’d ever get used to walk­ing on sur­faces that weren’t made out of plastic and chrome. She found her back­pack un­der a sec­tion of tent and knelt on the ice, pulling her life back to­gether. She kept think­ing of how Brent­wood had saved her. Did he merely per­form his job, keep­ing the team safe, or did he act out of a deeper con­cern?

  Try­ing to re­main lo­gical, Gemme waved the res­cue off. She should fo­cus on con­tinu­ing the mis­sion. Fer­ris and her par­ents coun­ted on her to find the min­eral source, and that’s what she’d do. Any­thing else dis­trac­ted her from that cause.

  As much as she tried to con­vince her­self not to, Gemme stole glances at the snow­drift. Time seemed to drag on and their pro­longed ab­sence stirred up bit­ter­ness. As she zipped up the top of her back­pack, Luna cres­ted the ridge with a flushed face and wind­blown hair, look­ing like she’d just won the Lieu­ten­ant’s heart.

  “My good­ness, Gemme, darling. You’ve slept a good a part of the morn­ing away. I hope you’ve re­covered from your near-death ex­per­i­ence.”

  The de­ri­sion in her voice made it sound as though Gemme had ex­ag­ger­ated the whole thing. Kick­ing her tent peg out of the snow, Gemme replied, “I didn’t see you chas­ing it.”

  “I’d been run­ning all morn­ing.”

  “Run­ning where?” Gemme scanned the mono­ton­ous mounds of snow.

  Luna gave her a de­fens­ive glare. “For samples, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  Gemme kicked an­other peg, send­ing the metal rod skim­ming over the ice. She wished there was a whole line of them to take out her frus­tra­tion on. Her gaze be­trayed her, scan­ning the top of the snow­drift again. Luna caught her star­ing.

  “I sure the Lieu­ten­ant will be back to camp soon, dear.” She pulled down the hem of her jump­suit so the fab­ric squeezed her curves. “We had im­port­ant mat­ters to dis­cuss.”

  Like what? How to avoid do­ing ac­tual work? Gemme wanted to ask but knew bet­ter than to pro­voke her. She fo­cused her en­ergy on fold­ing her goop-coated tent.

  “Ms. Reiner, you’re up and walk­ing!”

  Gemme turned as Brent­wood slid down the hill. He seemed thrown off by some­thing, a faraway look haunt­ing his eyes. She wondered what he and Luna had dis­cussed. An il­lo­gical cur­rent of an­ger rose in­side her and she crushed it down. What he did with his free time shouldn’t con­cern her. They were on the same team, noth­ing more.

  Gemme watched him closely as he ap­proached, try­ing to spy any feel­ings he had for Luna in his bright eyes.

  “Are you okay?” His voice soun­ded too fa­mil­iar as his brow rose with con­cern. Brent­wood’s pres­ence ripped a vul­ner­able hole in her heart and she pre­ten­ded to be more in­ter­ested in stuff­ing the tent into a hold­ing bag.

  “I’m fine.”

  All that time she waited for Brent­wood to show up, and now she wished he’d dis­ap­pear. Gemme couldn’t trust her emo­tions. They changed every minute, fickle as the wind. Right now his over­pro­tect­ive­ness made her feel like his help­less little sis­ter. She could take care of her­self. She was an in­de­pend­ent, smart, pro­fes­sional wo­man. She re­fused to let her feel­ings for him get in the way, or let this mis­sion in­tim­id­ate her, no mat­ter how much it fell out of her ex­pert­ise.

  As her thoughts heated up, she struggled to jam the fab­ric in with blistery, red fin­gers. Brent­wood took up the other end and the length of the tent slid into place.

  “How are your feet?”

  She wiggled her toes in her boots. Thanks to him she still had toes, but she was too frus­trated with him to ac­know­ledge it. “They’re swollen, but they’re not fall­ing off.”

  “Good.”

  She zipped up one side of the tent bag as he zipped the other. Their fin­gers met in the middle and his hand brushed against hers.

  “Sorry.” He smiled, not look­ing sorry at all.

  Gemme’s heart thud­ded like a heavy drum in her chest. The snow moved un­der­neath her feet, and she wondered how the mea­ger beat of her heart could cause such a dis­turb­ance. The pound­ing grew louder, re­ver­ber­at­ing deep in­side her gut, and she real­ized it came from the snowy hills be­hind them. She whirled around with Brent­wood, scan­ning the ho­ri­zon.

  “What is it?”

  His hand still res­ted on hers and he squeezed, warm­ing her fin­gers. “I don’t know, but it can’t be good.”

  Shapes dot­ted the ho­ri­zon, first a few, and then a whole army. The urge to move bubbled up in­side her, but she froze, watch­ing the shapes grow lar­ger with a mor­bid curi­os­ity as the rum­bling grew louder.

  “It’s more of them!” Luna shouted, back­ing up to her tent. Gemme wondered which “them” she re­ferred to be­fore re­cog­niz­ing the now fa­mil­iar hide of tentacles as the first one ap­proached.

  She turned to Brent­wood. “What should we do?”

  “Take cover!” he shouted over to Tech and Luna. Tech jumped into the landrover, and Luna ducked in­side her tent.

  Gemme looked down at her fol­ded tent. They didn’t have enough time to re­con­struct it, and she wasn’t sure it would de­ter the beasts any­ways. She turned to run to­ward the landrover just as the first wave of beasts stomped through camp. As first, she thought they’d eat them alive, but as the beasts passed, it seemed they were more in­ter­ested in es­cape.

  The flow of hides ed­died around the two re­main­ing tents and the landrover, block­ing them from shel­ter. Their jaws clacked as they ran, as if to scare away any­thing in their path.

  “There’s nowhere to go.” Panic rippled out to Gemme’s limbs, her fin­gers shak­ing. She felt na­ked, vul­ner­able, her body fra­gile com­pared to their sheer num­bers and mass of writh­ing ap­pend­ages. Brent­wood threw his arms around her and pulled her close.

  “Hold on. Don’t move.”

  To­gether they stood against the horde. Tentacles brushed her back and arms, and Gemme held on tightly, wrap­ping her arms around Brent­wood’s torso. She’d faced the end of the world be­fore with Brent­wood by her side, and she’d do it again. Won­der­ing how fate al­ways threw them to­gether, Gemme closed her eyes and held on.

  At least Tech made it to the landrover. At least someone will con­tinue on to­ward the hy­perthium.

  She tried not to think about how it would feel to be trampled by hun­dreds of paws. Whirr­ing cries droned around them. The beasts plunged ahead and she wondered what they were run­ning from.

  The mass passed them quickly, leav­ing only a few weaker strag­glers scram­bling through camp. Re­lief weakened her knees as Gemme real­ized they’d made it through. She looked up at Brent­wood, but he was fo­cused on the rest of the team.

  “Ms. Leg­acy, are you all right?”

  Her tent stood with three pegs loose, the fab­ric on the verge of col­lapse. No mat­ter how much the bio­lo­gist ir­rit­ated Gemme, dread stabbed her in the gut with the though
t of Luna hurt. Even though she fan­tas­ized about Luna prick­ing her fin­ger to stay be­hind and hav­ing tentacles poke through her lush golden hair, Gemme real­ized the value of every life on the Ex­ped­i­tion, in­clud­ing Luna’s. They couldn’t af­ford to lose any­one, not one strand of DNA, es­pe­cially wo­men of re­pro­duct­ive age. Of all people, she—the former Match­maker—should know.

  Brent­wood re­leased Gemme and sped to­ward the tent. Shock ran through her body as she watched and waited, smooth­ing over the places where the tentacles brushed her arms. Ap­pre­hen­sion twittered in­side her like the wings of a hun­dred moths bat­ting against the lights in the biod­ome.

  Brent­wood threw him­self down by the tent’s open­ing, shout­ing Luna’s name. As he fumbled with the zip­per, the back flap popped open. Luna crawled out, eyes glazed over.

  “She’s here!” Gemme shouted at him, plunging for­ward into the snow. “She’s all right.”

  Gemme offered her arm and Luna latched on, fin­gers shak­ing. As she pulled her up, Brent­wood joined them. He reached out to Luna, but when he saw Gemme hold­ing her, he with­drew his arm. “Ms. Leg­acy, are you all right?”

  “Fine as any­one would be after get­ting trampled by sticky ele­phant jelly­fish.”

  He laughed and Gemme wondered if she saw more con­cern in his eyes for Luna than he he’d had for her. Maybe she ima­gined the ex­tra sparkle or the quirk of his lips, or maybe he really did have feel­ings for her.

  A primal roar echoed over the hin­ter­land, awaken­ing a fear in Gemme that felt like cen­tur­ies in the mak­ing, when the very first hu­mans roamed pre­his­toric Earth. Her head jerked up, ad­ren­aline cours­ing through her veins.

  Luna’s head snapped up, “What’s that?”

  Gemme huffed, still steam­ing from her thoughts. “You’re the bio­lo­gist.”

  “Some­thing must have pro­voked their ex­odus.” As Brent­wood spoke, Gemme real­ized she didn’t want to know who or what it was.

 

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