Tundra 37

by Aubrie Dionne

  A loom sat in the far corner dis­play­ing a half-done purple blanket threaded with yarn. Gemme ran her hands over the fab­ric, won­der­ing if she’d done this, and what it was for. Her fin­gers paused over the un­done weave work. On her left hand, third fin­ger, she wore a thin band of gold. A wed­ding band.

  A horse whin­nied from out­side and Gemme stumbled to the door. Dark clouds had brought rain, and it pel­ted down, mist­ing the ho­ri­zon. A fig­ure rid­ing a spot­ted horse gal­loped through the meadow, cut­ting a line in the par­ted grass. She re­cog­nized the broad shoulders and the way his head tilted down just a bit. Ex­cite­ment shot through her.

  Yank­ing back on the reins, Brent­wood pulled the horse up be­side the porch. Gemme threw her­self down the stairs. The sky opened up and rain poured, cool­ing her fore­head. She tore off her bon­net and the wa­ter trickled down the sides of her cheeks.

  He dis­moun­ted and walked to­ward her, and she ran to his arms and nuzzled against him.

  “Isn’t this won­der­ful?” He spoke into her ear as he held her. “Our own little para­dise.”

  Gemme gazed up at him. “How many of our life­times have we been to­gether?”

  His face was stead­fast and sure. “All of them.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I can feel it.”

  A con­nec­tion that las­ted past the grave, a love that las­ted forever. And she had it. Gemme gazed up, watch­ing the rain­drops fall on his mouth. Her cheeks flamed with his prox­im­ity and her de­sire. Brent­wood must have seen it, be­cause his eyes held such long­ing, such in­tens­ity. He leaned down and pressed his lips against hers. She tasted cool rain on his mouth and pushed into him, want­ing more.

  “Wait.” He pulled back, gasp­ing for breath. “Not now.”

  She moved her hand up his chest, feel­ing lean muscle. “Why? I have a warm fire go­ing in the cabin and hot stew.”

  “Sounds de­li­cious.” He smiled and she wondered if he even thought of the soup. “But we can’t.”

  Her heart tore with need. “What do you mean? There’s no one here for kilo­met­ers around. It’s just us.”

  “The Ex­ped­i­tion. They need us.”

  A flash of bright snow and bone-chilling air seared her memory. Why would she want to go back there? “Can’t we stay just a little while?”

  “No, Gemme.” Brent­wood pulled away from her. “If we stay, we’ll never leave. At least I know I won’t.”

  Real­iz­a­tion flooded her sys­tem and this place no longer felt like home. “That’s what the chest wants, isn’t it?” She bit her lip. “It wants to keep us here, but why?”

  “Who knows? I don’t want to stay around to find out.” Brent­wood chal­lenged the sky. “We want out.” As if in an­swer, an­other streak of light­ning webbed out in all dir­ec­tions, spread­ing through the sky and van­ish­ing in a second. This time the rum­bling came much sooner.

  Golden swirls spread through the sky. Gemme tugged on his arm, sud­denly anxious. “The storm is get­ting closer. We have to go in­side.”

  “That’s what it wants.” He closed his eyes and held her close.

  She bur­ied her face in his chest, the winds pick­ing up speed around them, whip­ping her hair. “How are we go­ing to find our way out?”

  “The chest is only so big. We’re prob­ably still stand­ing in the same place right now while our minds travel. It’s an il­lu­sion. It’s not real.” He put his hand on the back of her head. “Close your eyes, Gemme. Think about Tun­dra 37, think about your brother and the oth­ers on the Ex­ped­i­tion.”

  She did as he said, ima­gin­ing Fer­ris, not as a teen study­ing for his math exam, but as a full-grown young man in the present. She thought of her par­ents, per­form­ing their jobs in a crashed ship that would never fly again. They needed her. She had to go back.

  §

  The at­mo­sphere changed from hot and hu­mid to fri­gid and dry. Icy air wrapped around her and she peeled open her eyes. She stood in the chest with Brent­wood, solid crys­tal be­neath their feet. They stepped out to­gether onto the snow. Brent­wood re­trieved the lid and slipped it on. The cos­mic swirls ed­died around it, then dis­persed.

  “Why would the Seers want it?” Brent­wood said, dis­gus­ted.

  Gemme shrugged. “Maybe they want to study it, pro­tect us from whatever it is? Maybe they don’t know what it does.”

  “Or maybe they do.”

  She froze, giv­ing him a mean­ing­ful look. He spoke treason. Know­ing Brent­wood, for him to say such a thing would mean he had more to go on than just a hunch. She heard him out.

  “When the ship crashed, the Seers were un­re­spons­ive. I went to check on them.”

  Gemme gasped. “Face-to-face?”

  He nod­ded. “Much closer than I would have liked.”

  He shook his head as if try­ing not to re­mem­ber with too much de­tail. “When I got to the con­trol cham­ber, everything was dam­aged. I found one of them un­con­scious on the floor and plugged her back in. The first thing she asked for was her sis­ter. I didn’t know if the ship could sur­vive without both of them, so I frantic­ally looked for the other one. I found her sis­ter hanging from the ceil­ing, also un­con­scious. After press­ing a res­pir­ator to her face, she woke up ask­ing about the loc­a­tion of the beacon. You’d think she’d ask about the ship’s status, or the num­ber of sur­viv­ors, but no, she’d dis­tinctly ref­er­enced the beacon. Come to think of if, her sis­ter in­ter­rup­ted right after and sent me away, as if she didn’t want me to no­tice her sis­ter’s slip.”

  “You mean the beacon the chest gave off here on Tun­dra 37?”

  His eye­brows rose. “I can’t think of any­thing else.”

  Gemme flicked a glance over at the chest. “But why would such a chest be im­port­ant to them?”

  “Maybe they miss their former lives. I know I’d go crazy hooked up to a ma­chine for three hun­dred years, wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t know.” An­ger hardened in her stom­ach. “They’re sup­posed to put us as pri­or­ity. They’re sup­posed to pro­tect us.”

  Brent­wood nod­ded sadly, “I know. To lose faith in them would be to lose faith in the en­tire sys­tem. This is all spec­u­la­tion. I’m not even sure what to be­lieve. All I know is it’s sus­pi­cious they’d crash land us on a planet that has a cor­res­pond­ing beacon to the orb in their cham­ber.”

  Brent­wood’s voice grew firm. “I say we take the chest back to the Ex­ped­i­tion.”

  “What?” She spread her arms through the air. “Are you out of your mind?”

  Brent­wood shrugged. “Maybe I am. But if we take it back, we’ll know just what they wanted it for. We’ll know who to trust and who’s in it for their own good.”

  “What if they’re both in it for their own good?”

  “Then they’ll get stuck in­side.”

  “But who’s go­ing to run the ship?”

  “We’ll find a way. Do you really want those twins over­see­ing op­er­a­tions if they sac­ri­ficed all those lives for their per­sonal gain?”

  Gemme sighed. “I guess not. No.”

  “Then, are you with me? I could use your help.”

  “I’m al­ways with you.” Gemme stepped to­ward him and reached out for his hand. “Isn’t that what we’ve learned from this?”

  He took her hand in his. “Only if you want to be.”

  She spoke with con­vic­tion. “I do.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Us

  Brent­wood drove like he trans­por­ted haz­ard­ous ma­ter­ial as he care­fully man­euvered the landrover with the chest in­side back to the min­ing site. Every bump and turn he cal­cu­lated care­fully so the lid didn’t open, even a crack. They’d tied it down with rope, but who knew how much it took to hold the powers of the chest back. Even now he felt it’s beck­on­ing like the chest tugged on a string tied to
his gut. Gemme kept glan­cing back over her shoulder, mak­ing him even more un­easy.

  “What’s wrong? Is it mov­ing?”

  She shif­ted in her seat as if she were un­com­fort­able. “No. Shivers keep crawl­ing down my spine. It holds so many an­swers, maybe even an­swers to the mys­ter­ies of the uni­verse, yet I know how much danger is in­volved. I al­most lost my­self in there. I al­most lost you. Even now it calls to me and I have to force my­self to ig­nore it. I don’t think my mind would be able to handle all of the truths it holds.”

  “Me neither. That’s why we shouldn’t leave it alone with the Seers. We’ll make them open it with us present.”

  “How are you go­ing to do that?”

  Brent­wood pat­ted his laser. “If it comes to it, then laser ne­go­ti­ations.”

  Gemme gave him a nervous look. “Like with the mam­moths.”

  Re­gret panged in his chest and he winced. “Hope­fully, this time no one will get hurt.”

  They rode the rest of the way in si­lence. Brent­wood thought of all the pos­sible situ­ations that might play out with the Seers and the chest, and wondered if he could man­age run­ning the ship without them. The sys­tems ne­ces­sary for sur­vival were primar­ily the en­ergy dis­tri­bu­tion and the air vent­il­a­tion. They didn’t need to steer the ship through space any more. How hard could that be?

  Prob­ably harder than he could have guessed. He was never good at com­puters, and elec­trical wir­ing made as much sense to him as the chest. Brent­wood real­ized he gripped the steer­ing wheel too tightly, and re­laxed his fin­gers. Maybe someone like Tech could re­wire the sys­tems. Or maybe he was wrong about the Seers, and they had the crew’s best in­ten­tions in mind.

  The vehicle cres­ted the snow mounds sur­round­ing the val­ley and the min­ing site came into view. Tech had the drill in full force, the equip­ment shin­ing like a new tool in the rays of Sol­aris Prime. The sight gave Brent­wood a small meas­ure of com­fort. At least his first mis­sion had been suc­cess­ful. No mat­ter what happened with the Seers, they’d have more en­ergy to sur­vive.

  Tech jumped off the min­ing rig and ran in their dir­ec­tion when they ap­proached.

  “How much should we tell him?” Brent­wood took in a pon­der­ous breath as he parked the landrover. “I don’t want the old man wor­ry­ing too much.”

  “Someone’s got to know in case the whole situ­ation turns bad.” Gemme placed a stray lock of hair be­hind her ear.

  “Okay, we tell him everything then.”

  Gemme nod­ded. “I think it’s best.”

  When the hatch opened, Tech stood there with an ex­pect­ant look on his face. “Find any­thing good?”

  “We found some­thing, all right.” Brent­wood jumped out, eager to stretch his legs, and Gemme fol­lowed. “But we think it’ll do more harm than good.” They ex­plained to him what had happened, leav­ing out the de­tails of their ro­mance.

  “Does it really show you the past?” Tech leaned in­side to peek at the chest.

  “All the way back into former lives on Old Earth.” Gemme answered. “But I’d be care­ful if I were you. You could get stuck re­liv­ing old memor­ies and for­get about the present. We al­most did.”

  “Don’t worry ’bout me.” Tech inched back from the landrover to join them. His face paled like he’d seen an­other mam­moth horde lurk­ing in the back of the vehicle. “Made too many mis­takes. Hell, I wouldn’t go back to my past if someone paid me with all the wheat beer on the Ex­ped­i­tion.”

  Brent­wood laughed, but he didn’t sound light­hearted. His face turned ser­i­ous. “We think that’s what the Seers want.”

  Tech sobered from his joke quickly and ad­jus­ted his col­lar as if the thought choked him. “You’re go­ing to take it back to them?”

  “That’s the only way we’ll know what they truly want and if they value the crew of the Ex­ped­i­tion more than their memor­ies of the past.”

  Tech pat­ted Brent­wood on the back. “You’ve got a heavy duty, my friend.”

  “Don’t worry about us.” Brent­wood re­as­sured him. “We’ll fig­ure out this chest busi­ness. Just keep min­ing that hy­perthium. You have the most im­port­ant job out of every­one.”

  “Speak­ing of hy­perthium…” Tech poin­ted to two large con­tain­ers be­side the min­ing plat­form. He had a sparkle in his eyes. “I’ve got a ship­ment to take back with you.”

  “Already?”

  “Yessir. Tell them there’s more where that came from. A whole lot more.”

  Brent­wood’s chest warmed with pride. “Ex­cel­lent, Tech.”

  Tech waved off his ac­col­ades. “I was nervous for you all. Couldn’t eat, and you know how much I love to eat. So I figured—keep my­self busy un­til they get back.”

  “Looks like you did more than keep busy.” Brent­wood smiled. “Job well done.”

  They loaded the con­tain­ers in next to the chest. Brent­wood thought the ad­ded weight against the crys­tal would keep it from rolling around in the back. He turned to Tech. “Great job. I’ll send more work­ers your way when I get back.”

  “I could cer­tainly use some help. It would speed up the pro­cess. And my wife, I bet, wants me back soon.” Tech pulled on the end of his beard. “So you guys won’t stay for din­ner?”

  Brent­wood shook his head. “I want to straighten things out and move on. Be­sides, the chem­ists on the Ex­ped­i­tion could start pro­cessing the hy­perthium right away, and we should bring Luna’s body back as soon as pos­sible.”

  Tech ex­ten­ded his hand. “It was an honor work­ing with both of you.”

  Brent­wood shook it first. “You too, Tech.”

  Gemme took his hand next. “Stay warm.”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to melt my beard, now would I?” He gave her a wink be­fore walk­ing back to the drill.

  “What was that all about?” Brent­wood whispered to her as they jumped in the landrover.

  She laughed and rolled her eyes, a play­ful ges­ture he hadn’t see her do be­fore. “An in­side joke.”

  They rode for the re­mainder of the day and into the night un­til their head­lights cut through dark­ness. Without the drill and the min­ing plat­form, they made ex­cel­lent time, and he es­tim­ated they’d reach the Ex­ped­i­tion within the next day.

  Brent­wood parked the vehicle and turned to Gemme. “Shall we make camp for the night?”

  “Sure. I know I don’t want to sleep in the landrover with Luna’s body and that chest.”

  “Okay, I’ll get the tents.” Brent­wood pressed the panel for the hatch.

  “Tents?” Gemme em­phas­ized the plural.

  Brent­wood paused as the hatch opened be­hind him. “What do you mean?”

  “Why do we need two?”

  Brent­wood’s heart sped up. She asked him if they could stay to­gether, in one tent. She’d already hin­ted at it in the memory in front of the log cabin, but that felt like a dis­tant dream now. In fact, they hadn’t ever really kissed in real­ity, only in the chest. Faced with the harsh truth of Tun­dra 37 and the chest, he hadn’t thought of whether or not they’d sleep in the same tent.

  “I thought for reas­ons of pro­pri­ety—”

  “Look around us.” She waved her arm across the sight panel. “There’s no one here for hun­dreds of kilo­met­ers around. What we do is our busi­ness.” She stud­ied the depths of his eyes, her gaze in­tense and warm. “It’s just us.”

  He touched her cheek. “Are you sure?”

  “All my life I’ve been shy; I couldn’t speak up when the Luna pushed me down the re­cyc­ling chute, and I couldn’t tell you we were paired to­gether. Fer­ris had told me be­fore I left there was more to life than num­bers. He was right. I was afraid to come out of my shell, to think out­side the box and take chances. The comet shower, Tun­dra 37, this mis­sion, they all forced me to grow. I’m not shy any­mor
e.”

  Gemme met his gaze. “In other words, yes.”

  Brent­wood real­ized he’d been hold­ing his breath, and he ex­haled. She’d changed so much, but he had as well. “On the Ex­ped­i­tion, I thought I had life figured out.”

  Gemme nod­ded and he smiled when he thought back to his own na­iv­ety. “Then I met you, and it was like someone splashed me with cold wa­ter and woke me up. I was tongue-tied. You made me feel vul­ner­able, and I wanted to know why. After the ship crashed, the Seers as­signed me to Al­pha Blue. When I saw your name on the team, I felt ex­cited, but also scared. I was head­ing into un­known ter­rit­ory, and I feared I’d fail the team and the Ex­ped­i­tion. But most of all, I was afraid I’d fail your ex­pect­a­tions.”

  “You didn’t.” Gemme as­sured him, tak­ing his hand. “You ex­ceeded them.”

  Brent­wood wondered how he could de­serve such a mar­velous wo­man. “Life can change in an in­stant. I saw that with the ship and with Luna, and it shook me up. But you calm me. You give me fo­cus. It’s the bonds we’ve built with each other that hold us to­gether when things get rough.”

  He rubbed the palm of her hand with his fin­gers, heat rising in­side him. “Our bond is so strong, it’s las­ted over cen­tur­ies. That’s why you threw me off when I met you. Part of me knew we were destined to be to­gether. I want you too, Gemme.”

  He leaned in and kissed her ten­derly. Her lips softened against his, and she pushed into him, de­mand­ing more. He re­spon­ded, his hands trav­el­ing across her shoulders to her neck. This time she pulled back, gasp­ing for air. She spoke, al­most breath­less. “So let’s go set up that tent.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Temptation

  Bysme, let me go. Mestasis struggled to move, every im­pulse blocked by her sis­ter’s wrath. Abysme’s tem­per raged, and har­ness­ing her hatred gave her un­equalled power. She had al­ways been the stronger tele­path, which had been a bless­ing un­til now. She’d thought Abysme had lost con­trol, but she’d gained every last ounce of it while Mestasis drif­ted off into memor­ies. She should never have al­lowed her­self to go back so far and linger for so long.