by Kayla Olson
And I hate that if I could go back and do the past hour over again, I’m not entirely sure I’d do it differently.
Heath is first out of the bee after they dock it, and Zesi climbs out right behind him. I wish I could see their faces, see their triumphant smiles through the strong purple glare on their helmets’ face shields—they did it, they actually did it!
“Mission complete,” Heath says, breathless, his words crackling over the viewing room speaker. Rather than triumphant, though, he sounds—defeated? Or maybe it’s just exhaustion. That has to be it, seeing as how they were clearly successful at flying there and back, and in retrieving food and fresh filters. Zesi unloads the supply pallets while Heath unfolds a steel pushcart from its hidden storage compartment. The cart looks almost exactly like the gurneys up in Medical, except this one’s purpose is to deliver life to us, not death.
It takes only a few minutes for them to fill the cart—three SpaceLove pro-pack pallets up top, along with a pair of bulky, awkward items below. A water filter and an extra for backup, I assume. Fingers crossed Zesi can figure out how to switch out our old filter for the new one; he’s quick to pick up everything else, so the installation should go smoothly. I hope.
Zesi and Heath maneuver the pushcart through the first airlock. I find myself holding my breath as the air turns over inside the sealed chamber, remind myself to breathe.
Once they’re through the second airlock and back with us in the viewing room, Heath tears his helmet off and barrels straight toward me. He wraps his arms around me, bear-hug-tight, and buries his cheek against the soft bend of my neck—and then he’s kissing me, one two three four five, like he’s leaving a path of stardust that ends at my lips.
Can he taste Leo on me like I taste starlight on him?
Leo—oh, no. I hear his breath catch behind me, a sound so quiet I easily could have missed it.
I slip out of the kiss, aim for a subtle break so as not to hurt . . . anyone. My cheeks are on fire. “You guys—you—you really did it.” It feels like an understatement. Like the words fall completely short at expressing the things I feel but can’t bring myself to say:
You didn’t crash.
You didn’t die.
You’ve missed a lot.
“Two fresh filters, ready to go,” Zesi says, settling his helmet onto its hook. “And everything we could pull that wasn’t in contaminated airspace.”
My heart dips. “Contaminated airspace?” Nautilus is so small the entire chamber could succumb to a contaminant. No room for quarantine on Nautilus unless the unaffected spent it outside, in a spacesuit, tethered up with fully loaded ox-tanks. And even then, that’s not the best plan for survival.
I worried so hard over how we could very seriously infect them, I didn’t consider the possibility—the reality—
Heath bows his head. “They never answered when Zesi made contact from the bee,” he says. “We tried for the entire hour leading up to it . . . but . . .”
“Nothing,” Zesi finishes, the look on his face grave.
Fifteen more lives.
Fifteen more deaths.
“We pulled all we could from their hangar deck storage, but the filters weren’t in there, so we had to go inside,” Heath says. “Got in and out as quickly as possible. It . . . wasn’t pretty.” His eyes cloud over, like he’s staring into death itself.
The four of us stand, silent, for a long minute. I’m trying not to imagine it, the blood and decay and stench of what used to be life, brilliant life. I’ve seen my fair share of death, of course, but we’ve always cleared it from the station before anyone started to actually decompose. I can’t decide what’s worse: the idea of being the only one left alive there, or that there is no one else left alive.
Heath takes my hand, and what else is there to do when someone has risked his life for the station and seen things that will haunt him for the rest of his days? I don’t let go. Things are complicating by the minute with us, but no matter what, he is still one of my very best friends. Right now, this is what he needs.
“That . . . isn’t the worst of it,” he says. His hand in mine makes all the more sense: this isn’t only what he needs—it’s what he thinks I need.
“The crew,” Zesi picks up. “Their symptoms looked slightly different than the ones here did.”
He goes on to explain the horrific sight on Nautilus. No bloodbubbles to speak of—there, they suffered nosebleeds so swift and so devastating, not one crew member had had the chance to clean . . . anything.
Lie low.
Linger.
Explode.
The sickness we know took everyone out quickly, yes, but not all at once.
The sickness we know came with blood—sprinkles of it. Not rivulets.
What if this is not the sickness we know?
I glance at the cartful of SpaceLove supplies, at the suits Heath and Zesi have already shed. What if they’ve brought back a new strain? An actual mutation?
“Lindley. Linds.”
I blink, find all three guys staring at me in slack-jawed concern.
“Did it not send up red flags,” I say, careful to keep my voice even, without accusation, without coming unhinged, “that you could be bringing a new strain of the virus right back to us? That we might not be immune to this one?” I squeeze my eyes shut, try not to panic.
“It’s not like we could just call and ask what you wanted us to do.” Zesi’s voice teeters on the brink of bitterness, of frustration. “We were already inside when we found them like that, and it was too late to undo it at that point, so we made a judgment call and went forward as planned. Might as well bring back something useful if we were going to come home at all.”
If we were going to come home at all. It’s easier to forgive when he puts it that way. Because he’s right, what else would they have done? Where else could they have gone?
It’s a risk, for sure, but Heath has always been the risk taker among us—big risk, big reward, especially when the risks have potential to protect the people he loves. I only hope this risk pays off.
I’m trying to pick out the perfect words—thank you feels like too much and too little all at once—when Zesi runs a hand over his dreads, breaking the moment. “I’m taking a shower and then sleeping for a year,” he says. Heath could use a shower, too, but I don’t want to be the one to say so.
Turns out I don’t have to, though. “Come find us at six tonight if we’re not around yet,” Heath says. “Can the filters wait until then? If you still want us to use them, that is?” His eyelids are heavy now that he doesn’t have to be on high alert.
We already have the filters, and I can’t see how going forward with the installation will change anything now—if Lusca was going to be contaminated with a new strain, it happened the second they entered the airlock. It has an automatic decontam feature built in, but that didn’t kill the first virus—why should I expect it to be any different with a new strain?
“We’ll do the installation as planned,” I say. “Later today.” Normally, I’d want to knock it out as soon as possible, but I think we could all use some time to uncoil. “We’ve waited this long—go get some rest.”
And then it’s just Leo and me, like we started this day. Alone together.
We meet eyes, and I wonder if we’ll pick up where we left off—I want to, but the problems of the day are already creeping in to poke pins in my heart.
“You look like you could use a break, too, Linds.” He plants a soft kiss on my forehead, and another on my lips, like he’s trying to erase the ones Heath left on me. “Get some rest and meet back at six?”
I nod, caught off guard by the tears filling my eyes. It isn’t Leo, it’s just . . . everything. Too many emotions, too many extremes.
A break would be nice. A break is necessary.
“Buzz if you need me?” I say.
But Leo shakes his head. “Turn it off, just for today. It’s not even a full day—not even a half day. I’ll knock on yo
ur door at a quarter to six, and we’ll go from there.”
It’s an offer too tempting to refuse. It’s not easy—not easy at all to take this step back, to purposefully put myself in the dark, especially in light of the hard truths I’ve uncovered today. I press the power button, hold it down until my buzz screen goes dark.
“I’ll take care of things,” Leo says. “I promise.”
I’ll take care of you, I hear.
Today is not for leaps of faith, but for the small first steps of it.
42
KNOTS
IT’S LIKE MY left arm has been cut off, not having my buzz screen on—like my mind is constantly searching for this vital part of me, constantly looking for that connection, constantly coming up empty. It isn’t restful, not at first. The silence is unnerving: I wonder what I’m missing. At least with the buzz screen on, I’d know for sure no one is trying to get in touch.
After habitually reaching for it three times in a row, I climb up onto the kitchen counter and tuck it deep into the highest cabinet. It might not be out of mind, but at least now it is out of sight.
I drift from kitchen to fireplace to window wall to my bathroom, not quite sure what to do with all these empty hours. I can’t remember the last time I had time to decide—usually it’s crash on the chair, eat what I can, shower out of necessity. Now that I have the time, I wonder if maybe I’ve been keeping myself busy on purpose without realizing it. When the silence starts to gape, I start thinking about how even another person breathing in the same room, not speaking, can make a place feel alive. When I try to fall asleep—curled up in my bed for once, instead of my mother’s chair—my mind turns from nightmare to nightmare, fear to fear.
I turn on the shower to drown out the silence, let the steam fog the mirror so I won’t have to face the dark circles that haunt my eyes. I climb in, stand with my back to the deluge of watery needles as they rain down on me. It’s good we have a fresh filter ready to go; I haven’t had the luxury of a shower like this in weeks.
When I finish, I force myself to crawl back in bed. I stare out my bedroom window and count the stars until they blur, until my eyes are heavy and I lose the number. I must sleep eventually, for a dark and dreamless stretch of hours, because the next thing I hear is Leo at my door, calling my name.
If left to myself, I could possibly have slept forever.
43
INCENDIARY
THIS SPACE IS too tight for the six of us.
Natalin insists she be present for the water filter installation, insists upon seeing it connect with her own eyes—as if, after flinging themselves out into the stars, Zesi and Heath wouldn’t do everything in their power to finish things the right way. As if they aren’t also in dire need of fresh water like the rest of us. Leo let it slip, on our way down to the water chamber, that Natalin’s been buzzing into his ear all day with a too-sharp tongue: Why not now, why can’t they rest later, why is this not a priority for anyone but me? Leo also mentions that he spent the better part of an hour trying to make contact with Nashville, but still, their silence continues.
I don’t regret that I slept through all this.
So now we are crammed onto a catwalk in a tight, dimly lit alcove inside the immense hydro chamber, dwarfed by its massive orbs full of water—one is sparkling and clear, less than half full, while five others are filled with cloudy liquid yet to be purified. A maze of thick pipes connects orbs to filters, with dozens of smaller pipes snaking off to pump clean water through all offshoots of the station. This chamber was clearly built for the water—and a tech or two who know what they’re doing—not six people fumbling around in the dark.
“You’re blocking the light, Nat,” Heath says, holding one of the bulky Nautilus filters, as Zesi performs surgery to extract the dying one from its snug compartment. “Could you shift a bit?”
“If I ‘shift a bit,’ I won’t be able to see.”
“If you don’t move, there won’t be anything to see,” Zesi says. A bead of sweat drips from the tip of his nose to the concrete floor. It’s hot in here.
A pinprick beam of white light hits Zesi square between the eyes. “Flashlight?” Natalin says, head cocked. She hasn’t budged.
Zesi squints back up at her, one eye hidden behind his dreadlocks. “I just don’t get why all of us have to be here for this? This is a two-person job at most.”
Leo and I had planned to meet Zesi and Heath here, but that was before we discovered just how tight a space it was. Natalin came because she’s afraid, I think—afraid of our water running dry, afraid she’ll miss an opportunity to step in if something doesn’t go as it should. It’s like me with my buzz screen, how it’s hard to relinquish control even if you aren’t actively doing anything.
Why Haven is here, I have no idea.
Well, that isn’t completely true. She told us flat-out she didn’t want to be the only one out of the loop. I guess what I mean is that I have no idea why she’d choose this over doing anything else—it’s pretty miserable down here. I’m going to need another shower.
“We don’t all have to hover in this exact spot,” I say. “I’ll be over on the platform if anyone needs me.” There’s a small balcony that overlooks the orb with clean water; the balcony is lit by a single recessed spotlight and is probably not quite as hot as the filter alcove. Not quite as stuffy, at the very least.
I trail my hand along the catwalk’s railing as it curves around the orbs, then climb six small steps to the platform balcony. The catwalk rings the spherical room at about half its height—a high ceiling above, a deep pit equally far beneath—with the orb system suspended in the middle. I sit on the balcony, dangling my feet over its edge, and rest my arms on the lowest rung of the railing.
“Mind if I join you?”
Haven’s voice startles me—either her footsteps were unusually quiet as she followed me over, or I was unusually lost in my own head. Probably the latter. Her tank top is dark with sweat, and under the spotlight, every exposed bit of her skin is slick and shimmering.
I inch over as far as I can, gesture to the space beside me. She sits, dangling her legs just like I do. We stare out at the still, clear water.
“You doing okay, Lindley?” she asks after a moment of silence. “You’ve been holed up for a couple of days, and I just . . . I’m a little worried, is all.”
It isn’t that I’ve been avoiding her, not exactly. It’s just that we’re both changing lately, for better and not, all at once. She’s been extra You’re sure you’ve got this? You’re sure you’re okay? And maybe she means well; maybe she does have faith in me. Maybe she doesn’t realize how much it undermines the thin armor of confidence I have to put on every morning. I’m not sure I’ve got this. I’m not sure I’m okay.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t be the leader we need.
I try to hear her question for what it is: a question from my close friend, my close friend who cares enough to ask. Who knows me, and sees me—all of me—even the things I’m ashamed of, the things I’d rather hide. When we were younger, it was so much easier to just come out with the truth of my feelings. I hadn’t learned to hide them so well back then. Never felt such a need to.
“Lots on my mind, that’s all.” It’s not quite as much as five-years-ago Lindley would’ve offered, but it’s something. It’s honest.
For once, she doesn’t jump in immediately with strong opinions on how I should be handling all of this. She sits for so long without saying anything I start to wonder if she’s okay. And of course she can’t be, not completely—none of us can live through what we have and come out without scars.
“What about you?” It shouldn’t have taken me this long to ask; I swallow the guilt down, try to convince myself I’m just an overwhelmed and distracted friend, not a terrible one. “How are you holding up?”
She plasters on a smile, but her eyes fill with tears; an instant later, her smile tightens and the tears recede. Not a single one slips out. “I miss them,�
� she says, watching the water like it can give her clarity. “My parents, I mean. And I miss us. All of us, how we used to be. We’re all just ghosts now, you know?”
I let her words sink in, tear their layers apart. I hadn’t thought of it like this before, but she’s right. We’ll never be the same people we were before the virus hit. Our flesh and blood might be the same, but we’re forever changed.
“Every day is a new day, though, I keep reminding myself,” Haven continues. “I can keep fighting, even when I feel like parts of myself have gone missing. People go through hard things all the time and come out much stronger than before, right?” She doesn’t give herself the same luxury of silence she afforded me. Tips and tricks and easy fixes, that’s how she’s making it through.
Maybe I should try her approach instead of letting things weigh on me like I do. Maybe her bright-side attitude actually is the secret to how well she seems to be surviving these days.
A loud clang from the filter alcove, followed by a string of curse words, startles us both. Zesi’s voice bounces from orb to orb, from ceiling to deep pit.
“Everything okay over there?” I call, jumping to my feet and hurrying back down to the catwalk. Haven follows me. No one answers, so I pick up the pace. Even once we’re back to the alcove, it’s dead quiet. I look from Zesi to Heath to Natalin to Leo, each of their faces wearing varying shades of panic.
Panic laced with frustration.
Panic laced with disappointment.
Panic laced with anger.
Panic laced with calm. A failed attempt at calm, anyway, one I can see straight through.
“Someone want to tell me what’s going on?” I put edges in my voice, hope they can slice through this silence.
Zesi rises, drenched in sweat. “Filter doesn’t fit,” he says. “We’re screwed.” He pushes past Natalin, between Haven and me, his furious footsteps shaking the cool metal catwalk until he exits the chamber.