Despite the gloves and suits they both wore, Adán was starting to feel the cold. “Your guess is as good as mine,” he said. “The important question is can you fix it?”
Fess hastily examined the shredded metal, the severed wires, and crushed fixtures inside. “Maybe. The electrical is priority, of course.” He raised a hand, indicating the damage. “Some of the connections have been severed, which explains the funky lighting in the cryo compartment, but the overall structure has been compromised as well. I’ll have to improvise replacement parts with what we’ve got in the storage bays. Wouldn’t do to get this thing in the air just to have it fall apart.”
“When can you get started?”
“ASAP.”
Adán considered this but changed his mind. Fess seemed more than a little skittish. “Get some sleep first. You noticed the sun hasn’t changed position since we’ve been out here.”
“Yeah, I noticed.” Fess squinted skyward. “This planet’s tidal-locked, like our moon back home. Same hemisphere always in daylight. Easy to lose track of time like that.”
“We’ve been awake nearly ten hours. Everyone’s feeling it. Is the shelter up?”
Fess nodded past the front of the shuttle. “It’s up. Lainie, Tink, and Jonah are loading it now with the cots and generator. Dema’s gone back inside to check on Dryker.”
Adán followed Fess to where a large tent-like structure stood shining in the sun. The paper-thin metallic material was not only stronger and lighter weight than tarp, but it also acted as a solar cell gathering energy from the planet’s sun and storing it in a portable generator, which Adán could already hear rumbling nearby.
It had taken more than an hour to set up the shelter and another hour to transport all necessities from the shuttle to the shelter: cots, blankets, a few days’ worth of food, four 5-gallon containers of water, the E-Tabs, and other vital gear. Jonah had used a ladder from the Cargo Bay and cleaned off the shuttle cockpit’s window. Fess had detached a table and its benches from the common room and set it up at one end of the shelter. On this, Tink set up a portable comm.
“Starting tomorrow,” he said, “I’m going to program a signal to hail the other shuttles at regular intervals. If any of them come within range, they’ll hear it and hopefully respond.”
“Good thinking,” said Adán. “We should sleep in shifts. You guys get some shut eye while I keep a look out.”
Confused expressions appeared on everyone’s faces. “Keep a look out for what?” asked Jonah, spreading out his arms to indicate the wasteland around them. “Dust devils?”
Adán thought of what he’d seen, how the shuttle had been pushed across the ground. He wondered if he’d done the right thing not mentioning it to the crew. They’d been so busy setting up the shelter no one else had noticed. He could tell them about it, but what good would it do? Things were bad enough as it was, with losing so many of the crew and having had no contact with the rest of the fleet. No, telling them now would only cause unnecessary panic. Besides, Adán thought, how did he know what had really happened? All he could do was speculate, and right now they needed facts. Solid, tangible facts. And the fact was they were all exhausted.
Adán tipped his head back and squinted toward the tiny sun. “I’d just feel better if someone’s on watch,” he said. “We’ve been awake less than a day.” He bent over and picked up a clot of orange dirt which crumbled to a fine powder in his hand. “And the fact is, we have no idea what’s out there.”
Adán found Dema in the Quarters up to her elbows in dust. Using a mat from one of the abandoned units, she had managed to scrape much of the dust into a two-foot-high berm along one wall. Yet despite her efforts, a thin sheen of it decorated everything. She glanced up when Adán entered, giving him a “Don’t say it, I already know” kind of smile. Her face was smudged red from the stuff, as if she’d gotten a horrific sunburn, and her once blue uniform looked more like desert camouflage.
“It’s so fine,” she said with a disapproving sigh. “Like corn starch. I think the only way to get rid of all this would be to hose it down or suck it up with an industrial vac.”
“I’ll check inventory later,” said Adán, “see if we have something in the cargo bays that might help.”
“Thanks.”
Dema cast a wary glance over at Scott Dryker lying comatose in Adán’s cryo unit. “He’ll be fine for a few minutes,” said Adán. “Why don’t you grab a shower? You remember where the linens and clean uniforms are, right?”
Dema nodded, maneuvering a dirty strand of hair away from her face. “Is everything all right out there?” she asked.
“Shelter’s up, if that’s what you mean.” Adán rested a hand on his—Scott’s—cryo unit. “It’s cold, which we expected. And there’s no sign of life, which we also expected.”
“Nothing green?”
“Not a single patch of moss. With water under the surface, we had hoped maybe.” He smiled, attempting to reassure Dema that despite their circumstances, he still had his humor.
Adán couldn’t find the right words to describe how Scott looked lying in his unit. Like the distant red mountains on this planet, he never moved except for the nearly indiscernible rise and fall of his chest. At least there was that—and the lines and spikes on the monitor proving that he was still alive. Adán thought of their fellow crewmates, the ones surrounding them now, the ones that hadn’t survived. They couldn’t leave them in here. Not only was it creepy, but it would be disrespectful. If the ground wasn’t too frozen, they would have to bury them. Tomorrow’s first order of business, he decided.
“You going to be all right in here tonight?” asked Adán. “Maybe I should stay, too.”
“No, that’s not necessary. I mean, yeah, the place needs some tidying up…”
“I meant with them.”
Dema’s smile faltered, but only for a second. “What can they do, rise from the dead and cannibalize me?”
“You watch too many horror flicks.”
“I used to.” Dema shrugged, and Adán saw a hint of wistful sadness in it. He didn’t want to think about what they used to do. All he cared about was what they needed to do now.
“Go on,” he said. “Get cleaned up. I’ll babysit Commander Dryker while you’re gone.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
As soon as the door slid shut behind Dema, Adán felt an eerie feeling creep over him. The lights overhead still flickered from the damaged current. How could Dema stand being in here alone? But she wasn’t alone. Not really. She was with Scott.
Adán ran his palm along the outside of the cryo unit. It was still his, wasn’t it? He did spend the past however many years lying in it. Now Scott had taken his place. He shouldn’t care, thought Adán. It wasn’t like he’d need it again anytime soon, but even so, he couldn’t help but feel just a twinge of—mine.
He and Scott had not been what anyone would call friends during training. Bonds were formed, of course. How could they not be when the crew had spent two years together? But Scott was always a bit of a loner. The girls seemed to like him all right, though. Those first few months at Northrop, they’d actually whisper and giggle when he walked into a room. Eventually that wore off. Thank God.
Originally there had been twelve men and twelve women. Though their mission was to prepare a home for future colonists, the unspoken directive was that some of them would pair up, choose to settle on Europa permanently, and propagate the human species. Yet despite clandestine meetups between some of the crew members, there was little time for romance. They hadn’t been given enough spare time to do anything more than study protocol and learn the specifics of their particular team’s responsibilities. All that mattered was the mission.
Adán looked around at the lifeless units and thought of himself and the other survivors: Scott, Dema, Lainie, Tink, Jonah, and Fess. With so few of them, he wondered how, and if, the mission could be completed now.
Once Dema had s
howered, Adán made sure she ate a good dinner and was safely settled in her cryo unit for the night before deciding to retrieve something from his personal storage bin.
“You play that?” asked Dema, noticing the instrument in his hand.
Adán held up a twelve-inch-long recorder and smiled. “Didn’t we all learn to play these as kids?”
Dema shook her head. “Not me. I was never very good with music. I’d heard you were a musician though.”
Adán sighed. “Not much time for it during training. I actually play a few instruments, though violin is—was—my passion.”
“Why didn’t you bring your violin then?”
Adán held the recorder to his lips and played a few notes. “This fit better in the box.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was close enough.
“You sure you’ll be okay in here?” he asked, pausing at the door. “Because I can—”
Dema gave a soft laugh. “Go on.”
Adán said goodnight and headed for the cockpit to start his watch. Through the now cleaned windows, he had a clear view of the shelter and of the surrounding terrain.
He thought of Dema, of the way her eyes had searched his in those first moments after he’d woken her, as if she expected him to answer all her unspoken questions. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about those eyes, or the face that framed them, with her high cheekbones and freckles. He’d known Dema for two years now, but she’d always had an eye for Scott Dryker, so he hadn’t given her much thought. Yet after waking, he’d felt so desperate to make sure she was alive. And that moment when she’d looked at him, when he knew she was safe—he hadn’t realized until then how much he cared about her.
Adán switched on the communications link and within moments heard Tink’s voice. “Hey, don’t fall asleep on the job.”
Adán chuckled. “I won’t. But you’d better relieve me on time, or I can’t make any promises.”
“No problem. I’ve turned off the portable comm in here so we can sleep. So, make sure to keep an eye on the beacon there in the cockpit. Let me know right away if any messages from the fleet come through.”
“I will, though it’s odd that we haven’t heard from anyone yet. I wonder what happened?”
“Maybe the damage to our power grid interrupted the signal,” suggested Tink. “I wouldn’t worry about it since I’ll have that fixed in no time. I’m sure the fleet’s out there somewhere, trying to reach us right now.”
“Maybe,” replied Adán. “Hopefully.”
He wished Tink a good night’s sleep and switched off the comm, though he couldn’t help but wonder if there was another explanation for the lack of communication from the fleet. The Carpathia had been damaged. What if something similar had happened to the other shuttles?
Adán immediately dismissed the thought. It was a near impossibility for all twelve shuttles to experience the same problem.
Still, what if—?
Adán leaned back in the pilot’s seat and propped his feet up on the steering column. Then he picked up his E-Tab and clicked on an icon of a treble clef. Music. In the shuttle’s archives, he found a collection of Beethoven’s violin sonatas and synced it to the cockpit’s speakers. Then he lifted the recorder to his lips and settled in for his three-hour shift of watching—nothing.
Adán was the first to wake in the morning. He looked at his watch. According to Earth, Pacific Standard Time at least, it was 6:14 AM. Around midnight, he’d finished his three-hour shift and was relieved by Tink who was followed by Jonah.
There was plenty to accomplish today, and Adán checked off each task in his mind. They would scout their immediate surroundings, begin repairs on the shuttle, clean out the Quarters. But first they needed to deal with the bodies of their crewmates. He shuddered at the thought. If he had any other option, he would prefer to leave them where they were, encased in their individual cryo units. But they needed the shuttle to rendezvous with the fleet, if and when the fleet signaled them, and it just wouldn’t do to have seventeen mummified corpses coming along for the ride. And besides, their families would want them properly buried.
Adán and Fess were nearly done digging the five-foot-deep pit by the time Lainie, Tink, and Jonah emerged from the shelter. The porous ash-like soil was easy enough to excavate using the two shovels they’d found in the cargo bay.
“You just going to lay them in there all together?” asked Jonah.
“I suppose so,” said Adán. He finished the pit and stuck the shovel upright in the soil. “All right,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
They found Dema awake in the cryo compartment, checking Scott’s vitals.
“How’s he doing?” asked Adán.
“The same,” she replied, “but stable. Did you guys sleep okay out there?”
“We slept fine. Have you had breakfast?”
“I got something that resembled scrambled eggs and sausage a little earlier. So, what’s the plan for today?”
Adán nodded towards the other units. “It’s time,” he said.
Dema wrapped her arms around herself. “Oh.”
They decided to start at the far end of the room. Adán brushed off the layer of dust from the shield and peered into the unit. “D. Anderson,” he said. “It’s Devin.” He looked up at his fellow crewmates waiting for some response. Devin Anderson was an all-around nice guy, maybe a little on the nerdy side. Could never get his hair to lay flat due to a cowlick in the back, and he had a particular fondness for grape jelly.
No one spoke as Adán pulled the release. The moment the cover slid back, the air was corrupted by the putrid smell of dried flesh. Adán covered his nose with his arm and gagged. The others all did the same. Lainie turned away. Tink bent over with his hands pressed against his knees.
“We have to do this now,” said Adán, choking on his words. “If we wait any longer, it will just get worse.”
“We’ll wrap him in a blanket,” suggested Dema. “It’ll be easier to transport him that way.”
“God, I can’t!” said Fess. “I can’t touch it! I won’t!”
“Get a grip,” said Jonah. “It’s not like he’ll bleed all over you. At worst, you might get some dehydrated snot on your uniform.” He reached into the unit and slipped a hand beneath the dead man’s neck. Though the scowl on his face revealed some disgust, Adán was surprised with how gentle Jonah was. His movements were not abrupt or indifferent, but he seemed to take great care to avoid damaging the brittle body in any way. Once he had his other arm beneath the stiff thighs, Jonah cautiously lifted the body from the unit. A hush fell over the room as he laid it on the blanket Dema had spread out on the floor. Together, they wrapped it around Devin Anderson, then stepped back. Jonah’s eyes met Adán’s for just a moment before he looked away again, but in that moment, Adán caught just a hint of what he could swear was remorse.
It took three hours to remove all seventeen crewmembers and lay them in their mass grave. Each one was given as much care and respect as the one before. The surviving crew did their work in relative silence. These had once been their friends and teammates. They had willingly said farewell to their families, to their normal lives back on Earth, for the chance to colonize a new world, but things had ended tragically for them.
The fact that those remaining had been left to carry on their mission alone weighed on Adán with a physical force that knotted his insides. It was all he could do to not drop to his knees and vomit at the side of the grave, not because of all the death that surrounded him, but for all the unknowns that lay ahead. How long would it be, he wondered, before he and the others joined their deceased crewmates here?
Once all seventeen bodies had been respectfully arranged in their final resting place, the crew had gone through their storage units to collect personal items that should be buried with them: photographs, letters, journals, trinkets with sentimental value. Then Dema covered the bodies with the blanket in which they had been carried, but there were too many to cover with just one. So Tink coll
ected one of the unused shelter tarps to finish the job. The sun reflected off the silvery material so that it almost looked like a small pond or lake, the way sunlight sparkles off the water’s surface.
“We should say something,” said Lainie, standing at the edge of the grave beside Tink. “Something to honor them.”
No one spoke at first, and Adán once again felt the weight of glances being cast in his direction. They expected him to know what to do, what to say, but he didn’t. He’d only been to one funeral before, his mother’s, but he hadn’t had to say anything.
He met Lainie’s eyes and then Tink’s, hoping they would remove this responsibility from him. Instead, they cast their eyes down. Fess fixed his gaze at the distant mountains, his expression severe like he was fighting back an emotion too powerful to handle. Dema looked directly into Adán’s eyes. She smiled knowingly and gave a little nod of encouragement.
Adán cleared his throat and searched his mind for words that might be appropriate, but before he could speak, Jonah stepped forward.
“I’ve got something to say.” He clasped his hands reverently in front of him. To Adán’s surprise, he held a black book, a finger stuck into the pages.
Jonah opened his Bible and began to read. His voice was clear, unwavering, and it carried out across the barren sands.
“Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am. Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more.”
Jonah closed the book without a sound. Reaching into the pocket of his uniform, he pulled out a bundle of gold crosses he had salvaged from some of the crew’s personal effects, many like the one Jonah always wore around his neck. Dangling them by their chains over the grave, he said a quiet “Amen,” then released them. They landed on top of the silvery tarp with faint clinks. A soft sniffle drifted into the air as Lainie struggled to keep her tears at bay.
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