Sand and Shadow

by Laurisa White Reyes

  Adán stood beside the pile of displaced earth from the grave and wrapped both his hands around his shovel. Then slowly, methodically, he began pushing the soil back into the hole. A cloud of dust rose up, but the gathered mourners did not retreat. They stood their ground, witnesses to this event, to the end of so many lives.

  Once the hole was filled, Adán smoothed it out with the back of the shovel. Then Fess took both shovels and headed for the shuttle to put them away. Dema followed him. She needed to get back to Scott. Jonah stayed behind a little longer, staring at the finished grave. Adán felt like an intruder watching him, but Jonah did not seem to even notice his presence. The Bible still gripped in his hands, Jonah closed his eyes and bowed his head. He stood like that for a minute or two, then abruptly opened his eyes and marched off toward the shelter.

  Adán felt the weight of someone’s hand on his shoulder. It was Lainie. She gave him a wistful smile.

  “You’re doing a good job,” she told him.

  “Hmm?”

  She gave his arm a gentle squeeze. “None of this is your responsibility, but we all appreciate what you’re doing. Taking charge, giving us direction.”

  Adán gazed at the sand at his feet. Is that what he was doing? If so, it wasn’t by choice.

  “I’m just doing what any of you would do,” he said, knowing as he said it how untrue it was. “Dryker’s the commander, not me,” he added. “When he’s better—”

  “Of course,” said Lainie. “But in the meantime…”

  Another smile, full of encouragement and gratitude. Then she turned and joined Tink, who waited nearby. They walked together to the shelter and disappeared inside.

  Adán remained by the grave. Somehow it didn’t seem right to walk away, to leave them alone out here. At least not yet. He felt the bitter cold creeping through his suit. He should get inside soon. Again, he listed off what else needed to be done today. The electrical systems. The temporary patch. Signaling the other shuttles again.

  He thought of what Lainie had said, how it wasn’t his responsibility, and she was right, but if he didn’t step up, who would? He felt the sun gazing down on him, that unblinking eye that gave no warmth. He considered the landscape, a vast empty wilderness of crushed ginger, never changing, never moving, as if time didn’t exist here. And, he realized, it didn’t. Not in the way he’d always known time to function. On Earth, time was a clock marking the passage of seconds and minutes and hours. It was a human construct, something people long ago invented to give order to their existence. To anticipate seasons. To observe the past.

  Would mankind have created time had they lived on a planet like this where the sun never set? Where there were no seasons, no days, no years?

  Adán noted the sound of his breathing against his visor, the rhythm of his lungs drawing and expelling breath. The cadence of his heart beating in his chest. Yes. One didn’t need a clock or the sun and moon. One’s own life marked time.

  He looked once more on the grave, already invisible against the backdrop of sand, and understood in a way he never had before, how little time had been allotted to each of them. How precious each moment of it was.

  He turned for the shelter where he would find Tink and remind him to get started on the wiring that had been damaged. So much to do, he thought to himself. So much to do, and so little time.

  Using his E-Tab, Tink pulled up the shuttle’s topographical image files, a holographic display assembled from Carpathia’s most recent data of the planet surface. In addition to the mountains and giant fissure, there were several massive smooth areas that could be either vast deserts or oceans. The surface temperature never rose above ten degrees, so the probability of liquid water existing out in the open was unlikely.

  But there was most definitely an aquifer, a layer of water-saturated soil below the planet surface. NASA had fitted the Carpathia’s payload with a special bit for drilling wells and a processor for melting and purifying ice. Parts of the shuttle itself were also designed for the assembly of submersible pumps, as well as all-terrain vehicles, and other mechanical devices needed for survival.

  Before turning in for the night (if that’s what they could call it), Fess and Jonah had assembled the first of their two rovers.

  “Tomorrow we’ll need to explore the area in more detail,” Adán explained. “Jonah, you could survey a spot to drill the well.”

  “Wherever we drill,” said Jonah, “that’s going to be our new home. And quite frankly, I’d rather not spend the rest of my life in the middle of a sand pit—or more accurately—dust pit.”

  “Aren’t there any trees on this frickin’ planet?” asked Fess, tightening the last screw on the rover’s frame.

  Tink shook his head. “I doubt we’ll find anything like back home. According to the diagnostics, the gravity here is 1.2 times that of earth.”

  “No wonder I feel like hippo.”

  “It might affect what sort of plant life exists here—that is if there’s water near enough to the surface.”

  Adán studied the holographic charts and schematics, but even with Tink’s help, he had a difficult time deciphering them. Jonah was the guy for maps, but his eyes were drooping, and he’d been yawning for the past twenty minutes. They were all nearing exhaustion.

  Tink turned off the holo and took the E-Tab back inside the shuttle. Once Jonah and Fess finished the second smaller rover’s assembly, they headed for the shelter. Adán followed and found the interior large and inviting—and warm. Fess stripped off his gear, draped himself across his cot, and was out cold in minutes. Jonah insisted he couldn’t sleep on an empty stomach, so he tore open a couple pouches of peaches and granola and settled onto his cot to read on his tablet.

  Lainie, still suited up, grabbed a pillow and blanket. “I’m covering for Dema tonight,” she said. “She deserves a good night’s rest after sitting with Scott most of the day. Be sure to bring back some moon rocks.” She waved at Adán before leaving the shelter.

  Tink passed her on the way out, lugging an overstuffed red canvas pack behind him. “Night, Lainie,” he said. She gave him a quick, playful smile and disappeared outside.

  Adán waited until he was sure Lainie was far enough from the shelter not to hear him, then he asked Tink, “What’s going on with you two?”

  “What do you mean?” Tink replied, failing miserably to hide his embarrassment.

  “C’mon. It’s obvious to everyone you’ve got a thing for Lainie.”

  “It is? I mean, I guess—yeah.”

  “And she seems to have a thing for you too.”

  Tink’s eyes lit up. “You think so?”

  “What? Don’t you know it?”

  A look of doubt spread across Tink’s face. “I’ve liked her since the beginning, and before departure I tried a few times to connect, you know? But she didn’t seem interested.”

  “You mean she blew you off? That doesn’t sound like something she’d do.”

  “No. She’s too nice for that. More like skirted the issue. She was really good at avoiding the subject. But here, I figure I’ve got nothing to lose, right?” Tink smiled tentatively. “You think I have chance with her?”

  Adán thought he definitely had a chance and told him so.

  He noticed Tink struggling with the weight of the pack he carried, which, due to gravity, was heavier than it would have been on Earth.

  “What’s in that thing?” asked Adán, taking it from Tink.

  “You mean besides food?” answered Tink. “How about the camera, extra comms, and—oh, maybe the most important thing—water. You shouldn’t go out there without it.”

  “It’ll freeze before I get a mile from the shuttle.”

  Tink grinned, pulling something silver and square from his pocket. He squeezed it and the sound of crinkling foil and a slight pop made Adán smile.

  “Hand warmer. Should keep the water just above freezing for a couple of hours at least.” Tink tossed the warmer into the pack, then closed it up again
.

  Adán switched on the portable Tab strapped to his wrist. Like the larger E-Tabs, it received and transmitted information from the shuttle.

  “Ready?” asked Tink.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Tink patted him on the shoulder and gave him a thumbs up. Then Adán headed out of the tent to where the rover stood waiting.

  “Hold up!”

  Just as Adán was securing Tink’s pack to the rover’s flat bed, Dema appeared at the shuttle hatch. She jogged across the open stretch of ground between them. She was out of breath by the time she reached them, gripping the handle of a square white box.

  “Here,” she told Adán. “Just in case.”

  “Thanks.” Adán added the first aid kit to the red pack. “How’s our commander doing?”

  Dema gave a non-committal nod of her head. “Okay, I guess, but I wish I could get him out of there, away from all that dust. It can’t be good on his lungs.”

  Dema stepped back from the rover, and Adán pressed the ignition button. The engine ran on compressed solar cells rather than liquid fuel, so there was no concern about getting stranded without a refill.

  “I’ll be back in an hour or two,” he told Dema over the drone of the rover’s motor.

  “Be careful,” she replied.

  He squeezed the throttle, and the little rover lurched forward. He was moving—away from the Carpathia. Away from the last scrap of humanity Adán might ever see. The thought sloshed inside of him like a cup of half curdled milk. It made him a little sick. He couldn’t help himself. He had to turn around and look. Take one last mental picture of the shuttle and—the thought struck him—of Dema.

  A jagged sound, a sudden horrible sound like Adán had never heard before, ruptured the air. Loud enough to be heard over his comm, loud enough to drown out the hum of the rover. At first, he thought something had gone wrong with the motor. A belt had snapped, or Fess hadn’t installed a gear right and it had jammed. Adán switched off the motor and listened. Then he turned to look over his shoulder at Dema. She stood stock still, her face drained of color. A second later—half a second—another sound came, this time human. A human scream that could only come from the most unimaginable kind of fear or pain. Then Dema was off, sprinting away from him. Away—towards the shelter.

  Tink’s voice shouted in Adán’s comm. “Adán, you’d better get back here—quick!”

  Adán unsnapped his safety harness and ran for the shelter. He found Fess outside in front on his hands and knees, a string of yellow bile dripping from his heaving mouth into the matching pool of it between his hands and a trail of blood behind him in the sand. Jonah lay on his back a few yards away, his eyes wide with fear. Neither wore their helmets. Dema dropped down beside him and took his shaking hands in hers. His palms, Adán noticed, were scuffed up pretty badly with patches of the orange dust caked in the bloody scratches.

  He had crawled out, Adán realized. Crawled out on his hands and knees. Couldn’t get out fast enough.

  “What the hell happened?” shouted Adán. Tink ran up to him, his eyes wide with fear.

  “I’d just gone outside, to keep a lookout, like you said. It was seconds. I was gone only seconds!”

  Jonah pulled one of his hands free of Dema, pointing a finger at the shelter. It fell to Adán, then, to see what was inside, to find out what had scared the crap out of these guys. He listened for a few seconds, wondering if what had scared them was still inside. What could it be? They hadn’t seen any animals. Not even the tiniest insect. And the shelter wasn’t more than fifty feet from the rover, in full view. Adán hadn’t seen anything go in. Maybe on the other side? The side he couldn’t see from here?

  He took a few hesitant steps, and then realized what that must look like to the others. He had to be confident. They expected him to be. He took a deep breath and marched around to the opposite side of the shelter, the one facing away from the shuttle and towards the desert. As soon as he rounded the corner, he pulled up short. His mind emptied out completely as if someone had punctured a hole in his brain and drained out all rational thought.

  In the center of the shelter wall were three parallel tears running from top to bottom. The edges of the shelter material were shredded as if something had slashed through it all at once very quickly, but what was that something? What—in the middle of an empty desert—could do this? Adán came closer, touching the frayed edge of one of the three slices. Something sharp, something large. A knife? Three knives?

  Adán dropped his hand to his side and took several steps back until he could see the whole thing all at once. He knew what this looked like. He’d seen something like this before, but on a much smaller, almost insignificant scale. He knew without any doubt what had done this.

  Claws.

  They had spotted it quivering in a dark, wet doorway on the way home from school. The day’s storm had paused, but the air was still frigid, and Adán and Saul’s breaths formed lacy clouds in front of their faces. The shivering orange ball of fur peered up at Adán with two huge blue eyes. It was just a kitten, and its pathetic meow seemed to plead with him to save it.

  Adán had never had a pet before. His father wouldn’t allow it, but surely if he and Saul brought this little creature home, even Father would have to take pity on it. At least he would let Adán dry it and feed it, maybe give him a chance to find it a home if not let it stay in theirs. Adán’s head swam with possibilities. He knelt down on the wet pavement and tried to coax the kitten out from the shadows, but still the little fellow shrank back, suspicious of the approaching boy.

  “It’s frightened,” said Saul. “Just let it alone.”

  Adán ignored his older brother’s advice.

  “It’s okay,” he said to the kitten in as soothing a voice as he could. Sliding his backpack off his shoulder and setting it on the ground beside him, he reached out, cautiously gathering the kitten into his hands. The kitten resisted at first, wriggling to get free, but Adán quickly pulled it close and tucked it beneath his jacket.

  Saul shook his head disapprovingly, but there was a hint of a smile on his face. “All right then,” he said finally with a sigh, “let’s get you and that thing home before it rains again.”

  Adán resisted the impulse to run the rest of the way home, not wanting to jostle the kitten too much. Even so, he was out of breath by the time they arrived. Their father was waiting for them on the porch steps.

  “Donde has estado?” Father directed his question to Saul. He wasn’t a tall man or broad, but as he stood there, dress sleeves rolled up to his elbows and tie hanging loosely around his neck, he was imposing just the same. “I said, where have you been? I told you to hurry.”

  It was then Adán remembered that today was the day his father had circled on the calendar in red marker. On finding the kitten, he had completely forgotten.

  “We’ve waited months for this audition, Saul. I took off work early for this, I expected you to get him home on time. Adán,” he said turning his glare on his younger son, “get your violin, and let’s go.”

  Saul glanced down at Adán, and their eyes met. It was Adán’s fault they were late. It had been his decision to rescue the kitten. He should take the blame, but it was Saul who spoke up first.

  “We found something,” he said. “I know we can’t have pets, but we thought we could take care of it for a few days until we found a place for it. It was freezing.”

  His father glared at him from beneath thick black eyebrows. He was a serious man who expected his sons to take things seriously, too.

  “There isn’t time—” Father began, but Saul cut him off.

  “If you would just listen—”

  The slap came without warning. The sound of it sent a jolt through Adán as the weight of Father’s hand jerked Saul’s face to the side.

  Adán blinked back tears. Father didn’t understand. He would show him what he had brought. He would show him the kitten! Then he’d realize what they were trying to do.
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  Maybe the kitten sensed his nervousness. Maybe it was just scared. When Adán opened his coat, the kitten practically exploded out of it. It scurried right up Adán’s chest and onto his face, its tiny, needle-sharp claws scoring three finger-length lines across his cheek. Then it bounded off Adán’s face to the ground and skittered away around the corner of the house.

  They weren’t deep. Hardly even bled, though later he’d spent a good ten minutes staring at the three parallel scratches in the mirror. They did hurt a little, but the pain was nothing compared to the shame he’d felt under his father’s glare, which expressed more satisfaction than anger.

  “That’s what you get,” Father said, “for rescuing someone who doesn’t want to be rescued.”

  AND THE WORD WAS…

  The Official Blog of The Terrestrial Brotherhood

  “And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations…and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.” (Revelation 19:15 KJV)

  O ye peoples of the Earth, hear ye the mouthpiece of the Lord. Yea, the world has been condemned. It stands before the judgment bar of God, for the blood of the innocent dead cry out to God from the dust. And the punishment shall be hell fire! And our punishment is just. The angel soundeth forth his trumpet! The horses of the Apocalypse ride down upon us! Let us humble ourselves before our Maker and accept his divine wrath, for we are unworthy creatures, less than the dust of the Earth.

  Governments seek to circumvent the will of the Lord. They would send Adam’s seed into the depths of the universe to inhabit a new planet. But I say, wo unto them who carry Earth’s plague of wickedness to other worlds. We have destroyed our promised land with pollution, war, and greed. Let us not destroy any other planet. For the heavens are God’s footstool.

  Gather together, O ye house of Israel, and let not the wicked confound the righteous. Bring your children into your bosom and face the wrath of your God with humility and meekness. For his ways are just and merciful.