Sand and Shadow

by Laurisa White Reyes

  “For this city hath been to me as a provocation of mine anger and of my fury from the day that they built it even unto this day; that I should remove it from before my face.” (Jeremiah 32:31 KJV)

  The Devil’s media has been slandering The Brotherhood, accusing us of murdering innocents on board the space shuttle Beacon, but we say there were no innocent among the dead.

  Were the inhabitants of Jericho innocent when God commanded the Israelites to destroy them? Were Sodom and Gomorrah innocent when fires rained down from Heaven upon them? Were the Philistines innocent when Samson used his God-endowed strength to topple the columns of the temple down upon their heads?

  In the Beginning, God placed Adam as Lord over the whole Earth. The seed of Adam has failed his mission. He must face the consequences. Should he attempt to run and hide from the face of God, as did Jonah of old, he shall not succeed. God will find him and throw him into the depths of the sea.

  Beware, O ye who attempt to thwart the will of God! Ye cannot, ye will not prevail!

  Amen.

  Posted by Reverend Lucas T. Bigelow

  Adán turned back to the vast, empty wasteland of Gliese, taking in the nothingness of it all. He observed Tink, Fess, Scott, Dema, and Jonah standing over Lainie’s body, her blood an incongruent contrast to the otherwise unbroken sea of orange dust. They had all gathered beside her to say their goodbyes and were still coated in the storm’s dust, looking like otherworldly ghosts. That’s what they were, thought Adán, ghosts of a world and a people that had long ago ceased to exist. If what he had just witnessed in Lainie’s death hadn’t been so—so real, Adán might have convinced himself that everything—this planet, the shuttle, the monster—were nothing more than wisps of memory, like the impression of light left behind after someone looks at an object and closes his eyes, seeing it still against the backs of the eyelids.

  But no. This was all too real. The dust. The fear. The blood.

  Adán moved closer to Tink. “Let’s lay her with the others,” he said.

  Tink shook his head. “No. I changed my mind.,” he said. “She deserves better than a mass grave.”

  Adán knew how Tink had felt about Lainie. He could understand why he wanted her to have a proper burial. He gazed around, scouting for a good location and realized to his dismay that every location was the same as the next.

  “Here,” said Tink. “We’ll just bury her right here.”

  “I’ll go grab a shovel,” offered Fess, who limped off toward the storage bay. He returned a few minutes later with two in hand, one of which Adán took. Despite the splint that Dema had placed on his broken finger, he felt it was his duty to lay Lainie to rest.

  Adán’s shovel bit into the loose soil. It was like digging in a child’s sandbox, no resistance at all. It took no more than ten minutes to make a hole deep enough for Lainie’s body. Adán and Fess stuck their shovels upright in the sand and started to reach for Lainie, but Tink got to her first, giving them both a ferocious look that claimed her for his own.

  Tink squatted and slid his arms under her body. Then with some effort, he lifted her. When he stumbled, Scott hurried forward to help. Together, they walked the few feet to the open grave where Tink dropped to his knees with Lainie in his arms. Scott stepped away, but Tink stayed there for several minutes, staring at Lainie’s face, still caked in dust. Then he kissed her lips and gently lowered her body into the shallow hole.

  “Jonah?” Tink asked. “Would you say something?”

  Jonah had brought his Bible with him, like before. “By faith,” he began, but his voice caught. He paused, then started again. “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.” He took in a long, slow breath and expelled it. “Amen.”

  Fess grasped the handle of his shovel and began scooping the displaced sand over Lainie’s body. Adán knew he should help again, but for some reason, he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. Fortunately, the others didn’t seem to expect him to. Jonah took the second shovel and helped Fess finish the job.

  Tink remained on his knees until they had finished. The sand was smooth as if no one lay beneath it. The fact that there was no evidence of Lainie remaining disturbed Adán like nothing ever had before. It seemed so final, as if Lainie had not just died and was buried, but that she had vanished from existence. That was why, he realized, people on earth left grave markers behind—their names etched in brass or granite to outlive generations to come, a solid tangible marker as evidence that someone once lived and still existed there, in that very spot.

  But there was no grave marker for Lainie or for the rest of Carpathia’s crew. Even if they tried to place something, it would be blown away or covered over with the next sandstorm. It didn’t seem right, leaving her here to be swallowed up by the emptiness, but what else could they do?

  After a while, Tink finally got to his feet. Without speaking a word, he turned and trudged across the dust to the Carpathia. Fess gave Adán a quick glance, then followed, along with Dema and Scott.

  Jonah gathered up both shovels. “I hate to add to the solemnity of the moment,” he said, hoisting them across his shoulders, “but someone’s gotta say it.”

  “Say what?” asked Adán.

  “This wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for our fearless commander and his reckless orders. He hasn’t been the same since he woke from that coma.”

  Adán couldn’t disagree, but he didn’t feel like saying so. He just wished Jonah would say what he had to say and leave him be.

  “I have something to confess,” Jonah continued. “When we went through the crew’s storage boxes, when we gathered up the pictures and stuff to bury with them, I did something I shouldn’t have.”

  Adán waited. He wasn’t in the mood for conversation or for Jonah relieving his conscience, but he didn’t want to be rude. So, he let Jonah continue.

  “Once I was alone in the Quarters, well, alone with our comatose commander, I opened his box.”

  “You did what?” This was not anything close to what Adán expected to hear. “Trespassing personal property is a breach of regulations, Jonah. You could get court-martialed for that.”

  Jonah smirked. “Here? Right.” But then he grew more serious. “Don’t you want to know what I found? Nothing. Dryker’s box was empty.”

  “So what?” said Adán, though he had to admit the revelation felt wrong somehow. Odd.

  “Who travels to a new planet empty-handed?” Jonah said. “If I were a betting man, which I’m not, I’d lay it all on Dryker being the mole.”

  Jonah adjusted the weight of the shovels and headed across the sand toward the cargo bay, leaving Adán alone.

  He should leave too, follow the others into the shuttle, but he hesitated. He rolled Jonah’s confession around in his mind, but he didn’t have space in his head for that just then. He had just buried Lainie and wished he could leave some symbol behind to claim this spot for her. He recalled something Saul had told him once, that in some cultures it is—was—taboo to name the dead, to speak their names out loud. Yet that didn’t seem right, silencing their memories like that. No, it wasn’t right.

  “Lainie,” Adán said in a whisper. Then he took a deep breath and threw his head back, shouting. “Lainie!”

  His throat felt tight, but he tried again. He pushed the air out from deep inside of him, screaming her name over and over so that whatever was out there—whatever took her from them—would know she still existed and always would.

  The murmur of prayers hummed in Jonah’s ears like a hive of bees. His instinct was to swat them away, but he knew it would do no good. Sundays were his least favorite of the week, but his father was the local minister and insisted on dragging his son out to every meeting.

  At eight years of age, Jonah was bored by his father’s sermons and the prayer rituals that followed. Still, he tried to find something to talk to God a
bout, to help pass the time.

  “I traded some Pokémon cards,” he said one Sunday, rubbing his ear. “Got a really good one, but Mom said I had to give it back. Said it was unfair. What do you think?”

  Jonah paused a moment and listened. His dad had always said that God spoke to people through scripture and prayer, but no matter how hard he tried, Jonah never heard anything but that annoying hum of other people’s voices.

  But today was different. He had something more important than Pokémon, or winning tomorrow’s bike race with Harry, or whether or not he’d get that new Nintendo system for Christmas this year.

  “God?” Jonah whispered. He didn’t want anyone else to hear him. “Please bring Mommy home from the hospital. She’s been there a long time, and I miss her.”

  He shifted in his seat. The old lady to his left glanced down at him disapprovingly.

  “God, if you make Mommy better, I’ll clean my room every day before bed. I’ll help Daddy with the baby so Mommy can rest. Or maybe you want something else instead?”

  He’d thought about it all morning.

  Harry one time offered to water the lawn in exchange for Jonah’s new Hot Wheel. He thought it was a good deal at the time and gave it up. Harry watered the grass the next morning, but the day after that, the task fell to Jonah again. He felt cheated, but a deal was a deal.

  No, if he was going to make a deal with God, it had to be a good one. Something God would really want.

  “I’ll give you my soul,” he said. “Just bring Mommy home soon.”

  The truth was Jonah wasn’t really sure what a soul was. His dad called it spirit, but what was that? He guessed it was whatever made him alive. Because dead people’s spirits went to heaven, or sometimes hell. A soul, Jonah thought, must be the same thing then.

  Only, if he gave it away, would that mean he would die?

  That’s what Daddy was afraid of, Jonah knew. He was afraid Mommy would die, that her soul would go to heaven and leave him here on Earth all alone. The baby came too early. Too fast. It made Mommy sick. And Daddy was worried. He’d been at the hospital for two days.

  But today was Sunday, and he said the congregation needed him. And he needed to pray.

  “I’ll give you my soul,” repeated Jonah in a whisper, “if you let Mommy’s spirit stay.”

  Father’s sermon was short. He and the people prayed. He gave them the Last Supper. Then he and Jonah drove back to the hospital.

  Daddy left Jonah sitting in a vinyl chair in the hall so he could talk to the doctor in private. He was gone a long time, so long that Jonah nodded off for a while.

  He was awakened by someone gently shaking his shoulder.

  “Jonah,” said Daddy. Jonah blinked open his eyes and saw his father’s face. He was smiling, but his eyes and cheeks were wet with tears. How can someone smile and cry at the same time, Jonah wondered?

  “Mommy’s going to be okay,” said Daddy. “She’s getting better. Our prayers are working.”

  Then he paused, rolled his bottom lip in between his teeth. He pinched his eyes, but he could not stop more tears from coming.

  “But your little sister,” Daddy said, his voice breaking. “The baby didn’t make it.”

  Jonah wasn’t sure what his father meant, and his confusion must have shown on his face because Daddy took Jonah’s hands in both of his own and spoke again.

  “The baby died, Jonah. Her soul has gone to heaven.”

  No. That couldn’t be, Jonah thought. He’d offered God a trade, a good trade. His soul for Mommy’s, but God didn’t take him. He took his sister instead.

  His father, still wearing his minister’s collar, knelt in front of Jonah and laid his head in his lap.

  That wasn’t a fair trade, Jonah was thinking. It wasn’t what he’d asked for. Then again, had he prayed for the baby? He wasn’t sure. All that humming around him, the woman glaring at him. Had he asked God to save his sister? He tried to remember what he had said exactly. He had asked God to make his mother well again. He had offered his soul for hers.

  But no, he had forgotten to pray for the baby. A loophole is what Harry would call it. When Harry had watered the grass, he had not watered the flowers. When Jonah pointed it out, Harry had said, “but I didn’t offer to water the flowers. I only said I’d water the grass. And I did. It’s a loophole.”

  God had found a loophole in Jonah’s prayer. Again, he felt cheated, but he couldn’t really blame God, could he? Jonah was the one who’d offered the deal. Jonah was the one who forgot about the baby. It was his fault then that the baby died.

  His father took the seat beside him and buried his face in his hands. His shoulders shook as he wept. As Jonah watched his father come apart, he felt something deep inside him, a tight, hot burning making its way from his stomach up through his chest and throat until it reached his eyes. It consumed him, this burning, this pain.

  The first tears fell onto his hands clasped across his knees, and Jonah vowed to himself that he’d never let God find a loophole in his prayers again.

  Adán stripped off his gear and tossed his dusty outerwear into the laundry bin. It was almost inconceivable that even here, in this god forsaken outpost, they had to deal with the same drudgery as on Earth: washing laundry, cleaning the head, keeping the inside of the shuttle free from the ever-present orange dust. He entered the head, relieved himself, and took a shower—two more oddly mundane tasks. Standing in the spray of tepid water, he became aware of the fact that the skin on his face, particularly the lower parts of his cheeks and chin, burned like someone had held a lighter to it. The sand had scraped away much of the top layer of skin, leaving it raw.

  The stream of water was replaced with a warm gust of air, drying his body in seconds. Then he dressed and entered the common room. Apparently, Tink had sequestered himself in the cockpit, probably throwing himself into studying more schematics. Adán would give him some time alone, to grieve in his own way. Fess and Jonah sat together at a table, Jonah’s arm around Fess talking in hushed, reassuring tones. They made brief eye contact with Adán as he entered, but otherwise they left him to himself. He didn’t see Scott but guessed he was back in the Quarters as usual. He was the only one of the crew who bothered going in there anymore. Adán couldn’t imagine why he would want to, except that it was the only place left in the shuttle where someone could be alone.

  And then there was Dema. He was more worried about her than about Fess or Scott or even Tink. He thought about those first hours after waking, how desperate Dema had been to find someone, anyone still alive. And when she’d found Scott—well, she had hesitated, but then she threw herself into saving him. If it weren’t for her, he would never have made it. Then there was Fess, the way she mothered him and looked after him better than any real doctor might have. Adán couldn’t imagine what she was feeling right now, after fighting so hard to save Lainie.

  He found her in the lab, scrutinizing the zygote data—punching numbers into her E-Tab. She didn’t even glance up when he came in.

  “I have work to do, Adán,” she said.

  Adán closed the door behind him, so they were alone in the confined lab. “Dema—”

  “Some of the damaged zygotes might still be salvageable,” she cut him off, swiping a finger hastily across the screen. “If we could just get them to the colony—”

  “Dema.”

  She had washed her hands, and the outerwear that had been splattered with Lainie’s blood was gone. He hadn’t seen it in the laundry. She’d probably tossed it in the incinerator instead, but the smell of dust and blood were still faintly present around her. Or maybe it was just in his mind.

  “Adán, I know you mean well,” Dema said, “but I need—want—to be alone right now.”

  He might have believed her if the tremor in her voice hadn’t betrayed her.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

  She raised her eyes to him, narrowed and accusing. “Why, Adán? So, you can taunt me like Scott, or ju
dge me like Jonah? You know, I didn’t ask for this responsibility.” She swept a hand in the direction of the specimen drawers. “I’m doing the best I can, you know? This is the future of the human race. They’re all that matter, Adán. We don’t matter at all. I don’t matter.”

  As she said the last few words, her voice broke, and for a fleeting moment, Adán caught a glistening in her eyes before she turned away.

  “Of course, you matter, Dema,” he said. “Without you, these embryos wouldn’t stand a chance. None of us would. Fess and Dryker—”

  “I don’t give a damn about Scott Dryker!” she snapped with such vehemence that it took Adán by surprise. Then just as quickly, her face, which was enraged a second earlier morphed into a look of despair. Her eyes reached out to him, pleading.

  “I tried to save her,” she whispered.

  Adán didn’t know what to say. He stepped closer to her, expecting her to turn away, to retreat, but she didn’t. He was right in front of her now, with only inches separating them. He could feel her warmth, hear her breathing. She looked—vulnerable.

  Adán raised his hand to Dema’s face, tracing it with his fingertips. Her skin was so smooth, satiny like a rose petal. He half expected her to back away from him, or to push his hand aside, but instead she closed her eyes and tipped her head until her cheek rested in his palm.

  “It’s okay, Dema,” he said softly. “You did everything you could. Everything.”

  A tear slid down her cheek, moistening Adán’s hand. He slid it forward, combing his fingers through her hair. If he were to admit the truth, he had longed to do that ever since he first saw her at the NASA orientation. She was in the line next to his, and they reached the sign-in table at the same time. As she bent over to log in her name, she turned to glance at him, tossing her hair casually over her shoulder. And she had smiled. At that moment, something inside of him fluttered. The feeling had never left him, but he had done his best to ignore it—until now.

  Dema’s eyes opened, and she looked at him with the same intense gaze as always, as if she were thinking some deep thought about him or searching his face for answers to questions she dared not utter. Yet there was something else, and Adán couldn’t decide if it was disbelief or fear…or a combination of both.