Sand and Shadow

by Laurisa White Reyes

  Adán nodded, relieved Fess had changed his mind. “I’ll get the step ladder out of the cargo bay,” he said. “It would be helpful if Jonah would lend us a hand.”

  “You and I both know that ain’t gonna happen,” said Fess. “I’d give anything to stay inside, but you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. If I let you patch this thing, we’ll all probably explode on takeoff.”

  They both laughed, which released some of the stress between them. Then Fess grew serious. “After what happened to Lainie, nothing’s gonna get Jonah out of that shuttle again. He just won’t admit he’s scared.”

  “Aren’t you scared?” asked Adán.

  Fess forced a nervous smile. “Scared as shit.”

  Adán patted Fess on the shoulder. “I’ll be back in a sec,” he said, then hunched beneath the shuttle.

  He returned a few minutes later and set up the ladder. Fess immediately began securing the edges of the fabric to the shuttle hull with magnetic clips. It took more than an hour to secure the entire strip in place, and another half hour to trim off the excess. Fess found several tubs of adherent in the cargo bay along with some paintbrushes. “Seems pretty basic, I know,” said Fess, prying off the lid from the first tub, “but that’s what it is. We apply this goop underneath the material all the way around the edges, so it bonds with the exterior of the shuttle. Then we apply two coats over the whole thing. As it dries, it’ll harden into a shell, strong as a bowling ball. Then we weld the sheet of metal over that. The whole thing will need to be filed down to create as smooth a surface as possible. Once we’re airborne, even the smallest irregularity can result in friction that could tear this whole thing right off. And if that happens, we’re going down.”

  “How long will the entire process take?”

  Fess dipped his brush into the viscous golden adherent that looked surprisingly like a bucket of honey. “We can apply the adherent today, but it needs time to dry. I’ll do the welding tomorrow. Once we file it smooth, we can take off pretty quickly after that, as long as Tink makes sure all the systems are functional. Would be kind of a waste, wouldn’t it, if we go through all this trouble only to have something go wrong with the controls?”

  Fess spread a swath of gold beneath a section of Nomex. Adán grabbed the second brush and started at the opposite end of the breach. What if something did go wrong, he wondered? At this point, there were so many things that could happen, he couldn’t even think of them all. What if the systems short-circuited? What if friction tore away the patch? What if they crashed? What if—?”

  Adán knew only one thing for sure—there were way too many what ifs.

  After the initial repairs on the breach had been completed, everyone gathered in the common room for a solemn meal of Cream of Chicken soup, or what Fess had christened Wallpaper Paste. Most of the cots and bedding had been blown away earlier in the storm, with the exception of Fess and Jonah’s which, it was agreed, should be used by Fess whose leg was still healing, and Dema. The rest of the crew dragged in padding from the cryo units and made makeshift beds on the floor of the CR, except for Scott who slept in the same cryo unit in which he’d spent his coma—Adán’s old unit.

  “You all just cluster together in here like a bunch of chicks,” said Scott before leaving for the Quarters. “Scared little chicks all gathered under their mama’s wing.” He gave a pointed glare at Adán as he left the room.

  “What an asshole,” said Fess, curling up on his cot.

  Jonah, heading toward the cockpit for his watch, chimed in. “Dema, he’s your fault, you know. You should have let him flatline when you had the chance.”

  “Shut up, Jonah,” said Adán.

  But Dema didn’t respond. She was already lying still, a blanket rolled tightly around her. Adán wasn’t sure if she was actually asleep, but either way, Jonah’s comment was over the line. Tink was equally unresponsive. He hadn’t touched his food and was the first to turn in, choosing to sleep beneath a table. Adán still wanted to ask him about the holo linked to his name, but other than his few comments earlier about repairing the shuttle, Tink had kept to himself all day. So Adán thought it best to leave him alone, at least for tonight. He needed time to deal with Lainie’s death in his own way.

  Despite feeling beyond exhausted, Adán wasn’t ready to go to sleep quite yet. He cleaned up after dinner, started a load of laundry, and rummaged in the personals bin for a new book to read. He could have read anything from the shuttle archives via his tablet, but he still preferred the texture of real paper between his fingers.

  Wanting a quiet place to read, Adán joined Jonah in the cockpit, slipping into the co-pilot’s seat.

  “Hey,” Adán said, “mind if I sit in here and read a while?”

  Jonah did not respond.

  “Sorry about telling you to shut up back there. I didn’t mean it.”

  Jonah remained silent, staring intently at the blank monitor as if it, not the window, provided some view to the world outside.

  “Jonah,” said Adán, “are you okay, buddy?”

  Jonah rubbed the instrument panel with affection, like it was the body of a fine sports car. “What do you think it wants?” he asked in a quiet tone.

  “You mean Dryker?” Adán said, thinking of Scott’s parting shot a few minutes earlier. He gave a cynical hmpf. “Scott’s off it,” he said. “The coma screwed with his brain, that’s what I think.”

  “No,” said Jonah, still staring at the instruments. “Not Commander Dryker. The monster.”

  It occurred to Adán then that he hadn’t thought much about how everything had affected Jonah—the attack on the shelter and Lainie’s death. Everyone was affected of course, some more deeply than others, but it had been Jonah all along who refused to step outside the shuttle, who insisted there was something out there.

  “It’s coming for us whether we believe in it or not,” said Jonah, eerily calm. “Well, I believe. I was raised on believing: God, angels, miracles, Jesus casting out evil spirits—all of it. My dad was a pastor, did you know that? He read this story once over the pulpit. Jesus asked his disciples who they thought he was. They told him he was the Son of God. And Jesus told them that it is well to believe, but the devils also believe and tremble.”

  “So, you think it’s some kind of devil out there?” asked Adán.

  “I don’t know,” said Jonah. Then he seemed to change his mind, a sort of resolve taking over his expression. He dragged his gaze from the instrument panel to Adán’s eyes.

  “Adán, do you think there’s a possibility, however small, that God sent this—this thing—to finish what he started on earth?”

  “What do you mean, Jonah? Finish what?”

  “The Apocalypse.” Jonah’s eyes widened in fierce determination. His fist clenched, pressing into the armrest of his seat. “We escaped God’s final judgment, but he’s followed us here. He’s taking us one at a time. Who can hide from God?”

  Adán considered this a moment. If anyone beside Jonah had talked about God and devils and the Apocalypse, he wouldn’t have taken them seriously. From the little he knew about church, the religious claimed everything good or bad was God’s will. Adán didn’t believe in any of it. He believed tragedies were either a consequence of bad decisions or caused by nature. Either way, they were out of anyone’s control. That’s what happened to Earth. Not some divine judgment. That’s what he believed—what he wanted to believe.

  “C’mon Jonah. Think about it. Why would God let an entire planet full of people die?” Adán asked. “What kind of a God would do that?”

  “He did it before—with the flood.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Adán leaned forward in his chair, glaring purposefully at Jonah. He had to calm him down, get him to see reason, or else he’d be useless to the mission. The last thing the crew of the Carpathia needed was a lunatic on board.

  “Still, if God did send the Apocalypse,” suggested Adán, trying to put his thoughts into some logical pattern, “isn�
�t it just as likely that he arranged for us to escape? I don’t know a lot about the Bible, but if I’m not mistaken, God saved a handful of people from the flood to start the human race over again.”

  Jonah nodded uncertainly. “So, you’re saying maybe we’re like Noah’s Ark?”

  “Maybe.”

  Adán laid his elbows against his armrests and thumbed through the pages of his book. Tomorrow he and Fess would finish the repairs. Tink was supposed to input the coordinates of New Earth into the shuttle’s guidance system so they could test Carpathia’s flight capability, if possible. To do that, they would need everyone, including Jonah, to be at the top of his game.

  He gave Jonah’s arm a gentle shove. “C’mon,” he said. “I’m not tired. I’ll take this watch. You get some sleep.”

  Jonah looked again at the instruments, then got to his feet. He started for the cockpit door, but as he reached for the handle, he paused.

  “I like the idea of the Ark,” he said. “Only there’s one major difference.”

  “What’s that?” asked Adán.

  “Noah didn’t have some invisible beast tearing his family to pieces.”

  “How’s it look?”

  Fess brushed his palm over the hardened patch, then tapped on it with his knuckle. “Good. Looks real good,” he said. “You ready for phase two? Grab yourself a length of flashing.”

  Adán did as he was told, holding the strip of flexible metal in place along the edge of the patch. Fess dropped the welding shield over his eyes and lit the torch. The angry blue flame hissed like a viper.

  “Avert your eyes,” Fess told him.

  Adán turned his face away from the shuttle and stared absently at the horizon, a scene that had become all too redundant over the past week since they had awakened from cryo. He was growing more and more anxious to join the colony at New Earth. Even if the terrain there was the same as here, at least there would be some structures and more faces to help break up the monotony.

  “Once this is welded on,” continued Fess, “we’ll sand it all down and get out of here.”

  “I can’t wait,” said Adán.

  A crackle sounded in his comm, followed by Dema’s voice. “How is everything coming along, boys?”

  “Morning, Dema,” said Adán. “It’s coming along fine. I think we’ll be done here by noon.”

  Fess kept at the welding.

  “All right then,” said Dema. “I’ll have lunch waiting for you—Mac & Cheese.”

  “Yum.”

  Dema laughed. “Listen, Adán, you got a minute?”

  “Yeah, sure.” By the tone in Dema’s voice he could tell she wanted to talk alone. He heard the distinctive click in his earpiece signaling that she had switched frequencies. “Are we alone?” he asked.

  “For now,” Dema answered. “I just wanted to apologize for yesterday—in the lab.”

  After Lainie’s death, Adán had found Dema in the lab intending to comfort her. Instead, he’d come onto her. He hadn’t planned to let it get that far and had been too embarrassed to bring it up himself afterwards. In truth, he’d let the whole thing eat at him.

  “I’m the one who should apologize,” he said quickly. “I totally overstepped my bounds.”

  “No,” Dema insisted. “That’s what I wanted to tell you, Adán. I like you. I really like you, and under any other circumstances, I would have responded—differently. Losing Lainie like that, I just wasn’t ready. I let things get to me, but I’m fine now. I just don’t want things to be weird between us.”

  Dema was fine? What did that mean? Did she want him to try again—wanted him to kiss her again? His mind reeled with the possibility.

  “Well, anyway,” continued Dema, “I’ve got to get back to the lab and finish those diagnostics. Tink’s on watch this morning, so he’ll be in soon. Oh, here he is now. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Adán heard another click, and the frequency went quiet. Fess cast him a sly grin.

  “What?” said Adán, but he couldn’t help but smile back.

  Fess continued welding. The process was slow going. After a while, Adán’s mind started to wander back to Dema. He replayed in his mind those moments in the lab—her lips on his, the warmth of her breath on his skin, the smooth curve of her breasts. He wanted to be with her again, more than anything. Not that anything more could happen between them, not here where privacy was as scarce as the color green. But when they got to New Earth, maybe there they could be together. Maybe Dema would choose him to be her—the word mate seemed wrong, insensitive, but any other word for it seemed equally strange. And it didn’t matter what they called it anyway. Dema was interested in him—not Scott. Boy, wouldn’t Scott blow a gasket when he found out? The thought gave Adán pleasure, and he tried to imagine the look on Scott’s face when Dema blew him off once and for all and chose him instead.

  A loud crackle on the comm broke through Adán’s thoughts. Tink’s voice came on.

  “Fess? Adán?”

  “Hi Tink,” said Adán. “Nice to hear from you. Did you get a good night’s sleep?”

  There was a long staticky pause as Adán waited for Tink to reply. When he did, there was a tight gravity in his voice.

  “Guys, something’s going on out there.”

  The hiss of the welder stopped. Fess pulled up his shield, and he and Adán looked at each other.

  “Pressure’s dropping,” continued Tink. “Wind velocity is rising.”

  “Another storm?” asked Fess.

  “Storm my ass,” replied Adán, already coiling up the cord. “Let’s get this inside!”

  “What about the flashing?” Fess replied. “It’s only half done. The wind—it’ll rip it right off along with the patch.”

  Adán grumbled under his breath. “Damn it!” He uncoiled the cord, and Fess lit the torch again, holding it to the flashing.

  “Hurry,” said Adán, although it didn’t need to be said. They both knew time was against them. Already, Adán could feel the temperature plummeting as the wind shot daggers of sand at them. In under a minute, Adán was struggling just to hold the loose flap of flashing in place.

  “Fess! It’s no use! We’ve got to get inside!” shouted Adán into his comm.

  Fess’s hands paused, but only for a moment before he went right back to the job. “It’s nearly done!” he hollered over the howling wind. “Just a couple more feet, and it will be secure enough to withstand just about anything!”

  “But Fess!”

  Crackle.

  “Guys!” shouted Tink. “There’s—there’s something on the monitor!”

  Adán grabbed Fess’s arm. “We’ve got to go!” He looked back at the shuttle’s forward hatch trying to gauge how long it would take to reach it. Too long, he realized. They’d be fighting against the wind the whole way.

  “Fess! The storage bay!”

  The storage bay was on the opposite side of the shuttle but closer to where they stood than the hatch.

  “A few more inches!” yelled Fess. “If this gets ripped off, there isn’t enough material left to do it again! It has to be now!”

  The few seconds it took for Fess to weld the last bit of flashing felt unbearably long. The moment the flame went out, Adán pulled Fess away. “Drop the welder! We’ll recover it later if we can!”

  Crackle. “Are you guys coming?” Tink sounded frantic.

  “Negative,” said Adán. “Wind’s too strong. We’re going to wait it out in the bay!”

  Suddenly, Dema’s voice came over the comm. “Adán! Fess! You need to take cover now! The monitors show a mass the size of the Statue of Liberty coming up behind you!”

  Adán spun and peered through the pelting sand. “I don’t see anything!”

  Fess and Adán ducked under the belly of the shuttle, scurried up the ramp, and dove into the storage area. “Close the bay hatch! Close the bay hatch!” they both shouted.

  Tink’s voice again came over the comm, broken and staticky. “Computer, close carg
o bay door number one,” said Tink. “Stay clear, you guys.”

  To Adán’s relief, the ramp retreated beneath the shuttle and the massive door panels began to move on their powerful hydraulic hinges, but slowly—too slowly.

  “Are you in?” asked Dema.

  “Yes! Yes, we’re in!”

  The space between the two door panels grew narrower, and Adán allowed himself to feel relieved. Through the gap, he watched the sand blow sideways in hurricane force winds. Too much of it slipped in, clawing at them.

  Then suddenly everything shifted. The sand that had gotten trapped inside the bay, swirling like a cyclone, abruptly fled the compartment as if a giant vacuum had sucked it all out. And that’s precisely what had happened. Along with the sand, several smaller objects—containers of hardware, tools, rolls of Nomex were instantly gone. Adán felt the strong tug of the vacuum sucking at his body, and he managed to grab hold of the rover, strapped securely to the floor. Fess, too, reach for a hand hold but his fingers clumsily slipped along the side of the compartment and failed to find purchase.

  His body, legs first, shot toward the opening with the speed of a bullet. Without thinking, Adán let go of the rover and grasped Fess’s hands with his own. Fess’s legs were pulled through the opening, but Adán spread his feet apart at the last second, bracing them on either side of the door panels.

  “Stop the hatch! Stop the hatch!” he screamed into his comm, but all that he heard in return was static. “Fess is in the way! Stop the hatch from closing!!!”

  But the panels continued to close.

  “Pull me in!” Fess screeched. “It’s gonna cut me! Pull me in!”

  Adán held onto Fess as if to his very life and pulled until his leg and arm muscles cramped, but the force pulling on Fess’s legs was stronger. It was if something big, something inhumanly strong, had a hold of him.

  “It’s got me!” Fess screamed. “Adán, please! Please!”