Sand and Shadow

by Laurisa White Reyes

  “Tink, where are you? Please come in! Tink!”

  But there was no answer. Adán tore off his helmet and shouted Tink’s name again and again. He scanned the horizon in every direction. Nothing. Nothing.

  A few minutes later, Adán heard the rumble of the rover’s engine coming toward him. Dema pulled up beside him.

  “Adán, I’ve been calling you.” She looked around. “Where’s Tink?”

  Adán tried to move, but his muscles refused to respond. If he could just bend a finger, scratch somewhere, anywhere, then he’d feel normal again, like maybe everything else wasn’t so awful. Yet his body remained rigid, and he kept staring out toward where the storm—the monster—had scooped up Tink and…

  He couldn’t think about it anymore. If he did, he was going to be sick.

  Finally, with more effort than he’d ever put into anything he ever had before, he twisted his right foot to the side. He forced his other foot to follow, and he turned away from the barren horizon that was Tink’s vast grave.

  “Did you bring the scanner?” he asked Dema.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Tink’s gone.” He took the scanner from Dema’s hand and methodically waved it side to side, examining the landscape, searching for any sign of his friend. “It was here,” he told Dema. “The monster is real. I saw it.”

  The scanner was useless. Adán slapped it repeatedly with the heal of his hand. “Damn it!” Then he threw it with all his might.

  “The storm,” he continued, breathlessly, “the sand swirled around it, and I saw its outline. It’s big. Bigger than the shuttle. And it went after Tink.” In his mind, he saw how the creature’s massive limbs dropped in front of him, cutting him off from Tink, and then swept his friend away. It was all so—intentional, just as Dema had once said. Adán blinked, confusion muddling his brain. “It wanted him,” he said. “But why?”

  “I’m so sorry, Adán,” said Dema. “I would have reached you sooner, but Scott tried to stop me. He’d been in the Quarters for hours. When he came out, I told him what was happening. He stood in the doorway, blocking me from leaving. I tried to push past—”

  “Scott blocked you? Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t want me to get hurt. I managed to get past him, and he didn’t come after me.”

  “Scott knew we were out here. He knew that thing was out here.”

  “I don’t know, Adán. He was crazed about it. Kept saying we aren’t supposed to be here.”

  “We’re not supposed to be here? What the hell does that mean?”

  Adán glared back at the shuttle. There had always been something different about Scott, something not quite right. Ever since he’d awaken from his coma, he’d been edgy and anxious. Adán thought about what Jonah had said—that the monster was sent by God, but what if God had nothing to do with it? What if this was something mankind had brought upon itself?

  “Dema,” said Adán, “do you remember what Commander Parks said about the other shuttles being sabotaged?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Give me your tab.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Just give me your tab!” Dema pulled it from her pack and handed it to him. He clicked and scrolled frantically.

  “It’s all here,” he said. “All of it. Newspaper articles, official documents. I saw this before, but I was rushing through, just skimming the surface, but I get it now. They wanted us to know.”

  “Know what? Adán, I don’t under—”

  “Just look at this.”

  She read the headline on the screen and then scanned through the story. “What am I seeing?”

  Adán scrolled through more stories, more pages. “The Terrestrial Brotherhood claimed the human race had no right to try to escape God’s punishment. They planted a mole on the Beacon and destroyed the entire crew.”

  “And Parks found a saboteur among his crew,” said Dema.

  “What if there was a mole on every shuttle? On the Carpathia?”

  “No. That’s not possible.”

  “What if that mole, that traitor, is still on the shuttle?”

  “Still on the—Adán, there’s only four of us left. If the saboteur was on the shuttle at all, he’s probably dead.”

  “Maybe, but maybe not. Maybe we were all supposed to die but something went wrong. Some of us survived, and now whoever was responsible has to finish the job.”

  “I still don’t see what you’re—”

  “It’s Scott,” said Adán. “The monster. That thing that killed Fess and Lainie and now Tink. It’s Scott’s mind, see? I don’t know exactly how he’s doing it, but I think the monster is connected to him somehow. Think about it. He was the last one to go into cryo and the last one awake. Tink said the hail transmitter had been turned off. He thought it was glitch, but what if it was done on purpose? To prevent communication. Isolate the shuttles. Jonah looked in Scott’s storage box, and it was empty. Why would he bring anything with him if he knew he wouldn’t be needing it? Then the first night we were attacked, when it tore the shelter, Scott had just woken up. And he’s in there, in the Quarters, all the time. With that machine, those patches. Is he still connecting to that thing? What does he do in there anyway?”

  “Adán, this is all a bit far-fetched, don’t you think? I mean, you’re accusing our Mission Commander of murdering the whole crew!”

  Adán shook his head. “I know it sounds crazy. Jonah warned me days ago, but—”

  “Jonah? Since when do you believe anything Jonah says? He’s a fanatic.”

  “Sometimes he makes sense. He’s the one who first suggested that something’s wrong with Scott, but I didn’t take him seriously—until now.”

  “He’s got some crazy ideas, Adán, but that doesn’t make him right. If you’re talking about religious zealots like the Terrestrial Brotherhood, maybe you should look at Jonah. Where is he, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. Wasn’t he in the shuttle with you?”

  “I haven’t seen him since you left with Tink to find Fess.”

  “Get in the rover,” said Adán.

  “What about the other one?”

  “We’ll retrieve it later if we can. Right now, we’ve got to get back to the Carpathia. We need to find Jonah before Scott does.”

  USA TODAY

  OPINION by Nancy Orlov

  From global warming to GMOs, the human race has indisputably damaged Mother Earth. After centuries of polluting the air, land, and seas, we have created a toxic environment that has caused an alarming rise in incurable cancers, has led to the extinction of countless animal and plant species, and has set humankind on a path from which there is no turning back. With the eminent cataclysmic destruction of what’s left of the planet’s rain forests, the earth will soon be unable to recycle its own atmosphere. At this rate, our air will cease to be breathable in less than fifty years, a single generation.

  While governments around the world make promises they cannot keep and pass increasingly stringent regulations to restore our planet to a habitable state, the evidence proves that it is too late. Our planet is doomed. The question we ask is this: Do we have the right to curse any other planet with the presence of human life, setting it on the same course as Earth now travels?

  NASA plans to colonize Europa, but will doing so simply multiply and proliferate Earth’s problems? Some experts claim our planet may face disaster sooner than previously predicted. If so, we have brought this crisis upon ourselves. To think we can escape the consequences by spreading our legacy of self-destruction is a crime against humanity’s future generations and the entire universe.

  As the rover neared the shuttle, Adán spotted a figure standing outside the hatch. It was Scott peering off into the desert. Orange dust coated his face and hair, as if he had been out there through the whole storm. Adán jumped off the shuttle while it was still moving.

  “Adán, wait,” warned Dema, but he ignored her. He strode up to Scott and without
hesitation struck him across the jaw.

  Scott stumbled back, almost losing his balance. A thin line of blood threaded its way from a nostril down to his lip. His tongue darted out of his mouth, tasting.

  “What the—?”

  Adán hit him again. Scott tried to block the blow, which he had expected to land on his face again. This time, however, the fist landed in his stomach. Air woofed out of him, and he wrapped a protective arm around his middle. Then, slowly, he straightened up, his face cringing from the pain.

  Scott’s brilliant blue eyes shifted until he was looking right at Adán. Adán couldn’t tell if the emptiness in his face was from shock or indifference, but he didn’t care anymore.

  “You wanna fight me?” Scott jeered. His bloody lips curled into a taunting grin. Adán stood, his fists poised.

  “If this is about Dema,” Scott added, “she’s not worth fighting over. You can have her.” He spat a mouthful of blood onto the sand.

  They stood staring at each other. Adán was lucky. He’d caught Scott by surprise. If he tried a third time, Scott would be ready for him. Keeping his eyes on Scott, he turned for the rover, which had come to a stop beside him. He unlatched the toolbox and snatched out a wrench. Eighteen inches long and made of solid steel, it had to have weighed five or six pounds. He gripped it so tightly his fingers ached.

  Scott gaped, his face frozen in an expression of disbelief. He raised his hands, palms out.

  “Hold on,” he said. “I don’t know what I did to piss you off, but we can talk about this, can’t we?”

  Adán hadn’t notice before, but now he spotted Jonah standing at the base of the shuttle hatch.

  “Do it,” Jonah said, his voice as steady as ever. “Do it, Adán. He deserves it.”

  “So, she told you about us, right?” said Scott, arrogance and alarm rolling off him like sweat. “I screw a girl, and I deserve to get bludgeoned to death? It’s not like I raped her, you know. And she had the abortion willingly.”

  “What?” said Adán.

  “No one held a gun to her head.”

  “Scott—” Dema said weakly, but Scott ignored her.

  “Colonel Foster told her it was her duty, and she obeyed like a good little soldier.”

  The cynicism in Scott’s voice churned Adán’s stomach. No wonder Dema hated him.

  “This isn’t about Dema,” said Adán. The steadiness of his own voice took him by surprise. “This is about Lainie, and Fess, and Tink—and the seventeen members of our crew lying under four feet of frozen sand.”

  Scott blinked. Adán continued. “You sabotaged the mission.”

  “No, I didn’t,” said Scott.

  “Everything points to you. You were our commander. You had control of the damn ship! It did what you told it to do.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You switched off communications. And your box was empty, Scott. Jonah checked it. You didn’t bring anything with you!”

  Adán watched as Scott’s once confident demeanor broke down in fear. Adán raised the wrench.

  Scott backed up, but tripped over his own feet and stumbled, landing on a knee. “What business is it of yours what I brought?”

  “What commander would leave all his belongings at home—unless he never intended to live long enough to use them?”

  Scott’s expression turned frantic.

  Adán pressed on. “Someone intentionally cut the power to the cryo units, but it went wrong. Some of us survived. But then something attacked the shuttle, as if trying to finish the job you failed to do.”

  Jonah, a hungry smirk on his face, took three steps toward Adán. “It’s got to be him,” he said. “The monster will keep coming back until he’s dead. Adán, you’ve got to stop the monster before it gets all of us.”

  “No!” shouted Scott. “It isn’t me! I-I admit I’d heard rumors about the Beacon, the mole. But I didn’t know who or if—” He swiped at his nose. “I didn’t bring anything because I didn’t think we—any of us—would make it. I was as surprised as all of you to be alive. It wasn’t me. I swear, it wasn’t me!”

  Scott’s voice gasped through tears now. Adán didn’t know why, but something in Scott’s voice, the desperate pleading, sounded sincere.

  “If you’re not the monster,” Adán said, “then what is? What has been attacking the crew?”

  “I don’t know!” said Scott. “I don’t know!”

  Jonah, angry now, came forward to stand right in front of Scott. “Just tell the truth, Dryker!” he shouted. “The brotherhood planted you on board in order to destroy the mission. Tell the goddamn truth!”

  “No! No, I wouldn’t—I didn’t!”

  Scott melted into a sobbing mess at Adán’s feet. Jonah looked away, disgusted. Adán took a step back from the man he had once called commander and tossed the wrench to the ground.

  In that moment, Scott lunged at him, growling like a wild beast. His fingers tightened around Adán’s throat, clenching like a bear trap. Adán’s lungs gasped desperately for even the smallest scrap of air, but his airway was closed off. Then, just as suddenly, there was a dull thunk. Scott’s eyes rolled back in his head, and his hands slid off Adán’s neck as he crumpled in a lifeless heap on the ground, blood oozing from a split in his scalp. Dema stood over him, gripping the wrench with white knuckles.

  Adán rubbed his throat, sucking in deep gulps of precious air.

  “Thanks,” he croaked.

  “You’re welcome,” said Dema.

  “Is he dead?” asked Adán.

  “He should be,” said Jonah.

  Dema knelt beside Scott and pressed her fingers to his neck. “No. He’s alive. I really didn’t hit him that hard, but we need to get him inside and stop the bleeding.”

  Neither Adán nor Jonah moved.

  “C’mon, you guys. You can’t leave him here. If you do, then you’re no better than that thing out there.”

  Jonah and Adán reluctantly hauled a limp and bloody Scott inside and laid him on one of the cots in the common room. Dema immediately set to work collecting items from a first aid kit to cleanse and suture his wound. Adán watched for a few minutes, and then removed himself to the cockpit.

  He dropped into the pilot’s seat and stared numbly out the window through the ever-present sheen of orange dust. Outside, the landscape of Gliese was as still as a photograph. It almost seemed unfair that the planet itself didn’t wail and writhe in grief over the death of Tink, over all their deaths. Adán wondered if the rust-colored earth wasn’t stained that way from the blood of others who had come before. Had this planet once sustained some community of living beings, and had those beings also been destroyed by the monster that seemed so determined to destroy the crew of the Carpathia?

  Adán leaned forward, resting his forehead against the control panel. Thoughts of those he’d lost assaulted his brain. He tried to push them out, but they came in a relentless barrage of vivid images and thoughts and even smells—the bloody slashes across Lainie’s abdomen, the way Fess’s mouth twisted open when he screamed, Tink being swallowed whole by some grotesque sand creature. But it was the sound of Fess’s gut-wrenching squeals that had been the worst, and the way they cut off like that, just suddenly silenced as he got sucked out into the void. Even now Adán’s stomach twisted inside of him thinking about it.

  Adán lifted his head a couple of inches and let it fall against the cold, lifeless metal panel. He did this again and again, hoping the pain in his skull would drown out the pain inside his head, but it was futile. Their deaths would live inside him forever, like a parasite feasting on his conscience until one day there would be nothing left of him but a hollow shell. All dead. And why? What had done it? They still had no idea. It was some giant invisible beast that existed in a whirlwind of sand. Where did it come from? Could it really have come from the mind of one person? And if it had—how? Why?

  He began to think he’d made a mistake, blaming Scott. In the midst of tragedy,
of panic, it was too easy to point fingers. Scott had denied everything. He could have been lying, thought Adán, and Scott had tried to hurt him. But maybe that was out of self-preservation. They were all just trying to stay alive, weren’t they?

  But what if Scott had been responsible? What if…?

  A thought tickled the corner of Adán’s brain. Something he’d seen in the archives. He pressed his eyelids shut, trying to recall the nagging memory. In the archives. What was it again?

  Swiping a finger across the panel screen, Adán accessed the shuttle’s data banks, returning to the news clippings he’d been scanning through, articles about the sabotaged shuttle.

  He slid through document after document, hoping one of them would jog his memory. And after a few minutes, one of them did.

  There. He tapped the screen and enlarged the print. He scanned through it quickly. Yes, this was it. He leaned back in the chair, reading it over again just to make sure. He had found the answer, but he didn’t know if it made him feel relieved—or more afraid than ever.

  Dema knew the pregnancy test was positive before she’d even seen the pink line across the tiny plastic window, but when her suspicions were confirmed, her reaction surprised her. She didn’t feel disappointed or scared. She felt—elated.

  A baby.

  Her baby.

  Well, and Scott’s, though she wasn’t sure how he’d take the news. He was the Mission Commander, after all. His reputation was on the line. And it wasn’t like they were serious. No talk about marriage or any future together at all. It was just a thing between them, and despite precaution, a miracle had happened.

  But the mission.

  Screw the mission. She’d never really wanted to go into space anyway. She’d been training as an Army medic when NASA’s recruitment campaign began. Her friend, Hannah, had coaxed her into applying with her. Hannah didn’t make the cut but had convinced Dema to accept NASA’s offer to join the team.