What’s the matter with you?
My ears are stopped up.
Her face was exasperated. She said something. I think it was, Have you tried— But I didn’t catch the rest. She stood up from the table, hugged her prosthetic to her chest, and hung her head upside down. She pulled at her earlobes.
I got up slowly, bent over, hung my head the way she had. The pressure in my ears stayed the same. I pulled at my earlobes and the two points of pain seemed to bore into my skull, until—
There was the faintest pop and my earache evaporated. I tentatively released my ears. I slowly raised my head and the air was full of sound. A high whistle from a vent, sharp clicking from a nearby breathing-therapy machine, the crunching rumble of a truck on the road outside.
Thank you, I said, and my voice was loud and brittle.
You’re welcome.
She sat back down, still hugging her hands to her chest.
I looked at her prosthetic. Really looked at it. In the background the breathing-therapy machine clicked and clicked and clicked. Does it hurt? I asked softly.
She didn’t answer. In her lap she worked the thumb of her prosthetic back and forth with a popping motion. Sometimes, she said finally. It’s weird. Sometimes it feels like it’s still there.
I’m sorry Amelia, I said.
I know you are.
A man wearing shorts and a Candidate Group sweatshirt came into the room. He sat down in front of a machine and began doing leg exercises. I watched him push the heavy pedal with his feet.
There’s no official rescue plan, Amelia said. Not yet. But that’s what we’re working toward.
I’ll mess it up, I said.
No you won’t.
I’m not ready.
She scrutinized me. You look puffy. Have you been taking the pills they gave you?
They don’t work.
It’ll get better. In a week or two you’ll be ready to go back up.
I started to protest again but she interrupted me. What else are you going to do?
32
When I was a little girl I had night terrors, or that’s what my uncle and aunt called them. I’d wake in the night standing in the front yard. The icy air prickling my bare arms, and my uncle’s warm hands on my shoulders. It was the only way he could wake me up—to take me out in the cold. I remember the feeling of the sharp gravel against my soft bare feet and the flat black of the night sky above my head.
In the morning my aunt would tell me about the screams that woke them and what I looked like when they went into my room. Red faced and sweaty, my hair a dark nest on top of my head. But I had no memory of those things. I remembered only the cold air against my skin and my uncle’s soft and precise voice in my ear. He said my name, June, June, June, until I came to.
Then he took me back upstairs and sat with me. I remember how quiet it was, my aunt and cousin asleep in their own rooms, the curtains in my bedroom drawn. I lay in my bed, and he sat in a chair next to it. Sometimes he read to me or we drew together. But mostly he just talked, about what he was working on, his students, or the astronauts who trained in the buildings next to his lab.
He talked a lot about the Pink Planet. My moon. He described its surface, rocky and rose tinged, and the silt that blew through the air. From memory he drew the structures NSP had built there. He had developed the solar grid that powered its three outposts, so he knew all the minute details. The first two buildings were tiny, a satellite station with an adjacent landing site, and a remote agricultural outpost. The third was the Gateway, a sprawling complex intended to be the home base of the Explorer program, starting with the second mission, because of the favorable launch windows created by the Pink Planet’s orbit. Each structure had started as a single mobile habitation unit and had been expanded over time, but the Gateway was by far the largest, with living quarters and labs and control rooms and launch pads growing like limbs from its first and central module.
I remember falling asleep to the soft scratch of his pen, with pictures of pink rocks and white modules and shining panels shuttling through my mind.
* * *
—
When my lander touched down on the Pink Planet with a grinding thnnnk, it was night. The landing site was a semicircle of light swimming in an expanse of black, and it felt as if I could be anywhere: the top of a mountain, the middle of the ocean. The moon. Mars. I extricated myself from my jump seat, my limbs stiff with sitting in one position for so long. My right eye twitched and a dull ache vibrated at the base of my jaw. I rubbed my face three times and put my helmet on, secured it, and grabbed my locker.
I stepped onto the surface. I was glad to move. The trip to the Pink Planet had meant too much sitting, too much doing nothing. I turned slowly in place, tried to discern shapes in the darkness. Topography. Anything. There was nothing but an unfamiliar rushing wind. I took a step and my boots sank into the silty soil. And another unsteady step. I reached down and ran my glove through the silt and waited for something. I think I hoped the feeling of sitting with my uncle in the night would come back. The sound of his voice telling me about this place, the feeling of him sitting close.
But my old bedroom at my aunt and uncle’s house, with its paintings on the walls and bookcase in the corner and bright rug on the floor, had never felt more far away. I was standing on the moon that I’d heard and read and thought so much about as a child, that had always felt like mine, and nothing about it was familiar.
I followed the lights, reached an airlock, and went inside. This was the smallest site on the Pink Planet, the satellite station; it housed a staff of scientists and satellite specialists, as well as rotating maintenance crews. There were ten people inside the five domed modules, but two of them were headed back to Earth. NSP had just shut down the planet’s agricultural outpost and they were the last to leave. I was headed to the only other site in operation—the operations station to the north called the Gateway.
I drank water and took a pain pill. I forced myself to choke down an oatmeal bar. Then I helped unload the supplies that had been delivered with me. By the time someone could drive me to the Gateway my eyes were scratchy with exhaustion.
* * *
—
Pink silt swirled in the rover’s headlights as it approached the complex, a jumble of gray modules in an expanse of uneven ground. A door opened in one of the modules, and my driver slowly pulled the rover into a dark cargo bay. I put my helmet on and climbed out.
Bits of rose-colored dust blew against my legs and tapped on my helmet as the rover pulled away. The door closed behind it and the dust fell to the ground. I turned on my headlamp and shadows rose up. Except for two parked rovers on one side and a heap of disassembled parts at the back, the bay was nearly empty. It reminded me of the cargo holds on the Sundew before a shipment arrived, when they were vast and echoing.
Ahead of me was an airlock and I stepped inside. A small circle of white light appeared in its porthole. It got larger—someone with a flashlight approached along a corridor. The light grew nearer and then stopped. I waved through the window. Behind the flashlight was a dark shape.
Finally I heard the click of the locking mechanism and the air pressurized around me. When the door opened the light was in my eyes; I raised my hand in front of my face. Then the flashlight lowered and revealed a young man in a dirty gray jumpsuit. A lean body and an angular face, keen eyes. Hair that curled over his ears. James.
Memories rose up in my mind of James and my uncle, their heads bent together over a table littered with metal shapes. James in a blue Candidate’s uniform running on the track at Peter Reed. In the office he shared with Theresa, his hair wild and his eyes tired, my pneumatic hand drawings spread out before him on his desk.
I took off my helmet and the air was salty, and also sweet.
It’s June, I said.
He
ran a hand over a dark patch of stubble on his cheek.
Peter Reed’s niece, I said.
Right.
Where is everyone? I squinted down the dark corridor. Sleeping?
Last maintenance crew left and the next hasn’t arrived yet.
You’re here by yourself?
A beeping sound came from above us. For a couple of days, he said, speaking over the sound.
What about Theresa—
A wailing alarm joined the beeping; behind us the airlock slid shut with a thunk.
Damn it. He started to stalk away.
I followed him. What is it?
We’re on low power. It keeps tripping the life support alarm.
Why?
The system thinks we’re running out of oxygen—
No why are you on low power?
Busted solar panels.
I can help fix them.
He turned around and didn’t say anything. He just looked at me from behind his flashlight, and I had a strange sensation that the light was holding me, pinning me in place.
He lowered the flashlight finally. No need. He gestured down an open airlock. Bunks are that way. Then he turned to walk in the other direction and the light went with him.
Soon the corridor was completely dark. On the wall was a switch; it worked. A dim trail of blue lights appeared along the floor.
His voice came from far off: If you want to eat or drink—or breathe—in the morning, I’d shut that off.
I need a light—
Behind you.
I ran my hand along the wall again and found a flashlight, turned it on, and walked in its small circle of light, looking into empty rooms and dark airlocks. The Gateway was sprawling and irregularly laid out. Some sections appeared brand-new. The plastic walls of the modules were bright white, the corridors wider and cooler. My footsteps echoed slightly there. Other parts were clearly older, built in an earlier era. Those corridors were dark and narrow and smelled like old air filters. Their tan walls muffled sound. Rooms were connected at odd angles; there were step-ups and step-downs in unexpected places, and I stumbled several times.
I tried to recall my uncle’s drawings to get my bearings but I saw no correlation between the shapes I had in my mind and the snaking corridors in front of me. At a dead end I backtracked and opened airlocks. Behind one was another corridor, even darker than the one I’d been in. The portholes were smaller and thicker here, and the air was hot and close. I bumped along until I found a room with beds inside.
It was empty of anything except four beds, four storage cabinets, and a sink with a mirror above it. I dropped my bag on the floor and slowly pulled my arms out of my suit with a feeling of relief. My limbs ached from its weight, and my elbows and knees were slow to bend. I leaned onto the bed to extricate my legs. The pain in my molars had settled into a diffuse ache at the back of my jaw.
The mattress on the bed was wider than any I’d slept in for a long time. I wanted to lie down but worried if I did I wouldn’t be able to get back up again. I grabbed a fresh T-shirt, pushed my locker under the bed, and went back into the corridor. With my flashlight I found what appeared to be a central module, with a small galley and a laundry. The portholes were larger here and the sky a dark blank outside. It was oddly quiet. The Sundew was always full of sound, whirring and blowing and beeping. The vents here were nearly silent. Cool, moist air drifted from them without a sound.
In the corridor next to the galley I opened doors. All the modules behind them were empty, except for one, a workshop that contained a large table and shelves full of tools. Strewn across the table were pieces of something—
The suck and hiss of an airlock came from down the corridor, and I moved quickly in the direction of the sound, back toward the cargo bay where I’d started, at least I thought so. James stood at the end of the corridor. He was climbing into a suit, slimmer and more compact than the one I’d worn here and the ones I was used to on the Sundew.
Where are you going? I asked.
South solar field.
There were more suits hanging on the wall. One was smaller than the others and I grabbed it from its hook. I’ll come.
I’m fine on my own. Stay here.
I’d rather work.
He held his helmet against his broad chest and looked at me, and again I had the strange feeling of being pinned in place.
I’ll be handier than you think, I said.
He pulled on his gloves, secured them at his wrists. I see you haven’t changed.
So you do remember me.
I remember a scrawny girl who used to sit reading books she didn’t understand in Peter’s lab.
I remember a man with short hair and clean clothes.
He smiled slightly and put on his helmet. I did the same. He opened the airlock and I followed.
I understood those books, I said, my voice tinny inside my helmet.
33
Inside the rover James pressed some buttons and the cargo bay door opened onto darkness. He turned on the headlights—they made the ground outside sparkle—and the rover rolled forward onto the pink silt. Our seats were close and as the rover bumped over the uneven ground I held my body straight, my helmet in my lap.
He accelerated toward a ridge and the wind picked up. There was complete darkness in every direction except for the one the headlights were pointed in, and it seemed as if we were climbing up and down the hills of silt nearly blind. How did he know we weren’t about to fall off a ridge or drive into another? I looked at him. His beard was patchy and uneven; there were dark circles under his eyes. Amelia had thought it was a good idea for me to come here, but now I wasn’t so sure.
Silt hit the windows in waves, buffeting the rover to the left and then the right. I secured my restraints. He left his off. The sound of the wind was low and loud, SHOWWW, SHOWWW.
How far is the field? I asked over the muffled roar.
About thirty minutes.
What else does it power? I held on to the side of the rover as we skidded across a rocky plateau. In the distance was a dark shape.
Gateway, satellite station.
That’s it?
Agricultural outpost’s shut down.
The headlights reached the shape—it was a disintegrating lander, its portholes like dark eyes in its dented white sides. More shapes appeared. Two wind-battered rovers, their legs splayed like injured spiders. A rocket engine half-buried in the silt, its insides exposed.
What happened to all the testing facilities, the labs?
Gone. Shut down.
Why are you still here?
Because I don’t want to study anything or test anything.
We accelerated over the crest of a ridge and I held on tightly as the rover skidded forward. For a split second we were airborne and then hit the ground with a crushing thunk that made my back molars ring with pain. I blinked, moved my body in my suit. He kept driving.
Then what’s all the stuff on the table in the workshop? I asked.
He didn’t answer. We were climbing an even steeper hill now and the rover’s tires bumped and slipped over the uneven ground. When we got to the top the wind was one long roar. It seemed we would tip over; the rover started beeping. I held on.
I tried again. Amelia said you’ve been working on the fuel cell. She said you were close to a solution.
He shifted his body opposite to the wind, and his elbow bumped my side. Not anymore.
Because Theresa left?
He looked at me. No.
Why did she leave?
He veered around a wedge of rock. Ahead there were more shapes: a huddle of wind-battered satellites, the metal spine of a probe. A faint rosy glow came from the horizon and they glinted in the light.
She hates this place.
So you’ve been
working alone—
This is what I’ve been doing. He gestured ahead to an expanse of glass that mirrored the brightening sky. Clearing silt from panels, hauling water tanks, flushing water pumps. That’s all.
The rover lunged and skated toward the field and when we bumped to a halt he put his helmet on and locked it in place. I did the same. He opened his door and stepped onto the pink rocks, but when I followed I stumbled. The ground was soft in some places and hard in others, and my boots sank immediately into the hollows. I squinted at the ground, my breath loud inside my helmet, held my gloved hands out in front of me, and tried to stay upright.
Up ahead he had already gone into a small outbuilding and pulled out two brooms. He handed one to me and then walked to the nearest solar panel and began to brush pink silt from its tilted surface.
It was something to see it up close, the solar field I’d heard so much about as a child. But I was confused. Why do we have to do this? I asked. With some effort I swung my broom onto a panel. What’s wrong with the cleaning mechanism?
Broken, and they don’t make the parts for it anymore. His voice came through inside my helmet.
The sun was brilliant now and turned the cleared panels into mirrors. I tried to keep pace with James and began to sweat, felt my underclothes cling to my skin inside my suit. He moved on to the next panel, and I did too. We kept working, moving from panel to panel, row to row. He gained on me and was soon several panels ahead.
Found the row that’s out, he called.
I kept going and finished three more panels. My arms ached and my eyes stung with sweat.
The wind picked up again. Grains of silt hit my helmet like a hundred tiny pinpricks. I watched with a feeling of desperation as the panels we’d just cleared were slowly being covered again.
This is pointless in this wind, I said.
It’ll stop, he said.
The ground thickened and swelled. Silt covered the tops of my boots. I set my broom down and walked to the next row, bending my body into the wind as the dust tapped furiously against my visor.
In the Quick Page 14