In the Quick

by Kate Hope Day

  What are you doing? I called.

  Whole row’s out because of one panel. We’ll take it back with us.

  Wait, I said. Let me help you.

  There was a pause and a crackle inside my helmet. Then, God damn it! And a groan.

  I wove through the panels, around their sharp corners, my boots clumsy on the uneven ground. The thickening clouds of pink dust made it impossible to see more than a few inches in front of me. Then, the glint of his visor—maybe.

  I kept moving and finally my foot hit something. It was him, on the ground, nearly buried in silt. His leg was pinned beneath a panel, he was trying to push it off but couldn’t get enough leverage. I got down on the ground next to him.

  Why didn’t you wait?

  You think you know what you’re doing, but you don’t. He shifted his body on the ground and winced.

  Well now you’ll have to let me help you, I said.

  He leaned on his elbows. I guess so.

  The panel was like a slab of concrete and after straining against it for several minutes, I could move it only a fraction of an inch. I sat back on my heels and the wind buffeted my helmet. Are you hurt?

  It was hard to see his face clearly through the swirling silt. I bent my head closer and our visors touched. Sweat had pressed his dark curls flat at his temples; his mouth was a thin pink line.

  I’ll live.

  I got up and slowly found my way to the rover, found a cable in the back, and tied it to the hitch. Then I returned to James and looped the cable around the panel.

  Ready? I asked.

  The angle’s wrong, he said.

  The angle’s fine.

  I got in the rover and took a minute to figure out the controls. Then I inched forward, its tires crunching slowly over the silty ground, until I heard a deep groan.

  Outside I bent into the wind. A big gust of silt nearly tipped me backward, and then—all at once the wind stopped. The swirling silt fell to the ground. The sky was almost instantly, eerily clear.

  Told you it would stop, he said. The ground sparkled in the sunlight.

  I unhooked the cable from the panel and returned it to the rover. Then I crawled under the malfunctioning solar panel, unscrewed its back cover, and powered it down. In my mind I saw my uncle’s drawings of the solar field. His detailed pictures of each panel, stacks of circuits and twists of wires inside. I pulled out two connections and reconfigured them.

  What are you doing? Don’t mess with that. He held his injured leg in both hands.

  I turned the panel back on. The other panels in the row clicked twice and then hummed.

  At the sound he turned his head. What did you do?

  I bypassed the panel and fixed the row.

  34

  I half walked, half dragged him to the rover, his arm a bulky weight around my shoulder. The landscape had transformed. Now that the wind wasn’t blowing, everything was so still. So uniformly rose colored. Our labored breaths were loud in the quiet.

  Hold up, he said. He turned and we nearly fell. Can’t leave it like that. He gestured to the panel that had pinned his foot. It was on top of a cable.

  I walked back and tugged at the cable but it didn’t budge. I squatted and leaned back. It still didn’t move.

  Is this something important?

  Yes.

  I sighed and pulled harder, and without warning it suddenly gave way, its metal connector hitting my head hard—so hard it knocked my helmet off. I closed my mouth, shut my eyes, and scrambled for my helmet with my bulky gloves. Salt stung the inside of my nose, the creases of my eyelids. Help me, I croaked. I crawled my hands through the loose silt and I found the smooth dome of the helmet and tried to put it on. But my hands slipped around the seal.

  Calm down. I heard him crawling toward me, dragging his leg behind him. The air’s not going to kill you. Not that fast—

  I cracked open my eyes. My throat was on fire; tears ran down my face.

  Then the sensation changed. My lips went numb and my cheeks tingled. My vision wavered and the light shifted and turned strange. My hands fell away from my helmet. I watched James crawl along the ground, a refracted pink glow surrounding him. I watched him without emotion. My head felt hard and dense, a solid object. But my hands and feet tingled, and my aching molars were light as air.

  Then he was right in front of me, his face huge behind his visor. His features were wrong. His nose, forehead, eyes. Like they weren’t in the right places. Like they’d migrated around his face.

  He took hold of my helmet, pressed it down hard, and locked it into place, and I felt a rush of oxygen from my suit. I took big breaths and the numbness in my face faded. My eyes and nose watered and my throat ached.

  I don’t understand. I struggled to form words. My tongue was gritty and raw; it kept sticking to the roof of my mouth.

  It won’t kill you to take off your helmet for thirty seconds, or longer even.

  His features had reoriented. His nose and eyes were in the right places. He pushed himself to standing and shifted his weight onto his good foot. With effort I stood up too and offered my shoulder for him to lean on.

  I think you need me to help you more than the other way around, he said.

  I blinked my burning eyes. I’m fine.

  We walked to the rover. Slowly, haltingly. It seemed to take us hours. I scrubbed my tongue on the roof of my mouth, over and over, but it didn’t help. Tiny grains of salt rubbed at the corners of my eyes. When we finally got there he pulled himself inside, and I collapsed into the driver’s seat. We waited for the rover to pressurize, then took off our helmets and gloves, and the silt fell from our suits. I scratched at my neck and wrists, rubbed my nose and eyes with the back of my hand.

  I feel awful, I croaked. I touched my lips. They weren’t numb anymore. They were on fire.

  You’ll be all right.

  He handed me a container of water. I unstuck my tongue from the roof of my mouth and drank it fast, splashing water on my raw cheeks. All I could taste was salt no matter how much I drank.

  He took off his boot and pulled up his suit to inspect his leg. He tried moving his foot and made a low, uneven sound.

  Broken?

  Maybe.

  It was stuffy inside the rover. I turned on the air, pointed the vents at my burning face.

  Why’s it so hot—

  Give it a minute. He unzipped the top of his suit and pulled the sleeves off. A mottled scar marked the side of his neck, white at the edges and pink in the middle.

  I unzipped my suit too but kept the sleeves on, turned on the navigation, and buckled myself in. James leaned back in his seat. The interior of the rover began to cool and my eyes strayed to the scar on his neck. I wanted to ask how he’d gotten it, but instead I put the rover in gear.

  When I hit the gas it jumped backward.

  You’re in reverse, he said.

  I changed gears and the rover jerked forward and the wheels spun.

  Slower.

  I tried again and we rolled slowly forward. According to the navigation screen we were headed in the right direction, north. We crested a ridge, crunching over the rocky surface, and the sunlight was bright. The controls were sensitive and I kept oversteering and then having to correct.

  You’re not very good at this.

  The rover veered right and I gripped the wheel.

  What would have happened out there if you’d been alone? I asked.

  I would have figured it out.

  You were pinned.

  Yeah. Maybe I wouldn’t have figured it out. He grimaced and shifted his foot.

  We were nose down on a steep hill and the rover started to tilt to the left. I bent my body to the right and he did too, and I felt the solid bulk of his arm against mine. The silt-covered shape of something that mi
ght have once been a satellite or a probe rose up and I steered around it.

  Can’t do it without you now, he said.

  Do what?

  Everything probably.

  The rover slid down the hill in a slow zigzag, the wheel fighting me the whole way. But I got us to the bottom.

  The air did something to me, I said. It was like I was drugged. Why?

  He shifted his foot again. I don’t know.

  What have you done to find out? I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand. Have you reported it to NSP?

  He tapped the window. His hand also had small scars, across his knuckles and in the crease of his thumb. We need to turn right, he said.

  Navigation says the Gateway’s straight ahead.

  It’s busted. You have to input your location before you get going for it to work.

  Why didn’t we take the other rover?

  Because it needs new shocks.

  I turned sharply.

  If you’re not studying the atmosphere, how did you find out about it in the first place?

  Same as you. By accident. He pointed. That way.

  We passed a clump of broken equipment too covered in dust to know what it was. The sun was high in the sky now.

  Your foot will need to be splinted, I said.

  He made a noncommittal sound, rubbed a hand over the stubble on his cheeks.

  It’s not complicated. I can do it when we get back.

  He was quiet for a minute, and then he said, All right.

  Once I’m done you can show me what you’re working on.

  I already told you there’s nothing to show. He leaned his head back on the seat and closed his eyes.

  35

  In the blue-lit medical bay we moved to separate sides of the room and climbed out of our suits, making two piles of pink silt on the floor. In a T-shirt and tights I splashed water over my face at the sink and scrubbed my itching eyes with a wet towel. Across the room James leaned against the wall and slowly extracted his legs from the bottom half of his suit. Then he sat down on a bench and stretched his injured leg straight.

  This module must have been a more recent addition to the station because everything was clean and shining. The air was cold and still, and I was conscious of my sweat-dampened clothes, my burning lips. I poured some water into a plastic cup, lifted it to my mouth—it was so cool on my raw tongue—and drank it quickly, my swallows loud in the silent room.

  A task light hung above the metal table in the center of the room; I turned it on and opened drawers and gathered what I thought I’d need. Surgical scissors, antiseptic, plaster, bandages.

  You’ve got to lie down, I said.

  He eyed the table and the circle of light in its center, then rose and hopped across the room. He pulled himself up but stayed seated.

  I waited.

  He looked at me sideways and slowly lowered himself to his elbows, making the table creak, and then onto his back. He smelled like salt and sweat and coffee. His helmet had pressed dark curls around his temples, and his face was softer with his hair pushed forward. More boyish. More like the kid I remembered from the doorway of my aunt and uncle’s house, a stack of papers in his hands.

  He raised his eyebrows.

  I’ll get started, I said.

  There was the hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.

  I moved the task light above his foot as if I’d done this a hundred times.

  Under his jumpsuit his leg was lean and covered in dark wiry hairs, except for a small patch below his kneecap where he had a scar, a small half circle of mottled skin. The tight fabric of his right sock was damp and clinging. I worked it over the jut of his ankle bone—his skin was slightly tacky—and around his heel.

  When I reached his toes his leg stiffened.

  I’ll cut the sock off, I said, and carefully slid the surgical scissors between the fabric and his skin, cutting toward the sock’s toe. I peeled the material away to reveal the bent angle of two of his toes.

  Broken toes, I said, and ran my hand along the top of his foot, felt the wiggle of his veins, the splay of the thin bones underneath. Then I took hold of the whole foot and gently squeezed the metatarsal bone, and he made a sound, a cross between a groan and a squeak.

  I let go. And a hairline fracture, I said.

  I ran the plaster under some water, spread it over the top of his foot and across the two broken toes, and let it set for a minute. Then I wound a stretchy bandage tightly around it, cut off the excess, and secured the end with tape.

  He watched me intently. He motioned to his face. You look a little like your uncle, he said. The set of your mouth—

  I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t.

  How did you get the scars? I pointed to his neck and his knee.

  Probably the same as you. He nodded at the spray of pink spots around my right eye.

  Getting hit in the face with debris in a depressurized cargo hold?

  Something like that. He sat up, slowly swung his legs over the side of the table.

  A pair of crutches rested against one of the walls and I handed them to him.

  Thanks. His slight smile was back.

  You’re welcome.

  He leaned on his crutches; the curls at his temples had dried and they fell across his face. We stood there looking at each other for a minute. The room was very quiet, very still. We were the only two people here. The only two people for miles and miles.

  I need to tell you something, I said.

  Okay.

  The Sundew and Inquiry use the same liquid waste disposal system.

  Wait. He frowned. What?

  It has to be vented manually. With four people using it, about every three days.

  He leaned away from me on his crutches. Why are you telling me this?

  They’re alive, I said. The Inquiry crew. I came here to tell you.

  His lip twitched. The patter of silt came from the roof above us.

  When the fuel cell is ready we can go get them, I said, and felt a soaring lightness in my chest.

  It’s not going to be ready.

  You told NSP you were close to a solution.

  The expression on his face was strange. I lied.

  Why would you do that?

  So they wouldn’t send us home.

  You and Theresa.

  Yes.

  But Amelia and Simon said—

  Amelia and Simon. His voice was bitter; his bandaged foot swung slightly in the air. What do they know about it?

  They helped invent it—

  The fuel cell can’t be fixed, he interrupted. I know because I’ve spent the last six years trying.

  36

  The next morning I woke with a leaden ache behind my eyes. My mouth was dry and still tasted of salt; my back molars smarted. I wanted water but my body was heavy in the bed. My thoughts were heavy too, slow moving, gloomy. I missed the Sundew, and Amelia and Simon and Rachel, and maybe more than anything else, the work. I knew how to do those jobs, fix that equipment, load and unload those crates, but I didn’t know how to do what I needed to do here.

  I hadn’t seen James since we were together in the medical bay; once I returned to my bunk I slept through the afternoon and night. Now I recalled his face when I told him about Inquiry, the way it seemed to close in on itself. Maybe I’d made a mistake coming here. He wasn’t the person I remembered from Peter Reed; something had happened to him in the meantime.

  I roused myself from the bed and dressed slowly. Tights, T-shirt, socks, sneakers. At the sink I washed my face and my skin was dull and rubbery under my fingers. Outside my room my body was like a stone I had to push forward with each step. The path was dark and narrow and the blue runner lights glowed faintly. I hit a dead end. I was lost again and I kicked the wa
ll.

  Doubling back I went from one corridor to the next, in and out of faint blue light and smudgy darkness, into air that was cool and then hot, and then cool again. Then a sound broke the silence. A moan? I blinked, rubbed my face. I called out, tentatively, James?

  The corridor was a gray-blue cave of panels and cabinets. No doors. The largest cabinet was at the dead end and it looked like it was for storing suits. I tried its latch—it was locked. I ran my hand over the cabinet door, felt a slight vibration, pressed my ear to it, and heard a hum. Then—a movement of air, a slight draft against my skin. But the crack between the door and the wall revealed nothing but darkness.

  * * *

  —

  When I finally found the galley, a room with a low ceiling and dusty yellow lights, James was there, drinking coffee and writing in a notebook. His hair appeared freshly washed and instead of his jumpsuit he wore a clean white T-shirt and sweats. One shoe on his uninjured foot.

  He watched me slowly open cabinets and drawers packed with food and supplies. I discovered enough oatmeal, egg powder, and dried beans in one cabinet to feed a crew of twenty for a year. In another, at least a hundred pounds of vacuum-packed beef and fish jerky. Also huge sacks of sugar and coffee, and packages of dried vegetables and fruit—apples, bananas, raisins, carrots, peas, yams.

  After the thin provisions on the Sundew I was dazed by the quantity and variety of the food. I found a glass and drank some water, still staring at the cans and containers of food. Then I reconstituted a packet of dried milk, scooped some cereal into a bowl, and sat down across from James.

  But when I looked at my food my stomach turned.

  It’s the silt, he said. The next morning it’s rough. His voice was easier than it had been the night before. He got up, balanced on his good foot, and poured coffee into another mug.

  I raised my spoon and lowered it without taking a bite.

  He held himself steady with the back of my chair. Drink this. He handed me the mug and his skin had a soapy smell.

  I don’t drink coffee.