In the Quick

by Kate Hope Day

  Today you should.

  I took a sip. It tasted terrible.

  He grabbed his notebook and his crutches and hopped to the door. I thought he was going to leave but he didn’t. He leaned in the doorway, his bandaged foot hovering an inch above the floor.

  Keep drinking, he said.

  After more sips from the mug my limbs started to feel lighter, my head clearer. I managed a bite of cereal. The pain in my back molars had returned so I chewed on the left side.

  So what’s the plan? I asked. Are there daily checklists or what?

  I’ve got to haul water tanks.

  I gestured to his foot. How are you going to do that?

  You’re going to help me I guess.

  Good. I spooned cereal into my mouth until my bowl was empty. What did you do to life support? I asked. It’s a system I know, but when I opened up the box it’s completely rewired. And the ducts are silent—

  I made it better.

  How?

  You’re not actually interested in that.

  I am.

  * * *

  —

  He showed me the modifications he’d made to the life support system, moving down the corridors slowly with his crutches, and how the station’s power supply worked—a snaking system of conduits that drew power from the solar fields. And a smaller-scale molten salt battery system that had been a pilot project when the Gateway was established. I’d worked on a similar project at Peter Reed and I wanted to see how he’d dealt with the heat transfer issues we’d experienced in the lab.

  But something simpler demanded our attention—the sink in the laundry module had a leak. We gathered the tools we needed and spread some towels on the floor. It was a tight squeeze to get at the pipes because they were installed behind a filtration unit, and the smell of laundry detergent and plastic piping filled my nose as I wriggled behind the drum filter. James leaned over the top of the sink, his weight on his good foot.

  I tightened the valves first and they squeaked as I turned my wrench. The last time I’d done a job like this I had zero gravity to contend with. This was much easier, although more than once I absentmindedly tried to press the wrench to my pant leg where a strip of Velcro would have been.

  I asked him to run the water and the leak lessened but didn’t stop. Do you have a basin wrench?

  Hold on. I heard the rattle of him digging in the tool kit.

  But tightening the base nut did nothing.

  James unscrewed the faucet and pointed a flashlight into the cabinet below. I blinked in the bright light. I know the leak isn’t in my eye.

  He moved the flashlight to the pipes above my head.

  Tighten the valves? he asked.

  I did that already. I think there’s more than one thing going on—

  I squinted at the plastic joints above my head and then loosened the nuts that connected them. I need a bucket, I said, and reached out my hand.

  I wedged the bucket under the joints and eased off the P trap. Salty water splashed into the bucket and onto my face.

  Damn. Water falls downward here.

  He laughed. It does.

  I dried my face with my T-shirt and peered into the P trap. Do you have extra joints? This pipe is corroded with sediment.

  No, but we can scavenge.

  We walked together to the north corridor, James slow on his crutches, and passed through a series of modules I hadn’t seen yet. There were more bunks, with four or six beds to a room. And then the corridor unexpectedly opened up and we were in a large, dim room. Rows and rows of blank computer faces looked back at me.

  The control room, I said. I switched on the light and nothing happened.

  I’ve got the power shut off, he said.

  I took out the flashlight I had in my pocket and pointed it into the large, dusty room. I remembered my uncle’s drawing of this module, the new and gleaming equipment, and the excitement in his voice when he talked about it. They were going to run the Explorer program out of this outpost, I said. I swept my flashlight beam over the tops of dark computers, straight-backed chairs, and a wall of screens at the front of the room. Starting with the second mission.

  Yes.

  The one you were supposed to command.

  Right. Come on.

  Is it still here?

  Endurance? Yes, it’s still here. He gestured out a porthole. Quarter of a mile that way.

  I felt a ripple of excitement. NSP’s second explorer, the exact replica of Inquiry, was steps from where I stood. Can I see it?

  The hangar’s sealed up, he said.

  Why?

  He waved me out of the control room with his crutch. Honestly I think NSP’s forgotten it’s here.

  He led me to a large bathroom with rows of sinks and toilet compartments. We can grab what we need from here, he said, and we set to work dismantling the piping from the first sink in the row.

  37

  Every morning was the same. Me eating cereal, him leaning in the doorway. He was in the galley when I got there, no matter how early I rose. I would pour myself cereal and we would talk about the work there was to do that day. The maintenance crew had arrived—a group of four men who spoke to one another in Russian and split their time between the satellite station and the Gateway. They took care of the solar fields and power and life support at both locations. But the Gateway had hundreds of systems and rooms upon rooms of equipment. Most of it was unused or off-line but still routinely checked, as if a full crew might arrive at any moment and the Gateway would again become a fully operational research and control station. Keeping up with all those checklists was up to James and me.

  We worked long days, twelve, sometimes fourteen hours, almost always together because of James’s injured foot. Then one morning he wasn’t in the galley. I ate my breakfast alone, and aside from the buzz of the yellow overhead light, the only sound was the scrape of my spoon against the bottom of my bowl. It was odd to sit there without his frowning face in the doorway. The airlock was open to the dim corridor outside, to the lumbering expanse of connecting corridors and modules. A labyrinth of dark and empty space.

  We had planned to spend the morning checking all the fire alarms and extinguishers. I waited a few minutes longer in the galley and then got a ladder and started the job alone. It was tedious: I set up the ladder, climbed it, tested the first alarm, and then climbed back down. There were over a hundred alarms and at least twenty-five extinguishers (these were installed in the walls of all the bunks and at intervals in the corridors). Each alarm needed to be partially dismantled and cleaned of dust and then manually set off. After each shrill beep I thought James would appear, but he didn’t.

  My neck was stiff and my ears rang. I took a break and hauled water tanks. After that I was tired and irritated and walked the corridors in search of him. The maintenance crew were gone for forty-eight hours replacing cables near the satellite station, and there was a lot more to do that day. It was taking too long working alone.

  James wasn’t in the galley or laundry or any of the equipment rooms. His bunk was empty and lit only by the blue runner lights. Everything was in shadow, his rumpled unmade bed, a mess of papers and mugs on the floor. The air smelled of sleep and stale coffee and laundry detergent—and something else, something unidentifiable. A sharp and sweet and slightly feral smell.

  In the east corridor his suit was hanging on its hook, and through the porthole the rovers were parked in their usual spots in the cargo bay. He was here, somewhere. Maybe he didn’t want to be found. I stopped looking and walked to my room through the dark and narrow south corridor. The air there was close and humid. As I turned a corner a flash of light appeared about thirty feet away, and I called out. But no one answered, and the light disappeared.

  I reached a dead end, and in front of me was the cabinet I’d noticed days b
efore. I tried the latch and this time it opened. It wasn’t a cabinet at all, as I’d thought, but a door to another room. Or rather, a short corridor. I stepped inside. A vibrating thrum filled the narrow space. There were three doors, two to the left and one to the right. All the doors were shut.

  Behind the first was a dark empty module. The noise was louder at the second. Its latch was hot, and I pulled my sweatshirt over my hand and opened it. The room was so full of whirring equipment I couldn’t step inside. It wasn’t one machine, but rather many machines stacked together. I knew them immediately—they were my uncle’s fuel cells. Rectangular, about the size of a bread box, and enclosed in thick metal casing.

  They were stacked back to back and top to bottom, just as I’d seen them in my uncle’s schematics, but there was something wrong with them. They gave off heat like a furnace. They shuddered and groaned. They weren’t supposed to sound like that; they were meant to hum softly. These cells sounded like they were dying.

  What are you doing in here? James’s voice came from behind me. He grabbed my wrist. He steered me away from the hot room, out the cabinet door, and into the main corridor.

  I shook him off. What’s wrong with those cells? I asked even as the notes from my uncle’s schematics rose up in my mind. Five voices arguing about time and vibration and what they might do to the cells. How the cells might fare over weeks, months, years.

  I’ll tell you. His eyes were oddly unfocused, as if he’d just woken up, and his speech was slightly slurred. Later.

  When?

  He leaned on his good foot. In the morning.

  I don’t want to wait until morning.

  Just say yes June. He moved closer to me. Okay?

  * * *

  —

  In my bunk my mind worked at what I’d seen. The heat, the noise. I pictured those cells stacked four to a row inside the walls of Inquiry. Connectors snaking to every system on the explorer: its engines, communications systems, life support, grow modules…

  I wanted to get up, go back to that room with my tools, and look more thoroughly at the cells. Listen more carefully to their vibrating noise. I wanted to disconnect a stack and take it apart. But I didn’t. I stayed put. I sat on my bed and the minutes ticked by. It was dark now; my arms ached from hauling water tanks that morning and my eyes grew heavy. Finally I laid my head on the pillow and fell into a dream.

  In the dream I was back in my aunt’s basement, in front of the old boiler, a box of matches in my hand. Its drawer groaned when I opened it. I dropped lit matches inside and there was a hot metal smell and a bloom of charcoal smoke that singed my skin.

  I woke with a start, a dark smell in my nose. I sat up and sniffed the air, and the sweat in the creases of my arms and legs went cold. I jumped from my bed and ran. A black cloud hovered at the end of the corridor, the color of charcoal, the color of char. It choked me; it scorched the hairs inside my nose, and I pulled my shirt over my face. The door to James’s room was open and smoke poured from it.

  My throat closed. I couldn’t keep my eyes open; the air was made of fire. With my eyes squeezed shut I lunged through the door blindly, coughing, spluttering, calling his name. My hand closed around the fire extinguisher attached to the wall. I bit its cap, squeezed its lever and sprayed. I allowed my eyes to open a slit, saw nothing but white. Then, in the corner, red. Fire jumped up the wall; flames leapt at my arms. I batted them away and sprayed again.

  In the middle of the bed a curled shape lay covered in white foam. James’s shape. A blackened electrical panel above his head. I shook him. He coughed. I shook him again and he opened his eyes. June.

  He stood up and coughed and waved his hands through the haze. He pulled the sheets from his bed and threw them on the floor, stamped out cinders with his bare feet and winced.

  The electrical panel on the wall was slightly ajar. I picked up a T-shirt from the floor and used it to open the panel all the way and smelled hot metal and melted plastic. Its insides were a mess of burnt wires.

  This is weird, I said. Look at this—

  I don’t need to look at it.

  Wires have been cut. I blew air into the panel and bits of charred paper came flying out. Someone’s stuffed paper in here.

  But he wasn’t listening.

  Stay here, he said, and he limped to the door. The haze from the fire extinguisher still hung in the air and he moved through it as if it was a thick fog. At the airlock he turned back and pointed to the bed. Don’t move. He took a flashlight from the wall and left me alone, closing the airlock behind him.

  * * *

  —

  When he came back he was pale. He stood in the doorway looking at the ruined room and at me. Foam clung to his hair and smoke darkened his skin. Are you all right? he asked.

  I felt the cold singe of a burn on my forearm and I shivered. Yes.

  He pulled a blanket from a cabinet and wrapped it around my shoulders. He drew the fabric tight below my chin. Our faces were close. The air was cloudy; white dust settled on our skin.

  Are you going to tell me what’s going on? I asked in a whisper.

  He didn’t answer, but he didn’t move away. Heat came off his body in waves.

  You saved my life, he said. Again.

  I motioned to the melted electrical panel. Did you do that yourself?

  He looked at the panel, and then back at me. I had the feeling, again, of being pinned in place.

  You said you know the Inquiry crew are alive. How?

  I took a step back. I have a recording.

  I want to hear it.

  Now?

  Yes.

  Then come with me. I got up and walked to my bunk, and he followed.

  38

  In my bunk the air was clear and cool but we brought the smell of smoke with us. I sat on one end of my bed, and he on the other. The blanket was still wrapped around my shoulders and the burn on my arm throbbed.

  I set a digital recorder between us. On Earth I’d copied several months of feed from both Inquiry and the Sundew.

  They keep the Inquiry feed open, I said. Even though nothing comes through. Or, they think nothing comes through. There are hundreds of channels—

  I know all this, he said. There were smoke rings around his eyes.

  I told him more about the liquid waste processor that the Sundew and Inquiry shared and about the interference I’d discovered on the Inquiry feed.

  I pressed play on the recorder and white noise filled the room. Right there, I said, as the channel was broken by a low hum and seven snapping pops. That’s G1 and H2.

  He frowned.

  I named them at school. In between classes I used to listen to the static on the Inquiry feed, to record the different sounds I heard.

  He smiled slightly.

  NSP has always said the inconsistencies in the static are interference, I said. That they’re random. But G1 and H2 aren’t random. They come every three days.

  I switched recordings. Now this is the urine processing unit being vented on the Sundew, I said, and pressed play.

  When the rush of static and the snapping pops came, he blinked.

  If they were dead—

  —nothing would be being vented. He finished my sentence.

  The patter of silt came from the porthole.

  Now it’s your turn, I said, and pulled my blanket tighter around my shoulders, moving my burnt arm gingerly. Tell me about the fuel cells.

  They shut down, he said. At around three hundred and seventy-five days. They start to sound funny a few days before. Then—like a switch has been flipped—they power down. When I try to start them back up, they only run on quarter power.

  Why?

  A combination of things. He rubbed the scars on his knuckles. But mostly—vibration, plus time.

  But you accounted for
those factors.

  We did. Or, we were. But when Peter got sick— He was quiet for a minute and I felt the weight of his body at the other end of the bed, a solid mass. I told them we needed more time, he said. But NSP didn’t want to postpone the launch timeline.

  What have you done since then?

  Reduced the heat problem, some.

  What about the vibration issue?

  He shook his head.

  But you’ve tried—

  A strangled sound came from his throat. Tried and failed.

  The wind shifted outside and silt hit the portholes in uneven waves.

  I picked up the recorder and rewound the feed, played it again, turned it up loud.

  Sometimes I imagine where they are in the ship, I said. What they’re doing. Eating, sleeping, doing a job.

  I used to do that, he said. I pictured Anu working on the cell. I saw the four of them puzzling over it, talking back and forth. Then I stopped.

  You were friends at school.

  But we were pitted against each other. They said it wasn’t a competition but of course it was, between my team and Anu’s. They did things like schedule training tests on the same day—

  Like the simulated water crash, I said. I watched with my uncle. Your crew did everything right.

  I thought so too, but then I stuck around and watched Anu’s team.

  I didn’t see their test—

  It was a disaster. Or, it could have been a disaster. The drill supervisor dropped the helicopter into the water at a weird angle. They were upside down and struggling. Anu pushed herself out first, but when she surfaced her face was bloody. Everyone else was still submerged. Missy’s leg seemed to be snagged in the helicopter door, and Dimitri was swimming the wrong way, down instead of up. Lee was able to roll himself into a ball and float out of the helicopter, and he was trying to extricate Missy’s leg.

  The trainer should have hauled the helicopter back up but the tow crank wasn’t working. Anu dived back in, grabbed Dimitri—he had hit his head—and pulled him up. Lee came up for air too, and then the two of them dived back in for Missy, who was still stuck. Together they tried to torque the door and release her leg, and at the same time Dimitri set to work on the broken tow crank. But all this was taking too long. Divers went in but Missy still wasn’t free. Finally Anu and Lee extracted her leg, and together they dragged her to the surface. She was still conscious, which was incredible.