Tundra 37 (16 page)

She heard Luna ask him, “Are you trained to drive this thing?”

Tech didn’t reply, or she didn’t hear him. Either way, Gemme guessed his answer was no.

She poked her head back out, chancing a peek. Brentwood clung to the drill, pressing open the control panel and Gemme realized what he planned to do. His fingers flew over the touchscreen and Gemme waited for the drill to spin, but nothing happened. Someone tugged her leg and she ducked her head back in.

“He needs the key.” Tech handed Luna a plastic card and Luna slipped it to Gemme.

“What am I supposed to do?” Gemme thought about throwing it to him, but with the wind, they’d probably lose it forever.

“You’ll have to climb on there with him.” Luna spoke as if she suggested Gemme join him for afternoon tea.

Biting a retort, Gemme stuck her head back out of the upper hatch. The hairs had wrapped around the drill, and the beast pulled, slowing the landrover down. The tires skidded against the friction.

Gemme slipped the card into her pocket and took a deep breath.

You can do this.

She climbed on the roof and crawled toward the bridge using the top luggage bars as handholds. Underneath her, the snow sped away, crushed by the gigantic tires of the mining rig. If she slipped, she’d be a pancake.

Brentwood waved her back, but she lowered herself down the curve of the rear and cajoled herself into taking the first step on the bridge. Narrow enough to only walk one foot in front of the other, she balanced by holding out both arms.

She felt as though she flew on thin air as she lifted one foot, precariously poised on the other like some Old Earth tight-rope walker. A layer of ice had formed on the metal, and she probed each step with her boot before placed her full weight down. Tears froze on her cheeks, and her ears throbbed. Her lower lip split open, warm blood trickling down her chin.

You’re halfway there. Keep going.

She’d never been the most graceful in her class, and now each step counted. The wind ripped through her and she leaned into it, hoping the gale wouldn’t blow her away. Her breath hitched in her throat as she ran the last few steps and collapsed on the mining platform, bruising both her shins.

“What are you doing out here?” Brentwood shouted, clinging to the control console and firing up at the alien-mammoth’s head.

Gemme reached in her pocket and brought out the keytag. Brentwood’s eyes widened with recognition. Ignoring her aching muscles, she climbed toward him, grasping any hold she could find. He reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her toward him. Together they gripped the keytag as if it were humanity’s last hope and stuck it in the console.

The screen below them lit up as the mammoth-hair tightened its grip. The mammoth slammed down its hind legs and the engines revved as the tires screeched. The smell of burnt rubber tainted the air. A sense of sickening dread spread over Gemme as she fell into the mammoth’s shadow. The beast would pummel their equipment and swallow them whole.

Gemme grabbed his shoulder. “Quickly, before we stop.”

Brentwood pressed the code and the drill hummed to life, turning slowly at first. The hairs stretched until the drill ripped them out and blue-black blood sprayed over them. The beast roared, its foul breath steaming the air around Gemme. The landrover took off and she and Brentwood fell backward onto the metal grating.

He shot up and raised his laser to fire, but the mammoth collapsed on its front legs, a bald patch where the hair had been seeping blood onto the snow. It clawed at the ground, trying to gain footing, but it was losing too much blood. After a few staggering steps, the beast fell on its side.

Even though the alien-mammoth would have killed them and jeopardized the entire mission of the
Expedition
, Gemme felt sorry for its death. This planet was its home, and they were the alien invaders. Heck, they’d probably send the entire species into extinction in the next hundred years if they followed the ways of Old Earth.

“Good job, Ms. Reiner. Although I’m sad to see such a majestic animal dead, it was necessary.” Brentwood shut off the drill and offered his hand and helped her up. The intensity in his eyes made her cheeks burn against the frigid air and she looked away.

“Nothing any ordinary data analyst wouldn’t do.”

“Trained for this in your graduate classes along with differential quantitative analysis?”

“Certainly, didn’t you?” She couldn’t believe the humor in her voice, especially after such a dangerous turn of events. Brentwood coaxed it out of her, calming her. With him she wasn’t a boring, uptight computer analyst.

They watched in silence as the landrover circled the beast. As the vehicle ground to a halt, Gemme jumped off the platform. Covering her nose from the metallic reek of blood, she studied the beast. Some of the remaining hairs still twitched, spiraling out into the snow around it. She stared at its black eye, the pupil larger than her head. How many years had it lived on this planet before the beast met its end with humans? Did she really want to know?

Brentwood followed her, still holding up his laser. When she gave him a questioning look, he shrugged. “You can never be too careful.”

Luna and Tech stumbled out of the landrover, gawking.

Gemme gestured to Luna. “How’s that for a specimen?”

Vira’s sleep pod opened before her alarm went off, revealing her dad’s smiling face haloed in the automatic wake-up light.

“Rise and shine, peaches.”

She rubbed her eyes, feeling as though her head was still stuck in dreams. “What time is it?”

He checked the digital clock on the lid of her pod. “I have an hour before I need to go to work. Let’s see what we can do about getting you a new hoverchair.”

“Really?” Excitement bubbled inside her. A new hoverchair would mean not asking Rizzy to lug her around all the time or having raw elbows from spending so much time on the carpet. Plus, she loved spending time with her dad alone.

“You bet.”

He bent down and she climbed on his back, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Mom’s made some breakfast if you want to take a minute to eat.”

Eagerness rushed through her as if the world would end before she got her chair. “No. Let’s go now. I’ll eat when I come home.”

“Okay.” Her dad bounced her on his back, making her giggle as he carried her into the kitchen.

Her mom looked up from stirring some awful, sludgy oatmeal. “Who needs a chair when you have a ride like that, eh?”

Vira laughed, but her dad responded in a serious tone, “She needs her independence, Natalie. When I was her age, it would have driven me crazy to sit in the same spot all day.”

“You were a little hellion.”

He kissed her mom on the cheek. “I still am.”

Laughing, they took off toward the engineering bay.

Dim emergency lights lit the corridor, and the air stung even colder than in their family unit. Vira tightened her grip, glad for her dad’s warmth underneath her. She didn’t feel like laughing any more. The ship was spookier than the last time she’d gone out, tracking Rizzy and Daryl before the crash. At least then the lights shone brightly, and the temperature was a steady seventy-two degrees. “When will the regular lights come back on?”

“As soon as the away team finds an alternate energy source. Don’t worry; they’re working on it right now. Pretty soon things will be back to normal.”

Vira didn’t think anything would be normal ever again. Not only were they not in space, but the Seers weren’t the people she thought they were. Her dad’s blind faith disturbed her.

“What if the Seers didn’t want to help?”

“Nonsense.” He craned his neck to see her eye to eye. “They’re doing the best they can. It’s their job to keep everyone safe.”

And scare little girls while they were at it?

Vira opened her mouth to disagree when her dad pointed up ahead. “Here we are, Engineering Bay Six.”

They passed flickering lights and ventilation tubes wheezing stale air. The portal to the engineering bay lay open, the panel fizzling like it had short-circuited. As they walked in, her stomach sank like the ship when it crashed. A line of people wrapped all the way around the room while workers scrambled behind the desk taking requests. Some of them looked like they hadn’t changed clothes in days. The man standing in front of them wore a bandage around his head. Vira squirmed as she thought about his wound.

They’d never get to the front in an hour.

He cut right through two older women holding broken ionizers. They gave him a dirty look, making her so embarrassed she hid her face in his shoulder. He whispered, “Don’t worry. I know the man in charge.”

Her dad carried her behind the main desk to rows of machines in the back, where workers wore welding masks and used strange tools that wheezed in high-pitched noises, making her want to cover her ears. But, she couldn’t because her arms were busy holding her onto her dad’s back. The tangy smell of oil and chemicals tickled her nose.

A man wearing an upper officer’s uniform walked in between two large pressing machines spewing sparks and her dad waved to get his attention. “Harris.”

The man smiled and shuffled over, stepping through discarded metal on the floor.

“How’s it going, Al? Your team holding up?”

“Yes, yes. We’re doing fine. We’ve got the heating systems back online. Now it’s a matter of waiting for the energy to start the core.”

“I hear ya. I know it’s hard, but the Seers’ conservation methods are wise. We don’t know how long it will take for Alpha Blue to find what we need.”

Her dad patted her hand on his shoulder. “Hey, you know anything about the status of my daughter’s new hoverchair?”

Harris gave him a wary look, making Vira feel bad she’d come to annoy him. “We’re doing the best we can, but we have to work on the ship’s maintenance systems first.”

The muscles in her dad’s neck tightened under her arms. “How much longer?” His voice grew hard and intense, like when he caught Rizzy sneaking out past curfew.

Harris’s eyes flicked to Vira and then he looked away, as if it bothered him to look at her. His voice softened. “Look, to tell you the truth, she’s at the bottom of the list. The Seers instructed us to finish the more promising projects, the ones that will benefit the overall colonization effort.”

Her dad’s skin turned red. “I see what you’re saying and I’m sick of hearing about how my daughter isn’t worthwhile.” He jabbed his finger in the man’s chest. “Let me tell you, she’s brighter than half the engineers you have working here right now, and someday she’ll—”

“Dad, that’s enough. You’re embarrassing me.” Vira squeaked, surprising herself with how loud her voice was. The room quieted, and she felt all eyes staring at her like lasers. But, she didn’t want her dad losing friends because of her. Her family had already suffered enough because of her disability.

Harris’s face turned red, “Al, I’m just following orders.”

“Sure. As we all are.” He waved his hand in the air, dismissing him as he turned. “Come on, Vira. We’ll find another way to get you around.”

He pushed through the line. People averted their eyes like they always did when she passed, trying not to stare. Whispers followed them into the corridor.

Her dad rubbed his face and took a few deep breaths, as if trying to calm down. “I’m sorry, peaches. They just don’t see how special you are.”

“It’s okay.” She patted his shoulder, wishing he’d just think of her as a normal girl. All this attention made her worry that they’d see her real powers, and what then? No, she had to blend in more, and not having a hoverchair just made it worse. If those people couldn’t rebuild it for her, then she’d just have to make one herself.

All Mestasis wanted to do was dive back into the orb. The feeling consumed her, eating her alive until she could think of nothing else. A tiny voice nagged her senses, and she pulled back from the orb, annoyed until she saw what it was: the latest causality report sent by the head nurse from the emergency bay.

Mestasis watched the names fly by like fallen stars. So many combinations of DNA lost, such a great chunk of diversity gone in one day. Failure overwhelmed her, and guilt seeped in as she thought of her selfish desire to return to the orb.

Three out of the four lieutenants had died, leaving only Miles Brentwood. Thank goodness he was the most promising one, and the leader of Alpha Blue. She’d appointed him to that position herself with no doubt of his abilities. Rereading their latest status report, she hoped the team found the energy source quickly.

The flicker of the orb distracted her. The recent reminder of her mom brought up so many memories. She’d fought to keep them buried for years and succeeded, but in the past few days they’d crept in like insidious fingers, wrapping around her brain. Seeing her mom in the orb was the last push, opening the tomb that held everything dear to her heart.

Mestasis closed her working eye and succumbed to sleep.

§

Old Earth, 2446

You’re not coming home with me, are you?
Abysme stood with her hands on her hips, her long black braids falling across each shoulder to her slender waist. Behind her, the city towers of New York dazzled in a thousand pricks of light. Hovercrafts whizzed by as a lunar freighter landed on the adjacent building, loaded with minerals from the moon.

Mestasis clicked off the golden swirls on the holoscreen and their room darkened, shadows concealing her face. She knew this conversation had to happen, but the hair on her arms rose with apprehension.

I still have so much work to do, and the assessments are less than a week away.

This is the only time we have to see her. There’s room on the hovercraft for both of us. I bought two tickets.

Mestasis slumped into the couch, feeling the cool plastic stick on her sweaty skin.
Next time.

Her sister’s lips curled.
Metsy, it’s been years.