Tundra 37 (21 page)

§

Mestasis smiled all the way back to TINE, her cheeks aching by the time the elevator beeped on her floor. She pressed the door panel, and the walls separated to reveal a pile of luggage. Abysme sat on the plastic couch, staring at a blank holoscreen.

Mestasis froze.
You’re back early.

A current of anger rose up inside her. Abysme should be studying, preparing, making up for lost time. And here she was, doing nothing. Mestasis exhaled, releasing her frustration before she said something she’d regret. At least her sister came back, and with time for both of them to work out the next assignment together. She’d planned to work on it all day alone.

Golden swirls erupted as she clicked on the holoscreen on. Mestasis waved her sister up.
Come on, let’s get started on the—

She’s gone.
Abysme didn’t move.

Mestasis froze as the parted walls of the door panel sealed behind her, shutting her in to a room where she didn’t want to be, a reality she didn’t want to face.
What do you mean?

Mom passed away. A retrieval team took her body to the incinerators this morning.
Abysme shook her head and buried her face in both hands; her body shook with tremors as she wept.

No.
Surely it was a ruse, a ploy to make her feel guilty. She wouldn’t put it past Abysme to fabricate lies when she couldn’t get her way. Mestasis probed her sister’s thoughts in denial. Feelings of grief and guilt surged through her on all conscious and subconscious levels. When she probed further, an image of their mother huddled in her sleeping cocoon, dark hair spilling out onto the floor surfaced in her sister’s memory. Containers of pain meds lay strewn around her. She held a picture from when they were young girls in her sweaty hand.

Mestasis collapsed to her knees beside the couch. Why hadn’t she sensed it? Had TINE blinded her to the needs of her own family?

Her twin’s body shuddered as she mindspoke.
When I got home, she’d been in bed for days. I tried to get her to go to the higher floors, to scrap together everything she owned to find a doctor, but she wouldn’t move. She kept saying it was too late, and without coverage they wouldn’t see her anyway.

Mestasis struggled to hold herself together. Numbness tingled through her body. The world seemed severe and empty without her mom in it. She had so many things still to tell her, so many things she didn’t say. Mestasis tried to remember the last time she had seen her, and her mind came up against a wall. She had so many chances to go back, but she’d stayed each time, thinking she would make a better world for her mother. Never did she expect she wouldn’t be around to enjoy it.

Mestasis felt cheated, almost betrayed.
She never told us she was sick.

What did you expect? She worked in that old recycling plant, carcinogens seeping into her body each day
. Abysme hit the couch with her fist.
You said we’d get her out of there.

She glared at Mestasis with eyes filled with pain and hate.

Tears blurred her vision, and Mestasis wiped them back. She had to be the stronger one in times like these.
I’m sorry, Bysme. I thought we had more time.

Time is the one thing we don’t have.
Abysme shot up and waved her arm over the smog-filled sky in the window
. In case you didn’t notice, the world is falling apart. Flying in the hovercraft I saw gangs, right in the light of day, parading through the corridors between Quadrants six and seven. People are fighting over energy cells for their hovercrafts, and the line for fresh food stretches two buildings long. Men with lasers guard the greenhouses, and I needed to show my ID just to park the hovercraft. It’s a madhouse outside TINE, and it’s just going to get worse.

Despite her shaking body, Mestasis kept her mindspeak steady.
Bysme, we’ll make it through this. We always do.

But what’s the point of going on? I don’t want to live in a world where you have to fight for your next meal, where a thousand people starve while I eat. I can’t do it anymore, Metsy. I just can’t.

Mestasis pulled herself up and strode across the room. She’d just lost her mom, and she wasn’t about to lose her sister as well. She gripped Abysme’s arm, yanking her away from the window.
Don’t you dare talk about not living, about abandoning your work, your life.

Abysme struggled in her grip, trying to wiggle free.
Why the hell not? What is left to live for?

Love. Mestasis thought of James and his story about the colony ships. Resolution hardened in her chest and she held firm.
Because I’m getting us off this damn planet.

Abysme stiffened in surprise and Mestasis pushed her point. She stared into her sister’s gaze, the irises so dark they blended with the pupil.
I’ve found a way to get us out of here.

§

On the failing control deck of the
Expedition
Mestasis wondered if where they’d ended up was any better than staying on Old Earth.

“In case you don’t remember to chemistry class, under standard conditions, hyperthium is the lightest metal and the least dense solid element on the periodic table. Like all alkali metals, hyperthium is highly reactive and flammable, so we typically store it in mineral oil. It looks real nice when cut open, shining with a metallic luster…”

Gemme’s head bobbed up and down as Tech rambled on. The tundra spread before the sight panel in an endless slate of shiny white. At first, she watched with fascination, looking for more tentacled beasts or wiry-haired mammoths, but three hours of the same horizontal ice landscape made her drowsy.

Must. Pay. Attention. Important information, vital to the success of the mission.

Glancing back, she saw Luna cleaning her fingernails, and Brentwood fast asleep, a placid expression on his face. If only she could see what occupied his dreams. Gemme turned back around and focused on Tech’s words.

“Contact with moist air corrodes the surface quickly to a dull, silvery gray, then black tarnish. But we’ll see what it does is this frigid atmosphere…”

She didn’t get very far.

§

An ant’s head peeked out of a mound of sand. The antennae twitched as if detecting her. The insect emerged, crawled down the side in a wandering zigzag, and disappeared into the long-stemmed grasses. The sand swirled around it and Gemme wondered if it would sink into quicksand, but the ant continued on as the golden swirls spiraled out, shooting into the grasses like dust in the wind.

Had she fallen in the biodome?

“Oh my, Jenny, are you okay?”

Someone pulled her arm and she scrambled up into the searing rays of sunlight. Solaris Prime on Tundra 37 felt like a microscope light compared to this giant burning ball of gas threatening to blind her and bake her all at once.

“You went down so fast. I tried to catch you.” The familiar woman with nutmeg hair helped her brush sand off her sundress.

“It’s okay. I’m fine.” No matter where she was, she was still embarrassed to have fallen on her face. The back of her jaw throbbed with pain.

“Good. Mikey’s truck is pulling up right now.”

She followed the woman to an antique Old Earth vehicle that looked like it belonged in a junkyard heap more than on a road. The paint gleamed red as an apple in the places that weren’t eaten away with amber rust.

“We’re riding in that?”

“Yeah.” The woman ran up and scooped a pair of pink high heels from the back. “Don’t forget your shoes.”

Gemme took the pointy heels in her hands wondering how anyone could ever walk in such an absurd design. They couldn’t possibly belong to her, yet the pattern of concentric circles painted on the toe reminded her so much of something she’d once owned. Bending down, she slipped the right one on her bare foot. Her toes wiggled through in a perfect fit.

The woman had already climbed in the back. “Are you coming?”

Gemme slipped on the other shoe and walked around the pickup, making sure not to touch the rusty paint, and stuck her head in the open sight panel. A young man with curly dark hair and a nose the size of a pear stared back at her. Disappointment tinged her heart. Somehow, she thought she’d recognize him.

“Mikey?”

“Dude’s at the party waiting for you. Come on in.”

She hesitated, one hand gripping the doorframe. Had she been here before?

“What’s with you today, Jenny? You look like you ate the wrong mushrooms.”

“Don’t mind her, Walter; she’s been spacey all morning. She gets like that when she spends too much time with her numbers.”

“It’s all cool, Lisa.”

He reached over and popped the door loose. The metal squeaked as she swung it open. She climbed in, balancing precariously on her heels. The furry fabric of the seat felt strange underneath her bare legs as she sat down. A dangling cardboard peach wafted a sickly sweet scent from the rearview mirror.

She turned back to Lisa. “I thought you said Mikey was coming to pick us up.”

“All part of the plan.” She gave her a wink and mouthed, “Trust me.”

Walter flicked a knob on the front panel and a strong drumbeat vibrated the inside of the pickup. A man’s voice came on the speakers, “Ooh my little pretty one, pretty one. When you gonna give me some time, Sharona?”

Gemme covered her ears with her hands and Walter turned the knob again. The sound quieted.

“Don’t like The Knack?”

Gemme questioned him by raising her eyebrow. He shrugged and turned the wheel. The pickup lurched forward and she braced herself against the front panel.

He gave her an apologetic smile. “Forgot to remind you to buckle up.”

They rode past trees, so many of them in all shapes and sizes, making the biodome on the Expedition seem like a child’s terrarium. A lake spread on her sight panel, water rippling in blue crests with a white sailboat riding the waves. Gemme’s feet itched to stand on the sandy beach and wade in the shallows.

Walter pulled up in front of an old gabled farmhouse painted in fading lavender with beige trim. He parked behind another Old Earth antique with gold lettering that read Chevrolet.

“Last stop, gals. Thanks for flying ‘Air Walter.’”

Gemme pulled the plastic handle and the door popped open. She followed Lisa and Walter onto the covered porch. Flowers dangled from baskets hanging over her head, and a spindly tomato plant clung to a stick in an old bucket by her feet. A black cat meowed and jumped off the back of the porch as if they intruded on its nap time.

Lisa smiled at her. “You ready?”

“Ready for what?”

“You’ll see.” She opened the screen door and ushered her in.

A chorus of voices echoed, “Surprise!”

People jumped out at her from either side, holding plastic cups of golden liquid. Some crouched on the staircase, and others stood the hallway waving ribbons and lace. Gemme shrunk back, bumping into Lisa. “What’s going on?”

“Don’t look so cross! I know it’s not your birthday, Jenny. This is something much, much better.”

The crowd parted, each face beaming in a smile as if she were a queen returning to her throne. She wished she knew their collective secret. She felt like an outsider trying to play a game without knowing all the rules. It was a feeling she’d experienced a lot lately.

Lisa pushed her to the kitchen at the back, where a three-tiered chocolate cake sat on a bright yellow linoleum countertop. As if those sights didn’t surprise her enough, Brentwood stood beside the cake, wearing a loose-fitting shirt with palm trees and khaki shorts. A tan made his skin golden bronze, highlighting the blond in his wavy hair. He looked so good Gemme gasped air in, holding her breath.

His lips curled in a half-sorry, half-mischievous grin. “I wanted to surprise you with something big. Maybe then, you’ll say yes.”

She exhaled and her voice shook. “Say yes to what?”

He reached in his back pocket and brought out a velvet box. People whispered around them, poking their faces through the door. Lisa pushed them back. Brentwood lowered himself to one knee and opened the box. A teardrop-shaped diamond winked back at her like a captured star.

“We’ve had some pretty rough times, with you going away to NYU and me joining the police force, but we’ve made it through. You always believed in me, in us. I love you, Jenny, and I want you to be my wife. Will you marry me?”

Gemme didn’t recognize half of what he said, but she knew the answer before he finished his last sentence. She placed her fingers over his hand that held the box. His skin burned like the sun. “Yes.”

Applause filled the room in contagious happiness. Walter hollered, “Mikey and Jenny forever.” But all Gemme could focus on was the warmth of Brentwood’s skin underneath her fingertips. He held out her hand and slipped on the ring. Joy welled up inside her, exploding like solar flares in her chest. She didn’t care if they were Mikey and Jenny or Miles and Gemme. All she knew was the sense of comfort he gave her just by staring into her eyes.

Brentwood stood and cupped her chin with both his hands, his touch so gentle, yet direct. He brought his face down and kissed her passionately, as if he could join their souls right then with his lips. She melted into his embrace and parted her lips against his, currents of passion stirring urges in her body. Nothing else mattered but here and now, this perfect moment in a universe of endless time.

“Please, Rizzy. If you do it, I promise I won’t ever tell on you and Daryl again.” Vira pressed her palms together in a triangle and beat it in the air in front of Rizzy’s nose.

Rizzy looked away, leaning on her sleep pod as the fuel cell recharged. “I don’t know. You’re talking about breaking into Dad’s private workshop and stealing his equipment. Not just lifting a cookie or an extra blanket, or even sneaking a kiss.”

“It’s for my new project.”

“I don’t care what it’s for. I just don’t want to get in trouble. Thanks to you, I’m in far enough as it is.”