Tundra 37 (6 page)

He placed both hands on the podium and stared into the masses as if he leveled with the audience. The way his gaze traveled through the space between them and settled on her captivated Gemme like a trance she couldn’t shake. No wonder the Seer’s had chosen him for their speaker five years ago. He’d make any dire news turn to hope. Since she’d pressed the delete key, who would the computer have matched him to next?

“It’s a damn cold planet, and not a paradise, folks. I’ll give you that. But we can survive. I’ve been doing research on information collected by scouts who first explored this galaxy. Mineral deposits on the southern side would keep what’s left of the
Expedition
going until a suitable shelter is constructed. Readings show the planet will warm up in the centuries to come, and our children’s children will experience the beginnings of a massive glacial thaw. All we have to do is stay alive until then.”

“The Seers usually go through me with everything, but since time is short, they are downloading new assignments directly to your locators. Each one of you must work together to establish the colony. I know you weren’t prepared for anything like this. You thought, like I did, we’d live our whole lives on this cozy spaceship. But life brings surprises, and this one’s going to be a heck of an adventure. We’re all in this together. Let’s get out there and build our future.”

The crowd cheered and Brentwood settled back, waving away their gushing applause. Gemme’s mind whirled with the news. What would happen to her matchmaking? She looked down to her locator and waited for the message to appear. The screen lay blank, so she refocused on the Lieutenant.

Brentwood raised his arms and the crowd settled. “One more thing. Everyone must report to their personal cells and secure their seat restraints. The Seers plan to land this vessel within the next few hours. No one, I repeat, no one, should be wandering the corridors. The landing will be rough.”

Gemme could see why he’d waited to deliver the last bit of news. The mood hushed around her as the reality of the situation sank in. They weren’t going to be in deep space any longer, or ever again for that matter. Tundra 37 held the rest of their lives. Her locator beeped.

Incoming message.

A wave of beeps rang around her as the others received their new life assignments as well. She brought up her arm and clicked the button.

Exploratory team Alpha Blue.

An explorer? Were the Seers out of their minds? Gemme had sat at a desk all her life. She scrolled down to read the rest of the message.

Analyze mineral deposit on the southern side of Tundra 37. Formulate best method for extraction and transportation. Compile rough estimate of the size and composition of resources.

Analyzation and numbers. That’s why the Seers had given her the job. But on an ice planet in the middle of a glacier? Overwhelmed, Gemme’s thoughts reeled. She could hardly bear to walk through the unheated corridors, never mind trek across sheer ice.

Wait, there was more. Gemme scrolled down wondering how it could get any worse.

Team leader: Miles Brentwood.

She scanned the podium where Brentwood stood. His gaze locked on hers and he ignored the people crowding around him with questions. They bumped him sideways and pulled him forward, but his gaze remained fixated on her, his lips parting as if in a question.

Embarrassment and fear swirled through Gemme. Every pining thought in her wild heart lay on display. The computer had said he was hers, and since that moment her emotions had run rampant. But she’d pressed the delete key and comets had shattered the pairing system in pieces all over deep space.

She pulled away, hiding behind an older man pushing his way through the crowd. Sooner or later she’d have to deal with her mixed-up feelings. But right now the ship ushered them forward to land on a new world.

Bysme, I need your help with the landing. Please come back to me.

Mestasis repeated her message, calculating the best place to land in a world covered in ice. Bysme had fallen silent after the shower, her mind chanting the coordinates of Tundra 37 as if it skipped in place.

We’ve reached the damn planet. Now help me land this steaming hunk of junk.
Mestasis sighed, surprised by her own venom. She shouted at her disabled sister when she should be using kindness and love to bring her back. The stress played on her nerves like Mozart on the piano. She decided to calm herself and sifted through the data files from Old Earth, choosing an aria from Don Giovanni before trying her sister again.

Bysme, please wake up.
Then, she had an idea so twisted, she felt strange even trying it.
Help me land safely to protect the orb.

Bysme stirred, the wires holding her in place creaking like old bones.
Landing coordinates approved. Initiating landing sequence.

Mestasis paused, concern nagging the edges of her psyche, but she didn’t have time to question her doubts any further. Bysme was talking again, and they had a ship to land.

§

When Gemme reached her personal cell, Tundra 37 filled the sight panel above her food congealizer. Splotches of cerulean swirled above slabs of endless white. She doubted the frozen rock held any means of refuge. Bleak as velvety deep space, scout ships had deemed it uninhabitable hundreds of years ago while searching for Paradise 18.

She strapped herself into the wall seat with shaky fingers. She’d only used the harness once before when they’d experienced engine turbulence and the gravity rings cycled down. A crash landing was much more serious. Astrophysicists designed the colony ships to land once, and only once on their chosen paradise planets, their heat shields disintegrating as they plummeted through the atmosphere. For the
Expedition
, this was it.

The Seers’ voices resonated throughout the ship, “Secure all seat restraints.”

She checked her seat restraints and hoped the remainder of the ship would hold. The hull supplied their only means of shelter. For a moment, she wished she still lived with her parents in their family cell so she wouldn’t have to be alone. The Seers had spread out each Lifer’s personal cells to ensure the majority of them would survive if the landing damaged part of the ship. Gemme realized she hadn’t even said good-bye.
Would Lieutenant Brentwood survive?
She blocked the thought from her mind. He was neither a good friend or loved one. She shouldn’t even consider him in her thoughts.

“Landing sequence initiated.” The Seers’ unified voice echoed on the intercom.

Gemme wrapped the straps around her arms and held on as the ship entered the planet’s pull of gravity. The engines rumbled underneath her feet as the deck tilted and Tundra 37 blotted out the sight panel. It had looked like a pinprick from her office, and now it loomed in a massive, bloated globe. She felt as though the world would swallow the
Expedition
alive.

The rumbling increased as the ship dove forward, entering the atmosphere. Heat panels fanned out in wings. Fire replaced the stark white and Gemme closed her eyes. Holding on for her life, she should have been in her office, completing the pairing report, sipping her coffee, and nibbling soybean wafers for lunch.

Why did this happen to our ship? Was it a result of an error the Seers made? Or pure chance?

A peek through her scrunched lids revealed bright orange-red light as the heat licked its way through the shields. She crossed her arms against her chest and clenched her rattling teeth. Gemme hated not being in control more than arrogant Lifers demanding lifemate reassignments. Ever since childhood, she’d strived to impose regulations on everything. That’s why she loved numbers and analytics. That’s why the Seers appointed her matchmaker in the first place. She excelled at rationalization, until of course her chance meeting with the lieutenant skewed everything she’d ever known.

The walls shook and a DNA model crashed to the floor. A memory surfaced though the chaos and Gemme clung to it, as if reliving the instant would save her from the pandemonium invading her life.

§

Gemme’s mom stood at the food congealizer, stuffing carrots through the blades. The pulsing buzz covered the trickling waterfall on the wall screen. Golden swirls filled a computerized sun above the falls.

“Mom, you’re covering my Gaia music!”

Her mom shouted from the kitchen, “I know, honey. I’ll be done soon.”

Gemme sighed and threaded another blue bead of nucleotide on the wire.

The food congealizer gurgled to a halt. She waited for the tinkling music to calm her, but Ferris ran into the room, using his fingers as a laser.

“Pow, pow, pow. You vaporized.”

“Ferris, stop!”

Before she could lift the structure off the floor, Ferris stumbled through it. His little feet kicked the double helix across the room and the strands fell apart. She’d lost all the evenings spent wiring the structure together. Life felt useless, pointless, like she fought a battle lost many generations ago.

Gemme collapsed on the carpet and lunged for the beads, scraping them toward her with her arms.

“Sowwy, G.” Ferris’s toddler lisp slurred the words. He bent down to pick up a cytosine and she swiped his chubby hand away.

“Leave me alone.”

Ferris wailed like he’d witnessed the end of the world. Her mom ran into the room holding a dish towel and the plastic repository for the food congealizer with goopy mush still stuck to the bottom. Ferris ran over and hid his head in her utility apron.

“What’s going on?”

“Ferris knocked over my DNA model.”

Their mom kneeled on the floor and pulled Ferris away to look into his red-blotched face. “Ferris, is this true?”

He nodded, “G not lemme help.”

“Honestly, Gemme. You’re twelve and he’s three. It’s only a plastic reproduction.”

“But, Mom—” To her it was so much more, a means for sanity, the answer to life.

“Don’t ‘but, Mom’ me. Now let him help you pick it up.”

She looked down at the carpet where the repository leaked food waste into a puddle. “And after that, you’ll help clean up your mess. I don’t have time for this. I still have to finish the life system reports and your father will be home soon.” She stormed back into the kitchen.

Gemme glared at her little brother. “Don’t touch anything.”

He sniffed, wiping his nose on his jumpsuit, and she made a mental reminder not to touch his arm.

“Go sit by the air ionizer.”

Shoulders slumped, he dragged his feet over to the ionizer and plopped on his synthetic-diapered butt. “Wanna help.”

“No.” A single strand had survived the accident, and she held it to the fluorescent lights, examining the bent wire. Maybe she could twist it back in shape and all wouldn’t be lost.

A bead bounced on the top of the ionizer. Gemme turned around just in time to see it rattle into one of the vents. “Ferris!” Why did she have to watch him every second?

Her brother’s face turned red as an emergency light. He fell backward.

“Ferris, what’s wrong?”

Had he eaten a section of DNA? She scrambled over on her hands and knees and held her hand up to his mouth, heart racing. No exhalation. She stuck her fingers inside his mouth, but she couldn’t find anything in there.

“Mom!” Gemme shouted, but her mom didn’t come. Ferris’s face drained of color.

Why did she have such a busy mother? Gemme threw him over her knee and slapped him on the back. When nothing happened, she tried again, hoping she didn’t hurt him in the process.

An image of a small coffin jettisoned into space flashed in her mind and she squeezed her eyes shut to ward it out. She had so much to teach him, so many games to play. All those evenings she’d spent with her reproduction, Ferris played pretend by himself. Guilt seeped over her until she despised her own fears.

On the fourth squeeze, a chewed-up ester bond flew out of his mouth, skidding across the carpet. Ferris took in a deep breath and slumped into her arms. Relief flooded her senses until she thought she’d melt into a puddle like the congealizer sludge.

“You all right?” She ran her hand over his curly blond hair.

He nodded, his eyes still glazed over with shock.

“You scared the neutrons out of me. Why would you eat that?”

He stuck his thumb in his mouth and mumbled. “Sowwy.”

“That’s okay. You’re all right and that’s what’s important. You have to promise me you’ll never eat one of my models again.”

“Okay.”

“No, say it:
I promise.”

He took his thumb out of his mouth. “I promise.”

“Good.” Finally, the tightness in her chest let up and she could breathe again. “Listen, we’ll clean this up later. Let’s go play laser fight.”

His eyes brightened. “Really?”

“Yeah.” She placed him beside her and jumped up, forming a gun with her fingers. “Come and get me!”

Ferris scrambled up with excitement. Giddy with a new sense of freedom, she dashed into the kitchen with him chasing after her. Space didn’t bother her any more. There were more important things to worry about, like her brother.

§

Ferris had smashed her DNA model fifteen years ago. If only she could let go now. Gemme watched the DNA structure jiggle on the floor, feeling as though her own DNA shuddered along with it. Ear-piercing screeches and crashing bangs interspersed with periods of whirring hums. She stared at the winding strand of double helixes and forced herself to focus on the memory and remain calm.

Think of Ferris.
With his graduation coming later this year, he still lived in their parents’ family cell, so at least the three of them were together. In limbo between family life and married life, Gemme had to endure this landing alone.

Why couldn’t the computer match me up when it had the chance?

Brentwood flashed through her mind and she realized the computer had its own plan for her. Too bad the shattered fragments of the mainframe floated in outer space. A life without the comets flitted through her imagination, a life where she’d work on her matchmaking, marry Brentwood, and live her elder years on the
Expedition
.