by Kate Rauner
The crew gathered in a gap among the bins, and their chatter quieted. There it was again, the solemn stares, the anticipation. Even Rica had shifted away from his side to join the others. A dozen pairs of eyes watched him. This wasn't what he wanted. What did these people expect?
Fynn cleared his throat. "Thanks, everyone. You guys put the Gravitron together in half the time scheduled."
Rica quickly filled the silence. "Sure. The installation videos were thorough, we used both stevedores, and had plenty of crewmates."
Olsen took a step forward. His skin had paled over the months, but a band of freckles across his cheeks glowed, souvenirs of Earth's sunshine that would apparently never fade. Recruited from the greenhouse crew, he'd quickly learned to operate the furnace control systems on manual. "I'm tire of sleeping in a box. The crew, everyone here, is ready to unpack a few housing units and form our own barracks."
When they'd first moved to the furnace dome, the crew had turned empty cargo bins on their sides to create individual bunk cubbies. Furnished with a bed dug out of their cargo, a bin was comfortable enough for Fynn.
Heat spread through his face. Getting thrown out of the barracks was humiliating. Trustees had blamed him for frequent furnace malfunctions and ejected him from the Village barracks. Somehow, that tainted anyone who worked with him. His core crew had been evicted too, and not gently. The fading bruise on Olsen's cheek was proof of that.
A thick arm shot up from the center of the group, and a square-jawed man called out. "I can stay here, can't I? Some jerk told me I'd have to sleep on the mess hall floor unless I gave up private moments with my girlfriend. What kind of a rule is that?"
The tawny woman next to him tipped her chin defiantly and held out her sleeve pad. "They're harassing us for no reason. Like, why's only one shade of blue allowed for coveralls?" She tapped the pad, sending a signal through hair-thin wires coated with pigmented polymers.
Fynn blinked as a bright plaid pattern raced up the woman's arms and down her torso through the coveralls' legs.
Olsen grinned as those around him selected new colors for themselves. "Blue Kin aren't the only true Kin."
The anxious, square-jawed recruit pushed forward to lock eyes with Fynn. "So, can we join your barracks?"
Fynn spread his hands. "I'm a crew leader. I run the power plant, its surface interface, and now the Gravitron. That doesn't make me a barracks boss. Do whatever you want."
That seemed to make everyone happy. As the crew broke into smaller groups, Rica sidled up to Fynn. "You don't seem very upset about leaving the Village."
"What do you want me to do?" Fynn bit his lip. He probably shouldn't have asked her that.
"Show some outrage. This crew doesn't deserve to be treated like mongrels. Tell your sister to make the Blue Kin stop tormenting us."
"She's doing the best she can."
"She locked our crew up in trash bins once." Rica stabbed a finger at Fynn's chest. "Tried to lock you and me up too."
"She was just mad that time, that's all. She didn't mean it."
"How can you make excuses for her?
"She's my sister." They all would have died in past crises without her. He would have failed, and he couldn't admit that out loud.
Rica frowned, exasperated. "All Kin are family."
"Maliah's more than just another Kin." How could he explain to someone whose own parents returned to their units on her seventh birthday? When Rica entered the barracks, her mom and dad gave up a separate cottage, as all Kin did. All except Maliah's and Fynn's parents. "You had a best barracks mate, didn't you? Maliah's more like that to me."
Rica didn't say a word, just deepened her frown.
Shaky inside, Fynn spun on his heels and ran before she drew him into an argument. Because she was right. Maliah had gone tribal. She swallowed the whole Kin history thing. That Kin were the only true humans, with Archetype, Viking, and Samurai branches. That Kin had to escape the mongrels before they were engulfed. That Titan was destined to be their paradise.
In the barracks school, he'd believed the story too. Or, at least, he hadn't thought about it much. But when his father sent him to an outside university, he learned that mongrels weren't so different, and that no archeologists supported, or even knew about, the history he'd been taught.
Let Maliah believe whatever she wanted. It didn't matter anymore. They were on Titan and no one was ever going back to Earth.
His steps grew stronger as he walked. Get their equipment running smoothly, that was the job his father had given him, and survival depended on it. Everything else would sort itself out eventually without his help.
A crewmate on duty trotted across the furnace platform to a power panel and Fynn paused to watch. He was undoubtedly pressing a manual re-set, something necessary several times each day. From a distance, there wasn't much else to see. The methane burners were sealed inside steel cylinders that also contained Stirling converters to generate electricity.
Connections ran to each cylinder. One line fed the burners methane piped in from the surface. An insulated hose shedding streamers of fog carried frigid Titan atmosphere to create the temperature difference that powered the converters. Air intakes fed the combustion chambers and heat exchangers, and a bundle of wires snaked out from unreliable sensors. Valves and solenoids hung on piping outside the cylinders. Those had to be inspected regularly.
Fynn pressed his wide lips together to a tight line. That was his problem. Those sensors and the control modules mounted in consoles along the platform's edge were incredibly flakey. Intermittent. Thanks to the secrecy surrounding the colony, no one had told the manufacturers that their equipment would be shipped across the solar system in unheated and unshielded compartments.
He swung up onto the furnace platform and greeted the operator. "Hi, Ben. How's it going?"
Ben was an Archetype like Fynn, though more caramel than coffee in color. He launched into a detailed explanation of valve positions he'd set for each burner, and how he'd balanced methane with dome air. Fynn relaxed as they talked technology.
Ben pulled up the latest readings on his flat pad. Balancing air in the domes was tricky, so the crew hauled around portable meters to collect data on pressure, temperature, and air composition. Especially oxygen and carbon dioxide. They pumped CO2 from the furnace exhaust into the greenhouse, which juiced plant growth and accelerated oxygen production, which meant a trickle of air had to be vented and make-up nitrogen drawn in continuously.
The Village Kin didn't appreciate how much tedious attention to detail the power plant required. Once the Herschel could manufacture replacement parts, automated operation would solve Fynn's problems. Levels would finally be reliable and consistent. In the meantime, patience was hard to come by when his crew was persecuted every day.
Ben looked across the dome. "Hey, what're the guys up to?"
Beyond a row of pallets, toward the center of the dome, a stevedore's center column rose as it shifted cargo bins. The crew was unloading colored panels that slotted and snapped together to form barracks units.
"Olsen wants proper barracks," Fynn said.
"About time." Ben turned back to his pad. "Can we speed up the fans above the Village dock? There seems to be a dead spot."
Fynn glanced at his sleeping cubby, a bin facing the dome wall not far from the furnaces. He'd keep his private quarters. Kin would sort themselves out.
***
Drew drifted through the Herschel's cool, dim core past levels of stasis pods. Thirty-four levels of pods arranged like coffin-sized spokes of thirty-four wheels stretching to the hull. Pods in the first nine levels were empty. He paused, as he always did, at the level where eight unclaimed personal bags hung, eight yellow gear bags whose owners hadn't lived to carry them down to Titan's surface.
He hadn't known the occupants very well, but they'd been the Council of Cohorts, the Kin's leaders and the colony's designers. Only two cohorts had survived, and without the others, everyone was likel
y doomed. His fingers tingled as the coveralls clung, cold and clammy, against his narrow chest.
Talking himself into a panic was stupid. He stroked the edges of his scant mustache until the chill faded. Warm again, he aimed his feet toward the ship's main engines, which he thought of as down, and paddled along with his fingertips. He'd gotten good at maneuvering in zero-g and was careful not to gain too much speed. He might be weightless, but mass times velocity equaled momentum everywhere in the universe, and slamming into a metal pod hurt.
Twenty-five levels still held Kin, and he visually inspected the compact consoles as he swam past. The same constellation of tiny green lights glowed at each pod, which was good because Drew had no idea what to do if a pod malfunctioned. Malfunctioned in an obvious way, that was, since no one knew why numbness and headaches plagued awakened Kin, or why others didn't awaken at all.
Medics could activate a single level to open its twelve pods at once, but there were only eight crew on the Herschel. Not enough to immediately provide tactile stimulation to each awakened person, to immediately check that their airways were clear of stasis fluid. Lately, Greta Lund brought the dome medics up for an awakening, and with twelve attendants, they had better luck. No one died. Drew patted the closest pod as he drifted by, silently wishing its occupant good luck.
The hum of life support faded, and the air turned clammy and stagnant. Above the aft bulkhead, he paused to run one palm along a damp steel pod and held his fingers close to his crooked nose, examining the water clinging to his hand like a wet glove. Ever-Clean coveralls weren't very absorbent, so wiping his hand on a sleeve didn't help much. He wrinkled his nose at the wet slick before flicking off huge drops.
Water was a gremlin in zero-g. Those wobbly drops floating across the ship would eventually crawl into the ventilation system, creep along ducts, and breed their own colonies of bacteria in the filters.
It was time to vacuum out a couple dozen panels where water gremlins set up shop. That tedious job took all afternoon, but he liked working alone, away from anyone who might judge him. The Herschel received camera feeds from the domes, so his crewmates must have viewed his humiliation on the surface. He'd been locked in a cargo bin as punishment for breaking one of the crazy new rules in the colony.
Remembering made his hands tingle and his pulse race. Such thoughts were stupid. Deep breaths. Positive affirmations. I'm a worthwhile person. I'm in control.
Onboard the Herschel, everything was under control. From the day a shuttle brought him up, he'd studied maintenance videos and volunteered for unpleasant tasks. The ploy worked. The ship's medics treated him as if he belonged. They'd been stuck with most routine maintenance, since they had nothing to do between awakenings and the pilots were busy every day. They appreciated his extra effort.
Drew flexed his fingers, banishing the tingles, kicked off from the bulkhead, and muttered to himself as he drifted upward. "That's me. Janitor extraordinaire."
***
Maliah descended the tower on stairs that spiraled down from the balcony. She could have climbed down the internal ladder, but it was important for Kin to see their leader. Most people were working in the greenhouse or on the recycling systems, but a few crossing the Village dome stopped to stare at her.
Her adjuncts waited at the base of the tower. Magnus, once cohort for security in Earth orbit, gazed at her belly with cold, pale eyes. Looking for a baby bump. He glanced up to see her watching him and held her eyes for a moment before looking away.
Magnus, suspicious of everyone and everything, had sought control after Tanaka's death. But their leader had often praised Maliah in front of the Kin, and announcing she was pregnant, long before the schedule called for children, guaranteed their loyalty. Hacking a contraceptive implant wasn't hard, not for her. Kin sought omens, and she'd given them a doozy.
A smirk would tell Magnus she didn't fear him. No, she didn't show yet, but her morning sickness was fading. It wouldn't be long before even he would have to admit she bore the first baby on Titan.
Maj stepped between them to hand Maliah a cup of warm tea. With her gray braid in a fine Viking coil and worry wrinkles around her eyes, the senior adjunct looked more motherly than Greta did. Maj would fuss if Maliah skipped breakfast but never argue.
Her mother wanted Maliah to visit the clinic, but pre-flight physicals proved she was perfectly healthy, and Greta obviously knew her family history. An exam with the clinic's limited instruments couldn't add much. Most medical equipment was onboard the Herschel, sealed away until the habitat ring could be pressurized.
Greta had asked for this meeting and suggested using a table in the mess hall, as Yash had for his status meetings. Remembering her father tightened Maliah's throat for a moment, then flushed her face with anger. He'd challenged Tanaka and got what he deserved.
Fynn thought like their father, too entranced with technology to embrace his duty. She scanned the mess hall for her brother and found him entering from the greenhouse tunnel. He'd set his coveralls to blue. Tanaka blue, true blue. At least he showed some respect.
The others waited around a table in the first row, close to the spotless, white kitchen and rainbow of women's barracks. With three quarters of the Kin locked in stasis on the Herschel, there were plenty of empty tables even during a meal. Right now, only a few people were hurriedly stowing cups and leaving for the day's assignments.
Maj pulled out two of the gray chairs. Over the past couple months, Maliah had come to appreciate the mess hall's neutral colors. Nothing to roil her stomach but the lingering whiff of plasticizers.
Not that Maliah would complain, since Tanaka had approved the selection. Plastics were low-mass materials, which mattered when crossing the solar system, and replicable on Titan. The moon offered an endless supply of raw organic molecules to be transformed into replacements.
Maj sat next to Maliah, Magnus hovered at her shoulder with his arms folded high on his chest, and Tanaka's two younger adjuncts stood behind him.
Emily sat straight, ready to provide a crisp review of her Village crew's work. Like a rosy-cheeked favorite auntie, she set her flat pad squarely on the table as if she was proudly serving a plate of cookies.
Max, the farming cohort, slumped his large frame into a chair across from Maliah, and Fynn slid into the chair beside him.
Maliah folded her hands against her lips as she considered her younger brother. On Earth, he'd been eager to sneak out of his barracks and join whatever adventure she might plan. Now, he gave her a wary glance and then stared at the tabletop.
Her chest tightened. He was planning something. No, she shook her head to dismiss the thought. He was her brother. He loved her.
Greta began. "I asked you here so I could personally inform you that the Gravitron is functional and I'll be scheduling your crews for treatments. All of you, too." She slid a large flat pad to the table's center and Liam appeared on the screen. The commander seemed to be alone in the Herschel's living quarters, but his crew was probably listening just out of sight of the camera.
"It's time to plan our colony's next phase," Greta said.
Magnus leaned forward. Maliah could feel the closeness of his body and suppressed her annoyance as he spoke. "We know what's next. We follow the schedule."
"Of course. The schedule tells us what to do, but we know more than our cohorts did when they planned the colony's startup. I want to bring all the Kin down from orbit before Liam starts the space station spinning."
Maliah squinted at her mother. "What difference does that make? There will be very little centrifugal force in the Herschel's core."
"But there will be some, and it's an added variable I don't want to deal with."
Liam's sloping eyebrows collided. "We emptied the fuel depot last trip. No more shuttles down unless we can refuel, and the bots have dead batteries."
Fynn perked up. "I can help there. The old reactor's surface cables are useable. If I run power lines out of the furnace dome and connect to the
decapod's charging station, they should go back to work making fuel."
Greta nodded. "I've identified two stasis levels containing Kin with some medical training. Levels seventeen and twenty-three. I'd like to take my dome medics up with me to awaken those levels, working with Liam's crew as we've done before. Then leave the newly awakened medics on the Herschel and bring my people back to the domes. That should provide enough personnel to manage a rapid series of awakenings without leaving those who need treatment unattended."
Tanaka had always admired Greta and called her a Viking warrior queen. Maliah could almost hear Tanaka's voice inside her head as she locked on to her mother's blue eyes. She could trust her. "That sounds fine. I agree."
Liam's wide head nodded on the screen. "Soon as young Fynn has the fuel depot operational again."
Fynn had been scrolling through something on his flat pad. Probably maintenance videos. "I should have the bots recharged within a day. Then give them two days to replenish the depot tanks."
"I estimate..." Greta consulted her own pad. "Once the new medics learn our procedures, forty-six days to awaken all Kin who remain in stasis."
Max sputtered. "Forty-six days. I've only finished planting the last of the hydroponic frames this week. That's half the time it'll take for a new potato crop."
"I understand that you've been planting frames over time," Greta said. "Something will always be ready to harvest."
"Yes, but to have four hundred mouths to feed in seven weeks' time! Many of the mature plants were damaged before we spotted the whitefly infestation."
It was baffling, but whiteflies had survived decontamination procedures and journeyed with them to Titan. They appeared in the greenhouse shortly after the first plants sprouted. With extra labor, Max kept them under control. His crew washed eggs and larva off the plants and bagged heavily infested stems for Fynn to carry outside. The flies had survived decontamination on Earth, but nothing survived Titan's profound cold.
Tanaka had been furious when the flies were discovered. If Maliah looked at an empty chair, she could almost see him rising from his seat, planting fists on his desk, his dark eyes flashing, his short white beard outlining a clenched jaw. She blinked to banish the image.
