The Pioneer

by BRIDGET TYLER

  . . . as you decide what to do next.

  She’s seriously going to leave it up to me whether I keep a secret this huge? I didn’t think she trusted me that much. I didn’t think she trusted me at all.

  Mom ignores my stunned expression and turns back to the wall screen to close her apps. “Now, I’m hungry, and after your hike I’m sure you are too. Shall we see if Dr. Kao has some dinner left?”

  I follow Mom to the temporary mess hall that Dr. Kao set up at the center of what will be our base camp. Keeping the abandoned base and the Vulcan secret feels wrong, but so does telling everyone classified information Mom asked me to keep private. I used to always feel so sure about things. Then the accident happened, and nothing feels like it’s just right or wrong anymore. I hate that. But I guess if neither of my choices feels right, I might as well do what Mom asked me to do.

  It only takes Mom seven days to initiate Stage Two of the E&P plan. I find that kind of alarming. The whole point of Stage One was to give us time to independently confirm the ISA Ranger team’s findings before we start building stuff. Given the circumstances, I thought Mom would want to be really thorough about Stage One surveys so we can be sure we’re safe here.

  I seem to be the only one who’s surprised that she’s in a hurry. I guess Tau is so perfect that nobody sees the point in being cautious. Dad assures me that he’s going to finish confirming the Rangers’ findings himself while the rest of us get started on construction. That makes me wonder if he knows the truth about the Rangers and he’s completing Stage One alone so that nobody else finds out. I hate this. Even when I was totally pissed off with my parents, after the accident, I trusted them. Now, I don’t think I do.

  After that, the days fly by in a blur of construction duty, sweat, and exhaustion. Our settlement is getting bigger as fast as the 3D printers can fabricate materials.

  First, we build four hot spots, one at each corner of the plot of land we plan to transform into our base camp. The wireless network won’t reach more than a few meters past the particle shield, but it’s a start. Next we build the hospital—a triple dome with ten scanner beds and a full nanosurgical suite. After that comes the water treatment plant and communal bathrooms. Eventually, we’ll run pipes up to the rest of the settlement and have running water in all the buildings, but that’s pretty far down the to-do list.

  We spend most of the second week constructing the mess hall and the Ground Control Center, which houses Mom’s office and all the other ISA administration stuff. Sort of like a city hall, except we don’t have a city yet. Lab space comes next, because scientists would rather sleep on the floor next to their electron microscopes than worry about little things like beds or privacy.

  On Tau Day thirty-three, Dad prints up a sign that reads: PIONEER’S LANDING. He hangs it above the main entrance to Ground Control. Beth points out that the name is factually inaccurate, since the Pioneer will never actually land here. But it sticks. By the end of our second month, everyone is referring to the settlement as “the Landing.”

  That was weeks ago. There are a ton of labs finished now, and we’re starting on private dwellings. Doc has started the process of waking civilians from inso so there are more hands to help. There are also more mouths to feed. We’ve been here for a little over four Earth-standard months, which is a little over half a Tau year since this planet takes only 225 days to orbit its sun. I think I’ve spent at least a third of that time doing dishes or stirring pots of beans and rice in the kitchens with Dr. Kao.

  Dr. Mohan Kao worked on the International Space Station for five years before he joined the Project. He likes zero-g because he’s paraplegic, and in space he doesn’t need a chair. But he couldn’t resist the opportunity to see a new planet. Dr. Kao calls himself our cook, but he’s a actually a psychiatrist who specializes in nutrition. He’s responsible for making sure we all stay sane. It’s a pretty gnarly job, considering how far we are from home. I’m fully aware that I keep ending up on kitchen patrol because he’s keeping an eye on my mental health. It’s annoying just on principle, but I don’t really mind hanging out with Dr. Kao. He’s easy to talk to, and he never acts like he wants to fix me.

  KP duty also gives me a good excuse to avoid eating meals with my friends. Miguel and Leela and Chris have been hanging out with Jay Lim a lot. Most nights they eat together by the fire pits. Beth joins them sometimes too. It’d be weird if I just avoided them for no reason, but KP is the perfect excuse not to hang out.

  When I do sit with them, I end up fixating on all the terrifying secrets we know that Miguel and Leela don’t. It elevates my arctic awkwardness with Leela from uncomfortable to unbearable.

  They’re all too polite to notice that I’m avoiding them. Chris isn’t. He keeps bugging me to sit with them. Tonight, I gave in. It did not go well. I’ve never been so glad to have dish duty in my life.

  When Jay comes into the mess hall after dinner, I have to fight the urge to hide until he leaves. I wait for him to say something about how weird Leela and I were at dinner as I scrub out the bean pots and the rice cooker. He doesn’t.

  I tie off the bags of compost and recycling. I load them onto a float cart.

  Jay just sits there, reading.

  I should just take this stuff to the recycling center and go to bed.

  “I’m sorry,” I blurt out.

  “For what?” he says without looking up from his flex.

  “For earlier. Leela. Me.” I shrug. “We’re just . . .” I don’t know what we are, actually. But Jay seems to get what I’m saying.

  He nods as he folds his flex and wraps it around his wrist. “You two are dealing with some heavy stuff after the accident.”

  “Good to know we’re a hot topic,” I say, trying hard not to sound as irate as I feel. It’s not exactly surprising that rumors move at the speed of light on a planet with only 197 people on it, but it’s still annoying.

  “Nah,” he says. “Chris said something to me, but he wasn’t gossiping or anything. Just sad. Poor kid. Feels like his family got ripped apart.”

  It did.

  The words are on the tip of my tongue, but I bite them back. I don’t want to talk about it. With anyone. Especially not a hot guy I hardly know.

  Jay doesn’t press the issue. He just goes back to his book.

  Avid reader was not on the list of hobbies I might have guessed for a guy with so many muscles, but I guess that whole books-and-covers thing is a cliché for a reason.

  I want to know what kind of stuff he reads, but I don’t want to encourage him by asking. It’s pretty obvious that he doesn’t come to the mess to read because of the cafeteria-style benches or the instant coffee. He sits in here to read because I’m here. He doesn’t make a big deal about it. He doesn’t say anything unless I talk to him first. He’s just there.

  I can’t decide how that makes me feel. I mean, he is hot and he’s only nine months older than I am. He’s also smart, or at least well read. And I’m getting kind of used to talking to him every day. But my life is complicated enough without adding in romantic melodrama. Besides, I can’t seem to have even a short conversation with the guy without embarrassing myself in some way. I’m sure my awkwardness will convince him that I’m a bad idea eventually.

  I wipe down the counters one more time and then I grab the handle of the float cart with the recycling and head for the door.

  “Need a hand?” Jay says. He always offers. I always say . . .

  “Nope. Thanks, though.”

  The recycling plant is a little ways upriver from the Landing proper. I like the solitude of walking out there in the silver light of the moons.

  Beth insisted that we construct the recycling plant without clearing any of the fido trees that grow around it, so their neon-flowered branches drape the recycling center’s domes and twine through the doorframes. The trees reach out to me with their feeler branches as I pull the doors open, tangling their tendrils in my hair.

  I gently swat them away. �
�I know, I know, you love the taste of bean juice in the evening.”

  Another branch wafts out to nuzzle my face with a cluster of flowers. That makes me smile. Beth assures me that it’s an instinctive response to movement and the trees are just checking to see if I’m edible. I don’t care. It’s cute.

  I dump the dishes into the recycler and take my time walking back. The second moon is rising, and the Landing glows in the silver-tinged darkness. It’s really starting to look like a place now. The streets are paved with solar tiles, and the garden plots in front of each cabin are tilled and waiting for Beth to finish prepping Stage Three.

  Stage Three of the E&P plan is terraforming. There isn’t much to do on Tau. The atmosphere is already perfect, but the soil is missing some important stuff that we need for growing Earth crops. Part of Beth’s doctoral thesis was developing a genetically tailored bacteria that will produce the additional nutrients that Earth plants need without messing anything up for the native species. Basically, we’re giving the planet a big dose of probiotics to help it digest Earth stuff, just like we’d give a person who was having stomach problems. Once we’ve got enough treated soil to go around, every single one of these cabins will have its own garden.

  I fall asleep the second I stretch out in the tent Beth and I share. My flex wakes me just before dawn. I go to the mess hall and get the oatmeal started, then run down to the bathrooms to get a shower before the breakfast rush.

  The early-morning air is chilly when I turn off the spray of hot water, so I hurry to get dressed. The locker room has stacks of freshly 3D printed uniforms and civilian clothes, plus a couple of drying racks for stuff people care enough about to actually wash instead of just recycling.

  My jeans are clean and dry. I pull them on and slip into a long-sleeved thermal, then add my NASA T-shirt. My sneakers are falling apart, so I toss them in the recycling bin and snag a pair of ergofoam-soled hiking boots. I should probably recycle these jeans too, but it feels good to look like a normal girl every once in a while.

  After Dr. Kao and I serve breakfast, I wolf down a bowl of oatmeal and report to Sergeant Nolan for a work assignment. He took over ground crew organization from Chief Penny after Tau Day One. She’s got too much else on her plate. Sarge puts me on construction again. My first assignment is in the greenhouse. It’s built on the same frame as a normal double cabin, but with plexiglass touch-screen panels instead of the usual canvas ones. This morning I’m assembling long tables for the lab at the back of the twin domes. The rest of the space is filled with planting boxes that already contain rows of corn and wheat seedlings, waiting for Stage Three soil. Once the tables are finished, I help Beth move the pair of incubators she’s using to cultivate the Stage Three bacteria onto them. The plastic boxes lined with heated ergofoam aren’t heavy, but they’re delicate. Each one contains five petri dishes of Stage Three.

  Once I’m finished in the greenhouse, I move on to the school. This is where Leela’s mom will teach the little kids. Most of the other Project children were born during the ten years we spent preparing to leave Earth, so they’re a lot younger than us. I envy them. I spent my whole childhood daydreaming about growing up on another planet. They actually get to do it.

  The school is almost finished. It just needs doors and windows. The window panels are octagonal, just like the regular wall-screen panels. They’re easy to pop into place. The door is not, but I manage to set it on its hinges without drawing any blood, which is a first. I’m getting the hang of this construction thing. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

  I don’t feel like a useless freeloader anymore, which is good. But every time I hear the deep whine of the Wagon preparing for liftoff while I’m in the middle of welding a seam or laying floor tiles, I get so . . . I don’t know. Jealous seems too petty and small to really describe the feeling, but I guess that’s what it is. I don’t want to be stuck here on the ground, covered in dust and carbon caulking and sweat.

  I want to fly.

  But all the wanting in the world isn’t going to fix my heart or make my pacers less fragile. I should be grateful to those stupid little machines. They’re keeping me alive. But I’m not. I hate them for not being what I need them to be.

  I step into the schoolhouse and pull the completed door closed behind me. I set the windows to opaque, which should eliminate all the light in the cabin. It doesn’t. I can see two slender glimmers still tracing through the ceiling. I mark the weak spots and turn the lights back on as I pull my handheld laser welder out of my utility harness. I turn the power to the lowest setting before I switch it on.

  This welder is small, but it’s really powerful. The chief made me do a whole day of training with her before she’d let me carry one. If I turned this thing all the way up, I could melt a hole in the cabin wall, and maybe the one next door, too.

  Next, I connect the cabin to the Pioneer’s data network. A work-in-progress bar appears on each of the walls, the ceiling, and the floor.

  I open the windows and the door while I wait. The cross breeze dances over my sweaty skin. Just when I’m starting to enjoy it, a blast of hot air washes the delicate eddies away with a swollen roar. The Wagon is taking off again.

  Jealousy takes my good mood and twists it inside out. Suddenly, I’m hot, sticky, and bored, and the stupid, swirling breeze is so weak, it can’t be bothered to cool me off properly. I just want to get this over with.

  “Initializing educator program,” the computer says. The animated panda avatar of our educational software bounces over the walls. I press my palm against the bear. It rolls onto its back.

  “Hello, Joanna Watson!” it says, recognizing my bioprint. “Are you ready to learn today?”

  “No,” I say. “Initiate satellite connection.”

  The panda cocks its animated head to one side like it’s concerned. “I detect negative tones in your vocal modulation, Joanna,” it says. “Is something bothering you?”

  “Just you,” I say. “Initiate your satellite connection, please.”

  The panda looks sad. “That hurt my feelings, Joanna. Is there another way to ask that might make me feel better about helping you?”

  Wow, the new empathy subroutines in this thing are incredibly annoying. I already feel like a petty, envious jerk. The last thing I need is a guilt trip from an avatar with no actual emotions. I pull up a window and open the program override. That way I can test the system without this stupid bear pouting at me.

  The panda stares at me with big, hurt eyes as I enter my override code.

  I just can’t do it.

  I cancel and close the window. “I’m sorry, educator,” I say, approximating a patient tone of voice. “Nothing is bothering me. Would you mind initiating the school’s satellite connection? Please?”

  “Of course, Joanna!” The panda bounces, excited. “I’d be happy to! One moment!”

  Stupid bear.

  “I am now linked to Pioneer One, Pioneer Two, Pioneer Three, Pioneer Four, Vulcan One, and Vulcan Two,” the educator announces.

  That’s interesting.

  “You’re connected to the Vulcan’s satellite network?”

  “I am programmed to connect to all available International Space Agency satellites, Joanna. I can access them for educational purposes.”

  “Right,” I say. My brain is spinning so fast, it feels like it’s trying to create artificial gravity on the inside of my skull. The Vulcan’s computers were password protected, but I wonder if Dr. Brown, or whoever locked the Vulcan down, bothered to do the same thing to the satellites.

  “Is there any surface navigation data stored in Vulcan One or Vulcan Two?” I ask the educator.

  “Would you like to see surface navigation data for this continent?” the educator says. “Or for the southern continent?”

  “This one,” I say, trying not to get excited. In her book on surveying, Dr. Brown made a big deal about saving navigational data. Assuming she takes her own advice, the Vulcan’s satellites should
be able to tell me the ISA Ranger team’s last destination.

  A satellite map of the continent appears on the wall screen in front of me. It’s crisscrossed with jagged green GPS routes. I can see Pioneer’s Landing in the lower right-hand quadrant of the map, and the Vulcan, about a kilometer upriver. As you would expect, that’s where most of the routes begin and end.

  “Educator, can you tell me which of these routes is the most recent?”

  A green line that jags from the Vulcan into the mountains turns red. “This route was recorded seven January 2113, Earth standard time, Joanna,” the educator says.

  That’s two weeks after the date on the Rangers’ survey report. Whatever happened to the Rangers, it started on that trip. It must have.

  “Watson!” Sarge’s voice booms through the thin walls of the schoolhouse. “You taking a nap in there?”

  “No sir!” I call back, pulling off my flex and pressing it to the wall.

  “Then get a move on!”

  “Educator, please transfer this map to my flex.”

  “My pleasure, Joanna!” My flex glows briefly. The panda crows, “Transfer complete!”

  As I wrap my flex around my wrist again and make for the door, the educator calls after me, “Have a lovely day, Joanna!”

  By the time Sarge excuses the construction team, I’ve decided to steal a flyer and see what’s out there.

  There are so many reasons I shouldn’t do it, even if I were medically fit to fly, which I’m not. But I’m going to do it anyway. If I keep the flyer slow and steady, it’ll give my pacers time to handle the altitude changes. I’ll be fine. Or I’ll crash into a cliff.

  Whatever. This is a terrible plan, from start to finish. I know that. I know I should just give the coordinates to Mom. But she wouldn’t tell me what she found out there. She couldn’t. If I hand this over, I’ll never know what happened to the Rangers and neither will the rest of the team. Not unless it happens to us, too.