Tundra 37

by Aubrie Dionne

  Tun­dra 37

  A New Dawn, Book 2

  AU­BRIE DI­ONNE

  Prologue

  The Seers

  I’m los­ing her.

  Abysme guides the ves­sel in si­lence, her blind eyes rolling as she senses our course, two hun­dred years away from Para­dise 18. She’s scattered her thoughts among the stars, and her mind drifts farther from the sis­ter I once knew. I fear the ma­chine has en­gulfed her in­di­vidu­al­ity. She’s for­got­ten the mean­ing of our goal, the oath we took three cen­tur­ies ago. Most of all, she’s for­got­ten me, cre­at­ing an empti­ness in­side me more pro­found than the des­ol­a­tion sur­round­ing us.

  If I had my arms, I’d reach out to com­fort her and usher her back from the black abyss spread be­fore us. As chil­dren, I kept her alive through the de­struc­tion, sign­ing us up for the Ex­ped­i­tion and win­ning two tick­ets off Old Earth be­fore it suc­cumbed to hell. But can I save her now?

  I send im­pulses through my brain­waves and into the ship. Bysme, do you hear me?

  Un­like her, I have one op­er­at­ing eye and can see the con­trol cham­ber we hang from. Twist­ing my head, I search her fea­tures. Her skeletal face twitches. She writhes and the wires hold­ing her in place stretch taut. I won­der what I’ve done to us, the shock of our dis­em­bod­i­ment jolt­ing me. Every in­put hole drilled into my skull snakes with activ­ity. The ship surges through me, a vast in­tranet of in­form­a­tion, names, status charts, and in­fin­ite tra­ject­or­ies. If I couldn’t feel the cold, reg­u­lated air on the rem­nants of my torso, I’d be lost in the ma­chine too. I re­mind my­self of our mis­sion and the per­sever­ance flows into my veins.

  She doesn’t re­spond and the fear wells up from within me. Can I guide the ship alone? I real­ize I’ve left her at the helm for too long while I drif­ted into memor­ies.

  Status of Beta Prime? Bysme speaks in mono­tone com­puter speech as she turns to the corner of the main con­trol deck where the orb glistens, tempt­ing us with the mys­ter­ies hid­den in the cos­mic swirls within its core. Some­times, I wish we’d blas­ted the ball off the hull after its tendrils at­tached to the outer frame in­stead of re­cov­er­ing it for study. We’ve guarded it for so long, Pro­ject Beta Prime has be­come part of us, yet we’re fur­ther than ever from un­lock­ing its secrets. All I know is the in­sist­ence of my memor­ies, like ghosts that re­fused to be ig­nored.

  Un­changed. The weight of my voice in our mind­speak re­flects my dis­ap­point­ment. Like everything else.

  Bysme falls si­lent, and I scan the sys­tems search­ing for an­swers that aren’t there.

  Chapter One

  Matchmaker

  The Ex­ped­i­tion, 2751

  Names trailed in pairs along the wall­screen as the next batch of des­tinies un­fol­ded. Gemme pulled her hair into a pony­tail and sipped her syn­thetic cof­fee, re­view­ing the com­puter’s choices. Be­side her, a con­stel­la­tion of stars glittered on the sight panel. She stud­ied the spher­ical pat­tern, con­tent to watch the world float by from the safety of the Ex­ped­i­tion’s com­puter ana­lyt­ics wing.

  She’d live and die on the decks of the aging trans­port ship. The cer­tainty of her fate com­for­ted her from the black void press­ing in. Con­sist­ency gave her solace, and in her life reg­u­lar­ity reigned. She lived through her work, find­ing life in num­bers.

  After an­other long sip, she gazed up at the screen and read the first pair of names.

  Aaron Tix­ton and Cas­sandra Smith.

  She ac­cessed their pro­files with the tip of her fin­ger on her keypad. Both Lifers tested well in en­ergy main­ten­ance and ship re­pairs. Their per­son­al­it­ies were type ISTP and type ENFJ, and their fam­ily trees didn’t in­ter­sect un­til third cous­ins in the first gen­er­a­tion, provid­ing a prom­ising match. Neither showed any mani­fest­a­tion of the rare hy­pergene they’d searched for since they left Earth, but no one she’d ever matched had. There were no guar­an­tees the Seers would last un­til the ship reached Para­dise 18. Sup­press­ing a mo­ment of worry, she scratched her chin, then typed an af­firm­a­tion on the touch­screen.

  Ray El­lis and Melissa Stew­art. Al­though they were three years apart, Ray be­ing the senior, their genes were op­tim­ally com­pat­ible. With res­ist­ance to Alzheimer’s, can­cer, and heart dis­ease, they would pro­duce dur­able chil­dren. The touch­screen flashed as her fin­ger pressed enter.

  Molly Fritz and—

  The portal beeped, in­ter­rupt­ing her work. Who would visit so early on the first morn­ing shift? She’d dragged her­self out of her sleep pod for a reason. The Seers ex­pec­ted the next re­port by four­teen hun­dred, and she didn’t have time for un­planned meet­ings.

  Gemme sighed and clicked off the screen. She couldn’t have an in­truder spy­ing on the new sets of matches. She pressed the portal panel and the particles de­ma­ter­i­al­ized like fall­ing stars, re­veal­ing a stel­lar beauty.

  “Luna?”

  “Gemme.” Luna shif­ted and leaned her busty body against the portal frame. “How are you? I haven’t talked to you in years.”

  For a reason.

  Un­eas­i­ness spread through Gemme’s shoulders, mak­ing her neck tingle. A vis­ion of Luna’s highly mas­caraed teen face scrunched up in an­ger came back to her. What am I go­ing to do with you, you freckle-faced cy­ber­geek? You make me look bad with all your study­ing and high test scores, Luna had taunted be­fore she smacked Gemme in the chest, leav­ing a bruise that had las­ted for two months. Sure, Gemme had pushed her back, but Luna’s fi­nal shove had landed her in the re­cyc­ling bin. She’d suffered in that cold, metal con­tainer for four hours be­fore a cus­todian heard her banging for help.

  Luna had claimed it was an ac­ci­dent, and as the Lieu­ten­ant’s daugh­ter, and the des­cend­ant of the ori­ginal founder of the Ex­ped­i­tion, every­one be­lieved her. Gemme hadn’t pressed the is­sue. No one messed with the Leg­acys. Since then, she’d stayed clear of the beauty and her bul­ly­ing tac­tics. As Luna hovered over her, Gemme sensed where this con­ver­sa­tion led, and it made the cof­fee in her stom­ach churn like acid.

  “I’ve got a lot of work to do, Luna. What do you need?”

  Luna flipped her wavy blonde hair be­hind her shoulder and stared at her as if she had a right to be there. “I want to dis­cuss my pair­ing.”

  “You know I can’t talk of fu­ture matches.” Gemme fought to keep her tone pro­fes­sional. “The com­puter makes the de­cisions. I only re­view the pair­ings and double-check for glitches.”

  “You have more power than you let on, Gemme, dear.” Luna pushed past her and slinked across her of­fice, tap­ping her fin­ger­tips along the key­boards.

  Hot air flared out of Gemme’s nos­trils. The nerve! Luna asked her to change the bylaws, to risk her job after years of bul­ly­ing? Her cheeks burned like a su­per­nova. The keys clicked un­der Luna’s long nails in a rhythmic pit­ter-pat­ter. Thank good­ness she’d locked down the sys­tem.

  The blink­ing but­ton for the screen stood out like a dwarf star. Luna inched to­ward it. Gemme squeezed by her and stuck her small body between Luna’s ginorm­ous chest and the touch­screen, turn­ing her back on her to pro­tect the ma­chine.

  “I can’t change the pair­ings, only ap­prove or dis­ap­prove.”

  “You can dis­ap­prove of every­one for me.”

  The harsh­ness in her voice made Gemme whip around from the con­trols and stare her down. “You’re telling me you don’t want a lifemate?”

  “You didn’t let me fin­ish.” Luna’s lips slid into a smile. “Every­one, that is, ex­cept Miles Brent­wood.”
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br />   Of course. Gemme could’ve guessed that re­quest from a par­sec away. The com­puter hadn’t as­signed Miles Brent­wood a lifemate yet. Five years their senior, not only was he power­ful, at­tract­ive, and bril­liant, his sweet charm could warm even the cold­est reaches of deep space. Some­how, even though Luna was gor­geous, Gemme didn’t think she de­served Brent­wood, and she reveled in the fact that she couldn’t honor Luna’s re­quest.

  “The com­puter de­cides the lifemates, not me.” Be­sides, pair­ing Luna with Lieu­ten­ant Brent­wood would ex­plode the main­frame of the lifemate pair­ing sys­tem. The com­puter’s choices had an ex­cel­lent suc­cess rate, much bet­ter than the stat­ist­ics she’d seen from Old Earth. She couldn’t ima­gine people choos­ing for them­selves.

  Luna shrugged as if she dis­cussed trick­ing a five-year-old in­stead of de­fy­ing a cen­tur­ies-old sys­tem. “If you deny every pair­ing for me, even­tu­ally his name will come up.”

  Gemme held her nose up, but her head only came up to Luna’s mag­ni­fi­cent plunging neck­line. Why didn’t her uni­form ever look as good? “I’m not go­ing to bend the rules for you.”

  Luna pulled back and pouted her full lips. “I thought you’d say as much. That’s why I brought you a bribe.”

  She dropped a piece of pa­per on Gemme’s desk. Be­fore Gemme could reply, Luna slipped around her and jogged out the portal. “Think about it. Get back to me.” Her voice echoed down the cor­ridor, cheer­ful, yet tense.

  Gemme watched her leave, stunned. What could Luna have that she wanted, be­sides an apo­logy? She’d already earned a cushy job with a cos­mic view. Gemme picked up the piece of pa­per, feel­ing the strange thin­ness in her hands. Pa­per was only used for formal oc­ca­sions. What could it be?

  Open­ing the folds of the doc­u­ment re­vealed a bor­der of glit­ter­ing gold. The writ­ing was etched in inky curs­ive. Gemme gasped as she stud­ied the con­tours of the in­scrip­tion.

  Re­quest gran­ted. Please present this upon ar­rival on Con­trol Deck 67.

  A ticket to visit the Seers. This rar­ity was one more shred of proof the Leg­acys had ad­vant­ages oth­ers didn’t have.

  Why would she ever want to meet them? The Seers had sealed their cham­ber for the last cen­tury for fear of weak­en­ing their fra­gile bod­ies with germs. People whispered about their trans­form­a­tion from real hu­mans born on Old Earth to skel­et­ons and ma­chines. Just think­ing about how they’d severed their arms and legs after the limbs had at­rophied to have wires run dir­ectly into their tor­sos made her squirm.

  She real­ized Luna didn’t know her at all. Status quo con­ten­ted Gemme more than any high po­s­i­tion or spe­cial meet­ing. She wanted to live her life on the Ex­ped­i­tion, drink her cof­fee, and play match­maker in space.

  Gemme slipped the doc­u­ment un­der­neath her key­board. She’d have to re­turn it to Luna her­self. This couldn’t be trus­ted with in­ter­de­part­mental mail and she didn’t want Luna think­ing she owed her any­thing.

  After the portal ma­ter­i­al­ized, she flicked on the but­ton for the pair­ing sys­tem and the list of names blinked on her wall­screen.

  Now where was I? Oh yes, Molly Fritz and—

  A let­ter G stole her at­ten­tion from halfway down the second column. She skimmed the names.

  It couldn’t be.

  Gemme gasped and backed away from the wall­screen. Her touch­screen fell to the floor and rattled.

  Gemme Reiner and Miles Brent­wood.

  Her first thought was of Luna run­ning at her with a laser gun.

  But I didn’t choose it. The com­puter did.

  She knew the day would come when her name would cross the screen, she just didn’t think it would be today or it would be him. Every­one would sus­pect she de­vised the pair­ing her­self. She’d look like the most selfish, hy­po­crit­ical com­puter ana­lyst in the his­tory of the Ex­ped­i­tion. She might even lose her job.

  She scrambled to the floor and col­lec­ted the touch­screen. Her hands shook as she re­placed it on her desk. Wast­ing no time, she high­lighted their names and the reas­on­ing for the pair­ing. They both had his­tory of mild high blood pres­sure, and a few minor propensit­ies for anxi­ety in their fam­ily trees. They weren’t in­com­pat­ible, but they sure as hell weren’t a per­fect match either. Al­though, their first names soun­ded so right to­gether: Gemme and Miles.

  Shak­ing the non­sense from her head, she forced her­self to fo­cus. The fluor­es­cent yel­low con­nect­ing her name and his made her un­easy. Her fin­ger paused over the word de­lete. For a mil­li­second, she thought of his strong hands touch­ing her cheek, run­ning across the back of her neck and into her hair.

  Stop fan­tas­iz­ing!

  Why would such a man be matched to her? Ob­vi­ously the com­puter had mis­cal­cu­lated. Here lay the one glitch she was destined to fix. Gemme’s fin­ger trembled as she pressed the touch­screen. In an in­stant, their names dis­ap­peared, de­leted forever in the vast­ness of deep space. Even the Seers wouldn’t de­tect it in their nets.

  A re­sponse beeped on the screen.

  Pair­ing denied.

  Gemme breathed with re­lief. She couldn’t have people think­ing she’d ma­nip­u­lated the sys­tem, es­pe­cially Luna. Be­sides, at­trac­tion shouldn’t factor in any of the matches.

  She picked up her cof­fee mug just as a crash echoed above her head. The floor rumbled be­neath her feet. Had her de­le­tion wreaked havoc on the whole sys­tem?

  Two mono­tone voices echoed in uni­son out over the in­ter­com. “Comet shower ap­proach­ing. Col­li­sions im­min­ent. Evac­u­ate the outer levels.”

  Gemme froze. Danger to the Ex­ped­i­tion? Im­possible! The Seers would have de­tec­ted any danger from a par­sec away. They could never be wrong. The Guide said so.

  An­other crash shuddered the floor and she fell to her knees. The wall­screen flickered. She gazed out the sight panel at the fa­mil­iar con­stel­la­tion. Balls of red with trail­ing tails streaked the sight panel. She fis­ted her hands. Had the Seers failed? She had no time to pon­der the im­possible. Her of­fice lay on an outer deck. She had to get to safety.

  Her first thought shot to the com­puters. Could she save her life’s work? For pri­vacy, the Seers in­struc­ted each match­maker to store all data on the com­puter in front of her. The lights flickered out and an alarm screamed down the hall. One of the fiery balls grew lar­ger, hurt­ling right to­ward the glass sep­ar­at­ing Gemme from the void of space.

  For­get the data.

  Tak­ing one look back at her touch­screens, Gemme sprin­ted to the portal and slammed her fist on the panel. The second it took for the particles to de­ma­ter­i­al­ize tugged on her nerves. Vis­ions of space suck­ing her out haunted her more than vis­ions of be­ing stuck to the ship like the Seers. Gemme clutched her hands to­gether and bounced on her toes.

  The particles dis­ap­peared, and smoke wheezed in. Bend­ing down, Gemme covered her mouth with the sleeve of her uni­form and ran. The ship pitched side­ways, and she fell into the wall, bump­ing her knee. Her leg col­lapsed, but she forced her­self up through the pain. The cor­ridors lay empty. Was she the last one on the outer decks? She hoped so. Most of the Lifers slept in their cells at the heart of the ship at such an early hour.

  “Hull breach im­min­ent. Con­greg­ate to the in­ner decks im­me­di­ately.”

  Was there a hint of fear in the Seers’ voices? Gemme re­fused to be­lieve it. The Seers had everything un­der con­trol. They al­ways did. They wouldn’t let any­thing hap­pen to her, would they?

  She punched the portal panel in front of the el­ev­at­ors, but noth­ing happened. Fear twis­ted her stom­ach, climb­ing its way up her throat. She breathed in, and the air seared the back of her mouth. Cough­ing, she slammed the panel harder.

  Come on, you aging piece of junk.
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  The panel light flickered out like a dy­ing sun.

  Smoke filled the cor­ridor and burned her eyes. She ran to the air shaft’s emer­gency lad­ders. An­other crash hit the hull, and an­other. What were the Seers do­ing? Had they lost their minds? She clung to each lad­der rung as she climbed down, afraid an­other shock would send her plum­met­ing ten levels at once.

  As she reached the next deck, the air spiraled over her head. Pres­sure sucked the breath out of her lungs. A warn­ing buzz soun­ded, and the Seers’ uni­son voices echoed out, “Hull breach on Deck 86.”

  Gemme searched be­low her feet. She could climb down ten more rungs to close the lower hatch, or climb back up five to close the up­per hatch. Metal clicked, and the emer­gency sys­tems made the de­cision for her. Be­neath her feet, the particles of the lower hatch ma­ter­i­al­ized.

  Panic rushed up her legs along with the dwind­ling air. The Seers had locked her out.

  Gemme stared at the spin­ning particles. If she fell too soon, she’d be stuck in the particles of the hatch and the portal would re­ma­ter­i­al­ize in­side her. She had to wait for the hatch to be­come solid.

  The air grew thin and she gasped for breath. The force of the suc­tion pulled at her, yank­ing hair out of her pony­tail. Once the hatch formed, she leaped down on top of it. Scram­bling in the folds of her uni­form, she brought out her keytag.

  Thank good­ness she’d worn it around her neck. Some­times the cord ir­rit­ated her skin, and she took it off, set­ting it by her touch­screen. Now, she wasn’t sure if her touch­screen still ex­is­ted. The thought of her of­fice pummeled by comets flashed in her mind. She couldn’t go back for any­thing now.

  She shoved the keytag into the portal panel and typed over­ride. A mes­sage popped up.

  Please enter your se­cur­ity code.

  The tem­per­at­ure dropped and she shivered, suck­ing in one last breath. Gemme forced her­self to type slowly to get it right. One missed touch would shut her out forever.