Tundra 37

by Aubrie Dionne

  Rizzy and Daryl looked away, but Vira whispered in his ear. “They were kiss­ing.”

  “Vira! Shut your mouth.” Rizzy’s neck reddened.

  Vira climbed for­ward on his shoulders so he could see her face be­side him. “It’s true. I caught them sneak­ing out, and I came to check on them.”

  “It’s not right be­ing paired up like an­im­als,” Daryl spat out, bring­ing Rizzy close to him. “They never con­sider love. To hell with the Match­maker. She can fall into a black hole.”

  “Daryl!” Vira shouted. “He’s a lieu­ten­ant. He’ll turn you in.”

  Daryl held onto Rizzy as if the hull punc­ture could still suck her out. “I don’t care. The ship’s go­ing to hell any­way.”

  Brent­wood opened his mouth to lec­ture the young man on the Ex­ped­i­tion’s mani­festo in the Guide, like he’d done so many times in the past: Lifers don’t have the lux­ury of choice. Our mis­sion is to fur­ther the hu­man spe­cies, and our sur­vival de­pends on it. We must sac­ri­fice our rights to provide for the next gen­er­a­tion, to pre­serve the ge­netic code and pre­vent in­breed­ing and muta­tions. But he couldn’t bring him­self to say it. Vira was proof the sys­tem didn’t al­ways work, and he wasn’t about to men­tion any­thing about de­form­it­ies in her pres­ence. Think­ing of the match­mak­ing sys­tem and the Seers shot a cur­rent of dis­quiet through­out his com­pos­ure.

  The Seers’ voices blared on the in­ter­com, break­ing the ar­gu­ment. “Comets cleared. Grav­ity re­stored.”

  All four of them plunged to the floor. Vira landed on top of Brent­wood, knock­ing the air out of his lungs. At least he had cush­ioned her fall.

  Daryl groaned. “Aw, man. They could have given us more no­tice.”

  Brent­wood gave him a smile. “The Seers don’t con­sider ex­traneous de­tails.”

  “More like they’ve for­got­ten what it’s like to be hu­man.” Daryl rubbed his knees and helped Rizzy up.

  Brent­wood chose to ig­nore him. Nor­mally he’d call out such dis­loy­alty, but his own mis­giv­ings about the Seers had crept into his mind. “Come on, guys, I have to get you to the safe cham­ber.”

  He led them down the hall into the cham­ber be­low the biod­ome. When the portal de­ma­ter­i­al­ized, col­on­ists surged for­ward to take Vira. Daryl and Rizzy dis­ap­peared into the crowd. Brent­wood searched the sea of fear­ful faces for the Match­maker. Her heart-shaped face stood out from the crowd like a lover among strangers. She scru­tin­ized him with a strange, know­ing glance. He wanted to turn away, but he stood frozen in place, gaz­ing back at her, mem­or­iz­ing the blue-gray mist of her eyes.

  “Lieu­ten­ant, re­port to the con­trol room im­me­di­ately.” The Seers’ dron­ing voices roused him from his rev­erie and he stud­ied his lapel. Hadn’t he turned it off?

  “Sorry, what was the or­der?”

  “Re­port to the con­trol room im­me­di­ately.” Was there a hint of an­noy­ance? Surely not. They were more com­puters than hu­mans.

  “The con­trol room?” His skin prickled with the thought of meet­ing the Seers eye to eye.

  “Af­firm­at­ive.”

  The si­lence weighed on his chest be­fore he replied. With all the germs he car­ried, why would they sac­ri­fice their own safety to speak to him in per­son? Did they want to rep­rim­and him for dis­obey­ing or­ders, or did the comets dam­age the ship bey­ond re­pair? Either way, he’d best get up there, no mat­ter how much their dis­em­bod­ied voices made him un­easy.

  He pressed the com­mu­nic­ator but­ton. “Be there right away.”

  Chapter Four

  Message

  Gemme froze as Brent­wood’s gaze grasped hold of her, catch­ing her star­ing like a child with her fin­ger in the sugar crys­tal­lizer. Her first im­pulse urged her to look away, but a tan­tal­iz­ing curi­os­ity arose, for­cing her to con­front her in­ner heart. What was his al­lure?

  Brent­wood glared down to his com­mu­nic­ator. He spoke a few words and dis­ap­peared into the mul­ti­tudes. Gemme res­isted the urge to pur­sue him. Her feel­ings went against everything she’d ever learned, against her ca­reer, and the core of who she was. What was she think­ing? Surely her ir­ra­tional draw to him de­veloped from the stress­ful cir­cum­stances of the comet shower. Her thoughts needed an an­chor, and he climbed in, lit­er­ally, at the right time.

  Her lo­gical mind kicked in. She re­gained her reas­on­ing too late. He must think her some crazed, hor­monal de­lin­quent. She cer­tainly couldn’t pair him with her now.

  No one else no­ticed. The con­di­tion of the ship con­sumed their every thought. Her mind shot to her of­fice. Deep space had ripped out a part of her­self. Was it all gone? Her life’s work sprawl­ing like cos­mic dust through a black hole?

  She no­ticed a fel­low Lifer hold­ing a min­is­creen and jogged over to him, cut­ting her way through the throng. “Ex­cuse me, sir. Can I have a look?”

  He pressed his fin­ger­tip to the screen to shut off a per­sonal mes­sage and handed it over. “Sure. Take a look for your­self if you want to. It’s not good.”

  She’d already re­ceived a mes­sage on her loc­ator from her par­ents and her brother. They were safe in a dif­fer­ent cham­ber on the other side of the biod­ome. She brought up the schem­at­ics of the ship and dragged her fin­ger across the screen to her quad­rant.

  The shaft she’d climbed down re­mained sealed. There were no read­ings on the other side, which meant decks eighty-six to ninety-two ceased to ex­ist. There wouldn’t be a pair­ing pro­gram now at all. There might not even be enough ship left to save.

  Gemme handed the man his min­is­creen and sunk to the floor. At least she and her fam­ily were safe, but she couldn’t tell how much longer the ship would pro­tect them with such ex­treme dam­age to the hull. Her small world had changed in minutes, and the next steps the Seers took would de­cide the rest of her life. For someone who’d held so many people’s des­tinies, her own fate lay with two frag­ments of hu­man be­ings, and she didn’t like it one bit.

  “Don’t worry, it’s gonna be okay.”

  The high-pitched voice brought Gemme back from her griev­ing. She wiped her eyes and fo­cused on a small girl who sat with her back against the wall and a blanket strewn across her legs. Gemme straightened as her cheeks reddened. If such a small and in­no­cent creature could lend so much strength, she could at least mop up her tears.

  “I’m fine.” Gemme replied, bear­ing a weak smile. The girl seemed to be alone and Gemme couldn’t ima­gine how scared she must be. The least she could do was keep her com­pany. She shuffled next to her. “Where are your mom and dad?”

  “They’re in the other safety cham­ber across the biod­ome.”

  “Oh, that’s where my par­ents are as well.”

  The girl smiled. “I’m glad they’re safe.”

  Gemme settled back against the wall be­side her. “Me too.”

  “Your lifemate saved my life.”

  “What?”

  “He found me along with my sis­ter and her stu­pid boy­friend. He led us all the way down here.”

  The girl must have con­fused her with someone else. “I don’t have a lifemate.”

  The girl’s dark eyes stared at her, in­sist­ing. A vis­ion of Brent­wood break­ing through the portal lead­ing sur­viv­ors came back to mind.

  “Do you mean the lieu­ten­ant?” A shot of panic ran up her spine. Did this girl know of the de­le­tion? Im­possible. She must have caught Gemme star­ing at him earlier on.

  The girl nod­ded, curls boun­cing.

  “Lieu­ten­ant Brent­wood isn’t my lifemate.” Her voice came out harsher than she’d planned.

  “Oh.” The girl looked down, but a de­fi­ant spark in her eyes told Gemme she didn’t be­lieve her.

  Gemme changed the sub­ject. “It’s okay. What’s your name?”

&nbs
p; “Vira.”

  Her mind raced through the com­puter pair­ings per­formed by the last ana­lyst be­fore her. Vira…Vira Pryer. Daugh­ter of Nat­alie and Jason Pryer. The an­om­aly. She res­isted the urge to glance at the lumps un­der the blanket. This par­tic­u­lar pair­ing had haunted her boss, the former match­maker of the gen­er­a­tion be­fore her. The par­ents had ex­cel­lent genes, no signs of de­form­it­ies on either side and some spe­cial at­trib­utes not nor­mally seen in such com­bin­a­tions. They were sup­posed to have ex­cel­lent chil­dren who’d ex­ceed the norm. Then, they’d birthed Vira. She’d never be able to walk, let alone be paired her­self.

  Her par­ents had fought for her to live des­pite her ge­netic flaws. Sur­pris­ingly, the Seers al­lowed it, show­ing a burst of their dwind­ling hu­man­ity. But, it was quite the scan­dal twelve years ago. To hear about it second­hand and see it on the screen pained her, but to meet the girl in per­son wrenched her stom­ach. Since it wasn’t her pair­ing, she didn’t have ac­cess to the files, but some­times she was temp­ted to break into the sys­tem and have a look for her­self.

  Gemme wanted to tell her she was the one who was sorry. The sys­tem had failed her, but her trem­bling lips couldn’t form the words.

  The girl put a hand on her cheek. “It’s all right, Gemme.”

  Words couldn’t form, and she touched the back of the girl’s hand gently.

  The portal to the con­trol deck loomed like a star­gate to an­other uni­verse. Brent­wood paused at the threshold, star­ing at the panel that hadn’t been pressed in over ninety years. A shiver crawled across his shoulders as he ima­gined what lay on the other side.

  “Lieu­ten­ant Brent­wood, re­port­ing.”

  A green light flickered on and the portal de­ma­ter­i­al­ized. Cool air gushed out, smelling of chem­ic­als, dust, and pu­trid rot, re­mind­ing him of the biosludge re­cyc­ling all or­ganic de­cay in the biod­ome.

  “Ac­cess gran­ted.” Their dual, chant­ing voices boomed louder at their door­step than on the in­ter­com, and it re­minded Brent­wood of their ul­ti­mate power. The first Lifers had built the ship around the twins’ abil­it­ies. Only someone with tele­pathic tal­ents could fly it, and those spe­cific gifts had yet to mani­fest in any of the gen­er­a­tions of Lifers.

  Brent­wood stepped across the portal. A sight panel stretched the length of the deck, glit­ter­ing with stars and cos­mic swirls of golden particles. He ex­pec­ted the two wo­men to stand at the helm and re­minded him­self they were not wo­men any longer, but ex­ten­sions of the ship.

  “Over here, Lieu­ten­ant.”

  He whipped around to the voices above his head and stumbled back­ward in shock. Two skeletal tor­sos hung from the ceil­ing like chunks of hu­mans caught in a mech­an­ical spider web. Wires spread where arms and fin­gers should have been, and thick cables shot into their waists, like the stems of flowers in an up­turned vase. The wo­man on the right stared down at him with one, in­tense dark eye. Thick, white catar­acts ec­lipsed the other. Her twin jerked her head in small twitches, her gaze leer­ing blindly around the room as if seek­ing a di­men­sion bey­ond real­ity.

  Brent­wood pulled him­self to­gether and bowed, res­ist­ing the urge to shud­der.

  The one on the right moved as she mind­spoke through the in­ter­com sys­tem. Her cracked lips were numb, un­mov­ing slabs of flesh. “We’ve brought you here for many reas­ons.” Be­hind her, the wires writhed and coiled like snakes.

  He nod­ded in si­lence. Part of him wanted to scream at them for seal­ing off the chil­dren and an­other part wanted to hear what they had to say and be done with it so he could get back into the cor­ridor and breathe fresh air. Could these pieces of hu­man be­ings really pro­tect the Ex­ped­i­tion?

  “You saved many lives, Lieu­ten­ant. Your bravery does not go un­noticed. How­ever, you can­not risk your own life for those lower in rank. We can­not lose you. You are far too valu­able to us and our mis­sion.”

  Brent­wood stiffened, rid­ing a cur­rent of out­rage. It took all his strength not to raise his voice. “You left three chil­dren to die. If I didn’t put my life on the line, they’d be adrift in space right now.”

  “We un­der­stand your con­cern, Lieu­ten­ant.” The Seer on the right craned her head and a drip of gurg­ling li­quid seeped into a tube con­nec­ted to the base of her skull. Brent­wood tried not to stare, but the freak­ish mix of hu­man and ma­chine hyp­not­ized him, burn­ing into his mind to mani­fest later in his night­mares.

  “You must see the lar­ger mis­sion ob­ject­ives. As you are aware, the Guide is the fun­da­mental doc­trine keep­ing this ship and its op­er­a­tions to­gether. The Guide re­quires us to pro­tect the mis­sion at all costs. This means pre­serving the vast ma­jor­ity over the in­di­vidual.”

  “Who’s to say Vira’s not im­port­ant to us, to the mis­sion?”

  “Data, Lieu­ten­ant. Stat­ist­ics.”

  He growled, “Screw data and stat­ist­ics, she’s a little girl.”

  The Seers twis­ted as if talk­ing among them­selves be­fore re­spond­ing. “We’re not here to ar­gue, Lieu­ten­ant. We’ve summoned you to show you we are hu­man like your­self. We strive to pro­tect the hu­man race above all else.”

  Hu­mans like me? They didn’t seem like him at all. After so many years con­nec­ted to the ship, did the Seers truly have the foresight to pro­tect them? Brent­wood’s head spun. He cer­tainly couldn’t steer the ship him­self. The Seers were the only hope they had.

  They con­tin­ued as if they sensed his doubts, “Our in­ten­tions are vir­tu­ous. We did ap­prove her par­ents’ re­quest to keep her des­pite the rare an­om­aly in the pair­ings sys­tem.”

  He crossed his arms. He had his doubts about the pair­ing sys­tem as well. “Go on.”

  “In­stead of fo­cus­ing on those that per­ished, we must now face our un­cer­tain fu­ture. The ship is in poor con­di­tion, and we must take new meas­ures to pre­serve the mis­sion’s goals in the mani­festo.”

  Prickles ran up his arms and legs. He’d had enough of this dis­cus­sion. “What do you want me to do?”

  “We’ve de­vi­ated course. The ship will not hold to­gether long enough to make it to Para­dise 18. We must land on an al­tern­ate hab­itat for col­on­iz­a­tion.”

  This much he’d sus­pec­ted. At least they weren’t all go­ing to die. “All right. Where are we go­ing? What should I tell them?”

  “Tun­dra 37 is a com­pat­ible loc­a­tion for our colony. If we land the ship, we could keep the life sys­tems sus­tain­able un­til an en­gin­eer­ing team con­structs a suit­able shel­ter.”

  The plan seemed too easy. Brent­wood shook his head. “There’s got to be a ‘but’ to this.”

  The Seer on the right lowered her­self to look into his eyes with her single dark eye He res­isted the urge to back away. The Seer moved her up­per shoulder, and the wires nudged him to­ward a spark­ling globe in the dis­tance. “Tun­dra 37 is a frozen world ex­per­i­en­cing a gla­cial period. Liv­ing con­di­tions will not be op­timal, but we must learn to ad­apt in or­der to sur­vive.”

  “I see.” He leaned to­ward the sight panel as if spy­ing it closer would help him pre­pare. “I’ll look up the ini­tial scout read­ings and make ar­range­ments.”

  The Seer settled back into the frame­work of the metal grid. “We’ve sent al­tern­ate oc­cu­pa­tions for the Lifers able to con­trib­ute to our col­on­iz­a­tion ef­forts. You are to make the an­nounce­ment of the change and re­lay our as­sign­ments.”

  Her twin squirmed sud­denly, and the lieu­ten­ant jerked back. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Noth­ing. While we talk, she senses our course. Each change in tra­ject­ory jolts her body.”

  The lieu­ten­ant wasn’t con­vinced, but he didn’t want to spend one minute longer in their eerie p
res­ence. “I will con­vey your mes­sage.”

  “Thank you, Lieu­ten­ant. We’ll send out new as­sign­ments soon.”

  He bowed. “Un­til we reach Tun­dra, 37, then?”

  The Seer nod­ded. “Have every­one se­cured in their per­sonal cells by twenty-one hun­dred. We ex­pect a rough land­ing.”

  Chapter Five

  Reassignments

  The stems tickled Gemme’s palms as they bowed gently in a whis­per­ing wind. A ra­di­ant sun glowed over­head, warm­ing the top of her head and burn­ing her cheeks. Her sun­dress shif­ted in the breeze, em­broidered roses wink­ing at her just above her bare legs and feet.

  Have I died?

  Golden swirls clouded her vis­ion and she blinked against the glare of the sun. The swirls dis­sip­ated as her eyes ad­jus­ted, scan­ning the meadow. A wind­ing dirt road circled the grasses. Bey­ond that, a dis­tant farm­house clumped next to a silo on the ho­ri­zon. At the cen­ter of the field, a stack of real books lay in a heap un­der­neath a wil­low tree. She cut her way through the long grass, blinded by the stun­ning rays of sun. A buzz whizzed by her ear and she flailed her arms as a fat, yel­low-striped bee dipped and circled around her. Gawk­ing, she fol­lowed its me­an­der­ing path un­til it zipped away above her head. The only in­sects she’d ever seen were flies in the an­imal cells in the biod­ome.

  A patch­work blanket cush­ioned the books. She settled down on the crude fab­ric, cross­ing her legs and flipped open the top volume. Num­bers and cal­cu­la­tions filled the pages. She ran her fin­gers over the thin pa­per, feel­ing some­what at home.

  Yes, I know this. Al­gorithms, proofs.

  Her own thick pen­cil strokes dec­or­ated the mar­gins. A sense of dis­lo­ca­tion diz­zied her. Had she ever writ­ten with a pen­cil? She per­formed all her cal­cu­la­tions in key­strokes. How did she re­cog­nize her writ­ing in the book? The thoughts just turned in on them­selves and she snapped the bind­ing shut, search­ing the sun kissed meadow for an­swers.