Tundra 37

by Aubrie Dionne

  “Pre­pare for touch­down.”

  The Seers’ chanted warn­ings haunted her. Gemme knew too well from her ship schem­at­ics class how as­tro­phys­i­cists de­signed the Ex­ped­i­tion to land in wa­ter. Not on ice. Moun­tain peaks poked their way into her sight panel. White flakes ob­scured the land­scape. She hoped loose snow cush­ioned the Ex­ped­i­tion’s des­cent.

  A jolt racked her body, driv­ing pain up her spine. Her har­ness pulled against her chest and she bit her tongue, tast­ing salty blood in her mouth. What if the land­ing para­lyzed her and they hooked her up to the com­puter along­side the Seers?

  Dam­mit, stop it!

  Gemme wiggled her toes, and every di­git still moved. The Seers would have to wait for an­other friend. A series of bumps came next, jost­ling her un­til her brain felt like mush. Her fin­gers throbbed from clutch­ing the seat re­straints, yet she gripped harder, dig­ging her fin­ger­nails in the plastic.

  The main lights flickered out. Warn­ings blinked around her, il­lu­min­at­ing everything for a second, and plunging her into dark­ness in the next heart­beat. Gemme reached down and pulled a flash­light from her pocket. At least she’d strapped her­self in pre­pared.

  Alarms wailed in the cor­ridor. The sound of metal grat­ing and crunch­ing echoed be­hind her. Gemme clicked off the flash­light, smelling burnt plastic. If her cell caved in, she didn’t want to see the walls or the ceil­ing com­ing down at her. She closed her eyes and tried to weed out all of her re­grets.

  I should have gone to Fer­ris’s awards ce­re­mony.

  I should have ac­cep­ted my mom’s old badge on my uni­form.

  I shouldn’t have pressed the de­lete key.

  The shak­ing sub­sided and the ship ground to a halt. Gemme gasped in a long breath of air. Was it over? She clicked on the flash­light and shone the golden beam across the room. The DNA model sat on the floor, still in one piece. No il­lu­min­a­tion came from the sight panel. She turned the flash­light to­ward the glass. A mound of white blot­ted out any vis­ion of the planet. The Seers must have sub­merged the ship in a snow­drift.

  She re­leased the har­ness and fell on her hands and knees. The floor felt oddly mo­tion­less. The fa­mil­iar chug of the en­gines no longer surged un­der­neath her. Ever since it launched, the Ex­ped­i­tion had moved in a sin­gu­lar path, hurt­ling through space. Now, for the first time, the ship res­ted in a fi­nal, icy grave.

  Her stom­ach hurt where the seat re­straints had pinned her down. She ex­amined her skin, won­der­ing if she bled in­tern­ally. The metal­lic taste of blood filled her mouth from when she bit her tongue, and she swal­lowed it down, wait­ing for the Seers’ in­struc­tions.

  The in­ter­com re­mained si­lent. What if they didn’t sur­vive the land­ing? What if she was the only one alive? Gemme scrambled up to the portal and slapped the panel. The particles de­ma­ter­i­al­ized to re­veal more blink­ing lights and smoke.

  “Hello?” Her voice res­on­ated against the chrome in between shrieks of the emer­gency alarm. “Is any­one there?”

  She coughed and ducked un­der the smoke, us­ing the wall to guide her down the cor­ridor.

  Please, someone be alive.

  Maybe she could send a mes­sage to Fer­ris. She checked her loc­ator. The screen showed no sig­nal. The land­ing must have dam­aged the re­main­ing con­trol towers. She had no way of know­ing who sur­vived.

  A portal de­ma­ter­i­al­ized down the cor­ridor and a middle-aged man stumbled out hold­ing a wo­man in his arms. Re­lief flooded Gemme at the sight of other people.

  “Help us.” He dragged the wo­man to­ward her. A white band­age blos­som­ing red had been wound around her head.

  At least Gemme wasn’t the only one alive. She stumbled down to reach them, mak­ing sure to duck be­neath the smoke.

  “Is she all right?” Gemme ex­amined the wo­man’s head. She didn’t re­spond to out­side stim­uli, but her breath­ing re­mained steady.

  “She hit her head on the wall.” The man struggled to hoist her limp body.

  Gemme put her arm un­der the wo­man’s shoulder. Pro­tocol dic­tated any wounded pas­sen­gers be taken to the nearest emer­gency sick bay, but she wasn’t cer­tain if any sick bays still ex­is­ted. “Where should we take her?”

  “I don’t know.” With flighty eyes full of fear, the man looked more lost than she felt. “The Seers have everything un­der con­trol, right?”

  Not.

  Gemme’s faith in the Seers had plunged farther than their ship. But the crew of the Ex­ped­i­tion was still alive, whether by the Seers’ hand or not. Look­ing into the man’s des­per­ate eyes, she wasn’t about to tell him her mis­giv­ings, so she changed the sub­ject. “I’m not sure we should move her.”

  The man jerked his fin­ger up at the smoke. “I’m not keep­ing her here.”

  The in­ter­com buzzed on and they both froze, gaz­ing up to the speak­ers on the side of the wall.

  “Every­one re­main calm.”

  Gemme knew the voice bet­ter than her own. The sound filled her with re­lief.

  “This is Lieu­ten­ant Brent­wood. Com­mu­nic­a­tions are patchy at the mo­ment, but I’m work­ing on rees­tab­lish­ing con­tact with the Seers. Un­til then stay in your per­sonal cells un­less you need med­ical at­ten­tion. All wounded seek at­ten­tion on Deck Six, Bay Four. I re­peat, wounded must re­port to Deck Six, Bay Four.”

  The in­ter­com sizzled off. Gemme hung on to his last words, her spir­its re­vital­ized. Brent­wood had sur­vived. Not only that, but the ship may be re­pair­able be­cause he was work­ing on it as they stumbled around help­less. Just those two small facts brought her a rush of hope.

  “Come on, let’s take her to Bay Four.”

  They shuffled down the cor­ridor to an emer­gency stair­way. Al­though twenty decks sep­ar­ated them from Bay Four, Gemme didn’t see the point in try­ing the el­ev­at­ors. The man wrapped his arms around the wo­man’s shoulders and Gemme took her ankles, head­ing down back­ward. She grit­ted her teeth, wish­ing she’d used the workout decks more of­ten. Her calves burned with each awk­ward step. The man’s jit­ters didn’t help. He kept push­ing faster, and Gemme struggled to keep his pace. Maybe con­ver­sa­tion would calm him.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Ben Har­vey. This is my wife, Isa­belle.”

  Oh yes, I re­mem­ber: Son is Robert Har­vey matched to Britt Stone.

  Gemme had com­pleted Robert’s pair­ing three months ago. The com­puters had cal­cu­lated an in­stant­an­eous match, both can­did­ates demon­strat­ing ex­cel­lent skills in bioen­gin­eer­ing and aero­dy­nam­ics.

  Where was their son now? Gemme knew not to ask. Chances are Ben Har­vey wondered the same thing. A wave of nausea swept through her. Had her own fam­ily sur­vived? The claus­tro­phobic stair­way felt sur­real, as if she’d trapped her­self in a night­mare and couldn’t wake up. Gemme shook her head against dizzi­ness. No, this was her real­ity now, and they had ten more decks to go.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Gemme Reiner.”

  Ben Har­vey’s eyes widened as he re­gistered the in­fam­ous name. “So, you’re the Match­maker?”

  “Yeah, that’s me.” She ex­pec­ted any num­ber of bad jokes or ac­cus­a­tions of mis­matched pair­ings.

  “You se­lec­ted a good match for our Robby. Britt’s given him such joy. I’m etern­ally grate­ful.”

  Maybe she was stuck in a dream. Gemme couldn’t be­lieve his words. “Uh—you’re wel­come?”

  Ben Har­vey smiled for the first time, re­veal­ing per­fect white teeth. “But I bet you hear that all the time.” He winked and she de­cided she liked him more than her ini­tial im­pres­sion. “Five decks to go.”

  Numb­ness plagued her fin­gers. She moved the po­s­i­tion of her hand on his wife’s ankle and pins pricked her
palm. Her lower back muscles throbbed, so she coun­ted steps to get her mind off the pain.

  One hun­dred and thirty-four.

  One hun­dred and thirty-five.

  Why did she al­ways seek solace in num­bers?

  They huffed down the re­mainder of the stairs un­til the num­ber six shone through the smoke in emer­gency red light. Gemme had never been so happy to see it. With a heave, she el­bowed the portal panel to the deck.

  Clean air flowed in and Gemme’s lungs soaked in the draft. “That’s a prom­ising sign.”

  People shuffled down the cor­ridor in front of them. Some of them hobbled with minor cuts and bruises, but oth­ers wheeled their loved ones on make shift stretch­ers made out of tables and rolling chairs, wear­ing their own haphaz­ard band­ages. Gemme fo­cused on her ward. The red splotches had spread through Isa­belle’s band­ages.

  Med­ics stood out­side Bay Four, as­sess­ing a line of pa­tients as they waited for ad­mit­tance. A younger wo­man brought them a wheel­chair, and Gemme helped Ben lower Isa­belle into a com­fort­able po­s­i­tion.

  “You’ve done so much for me, thank you.” He soun­ded as if he said good-bye.

  “You don’t want me to stay?”

  He waved her away and she no­ticed a bruise on his bald­ing head. “It’s un­ne­ces­sary.”

  Gemme paused. She’d spent so long help­ing him with one single pur­pose in mind she didn’t know where to go.

  “You must have your own fam­ily to at­tend to.”

  Gemme hadn’t al­lowed her thoughts to wander to Fer­ris and her par­ents. She swal­lowed a lump in her throat. “I do, yes.”

  Ben squeezed her hand. “Take care.”

  “I’ll try.” As more wounded flooded into the emer­gency bay, Gemme fought against the tide with her heart ra­cing. She had ten decks to climb to find her par­ent’s cell. Dread­ing what she’d find, it took every ounce of cour­age to jog up the first flight of stairs and con­front her fears.

  Chapter Seven

  The Beacon

  Brent­wood’s lapel pin lay as si­lent as deep space. He pressed the but­ton on and off un­til his fin­ger­tips hurt. Frus­tra­tion boiled up in­side his chest. The Seers had no right to ig­nore him dur­ing a dis­aster.

  Un­less their old, de­teri­or­ated bod­ies hadn’t sur­vived the crash.

  His chest tightened. The Ex­ped­i­tion didn’t have a plan B that he knew of. When no oth­ers had been born with their tal­ents, the sci­ent­ists se­cured the Seers to the ship, think­ing they’d last well into the ar­rival of Para­dise 18. They didn’t factor in comets pum­mel­ing the hull.

  “Hello?”

  Noth­ing. He might as well be talk­ing to a clean­ing droid.

  “Damn.” He kicked a dent in the metal wall. As much as he hated the crypt-like main con­trol deck, he had to check on them. Most sys­tems on the ship couldn’t run without their mind con­trol, and they needed heat not only for them­selves, but to keep the biod­ome run­ning. He doubted Tun­dra 37 had a suf­fi­cient food source un­der­neath all those lay­ers of ice.

  “Lieu­ten­ant.”

  A tense voice nagged him out of his thoughts. The head nurse, a wo­man in her early fifties, jogged up be­side him.

  “Yes?”

  “We’re hav­ing trouble with the life sup­port sys­tems.”

  He ex­haled slowly, al­low­ing his frus­tra­tion to seep away with his breath. So many prob­lems to fix. He’d have to tackle one at a time, and to make mat­ters worse, the other three lieu­ten­ants weren’t re­spond­ing to his pages. “What do you mean?”

  “The en­ergy sup­ply to Bay Four is patchy at best. The skin re­gen­er­at­ors are mal­func­tion­ing, and the heart mon­it­ors aren’t steady. We need a suf­fi­cient sup­ply of en­ergy to at­tend to those with crit­ical needs.”

  He nod­ded and spoke with au­thor­ity in his voice to calm her. “I’ll check on it.”

  “Thank you, sir People are start­ing to panic.”

  “There’s no need for panic.” He gave her a steady look. “I’ll get everything un­der con­trol. Just see to the wounded, make sure they get the care they need.”

  “Yes, sir.” His re­as­sur­ance seemed to calm her. She gave him a weak smile and jogged back to the emer­gency bay.

  As much as the life sup­port sys­tems needed en­ergy, they’d all freeze to death without the Seers at the helm. He’d check on the fu­sion core, but first he’d check on the two people who were sup­posed to be in charge.

  Brent­wood sprin­ted to the main artery con­nect­ing the con­trol deck to the belly of the ship. The floor pitched up, and his muscles strained as he climbed the ramp. He’d been on duty for two shifts go­ing on three. The crash provided a never-end­ing slew of prob­lems keep­ing him busy. Like his father al­ways said, “You’ll have enough time to rest in your coffin, float­ing for etern­ity in the vast un­known.”

  Yeah, Dad, re­as­sur­ing as al­ways.

  Hop­ing his par­ents had sur­vived the crash, he took a turn and hal­ted in mid stride Part of the ceil­ing had caved in, and debris clogged the cor­ridor. Wires sparked at his feet, send­ing him sprawl­ing back­ward.

  “Damn it again!”

  Brent­wood waited un­til the cables settled, coun­ted to three, and jumped for­ward, grabbing onto a pipe in the ceil­ing. He dangled for a second over broken glass be­fore swinging back and forth like a pen­du­lum. When he swung for­ward again, he let go and landed in a rolling ball on the other side of the debris pile.

  The lights flickered above him, threat­en­ing to en­gulf him in total dark­ness, and he scrambled up, clos­ing the last few meters between him and the Seers’ portal.

  He paused at the panel, smooth­ing his hands through his hair to keep it out of his eyes.

  Oh, heck, it’s not like they’re run­ning around na­ked in there. He slammed his fist into the panel and the particles spun like crazed dust motes as they de­ma­ter­i­al­ized.

  Wires rained down in a cur­tain of jelly­fish tentacles. Sparks flew from all dir­ec­tions, sizz­ling around him like ill-ten­ded fire­works. Brent­wood swiped them away. “Hello? Is everything all right?”

  He scanned the debris lit­ter­ing the floor. Old star charts, broken com­puter screens, and a tuft of gray hair.

  Brent­wood’s heart jumped and stuck in his throat. He kicked through the rubble, fell on his knees and dug out a shoulder and a bald­ing, wispy-haired head.

  She was the one with the good eye, the one who’d ad­dressed him at their last meet­ing. Now the dark eye stared at noth­ing, or whatever awaited her in the bey­ond.

  “No.” He scrambled, run­ning his hands over her thin skin to feel her fore­head. She felt like wax and brittle bones. “You will not leave us like this.”

  Turn­ing her on her back, he found va­cant in­put holes drilled into the bones of her spine. Goose bumps prickled his skin as he ran a fin­ger­tip over the cold metal ring, wider than three of his fin­gers clumped to­gether. What fit in it? He scrambled, pulling up tubes from the rubble.

  Feel­ing way out of his do­main, Brent­wood in­ser­ted any­thing that looked like it would fit into the hole. Reat­tach­ing the Seers didn’t fall into his job de­scrip­tion, not one bit. If it had, he wouldn’t have taken it. Just hold­ing her in his arms made his skin crawl.

  A tube spout­ing gurg­ling pink li­quid stuck out from a pile of broken ceil­ing pan­els. He reached over and pulled it to­ward her, his fin­gers slip­ping on the slick sub­stance. The edge of the tube fit per­fectly into the ring in her spine. Brent paused, doubt­ing him­self. What if he killed her?

  She already looked dead.

  Pulling his cringing shoulders straight, he stuck the tube in and pushed un­til the end clicked. The plastic filled with fluid and the Seer’s body jerked in small move­ments, as if pulses of elec­tri­city re­star­ted her heart.

  He turned her a
round and looked into her with­er­ing face, try­ing to re­mem­ber her name.

  Mesto? Mesty? He’d read about their im­pov­er­ished be­gin­nings while study­ing for lieu­ten­ant hood. Plucked from the slums of Old Earth at the ripe age of nine, these sis­ters were gran­ted a second chance at life. As he looked down into her three-hun­dred-year-old face, she’d had a third and fourth chance as well. And he’d just given her an­other.

  The name flowed back to him. “Mestasis. Mestasis please wake up.”

  The eye fluttered. Flaky lips twitched, re­veal­ing tooth­less gums.

  “Please come back to us. We need you.”

  The lights flickered around him. The main in­ter­com buzzed on.

  “Com­puter, status re­ports.”

  Her voice filled Brent­wood with re­lief.

  “Thank the stars! You gave me quite a scare.”

  She shivered in his arms and he pulled her closer, feel­ing her hu­man­ity for the first time. She fo­cused on him. Her eye traveled from his face to the rubble be­hind them.

  “Where’s Bysme?”

  “What? Who?”

  “My twin.”

  Brent­wood jerked. He’d for­got­ten about the other one.

  “I’ll find her.” He placed Mestasis gently on her back and threw him­self into the wreck­age.

  Did the ship need both twins? He hoped not. A chrome panel as large as a desk lay on the floor, propped up by some­thing un­der­neath. Bra­cing him­self for the worst sight ima­gin­able, he hois­ted the panel and threw it against the wall.

  “What the?”

  A globe the size of a bowl­ing ball shimmered back at him. In­tric­ate metal weave work sur­roun­ded it, the thread-sized strands thrust­ing into the floor. Cos­mic dust swirled in golden spir­als in­side the globe, the col­ors chan­ging from lav­ender to ver­mil­ion, then deep crim­son. His ears rang as he stared at the con­glom­er­a­tions, each pat­tern be­seech­ing him to lean closer. A brief vis­ion of a meadow flashed be­fore him along with a heady scent of an­imal hides. His hand reached out to touch it.