Tundra 37

by Aubrie Dionne

  Tech watched with a curi­ous eye be­hind Brent­wood. She kept her an­swer pro­fes­sional. “I’m glad to be of ser­vice, Lieu­ten­ant.”

  She thought he’d let go, but his eyes re­mained steady, star­ing into hers as if some­thing spe­cial ex­is­ted between them and he only needed to delve a little deeper to find it. “Let me know if you need any­thing.”

  Gemme’s heart beat fast against her rib cage. Like a com­fort­ing em­brace, a pas­sion­ate kiss, or you.

  She blinked her emo­tions away. “Will do, Lieu­ten­ant.”

  He re­leased her and her heart tugged as if it had at­tached it­self to him.

  “Need a minute?” The corner of Tech’s mouth curved.

  “No, I’m fine.” Gemme climbed into the landrover won­der­ing how her heart would ever sur­vive this mis­sion, never mind the cold.

  Chapter Ten

  Snowdrifts

  The portal opened, walls part­ing into two halves. The metal screeched as it dug into the crevice in the hull for the first time in hun­dreds of years. This wasn’t a cham­ber lock with de­ma­ter­i­al­ized particles. Gemme watched the ship open en­tirely, ex­pos­ing its bowels to the harsh real­ity of wind and ice.

  The bright­ness blinded her and she raised her arm to block the sheer white. The en­gines sputtered on and she pitched for­ward as the wheels turned un­der­neath her. Bra­cing her­self against the back of Brent­wood’s seat, she pre­pared her­self for the un­known. No one spoke as the landrover crept into the light.

  The cold seeped in quickly, set­tling in the mar­row of her bones. Gemme shivered, hug­ging her shoulders and stick­ing her fin­gers un­der­neath her arms. Brent­wood flipped a switch and a cur­rent of warmer air blew by her face, provid­ing a mea­ger hint of warmth.

  Sol­aris Prime blinded her with un­bridled light, re­flec­ted off the snow. As her eyes ad­jus­ted, the shape of moun­tains formed in the dis­tance, pok­ing up from slabs of pure, un­broken ice. Brent­wood turned the wheel and the landrover skid­ded right, rain­ing flecks of snow on the wind­shield. In mo­ments, a bru­tal wind blew the flakes away. Out of the left sight panel, Gemme saw the outer hull of the Ex­ped­i­tion for the first time.

  Her heart plummeted. All those years she’d drawn the mighty ship in art class in per­fect geo­met­ric circles and squares. Now her home amoun­ted to a heap of broken metal with chipped paint spelling out x..pedi..on.

  “Man, we really wrecked it, didn’t we?” Tech muttered from be­hind her. He peered over her shoulder and Gemme sat back, al­low­ing him room to catch the view. She’d seen enough.

  “Re­mem­ber, Tun­dra 37 is our new home. The Ex­ped­i­tion is only a tem­por­ary shel­ter. We’ll con­struct new build­ings,” Brent­wood called to Tech and Gemme over his shoulder.

  Al­though he meant to com­fort them, de­fla­tion spread through Gemme’s spir­its, as if she found her hero mas­quer­ad­ing as an il­lu­sion. They rode on an ar­ti­fi­cial sub­sti­tute, a dream of the first Lifers of the Ex­ped­i­tion. The pre­cari­ous­ness of life over­whelmed her, and she slumped in her seat won­der­ing if they could build a home out of ice and snow.

  “You sure the at­mo­sphere is breath­able?” Luna covered her mouth with her hand.

  “You’re breath­ing it now.” Brent­wood’s head turned and Gemme saw him smile in pro­file. “We’ve breathed it for hours. The Seers pumped it in to run the vent­il­at­ors in the ship.”

  Luna coughed as if he tricked her. “No won­der my lungs hurt like hell.”

  “That’s the cold, not the qual­ity of air.” Brent­wood spoke like a school­teacher. “Our lungs are used to a reg­u­lated en­vir­on­ment. We’re all go­ing to have to make changes, even our bod­ies.”

  He soun­ded like he men­tioned a change of clothes in­stead of hab­itat. Gemme knew Brent­wood had to main­tain a calm de­meanor, but she wanted to hear some­thing else from his lips, some sort of com­plaint, some­thing real to as­sure her she wasn’t the only one hav­ing trouble ad­apt­ing.

  Tech grumbled be­side her, “I’ve got goose bumps where the lights don’t shine.”

  “The heat will in­crease in a mo­ment,” Brent­wood ex­plained. “The en­gine has to warm up.”

  Gemme’s teeth chattered and she con­tem­plated push­ing against the hulk of Tech’s right side for warmth. Luna didn’t look cold at all. In fact, she still had the zip­per down so low the light shone in places it shouldn’t. Maybe all that pad­ding in front provided in­su­la­tion?

  One look at Tech con­vinced her against cud­dling up. Luna would have a field day with more stuff to pick on her with, and she didn’t feel right about Brent­wood see­ing her close to an­other man.

  Not like he was hers or she was his.

  Gemme sighed, scream­ing at her in­ner thoughts to shut up and waited for heat to spread through the com­part­ment. The Ex­ped­i­tion grew smal­ler out of the corner of her vi­sor, her one tie to everything that defined her. Without it, she nav­ig­ated un­charted wa­ters. No routine de­cided her life. Cast adrift on frozen tun­dra, Gemme wondered how much of her true self she’d dis­cover and how many of her fears she’d con­front.

  She thought of all the people in­side the hull: her par­ents, Fer­ris, and even Vira. These people coun­ted on them to find the min­eral de­posit. Gemme closed her eyes and told her­self to toughen up.

  Hours passed and the frozen land­scape blurred into mono­tony. Luna spoke in hushed tones with Brent­wood, like a secret meet­ing of two close friends. No mat­ter how much Gemme strained her ears to hear enough to join in the con­ver­sa­tion, only stray tid­bits waf­ted to the back­seat.

  Luna was smarter than she let on.

  Frus­tra­tion eat­ing a hole in her stom­ach, Gemme munched on a soy­bean wafer from her back­pack and dozed off with the crumbs still on her legs. Her head jerked when she fell for­ward too far. The side cush­ion of the seat provided a place to prop up her face without strain­ing, but blocked out any chance of join­ing the con­ver­sa­tion. First day on the job, and they’d already left her out. Giv­ing up, Gemme closed her eyes and lost her­self to ex­haus­tion.

  §

  “Jenny, what are do­ing stand­ing there like a scare­crow? Mikey’s com­ing to pick us up any minute.”

  The wo­man stand­ing be­fore her stared through cloudy gray eyes like her own. Her nut-brown hair blew free in the wind, trail­ing to a white sun­dress and san­dals with dais­ies painted between her toes. Golden swirls moved within the dais­ies and Gemme blinked un­til they dis­ap­peared.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Gemme stud­ied the wo­man up and down. Maybe she had. “Who are you?”

  She laughed, throw­ing back her head. “You’ve been do­ing too much work. It’s time to have some fun.” She grabbed Gemme’s hand, and Gemme stiffened at her touch.

  The wo­man pulled her for­ward. “Hon­estly, why do I al­ways have to drag you with us?”

  “Where are we go­ing?” Gemme struggled to keep up with her pace. The earth crushed un­der­neath her bare feet, like she walked on crumbled bread. The sun’s rays seared her ret­inas, but the warmth it offered differed so much from…

  “To the party, re­mem­ber?”

  “Where are my shoes?”

  “They’re in Mikey’s pickup truck. You left them last night be­fore skinny-dip­ping.”

  “Be­fore what?” Gemme’s foot caught on a branch and she pitched for­ward. The earth came up harder than she thought, knock­ing her jaw into her head. She bit her tongue, pain ex­plod­ing in her mouth. Star­bursts blos­somed be­hind her eyes and the field darkened as if someone switched off the lights.

  §

  Gemme re­gained con­scious­ness to dim light and wondered if she’d pro­grammed twi­light mode into her sleep pod. The landrover pitched, sus­pend­ing her in the air be­fore land­ing hard, jar­ring her body. Re
al­ity barged in. She wasn’t on the Ex­ped­i­tion. Glan­cing out the rear sight panel, she watched the flam­ing edge of Sol­aris Prime dis­ap­pear bey­ond the ho­ri­zon. The white scenery dulled to vari­ous shades of gray, mak­ing the world even more alien.

  Gemme wiped con­dens­a­tion from the sight panel with her sleeve. She squin­ted against the foggy glass, try­ing to make out the shape of moun­tains in the twi­light. The thought of no light switch frightened her. What if their en­ergy cells ran out? Would they have to wait un­til the next day to see?

  A snow­drift shif­ted, like someone pulled it on wheels and Gemme blinked and stared, push­ing her face up to the three-inch thick glass. Her breath plumed on the panel and she wiped it away, search­ing for the source of the move­ment. The moun­tains loomed as shad­ows on the ho­ri­zon and the twi­light cast every shape in a haze.

  “Tech?” she whispered, but he didn’t an­swer.

  She glanced be­hind her, tak­ing the risk she’d miss an­other strange move­ment. Tech snored, his chin rest­ing on his chest. Luna typed on her min­is­creen, and Brent­wood fo­cused on the path ahead.

  Gemme whipped her head back to the win­dow and held her breath. Brent­wood’s words came back to her. Re­port any­thing that moves to Luna.

  What was she go­ing to say? I saw a snow­drift move?

  She watched the sight panel like a hawk. The landrover cres­ted a ridge, and the plains dis­ap­peared be­low them. Los­ing sight of her tar­get, she shook her head and sighed. It was the first day of her jour­ney and she was already los­ing her mind.

  “Ride’s over, people.” Brent­wood eased the landrover to a halt. The con­stant rum­bling be­neath her feet rolled to si­lence and the fi­nal­ity of the mo­ment hit Gemme in the stom­ach. For the first time, her sleep pod on the Ex­ped­i­tion would lay empty.

  His voice soun­ded cheer­ful but weary. “Let’s make camp.”

  “You mean, ac­tu­ally go out there?” Luna slammed down her min­is­creen.

  Brent­wood turned and grinned. “That’s right. Did you think we’d sleep right here in the landrover?”

  “That’s cer­tainly bet­ter than freez­ing in the cold.”

  He laughed. “I brought thermal tents from the ship’s emer­gency sup­ply. Come on, we’ll make a syn­thetic fire.”

  “And sing good old ‘Kum­baya,’” Tech grumbled grog­gily, shift­ing his po­s­i­tion as if both his legs had fallen asleep.

  Gemme slipped her arms back into her thermal coat, tight­en­ing the hood around her face. Syn­thetic an­gora hair tickled her cheeks as she pulled the string taut. She thought about men­tion­ing the mov­ing snow­drift, but the en­counter felt so sur­real, she blamed it on her ima­gin­a­tion and ad­just­ing eyes.

  “It’s a balmy neg­at­ive sev­en­teen de­grees Celsius out there. So bundle up and let me know if your fin­gers and toes turn numb. Every­one ready?” Brent­wood’s hand hovered over the panel for the hatch.

  “Yep­pers.” Tech had slipped on his own hood. His beard covered his face in a quilt, and Gemme en­vied his ex­tra fa­cial hair.

  The sound of a zip­per ripped through the com­part­ment as Luna se­cured her jump­suit and pulled a wrap around her shoulders. A fuzzy wool hat covered her head. “You bet.”

  Brent­wood watched Gemme and she nod­ded. He winked at her be­fore press­ing the panel. The hatch lif­ted and cold air streamed in, steal­ing every ounce of heat.

  Gemme shivered and squin­ted her eyes against the wind. She thought her ret­inas would freeze and she’d turn blind as the Seers. Blink­ing back tears, she held her breath and jumped out. Her boots crunched on snow, wob­bling des­pite the solid foot­ing. The heavy weight of real grav­ity pulled on her legs as she trudged away from the landrover, seek­ing the un­known. The frozen plains stretched out in a vast, ex­posed hin­ter­land. No cham­ber on the Ex­ped­i­tion com­pared to stand­ing in the sweep­ing land­scape, the wind whip­ping through her as it if could carry her away.

  Brent­wood un­loaded gear with a plop onto the snow. “Any vo­lun­teers for set­ting up the tents?”

  “I’ll do it.” Gemme scooped up a hand­ful of iron rods and nylon. Any­thing to keep her mov­ing, keep her warm.

  “Count me in.” Tech gave her a nod.

  “Ms. Leg­acy?” Brent­wood paused with his arms full and shot Luna a ques­tion­ing glance.

  Luna plucked a glass vial out of her back­pack. “I have to col­lect samples.”

  “Samples of what? All I see is blas­ted snow for miles.” Tech waved his arm across the far moun­tain range.

  “Any­thing that may con­tain life.” Luna stuck her nose in the air and whipped around, dis­ap­pear­ing be­hind the landrover.

  Tech raised an eye­brow at Gemme and whispered un­der his breath. “Ha. ‘Samples,’ my ass.”

  Gemme clamped her mouth tight to keep from laugh­ing. She checked Brent­wood’s re­ac­tion. He busied him­self un­load­ing en­ergy cells. Here she was, try­ing to im­press him with her tent-mak­ing skills, and he prob­ably pre­ferred the way Luna stood up for her­self, choos­ing edu­cated work over grunt labor.

  Stop now. You’ll never win this battle.

  Gemme grit­ted her teeth, throw­ing down a rod that didn’t match the dia­gram any­where. Tech picked it up and stuck in into thicker rod, pulling the nylon across it. “Do­ing good, Ms. Love Con­nec­tion.”

  Someone had watched too many Old Earth videos. “Thanks.” But, no thanks. She sucked like a black hole at tent build­ing. She couldn’t even sum­mon the en­ergy to cor­rect him again con­cern­ing her job status as ex-match­maker. A sour taste sat on her tongue. Gemme needed to fo­cus and all this jeal­ous angst grated on her nerves. Why couldn’t she dis­miss Brent­wood and be done with it?

  Swirls of fluor­es­cent green re­flec­ted in the nylon fab­ric, dis­tract­ing Gemme from her thoughts. She turned, star­ing in awe. Vi­olet and ver­mil­lion danced above them in waves, ra­di­at­ing in streaks from the night sky. The ever-chan­ging pat­tern hyp­not­ized Gemme in the same way she stared at a flick­er­ing flame. Rev­er­ence welled up in­side her, mak­ing her feel like a little girl see­ing the uni­verse for the first time.

  “Would you look at that!” Tech dropped the last three tent poles in the snow. They rattled at his feet.

  Brent­wood roun­ded the landrover and stood by them, hand on his hips. “I’ll be a droid’s uncle! It’s like back on Old Earth!”

  Tech nod­ded, look­ing eager to talk about his ex­pert­ise. “The charged particles, in this case ori­gin­at­ing from Sol­aris Prime, enter Tun­dra 37’s mag­netic pull. When they col­lide with the air mo­lecules, the fluc­tu­at­ing cur­rent emits light in a mag­netic field.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Sci­ent­ist.” Gemme thought she’d dish out some of his own medi­cine in their name call­ing game.

  Tech chuckled. “At least my class years are good for some­thing.”

  Gemme thought she caught the corner of Brent­wood’s lips curve up and wondered if he found her joke amus­ing. Any sign of emo­tion would make him more hu­man and less of an au­thor­ity fig­ure. She wanted to know the man un­der­neath the uni­form. What did he dream of? Why had the com­puter matched her to him?

  Brent­wood caught her star­ing and an elec­tric cur­rent passed from his eyes to hers. Gemme’s heart jol­ted and she wondered if the mag­netic field shif­ted to en­com­pass them, mak­ing her skin tingle with ex­cite­ment. The mo­ment surged in­side her and she licked her cold, cracked lips want­ing to say so much.

  Tell him about the pair­ing.

  Tell him be­fore it’s too late.

  Brent­wood’s eye­brows rose as if in ex­pect­a­tion. He leaned to­ward her, his coated shoulder brush­ing against hers. The light re­flec­ted on half his face, the other side in shad­ows. His eyes burned with in­tens­ity as if a mini­ature Au­rora Borealis swirled in their depths.<
br />
  “Why didn’t you tell me I’m miss­ing the show?” Luna chimed in from be­hind them, ru­in­ing the mo­ment.

  “We just no­ticed, Ms. Leg­acy.” Brent­wood moved away from Gemme and in­vited Luna into their semi­circle with a wave of his arm. Gemme stepped back in re­lief and dis­ap­point­ment. At least she hadn’t said any­thing em­bar­rass­ing.

  Tech couldn’t hide the sus­pi­cion is his voice, “Did you find any samples?”

  “Maybe. I’ll have to take them back to the lab for ana­lysis.” She flashed a small test tube with her gloved hands.

  Stand­ard snow filled the tube, but Gemme kept her mouth shut, shiv­er­ing as if Luna made the air colder still.

  Tech nar­rowed his eyes. “Doesn’t look like much.”

  “I’m look­ing for signs of or­ganic life. She stared at him as if he were a tod­dler, “Mi­cro­sco-pic or-gan-isms. Aka: too small to see.”

  Tech grunted. “Yes, those would make quite a hardy meal.”

  “Ugh!” She shook her head and stormed away. Tech shrugged and glanced over to Gemme. “Must have been some­thing I said.”

  Gemme de­cided she liked him more than she ini­tially thought. So what if he drank too much wheat beer some­times? At least he had a sense of hu­mor.

  She watched Brent­wood as he set up camp. She wanted to re­wind to two seconds ago, when Brent­wood gave her his un­di­vided at­ten­tion. The fire he’d built blazed be­hind them, warm­ing Gemme’s back. She turned and sat on a sup­ply con­tainer, rais­ing her feet to the flames.

  “Don’t melt your boots.” Tech col­lapsed be­side her. He’d as­sembled most of the tents, due to her in­ex­per­i­ence with as­sembly dia­grams, and ex­haus­tion shown in the slump of his shoulders.

  “Thanks, don’t melt your beard.”

  Tech quirked a fuzzy eye­brow and Gemme laughed, feel­ing light as the en­ergy in the sky. If Tun­dra 37 had such beauty, what else did it hide? Maybe the ice planet wasn’t such a hor­rific place to set up a home after all. The pos­sib­il­it­ies filled Gemme’s head with buoy­ant hopes.