Tundra 37

by Aubrie Dionne

  Her back­pack beeped, and she reached down and pulled out her min­is­creen.

  “Looks like someone’s been look­ing for you,” Tech said, no­ti­cing the in­com­ing mes­sage light.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Brent­wood look up from stack­ing sup­ply con­tain­ers as if he was curi­ous. But when she turned his way, he was busy again.

  Gemme scrolled down to see a mes­sage titled, How’s the snow? “It’s Fer­ris!” she ex­claimed, grin­ning ear to ear.

  Brent­wood quirked an eye­brow and she gave him a smile. “My brother.”

  “Oh.” He scratched his head. “Do you want some pri­vacy to write back?”

  “No, no, no.” Gemme stood up, car­ry­ing the min­is­creen. No reason for every­one to move be­cause of her. “I’ll go into my tent.”

  Tak­ing the min­is­creen back to her tent, she paused at the flap. Why go in­side when such a gor­geous sky hung over­head? She’d spent her whole life un­der an ar­ti­fi­cial ceil­ing; it was about time to get in touch with nature. She found an em­bank­ment just un­der­neath a hill on the south­ern side of camp and settled down, her butt form­ing an im­pres­sion in the snow. Bal­an­cing the min­is­creen in her lap, she watched the lights play out in the sky above her, paus­ing now and then to type a sen­tence.

  Dear Fer­ris,

  You’re such a galactic worry­wart! Tell Mom and Dad I’m fine. The mis­sion is pro­ceed­ing smoothly, and rid­ing in the landrover is quite an ex­per­i­ence. You should be more jeal­ous than con­cerned.

  Sniff­ling car­ried on the wind, fol­low­ing by tiny hic­cups of sobs. Luna stumbled down the hill a few meters from her and crumpled to her knees. Gemme closed the lid of the min­is­creen to help her, but Brent­wood beat her to it, ap­pear­ing at the hill­top. The wind had lessened, and she could hear every word.

  “Ms. Leg­acy, are you all right?” He slid down the hill and helped her up.

  She sniffed. “It’s Tech. He doesn’t think what I’m do­ing here is worth­while.”

  “Oh, he’s just a little blunt some­times. Don’t worry, he’ll warm up to you. He knows just as much as we all do that we need an al­tern­ate food source.”

  “I can’t find any­thing, yet. Some bio­lo­gist I am.” Gemme was sur­prised. Luna had seemed so bold and con­fid­ent around her, and this was a side of her she’d never seen. She wondered if Luna ac­ted out to get Brent­wood’s at­ten­tion, but the tone of her voice soun­ded sin­cere.

  Brent­wood put an arm around her, help­ing her walk back to camp. “The Seers se­lec­ted you spe­cific­ally for the team. They thought you were the best per­son for the job.”

  “No, they didn’t.” Luna scoffed, sur­pris­ing Gemme. “They picked me be­cause they had to, be­cause I’m a Leg­acy.”

  “Non­sense.” Brent­wood’s voice was sooth­ing. “They’d do noth­ing of the sort.”

  Her voice dropped low, and Gemme strained her ears. “It was the least they could do. They were sup­posed to make me a lieu­ten­ant, like all the Leg­acys be­fore me, but my test scores were too low. They wouldn’t bend the rules to al­low it.”

  Brent­wood re­mained si­lent and Gemme wondered what he thought about this new piece of in­form­a­tion. She al­ways sus­pec­ted the Leg­acys had spe­cial treat­ment, but to make each gen­er­a­tion a lieu­ten­ant based on blood­line was ut­terly wrong.

  Luna sighed. “You don’t know what’s like, not be­ing bet­ter than the people that came be­fore you, al­ways fail­ing ex­pect­a­tions when oth­ers got bet­ter test scores.”

  Gemme knew just who the “oth­ers” Luna had re­ferred to with such re­sent­ment was: her. She brought her hand up to the place where Luna had shoved her all those years back. Even though her en­tire body was numb from cold, she still re­membered the raw ache of the bruise.

  Luna con­tin­ued, “I had planned to meet with the Seers. My fam­ily had one more ticket to visit them, as part of the bar­gain they’d struck with my an­cestor, Thadi­ous Leg­acy. Be­fore the comet shower hit, I was go­ing to try to con­vince them I was still worthy.”

  Brent­wood’s voice was soft. “Why didn’t you?”

  Luna paused as if con­sid­er­ing how much to tell him. “I gave my ticket up for some­thing I wanted more: a fa­vor that didn’t pan out. Be­sides, with the ship crashed, it didn’t mat­ter.”

  Gemme froze, un­able to listen fur­ther. If Luna had put her pair­ing with Brent­wood be­fore her ca­reer, then she wanted the man more than any­thing.

  Gemme col­lec­ted her min­is­creen with shaky fin­gers. Did she want Brent­wood enough to get in Luna’s way?

  Chapter Eleven

  Encounter

  Emer­gency bays at full ca­pa­city.

  Fu­sion Re­actor un­stable.

  Lieu­ten­ants Smith, Lev­ing­ston, and Kohler un­re­spons­ive.

  Mestasis fought down an over­whelm­ing wave of panic as she sor­ted through the up­set­ting re­ports. So many prob­lems and Abysme ig­nored all of them, use­less as a baby with her face turned to­ward the orb. Had her sis­ter lost her mind? Ad­dress­ing the beacon with the lieu­ten­ant present de­fied the very rule sys­tem they’d con­struc­ted with the sci­ent­ists who’d dis­covered the orb. Either Abysme hadn’t sensed the lieu­ten­ant’s pres­ence, or she didn’t care. Either way her sis­ter was los­ing con­trol.

  An in­com­ing mes­sage beeped on the main­frame and Mestasis brought up the loc­a­tion of the trans­mis­sion. Al­pha Blue! Thank the stars they were still alive.

  Lieu­ten­ant Brent­wood’s sharp fea­tures flashed in her mind as he spoke. “First day suc­cess­ful. We’ve made good time, and the con­di­tions are bear­able.”

  The muscles in his face twitched slightly and Mestasis re­gistered the fa­cial pat­terns as dis­ap­point­ment. “No sign of life or any­thing else be­sides snow. Ms. Leg­acy is on the lookout and has taken samples. If all goes well, we’ll reach the min­ing site in two days.”

  Mestasis sent a re­sponse. Good work, Lieu­ten­ant. Keep us pos­ted. She hid the fact that Abysme wasn’t re­spond­ing by amp­li­fy­ing her voice to like both of theirs com­bined. No need for the lieu­ten­ant to know. He had enough on his mind and she needed him fo­cused.

  The mes­sage flicked off and Mestasis breathed a sigh of re­lief. At least one as­pect of the day was suc­cess­ful. As long as Al­pha Blue pushed on, she had hope for the colony and her own sal­va­tion. If the team failed, she’d failed them all.

  Gemme woke to sniff­ling. Did Tech snore? How could she hear him all the way across camp?

  She twis­ted in her thermal co­coon and poked her head out. The en­ergy cell throbbed with warmth from the back of her tent, but her breath still blos­somed in the air. Sun­light filtered through the nylon, cast­ing a shadow rival­ing the size of the landrover on the north­ern side.

  A quick in­take of air rode the wind, fol­lowed by a wa­tery snort. Gemme shot up on her el­bows, won­der­ing if whatever lurked out­side her tent could smell her rising fear. Try­ing not to make a sound, she dug in her back­pack for the laser she’d slipped on the bot­tom.

  She pulled out soy­bean wafers, ex­tra fleece pants, and a skin re­gen­er­izer she’d lif­ted from the emer­gency bay, then scraped the bot­tom of her bag. Where did it go? The shadow grew lar­ger, a mound of writh­ing snakes press­ing against the nylon. Her throat con­stric­ted as a clamp squeezed down on her heart.

  Her alarm beeped, the sound jar­ringly loud and alien, dis­turb­ing the calm of the morn­ing. The beast lurched back, sniffed, and then poun­ded the snow as it thrust its head un­der­neath the nylon tarp.

  A snout, long as an al­ligator’s, poked through the bot­tom of the fab­ric. Gemme wiggled out of her thermal co­coon and inched back on her rear. She opened her mouth to scream, but ter­ror sucked the air out of her lungs. The beast pushed it­self in farther and a h
ide of tentacles filled the tent, the jig­gling ap­pend­ages cast­ing strange me­dusa-like shad­ows on the ceil­ing. The beast reeked like the dead sal­mon in the hy­draul­ics tank.

  There’s your mov­ing snow­drift.

  Gemme scrambled back un­til the cold zip­per pressed against her neck. The tentacles stretched, wrap­ping them­selves around her hair­brush, her boot, and an empty wa­ter bottle, the tip wig­gling into the spout. Trans­fixed, Gemme blinked to get her­self mov­ing, do­ing some­thing. She fumbled be­hind her un­til her shaky fin­gers loc­ated the bot­tom of the zip­per. She yanked it up, the zip­per catch­ing on the fab­ric halfway up.

  The sound lured a sticky tendril across the floor. Suc­tion cups dot­ted the end, open­ing and clos­ing like tiny mouths gulp­ing for air. The tentacle curled, feel­ing around her sock. Gemme pressed her back against the fab­ric and pushed her­self through the hole, rolling back­ward into the cen­ter of camp.

  “Couldn’t sleep, Aph­rod­ite?” Tech sat by the rem­nants of the fire, a half-eaten pro­tein bar in his hand. He stared at her with an eye­brow quirked.

  “Some­thing—Some­thing’s in—”

  “Well, spit it out.”

  She didn’t have to. The tentacle poked through the hole in the zip­per, rising like a sea mon­ster from the depths of the At­lantic.

  “Emer­gency Code 43!” Tech shouted, “Get out of your tents!”

  He pulled Gemme back and they huddled be­hind the con­tainer he’d sat on. The tentacle at­tached it­self to the tent spike and yanked it out.

  She grabbed Tech’s arm. “Where’s your laser?”

  “In my tent.”

  “Great place for it, Mr. Sci­ent­ist.”

  Brent­wood emerged from his tent half dressed in a rumpled shirt and po­lar fleece night pants. “Code 43?”

  “Over there!” The plastic col­lapsed on top of the tentacle horde and the beast let out a whirr­ing cry. The beast shook un­til the tent fell off.

  Luna screamed, her voice rip­ping Gemme’s ears in half. Gemme spun around think­ing an­other beast had its tentacles in her hair. But she wasn’t so lucky. Luna stood in her run­ning jump­suit com­plete with a fuzzy head­band and pink leg warm­ers-vi­ol­at­ing uni­form code. Where did she get that kind of ex­tra­vag­ance any­way? She looked like she’d just re­turned from a brisk morn­ing jog. Her voice startled the beast, and it took off, scam­per­ing on a thou­sand small paws over the snow­drift.

  “Don’t stand there, catch it!”

  Gemme twis­ted around and gaped. Luna shouted at her, of all people.

  Watch­ing the beast skit­ter away, Gemme no­ticed the sun glar­ing off of some­thing on its back. The pic­ture of her and Fer­ris stuck to one of the top tentacles along with two of her soy­beans wafers and her min­is­creen, which had her en­tire life on it, in­clud­ing the min­eral ana­lyzer she’d need to find the de­posit.

  Be­fore Gemme could reason with her­self, she bolted after the creature. Snow crunched un­der­neath her socks as she hustled up the mound. The land­scape looked puffy and soft from the sight panel, but in real­ity the white ice crys­tals had hardened like rock, sting­ing her soles. She reached the top of the snow­drift, spot­ted the tentacle horde and skid­ded down the other side on the gla­cial sur­face, ig­nor­ing her throb­bing feet.

  The beast ran in a di­ag­onal line to a crevice in the snow. Gemme ca­reened over the ice and lunged to­ward it, won­der­ing how she’d ever stop it, never mind haul it back to camp for Luna.

  She reached out as she sprin­ted and grabbed a tentacle. The mem­brane slipped through her fin­gers like wet jelly. A gelat­in­ous residue coated her palm. The min­is­creen stuck like a fly in a spider’s web to its back, the tentacles ooz­ing over it un­til it sunk deep within the writh­ing mass. The beast slowed down and she in­creased her pace, her lungs burn­ing raw. She jabbed her arm into the tentacles. Her fin­gers brushed against a hard sur­face in the squig­gly mass. She al­most had it. Gemme thrust her arm in deeper, but strong arms wrapped around her, pulling her back just as the beast dis­ap­peared.

  “Whoa there! You al­most fell in.” Brent­wood clutched her against his chest, his breath heav­ing in her hair. His arms wrapped around her shoulders as her feet kicked over the edge. The crevice had come up sooner than she thought, plunging three meters down into a splash of ice wa­ter. If she’d grabbed onto the beast, she’d gone right over the edge with it. Brent­wood saved her life.

  “My min­is­creen, my pic­ture, it took everything.”

  “None of those things are more im­port­ant than your life, Gemme.”

  The way her first name fell off his tongue made her twirl around in his arms. Her hands res­ted on his chest, grasp­ing his rumpled shirt. His nor­mally combed hair stood up in a massive wave above his eyes. His arms tightened around her, as if she’d slip right from his fin­gers into the ice wa­ters be­low. She melted into his em­brace, the ming­ling warmth of their bod­ies heat­ing up. The feel­ing of the elec­tro­mag­netic field re­turned, stronger this time, sizz­ling the air around them.

  He smoothed back her hair and the ges­ture res­on­ated deeply in­side him, like he’d done it a thou­sand times be­fore. His warm breath tickled her cheek. Gemme’s lips trembled in an­ti­cip­a­tion. The mo­ment felt in­ev­it­able, each second pulsing for­ward to bring them here, at the edge of this world, at the be­gin­ning of their own.

  “You lost my spe­ci­men!” Luna’s voice screeched be­hind them. Brent­wood re­leased Gemme as if Luna had caught them com­mit­ting a crime. Cold wind blew where he once held her and Gemme shivered, cross­ing her arms against her chest.

  Luna slid on the ice, look­ing like a fig­ure skater in a winter won­der­land. Gemme wondered how she man­aged to keep her cheeks rosy in just the right place and her lips red as the cher­ries in the biod­ome.

  “How could you let it get away?” Luna’s bright blue eyes seared through hers like lasers.

  A hard rock formed in Gemme’s stom­ach and she wanted to spit it out in Luna’s face. “I al­most fell over the edge try­ing to catch it.”

  Luna gazed down into the crevice like an evil step­sister con­tem­plat­ing an ap­pro­pri­ate de­mise for her rival. “You could have at least ripped off a tentacle.”

  Brent­wood stepped between them. “Ms. Leg­acy, I’ll handle this. Get back to camp and in­form Tech to start pack­ing. We have an­other long ride ahead of us.” Was Brent­wood try­ing to get rid of her? Gemme fid­geted, feel­ing ice crys­tals form in­side her nos­trils.

  “Of course. You know the im­plic­a­tions of this don’t you?” Luna grinned at Brent­wood, bat­ting her eye­lashes.

  Gemme stared and Brent­wood shrugged.

  “There must be an en­tire ocean un­der­neath us, sup­port­ing life.”

  “Very in­ter­est­ing, Luna, but right now I must tend to Gemme.”

  Luna looked like she’d swal­lowed one of her samples by ac­ci­dent. “Right. I’ll speak with you back at camp.”

  She cuffed Gemme on the arm. “We’re lucky you didn’t jump, dear.”

  An­ger rose in­side Gemme in a rip cur­rent. Why didn’t Luna pur­sue the beast her­self? She was the bio­lo­gist. Gemme wiped her palm on Luna’s jog­ging suit, the pink stain­ing red with gel. “Oh, I al­most for­got. Here’s your sample.”

  Luna stared, her eyes wide. She opened her mouth to re­spond, but Brent­wood in­ter­vened. “Won­der­ful! See, you did get a sample.”

  Gemme couldn’t tell if he tried to lighten the mood, or if he truly thought the goop would suf­fice. Whatever the case, she made sure to slather her with every last bit of it.

  Luna clamped her mouth shut, flar­ing her eyes. Brent­wood gently nudged her for­ward, his hand on her arm. “You should get back to camp be­fore the sample dries up.”

  “Cer­tainly, Lieu­ten­ant.” Luna stormed off with no smile this time. Ge
mme shivered, bal­an­cing from foot to foot to keep ice form­ing on her toes. If she weren’t freez­ing her butt off, she would have en­joyed the scene much more.

  “My good­ness, you aren’t even wear­ing your boots!” Brent­wood offered his arms. “If I may?”

  Gemme froze, not un­der­stand­ing what he re­ferred to. Be­fore she could re­act, he scooped her up, slid­ing an arm un­der­neath her knees and an­other be­hind her neck. He lif­ted her as if she weighed noth­ing, and her frozen feet rose from the ground. She mol­ded into his em­brace.

  “Bet­ter?”

  “Much, thank you.” Em­bar­rass­ment flushed her cheeks. Here she was in the middle of nowhere with her frizzy morn­ing hair, no coat, and her dirty socks from yes­ter­day crus­ted with snow. She prob­ably even had bad morn­ing breath. Quite the ad­ven­turer, she was.

  A brisk wind blew around them and Gemme hid her face in his shirt, feel­ing self-con­scious and more than a little ex­cited to have him hold her again.

  His boots crunched in the snow as he hiked back to camp. “I’ll have Tech take a look at your feet. His wife’s a medic, so he knows more about frost­bite than I do.”

  “Thank you.” She heard his heart­beat pound­ing in his chest with each step each took. Wrap­ping her arms around his neck, she wished the mo­ment could last forever.

  Hold­ing Gemme made Brent­wood’s skin hot as fire in a land of ice. He forced pla­tonic thoughts into his com­pos­ure as she wrapped her arms around him, her soft skin brush­ing against the back of his neck. What kind of lieu­ten­ant would he be if he took ad­vant­age of one of the mem­bers of his team on the most im­port­ant mis­sion he’d ever had?

  Gemme nuzzled against him, and he fo­cused on the re­main­ing steps to camp. Her brave rush to con­front the beast both sur­prised and im­pressed him, and he couldn’t ima­gine the ter­ror of wak­ing up with a mon­ster in her tent. She had more strength than some of the other lieu­ten­ants, hid­den un­der such soft shy­ness and mod­esty.