Tundra 37

by Aubrie Dionne

  Gemme bit her lip feel­ing like a teen­ager all over again and Brent­wood smiled, re­turn­ing his at­ten­tion to the path ahead. “I won­der why the com­puter paired us to­gether in the first place?”

  “Pair­ing is de­term­ined by ge­netic his­tory. It’s de­signed to pre­vent in­breed­ing—”

  “Yes, I now that. But do you think there’s more to it? Do you be­lieve in des­tiny?”

  She’d gone a long way from be­liev­ing in ana­lysis and num­bers to pla­cing her faith in chaos and chance, but to go as far as to think fate in­ter­vened in the com­puter’s choices…she couldn’t say. “I’m not sure.”

  Be­fore he could re­spond, the radar beeped, sig­nal­ing their ap­proach to the beacon.

  Gemme leaned over to see farther out the sight panel. The land­scape was eer­ily bar­ren, twists of flur­ries rising up like mini tor­na­dos across a sheer sheet of ice. “I don’t see any­thing.”

  “It must be un­der­neath the snow.” Brent­wood pressed the main con­trol panel. The hatch lif­ted and he jumped out. He offered his hand, help­ing her out of the landrover. “I wish we brought shovels.”

  “Next time we drive to the middle of nowhere and dig up an­other alien beacon, we’ll be pre­pared.” Even though Gemme joked, ten­sion sizzled in the air around her. Her ears rang like someone struck a high-pitched tun­ing fork, and the res­on­ance soun­ded just bey­ond her hear­ing ca­pa­city. She felt like they’d traveled to the end of the world, or the be­gin­ning of all things, de­pend­ing on which way she looked at it.

  “How far down?”

  He shrugged. “A meter, two meters at most.”

  “Then let’s start dig­ging.”

  She knelt in the snow and punched the crust un­til the ice broke. Brent­wood found two buck­ets in the landrover, and they used those to scoop the snow and throw it into a heap be­side the landrover. They dug un­til Gemme’s nose ran and her cheeks numbed. She had to go back to the landrover for breaks to warm her fin­gers and toes. “Do you think the ali­ens might still be around?”

  Brent­wood shrugged and looked around at the bar­ren land­scape. “They never came for the orb. Sci­ent­ists dated it back thou­sands of years. Seems to me the own­ers are long gone.”

  They were a meter and a half down when she brought her bucket down for the next scoop and hit some­thing hard with a thunk.

  Brent­wood’s gaze shot up. “That’s it.” He jumped next to her and helped her brush snow off the sur­face. Her heart beat so fast, she felt the heated blood pump­ing through her veins. A crys­tal sur­face shone in the sun’s light, oily swirls dan­cing across the top. They dug farther, re­veal­ing a chest a meter tall, and wide enough to stash all their equip­ment. Gemme ran her gloves over the smooth sur­face as Brent­wood dug around the base. Sym­bols of all shapes and sizes were carved into the sides.

  She traced the sym­bol of a cross with an oval on top. “It’s like an ankh, the Egyp­tian sym­bol for eternal life.” As her fin­ger traced the sym­bol, a shiver ran up her spine. The only people she knew that seemed to live forever were the Seers, and their qual­ity of ex­ist­ence al­ways made her cringe. She’d rather die than have people con­nect her to a ma­chine.

  Brent­wood poin­ted to a fig­ure eight on its side, “And here’s the sym­bol for in­fin­ity.”

  She poin­ted to a ring-shaped geo­met­ric fig­ure, the area between two con­cent­ric circles. “Over here there’s an an­nu­lus, the Celtic sym­bol for etern­ity.”

  “But what are these?” Brent­wood poin­ted to strange etch­ings of oval faces without eyes, and four-fingered hands hold­ing curved ob­jects.

  “I have no idea.” She thought back to all of her his­tory classes, but no ref­er­ences sur­faced. “I’ve never seen them be­fore.”

  “Neither have I.” Brent­wood clapped his gloves to­gether to shed the layer of snow around his fin­gers. “Can you help me heft it out?”

  Gemme crouched down next to the chest. “It looks heavy, but I’ll try.”

  She dug her fin­gers un­der­neath the bot­tom. Sur­pris­ingly, the crys­tal seemed like it weighed mere ounces.

  “This doesn’t make sense. It’s too light.”

  “I’m not com­plain­ing.” Brent­wood smiled. “On the count of three.”

  “One.”

  “Two.” She joined in, her voice sound­ing stronger than she felt.

  “Three!”

  They heaved, rais­ing it over their heads. Once they cleared the top, they pushed the crys­tal chest onto the snow. Brent­wood climbed out of the hole and gave Gemme his hand, help­ing her up.

  Circ­ling it sus­pi­ciously, he crossed his arms. “The data sug­ges­ted liv­ing mat­ter. The Seers called it a bio­lo­gical an­om­aly made up of col­la­gen and pro­tein.”

  She shrugged. “We could have used Luna’s help right now.” Both fell si­lent. Would Luna have en­joyed this? Prob­ably not. She would have stayed in the landrover.

  When Gemme touched the sym­bols, the golden swirls grav­it­ated to­ward her fin­gers. Every time she pulled her hand away, the col­ors dis­solved, re­mer­ging at the corners of the lid. A sud­den urge to see what lay in­side came over her. Her en­tire life lead here, to this chest on the farthest re­gion of Tun­dra 37.

  “The only way we’re go­ing to un­der­stand it is if we open it.”

  Brent­wood nod­ded re­luct­antly. “I’ll pry off the lid.” He walked back to the landrover and pulled out one of the tent poles. Jam­ming the end un­der­neath the lid, he forced his weight down on the pole. His face strained as he pushed. Gemme joined him, pla­cing her weight on top of his.

  “Doesn’t look like it’s go­ing to budge.”

  Right after he spoke, the pole gave way, and the lid popped off, land­ing with a gush of air on the snow. White smoke rose from the in­side, dis­sip­at­ing into the cold­ness. Brent­wood gave Gemme a ques­tion­ing glance and she nod­ded. They ap­proached the chest, her heart beat­ing faster with each second.

  A mum­bling of voices waf­ted up from in­side. Gemme froze as fear gripped her feet. Some­thing was in there, some­thing alive.

  Brent­wood put a fin­ger over his lips and Gemme strained her ears to hear the voices. She ex­pec­ted some type of exotic lan­guage, but she could make out words like angle and de­gree.

  “It can’t be,” she whispered, “They’re speak­ing Eng­lish.”

  She took a step for­ward and slapped her hand over her mouth as she re­cog­nized Fer­ris’s voice. At first it soun­ded like he talked gib­ber­ish. As she tip­toed closer, his words be­came clear. “How do you find the sine and co­sine when they just give you an angle meas­ure­ment, like 240 de­grees?”

  Gemme quickened her steps and leaned over the chest. The bot­tom seemed end­less, stretch­ing out bey­ond the snow un­der­neath the crys­tal to an al­tern­ate di­men­sion. In­side, she saw Fer­ris sit­ting on her fam­ily’s plastic couch with his min­is­creen in his lap.

  “It can’t be.” Gemme leaned in fur­ther. “Fer­ris?” She called his name but he didn’t look up. In­stead she heard her own voice echo out, “When the angle is 240 de­grees, it falls in the third quad­rant, where all the sine and co­sine angles in that quad­rant are neg­at­ive—”

  “Gemme,” Brent­wood spoke be­side her, bring­ing her back to real­ity. “What do you see?”

  She rubbed her eyes and tore her­self away to look in his dir­ec­tion. Even as her eyes lost con­tact, the vis­ion urged her to come back, to see what happened next. Her an­swer was so ri­dicu­lous, yet she couldn’t lie. “My brother, Fer­ris. He’s talk­ing to me about his math exam, the one I helped him study for seven years ago. I know it’s crazy, but that’s what I see. You don’t see it?”

  “No.”

  Her spir­its dropped as con­fu­sion spread through her. Maybe she was los­ing her mind. Snow blind­ness, isn’t that what it’
s called when you’ve been ex­posed for too long? But it didn’t cause hal­lu­cin­a­tions.

  Brent­wood spoke softly, “I see my mom try­ing to feed my brother ve­get­ables. I’m talk­ing to him, try­ing to re­as­sure him there’s go­ing to be a dessert in the end.”

  She spoke through her fin­gers over her mouth. “What are we see­ing, then?”

  Brent­wood shook his head as if he couldn’t be­lieve it. “What the sci­ent­ists saw: our past.”

  “Miles,” Gemme used his name for the first time. “The chest, it’s ask­ing me to touch it, to go in­side.”

  Brent­wood took in a pon­der­ous breath. “I feel it too. I can’t res­ist it. I need to know, to go in­side.”

  Sud­denly, her mind shot back to the mam­moth fight, and Luna ly­ing in the snow. “When Luna was dy­ing, she’d tried to warn me not to let the Seers have it. What should we do?”

  “We test it out first. See if there’s any­thing dan­ger­ous in there. If so, we des­troy it.”

  Gemme stared into his gaze. “I don’t want you to go alone.”

  He took her free hand in his and his fin­gers curled around hers. “We’ll go to­gether.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Eternity

  Gemme held her breath as they stepped into the chest. A lu­min­ous glow of golden swirls en­vel­oped the sky, in­creas­ing in in­tens­ity un­til it blinded her, leav­ing blos­som­ing splotches on the back of her eye­lids when she shut her eyes. A fierce cur­rent of wind blew around them, roar­ing in her ears. She clutched Brent­wood’s hand tightly. If this was the end, then at least she’d be with him.

  The wind gained force, whip­ping her hair around her face and jerking her coat sleeves un­til she thought they would rip open. She fo­cused on Brent­wood’s hand, his grip firm like a pil­lar of sta­bil­ity. The wind tapered off into the sky above them, leav­ing them in si­lence. She cracked opened her eyes just a sliver, not know­ing what to ex­pect.

  Snow, snow, and more snow. End­less white. Tun­dra 37 spread out be­fore them in all its stark bleak­ness. She licked frost from the corners of her mouth and tasted fri­gid air on her tongue. Her breath plumed. Dis­ap­poin­ted, she searched for the sides of the chest around her feet, but bound­less snow stretched out for miles.

  “That’s it?”

  A tentacled beast cres­ted the snow mound be­side them and flung it­self down, slid­ing on the icy sur­face. When it got to the bot­tom, it scampered on its many paws to­ward a crack in the ice ahead. A glint­ing light re­flec­ted off its back and Gemme re­cog­nized her min­is­creen. An­other tentacle clutched the pic­ture of her and Fer­ris. An­ger rose in­side her. The stu­pid beast still had her be­long­ings, but now she’d get them back.

  Gemme broke into a sprint, mak­ing a beeline for the hide of tentacles. Maybe she could reach it this time be­fore the beast cata­pul­ted off the edge. Her fin­gers brushed the sticky tendrils, but the min­is­creen van­ished in the jelly­like sub­stance deep within the hide. She grabbed a tentacle and held on, feet trail­ing in the snow, while she thrust the other hand into the gooey mess. Her fin­gers brushed the sleek sur­face of the screen be­fore strong arms pulled her back. The beast dis­ap­peared, her be­long­ings sink­ing with it into the chasm of ice wa­ter be­low.

  “Whoa! You al­most went over again.”

  “I nearly had it this time.” Gemme struggled in his arms be­fore her skin prickled with a sense of déjà vu. She turned around to face him. “What’s go­ing on?”

  “We’re re­liv­ing a memory.” Brent­wood scanned the land­scape. “We must be, be­cause your things wouldn’t be in such good con­di­tion after all this time had passed. And what are the odds that we’d find the ex­act same beast by the ex­act same crack.”

  Gemme shook her head. “I don’t un­der­stand.”

  “Neither do I.”

  The world blurred around them un­til the snow grayed to re­semble the in­side of the Ex­ped­i­tion. They sat huddled over the air vents. Alarms wailed, and the air sucked at them from be­hind. Brent­wood poin­ted at a drop to the cor­ridor be­low.

  “We have to get out of here. Give me your hands and I’ll help you down.”

  She slipped her hands into his, and she re­membered. We’ve done this be­fore.

  Brent­wood gave her a ques­tion­ing frown.

  “Don’t you see, we’re still in the chest.”

  “You’ll have to jump.”

  “No.”

  He stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “The up­per decks are los­ing pres­sure. We can’t stay here much longer.”

  Gemme cupped his face in both her hands. “This isn’t real.”

  His hands wrapped around both of her wrists. “Feels pretty real to me, now let’s go.”

  She wouldn’t budge, even as he tugged her hands off his face. “It’s a memory. The ship has already crashed.”

  “You must have a con­cus­sion. I’ll have a medic ex­am­ine your head once we get to safety.” Metal crunched above them and the ceil­ing warped in.

  Gemme ig­nored their sur­round­ings and stared into his eyes. “Miles, listen to me. We’re on Tun­dra 37, team Al­pha Blue, mis­sion Beta Prime.”

  “Beta Prime?” He blinked and shook his head. “What am I do­ing? Where are we?”

  Gemme gave him an en­cour­aging smile. “We’re in the chest.”

  He blinked. “You’re right. I got caught up in the mo­ment and—”

  Be­fore he could con­tinue, sparks flew all around them. The ship crashed while they sat in the air shaft. For a mo­ment she thought she was the one who was de­lu­sional. Maybe they’d gone back in time, or her mind had con­cocted the fu­ture. Who knew the bound­ar­ies of this chest? Now they would both die be­cause of her. She bur­ied her face into his shoulder and his hand cradled the back of her head. The noise of crunched metal filled her ears un­til she could think of noth­ing else. Then, si­lence, as if someone had pressed the pause but­ton on a wall­screen.

  “Sur­prise!”

  People shouted at her from all dir­ec­tions, some wav­ing blue stream­ers and oth­ers blow­ing on noise­makers in her face. She tumbled for­ward and grabbed a rail­ing to the stairs, feel­ing real oak un­der­neath her fin­ger­tips. Where was she?

  “Miles?”

  A man with a pear-shaped nose grinned, half-chewed piece of candy stick­ing out of his mouth. “Mikey’s in the back, wait­ing for you.”

  Gemme stumbled for­ward, el­bow­ing her way through the crowd. She re­membered snow, and her colony ship, but this do­mestic en­vir­on­ment was for­eign to her. Fol­low­ing the hall­way, she saw pic­tures of people on the walls; an old couple on a porch, a girl rid­ing a horse, a gradu­ation ce­re­mony. They were all vaguely fa­mil­iar, but no names came to mind.

  A tiered cake res­ted on a li­no­leum table in the next room. When she roun­ded the corner, she saw Brent­wood on his knee. “Thank good­ness I found you.”

  He stared up at her, con­fused. “I don’t know what I’m do­ing here, Gemme, but I have this.”

  He opened a vel­vet box. A dia­mond sparkled like ice un­der Sol­aris Prime. She pulled the ring from the vel­vet liner and placed it on her fin­ger.

  “Whatever the ques­tion is, I say yes!”

  People cheered be­hind them, but Brent­wood rose and turned away, dis­trac­ted.

  “What is it?” Gemme grabbed his arm.

  He rubbed his temples. “This is an­other memory, it must be. It feels so real. I can al­most re­mem­ber buy­ing that ring.”

  “But this isn’t even our lives.”

  Brent­wood’s mouth quirked up in the corner. “Maybe it was.”

  Gemme’s head reeled. “Are you sug­gest­ing we’ve been to­gether in past lives?”

  “Look around you, Gemme. What do you see?”

  A ban­ner hung from the doorframe with the phrase Jenny and Mikey fore
ver painted in red. Jenny and Mikey, Gemme and Miles. Maybe the com­puter hadn’t cal­cu­lated their pair­ing at all, maybe fate had chosen long be­fore their par­ents birthed them on the Ex­ped­i­tion. She could go crazy think­ing about the rami­fic­a­tions.

  “I want to go back,” Gemme pleaded, tak­ing his hands. This memory land played with her mind, tan­tal­iz­ing her with just enough to keep her in­ter­ested, to make her for­get their mis­sion and the people she cared about most. If she spent too long in it, she’d lose her­self, re­liv­ing old memor­ies for all etern­ity.

  “Just a few more minutes.” Brent­wood’s eyes shone bright. “I want to know more.”

  If she left without him, she’d lose him in the chest. Be­sides, a part of her wanted to know who she was, where she’d came from, and why Brent­wood stood by her side. Gemme wrapped her hands around his and closed her eyes. “Bring it on.”

  The air crackled above her head. Gemme opened her eyes to gray skies churn­ing in a brew­ing wind. She stood on the porch of an old log cabin look­ing upon soft meadow stretch­ing to the far ho­ri­zon. She tried to com­pre­hend so much ve­get­a­tion and re­sources, won­der­ing how hu­man­ity could have floundered all of it.

  A jolt of light­ning cracked the sky in half. Gemme stared, wait­ing for an­other as a deep rum­bling shook her stom­ach. The hu­mid­ity in the air covered her like a blanket, cling­ing to her many lay­ers of ap­rons. She wiped he fore­head with her sleeve. Her tightly strung knee-high boots hugged her calves, and she staggered in them be­fore she got used to the feel­ing of her muscles cramped. She jumped off the porch and waded through the long-stem grass. The stems tickled her el­bows.

  “Miles!”

  Her voice didn’t carry well over the wind. Gemme con­tem­plated leav­ing the log cabin, but no other land­marks stood on the ho­ri­zon, and if she left, she’d risk never find­ing him again. No, this time he had to come to her.

  She climbed the steps back onto the porch and pulled open the wooden door. A warm fire cast a flick­er­ing light in­side, in­vit­ing her in. She slipped through the door, smelling spices. A caldron brewed a thick stew with chunks of car­rots and meat and she picked up the ladle and stirred. Steam rose up to the brick chim­ney. Hope­fully, he’d smell her cook­ing and come home.