Tundra 37

by Aubrie Dionne

  Bysme, please. Please don’t go. This voice soun­ded dif­fer­ent, deeper. Gemme saw the other Seer blink her one good eye. A tear trailed down her pasty cheek.

  Why didn’t she do some­thing? Gemme wanted to shout at Mestasis to stop her twin, but then she saw what was hap­pen­ing. The Seer’s body was ri­gid be­cause the tube run­ning into her spine had been pulled halfway out, pink li­quid drip­ping to the floor.

  You’ve kept me here long enough, Metsy. I’ve al­ways done what you wanted us to do, and what’s it got­ten us? Trapped in the same room for hun­dreds of years, wait­ing for a planet we’ll never be able to en­joy. Don’t you get it? Once we reached Para­dise 18, we’d be done for. The ship would be aban­doned and we’d be left to die. I want out, and this chest will let me live my life all over again.

  Gemme wondered how she could hear their mind­speak. At this point, the Seers must be shout­ing so loud to one an­other that they didn’t care.

  What about the people we swore to pro­tect?

  I’m done liv­ing for oth­ers. It’s time I lived for my­self. Her voice dripped bit­ter­ness.

  Mestasis twitched, try­ing to move without the body fluid to en­able her at­rophied muscles. A joint in her neck snapped as she turned her head to her sis­ter. You steered the ship into the comet shower, didn’t you? You wanted to land here, all for the chest.

  Abysme dragged her­self for­ward, un­hindered by the ac­cus­a­tion. I’ve been plan­ning it for years. Ever since we found the orb. I’m not go­ing to let you or any­one stop me.

  You’ve gone crazy, Bysme. Let me go. Let us help you.

  Abysme ap­proached her sis­ter and the loose wires around her torso wound around the links keep­ing Mestasis in place. One by one, she yanked them out, dis­con­nect­ing her sis­ter from the sys­tem. Each broken con­nect racked her sis­ter’s body with a shud­der. You will join me. I’m in charge of our fu­tures now, and we’re go­ing into the chest.

  Stop! If you do this, we’ll both die.

  The ship’s shot to hell. We’ll die any­way. Why not pass on in the com­fort of our mother’s arms?

  Mestasis yelled, her eye burn­ing with in­tens­ity. I gave up James for you, for us to have a safe life to­gether. Pain filled her voice, mak­ing it quiver. If Gemme weren’t tied down, she’d run to com­fort her. She looked to Brent­wood, but he busied him­self squirm­ing in his re­straints to find a weak­ness.

  And now you can see him again.

  He’s not in there, Bysme. No one is! They’re your own memor­ies, pulled from the re­cesses of your mind. James, our mother, all the people in our past died hun­dreds of years ago. There’s no way to get them back.

  They’re real to me. Abysme yanked more wires loose. You said you’ve al­ways known what’s best for us. I stood by and let you make all the de­cisions, and I’ve had it with be­ing pass­ive while op­por­tun­it­ies for true hap­pi­ness passed us by. Now, I know what’s best. We’re go­ing in.

  Mestasis’s dark eye turned on Gemme, plead­ing with her to help. Gemme stared back at her and shook her head. Her sis­ter was gone. She’d totally lost it. How could Gemme pos­sibly right her sis­ter’s wrong? Undo all of the death and dev­ast­a­tion she’d caused? There was no way.

  “We’ve got to do some­thing,” Brent­wood whispered as he struggled, his face turn­ing red. “She’s go­ing to kill them both. We need at least one of them at the helm.”

  He was right. Mestasis hadn’t done any­thing wrong, and she could still help them save the ship. Lights flickered above them as the last twin dis­con­nec­ted from the sys­tem. Warn­ing alarms wailed in the con­trol cham­ber and down the hail, echo­ing one after the other. The vent­il­ator above them shut off, the fa­mil­iar buzz dy­ing to com­plete si­lence.

  Push­ing her thumb into the palm of her hand, Gemme popped the di­git out of her knuckle. She bit her lip as the streak of pain shot through her arm. Then she pulled her hand free.

  Too dis­trac­ted by dis­con­nect­ing her sis­ter, Abysme didn’t no­tice her es­cape. With her free hand, Gemme un­wound the tube around her neck and pulled her legs from the coiled wires. She moved to help Brent­wood, but he shook his head and flashed his eyes at the scene be­hind her.

  Gemme whirled around. Abysme had dis­con­nec­ted Mestasis and dragged her limp body to the chest. Gemme threw her­self across the floor and landed on top of her, the wires on the Seer’s back pok­ing into her stom­ach like a por­cu­pine’s quills.

  Aaaaaah! The Seer’s voice screamed in her head as Gemme wrapped her arms around her. The torso writhed be­neath her, lay­ers of old skin flak­ing away un­der­neath her fin­ger­nails. Wires lunged at Gemme’s face try­ing to poke out her eyes, but she bur­ied her head into the Seer’s back held on, stop­ping Abysme from reach­ing the chest’s light.

  The reek of dead skin and de­com­pos­i­tion gagged her. Gemme had feared the Seers since her child­hood, hop­ing she’d never had to meet them face-to-face, and now she sprawled on top of one, the Seer’s thin wisps of gray hair tick­ling Gemme’s cheek as they wrestled. Every­where on Gemme’s body, her skin crawled.

  But she had greater prob­lems than her worst fear come to life. The wires scratched at her back, tear­ing into her thermal coat. It would only be a mat­ter of time be­fore the frayed ends ripped through the outer layer to her skin. One look at Brent­wood told her he wasn’t able to help. She took a chance and re­leased an arm to swat the wires away.

  There were too many to keep at bay, and they scratched her arms leav­ing thin rib­bons of blood. Abysme squirmed out from un­der­neath her, and Gemme lost her grip, her sweaty hands slip­ping down her back.

  The Seer’s wires reached to­ward the light. An­ger welled in­side Gemme as she thought of all the people Abysme had in­ad­vert­ently killed. People she’d sworn to pro­tect. Now, the Seer wanted to run away, leav­ing them all here on this frozen, for­got­ten planet to pick up the pieces. Gemme grabbed her main spinal tube trail­ing be­hind her and yanked her back. “No you don’t, you selfish bitch.”

  Abysme turned and hissed, white eyes wide as two moons.

  “Gemme watch out!” Brent­wood shouted, his voice hoarse with alarm.

  The wires flew through the air, try­ing to pierce Gemme’s body. She ducked and caught one in her hand, inches from her throat just as an­other shot through her pants leg and grazed her calf.

  Gemme col­lapsed to the floor in pain, but she wouldn’t re­lease the tube. The Seer crawled to­ward her on her wire limbs. Gemme scur­ried back, fa­vor­ing her leg. The blood ran in a streak across the chrome. Abysme gained on her, squirm­ing up her legs to her chest.

  Win­cing, Gemme ex­pec­ted a wire to im­pale her or shoot through her gut, but the Seer stopped inches from her chin.

  Abysme’s face con­tor­ted into sheer sur­prise, tooth­less mouth open­ing wide. She whirled around just as a wire mov­ing against the rest plunged through the air above her and stabbed her in the back and through the heart, pro­trud­ing out of her chest.

  Gemme froze in shock and glanced be­hind Abysme to her sis­ter. Mestasis lay on her back, head rolling to the side. The Seer’s voice res­on­ated in her head. You and Lieu­ten­ant Brent­wood have the love that I once had. Don’t ever let it slip away.

  Mestasis had saved her by mur­der­ing her own sis­ter. Gemme stared at the Seer in shock.

  Mestasis’s black eye leaked a stream of tears then shut.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The Most Important

  Vira’s min­is­creen flickered and she smacked it against the floor. The blue li­quid in the en­ergy cell had run out an hour ago, and it was her last one.

  “Come on, don’t die on me now.” Teach­ers had tem­por­ar­ily sus­pen­ded classes un­til the situ­ation with the Ex­ped­i­tion sta­bil­ized, but when she was stuck learn­ing geo­metry again, she wanted to have her proofs com­pleted.

  Be­sides
, do­ing home­work kept her mind off all her prob­lems. She was sick of not hav­ing what she needed: her hov­er­chair, fresh food, and now en­ergy cells. How were they sup­posed to live on Tun­dra 37 without all those things?

  She min­im­ized the glow of the screen and her un­done proof flashed on. She scanned the last line be­fore the min­is­creen powered down and went dead. Guilt came over her as she thought back to all those hours wasted play­ing Star Quest.

  Vira pressed the start panel over and over and noth­ing happened. Pound­ing her fist into the floor, she slumped against the wall in her room. Now what was she sup­posed to do?

  “Mo-om!”

  No an­swer. Vira shouted with the full force of her little lungs. Her voice echoed in her room and died away. Mom must have left to take Dad din­ner. He never came home any­more, work­ing long hours in the en­ergy core, try­ing to keep the ship go­ing.

  The dim lights flickered around her, the room al­tern­at­ing between blind­ingly bright and black as deep space. Vira covered her face with her hands. When she pried her palms off, she was plunged into dark­ness.

  “Rizzy?”

  Was her sis­ter play­ing pranks again?

  “I know that’s you, so cut it out.”

  No an­swer. She pushed her use­less min­is­creen off her lap and dragged her­self to the kit­chen. The car­pet left burns on her arms, so she’d de­veloped the tech­nique of an­chor­ing her­self with an el­bow, then pulling her weight for­ward arm over arm. Slow but sure. Isn’t that what her teach­ers had said about the Ex­ped­i­tion’s pro­gress? Vira was over­come with mel­an­choly. Well, not any more. The ship would never fly again.

  The icy chrome floor chilled her belly as she entered the kit­chen. A half-eaten soy­bean wafer stuck out from the edge of the table, but other than that, no signs of life.

  How could they leave her alone? Air wheezed over her head as the main vent­il­ator shaft shut off. The si­lence of stag­nant air re­minded her of when the ship first crashed. Vira’s face squished up as she held back her tears. She sniffed, wip­ing her eyes on her pa­jama cuffs and tried to calm her­self down. Someone will come home soon.

  An alarm wailed down the cor­ridor out­side their fam­ily cell and she scrambled up, heart beat­ing out of con­trol. A shorter, more in­sist­ent sound beeped a warn­ing fol­lowed by an auto­mated re­sponse. “En­gine fail­ure in fif­teen minutes. Core shut­down im­min­ent. Evac­u­ation pro­ced­ures com­mence.”

  Vira held her breath, not want­ing to be­lieve it. The ship was dy­ing and she was alone.

  She crawled un­der­neath the kit­chen table and curled up in a ball. She couldn’t hold the tears back any longer, and they ran down her cheeks, wet­ting the front of her fa­vor­ite pa­ja­mas. But soil­ing her pink jam­mies didn’t mat­ter, be­cause if someone didn’t sta­bil­ize the en­ergy core, they’d all be dead.

  She bit her lip un­til it hurt. After feel­ing sorry for her­self, she wondered if there was a way she could help. If she could chan­nel the re­main­ing en­ergy, she could con­nect to the ship and find out what was wrong. Maybe she could fix it. She thought back to Rizzy’s poster, the mage star­ing her down as if de­mand­ing her to use her powers. She’d done it be­fore with the air vent­il­ator. Con­trolling an en­tire ship would be more com­plex than one air vent­il­ator, but at least she could try. Vira paused, hands hov­er­ing over the chrome floor, fin­gers shak­ing. If she re­con­nec­ted to the sys­tems, the evil pres­ence would find her.

  Metal banged as the hull ad­jus­ted to the changes in air pres­sure. Vira cringed, think­ing of her par­ents, Rizzy, and even stu­pid Daryl. As much as she hated them at times, she wanted to see them again and sit to­gether at the din­ner table as a fam­ily, eat­ing fresh food and call­ing each other a space­head. If her dad couldn’t fix the prob­lem, and the Seers didn’t care, it was up to her.

  She held her breath and pressed her hands against the floor, feel­ing all the con­nec­tions still alive within the main­frame branch­ing out. No con­scious pres­ence presided. In fact, the sys­tems ran blindly, each pro­gram ter­min­at­ing when their cycles com­pleted with no new or­ders is­sued. No one was in charge at all.

  Vira shot up. If she wanted to save the Ex­ped­i­tion, she’d have to reach the con­trol cham­ber where she could ac­cess each sys­tem at once from the main con­sole. The heart­beat of the ship weakened, and she didn’t have much time be­fore the spark keep­ing the en­ergy core run­ning flickered out.

  She crawled back to­ward her room and popped open the secret floor panel. Her scooter, made from old parts and the clean­ing droid sat, al­most fin­ished. She didn’t have a steer­ing wheel, or a seat to hold her­self up, but she could hold on and drive it with her mind like she was able to turn on the vent­il­ator.

  She ac­tiv­ated the scooter and rode it to the front portal, stop­ping be­fore the chrome. She couldn’t reach the panel for the portal, so she ran her hand along the wall. The waver­ing cur­rent of elec­tri­city tickled her fin­ger­tips, and she shot it up to the panel be­fore it flickered out. The portal de­ma­ter­i­al­ized, and the scooter pro­pelled for­ward, pulling her with it.

  People ran through the cor­ridors so fast, they didn’t no­tice a girl lugged by a make­shift scooter at their feet. An older wo­man cried and a young man screamed for help in­side his fam­ily cell. Guilt weighed on her as she ig­nored them and whizzed by, cling­ing to the scooter. She could only save them by reach­ing the con­trol room.

  The scooter dragged her to a back el­ev­ator, grander than any of the ones she’d seen be­fore with double sets of portals, the frame painted in a fili­gree of loopy designs with two pairs of dark eyes star­ing over each portal. She pressed her hand to the wall. The wires ran dead for sev­eral decks. Prob­ing deeper, she drew a cur­rent dir­ectly from the dy­ing core to get the portals to de­ma­ter­i­al­ize. The particles dis­ap­peared and she nudged the droid ahead with her mind. It wheeled her over the plat­form.

  Her heart raced as the el­ev­ator rose, thump­ing in her hears. What if the Seers set a trap to catch her? A jolt of anxi­ety shook her body. Would they really sac­ri­fice the ship and risk lives to catch a spy? She had no idea. But the en­ergy core had destabil­ized. She could feel the ten­sion brim­ming as the ra­di­ation per­meated the in­ner shield. Get­ting caught was a gamble she’d had to take.

  The portal de­ma­ter­i­al­ized to a cor­ridor cluttered by debris. It looked like no one had walked there since the ship crashed, and a shiver crept up her back. The scooter sputtered as it led her off the plat­form, the small green lights on the nose dim­ming.

  “Come on you space bot! Not now.”

  The buzz­ing of mech­an­ics in­side its belly clicked off as it powered down. Vira checked the en­ergy cell, and the blue li­quid in the tube had run out. An eth­er­eal shine em­an­ated down the long cor­ridor from what could only be the con­trol room. She was so close. Climb­ing off the scooter, she pulled her­self for­ward a foot at a time.

  Scram­bling over Abysme’s body, Gemme reached Brent­wood, rip­ping wires from his arms. The grooves left ugly pat­terns on his skin. “You okay?”

  He nod­ded and stared bey­ond her shoulder. “Help Mestasis.”

  From what she’d seen, it seemed like a lost cause, but Brent­wood was right. The Seer had to come first, and if she could do any­thing to get her back, she would. Gemme ran over to Mestasis and cupped her wrinkly face in both hands. Her skin felt dry and cold un­der­neath her fin­ger­tips. “Mestasis, wake up.”

  The Seer lay limp in her arms. Gemme shook her and her head twis­ted to the side. Hes­it­antly, she laid her hand on her chest: no heart­beat. The fi­nal­ity of the mo­ment hit her like a laser in her stom­ach. She turned back to Brent­wood. “I think she’s gone.”

  “Plug her back in, re­start her heart.”

  Wish­ing she had some sort of medic skil
ls, Gemme turned the Seer over and pushed the spinal tube fur­ther into the in­put hole in her back. Pink li­quid dribbled into her body, but Mestasis’s limbs hung life­less. No mat­ter how much Gemme jiggled the tube, only a trickle of li­quid flowed. Around her the ship’s sirens wailed as the sys­tems shut down one by one. An auto­mated voice rang out, “Warn­ing. En­gine fail­ure in fif­teen minutes. Core shut­down im­min­ent. Evac­u­ation pro­ced­ures re­com­men­ded.”

  “By the Guide.” Brent­wood’s face paled as he struggled with his own re­straints in panic. “I didn’t think los­ing them would cause a core fail­ure. I had no idea.”

  “Prob­ably wouldn’t have if the ship was in bet­ter shape.” Gemme knew that made no dif­fer­ence now, but she didn’t want the fate of the en­tire ship rest­ing on Brent­wood’s head. They’d made the de­cision to­gether, and now they had to fix it.

  Gemme tried again to wake Mestasis, jig­gling the tube she’d at­tached.

  “I brought her back be­fore.” Brent­wood pulled his leg from the wire clump and stumbled over. He checked the tube, then turned her face to him. “Metsy, please come back to us.”

  “She’s dead.” Gemme’s voice broke on her words.

  “She can’t be.” Brent­wood pressed on the Seer’s chest in rhythm and blew air into her mouth. “Come on, Metsy. We need you.”

  “I can do it.” A small voice rang out be­hind them and they whirled around. Gemme re­cog­nized the girl she’d talked to in the safe zone after the comet shower had hit the Ex­ped­i­tion. Sweat ran down the girl’s fore­head, drip­ping off her black curls, and her cheeks flushed red with ex­er­tion. Sprawled on her belly, she must have dragged her­self all the way there.

  “Vira, what are you do­ing here? You should be evac­u­at­ing.” Brent­wood’s voice was stern.

  Gemme’s mind turned back to that day in the emer­gency cham­ber. Vira had more con­trol of her world than she let on, and the things she knew about Gemme were im­possible un­less she had secret ac­cess to the sys­tems. It all fit into place like a grand puzzle, and Gemme couldn’t be­lieve she hadn’t seen the con­nec­tion be­fore.