by Jocelyn Han
“I am excited,” Tori replied with a grin. “I tried writing a good speech for when I set foot on Enceladus, but Captain Kirk and Neil Armstrong have already beaten me to it. I don’t think I can come up with anything as good.”
“I bet LaFleur thought of something.” Shirley rolled her eyes. “That guy put the Ps in pompous. Maybe he’ll give you and Jari confetti to throw when he steps out of the shuttle.”
“Well, it’s going to take ages falling on his head,” Tori said. “Low gravity and all. Not likely.” She lifted her fork and stared unseeingly at the macaroni skewered on the tines. “I’m a bit nervous, though. I’ve never been the first to do anything. Usually I let someone else take the lead.”
“Well, you’re gonna be the first woman on Enceladus, like it or not,” Anna commented. “Actually, I think it’s cool LaFleur invited you. Otherwise it would all be men going on the first expedition.”
Tori sat back in her chair. “I wish I could go for a walk in the forest,” she sighed. “For me, that’s the best way to unwind.” Back in New Berlin, they’d had a colossal Earth-themed forest under the dome of the North Mars Capital, and part of that forest belonged to the Weiss family. Tori had spent countless hours there, wandering between the trees and plants that used to grow on Earth in abundance before the bombs dropped.
“Well, why don’t you book yourself a spot in the Hydroponics Experience tonight?” Shirley said, referring to the giant hall with real trees and overhead 3D cinema. It was a kind of a cross-over between an indoor nature reserve and a dome-shaped projector screen, accessible for all Desida Two citizens.
“I’m not sure I can. Shouldn’t I have booked that days ago?”
“Take mine,” Anna offered generously. “I was going to use the HE at eight, but I can also go squashing with Shirley. Just book me a spot a few days from now when you get there tonight.”
“Really? Thanks!”
“You’re welcome.” Anna pointed at the macaroni on Tori’s plate. “Now eat.”
“Yes, mom,” Tori teased.
That evening, she decided to leave a bit early so she could take a stroll down Saturn Boulevard. So far, she hadn’t really had the chance yet to look around unhurriedly, because she’d been trying to avoid news reporters – which was a shame, because Anna and Shirley couldn’t stop raving about the cute little clothes shops and Japanese supermarket that were located at the far end of the walkway, close to the Main Docking Point.
Before she went there, Tori walked up to the Hydroponics Experience booking desk. There was no-one around, but she spotted a self-service terminal next to the main entrance, so she whipped out her ID access card and started to make a booking for Anna. The first available date was two days from now.
While she was typing in some details, she abruptly became aware of someone watching her. Cautiously, she glanced over her shoulder and saw a guy who looked familiar – hadn’t he been on board the cruiser taking her to the station? Was he a reporter?
Her heart skipped a beat when he made eye-contact with her and crossed the boulevard. “Hey,” he started to say. “Excuse me.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t have time,” she replied breathlessly, jabbing a thumb at the HE. “I’m supposed to go in now.”
“Wait!” the man called after her when she slipped through the doors leading to the waiting area. Tori looked around frantically. Wasn’t there a room available where she could hide till it was her turn? The HE was divided into four sections, all four of them occupied according to the schedule projected on the wall. HE3 wasn’t locked, though – the sensor next to the door showed green, not red.
In a split-second decision, Tori pushed open the door to HE3 and secured it from the inside. Now she would have to find the person using this cinema and explain why the door was locked – that would be the polite thing to do, at least. She checked her watch: quarter to eight. She was supposed to be in HE3 in fifteen minutes, anyway.
Tori started up the hill. The person using this cinema had projected a beautiful night sky onto the ceiling. She recognized some of the constellations from her nights stargazing with her grandpa, so this was probably somewhere on the Earth Northern Hemisphere. As she climbed higher and higher, the view from the hill took her breath away. Now that she’d broken out of the tree line, she could see all the way to the artificial horizon. Far away in the distance, she could make out a town, its twinkling lights looking warm and friendly in the dark night. Maybe she’d find a girl at the top of the hill; some like-minded nature lover from Earth, who had projected the environment of her hometown onto the walls and ceiling of the Hydroponics Experience.
Tori was out of breath when she reached the top, peering into the darkness illuminated by the full moon to see who was sitting on the bench a few yards away from her.
“Hello?” she called out gingerly. “Who’s there?”
“Someone who actually booked this cinema,” came a voice from the darkness.
Oh, shit – it was Alen. Her life had just reached new levels of suckiness.
“It wasn’t locked,” she said, grudgingly making her way to the bench.
“I don’t like locking myself in,” Alen said.
“Yeah, I get that,” Tori mumbled. He’d been locked away for six years. “Actually, I locked the door behind me.”
“Oh?” He looked up at her. “Why?”
“Because I was locking someone out,” she replied, not volunteering any more information after that.
Alen nodded briefly. “Okay.”
She wasn’t sure he expected her to say more, so she stared straight ahead into the valley below. “It’s really beautiful here,” she said sincerely.
He laughed. “Hadn’t figured a hard-ass like me for a lover of natural beauty, huh?”
Tori rolled her eyes. “Ha. Know thyself, is what the ancient Greeks said.”
“True. But not in English.”
She looked aside disbelievingly. “Fine. Gnothi Seauton, then, Captain Pretentious.” Despite the darkness, she could register the surprised look in his eyes. “Oh, right. Hadn’t figured a stupid, Elite cow like me for a lover of all things classical, huh?”
“Touché.” An amused smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Why don’t you sit down and enjoy the view with me for a while?”
“All right.” Tori gulped down her nerves, taking a seat next to him. This wasn’t so bad – she could sit here till eight when his program was running out. He wasn’t making her that nervous. And they’d had an almost normal conversation up to this point. A sort-of-sarcastic conversation, but still.
“So, this landscape,” she said, casting around for a topic of conversation. “Is this somewhere in Croatia?”
He raised an eyebrow. “That’s right. You’ve been asking people about my origins?”
“N-no,” she stuttered. Oh Lord, here she went again. “Just, someone happened to tell me. That you’re Croatian, I mean.”
“Yeah, I can vividly imagine all kinds of things being told about me,” he said quietly, not able to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
Tori cringed a little, but decided to ignore his comment. “You know I actually thought you were British at first? Your accent is pretty spot-on.”
He smiled. “I can say the same thing about you. I thought you were from the British Isles, until someone happened to tell me that Victoria Weiss is Ambassador Weiss’s daughter.”
She rolled her eyes. “People talk a lot, don’t they?”
“You can say that again,” he agreed. “Kind of reminds me of life in the joint. You wouldn’t believe how much gossiping goes on behind bars.”
Again with the prison thing. Tori tried a hesitant grin. “Come on, it can’t be as bad as high school. I mean, have you been there?”
Alen laughed out loud, and it sounded so surprisingly genuine that she joined in. “Well, it’s a long time ago for me,” he admitted. “And I don’t think that Croatian village school I attended till I kicked myself out could compare t
o your high school.”
“You got yourself expelled?” Tori asked curiously. “Why would you do that? You’re, like, a genius, right? Multilingual, fluent in ten languages?”
He looked aside and scooted closer, shooting her a faint smile. “Hmm. I’m that much of a genius I’m not buying for one second that you just happen to know that. You really did ask people about me.”
He reached out for her, and Tori felt his warm hand on her shoulder. Her next retort died on her lips. She wanted to tell him that she hadn’t, that her friends had told her without her asking, but she couldn’t – or rather, she didn’t want to break this silence. She wanted to know what would happen next.
Alen’s eyes were dark-blue under the projected, Croatian night sky when he observed her, running his hand lightly up and down her arm. And then, his hand traced her neck and cupped her cheek. She stared into his eyes, her heart slamming against her ribs.
“So soft,” he murmured.
All of a sudden, panic rose in her chest. What the hell was she doing here in the dark, alone with him? Tori bit her lip and tried to back away.
Alen must have picked up on her sudden mood change, because he narrowed his eyes. “You’re afraid of me, aren’t you?” he said flatly, his gaze reflecting a mixture of triumph and loneliness.
“No,” she whispered. She wasn’t – it had nothing to do with him. “Besides, what do you care? You don’t even like me.”
“Really?” He laughed, his hand still resting on the soft skin above her collarbone. “This feels like I don’t like you?”
She clenched her fists in frustration. “Oh, shut up. You think I’m a rich, spoilt brat, and you hate my kind of people – whatever that means, anyway. You’re just using me.”
She stared him down, her cheeks flaming, her eyes ablaze.
The next thing he did was the last thing she expected: he got up and took a few steps away from the bench.
“Enjoy the last ten minutes of the view,” he said calmly. “I get it – you don’t want to be seen with me. I’ll let myself out.”
And with that, he turned around and walked downhill.
“You’re an idiot,” she shouted after him.
Actually, she felt like an idiot herself. For liking a guy who despised her background. For freaking out when all he did was touch her face. For wanting him and pushing him away at the same time.
Tori closed her eyes and tried to block the memories of that night at the convention center. She found she couldn’t. Her first time with Dieter was etched in her memory, and it would taint everything that came after.
When the night sky changed and turned into a sunlit, Floridian sky with a blood-red sunset, she slid off the bench and started down the hill to walk off her stress in the forest. She wouldn’t let Anna’s gift go to waste.
7.
When Tori got to Airlock Seven the next morning, Jari was already waiting there.
“Don’t you feel like we’re just going on a field trip?” she said, holding up her lunchbox. She’d really brought one. “Except for the cryo-suits, of course.”
Jari laughed. “Best field trip yet,” he said. “The furthest I ever got as a Helsinki Uni student was the moon. And it’s kind of a bummer when you realize the surface is literally covered in footsteps made by former astronauts. Nothing ever gets erased there.”
Tori smiled. “Wasn’t it weird to see all those old United States flags up there?”
“Well, the biggest one fluttering in the non-breeze now is the Great German flag,” Jari replied, sounding a bit sullen.
Tori nodded curtly. She knew Finland and Germany hadn’t exactly been on friendly terms before the wars. Nor had Croatia and Germany, for that matter. Having lived on Mars for most of her life, she often forgot about the tension in former Europe, now called Great Germany. On Mars, there was just Germany – at least on the northern hemisphere. The south was occupied by the Brits. As for the other super powers, the Russians and Japanese were on Jupiter’s largest moons, and Mexico, America and Canada had formed the Desidan Alliance so they could work together in mining smaller moons in the solar system. All other nationalities were pretty much scattered on space stations, still on Earth or eradicated.
When they heard footsteps in the hallway, they both turned around. Tori’s mouth fell open when she saw it was the man who’d addressed her last night before she’d fled into the Hydroponics Experience. The journalist.
“Good morning to you both,” he said with a friendly smile. “Mr. LaFleur invited me along so I could record your journey and write about it in the Desida Telegraph.” He turned to Tori. “Sorry I caught you at a bad time yesterday. I wanted to do a short interview with you, because you’re the first woman to set foot on Enceladus.”
“Oh!” Tori shot him a guilty smile. Apparently, she’d completely misjudged the situation. “Yeah. No worries. We can talk on the way there.”
It didn’t take long for Mr. LaFleur and Alen Novak to show up at the airlock, the latter of the two carrying the suits they needed.
Alen didn’t look her in the eyes when he wordlessly handed her a cryo-suit, and Tori took it without comment. If he intended to give her the silent treatment for calling him out on his bullshit, she could do the same.
Once inside, LaFleur and Alen went to the control room to give detailed instructions to the pilot flying the spacecraft. Tori’s boss had downloaded the maps Mr. Yoruka had provided them with onto the ship’s computer, but they couldn’t fly by maps alone.
“Should we put these on right now?” Jari asked Alen when he returned after a few minutes. He held up his cryo-suit.
Alen shook his head. “No need yet. Unless you think it’s too chilly inside the ship, of course.”
Jari chuckled. “No, I’m fine, Sir. Just let me know when.”
Tori was sitting at a separate table talking to Ernst, the reporter. From the corner of her eye, she saw Alen watching the two of them, giving her a dark look that could easily pass for the criminal-Croatian version of an eye roll. Of course, he thought she was full of it, being the only person on board doing a press conference of some kind. Another reason for him to hate her wealthy guts.
And yet, he had seemed genuinely interested in her last night.
When Ernst packed up his recorder equipment and left to have a chat with the pilot, Alen approached her table.
“Hi,” she mumbled, shifting uncomfortably in her seat when he sat down across from her.
“Hey.” He put down his tab on the table, clicking a few icons to open safety protocol sheets. “I’d like to walk you through these before we land.”
“Uhm… don’t you need Jari to hear this, too?” she asked.
Alen looked up, his blue eyes boring into hers. “You want me to call him over?”
“Well, wouldn’t that be most convenient for you?”
He sighed, his shoulders drooping almost imperceptibly. “I guess. Hold on, I’ll get him.” Alen got up and went over to Jari, who was studying one of the control panels on the other side of the room.
Tori bit her lip. What just happened? Was he disappointed that she didn’t want to talk to him alone? But that was ridiculous. This whole situation was. She had to get a grip. He was here to assist LaFleur with security measures, and if she didn’t pay attention and allowed her frayed nerves to run away with her, she’d be the first woman to die on Enceladus.
Her mind kept wandering when Alen showed her and Jari how to safely put on the cryo-suits and switch on the oxygen supply, what the warning lights on the panel installed on their left sleeves meant, and how to use the safety line if a surface explosion made them fly away too far. It was very low gravity, after all.
“Last but not least: any samples you take back into the ship should be sealed away in vacuum-containers before boarding, and should not be opened under any circumstance,” Alen finished. “Any questions?”
Jari raised his hand. “How do you know this much about alien environments? You almost sound smarter t
han Mr. LaFleur.”
Alen laughed. “An education without any distractions helps a lot,” he replied.
“No frat boy then, huh?” Jari smiled hesitantly.
Not unless you could call prison a fraternity, Tori thought to herself. She absently listened to Jari and Alen chatting about chemistry, quarantines and exobiology, suddenly pissed off at Alen for talking so amiably to her fellow intern, while every second word he uttered to her seemed to be an insult or a sarcastic remark.
“Approaching Enceladus,” the pilot announced on the intercom. “Please get ready for a rough landing.”
Alen looked up, a frown crossing his face. “Hold on,” he said, gesturing for Tori and Jari to stay put. He stalked off in the direction of the cockpit. Tori shot Jari a questioning look when they heard agitated voices over the intercom, which was still on.
“You’re not seriously suggesting we land now,” Alen's voice sounded.
“And why not?” LaFleur threw back. “This is the perfect opportunity to collect samples from the subterranean sea.”
“Yeah, or to be blown off the surface by violent vapor plumes.”
“The landing would be extremely difficult,” the pilot chimed in.
An icy silence followed. “Well, can’t you just take some samples from the atmosphere directly above the eruptions?” Ernst suggested at last.
“Those samples would be polluted or damaged,” LaFleur dismissed his idea. “The only way this mission will succeed is if we get down to the surface.”
“The only way this mission will succeed is if we make it out of here alive,” Alen shot back, his voice trembling with anger.
“Let’s join them,” Jari mumbled, getting up from his seat. “I want to see what it looks like down there.”
When they both entered the cockpit, Tori understood what all the fuss was about. It seemed an ice storm had hit Enceladus – ice crystals were scrambling the radar, visibility was close to zero.
