We play into the night, long past the time I can keep my eyes open. Every time I set the cards down, Marshall hurriedly deals another hand. This back and forth is broken up by many, many coughing fits. Some of which turn his face blue and send me to my feet. He never lets me help. I can only sit there and watch him suffer.
After the last fit, he’s spent. He doesn’t pick the deck of cards up. “I’m done. Thanks for humoring me.”
“I think we’ll both feel better after some sleep.” I say, and we help each other to the sleeping quarters. We stop at the same door Vallon and I stood by as everyone mutinied around us. It had to be such a long time ago for Marshall. From the way my heart pounds in my chest to think about it, to see those floating bodies again, it feels like I’m right back there. In the moment. Now.
In my head, though, I know that’s not right. I can tell a lot of time has passed. Whether Marshall tells me how much or not, it’s all ancient history to this empty ship.
“Girls are on the other side,” Marshall breathes, leaning against my door.
“Right.” No need for the ruse of being a boy when it’s just the two of us, I suppose. “I’ll help you get settled, first.”
“No!” He answers a bit too quickly. “I’m fine. Just get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
With that, the door opens enough for his thin frame to slip in and closes behind him.
//Feel better?// I chip Howie as I wander around the ship, searching for the girls’ quarters.
//Yeah, the pod keeps trying to put me to sleep, but I keep overriding it. Now that I can sleep, I don’t want to.// Howie chuckles more to himself than to me.
I find a room lined with bunks and throw myself on the nearest one. Boy or girl, I don’t care. Sharp pain rips through my stomach, and I writhe on the bed. //Good, stay up. I need your help this time.//
//What’s wrong?// he transmits back as I crawl to the door that I hope is a bathroom.
//Is it night or day there?// I ask.
//Dusk, I guess. Or dawn. I might have faded out for a bit. It’s a little dark, but I can see.//
//Good. Tell me about it.//
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
But nature sometimes, sometimes thought
And whoso it befall
Is richer than could be revealed
By mortal numeral
- Emily Dickinson
//Right now I see stars. Even in daylight, they were out. Now they're bright. And blue. I don't remember blue stars at home. Do you?//
The pain is too intense to say more than //Uh uh.//
//There are lights in the sky, too. Swirls of pale green and orange. If I watch them long enough, they look like they're dancing. You would love it,Syn.//
//The lights move? That's amazing.// I manage to respond between hurls. The cold tile on my cheek is relaxing. //Can you see the Sun? Or a sun? Wow, you may be in a different galaxy.// The words fly through my mind before I can catch them.
A long moment passes in silence I'm just about to ask if he's still there or apologize when I get a //Gee, thanks.//
//Sorry, thinking out loud.//
//It's fine. I've been thinking the same thing. I tried to watch where the sun rises and sets. Yes there is a sun. At least, I think it is. What's the one where — Red Dwarf — yeah.//
//That's not good, Howie.// I push myself up from the floor. A new intense wave of nausea hits me, but I need to do something. This isn't good at all.
//What?//
//A Red Dwarf is a dying star. You can't stay there.//
//I don't plan on it. But I’d still have millions of years if this sun decided to fritz out on me.// He's getting that ‘you think you're smarter than me’ tone; the one that turns to real anger when I point out it's ‘smarter than I.’
Never can stop myself.
//Wasn't I supposed to be tucking you in or something?// Howie asks. Leave it to him to get all sweet and remind me that he's the one stranded on a planet in Stone knows what galaxy, but still thinking about me.
I smile hard enough for it to broadcast to him; a peace offering. //I'm just worried about you. But yes, I want to see what you see. Get me out of this disgusting bathroom.//
//Um… I'm not gonna ask. Anyway, I think the Homing Beacon is broken on this thing. Wouldn't let me access it. But there is a distress signal. Any surviving pods from my ship should be able to sync with me… if… they're in range.//
On the same planet. That's what he's not saying. If he landed on the right planet, just in the wrong place. I try to shield him from the next image that pops into my head; during the meld, the memory of us hurtling toward the red one, and not the icy blue frozen terrain of Gliese.
//I know.// Howie whispers through our link. //I know, but I can't be the only one. Someone has to be searching for survivors.//
//What about transmitting? Did you try that?//
//I didn't exactly have time to make friends, you know before the whole explosion thing. Besides, I doubt there were others on the ship with chips.//
//You'd be surprised.// I respond, now thinking about my hologram tour through the bowels of human trials. Waking up too early, with only tainted food to eat and a disturbed Marshall for companionship is less than ideal, but one more second of those awful images would be unbearable.
//Too bad you guys removed Bit’s chip. That would have come in handy.//
//If… I decide to rescue you, don't you dare tell him that.//
//Don't.//
//Howie.// I plead, trying to stop the words I know I’m about to hear.
//Don't come after me. No matter what. You go to Brooks.//
Chills… actual chills run down my spine. He makes it sound so… final. To keep myself and my voice from cracking, I chip, //Aren't you supposed to be tucking me in?//
//I don't know. You out of the stinky bathroom yet?//
//Dingy! I said dingy. And yes.// Though, for how long is anyone's guess. I decide not to transmit that last part.
//Great. Where was I? Ah, my beautiful Red Dwarf sunrise. It's morning by the way. I crashed at a nice angle, feet first, so I can see a lot of stuff around me. It all looks pretty normal actually. Like Earth. A red desert. I even have a tree right here. Looks dead. No leaves or anything, but enough shade for the middle of the day probably. There are orange dunes in the distance. I wonder what the soil is like here.//
###
I bolt upright, a song blaring so loud I'm surprised the people in the cryo-pods can sleep through it. My finger's tap out the familiar keys on the side of the toilet.
Toilet?
I must have come back in here sometime during the night. Thank Stone I have no memory of it. Wiping my fingers on the front of my shirt, I realize the music has stopped. At least, it's gone quiet. Only, it's still playing, in my head.
//Howie?//
No answer.
The tune takes over again as I climb up from the floor. A deep steadying breath tells me that the nausea has subsided.
//Thanks.// I chip Howie. Still no answer.
//Howie!//
//What?// He yawns.
//Just checking.//
I stop at the first bunk and pull a change of clothes out of the locker, noticing that the music is gone for real this time. A warm glow tingles my cheeks. I tease, //Aww, you were singing our song in your sleep.//
An obnoxious screaming guitar riff blasts in my head. An even more adorable overcompensation. //No I wasn't.//
I send back a picture of myself grinning from ear-to-ear. Then I hum a few lines on the way to the shower, before cutting the feed.
//Aww, come on.// Howie’s voice is playful, yet tinged with just the right amount of dashed hopes to send fire to my neck and cheeks.
//Sorry, that's at least a third date material right there,// I croon.
//Third date? We melded! That's gotta at least bump me to third base.//
My feet stop working. Neither of us has mentioned the meld before. I panic, not knowing
what to say, or how to breathe.
//OK, second base.// Howie recovers before I do and the breath I've been holding rushes out of me.
With my most insincere tone, I chip, //So glad I don't follow your silly sports analogies.// Then a wall of black slams down between us and I turn on the hot water.
###
Marshall is sitting in the cafeteria when I finally emerge from the living quarters. I still don't know how long I was in cryo, but that felt like my first real shower in ages. Then, it hits me, it probably was. I push the images of filling plastic tubs with murky water from my mind.
There are more depressing matters to deal with. Marshall looks like hell. That night's sleep, if he slept at all from the looks of him, did no good. I notice he's only sipping water.
“Want me to make you something?” I ask.
“No, I think I'll stick with this. Don't know if I can handle another day of slop.”
“I'll fix the pod in a few, get you some I.V. fluids.”
“No, you should really keep that for yourself.” The dark cloud behind his eyes tells me our conversation from last night isn't over.
“Look, I'm not gonna let you sacrifice yourself. We've made it this far, and we'll continue to make it. We have each other.” I grab a bowl of slop and carry it to the table. I don't want to eat this stuff as much as he doesn't, but I force a smile.
“So how did it go last night after I went to bed?” Marshall grins at the bowl sitting before me, the spoon still in its place.
“Everything went fine. I don't know what you're talking about.” I hold his gaze but my stomach grumbles my lies. “Must be my young iron stomach.”
“Yeah,” he chuckles, “must be.” It’s so good to hear his voice again, even if it’s not the one I knew before cryo. But hell, we’re all different people than we were then, aren’t we?
“Seriously, let me take the pod apart. It worked for Howie. I'll have you fixed up in no time.” The last few words catch in my throat as I notice the crumpled napkin in his hand. Fresh red splotches.
“I don't want you wasting your resources on me.”
“You should have woken me up sooner. Or at least taken turns. We could have figured this out a long time ago. Maybe you wouldn't have —” I stop myself.
Marshall glances up at me and sits his glass of water on the table. “Gone crazy?”
I don't respond.
“I had a very long time to think about what I did with my life. What I did wrong and what I did right. In the end, both of those are because of you. The worst thing I ever did was keep you off of that ship and away from your brother. But the best thing I did in all my life was take the brunt of this horrible situation so you, and none of my other men, had to.”
“Well stop being a hero. We're both awake now and there's no sense in you suffering. Especially when I have to watch it.”
“How's your friend?” He changes the subject.
I decide to humor him. I can take the pod apart later. “He's fine. He landed on a red planet.” Marshall's eyes shoot up at me. “Yeah, I know. But he's trying to signal a ship. Or at least another pod. If he crashed there maybe someone else did too.”
“Is he just staying in the pod? That can't be comfortable.”
My back screams and agreement. “He's in there now. But I think he's just resting up to regain his strength… and courage.”
When Marshall opens his mouth to respond, a violent coughing fit overcomes him. Seconds swell to minutes; his face turning red, then purple. Every breath is a battle he loses. Wet strangled rasps follow long moments of silent choking. Blood and spittle run down his cheek.
I move behind him to pound on his back the way we had to do for Brooks on so many bad nights, but he holds up a hand to stop me.
Three more minutes crawl by on my chip’s stopwatch app. An eerie sense of de ja vu hits me. It’s the same one I downloaded when Evelyn was born. I’m right back there now, frozen in inaction, terror. I was so sure they’d both die that day. Little did I know how close to being right I was. Now, here I am again, trembling and useless.
I stand there, watching the clock, as Marshall chases a breath that refuses to be caught. Minute number four rolls over and I search my archives for how long a person can survive without oxygen.
Marshall raises his head and our eyes meet; mine watering, his bulging. Still he keeps me at arm’s length.
I smack his hand away. “That’s it.” Grabbing him under the arms, I drag him out of the cafeteria. At first, he’s so weak he doesn’t struggle. Then he sees where we’re going.
“No!” Marshall manages to eek out one cry. His hand smacks against the STASIS placard on the wall. It slides down like a squeaky tennis shoe as I yank him through the doorway. He can’t muster another breath to argue, but his eyes plead with me.
I drop him on the floor in front of my pod and pant, my own breaths ragged. He tugs at my pant leg but I kick him away and type his code into the panel. Red lights flicker on and my holographic friend asks which crew Marshall is with. Hesitating, I pick Oceanic instead of Military in the hopes that he’ll be able relax and watch the icy blue landscapes float by. Last thing we need is for him to spend the next seven months watching Unrein get tortured.
“Please help me get you in there.” I point to the pod which stands waist-high, both of us knowing I’d never get him up there.
He doesn’t budge.
The veins aren’t pulsating in his forehead and neck anymore, but his color is still far too red for me to reconsider. Though, just as that adamant thought crosses my mind, I falter. Seven months of solitude. How long did it take Marshall to start unraveling? To get so sick he’s resigned himself to death?
With a jerk of my head, I demand that he get in the pod.
Again, he doesn’t move. With a newfound resolve, he begins to crawl out of the room.
“Please don’t make me use this.” The ZapStick taps against my leg. The weapon has been abandoned beside my pod for so long. Marshall’s the only one who knows, and he’s not telling. Neither of us could guess whether it still works.
“You wouldn’t,” Marshall whispers, but doesn’t turn his back on me.
“I’d prefer not to,” I point it at him like a gun, “but I will.”
Slowly, he slinks down lower to the ground and inches his way back to me. As we both lift him into the pod he mutters something under his breath that sounds like ‘waste’ and I pretend I don’t hear it.
His hand is cold in mine but I hold it until the last second as the glass lid slides in place. I can almost smell the lavender that closes his eyes. Through Vallon’s crusted bloody hand print, I watch him drift off.
I stand there, watching him sleep, as the stopwatch ticks away in my head. When it reaches one hour, I still don’t move. As long as I’m here, in this very spot, I’m not utterly alone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
To put another’s life before your own
Is to know love
- Dayne
(My Eternal)
Alone. The walls close in on me. There’s a loud thudding noise that won’t go away. I squeeze my hands to my ears. It only gets worse.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
It’s… me. It’s inside me.
I run down the hallway, past the bodies piled up along the walls. Why aren’t they shriveled? Shouldn’t they be mummies by now?
Now? When is now? I need to know.
Maybe it hasn’t been that long after all? Nonsense, I know better. One hand creeps from my ear, up to my curls. How long does it take to grow hair?
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The sound chases me into the wide-open space of the game room. Our card game from the night before sits, waiting for nobody to play.
Worse. That’s so much worse. Nowhere to hide.
Alone.
Why did I do that? Why did I put him in the pod? Now I’m all alone.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Shadows creep up the metallic walls around me. Every
where I look, there’s a monster lurking.
Three seconds. I don’t know how long it took Marshall to go crazy, but I know it’s taken me all of three seconds.
I can’t do this. I don’t want to be alone.
Alone. Alone. Alone.
//You’re not alone.// It’s almost a song in my ear, quieting the drumbeat of my heart.
“Howie!” I scream it out loud, needing to fill the space that’s crushing me.
Something about speaking, putting voice to my terror… makes it worse. The tremor of the words skips through my head, teasing the part of me that can’t take being alone.
The part that just had to chip Howie every night. Or made Brooks lie in bed with me after our parents were gone. Or spent many nights listening to The Fox, tucked away safely in my room.
He’s gone now. They’re all gone. My stones are gone. The pocket that no longer houses them is heavy with their absence. A black hole of promise, security. Future.
//Synta! You’re not alone. I’m here. I’m always here.// Howie’s transmission is more forceful now. A virtual slap in the face.
I needed that.
Panting, I sit down and mindlessly flip through our discard pile. I look at Marshall’s hand – he would have beaten me – and shuffle it into the rest.
//We don’t know where you are.// I say it as gingerly as possible, but firm. We don’t know where he is. But wherever that may be, it’s far… far away from me.
The medicine packet card ink rubs off on my fingers, but I don’t wipe it away. It’s nice to have this piece of Marshall with me. All the time it must have taken him to create these fifty-two masterpieces. I can’t just wipe it off like nothing.
//I’m not that far. Ever. I’ll always be there with you.// Howie prods again, tugging at the mental link we share. He’s testing its strength. And not being too subtle about it, either.
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