Michael Siemsen - Exigency

With only her bare heels teetering on the glassy ledge, her hand slipped off the side of the ice wall, and her other hand caught her weight on the slick skimmer arm, woozy body tilting out over the sheer face, eye staring down at an increasingly real, petrifying abyss.

Why, John?

She pushed herself back, stumbled from ice to granite, and allowed her legs to give. Sitting, she hugged her knees to her chest and rocked. He’d written it to inspire her on, figuring the promise of returning to Earth wouldn’t be enough to keep her going on her own for a full year and a half. He’d made that up, too—that much was now clear. A good liar drilled in the detail; a great liar inspired with grace. He surely rationalized the heartless tale. The ends justified the means. Get her to the coast. Alarmed after days of no-shows, she’d fall back to the boat plan, get herself seaworthy, head to Threck Country. Even after finding the rally point empty, she’d still hold out hope. Head to the city, make first contact, discover the truth—the lie—but then she wouldn’t be alone anymore, would she? It was her absolute best chance of survival, so reasoned a desperate, dying John.

How could she hate him for that? It wasn’t a heartless scheme; it came straight from his heart. Knowing full well she’d despise him for it, he’d ranked her survival over his memory. And she hated him for it. And she loved him for it.

She missed being robotic. Emotions were exhausting.

A resigned breath, a flicked-away tear, she groaned as she stood. Her feet slapped up the rise, tent door thwacked aside, and she stepped in, stooping to find the chucked sphere. It was nestled at the foot of her survival bag.

Once more ensconced in warmth, she delved back into John’s fone to see what he’d left for “Anyone else.” Predictably, the link simply opened an extensive file catalogue. With an indifferent scroll, Minnie recognized familiar data from Ish’s fone intermingling with much of Minnie’s own work.

She closed the catalogue and considered the “Minerva” link, her mental image of the pic returning to her consciousness. What additional harm could the real image inflict? She selected the link.

The message hadn’t changed, of course, still glowing on the PCU, still transparent in its aims. It was strange, the omission of Angela. What was the thinking behind that? An insinuation of tragedy to lend credence to the rest of the message? And why Angela? Why was she the sacrificial lamb? Had he actually measured each crewmember’s “worth” or maybe his perception of their relationship with Minnie, settling on Angela to instill a specific measure of loss, dinging the too-perfect, potentially doubtable perfection of zero losses? Ugh , it seemed almost too manipulative for John. In his haste, he’d probably just missed her name. A simple flub.

She closed the pic and found a big scratchnote floating behind it, tacked in the air.

Oh crap, not more…

Hi Minerva, I guess my busted body proved less capable than my deluded mind. I blame the drugs (a bunch of drugs). Maybe a tinge of swollen ego. So don’t get all down on yourself as if this is your fault. I’ve been trying to skedaddle from this crapfest for a while, just didn’t want you losing the will to go on. Figured you’d need something to keep you motivated after I said farewell. Guilty confession: there’s no return module coming. Completely fabricated. I’m awfully sorry for lying to you about that. If Earth were to send anything (which I doubt), it’d be after our silence was noticed a few years from now, and then it’d show up 20+ years later. Don’t hold your breath there. Colonization-ready planets have always had priority. That aside, as you saw from the pic there, my dumb lies were unnecessary. You’ve got an epic hug waiting for you on the coast. A hug I wish I could’ve felt one last time. Please, as awkweird as it is, could you give her one for me? And tellher it’s from me? And tell her I never stopped loving her? She knows, and I know she knows, and coming from you it’ll be embarrassing, but it’s my dying wish so you have no choice. Ha ha. My only fear is that you don’t get this message. Please get this message. Pull through whatever you’re going through out there. Keep putting that vaunted SP rating of yours to work. Go lead the team. Build a colony for the long term, with no illusions about help coming. I love you, too.

PS: Don’t bother searching for those files you were worried about. I just deleted all vids. Wink.

Once more, Minnie sank into a drowning pool.

Aether was alive. Aether was looking for her, waiting for her. The revelation ripped through Minnie’s head. Panic slipped in behind it. Aether was alive, and too far, and a million different things could take her away again.

She wanted to pack up and leave right that second. Brave the weather, push the skimmer to its limits, flout the dwindling power meter.

Unable to be still, she exited the tent and paced circles around the cavern. She cried with desperation, with elation, with pessimistic what-ifs. She cried for John, for Angela—what had happened to Angela? And then she tightened her fists.

“Get a grip!” she barked.

Now was a time for practicality, for logic, for planning, organization, sharp focus. Assume Aether would stay and wait in place, or conduct a search before turning back. No less than three days. Assume Aether would be out of harm’s way. What were the fewest, safest steps to reuniting? Because nothing after that mattered, and only good could follow.

In the icy canyon below, one of the riverbears paused, sniffing the frosty ground bordering a plant’s trunk.

Minnie tracked their movements from high above.

Whatcha lookin’ for, cuties?

Nothing of interest there, evidently. Both animals moved on to the next.

Long ago, Threck explorers visited this expansive coastline, encountering creatures somewhat less unnerving than those they’d discovered in the South. They tagged these creatures with the highly creative title, stoopock (snow animal). A lone Hynka clan residing in the northwestern-most village had encountered these same snow animals—distant cousins of Hynka, in fact—enough times to give them a name: grarlar . The word shared no root or correlating sounds with the local dialect, so it was presumed the beasts had been named for the sounds they made, perhaps while being chased or devoured by their larger relatives. Early in the mission, attempting to catalog hundreds of newfound species each day, Zisa had chosen the rather generic silver riverbear .

Upon arriving here, Minnie had spotted from a distance a riverbear mating pair, believing them to be more damned inescapable effing Hynka. Yet again, the mission’s scrupulous research had been wrong. Why not inaccurate Hynka environmental tolerances, too?

Dear old Mama had ventured a whole 20K north of the Hynka comfort zone. Minnie was now 1800K from Hynka-hospitable latitudes, the distance from New York City to Greenland. There were no Hynka present after all, but it didn’t mean there was nothing to fear. Silver riverbears were a bit larger than an adult grizzly, with each hand boasting two 20cm claws protruding from short nubs, and a long opposable thumb. Unlike the toothy Hynka, riverbears had no teeth in their independent jaw bones. Instead, the mandibles themselves jutted from gums, sharp-edged and powerful, chomping food like a giant nail clipper. In their aesthetic favor: a thick silver-white fur coat and big black circles for eyes. The faces reminded Minnie of a baby seal.

With her white environment shirt, pants, and gloves wrapped tightly over her suit, only the bright orange back of her helmet stood out among this colorless world. Lying prone atop a high glacier ridge, Minnie surveyed the canyon that lay southeast of her isolated new camp. Dense deposits of iron and gold filled the hills beneath the glacier, limiting her ground-level visibility to under 1K.