Michael Siemsen - Exigency

A nudge of her leg. A knee to a glute. An arm around the waist. Her helmet breached the surface and she popped the visor open. Water flooded out as cold air sucked in, biting at her chilled face. She reoriented herself. Pablo was below the surface, kicking, holding her up, giving her time to clear her helmet. She leaned forward and let the reservoir below her chin pour out, then slapped the visor shut, confirmed seal, and reached down to tap Pablo’s shoulder. He eased her into the water, waited for her to take on her own weight, and then surfaced himself.

They struggled to keep afloat until Pablo remembered something. He turned to Aether, mouthed “Sorry,” and began pawing around her left breast. A few seconds later, a blast of air whooshed into floatation channels in Aether’s suit. Pablo’s suit swelled taut as well, and the pair looked to the retreating afvrik, Threck crewmembers coiling their limbs around the holds.

Pablo instinctively shouted a muffled “Wait!” then blasted the translation through his PA. “Wait! My thing! The sack!”

The afvrik began submerging, secured bins of gear descending with it, along with a not-so-secured skimmer. A sympathetic crewmember unwrapped from her hold, skittered to the pad, grabbed Pablo’s pack, and flung it into the water. She dashed back to her position through a hailstorm of gripes from Heshper.

Pablo swam toward the orange backpack as it began descending in sync with the afvrik. A meter away, the pack’s last visible strap dipped below. The afvrik dissolved into a pool of white froth, only the tops of bins, Threck heads, and the entire skimmer remained. Pablo speared one hand beneath the surface. The pack reemerged in his gloved hand and he slung it over his shoulders.

Through a fogged visor, Aether watched as all but their skimmer vanished. For a moment it looked as though the vehicle would float there, perfectly fine. Why had she worried? Didn’t she know they’d all been built to float?

Water drilled its way into the skimmer’s every orifice, filling the outer shell, and the heavier front end tilted forward, dunking under. The round white pad bobbed for a few fleeting seconds, then rapidly sank amid a hissing fizz of tiny bubbles.

“W hat good is sleep? I’ve never accomplished anything beneath a sheet.”

Plodding across the barren beach, Onjr, Leeg, and Fitchsher walking ahead, Minnie’s eyes sore from brackish air and sleepless night, she recalled the quote from an odd book Zisa had sent her. Diary of the Sterile and Sleepless , or maybe The Infertile Insomniac Journal . 300 digitized pages of half-depressing, half-psychedelic rambling from a barren woman in Shenzhen, ending with a failed adoption. When she’d finished it—the whole time waiting to reach whatever profound meaning Zisa had wanted her to glean from it—she sent a pic of the last page to Zisa along with “WTH?”

“Wasn’t it just bokeh?!” Zisa had replied.

A) Minnie hated when Zisa tried to casually add into station vernacular the “new” 20-year-old Earth slang she’d just acquired from a supply pod’s catalogue, as if these were normal words that everyone used on a daily basis.

B) How many actually useful things could Minnie have read/done/watched/played instead of reading this crap?

“You know, because you talk about insomnia sometimes, and because we’ll never have babies.”

“You’re an idiot,” Minnie had replied.

What an absolute bitch Minnie had been. What the hell could Aether have possibly seen in her? Her delusion about John and Aether conspiring against her maybe wasn’t so loonish. It seemed like they were all such close friends, her clique—Minnie, Tom, Angela, Pablo, Qin—but was she just the station bully, and they were the ones sure to remain on her good side? Conversations outside her presence… What happened in those? And not just John and Aether. Had she ever snapped at Tom? Qin? Did Qin hate the nickname Chinstrap? Was it racist? Did Minnie’s occasional Ish snubs contribute to Ish’s withdrawal and isolation, essentially pushing her into her fantasy world, placing responsibility for this entire situation squarely on Minnie’s shoulders? It all seemed very, very plausible—nigh conclusive. Aether and John would do anything to ensure crew— community —wellbeing.

Or were these thoughts more chemical demons, the initial signs of her next full-on attack? Were Fitchsher and Onjr, and Leeg even real? An intelligent, friendly Hynka nuclear family of interbreeding Oss Khoss and Khoss Feej —Greaters and Lessers—sharing with her a pleasant artificial campfire in the middle of nowhere? Sure, that all sounded perfectly legit.

She’d felt the familiar trickle of endorphins the night before, communicating with the Hynka. Her glands had recharged. It would be a little early yet, but she was primed for another episode. However, this awareness only served to validate her questionable suspicions. It was too soon for her thoughts to be paranoid or delusional. Her judgment was clearly sharp.

Oh, really? So was it mere lack of sleep that led to Zisa’s book, leading to guilt and insecurity, doom and gloom, John and Aether? Real sharp, babe.

Minnie looked up at the Hynkas’ backs, Onjr with a cautious arm floating near Leeg, ready to help her along if she faltered. Leeg, her lumpy, pregnant pouch hidden beneath a freshly sewn fur cloak.

What would be the fallout of Minnie sharing such technology with them? And did she really care? Tear some thin strips, take a sharp tooth, poke holes in the skins, stitch. Was it like handing a nuke to tribals? Please.

Now she was exchanging other survival skills. Their insistence on continuing north would lead them to certain death, but maybe her lessons would help to delay it a bit.

She glanced up and saw up ahead the cave from her map.

“There, wall, hole,” her PA called out to them.

A few minutes later, Fitchsher said, “ Uh pohtz.” He was pointing to the cave.

Minnie added pohtz:caveto the DB. Overnight, she’d grown the catalogue by more than 200 words.

She pointed to the cave, testing the new word. Fitchsher confirmed she said it correctly and lumbered on. It was fun for Fitchsher. He was very childlike, maybe around three years old, she guessed by his size.

And Onjr, a full meter taller, fingers and thumbs riddled with scars—Minnie got him, too. Just a surly, impatient, protective husband and father without a verbal filter: “Yeah, I’ll say it—she smells like damned food, okay?” And it was true. Not only was her environment shirt specked with dry milk from her delightful nursing session with Mama, but she’d had an unsealed pocket full of bunny jerky. They’d all had the Hynka equivalent of a good laugh about it, later that night.

It was hard to form much of a read on Leeg, other than seeming to be in charge and in pain. She was worried for her baby’s survival, while somehow certain that it would grow into a disloyal, murderous thing. Apparently, she had little faith in her parenting skills, even with such a fine lad as Fitchsher to prove her abilities.

Fixated on Onjr’s attentive hand, Minnie wondered if the Greaters, as a breed, would really go extinct, and if they’d take the Lessers down with them. A village of ostensibly enlightened Hynka like this family could launch a highly advanced civilization. Then again, they exhibited intelligence and behavior unlike any Greaters or Lessers that Ish (or Minnie) had observed. They’d somehow taken a giant step ahead of their species. Onjr had also tried to explain this the night before, but the DB simply didn’t have the vocabulary to extract an intelligible interpretation. He’d mentioned a place name, times (before and after the place), and indicated Fitchsher’s size back then. All Minnie could extrapolate was that Onjr and Leeg remembered thinking one way, went to some “red place,” and then thought another way after. It smelled of religion, but she really had no clue.