Jeff Carlson - The Frozen Sky

“Most of us are on stims and no-shock,” Ash said. “I’m okay for more, but I need to get outside. I’m the medic. They need me outside.”

She’s not okay , Vonnie realized. She’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown .

Staving off exhaustion with chemicals caused elevated blood pressure, slight memory loss, and clumsiness. Other side effects were more conspicuous. During Vonnie’s run through the frozen sky, she’d experienced the same obsessive mood Ash was exhibiting now, dealing with her hyper-sensitive state by speaking and acting with careful repetition.

Ash would feel like someone fighting to keep her balance on a high wire. No amount of masochism could atone for her role in the butchery, yet Vonnie knew better than to insist she should rest. Ash would need to ride through the drugs until Koebsch or their med droids shut her down.

Vonnie shifted her legs out of bed. Her left foot was dead from nerve blocks. It felt like a sock full of meat had been attached to her ankle, where the skin was new, raw, and pale. “Where are Pärnits and Collinsworth?” she asked.

“O’Neal, help her,” Ash said.

No one answered Vonnie. O’Neal entered the living quarters and knelt to disconnect her IVs.

In his forties, with the physique of a dedicated gym buff, O’Neal was a fussy introvert with big curly hair. Weeks ago, the clash between his personality and his lush mane had perplexed Vonnie until she decided he was acting out against his own subdued nature. She liked him for it.

“Don’t take off your monitors,” he said, indicating the electrodes on her chest. “Keep your weight off your foot.” He took hold of her waist as she crooked her elbow around the back of his neck. Together, they stood and hobbled toward data/comm.

His silence meant the worst. No miracles had accompanied the retrieval of Module 03.

They’re dead , she thought, recalling her friend’s lean, hawk-nosed face and sly grin. She had just begun to know Rauno Pärnits intimately. He was as educated as Metzler, as devoted, as passionate.

He’d defended the sunfish. Like Collinsworth, Pärnits had reveled in their bizarre language, trading everything in his life for the chance to stand on Europa, listen, learn, and develop roughhewn dialogues with scouts like Tom and Sue. In the end, his own species had been responsible for his death.

Vonnie and O’Neal entered data/comm. Frerotte had the station beside Ash, but he didn’t look up, engrossed in a field of holo imagery. Beside him was Harmeet Johal, one of their gene smiths, a dusky woman in her fifties who fit the same bill as O’Neal. She was composed and considerate.

Johal looked like she was supervising mecha with Frerotte. Vonnie didn’t see Metzler. Where was he? O’Neal brought her to an open station, where she said, “Maps and grid.”

Ash tried to stop her. “Wait.”

“I have to see where we are,” Vonnie said, dropping into her chair as voices filled her display.

“Ben, stop it,” Koebsch said on the radio.

“I won’t! I can’t!”

The two ESA landers sat side by side on the surface with Module 03, which they’d dragged from the pit. Outside, Metzler and Koebsch were on the ice. They wore scout suits joined to the flightcraft by tethers. Vonnie also saw two more landers nearby, a NASA heavy lifter and a FNEE suborbital fighter, and Koebsch had opened a data link with the Chinese camp. Their neighbors had come to their aid for the duration.

Why couldn’t they pretend there was always an emergency? If so, Earth would be at peace. The small, isolated crews of astronauts were proof of humankind’s nobility… but she knew Earth’s populations were neither small nor isolated.

Later, she would mourn. For now, Vonnie scanned their grid with calculating eyes.

The NASA and FNEE craft were parked six kilometers from the pit, where ESA Modules 01 and 02 had been dropped with nine storage containers and one jeep. The two ESA landers were half that distance from the lost camp. Dawson and Gravino were aboard Lander 05. Gravino had the helm. Dawson was in sick bay. His vitals listed a concussion and a broken wrist. Nano repairs were ongoing to maintain a reduction of swelling in his parietal lobe.

Vonnie wasn’t sure how to feel about the fact that he’d been hurt. Should she feel happy?

To make room inside their landers, she supposed Ash and Gravino could have offloaded her and Dawson to the NASA flightcraft, but the ESA took care of its own.

That’s what we’re doing now , she realized.

Outside, Koebsch stood at the crumpled box of Module 03 with a squad of mecha, which had painstakingly removed parts of the module’s floor. Away from the module, Metzler paced alongside a single mecha carrying an emergency plastic bubble.

Under Koebsch’s guidance, the other mecha extended lasers and cutting tools. “Let me concentrate,” Koebsch said as Metzler shouted, “We should have left them down there! We should’ve left them down there like Bauman and Lam!”

Chunks of ice had filled 03 when it was breached. Before the power shut off, some of the ice had melted. Then the liquid resolidified, adhering to the module’s equipment, its furniture, and its inhabitants.

They’re taking out the bodies , Vonnie thought with pride. Koebsch is doing the dirty work himself. It’s his duty.

Why are they yelling ?

She aimed some of the mecha’s sensors to the emergency bubble that Metzler was steering toward her lander.

The bubble held a grotesque shape approximately the same width and depth as the inflatable kids’ pool her parents bought when she was five. She and her brothers had splashed in the shin-deep pool for days, tracking grass and dirt into the water, crowding it with buckets and toys. This shape was a lumpy, frozen disc. Bones and clothing jutted from the black ice.

“Oh God.”

“Turn off your station,” Ash said.

“No,” Vonnie said, opening a new comm link. “Ben? Ben, it’s Von. I’m here.”

Metzler kept shouting at Koebsch. “How am I supposed to fit this thing into the lander? Are you going to thaw him?”

“Ash, I really need you,” Koebsch said.

“I’m on my way, sir,” Ash said. “Von’s awake.”

She felt like she was dreaming.

Pärnits and Collinsworth hadn’t made it to their pressure suits, although having air wouldn’t have mattered. The linguists had been squashed. Their tissues had boiled in near-vacuum, then merged with the native ice.

Strung out on stims, Metzler wouldn’t stop raving. “He looks like a fucking pancake! He’s two meters wide! The blood—! His body—! He doesn’t even look like a person anymore!”

Ash switched off their craft-to-suit data/comm and turned to Vonnie with contrite, downcast eyes. “Take the pilot’s seat,” she said. “I have to go outside.”

“He’s right to be upset,” Vonnie said.

“He’s refusing tranquilizers and he’s scaring Koebsch. He’s scaring all of us.”

“I can help,” Johal said, rising from her seat.

“Let’s go.” Ash sent her virtual controls to Vonnie’s station, where the pilot’s command designation switched to Alexis Vonderach. “Do you see our alerts? Frerotte has an early warning system patched into the AI. We might have thirty minutes before the next aftershock.”

“Roger that,” Vonnie said.

“Get into the air five minutes before it starts. A mid-range hover is fine. We haven’t seen any more ejecta, and the pit hasn’t spread. It’s just a precaution. We’re carrying more people and armor, so 05 will keep a tether on 03.”

“Roger that.”

Ash stood up, then paused to bring her mouth down to Vonnie’s ear. “Skim through our mecha,” she whispered. She and Johal walked into the ready room.