Kate Day - In the Quick

She’s got at least one shard in her right eye, Rachel said. I think two in the left.

My body tensed as she lowered the tweezers. I squirmed. I had been cold but now I felt sweat on my forehead under Simon’s thumb.

Still, Rachel said. I need you to be still.

She took aim and again I wriggled.

Don’t look at the tweezers, Rachel said. Look at Amelia. Talk to Amelia.

I did what she said. I looked at Amelia’s oval face and long ears. Her cheeks were red and her hair wet at the temples.

Say something Amelia, Rachel said.

What were you doing in that hold? Amelia asked.

Not about that, Rachel said.

You said talk.

Rachel lowered the tweezers and I felt her breath on my cheek and the pressure of Simon’s fingers on my skin. I kept my eyes on Amelia’s face.

Got it. Rachel held something tiny and glinting in the light and then carefully stuck it to a loop of surgical tape on the medical tray. Then she lowered the tweezers again and hummed between her teeth. She held up another shard. Two down, one to go.

She squinted into my right eye. Wider, she said. Simon pulled my eyelid taut and tears wet my cheek.

I watched Amelia.

The tweezers grew large again.

Done, Rachel said.

Simon irrigated my eye and droplets danced around us. He released his fingers. Rachel handed me some gauze and I blinked and dabbed at my cheeks. I coughed. I shut my eyes and felt them all watching.

Damn, I said.

Does it hurt? Simon asked.

I coughed again and opened my eyes halfway. Not really. I feel okay.

Simon unstrapped me from the table and I floated.

So why were you in that hold? he asked.

I saw something. A rat.

Amelia laughed, and Simon did too.

I guess we should be thankful for that rat, Rachel said.

I listed to one side. Outside the porthole was a dark blank. Exhaustion stole over my body and I moved my limbs to try to wake them up. I said I would help investigate the leak but Amelia shook her head and said, Straight to bed.

My eyes were already closing as I floated to the sleeping module. I felt my way into my bunk and hugged my sleeping bag to my chest. My tongue was tender; I ran it over the roof of my mouth once, twice, and then I fell immediately into a doze.

When I woke my crewmates were in their bunks, their eyes closed. Simon was on his back, his eyelashes long and dark, his forehead smooth, and Rachel was turned toward the wall, her sleeping bag tucked around her chin. Amelia floated just above her bunk, her mouth open. Her eyelids trembled and her feet waved gently in the air.

The sound of everyone’s breathing filled up the small space. Up, down, sideways. Simon’s breathing was soft and rhythmic. Rachel’s was a nasal sigh. Amelia’s was a loud inhale followed by an airy exhale. The noises kept me awake but this time I didn’t mind. I listened to them for a long time until eventually sleep came again.

In the morning two packets arrived within hours of each other. Simon was still testing the seal in Cargo 2 so we had to fill every other space. The airlocks, Storage and Systems, even the galley. The interior of the station transformed. We could barely move through the tight spaces, and for two days it felt like we were moles crawling through a narrow burrow. I’d push my way into the opening of a tunnel into darkness only to bump heads with Simon or Amelia or Rachel in the middle, laugh, and have to slowly crawl out feetfirst.

I ate nothing but nut bars and squeezable milk packets for a full forty-eight hours. My arms ached from pushing crates and sacks through the station and pulling them out again. But I didn’t care. My head was clear, my body light. My nausea had dissipated; my eyes were sore but as soon as I was out of my bunk and working it was easy to ignore the discomfort. The tasks I was assigned were challenging, and it felt good to do them well.

Then there was a sudden lull in our schedule—an unexpected twenty-four hours when we had nothing to do. We’d moved the last packet out. We’d cleaned and done systems checks, and Simon had fixed the seal leak in Cargo 2 to his satisfaction. Both holds were empty and ready, and the next packet wasn’t due for a full day.

We could move freely through the station again and the space felt vast. We swam through the modules with our arms out, did somersaults in the air, and whooped. After a while we all drifted in different directions. Amelia and Rachel played a game with a ball and a storage bin only they seemed to fully understand. Simon ran on the treadmill in our tiny gym.

I floated through the station and looked out portholes that had been obstructed by cargo. I hovered outside the largest porthole—in the SM, port side—and watched the Earth’s expanse of ocean and clouds move past like a massive ball rolling in slow motion. My stomach didn’t lurch anymore looking at it. I didn’t feel out of control. It felt less like I was teetering on a precipice and more like I was standing, firm footed and secure, at the edge of an ocean cliff.

That night we all slept for as long as we wanted, and by late morning everyone ended up in the galley hovering around the food compartments. We should eat something real, Rachel said. Eggs maybe. With what? Mushrooms and hot sauce? In a tortilla? She began rummaging through the dry goods compartment.

We hovered while Rachel assembled the food. You couldn’t really call it cooking; it was more like compiling different things from different drawers. But it was good, what she put together. The eggs were crumbly but actually tasted eggy. The hot sauce burned pleasantly on my tongue.

We should eat the apples too, Rachel said when everyone was done. Before they go bad—

Real apples? I asked.

Our lockers came in the last packet, Amelia said. Rachel’s dad sent apples.

Rachel floated out of the galley and came back with her locker, and mine and Simon’s too.

She tossed us each an apple; it was smooth and warm in my hand. I bit into it and it was wet and tart and firm. I ate it quickly, taking one bite after the other without stopping, until all that was left was the thinnest core. Rachel threw another in my direction and I reached in the air and caught it. I ate that one fast too, and so did everyone else, and the small room filled with the crunching of our teeth.

I wiped my mouth. My locker hovered near the ceiling. I’d packed it so long ago. Or, it felt that way. But it had been no more than a week. I tried to remember if I’d put anything in there I could share—

I undid the latch and the lid popped open and items began to float out. A pocket atlas, a container of iced tea mix, my favorite Candidate Group sweatshirt—red with white lettering across its front. Books and papers of my uncle’s I’d been carrying around since I left home. As I pushed the atlas and tea back in, New History of Energy bumped out, and sheets of paper with faded blue schematics dislodged from their folder. They separated and dispersed in the air. I pulled my sweatshirt from underneath the spray of papers and pushed everything else back inside.

But Amelia grabbed one sheet, held it up to the light, and frowned. It was a fuel cell schematic covered in writing—my uncle’s, Simon’s, James’s, Theresa’s, and her own. Reflected light from outside the porthole shined through the paper and made the writing appear darker than it really was.

Why do you have these? Her voice was strange.

I felt silly; I had only a five-kilogram allowance for personal items and I’d used it to carry my uncle’s old things.

I like having something of his with me, I said.

She slid the paper into the box.

I should have brought food or extra tools, I said. I shut the lid and slid the latch closed. Something useful.