Kate Day - In the Quick

Then he was right in front of me, his face huge behind his visor. His features were wrong. His nose, forehead, eyes. Like they weren’t in the right places. Like they’d migrated around his face.

He took hold of my helmet, pressed it down hard, and locked it into place, and I felt a rush of oxygen from my suit. I took big breaths and the numbness in my face faded. My eyes and nose watered and my throat ached.

I don’t understand. I struggled to form words. My tongue was gritty and raw; it kept sticking to the roof of my mouth.

It won’t kill you to take off your helmet for thirty seconds, or longer even.

His features had reoriented. His nose and eyes were in the right places. He pushed himself to standing and shifted his weight onto his good foot. With effort I stood up too and offered my shoulder for him to lean on.

I think you need me to help you more than the other way around, he said.

I blinked my burning eyes. I’m fine.

We walked to the rover. Slowly, haltingly. It seemed to take us hours. I scrubbed my tongue on the roof of my mouth, over and over, but it didn’t help. Tiny grains of salt rubbed at the corners of my eyes. When we finally got there he pulled himself inside, and I collapsed into the driver’s seat. We waited for the rover to pressurize, then took off our helmets and gloves, and the silt fell from our suits. I scratched at my neck and wrists, rubbed my nose and eyes with the back of my hand.

I feel awful, I croaked. I touched my lips. They weren’t numb anymore. They were on fire.

You’ll be all right.

He handed me a container of water. I unstuck my tongue from the roof of my mouth and drank it fast, splashing water on my raw cheeks. All I could taste was salt no matter how much I drank.

He took off his boot and pulled up his suit to inspect his leg. He tried moving his foot and made a low, uneven sound.

Broken?

Maybe.

It was stuffy inside the rover. I turned on the air, pointed the vents at my burning face.

Why’s it so hot—

Give it a minute. He unzipped the top of his suit and pulled the sleeves off. A mottled scar marked the side of his neck, white at the edges and pink in the middle.

I unzipped my suit too but kept the sleeves on, turned on the navigation, and buckled myself in. James leaned back in his seat. The interior of the rover began to cool and my eyes strayed to the scar on his neck. I wanted to ask how he’d gotten it, but instead I put the rover in gear.

When I hit the gas it jumped backward.

You’re in reverse, he said.

I changed gears and the rover jerked forward and the wheels spun.

Slower.

I tried again and we rolled slowly forward. According to the navigation screen we were headed in the right direction, north. We crested a ridge, crunching over the rocky surface, and the sunlight was bright. The controls were sensitive and I kept oversteering and then having to correct.

You’re not very good at this.

The rover veered right and I gripped the wheel.

What would have happened out there if you’d been alone? I asked.

I would have figured it out.

You were pinned.

Yeah. Maybe I wouldn’t have figured it out. He grimaced and shifted his foot.

We were nose down on a steep hill and the rover started to tilt to the left. I bent my body to the right and he did too, and I felt the solid bulk of his arm against mine. The silt-covered shape of something that might have once been a satellite or a probe rose up and I steered around it.

Can’t do it without you now, he said.

Do what?

Everything probably.

The rover slid down the hill in a slow zigzag, the wheel fighting me the whole way. But I got us to the bottom.

The air did something to me, I said. It was like I was drugged. Why?

He shifted his foot again. I don’t know.

What have you done to find out? I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand. Have you reported it to NSP?

He tapped the window. His hand also had small scars, across his knuckles and in the crease of his thumb. We need to turn right, he said.

Navigation says the Gateway’s straight ahead.

It’s busted. You have to input your location before you get going for it to work.

Why didn’t we take the other rover?

Because it needs new shocks.

I turned sharply.

If you’re not studying the atmosphere, how did you find out about it in the first place?

Same as you. By accident. He pointed. That way.

We passed a clump of broken equipment too covered in dust to know what it was. The sun was high in the sky now.

Your foot will need to be splinted, I said.

He made a noncommittal sound, rubbed a hand over the stubble on his cheeks.

It’s not complicated. I can do it when we get back.

He was quiet for a minute, and then he said, All right.

Once I’m done you can show me what you’re working on.

I already told you there’s nothing to show. He leaned his head back on the seat and closed his eyes.

In the blue-lit medical bay we moved to separate sides of the room and climbed out of our suits, making two piles of pink silt on the floor. In a T-shirt and tights I splashed water over my face at the sink and scrubbed my itching eyes with a wet towel. Across the room James leaned against the wall and slowly extracted his legs from the bottom half of his suit. Then he sat down on a bench and stretched his injured leg straight.

This module must have been a more recent addition to the station because everything was clean and shining. The air was cold and still, and I was conscious of my sweat-dampened clothes, my burning lips. I poured some water into a plastic cup, lifted it to my mouth—it was so cool on my raw tongue—and drank it quickly, my swallows loud in the silent room.

A task light hung above the metal table in the center of the room; I turned it on and opened drawers and gathered what I thought I’d need. Surgical scissors, antiseptic, plaster, bandages.

You’ve got to lie down, I said.

He eyed the table and the circle of light in its center, then rose and hopped across the room. He pulled himself up but stayed seated.

I waited.

He looked at me sideways and slowly lowered himself to his elbows, making the table creak, and then onto his back. He smelled like salt and sweat and coffee. His helmet had pressed dark curls around his temples, and his face was softer with his hair pushed forward. More boyish. More like the kid I remembered from the doorway of my aunt and uncle’s house, a stack of papers in his hands.

He raised his eyebrows.

I’ll get started, I said.

There was the hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.

I moved the task light above his foot as if I’d done this a hundred times.

Under his jumpsuit his leg was lean and covered in dark wiry hairs, except for a small patch below his kneecap where he had a scar, a small half circle of mottled skin. The tight fabric of his right sock was damp and clinging. I worked it over the jut of his ankle bone—his skin was slightly tacky—and around his heel.

When I reached his toes his leg stiffened.

I’ll cut the sock off, I said, and carefully slid the surgical scissors between the fabric and his skin, cutting toward the sock’s toe. I peeled the material away to reveal the bent angle of two of his toes.

Broken toes, I said, and ran my hand along the top of his foot, felt the wiggle of his veins, the splay of the thin bones underneath. Then I took hold of the whole foot and gently squeezed the metatarsal bone, and he made a sound, a cross between a groan and a squeak.

I let go. And a hairline fracture, I said.

I ran the plaster under some water, spread it over the top of his foot and across the two broken toes, and let it set for a minute. Then I wound a stretchy bandage tightly around it, cut off the excess, and secured the end with tape.