Kate Day - In the Quick

He moved the flashlight to the pipes above my head.

Tighten the valves? he asked.

I did that already. I think there’s more than one thing going on—

I squinted at the plastic joints above my head and then loosened the nuts that connected them. I need a bucket, I said, and reached out my hand.

I wedged the bucket under the joints and eased off the P trap. Salty water splashed into the bucket and onto my face.

Damn. Water falls downward here.

He laughed. It does.

I dried my face with my T-shirt and peered into the P trap. Do you have extra joints? This pipe is corroded with sediment.

No, but we can scavenge.

We walked together to the north corridor, James slow on his crutches, and passed through a series of modules I hadn’t seen yet. There were more bunks, with four or six beds to a room. And then the corridor unexpectedly opened up and we were in a large, dim room. Rows and rows of blank computer faces looked back at me.

The control room, I said. I switched on the light and nothing happened.

I’ve got the power shut off, he said.

I took out the flashlight I had in my pocket and pointed it into the large, dusty room. I remembered my uncle’s drawing of this module, the new and gleaming equipment, and the excitement in his voice when he talked about it. They were going to run the Explorer program out of this outpost, I said. I swept my flashlight beam over the tops of dark computers, straight-backed chairs, and a wall of screens at the front of the room. Starting with the second mission.

Yes.

The one you were supposed to command.

Right. Come on.

Is it still here?

Endurance ? Yes, it’s still here. He gestured out a porthole. Quarter of a mile that way.

I felt a ripple of excitement. NSP’s second explorer, the exact replica of Inquiry, was steps from where I stood. Can I see it?

The hangar’s sealed up, he said.

Why?

He waved me out of the control room with his crutch. Honestly I think NSP’s forgotten it’s here.

He led me to a large bathroom with rows of sinks and toilet compartments. We can grab what we need from here, he said, and we set to work dismantling the piping from the first sink in the row.

Every morning was the same. Me eating cereal, him leaning in the doorway. He was in the galley when I got there, no matter how early I rose. I would pour myself cereal and we would talk about the work there was to do that day. The maintenance crew had arrived—a group of four men who spoke to one another in Russian and split their time between the satellite station and the Gateway. They took care of the solar fields and power and life support at both locations. But the Gateway had hundreds of systems and rooms upon rooms of equipment. Most of it was unused or off-line but still routinely checked, as if a full crew might arrive at any moment and the Gateway would again become a fully operational research and control station. Keeping up with all those checklists was up to James and me.

We worked long days, twelve, sometimes fourteen hours, almost always together because of James’s injured foot. Then one morning he wasn’t in the galley. I ate my breakfast alone, and aside from the buzz of the yellow overhead light, the only sound was the scrape of my spoon against the bottom of my bowl. It was odd to sit there without his frowning face in the doorway. The airlock was open to the dim corridor outside, to the lumbering expanse of connecting corridors and modules. A labyrinth of dark and empty space.

We had planned to spend the morning checking all the fire alarms and extinguishers. I waited a few minutes longer in the galley and then got a ladder and started the job alone. It was tedious: I set up the ladder, climbed it, tested the first alarm, and then climbed back down. There were over a hundred alarms and at least twenty-five extinguishers (these were installed in the walls of all the bunks and at intervals in the corridors). Each alarm needed to be partially dismantled and cleaned of dust and then manually set off. After each shrill beep I thought James would appear, but he didn’t.

My neck was stiff and my ears rang. I took a break and hauled water tanks. After that I was tired and irritated and walked the corridors in search of him. The maintenance crew were gone for forty-eight hours replacing cables near the satellite station, and there was a lot more to do that day. It was taking too long working alone.

James wasn’t in the galley or laundry or any of the equipment rooms. His bunk was empty and lit only by the blue runner lights. Everything was in shadow, his rumpled unmade bed, a mess of papers and mugs on the floor. The air smelled of sleep and stale coffee and laundry detergent—and something else, something unidentifiable. A sharp and sweet and slightly feral smell.

In the east corridor his suit was hanging on its hook, and through the porthole the rovers were parked in their usual spots in the cargo bay. He was here, somewhere. Maybe he didn’t want to be found. I stopped looking and walked to my room through the dark and narrow south corridor. The air there was close and humid. As I turned a corner a flash of light appeared about thirty feet away, and I called out. But no one answered, and the light disappeared.

I reached a dead end, and in front of me was the cabinet I’d noticed days before. I tried the latch and this time it opened. It wasn’t a cabinet at all, as I’d thought, but a door to another room. Or rather, a short corridor. I stepped inside. A vibrating thrum filled the narrow space. There were three doors, two to the left and one to the right. All the doors were shut.

Behind the first was a dark empty module. The noise was louder at the second. Its latch was hot, and I pulled my sweatshirt over my hand and opened it. The room was so full of whirring equipment I couldn’t step inside. It wasn’t one machine, but rather many machines stacked together. I knew them immediately—they were my uncle’s fuel cells. Rectangular, about the size of a bread box, and enclosed in thick metal casing.

They were stacked back to back and top to bottom, just as I’d seen them in my uncle’s schematics, but there was something wrong with them. They gave off heat like a furnace. They shuddered and groaned. They weren’t supposed to sound like that; they were meant to hum softly. These cells sounded like they were dying.

What are you doing in here? James’s voice came from behind me. He grabbed my wrist. He steered me away from the hot room, out the cabinet door, and into the main corridor.

I shook him off. What’s wrong with those cells? I asked even as the notes from my uncle’s schematics rose up in my mind. Five voices arguing about time and vibration and what they might do to the cells. How the cells might fare over weeks, months, years.

I’ll tell you. His eyes were oddly unfocused, as if he’d just woken up, and his speech was slightly slurred. Later.

When?

He leaned on his good foot. In the morning.

I don’t want to wait until morning.

Just say yes June. He moved closer to me. Okay?

In my bunk my mind worked at what I’d seen. The heat, the noise. I pictured those cells stacked four to a row inside the walls of Inquiry. Connectors snaking to every system on the explorer: its engines, communications systems, life support, grow modules…

I wanted to get up, go back to that room with my tools, and look more thoroughly at the cells. Listen more carefully to their vibrating noise. I wanted to disconnect a stack and take it apart. But I didn’t. I stayed put. I sat on my bed and the minutes ticked by. It was dark now; my arms ached from hauling water tanks that morning and my eyes grew heavy. Finally I laid my head on the pillow and fell into a dream.