Kate Day - In the Quick

We kept going. My bunk was also as I left it, and so were the equipment rooms. James’s room was empty, the sheets stripped from the bed and the floor cleared of its papers and mugs. Back in the corridor Rachel and Simon went to check the other side of the station, and Amelia and I walked to the workshop, the last place I had seen James. It was completely clean. Empty of everything. The shattered fuel cell was gone from the floor, the table. The shelves were bare of tools. I scanned every surface, looked in drawers and cabinets and under the table. There was nothing. Not even a single loose screw.

I touched the metal worktable. It was clean and shining; even our fingerprints were wiped clean. The spot where James had stood in the rubble of the destroyed fuel cell was empty. I had thought he was so ugly in that moment, his legs wide, his arms crossed. But now I remembered his expression differently, more hurt than defiant. The trapped look of someone who couldn’t stop himself from doing harm.

There’s one more place to look, I said, and led Amelia to the south corridor, to the door, which was unlocked, and then to the short passageway to Theresa’s room. The power was on here—light shined through the plastic that covered the door.

This room wasn’t cleaned and stripped like the others. In the cabinet between the two portholes were Theresa’s books. Her hairbrush still stood on the table beside the bed, her slippers on the floor nearby.

Amelia walked to the cabinet. This is Theresa’s room, she said.

Yes.

I saw her, only once. She was so small. I couldn’t believe how small—

She died, I said, and Amelia nodded.

I moved closer to the bed. The sheets were rumpled and twisted, as if someone had slept in them only a day or two ago, and there was a head-shaped indentation in the pillow. I leaned in. A few dark hairs lay curled on the pillowcase; I put my hand in the middle of the shallow hollow and imagined I felt the warmth of James’s head there.

Simon and Rachel were at the airlock leading to the cargo bay. The other side of the station’s got power, Simon said. But there’s no one there.

We headed through the dark corridors to the access hatch and back to the rover. Then I stopped. Silt tapped at my helmet. I know where he is, I said, and my boots sank into pits and hollows as I made my way to the north side of the station. I slid around, held on to the exterior walls, kept going. The wind picked up and it pulled at my suit, buffeted my helmet. Amelia, Simon, and Rachel followed close behind. I rounded the cargo bay and the hangar containing Endurance came into view, bright against the pink sky.

I got closer and my heart beat thickly in my throat. The hangar’s bay doors were open and Endurance stood inside. Massive and shining, lit from within.

The ground was softer here; the silt reached my knees and I had to pick my feet up high. All around were the shapes of silt-covered junk. One looked like a boat. Another like a steep staircase, and I remembered the night I ran away from James, the shapes I’d seen in the silt. I’d thought I was alone out there in the ridges of pink in my broken-down rover. But I hadn’t been. Not really. James had been with me all along. Other people were pale shapes compared to him. He was hot, and they were cold. He was sweet and sharp; everyone else was like sand.

I reached the entrance to the hangar. A mobile habitation unit stood at the explorer’s port side and I moved toward its airlock. My breath was loud inside my helmet as I grabbed the latch, turned it, stepped inside. Amelia and Simon were behind me, but I closed the lock, hit the button to pressurize it. Numbers slowly counted down on a monitor attached to the wall. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1—

I took off my helmet and gloves, pushed the interior lock open. I went through the habitation unit and into the explorer. Inside, the dimensions were familiar because they were the same as Inquiry ’s, but here the walls were stripped down to almost nothing. Shiny cabinets yawned open and empty; wires hung loose from the ceiling and bits of insulation lay strewn on the floor like gray snow. A burnt plastic smell hung in the air.

At the very end of the cabin a figure was bent over an open panel. James. I said his name and he turned. A bandage crisscrossed his face and covered one eye.

June, he said, and his hoarse voice made my stomach turn over.

I set my helmet and gloves on the floor, moved closer. He was thinner and his patchy beard longer. A mottled red burn marked his right hand.

What happened? I asked.

Got electrocuted.

Can you see?

Out of one eye.

It was hard to look at him. His face was as sharp as it had been, but the hollow of his injured eye was deeply bruised and spidery blood vessels crawled down his cheek. I bent down on one knee, bulky in my suit, and reached to hover my hand over the soft bandage on his eye, but he turned his face away.

I sat back on my heels. I have to tell you something, I said.

His shoulders bent. I know. She’s dead.

The ventilation system clicked on and humming air blew against my cheeks. The smell of burnt plastic dissipated. I looked around more thoroughly. A few feet away the control panel appeared to be reconfigured and newly wired, and below it some of the stripped fuselage had been replaced with new panels.

One of the newly installed panels was open, revealing a single fuel cell stack. Our cell, as it had been before James destroyed it.

You put it back together, I said.

I tried.

The sound of the airlock came from behind me. Amelia, Simon, and Rachel stepped into the cabin and I stood up.

They took off their helmets and gloves. James, Amelia said. Damn. Here you are.

He squinted at them. Both of you, he said grimly. Like some kind of reunion.

Simon shook silt from his suit. Have you told him?

Inquiry contacted NSP, I said to James. They’re alive.

His face paled.

Are you all right? Rachel asked, and she put her hand to her own eye.

I’m fine, James said with effort.

Is the cell ready? Simon asked him. Can it be done?

The vents turned over and hummed louder. I don’t know, James said.

Simon gestured at the stripped panels and loose wires and his voice rose. If you didn’t think it could be done, what are you doing out here?

Simon— Amelia said.

I’ve spent six years trying to figure out what went wrong, James said. What have you been doing?

It was always you and Theresa and Peter, Simon said. Your ideas. You didn’t want to listen to anyone else—

I tried to stop that mission, James said. Remember?

I did too, Simon said.

You didn’t try hard enough, James said. That’s the point.

Simon ran a hand over his buzzed head. I thought Anu could handle it.

Amelia said, I did too—

You were both right, I interrupted. The fuel cells failed, but Anu kept her crew alive.

The vents switched off and we were all quiet for a minute.

The only thing that matters is whether the cell is ready, Amelia said finally. Whether it will keep us alive.

James’s face was unreadable, so I spoke for both of us. It will be.

James and I stood across from each other at the table in the mobile habitation unit. Or, I stood and he leaned. His dark curls fell across his face, and the bandage crisscrossing his eye glowed bright white under the lights. A completed cell stack, removed from the Endurance explorer, lay on the table between us, its metal casing flat and shining.

You decided on a closed system, I said.

You weren’t here to argue the other way.

I felt a surge of irritation and let it pass. Okay.