They were all in the airlock outside Cargo 2 when I got there, Amelia, Rachel, and Simon. There was a slight bump, and then a scraping suck, and the supply capsule docked.
I held on to a handrail and forced my eyes to stay open.
Rachel eyed me. Maybe you should head to your bunk, she said.
Don’t you need me? My voice was hoarse.
Take thirty minutes.
They’re only giving us three hours to unload. Amelia tapped my cheeks with her two hands. Wake up! You’ll be fine.
The empty hold was huge in comparison to the station’s tight modules and airlocks, and even more dimly lit. It was a different sensation being weightless in such a large space. There was no equipment in here, no wires and tubes waving. Nothing to bump into. Just scraped-up gray walls marked with faint yellow text—indicating loading zones in three different languages, English, Russian, and Japanese—and cargo restraints secured flat.
Simon moved ahead to the exterior door and began checking the seals, and Rachel handed me a pair of gloves.
Amelia swam toward us with two crowbars tucked under her arm.
Damn, Simon said from the other end of the hold. He’d opened the exterior door, but the supply capsule’s hold was so packed you could barely see inside. Runner lights glowed dimly from the deck, but a huge crate, wider than the exterior hold door, blocked our view.
They do this every time, Amelia said. They forget we unload back to front.
Simon prodded the giant crate with a crowbar and it creaked but didn’t budge. Someone’s going to have to crawl through, he said.
The crate was secured to the deck with restraints and there was only a narrow space between its top and the hold door.
June will do it, Amelia said. Won’t you—
Are you sure? Rachel frowned at me.
I’m okay. I swam to the top of the crate and my mind focused and my limbs woke up. I can do it.
Good, Amelia said.
Once you get on the other side, watch your feet, Simon said. Don’t step on any of the restraints.
I pulled on my gloves, hovered for a second, and then began inching through the dark opening.
I felt the heat of my breath in the narrow space as I crawled my hands along the top of the crate. I smelled glue and metal and foam rubber. Eventually my fingers reached an edge and open air. Another crate was secured to the deck just beyond and I tried to judge the width of the gap between them, from my middle finger to my elbow.
You can shift it forward, I called. I looked over the side of the crate. And to the left. There’s enough room to angle it out I think. It’s wider than it is long—
You’ve got to undo the restraint, Amelia called. We can’t get to it—
I was going to have to dive between the two crates. Would I fit?
I’ve got it secured on our end, Simon called. It’s not going anywhere.
I put my arms in front of me, tucked my head, and wriggled into the gap. The sound of my breath and the creak of the boxes surrounded me. I groped for the restraints, the runner lights bright in my eyes. My hand found the cold metal of the release. A single dried bean floated past my face. Then another.
What’s happening? Amelia called.
I loosened the release, and the crate wobbled in the air and bumped against my back.
June, stop moving, Simon called. I heard his crowbar. The crate moved away from me, and then back. All the air seemed to rush out of my lungs as it pinned me flat. I reached to protect my head.
Through a crack I could see Simon struggling. His crowbar crunched between the crate and the hold door. A space opened up by my head and I took a breath. But the crate was only halfway out. It tipped toward my legs and pinned me by my calves.
Simon’s face was pink. Our eyes met. The crate squeezed my legs hard. I got you, he said. He torqued the crowbar sideways and yelled, Now!
The pressure on my legs loosened; I scrambled my body backward through the gap.
Things went more smoothly once we got that first crate out. Amelia had a manifest that said what parts of the shipment needed to be opened and their contents organized by final destination: the moon, Mars, or the Pink Planet; which should be moved as is; and which few were for us, containing food and other supplies to maintain the Sundew itself. Each crate, box, and container was marked with a zone (one through four) and a location (deck, starboard, port, and overhead).
Amelia and Simon and Rachel used crowbars to wrench the crates open. Bolts flew through the air and they didn’t bother to catch them. They had a sort of shorthand that involved yelling Left! Right! Got it! and Hell no! at one another over the tops of crates and boxes. They worked fast and I tried to help despite my aching calves.
Mostly I seemed to get in the way until I figured out I should stay in the hold and direct where they placed the cargo. They were strapping it into any open spot in each zone without being strategic. But doing it that way created awkward configurations that would make it harder when we had to reload the cargo in a few days. So instead of getting in between them as they yanked off the lids of crates and broke down boxes, I floated up and through the middle of the hold to look into the gaps in each stowage zone.
At first when I started calling out directions—Flip that crate! Rotate that container! Turn those bins!—Amelia argued with me. But she quickly saw I was right. We were done faster than anyone expected, with fifteen minutes to spare.