Jared knew it was going to be a bad day when he saw that he had been partnered with Yousef.
Admittedly, up until the week before he would have been thrilled to be paired with the older boy; he’d had a crush on him since the second day of the summer internship near Elisium Three’s arctic circle. Unfortunately, that crush had made him barely able to speak to Yousef, and when they’d finally actually talked with each other, it had been a very loud, very public argument about ethics in Terraforming. Yousef felt they were responsible for every animal they released and should do their best to ensure its survival; Jared had argued that a healthy ecosystem required them to step back and let nature take its course.
It might have been an interesting debate if they hadn’t ended up yelling at each other.
Jared tapped his scanner to acknowledge the assignment and checked his gear. It was a typical tracking assignment, this time on a female arctic fox that had wandered out of her expected territory. The implanted chip would make the tracking easy enough, but they were still expected to treat this like a serious mission. A heat unit— in the unlikely event that they were out past sunset, a stunner—even though nothing dangerous to humans was in this sector, food, water, a medical kit, a pocket utility knife, and rope.
Yousef appeared to be going through the same check across the Rec Hall, and he waved cheerfully with no sign of ill feelings. Jared waved back self-consciously and checked his scanner again. The fox was twelve kilometers away; if they’d had any kind of transportation, it would have been trivial to get there. Transportation, unfortunately, was just one of the things missing out here on the Fringe.
“All set?” Yousef asked as he approached.
Jared looked up and swallowed. It was the eyes, he decided, that were so overwhelming—dark brown and huge under black brows.
“Ready,” he managed and gestured to the door. He hit the chronometer function then set the alarm at the halfway point to sunset before striding outside.
The camp was in the middle of zone 12, an oasis of Terraforming currently twenty kilometers across. Coming from the Center, it seemed barren. Instead of farmland, there was a carpet of moss and scraggly grasses. In the two weeks they’d been here, Jared had seen only a handful of birds and as many rodents. The highest predator in the zone was the arctic fox.
“It looks like Lucy has wandered out of the zone a bit,” Yousef commented.
“You shouldn’t—sorry,” Jared stopped himself.
“Shouldn’t name them,” Yousef finished for him. “Numbers are less personal. But if we’re to be stewards of this planet, I think it should be personal.”
Jared shook his head and set out towards the blip on his scanner. “So this isn’t just something to look good on your application to University. This is really what you want to do?”
Yousef matched his pace, smiling. “How many people get to shape a planet? I think I’d be bored by anything smaller, knowing that this was available. All of our grandparents were involved in this, and it’s only through their success that people can do other things now.”
The smile was just as dangerous as the eyes. Jared tried to divide his attention between his scanner and the terrain in front of them. “I’m not sure what I want to do yet,” he confessed. “But I’m beginning to realize that I never appreciated travel by Tube or hot showers.”
The walk went faster than Jared had expected; the cheerful catalog of things they both missed took up most of the two hours it took to get within thermal range of the animal. Jared switched over his scanner, and they both went silent as they looked. The area beyond the zone had patches of moss and grasses mixed with barren rock and sand.
“The chip’s right there, but no thermal.” Jared swore softly. “That’s not good.”
“I’ll go thirty meters to the right, and we can triangulate,” Yousef offered. He walked slowly, measuring his stride, and then turned back and started walking to the signal.
They both paused only a few feet from each other. The remains of the fox were just barely recognizable; some predator had left very little for them to find.
“There aren’t supposed to be any larger predators in this zone,” Jared protested.
Yousef crouched down beside the remains and took a sample, which he fed into his own scanner. “I’ve got this, see if you can find any tracks.”
The hard ground left little enough behind, but a clump of moss showed a disturbing 5 toed paw print. Jared hurried back, his hand on his stunner. “It was a puma,” he announced. “The closest zone with them is supposed to be zone 9. That’s over a hundred kilometers away.”
Yousef shook his head. “A big cat can travel farther than you think and shelter from Night Fall better than humans.”
Jared snorted. “Nights beyond the Fringe would make forty below seem balmy. We should get back in and report this.”
“I’m almost done.” Yousef tapped his scanner a few times and then swore in two languages Jared knew and at least one he didn’t. “She’s been dead about six hours, and she was lactating. There are kits somewhere.”
“Don’t arctic foxes co-parent? Won’t there be a father looking after them?”
Yousef shook his head. “There isn’t a male missing. For whatever reason, she was on her own.”
Jared checked his chronometer and swore. “Then we’d better start searching. We’ve got four hours to the half-way point.”
Yousef raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t expect you to agree to that.”
Jared scowled impartially at the eyebrow, the situation, and himself. “If a puma killed this fox, then by definition this is not a stable ecosystem. If we’re trying to build one, we need the building blocks to do that.”
Yousef’s mouth twitched, but he only nodded. “Spiral pattern?”
They set out in a clockwise spiral from the remains, Jared watching the scanner for thermals while Yousef looked for signs of a burrow that could insulate the signature. It was slow, tedious work, and when the alarm sounded they were only two kilometers out from the dead fox, furthest from camp.
“We need,” Jared began.
Yousef raised his hand. “We’re only twelve kilometers from camp. The most we’re going to get at this rate is fifteen. If we allow three hours to return, that will be plenty.”
Jared grimaced. “That’s not regulations.” He looked at Yousef’s patient expression and sighed. “Fine. I’ll set it for three hours to sunset, and then we’re out of here. No matter what.”
Yousef grinned and slapped him lightly across the back. “No matter what,” he agreed.
There was only half an hour left on the countdown when they found the cave. They’d found several dozen rodent holes and a few scrapes that could have been shallow dens, but this was more than large enough for a fox. Or a puma.
“Stunner in front, scanner in back,” Yousef advised. “Got a preference?”
“I don’t want to try to see around you,” Jared lied. I don’t want to worry about you getting hurt. He pulled out his stunner and started in. He was a few inches shorter than Yousef, but he had to crouch, and eventually to crawl. Yousef held a light with his free hand, and Jared’s own shadow spilled in front of him, fragmenting his sight.
“Thermal in front of you, a little larger than I’d like,” Yousef warned.
Jared took a deep breath and nodded, then moved forward. There was something moving in the darkness ahead, almost writhing, and his grip on the stunner tightened. He froze one long moment and then began to laugh.
“What is it?” Yousef peered around him, and then he laughed reluctantly, too.
A litter of eleven—no, twelve—baby foxes squirmed in the light. “This is going to be challenging,” Jared said, shaking his head.
“I think the record is twenty-five in one litter, so we got off easy,” Yousef offered. “But yes, once you have more than one per hand ….”
The warning alarm went off while they were still arranging baby foxes, and Jared swore but kept fitting them into his jacket. They’d tied the bottoms as tightly as they could, and nestled the kits in, three to a side, six each. Yousef held the light between his teeth to free both hands.
“You take the stunner,” Jared told Yousef. “There’s no way I can get around you.” He pulled out the scanner again, looking for any strays as they headed out. Yousef looked lumpy with the heat signatures of the babies under his coat. Jared opened his mouth to tease him; then his breath caught in his chest.
Shooting around Yousef in the narrow passageway while crawling with six fox kits in his jacket was impossible, but he still transferred the scanner to his left hand and pulled his own stunner. There was a flash of eyes in the darkness, then a growl that climbed to a shriek in front of him, followed by the blue pulse of Yousef’s stunner.
Yousef spat out the light with a curse. “Well, the good news is that it’s unconscious. The bad news is that it weighs a fair bit more than me, and I can’t squeeze by it.”
Jared clenched his hands to keep from looking at his chronometer. “Why don’t you hand back the fox kits, so you can push without worrying about hurting them?”
It was more time wasted, but there was no sense in commenting on it. Jared shoved each of the kits into his own jacket. It felt like wearing a vest of living, scratching flesh, but it distracted him from not being able to help with the puma.
Yousef shoved the animal forward, inch by inch, and Jared kept up a steady stream of cheerful encouragement. “That’s it. All part of the glamorous job of sculpting a planet, now with bonus exercise session.”
Yousef at last was able to scramble past the big cat and Jared hurried after him.
“I can take,” Yousef began.
Jared cut him off. “No time. Start running.” Yousef glanced at the puma, and Jared shook his head. “Don’t even think about it. He’ll wake up in time, or he won’t.”
The sun was lower than he’d hoped, but there was no sense in checking the chronometer now. Jared started running, arms around the jacket to cushion the kits. Yousef ran beside him, and they kept going, racing the light.
The temperature began to fall, the air crisp in Jared’s lungs as he took each breath. Shadows lengthened. They had five kilometers to go just to get back into the zone, where survival was theoretically possible at full dark, then another ten to the safety of camp.
The moss and grasses had formed a complete carpet again by the time the light was too low for running. Yousef switched back on his light, the stunner still in his right hand. “I should have agreed to head back at the half way point. I’m sorry.”
Jared choked a laugh. “And missed all this fun? Don’t be silly. Have you turned your heater on yet?”
Yousef shook his head in the twilight. “It only lasts six hours.”
“If we’re not back to camp in six hours, I think we can safely say that we’re dead. Turn it on.” Frost was forming on the grasses below their feet, and a breath through his nose gave Jared the sensation that all the hair inside had frozen stiffly at attention. He clicked on his own heater and pulled down the mask from the jacket’s hood. “We’re going to need the scanner to home in on the camp.”
Yousef holstered the stunner and pulled out the scanner, adjusting their course minutely. “I’m sorry about last week. About yelling at you.”
“Yeah, well, I yelled back.” The rush from the heater barely kept up with the cold seeping into him. Jared stomped his feet a little as he walked, worked his fingers in his gloves. He couldn’t really feel either any more. “Not to resume the fight or anything, but I think the answer is probably somewhere in between.” He cleared his throat. “So, I was wondering if you’d be interested in giving me some advice. There’s this guy back at camp that I’m interested in, but I’m reluctant to say anything because it could get awkward with us all stuck here for the summer.”
Yousef laughed. “We’re going to spend our trek for our very survival talking about your love life?”
“Well, yeah, I figure it beats talking about our funerals, and it’s only a little scarier.” Jared laughed at himself. Now that he was walking, the kits were settling down, hopefully sleeping. “So, what do you think?”
Yousef walked in silence for a few moments. “Ask him if he wants to get coffee. He’ll likely know where you’re going, but he can say yes or no without making it a big deal. Then you can see where it goes.”
“Ah. Brilliant. I think I’ll do that.” Jared walked on. He was starting to feel warm again, and from everything he knew, that was a bad sign. “What do you plan to name Lucy’s babies?”
Yousef took his arm when he started to stumble, but they continued debating names. After they’d settled on twelve girl names and twelve boy names—since they hadn’t had time to check the kits for gender—Jared fell to his knees mid sentence.
“I’m just going to take a break. It’s nice and warm here.” Yousef whapped him up side the head. “Hey, none of that. The camp is right over that rise, and then you get to ask somebody to have a cup of coffee. No putting that off for a nap.”
Jared squinted up at him. “No?”
“No.” Yousef hauled him back to his feet. “Just over that rise. I promise.”
They trudged together, step by step. They stepped over the rise into the circle of a search light, and Jared sighed.
“You had no clue that the camp was actually here, did you?”
“None whatsoever,” Yousef agreed.
They stumbled forward towards the camp’s perimeter, where anxious researchers and interns converged on them. As they were pulled towards the medical building, Jared looked up and met Yousef’s eyes. “Hey, after the whole frostbite and taking care of the babies part … you want to get a cup of coffee?”
Yousef raised the perilous eyebrow again and smiled the dangerous smile. “Yes.”
C.H. Spalding has been writing short stories since the 1980s or before. Only claim to fame: having dinner with Anne McCaffrey in 1992, then nervously pushing her in a wheelchair around the Atlanta airport to get her to her flight. She wanted to take the escalator at one point. Oh God, the terror.