The hab is warm and inviting. At least by contrast to the storm now raging outside. It’s still too big and uncomfortably empty for their small party.
But it is reassuringly human and familiar, which is a comfort after where they’ve just been.
As soon as she and Severin are released from decontamination in the airlock and shed their envirosuits, they’re immediately pulled in different directions. After being scolded by Liana—and Kate, to Ophelia’s surprise—for staying out too long in the storm, Severin heads toward the bunk room, and presumably his tablet, to transfer/save/upload or whatever needs to be done with the footage.
Then Kate recruits Ophelia to act as a witness as Suresh, fresh out of a shower with his hair sparkling like flecks of ice are clinging to it, takes official custody of the samples Kate and Liana brought back, adding them to the inventory.
As he lifts each vial and replaces it in the cold storage sample container, Ophelia gets a better look at what they brought back. Mainly jagged bits of rock, shiny like cinders. The largest is about the size of her thumb, but splinters of the same material, sharp and pointed, rattle soundlessly in the bottom of double-sealed polycarbonate tubes as well.
“Six vials,” he says, carefully marking details on a tablet. “Each weighing between one-point-two-seven and five grams, according to the digital readout on the casing, put in place at the time of collection. Samples are irregular in shape. Black in color. Do you confirm?” He looks to Kate and then Ophelia and they both affirm the details.
“It was weird,” Liana says, over Ophelia’s shoulder.
Ophelia turns, raising her eyebrows in question.
“The towers. There’s, like, nothing to them. They aren’t buildings or anything. Just big hunks of that stuff.”
“But they’re smooth,” Kate adds. “No signs of carving or jointures or anything. It’s fucking weird.”
“Thank you, ladies,” Suresh says, snapping the lid back on the sample storage container and setting the lock on it.
While Liana helps him wheel/carry it back across the central hub to the C side module designated as inventory storage, Ophelia turns to Kate. “Have you seen Birch? I just wanted to check on him. See if his head was any better.”
“He’s here. Somewhere.” She looks around the central hub with a frown. “Suresh was yelling at him about taking his toothpaste tablets about fifteen minutes ago.” Kate rolls her eyes.
Ophelia nods. On her way past the galley she collects a protein pack, this one cinnamon soy, for a midday meal, and heads to her “office.” She keeps an eye out for Birch, but without luck. Probably better that way. He needs to come to her on his own, or maybe with a nudge from Severin. Her seeking him out is only going to repel him further.
In the farthest hab on the A side, the noise of the others fades away, except for the occasional loud clang that travels up through the corridor, or possibly through the environmental system. Kate working on something in syscon, Ophelia guesses.
After forcing the cinnamon soy packet down, Ophelia drags a chair over to one of the lab tables and starts pulling the data from the iVR control tablet to set up a regular report, which she’ll be able to use to create a full mission status at the end. Then she switches over to taking notes on her session with Liana, to help keep her memory fresh.
Exhaustion catches up with her quickly, her eyes heavy and gritty as she tries to focus. Still adjusting to planetary conditions, post cold sleep. She props her head up on one fist.
What happened out there, what she and Severin found, it feels so far away, here in the hab. Like it’s not real, just something she read in a novel or saw in a dream. Dead, mostly mummified nonhumans stacked up like cordwood is just not—
Bang.
Her eyes snap open abruptly against the heaviness of sleep, heart racing in her chest. The loud sound still echoes in her head, like a vibration hanging in the air. What was that? It sounded like the heavy crack of metal against metal.
Like a power wrench crashing into a space station wall just above someone’s head.
She sits up, arm tingling from cut-off circulation, her back aching from her slumped-over position. How long has she been asleep?
Cocking her head to one side, Ophelia listens, straining her ears. But there’s nothing now, just the sense of disruption. Hypnopompic hallucination, probably. Carson syndrome, formerly known as the horrifically named exploding head syndrome. Common with sleep deprivation and high-anxiety situations.
“Hey,” a voice says behind her.
Ophelia jolts and spins in her chair, hand clasped to her chest in surprise.
“Liana,” she says. “Did you hear that?”
Liana eyes her with confusion. “You mean me saying hi?”
“No, the bang before that,” Ophelia says, already feeling foolish. “It just…” She shakes her head. “Never mind. What’s up?”
“It’s a team tradition to eat last meal together at the end of our first day,” Liana says, then pauses. “Actually, we end up eating together most nights. Except for Kate. And sometimes Birch. They need their alone time.” She pauses again. “Not together alone time,” she adds quickly, her face flushing. “Anyway, I just thought you might want to join us.”
“That’s very nice of you,” Ophelia begins. “But I don’t know if that would be a good—”
“You’re part of the team,” Liana says, folding her arms across her chest stubbornly. “You should be there. Besides, it’s fun and it’ll help to get you know everyone better.”
She’s trying to help. The realization sends a flash of warmth through Ophelia.
Probably a thank-you, if Ophelia has to guess, for not letting Severin go alone today. It’s a lovely gesture, though Ophelia is not quite sure the others will see it in the same light.
“All right,” Ophelia says, standing up. Stiff muscles in her legs complain at the sudden change. Slogging through the snow and ice did a number on her today. She should be in better shape, though it’s not as if she’s planning on any more outdoor expeditions until they’re heading for the lander to leave this place.
When she and Liana arrive in the central hub, most everyone else, excluding Birch, is already around the table. No one seems concerned about Birch’s absence this time, though, so Ophelia assumes this is due to the aforementioned need for “alone time.”
The relaxed chatter rises and falls gently, like water lapping at a shore, between Kate, Severin, and somewhat Suresh, who is also drumming an aimless pattern on the table. Meal-paks wait in front of them, along with a hot water dispenser.
Liana skips ahead, scooping a meal-pak from the open crate on the floor near the table, and settles into an empty plastic chair next to Suresh. She elbows him hard in the process, knocking him even further out of rhythm. Kate is on the other side of Suresh, the longer portion of her hair tied back, revealing a smudge of grease on her neck.
The three of them are on one side, Severin alone on the other, with two empty chairs to his left.
Great.
But to Ophelia’s surprise, before she even has time to hesitate, he gives her a nod of acknowledgment and kicks out the chair next to him in welcome, all without breaking his conversation with Kate.
Ophelia feels, for one ridiculous moment, like she’s back at Marchand-Brighton and being invited to sit with Anberlyn and her friends at the basketball game.
She grabs a meal-pak from the crate and takes the offered seat, hoping the heat in her cheeks isn’t visible. She’s supposed to be an adult. An objective, professional adult, for fuck’s sake.
After dispensing a steaming blast of water into her meal-pak, Kate pushes the insulated container toward Severin, even as she drops her now heated pak on the table and blows on her fingers.
“Trust me, you want it hot,” Kate says, seeing Ophelia’s skeptical expression.
Suresh opens his mouth, a glint in his eye.
“Stop,” Severin says as he fixes his own meal-pak. “Just don’t.”
“Fine.” Suresh slumps back in his chair.
When it’s her turn, Ophelia fills her meal-pak with the hot water, though with maybe not quite as much as Kate and Severin, and she leaves it to cool slightly on the table. She picked chicken tetrazzini, which appears to have the consistency of paste. She expects the flavor to be much the same.
“That’s a mistake. Burns off more of your taste buds this way,” Kate says in a muddled voice as she sucks in air to cool off her first mouthful. Once she manages to swallow—painfully, it looks like to Ophelia—she turns her attention to Severin. “If we’ve got time tomorrow, I want to head back to the lander for replacement parts.”
As the two of them talk shop, Ophelia lets her focus drift, words flowing around her in a comfortable haze. Until something Liana says catches her attention.
“—get to play with Marvin, Mabel, and Denise tomorrow,” Liana says.
“Who?” Ophelia asks.
Suresh groans. “They’re just autodrillers, Li. Not pets.”
“You named the autodrillers?” Ophelia asks. Autodrillers are for ice core samples, she knows that much. Naming conventions around autodrillers, not so much.
“Of course,” Liana says, surprised.
Severin breaks off his conversation with Kate to speak to Ophelia. “They had names to begin with,” he tells her dryly.
Ophelia glances back to Liana for confirmation.
“M-426x doesn’t suit Mabel’s personality,” Liana says with a shrug.
“You can tell the difference between their personalities?” Ophelia asks, amused. Anthropomorphism is such a human thing to do. People name their cars, their ships, their tablets, and apparently their autodrillers.
“Oh yeah.” Liana nods emphatically. “Especially Denise.” She makes a disgusted noise.
Ophelia can’t resist looking over at Severin for his response. He rolls his eyes, fond amusement playing around his mouth, dimples appearing in stark relief.
It transforms him, utterly. Makes Ophelia’s breath catch, her chest ache with the powerful tug of an emotion she can’t identify at first.
Then it clicks. Longing. That’s what it is.
Ophelia looks away quickly, her breath short and face warm.
Nope, no, we are not doing this. He’s your patient, technically. He’s also the mission commander.
“You should come with us tomorrow,” Liana says to her, completely oblivious to Ophelia’s inner consternation. “I can show you how they—” She stops abruptly, pressing the heel of her hand against her brow above her left eye.
“Are you okay?” Ophelia leans forward, concern pulling her out of her ruminations. “Is your head still hurting?”
“Just off and on today.” Liana summons a smile that wavers at the edges. “Gone by tomorrow, I’m sure.”
Ophelia frowns. “If it gets any worse—”
“It won’t,” Liana says firmly. She lowers her hand, as if determined to make a show of how fine she is. Then her gaze flicks upward.
“Hey, Birch,” Liana calls, speaking past Ophelia. “We saved you a seat.”
Ophelia twists in her chair to see Birch entering the central hub from the C side. He’s striding with speed and purpose. Ophelia assumes it’s hunger—or perhaps annoyance at the location of his seat, next to her—driving him, but he bypasses her side of the table entirely, cutting around the narrow end.
“Where are you—” Liana begins, as he moves past her chair to Suresh’s.
“Hey, what’s up, Bir—” Suresh starts to say, but he doesn’t get a chance to finish.
Birch grabs the back of his chair and yanks him away from the table, then dumps Suresh onto the floor, like someone shaking trash loose from a can. Then Birch drops down next to him, draws his arm back, and begins beating the ever-loving shit out of Suresh.
A stunned silence holds for a second, the sudden violence as unexpected and unwelcome as a knock on the outer airlock door. Then Severin’s chair screeches against the metal floor as he launches himself up and around the table.
Ophelia is frozen for a moment longer, the meaty smack of flesh striking flesh curdling her stomach.
“Jesus Christ! Birch, what are you doing?” Kate demands, yanking ineffectively at Birch’s nonpunching arm.
Something about her voice, the fear and frustration in it, breaks Ophelia free from her temporary paralysis. She shoves back from the table and darts around to the other side to help.
Severin grasps the back of Birch’s jumpsuit and hauls him off of Suresh, locking Birch’s arm behind his back and bending him forward. She and Liana drag Suresh away, putting some distance between Birch and him in case Severin’s hold fails.
Suresh’s face is a bloody mask, with a gash beneath his eye, a split lip, and a rapidly swelling nose. “What the fuck?” he shouts, voice muffled, as he holds his hand to his mouth.
“What did you do?” Birch demands, twisting in Severin’s grip.
“Relax,” Severin says evenly. Only a tightened muscle at his jawline shows the strain of holding Birch in place. “Just relax.”
“What are you talking about, man?” Suresh swipes at the blood trickling down his cheek, smearing it.
Ophelia stands and grabs for one of the recyclable cloths on the table that someone brought from the galley to serve as napkins.
“The samples. One of them is missing,” Birch spits.
A deeper, thicker silence immediately floods the space.
Ophelia pauses, cloth in hand, unsure if she heard correctly. Samples from the towers? That’s what this is about?
For the thousandth time since the start of this experience, she feels she’s missing something important. Unspoken information that would make all of this make sense. It’s like feeling the breeze of a near miss but never learning what danger you just dodged or what to look out for next time.
But Ophelia swallows back the questions rising in her throat. Asking now will only cement her status as an outsider, and experience says that even if they’re angry with each other they’ll close ranks more tightly against her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t touched them since we loaded them into the containment unit hours ago.” Suresh sits up, all indignation, as Liana hovers nearby. “What are you doing, checking on them anyway? That’s my job.”
“There were six. Now there’s only five,” Birch says, ignoring Suresh’s question.
“How did you even get in there?” Suresh demands. Ophelia holds out the cloth, and he snatches it from her to hold it against the cut under his eye. “I changed the passcode for this mission.”
Liana shifts uncomfortably. “It’s probably still your birthday, just backward this time,” she says softly.
Suresh glances up at her, both hurt and startled. “How did you—”
“Because it’s what you always do,” Birch snaps. “Because you’re a vain, self-centered little—”
“Enough, enough!” Severin shouts, his voice booming through the central hub. He glances toward Ophelia, giving her an opening.
The opening, the one she’s been waiting for, she realizes with a convoluted mix of surprise and appreciation.
She straightens her shoulders. “Everyone needs to take a breath so we can get this figured out,” Ophelia says. “Shouting accusations—”
“But I didn’t—” Suresh protests.
“—and denials isn’t going to fix anything,” Ophelia says, leveling a look at him until his mouth snaps closed. “We’re going to take this one step at a time. Everyone will be heard.”
“Or we could just see for ourselves,” Kate says over the rattle of wheels as she emerges from the C side, half pushing, half carrying the mobile sample containment unit. Ophelia hadn’t even realized she’d left the central hub.
Kate brings the unit to a point between Birch and Suresh. Her fingers fly over the prominent keypad on the front, and the lock on the sample containment unit releases with an audible click, giving truth to Liana’s supposition about Suresh’s passcode.
Suresh’s mouth tightens, and he presses the cloth harder against his face, fingertips going white with the pressure.
A wave of frosty air billows over the edge of the containment unit, and Kate peers inside. “One, two, three, four, five…” She pauses, frowning.
“I told you,” Birch hisses at Suresh, who holds his free hand up in a gesture of innocence.
“I didn’t do it!” Suresh argues, then he turns to Ophelia. “I put six of them in there, didn’t I? You saw me—”
“Wait, wait,” Kate says. “Hold on.” She reaches inside and delicately adjusts something. After a moment, she pulls her hand back out, a see-through vial with a sealed top in her fingers.
“It just slipped down in the holder,” she says to Birch. “That’s all, okay?” Her voice is gentler than Ophelia’s ever heard it.
Kate replaces the vial and then edges the unit closer to him, presumably so he can see for himself.
After a moment, the tension slides from his body and Birch gives a defeated nod.
“I told you,” Suresh says, but he’s smart enough to keep his voice to a murmur.
Paranoia. Conflict. Violence.
Ophelia doesn’t like how the pieces are fitting together. What if it’s ERS, oh, if it’s ERS out here, and what if you can’t stop it, what happens if it spreads, what happens if you—
She shoves the panicked chatter in her head back into its box. This is exactly what she’s here for.
“Can I let you go now?” Severin asks Birch, in that same unflappable tone.
Birch jerks his head in a sullen nod from his still bent-over position. “I’m fine.”
“No,” Severin says, as he releases him. “You’re not. Both of you get checked out and patched up.”
It takes Ophelia a moment to realize that he means for her to do it.