Mats of vegetation covered the low swells of ground. A long gash plowed through it where the ship had come down. The crushed plants gave off a pungent, acrid smell. The plants to my right grew taller, rising to the height of small trees. Where we had landed the plants were knee high. Off to the left they dwindled, hugging the ground. A thin breeze blew from our right, rustling the plants. The sun was a swollen orange ball on the horizon.
“Sunrise or sunset?” I asked.
“Judging by the angle we came in, I’d guess sunset.”
“Then let’s not go very far.”
The boarding ramp refused to extend, jammed by the crash. I dropped the three feet to the ground. The bushes crunched under my feet, snapping with sharp brittle pops. The smell grew stronger.
Clark pulled out his com. “Jasyn?”
The com buzzed with static. He frowned as he twiddled the controls. The static wouldn't clear. He shrugged and tucked it back away.
Gravity was only about half normal. I walked a few steps away from the ship. We were in a shallow hollow of ground. I walked a little farther, until I could see beyond the ship. Clark crunched behind me.
I stopped at the top of the low rise and slowly turned, taking in the whole view. The land fell away in rippled sheets, the plants growing lower and sparser in the distance. To the west, the direction we’d slid when we landed, the plants grew taller and more diverse. The breeze that had been blowing steadily faded as the sun set. A thin purple glow rose beyond the trees. Stars began to show in the dusky sky overhead.
“What do you think that is?” Clark asked, pointing to the west and the glow drifting through the trees.
“I don’t want to look in the dark."
“Scared?”
“Trying to be smart about this. Something isn't right on this planet.” I headed back to the ship. Each breath came harder. The cool air dropped quickly beyond freezing.
“I don’t think I like it either,” Clark said as we reached the ship, his breath coming in thin puffs.
I jumped into the airlock, easy to do under the lower gravity. Clark followed me in.
I still had the creeps even after we’d gone through the airlock and locked it behind us. Jasyn had managed to bring the power back up, at least to normal planetside levels. She was busy in the galley, the smell of cooking made my stomach growl.
“What’s it like out there?” she asked, without turning around.
“Weird,” Clark said.
“Livable, if we need to,” I answered.
“We lost most of the scanning equipment,” she said. “The memory circuits are scrambled. We do have the basic equipment still running, though. The scans didn’t make sense.” She turned around to put a pot on the table.
“What did you pick up?” Clark asked her.
She ignored him, making it very clear that she was still upset with him. She looked at me instead.
“I’ll run the scans myself,” I said. “You finish your fight so we can move on and find a way out of here.” I went into the cockpit and shut the door.
I turned on the scanning equipment and set it for diagnostic runs, hoping that might clear some of the systems. The only functional unit was the basic one that had come with the ship. I set it for a full sweep.
I leaned back in the chair while I waited for the results. In the vids and the books I’d read, marriage was supposed to make you happy. The vids always ended with the hero and the heroine riding off into a blissful sunset. Or something to that effect. In real life, I’d never had any close friends, until Jasyn. I’d never been on a date. I’d watched my roommates in the Academy dress up and go out, but I’d never been asked.
Clark was asking my advice. As if I knew what he should do. Watching them fight tore me apart inside. It hurt to see Jasyn unhappy. It hurt even more to know that Clark was causing it. I liked him, in spite of everything. I wanted them to be happy, like in the vids. They’d both seemed so happy at their wedding. Was marriage only supposed to make you happy for a week or two? Was it supposed to make people miserable? Love was supposed to make everything better. It only seemed to cause pain.
My own life wasn’t much better. Tayvis had told me he loved me. I admitted, at least to myself, that I loved him. He made me feel safe.
The scanner beeped, finished with the first set of parameters. I pulled up the data and scrolled through it. It didn’t match what Jasyn had seen earlier. I found her data, what wasn’t scrambled, and compared the two. The air had grown much thinner since sunset. The temperature had taken a nose dive. I searched through the scans for the terrain map we'd grabbed on our way in.
A huge gash marred the planet, running south to north for over three hundred miles, quite a span considering the planet was on the small side. When I matched that up with the scans for temperature and atmosphere, the areas of higher pressure and temperature matched exactly with the canyon.
I typed in another instruction set for the scanners and set them to work again. My stomach growled, reminding me that I’d left dinner behind. I didn’t hear any sounds from behind the closed door but didn’t want to interrupt Jasyn and Clark. I dug through the emergency bin and found a ration bar. They’re supposed to be nutritious, packing in everything necessary for most species to survive. They tasted like dry cardboard with crunchy bits.
I chewed my way through it while I waited for the new data. My thoughts drifted back to the topic of marriage. Had it been a mistake to let Clark stay on the ship? At the time, I didn’t think so. Jasyn would have left with him if I’d refused. So why were they fighting? I circled back to the idea that marriage was supposed to make you happy.
The door slid open. I glanced back.
Clark leaned in the doorway. He looked upset. “She locked me out of the cabin again. What have you found out?”
“What did you do this time?”
“Nothing.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t understand her. Talk to her for me, Dace.” His eyes pleaded with me.
I shook my head.
“You know her, Dace.”
“Clark, don't ask.”
“Please, Dace. I’ve tried everything I can think of. She won’t talk to me.”
I let my shoulders sag. “You figure out how damaged the engines are. And find out what is going on out there, the scans are really strange.”
“Thanks, Dace,” he said as he took my chair.
I went into the lounge and knocked at Jasyn’s door.
“Go away, Clark,” she said, her voice muffled.
“It’s Dace.”
The door slid open. Jasyn’s eyes were red from crying. “He sent you, didn’t he.”
“Yes.”
She hit the button to close the door.
I jammed my foot in it. “He asked me to come talk to you. Jasyn, please. Let me in.”
“Has he told you how awful I am?” She stepped away from the door, turning her back.
“He told me he didn’t understand you.”
Her cabin hadn’t changed much. I noticed a few things of Clark’s but mostly it was Jasyn’s room. It felt like he was just a visitor.
“He doesn’t understand anything,” she said. “He thinks all he has to do is kiss me and I’ll do whatever he wants. That I’ll forget whatever he did.” She threw herself onto the bunk. “I made a mistake, Dace.”
“I think you’re making one now. You love him, Jasyn. Why do you have to fight with him?”
“You wouldn’t understand.” She draped her arm over her face.
“Because you shut me out. You told me before that I was being stupid about Tayvis, when I told him to go away. You’re the one being stupid now, Jasyn. Clark loves you and he’s here.”
“And that’s supposed to make everything better?” She raised her arm to glare at me.
“I don’t know what’s supposed to make anything better. I hate seeing you unhappy. I hate what you and Clark are doing to each other.”
“He doesn’t listen to me.”
“Have you tried listening to him?”
“Who’s side are you on, Dace?”
“Mine.”
She dropped her arm back over her face. “You don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t. Because you’ve spent the last two weeks throwing tantrums. You won’t talk to me, you won’t talk to Clark. Should I call up Lady Rina and tell her she was right about you marrying outside the Family? She gave me an earful after the wedding. She didn't approve because Clark isn’t Gypsy.” Jasyn was Gypsy, although her family had been disowned when she was small because of something her parents had done. Lady Rina had kept track of her over the years, helping when she could.
Jasyn dropped her arms to her sides.
“She read your cards, after you and Clark left,” I continued. “She said it would be a disaster.” It wasn’t true but it caught Jasyn’s attention.
“She did not.”
“No, she didn’t read the cards. But she did think that you were making a mistake. She said you’d let your heart blind your mind. She didn’t think Clark was good enough. And now you’re saying she was right. You made a terrible mistake marrying him. Shall I throw him out the airlock?”
“She said that?” Jasyn’s face paled. “Do you think I made a mistake?”
“I think you’re making one now, Jasyn. Clark is at least trying.”
“And I’m not?”
“Look at your cabin. It’s still yours. I thought marriage was supposed to be both ways, Jasyn. I don’t know much about it, though, so maybe I’m all wrong. Maybe it’s better to spend your life miserable and lonely.”
“But you’ve got Tayvis, Dace.”
“He isn’t here and he isn't perfect. I’m not either. Neither is Clark. Or you. Is love really worth it, Jasyn? All I can see is pain.”
She sat on her bunk, pulling her feet up and tucking her knees under her chin. “I don’t know anymore, Dace. I used to think it would be wonderful, to be married, to be in love.”
“Is it?”
“It’s scary.” Her eyes were huge and vulnerable. “To trust someone that much. To want someone that much.”
I looked away, turning my back. Her doubts echoed my own.
“Does he love me, Dace?” she asked.
“Ask him, Jasyn.” I opened the door. I didn’t know if I’d helped her any. I’d only made myself more miserable. I walked back out.
Clark waited for me, leaning in the door of the cockpit. I couldn’t look at him. I went into my own cabin and shut the door.
My cabin looked impersonal, as if I were afraid to show anything of myself. There were no personal items on display, no photos on the walls. I didn’t have any. Even the blanket on my bunk had been put there by Jasyn. Nothing in the room spoke of who I was. Was I as bad as Jasyn, locking myself away from others? Because I was afraid of being hurt? Or because I never learned how to reach out?
I moved my pillow and pulled out the picture I kept there. It was a fuzzy snapshot, a print from a surveillance camera. The man in it was indistinct, it could have been almost anyone but I knew it was Tayvis. I’d bribed our lawyer to get it for me. After I thought I’d sent Tayvis away for good. I smoothed out a wrinkle. Was I just as bad, hiding the picture under my pillow?
I dug through a drawer until I found some tape. I put the picture up, above the bunk. And then laughed at myself. Taping pictures to a wall. As if that would help anything. I curled up on the bunk and let myself be miserable until I fell asleep.