Chapter Seven

I MADE A note of the position of the sun and began my descent with an eye toward my destination. It was a long way down, over inhospitable, sometimes almost sheer, rock face. Still, it proved less arduous than the trip up had been. I hoped my sense of direction hadn’t failed me because as soon as I started to move, I lost my view.

I managed to reach the second mountain by sundown without getting too turned around. As near as I could tell from my glimpse of the area’s topography, this range consisted of a series of cojoined peaks. These two mountains came together a good two miles above the valley.

I discovered more water shortly after reaching the second mountain, and for that I was very grateful. It had the same tangy taste noted earlier, but I’d started feeling lightheaded from dehydration. Nor did I have any concerns about this water source baking in the sun all day. This wasn’t rainwater that had pooled in some natural basin or crevice but, instead, a spring that flowed from a break in the rock. It trickled down between the mountains into a narrow chasm in the stone, no doubt carved by long years of running.

As with the trees I’d spotted earlier in the day, I found myself a little overcome at the sight of this mountain brook. And not because it resolved my immediate need, though that certainly didn’t hurt. Running water meant accessible water. It meant we’d be able to replenish our supplies without drilling wells, which would allow us time to prioritize other settlement needs.

I drank greedily, and then, having sated my thirst, turned to the formidable task of removing the filth of my adventures from both my skin and clothes. I scrubbed first at my face and hands and then at my uniform.

Had I been wiser, I might have paused to consider my situation. I was still a good distance from home base, and the day had very nearly expired. I couldn’t venture into perilous and unfamiliar terrain in the dark, but neither could I remain in the open. I’d already encountered one manner of predator and had no way of knowing how many others might live here or if more resided in the area. That wasn’t the extent of my folly though. I’d focused so much energy on ablutions that I missed a key point. Nights on Kepler-186f got damned cold damned quick.

Of course, by time I started to think about any of that, it was already too late. I’d wasted more time than I should have and soaked my uniform in the process.

It was too late to undo my mistakes, so I set myself the task of finding shelter. After twenty or so minutes of searching, I located a little nook in the stone some ten or fifteen feet up the side of the mountain. I’d be sleeping on cold stone, but I spotted no signs of prior inhabitation, so I doubted I had to worry about critters returning home in the middle of the night. Not only that, a kind of ledge hung out over the aperture, which would shield me from unfriendly eyes and precipitation.

This turned out to be a stroke of good luck. Night began as clear as the afternoon had been. The air took on an increasingly crisp chill. It didn’t sit well with my soaked clothing. I couldn’t really complain, though, except about my own stupidity. The temperature was no colder than an autumn evening back home and, while not ideal for an impromptu camping trip, remained manageable.

Despite my best efforts, sleep didn’t come. Every rustle of the wind, every faraway noise, thundered in my ears until I knew for a fact I would not sleep. So I passed the time by studying the strange new stars and foreign constellations that gleamed overhead. Perhaps most curious of all were the two visible moons, shimmering in reddish-silver light. They were as beautiful as our Earth’s moon, with their network of dark and light spots. To my naked eye, one looked nearly double the size of the other. Whether this was a product of the relative distance between the two or an accurate reflection of their sizes, I could only guess. But it was mesmerizing to watch them, and I did so for a long time.

Which in turn helped take my mind off my empty and pained stomach. My injudicious imbibing had come back to haunt me, and my guts rumbled and churned and protested all through the night. So I kept on studying the moons and stars, trying to ignore the discomforts of my situation.

And then the clouds rolled in. First, little wisps floated by, dimming the starlight as they passed. Soon, they grew thicker until they obscured even the moons, and all was utterly black.

The rain began, and the wind started to shriek and howl. Thunder boomed in a steady chorus of discontented rumbling, punctuated now and again by a tremendous clashing. Streams of electricity ripped through the skies in the most impressive lightening show I had ever witnessed. The wonder was somewhat diminished by the fact that it seemed all around me and way too close for comfort.

This continued for most of the night until the storm broke shortly before dawn. I hadn’t slept a wink, but I’d made it through no wetter than I began as my cave kept out all but the occasional splatter. I waited until daybreak, and then, wearily, hungrily, and with a stomach still protesting last night’s misguided bounty, headed off.

Some four hours, a few wrong turns, and a lot of luck later, I spotted the wreckage of the Genesis II. Twenty minutes later, I was near enough to make out the crew, busily milling around the ship. They looked not much bigger than ants, as far away from one another as we were, but I could see them, and that was better than I’d done in a day and a half.

The last hour, as I scaled rises and descended drops, was the most difficult psychologically. Being so near and yet so far away felt maddening. Every cramp and bruise and ache that I’d so far suppressed screamed anew at the promise of relief. Nothing was quite as interminable as the end of a long wait.

But terminate it did, and probably far sooner in reality than it seemed to me. Caspersen was the first to notice my approach. She carried a crate of something, and she set it down quickly.

“Son of a bitch. She’s alive. Cohen.” At her signal, he came running into sight and then over to me.

I brushed off his assistance. The muscles of my legs might have felt as if they were running with liquid fire, but I had pride. I’d made it this far; I could make it the last few feet.

There were about ten of them outside, and they all stared at me with something resembling morbid curiosity.

“Captain Johnson?” This was Dr. Ellis.

“Johnson,” I replied. Technically, it was my last name, but I’d spent enough time being referred to by nothing else and had grown used to it.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m starving. But otherwise, yeah.”

“You sure? You look like shit,” Caspersen informed me.

“Smell like it too,” piped up Matt Law.

I frowned. In a ship full of hundreds of presumably lost souls, that this frat boy had somehow managed to survive seemed decidedly unfair. And all the more so as he recoiled, wrinkling his nose.

“I’m good. It’s a long story; I’ll explain later. But I’m starving.”

Caspersen nodded. “All right, go. Law, you go with her.”

I frowned harder. “What?”

“In case you need help.”

“I told you—”

“I know,” she interrupted. “But I’m not taking chances. Anyway, he can show you where everything is.”

I didn’t like it, but I was too hungry to argue further. I headed back to the ship and ducked inside. More than once, I’d all but given up on ever seeing the Genesis and her crew again. But at the time, I registered nothing more than weariness and now irritation at being assigned a babysitter. Much less this particular babysitter. As it was, the long-awaited moment of return came and went without much fanfare.

“So, Kayleigh has been working on the ship,” Law was saying. For some reason, he seemed to be under the misapprehension that I wanted to chat. “She’s been doing something to the vents.” He paused. “Or filters. Anyway, you can breathe in some of the rooms now. You know, breathe regularly.”

Despite myself, this captured my interest. After a day and a half in this low-oxygen atmosphere, that sounded even better than food. “You mean, Dr. Ellis has figured out how to increase the oxygen levels in our rooms?”

“Yeah.” He nodded appreciatively. “She’s really kind of a genius, I think.”

“Of course. Why do you think she’s on board?”

That seemed to shut him up, but only for a minute. “All right, Cap, in here.” We’d reached the far end of the ship, and he gestured to the door.

“What?”

“It’s where we’ve got everything.”

“I know what a supply room is. But what did you call me?”

He stared blankly. “Call you? Nothing.” Then, realization dawned. “Oh…you mean ‘Cap’?”

I clenched my jaw and held his gaze, saying nothing. It did the trick.

“You don’t go by Cap? Okay, what should I call you?”

“Johnson. Better yet, Captain Johnson.”

He struggled visibly to repress a grimace. And failed. “All right, Captain Johnson. Food’s in there. Shall we?” He held the door open and stood aside to let me pass.

If it had been meant to placate me, it had the opposite effect. “Thanks, I can take it from here.”

He waited for me to go through. “Sorry, Cap. I mean, Captain. Tracie told me to make sure you’re okay, so I’m going to stay.”

“Tracie?” I repeated. I had no idea who he was talking about.

“Yeah. You know, the hot Marine?”

It was my turn for belated understanding. He was talking about Caspersen. “Captain Caspersen is a highly decorated war hero,” I replied in the even, menacing tone any good drill sergeant has down to an art.

He shrugged. “Yeah, I buy that. She looks like she could kick some serious ass. She’s pretty hot too.” He’d retrieved a packet by this time and turned to me before I could respond. “Anyway, this is the crap we’ve been eating.”

The packet was preserved food, a type of MRE—Meal, Ready to Eat—that had been designed for our mission.

“Meal” was generous and “ready to eat” deceptive in that it seemed to imply you might actually want to eat it in normal circumstances. In the field, MREs were assigned to deployed military personnel as they preserved well and carried a significant number of calories. And while no one with options would choose them, they were preferable to starvation. By what degree was a matter of intense debate.

The particular MREs we’d brought on the Genesis were a prototype designed to withstand deep space flight and extended periods of time. “Indefinite shelf life” was the description the development team had used.

And did they ever taste it. My entrée, labeled beef stroganoff was an odorless sludge of indeterminate origin, which somehow tasted worse than it looked. If the R & D team had managed to package cat vomit to last an eternity, I don’t think it could have been worse.

Still, my choices were to eat or stand there conversing on an empty stomach with Law. I choked the stroganoff down. Then I tore open the dessert packet. Ostensibly, it contained a brownie bar of some sort, though it looked like a small, solid brown brick. It was the perfect complement to my stroganoff, in the way that hairballs often accompany vomit.

And, even though I hated every bite, I felt half-starved by the time I finished. “Another,” I told Law.

He’d been watching absently as I ate but started when I spoke. “What?”

“I want another packet. But not stroganoff.”

“Another one? You mean, you actually want to eat it after you’ve tasted it?”

“Yes. Exactly.” It really didn’t seem like it should be necessary to spell out what “another” signified in the circumstances. And yet here we are.

“Well…Tracie said we should only have one a day. You know, to conserve rations. They’ve got enough calories…” He trailed off.

I stared at him from under furrowed brows. The overtired, underfed part of me wasn’t in the mood for tact. The more measured part of me cautioned that Law, buffoon that he was, was going to be one of only a few neighbors from here on out. So, no matter how much I resented it, tact would probably still be best.

“Law—that is, Matt.” Civilians, in my experience, tended not to respond well to being addressed by their last name, and I didn’t want to sabotage my effort at being tactful. “Do you know how long I’ve been out there? Do you know what I’ve had to eat?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Since yesterday morning. Mountain climbing, fighting…whatever the hell that thing was. And not a damned thing to eat until just now—not a bite since the fasting period kicked in on Earth. Literally, centuries ago. So, while I agree that in normal circumstances, we should stick to one MRE a day, I think the circumstances call for a little flexibility. Don’t you?” This was proving more difficult than I’d imagined. I’d gone for tactful and wound up patronizing.

Even still, he hesitated.

“Forget it. I’ll get my own.”

“No, no, I’ll get it. You rest.” He was at the meal box before I’d made it onto my weary feet. “Just…you explain it to Tracie, okay?”

“I’m sure Captain Caspersen will not object.”