Chapter Thirteen

DR. KIMUTAI’S IDEA—the one he’d wanted to tell me before I found the rat pod—was that I should lead him back to the mountain stream. He wanted to analyze the water and determine if it either was or could be made suitable for human consumption. Caspersen’s idea was that I would be Dr. Kim’s bodyguard for as long as it took him to sort out the water issue.

That I could live with, but I hesitated when she added, “And Matt, if you’re up to it, I’d like you to go with them.”

Frat Boy practically jumped at the suggestion. “Absolutely. Count me in.”

“Good. Kim’s got a lot of equipment, and he’s probably going to need some help with it.”

He flashed a smile, and I had the distinct impression Law’s enthusiasm was growing in equal measure to my own dampening. “Yeah, definitely.”

She nodded. “We’ll get some MREs together. Kim, you’ve got your stuff packed?”

“Yes. Since last night.”

“Good. All right, I think you can head out as soon as Johnson’s ready, then. If you’re good with this, that is?”

They watched me with expectant eyes, and I forced a smile. “Hell yeah. Getting tired of bedrest anyway.”

My faux enthusiasm aside, though, I dreaded the assignment—and took the first opportunity, as Law and Kim headed back to the ship, to pull Caspersen aside to hammer out the details. “Hey, you know what I was thinking?”

“What?”

“Maybe we should take Robinson instead of Law.”

“Why?” She frowned at me, which I didn’t fully understand.

But I forged on anyway. “Well…he’s a geologist.”

“He’s already busy. He and Drs. Patel and Evans are working on—”

“Yeah, I know,” I interrupted. They were evaluating the composition of the different mountain layers around us with an enthusiasm that old rock didn’t merit in my mind. “But Evans and Patel can do that by themselves, can’t they? I mean, what if Kim needs Robinson?”

Caspersen crossed her arms and studied me. “What’s this really about, Johnson?”

I frowned back at her. She was too damned perceptive. “About? Nothing. I just thought, you know, maybe he’ll need a geologist.”

“He doesn’t seem to think so.” She shrugged and turned, ostensibly toward the pod that Kayleigh, Wu, and a few others were still studying. But I was not going to be put off by this dismissive gesture.

“Still, don’t you think…wouldn’t Law be better here? With everyone else?”

“Ah.” She turned back and regarded me with annoyance she made no apparent effort to conceal.

“What? All right, yeah, so I don’t want to babysit Frat Boy. Come on, you know what a pain in the ass he is.”

Her frown deepened. “You need someone to help carry things.”

“I can do it.”

“You’ve got to keep your eyes open. We can’t afford to lose Kimutai. Or you, for that matter. I want you concentrating on keeping everyone alive. Not lugging equipment. Matt is suited to the job.”

I snorted. “I doubt he even knows what a job is. Come on, Caspersen, the kid’s a complete jackass.”

“Well then, he’ll be in good company,” she returned dryly. I was about to offer a retort when she continued, “Seriously, Johnson, you do need to back off Law. I know you don’t like him. Fair enough; your feelings are yours. But you’ve got to stop making it so damned obvious to everyone else on the crew.”

My mouth sagged with sheer disbelief. “Back off Law? What are you talking about?” In my own mind, considering the circumstance, I’d gone easy on him.

She raised an eyebrow. “You need to stop making fun of him, and making faces when he talks, and generally making this a hostile situation.”

I blinked. “I don’t,” I protested. Sure, there were the occasional jabs, but could I help it if he walked into those?

Her eyebrow climbed a little higher. “Johnson, come on. You can’t stand him. Everyone knows it, and it’s starting to rub off. You heard Carter last night. And it’s not just him. Evans and Patel, even Granges…they’ve all started copping an attitude. Ever since you woke up, you’ve been on his case; and it’s spreading.”

“Are you kidding me?” I was genuinely astonished. Sure, I didn’t like him. But that was because he shouldn’t have been here. Someone else should have gotten his seat—someone who’d earned the spot, someone who might bring value to the team. Not a spoiled dumbass who could barely string three words together. “You have no idea the stupid shit he says that I let slide.” Then, a new thought struck me. “What, has he been whining? Saying shit about me?”

She shook her head. “Actually, he hasn’t said a word. It’s what I’ve seen, what everyone else is saying.” I scoffed, but she continued, “You don’t think he should be here.”

This was too much. “Well, of course not. Of course he shouldn’t be here. We’re talking about Frat Boy, remember?” Spreading my hands to signify how self-evident this was, I added, “He’s got zero qualifications for the mission, no skills. And he’s not doing much better in the brains department. There’s no way in hell he’d be here if he had to follow the process the rest of us did. There’s no fucking way he should be here, Caspersen.”

“I don’t disagree. But he is.”

“Yeah, exactly. That’s the problem.”

“No. That was the problem before we took off. But that was three thousand years ago. Now? Now, we’re here, and so is he. And, damn it, we’re stuck here. With him. Whether we want to be—or he wants to be.” She shrugged as if she’d made her point.

I wasn’t seeing it. “It doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“No, it doesn’t. I told you; you can feel whatever you need to feel about it. But it does mean you have to suck it up anyway.” If her tone had been less straightforward, less earnest, I might have taken the exhortation differently. Right now, though, the inevitable truth of it lingered between us for a long moment before she went on. “There’s not many of us left. It doesn’t matter if we like each other. What matters is the mission. And that’s our survival. All of our survival. His too.”

Despite my inclination to argue further, I had nothing to say. She was right. Dammit.

She clapped me on the shoulder. “So…no more ‘Frat Boy’?”

“Fine.” Adding to myself, At least, not aloud.

“Good. We’re here for the long haul, Nikkole, and we’re going to have plenty of new shit to deal with. Might as well leave the Earth shit in the past.”

*

DR. KIMUTAI, LAW, and I headed out shortly thereafter. The going was slow. Kayleigh had given us specific guidelines about how much exertion we were allowed before rest was required. Still, the going proved rough on all of us. Kim forbore with quiet dignity, and I soldiered on. Even Law, I noted begrudgingly, made a good show of it. He’d been loaded down with most of the equipment. He was covered in perspiration and breathing in gasps by the time we reached the stream. But he didn’t utter a complaint.

Whatever the trip had cost him, Kim seemed to come to life when we reached the water. And for all of its unpleasant associations, I felt my own measure of relief. I’d been fairly certain I could find my way back, but now I knew.

Dr Kimutai’s reaction was so much more than relief though. He was the first to hear it, rippling away in the distance, and his eyes practically danced when we did see it. “Good, good. This is very good. Where there is running water, there is life.”

It seemed cruel to point out the obvious—that for all its running water, the area remained utterly barren—so I didn’t. But I couldn’t share his enthusiasm either.

While Law and the doctor set up his makeshift lab, I scoped out the area. I couldn’t forget how close the Thing’s cave was, and I didn’t dare lower my guard. I’d killed one family of monsters, but who could say what else lurked in the mountains unseen? I had no intention of being taken by surprise a second time.

As it happened, the day was a lot less eventful than I feared. So uneventful, in fact, that I spent most of the afternoon stifling yawns. For hours, Dr Kim took samples, made tests, and hmmm’ed and hummmm’ed over whatever he was finding. Law made himself as useful as possible.

For hours, I kept an eye on nothing in particular and tried not to think while I did it.

Finally, as the sun started to set, we made our camp. My cave, which had been cramped enough during my single occupancy, now served as our joint shelter. Further adding to the experience was the lingering odor of the Thingling, left during my previous occupation of the space.

My companions didn’t comment, but their grimaces mirrored my own. It’s going to be a long night.

And so it proved. Sleep was long in coming and troubled when it finally arrived. Again, I found myself awake until nearly dawn and not particularly well-rested when I woke.

I might have slept longer, except that Dr. Kim, eager for another day of analyzing water samples, decided to crawl out of the cave for an early start. Crawling out of such cramped quarters meant crawling over the rest of us. And a few knees, elbows, and “I’m sorry and pardon me’s” later, both Law and I were wide awake. So began day two.

We rose to an overcast sky, and the cloud cover only deepened from there. Before midday, we’d moved Dr. Kimutai’s equipment into our shelter. And none too soon, either, as the deluge began almost as soon as we’d packed up.

Our space was now reduced to sitting room only, and we waited for the storm to pass. We didn’t talk much. Kim gloomily lamented the lost daylight hours. Law remained quiet and, it seemed to me, sulky. For my own part, exhaustion competed with aggravation, each feeding off the other. It struck me that this planet seemed to have no concept of rain showers. It knew only periods of dryness or raging storms, with no in-between.

Thunder and shrieking winds kept us awake most of the night, but the storm quieted a few hours before dawn. Despite the lack of sleep, Dr. Kim rose as the sun came up and shifted his equipment back to his outdoor lab. Law dragged himself out to help, and I felt compelled to do the same.

The stream ran high now, and Dr. Kim’s good humor came rushing back like the water. He told us in rapturous tones that he’d collected rainwater during the storm and planned to compare the two.

I was happy for him, but I felt the last three nights of poor sleep catching up to me. Nor did it help that Law had taken it upon himself to play the role of conversationalist that morning.

“Been awhile since I’ve been camping,” he said. “I don’t remember it sucking this much.”

He seemed to be joking, but I only grunted in return. I didn’t really care about his camping experiences, here or on Earth.

“Got to be a bit rough, I guess,” he added after a minute of silence. “Coming back here after the run-in with the Thing and everything.”

“That was up-mountain.”

“Oh. Still, I mean, it’s close, right?”

I grunted again, and he left it alone for a bit. But then he tried again.

“So, is it what you thought?”

“Is what?” Some exasperation seeped into my tone, despite my efforts. I was truly trying to remember Caspersen’s exhortation to be civil, but Law wasn’t making this easy. I’d made it clear I didn’t want to talk, hadn’t I? I didn’t want to be an asshole about it. So why couldn’t he make the same effort, and just—well, fuck off and leave me alone?

“You know. Kepler-186f. Our home sweet home.”

The sarcasm in his tone resonated too well with my own feelings. I don’t think anyone figured on a world where everything, from the water to the air, the wildlife to the sky overhead, worked in concert to attack our physical or psychological well-being. But I didn’t want to dwell on that, and I didn’t want him dwelling on it either.

I said, “It’s got enough oxygen to sustain human life. Water. Decent temperatures. Can’t complain.”

Law nodded. “Yeah.” He sounded about as convinced as I felt. “The odds weren’t really great, so we’re lucky in a way.”

“Yup.”

“Still, I wish the air was better.”

“Yeah.”

Law glanced around. “And the sky didn’t always look so…red.”

I stopped to stare at him. “Well, what the hell did you expect? That this was going to be like moving to a new house? Jetting off on a vacation? Or going on a camping trip? We’re on a new planet, for fuck’s sake. Of course some of it is going to suck.”

He blinked under the reproof. “Yeah, bruh. I know. I’m just saying.”

“Well don’t. We don’t need that kind of thinking. We’re on this planet, and we’re stuck here, for better or worse. And you wanted to be here so badly? Well, you’re here. At least try to keep your shit together and pretend you deserve your spot.” I caught myself before I said more, but I figured I’d said enough already—too much. Caspersen wouldn’t like it. But maybe it needs to be said anyway.

“Wow.” He shook his head. “You don’t have to be a dick all the time, you know.”

“I’m looking out for the morale of our crew,” I told him. “Pissing and moaning isn’t going to change a damned thing.”

“But sulking and acting like your life’s fucking over will? Come off it. You think that’s good for morale? You think seeing you mope around, pretending everything’s okay, is good for morale?”

“What the hell do you know about what’s good for morale?” Whatever twinge of penitence I might have felt at letting into Law in the first place, anger now replaced it. So I added, “Or anything else, for that matter?”

He shook his head again. “Jesus. You are an asshole.” Then, he brushed past me and headed toward the stream. I’d started to turn my back on him when he paused. “And you know what? I didn’t ask to be here. I didn’t want to be here, and I don’t want to be here.

“But I am here. And maybe I don’t know shit. But you know what I do know? I know enough not to bullshit about how perfect everything is when it’s not. There’s some things about this planet that suck and bullshitting myself isn’t going to make them better. We’re alive, and that’s something.”