Tundra 37 (8 page)

Turning her on her back, he found vacant input holes drilled into the bones of her spine. Goose bumps prickled his skin as he ran a fingertip over the cold metal ring, wider than three of his fingers clumped together. What fit in it? He scrambled, pulling up tubes from the rubble.

Feeling way out of his domain, Brentwood inserted anything that looked like it would fit into the hole. Reattaching the Seers didn’t fall into his job description, not one bit. If it had, he wouldn’t have taken it. Just holding her in his arms made his skin crawl.

A tube spouting gurgling pink liquid stuck out from a pile of broken ceiling panels. He reached over and pulled it toward her, his fingers slipping on the slick substance. The edge of the tube fit perfectly into the ring in her spine. Brent paused, doubting himself. What if he killed her?

She already looked dead.

Pulling his cringing shoulders straight, he stuck the tube in and pushed until the end clicked. The plastic filled with fluid and the Seer’s body jerked in small movements, as if pulses of electricity restarted her heart.

He turned her around and looked into her withering face, trying to remember her name.

Mesto? Mesty? He’d read about their impoverished beginnings while studying for lieutenant hood. Plucked from the slums of Old Earth at the ripe age of nine, these sisters were granted a second chance at life. As he looked down into her three-hundred-year-old face, she’d had a third and fourth chance as well. And he’d just given her another.

The name flowed back to him. “Mestasis. Mestasis please wake up.”

The eye fluttered. Flaky lips twitched, revealing toothless gums.

“Please come back to us. We need you.”

The lights flickered around him. The main intercom buzzed on.

“Computer, status reports.”

Her voice filled Brentwood with relief.

“Thank the stars! You gave me quite a scare.”

She shivered in his arms and he pulled her closer, feeling her humanity for the first time. She focused on him. Her eye traveled from his face to the rubble behind them.

“Where’s Bysme?”

“What? Who?”

“My twin.”

Brentwood jerked. He’d forgotten about the other one.

“I’ll find her.” He placed Mestasis gently on her back and threw himself into the wreckage.

Did the ship need both twins? He hoped not. A chrome panel as large as a desk lay on the floor, propped up by something underneath. Bracing himself for the worst sight imaginable, he hoisted the panel and threw it against the wall.

“What the?”

A globe the size of a bowling ball shimmered back at him. Intricate metal weave work surrounded it, the thread-sized strands thrusting into the floor. Cosmic dust swirled in golden spirals inside the globe, the colors changing from lavender to vermilion, then deep crimson. His ears rang as he stared at the conglomerations, each pattern beseeching him to lean closer. A brief vision of a meadow flashed before him along with a heady scent of animal hides. His hand reached out to touch it.

“Lieutenant.” Mestasis’s voice yanked him away from the globe. “Leave the orb and tend to my sister. She’s still hanging from the ceiling.”

He gazed up to see the old machine-woman slouched over, her chin resting on her chest. Confusion shot through him. Why had he put his own cravings first?

Shaking his head, he searched for anything to stand on to reach her. A ladder would have been ideal, but the Seers had no use for such things. He pulled on a cable dangling from the ceiling. The anchor felt solid, so he climbed hand over hand.

“Bysme.” He called to her as he dangled just before her ashen face. “Bysme, do you hear me?”

Her skeletal remains hung motionless.

“She’s not responding. Mestasis, what should I do?”

Her voice resonated directly in his head.
Use the respirator.

An oxygen mask hung beside Abysme. Holding onto his perch with one hand, he attached the plastic to her mouth. Her chest rose and fell with the airflow.

He tried again, “Bysme?”

Two blind eyes popped open and stared at him, sensing his presence. He almost lost his grip on the cable. “Jeez.” He’d had enough close encounters for today.

Her voice resonated on the intercom, even though her lips sucked at the breathing apparatus. “Location of the beacon?”

“What?” Brentwood had never heard of a beacon.

“The beacon is not your concern, Lieutenant.”

It must be if one of the Seers placed it above a falling apart ship with crashing systems. A current of anger rose inside him. Brentwood hefted Mestasis and hung her back on the ceiling where she could see the viewing panel with her one good eye. “Everything on board this ship is of my concern.”

Mestasis spoke as if she assured a child. “The beacon is not on this ship and doesn’t concern you. I’ve regained much of the systems control. Please, leave us to sort out the situation on the ship. We’ll brief you shortly.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He lowered himself down and jumped to the deck, eager to get to the ship’s core. “Are you sure you don’t want any of this cleaned up?”

“All in due time, Lieutenant. You must see to your other duties.”

“All right.”

The Seers fell silent, and he wondered if they conferred amongst themselves in mindspeak he couldn’t hear. Brentwood stepped over the debris and exited, sealing the portal behind him. The encounter made him uneasy, and he couldn’t tell if it stemmed from the fragility of the Seers, their cryptic communications, or the strange globe they’d kept hidden underneath their noses. The object looked like something from one of his Old Earth fantasy novels, and he knew the strange globe filled with golden swirls wasn’t originally part of the ship. Even now the misty swirls called to him like a song yearning to be vocalized.

§

Gemme rushed up the emergency stairs to Deck Sixteen. The smoke thickened the higher she climbed. She choked, tasting ash on her tongue. Hopefully the ventilators would kick in soon.

Sixty-seven

Sixty-eight

Sixty-nine

She couldn’t remember how many times she’d counted to a hundred; anything to keep her mind off of all the horrible imaginings of what could have happened to her parents and Ferris. Deck sixteen’s red numbers shone through the smoke and she slapped the panel, catching her breath as she waited for the particles to dematerialize.

The corridor lay empty as a tomb. She ran six portals down to her family cell on the right, taking steps she’d walked a thousand times in her childhood. Buzzing the intercom, she stared at the blank screen and prayed.
Please be safe.

Ferris’s face flashed back at her in surprise. “G! There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you.”

Relief shook her body to the core. “Ferris, I’m so glad you’re alive.”

“I walked all the way to your cell, but you weren’t there.”

“I was helping a man bring his wife to the emergency bay.”

“Always helping others before yourself, aren’t you?” The screen went blank as Ferris initiated the portal sequence to let her in.

The wall separating them dissolved and Gemme fell into her brother’s arms, squeezing him. He towered over her, an entire foot taller. But he still looked up to her in all other ways. “How bad is it down there?”

“Hundreds of wounded overrun the emergency bay. The man’s wife had to wait in line for care.”

“That bad, huh?”

She nodded. Scanning the room behind him panic jolted through her. “Where’s Mom and Dad?”

“You know them. Workaholics like you. Dad’s with a team stabilizing the fusion core and Mom’s checking on her office. She’s compiling a report of the life support systems.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m staying right here where Lieutenant Brentwood instructed. No use running around when there’s nowhere to go but outside on the ice.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you’re not in your office. That’s the next place I was going to look.”

“It’s gone, Ferris. Everything’s gone.”

His hazel eyes crinkled. “What do you mean
gone
?”

“The deck’s not there anymore. My entire office is drifting in deep space.”

“No way.”

Gemme nodded and collapsed onto the synthetic sofa. The cold plastic rumpled underneath her as she sunk down. Although she sat in the same seat she’d cuddled in since a toddler, she had never felt more lost.

“You mean there’s no way to pair us up anymore?” Ferris shook his head, wiry hair falling in his eyes. “I have no idea how to feel about this.” He swiped his hair back. “It blows my mind.”

Gemme knew what
she
felt: fear. Their world of predestination had been shattered, allowing the chaotic universe to stream in. Live feed to pandemonium, here we go.

Ferris scratched his head. “Wait a second. You’re telling me we have to find our own lifemates?”

“I don’t what’s going to happen, but I would assume with no program, odds are slim the Seers would work on building another one with so many other problems to fix.”

“Woot!” He punched the air with his fist. “I was so worried you’d set me up with Marla Simmons or Reilly Foster.”

Gemme covered her face with her hands and groaned. Why was she the only one lamenting the loss of the pairing program?

Because the computer matched you to Miles Brentwood.
She gritted her teeth, shirking the thought.
No, because I excelled at my job.

The sofa crunched beside her, and Ferris put an arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry, G. I’m such a blockhead. I wasn’t thinking about the loss of your lifetime’s work. What are you going to do now?”

“I’ve already been reassigned. Exploratory team Alpha Blue.”

“You’re going out there?” Ferris pointed to the frosty sight panel. He sounded like the Seers had given her a death sentence. “But you hardly come out of your office. You don’t even want to visit Dad in the fusion core.”

Gemme pursed her lips. Ferris’s points hit home. Some adventurer she’d make, and Brentwood would be the supervising officer to watch her fail. Tears brimmed in her eyes and she blinked them back. She was supposed to be the older sister, the one who had everything figured out.

“Aw, I didn’t mean that, G. You’ll be a great explorer. You watch; I bet you’ll save us all.”

Gemme sighed, gazing at the ice slabs sprawling in all directions from the sight panel. “If I’m going to save us all, then we’re doomed.”

Brentwood slipped into a white protective suit, zipping the front up to his chin. He pulled the hood over his face, his breath steaming on the plastic visor. The synthetic fabric felt too thin to protect him, but thick enough to suffocate him. Repressing his nerves, he moved in between the portals separating the fusion core from the rest of the ship. Warnings beeped at him. A recorded voice spoke on the intercom.

Caution:
Must wear protective gear at all times beyond this portal.

He suppressed the urge to hold his breath as the second to last portal closed behind him and the chamber sealed before initiating the final portal sequence. His logical mind told him it would do no good. Besides, he knew his breath capacity limits from his races on swim team. Although he’d always come in the top three, he couldn’t hold his breath long enough to find the supervisor, walk back to the portals, and wait until the defensive sequence of portal panels played out.

Men and women in protective gear scattered on the circular walkway. Some recorded readings on the coolants and pressure gauges while others dragged hoses and wires over their shoulders. A high railing separated him from thirty-foot drop where a gigantic gray cylinder towered up like some poisonous mushroom in a fairytale. The sight always spooked him, like the
Expedition
held a ticking bomb in its belly.

Brentwood grabbed a man’s arm, not wanting to spend any more time than necessary down in the dungeon as the other Lifers called it. “Who’s in charge?”

“The chief engineer’s over there.” He pointed to a man holding a miniscreen, punching in numbers with his clumsy gloved hand.

“Thank you.”

Brentwood pushed his way through and tapped on the man’s shoulder. “Sir, Lieutenant Brentwood.”

Usually he flashed his lapel pin, but any identification lay underneath the plastic. The engineer would have to take his word for it. “Can I have a moment to speak with you?”

“Certainly.” Misty, blue-gray eyes flashed up in the man’s visor, triggering a nudge of recognition. The man gestured toward the portal. “Let’s talk without all this gear in between us.”

Brentwood followed him to the portal locks and waited until the man pulled off his hood and breathed in before pulling the plastic off his own face.

“You’re the Chief Engineer?”

“That’s right.” He extended his gloved hand. “Joe Reiner, sir.”

The name jolted him. He shouldn’t be asking during a crisis, but curiosity won. “Wait, you’re related to Gemme Reiner?”

Joe paused and his voice softened. “You know my daughter?”

Brentwood stumbled on his words, feeling boyishly shy. “N-not really. Not very well. I found her during the crash. The emergency portals had trapped her on the upper decks.”

“Thank goodness she’s all right.” He braced himself against the chrome wall.

Brentwood wanted to reach out and steady the man, but he thought his gesture would be too personal. “Last I saw her, she was safe in the containment area.”

Joe regained his composure, giving him a look of utter gratitude. “Thank you for looking out for her.”

“I was just doing my job, sir. The Seers had me scanning the upper decks looking for stragglers.”

Joe shook his head, looking away. “That’s Gemme for you, always at work, even at the end of the world.”

Brentwood smiled, warmth radiating inside him. Gemme’s devotion impressed him. So many workers grew disillusioned with the
Expedition’s
practices, and she performed her job until the very end, just like him. “You should be proud of her.”

Joe’s face crinkled around his eyes as he smiled. “I am.”