There was another aurora that night, pure green, and it lasted for a long time. He and Iris sat in the mouth of the tent with their lantern turned off until the last ripples faded from the sky. When they finally crawled back into their sleeping bags, his mind was ablaze. The look of wonder on Iris’s face had been almost as incredible as the aurora itself. As he drifted off to sleep, he forgot about how far they’d ridden and how far they had to go. He thought only of the sound of Iris’s breath next to him, the moan of the wind, the tingling cold in his toes and fingers, and the sharp, unfamiliar sensation of being alive, aware, content.
THERE WAS ANOTHER full day of travel, one more night out on the tundra, and then, on the morning of the fourth day, they came to the edge of the mountains. The terrain had grown progressively rugged around them, Paleozoic rock erupting from the snow cover in dark, jagged shards, and by mid-morning it was difficult to find a path for the snowmobile to traverse. On the other side of the mountain range, Lake Hazen would be stretched out beneath the craggy peaks. Having never made the journey before, Augustine was surprised and dismayed by the terrain. Was there a mountain pass? An easier route he had missed? The way forward was treacherous, but they forged on, the sharp studs biting into the snow and ice as they made their way up the mountain. They made cautious progress on the snowmobile for hours, and when they found a straightaway, the ground evening out into a gentle slope, Augie let out a sigh of relief and allowed the machine to gather momentum, whipping past the scenery as if they were back on the smooth, empty tundra. The skis sliced through powder, sending up a crest of white in front of them, like the froth of a wave. Both the relief and the momentum were short-lived. When the terrain grew rough once more, Augustine couldn’t see beyond the snow in the air. It wasn’t long before a hidden boulder caught them by surprise and threw both passengers from the saddle of the snowmobile. As he hurtled through the air, over the handlebars, Augustine wondered if his body could take the landing, wondered if they should have turned back, wondered if he would ever get up again. The impact knocked the wind out of him, but as he waited to recover his breath he moved all his limbs one by one and was relieved to find nothing amiss. Turning his head, he saw that Iris was nearby, already on her feet and inspecting the snow angel she’d made where she fell. As he sat up and took stock of his surroundings, he realized that the snowmobile was totaled. The machine was on its side and one of the skis had shattered. He got to his feet slowly and went to see if anything could be done, but the engine only croaked when he tipped the snowmobile over and tried to start it again. There will be no return trip. Where had Augie heard that before? He struggled to remember. Gathering what gear they could carry and leaving the rest, Iris and Augie continued on, stumbling over exposed rock and sheer ice with heavy loads and sore limbs.
They hiked for hours. The terrain steepened once more, and by the time they reached one of the lower peaks of the range, they were exhausted and the day was ending. But there, at the top, they caught their first view of the lake below them—an enormous sheet of ice. Beneath a setting sun, they could see the weather station down below, at the foot of the mountain, just a few huts and a tall antenna array, but an encouraging sight nonetheless. Their new home—no turning back now. They camped for the last time, and in the morning they began their descent. Hours later, when they finally stumbled across the plateau to the camp, the light was just beginning to fade.
The camp wasn’t much. A low half-cylinder-shaped tent of green canvas next to two larger white tents of a similar shape, each with a little stovepipe chimney, nestled by the lake on a flat, snow-covered terrace. To the right of the huts rose a garden of tall, slender antennae and a little radio shelter. The shores of the lake were still snowbound, but the rocky earth was beginning to poke through. In the middle of the lake was a small island, and even from where he stood, Augie could see a few Arctic hares leaping high into the air, staring back inquisitively over the frozen lake. The ice creaked and chimed like frozen bells scraping against each other. It was a new and welcoming sound to replace the ravaging howl of wind sweeping across the tundra. The frozen gusts they had lived with for so long were absent at the weather station. As Augustine surveyed the tiny camp beside the vast lake, a warm, gentle breeze ruffled his frozen beard. Spring was on its way. The thaw had begun.
TEN
THE AIRLOCK OPENED. Sully watched as the mechanical door swung back to reveal the gaping hole of space just outside, bottomless and empty. Devi climbed out first, and Sully followed. She took a moment to breathe and observe her surroundings as she clung to the rim of the airlock chamber, then stepped out into the void. Aether seemed enormous from the outside, but so much of it was storage tanks, radiation shields, solar panels, the propulsion system—components the crew never saw from within. She turned her gaze to the whirling centrifuge, so small next to the rest of the ship. It was amazing that all six of them had lived there for so long, jammed together in the midst of all this space. She propelled herself past the greenhouse and life support areas, past the research pods, to the front of the rounded cupola, where she waved her massive white glove at the four faces pressed against the glass.
“Good so far,” she said into her helmet comm.
She turned to see Devi a few yards away, looking not at Aether but out into the depths of space. Sully turned to look too, and suddenly the ship didn’t seem large at all. It seemed microscopic. She heard Harper in her ear, asking Devi if she was good to go.
“Copy, good to go,” Devi repeated.
Devi and Sully slowly made their way toward where the base of the comm. dish had been connected to the hull of Aether, at the aft of the ship, in front of the propulsion system and behind the storage tanks. The remote modification tool, a long, flexible arm, was at the other end of the ship, where it could work on extravehicular problems that arose in the living and working quarters, but the arm was not long enough to reach the site where the dish had been. Devi and Sully moved slowly, crawling over the enormous hull like climbers on the face of a mountain, fastened to the ship by their tethers, lengths of steel cable floating behind them like the silvery thread of a spider. From the command deck, the rest of the crew was following along via the EVA cameras mounted in their helmets. Harper kept them on course, occasionally making suggestions about their route when they hesitated, but mostly staying silent, letting them move at their own pace.
Sully appreciated Harper more than ever in that moment, when all that separated her from the void was a thin cable. The last commander she’d served under, on her last space mission, had directed her nonstop as she worked, issuing orders as if she were his avatar in a videogame instead of an expert in her own right. That was when she was living on the International Space Station, her first time up, a dozen years ago, just after she’d graduated from the AsCan program. It was a ten-month research mission. She was green, not stupid, but she kept her mouth shut. At that point she had already heard the rumors that the Aether selection committee was beginning their search, and rumor was that anyone going up during the search was basically auditioning. She wanted a spot on their list so badly it hurt.
That first trip into space had convinced her that she would do anything in her power to get a place on Aether. The planning had been under way for years by then, and the craft itself was already being assembled in space, orbiting the planet while they built the components on Earth. At the right time of day she could see Aether from the ISS, the sun glinting off its hull, shining in the distance like a man-made star. When Aether eventually returned from its long voyage, to Jupiter and back, it would dock with the ISS and become a permanent addition. There wasn’t an astronaut in the program who wouldn’t have traded their soul for a place on its maiden voyage—a place in history, right next to Yuri Gagarin and Neil Armstrong. No one knew for sure when the team would be selected or even when the mission would launch, but veterans and newcomers alike had been buzzing about the possibility for years by the time Sully graduated from candidate to astronaut.