Like this?
Yes. But make it more— I made a shape with my hand, and he crossed out the drawing and began again.
He drew and I talked. Then I drew and he talked. We argued, then agreed, then argued again. We went through four or five sheets of paper and the air seemed to tighten around us. Our hands were moving quick, our minds quicker. We had a hold of something, the start of an idea. It pulled taut between us like a thin, invisible cord.
We drew and talked and worked until our voices became hoarse. Until the room turned stuffy with the heat from our bodies and the 3D printers, until metal shavings and bits of stripped wire casings and discarded bolts and screws grew thick on the table.
We didn’t leave the workshop that night. The next day we slept for a few hours, got up, drank coffee, ate cereal, and were back at it again. We let the maintenance crew worry about the solar field and the power and oxygen supplies. Other tasks we delayed or abandoned. Days and nights began to run together. I knew only the hot room, his hands, my hands, the cell in parts, the cell put back together, the cell in parts again. I recalled other things only in outline. Amelia. Simon. The Sundew. Carla and Lion and Nico. My aunt. These memories were devoid of color and texture; they seemed to have no claim on me. Not in comparison with the cell—its shiny casing, its delicate boards and intricate wiring, its impossible connectors. And not in comparison with James.
He was still quiet about a lot of things. He wouldn’t tell me what it was like at the Gateway before I came and wouldn’t talk at all about Theresa. Or my uncle. But we spent so many hours together he became familiar. I knew what his face looked like when he woke up, the dark stubble on his cheek. I knew the rough sound of his voice late at night. He kept things to himself—thoughts about the cell, qualifications, corrections—but I learned how to draw him out. Or ignore him if I could guess what he was worrying about and didn’t think it was important. His anxiety would eventually burst forth in some angry way, but I didn’t mind. Even when he was grumpy or irritated or angry I felt more at ease with him than any other person, including my uncle.
On the eighth day (I think it was the eighth day) we worked through the night, until the sky through the porthole turned the color of a carnation. The workshop smelled like sweat and adhesive and the table was littered with dozens of drawings and a messy jumble of parts from the old and new cells.
We were long past talking in full sentences but used shorthand, interrupting, talking over each other, our words mixed up, not wholly his or mine, but some amalgamation of the two.
Try this, not that.
What about the other—
Yes, the other.
No.
Yes, yes!
Why didn’t I think of that?
You did.
I didn’t.
It wasn’t me.
You said it.
No, that was you.
It doesn’t matter; just hand that cable to me. Let’s finish this tonight—
I reached for the cable and he did too and our fingers touched. We were always grabbing at the same tool as we worked across the table, but this time we both held on. We didn’t look at each other and we didn’t let go. Silt batted against the porthole and a soft ticking came from one of the 3D printers. He let go.
We sat down; he went back to soldering the expanded circuit board and I returned to reconfiguring the O2 connectors. The task wasn’t complicated but I did it poorly and had to start again. I was exhausted. My stomach was empty and raw from too much coffee and too little food. I put my head on the table and rested it in the crook of my arm. From this angle, in the rosy early morning light, the detritus on the table looked like the craggy landscape outside, and I thought of my uncle’s drawings of the Pink Planet and how I used to imagine myself in them, climbing the planet’s ridges in a bright white suit.
James stared at the board in front of him and rubbed his eyes. I can’t see straight, he said. He pulled the stool closer to the table and its loud skidding hurt my ears. He laid his head down too. His face was close and his breath warm. He shifted his elbow close to mine and tapped it lightly and I felt a tight shiver run down my back.
We’re not done, I said. Not even close.
No. Not done. We’ll keep going.
But we’ll sleep first.
Yes. Sleep.
We got up and walked down the corridor together until we reached the central module. To the left was his bunk, to the right mine. I didn’t want to go to my bunk but I moved that way. His eyes were like two pinpricks on my back but he didn’t say anything, didn’t follow me, and when I got to the end of the corridor and turned, he was gone.
My room was freezing. We’d been functioning on low power for several days because of windstorms disrupting the solar grid, but I hadn’t felt the cold until now. There were rings of frost in the portholes; an icicle hung from the faucet in the sink. My teeth chattered and I grabbed an extra blanket, turned off the light, and lay down. My body was heavy in the bed and my feet ached with relief. But when I shut my eyes I saw James, his tousled hair and dark eyes. His scarred hands. I rubbed my feet together. I turned to my right, to my left. It was impossible. I sat up.
The vents overhead whirred softly; the wind whistled faintly outside. I pulled on an extra pair of socks and left my bunk. In the corridor my heartbeat was loud and thick in my throat and my breath made clouds in the air. Time seemed to spread out and each step took longer than the one before, but I didn’t turn back.
The runner lights outside James’s bunk glowed blue at my feet, and the button for the airlock was flat and cold under my fingers. The lock opened with a suck and a hiss. His back was a gray hump in the bed; it rose up, down. His face was one shadowy cheek, one closed eye. His breath was a roar. He was sleeping—I couldn’t believe he was sleeping. Anger squeezed my body, and the squeezing felt good and bad.
His eye opened. He sat up and his chest was dark with woolly hair. What’s the matter?
I felt cold, and hot. My body was trembling but I moved toward the bed. I sat down. My back was to him, my hands flat against my thighs. The room still smelled of smoke and also something else, the slightly feral smell of his skin and hair.
Nothing happened.
Then, the pressure of his warm hand flat against my back. The feeling of his strong fingers inching their way up the notches of my spine, until they reached the base of my neck and he pulled me down.
I held my body stiff and straight and I shut my eyes.
We can just lie next to each other, he said.
I don’t want that, I said. I took a breath. I want something else.
Another minute passed and I felt his warm breath on my cheek. He pressed his mouth along my jaw and his beard scratched my skin. He lifted my shirt and my stomach shook and I pushed his hands away. He kissed my ears—softly—and my nose. The crook of my arm. My breath slowed; my limbs relaxed, a little. He went back to my stomach, kissed it. He tugged my tights down, moved his mouth over the sweep of my hip. He held my thigh tight in his hands.
He took hold of my ankle with his teeth and shook it, like it was a bone. I liked it. I didn’t like it. My laugh came out like a cry.
When he let go of my ankle, his mouth traveled upward again. But slower, softer, until it was only breath on my thighs. My chest expanded. I shivered but wasn’t cold. His breath grew hot again. His tongue parted my legs. I held my hand over my mouth and felt I would laugh or weep or sneeze! My heels pedaled against the sheets. He put his hand flat on my stomach and his tongue was warm and rough and moved slowly, rhythmically, like it was following a silent beat. Then it changed, and oh! My head was so hot, as if my scalp had caught fire—