I got closer and my heart beat thickly in my throat. The hangar’s bay doors were open and Endurance stood inside. Massive and shining, lit from within.
The ground was softer here; the silt reached my knees and I had to pick my feet up high. All around were the shapes of silt-covered junk. One looked like a boat. Another like a steep staircase, and I remembered the night I ran away from James, the shapes I’d seen in the silt. I’d thought I was alone out there in the ridges of pink in my broken-down rover. But I hadn’t been. Not really. James had been with me all along. Other people were pale shapes compared to him. He was hot, and they were cold. He was sweet and sharp; everyone else was like sand.
I reached the entrance to the hangar. A mobile habitation unit stood at the explorer’s port side and I moved toward its airlock. My breath was loud inside my helmet as I grabbed the latch, turned it, stepped inside. Amelia and Simon were behind me, but I closed the lock, hit the button to pressurize it. Numbers slowly counted down on a monitor attached to the wall. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1—
I took off my helmet and gloves, pushed the interior lock open. I went through the habitation unit and into the explorer. Inside, the dimensions were familiar because they were the same as Inquiry’s, but here the walls were stripped down to almost nothing. Shiny cabinets yawned open and empty; wires hung loose from the ceiling and bits of insulation lay strewn on the floor like gray snow. A burnt plastic smell hung in the air.
At the very end of the cabin a figure was bent over an open panel. James. I said his name and he turned. A bandage crisscrossed his face and covered one eye.
June, he said, and his hoarse voice made my stomach turn over.
I set my helmet and gloves on the floor, moved closer. He was thinner and his patchy beard longer. A mottled red burn marked his right hand.
What happened? I asked.
Got electrocuted.
Can you see?
Out of one eye.
It was hard to look at him. His face was as sharp as it had been, but the hollow of his injured eye was deeply bruised and spidery blood vessels crawled down his cheek. I bent down on one knee, bulky in my suit, and reached to hover my hand over the soft bandage on his eye, but he turned his face away.
I sat back on my heels. I have to tell you something, I said.
His shoulders bent. I know. She’s dead.
The ventilation system clicked on and humming air blew against my cheeks. The smell of burnt plastic dissipated. I looked around more thoroughly. A few feet away the control panel appeared to be reconfigured and newly wired, and below it some of the stripped fuselage had been replaced with new panels.
One of the newly installed panels was open, revealing a single fuel cell stack. Our cell, as it had been before James destroyed it.
You put it back together, I said.
I tried.
The sound of the airlock came from behind me. Amelia, Simon, and Rachel stepped into the cabin and I stood up.
They took off their helmets and gloves. James, Amelia said. Damn. Here you are.
He squinted at them. Both of you, he said grimly. Like some kind of reunion.
Simon shook silt from his suit. Have you told him?
Inquiry contacted NSP, I said to James. They’re alive.
His face paled.
Are you all right? Rachel asked, and she put her hand to her own eye.
I’m fine, James said with effort.
Is the cell ready? Simon asked him. Can it be done?
The vents turned over and hummed louder. I don’t know, James said.
Simon gestured at the stripped panels and loose wires and his voice rose. If you didn’t think it could be done, what are you doing out here?
Simon— Amelia said.
I’ve spent six years trying to figure out what went wrong, James said. What have you been doing?
It was always you and Theresa and Peter, Simon said. Your ideas. You didn’t want to listen to anyone else—
I tried to stop that mission, James said. Remember?
I did too, Simon said.
You didn’t try hard enough, James said. That’s the point.
Simon ran a hand over his buzzed head. I thought Anu could handle it.
Amelia said, I did too—
You were both right, I interrupted. The fuel cells failed, but Anu kept her crew alive.
The vents switched off and we were all quiet for a minute.
The only thing that matters is whether the cell is ready, Amelia said finally. Whether it will keep us alive.
James’s face was unreadable, so I spoke for both of us. It will be.
49
James and I stood across from each other at the table in the mobile habitation unit. Or, I stood and he leaned. His dark curls fell across his face, and the bandage crisscrossing his eye glowed bright white under the lights. A completed cell stack, removed from the Endurance explorer, lay on the table between us, its metal casing flat and shining.
You decided on a closed system, I said.
You weren’t here to argue the other way.
I felt a surge of irritation and let it pass. Okay.
You disagree.
I shook my head. I don’t know which way is right, not for sure. So we’ll pick one and go with it.
He blinked his good eye. Really—
I don’t want to waste time talking about it. It’s done. Let’s move forward.
All right. He got some paper from a cabinet and we made a list of everything that needed to be done, divided the tasks evenly between us, and set to work.
The interior of the mobile habitation unit was loud and its lights glaring in contrast to the quiet and dimly lit workshop at the Gateway. The space was tight, the table small. All the tools and 3D printers and supplies were crammed onto one shelf. We began our individual tasks and didn’t talk. It was strange not to talk. My mind churned with thoughts and ideas and questions but I held back, kept silent. I was aware of the billowing whir from the vents and the clicking hiss from the oxygenator. I was aware of his body near mine, his shoulders tense and his movements awkward. He listed to one side in his seat as he divided a tangle of cables; he squinted and blinked his good eye. When he got up he walked at a diagonal and dropped tools and bumped into things in the narrow space. Sometimes he cursed under his breath.
When he began to count and stack circuit boards, some of them needed new screws, and the hardware was tiny and the screwdriver clumsy in his hands. It was too hard to watch—I got up and started typing specifications into one of the printers. Behind me a screw dropped to the table with a small snap. Then another. Snap. Snap. Snap. There was a low growl and the sound of his chair skidding on the floor.
He had pushed himself up from the table and the screwdriver was clenched in his fist. He pulled his arm back like he was going to throw it, but then he let his arm fall. He sat down and laid his hands in his lap.
I’ll help you, I said.
I leaned over him, took the screwdriver from his hand, and installed the four tiny screws. His hair was longer—curls brushed the collar of his shirt—and his face thinner, but he smelled exactly the same.
I shouldn’t have done it, he said and his hands made a tight ball in his lap.
Pieces of his hair were snagged in the bandage that crisscrossed his eye and I felt a strong impulse to reach over and brush them away.
But you shouldn’t have left, he went on, his voice soft and strangled. Do you know what it was like when you were gone?
When Theresa was gone you mean.
He turned in his seat and we were eye to eye. No. You.
You destroyed the cell because of her.