Sand and Shadow Read online

  LAURISA WHITE REYES

  Santa Clarita, CA

  © Laurisa White Reyes 2021

  All rights reserved. Neither this book nor any part may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Skyrocket Press

  28020 Newbird Drive

  Santa Clarita, CA 91350

  www.SkyrocketPress.com

  Cover design by Barbara Groves

  www.BrokenCandleBookDesigns.com

  Interior design by Laurisa Reyes

  ISBN: 978-1-947394-02-5

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Excerpt from Contact

  More Books by the Author

  For my children:

  Carissa, Marc, Stuart, Brennah & Jarett

  Thank you for making my life worth living.

  “We see our sins reflected everywhere: in the pallor of our intimates’ faces, in the scratching of tree branches against windows, in the strange movements of everyday objects.”

  ― Anna Godbersen, The Luxe

  He did not belong.

  That was the first conscious thought in Adán’s head. Before he sensed that he was breathing or that his heart was pumping, he knew he shouldn’t be there. He’d known it for a long time but had kept it to himself. Hadn’t said a word right up to the moment the acrylic screen had come down and the icy serum entered his vein, but his apprehension was abruptly interrupted as he succumbed to the anesthetic that prepared him for cryo-hibernation.

  Adán opened his eyes to a disorienting darkness. Light, he thought. There is supposed to be light. He squeezed his eyes shut, and then opened them again, straining to detect even the slightest glimmer. He felt his own hot breath collecting in the narrow space between his face and the cover above him. Had the respiratory system failed? Was that why his cryo had been terminated? He had been asleep only moments. At least it felt like moments. He awoke to his half-finished thought, still feeling the tightness in his gut, what Colonel Foster had deemed nerves.

  “It’ll pass,” she had assured him. “It’s as easy as going to sleep.”

  He breathed harder, faster. The moist air from his lungs condensed on his skin. Or was he perspiring? He lifted his right hand to wipe the sheen of sweat away, and his knuckles hit the underside of the screen. A dull thud reverberated through Adán’s unit, and something shifted just at waist level. Adán couldn’t raise his head more than a few inches, but it was enough to see the sudden speck of green light above his body. With his hand, he struck the acrylic over and over. With each collision, the spot of light grew larger.

  It took a minute for Adán’s mind to clear, to recall his training, his protocol. He tried to speak, but his throat was dry. He swallowed and tried again.

  “Systems on. 4-ENG-003.” His voice uttering his personal systems key in this confined space sounded too loud. “Computer, open cryo screen.”

  Nothing happened. He tried again, but still his unit remained closed.

  Adán struck the acrylic cover a few more times until enough light had filtered into his unit that he could make out the emergency control panel at his left just beside his fingertips. On it was a rectangular button marked COMM and a lever marked RELEASE. They were crude apparatuses compared to the vocal commands he was used to, but he would use them if necessary. They’d gone over this in training, but even the simplest of thoughts resisted recall, a temporary effect of coming out of cryo. Gradually, as memories coalesced in his mind, he pressed his thumb against the COMM button.

  “Hello? Can anyone hear me?” Adán forced himself to control his breathing to slow as he waited for a reply. Nothing. “This is Mission Specialist Adán Fuentes. My unit seems to be malfunctioning.”

  Again, he waited. Adán re-adjusted his thumb. “Hello? Hello?”

  The screen, so close to his face, seemed to press in on him. He should wait for confirmation to clear his unit and that the Med Squad was ready for him, but he had to get out. He had to get out now.

  Adán hooked two of his fingers around the emergency release lever and pulled. The dull click of the latch resonated through his enclosure. With a sucking sound, the screen slid open, pushing what seemed to be a layer of dust to the floor.

  For a moment, Adán saw only green, and it reminded him of the time he and Saul had gone scuba diving off Catalina Island—how under water everything had that odd seaweed-like tint to it. Then the overhead lights blinked on, and the dim oceany color evaporated. The sudden brightness stung Adán’s eyes, and he shielded them with his elbow. When he thought he could tolerate the light, he lowered his arm and cautiously sat up.

  He was in the Quarters just as he should be, the vast cavern-like hibernation compartment housing two rows of twelve identical cryo units each—twenty-four in all—and the main control panel at the far end. This room was the last image he’d had before his cover came down, but it had looked nothing like this.

  The overhead lights that ran the length of the room blinked and dimmed at irregular intervals. The intermittent light made it difficult for Adán’s vision to fully adjust. Then, instead of cryo units, all he saw were two dozen oblong heaps of rust-colored dirt—his own open unit the only exception—like the mounds of earth on freshly filled graves.

  What the hell?

  The next thing he noticed was a thick, long bulge along the starboard wall, extending from the far end of the room to just past midway. The bulge was so large it had displaced several of the units.

  Adán felt weak and lightheaded, which he had been told to expect. After the initial dose of anesthesia, the needle in his arm had first replaced the water in his body with a low temperature-tolerant liquid, and then later reversed the process, providing a nutrient-infused solution to revive his body once the three-year journey to Europa was complete. Even so, upon waking, his stomach felt horribly empty, as if the very core of him was missing. Adán ignored it. As he sat up, his muscles cramped, and his fingertips tingled. He made a weak fist and then cautiously unfolded each finger, allowing time for normal sensation to return. Once it had, he turned his attention to the I.V. needle in his arm.

  Where were the medics? The MED squad was supposed to awaken first and help the others. They were supposed to follow protocol, otherwise how could they successfully fulfill the mission? But from what he could tell, none of the others had awakened yet. He looked at the bulge and the dust and swallowed back the panic rising in his throat.

  Something had gone terribly wrong.
>
  Adán walked his fingers up his arm to the circular silicon patch that tracked his vitals and peeled it off. He did the same for the one on his temple, the one that had recorded and archived his brain activity during hibernation. Then he slid his fingers around the needle above his wrist.

  He considered just yanking it out, like tearing off a band-aid, but couldn’t quite get up the nerve. Instead, he tugged, gently at first. An acute pain rippled up his arm. He released the needle, gasping.

  No wonder the medics were supposed to remove the I.V.s and then wake up the crew.

  He tried again, this time sucking in a deep breath while sliding the metal tube out of his skin.

  Adán pressed the heel of his hand against the small wound to stop the bleeding and shifted his legs over the side of the unit. As he set his bare feet on the floor, a cloud of dust puffed up, staining the hem of his white pants burnt orange. As he took his first step, the muscles in both calves seized, and pain stabbed at the backs of his legs and knees. Cramps. He had been warned about the cramps.

  “Pull your toes up,” Colonel Foster had told him. “Stretch out those muscles.”

  Adán let go of his arm and reached down to pull on his feet, straightening each leg as he did so. It took a minute or two, but eventually the cramping subsided.

  He stood up, taking a few unsteady steps between the two rows of cryo units. If he was awake, then maybe others were, too. At least the ones whose lights were on, though after the MED squad, they were all scheduled to wake at the same time, but none of the other units were open yet.

  He studied the pale green glow beneath the dust on his own unit. The light signaled that his body systems had stabilized and that he was ready to be released from cryo. He turned to the unit beside his own and wiped the dust away from the light panel with his arm. There was no green, no light at all. Not even the yellow LED that should have indicated the unit was in use.

  The mound of dust on the unit’s cover had formed a sort of crust, like the plates of caked earth in a dry riverbed. Adán touched it with the tip of his finger, and the crust crumbled leaving just a thin layer of dirt behind. Taking a pinch of it, he rubbed the powder against the pad of this thumb. He remembered how the Apollo astronauts had described lunar soil: fine as flour, rough as sandpaper. This stuff was like that. The coating of it on the cover seemed so delicate that if he blew on it, it might all just float away, but something inside of him resisted. Instead, he stepped away from the unit and moved to the next one.

  The green light was like a beacon. Adán was so relieved he had to steady himself. He wasn’t the only one awake. He was not alone. Scraping the dust from the cover with the side of his hand, he peered inside.

  A pair of bewildered brown eyes gazed back at him.

  NASA-NGIS COALITION

  Planetary Colonization Division

  Washington D.C.

  Inter-Department Memo

  Attention: Robert Herrera, Lead Project Manager

  Robert,

  Screening for project candidates begins on Monday. Applications should be verified via a photo I.D. and Social Security number. No exceptions. Be advised that we expect to be notified of all qualified applicants.

  Despite the public’s belief that crew members will be selected at random from those applicants who pass the initial health screening, the project heads agree that it will be most beneficial to the program and to the human race if the crews consist of those with superior physical and intellectual abilities. Therefore, please only forward files to us of those who score in the top tier in BOTH academic and athletic screenings.

  In addition, please ensure that the registration clerks check the appropriate ethnic and gender codes on the application forms. Ideal crews will have a balance of diverse members, where possible.

  Addendum: From this time forward, please refer to colonization crews as ‘teams’ in your press releases, as that term will elicit a more reassuring and positive effect on the media and the public.

  Signed,

  Megan A. Whitlock

  Vice-President, Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems

  “Tink!” Adán laughed at himself when he realized the occupant of the cryo unit couldn’t hear him. He didn’t have authorization for vocal command on anyone else’s unit, only the MED squad and the Commander did, but each unit had an exterior emergency release, like the ones inside. Adán reached for the lever on this chamber and pulled. The screen slid away.

  “Tink,” said Adán, “are you all right?”

  Tink was on the engineering squad with Adán. The patch on his uniform read H. SEOUNG, but thanks to his genius with electronics during training, he’d been christened with his nickname, the Tinkerer.

  Tink moaned. “My arms are numb. I can’t feel my fingers.”

  “Give it a minute. You’ll be fine.”

  Tink rubbed his arms and rolled his ankles. His Asian straight hair stuck out at haphazard angles like black porcupine quills. He ran his fingers through it trying to smooth it down. “I feel gross,” he said. “And hungry.”

  “Me, too. Just hang on.”

  “Hey, where are the medics? And what’s with all this dirt?”

  Adán moved across the aisle to unit #14 and rubbed the lights clean. Please be awake, he whispered, thinking of the person he knew lay inside. He felt a shudder of relief on seeing green and pulled the release.

  The dark-haired woman lying inside snapped her eyes shut against the sudden light. Her face was round and pale with a sprinkling of freckles. “Damn it. What the—”

  “Dema, are you awake?” It was a stupid question, Adán realized the moment he said it. Of course, she was awake.

  “What do you think?” she said with a yawn. “Yeah, I’m awake, but—” She blinked her eyes open. It was the first time Adán had seen her eyes so close up, and he realized he’d been wrong about their color. He’d assumed they were brown, but they were more the shade of dark honey.

  “What’s happened?” Dema asked, gazing around the compartment.

  “I don’t know,” said Adán, forcing his mind to stay on track, “but we’re going to need your help.”

  While Dema expertly detached her I.V. and retrieved gauze and medical tape from the first aid kit under her unit, Adán moved from chamber to chamber, brushing the dirt from each pair of LEDs.

  “There are only six green lights on,” he called out from the far end of the room. “Six out of twenty-four.”

  “Only six of us awake?” asked Tink, climbing awkwardly out of his unit. He grabbed hold of it, steadying himself, and closed his eyes. “Ugh. Did that too fast. Dizzy.”

  “Take it slow, Tink,” said Adán. “The rest of the units’ lights aren’t on.”

  “What do you mean their lights aren’t on?” Dema pushed a tangled strand of brown hair out of her eyes. The ID on her jumper read D. SARKISSIAN 7-MED-002. Below that was a simple red cross on a black background. She was far more level-headed than Adán, a characteristic he had always admired about her.

  Adán hesitated responding to Dema’s question, not ready to accept the answer that had been niggling at the back of his brain.

  “And where’s the rest of my squad?” Dema continued. “We were supposed to revive first.”

  “I woke up first,” said Adán. “I have no idea why. We’re the only ones so far. FYI, the units aren’t responding to vocal commands. Go manual.”

  After a little help from Tink, Dema was on her feet. She seemed more stable than either Adán or Tink, but then again, she had ranked first in the physical trials. She moved to the remaining three units with green lights, wiped away the dust with her sleeve, and released their covers. The occupants each responded with uncomfortable moans.

  Dema leaned over one of the open chambers. “You all right, Fess?” she asked, pressing her fingers against the young man’s throat. A sheen of perspiration glistened on his dark skin.

  At eighteen, Fess was the youngest member of the crew and had only joined them a month b
efore departure. All the others had been selected by lottery two years before that and had been training together ever since. From what Adán had heard, the kid’s test scores were so high that the government had flagged him. Usually that didn’t mean much. Like most flaggers, he was assigned as an alternate, but when a first-string crew member came down sick, Fess joined Carpathia’s team at the eleventh hour. He was tall and lean with coffee-colored skin and a head full of tight curls that looked like tiny springs. His real name was Ray, but everyone referred to him as the Professor. Fess for short.

  Fess nodded, his eyes still shut tight. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just got to get my bearings, is all. I’m a little woozy.”

  “All right,” said Dema. “Just stay here while I check the others. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  The last two open units were occupied by a female and a male. Lainie Turner was on the agricultural squad and specialized in hydroponics. She had worn her auburn hair in a braid when they were put down, but the braid had come loose somehow. As she eased herself into a sitting position, her hair fell across her shoulders in soft waves. She remained silent as she took in the other crew members and the strangeness of their surroundings.

  “Is she okay?” Tink asked as Dema checked her vitals.

  “She’s fine,” Dema replied, quickly moving to the next unit.

  Lainie responded with a weak, confirming smile. “I’m all good,” she said uncertainly. “Where did all this dust come from?”

  “I think there’s a breach in the hull,” said Adán, pointing to the bulge in the wall. “Something perforated the shuttle, allowing dust to blow in during a storm or something.”

  “A crash landing?” asked Tink.

  “Maybe,” replied Adán. “Though we’d have to examine the rest of the ship to be sure.”

  “A breach doesn’t make sense,” said Lainie. “Our air would have leaked out.”

  Tink dragged a finger across his unit. “It’s far-fetched, I know, but the shuttle is constantly producing oxygen. Maybe it’s been compensating for the imbalance?”