Sand and Shadow Read online

  Commander Berkeley arrives promptly at five o’clock. He greets my parents with respect, and I can tell Appa’s suspicion is already fading. By the end of dinner, he has given his blessing for me to join the team.

  Throughout the evening, Commander Berkeley speaks primarily to Appa. Occasionally he addresses my mother, but the only thing he says to me directly is on his way out the door. “I’ll see you in training on Monday.”

  I’m ecstatic, of course, and after he leaves, my parents shower me with praise and honor. Their only son, an astronaut. They are proud.

  Later, in my room, doubt sets in. I have felt it before, when I accepted my undergraduate diploma two years ago, when Appa urged me to apply for the program, when I hesitated before filling out the application. It’s not that I don’t know what I’m doing. I do. I’m confident enough and have proven my capabilities many times over, haven’t I? But school wasn’t easy for me. High school was a breeze, graduated early and already had my college GEs done by graduation. So, everyone expected me to excel at MIT.

  When I got those first term results, I couldn’t bear to tell my parents. I couldn’t shame them like that. So, I buckled down and threw myself into my studies so that I’d never have to. The truth is, I never wanted to be an engineer. I don’t want to work for NASA. I don’t want to leave Earth. My friend, Cody, dropped out of school to open his own business. His dream has always been to have his own café. When I told Appa, he scoffed and told me I was wasting my time hanging around someone like that. I didn’t tell Cody what he’d said, of course.

  The truth is, I admire Cody and others who do what they want to do regardless of prestige or money. What would I do if I had the freedom, and the balls, to do it?

  Honestly, I really don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it much until Appa invited the Commander over for dinner. No one had ever asked me what I wanted to do. I’d never even asked myself.

  Cody says I should start my own business too. Something to do with computers, but I don’t know. I think back to that first term at MIT, the mistakes I made, how hard I had to work to stay on top. It doesn’t come easy for me. I’m not a genius, I just work my ass off.

  Now, sitting in my room with a suitcase open on my bed, my clothes folded neatly in separate piles, I feel the weight of what is to come. This is not just some classroom experiment, a slate where mistakes can be wiped clean. There will be others all depending on me. An error could mean someone’s life, maybe my own.

  I’m not the right guy for this job. I know it even if no one else does. Maybe I should tell Berkeley to select someone else. There’s got to be plenty of qualified engineers out there, but what would I tell Appa? Could I bear his disappointment, the disgrace?

  I slip a hand beneath the pile of button-down shirts and arrange it in the corner of the suitcase. Each successive stack fits neatly beside the others, like pieces of a puzzle. Organized. Precise. No room for imperfection.

  Once my toiletries have been added and an extra pair of shoes, I shut the case and zip it closed. I’ll try to sleep tonight before calling an Uber in the morning, but I’m not tired. So, I lay on my bed and stare at the ceiling until the sun rises through my window.

  “Commander Dryker? Can you hear me?” Lainie leaned over the open cryo unit and gently shook him by the shoulder.

  “He’s really out,” said Dema. “I’m leaving these monitors in place until he revives so I can keep an eye on him.”

  Lainie nodded and then withdrew, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Tink moved to her side, telling her everything would be okay, but from the dusty coffins containing his dead crewmates, some of whom were his friends, Adán knew things were not okay. Would never be okay.

  “So, what do we do now?” asked Jonah, kicking the ball of his foot against his cryo unit’s base. More dust rained onto the floor. “If the whole ship looks like this, we’re in serious trouble.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t,” said Adán, indicating the padding he’d stuffed into the breach. “Something penetrated all the way through. The dust has been getting in through here, but this compartment is closed off from the rest of the shuttle.”

  “Europa’s temperature is minus 160 degrees Celsius,” scoffed Jonah. “If the hull was breached, we should have all been solid ice by now.”

  At five feet six, Jonah was the shortest man on the team, four inches shorter than Adán, and as light-skinned as Adán was Latino-dark, but he more than compensated for his lack of height by his bulk. During training, he’d spent twice as many hours in the gym as everyone else. With his angular features and close-cropped red hair, Adán always thought he looked like a human battering ram, so out of sync with his usual tranquil temperament. Then there was Tink who looked like a toothpick next to Jonah.

  “We were protected,” explained Tink. “Our units are individually regulated. And the shuttle’s heating system probably switched on prior to our release, ensuring a habitable temperature and air pressure.”

  Fess snapped his fingers several times loudly. “Listen to yourselves! Everyone’s dead, and you all are talking about dust and habitable temperatures!”

  “Panicking isn’t going to help,” said Jonah.

  Lainie placed a gentle hand on Fess’s arm, and he quieted down.

  “The other units clearly malfunctioned,” said Lainie, turning her attention to Adán, as if expecting him to know something she didn’t. “Is it possible that they froze?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” Adán wished he had answers, but he didn’t. He had questions. Too many questions. “Dema, what do you think?”

  Dema shook her head. “I’m a medic, not a doctor. But if I didn’t know any better, I’d say they died a long time ago. Decades, maybe.”

  “Decades? What?” Fess tugged nervously at the front of his uniform. He seemed to be growing more agitated by the minute. “That’s crazy!”

  It did sound crazy. Their journey was supposed to take three years, not decades. Three years to reach Jupiter’s sixth moon. Cryo was supposed to help them pass the time, keep them safe, conserve fuel and provisions.

  “What are you saying, Dema?” Adán asked.

  “I don’t know what I’m saying,” answered Dema. “I just know that going under, we all went through the same vitrifying process. Water was removed from our cells to prevent crystals from forming during the cooling process. At negative 200 degrees, we were preserved, stored until the system slowly rehydrated us, raised our temperatures, woke us up. The whole ship was preserved in a state of low humidity. Look at them,” she said, indicating the lightless cryo units. “Their bodies didn’t decompose. They couldn’t. I think that their units went through the motions of raising the temperatures but failed to rehydrate them, creating the ideal setting for mummification.”

  Adán considered Dema’s explanation. How long would mummifying seventeen humans have taken? How long ago had the Carpathia been hit? And how long had the rest of them been lying there waiting to wake up?

  “So, the system went all screwy,” said Fess. “But mummies aren’t made in just three years.”

  “No,” said Dema, “they’re not.”

  The air around them swelled with tension. This was sounding crazier by the second, but no one except Fess could say it. Finally, Jonah spoke up, but the composure in his voice unnerved Adán.

  “So, we haven’t been traveling for a few years,” he said. “We’ve been traveling for tens of years.” He shrugged casually. “Sounds like we missed our mark.”

  Adán had had enough of the cryo room, the room of death. He wanted to get out, get moving, get away. “We can’t just stand around guessing. We still have a mission to accomplish, procedures to follow.”

  “What procedures?” asked Fess. “Most of our team is dead. Our shuttle is banged up. Hell, now we’re not even sure if we landed on the right planet?”

  “There’s nothing concrete to suggest we landed somewhere other than Europa,” said Adán. “So, let’s stop guessing and instead do
something constructive.”

  “Well, we’re all hungry,” said Jonah. “If we’re going to follow procedures, then the first order of business is getting something to eat. Isn’t that right, Dema?”

  Dema hesitated, and then nodded. “That’s right. Well, after our preliminary physical exams.”

  Jonah smirked and waved his arm, indicating the entire room. “I think most of us would pass the exam, don’t you? As for the rest of them…”

  “Jonah, that’s disturbed, don’t you think?” said Lainie, affronted. “We all spent two years in training together. The least you can do is show them a little respect.”

  “When did they show me any respect?” Jonah’s grin vanished and his expression turned somber. “Sorry. I only meant that under the circumstances we should forgo the preliminaries and get down to what matters.”

  “Jonah’s right,” said Tink. “What matters is that we’re all hungry as hell.”

  Fess jerked a nod. “Plus, this place is creeping me out.”

  Finally, something Adán agreed with. The IV that had rehydrated them had also provided fundamental nutrients, but if they didn’t eat soon, they’d be too weak to be much good to one another. Adán stepped up to the compartment door. He wondered what he would find on the other side. More dust? The boogie man? He glanced back at everyone’s anxious faces. Then he called out his code.

  “4-ENG-003. Computer, open the Quarters access.”

  There was a beep, followed by a sucking hiss as the door slid open to the right. “Just the air pressure regulating,” Adán said.

  The area beyond the doorway was dark. For a moment, he hesitated. It looked like a deep dark hole. But the others were waiting, watching. He took one step forward. To his relief, the floor lights turned on, and in another moment, the central part of the shuttle was awash with light. And it was comfortably warm. The temperature regulation system seemed to be working fine.

  “I’ll stay with Scott,” said Dema. “He shouldn’t be left alone.”

  Adán stepped aside to let the others file past him through the doorway. “I’ll bring something back, okay?”

  Dema nodded uneasily. “Okay. Thanks.”

  The Common Room, or CR, was a long, narrow compartment approximately the same dimensions as the Quarters, with three long tables and six computer terminals along one wall. The other wall was floor-to-ceiling metal storage units with pull-handles on the doors. Adán opened one, sliding out a four-foot-long shallow drawer. White curls of frigid air spiraled above the acrylic containers within. Each had black lettering on its side. The first read MASH POT/GRA. Adán hauled out the container, which was surprisingly light weight for its size, and set it down on one of the tables. Unsealing the lid, he fished out a metallic pouch about four by six inches and tore it open.

  “Our food is freeze-dried and has been stored in sub-zero temps. We’ll need water to rehydrate it.” Adán stuck his finger into his mouth, moistening it with spit, and then dipped it into the pouch. The cold white and beige flakes clung to his skin like chalk dust. Then he put his finger back into his mouth and sucked it all off.

  “To hell with the water,” said Fess, grabbing a pouch for himself. “I’ll take it dry.”

  “Not a good idea,” said Adán. “Tastes okay, but it’s like eating wood shavings. It’ll suck the moisture right out of you. The water dispenser is right behind you. As long as the oxygen and hydrogen tanks haven’t been damaged, the aqua mixer should be functioning. Try it out, Tink.”

  Sculpted into the wall was something between a sink and a drinking fountain. It was white, the same color as everything else inside the shuttle, with a metal spigot. Tink tilted his head beneath it, waving his hand in front of the tiny sensor. It took a few seconds, but then a cool stream of water poured out into his open mouth.

  “Yum,” he said.

  “Now listen,” said Adán, “don’t forget what we were told in training. There’s enough dry food to last the team a full year, if we stick to the scheduled rations.”

  “Yeah, but now that there’s only six of us—” said Fess.

  “Seven,” Tink corrected. “The commander makes seven.”

  “Okay, seven of us,” answered Fess. “Then it should last three years, maybe more.”

  Adán opened another silver pouch, holding it briefly under the water stream. “True, but the protocol is for us to scout out land for agriculture. We need to dig the well, set up the irrigation system and green houses, plant the seeds so that down the road there will be a renewable food supply for the colony.”

  Fess straddled a bench and poured the contents of his pouch into his mouth. He brushed the crumbs off his lips. “What colony, Adán? Look at us,” he said. “There aren’t enough of us for a colony. Maybe we should get this shuttle off the ground and head back home.”

  “You know we’re just the first. Pioneers,” said Tink, stirring water into a pouch with a finger. “We pave the way for everyone else.”

  “And what about the rest of the fleet?” Lainie accepted the prepared pouch of food from Tink. “Where are the other eleven shuttles?”

  Adán had always appreciated Lainie’s direct way of looking at things. She’d come from a farm in Idaho where her father raised cows. Despite her background in agricultural engineering, at first, some of the others had poked fun of her, but she had quickly earned their respect with her keen problem-solving. She had a way of seeing the whole picture, which was probably why no one on the team had ever beaten her at chess.

  Now her question about the shuttles triggered something in Adán’s brain. He’d been so focused on himself and his own crew, but where were the other shuttles? Had they arrived yet? If they had, they might have tried comm-ing them. “I’ll head to the comm station right after we’ve eaten something. Okay?” he said. “If the rest of the fleet has revived, they would have sent word.”

  That seemed to set everyone at ease, at least for the time being. Adán opened a second container, this one marked CIN APPLES, and passed the pouches around, setting aside one of each for Dema. For the most part, everyone prepared and ate their food in silence. Tink was the first one finished, which didn’t surprise Adán at all. He had always been the first during training, too. While the rest of the team were dumping their trays, Tink was already at his desk devouring the next hour’s lesson. That probably explained why he had gotten such high scores. Some team members had expected Tink to be named commander, and everyone was shocked when the position went to Scott Dryker. Scott was only a paper pusher, part of the EDU squad. But Adán had to admit Scott was better with people than Tink. He was a natural communicator, a born leader. But Tink didn’t hold a grudge about it, so neither did anyone else.

  “I’m going to check out the cockpit,” said Tink, tossing his empty pouches into the pull-out recycling bin in the wall. Establishing a reciprocal system of reprocessing was another task on their agenda. “I can access the main connections to the shuttle’s electrical from there. Adán, you want to come with me and retrieve the protocol, check the comm?”

  “Sure,” said Adán, hurrying to finish his apples. “I’m right behind you.”

  “What about the rest of us?” asked Lainie.

  Adán took a moment to look at each of his teammates. Lainie, responsible for their long-term food supply. Fess, the lone survivor of the tech squad (or what the others lovingly referred to as the grunt squad), seemed calmer now that he had something in his stomach, but he was still agitated, tapping his fingers and thumb against the cabinet like it was a bongo drum. Beside him was Jonah, using his fingers to reach the very bottom of his mashed potatoes. He and Dryker represented half of the surviving educational squad and were responsible not only for maintaining the shuttle’s virtual library, but also of keeping detailed records for the colony.

  No one from the GEO or the BIO squads had survived, and the rest were trained to accomplish their missions with at least one additional squad member by their side.

  “Lainie, would you mind t
aking this food back to Dema?” asked Adán. “Tink and I will learn what we can about the shuttle’s condition. Fess and Jonah, maybe you should get outside and check things out.”

  In truth, Adán wasn’t sure what was the right thing to do, but they had to do something to keep occupied, at least until they contacted the rest of the fleet and received their orders. For now, he just had to keep it together because the alternative would be—what would the alternative be? He had no idea.

  Fess moved quickly, just as he’d been trained to do. He was made for it, for constructing things, for getting things done. “Get your gear on. I’ll grab us some mix tanks,” he told Jonah.

  Jonah moved more slowly, giving Adán an annoyed look as he stood. “You’re not the commander, Fuentes,” he said under his breath, just loud enough for Adán to hear. He chose to ignore the comment. Of course, he wasn’t the commander. Everyone knew that, no one more clearly than him, but what were they supposed to do? Sit around waiting for Dryker to wake up?

  “Give Adán a break, Jonah,” said Lainie. “He’s just trying to help.”

  Fess held his palm up to the sensor on the gear compartment, a room parallel to the CR though not as long. In it were the showers and restrooms, lockers for each team member, space to change into their gear.

  The door slid open, and Fess headed inside.

  Lainie gathered up Dema’s pouches and held each under the stream of water long enough to moisten them. Then she disappeared back into the Quarters.

  Jonah sluggishly opened the recycle bin and dropped his pouches inside. Adán wondered if he’d have to be tougher on him to get him to move. Despite Lainie’s comment, Jonah was right. He had no authority, but still—

  Fess returned, breathing hard. “Can’t go outside,” he said frantically.

  Not again, thought Adán. This kid is like a mouse trap. Every little thing set him off.

  “Take it easy, Fess,” Jonah said with more patience than Adán felt. “What are you talking about?”