Living Under Ice

Under Ice 7

Talon slept in late the next day. Dr. Kyle had given him some medicine to make him drowsy and use up less oxygen the night before. Everyone who didn't have to do anything essential had taken the same medicine. He woke up after a night-mare filled sleep. In it, terrorists kept chasing him and he would run from them until he reached a space ship, but he knew it was set to explode. The dream would end there and then start over with variations from the beginning. He woke up. His bladder was full and he had a headache. He remembered that a headache was one of the symptoms of having too little oxygen. He hoped the ship would return. He didn't want to slowly suffocate to death from lack of oxygen.

Talon looked around. There were plants in his room, but not that many and the room door was closed off. He slowly moved out of bed first going into the bathroom and then into the main part of the house. He could tell the great room had more oxygen probably because no one was in there. Then he thought of the others. He went and opened their doors after knocking. He had an idea. Most of the plants were in the atrium and they did not have a good ventilation system with the power off. Most of the measurements of oxygen had been taken in their house where his dad had the equipment. He quickly explained himself to his dad and got him to get the equipment.

"I remember feeling better yesterday as the oxygen levels were beginning to drop when I was working on the plants in the atrium, but I thought it was just because I enjoyed what I was doing," he told his father.

"It is worth a try," Jake said. He got Jacob to go to the other families and tell them to all meet in the atrium where they would hopefully have a better oxygen supply.

They walked there slowly down the hallway. The hallway was fairly long in order to take advantage of extra structural support from the ice and for the purpose of any future expansion of their homes. With a whole planet to use, it didn't make sense to put everything too close together. They had reasoned in the planning that the space would also force everyone to walk more and therefore be healthier. Now they were seeing a down side. As they got closer to the atrium, Talon felt his lingering headache begin to ease up a little bit.

When they got to the atrium, the difference was immediate. Everyone started talking at once about how their headaches were gone. The oxygen levels were at the lower limits of normal, but they were still in the normal range. Hopefully they would stay that way. It was still mid-morning, so the plants were not yet producing oxygen at their peak. They wouldn't help at night either when they would also consume oxygen themselves, but for now everyone felt better and they had some relief.

Talon, Johan and Eliza all sat down on the central swing facing the empty space that was supposed to hold the fountain later on. They tried not to swing too fast for fear of using up oxygen, and they talked in lowered voices. The adults were gathered in the half finished pagoda along with Tablitha. Sharah and Jacob were off on another swing being rather quiet, Talon suddenly realized. He couldn't even see them well because they had chosen the swing furthest away with the tallest plants between them. He said something to the twins about it.

"Well, isn't it obvious?" Eliza asked.

"What do you mean?" the boys replied.

"Well, it's been obvious to me for several weeks now that they like each other. I think Jacob is starting to court Sharah."

"But that is like a brother and sister dating," Talon objected.

"No it isn't," Eliza said somewhat sharply. "We may have all grown up together but we are not genetically related in any way. I even checked our ancestry files to be sure. Our grandparents were from four different systems."

All thoughts of what Eliza was saying vanished as a fully suited person materialized right in front of them. It turned out to be Harry, the ship's mechanical engineer. When he saw them, he removed his hood.
"Why haven't you been answering any of our calls?" he asked. The communication station had been left unmanned for the past day after the battery became too weak to work anyway.