White Crystal Butterflies | Wattys 2021 Shortlist | ✔

Chapter Eighteen

I run both hands down my face. I just need to pretend I'm back in the Aventureros. We were always out in remote areas, frequently out of satellite range; with so much space junk in orbit around earth, satellites went out of commission all the time. Not to mention that it took until my generation for anyone with the resources to bother fixing the problem. I could always keep a cool head when emergencies came up. I handled most of our team's comms, calming people down, finding or rigging up signals, wrangling evacuations or assistance while Yahvi dealt with whatever mess we'd gotten into. I try to find that mindset now, but it slips out of reach.

We're not in the Aventureros here. I left them when we got into a situation that finally broke me, and now I can't unsee the same result. And I'm alone. Any decision I make will decide the fate of this whole team.

I can tell my pacing is getting frantic, and I try to slow down. I want to run. Climb something. Go outside and dig us out. Anything to relieve the pressure of the walls all around me, trapping us all in a too-tight space with too few options. The Hub can be as aggravating as they please, and I won't care, so long as we hear from them.

As if on cue, Liu calls down the hallway. Her voice is tight, higher-pitched than normal. "We can't get through."

"Keep trying," I say. "If it's an intermittent signal, we don't want to stop trying until we're out of range."

She retreats back into the room.

Time never moves so simultaneously fast and slowly as when you're waiting on a decision that will change the entire course of your plans. I check my watch when I start to stumble, and am startled to find it's well after Mahaha's equivalent of midnight already. I move to the comms room and lean in the doorway, watching Liu and Kwon murmuring over their work. Their tired faces look sallow in the dead light of the screens. Liu lifts her hands and waits. A few moments later, a call places itself from the Pod to the Hub, our cry for help into the great void elongating between the two.

Liu finally notices me in the doorway. "We're automating it."

"I was about to ask if you could do that."

"It will call every three minutes," says Kwon. "If the relay satellite becomes available, we will get confirmation of a signal received. If one does not arrive by tomorrow evening, that means we did not reach it."

If we reach it, we're safe: the satellite will pass our SOS along even if we're out of range by then. The evacuation shuttle will be here within another two or three days.

"I can be first on watch," says Kwon.

"Perfect. Do you still have the spare mattress in here?"

She points behind her. By the light of the screens, I can just make out a thin rectangle propped against the opposite wall. I know from experience that it's only a marginal improvement over sleeping on the floor, but it's the only thing resembling a bed that we can fit in here for all the times we need to camp out by the station phone.

"And an alarm set?"

"If this cooperates," says Liu, now back at her keyboard. She hits a test button, and our station phone goes off. "There. It'll ring when we get the satellite's confirmation. The built-in system isn't loud enough to wake anyone."

The phone rings three times and goes dead again. Jury-rigged indeed. It'll work, though. "Good work, you two."

Kwon pats Liu's shoulder, encouraging her off her chair and towards the door. She catches my nod and staggers off to bed.

"You should get some rest, too," says Kwon.

"Just wanted to check in here. I'll take over the watch in the morning. That work for you?"

She nods, and we part ways. The common room is empty when I return to it. I track down Krüger in the lab, buried in his laptop. He startles when I drop the article Yahvi sent me onto his keyboard.

"That came in my mail," I say. "I think you might be able to make more use of it than me."

He scans the slip of paper, and his eyes widen. "Am I allowed to show this to Lingmei?"

"At your discretion."

"Thank you." He gets up with a groan and moves to scan the article into our digital archives.

"And get some sleep yet tonight," I say. "It's late."

I get a pointedly raised eyebrow.

"I am on my way to bed right now, I will have you know." I push myself off the lab bench. "By the way, I'm putting you on watch in the comms room after me if we don't hear from the satellite by midmorning tomorrow."

He nods in about the least optimistic manner possible. A sneaking feeling tells me he probably knows the functionality of the Hub's outer-network satellites better than I do. I push the thought aside.

I make sure I'm the one on watch in the comms room when we move conclusively out of communications range again the next evening. I wait out the last two hours in a mix of tense anxiety, preemptive resignation, and quiet dread. The window in which we might have heard from the relay satellite finally closes without a peep.

I don't stir from my chair. Kwon eventually comes to find me, resting a hand on my shoulder when she sees me still staring at the empty screen.

"It has not hurt anyone yet," she says. "And we have supplies. We will get through this."

Five months. I'm already steeling myself. In all honesty, though, I have no idea how it's going to go.

"God, Dea, I hope so," I say, then get up and leave before she can reply.