White Crystal Butterflies | Wattys 2021 Shortlist | ✔

Chapter Thirty-Four

"Oh, it's in my room," says Lingmei. "I'll get it."

We split up again. The next hour is a frenzy of activity that somehow takes the station from hurricane-hit-this-morning to actually packed down. Tobias drops the last boxes from the lab onto the stacks in the living room and steps back, dusting his hands smugly. I promptly go inspect the lab, but it's clean.

Lingmei's disappeared again when I return to the common room, but I can hear her and Dea in the comms room. Dea's started the final electronic task: setting the Pod's systems to go into hibernation after we leave. The pair of them already spent today and yesterday weatherproofing the outside of the station. Hopefully it will stay in better shape this time than it did in the years between when it was first built and when we occupied it.

"Alright, looks like the last check is up to us, then," I say.

Tobias nods, and we split up. We each check half the Pod, then switch and check the other's half for good measure. I let him linger in the now-empty greenhouse he's going to have to leave behind. The man needs his own garden. I doubt he spends enough time at home to keep one, but with his daughter there, he should.

I've just climbed the stairs to suggest that to him when there's a brilliant golden flash outside. The shuttle grows rapidly over the horizon.

"I hope they sent someone who knows how to land here," says Tobias.

Clearly they did. The shuttle has a bit of a bumpy touchdown, but it's smooth enough for what they're landing on. It taxis slowly towards the station and parks some three hundred meters away.

"Really?" says Tobias. "Is it too much to ask?"

I head back down the stairs, chuckling. At least we've got Samson back. I'm honestly in too good a mood to be annoyed about needing to drive our gear to the space vehicle taking us out of here.

It takes several hours to pack out the Pod onto the waiting shuttle. When we exhaust even my list of last-minute checks, Dea hits the final button. She and I stand outside the airlock and watch the Pod's lights flick off one by one as it puts itself to sleep.

"Ready to go?" says Dea.

"Ready as I'll ever be."

Samson, the snowmobile, and the rest of our team are already on the shuttle, so we walk together over the snow. Just us, the light breeze, and Mahaha's endless, beautiful landscape.

"Are you going to miss it?" says Dea, breaking the silence.

"Yeah." I'd be lying if I said otherwise. "But there'll be more where I'm going."

She breaks into a smile. "You are saying yes, then?"

"If the position's still available."

"Of course it is. You know it is."

"I'm just hoping." Even thinking about it stirs up the anxiety in my stomach like an upset flock of butterflies. I've still got a few hours before I can do anything about it, and I'm trying to manage my stress. "Can we not talk about that? I just want to enjoy this."

"Okay."

She tips her head back with a smile, watching the light, fluffy snowflakes tumbling from the sky. I savor the freshness of the breeze and the crunch of snow under my boots, until I'm stepping off it onto the metal stairs of the shuttle, then inside, out of the wind. The airlock discharges us into the passenger cabin, where Lingmei and Tobias are having a heated debate about paper airplane designs. It's the best use of the Hub's overly stiff in-flight napkins I've seen yet.

"Please take your seats and don your safety belts in preparation for takeoff," begins a peppy electronic voice over the cabin speakers. "This vehicle will be departing in ten minutes. Please make sure all loose items have been stowed in the bins at the back of the cabin..."