Myra seemed to hear it all. She shrugged. “He makes me feel safe,” she said. “And it meant not having to learn to sleep somewhere else. Anyway, I’m starting to see those first few days as a training program. My final one. That was the life—minus the grief and the shock—that I’m supposed to work toward. To eventually live. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m trying to feel like that again.”
“Were—you and Stevens, you were together those first days?”
Myra nodded and wiped at her eyes. “It was just training,” she whispered.
I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her close to me, wrapping my arms around her. But I could feel her own arms between us, the hard bone from elbow to wrist lined up vertically in front of her chest like bars in a protective fence. Or perhaps a restrictive cage. I held her and tried to comfort her but just ended up disgusting myself. If an embrace could feel like molestation, that one certainly did. I was wrapping up a thing that didn’t want to be touched, so I let her go.
“I need to speak with Colony,” I said. I stepped past her and into the command module, shaking my head with the shame of the encounter.
Behind me, her voice cracked as she tried to argue—to say I wasn’t allowed—but I heard her resistance crumble before she could even erect it, the squeak of her voice like the last wail of something dying within her.
And in those uncomfortable, tragic moments, Myra had perfectly demonstrated why I had come to speak with Colony. She was moving through a deteriorating progression, the will to live leaching out through her pores. She had arrived at the last stages of some disassembly line, one we all were traveling down and couldn’t seem to get off.
••••
I sat in the center seat, directly in front of the main monitor. It reminded me of Stevens, and I had a brief terror of sullying the spot, until I remembered who probably spent a good bit of his time in it now. Again, I thought of Myra and felt the imaginary belt beneath us move several feet, taking me further down that line.
“Colony?”
“Hello, Porter,” the computer said. It was the same calm and collected voice of my training, of my simulated childhood—the same voice that had soothed me that first night in the command module. Now the calm in its voice just made me angry. The lack of urgency seemed like an absence of feeling, rather than the possession of some inner strength.
I gripped the edge of the table, trying to maintain my balance, to remember why I had come. “Colony, we have some problems around base.”
“I am well aware of that, Porter, and I am working hard to correct them. We should be able to resume production at the tank facility this afternoon. A revised timetable will be posted by your group coordinator.”
“I’m sure it will, Colony, but I wanted to talk to you about why those production revisions need to be drawn up every day. And it isn’t this planet’s limited ore supply.”
“If you have a theory, I would be more than happy to entertain it.”
“Of course, that’s why I came to you. I think it—we think, some colonists and I—that the more we focus on the construction of the rocket and the less we concentrate on basic needs, the more we’re getting behind on both.”
“You believe this is a question of morale,” Colony said.
“I—well, yes! I think you nailed it completely. I have several psychological arguments planned, if you’d like to hear them.”
“Porter.” Colony paused, leaving my name hanging in the air. “Who taught you what you know of psychology?”
I sat, dumbfounded for a moment, before dropping my head and peering down at the keyboard in front of me. Lines of fire retardant were still stuck between each key, and dirty smudges could be seen on the desk where someone’s palms had been resting.
“You did,” I whispered, feeling like a complete fool.
“I sense humiliation, which was not my intent. I had merely hoped to save you the time in arguing, time that could be better spent in production.”
I nodded. I understood the logic but still felt miserable inside. I actually could feel my energy to work being sapped away as a depression grew, fueled by a sense of worthlessness.
“I appreciate you coming by, Porter. You are a valuable member of this colony.”
“Thanks,” I said, about as lifeless and sincere as the computer’s voice.
I stood up and began to walk away, when the computer said: “Porter.”
“Yeah?” I asked, turning.
“I will make some changes. Starting today.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling grateful.
Albeit, prematurely.
••••
I made my way back through the tight passage between the servers and into the wide space full of bedrolls. Someone stomped up the ramp outside and I tried to think of what I wanted to say to Myra—when Hickson burst through the door and nearly ran me over.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” he asked.
“I came to speak with Colony,” I said, looking back over my shoulder for emphasis. Before I could turn back, Hickson had both hands on my shoulders. He pushed me across someone’s bedroll and against the wall.
“Nobody speaks to Colony but me, do you understand?”
I tried to focus on his face, but it was too close to my own. It was a wall of angered red flesh filling my vision. I nodded slightly, worried our noses might collide. “I was just trying to—”
“I don’t care,” Hickson said, letting go of me and stepping back. He positioned himself between me and the servers. “Get out,” he said.
Gladly, I thought, moving to the door. When I got there, I saw Myra sitting at the end of the ramp, her chin in her hands. It reminded me of something. Stepping back through the door, I called after Hickson, who had already started back through the servers.
“Hey, did you want to see me about something?”
Hickson turned halfway around. He rested a hand on the server in front of him and leaned his forehead against the back of his hand. He stood like that for a minute, and I started to ask him again, when he spoke.
“No,” he said. “It’s nothing. Forget about it.”
Not likely, I thought to myself. I stepped around Myra and out into the clearing thinking about how I was going to always remember that exchange.
Of course, at the time, I had no idea what was about to happen next.
• 8 • Tremors
I left the command module and headed toward the mess tent, where I hoped to find anything other than fruit paste for breakfast. That was when the first tremors began. At first, I thought the rumbling was emanating from my stomach. Usually, the growling turned into a hollow ache, a silent sort of cramping, like my intestines were tying themselves in knots. But this time, it kept growing louder. Then the ground moved beneath my feet and a nauseating sensation overtook me as my inner ear and my legs disagreed on how to remain upright.
I threw my arms out and fell into a low, wide stance, as several other colonists on their way to breakfast did the same. In the part of my brain that knew vocabulary words with no real context, I realized we were experiencing an earthquake. I knew it like I knew what air was, what trees were, with no deeper understanding beyond the mere concept. I thought if we all stayed put, it would go away and everything would be fine.
Then I heard the whistling.
The first bombfruit smacked the ground not ten feet in front of me. The whistling grew louder and more menacing as the sounds seemed to come from everywhere at once. A dozen more of the skull-sized fruit struck the earth all around me, some of them exploding in a shower of fragmented rind and tossing seed and fruit meat into the air.
I ran for the mess tent, shifting side to side as the ground continued to vibrate beneath me. When I saw one of the bombfruits slice right through the fabric of the tent and explode on one of the metal tables, I changed course, sprinting toward the old vat module instead.
A dozen other colonists had the same idea. A girl ahead of me was nearly taken out by
one of the fruit; it exploded in front of her and she went down, slipping in the meat. I stopped to help her up and we both nearly went down as a large tremor rippled through the solid rock. We scurried forward, trying to reach the others inside the module, and finally crashed through the doorway and tripped over those already inside.
All of us pushed our way deeper as we tried to make room for those coming behind. It was a bizarre recreation of our birthday, but played out in reverse—we packed ourselves into the module, seeking safety in the place we had once fled.
Numerous strikes landed on the roof above with enough force to hurt our ears. We cringed in unison at each one, but the waiting between the strikes was even worse. The anticipation would draw out our nerves into thin wires, and then the next bombfruit would pluck them.
Our little group settled in, hugging our shins and each other. People asked how long it would last as if any of our guesses had merit. We hoped aloud that the other colonists had found shelter as well.
During a lull in the vibrations, I left the girl I had helped and made my way back toward the door, needing to see what was going on outside. Before I got there, Kelvin staggered through, his arm around Tarsi, both of them covered in blood.
I ran forward, cursing, not sure which of them to grab. Tarsi looked up, her eyes wide and full of fear. “Help,” she mouthed, the sound of her voice cut off by another strike above.
Kelvin practically fell into my arms. I lowered him to the decking as gently as I could. Half his face was covered in blood. I reached for his neck, trying to remember my first aid and mumbling to myself whether we should be elevating his head or his feet.
“Sit him up,” another colonist said, coming over to help. I was pretty sure she was right. A few of us struggled with Kelvin’s arms; we dragged him back against a vat. He seemed to weigh a ton. I ran my hands over his head, searching for the wound, and my palms came away sticky with fruit meat and blood.
Kelvin’s eyes opened briefly, flickered, then widened. They rolled around, unfocused, as he blinked rapidly. “Where am I?” he asked.
Someone passed me their shirt, and I began wrapping it around Kelvin’s head. “You’re okay,” I said. “Just rest.”
“I feel shaky,” he told me.
“That’s the ground,” Tarsi said. She grabbed my arm and scooted closer to us both. “What’s going on?” she asked me. “Is this an earthquake?”
I nodded. “I think so.”
Even as we discussed it, the rumbles seemed to fade away, almost as if receding into the distance. The whistles and strikes continued for a few more minutes, but none of us ventured outside until they had ceased completely.
After what felt like half an hour with no whistles, we exited the module to find the rest of the colonists staggering from their own chosen shelters, all of us marveling at the level of destruction and the green fruit meat that littered the ground.
Out of habit, or time of day, or maybe the sight of so much food, we coalesced around the mess tent—or what was left of it. I went to get some water out of one of the gold rain barrels to wash Kelvin’s wound when Oliver came running up, a red-topped blur of excitement.
“Did you see it?” he asked me.
“See what, the shit storm of bombfruit? Everyone saw it.”
“It was a miracle,” Oliver said, his face dead serious. “A miracle.”
I reached deep into the water barrel with my bowl; the level had lowered due to a direct hit from a bombfruit, which rested, intact, at the bottom. “I need to see to Kelvin,” I told Oliver. “I don’t have time for this.”
“But don’t you see?” He tugged on my arm. “You went to Colony because the people had grown hungry, and what happened?” He spread his arms. “Manna from the gods,” he whispered.
“Yeah, well, the gods have good aim. See if you can find some clean rags, Kelvin’s head nearly got split open.”
Oliver clapped his hands together and ran off. I watched him as I made my way back to my friends, but he didn’t go looking for a rag or anything practical. I saw him tugging on others, pointing toward the command module and up at the sky, spreading talk of gods and of our salvation.
• 9 • The Golden Bullet
For the rest of that day, the ground and my stomach remained thankfully quiet. The grumblings among the colonists, however, didn’t seem to abate. The calories from the bombfruit were worked off with complaining, rather than being focused on the tasks at hand. I heard more than one person question why they were wasting their time on a rocket when more important things needed doing, and I realized I needed to speak with Colony again.
Before I could work out how to get around Hickson to do just that, Kelvin came to me at dinner with another, far more serious problem. He plopped down on the ground across from me, his bandaged head hanging low. I was about to ask him how he was feeling when his hand slid across the table toward me.
Just as I looked down at it, the hand pulled away, leaving behind a single golden bullet.
“Where did you get this?” I asked. I knew immediately what it was—just as I knew an earthquake.
“I made it,” he said flatly.
“Why?” I looked up at him, wondering what procedures I’d missed in the concussion analysis tests I had him perform over lunch.
“Hickson pulled me off farm detail. All of us, in fact. The tractors are no longer allowed to be used for anything. Anyway, two other construction guys are in a room we converted in the tool module. I haven’t seen what they’re making, but I saw the pipes going in, and I had someone ask me about rifling barrels.”
“They’re making guns?” I asked, my voice as low as I could make it and still be heard.
Kelvin nodded.
Oliver and Tarsi walked up with two of the support people I recognized but didn’t know very well. My hand immediately covered the bullet. I slid it off the table and into my lap, reminding myself for the third or fourth time that day that I needed to sew a few pockets into my new garments.
“You boys look serious,” Tarsi said. She jerked her head my way. “If you’re thinking of changing your earlier diagnosis, I should warn you that he wasn’t too bright to begin with.”
She smiled at Kelvin, who smirked and scrunched up his face for effect. “Actually,” he said, “we were just arguing over who should have to sleep on the floor tonight.”
“It’s our night,” she said, scooping up some fresh fruitpaste with one of the bright yellow spoons.
“Yeah,” Oliver said. “My back can’t take two nights in a row on the floor.”
“No,” Kelvin said, his face still creased with sarcasm and false hurt. “I was just telling Porter that it’s no fair I’ve had to sleep with you every night, and that he should have to take a turn.”
Tarsi put down her spoon and turned to me.
“He’s just playing with you,” I told her. “I never said that.”
“I’ll take a turn,” Oliver said, digging into his paste and watching Tarsi out of the corner of his eye.
Tarsi glared at me, her eyes angry slits.
“What?” I asked. “I swear, he’s just getting you back for calling him dumb just now.”
“We’ll talk about this later,” she said, turning back to her bowl.
“Yeah.” I looked across at Kelvin and held up my closed fist, the cool cylinder of gold wrapped up inside it. “We’ll talk about this later,” I whispered.
••••
That night, the three of us lounged on the hood of our tractor, recuperating from another day of impossible deadlines. For the first time, the metal surface was as cool as the night, as nothing had been done on the farms all day. It was also our first night without Oliver.
His absence made it feel like a wheel had been removed from our home, our little family now unbalanced and incomplete. He had come by earlier to get a few of his things and to explain his desire to sleep closer to the command module. It had been an awkward moment, none of us knowing what to say. It almost felt
as if we would never see each other again, even though the lone window of the command module could be seen from our hood and he had promised to join us at every meal.
So the three of us lay in an unusual, cool, silence. Kelvin and Tarsi continued pretending to be mad at each other; a series of jabs and jokes earlier in the day had somehow turned into a spat of sorts. It designated me the third wheel, even as Tarsi forced me to scoot over and lie in the middle. She snuggled up to me, but I couldn’t help but sense it was an assault on Kelvin more than a true gesture of affection.
For a brief moment, I imagined Kelvin sidling up against my other side to return the blow, and the visual imagery excited me. Sexually. Then it filled me with shame. I concentrated on my arousal going away, which just made it throb all the stronger. Looking down my body, I could see the swelling in my pants illuminated from the glow of the tractor’s cab. I felt like my two friends could see it as well but I worried that covering it would just draw more attention. The more I thought about it, the more my erection grew, until I felt like I was going to die from the humiliation.
“Is there something you want to talk about?” Kelvin asked me.
“What?” I felt my cheeks flush. “I—what would I want to talk about?”
“You know,” he said, elbowing me.
“No.” I could feel myself turning bright red, but at least the rush of blood put an end to the source of my embarrassment. “I have no idea what you’re referring to,” I said.
“The bullet,” he whispered.
Oh. I exhaled. “Yeah,” I said.
“What bullet?” Tarsi asked loudly. She rolled on her side and draped one of her knees across my legs, resting her chin on my chest.
“Shhh,” Kelvin hissed. “Voices carry out here.”
He wasn’t kidding. A few nights earlier we’d spent our entire time on the hood giggling, the four of us wrapped together in fits of hysteria while two other colonists sat on top of the power module and told each other how madly in love they were.