Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

Anita buried herself in work for the next week, barely letting herself look outside of the base except to watch the night pass by on the computer monitors. Bit by bit, the first suit was coming together on the table. The assembled components were only a few centimeters across, but she added a little every day, and that was the important thing. Or so Anita told herself, when the inevitable self-doubt arose.

Capheus was the next scout to arrive. She only had a few hours notice before he skidded to a stop a few meters outside the hatch. When he came inside, she signed, “I would have helped, but you didn’t give me time to put on my suit!” He laughed, and embraced her. She held on as long as she dared, soaking in the feel of human touch on her skin. They got business out of the way by putting away the food supplies and swapping the oxygen out, then Anita showed him the suit components on the table. He touched them gently, drawing a finger along the edge. “This is good work, doctor. I’m glad to see it. I know it will be easier for you after the first one.”

Anita nodded, then signed, “I need fabric for the suit construction. Work with Jay, they have ways of doing things I didn’t think were possible. They can help.”

“We will get you the fabric, doctor. I don’t know when, but we will find it. I would give you my suit if it would help, but I would rather not face the surface of Titan in just my pajamas.”

“Are you hungry?” Anita asked. “You should eat something before going back.”

“Starving, in fact. And I need to stay overnight, if I can. I have a long way to go tomorrow to get back to where I am supposed to be, and I will need all the energy I can to get there.”

“Of course you can stay. Goodness knows there’s enough space. I’ll throw together something for lunch, then we can chat while I work. Nada couldn’t stay long when she came, and I’m dying to catch up your work.”

Conversation was light as they prepared and ate lunch, but after everything was cleared down and put away, Anita sat at her work and listened to Capheus while trying to remember how she had solved a particular problem with one of the joints on the wing junction.

“So far, they haven’t interfered much with my work. I get regular flights, and most of them are close to Kerguelen. But sometimes they let me go on the longer routes, like this one. I’m supposed to be picking out some potential routes for Steven to check later. Interesting chemistry, I take it. He’d be the one to tell you what’s really going on out there. But I love the terrain. There’s always something interesting and new to see out there.”

Anita signed, “I love the lakes. I visit the one on the other side of the hills when I can. It’s beautiful.”

“I hope you’re staying well back from the edge. It’ll eat through your suit in an instant.”

“Like a school of space pirhanas.”

“What?”

“Sorry, my humor gets a little weird without other people to talk to. Never mind. So they haven’t tried to put any kind of addition equipment in your suits or make you take it along on scouting missions?”

Capheus shrugged. “They’re not allowed to. It’s in the specific agreement they signed with Themis, that there would be no attempts to tamper with our equipment or monetize our data. They were hoping that the changes they made to your designs would go under the radar, but they got caught, so they’re being more careful. They’re still hoping to catch you and use your work again.”

Anita worked in silence for a few minutes, adjusting a particularly tricky angle, and trying not to think too hard about what they might be able to persuade her to do to her suit design if they found her out here alone. There were thousands of things that could go wrong to a lab rat living alone in an abandoned base with outdated technology. Atmosphere leaks. Clogged air filters. Carbon dioxide build up. Fire. They would have quite a choice of ways to take her out of the picture.

“What about the others? Do you hear much about their work?” she asked, then reached for her tablet to begin the design of the next component she needed.

“A little. We try not to spend too much time together, to keep Perses from knowing that we are in a conspiracy against them. Frida has been logging a lot of time in the field, testing lots of equipment. It’s basically her job to try to break things and then fix them again. She’s very good at it, both the destruction and the repair. I think she enjoys the destruction a little too much, but it’s a good way for her to use her nervous energy.”

Anita smiled, picturing Frida attempting to smash equipment against a rock somewhere on the surface. She could see it.

“Sergei is creating maps as quickly as he can, of course. The satellites do a lot of the work, but it helps to get a human eye on it, and he’s been able to revise and correct most of our maps to a great degree of accuracy. It makes him very valuable, and Perses gives him a lot of freedom for it. I don’t keep up with the others much, they have us on very different schedules and routes that are pretty far from each other. I look forward to the day we can work as a real team again.”

“So do I,” Anita signed, and stretched her arms over her head. Her back cracked and she let out a sigh of relief. Another hour or so passed in quiet conversation, Capheus telling her stories of the recent flights he had taken, with Anita asking questions when she could pull her hands away from her work.

When it was time to sleep, Anita loaded up the bunk across from hers with blankets for Capheus, and slid into her own bed. She heard him fall asleep quickly, his breath slowing and evening out. She was highly aware of the physical presence of another human being in the room. It was like electricity playing over her skin, like having a center of gravity in the other bed that she was perpetually being drawn to.

She had never had a physical or romantic relationship with any colleague, though a few had hinted at an interest. It was better to keep relationships away from work. She had seen far too many relationships implode and derail the work of an entire lab as they went. This policy had always served her well, and she’d never been seriously tempted. Until now.

Anita rolled over onto her stomach and pressed herself into the bed. She couldn’t even tell if she was sexually attracted to Capheus or simply had been alone so long that she craved as much human touch as she could get. It didn’t matter: her entire body was crying out for touch. Go now, she thought. Go now and be with him while you can, he’ll be gone in a few hours and you’ll be alone again. Just slip under those covers, and feel the whole length of another body against yours.

She clenched the sheets and turned her face into the pillow, crying silently. She had never experienced the need for human touch as a physical pain before, had not even known that was possible. If someone else had told her about it, she would have assumed that they were exaggerating, or being overly sensitive. But her skin crawled with desire, with the fantasy of a warm hand sliding down her back, palm flat against her skin, feeling every inch.

A rustling from the other side of the room caught her attention, and she realized Capheus’ breathing had changed, and that he was awake, too. Was he aware of her torment? Was he hoping she would cross the room to his bed, or dreading it? His breathing had quickened, but she didn’t dare glance his way. This couldn’t be right. He was under her professional direction, and he was not in a position to leave the base easily and freely. Worse, she wasn’t desiring him as a person, only as a warm body. She might feel better for an hour or so, but it would be much worse later.

No, she breathed to herself. No, I won’t. Not like this. Not now. Not out of desperation. She quietly slid the warm blanket to the foot of the bed, letting the chilly air of the base seep through her clothes and into her bones. She clutched a pillow against her stomach, and curled into a ball. Eventually, the cold and exhaustion broke the grip of desire, and she fell asleep.