Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

The second day was much like the first, and so was the third. The only thing that changed was the view outside the base, as the sun moved slowly over the sky and back toward the horizon. Each day changed just enough to make it interesting to spend a half hour at the computer, seeing what looked different.

Finally, Anita decided to make an excursion outside the base. Nada had supplied her with the Perses satellite schedules, and she knew she could walk around outside for an hour or two and still have time to erase her footprints before being in any danger. And being cooped up inside the base for one more hour would possibly make her fling her tablet against the wall and scream like a banshee.

Once in her suit and having checked all the seals, Anita closed the inner hatch of the airlock behind her, and hit the button to siphon the air back into the base. Once the green light over the outer hatch lit up, she opened it and stepped outside.

The light was warm and golden, and Anita felt like she could almost sense the sun on her skin, after the cold light of the base. The sun was a golden blur in the sky, small as a coin and distant, but beautiful even when so hidden. The winds whispered against her helmet, and little strands of icy sand snaked across the surface of the little world.

Her feet crunching on the surface, Anita made her way up one of the hills nearest the base, looking for a good view of the surrounding area. It felt good to move freely, without walls on either side. She could veer off to the left, if she wanted. No small enclosed circles to run here!

When she got to the top of the hill, the view was breathtaking. Directly in front of her was the silver sheen of a methane lake, glinting in the dim sunlight. To her right and left, craggy rocks and loose stones that were probably water ice. The valley faded into the near distance, Titan’s murky air hiding it from view. Everything was shades of ochre, brown, and aged gold.

Anita began the slow walk down the other side of the hill, being careful not to dislodge any large stones that could give her away to passing satellites. Years of field works on Mars had taught her how to avoid rock falls under much stronger gravity than this. She made her way across the chaotic terrain to the edge of the methane lake. It was still, so still. Anita leaned over carefully to look in; her reflection was clearer than she had ever seen in any reflecting pool on Mars, only the barest ripple to mar the image. She saw an alien creature looking back at her, head encased in a bulbous helmet, wrinkled skin of a greyish cloth with hardware attached at every juncture. Her face was almost entirely hidden by the helmet, but she could see lines under her eyes and around her mouth that she had not noticed there before. A trick of the light, she told herself, but she knew she was lying. The trauma of this experience was likely to change her forever in ways she could not foresee. But it couldn’t be helped, not now.

Anita straightened up, and the reflection disappeared. She looked out across the lake, how it filled every nook and cranny of the little depression it sat in. How the breeze rippled it out there in the middle, and sometimes dusted it with fine particles that then sank below the surface without a sound. She checked the time: still hours before any possible pass from a satellite. She reached down for a piece of ice rock the size of her palm, and threw it out as far as she could. The resulting splash was a visual and auditory delight. It dropped into the liquid with a satisfying gloop, and the widening ripples spread out in a perfect circle, still too high for her brain to quite accept.

I have wanted to do that since the first day I got here. Probably not in line with planetary protection, but I don’t give a damn right now. It’s not the first time one of those ice bits has gone into a methane lake, I’m sure of that.

She walked along the edge of the lake for a while, soaking in the sights and sounds of the surface of Titan. It had been a long time since she had been out in the field without a clear objective, something to take her focus off the moon itself. It was nothing like walking along the pools in Spirit City. Those were tame and quiet, completely artifical. She’d read stories about walking by lakes in the woods on earth, and wondered if this is what that felt like. Maybe a little. It was deadly: the methane would do horrible things to any organic material unlucky enough to encounter it. The cold of Titan would be destructive enough without a suit. But it was beautiful, nonetheless. Maybe the danger even contributed to it. Here was something that did not welcome her at all, that she could make no use of, that existed solely for itself. And it was beautiful.

After another few minutes at the lake’s edge, Anita headed back to the base. She was careful to disguise her footprints as she returned, and she looked back from the base door to make sure her journey couldn’t be detected. Satisfied, she entered the hatch and sealed it behind her, flooding the airlock with breathable atmosphere.

Exhausted, she dropped into her favorite chair at the table in the kitchen. That would count as her exercise for the day, that was for certain. In fact, it would be good to take regular excursions. The thigh muscles needed for extended walking over Titan’s surface needed to be kept in peak condition, and they were painful to build back up. Yes, more surface walks, to be sure.

The base seemed quiet after the whispery sounds of Titan’s surface. The computer beeped and the ventilation system whirred, but nothing more. It was easier to keep her silence on the surface, somehow. Here, she felt the need to talk to drown out the ambient noises. Something about being exposed to the surface of Titan commanded respect, silence. Being in the base by herself just made her feel lonely.

The rest of the day passed much like the others had, except that she skipped the evening exercise beyond some basic stretches to ease out the soreness that the walk had left behind. Sleep came easier than it had before.

In her dreams, Anita found herself back on the surface of Titan. With a jump, she was able to fly, and she found herself soaring over endless mountains, valleys, silvery lakes, always moving through air that seemed to support her with the simplest motions. It was a disappointment when she woke and found herself back in the grey base.

She began sitting in front of the ubiquitous mood lights while working. The lack of natural light had began to bother her after the first week. It would be one thing if there were windows, she thought. Windows would be enough. But there were none. Sometimes she would take her tablet and sit on the floor in the airlock without sealing any of the hatches, just to be able to see some of the light outside.

The suit design never seemed to make much real progress. Every time she ran the simulation on the new circuits she had added from memory, something went wrong. It was infuriating. She tried to tell herself to be gentle with herself, that the original design was years of work under better conditions, she couldn’t expect to rebuild it from scratch in a matter of weeks under the worst conditions imaginable. But it didn’t silence the voice in her head that said otherwise.

She had discovered that the base computers came with a library of music, and began playing through it, quietly, while she worked and exercised. It helped, a little. Instrumental music wasn’t as good, but anything with a human voice helped quell the yearning for human contact. Once or twice she found herself almost singing along, but was able to stop herself just in time.

It was eighteen days and four hours before a message came through that she didn’t realize she had been waiting for. When the alert on her tablet beeped, Anita turned from her work and pulled up a message from Nada. “Will be able to make supply run in two days. Expect me sometime on the twenty-third. I can’t stay long, but I have more food and oxygen for you.”

Anita found that she was shaking as she closed the message. Five days. Only five more days, and she would see another person. Hear another voice. Touch someone. Five more days. She could do this.

She checked the oxygen levels on the computer monitor. A little thin, but it would be ok for five more days, probably longer. The food was running low on the fresh ingredients, but plenty of meat and cheese, and a few eggs. Best to use the last of those before new supplies came in.

The next few days were harder than the previous two weeks. Not knowing when the isolation might end forced her mind to use its own resource; giving an end date intensified the craving for human contact. It felt like an itch under her skin, prickling in the tips of her fingers, crawling along her scalp.

Anita found herself exercising more and working less. Every time she sat down to work on the suit designs, her brain refused to focus on the task. It felt like static in her brain, she thought. Little sparks and short circuits that made the usual connections impossible. The night before Nada was slated to arrive, she couldn’t sleep at all. Every time her eyes began to close, a small noise would jolt her awake and flood her system with adrenaline. She turned her alarm off a half hour before it was scheduled and got out of bed.

Checked the tablet. No updates. No surprise there, no reason to send more messages than necessary. She should be prepared, Nada might not be there until the end of the day. Proceed as normal. Check the task list. Too nervous to eat more than a little jerky for breakfast. No point in working on the designs, but she could sort parts, that didn’t require as much focus. Or maybe just strip wiring from some of the pieces. Even better: brainless work.

It almost felt like time ceased to flow. Anita tried not to look at the time, but she couldn’t resist glancing at it. Only minutes had passed. She groaned internally and turned back to the work. After two hours with no message, she put the last bit of wiring aside, and massaged her fingertips. They weren’t used to this kind of work, and they were starting to hurt.

She didn’t want to go on a walk outside, even though that would use the maximum amount of her nervous energy. She didn’t want to be caught away from the base when Nada arrived, or run the risk of missing a message. She put on her shoes and began to run the loop of the base, keeping a pace that she knew would use as much energy as possible over a sustained time.

On her twenty-seventh loop, the tablet beeped, and she loped over to it. “Perimeter alert,” the text read. She pulled up the camera feed on the computer and saw the shape of a winged scout landing a few meters from the airlock. She waited, shifting her weight from foot to foot, until she could visually confirm that it was Nada. Then she rushed to the airlock and waited for her teammate to enter.

Once the entry procedure had completed, Nada stepped into the base, and Anita wrapped her arms around her. Nada returned the embrace, and grabbed Anita’s hand. Anita signed, “You have no idea how happy I am to see another face.”

Nada smiled. “It’s good to see you, too. And I’m sure the fact that I have fresh food and supplies has nothing to do with that.”

“Maybe a little.”

They worked together to unpack the oxygen resupply tank and the fresh food. There was the usual stock of meat, cheese, and eggs, and then Anita eagerly dove in to see what produce Nada had managed to bring.

“The usual greens, vacuum packed. More soups; I tried to get some variety this time, so it’s more than just the chicken noodle.” Anita couldn’t hold back a small dance as she waved a packet of freeze dried chicken tortilla soup. “I thought you might like that. Also a few packets of dried curry, just mix it with the hot water. It’s not great, but it’s better than not having curry, as far as I am concerned.” She pulled out another packet, one that she had kept stored in her flight suit for safety. “And the supplies I think you will really want.” She opened the packet to reveal a small printing system, and everything Anita would need to begin creating the circuits for the suits. “It’s not much, and it can’t do big pieces like the ones back at the Kerguelen labs, but it’s something. We’ll bring more if we can.”

Anita took the printer carefully, as if she were being handed a delicate antique. With this, she could finally begin the real work. It would be slow, but at least it would be present, more than just lines on a tablet.

She looked back at Nada, unable to express her thoughts in words, even signed. Nada reached out and pulled her in close. “I know. There is so much work ahead, but we know you can do it. We believe in you.”

“How long can you stay?” Anita asked, trying to keep her hands from shaking.

“Only an hour or so. My registered flight path is hours off of here. Dr. Knowlton is covering for me, but it’s best to keep as close to official schedules as possible.”

Anita nodded. “How is it… back at base? How much control does Perses have?”

“More and more all the time. It’s not bad yet, but it could get that way soon. We think they must be pretty confident they can find you, because they’ve left the scouts alone, for the most part. We’re assuming it’s because they know that once they have the designs, they can print new suits with their own trackers and scanners built in, so they’re not in a real rush on that front.”

Which means they think they can track me down quickly, Anita thought. Only time will tell if they’re right on that front.

They spent the next hour replacing the old oxygen supply with the new one, putting away the food, and having a quick meal before Nada had to go. Anita kept glancing at the time, wondering how minutes that seemed so long earlier in the day were flying by so quickly now. Nada must realize that her danger increases with every minute she is here, she thought to herself. Why doesn’t she go? It hit her with the force of a rockslide: Nada’s presence was her gift to Anita; it was as much a gift as the oxygen supply and the fresh food. She would not leave until Anita was ready. And I have to be ready now, she thought. I have to let her go, I have to be ready to be alone again.

She found she was shaking with the thought of facing those days of solitude again. The strict rhythm of tasks that kept her sane but also felt like it was slowly stripping her humanity away. But she could never ask Nada to stay. Nada had her own work to do, and keeping her at the base would only endanger her more than she was already. Not to mention the strain it would put on the others, to keep two supplied with oxygen and food instead of one.

“You need to go,” she signed, trying not to let her despair show. “It’s getting late, and I don’t want to make you late.”

Nada was on her feet in a moment, gathering her pack and helmet. “I will be back when I can, Dr Sensharma. The others will make their own visits. We will try not to leave you alone any longer than we must. I promise.”

Anita nodded, and the two women made their way to the airlock. Anita hadn’t bothered to take off her suit while Nada was there, and it was a moment’s work to grab her helmet and join Nada in the airlock. When the hatches were sealed and the air sucked back into the base, the outer door opened, and they stepped out onto the face of the moon.

As Anita watched Nada sprint over the sands and launch into the murky sky, it took all of her willpower to stay on her feet. The loneliness had been so much more bearable when she had forgotten what it felt like to be able to talk to another human being.

She made her way back through the airlock, and as she went to the computer to silence the perimeter alarm that had been tripped by Nada’s departure, she found a message waiting for her. From Jay.

“Hey, I know you can’t send anything back without tipping Perses off about your location, so don’t even think about it, but I wanted to say hi and give you a bit of an update.” Jay took tired, and their hair was even more chaotic than usual, but they were as forceful as ever. That was reassuring, somehow. “You should have gotten the first resupply stuff by now. We’ve got a system in place to keep everything coming. You don’t have to worry about food or air, so don’t. The printer we sent should help you start to get some stuff done on those suits. I took a look at some of the satellite data from your area, and I can’t see anything that would give you away. The heat signatures are masked by the ground and the insulation of the base itself. No signals coming out, nothing that makes that little hill look much different than the surrounding area. I think we’re ok there.”

Jay paused a minute, then leaned closer into the camera. “Look, I know you’re wondering, so I’ll be upfront here. Perses is getting more control over Kerguelen by the day. It’s nothing big, but it’s like they’re moving chess pieces so that everything is in place and they can have all the power very very quickly once a queen falls. There’s been some protest, but most people keep their heads down so they can keep their own work out of it. I’m walking a really fine line here: if I don’t protest, any one who knows me at all will know that something is up, but if I protest too much, I risk getting watched too much to keep helping you. And you know something, Anita, it’s not just that. It feels so wrong to me not to be fighting this whole thing as much as I possibly can. It’s not in my nature to be calculating, to hold back because of consequences. Even now, I just want to go set fire to their office, even if it would mean you got caught because of it.” They stared into the screen. “Is that bad? Does that make me a horrible person? I don’t know. That moral math is too complicated for me, which is why I usually don’t do it. But I can’t shake the thought that protecting your work may be more important than shutting the bastards down quickly. If they get any access to your designs, they could have scouts in the air in a week, mapping out every single mineral deposit they want to scrape out. They could strip this place into rubble in a matter of months, and tangle every one else up in enough red tape to let them do it, at least for as long as they need.” Jay pointed into the camera. “So THAT is why I’m not burning them to the ground right now. You better be damn grateful, girl, and you better get to work on those suits so we get on with the real work here without danger of having it used to destroy everything we love. Leave the activism to us. Do your job, and do it better than you’ve ever done it before.”

Anita could see Jay reach up as if to switch off the camera, then they pulled their hand back. “Ok, that sounds harsh. You know me, I can get a little over the top. And I did mean every word. But I’m also just really worried about you. I can find friends wherever I go, but I’ve never found one I liked as much as you. So stay safe, be careful, do your work, and come back as soon as you can. Ok? Ok. Good talk. I’ll send more when I can.” The screen went dark, and the message ended.

Anita sat staring at the screen for a long time, thinking. The base was painfully quiet, and she didn’t dare turn any of her music up to levels that might have helped to mediate the silence. And what was all that about Jay liking her more than any other friend? Jay was hilariously popular just about everywhere they went, except for the few people who inevitably found them exhausting. They had friends at every level of administration at the base, as well as on Mars and Earth. There was no way she was the most interesting friend on three worlds, not when she spent most waking hours in a lab or out on a dusty planetary surface. She would have to talk to Jay about that after all of this madness was over.

The printer lay on the table in front of her like a bar of gold, almost shiny with possibility. It could never print an entire suit, but it could print the circuits and chips, which could be integrated into the suits in other ways. It wouldn’t be the elegant design she had had to destroy, but it would work. The printing of the full design could wait until Kerguelen Base was safe against. These just needed to work.

Sleep was a long way away, Anita knew, and made no effort to stop working on the suits at her usual time. Many components of the pile of scrap parts could be reused by the printer, and Anita was able to get a decent print after a couple of tries. She could see exactly the way the tiny bit of sparkling electronics would connect to the rest of the suit, how it would look out on the surface, shining dimly through the haze. The thrill of having even a small part of the redesign be physically present was enough to keep her awake and working for hours.