Chapter 8
8
Lunch buzzes with anticipatory energy. We’re itching to explore, to start collecting samples and performing tests. So far, all we’ve seen is grass, sky, the distant forest, and the even more distant mountains. It turns out Darcie and Julian spent the rest of their morning setting up the lab tent and cooking.
Our meal is a simple affair of leftover stew, more vegetable essence, and canned bread. I refrain from asking Darcie what the fuck canned bread is, wondering how long such a thing could possibly last without refrigeration. Everyone’s enjoying the wine except for me.
As much as I don’t want to, I can’t stop thinking about my mother’s walkie. Why would she have left it out there? Was she attacked? Was it wrenched from her? I dwell on the moments between what’s on the public record; the cracks where things can fall and become hidden for decades.
“Hey,” Darcie says, elbowing me softly. Ben and Julian are bickering animatedly about guns, a subject about which Julian now feels they are an expert, much to Ben’s obvious irritation. Darcie’s presence is suddenly intimate and kind, her attention reserved just for me. “You good?”
I know what she’s really asking. How are you feeling after wandering into the plain and having a dissociative episode, no doubt due to the emotional turmoil of returning to the alien land that forever broke your mother, and, in turn, you?
For a wild moment, I consider answering honestly: That I’m feeling like shit. I think of the grass against my skin. The way I felt while I thought I was sinking into the earth, decaying, and I’m sick, nauseous, but at the same time… it’s like a crooked line falling into place. I look at the mosaic of my life, and for once, it’s a full, vibrant image, growing brighter by the second. Never mind that the image is laced with dread, with truths I don’t want to know.
“Yeah,” I say, smiling. “I think maybe the hypersleep is still hanging over me. Never agreed with me.”
“No,” Darcie says, searching my face. “Never did.”
“And you?” I ask, a sudden needle of aggravation spurring me onward. Why should I be the one everyone worries about? We’re all lonely, all troubled. “You left some heavy shit behind on Earth.”
Darcie sits back. “You know I don’t want to talk about—”
“Back me up here,” Julian cuts in obliviously, leaning across the table, already wine-sloppy in the middle of the day. “We should be allowed to take turns with G-dawg, right?”
Darcie and I stare.
Ben shakes his head, like he’s washing his hands of this.
“The gun,” Julian explains, in the tone of someone talking down to a pair of infants. “G-dawg.”
Darcie reaches for her wine. “Right, so we’re not getting any more work done today.”
“Jules,” I say, leaning forward as if we’re having an intimate one-on-one despite the immediate presence of Darcie and Ben. “You want to take turns doing what with G—... with the gun?”
“G-dawg.”
“No,” says Darcie.
“I can’t say it,” I laugh.
Ben sighs.
Julian fixes me with a withering glare, but the wine softens their expression until it fades into a smile. “Carrying it. Wielding it. Taking care of it. It’s only fair.”
Ben leans forward, arms crossed at the elbow on the tabletop. “Fair? Who said anything about fair?”
Julian swings to face Ben, their movements overly dramatic, loose. They flick Ben on the shoulder with long fingers. “Well, what if I’m alone in the field, and I’m attacked. Who’s going to save me? You? You, Benjamin, who is busy several klicks away trying to get into Jill’s—”
“Okay,” I cut in, grabbing Julian’s wine and sliding it out of arm’s reach. “That’s enough Napa juice for J-Dawg.”
Darcie covers her mouth, obviously laughing and trying to hide it with a cough.
Julian, not sparing a glance for their confiscated wine, fixes Ben with a pleading gaze and clasps their hands together as if praying. Their glasses fall down their nose, and they push them back up. “It’s only fair. Three hours each, every day. I’ll be so good to the lethal little guy.”
“I think I prefer Jules when they’re sauced,” Darcie says, just for me.
Ben closes his eyes, sighs, and opens them a moment later as if he’s hoping Julian will have disappeared in the interim. “Finish your wine, Fleming. And then take a nap.”
Julian flops into a sulk. “Guess you want me to die.”
“Guess so,” mutters Ben.
Darcie shoots me a look. A look that says she’s still hung up on the Trying to get into Jill’s line. The way we both saw a muscle in Ben’s jaw flutter when Julian spoke, and we both know it.
I shoot her a look that says, Don’t you dare say a word, or I’ll end you .
She only smiles.
“Listen,” Ben says, clearly fed up with everything and everyone, “I’m gonna check out the forest before it gets dark. With G-dawg,” he adds in response to Julian’s hopeful glance. “Based on all the readings, it should be biologically and geographically safe. But I’m gonna confirm that myself before I let you three loose in there on your own, only to fall in an unmapped ravine. Stay in camp while I’m gone, got it? Enjoy the rest of the day. Tomorrow, we’re getting some goddamn work done.”
“Okay, boss,” Julian says, putting up a sloppy salute.
“Thank you,” I say, immediately regretting it. Thank you ? God, what’s wrong with me?
“I thought you didn’t even like him,” Darcie murmurs under her breath as Ben moves toward the exit.
Julian leans across the table, retrieving their wine from where I’ve been holding it hostage, and takes a massive swig. “Why’s he safe to go in the forest? What is he, like, immune to ravines or something?”
A low voice cuts in. “Jones?” Ben’s hovering just inside the tent.
I start, my heart pounding. Can everyone see the hot blood racing in my veins? I raise my eyebrows, questioning.
He jerks his head toward the deepening afternoon. “Come on, I need to show you that thing.”
Ah. The walkie. Part of me wanted to forget about it; pretend it hadn’t been found. On paper, I’m here for progress, for humanity. I don’t want or need these relics from a parent’s life I barely know, a parent whose experiences I had to piece together from news clips and prime-time interviews. But still…
I get up and follow him, knowing the looks Darcie and Julian are sharing right now, and dreading the moment they’ll get me alone to grill me and tease me about it. I get it; they’re buzzing on adrenaline and nerves and excitement, and they need somewhere to direct that energy. And maybe, yeah, so do I. But it’s nothing. It’s just a silly cru—
My thoughts short-circuit as I realize where we are. Ben holds open the flap to his own tent, motioning me inside. I freeze. Is this about the walkie?
He catches my gaze, and several micro-expressions flit across his face before he settles on an unreadable half-smile. “Your mother’s walkie is in my tent. You can stay out here if you want, just have to grab it.”
“Right,” I say, heart in my throat.
I follow him inside the tent. The top of his head brushes the canvas. It’s close in here, warmer than outside, but not uncomfortably so. He reaches up and flicks on the lantern, filling the shadows with warm light. We’re feet away from each other, but his body heat seems to envelop me.
“Here we go,” he says, crouching down and opening the trunk at the foot of his cot. He pulls something out, closes the trunk, stands, and holds out his hand. There it is: the most nondescript walkie-talkie I’ve ever seen. The technology hasn’t changed in decades. It’s a bit retro, but otherwise, it’s just like our walkies.
I stare down at the device. My mother held that with her warm fingers, the breath from her mouth hot against its black surface, right here on this planet. Maybe even in this tent. What damning words did she utter against this object? What fear did she express? Was it ever anything worth keeping, or even throwing away? Was it worth all the silence she knitted between us, year after year?
“Jones?”
I snap back to the present moment. Ben’s broad hand, holding the walkie out toward me. His palms are calloused, his fingers long but blunt, like he’s just as good at punching as he is at reloading a rifle at record speed. Not that loading rifles or punching is hot. It’s stupid, chauvinistic, and unappealing.
He clears his throat.
“Sorry,” I blurt, taking the walkie and turning it over in my hands. “It’s just… seeing this here…” I frown, looking up at him. His gaze is soft, concerned like I’ve never seen it before, and my legs consider crumpling. I try to think of something to say. “How do you know it’s hers?”
He reaches out. “May I?”
I nod.
He turns the walkie in my loose grip, his rough fingers brushing mine, until a small round label comes into view: Jones.
My knees almost give out again for a different reason. This is becoming all too real. My mother, this planet, everything that happened here. All the things we still don’t know. What if all the worst things they say about her are true? That she’s nothing better than a murderer? That her team’s disappearance wasn’t mysterious at all, that she killed them?
“Jones, you okay?”
I swallow rising nausea. “Mmhmm. Thank you. I’m gonna go.” I turn to leave.
Ben’s fingers fasten on my upper arm, holding me back. “Are you sure? If you’re having a rough time, we can—”
I spin to face him. Shake my head. “Thank you. No. I’m good.”
I can’t get out of there fast enough. The walkie feels infinitely heavy in my hand. A time-bomb. A tactile connection to a truth I don’t want to contemplate. I know enough about this place, what happened, to know that I’d rather not touch it. Or feel it.
My mind goes to Andrews. It always does when I’m not in control of my thoughts. How she and my mom were close, how they’d sneak off together to be alone. And how Andrews disappeared one day, and my mom found her deep in the forest. I never asked my mom about it, but I’d seen her respond to questions about Andrews, their relationship, in the interviews. She never liked talking about Andrews. Of all the things she experienced on the Planet, Andrews was the one subject that disturbed my mother most.
I don’t want to wonder about what happened to Andrews.
When I get to my tent, I don’t bother turning on the lantern. I fall to my knees, ignoring the pain. My hands are shaking now, my breaths shallow. I shove the walkie under my cot, away, into the inky shadows. It thuds and rolls once, then falls still.
“And fucking stay there.”
I feel something soft under my hands. I glance down, and my breath catches. I hadn’t seen in the dim light — there are tiny green seedlings all over the floor. They’ve burst up through the canvas bottom of the tent, growing all around the feet of the cot. I pluck one seedling, holding it up to my face. It’s just a plant. A small, delicate thing.
I stand, still unsteady, and take a long, deep breath. I let the seedling fall from my fingers. This place is stressing me out. I need a fucking distraction, and not the Ben kind.