Chapter 18
Halley
Keelo comes slouching back into sight when the hard work of setting up camp is done.
I watch him approach through the dawning darkness as he crests the closest sand dune.
There’s something about the way he’s holding his body, his shoulders hunched and his hands stuffed into the pockets of his trousers, that forestalls me scolding him.
He shouldn’t have left us to do all the work, but… well, maybe I’m too tired to be angry.
When he glances at me, I look away. An irrational feeling of being caught settles like a lump in my chest, as if I was spying on him in a private moment.
“Would you like me to brush your hair?” I ask Rin, any excuse for a distraction.
And, really, her hair looks like a fright, and that can’t be comfortable.
“If you’ve got a comb, that’d be good. But if not, I could use my fingers.
” I wiggle them temptingly. I’ve had enough practice with my own curls to be quietly confident Rin’s hair won’t give me much trouble, not even the mats at the back of her neck.
She shakes her head, but I’m not wholly disappointed.
Getting any sort of reaction out of her, even a negative one, is better than her continued silence.
She spends most of her time watching the world with large eyes but not really interacting with it, as though she’s afraid of what will happen if she gets too invested.
“You can always change your mind later on,” I tell her, sneaking another look at Keelo as he descends to where Eot, Rin, and I are eating what counts as dinner in the desert—a tasteless nutrient bar wrapped in a type of plastic that disintegrated as soon as I broke the seal.
Keelo’s been in a bad mood all day. Actually, he’s been in a bad mood since I met him, but I think this must be normal because neither Eot nor Rin appear perturbed by his near-constant scowl.
Keelo reaches us and takes the food rations Eot passes him but doesn’t join us around the battery-powered stove, our source of light now that the suns have disappeared. Rather, he grabs his bedroll and drags it away from the center of our camp, isolating himself.
“Wake me when it’s my turn to keep watch,” is all he says before lying down with his back to us.
Okay, then.
“We have a watch schedule?” I ask Eot. Makes sense, considering we’re literally out here hunting.
“Keelo and I can manage.”
“I don’t mind.” I do mind. I want nothing more than to go to sleep after a long day of travel, but I’m willing to force myself to stay awake for another few hours if it means proving my usefulness.
“I can take the first watch”—because I’m not so much of a martyr to suggest I take the middle one—“and I can wake you when…”
I glance skyward. There isn’t a moon in sight, so I choose a bright star, or possibly a planet, that’s near the horizon. “I’ll wake you when that star is a third of the way across the sky. Deal?”
Eot gives me a long look. I can’t read his expression, but something about it makes butterflies bloom in my stomach. I smile, feeling suddenly shy.
It’s strange how dissimilar he and Keelo are, something I normally wouldn’t think twice about.
All people are different from each other.
Of course they are. But Eot and Keelo literally meld their bodies together.
There was a time, not so long ago, when I saw them sharing hands and legs and a head.
Yet, when they’re separate, it’s almost impossible to understand how they reconcile their differences.
“It’s a deal,” Eot eventually says. Then he scoops Rin into his arms. “Time for bed,” he tells her, leaving me by the battery stove as he tucks Rin into her blankets and takes himself off to his own bed.
Silence falls over our small camp. It’s so quiet I can actually hear Keelo’s deep breaths, despite the few yards between us.
Eot’s a much quieter sleeper, resting peacefully.
Keelo’s back remains tense, as if he’s expecting an attack even in his sleep.
Rin is fitful in her rest, tossing and turning, kicking at her blankets despite the increasing cold.
I wrap my arms around my bare knees and shuffle closer to the stove.
It’s radiating a soft heat that’s doing a good job of keeping the sand around it from losing much of the daytime warmth.
I take my shoes off and bury my feet into that sand, for once loving the feel of it.
It’s welcome after a day spent riding, my body aching and sore.
My eyelids are heavy, so I stare at the sky, inventing constellations from among the stars, searching for new patterns to name.
I jerk awake, and the stove hisses as flecks of sand hit the burner.
Unable to remember lying down, I pull myself into a seated potion.
A guilty glance behind me shows that the others are still settled and safe, and another glance toward the sky makes it clear that my time keeping watch is only half over.
I couldn't have been asleep for long then. That’s a relief.
But why did I wake? And so suddenly too. I run my hands over my bare legs, hunting for insect bites, but find nothing.
Maybe one of the others made a noise in their sleep—Keelo or Rin.
Or maybe… Heart thumping, I scan the horizon.
The outlines of the tallest sand dunes are barely visible against the backdrop of the starry night sky.
There might be something...something animal shaped…
Even with my glasses, I’m squinting, trying to decide if the slight upward dent in the horizon is another dune or a killer trikon.
I stand, taking a half step forward. Is it moving? I think maybe it is. But it’s too distant for me to be sure. What if I wake the others for it to turn out that I’ve been imagining things? Maybe my brain is misinterpreting what I’m seeing in response to feeling guilty for falling asleep.
I shiver.
It’s so fucking creepy out here—a thought that’s immediately followed by rising panic. If anything were to go wrong, there would be no one to help us. We’re quite literally all alone.
Four people against the unfeeling, uncaring desert.
Shakily, I force myself to return to my seated position by the battery stove, my blurry vision locked on the horizon. I’m determined to stay alert this time. Just in case.