IT’S SILENT AS DEATHin the command room. And unless someone answers my mayday, soon that’ll be literal.
Thiscannotbe the way I end.
Was it this quiet before? Is this the silence that comes from machinery shutting down, or is it just that I’m alone? Is the venting about to begin?
I’m standing in the center of what they call the bridge, even though this isn’t a ship. It’s a big, circular space with banks of desks ringing the station commander’s place in the middle.
That’s where I’m busy shouting into a transmitter for help that isn’t coming.
The desk is so weirdly frozen in time, like the commander just stepped out for a moment, and she’ll be back through the door any second now; half a toasted sandwich still sits on a plate, and the free space around her compstation is decoratedwith little projectors broadcasting pics and vids of her kids. There’s a Tokyo Disney snow globe sitting beside a tiny plant in a painted pot.
What I care about, though, is the emergency broadcast system – and I flip back the protective case to try another mayday. My heart is still thumping so loud in my chest that I can …
… No, wait.
That’s not my heart, that’sfootsteps.
I whirl around just as someone – a girl, I think – in a bulky EVA pressure suit comes hurtling through the door. She has an oxygen tank gripped in one hand instead of strapped to her back, and it swings with momentum when she pulls up short.
‘What are you doing here?’ The words are out before I have time to choose them, and she immediately fixes me with a look that tells me it was just as stupid a question as I think it was.
‘You want to talk, or live?’ she snaps – and that’s when I realize her suit isn’t bulky. She has asecondsuit slung over her shoulder.
‘Live.’ I dump my backpack and practically vault the commander’s desk on my way to her. She’s already opening up the suit, ready to start helping me into it.
As I get closer, I can see her better inside her helmet. She has vividly red hair pulled back into a rough knot, the same rich color as the surface of the planet outside. A lock of it’s falling into her big dark brown eyes. They stand out against her pale skin, the only softness about her.
Everything else, from the firm line of her mouth to the set of her shoulders, screams businesslike competence. She moves gracefully in the low gravity, but she’s short enough that she’s clearly Earthborn, not Martian.
The part of my brain that regularly gets me into trouble registers that she’s exactly my type, from her looks to her attitude. Except for the bit where she thinks I’m an idiot.
‘Strip. Down to your underwear,’ she instructs me, her voice broadcast through a little speaker set into the base of her helmet. ‘Those clothes are too bulky to fit under a suit.’
I don’t even make a joke. That’s how much I don’t want to die. I just haul off my shirt as I hustle the last few steps toward her. I hop on first one foot and then the other as I pull off my boots, dropping them to the ground with twin thumps. The lighter Martian gravity sends me off-balance, and I grab at a desk to stay upright.
‘Everythingbutyour underwear,’ she says, underlining the words, her dark eyes daring me to get smart with her. This girl has edges so sharp, I could cut myself on them. Honestly, it’s kind of hot. ‘The suit’s Martian-sized, it’s for someone leaner than you.’
I unfasten my belt and drop my trousers, then step out of them. She crouches and holds the suit ready for me to step into one leg at a time, turning her head and absolutely refusing to look at anything below the belt, which, fair – we just met fifteen seconds ago.
‘I tried a mayday,’ I say, as if conversation is going to make this somehow less personal. Once my feet are in, I reach downto take over, my fingers brushing hers for a moment before she understands and releases the suit. Quickly I haul it up over my thighs. It’s tight, all right – everyone born on Mars is taller and slimmer, with the lighter gravity.
‘I heard,’ she replies, straightening up.
‘Nothing back, not even an acknowledgment ping. I thought that channel was meant to be continuously monitored by Orbital. I thought it was meant to go out to the nearest settlements.’
‘You should definitely get very mad at someone about that later,’ she replies. ‘Once you’re in the suit, we have to get an O2tank and hook you up.’
‘Hurry up, in other words.’
‘Hey, not so stupid after all. You keep getting the suit sealed, I’ll try my luck with the mayday. Is there anything they can do, though, even if they do receive a transmission?’
‘They can override the venting procedure.’
‘Who can? The UN can override any system on Mars, but who can override the UN? Doesn’t that kind of miss the point of what they’re here for, if someone else can control them?’
‘There are UN staff on Orbital. They can help us remotely. If they know we’re here.’
She nods, and weaves her way through the rings of desks as I wrestle the suit over my hips and then jump up and down on the spot to try to coax it higher at the crotch. And yeah, I wait until her back’s turned for that bit of ridiculousness.
