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That didn’t seem like much of a problem considering the damn locked door. I stared at the camera in the ceiling, wondering if there might be some kind of sleeping pill down here that lasted six months. A syringe full of some kind of hibernation potion. Something to take the edge off? Anything to stop the spiraling sense of loneliness creeping in from all sides.
Last night’s light show had ended, and now the external monitors displayed nothing but pink. Wind churned the soil, whipping it into the mother of all sandstorms. “Thermal Station C, please expand on theFires That Cleanse.”
“TheFires That Cleanseare employed in rare cases when extreme outbreaks cannot be curtailed through medical intervention and the risk of cross-planet contamination is too great. All organic life on Tern has been destroyed.”
Jesus Christ!I squeezed my eyes shut.
A hard lump built up in my throat. The whole fucking planet? No life or lives remaining. Except me. All to study a stupid bacterium. They’d better have found the life-saving enzyme they were looking for, or this incredible loss would be for nothing.
I closed my wet eyes, praying the city had been evacuated, and spoke a silent prayer for all the lives that had been lost here.
Six Months Later
“External air filters require replacement.”
Well that’s right as rain, except for the fact that the fucking door is still locked down.“And how do you propose I do that?”
“You will find the door lock has been disengaged, Sterling Peoples. The spores have been eradicated by theFires That Cleanse.”
A paralyzing fear trickled down my spine. What if the spores were still out there? I’d been trapped down here for seven months, alone. The air smelled riper than a silage pit, but I’d kept myself alive. Most systems were running…enough. A little recirculated air wouldn’t kill me.
The external air filters could wait another day.
I twisted the one faucet that still had potable water and filled my canteen. The tepid water slid down my throat, barely quenching my thirst. The auto-waterer would turn on any minute for the long blue cucumber-like fruit, tinga, so I gathered a cleanish set of coveralls and a towel and headed to the biodome.
With my clothes and towel slung over a tall fruit tree branch, I stood between the rows of tinga. Water washed over my skin from a long overhead sprinkler while I mentally listed everything I needed to do that day. Mist the hiti mushrooms, unclog the recycler, harvest the graneth, replace thecoupler on the heat injection pump, tighten the clamps on the ventilation system…
“Sterling Peoples, the external air filters still require replacement.”
I swore the more time we spent together, the cheekier she sounded. Yep, not happening.The air’s just fine down here. Spore free.
The more I ignored the warnings, the more labored my breath came. Even hauling the lightweight synth-tech hose was arduous. It seemed to weigh a hundred pounds as I heaved it toward the mushrooms and misted them.
My feet dragged as I walked to the southern end of level thirty-one and began the time-consuming and mind-numbing process of tightening each overhead clamp along the ventilation system. Three clamps later, the torquer fell from my tingling fingers to the mesh grate floor, just missing my foot. Chest heaving, I bent over to pick it up and propped my hands on my knees to catch my breath.
Fuck, the air’s as thick as gravy.
“Air filtration system below optimal. Immediate attention required.”
Dizzy and panting, I made my way toward the oxy tank beside the exit and typed in the code to release it from the harness. With the mask fitted tightly over my sweat-slicked hair, I opened the valve and cool, sweet, oxygenated air filled my lungs.
“So, smart guy, what happens when you run out of oxy tanks?” The mask fogged with my breath.
I walked toward the round door the same way I’d walked away from my cheating boyfriend after he’d introduced me to his girlfriend—without looking back. The only thing Mateo had been good for was filling my head with empty compliments.
The round wheel seemed to grow as I stared at it. My shallow breaths whistled inside the mask. As if on autopilot, I spun the lock mechanism. The cool plasmasteel freewheeled in my hand, but this time when it had completed three revolutions, it stopped spinning and hissed as the seal broke.
I paused, the wheel slick in my grip, and took long deep breaths of safe air through my mask. C’s warning grew more dire each time it came through my headset.
Here goes nothing.
I ran my hand along the smooth mantu leather tool belt around my waist before opening the door, stepping over the threshold, and through the round opening. Oppressive silence greeted me. Emergency strip lighting lined the edges of the walkway as I made my way to the hovertube, and I stepped carefully, glancing over my shoulder as if someone was watching. Under my damp palm, the reader turned green, and the hovertube descended. The engine jolted to life with a loud whir as I climbed in and the door sealed me inside, and I crouched to steady myself as it rose. For some strange reason, the hovertube jerked to a stop at level eight.
When the door whooshed open, I realized why. I gulped a breath of clean air through my mask and closed my eyes.You can do this. You have to do this.
I forced my eyes open and my legs to work. Right foot forward, I stepped around the bloated dark-skinned body of a Boola, about to tip inside the open doors, then over the next two blue-furred Lornians wedged together, arms around each other. I held my breath as I passed a fourth, fifth… I stopped counting after the twelfth, gulping down long, cleansing breaths when I reached the stairwell.
Shit, that was a lot harder than I thought it would be.
