Fat Girl in a Strange Land (4 page)

“Nothing ever gets to you, does it?”

“It’s not supposed to.” I turn the results over to him. My mug warms my hands as I wait for him to read it over.

“Huh. You think it’ll stabilize then?”

I nod and sip my tea.

“I guess even if doesn’t, there’s nothing we can do.”

“Precisely. Don’t worry about what you can’t change.”

He pushes back his chair and crosses his arms over his stomach like some fat pasha. “I missed this.”

I hold my teacup against my lips and just rest it there. If I move it, I might say something and ruin whatever this is. Maybe I should anyway.

“What do you miss?” he asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there has to be something you miss from before. Before you became the person you are now.”

“I don’t…” At first I think he’s talking about the extra weight. But as with everything else between us, it comes back to the job I chose over him. “I guess…I miss the camaraderie I had with my colleagues before the promotion. Now…”

“Everything’s different.”

“Yes. Don’t get me wrong. I love what I do, but—”

“But it’s not the same.”

I drain the rest of my tea before it grows cold. “What about you? How are things as head of the atmospheric sciences division?”

“I enjoy it actually. But I’d much rather be out here, doing real things, instead of playing pretend.”

“But I thought your decision to come ruined—” The words are out of my mouth before I can call them back.

“It didn’t help things between Mara and me, but it doesn’t matter.” His eyes find mine. “She simply wasn’t the one.”

I set my cup down. “Well, I’m sorry all the same.”

“Don’t be. I’m not.”

I take back my commscreen and rerun the calculations. Just to be sure. To have something to do.

“I bet you wouldn’t have come out here if you knew I took over for Tomblin,” Montgomery says quietly.

There’s amusement in his eyes but a firmness to his mouth that makes me swallow my denial. “It’s easier to keep my distance.”

“There’s no need.”

“Good.” I start up another data sequence.

“That doesn’t mean I like it.”

I look up into his frank gaze and mentally curse. I told him a long time ago it wouldn’t work. Long nights in the lab did not translate to happily ever afters. “Lieutenant…”

“Of course. Hide behind your rank, Clarinda, like a good little worker bee. I don’t know why I expected you to be any different after all this time.”

There’s challenge in the muddy depths of his eyes, and for a moment, I wish things were different. Then I wipe my hands on my pants, feel the strange, warm flesh underneath, and wonder how he can even think it could work, now of all times.

“Grant, you’re a dear friend and a good officer. Don’t throw that away.”

He gives me a long look and exhales through his nose. “Did you see Liang’s updated medical records after the doc checked him out?”

“Not yet,” I say, suddenly tired.

“His energy stores are still too low. Salus recommends reducing his shifts to five a week.”

I swear, aloud this time. “I knew we should have brought ten.”

“We could always request personnel from the space station.”

“It would take too long to train them. But keep an eye on the team. If the fatigue gets to be too much, we’ll have no choice.”

When Garcia comes out to take over for Montgomery, I retreat back to my quarters and away from the questions in his eyes.

We lost a week and a half, but the seismic pressure has finally stabilized and we can go back to the site.

It’s a delicate dance, laying the charges, digging in places that should otherwise be left alone. One mistake can set off a chain reaction and destroy our progress. But the Ildri site, our keystone, is finally complete, and it’s time to move on.

More charges are installed, tracing the fault lines where Caldwell’s tectonic plates rub up against one another. And then the oxygen converters are stationed on glaciers well away from the seismic zones. They will automatically activate once the chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere reach acceptable levels.

Tomblin takes the lead with the converters, overseeing the assembly, installation, and testing with Keston and Barca while the rest of us focus on the fault lines. Then we pack up and barge across the plains to the next location.

We camp. We drill. We test. We set off again. We are like the ancient polar bears, bundled up in our suits and fueled by fat, crossing the ice of Caldwell and waiting for it to melt.

A grueling cycle, one that digs into our excess energy stores as we move from site to site. We collapse into our shelters in exhausted heaps each night.

A good tired. A blessedly mind-numbing tired that wipes out all thought. For at least a little while.

Montgomery, Liang, Garcia, Salus, and I have finished for the day and wait for the shift led by Tomblin. The converter should be up and running, so I head over to check on their progress.

I hear shouts, followed by warnings piped through my wristcom. Pressure is building up in the pump that’s supposed to push melted snow and ice into the electrolysis chamber of the converter. If that goes…

I scramble across the snow, my feet sinking into the drifts with each step.

I’m too far away when I see Tomblin wave off Keston and Barca and approach the converter by himself. Then the terrifying whine of metal and steam and fire coalescing. No…

Tomblin goes down, and I am still too far away. The explosion melts the surrounding snow, sending up plumes of steam that recrystalze as soon as they hit the frigid air. I wade through the slush, cursing as the water finds the seams of my thermosuit.

Tomblin’s seizing by the time I reach his side. I scream for the others to get the doctor.

I rip off my facemask and pull the burnt suit away from him as much as I can before starting CPR.

I count and compress and force air out of my supply and into his mouth in controlled spurts. As I work, the snow crawls into my pants and sleeves.

Someone’s yelling and pulls me away from Tomblin. Montgomery shoves my mask back on, and the doctor takes over.

I’m so tired. And the cold that didn’t seem so bad any more is back, climbing up my limbs, burning a path through my flesh.

My vision blurs. I think Montgomery is cursing.

When I wake, I’m on the space station in sickbay. I force myself off the bed and shuffle toward the hall, my body a bruised overripe fruit.

I freeze in front of the mirror mounted to the wall above the sink. Hollow-eyed and pale, I can hardly believe it’s me. My hands range over my face in disbelief, then continue their trek down my torso.

I’ve lost weight since arriving on Caldwell. I knew that. But seeing it is different. It’s easier to grab handfuls of the skin around my waist underneath the hospital smock. I smooth the thin material over my belly, still rounded, but I feel more like myself than I have in months.

It’s dizzying, and I still have a slight smile on my face when Montgomery materializes over my shoulder in the mirror.

“Am I interrupting something?” His tone is playful but fatigue hints about his face.

I twist around, clasping my hands in front of my body. “Tomblin?”

“Stable, but he won’t be able to return to the surface. Massive burns, hypothermia, a couple of broken ribs.”

“At least he’s alive. The rest of the team?”

“The doc insisted on treating everyone for exhaustion but I had Keston take them back to the surface this morning to keep an eye on things.” He doesn’t meet my eyes, focusing instead on a spot near my shoulder.

Montgomery should have gone himself. He knew it, I knew it. But he stayed anyway. I should rebuke him, but I would have done the same in his place.

“It’s good you’re up. They were going to wake you if you didn’t come to on your own. Come on, I’ll show you our quarters.”

“No, I want to see Tomblin first.”

Montgomery takes me to a room down the hall from mine. Tomblin’s face is as gray as the space station walls. “Must have hit a pocket of methane gas, Commander,” he says as if I’m there in an official capacity, even though we all know I’m not. Not this time at least.

He’s conscious long enough to give us a few pointers on the converters. They’re things we already know but it makes him feel better to tell us, so we sit and listen until he’s too tired to stay awake any longer.

Afterwards, Montgomery leads me to my quarters. There’s a tenseness to him I don’t understand. He tells me how I nearly died of hypothermia, but all the fat slowed down the drop in my body’s core temperature long enough to get me to the station. The thing I hate the most is what kept me alive…

“This is it.” Montgomery codes open the door, revealing a small room with two bunks, a desk, and another door leading to the lavatory. “We’ll have to share. They don’t have a lot of space for visitors.”

“When can we return to the surface?”

“Tomorrow.”

It’s just one night. I can do this. I step across the threshold. Montgomery waits for the door to close, and I already know what he’s going to say. I hold up my hand for silence, but he grabs it and tugs me close.

“Give yourself permission, Clarinda. Just this once.”

I shake my head. “I can’t.”

My life is full of tradeoffs, some little, some not. The mission I’ve worked my whole career for? There’s just one catch. As I watch Grant’s face, I know it could work this time, but I’d have to break protocol, the rules I’ve laid out for myself. Why does everything I want have to exact a price?

His lips hover over mine.

And then there’s this: “I’m not the person I was before.” I gesture to my body, and his eyes follow the path of my hand.

He finds my rounded hip, pulls me closer so our bellies press against one another. “This?” Disbelief colors his voice as his hands travel over my curves. He chuckles. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

“Grant…”

“It’s you, Clari. It always has been. No matter what.”

When we return to the surface, a grim-looking Keston and Barca have already repaired the damaged converter and relocated it to another section of the glacier. We make preparations for the next-to-last site. It won’t be long now.

The team’s subdued, but whatever energy supplements Dr. Salus brought back from the station have put color back in their cheeks.

I grab the empty shell to one of the larger charges and throw it at Montgomery. He looks startled as his hands close over it, then nods in understanding. He tosses it over his shoulder into Garcia’s lap. Her squeals shatter the ice and everyone’s on their feet as the casing flies back and forth. Laughter echoes off the rock around us until it dissolves in the snowdrifts.

We gasp and giggle like children, the good doctor chiding us to breathe slowly to give our facemasks a chance.

Barca’s slightly hysterical, shoulders shaking as she sucks in air from the tube, but seeing her smile is worth it.

When the grid lights up for the first time, all our charges and sensors in place, I am breathless at the sight of the winking chains canvassing Caldwell’s surface. There’s a beauty to a job well done. And now the rest lies with Ildri.

The transport rumbles to a landing outside as the team packs up the camp. Time to go. But I only have eyes for the grid while the others shuttle our gear onto the transport. The readings for the fault zone around Ildri are a riot of color. They tell me it will be soon.

Montgomery’s hand comes down on the back of my chair, his breath making impatient puffs on the side of my neck. “Everything’s ready.”

I don’t look up from my commscreen. “All right. I need to check the array—”

“Garcia already confirmed—”

“One more time.”

He frowns but says nothing, his helmet tucked under his arm. I cross the room and lean over the workstation controls. The electromagnetic field writhes like it did in all my simulations back home just before—

The indicator lights flash, but I already feel the vibrations through my boots, then the shudder of metal around us.

“Clari, we need to go now!”

Montgomery grabs my arm, pulls me towards the exit as I struggle to put on one of my gloves. Another quake explodes through the base. Strong enough to topple us when a ceiling strut falls.

Pain flares behind my eyes when my head connects with the floor. Montgomery is too quiet, splayed out beside me.

“Grant?” I crawl over to him and run my ungloved hand down his face. “Are you ok?”

His eyelids flutter. “This is what I get for waiting for you.” A familiar smile spreads across his face at some unspoken joke.

I kiss him until our teeth rattle together. Another tremor.

Together, we get to our feet. Montgomery shoves my helmet down over my head, and I pull on the other glove. A large crack runs across his facemask, but he doesn’t hesitate when the outer hatch opens and we are blasted with Caldwell’s cold for the last time.

The transport takes off as soon as our boots hit the ramp. But I turn back to Caldwell. In the distance, Ildri erupts in flames, dark smoke issuing into the sky. Another spray of lava paints the night. Better than fireworks.

“Clari, come on!”

Montgomery tugs me the rest of the way. The others wait for us in the common room, Ildri’s fiery peak lighting up the wall screens.

“Barca, what’s the composition of the volcanic gasses?”

She looks up from one of the workstations. “Carbon dioxide is at 25 parts per million and rising.”

Keston gives a whoop, and Garcia loops her arms around Salus’s waist.

I nod. It will be enough.

With all the CFCs the volcano belched into the atmosphere, and more eruptions to come triggered by our charges, the eventual warming of Caldwell is assured once the haze effects dissipate. But since the planet’s sulfur-to-water ratio is even lower than Earth’s, the initial cooling will be negligible. Greenhouse gasses will continue to collect in the atmosphere and one day melt the snow.

It won’t be the planet I know any longer.

We spend the next three days on board the
Magellan
, a transport that’s just entered Caldwell’s orbit, debriefing the first wave of engineers and colonists who will monitor the seismic activity and the atmosphere. Then they will supplement the efforts of our converters, first with O
₂
-producing bacteria, followed by plants.