A hissing wind had picked up out there, and Isaac staggered out of the galley to peek out one of the round, pressure-sealed windows. Hutchinson Ridge, a huge wall of broken ice, was only visible as a vague black shape through the wind-blown dust, a storm blowing in from the Gradell Sea. The dust, of course, was tiny ice crystals, not earth-like dust. On Europa, water ice was about all there was to see.
“Mobile to compound.” Alice’s voice came through the radio. ”We’re on the way back with the sample. How’s your day been, Isaac?”
Isaac pulled his radio remote off his belt and held it to his mouth. The actual radio gear was in the compound’s comm spire, but the system still reminded Isaac of old walkie-talkies. “Dull. Thanks for asking. Soup should be done by the time you’re back. Looks like a storm’s coming in.”
“I see it. Right over the ridge. We’ll be careful.” Alice’s voice came back. “See you in a few, Isaac.”
“Yup.” Isaac put the remote back in its holster and went back to check the soup, listening to the hissing of ice-dust pounding the side of the compound grow in intensity. The powers that be had detected that particular hazard of Europa, so he didn’t worry that much - the gentle abrasion would take decades to put the compound in danger.
Then the domed ceiling creaked, and Isaac, startled, looked up. Of course he couldn’t see anything. But it had sounded like there was something shifting its weight up there, something alive. He shook his head and tried to put that out of his mind. Europa was, by all indications and measurements, thus far lifeless, except for the expedition.
The garage, sensing the mobile’s return, started equalizing pressure with the thin Europan atmosphere, a sound that made Isaac jump yet again. He was always like this at the end of the day, he knew - jumpy. He had jumped at the chance to go on this mission because he did well in close quarters with others, but after the accident he often found himself all alone in the cavernous compound for twelve or sixteen hours at a time.
Another creak of the dome spurred Isaac to limp over to the window overlooking the garage entrance. Jupiter’s bulk was only visible as a vague orange glow through the dust blowing over the ridge, and below it the lights of the mobile shone out from somewhere on the Gulf of Blades. The tracked vehicle was slow, but it was designed for reliability and safety, not for speed. As it trundled closer, Isaac saw that its roof bore a pair of oblong, boxy containers, and knew that Ginny and Jorge would want to take their meal to the analysis room.
The mobile inched into the garage, and its outer doors rolled shut. Isaac heard the pumps restoring its air pressure. Leaning heavily on the wall, he stumped toward the entryway, eager to greet the others.
A gust of wind more severe than usual slammed into the dome, and Isaac heard the comm tower’s metal framework creaking audibly. It would be one hell of a storm, he decided, but didn’t worry about it too much. The compound was designed to take it and worse.
The doors to the garage groaned open, and Alice stepped in, sniffing the air. “Isaac, I don’t know what you’re making but it smells delicious.” She complimented him.
“It’s nothing.” He dropped his eyes in mild embarrassment. “But come on, let’s eat, it should be done by now.”
Except for Ginny and Jorge, the rest of the team ate quietly in the tiny mess hall. As they had been in each others’ exclusive company for almost three years now, the silence was not uncomfortable, but instead familiar, comfortable. Isaac did not fail to notice that Alice had taken a seat across from him.
As soon as her bowl was empty, she broke the silence. Though it was spoken quietly, her question was audible to the other four men and women present. “What’s bothering you, Isaac?” She asked. “You seem a little... I don’t know. Shaken.”
“I don’t know, Alice. I just think being in here all day by myself is getting to me.” Isaac clinked his false leg against the table. “I’m happy I’m still useful to you all after this. But the silence, the emptiness... It gets to my nerves sometimes.” Harold and Nischa nodded in solemn empathy. It wasn’t that Alice was prying - Isaac knew that, as mission commander, she was just doing her job.
“I understand, Isaac. We’ll try not to be gone too long tomorrow, only a few hours.” Alice replied.
The wind continued its roar. “Unless that mess doesn’t let up, of course.” Milo pointed out.
“Yeah.” Alice agreed. “This one sounds pretty bad.”
Returning the stack of empty bowls to the galley, Isaac stopped at the window looking over Hutchinson Ridge. He saw nothing out there, and at first he thought the shutters were closed, until he realized that the ice dust had piled up on that side of the compound deep enough to cover the window. It didn’t bother him too much - he wouldn’t be the one to go out there and blow it off in the morning.
The rest of the expedition had wandered down into the lab wing, where Ginny and Jorge would probably be explaining all the amazing things they had learned from the ice samples. Isaac found that sort of thing hideously dry, but he preferred being bored in company to being alone.
“... The concentration of those silicate shards is up thirty percent from yesterday’s sample.” Ginny was saying. “So we’re getting closer.”
“Mean shard size was also up eleven percent.” Jorge offered helpfully. “Bigger and more common.”
“But still no idea what they are?” Alice asked.
“Ah, no.” Ginny replied. “Their structure is highly irregular.”
“Maybe - ” Tricia started to theorize, but was interrupted when the lights dimmed in time with a blast of wind so severe that the compound groaned.
“Never done that before.” Alice pointed out. “Harold, opinions?” Harold pulled out his view slate and punched in some commands to the computer. “Hard to say, but it looks like that mess is too thick for me to talk to the weather sat.” He held up the slate for everyone to see the “signal error” message he had received.
“Do what you can from down here.” Alice told him. “Isaac, have the lights ever done that before?” All eyes turned to the crippled man.
Isaac shook his head. “Um, no. I’d have noticed. Not today, not ever that I recall.”
“Wind speed out there is 180 KPH and rising.” Harold read from his display. “One-ninety. Damn, I’m glad there’s not much atmosphere or we’d be airborne right now.”
“It’s never done this before!” Tricia, looking worried, backed up to the wall. “What if it keeps rising?”
”Relax, folks, the compound is rated for two fifty at this pressure.” Harold spoke to everyone, but he was looking at Tricia. “We’ll be all right.”
“If you say so, Harold.” Alice replied doubtfully. “No way I’m going to be sleeping through that. Anyone up for a game of chess?”
“You’re on.” Nischa replied, rolling the “r” sound, the only remaining trace of her once-thick accent. Close proximity with the other seven members of the group had robbed her of what Isaac had considered a very pleasant-sounding mode of speech. “My skill at that sport is unchallenged among us.”
“Chess isn’t a sport.” Isaac pointed out for the dozenth time.
“Of course it is, dear. You just use a different muscle group.” Nischa replied, her counterpoint as repetitive as Isaac’s argument. The exchange was a common ritual associated with the game of chess, and hearing it seemed to put everyone at ease.
The team retired to the wide, high-domed common room, and Alice pulled a gamepad out and set it on one of the flimsy coffee tables. Fiddling with its settings, she got it to display a chessboard, flipped it so that the white pieces were on her side, and made her first move.
The rest of the group watched the game in silence. Alice, playing aggressively, seemed to be dominating the board early on, but Nischa whittled down Alice’s pieces over time. In the end, Nischa won, but neither had many pieces left on the board.
“Two out of three?” Alice asked as she tapped the “concede” button.
“Okay.” Nischa agreed.
“Umm, guys?” Tricia was sitting in one of the big massage chairs, looking up at the thick glass pane at the domed roof’s apex.
Isaac followed her gaze. At first he saw nothing - the pane showed nothing, and he didn’t understand. Then he understood. The unmoving, grayish-white slate was ice dust. “It usually just blows past. Why is it staying put now?” He asked of no-one specifically.
“Wind speed is... hmm. Thirty-one and falling.” Harold read off his display. “But the sensor up on the ridge is still reading one-twenty.”
“We’re in a snowdrift.” Alice summarized.
“Under.” Isaac pointed out.
“The dome isn’t designed to hold weight! What if - ” Tricia looked hysterical.
“We’d get alarms if the weight was trouble. It’s just ice dust. We’ll be fine.” Nischa pointed out. This seemed to calm Tricia down a little. “Next time the wind picks up it’ll clear us off.”
“I hope that’s before tomorrow, or the garage must stay shut.” Jorge pointed out. “That stuff will flood the garage.” The rest of the expedition nodded in agreement. Damage to or loss of the mobile would mean no excursions to pick up supply shipments, no more science projects, no nothing. There were enough spare parts in the facility to build two more mobile crawlers, but assembly could take days, to say nothing of shoveling out the garage.
“Not keen on a vacation, Jorge?” Isaac asked him. “It might be for the best. What’s it been, three weeks since we took a day off?” His mind grabbed onto the idea that maybe being “snowed in” would mean he would have company all day long for a change.
“This isn’t a resort, Isaac.” Alice pointed out cautiously, moving a pawn on the chessboard to start the second game.
Isaac, annoyed at the mild condescension the expedition commander was giving him, tapped his false leg against the wall. The aluminum rang slightly. “I think I know that, Alice.” Not wanting to say anything he’d regret, he limped out of the common room as fast as he could, and headed for the bunkroom he shared with Harold. “Not a resort?” He repeated under his breath as he navigated the cramped access tube to the dormitory wing. Of all the insensitive...
“Isaac, wait.” Alice jogged up behind him, but he kept going. She could easily keep up with his peg-legged gait, and they both knew it. “I’m sorry, I know - ”
“Alice, save it.” Isaac interrupted her. ”Three years we’ve lived in close quarters, I know it was thoughtless and not malicious, and I know you regret it. In fact, I - ”
He broke off as the access tunnel creaked loudly around him. “What - ”
Alice hit Isaac from behind at full speed, and knocked him over. The pair bowled over the threshold into the dormitory wing, and Isaac’s ill-fitting prosthetic slipped off and rolled away.
“Alice, what the hell - ” Isaac tried to protest, but his sentence started about the same time as a groan from the tunnel. There was a pop, then the frightening hiss of escaping air, and the pressure doors on both sides of the tunnel slammed shut. “...Crap.”
Alice rolled off Isaac’s back and pulled her remote off her belt. “We’re all right, what about you guys?” She spoke into it. Only static replied.
Isaac fished out his own remote and pulled up a diagnostic. “No use, looks like the wind knocked something loose out there. The tower’s not responding.”
“Dammit.” Alice stood up and pressed her face to the glass in the pressure door. “Tunnel just failed.”
“Alarms?” Isaac asked.
“Only in the domes.” Alice pointed out. “The tunnels are supposed to take more than the domes do anyway.”
“Damn.” Isaac looked around for his prosthetic, not seeing it. “Where’d my leg go?”
Alice turned away from the window. “What do you mean?” She saw what he meant. “Oh.” She looked around for a moment. “It might be on the other side of the door.”
“Should have had Harold glue the thing on.” Isaac sat up and leaned on the wall. “I suppose I have you to thank for this.”
“Isaac, I’m - ”
“It was a joke, Alice. You saved my life just now. I’m not going to fault you for losing a bit of aluminum. Help me up.”
She complied. Europan gravity made Isaac’s greater weight no problem, and soon she was easing him into a sitting position on his bunk. “How long do you think they’ll be fixing the tunnel?” Alice asked him.
“Hours, I expect.” Isaac replied. “It’d be easier if I were in the telepresence rig. Milo isn’t as quick.”
“Yeah.” Alice sat down next to him. “And with the tower out we’re - ”
“Useless.” Isaac finished for her. “Get comfortable.”
“You know, ever since the accident we’ve barely spoken.” Alice said after a short silence. “I’ve been avoiding you, I think.”
“And I you, I suppose.” Isaac agreed. “It’s not that I blame you for the - ”
“You don’t have to. I do that perfectly well myself. We knew about all the blind crevasses already, I should have told you.”
“I would have known already if I’d been on the main radio channel like I should have been.” Isaac pointed out. “Rather than listening to the newsfeed again.”
“Everybody knew you were doing that. I knew. I should have - ”
“Alice, don’t blame yourself.” Isaac put his hand on her shoulder. “We can share the blame perfectly equitably.”
She made a sort of sniffing, dejected chuckling sound. “But not the consequences.”
“No.” Isaac agreed. “Count yourself lucky, the rest of us do. I’ve tasted your cooking.”
That elicited a bit more laughter. “I suppose.” She conceded. “It’s just so hard to look you in the eye when I know I was at least partly to blame for your leg.”
“Try it now, then. Get some practice while no-one is looking or cares.” Isaac shifted away from Alice and turned to face her. “I don’t blame you. I did, initially, but I don’t now.”
Alice turned to look at Isaac, but her eyes made only furtive contact with his before darting away again. “You look good, you know.” She said quietly. “You’re doing better than anyone could expect.”
“Yup. I’ve lost weight.” Isaac replied sarcastically. “But I wouldn’t recommend my strategy.”
This proved to be another laugh line for Alice. ”Isaac, how can you do that? Make light of even that?”
“It’s my way. The eye contact, Alice. Where’s the old you? The woman who thought herself God’s gift to spaceflight on the way here? The woman that was large and in charge, the woman who - ” Isaac broke off before he said what he was thinking: “the woman who I thought I loved.” That was all ancient history, and things had changed since the expedition had landed.
She tried again, and this time got a full five seconds before she looked away again. “You really don’t blame me?” She asked.
“Nope.” Isaac shrugged. “You don’t believe that?”
Alice stood up and walked to the other side of the small chamber. “People aren’t like that. Forgiveness isn’t that easy, it’s - ”
The sounds of whirring motors against the outer wall made both look in that direction. “That’ll be the rig.” Isaac pointed out uselessly - Alice would know that too. “They’ll have us out before too long.”
“I know.” Alice paced back toward Isaac. “I... I wish I could believe you.”
“You will, when you forgive yourself.” Isaac moved as if to stand, but stopped when he remembered that he was without his leg. “I wish you would.”
Alice stopped, and made eye contact again. This time, she held it, looking into him for something Isaac couldn’t guess. She opened her mouth as if she were about to say something, but shut it again and leaned in to plant a light kiss on his cheek. Isaac was surprised by this, but not at all unhappy about it. Then she whirled and stalked out the door into the rest of the dome.
“Wait, Alice - ” Isaac called after her, and her footsteps stopped just out of sight. Perhaps, he considered, their real or imagined chemistry wasn’t as relegated to ancient history as he had thought. This idea both excited and terrified Isaac.
“Not sure I’m ready to forgive myself just yet, Isaac. But thanks for being... like you are. I am not sure we’d keep ourselves together without you. I’m not sure I would.”
“I’m glad to help, Alice, any way I can.” Isaac replied.
If Alice heard, she didn’t respond. Isaac didn’t hear her footsteps stomping away, and wondered for some time if she had slunk off or if she was still standing there, just outside the door, waiting for him to say something, and if so, what it was.
This story written based on a prompt from Klazzform's Short Story Competition on rpgcrossing.com.
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