Clasped at the Seam

The ping from her tablet was loud in her small cabin, startling her from her thoughts.

Jone watched the screen fade back to black.

Slowly, her gaze lifted to the window—unfamiliar stars and the black of space. This is the part she forgot. It unsettled her, the way the galaxy looked different from here.

She swore she’d never go planet-side again.

Her eyes flicked to her trunk in the corner—the essential vestiges of her life wrapped and carefully bundled in aluminum alloy, clasped at the seam. She blinked; shook her head, sucking in an unsteady breath. The transport under her was silent as it moved. It was so different from OS-Lares. The life-support systems were a constant, ever-breathing hum. Without them, she couldn’t help but feel unmoored.

Biting down on her lip, she tapped her screen back to life.

Re: Congratulations! The Terra AIR Program is Happy to Welcome You!

See Attached: Housing Accommodations | Second Colony

Just like the first time she’d gotten the message, anxiety stirred in her chest just looking at the subject line.

Jone had been drunk on poaceae spirit when she’d applied. At the time, her self-imposed rules had seemed more like guidelines—a set of instructions with an expected variance. Except, that expected variance didn’t account for the effects of, well, ethanol consumption. She was out of her element here—she shouldn’t have gotten on the transport.

Absently, she chewed on the loose skin of her cuticle.

An announcement crackled from the speakers overhead, the sound almost archaic from what she was used to on OS-Lares. “Attention passengers. We have begun our descent into Elpis II. In preparation for our de-orbit burn, please secure all loose objects and make your way to your jumpseats to secure your four-point harness. Time to landing: thirty-seven minutes.”

Stiffly, she strapped in, tablet clutched to her chest like a lifeline.

The deceleration pushed her back into her seat. Jone gritted her teeth; thought of Wyll, which only made it worse.

Happy to Welcome You!

The subject line snagged in her head, like a sweater caught on a jagged edge.

It’s what the android at the docking terminal had said nine years ago when it had scooped up her trunk with little effort, plopping it on top of Wyll’s. The hover mechanism under the trolley had flickered once under the weight, and Jone had winced. She’d overpacked, and she knew it.

She’d opened her mouth to apologize when Wyll had slung an arm over her shoulder.

“I’m so glad you could be here with me, Gremlin.” He exaggerated an inhale. “Finally some unfiltered air, yeah?”

She nodded, shoulders stiff.

The planet’s air was cool, distinctly wet, and smelled of something… Well, she didn’t have the name for it. All Purpose Cleaner—scent: lemonbalm. Except, here, it was softer, less antimicrobial; nice.

“It’s thick,” she commented, dumbly, her feet moving in time with Wyll’s, their height exactly the same. “I feel like I’m wading through gazpacho.”

He’d barked a laugh, flicked her ear. “Colorful, Jone. Your observational skills are a stellar representation of our species.”

In the memory, she’d looked around at those that had gathered to welcome them, smiling to hide the cringe at how loud she’d been talking. The crowd existed as spots of colors in her head, a line that felt unending—pastel blues, baby pinks, an aura of burnt orange. Their species hadn’t been one of those that resided on the OS-Lares, and to her, they were so vibrant.

But, after everything, she couldn’t remember the details of their faces.

Jone shook herself, dug her nails into her palms.

The prick of pain tethered her to the transport’s landing, each uncomfortable groan and bump as it entered the atmosphere of this new planet, but at least she wasn’t in her head anymore.

Thirty-seven minutes later, all went silent.

This, she did remember.

When she’d last done this with Wyll, there seemed to be a collective breath held upon landing. Both ships were entirely silent for a moment—disbelieving, maybe, that it was all really happening—before a soft ding from the speakers.

“Landing successful. Please prepare to exit the transport with your belongings. Elpis II is happy to welcome you.”

Wincing, she untangled herself from the harness.

Growing up, Jone liked to ride the bullet trams from one end of OS-Lares to the other. When she got off, she’d always waited until she was the absolute last—wanting to pause in the threshold, take it all in, without holding up the people behind her. Last time, her sneakers had crunched soil a heartbeat after Wyll’s, his steps deliberately slow; for her, to give her that moment.

This time, she didn’t wait.

Jone threw herself into the crowded hall, lost herself in the din of excited chatter. Her trunk knocked into the back of her knees. Glancing back, she checked the clasp, hoping her rough handling hadn’t bumped open the seam. Satisfied, she pushed herself forward, gripping the handle tighter.

The air of Elpis II tasted different—if green indicator lights had a flavor. Thinner than the last, but not quite as the filtered air on OS-Lares. Less soup, more tea with a bit too much honey.

Her feet kicked sand, and there was no welcome party. Elpis II had only recently been terraformed, unable to sustain life before. There had been no first species, at least not that anyone had discovered.

All around her bodies bumped her, moved her along the soft sand, towards processing.

In line, she finally opened the message on her tablet.

Housing: Zone B, Section E. Creative Dormitory, West Wing, Level One, Room Seven.

She showed her assignment to a human with green eyes, a warm smile. They pointed her towards a shuttle.

The seats were half-full. No one she recognized, but creative types, she could tell. Some smiled at her, their teeth dotted with gems, bangs blunt. Most were bent in half over sketchbooks, their pencils dusting the air with charcoal.

Her fingers twitched at her side. She’d left hers in her trunk, stowed below with everyone else’s.

Tucking herself into a window seat, she settled her forehead against the window.

The planet’s star had begun to set, casting the sky in contrasting colors of green and orange. The star itself was a reddish-gold—a k-type star with a name that was still a long string of numbers and letters that made sense to scientific types, but she’d already forgotten. Absently, she wondered if second colony would be the ones to give it its slang name, or if they’d settle simply on “sun” because it was easy.

Rolling hills of soft, red sand passed outside her window, with scattered patches of lush green, bushes with fat leaves, baby trees poking their heads out from in between. The terrain was vast and chaotic—so different from the organized lines in the greenhouses and parks of OS-Lares.

Wyll would have hated this, she thought, rubbing her eye with a knuckle. Blinking tiredly, she rolled her shoulders. Why am I doing this?

Closing her eyes, the red-orange of the setting star painted the dark behind her eyes in blotches of color, hard edges blurring. All at once, the long days in the transport caught up to her. The shuttle hummed with quiet voices and the soft drone of the engine. Sleep tugged at her consciousness, and she let it pull her.

Half asleep, she remembered a glittering sky—forgot what came after.

The air had shimmered, sparkled like the coordinated flight pattern of starlings from long-ago Earth she’d studied in primary.

A hiss as her mask adjusted to her sudden, excited inhale, the reinforced face-shield fogging a bit at the edges. It was the first time she’d seen the storm in the star’s dawning light, and it was breathtaking.

Jone’s brush flew over the canvas. A sky of pastels; pink and orange, slashed through with curling, rich purple.

The storm of particles skittered over the aluminum siding before righting back into formation, sounding like a cascade of sand. The awning of the porch kept most of it off her, but some of it stuck in her hair, pulling strands from her braid to twirl in the breeze.

In between strokes of paint she embedded iridescent bits of film, adhering them with resin she cured via UV flashlight secured between her teeth—blue light flashing on and off with a twitch of her jaw and hard press of her central incisors. She could have captured the image with the camera embedded in her iris, but what was the fun in that? She didn’t want to lose the movement.

So much of her exulted in witnessing this rare murmuration of glass-like glitter. The particles threw a rainbow of reflected color over her hands as she painted. It was the most stunning thing she’d ever witnessed. Inhaling it would tear her lungs to shreds.

A sound like sand moving over metal woke Jone with a start.

They’d rocked to a stop. Soft dust settled in the shuttle’s wake. Everyone was already standing, clutching pencils and closing sketchbooks.

She rubbed her eyes, followed them all inside.

The room she’d been assigned was small. A single bed, a dresser, and a desk. They’d handed her sheets and a box of tacks, the coordinators brightly telling the new arrivals to make the space their own—“Decorate! Make it fun! You’re all creatives!”—all while shoving citrus-scented bubbly into their hands and snapping candids.

Jone pinned a smile on her face, took a sip of her drink, then two larger ones when the alcohol took a bite at her nerves, settling them in her belly.

She shook so many hands, told so many her name, medium, and place of origin—she was only one of five from her orbital spacestation, the others coming from all over the cosmos—that by the time she made it to her room, her throat felt scratchy and her head was swimming.

The first thing she did was make the bed. The second was to brush the grime from her tongue.

Jone was just settling under the covers when a loud boom sounded from outside, the walls shaking with it. Her body tensed for only a second before the blankets were a heap on the floor.

Heart suddenly racing, she scrambled to her trunk. She made quick work of the clasp, unsealing the trunk and throwing open the top. It hit the floor with a dull thud.

Tossing aside the contents, she unearthed it.

Breath coming in quick, sipping gasps, Jone pulled the mask over her face. Hands shaking, she tugged the straps at the back until it hurt, strands of hair snapping.

Thunder boomed again, the floor of her room flashing a vibrant pink a second later.

In between the drum of thunder, her breath sounded too loud. Masked face crammed between her knees, face shield fogging, she shut her eyes tight. She pressed her hands over her ears.

Jone didn’t feel it the moment he died, like a lot of twins say.

It came to her slowly; a bitterness creeping over her tongue, a slow amputation. When they finally told her, and she’d screamed until her throat was raw, she wasn’t sure how she’d missed it.

The loss of him made no sense. They’d always been one.

It would have been easier to understand if she’d looked down to find she was missing an arm, only to find him later and see he was missing the same limb.

Slowly, her pulse slowed its stampede, breathing coming easier.

After long minutes she sat up, braced her back into the cool metal wall. Jone blinked, shook her head to clear the tears from her eyes. Her body was damp with sweat, her shirt clinging in the places she unfolded.

Turning her gaze to the single window, she ran a finger over the seam of her mask—checked for leaks. The sky lit up with a network of lightning, flashing magenta before fading again.

When she’d gotten her acceptance email, they’d detailed the planet’s environment. Frequent thunderstorms as a result of recent terraforming have been reported. Threat level: low.

When she’d decided to break her rule, that had been the deciding factor. Nothing on this planet was as dangerous as that storm on the last planet. The air was perfect for life, climate temperate. But, packing her trunk, the thought of storms had pierced her chest with barbed talons.

It didn’t matter that the storm didn’t make the air poison.

The next boom of thunder didn’t sound so close, the lightning casting her room in shades of baby pink instead of neon.

Her mask hissed on a slow inhale. Jone let her head fall back against the wall.

Wyll was the smart one of the two of them. A medic who would recall the entire skeletal structure of at least six common species, but somehow always forgot the hyoid bone in humans. He’d been working the day he died.

It was an accident. A patient flailed, hit his mask. His straps hadn’t been tight enough—he said they gave him headaches. In their zone, the storm hadn’t even been at its peak, they’d only caught the tail of it as it twirled in a slow circle through the air.

The hit had knocked his mask sideways, breaking the seal.

It had been enough.

He just wanted to help people.

Jone rubbed her chest with the heel of her hand, trying to soothe the ghost ache in her lungs that had been there since Wyll had gone.

A soft tap, tap, tap, on her door sounded.

Jone’s breath halted in her chest, and she froze. Did she have to answer it?

The sound came again.

She hesitated. Then, slowly, like a hare primed to bolt, she removed the mask and set it next to her.

The air was cool again in her lungs, and it smelled like disinfectant—so close to OS-Lares that it was actually a relief. It gave her the one moment of bravery she needed to twist the knob.

On the other side, a woman.

She was one of the other artists—dark hair, sharp features. When they met earlier, her gap-toothed grin had been bright. She’d been the only one to ask Jone, not about her medium, but about her reason for coming on this residency program. Her smile had softened—hadn’t faltered—when Jone had muttered a quiet, “For my brother.”

Jone coughed, cleared her throat.

“Hi, Tephy, right?” Her voice was rough, jagged. It sounded like she’d swallowed sand.

Tephy nodded absently, her eyes trailing along Jone’s temples, the bridge of her nose. All the places where the mask dug in too hard. A crease formed between the woman’s brows, and she frowned. It must have left a mark.

Jone opened her mouth to say something—anything—and the movement snapped Tephy’s gaze back to Jone’s.

“I’m so sorry,” Tephy said, running a hand through her short, cropped hair. A pink gem flashed on her teeth, and Jone had to hide a wince. Tephy gestured vaguely. “The walls are thin, and it sounded like something fell, and…” Her voice trailed off, gaze lifting over Jones shoulder, to the mask she’d left on the floor.

Jone rubbed her chest. “I didn’t mean to disturb your night, I was,” she shifted on her feet; cleared her throat, “unpacking.” The lie was unconvincing and she knew it. Jone blushed.

Tephy regarded Jone for a long minute with an unreadable expression.

Just as Jone was about to shrink under her gaze and close the door, Tephy said, “I hate these lights.”

The statement came so out of the blue Jone could only manage a choked, “Huh?”

“These lights,” Tephy said again, gesturing above. “I hate them.” Her face was screwed up in annoyance, but something in her tone made Jone squint; look closer. “They’re so bright and overbearing. You can’t relax. Do you want to come over? I have floor lamps.”

Jone blinked at her.

Come over? She pressed her palms into the doorframe. She didn’t have to look. Her lights had been off.

Jone opened her mouth to say something, sputtered, then closed it again.

“Come on,” Tephy insisted, grabbing her arm and pulling her away from her door. “I have snacks, too.”