The Last Astronaut by David Wellington

Author:David Wellington
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2019-07-22T23:00:00+00:00

PARMINDER RAO: I guess maybe I knew as soon as I saw the “tendrils.” My theory had to be right. But I’m a scientist. We don’t jump to conclusions. I needed more evidence before I told the others what I was thinking.

WATER TRAVERSE

They didn’t talk.

It would have taken too much energy.

They waded out into the dark water, which quickly rose to their knees. Each step was hard. Jansen had to push her legs forward, through the resistance of the water. She had to test her footing every time she put her weight down. The tendrils grew thick and fat as they moved away from the shore. They were hard as wood, exactly like tree roots. It was like wading through a mangrove swamp, she thought. Except it wasn’t. At all.

Jansen had mounted the TBL on her back with its pole half-extended, so that it made a spotlight around them. She’d thought it would help them find their footing. She had been wrong. The water, when undisturbed, simply drank up the light and gave nothing back. Every time she moved, though, even the slightest bit, she created splashes and ripples that danced with reflected light, bright spots like fish swarming around her. The darkness, which had always been unrelenting, was shattered now by their light, and it felt like a violation. As if they were intruding on something that wanted to stay in the shadows.

It was exhausting, walking like that. She was already working on a sleep debt, and she knew you couldn’t pay those back. She felt the weight of her suit and her backpack digging into her shoulders. She had gulped down a food tube before they left Orion, but now she was ravenously hungry again. She wasn’t sure how much farther she could go.

She looked back at the others. Rao was picking her way along carefully, her arms out parallel to the water as she struggled for balance. Hawkins seemed to be having an easier time of things. He looked almost as if he were just strolling along through the water. He was fifteen years her junior. He had been trained to a peak of physical perfection by the space force. Of course he was fine.

Of course he was.

Except—then he stopped, and Rao stopped with him. Jansen realized she’d been listening to the two of them plash along, shoving the water noisily ahead of them, the whole time. It was the only sound in that dread place except for the constant wailing, clicking cry on the radio. She had been only liminally aware of the sound of the splashing, however. Until it ceased.

She turned, struggling with the water, and looked at Hawkins. Her treasonous body surged with endorphins, glad enough for a moment’s break.

“This won’t work,” he told them.

Jansen said nothing. She was breathing too heavily to talk.

“When we started, the water was up to our knees,” he told her.

The water was up to their chests now. It was getting deeper. There was no reason to think it wouldn’t continue to do so.

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