Homestead, Chapter 1: Red

I was swimming laps. The water was cool and inviting, and my family was there. Mama was jumping up and down with a huge smile on her face as she whooped and hollered with encouraging cries of "Lizzie! Lizziiiie! Go Lizzie, you've got this! Go!"

My father stood smiling at me, standing more calmly next to her. I couldn't quite see them though, only small watery glimpses through my goggles whenever I tossed my head trying to find them. I realized then that I was in the middle of a race, and began to push harder against the water switching to my breast stroke with my entire body fighting the fluid resistance. Something was off though. There was a current of some kind, and it started to pull me backwards, then down. I kicked furiously as my head slipped below water, my hands grasping out for the floating rope that marked the lanes but finding none. I sunk downward into bright blue, and all I could see was the bar of white light at the ceiling hanging over the pool.The silhouette of another girl's body moved through my lane so effortlessly above me. Why couldn't I keep up? Maybe if I fought harder? No, I was still being pulled. I felt the floor of the pool touch my feet, and when it occurred to me I had reached the bottom I sought to kick myself upward sharply to pop back out of the surface, but when I shoved my legs downward the floor was gone, and it was just water growing bluer and blacker. I opened my mouth to scream as I panicked and kept kicking for floor, and found I was breathing the water like a fish. I floated in that space with a feeling of wrong washing over me as I breathed thick, slow breaths, and I slowly became aware of a repetitive alarm buzzing loudly in my ears.

No, that buzzing... that was real. So was the feeling of... slowness? Wrongness? Gradually, I began to awaken. The alarm became more and more real. I wanted to move and open my eyes, but I just lay still in my cryo-chamber, unseeing and breathing a deep steady breath like in sleep. What the devil were all those noises? And why can't I go back up? They must think I've drowned...

'what... is that noise...?' Charlie thought to herself. Moments before she was climbing into some small cryo-chamber. Next thing she knew some loud blaring noise kept ringing and ringing. A bright red light seeping through her closed eyes with each blink of the warning light. Quietly, at least in comparison to the beeping, Charlie groaned as she slowly pushed herself out of her sleeping state, stretching her arms weakly above her head to loosen the tight muscle. She felt a hundred pounds heavy, trying to sit up was nearly impossible. Such a long time of staying stiff as a board made moving seem like a feat of Hercules strength.

But alas she summoned all her might to reach up and push on the glass dome and open the capsule where she had slept for the past 30 years. She blinked a few times, trying to clear the fog of sleep that blurred her surroundings. She would need more time. Groaning she began to push herself out of the capsule. She slowly slung one leg over the edge after the other, She sat up the best she could. hands clung to the edge of the bed of the Chamber in attempt to keep herself from toppling under her own weight.

Charlie wore simple clothes, snug fitted short shorts and a basic white tank top. If she were going to sleep for 30 years she wanted to be comfortable; even if she wouldn't notice either way. She began to rub her eyes, pushing back thick brown strands of hair from her face. She began to notice more sounds. Sounds of screaming and the frantic clatter of people scrambled about. It confused her, what the hell was going on. She blinked a few more times before everything finally became clear. Emergency lights were the flashing and an automated voice told all to start making their ways to an escape pod.

'What the hell happened..?' she thought to herself. She build the ship with a large crew. This baby was in perfect condition. What the hell could have gone wrong? She pushed herself off the bed, trying to catch herself and land on her feet but she collapsed to the floor. "Shit.." she complained under her breath. She began to push herself back up to her feet, her limbs shaking under the strain.

"Adrian!" He heard, followed by a dull pounding that resonated in his skull, a booming sensation that brought forth a headache that had been brewing for thirty years. "Adrian!" the voice called louder now, repeating over and over with the banging that made the inside of his skull sear in an ungodly pain. Eyes shot open, his view filled with that of one of his partners from the NASA venture, James. "What?" Adrian began to say, his mouth barely opening and words not forming in his mouth. "Adrian," James said with a look of relief now, "Thank god you made it." Fear spiked through Adrian at those words. What could James have meant by that? Adrian's eyes moved about, scanning the chamber for the emergency release mechanism that would allow him freedom, though right now the only part of his body that seemed to still be loyal were his eyes. It wasn't long after his eyes opened that the chamber door dropped down, allowing Adrian to be met with the stale, terror filled air, that existed in most of the ship. James caught Adrian as he tried to step out, immediately dropping to the ground. "Give it a few moments Adrian. You stay here, I'm gonna try to get a hold of the rest of us." James reassured Adrian, giving him a pat on the back before helping him onto the cool floor.

People rushed past, some still remaining in their chambers and slowly the puzzle began to fall into place in Adrian's mind. Some system had failed and the ship's emergency protocol had been started. When he got a better look of the chamber across from his it became clear how dire the situation was. The resident of the chamber was dead, her face twisted and pale, her skin tight and stretched across bone. He could only guess the woman's chamber malfunctioned and took her life with it. "Christ," Adrian managed to work out of his throat, the words thick and unpleasant like molasses. Adrian's eyes blinked slowly, his body still incredibly fatigued, and looked down at himself to remind him of what he was wearing. It was his usual off-the-job get up of blue jeans, boots, and a white t-shirt that was just loose enough to breathe. It was by his feet that Adrian noticed his pack, a convenient bag that he could sling over his shoulders, on that wouldn't weigh him down that much. Especially in the reduced gravity of the ship.

Minutes passed by and James had yet to return. Adrian took the pack and brought the straps over his shoulders, understanding that time was of the essence and that he could rest when he was dead. Now, getting the pack on was the easy part. Standing up... Not so much. Adrian couldn't say with confidence that his limbs wouldn't burst as he brought himself up onto his feet which shook with uncertainty. The air tasted more foul outside of his chamber, Adrian had begun to notice. As if it were going rotten. A wayward glance reminded him of the corpse. The air was definitely rotten. He could only guess from the markers on the walkway that everyone was expected to evacuate the ship immediately, but there was a problem with that. Adrian couldn't leave without the equipment in the cargo hold. Not if they had any intention of surviving that on this god foresaken world that is.

"Hey," Adrian called out to the few people that were still by their chambers, "we can't abandon ship yet. I help getting some vital cargo." Just saying those words alone dragged more energy out of him then he would have liked to admit.

His hands were pressed against the grating of the floor outside of his cyro-chamber and he repeated, “La hawla wa la quw’wata illa bill’ah. La hawla wa la quw’wata illa bill’ah.” Beside Miraj, Hamir threw up, staining the white pants of his kurta-pajama. His friend looked at Miraj and smiled, bile dripping out of the side of his mouth. “Assalamu ‘Alaikum,” Hamir said, his voice blending in with the red of the lights and the cold metal of their surroundings.

Miraj huffed and stumbled as he stood, his feet catching on the long hem of his thobe. “Wa ‘alaikumus salam,” he replied, gasping the forearm of his fellow brother of the Faith. They swayed against one another watching the rush around them, like a stampede of GMA.

Switching to Urdu, Hamir said, “What’s happening? We haven’t landed.” He wiped the bile away, but it smeared into his beard, instead.

“No, my friend, we have not. But it seems we will have to.” Miraj closed his eyes. The red lights nauseated him. The mix of languages nauseated him. His nose stung and he felt his mouth water. He swallowed whatever was still in his stomach after thirty years and said, “God willing.”

“In sha’allah,” Hamir repeated in Arabic, reaching below his chamber to get his pack. He was younger than Miraj, but Hamir still had a family on Earth. A family who went on without him. He was probably a grandfather by now. A shutter ripped through the ship and a groan. Miraj reached into his own bag to pull out his red and white checkered ghutra. The chamber was clearing and the wild rush before left the disoriented, the skeptical, and others behind to puzzle over what was happening. The jarring consonants of English made Miraj look to the man across him. He was tall but leaned to the side and, like everyone else, seemed to be trying to balance the instinct to run with the logic that there was no where to run.

Miraj pushed off Hamir and staggered forward, but misstepped as another tremor passed along the ship. His feet ended up in puke and it squelched up between his bare toes. Hamir said something in Urdu to Uday, another herder from the Indus Valley suburbadome, who lurched out of his cyro-chamber and began spluttering out a jumble of Qu’ran verses.

Clasping the man on the shoulder, Miraj forced out the hard sounds of English, annunciating to afford miscommunication. “You know where the cargo is?” Everyone had important things in the cargo; Miraj knew objectively some things could be ranked, but subjectively… “I will come, but only if you know where it is. We must be fast.”

He shouted to Uday and Hamir to come help. “You show us the way and we will follow,” Miraj said in English again.

Uday shook his head and said in Urdu, “What about Ghassan?”

“He’s not here.” Hamir frowned, adjusting his ghutra to be rolled up and tied back like Miraj’s.

Turning back to the English-speaking man, Miraj repeated instead, “We must be fast. Will you show us?” His toes bunched against the textured floor of the ship to prevent slipping. The stale air reminded him of days of heavy smog outside of the suburbadomes before the herds reached the mountains. Uday whispered more verses in Arabic, the fast twining of vowels and their meaning was lost in jarring red. The shadows of the empty cyro-chambers gaped. Miraj shuddered at the sight of those with bodies still inside. Would they wake up? Would they want to wake up?

Suddenly the reality of what I was hearing reached my brain, and I snapped my eyes open only to squish them shut again against the bright red and white lights. I took a few breaths and opened them again more cautiously, and watched the door of the chamber slide down with a light shhhhhhhhhhhhhhk sound. My mother's voice faded from my memory, and the cheers of crowds had become the panicked voices and wails of the other passengers. When I tried to move forward I stumbled over my own legs and something bulky at my feet, and had to catch the side of the chamber to brace myself. My hands were still asleep and tingling, but I was able to recover control of my legs as I slid awkwardly into a kneeling position on top of my red and white striped sports bag which was stiff with the fullness of it's packing. I patted down my calves with numb hands trying to work the feeling back into my body as my blood fought to restore it's normal coursing, then rose and pushed the bag out in front of me. The damn thing was so heavy, and the effort rose a wave of nausea over me. I could hear someone else retching nearby, and swallowed the urge to join them. No, I thought firmly, keep your shit together Lizzie. First thing's first: find the exit, find the life boat thing, and get the fuck off this ship.

The ship seemed to shake and shudder beneath my feet, and I waited for it to pause before standing and hoisting the long strap of the sports bag over my shoulder. I fought down a return of nausea, leaning against the cryo chamber with one hand, and as I slowly began walking down the aisle my legs began to find their rhythm and I didn't have to reach to touch each chamber I passed for balance. That was when I made the mistake of looking up into a closed chamber. My hand was inches away from a corpse that surely hadn't been dead for long. The inside of the glass door was beaded with moisture and a white fluffy mold had sprung up over the body of a woman interspersed with whorls of green and blue fungi. She had been fair-haired and in full makeup when she went into her chamber, but now she was a taught husk of flesh over bone with long blond hair clinging in clumps. The makeup streaked red lipstick and black mascara down her face. The mold lent a strange, horrific beauty to her death like some kind of dark angel. A shudder rolled down my spine, echoing the movement of the ship, and I snatched my hand back and hurried on down the hallway. I could hear other people talking hurriedly around me, trying to communicate over the repetitive deadpan message from the computer system.

"Fatal Error No. 2048. Please proceed to the Evacuation Pods. Please follow the lit arrows on the left and right of the walkway. Please proceed in a calm and orderly fashion."

Calm and orderly my ass, I thought. This was anything but calm, and definitely not orderly. Amid the chaos, something caught her eye. Another woman, tan and dark of hair, was sitting by a cryo chamber, her face still and numb. She had tear tracks down her face, and sat with her back against a closed cryo chamber with another of the corpses. This one had been dead for over a decade, most likely, as there was only brown dirt and dried skin over bones. It had been a man, a tall one, in a now-filthy polo shirt and khakis.

"Ma'am?" I went to the woman and knelt down near her, "Come on, you've gotta get up, ma'am. We've gotta go."

She lifted her eyes, dark blue and dead with despair. She shook her head, pressing her hand over her mouth. The hand sported a diamond on an intricate gold band. My heart hurt for her, realizing who's chamber she must be guarding so tenderly. I couldn't bear to leave her this way, though.

"Come on, come with me now." I said again, and reached out to take her by the elbow. She wasn't old, surely not much older than I am, but the grief on her face made her look like she had aged the thirty years we'd slept. Reluctantly, and still refusing to speak, she eased herself up and took a shuddering breath, looking at the the thing that had been her husband once more. I expected that she would cry or cringe, but she was silent and still. I picked up the thick leather tote bag laying by her feet, and she touched the glass before turning to follow me. My heart ached.

Emma's head spun. Every inch of her body was stiff, protesting as she commanded her muscles, and she suddenly had a new-found respect for her sister, who often complained of such a feeling in her prosthetic arm when its power cell was getting low. She tried stretch as best she could in the confined stasis chamber, just as she had been briefed, but the whole process was made all the more complicated by the flashing lights and god-awful buzzing. There was a voice, loud enough to be made out through the glass... Her own voice.

"Fatal Error No. 2048."

Emma's eyes went wide as the adrenaline kicked in. She knew she was lucky, but she still had to act fast. How long had the alarm been going? It didn't matter now; she was still alive, and she could check Ayla's stasis chamber on the way out. Her hand fought its way to the emergency release and pulled. Nothing. She tried again, with no better results, and fear began to take over. She was frantically pounding on the glass when the sound of her own voice came over her again. No, not her own this time.

"Emma, hurry! We've got to get out of here!"

Ayla had been one of the lucky ones as well, and the reassurance from the most familiar face in her life brought back some of her composure.

"The release is stuck!" she hollered back, pointing at the edge, the shout echoing loudly in her ears. Her twin sister fought with her options for a moment as the ship suddenly rocked again.

"Curl up in the foot of the chamber!"

Emma, in no place to argue, did as she was instructed, while Ayla threw her entire body into a huge, circular swing with her artificial arm, and the glass gave way under the force of the alloy knuckles with a loud crash. She had helped her sister out of the chamber to her feet, and was about to escort her to the escape pods, when Emma turned away, toward a terminal on the wall nearby.

"What the hell are you doing?" Ayla demanded, "We need to get out of here, now!"

"I'm sending a message back to Earth." Now free from the claustrophobic environment, Emma found herself capable of forcing some bravado. She could accept dying a hero, but not helpless, trapped in some glass box, forced to watch as flames engulfed her surroundings before being ripped apart and exposed to the vacuum of space.

"Dammit, Emma, we don't have time for this!" Ayla protested, picking up her sister's bag and slung it over her shoulder, resting the bulk of it on top of her own. She took half a step toward the escape pods, trying to back up her case with action, but the truth of the situation, she knew, was that she wasn't leaving without her sister. Her sister who dictated her actions in defiance.

"Admin override... Send message... Target home... Priority Alpha... Error 2048, send help ASAP... Sent!"

Emma practically marched back into the aisle, quite pleased with herself, until the ship rocked again, while that digitized version of her own voice once again reminded her to evacuate. The two hurried through the aisles, avoiding looking at the other chambers at Emma's recommendation, making their way to the nearest available escape pod - a few had already left, then noted - and took their seats.

"I loaded a good amount of my equipment personally. I know where the cargo hold is," Adrian said towards the man, who appeared to be speaking Arabic to men he was familiar with. A quick glance around reminded him of their rather dire situation though, sowing the seeds of doubt in Adrian's mind. Jame's reappearance only confirmed any fears he had. "Ivan's dead." James said bluntly, looking down towards his white shirt that was stained with brown splotches, "He must've died a few weeks back. Liquified... everything spilled out of him when I reached out and pulled him towards me." Adrian subdued a shudder, putting up a hand towards James, "I got it. Just get the rest of the team and get planetside, okay?" James nodded, happy to accept any direction that could be given to him now. Whatever he had seen was enough to drag the usual fire out of him, Adrian could only pray that he wouldn't have to see anyone he knew in a state like Ivan.

Adrian returned his focus on the Muslim man, "The ship may have placed the cargo in lockdown, which would make access impossible with how much time we have." Adrian ripped at the back on his shoulder, yanking it off and pulling open the zipper quickly. His eyes darted through the contents with a sense of urgency as a free hand rifled through the contents. There he found the box of seeds, a supply large enough that with enough patience he could have a steady food supply for a small group of people within a few weeks. He could make it with what he had, but not if everyone wanted to eat. 'It'll have to do' he concluded, biting the inside of his cheek in frustration. Adrian sealed the pack and slung it back over his shoulder, "If we go for the cargo we likely won't make it out of this ship," he directed at the group of men, "It might be best... If we accept our loses and take the nearest escape pod."

“Miraj, what did he say?” Uday asks; he is the eldest man to have come from the Pakistan suburbadome. His face full of deep lines and gray hairs. Parts of his beard is stained yellow from the tobacco he smokes. He doesn’t roll his ghutra up like the younger men. The white linen turns red with every flash of the emergency lights.
“Grab your pack, brother,” Miraj commands in Urdu, “We must leave.”

Hamir nods and grips the stained straps. They all opted to bring their wooden-backed bags that had to be cleaned like all of their other items before permitted onto the ship as to limit cross contamination between biospheres. The canvas is recycled rice bags, the Arabic and Hindi writing only partly visible from years of use. But if these packs have withstood thousands of kilometers of hiking, being trampled by goats, and thrown down at the hearth of a home once finally returning to families after months of herding—these patched packs would continue to serve them well on Spera. And it would be all we have, Miraj thinks as he ushers his friends along, following arrows and signs. Uday hesitates outside of the emergency drop-ship and shouts, “Our musahallah!” His pointed gray eyes straining between the hallway leading deeper into the ship and the inside of the emergency vehicle. Hamir pushes him in, grumbling about priorities. They stumble around the few people in the drop ship, but collect themselves. A buzz of anxiety keeps everyone fidgeting in the plastic seats.

Miraj clutches his bag to his chest, feeling the outline of his oud. He traces his fingers along the strings, imagining the cool, ridges as he plays. He tries not think of the prayer rugs in the cargo hold. But a dark creeping thought freezes in his mind: how will they even know which direction to face in this new world? How will they, as Muslims, be able to perform their prayers without knowing where Mecca is in relation to Spera? Curling his toes, Miraj focuses on how his feet are still slimy from stepping in Hamir’s puke. The physical discomfort distracts him from the pain in his heart of not being able to properly worship God. As the last stragglers slip into the drop-ship, the shuttles shutters as the door closes and a woman’s voice comes over the intercom. Her words mix in his mind until he is sure she is reciting one of Rumi’s poems. And in the dark as the drop ship disconnects from the Bright Hope and slips into the gravitational pull of Spera, he pretends the voice is reciting Rumi and that it’s his wife, whispering her favorite verses into the soft ear of their newborn daughter. The drop ship rocks as it enters the atmosphere. Gasps and cries crawl out of people’s throats.

“You are nothing but him,” Miraj quotes, fingers stiff and white as he clutches his bag.

Hamir squeezes his forearm and says in Arabic, “There is no God but God.”

“And Muhammad is—”

A roar of air and heat and screams. And for that moment, Miraj wishes he tried to go get his musahallah so that he wouldn’t have to be in this hell.

I shuffled into the escape pod behind a group of men that looked like Imams. The silent widow strapped herself in next to me, and after buckling in I hugged my sports bag for comfort. As I looked around at my fellow survivors, it was the small details that I noticed the most: the varying hues on the older of the Muslim's men's beards, the pigtails on the young woman next to them, and that the two twins seemed utterly identical. There was also a fair-haired man with crazy-neat fingernails on the hands that gripped his pack. Who has time for that?

If it had been a smooth flight I think I wouldn't have screamed. But I couldn't help it. And the nausea just kept coming back, like the perpetual ill feeling I would get in long car rides as a kid. The lurches felt like a roller coaster from hell, and I kept waiting to drop. But this was space, so I suppose the worst that could have happened was to drift for eternity... I had squeaked when the pod detached from the ship, and the light wobbling -- which felt like another problem just waiting to happen -- rose the bile in my stomach. I forced it down. The widow reached out and squeezed my hand. She wouldn't look at me, and she didn't speak, but something about her hand made me feel better while we wobbled through space towards the planet's atmosphere.

There was a loud popping noise, and then the drop began. That was when I cried out the loudest: the first drop. It felt like we were going to hurtle down into hell. I had felt safer on the doomed ship. Suddenly this was all so much more real. There was a reddish glow coming from the below the windows, as if something were on fire. For a moment I wasn't sure if we were going to land or just plummet to our deaths. I think I had screamed again. It's hard to remember what all happened. The memory is a blur, and I hate thinking of it.

Then the engines roared, shifting into a higher gear or something to fight the gravity that seemed eager to swallow us up. Instead of falling, we adjusted course. Finally, instead of red panic lighting, the pod shifted to a normal blue-white LED. We looked about at each other, unsure what to do or say next. Gradually, the ground below came into view in the round windows of the pod. There was a sort of brownish green of grasses and turf, then we could make out strange twisting trees and flashes of color that must have been flowers or something here and there. It was nice enough, maybe a bit "jungle"-y.

There was another pop as the engines shifted in some way again, causing us to rise up a little then settle downward onto an open clearing. The door depressurized and popped open.

To Emma, the rush of fresh air through the hatch, heavy with a blend of floral aromas and loam, did much to force out the feeling of impending doom. Though she had been tightly clutching the straps of her bag with her eyes forced shut, she knew that the others were perfectly justified in crying out, or praying, or whatever other actions they had defaulted to during the drop. An emergency atmospheric landing, she knew, was the single most dangerous prospect of space travel. To her sister's credit, Ayla had also managed to keep her panic contained. Or perhaps there was a whimper that could not be heard over the roaring air, and the engines. Ayla was not about to admit it, either way.

But now that the stale, sour air was quickly being replaced by the atmosphere on the ground, both women found their peace. Emma waited a moment, still weak from three decades of cryostasis, and unaccustomed to forcing any part of her body to move against its will, unlike her sister. Ayla was up first, slowly and deliberately, and Emma guessed that even she was having a difficult time with her stasis-shocked muscles. Emma watched her sister stretch; first her natural arm, then both legs, and made note to do the same as soon as she felt up to moving around. For the time being, all she focused on was the air, and how it cleared more and more of the stench death and nausea from her nostrils with each breath. Under the unidentified flowers was a faint salty smell. The must have landed reasonably close to the coastline, she thought. At the very least, they would have fish.

Next, her nose singled out something sweet, like nectar... No, more like honey from a cherry orchard, she thought, though it could also have been some fruit tree in bloom. Despite knowing that there were no honey bees on Spera, Emma could not help but find herself wishing for some similar creature. After all, how could there be flowers with no pollinators?

She was about to identify yet another subtlety in the air, or at least imagine wildly to its origin, when Ayla's head peeked in around the door, interrupting her thoughts.

"I have the first bit of good news," the woman announced a little dryly, still clearly physically drained and supporting herself against the door with her metallic left arm, an exotic-looking blue flower already tucked behind her ear, "Not only is our landing site beautiful, but my maps are showing a fresh water tributary, about a twenty-minute hike north of here."

Adrian opened his eyes for the first time the moment air spilled into the pod, replacing the stale air filled with the scent of death. Adrian practically jumped out of his scent at the scents that reached his nose, reminding him of the blooming fields of flowers he once visited in the Netherlands. His hands undid the straps that help him into his seat and quickly he stepped forward, pack in hand, eyes on the exit. He froze by the exit, squeezing the strap of his bag tightly. Adrian looked back at the group of people, hearing one of the twins talk. She mentioned fresh water being a bit to the north. He'd have to make his way their immediately. They needed as much water as they could get and, equally important, he needed to get started on cultivating his plants.

Adrian took the first step off of the pod, mumbling to himself "That's one small step of a man, one massive step for mankid." It was cheesy, he knew, but it felt like something that had to be said in this kind of situation. For all that Adrian knew, he was one of the first few human being to step on this planet. He had to be at the very least in among the first hundred.He stepped out of the landing craft, tossing his bag onto the field that landed and walked slowly more and more into the open, taking a moment to indulge himself in the fresh air that he had been deprived of. It was, he took a moment to take a deep breath in, glorious. "Well then!" Adrian announced loudly, turning to face the pod, we might as well get our introductions out of the way yeah?" He stepped over to his pack and plopped down next to it, popping it open to go through all that he had with him. It wasn't fair to rush the others yet. Most of them weren't used to the feeling of dropping out of orbit. Plenty of them still were dealing with and would be dealing with the emotional trauma of the situation. Adrian had always been particularly good at looking on the bright side of life and even in this situation, where death seemed almost inevitable to an extent, there was still some hope.

It tastes like Karachi, Miraj thinks, his eyes still closed, but his mouth open as he breaths in the briny air. He smells the rot of fish stuck of the beach, unable to shimmy their way back into the ocean before the tide went out. He wonders if it smells like fish, the animals on the beach will look like fish? Or do all dying things, no matter how many light years away, all smell the same? He thinks about genetically modified animals. No matter what hide they have, once stripped of their skin, their meat is still red and bloody with yellow-white pockets of fat.

Hamir’s smile is the first thing he sees when he looks up from his seat in the drop ship. And despite Miraj’s toes being sticky from his companion’s throw-up, he smiles back and begins to laugh. Uday chortles along maybe for the same reason or maybe a different reasons. Miraj isn’t quiet sure if he’s laughing for any other reason but to laugh. The herders tease each other for a few moments as the rest of the occupants file out into the bright day, encouraged by sunlight and fresh air. Only when they’re the last ones, do they hoist on their packs and leave, the oldest going out first. Uday complains about the humidity, saying his joints can’t handle the stifling pressure. Hamir and he begin to bicker about respecting elders.

Miraj listens to what English he can pick up, his eyes shaded by the brim of his ghutra. Some talk about splitting into groups, others kick at ground. The dark sand is fertile enough for a field of purple and yellow flowers to bloom in. He revels in the soft, warm feeling as grains of sand trickle between his toes. He will need shoes when bushwhacking, but for now, to be barefoot was like taking off his sandals and walking into the cool clay of his home in Pakistan.

Besides him, a husband and wife stand to the side holding hands and staring into the crowd. They make no attempt to join. Miraj frowns and looks towards the rest of the crowd. Clusters of people have begun to form, collections of two or three, with their backs to each other. Only a group of twelve or so were in the drop ship and yet divisions were already being created. He steps away from Uday and Hamir. The older man calls after him, but he walks towards the woman with the mechanical arm, purposely shouldering his way through individual discussions. They need one goal not several.

“Which way is water?” he asks as he approaches. “If we have landed so close, animals would go hiding for a few moments.” He pauses, trying to remember the correct term, “Those who stalk—prey on other animals—they will the first to come back.” Miraj’s eyes drop to her arm, his face a smear of brown and red reflecting back at him. “Tergus verber*,” he elaborates, his hands moving as he speaks, “Those types of animals.” If his wife knew how weak his English had become, she would laugh and ask how a man like him was able to woo a English Muslim such as herself at the university.

(*Tergus Verber)

I stepped off the pod onto the soft grass tentatively, noting it was a bluer green than I was used to seeing. The widow followed behind me as I exited with both of us still holding our bags. In reflection I don't know why we were so calm; why no one was screaming or crying or anything. A feeling of strange surrealism washed over me as I looked around at the bizarrely beautiful plant material. The grass grew in curling blades similar to the fiddle-head ferns growing on earth, a blue-green stemming from quinacridone pink bases in red sandy soil. Something must have been eating this grass, as it was worn down in trails and had bare patches next to taller straightened growths as high as my knees.

At the moment of the mention of bodies of water, I realized I did smell salt in the air coming from the distant south. It wasn't as strong as if we were right on the beach, but we must have been near marsh or something. I heard the maybe-Imams asking about the water to the blond man, and I sniffed the air again.

"I'm not sure about fresh water," I said speaking up and walking to them, the silent widow in tow, "but I think we're maybe an hour away from the sea. I have fishing gear in my pack. Two collapsible rods. I'm a good swimmer too." In my head, I was already weighing the possibility of anything like clams to be harvested, but also the possibility of something in the water planning to harvest me. I'd be smart not to go alone.

I looked up at the sky for a moment, and spotted a few dark shapes moving through the sky with tails like fire. "Oh... look! Other pods!! I wonder where they'll land..."

Finally, Emma stood to stretch; she had plenty of space with the pod nearly cleared out, and though it certainly helped with the stiffness brought on by the cryo-shock, the fatigue would have to be dealt with at a later time. Taking up her pack, she finally decided to follow that sweet aroma that tugged at her curiosity, making her way through the hatch just in time to have her attention directed to the sky.

"The other pods," she mused, cracking half a smile for a moment before the creeping realization finally ambushed her on her. The weariness from the combination of cryo-shock and unfamiliar gravity did its best to stifle her sudden enthusiasm, and though the struggle showed as she continued, she was determined not to allow herself to be overcome. "Keep your eyes open for an especially big fireball. That'll be the cargo pod. It's programmed to jettison if the escape pods are released while the ship is in orbit. Oh! And keep track of the general direction of the other escape pods, too! We'll all want to group up as soon as possible."

Blinking hard in a fruitless attempt to shake the fatigue from her head, Emma made her way to her sister, who had already begun pointing things out to anyone who would listen.

"You have your bearings already?" She asked, almost in disbelief. She knew her sister was talented, otherwise her request to join the mission would have been declined regardless of how much clout Emma herself had with the coordinators, but she knew there was no way anyone could have figured out their location with forest blocking their view in all directions. Ayla had already had the map ready, a mechanical finger gliding through the holographic interface that hovered above the surface of her tablet.

"I watched was we made planet-fall. Picked up on a few landmarks that I recognized. From there, it was pretty easy to track where our pod was headed... Oh, don't look so surprised!"

Emma was in awe. "You watched?! Sis, you have balls of steel. Matches your arm." Ayla rolled her eyes, cracking a smile as her sister nudged the arm in question playfully.

"And before you ask, yes, I've been tracking the other pods..." The metallic finger passed through another portion of the holographic display, and red-orange tracks appeared over the map, indicating the approximate direction of the other emergency landing craft. She added another streak, as someone behind her pointed out yet another fireball in the sky. "Looks like we're furthest toward the coast for now, so we should eventually encounter the others as we move inland."