White Crystal Butterflies | Wattys 2021 Shortlist | ✔

Chapter Nine

I'm up prowling the Pod's single hall before anyone else's alarm goes off the next morning. Time to see if Krüger and Liu will follow through on their word. Krüger is the first to rise, a half-hour earlier than necessary. He washes up, then gives me a curt nod on his way to the kitchen for coffee. He then migrates to the gear room for final checks and preparations. I approve.

Liu's alarm wakes her twenty minutes later. I wait for her to stumble zombie-like into the bathroom, then station myself outside the door. When it opens again, I take a swing at her head.

She yelps and jerks back. My fist misses by a hair.

I step back, chuckling. "You pass. Go get your undersuit on."

"That's what you meant by an alertness check?" Liu has her hand on her heart.

"One of many iterations."

She glares. "Is this what all your trainees went through, or are we just special?"

"Nah, they all got good at dodging."

"And you socked the ones that didn't?"

"I never actually hit anyone." She looks unconvinced, but it's true. "If I was trying, you'd have a black eye right now. Can't say the same for the ones my colleague saw to, though. She used a squirt gun. And let me tell you, that woman has deadly aim." I tap my forehead. "We checked each other, too."

Liu has a look Yahvi and I saw on so many trainees, it became another running joke between us. The wary side-eye as they contemplate which of our methods they would rather field at five a.m. I make a show of checking my watch.

"I'm going, I'm going," grumbles Liu, and skulks back to her room.

By sunup, the sky is a brilliant fawn colour: the light reflecting off Qalupalik's sandy-coloured flank. We'll be lucky if we get a full day of illumination today as Mahaha moves around the ecliptic side of the giant planet. Even with Mu Chaons' twin suns in the distant sky, it will be six days of darkness before we see sunlight again.

I run the final checks of our equipment while Krüger fetches Samson. So far, so good. When we step out of the airlock, I direct Liu to the backseat of the rover and roll my eyes as Krüger slings on his "seatbelt" again. He gives the steering wheel a pointed look in return. I'm not going to win this one.

"I hope you know where you're navigating to," I say, as he settles back and pulls out his receiver.

"No need." He tips the device to show me. The Isoptera's signal blinks on the screen like a miniature fire alarm. He slipped the transmitter pod into the snow at the site of the wreck, the bastard. Even before he confronted me, he was preparing in case we came back.

I would chew him out for that if it wasn't one-hundred-percent something I would have done myself. And I shouldn't punish forethought. I rev the engines and see the pallor return to his face. I don't feel the slightest shred of guilt. He asked for an extra trip.

"Hold on tight," he says over his shoulder, and Liu has a second and a half to comply before we're off and away.

Liu actually fares quite a lot better than Krüger on this drive. She's grinning behind her mask by the time we pull up next to the hill that still gives me chills to return to. I note the feeling and rack my alertness up another notch. Of all the surrounding formations, this one alone hasn't moved. Krüger silences his receiver, and we switch to speaking in low tones through our headsets, though the breeze over the landscape is light enough to hear one another without technology's aid.

The hill is as we left it, but Krüger and I's tracks are gone. The dragon-like formation and its broad wings have eroded a little. Krüger digs the Isoptera's transmitter pod from a snowbank and pockets it again. Liu is already probing snow and noting winds. My rule for this excursion is that she has to stay at my side or Krüger's at all times, but she doesn't seem to mind. In spite of the biting cold, she looks brighter than I've seen in weeks.