White Crystal Butterflies | Wattys 2021 Shortlist | ✔

Chapter Thirty-Four

I don't think I've ever seen a pair of scientists collect so many notes in five months' time.

I gaze critically around the lab. Every surface is piled with haphazard to semi-tidy stacks of notebooks, papers, mini-probe prototypes, various electronic devices, and a veritable forest of pens. I didn't even know we had this many pens in the Pod. It's the kind of thing you don't notice until you're packing up.

Tobias's laptop is still plugged into the wall, chugging through the data that somehow got backed up on one device but not multiple, or made it to the lab drive but vanished from backup, or appeared from nowhere, somehow, right when we thought we'd caught all the files. Up on the laptop screen is a 3D map of what looks like an ants' nest. He finally rendered the whole thing?

I lean across the table for a better look. The familiar forked entrance to Mahaha's tunnels is barely visible at the top of the rootlike sprawl, the extent of our mapping over five months of visits. The moon stayed friendly given a constant supply of melted snow, which we delivered ourselves to maintain our association with water. At least it got easier after Dea rigged us up a mechanical winch to ease the trips through the tunnels.

I glance sideways off the laptop screen and immediately regret it. Someone managed to sneak a chip bag into the lab. My elbow bumps a pile of notebooks as I pull away. I run both hands through my hair and deliberately turn my back on the mess. This is theirs to clean up, and I refuse to even make a comment on it. Not my job.

Amidst the detritus by the door is an oxygen mask. It's the snow-based model; Lingmei's clearly been tweaking it again. I'd wondered where it went. I carry it out with me, dropping it on a pile of other outdoor equipment before returning to my room for one last sweep. There are already plans in the works to come back here sometime, so it's not the end of the world if something gets left behind, but I'd rather not realize too late that I forgot a letter or a clothing item, and then have to wait months to years to get it back.

The only thing left in my room is a nub of sticky tack on one wall. I scratch it off. I'm going to need to restock; I don't have nearly enough anymore for the new posters these three added to my collection for my birthday three months ago. Posters of wildernesses in the UIS, including a custom-made one of Mahaha's ice canyons. Tobias took the picture. It's one of my new favourites.

I wander the Pod looking for things to do until Dea catches me and puts me to work packing up things in her workshop. If there's one thing I'm good at in this room, it's packing. You get good at backpack tetris when you spend sixteen years and seven months working in the field, trying to fit everything you need into the least possible space.

"The shuttle's here!" comes a shout from the comms room.

Everyone runs to join Lingmei, clustering around the Pod's satellite screen. The shuttle is here right on time—the Hub doesn't spare missions like these a day more than it allots—which means we've got an hour left to get this place under control.

I shoot Tobias a glance. "You gave her extra snow today, right?"

"Shoveled it all down ahead of me and then pushed it the rest of the way," he says dryly. "If she's not happy with this thing landing, the Hub's just going to have to send a better shuttle."

"Not a bad idea, actually."

"Is the lab clean?" says Dea, directed to the group at large.

I snort.

"I'm on it," says Tobias with a snicker. "Boss, I told you to stay out of there if it bothers you."

"I was looking for the master notebook. Someone made off with it again."