Sixteen
Thorne passed the makeshift cane to his opposite side so he could hold Cress’s elbow as they stepped out onto the sand. She kept her head down, carefully choosing each step but also afraid that if she looked up into the sky, her legs would freeze beneath her and she would never be able to make them move again.
When they’d gone a safe distance from the satellite, Cress tentatively lifted her gaze. Ahead of her was the same eternal landscape, the sky growing darker.
She glanced back toward the satellite, and gasped.
Thorne’s hand squeezed her elbow.
“There are mountains,” she said, gaping at the jagged peaks along the horizon.
He squinted. “Mountains, or glorified hills?”
She considered the question, comparing the site before her with the photos of mountain ranges she’d seen on the screens. Dozens of peaks of varying heights disappeared into the blackness of night.
“I think … real mountains,” she said. “But it’s getting dark, and I can’t see any white on top. Do mountains always have snow?”
“Not always. How far are they?”
“Um…” They seemed close, but the foothills and sand dunes between them could have been deceiving, and she’d never been asked to judge distances before.
“Never mind.” Thorne tapped the cane against the ground. It stirred something in Cress’s gut when he didn’t let go of her arm, though perhaps he appreciated the tethering sensation as much as she did. “What direction are they in?”
She took his hand and pointed. Her heart was fluttering erratically and she felt herself trapped between elation and terror. Even from this distance, she could tell that the mountains were enormous—hulking, ancient beasts lined up like an impenetrable wall dividing this wasteland. But at least they were something, a physical, visual marker to break up the monotony of the desert. They somehow calmed her, even while making her feel as insignificant as ever.
“So that must be … south, right?” He pointed in another direction. “The sun set over there?”
She followed his gesture, where a faint green light could still be seen over the rolling dunes, fading fast. “Yes,” she said, a shaky smile stretching across her lips. Her first true sunset. She’d never known sunsets could be green, had never known just how quickly the darkness set in. Her thoughts hummed as she tried to pull together every minute detail, to store this moment safely away in a place where she would never, ever forget. Not the way the light turned dull and hazy above the desert. Not the way the stars emerged from the black. Not the way her instincts kept her gaze from wandering too far up into the sky, keeping her panic at bay.
“Do you see any plant life? Anything other than sand and mountains?”
“Not from here. But I can hardly see anything…” Even as they spoke, the blackness was taking over, the once-golden sand turning into shadows beneath her feet. “There’s our parachute,” she added, noting the deflated white fabric that stretched out over a sand dune. It was already being swallowed up by the shifting sands. A trench had been carved into the dune where the satellite had hit and slid down.
“We should cut off a piece,” said Thorne. “It could come in handy, especially if it’s waterproof.”
They said little as Cress guided him up the dune, the journey made difficult by the unstable ground. Thorne was awkward with the cane, trying to test the ground ahead of him without digging the tip into the hillside and stabbing himself with the other end. Finally they reached the parachute and managed to cut off a square large enough to be used as a tarp.
“Let’s head toward the mountains,” said Thorne. “It will keep us from walking directly into the sun in the morning, and with any luck they’ll offer some shelter, and maybe even water.”
Cress thought it sounded like as good a plan as any, but for the first time she noted a tinge of uncertainty in Thorne’s tone. He was just guessing. He didn’t know where they were or what direction would lead them to civilization. Every step they took could be leading them farther and farther from safety.
But a decision had to be made.
Together, they started up the next dune. The day’s heat was fading, and a mild breeze kicked sand at her shins. When they reached the top, she found herself staring into an ocean of nothingness. Night had arrived and she couldn’t even make out the mountains anymore. But as the stars grew brighter and her eyes adjusted, Cress realized that the world around her was not pitch-black but tinged with a faint silver hue.
Thorne tripped, yelping as he stumbled and collapsed onto his hands and knees. The makeshift cane was left jutting up from the sand, having narrowly missed impaling Thorne when he fell.
Gasping, Cress dropped to her knees beside him and pressed one hand against his back. “Are you all right?”
Roughly shaking her off, Thorne pushed himself back to sit on his heels. In the dim light, Cress could see that his jaw was clenched tight, his hands balled into fists.
“Captain?”
“I’m fine,” he said, an edge to his tone.
Cress hesitated, her fingers hovering over his shoulder.
She watched as his chest expanded with a slow breath, and listened to the shaky, strained exhale.
“I,” he began, speaking slowly, “am not happy with this turn of events.”
Cress bit her lip, burning with sympathy. “What can I do?”
After a moment of glaring absently toward the mountains, Thorne shook his head. “Nothing,” he said, reaching back until his arm hit the cane. He wrapped his fingers around it. “I can do this. I just need to figure it out.”
He climbed to his feet and yanked the traitorous cane out of the sand. “Actually, if you could try to give me some warning when we’re coming up on a hill, or about to start heading down again, that would help.”
“Of course. We’re almost to the top of…” She trailed off as her eyes left Thorne’s face to seek out the top of the dune and caught on the moon, a crescent glowing vivid and white off the horizon. She shriveled away from it, habit telling her to hide beneath her desk or bed until the moon couldn’t find her anymore—but there was no desk or bed to crawl beneath. And as the initial surprise wore off, she began to realize that the sight of the moon didn’t grip her with terror as it once had. From Earth, it somehow seemed so very far away. She gulped. “… almost to the top of this dune.”
Thorne quirked his head to the side. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just … I can see Luna. That’s all.”
She let her gaze wander away from the moon, taking in the night sky. She was tentative at first, worried that looking at the sky would once again overwhelm her, but she soon discovered that there was something comforting about seeing the same galaxy she’d always known. The same stars she’d been looking at all her life, seen through a new lens.
The tension in her body released, bit by bit. This was familiar. This was safe. The faint swirl of gasses in the universe, glowing purple and blue. The sparkle of thousands and thousands of stars, as numerous as sand grains, as breathtaking as an Earthen sunrise seen through her satellite window.
Her pulse skipped. “Wait—the constellations,” she said, spinning in a circle while Thorne brushed the sand from his knees.
“What?”
“There—there’s Pegasus, and Pisces, and—oh! It’s Andro-meda!”
“What are you … oh.” Thorne dug the cane into the sand, settling his weight against it. “For navigation.” He rubbed his jaw. “Those are all Northern Hemisphere constellations. That rules out Australia, at least.”
“Wait. Give me a minute. I can figure this out.” Cress pressed her fingers against the sides of her face, trying to picture herself looking at these same constellations, how many countless times from the windows of her satellite. She focused on Andromeda, the largest in sight, with its alpha star glowing like a beacon not far off the horizon. Where would her satellite have been in relation to Earth when she was seeing that star, at that angle?
After a moment, the constellations began to spread out like a holograph in her mind. As if she were seeing the shimmering illusion of Earth rotating slowly before her, surrounded by spaceships and satellites and stars, stars, stars …
“I think we’re in northern Africa,” she said, turning around to scan the other constellations that were emerging from the ocean of stars. “Or possibly the Commonwealth, in one of the western provinces.”
Thorne’s brow knit together. “Could be the Sahara.” His shoulders began to slump and Cress saw the moment when he realized that it made no difference what hemisphere they were in, what country. It was still a desert. They were still trapped. “We can’t stand here stargazing all night,” he said, bending down to pick up the bag of supplies and resituate it on his shoulder. “Let’s keep heading toward those mountains.”
Cress tried to offer him her elbow again, but Thorne only gave it a gentle squeeze before letting go. “Throws off my balance,” he said, testing the length of the cane so he could walk without spearing it into the ground again. “I’ll be fine.”
Burying her disappointment, Cress started up the dune. She announced the top when they reached it, and continued down the other side.