Fifteen
“I suppose it’s too much to hope that we landed ourselves near any sort of civilization,” Thorne said, tilting his head to one side.
Cress picked her way through the debris to the nearest window. “I’m not sure we want to be near civilization. You’re a wanted criminal in three Earthen countries, and one of the most recognizable men on Earth.”
“I am pretty famous now, aren’t I?” Grinning, he waved a hand at her. “I guess it doesn’t matter what we want. What do you see out there?”
Standing on tiptoes, Cress peered into the brightness. As her eyes adjusted to the glare, they widened, trying to take it all in.
All at once, it dawned on her. She was on Earth. On Earth.
She’d seen pictures, of course. Thousands and thousands of photographs and vids—cities and lakes and forests and mountains, every landscape imaginable. But she had never thought the sky could be so impossibly blue, or that the land could hold so many hues of gold, or could glitter like a sea of diamonds, or could roll and swell like a breathing creature.
For one moment, the reality of it all poured into her body and overflowed.
“Cress?”
“It’s beautiful out there.”
A hesitation, before, “Could you be more specific?”
“The sky is this gorgeous, intense blue color.” She pressed her fingers to the glass and traced the wavy hills on the horizon.
“Oh, good. You’ve really narrowed it down for me.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just…” She tried to stamp down the rush of emotion. “I think we’re in a desert.”
“Cactuses and tumbleweeds?”
“No. Just a lot of sand. It’s kind of orangish-gold, with hints of pink, and I can see tiny clouds of it floating above the ground, like … like smoke.”
“Piled up in lots of hills?”
“Yes, exactly! And it’s beautiful.”
Thorne snorted. “If this is how you feel about a desert, I can’t wait until you see your first real tree. Your mind will explode.”
She beamed out at the world. Trees.
“That explains the heat then,” Thorne said. Cress, in her thin cotton dress, hadn’t noticed before, but the temperature did seem to be rising. The controls must have been reset in the fall, or perhaps destroyed altogether. “A desert would not have been my first choice. Do you see anything useful? Palm trees? Watering holes? A pair of camels out for a stroll?”
She looked again, noting how a pattern of ripples had been carved into the landscape, repeating for eternity. “No. There’s nothing else.”
“All right, here’s what I need you to do.” Thorne ticked off on his fingers. “First, find some way to contact the Rampion. The sooner we can get back on my ship, the better. Second, let’s see if we can get that door open. We’re going to be baked alive if the temperature keeps rising like this.”
Cress studied the mess of screens and cords on the floor. “The satellite was never installed with external communication abilities. The only chance we had of contacting your crew was the D-COMM chip that Sybil took. And even if we did have some way of contacting them, we won’t be able to give exact coordinates unless the satellite positioning system is functioning, and even then—”
Thorne held up a hand. “One thing at a time. We have to let them know that we’re not dead, and check that they’re all right too. I think they’re capable of handling two measly Lunars, but it would put my mind at ease to be sure.” He shrugged. “Once they know to start looking for us, maybe Cinder can whip up a giant metal detector or something.”
Cress scanned the wreckage. “I’m not sure anything is salvageable. The screens are all destroyed, and judging from the loss of temperature regulation, the generator is—oh, no. Little Cress!” She wailed and kicked her way to the main databoard that had housed her younger self. It was crushed on one side, bits of wire and plastic dangling from the shell. “Oh, Little Cress…”
“Um, who’s Little Cress?”
She sniffed. “Me. When I was ten. She lived in the computer and kept me company and now she’s dead.” She squeezed the databoard against her chest. “Poor, sweet Little Cress.”
After a long silence, Thorne cleared his throat. “Scarlet did warn me about this. Do we need to bury Little Cress before we can move on? Want me to say a few words for her?”
Cress glanced up, and though his expression was sympathetic, she thought he was probably mocking her. “I’m not crazy. I know she’s just a computer. It’s just … I programmed her myself, and she was the only friend I had. That’s all.”
“Hey, I’m not judging. I’m familiar with IT-relations. Just wait until you meet our spaceship. She’s a riot.” His expression became thoughtful. “Speaking of spaceships, what about that other pod, the one the guard docked with?”
“Oh, I’d forgotten about that!” She tucked the databoard beneath its slanted desk and tripped over to the other entryway. The satellite sat at an angle, with the second entry near the lower end of the slope, and she had to clear away countless bits of plastic and broken equipment before she could get to the control screen. The screen itself was down—she couldn’t get a flicker of power out of it—so she opened the panel that housed the manual override locks instead. A series of gears and handles had been set into the wall over the door, and while Cress had known they were there for years, she’d never given them much thought before.
The devices were stuck from years of neglect and it took all her strength to pull on the handle, planting one foot on the wall to gain leverage. Finally it snapped down and the doors sprang open, leaving a gap.
Hearing her struggle, Thorne got up and trudged toward her, carefully kicking debris out of his way. He kept his hands outstretched until he bumped into her and together they pried open the door.
The docking hatch was in worse shape than the satellite. Almost an entire wall had been sheared off and piles of sand had already begun to blow in between the cracks. Wires and clamps dangled from the shattered wall panels and Cress could smell smoke and the bitter scent of burned plastic. The podship had been shoved up into the corridor, crumpling the far end of the hatch like an accordion. The docking clamp had been rammed straight through the ship’s cockpit control panel, filling the glass with hairline fractures.
“Please tell me it looks better than it smells,” said Thorne, hanging on to the door frame.
“Not really. The ship is destroyed, and it looks like all the instruments too.” Cress climbed down, holding on to the wall for balance. She tried pressing some buttons to bring the ship back to life, but it was useless.
“All right. Next plan.” Thorne rubbed his eyes. “We have no way of contacting the Rampion and they have no way of knowing we’re alive. Probably won’t do us much good to stay here and hope someone passes by. We’re going to have to try and find some sort of civilization.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, a mix of nerves and giddiness swirling in her stomach. She was going to leave the satellite.
“It looked like the sun was setting,” she said. “So at least we won’t be walking in the heat.”
Thorne screwed up his lips in thought. “This time of year the nights shouldn’t be too cold, no matter which hemisphere we’ve landed in. We need to gather up all the supplies we can carry. Do you have any more blankets? And you’ll want a jacket.”
Cress rubbed her palms down the thin dress. “I don’t have a jacket. I’ve never needed one.”
Thorne sighed. “Figures.”
“I do have another dress that isn’t quite so worn as this one.”
“Pants would be better.”
She glanced down at her bare legs. She’d never worn pants before. “These dresses are all Sybil brought me. I … I don’t have any shoes, either.”
“No shoes?” Thorne massaged his brow. “All right, fine. I went through survival training in the military. I can figure this out.”
“I do have a few bottles we can fill with water. And plenty of food packs.”
“It’s a start. Water is our first priority. Dehydration will be a much bigger threat than hunger. Do you have any towels?”
“A couple.”
“Good. Bring those, and something we can use for rope.” He raised his left foot. “While you’re at it, do you have any idea where my other boot ended up?”
* * *
“Are you sure you don’t want me to do that?”
Thorne scowled, his empty gaze pinned somewhere around her knee. “I may be temporarily blind, but I’m not useless. I can still tie good knots.”
Cress scratched at her ear and withheld further comment. She was seated on the edge of her bed, braiding a discarded lock of her own hair to use for rope, while Thorne knelt before her. His face was set in concentration as he wrapped a towel around her foot, then looped the “rope” around her ankle and the arch of her foot a few times before securing it with an elaborate knot.
“We want them to be nice and tight. If the fabric is too loose it will rub and give you blisters. How does that feel?”
She wiggled her toes. “Good,” she said, and waited until Thorne had finished the other foot before surreptitiously adjusting the folds of the cloth to be more comfortable. When she stood, it felt strange—like walking on lumpy pillows—but Thorne seemed to think she’d be grateful for the makeshift shoes when they were out in the desert.
Together, they fashioned a bundle out of a blanket, which they filled with water, food, bedsheets, and a small medical kit that Cress had rarely needed. The knife was safely in Thorne’s boot and they’d disassembled part of the busted bed frame for Thorne to use as a walking cane. They each drank as much water as they could stand and then, as Cress gave one last inspection of the satellite and could think of nothing else worth taking, she stepped to the docking hatch and pulled down the manual unlock lever. With a kathunk, the door’s internal devices released. The hydraulics hissed. A crack opened between the metal doors, allowing Thorne to get his fingers in and push one side into its wall pocket.
A breeze of dry air blew into the satellite—a scent Cress had no comparison for. It was nothing like the satellite or the machinery or Sybil’s perfume.
Earth, she supposed, memorizing the aroma. Or desert.
Thorne swung the makeshift supply bundle over his shoulder. Kicking some debris out of the way, he reached his hand toward Cress.
“Lead the way.”
His hand encased hers and she wanted to savor the moment, the sensation of touch and warmth and this perfect smell of freedom, but Thorne was nudging her forward before the moment had settled.
At the end of the docking hatch was the rail and two steps leading down to where a podship normally attached, but now there was only sand, tinted lavender as night’s shadows crept forward. It had already started to blow up onto the second step and Cress had a vision of the satellite being slowly buried beneath it, disappearing forever in the desert.
And then she looked out, past the railing and the dunes, toward the rolling horizon. The sky was a haze of violet, and where that faded away—blue and black and stars. The same stars she’d known all her life, and yet now they were spread out like a blanket over her. Now there was an entire sky and an entire world ready to engulf her.
Her head swam. Suddenly dizzy, Cress stumbled backward, crashing into Thorne.
“What? What is it?”
She tried to swallow down the rising panic, this sensation that her existence was as small and unimportant as the tiniest fleck of sand blowing against her shins. There was a whole world—a whole planet. And she was stuck somewhere in the middle of it, away from everything. There were no walls, no boundaries, nothing to hide behind. A shudder swept over her, goose bumps crawling across her bare arms.
“Cress. What happened? What do you see?” Thorne’s fingers tightened on her arms, and she realized she was trembling.
She stammered twice before forcing the thought out of her head. “It—it’s so big.”
“What’s so big?”
“Everything. Earth. The sky. It didn’t seem so big from space.”
Her pulse was a drum, thundering through every artery. She could hardly take in any air, and she had to cover her face and turn away before she could breathe again. Even then the sensation was painful.
Suddenly she was crying, without knowing when the tears had started.
Thorne’s hands found her elbows, tender and gentle. There was a moment in which she expected to be taken into his arms, pressed warm and safe against his chest. She yearned for it.
But instead, he shook her—hard.
“Stop it!”
Cress hiccupped.
“What is the number one thing people die from in the desert?”
She blinked, and another hot tear slipped down her cheek. “Wh-what?”
“The number one cause of deaths. What is it?”
“De-dehydration?” she said, recalling the Survival 101 lecture he’d given while filling up their water bottles.
“And what does crying do?”
It took a moment. “Dehydrates?”
“Exactly.” His grip relaxed. “It’s all right to be scared. I get that until now most of your existence has been contained in two hundred square meters. In fact, so far you’ve shown yourself to be saner than I expected.”
She sniffed, unsure if he’d just complimented or insulted her.
“But I need you to pull yourself together. You may have noticed that I’m not exactly in prime form right now, and I am relying on you to be aware and observant and help us find our way out of this, because if we don’t … I don’t know about you, but I’m just not fond of the idea of being stranded out here and eaten alive by vultures. So, can I depend on you to hold it together? For both of us?”
“Yes,” she whispered, though her chest was about to burst with all the doubts being crammed into it.
Thorne squinted and she didn’t think he believed her.
“I’m not convinced that you fully grasp the situation here, Cress. We will be eaten. Alive. By vultures. Can you visualize that for a second?”
“Y-yes. Vultures. I understand.”
“Good. Because I need you. And those are not words that I throw around every day. Now, are you going to be all right?”
“Yes. Just give me—I just need a moment.”
This time, she took in an extra deep breath and shut her eyes and grappled for a daydream, any daydream …
“I am an explorer,” she whispered, “setting courageously off into the wild unknown.” It was not a daydream she’d ever had before, but she felt the familiar comfort of her imagination wrapping around her. She was an archaeologist, a scientist, a treasure hunter. She was a master of land and sea. “My life is an adventure,” she said, growing confident as she opened her eyes again. “I will not be shackled to this satellite anymore.”
Thorne tilted his head to one side. He waited for three heartbeats before sliding one hand down into hers. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said. “But we’ll go with it.”