The Dust, 31 Kilometers from Prime Dome

Planet Irkalla, Survivor’s Refuge

4452.2.15 Interstellar

Buried in the dust, Janus came to and panicked. He swung his arms and kicked his feet like a drowning man, foot scraping bottom, and then he found purchase and stood in the hip-deep particulates that flowed off him like water.

The buggy was in pieces. His gear was scattered. He was lucky to be alive. If the crash had happened somewhere else, like a rocky outcrop or on harder ground, he would be dead, bones broken, suit torn open. He checked his suit diagnostics, physically checked the seals around his boots and hands, but everything was intact except for some pain and a throbbing headache. He was still dead. Thirty-one kilometers from home, six hours until sunrise. A man could walk that distance in that time inside a dome, no problem. In the dust, with a hard suit on? He’d be lucky to make it halfway.

He was going to have to run.

At a jog, he ought to be able to make ten kilometers per hour, but he’d tire fast. He needed to average about seven kilometers per hour or he’d die, caught out by the sun within reach of the airlock. That meant half the time walking, half the time running, an endless interval race.

Fine, he thought. He could make that. He had to.

A few precious minutes were lost hunting for his survival pack. He left his tools, except for what he needed to patch a tear in his suit. He left most of the water, since his suit would reclaim and recycle at least part of it. He took six nutrient tubes, one for each hour of the life-or-death race. Then he found the tracks and took off, not looking back or pausing to feel sorry for himself. He didn’t have time.

He gave one last thought to the buggy, though. Thanks for getting me as far as you did. It felt sacrilegious to leave her out here after such faithful service, but nothing was wasted on Irkalla. If the scavengers didn’t get her, the triliths would.

He ran. For twenty minutes, there was nothing but the feeling of his boots sliding on the shifting dust as he beat feet down the tracks that led to home. Fear kept trying to bubble up, but he crushed it. Despair scratched at his door, but he didn’t let it in. There was pain and stiffness from the crash—those he acknowledged, focusing on them, trying to make sure he wasn’t favoring one side over the other, not leaning on one leg. The weight of the suit was an anchor, but he tried to keep a steady pace. The pace of a man out for exercise in the comfort of a pressurized dome.

After twenty minutes, he slowed to a walk, breath fogging up his visor. He pissed in the suit catheter, took a drink from his helmet straw, and ate the first of his nutrient tubes. If he was running at pace, he should have covered three kilometers during that first stretch, but he had no way of knowing. That’s why he started jogging again, in case he was slow.

The race continued on.

He was running in the much narrower beam of his suit light, a cone of weak light moving across the deserted silent landscape. He tried putting on music, but found himself subconsciously changing his gait to match the rhythm and turned it off. Every detail mattered now, and after the third stretch of jogging, he found that shorter, faster steps left him less tired and cramped when he slowed to a walk again.

Somewhere around two hours in, a dull ache developed in his right thigh, above his knee. He kept running, and it mostly went away.

Three hours in, he started seeing things. It wasn’t triliths, this time. He was seeing little sparks of light darting across his eyes, and at one point he thought a dark man was running next to him. It turned out to be an oddly shaped crystal outcropping. He decided to stop for ten minutes—not walking, but really completely stop—to eat and drink and get his head straight. He caught himself falling asleep, the one thing he definitely couldn’t afford, and popped a couple of caffeine tabs as well before getting back on the trail again.

Four hours in, he was convinced this had all been a very big mistake. He should have listened to his uncle and just waited at the experimental dome. He’d gotten it into his head that he could do this—not just the trip back to Prime Dome, but the Trials. What was I thinking? There was a reason Craig and Lira had called him weak and cowardly. He wasn’t special. He wasn’t better at this than anyone else. That was just the lie he told himself to make up for not making his quota, for not getting promoted, for not having a life when it seemed like all his coworkers managed. He’d hidden behind his sister’s hero worship instead of asking himself the hard questions. It was easier when Uncle Ivan had just been a drunk, not a former aspirant who’d been hiding them from… He blinked and shook his head. Something was wrong.

His right leg gave out. He got back up on his hands and knees, then stood, and took a running step, and fell again. His right leg was shot. His right knee felt like it was full of glass. He’d been ignoring the pain for so long, wrapped up in shame and self-pity, and it just stopped working. He didn’t scream, or cry, he just pulled a self-sealing injector from his first aid kit and stabbed it into the side of his leg, just above the kneecap, and icy-cold numbness spread through the useless limb. His thoughts had gotten as jumbled as the landscape. He got to his feet and walked forward, unthinking, like a machine with the throttle jammed open.

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He had to walk or die.

Then he realized he was getting messages.

Janus!

I just heard what Uncle Ivan did to you, and I’m furious! I believe in you, big brother! You can do it! Come home soon!

Bug

He stopped and stared at the message, dumbfounded, then realized he was at the edge of Prime Dome’s noosphere. He tried to get in touch with someone—anyone—to ask for help, but his suit comms weren’t working. He could receive but not transmit. More messages had been queued since the night before, and they continued to come in.

Don’t know when you’ll get this, Janus, but I believe in you. You’re a good man, from a good family, and you’re exactly what this dome needs to help them survive the changes they’ve ignored until now. Strength through struggle, my friend,

Ryler

He started walking again. If he was getting messages, he was within sight of the dome’s spire, even if he couldn’t see it with his naked eye. Five kilometers, maybe four? He had an hour left before sunrise. If it weren’t for his right leg, he would have made it all the way to the airlock, but now the best he could probably hope for was to be seen by someone on a buggy and get carried in. It wasn’t the triumphant arrival he’d hoped for. He’d wrecked his ride and injured himself, but he would still make it back if he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. He had to push himself to get there no matter what.

He patted his pouch to grab a nutrient tube and realized it was empty. He’d left it open, and the remaining two tubes had fallen out. When? He didn’t know. Maybe as far back as when he fell. He felt empty in ways that went beyond hunger. He sucked recycled water from his helmet tube and put one foot in front of the other, forcing himself to keep up the pace.

Prime Dome rose over the horizon as he walked, like the Old Earth moon over a gray sea.

More messages came in, and Janus had his wrist-comm read them to him.

It was Barry cheering him on. It was Lars, from the manual sorting crew, telling him the whole shift was watching him. Janus wasn’t sure how that could be possible, but the messages kept pouring in. As the sun rose behind him, it cast his shadow in a long line that led straight to the Sector Four airlock, which was inexplicably open.

Come on, kid, Uncle Ivan, sent. Everyone’s waiting for you to get here.

The message didn’t even register for Janus. He was past his limit. His feet had cramped. The numbness had spread up his leg and into his abdomen. There was just a spark left inside him, driving him on, telling him to survive no matter what—for his family, for his dome, for the parents he’d left back in Prometheus Base. He couldn’t give up. If he did, he’d never get answers to the questions he had about his childhood. He’d never know if he was good enough, or if the wrong man died outside the Sector Six airlock.

The dome exterior was deserted. There should have been a line of early shift workers queuing to get inside who could have helped him, but it was like they’d all taken the day off. Not a single person was in sight. His eyes closed for a second, and he almost pitched forward into the dust, but he caught himself and walked on. Almost there. Almost there.

Suddenly, he was walking on metal deck plates. He frowned, looking at the airlock’s manual controls as if he’d never seen them before, and punched the big red button.

The outer door slid shut, and Janus leaned against the inner bulkhead with his eyes closed. Leaning against that wall was about all that was keeping him on his feet. That, and the knowledge that if he sat down, he wasn’t going to be able to get back up. The chamber finished pressurizing, everything working perfectly for once, and the inner door slid open.

Janus didn’t even wait to clear the threshold. He popped the seal at his neck and pulled the helmet off his head, gasping air that wasn’t rich with sweat and other smells, and that’s when he heard the sound. There were people shouting and cheering. As he staggered out of the airlock, the crowd went wild.

Janus didn’t understand it. It seemed like the entire dome was clustered around the airlock. Hundreds of people were being held back by barriers and dome-sec officers. Some enterprising children had climbed onto a nearby rooftop and were waving at him. The sound was deafening. Everyone was smiling and waving and hugging each other, like he hadn’t just stumbled in half dead. About twenty meters in, standing in the middle of the temporary corridor, were Architect Nikandros, Administrator Bennin, Callie Invarian, and Ivan Invarian—former aspirant and current asshole.

Ivan, Janus thought, finding new strength in his anger. He walked toward the reception committee, one foot in front of the other just like he had out in the dust. He ignored the crowd, the strangeness of everything that had happened, and focused on just that one thing, getting to his uncle.

“You did it, Janus!” Callie said.

“Janus,” Ivan said as he approached. “I want you to know—”

Janus got in close—less than half a meter—before bringing his right arm up the way Ivan had just taught him the other day, popping his elbow out at the last moment, and sucker-punching his uncle in the jaw.

Ivan reeled back, surprised, and then he laughed. Nikandros and Bennin smiled at each other, and Ivan spoke to the public announcement system through his comm. “A fighter, ladies and gentlemen!” The crowd cheered and laughed. “You all saw it! We’ve been watching nothing but this for the past twelve hours, and I’m pleased to say that Prime Dome has its aspirant! Janus Invarian, everyone!”

Janus started to fall forward and Ivan caught him, supporting a good bit of his weight.

“Let’s get him to medical,” Bennin said. “You cut it awfully close, Ivan. The Trials start in less than forty-eight hours.”

“He’s ready,” Ivan said. “Void take me, he’s as good as I thought he would be.”