Dare Mighty Things Read online

  Unbelievable.

  The music followed me all the way to bed, never getting louder, never closer. By lights-out I was beginning to think I might be in danger of losing my calm.

  I lay in bed, sheet pulled up to my chin, and talked myself out of it. I closed my eyes and imagined I was sitting in the auditorium at school, listening to a concert.

  It wasn’t until after breakfast the next morning that someone else spoke up about it.

  “Does anyone else hear that?” It was Boris.

  A few people mumbled, shrugged. Emilio tilted his head to one side, listened intently a second, and said, “Yeah, I think so. Maybe?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. There’s an easy way to figure this out,” Mitsuko said. She pushed herself out of her chair and went to the intercom. “SLH to Houston,” she said. “This is Mitsuko Pinuelas. Question for you.”

  Crackling on the other end. “Go ahead, SLH.”

  “Are we hearing music in here?”

  There was a pause. “Confirmed.”

  Mitsuko waited for an explanation. When one wasn’t forthcoming, she rolled her eyes and hit the button again. “Houston, confirm this for me: What is the purpose of the music?”

  Another long pause from Houston. “Don’t want you kids getting bored in there.”

  Mitsuko shook her head and mouthed something I couldn’t understand. “Thanks. That’s all.”

  The music wasn’t the last surprise NASA had in store for us, and it was probably the best one we were going to get. Giorgia ran out of the bathroom later that day complaining the hot water had gone out. Nothing but lukewarm came out of the shower from then on, no matter what anyone did.

  The air was too cold, then too hot. The radioed instructions to fix it were purposely confusing, frustrating, and the radio kept cutting out. The toilet stopped flushing for an entire seven hours. Dinner was late, and then my shrink-wrapped plate contained a turkey sandwich, which I didn’t eat. Emilio and Mitsuko gave me bits off their plates.

  By the end of the second day, Giorgia had left the SLH, and the program, for good. Didn’t discuss it with anyone, just walked up to the hatch and hit the red button. Gone.

  Getting woken up in the middle of the night became kind of routine. It was always something. Lights coming on at midnight, unexplained noises, “emergencies” that we had to get out of bed and fix with instructions from the intercom. Night missions where we had to do repetitive tasks until someone nearly fell asleep standing up. One morning the lights never came on and we spent our day mostly in the dark, doing paperwork by the glow of the emergency floor lights.

  Then we were tested: Mountains of paperwork came in through the port, each with a time limit for us to complete. Exams based on topics we’d discussed in classes the week before. History tests comprised of previous space missions: what had gone wrong, what had gone right, what lessons we could learn from them. Personality tests, which I started out enjoying and quickly came to hate.

  No mail came for anyone, which wasn’t a surprise. There was also not a second where we did not have music pumped in through the speakers.

  Ironically, the music became the thing that kept me sane. It changed often, sometimes the same pieces repeated, but almost always orchestral. Classics like Rossini, Tchaikovsky, Handel, and Bach mixed with relatively modern works like Sousa and Yo-Yo Ma and even a few experimental and modern pieces that were brand-new.

  At dinner, we ate together at a table bolted into the floor while string quartets played quietly in the background. The strings lent an air of elegance to our artificial, shrink-wrapped meals that I enjoyed. I happened to catch Luka, sitting at the head of the table, his fork poised in midair like he’d forgotten it. Grimacing. The muscles in his jaw worked like he was quietly grinding his teeth, like he was in pain.

  I wondered if I should say something.

  Someone else beat me to it. “You don’t look so good,” Anton said. Anton was a genuinely nice guy—he really looked concerned. “You feeling sick?”

  Luka seemed caught off guard for only a second. He pushed himself upright and the distaste left his face. “No. I’m fine.”

  Pratima twisted around to look at him. “Something wrong with your food?” She seemed less concerned, more intrigued, as if she was hoping he’d been poisoned.

  Luka shook his head as everyone turned to look at him. Something was wrong with Luka, the man who hadn’t left first place since day one? We watched and analyzed his every move. But he looked fine now. Then there were a few shrill strokes from a violin, and Luka winced as if the sound physically pained him.

  Forks dropped onto trays.

  “You got a headache, man?” Emilio asked, putting a hand on his shoulder. “There’s ibuprofen in the cabinet.”

  Luka shrugged it off immediately. “I’m fine, thank you.”

  The music, I realized. That was the only variable that had changed.

  I said nothing. But I began to watch him a little more closely.

  “There’s just something weird about him,” Mitsuko whispered to me later, during our hour of free time. Luka had disappeared to his bunk right after dinner without a word to anyone.

  “So it’s weird that he’s good-looking, tall, athletic, foreign, and doesn’t like classical music? God, it’s just too bad he isn’t perfect.”

  She didn’t seem to notice the sarcasm. “Of all people, Cass, you’re defending him? I admit, he may be hot, but who hates classical music? Especially you. I thought you played, like, four instruments.”

  I fisted then stretched my fingers. It’d been so long since I’d played, I hardly felt like a musician anymore. “Piano and violin. I tried trumpet but I was no good. You have to do weird things with your mouth.”

  “Whatever. You get my point. There’s something off about him, that’s all. I can’t believe you don’t see that.”

  I had to poke her to make her lower her voice. “So what? People have quirks. I don’t like him for it, but it doesn’t matter.” I sighed. “Music or not, he’ll probably be the one they pick.”

  Mitsuko snapped her head toward me and grabbed my shoulder. “Don’t say that. If they wanted him they would have picked him by now. And he is not perfect. He’s too . . . calm.”

  “I don’t see how being too calm works against him.”

  “Like, he must bottle up his emotions. People like that are unstable.”

  I inhaled deeply, looking toward the bunk where Luka was. I didn’t get that vibe from him at all, but how much did I really know about him? Next to nothing, despite our time in the wilderness.

  Mitsuko’s dark eyes bore into me. “I’m serious. Don’t throw in the towel just yet.”

  The lights dimmed for the five-minute warning before lights-out, and we went to bed.

  FIFTEEN

  NINETY-SIX HOURS IN, seventy-two to go.

  I kept meticulous count, but even so I couldn’t believe it had been only four days. Sleep deprivation gnawed at the edges of my sanity. I walked around in a constant state of tension, my jaw tight and my hands clenched.

  The eight of us left developed a schedule for showering so that we each got one shower per twelve-hour period of “daylight” while still allowing breaks in between so people could use the toilet. We imposed a ten-minute limit on ourselves, not to save hot water—that was gone for good—but to keep the toilets free as much as possible. Then there was a schedule for exercise. There was no worry about who would make dinner or do dishes—that was all done for us—but there were scuffles over whose turn it was to play with the sole deck of cards, who took longer than their allotted time to shower, who had left the bathroom a mess or left their dirty clothes on someone else’s bed.

  True colors began to show. Boris, who the week before was only aggravating, became a bully inside the SLH. Even Pratima, usually even-keeled, snapped at me when I reached across her at the breakfast table, and Mitsuko could jump on anyone if she was in the wrong mood. Emilio and Anton, the peacemakers, were constantly tryi
ng to put out the little fires that erupted between people pushed to their breaking point.

  Luka kept to himself and remained cordial. I tried to follow his example.

  The sleepovers centered around my bunk stopped. I was glad. It was the only way I could deal with never having any privacy except for ten minutes a day in the shower. Each of us drew farther apart, becoming little islands unto ourselves.

  It was surprisingly easy to forget about the outside world. Before long, I stopped even thinking about it.

  During the day, we were so busy, I could distract myself with the work; even if it was mind-numbing and often pointless exercises, it was complex enough to need my full attention. I dreaded the nights. I would lie awake listening to the combined sleeping sounds of all the people I was stuck with, trying to force my tired brain to stop churning, waiting for the midnight disturbance that was sure to come. It seemed useless to try to sleep when I knew at any moment we might be jerked awake. Mitsuko, Emilio, Luka, and I agreed to take turns responding, but eventually Mitsuko stopped getting up, and Emilio was so out of it when he woke that he was useless. So it was me and Luka, mostly, taking turns dragging ourselves out of bed.

  I fought to stay awake, knowing as soon as I closed my eyes the alarm would blare, but it was late in coming that night. Mission Control had established a pattern and then had broken it. One more thing that was getting under my skin.

  I couldn’t stand it anymore. I got out of bed as quietly as possible and made my way toward the kitchen. There was no food there, only packets of water you had to suck out of a plastic pouch. But I took one and sat at the kitchen table, my bare feet already tingling cold.

  I sat scrunched with my knees to my chest, keeping my toes off the metal. Beethoven was still playing in a whisper over the intercom, a piece so mournful it was as though all four instruments were crying in harmony. I felt numb to it all by now, with only a vague sense of homesickness.

  Bleary-eyed, I hardly noticed the shadows moving in the other tube until a human shape emerged out of the living quarters.

  I jumped to my feet. The shadow stepped forward, over an emergency light, which illuminated him from below.

  Luka.

  He just stood there, quiet, looking as surprised to see me as I was to see him. “Can’t sleep?” The words escaped like a breath, unintended. “Everything okay?”

  “Yes.” His voice was a baritone murmur. And just when I thought that was all the answer I’d get, he added, “And you?”

  “Yeah. I’m fine. Just waiting, you know. For the . . .” I spun my finger in the air, indicating the sirens. “You know. The ‘emergency.’ What are you doing up?”

  A corner of his mouth tightened, like he was considering whether or not to tell me. “Pacing,” he admitted. I flashed on what Mitsuko had told me sometime before—that Luka was the type to keep his emotions bottled up until they exploded. Was I witnessing the foreshock? His whole body seemed tense as a violin string. Even his fingers drummed against the top of the metal chair in a restless cadence.

  I gave a nod, and the silence between us was filled with the music of mournful strings and a shared understanding. We were both trying to cope with the stress in our own ways.

  He gestured toward the empty living quarters, and we sat side by side on the couch in front of the screen, shrouded in darkness.

  Then he turned his eyes full on me and it felt like everything froze. “I never thanked you for saving my life. Back in the wetlands, when I fell into the creek—you pulled me out. I did not thank you then, but I have been grateful to you ever since.”

  For some reason I stood up, like I meant to do something in response, but wasn’t sure what. “You would’ve done the same.”

  “Yes, I would.” His eyes held an unreadable emotion. “But not for that reason.”

  “For what reason?” I was too tired to be dealing with this.

  “If you had gone into the water instead of me, I would have also tried to save you. But not because I had expectation of help in return.”

  “What? You think I saved your life so you would owe me a favor?”

  His face changed suddenly, shadows rearranging, light reflecting the whites of his eyes. “No. Not at all. I’m sorry, my English . . . I’m sorry. Please, forget I said anything.”

  “Is that what’s bothering you?” This was as close as I’d come to piercing the veil around Luka. As I tried to understand, wishing my enhanced eyesight was just a tad bit more superhuman so it pierced the darkness and read all the details of his features, he broke his intense gaze and looked away. And even in the shadows I could see how open his countenance was—more vulnerable and raw than I’d ever seen, well, anyone.

  His voice was so quiet, the music nearly covered it completely. His tone changed, his words coming slowly and hesitantly. “Do you ever feel, even when entirely surrounded by other people, that you are utterly alone?”

  A cold hand clenched around my heart and squeezed. “You’re not the only one,” I said quietly. And then, because it didn’t feel like it was enough to simply say the words, I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder.

  He glanced up at me, seemingly taken aback. I let my hand drop. But then his face changed into an almost-smile, grateful and surprised, and I felt better for having done it. “Thank you, Cassie.”

  I awoke in my bed with harsh pseudo-sunshine in my eyes, startled and disoriented. The others were ambling around their morning routine, getting the breakfast trays, waiting on the bathroom.

  I couldn’t even remember going back to bed, and yet somehow I’d overslept. Even with all the commotion and the lights on. Nobody had even tried to wake me.

  Not until I zombie-walked into the kitchen did I realize there had been no alarm last night. Unless I’d slept through it. Which also didn’t seem possible.

  Had last night even been real?

  The memory of reaching out in the darkness to touch Luka’s shoulder felt too real to be a dream. And it was definitely not something I would ever dream.

  At breakfast, he gave no outward sign of our midnight meeting. No acknowledgment, not even a smile.

  Maybe I really was losing it.

  As the day wore on, I convinced myself that the midnight conversation with Luka had been a figment of my imagination. He was pleasant but polite to me, not overly friendly.

  The remaining time passed in a blur of routine, until we were a day away from freedom. I hardly slept at all. Sometime tomorrow they were going to let us out, and it seemed like every fault in everyone in this tube with me had been magnified a hundredfold. I hated every snore and grunt of every sleeping person. I hated the air I had to share with them. I hated their breathing noises and their combined body heat drifting over me, which may have been a construct of my own imagination but was annoying anyway.

  My impatience was a living, breathing, seething thing.

  The thought of that hatch door opening, running out of there and breathing fresh air, was both wonderful and awful. I couldn’t let myself think about it very long.

  SIXTEEN

  BREAKFAST. THE LAST day.

  No one was talking.

  Oh, we were all civil on the surface, maintaining the illusion of cordiality. But inside, we were all counting down the seconds until the hatch door opened again. Which should be any minute now. Eating, chewing, waiting for the magical hour that we would be released.

  It seemed our last test was one of boredom.

  There were no tests today. No instructions sent through the radio or the video screen.

  Absolutely nothing to occupy our minds except for the card games and exercise, which we were all sick of.

  Hours passed—or so it felt like. My jaw ached from grinding my teeth.

  What was taking them so long?

  I paced up and down the two tubes. I passed Emilio and Mitsuko holding up cards but not really playing; they were staring at the hatch more than their cards. Anton was doing push-ups while Boris lifted weights. Luka appear
ed to be packing his clothes, folding them meticulously. Pratima, cleaning a kitchen that was already spotless. Kendra in her bunk, staring at the ceiling.

  And then the fire alarm went off.

  I met Mitsuko’s gaze and we shared the same incredulous expression. Really? This old trick again? We’d done so many fire drills it was basically routine. This was their last big test?

  Still, everyone rushed to the kitchen just as Mission Control opened the radio channel. “SLH, your system is showing a fire in the oxygen garden. I repeat, a fire in the oxygen garden. The fire has been contained but the ventilation system has automatically been shut down. You will need to manually restart the ventilation system within one hour or life support systems will fail. The oxygen garden has been sealed to prevent the fire spreading. You must use the ventilation shafts and the tools in your kit to repair it.”

  Now this was more like what I was expecting. The grand finale.

  Mitsuko hit the return-call button. “Mission Control, what do you suggest for our plan of action?”

  “Stand by for instructions. Over.” The connection went dead.

  Tense, we waited, frozen in place. It seemed no more than six rapid-fire heartbeats went by before Mitsuko hit the button again. “Mission Control, do you read me? Over.”

  She took her hand off the button and we heard nothing, not even static.

  I became very aware of the blood rushing through my ears.

  “Houston, do you read me?” Silence.

  Her voice took on a higher pitch. “I repeat—do you read me?”

  As if in response, a high-pitched wailing shriek began to blare, terrifying as a tornado siren from back home. It wasn’t the fire alarm—by now, everyone knew that one by heart.

  Everyone covered their ears. “What is that?” Boris yelled.

  I searched the control panel. A tiny red light was blinking above a gauge. The thin white dial was just starting to touch a field of red.

  I had the best vantage point. I leaned in close, studying the near-empty dial, and called up my memory. We’d studied the meanings of all the buttons and dials, but I’d assumed the readouts were fake, or at least measured things that didn’t apply to our simulation. I mean, we were on Earth, with food and light and gravity—99 percent of these things didn’t apply to us. I’d never paid much attention to the readings before now.