Page 17 of The Brightness Between Us

“We haven’t explored. We know so little about the climate here. There could be a constant typhoon on the other side of the globe. There could be, I don’t know, aliens with thermostats, altering levels of lava flows so their living rooms are comfortable.”

“Given the recency of a comet strike, however? What’s most probable in that case?”

I grip my spear. OS has a few educational modes, and this one is my least favorite. Yarrow and I call it “I’m smarter than you.”

I think for a moment, then I shiver. I literally shiver. “It’s not really warming away from what’s normal. It’s recovering from being cold.”

“Explain your reasoning.”

I roll my eyes. But then the realization of it all takes over, and I can’t help but be excited. “We’re seeing the return of Minerva to its natural climate. It was unusually cold when my fathers arrived, because the debris from the last comet strike was still clouding the atmosphere.”

“Very good,” OS says. “This is a reasonable conclusion.”

I look up into the sky. “We might think we’ve been on normal Minerva, but we’ve actually been on cloudy recovering Minerva this whole time.”

“We can expect change.”

I nod. “We can expect change.”

“And we can expect another comet to strike.”

“And we can expect another comet to strike.”

This is the morning of day five, which means wherever I camp tonight is my turnaround point. For this mission to be a success I have to find something, and soon.

OS wakes me the moment Big Sister’s rays hit Minerva. Rover’s already brewed my tea. Well, “tea”—from what I’ve read about it, real tea didn’t taste like mud. But, on this chilly morning when I roll out from under my insulating shield and immediately stamp my legs for heat, the hot liquid coming out of Rover’s spigot is welcome. Whatever it tastes like.

Is it only chilly because lingering debris from a comet strike years ago is shading the Sisters? I stare out at the morning sky, wondering. I look for bright points in the atmosphere.

Despite my asking it to give me a half hour of morning peace while my brain wakes up, OS launches into the day’sitinerary. “Though we will continue our northerly route, I suggest that on this last day we jag west-northwest first, to avoid an unnecessary rise and fall in elevation a kilometer from here.”

I hold up my hand, squinting at Big Sister. “I can’t get my brain around this just yet, OS.”

“My apologies.” A pause. “If you agree to this plan now, I will have no need to keep talking to you until you’ve gotten your belongings ready.”

I close my eyes. If I were either of the dads, OS would be compelled to follow my directions. Since I’m still fifteen, OS treats my inputs as mere suggestions. I have only the illusion of choice here. “Sure, OS, sure. West-northwest.”

Meanwhile, I’m menstruating. We brought plenty of cloths, I just have to change to a new one and belt it on. Not a big deal, but each time I do it I’m reminded that I’m the only human in existence who can carry a child. It’s my least favorite feeling.

As I change my cloth, I look out at the unchanging landscape of Minerva and force myself to think about it instead of my own worries. The closest it looks to any pictures I’ve seen of Earth is a desolate tide pool, ponds of hydrocarbons and simple unicellular life emerging from it. It’s reasonable that this is what we’d find on Minerva. Over the 3.5 billion years Earth had any life, only half a billion had anythingmulticellular. Throw a dart somewhere on that timeline, and if you found any life at all, you’d most likely find what we did—pond scum.

Unless all of Minerva’s complex life is in its seas.Minerva, where are your seas?

“All right, Rover,” I say, standing and shaking warmth into my limbs. “Let’s go.”

An hour before the Scorch, Rover and I skirt the edge of a murky pond. Rover tests the fluid inside—mostly water. High amounts of deuterium, but perfectly safe to drink. It begins to slurp some up, to filter for my consumption, and we make a note of the location. We have enough water sources at the moment, but if we start getting low, we could move here. The plasticine walls of our structures are all hollow—we could change the gas inside to something light enough to float them.

We pause at the edge of the pond and peer in. There are silvery flashes inside, but I’ve been fooled by those before in ethylamine—they aren’t rudimentary fishes, but mats of organic material that rise and fall with the shifts in the pond’s heat over the course of the day.

I crumble the sharp rocky edges of the pond, bring the crystals to my mouth, and tentatively touch them with the tip of my tongue. “A little salty,” I report to OS. “Which means there’ssomemetal here.”

OS sighs. “You should let me test novel materials the proper way: with a mechanical probe. Not with your tongue.”

“Where’s the fun in that? And what if someday you don’t have enough energy left to power you? What would we do then? Maybe my dirt-tasting skills will suddenly be crucial.”

“Luckily I run on a microreactor that still has at least a hundred thousand years left. You would all be doomed if I ran out of a power source, no matter what your tongue can do. I could list the reasons, if you like.”

I open my hand, letting the minerals sprinkle onto the murky surface of the pond. “I would not like.”

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