White Crystal Butterflies | Wattys 2021 Shortlist | ✔

Chapter One

It's Monday, and Mahaha—for all its orbital rotation speed—is not turning in my favor. My forehead finds its final resting place on our station's postage-stamp-sized dining table as Liu and Krüger across from me devolve into a spirited debate over whether or not an omelette is a single-celled organism. If anyone ever asks me what you get when you cross a bored astrophysicist and a world-class astrobiologist with a fondness for the hypothetical, I'm giving them this.

Krüger has his trusty whiteboard marker out. From what I can tell of their conversation, he's scribbling something about mitochondria, and bacon being the body's finest source of fuel. The marker squeaks over the table's surgical-white surface like a gerbil with small-dog syndrome. I make a mental note to add the whole dining room to Krüger's cleaning list for the week. It won't be the first addition—it's hard on the heels of all the other walls and surfaces that fell prey to yesterday's rant about interstellar taxonomic classification. I don't think the original designers of this place meant to turn their walls into whiteboards, but smooth-'n-pasty seems to be the aesthetic of choice for semipermanent planetary and moon bases nowadays.

Liu bangs her fist on the table. The argument has reached a head: whether or not the fry skin around the eggy envelope constitutes a cell membrane.

"It's too thin," says Krüger in frustration. His glasses are shoved up into his curly black mop, vibing with the silver streaks at his temples. He wears the grey as a proud mark of worldliness, at the ripe young age of thirty-five. With his scruffy chin and the perpetual half-mug of imitation coffee beside him, he looks like a PhD lifer who's spent one too many hours poring over something inane under a microscope.

"If it's too thin, you're not oiling the pan enough," snorts Liu. "Butter, Tobias. If you're already adding bacon, you can't do these things in half measures."

I'd pay in blood to have either butter or bacon right now, but Kwon is saving our last package of the latter for some yet-unspecified "special occasion." I think she's just trying to keep it out of these two's hands. As for butter, that's just about the only thing that could tempt me back to earth right now.

I don't think my attempted discussion on food supplies is going to regain what little purchase it once had here, so I unglue my head from the table and push myself up.

"Hey Chief, do bubbles count as vesicles, or do you think that's pushing it?" says Liu with a grin.

"I am not going to be part of this argument."

"Told you they wouldn't help," says Krüger under his breath.

I add the bathroom to his cleaning list.

I'm spared further involvement in the conversation by Kwon, who pokes her head in the door, receiver in hand. "Gallegos? A call for you from the Hub."

"Thank you."

Bless her soul. Kwon is the rock without which this whole place would have burned down two months ago, probably by my doing. She's an engineer and mechanic by trade, but also our cook, medic, and a hundred other hats that she pulls out of her many overalls pockets like that pen cap you lost two months ago, or the paperclip you saw everywhere until you actually needed it. We've worked together on and off for years, and I fought tooth and nail to get her on this mission. My sanity thanks me for it daily.

As for the call, it's about time. It was supposed to come through two days ago, and I've been stressing ever since.

Kwon hands me the receiver and a headset as we pass each other in opposite directions. Whoever designed this place thought it would be cute to shape all the technology like last century's defunct innovations. The station phone in my hand looks like an antique telephone, about as sleek and efficient as a banana with suction cups at either end.