White Crystal Butterflies | Wattys 2021 Shortlist | ✔

Chapter Twelve

The Pod has not fallen apart by the next morning, though I certainly dreamed it did. I tour the whole station before anyone else is up, checking its critical systems. Everything seems in working order.

There's a ghost of light outside, but you'd think I woke everyone up before dawn for how groggy they are when they stumble from their rooms. Staying up too late is probably part of it, but the ecliptic cycle always seems to knock everyone out for a day or two. I clear out as Krüger comes to heat water for coffee, then return when a clatter marks Kwon pulling out a pot for oatmeal.

She shoos me out again. "Go grab your towel and bring a stool to the bathroom if you want a haircut today."

That's what I keep forgetting to ask her. I pillage the lab for a stool and set up the bathroom by the time breakfast is ready. When I return to the kitchen, Liu is blinking sleepily in front of the updated chore list on the fridge.

"I covered some of your things yesterday," I say.

"Oh." She looks over it again. "Thanks." There's an elongated pause, then she frowns. "Why didn't you give me some of yours, then?"

"I figured it would be better if you two got back to your work faster." Half true is true enough. "Come eat. You still have exercise rotation after chores."

She moves to the table like a zombie and murmurs another thanks as Krüger pushes a fresh mug of coffee across to her. They were definitely up too late. I'd take a cup myself, but you can't downgrade to imitation coffee when you've grown up on the real deal. I'm probably better off without caffeine, too. I've paced the Pod enough times this morning already.

Kwon is as adept a self-taught hairdresser as she is a self-taught anything. I volunteer to clean the bathroom after, but she's got a lineup; she's cornered Krüger for this, too. I get pointed outside. Subpar insulation means the Pod's glass greenhouse roof accumulates a thin skin of ice every few weeks. More modern stations have thaw systems to prevent it, but this one predates that technology.

I shimmy into my snow gear. Kwon and Krüger aren't done yet—I hear his curls are a special beast—but Liu sees me waiting and volunteers to check my oxygen tank. She gives me the all-clear. I thank her and keep waiting when she's gone. The longer I stand, the more a new thought nibbles at me. Letting Liu outside is one thing, but she lacks experience in other areas. If worst comes to worst and Krüger ever goes down, it would be helpful to have the team's other scientist know the technical ropes of fieldwork.

Krüger finally appears, now looking like a PhD student on thesis-defense day instead of mid-research. He gives me the all-clear, too. I tuck the thought of Liu aside and head outdoors.

Ice-clearing takes the better part of two hours, enough time for me to think through further field training and come up with a plan. I circle the station once when I'm done. Krüger and Liu's bank of weather and planetary instruments winks softly to itself on the Pod wall not far from the airlock. The snow gauge has collected a good twelve centimeters since Krüger last came out to empty it. He's out here twice a day.

I sigh. It feels like ages ago, now, that the biggest question the scientists had about this moon was where all its atmospheric moisture came from. They've made no headway on that last I checked. The very question seems buried now, lost beneath an ever-growing stack of mysteries tumbling down like Mahaha's perpetual snow.

One of the instruments catches my eye. Where the rest whirr or blink or spin, this one is dark and silent. I find the circle where its power light should be. Dead? That couldn't have been from the storm; Krüger was out here to check these just this morning, and he's not one to overlook things. I unclip the thing from the panel and take it with me.