White Crystal Butterflies | Wattys 2021 Shortlist | ✔

Chapter Twenty-One

I approach the sparkling section of the station wall, Krüger close behind me. The light of our headlamps dances off the ice crust spanning a good quarter of the station's flank—again right where the drift once lay. It looks for all the world like the snow piled up, froze a thin layer to the Pod, then blew away again, sanding the drifts flat and leaving only this ice behind. I know it's new, too. This was a section we melted clean just this morning when we came out to defrost our instruments and scan for storm damage.

Why?

I don't have an answer, and Krüger doesn't offer one. I make him wait while I circle the suspicious area. There's nothing else of interest. This ice will have to come off, though. I approach it like I would a wild animal. Nothing happens as I come within an arm's reach of the Pod wall, then as I touch it. I thump it with my elbow and find the ice solidly fused in place.

"We should be safe to scrape it," says Krüger. "You clear the greenhouse roof the same way."

Something I've done at least four times since we arrived on the moon, but what if it's not safe? It's no more optional than what we need to do here, but it's one more thing to send me spinning into my own thoughts, searching for danger. Has Mahaha watched me without my knowledge while I'm out on the roof? Have I contributed to the threat it thinks we pose to it, if that's what's going on?

There's no good answer. I connect to the comms desk again. "Kwon, can you get Liu to toss the scraper in the airlock? We need it out here."

A few minutes later, Krüger and I are hacking into the ice together, him bombing small sections of it with the defroster until they're loose enough for me to carve off. Water droplets splatter across my jacket and cling to my gloves like jewels. By the time we've cleared the wall, all my clothing is tangibly heavier from all the little nubs of ice. I grab a chunk from the ground and try to scrub off as many as I can.

"Anywhere else that needs our attention?" says Krüger. With his helmet, suit, and mask, and the defroster primed in his hands, he looks like some caricature from a kids' show about space wars or exoplanetary spy missions. It strikes me that our reality right now might be just as intense when put on screen. If only reality came with a happy ending.

We check the rest of the Pod together, but there's no more stray ice. I catch a glimpse of the instrument panel and note that the fingers of snow on the ground are gone.

"So, do you think we need to move it?" says Krüger.

At a glance, I'd say no. There's higher ground starting to rise around us, but the spot where the Pod sits now is still flat and stable. In fact, it's probably rising, too. There's a slight slope down around it that wasn't there this morning.

Will moving get us away from a repeat of what just happened, though?

"No," I say, before my brain can send me into another tailspin. I doubt moving will get us away from anything. Admitting it makes me feel hunted—we can escape to higher ground when we need to, but we can't run away from wind, or living ice, or blowing snow. "Let's head back."

We've already been out longer than I would've liked, and it's after dark to boot. The diffuse light from Mahaha's clouds, backsplash from Qalupalik, paints the landscape in muted sepia tones, its peaks and valleys just barely discernible. Everything is quiet and shadowy. The crunch of Krüger's boots gets swallowed by the snow before it can reverberate far in the eerily still air.

We're passing the dark windows of Kwon and I's bedrooms when I see a flicker of pale wings. I did not imagine that.

I spin around. Where did it go? It's not over Krüger. Did it disintegrate already? Before I can call out to Krüger to stop and wait, I move in front of another window and catch sight of the wings again. For a moment, I can't breathe. My reflection stares back at me, wide eyes visible even through my goggles. Above my helmet dances a white crystal butterfly.