here.”
For the first time since they had uncovered the artifact, and they had lost six people to it, and the icequake and the losses suffered from it, Susan caught a glimpse of fear in Ben’s eyes. They all relied on him. He was a driven boss, and not a very social guy, but not quite anti-social either; he just wasn’t anyone’s friend. But they liked that about him. He trusted everyone completely and respected everyone equally. For two years, these humans had been working and living further away than any human being in the Earth’s history, and all the potential disasters that came with such an endeavor. Never, during that whole time, did anyone ever feel afraid, and that was because of Ben. The look that Ben gave Susan, right before he turned back to his console, left her shocked.
- Thomas –
Ten seconds and he would have died. He was just getting ready to go to sleep that night and was on the toilet. He was about to sit on the vacuum potty when an alarm from his console went off. It was for his medicines, so he stepped back out of the bathroom closet and into his room to get the console and turn the alarm off. Nature was calling strongly, so he headed back towards the bathroom when the icequake hit. The half of his room where the bathroom was vanished under tons of ice. With the little air that he had left, he made it into his suit.
He was not ashamed to say he did shit himself, though.
Nearly twenty four hours had passed, and the effects were quite devastating. They had lost two men, and nearly a third more than half of the base was completely destroyed and under ice while the other half was wrecked pretty well. They had lost a good amount of their breathable air. In a stroke of pure luck, they still had the green dome, and that had been their salvation, not just for air, but from radiation.
Now he had to go outside. Their regular outdoor suits, the ones suited to block a large amount of radiation, had vanished under tons of ice. They were lucky that one of the rovers had been parked over by the green dome and not in its usual place in the engineering dome. The inside emergency suits had next to no radiation protection, so walking to the artifact site would have been a death sentence. But here they were, himself and Susan, riding across the ice that had changed its view quite dramatically. Instead of the once smooth ice plains he had ridden on nearly every day for two years, giant spears of ice pierced through the surface, creating a whole new environment. The ice shafts were forty-to-fifty feet high, jagged and sharp. Thomas couldn’t even begin to imagine the sorts of pressures needed to make them burst through like that. One day, if he lived through it all, he would sit down and do the math. He was an expert on ice, after all.
He wasn’t an expert on trauma, though.
Susan was clearly shook up. Everyone was, but she was especially disturbed. Everyone had seen and heard the verbal punishment Ben had laid onto her. It had been unfair of him, as if the icequake had been her fault. Still, Thomas had tried to talk to her about it, and she hadn’t said a thing. For as much as people didn’t like Horace, he was certainly being missed now, because in some way, somehow, he always managed to say the right thing to just make you pause and think. Reflection, he had called it. The best healer of oneself, was yourself. He used to say gummy shit like that all the time, made you laugh. One always thought he was talking to you like a kid.
Yet, it always rang true.
They continued to drive through the ice field, going slower than he used to on the open ice plains. He had to slow down a lot, turning through the columns, often coming to dead ends. He was so focused on driving that when he exited the ice shafts, what he saw next failed to register in his brain. He heard Susan gasp in his com link and he turned to look at her. Her eyes were dead set ahead of her, and he turned to look ahead and that’s when it hit him.
For the first time since they had uncovered the artifact, and they had lost six people to it, and the icequake and the losses suffered from it, Susan caught a glimpse of fear in Ben’s eyes. They all relied on him. He was a driven boss, and not a very social guy, but not quite anti-social either; he just wasn’t anyone’s friend. But they liked that about him. He trusted everyone completely and respected everyone equally. For two years, these humans had been working and living further away than any human being in the Earth’s history, and all the potential disasters that came with such an endeavor. Never, during that whole time, did anyone ever feel afraid, and that was because of Ben. The look that Ben gave Susan, right before he turned back to his console, left her shocked.
- Thomas –
Ten seconds and he would have died. He was just getting ready to go to sleep that night and was on the toilet. He was about to sit on the vacuum potty when an alarm from his console went off. It was for his medicines, so he stepped back out of the bathroom closet and into his room to get the console and turn the alarm off. Nature was calling strongly, so he headed back towards the bathroom when the icequake hit. The half of his room where the bathroom was vanished under tons of ice. With the little air that he had left, he made it into his suit.
He was not ashamed to say he did shit himself, though.
Nearly twenty four hours had passed, and the effects were quite devastating. They had lost two men, and nearly a third more than half of the base was completely destroyed and under ice while the other half was wrecked pretty well. They had lost a good amount of their breathable air. In a stroke of pure luck, they still had the green dome, and that had been their salvation, not just for air, but from radiation.
Now he had to go outside. Their regular outdoor suits, the ones suited to block a large amount of radiation, had vanished under tons of ice. They were lucky that one of the rovers had been parked over by the green dome and not in its usual place in the engineering dome. The inside emergency suits had next to no radiation protection, so walking to the artifact site would have been a death sentence. But here they were, himself and Susan, riding across the ice that had changed its view quite dramatically. Instead of the once smooth ice plains he had ridden on nearly every day for two years, giant spears of ice pierced through the surface, creating a whole new environment. The ice shafts were forty-to-fifty feet high, jagged and sharp. Thomas couldn’t even begin to imagine the sorts of pressures needed to make them burst through like that. One day, if he lived through it all, he would sit down and do the math. He was an expert on ice, after all.
He wasn’t an expert on trauma, though.
Susan was clearly shook up. Everyone was, but she was especially disturbed. Everyone had seen and heard the verbal punishment Ben had laid onto her. It had been unfair of him, as if the icequake had been her fault. Still, Thomas had tried to talk to her about it, and she hadn’t said a thing. For as much as people didn’t like Horace, he was certainly being missed now, because in some way, somehow, he always managed to say the right thing to just make you pause and think. Reflection, he had called it. The best healer of oneself, was yourself. He used to say gummy shit like that all the time, made you laugh. One always thought he was talking to you like a kid.
Yet, it always rang true.
They continued to drive through the ice field, going slower than he used to on the open ice plains. He had to slow down a lot, turning through the columns, often coming to dead ends. He was so focused on driving that when he exited the ice shafts, what he saw next failed to register in his brain. He heard Susan gasp in his com link and he turned to look at her. Her eyes were dead set ahead of her, and he turned to look ahead and that’s when it hit him.
Similar Books
