Loathe to Love You (The STEMinist Novellas #1-3)(81)

Which is, I must admit, ironic in a cosmic kind of way. The very reason I ventured out here was to test how the mini-rover I designed would work in highly stressful, low-sunlight, low-command-input situations. Of course, it was not supposed to storm. I was going to drop off the gear and then immediately return to headquarters, which . . . well. It didn’t quite work out like that, obviously.

But the gear is being covered by a layer of snow. And the sun is going to set soon. The mini-rover is in a highly stressful, low-sunlight, low-command-input situation, and from a scientific standpoint, this mission wasn’t a total clusterfuck. At some point in the next few days, someone at AMASE (likely Dr. Merel, that asshole) will try to activate it, and then we’ll know whether my work was actually solid. Well, they will know. By then, I’ll probably just be a Popsicle with a very pissed-off expression, like Jack Torrance at the end of The Shining.

“Are you still doing okay?”

Ian’s voice jostles me from my preapocalyptic whining. My heart flutters like a hummingbird—a sickly, freezing one who forgot to migrate south with her buddies. I don’t bother answering, instead instantly ask: “Why are you here?” I know I sound like an ungrateful bitch, and while I’ve never concerned myself with coming across as the latter, I do not mean to be the former. The problem is his presence makes no damn sense. I’ve had twenty minutes to think about it, and it just doesn’t. And if this is the place and time where I finally croak . . . well, I don’t want to die confused.

“Just out on a promenade.” He sounds a little out of breath, which means that the climb must have been a tough one. Ian is lots of things, but out of shape is not one of them. “Taking in the scenery. What about you? What brings you here?”

“I’m serious. Why are you in Norway?”

“You know”—the sound briefly cuts, then bounces back with a generous helping of white noise—“not everyone vacations in South Padre. Some of us enjoy cooler destinations.” The huffing and puffing through the tenuous satellite line is almost . . . intimate. We’re exposed to the same elements, on the same heavily glaciated terrain, while the rest of the world has taken shelter. We’re out here, alone.

And it doesn’t make any sense.

“When did you fly into Svalbard?” It couldn’t have been any time in the last three days, because there were no incoming fights. Svalbard is well connected to Oslo and Troms? in the peak season, but that won’t start until mid-March.

So . . . Ian must have been here for a handful of days. But why? He is chief of engineering on several rover projects, and the Serendipity team is approaching crunch time. It makes no sense for one of their key personnel to be in another country right now. Plus, the engineering component of this AMASE is minimal. Only Dr. Merel and me, really. All other members are geologists and astrobiologists, and—

Why the hell is Ian here? Why the hell would NASA send a senior engineer on a rescue mission that wasn’t even supposed to happen?

“Are you still doing okay?” he asks again. When I don’t reply, he continues: “I’m close. A few minutes away.”

I brush snowflakes from my eyelashes. “When did AMASE change its mind on sending relief efforts?”

A brief hesitation. “Actually, it might be more than a few minutes. The storm’s intensifying and I can’t see very well—”

“Ian, why did they send you?”

A deep breath. Or a sigh. Or a puff, louder than the others. “You ask a lot of questions,” he says. Not for the first time.

“Yeah. But they’re pretty good questions, so I’m going to keep on asking more. For instance, how the—”

“As long as I can ask some, too.”

I nearly groan. “What do you want to know? Best concert? Favorite concert? An overview of the amenities of the crevasse? It offers very little in terms of nightlife—”

“I need to know, Hannah, if you are doing okay.”

I close my eyes. The bite of the cold is like a million needles wedged under my skin. “Yes. I . . . I’m fine.”

Suddenly, the call drops. The static, the noise, they all disappear, and I can’t hear Ian anymore. I glance at my satphone and find it still on. Shit. The problem is on his end. The snow’s getting thicker, it’ll be pitch-black in minutes, and on top of that I’m almost sure that Ian has been attacked by a polar bear. If something happens to him, I’ll never be able to forgive myse—

I hear steps cracking the snow and look up to the rim of the crevasse. The light is dimming by the second, but I make out the tall, broad outline of a man in a ski mask. He is looking down at me.

Oh God. Is he really . . . ?

“See?” Ian’s deep voice says, just a little out of breath. He lowers his neck warmer before adding, “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”





Six


Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas

Six months ago

I am surprised by how much the email hurts, because it’s a lot.

Not that I expected to be happy about it. It’s a well-established fact that hearing that your project has been denied funding is as pleasant as plunging a toilet. But rejections are the bread and butter of all academic journeys, and since starting my Ph.D. I’ve had approximately twelve hundred fantabillions of them. In the past five years, I’ve been denied publications, conference presentations, fellowships, scholarships, memberships. I even failed at getting into Bruegger’s unlimited-drinks program—a devastating setback, considering my love for iced tea.