Winter World (The Long Winter #1)(72)

Our dinner conversation isn’t as free-flowing as I would like. I want to tell Madison and David everything, but the first contact mission and what happened aboard the Pax is still classified. James and I only say that the mission was a success and that there’s more work to do.

Madison, naturally, is protective and curious about James. She grills him. I admit, I’m listening closely. I have questions of my own, and a part of me hopes she’ll make him answer some of them.

“Where are you from, James?”

“I grew up near Asheville, North Carolina. Went to school at Stanford.”

Madison finishes another bite of mashed potatoes. “And what about you, Oscar?”

“The same,” he says softly.

“How did you two meet?” Madison asks, the question undirected, hanging between the two of them like a lunch bill placed on the table equidistant between two diners.

“Through my work,” James says quickly. “How do you all like the camp?”

He’s changing the subject. It buys them some time. David has some complaints about the accommodations, but he and Madison seem genuinely happy. And that makes me happy.

After dessert, we serve coffee. Only Madison partakes. It seems to give her more energy for her interrogation of James.

“Have you reconnected with your family, James?”

“No. But I know they’re okay.”

In the escape module, he mentioned that he had a brother he didn’t talk to. This is the first time I’ve heard him talk about him since we returned.

“That’s good news.” Madison pauses, eying me over the coffee. “Are they here, at Camp Seven?”

“Yes.”

“Your mother and father?”

I catch a glance from Oscar to James. What does that mean?

James begins picking up the plastic dessert plates from around the table. “Both of my parents have passed.”

“Brothers and sisters?” Madison asks.

I can tell James doesn’t want to talk about it. I kick her under the table.

She tilts her head, silently asking, What?

“Only one brother,” James says, his back to us, running water over the dishes before placing them in the washer.

Thankfully, Madison lets it go at that.

When they’re gone, I stick my head in James’s office nook. It’s a pigsty. Drone schematics, maps of the solar system, the asteroid belt in particular, and on the wall is a handwritten note with six names: Harry, Grigory, Min, Lina, Izumi, and Charlotte. Those we left behind. They’re why he’s working himself to the bone. For them. And for those still here.

“I’m sorry about Madison. She can be a bulldog.”

He doesn’t look up. “She’s just protecting you. As she should be.”

“Can I help?”

“Not right now. Thank you though. Soon.”

That’s something to look forward to.





The next morning, James is waiting for me in the living room. Or my rehab room. It’s both, really.

“Fancy a walk?” he asks.

“Sure.”

That’s new. But a welcome change. Maybe he thinks the fresh air will do me good.

Outside our habitat, I lean on the cane and hold his bicep in my other hand. It’s morning and the camp is coming to life. The sun shines dimly in the sky, and a smattering of snow flurries blows around us like ash out of an extinguished fire.

“You’re getting stronger,” he says.

“Not fast enough for my liking.”

“Nothing ever seems to go fast enough these days.”

He stops near Barracks 12A and stands and stares. The building’s shape reminds me of a long greenhouse with an arched roof—like a long, narrow white barrel sunken into the sand. Only its top is black, due to the solar cells. People are pouring out on their way to work. Breakfast is ending and the day is starting.

This isn’t Madison’s building. Or Fowler’s. He has a habitat where his wife and their adult children and their families live.

“Are you looking for somebody?”

“Yeah.”

He keeps staring at the barracks, at the people venturing out. Finally he says, “There—in the green parka. Blue knit cap.”

The man is roughly as tall as James and resembles him vaguely.

“Your brother?”

“Yes.”

After a pause, James continues. “I come here every morning. To see him.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s as close as I’ll probably ever get.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He hates me.”

“Why?”

“Because of something I did.”

I have learned James’s boundaries. There are few of them, but the ones he has tower like million-foot walls. They only come down when he takes them down. This is one of those walls.

And I wonder: why has he shown me this? It’s something that bothers him. Something that he wants to talk about but doesn’t want to do anything about.

I realize then that I’m not the only one who’s trying to rehabilitate themselves here at Camp Seven. He has his own injuries. They are unseen, but just as limiting as mine.

I squeeze his arm tighter.