Jenny raised her hand. “Actually…”
“You can fly a spaceship?”
“No,” she said. “A Cessna 172. My mom was teaching me how to fly. I looked at the shuttle’s controls, and I think I might be able to figure them out. Maybe. I won’t know until I try.”
Learning that Jenny knew how to fly a plane and maybe Qriosity’s shuttle definitely came as a shock, though maybe that said more about me than about Jenny. Either way, I wasn’t sure how useful flying would be since we didn’t have anywhere to fly to.
“The rest of the ship seems to be working,” DJ said. “Except for navigation.”
DJ and Jenny were passing a look between them that I couldn’t translate. But whatever was going on, it was making DJ anxious.
“What does that mean?” I asked. “Is that why we’re jumping all over the place?”
DJ nodded. “Think of it like Qriosity’s version of GPS. It’s trying to map us a way home, but it can’t do that until it figures out where we are.”
I wanted to call DJ out for explaining it like I was five, but it was actually helpful. “So if we fix it, we can go home?”
“Theoretically,” DJ said. I expected him to be a little more excited, but he looked like he was going to vomit.
“What?” I asked. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Jenny threw up her hands, looking at DJ in disgust. “It’s outside the ship,” she said. “You have to go outside to fix it. It’s a two-person job, and there’s no way you’re getting me into one of those spacesuits. It will never, ever happen. Which means that you have to do it. You and DJ. But DJ’s been afraid to tell you because of what happened last time. He even tried to go out there by himself, but I stopped him.”
DJ scowled at her. “She put laxatives in my morning smoothie. I don’t even know where she got them from.”
Jenny laughed so hard she spit pancake. “Kept you out of the airlock, didn’t it?”
“Because I couldn’t leave the bathroom for longer than ten minutes!”
While Jenny and DJ argued like siblings, I sat with my hands folded on the table and tried not to panic. The mere suggestion that I go outside the ship again made my stomach clench. The pancakes I’d eaten might as well have been hot needles. I had nightmares about what I’d been through in space, but I hadn’t thought I’d ever need to go out there again. That was silly, of course. The longer we remained on Qriosity, the more likely it was that systems were going to malfunction. Systems like the coolant conduit that could only be repaired from the outside. I’d been a fool to think I’d never have to leave the ship.
But how could I? How could I put on a suit and step out of the airlock? I literally died last time. I stopped breathing and my heart stopped beating and my brain starved for oxygen. If DJ hadn’t rescued me, my body would still be floating among the stars. So how could they ask me to go out there again? How could I consider doing it?
Because I only had two options. The first was to help DJ fix the navigational array. The second was to return to the rec room, put on another episode of Murder Your Darlings, and remain on the couch until I pickled in my own juices.
“I’ll do it,” I said.
DJ stopped speaking mid-sentence and turned to face me. “You don’t have to. We’ll find another way.”
I had a fist-size lump in my throat as I spoke. “If we fix the navigation thing, will it tell us where we are?”
“It should.” I didn’t care for the uncertainty in DJ’s voice, and he must have realized it because he said, “Nothing’s a sure thing, Noa, but it should work.”
It wasn’t the reassuring optimism that I was looking for, but if DJ had believed strongly enough it would work that he’d been willing to attempt to repair it alone, then it would have to do.
“Good enough,” I said. “We should get started.” I pushed back my chair and stood.
“What?” DJ asked. “Now?”
“Why not?”
“Zero-G on a stomach full of pancakes?”
“Yeah,” Jenny added. “That seems like a bad idea.”
DJ and Jenny were probably right, but I didn’t want to wait. I couldn’t wait. Already, a voice in the back of my mind was whispering that this was a mistake and that I was going to die if I left the ship. The longer I listened, the more likely it was that I would lose my nerve.
“We do this now or not at all.”
DJ shrugged with his hands and gave me a weak smile. “Yeah, Noa, okay. It’s your call.”
* * *
The antechamber where the spacesuits were stored was shaped like an octagon with a locker in four alternating faces. But I couldn’t stop staring at the inner airlock door. It was shaped like an iris, round like a camera’s shutter. I imagined it opening, the air inside the room blasting out at the speed of sound, dragging me and DJ with it.
“Something wrong with the hatch?” DJ asked.
I had to tear my eyes away. “I’ve never seen it from this side.”
“Oh.”
I wished I hadn’t mentioned it. DJ was treating me the way my mom treated the Christmas china, looking at me like a sneeze could shatter me. I appreciated his concern, but it was making me more anxious instead of less. Finally, he lowered a bench from the wall and pulled off his sneakers.
I opened the nearest locker. Each piece of the suit was secured to the inside, and there was a gray stretch garment hanging on the back of the door.
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked. DJ looked at me, confused, so I added, “I woke up in the last one, but I don’t remember putting it on.”
“Oh,” DJ said. “Yeah, right.” He pointed at the door. “The bodysuit goes on first, then the bottom section, top, boots, gloves, helmet. In that order. I can help you with the chest piece since it’s a little complicated.”
I frowned skeptically at the stretch suit, which looked like it was sized for a small child. When I turned to ask DJ how I was supposed to fit into it, he was standing in his underwear.
“Wow,” I said. “You are white. Are you sure you’re from Florida?” I hadn’t meant to catch DJ undressed, and it flustered me a bit. DJ was built like a Greek statue, with a broad chest, thick muscles, and a little pudge around his belly. He had a scar that ran along the bottom of his ribs on the left side.
DJ tried to climb into his bodysuit so quickly that he stumbled into the wall. “I don’t tan,” he mumbled. “I burn and peel.”
“Sorry,” I said. “It slipped out. You have a very nice body. Not that I was looking. I mean, obviously I looked—I do have eyes—but I wasn’t ogling you. Not purposely. I’ll shut up now.”
DJ kept his gaze lowered as he zipped up his suit. “You should get undressed,” he said. “Dressed. You should get into your suit.”
“Are you trying to get me out of my clothes? You figure I’ve seen you, so now you should get to see me?” A memory surfaced, and I snorted. “Except, you’ve already seen me out of my clothes.”
“I didn’t—”
“Someone undressed me and lifted me onto that table in the med suite.”