I underestimated you once…

  The words echoed in the warm hollows of his mind, stretching, elongating, until they became a single droning tone—cold seeped in. Arthur’s lungs seized, and he gasped as something external tried warming him. Shivering, sensation returned.

  We’re here… Arthur’s eyelids fluttered open. It took him a moment to realize he was still in the cryo pod, he could see the freighter roof looming above him as the frost retreated upon the canopy.

  They’d made it. Jupiter! Cryo was just as Daiko had promised—like nodding off. His last conversation with him felt only minutes old.

  The control panel dinged and the canopy hissed open. Arthur clumsily pulled free of the restraints, fumbling at them like he had to catch this moment before it slipped away. In his dreams, he always arrived to Jupiter in uniform—soldier, pilot, or Carmesi—but now he emerged only as a meckanist spotter, and to his surprise, self-pity wasn’t waiting for him.

  A yip caught in his throat as he tried to take his first step, legs stiff from unuse that he almost faceplanted. Hands on his knees his laugh finally did come. Finally.

  “We did it!”

  The first thing he realized was that he was alone. There was no chorus of voices to join in his elation, just a distant echo of his own cry running away from him, leaving behind a sense of displacement at his unfamiliar surroundings.

  The cryopods were fenced in by gleaming trellises, forming a beautiful, albeit strange, alcove and obscuring all but the hangar rafters. Thin lavender vines with pocked green leaves wove through the trellises, and framed iridescent orange flowers, their sheen almost unnaturally bright.

  Arthur looked about him and noticed the floor appeared to be made of cobble stones, but as his toes felt the grooves, realized they weren’t stones but shallow etches in the stone to give off the illusion of cobble stones.

  At this point, Arthur convinced himself he was dreaming. Convinced he was dreaming. He floated toward the flowers, which were as wide as his arm, and touched a petal.

  “Metal…”

  It thrummed as he flicked the tip with his fingertip. He flicked another petal, and then the petal of the flower a few paces away—repeating himself, half shuffling with the need to know if any of them—any of this—was real. He paused at the end of the trellis to snap a vine in two, and was surprised to see it weep a pale green ooze. Fake flowers, and real vines?

  He looked up, half expecting the roof to have been replaced by the noon sky in his maybe-dream, but instead a scream ripped through the air.

  Behind him, Val slammed the canopy of a pod shut and collapsed to her knees, dry heaving.

  “Val, what’s wrong?” Arthur’s voice felt distant to his own ears. A part of him jolted awake with fear—a part that should have been alert the moment he stepped from the pod.

  The pod beside hers hissed open. Snake emerged unsteady, arms twitching. He made a sign, but for the first time in a long time Arthur couldn’t understand what he was trying to say. Snake put a tentative arm on Val’s shoulder, as uncertain as his still shaky legs. She shuddered.

  “It’s Mark,” her voice cracked.

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  Snake, clearly as confused as Arthur, began to notice the strange place they were in. When he reached a hand toward Mark’s pod, Val swatted it away.

  “What happened?” Arthur turned to see Roman approach warily, eyes searching for a predator. They found Arthur instead.

  “I don’t know, I just woke up a few minutes ago,” Arthur watched as Roman marched towards Mark’s pod, determined to see what was holding Snake and Val’s attention.

  “Don’t,” Val said.

  “It’s already open, Val,” Roman’s tone was flat, resolute.

  As Roman lifted the canopy, Val turned into Snake’s chest.

  Arthur froze at the foot of the pod. Inside lay a skeleton wearing a crumbling cryo-suit, hair brushed neatly across the skull like Mark’s had always been. Arthur’s stomach turned.

  Roman shut the pod gently.

  “Dead,” Arthur whispered.

  “And for a long time too,” Roman seemed unaffected, probably in shock. “How do we know this is Mark though?”

  Val made a very non-Val noise against Snake. Without turning toward them, she pointed a finger at the base of the pod. Arthur followed the line till he saw an inscription engraved into the metal, and read it aloud.

  “Mark Westwood, a friend, a brother, an idealist. Venture on.”

  Val slowly peeled herself from Snake. When she turned away from him, her face was unnaturally normal.

  “I’m dreaming.”

  Arthur and Roman shared a look.

  “We’re going to figure this out,” Arthur said.

  Roman began to lean against the pod next to Mark’s and shot off it like it was hot. He lifted the canopy, grimaced and closed it quickly.

  “Damn.”

  “What?” Arthur said.

  “I think it’s Joyce.”

  It was Snake who pointed out the inscription this time. Arthur tripped on his way to the pod and he suddenly wondered where his crutch was. Though everyone could see the words themselves, Arthur found himself reading aloud again.

  “Joyce, a light in the darkness.”

  Arthur’s world spun, and his chest hollowed out. Mark… Joyce… both gone? He hoped Val was right—he hoped this was a dream.

  Another pod hissed open at the far end. Suraj Murphy emerged, cryo suit stretched tight over his massive frame. He glanced over them, expression unreadable.

  “Something’s wrong,” the Bravista’s voice was without a hint of concern.

  “We know,” Roman said.

  Murphy’s gaze swept the alcove, finally settling on Roman. “What happened?”

  Roman shrugged, “we just woke up, same as you.”

  Suraj leered as though expecting more information, “How long?”

  “Minutes—maybe ten?” Arthur answered quickly, and before Roman fired the retort Arthur knew he had cocked.

  A cloud of steam poured from two pods opening at the same time at one end. Cenn and Mina rose from their beds like wraiths in mist, the former with sharp tactical eyes.

  “I don’t think my neck was strapped in right,” Mina said, freezing in place at everyone staring at her, then she looked about, cautious.

  Everyone’s eyes gravitated toward the last two unopened pods before them. Arthur floated to the first inscription.

  “Erin, honorable as the wind, he loved and he was loved.”

  Cenn marched by him to get a closer look. “Who the hell wrote this?”

  “Erin…” Mina said quietly. Cenn rebelled against her soft tone.

  “No. Everything’s fine. We arrived, that’s all.” She swung to the side and flipped the metallic cover off. “Everything’s-”

  Mina gasped, lunging toward the pod, only to take a step back again as Cenn slammed the cover down. The lock didn’t catch, and rebounded back up. Cenn screamed and slammed it down again, and again, and again—till it finally latched.

  “No! No!” Her chest heaved as she turned on the group. “This is a trick. Why would he be dead? We’re all still…Where’s Mark and Joyce?”

  Nobody pointed, but everyone turned as one toward the pods down the line.

  “No…” her confidence began to drain from her, “no...”

  She jogged over to Joyce’s pod, hesitated and looked underneath.

  “No!” She looked under Mark’s. “God damnit!”

  “Remain calm.” Suraj said, stepping into the fray.

  “Shove off,” Roman said.

  Suraj leveled a gaze at Roman, and the martian seemed bent on withstanding it. Before Arthur knew it he was standing between them—he hated when that happened.

  “What about the old man?” Cenn said walking through the confrontation, running her shoulder into the back of Suraj’s arm.

  “We don’t know…” Arthur watched as Cenn walked to Daiko’s pod, nearly knocking him over.

  Mina tore her eyes from Erin's pod—Gods he looked like he was mauled—and regarded the last unopened pod. Mina ran a hand across the inscription.

  “Just a fool pretending he was god. A proud father.”

  A whimper escaped her lips, for a moment Arthur thought she was going to drop to the floor. Instead she shook her head and undid the canopy hatch as though afraid she’d lose the nerve. It whipped open.

  No Mist. No Smell. And No body.

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