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Solanaceae sits on the ground, purple grass tickling her bare legs. On the horizon, through a haze of tears and a small flurry of snow, she sees the first sunrise peeks up from the other side of the world. It’s framed on either side by two massive stone walls, their edges chipped and ragged, the grass in between trampled and scorched. She shivers, pulling her shawl close around herself, wipes at her eyes with the back of her hands.
A man appears by her side, strong and broad. He wraps an arm around her shoulder and she leans in to his embrace, attention shifting to the way his green beard scratches against her forehead.
“Are we making a mistake?” she asks, her voice wavering and delicate.
“No, Sol.” He rubs her back, his strong hand grounding her with him. For a moment, she really thought he’d say yes. “I don’t think we are.”
There’s three months until landing. Solarium lies in the lounge watching science videos on his holopalm with Tangent. Tammy sits nearby playing with a red-haired doll, while Marz sits behind her to braid her hair. Tangent keeps pausing the video to fact-check the presenter, which gets on Sol’s nerves a little, but he doesn’t bother trying to stop her.
“Hey,” Anemone’s brash voice rings out through the lounge. “We need a sixth for sportsball, who’s in?”
Tammy looks like she’s about to hesitantly volunteer, which Anemone must notice, because she turns to Sol. “Solarium! Don’tcha wanna play with us?”
“Maybe later. We’re in the middle of something.”
Anemone groans, and loudly informs them that they’re both nerds.
“We’re preparing preliminary experiments for after landing,” Tangent says.
“Like I said: nerrrrrds!”
“We’re going to be landing soon,” Tangent says, pursing her lips. “What are you doing to help get ready?”
“Umm, I’m ready to play the most awesome sportsball match on the big field they’re gonna build!” As if to demonstrate, she tries to juggle the ball with her foot and accidentally kicks it across the room. Tammy flinches, but it lands a few inches clear and rolls over next to Marz.
“Sol isn’t ready for landing,” Marz says, matter-of-factly. “He cries during every drill.”
“Shut up, Marz,” he hisses, ears going hot. Anemone laughs.
“It’s okay, Sol,” Tammy assures him. “They make it seem really scary.”
“It’s just loud,” he insists, and scowls at Marz when she opens her mouth to respond.
It’s not ‘just loud’. The three months pass far too quickly, even as everyone else insists they drag on forever, until eventually they begin the approach. Alarms sound through the ship as the adults help all the children file into the creche, Sol clinging tight to his father’s leg throughout. He tries not to cry, but ends up sobbing into the fabric of Geranium’s pants.
It’s not just loud. A decade’s worth of nightmares swirl around in Sol’s head, all of them on the other side of the wormhole. The ship is idyllic, routine. Everything bad that he’s ever dreamed about rests on the other side of that wormhole, death and monsters and people from Earth with big guns pointed at his parents. He wants to stay on the ship forever, but the ship is creaking and groaning as they approach the event horizon, the world around him warping, his own screams lost in the din until—
He’s beyond hungry. His entire body aches with the exertion of a long day in the fields, lightheaded almost to the point of delirium. His fingers feel numb. His abdomen feels concave, like he could look down and see a sunken gap where his stomach is supposed to be.
There’s a noise in one of the barns, and dread settles over him. If something happens to the animals…
The door creaks as he peers inside, followed promptly by someone going ‘shit, shit, hide!’ He walks deeper inside, finding four other teenage cultivators sitting in a back corner.
“Just Sol,” someone says, but the green-haired ringleader stares at him distrustfully.
There’s a small pile of fruits in a basket in the center of the group. He can almost feel his eyes dilating when he sees it, unable to look away. “You’re not supposed to have that.” It’s clear they’d been skimming from the day’s harvest.
“We’re farmers, Sol,” Ilex says, looking like she’s ready to fistfight him over it. He anxiously brushes his thumb over the sun pendant around his neck. “We need to keep our strength up. If we can’t work, people starve.”
One of the boys in the circle offers him a ripe watato. His stomach growls so loud he’s sure his parents can hear it across the colony. “Keep your strength up, man. Just don’t tell.”
He barely registers his arms moving, snatching it up solely on instinct, only realizing what he did when the juicy flesh splits under his teeth and drowns his tongue and his guilt in tart ambrosia.
Solarium takes his few nervous steps out of the medbay, peering out into the hostile world beyond. It’s exactly how he dreamed it, covered in a thin layer of snow that isn’t particularly cold to touch, mushroom-looking trees dotting the horizon. The walls are already up and dozens of people are out and about either at work or enjoying the sunlight. Tammy’s hiding out just outside the living quarters, and jogs over to hug him.
The sight of her surrounded by Vertumnan flora feels incongruous in a way that makes his stomach churn. He holds her close when she hugs him, trying to ignore that shaky feeling, then runs off to find his parents near Geoponics.
His father informs him that he’s been in the medbay for two weeks, making him almost ten years old, and decides to give him his birthday present a few days early. That uneasiness builds in his stomach when he hands him the small package wrapped in paper, its weight immediately familiar to him.
It’s that solar pendant he’s wearing in some of his dreams. At some point, it’s replaced by another, but he always has something that looks like it around resting on his chest.
“Do you not like it?” his mother asks, her tone implying that she’d very much prefer that he does. He realizes he’s been staring at it in shock for a little too long.
“No, I do,” he assures them, quickly putting it on. He wonders if it’s a bad luck charm. “I think I’m still a little out of it. It’s really nice, thank you.”
His father beams as his mom continues. “Well, rest up if you need, but there’s lots of work to do. Could always use your help in Geoponics, lots to do around here.” She pats him on the shoulder. His stomach goes cold.
What would be the point of helping out in Geoponics if they’re all going to starve and his mother’s going to die anyway?
The screams are the worst part. Solanaceae hides under a table in the creche, hands over their ears as the din of battle rages outside. Antecedent is trying to corral the kids, distracting them with a holovid, but most of them won’t stop crying. Cal sits nearby, hand resting on their back, but they can feel his hand trembling too.
A security officer comes running inside, urging everyone to evacuate, but in the chaos it’s too hard for her to gain control. Sol’s stumbling to their feet, body shaking with fear, when the entire ship lists to the side as if they were still in space rather than on solid ground. The younger kids erupt into shrieks that Antecedent and the other stewards can’t hope to get under control, the security officer desperately trying to instill some kind of order to get everyone out of the creche.
The sound of ripping metal is harsh enough to make everyone fall silent, which is worse. Humid air rushes in to fill the room as the hull parts, revealing a hulking monster with a maw full of tentacles where its face should be.
Sol runs.
“There’s totally monsters out there,” Dys says. “Big scary aliens. The adults don’t want to tell us, but I know they’re there.”
“They’re there,” Sol says. The season the adults are calling ‘quiet’ is coming to an end, the snow becoming more and more sporadic, and pink grass starts peeking through.
Dys gives him a weird look.
“They are!” he insists. “Big, scary ones.”
“Don’t be a jerk,” he scowls, and storms off.
“I was agreeing with you!” Sol calls after him, and huffs. He never has any idea how to talk to Dys.
Before he can sit back to lie down on the grass, Anemone and Marz come bounding up to him. “Sol!” Anemone calls. “Come play sportsball!”
“No.”
“Come onnnn,” she whines. Her pants are torn, and shiny green scales peek out from underneath. “You’ve been so mopey lately! Ever since we landed you’ve just been going to class and lying around in the lounge doing nothing!”
It’s hard to imagine why he should bother doing anything at all.
“She’s right. You’re kind of a buzzkill, Solarium,” Marz says, flipping her hair in the way she’s been doing since they watched that old holofilm together. “Live a little! We’re the first humans ever on another planet, isn’t it exciting?”
“People landed on Mars, like, two hundred years ago.”
“Living on another planet, nullhead. Now come on!” Marz takes him by the hand and pulls him upright, despite complaints. “You are gonna play a game of sportsball or I’m gonna tell Aunt Anne how grumpy you’ve been.”
Solanaceae sits in the kitchens with Marz and Cal, eating vibrantly pink spun sugar that melts in her mouth and makes her face all sticky. They’re all giggling at Seeq, who’s arguing with Antecedent about something or other and getting increasingly more frustrated, until Cal finishes his second serving and brings Sol outside to play on his hoverboard. She stuffed some of the candy in her pocket, which she realized was probably not the best idea immediately after she did it, but she has to give Tammy something, right?
The lights flicker in the halls, and they both look around for a moment before Cal shrugs, the incident forgotten.
Fluorescent and Auntie Tirah find them half an hour later, the latter looking like she’s been crying. Sol thinks they’re in trouble, but her mother assures them they aren’t. That only makes her more nervous. She brings her back to their quarters, takes a deep breath, and pulls Sol’s reality out from under her in a single sentence.
“Sol? Sol!” He groans as he’s jostled awake, finding Tammy standing over him with her eyebrows pinched together. “Are you okay? It seemed like you were having a nightmare.”
That horrible, bitter feeling in his stomach hasn’t faded. It feels like he could reach into his pocket and find that dried up lump of cotton candy still there. His heart’s pounding so hard he’s sure it’s moving the pendant resting just above it. “I think I was.” His mouth is so dry.
“Aw,” Tammy says, and pulls him into a strong hug. Tears sting at his eyes. “I know what will make you feel better!” Her smile is bright as she pulls away. She’s the oldest of their group but he’s seen all the rest of them as teenagers and most of them as adults. When he does dream of Tammy, this is as old as she gets. “Auntie Seedent made a new dessert for us! She said it’s called, um, cotton candy!”
He thinks he might throw up.
“I’m gonna go clean up the creche first, but you should go get some! I’ll meet you there when I’m done.”
“You should come now!” he blurts, suddenly standing bolt upright. “We can get Cal and Marz too, it’ll be fun.”
“That would be fun! I really wanna finish up, though, I don’t like having chores hanging over my head. It won’t be long!” She’s already walking away.
“I’ll come with you,” he decides. For what? Her death was awful enough just hearing it from his mom, does he think seeing it is going to help? “It’ll go faster that way.”
“Oh, okay! Yay!”
What if I can take her place? he thinks. The thought doesn’t feel all that much better. Even if the prospect of dying- of making her see him die- wasn’t terrifying enough, would he just be condemning her to live through the rest of the horrors in his place?
Too late now, though. He feels dizzy as he follows her down the hall to the creche. It feels weird, seeing it empty, like he’s stumbled into somewhere he’s not supposed to be.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Sol?” Tammy asks, finding a duster in one of the cabinets. “You look a little woozy?”
He shrugs. He can’t find it in him to come up with an excuse. Maybe he can fabricate some reason the two of them have to leave?
She wanders over to the shelves as he halfheartedly starts wiping down one of the tables. One of the kiddos found a pen somewhere and wrote their first initial on the desk in swooping lines. It would be impressive if he didn’t now have to remove it, though the spray and cloth at hand isn’t doing much. Finding the right tool doesn’t exactly seem important now, either.
“I, um,” he says, and realizes he has no idea what to say next. Tammy looks over at him, placidly waiting for him to continue. “You’re a really good friend, Tammy.”
“Thanks, Sol!” she beams, eyes crinkling. “You’re a good friend, too, um… are you crying?”
He realizes he is, eyes burning, and he wipes them away. “C-can we go somewhere else?”
“Are you hurt? I can take you to the medbay.” Her forehead is creased in concern.
“No,” he says, then curses inwardly. Why would he say no? “I mean, um,” he stammers.
“Here, sit down for a moment,” she says, walking over on long strides to pull a chair out for him. “I’ll get you some water.”
She turns towards the fridge, then pauses. There’s a bear hologram over in the play area, flickering in a way that makes Sol’s eyes hurt. “Huh,” Tammy says. “Let’s turn that off.”
The word ‘electrocution’ heard in three different voices surges into his head, and he lunges to his feet, heart pounding so hard it makes his head spin. Tammy’s almost at the projector, there’s no time to speak or even to be gentle. He shoves a desk to the side and full-body tackles her, making her shriek. Less than a second later the projector explodes in a shower of sparks, flooding the room with brilliant light before the entire creche goes dark.
He breathes hard, not even sure if he’s alive for a moment. Tammy’s body is warm in his arms, but his own body feels far too loud to even tell if she’s breathing. The lights flicker back on, and all he can do is lie there in shock. Please, he thinks. Please, please please…
“Oww,” Tammy says, and Sol almost sobs with relief. “Why would you do that?”
Sol sits up. “I, um,” he tries to breathe. “The projecter was, um, I didn’t,” Tammy stares at him, eyes wide and brimming with tears and alive. “I guess I tripped. Are you okay?”
She looks down at her arm, which is scraped but not bleeding. “Mostly. Are you?”
“I’m, um,” he turns his attention inwards, and suddenly feels himself starting to cry again. He lunges forward again, this time to hug her, and she goes stiff with surprise for a moment before wrapping her arms around him. A heavy sob wracks his body, and she lets him cry onto her shoulder. “Sorry I knocked you over,” he manages.
“It’s okay,” she assures him, confused and unsteady but here and breathing in his arms. “It’s okay.”
Solanaceae stands in front of the wreckage of the walls, hungry and thristy and aching and tired. His father treks up the hill to join him, sitting on the snow-covered grass with a tiffin from the makeshift kitchens and a paper-wrapped package. They sit together, both of their hearts heavy with grief, and Sol leans against his father’s shoulder as they watch the second sun climb over the horizon.
Solarium hangs close to Tammy for the next few months, waiting for something horrible to happen. It feels at first less like he saved her and more like he bought her time, like death is going to come along and collect on its debt sooner or later. He sits next to her in life sciences and they play on the same team in sportsball, and he negotiates a fair few sleepovers with her on nights where he doesn’t have to go to school the next day.
It takes until the suns come up on their second year in the colony for Sol to finally relax his hold, let his vigilance down and allow himself believe he might have actually changed something. If the planet couldn’t claim her even as the two of them hunkered down in the creche together, arms wrapped around each other, then maybe he really did save her life.
Maybe the premonitions in his dreams are warnings, not set in stone visions of the future. Maybe all the death and grief they’ve shown him don’t have to be glimpses of the grim future stretching out into the rest of his life.
Maybe he should do something about it.
“Hey, dad,” he says, as the two of them eat breakfast a few days after the end of glow. “Do you have some time soon to show me around the xenobotany lab?”
He smiles, reaching out to pat Sol’s arm. “Nothing would make me happier, kiddo. I was hoping you’d come on over to Geoponics.”
Tammy’s here this time, hopefully for the long haul. Maybe she won’t have to starve like the rest of them did.