text: [Themes: sci-fi, post-apocalyptic, female protagonist]
  
  "Well, then," you say. "Do you need me to wait while you go get your things?"
  
  Tello looks unusually relieved that you're letting him come with you. "I didn't really pack anything. But I should go back up and let Kokkinopole know."
  
  "No, don't," you say.
  
  "No?"
  
  "Let him focus on getting the transport operational. I assume you returned all the parts you had hiding in your quarters?"
  
  "Returned and reinstalled, yes."
  
  "Then I don't feel I owe Kokkinopole anything. We'll radio the transport once we're ready ourselves."
  
  "In that case, I'll follow you," Tello says.
  
  And so you lead the way down the tunnel to the mine. The passageway is a glass-walled tube that had been the everyday pedestrian connection between the drilling operations and the residential habitat, back when this was still a functioning business, right up until the day of the attack. The tunnel sits on Chhota Chandrama's barren surface, with the palest of skies overhead; even in the full light of day a few bright stars can be seen through the skimpy atmosphere. The Number One pit sits like a giant grave in the bedrock, big enough to entomb a mythical Titan if necessary. The tunnel brings you to the foot of that grave, where a second set of habitat structures houses the industrial side of the mine complex.
  
  The trek to the cargo pods takes you past a wall of lockers where your employees once suited up for their day's work. Several of the units have since been emptied, their doors swung open to reveal dark interiors.
  
  "Hold on one moment, OK?" Tello says. He approaches one of the lockers that is still sealed shut and presses his palm on the ID pad. The locking mechanism beeps and the door swings open.
  
  "I may have been the manager of this operation, but I will always be a mechanic at heart," he explains. "I guess if I own anything of value in this whole place, it would be these." He pulls out a tool belt loaded with an array of gadgets, some familiar, most not. Each item looks dingy and ancient.
  
  "In case the cargo pod breaks down?" you say.
  
  "Sure. Maybe."
  
  You need to take a service lift up to the dome where the two cargo pods are stored. The platform is as big as a theater stage, built to accommodate not just people but huge containers of ore. By design, it rises slowly to the upper level. Impatient, you hop off the lift a meter before it pulls even with the deck plating, taking advantage of the slight gravity.
  
  "Which pod do you recommend using?" you ask. Both are parked neatly in the hangar, with their angular and scratched hulls. Pod A is striped yellow and black, while Pod B is red and black. Dad bought both at an auction twelve years ago, and it had been Cosmo Hamaritus's job to pilot them and keep them in good repair.
  
  "So to be clear," Tello says, "your plan is to take one of these down to the planet's surface, hoping it will be too small to be noticed?"
  
  "Pretty much, yes."
  
  "Then I'd feel safer in Pod B. Hamaritus always preferred Pod A, but you never saw how roughly he used to handle it."
  
  And so you climb up into the cab of Pod B, which you now realize has fewer blemishes than its twin. There are only two seats, neither very spacious. Never have you been in a spacecraft with so few creature comforts. Your canvas bag barely fits in the space behind the seat. Tello climbs in the opposite side, dropping his tool belt beside your bag. He watches with silent interest as you pull out the plasgun, storing it in a more accessible location in a compartment between the seats.
  
  "I get the strong sense you already know how to fly this thing," he says.
  
  "Dad used to let me train for my pilot's license in Pod A," you say. "If you're not carrying a load, there's not much to learn."
  
  Before you fire up the engines and the antigrav lift, you raise the personnel transport on the radio.
  
  "Kokkinopole here. Who's this?"
  
  "Is the shuttle ready to go?"
  
  "Ma'am! We're just waiting on you."
  
  "No need. I'm in Cargo Pod B. I won't be joining you."
  
  "I don't understand."
  
  "Never mind. Just get everyone on board and get yourselves out of the system. I'd give you instructions but I know you wouldn't listen anyway."
  
  "Um, OK. If that's what you want. Do you know where that plant manager of yours got himself off to?"
  
  You look to the passenger next to you. "Mr. Tello will be coming with me." You can imagine Kokkinopole's salacious imagination becoming piqued by that particular development, so you push forward. "Never mind about us or where we're going. Just focus on what you need to do. Get that shuttle out of this system."
  
  "OK, but—"
  
  Tello reaches over and switches off the radio. "Don't feed the troll. He knows what he needs to do, and he's probably relieved that neither of us will be giving him orders anymore."
  
  The pod's controls all have a greasy residue on them, as if Hamaritus had been in the habit of eating while he flew. And when you seal the hatches, you realize that you have trapped yourselves inside a cramped compartment along with a foul but undefinable odor. But the craft hums to life with no complaints, and Tello activates the device that depressurizes the hangar and opens the outer door.
  
  Yes, you flew one of these before, but you were eighteen at the time — a full decade ago. You had forgotten how sensitive the controls are. The pod bursts out of the hangar a little too swiftly, and you see your companion gripping the safety handle beside him. This little ship was designed to move many tons of cargo; when it is unfettered, it has thrust to spare.
  
  The pod moves so fast that there is no time for a last look at the mine, or to see the transport take off on its own trajectory. It speeds forward like an aerial greyhound.
  
  The surface of Chhota Chandrama is pitted and furrowed, both by natural forces and by all of the prospecting that has occurred here over the decades. You fly low over the surface until its larger sibling, Chaandria, rises over the horizon before you.
  
  "At this rate we should be there in five minutes," Tello quips from the passenger seat.
  
  "I had forgotten how much fun these things can be to fly," you say.
  
  "This is my first time riding in one."
  
  "Are you doing OK over there? Would you like me to ease off the thrust a little bit?" You give him a quick look-over, but he doesn't look too pale with fright.
  
  "No complaints here," is all he says.
  
  The flight path to Big Chodry takes you for many miles over the surface of Little Chodry. There are dozens of other mines scattered over the planet, but none are nearby; all that you can see below you is an uninhabited landscape.
  
  "I was thinking," your passenger says a moment later. "If you're not in a big hurry, there is a place we could stop first."
  
  "Stop? Where?"
  
  "There is a military post on Chhota Chandrama, right?"
  
  He's referring to the Sanrakshak outpost, Satark Najaren. "Practically on the far side of the planet, yes."
  
  "Well if the Iib Ch'iib haven't focused their attention on this world yet, it might still be there."
  
  "It might be," you say.
  
  "And there might still be troops there, or there might not be," he continues. "But I'd wager it would be worth paying a visit, either way."
  
  "Fuel might be an issue," you say. And that's true: these cargo haulers weren't intended for scenic side trips. They go from A to B, and after taking on a new load they go back from B to A. Of course, not having a load did change that calculation a bit. Still, Satark Najaren would be quite the detour.
  
  "It might be, yes," Tello says. "It was just a thought."
  
  An intriguing thought, you must admit. If there were still Sanrakshak posted there, it would be the first humans you had seen in three months. They would certainly have information to share, but if they figured out your intentions they may prevent you from leaving — meaning you'd be stuck on Chhota Chandrama after all.
  
  Or maybe the outpost was destroyed, and the site is now crawling with Iib Ch'iib.
  
  There are just too many unknowns. Perhaps it's best to stick with your original plan and fly straight to Chaandria.
  
  > head straight to Chaandria.
  "Truth be told," you say, "the longer I put off going to Chaandria, the more likely I'm going to talk myself out of it."
  
  "I see," Tello says. "And that would be a bad thing?"
  
  "Aha, I get it now. It's all becoming clear."
  
  "And what would that be?"
  
  "The reason you're here. Go ahead and admit it."
  
  He squirms uncomfortably in the hard seat, as if you were nearing an uncomfortable truth. "I... I...."
  
  "You're here to talk some reason into me," you say. "You think going to Chaandria is suicidal."
  
  For a moment he says nothing, so you make a quick glance in his direction. He looks confused, frankly, like he had been expecting you to say something else.
  
  "Well it's not going to work," you continue. "We're not stopping anywhere until we reach Chaandria."
  
  "I guess I'm just surprised, is all," he finally says.
  
  "How so?"
  
  "I've never seen you latch on so tightly to such an irrational course of action."
  
  You remember what he said earlier about having no family to return to, no one to disappoint should he get himself killed alongside you. Buried within that admission was a fear of loss — or more specifically, of losing you. Despite your teasing, you know this is the real reason why he insisted on joining your lost cause.
  
  "Rufus, you know why I'm doing this, don't you?"
  
  "Sure I do. It's because you love your husband."
  
  "And don't you forget it," you say. "The way I see it, it's the least I can do for him. If the situation had been reversed, I doubt Diden would've waited three months to come to my rescue."
  
  Moments pass with no response from your plant manager. It is as if what you've just said has put a spear through his soul. You can't dwell on that — you need to focus on flying the pod. The point is coming soon when you're going to need to thrust away from Chhota Chandrama and embark on the perilous interplanetary journey to Big Chodry.
  
  "You really have no family of your own?" you say, when you can no longer bear the silence.
  
  "I mean sure, there are people I'm related to."
  
  "But you're not married."
  
  He hesitates. "No, I've never been married. But I'd be lying if I said the idea never occurred to me."
  
  "It's just that the right gal never came along, eh?"
  
  "No, I guess not."
  
  There is something he's been dancing around, and it's becoming clear what it might be. But that's a button you'd prefer never to press; best to keep this a working relationship.
  
  "I'm about to pull away from the planet," you say, making the administrative decision to change the subject. "This pod has some navigation equipment, correct?"
  
  "It's pretty basic, but it works," Tello says.
  
  "Will it show us where the hive ships are?"
  
  "The software was designed for navigating through asteroid fields. It's basically a good, old-fashioned radar system that looks for large objects and helps you avoid them. So it should work on these hive ships, yes."
  
  "Good. Then so long as you're here, can you navigate for me?"
  
  "I'm on it."
  
  He flips on the clunky old equipment, which seems so boxy and inelegant compared to some of the newer models you've seen. The display screen comes to life on the middle of the control board between your two seats. It shows a nebulous green void.
  
  "I don't know what I'm looking at," you say, pointing with your chin to the display. "What is it telling me?"
  
  "Nothing yet. The screen is blank."
  
  "Oh." Then a moment later: "Are we clear to go?"
  
  "Go for it," he says.
  
  You pull back on the stick, and the pod's nose points up towards Chhota Chandrama's lacy stratosphere. When you punch the thrusters, the rapid acceleration pushes you back in your seats. The inertial compensators are slow to kick in, but soon you feel yourself being released from the planet's gravity.
  
  "How long will it take us to get to Chaandria?" Tello asks.
  
  "Six hours. Longer if we run into trouble."
  
  One thing you didn't take into account was how uncomfortable the pod is. There is nowhere to move, and nowhere to pee should the need arise; perhaps it's best you had run out of synthetic coffee last week. The pod is moving along at tremendous speeds, but looking at Chaandria dead ahead you'd never know it. The reference points by which you might judge your momentum hardly seem to be moving. Oddly, the planet itself looks perfectly normal to the naked eye, from so many thousands of kilometers away.
  
  "Look at this," Tello says, pointing to the radar display. "There is an entire column of ships, all heading in the same direction."
  
  "Do I need to make a course correction?"
  
  "It might be best. Give me a moment to feed you a new heading."
  
  While you wait, you crane your neck to see if you can spot the alien fleet, but you see nothing but stars. The hive ships must be too far away.
  
  "Where do you suppose they come from?" you ask.
  
  "Who, them?"
  
  "The Iib Ch'iib, as you call them."
  
  "Ha! I had forgotten about that name. The Iib Ch'iib. Well, I would suppose they come from... that direction over there, based on what the radar is telling us." He is pointing into deep space, well beyond the tiny portion of the galaxy explored by humans. It is an unsettling sight, all those impossibly distant stars, any one of them the potential source of this unstoppable invasion force. Or perhaps something worse: threats yet to be imagined. So many points of light, so little warmth.
  
  "Is there any indication they've seen us?" you ask.
  
  "Nothing has moved out of formation. Here, make a two-degree adjustment to port on the x-axis, one degree north on the y. That should put a little distance between us and them."
  
  "Got it, 358 mark 1," you confirm.
  
  "Now let's change the subject," Tello says.
  
  "To what?"
  
  "What we were talking about before, about why you're doing this. About Diden."
  
  You're not sure what it is he wants to know, what detail it is that he's not getting. It is love that is compelling you back to Chaandria; how else can you describe it? If he doesn't know what that is, you'd have better luck describing the color blue to someone who had been born without eyes. So you try to deflect his question.
  
  "You've met my husband. He was at the Diwali party last year. Big guy, ex-military, rugged good looks."
  
  "Oh, him."
  
  "Look, I'd give you a serious response if I had a better idea what you're trying to ask me."
  
  "All right, let me phrase it this way. All of the facts we know, and all of the assumptions about what we don't know, tell us that what we're doing is suicide. And yet you're doing it anyway. I just want to know why."
  
  Ah, yes, Rufus Tello the mechanical engineer, with an engineer's understanding of the universe: nothing happens that is not causal. Everything occurs in its proper sequence; anything unexpected is a malfunction. The symmetry of numbers, the elegance of precision. Absolutely ineloquent when it came to matters of the heart.
  
  You have some of that mechanical knowledge yourself, having been involved with the mine for so long. You could follow the discussions Dad used to have with his men when some piece of equipment failed, all that talk of cost estimates and part orders. You had memorized the formula he used when calculating his labor costs, and you knew the mine's processes, including every step from extraction to finished product. But you did not consider yourself an engineer per se. You had been immersed in that culture, in that orderly way of viewing the universe, but you were not of it. Unlike your father, who was more than happy to help take some important device apart to understand how it functioned, you saw your role at the mine more as an orchestrator: the men who worked for you knew their jobs, making it your job to ensure they had what they needed.
  
  Now you have become an enigma to your plant manager by embarking on a course of action that seems contrary to your own self-interests, and like a magnet that has been thrown across the room you have snagged Tello in your negative polarity as you would a clump of iron filings.
  
  > Next page.
  "If this is an uncomfortable topic, we can talk about something else," Tello says.
  
  "It's not that I'm uncomfortable," you say. "I just don't know how to answer your questions in a way that might satisfy you."
  
  "OK, then, tell me about the last time the three of you were together. Or something that might illustrate what your family means to you."
  
  You can't recall a time when Rufus Tello has ever been this chatty, let alone curious about your personal life, but then it might just be the underlying anxiety of the situation. After all, he effectively pledged to put his own life on the line to help you save the man you love; he deserves to know what's at stake for you.
  
  "The last time we were together? Let me see, that would've been when I went home the month before the attack."
  
  "When you had to sign the Tandrex contract?"
  
  "Yeah, but I had to spend so much time negotiating with their representatives that I wasn't home for more than a few hours."
  
  "That wasn't much time."
  
  "No, and it seems so pointless now, all that work to get a company that was probably wiped out of existence a few weeks later to buy a product we'll never produce."
  
  "Your son must have been happy to see you."
  
  "He was upset I couldn't stay. We were so busy trying to ramp up production at the mine I had been spending most of my time on Little Chodry."
  
  "The place would've run without you, you know."
  
  "That wasn't the way I was taught to run the business. The few times I worked out of the main office on Chaandria, it was like I could feel my father's disapproval from the Great Beyond."
  
  "So to honor the memory of the Old Man, you had to spend more time away from home."
  
  "Pretty much, yeah."
  
  You expect Tello to pursue this line of questioning, but instead he turns his attention to the radar device, fiddling with the controls as if seeking more information from the Iib Ch'iib. Maybe you have told him all that he needs to know about your peculiar motivations: this urgent need to return to Chaandria is due in no small part to guilt.
  
  "Hold on. Something's happening." There is a sudden shift in his tone that sends a chill down the back of your neck. He's no longer talking about Diden; the radar is telling him something.
  
  "What? What is it?"
  
  "It looks like three ships are moving out of formation. I'm not sure why."
  
  "Are they coming this way?"
  
  "Too early to tell. They're still about twelve thousand clicks away."
  
  The next few minutes are very tense as Tello continues to study the display, finding hidden meaning in the cryptic radar readings. You hold the flight controls tightly, expecting the need to make a sharp turn at any moment.
  
  "We've got trouble," he says finally.
  
  "They've spotted us?"
  
  "If they haven't yet, they will when they get here."
  
  "How soon?"
  
  "Soon enough." An uncharacteristically vague response for an engineering type.
  
  You're the pilot of this little craft, so it's up to you to figure out a way out of this predicament. There are a few options you can eliminate right away: staying to put up a fight (this cargo hauler isn't armed, and you're not a tactical pilot) and running into deep space (where would you go?) being high on that list. So far you've only covered about a quarter of the distance between Chhota Chandrama and Chaandria, meaning that you are still much closer to the little planet than you are to Big Chodry. Therefore those seem to be your best options. You could go back the way you came and seek refuge in one of those fissures that scar much of the little planet, or you could gun it, burning all of your fuel in a desperate bid to reach home. If you return to Little Chodry you may never have another opportunity to leave it. If you push on to Chaandria, the likelihood of actually making it there now seems like zero.
  
  "Three minutes," Tello says. "That's how much time I give us until they get here."
  
  Of course, you knew this was going to be a risky outing all along, but you never expected to run into trouble so soon.
  
  > return to Little Chodry.
  "You might want to hold onto something," you warn Tello.
  
  "Wha—" he starts to say, but you give him no time to form his words. You push hard on the controls, and the pod's maneuvering thrusters immediately hiss to life. The craft veers to port so sharply that you are nearly thrown into Tello's seat, but your grip on the flight stick helps keep you in place. As the centrifugal force lessens, Chhota Chandrama fills the view before you.
  
  "Back to the barn?" Tello says once he figures out where you're going.
  
  "I didn't see many options," you say. "At least here there will be cover."
  
  "What about Diden and Ihon?"
  
  "They may have to wait."
  
  From so high above, Little Chodry resembles a rubber ball that has dried and hardened until the surface has started to crack with age. If it weren't so minerally valuable, there never would have been human activity here. Now it may be your only hope for escaping annihilation.
  
  "If I wasn't positive they had seen us before, I am now," Tello says.
  
  "Why do you say that?"
  
  "Those three ships are turning again, clearly on an intercept course."
  
  "Perhaps it would be best to turn that thing off for now," you say, referring to the radar.
  
  "The truth is too scary?"
  
  "It's too distracting. We need to find a place to hide, quick."
  
  "That big C-shaped canyon at about two o'clock looks promising." He is pointing to one of the larger gashes in the planet's barren surface, and the one with the most shadows.
  
  "Looks good to me," you say.
  
  With a slight rotation of your wrist, the pod makes another abrupt course change. At this point you're not even looking at the control board; your eyes are locked on that massive fissure, and you are now navigating purely by sight.
  
  "Are you still sure you wanted to come with me?" you say.
  
  "At least I succeeded in convincing you not to return home."
  
  "First things first. Let's lose these bugs, then maybe we can reconsider our options."
  
  In theory, the canyon before you really would be a good place to set down the pod. The question is whether or not you can get there in time. This is not a corner of the planet you've visited before, but you can begin to see a lot of slots in those mile-high rock walls where this old cargo hauler would easily fit. Maybe your Iib Ch'iib pursuers realize that too, and maybe they are deciding at that moment they can't afford to let you get that far. But then to your knowledge no one has yet been able to converse with the invaders, so who knows how they think?
  
  "This is interesting," Tello says. "We're picking up a radio signal."
  
  "We are? From where?"
  
  "Straight ahead, in the canyon."
  
  "Who would be trying to contact us? What is the message?"
  
  "I don't think it's a voice message. I'm not sure, but my guess is it's a navigational beacon."
  
  "From one of the other mines?"
  
  "It might be," he says. "I don't know who would be operating on this part of the planet, though."
  
  "Neither do I. But it might be something to aim for."
  
  Just then a volley of tracers streak past the pod.
  
  "Were those bullets?"
  
  "The bugs are shooting at us!"
  
  "Yeah, but with physical bullets? Who does that anymore?"
  
  You don't have the luxury of time to ponder the meaning behind the Iib Ch'iib's choice in weaponry. They missed that first time, but they might not the second time. You push more aggressively on the flight stick, and the pod begins to plummet through the upper atmosphere. As thin as it is, your speed is creating more friction than the craft might have been designed to handle.
  
  Another string of tracer bullets dart past you. One grazes the hull somewhere just behind the cab; you don't see it, but your arms feel the impact through the flight stick.
  
  "We might not survive the next shot," you say.
  
  "I have an idea. Hold on." Tello reaches over in front of you and flips open a small lid near the fuel gauge, revealing a red button marked FUEL DUMP.
  
  "What the hell are you doing?" you start to protest, but the deed is done before you can do anything about it.
  
  "In this heat it will flare up in a nice, long streak. If the explosion doesn't kill us, the bugs will think they shot us down."
  
  The pod begins to vibrate violently on its rapid descent, and it is all you can do to keep it from somersaulting out of control. The canyon that looked so large from space now looks like a sunken continent as you draw closer. The cab is becoming uncomfortably hot, although it is difficult to say whether that is from the stress, friction with the atmosphere, or Tello's dangerous gambit with the fuel dump. But at least the Iib Ch'iib aren't taking any more shots at you, so there is that to be grateful for.
  
  "I th-think I fou-ound the source-ce of the ra-radio signal-nal!" Tello is shouting now over the din of the rattling cargo pod.
  
  You hope it's directly in front of you, because you're not sure how much influence you have anymore over the course of this pod.
  
  > Next page.
  Chhota Chandrama, sixty-six days later.
  
  Tello's old tools are strewn all over the floor, as are disassembled pieces of the cargo pod, but you see no sign of the man himself. You're not sure, but all of this bric-a-brac looks like it hasn't moved in a week. So not only is he not here, but he hasn't done a single thing today to get the pod operational again.
  
  Perhaps there was a time when you'd give him the benefit of the doubt. He was, after all, your most trusted employee, and your father's before you. He was never the type who needed instruction; Tello always had his own understanding about what needed to be done, as well as what you expected of him. So he simply went ahead and did it, and in exactly the way you would've wanted, had you needed to give him input.
  
  But these last two months have changed him, and you don't like the trajectory he seems to be on. Not that either of your lives seem to have much of a trajectory anymore; they've flat-lined, they're going nowhere. Nevertheless, Tello's line has developed a worrisome downward pitch.
  
  Part of the problem is this place. It's a static dot, a point from which it seems impossible to proceed. Nothing is locked, and yet it is a prison. You and Tello are cellmates, and by mutual agreement it is up to him to orchestrate the jailbreak. So where is he?
  
  The key to getting out of here seems to be the same way you got here over two months ago: the cargo pod. The problem is that it was damaged when you fled the Iib Ch'iib, and it has displayed no inclination toward movement since you hastily set it down. Had you known it would never restart, maybe you would have left it running. At least your former plant manager had had the foresight to bring his tools, but it's like he has now lost interest in the project, and can't be bothered to finish what he's started.
  
  The thought has occurred to you more than once that this is intentional, that this is his way to keep you to himself. But whenever you start to think that way, you force the idea aside. You can't afford to let a sense of distrust fester inside you more than it already has, since Rufus Tello is now the only human being left for you to interact with. And at any rate, if it were true that he was intentionally trapping you here with him, then why do you sometimes have such a hard time finding him?
  
  It comes back to that radio beacon he discovered as you were rocketing toward the surface of the planet: a signal of hope at the precise moment of your direst need, guiding you to what proved to be an uncharted camp at the bottom of that enormous rift. You found a cluster of interconnected domes, each one a bubble of pressurized canvas, spacious enough to comfortably house a dozen people. And it was provisioned as if those twelve people intended to be here for a year!
  
  Except that the place was uninhabited.
  
  "Well, here's the source of the signal," Tello had said during your initial exploration, about an hour after your legs had stopped shaking from your near-crash landing, and after some measure of strength had returned to them. He was pointing to a small black box sitting on a table against the wall of the first canvas dome you entered.
  
  "That's a radio?" you asked.
  
  "Yes and no. It's a beacon, designed just to send out a weak, localized signal. My guess is that whoever put all this stuff here was worried he might not find it again."
  
  "Can we use it to call for help?"
  
  "I doubt it. They'd have to be directly above this canyon to even detect the signal. And then there is the even bigger problem that the only people who might be looking for us are our bug friends."
  
  He had some good points there. But you weren't immediately worried, because you had discovered all of this wonderful shelter here in the middle of nowhere. From what you could gather, the domes were owned by "Andrithor," the name stenciled on just about anything of value — but whether that was the name of a person or a company wasn't clear. Another name had been painted in bold Hindi script above the main airlock: Andhepan ka Chaand, or "Moon of Blindness." The actual reference eluded you, and if that was the name of this encampment it hardly seemed an auspicious choice.
  
  Nevertheless, the place was reasonably well appointed, albeit anonymously so. You found beds, you found food, you found a great tank of fresh water, but no personal items. The closest thing to an explanation for why all of this was here was a set of printed survey charts you found in those first couple days of your stay. They suggested there was an impressive ilmenite vein in the nearby cliffs, which would certainly be a find worthy of human attention. The lack of any excavated pits suggested that Andrithor, whoever or whatever that was, had established this camp with the intent to drill some test bores.
  
  You had at least managed to throw off your Iib Ch'iib pursuers; not only did they not follow you all the way into the canyon to finish what they started, but the airspace above the domes has been clear the entire time you've been stranded here. This suggests the possibility that if you could figure out what was ailing the cargo pod, no one would notice if you simply flew away.
  
  Except that the pod has stubbornly refused to cooperate. It isn't strictly a fuel issue, as only a third of the quinterium had vaporized during Tello's stunt. No, you aren't going to get off Chhota Chandrama with what is left, but you could at least get to some of the other mining settlements to see what equipment else you can scavenge.
  
  Nor is it strictly a power issue, as the ion batteries seem to still have a useful charge. Nevertheless, all of these items that seem to be functioning just fine on their own aren't working as a system, making the pod perfectly useless for no obvious reason. What's more, Tello advised against repeated attempts to get the thing to start: the batteries will never recharge in the shadows of this canyon, he said, and among all the provisions that bless this "Moon of Blindness" neither of you have yet located a quinterium tank. At best, you might get the antigrav lifts online, but what would that get you? The pod would levitate a couple hundred meters above ground level, but without the ability to engage the main thrusters it would never go any higher. And you were at the bottom of a deep canyon with walls around you that were a good two thousand meters tall.
  
  What exactly is the pod's problem? Hard to say, and at any rate it has been Tello's job to perform that diagnostic analysis. But certainly, you had exceeded its design specifications in your rush to get here; if the thing turns out to be dead, you played a role in its murder. There was the Iib Ch'iib bullet that had pierced the dorsal hull plating and, as you discovered later, had come within centimeters of penetrating the cab. That wasn't your fault, but Tello's mid-air fuel dump easily could have blown up the whole ship. And who could forget all of that excessive frictional heating, or the violent rattling that came with it? No sense in denying your role; your fingerprints are all over the control stick.
  
  "Perhaps it's just pissed at us for the way we abused it, and now it's on strike," you tried to joke a few days after your arrival, when Tello was starting to show signs of frustration. But that was a mistake; your companion-in-exile grunted his disapproval and avoided eye contact, giving you the clear impression your presence wasn't helpful. So you left.
  
  But now you can't find him in the one place you'd expect him to be. Although you had set the pod down outside the dome complex that day, exposed to Chhota Chandrama's thin, unbreathable atmosphere, you later found some extra canvas that had probably been intended to store some as-yet-undelivered equipment. You helped Tello use this to create a pressurized environment around the pod where he could work in comfort, and until recently this is where he would reliably be — alone with the pod and his assorted tools. Since there are still about twelve meters of natural atmosphere between this dome and the main complex, where it is unwise for either of you to pass without at least an air mask (and preferably a really warm jacket, considering the perpetual shade), you usually conclude it is more trouble than it's worth to follow him into this secluded "garage." Only rarely do you bother to come out here.
  
  As the days wear on, though, it is becoming more difficult for you to fill the time. There is an irony here, considering where you came from previously. You had passed three months back at the mine, sheltering in place to avoid detection. When the stasis of that life became too much to bear, you and your employees dispersed into space, your own path inspired by your undercooked ideas of escape and family rescue. But at least escape had seemed possible then. This place is like a puzzle, as if all the elements you need to figure your way out of here are at your fingertips, awaiting only a magical flash of ingenuity and insight. Only when that elusive solution dawns on you will you be able to advance to the next stage of your life. Until then, all that is holding you back is your own inadequacy. Or so it seems most days.
  
  Counting out the days, one after the other, only adds to the frustration — and this, you realize, is the surest sign of defeat. Sixty-six days without any new ideas, just the building dread of what you cannot do, of how narrowly your existence is defined here. You have enough food and other basic necessities to sustain two people for a long time — but then you do the math and calculate this supply dump can only keep you and Tello fed for about six years, after which you will be done for. You have a cargo pod that seems repairable, but either due to a lack of knowledge or a lack of the right equipment, it defies your ability to repair it. A moon of blindness, indeed.
  
  The other thing that has been building within you these past two months has been longing — the sheer desire for something that cannot be had. And in your case, obviously, that is the desire to be with Diden and Ihon. Had it not been for the Iib Ch'iib attack, had it not been for the unfixable cargo pod sitting in the canvas garage, you would be planning for your son's birthday, which will be the day after tomorrow. He'd be six years old, eager to receive that toy Kaitooan tree squid he had been pestering you for, but which you never got around to ordering before the attack.
  
  Correction: Ihon will be six years old in two days. There is no "would be" about it, no condition you are willing to accept in which he wouldn't be turning six. Even as you sit here in this god-sized trap, you have to believe that Ihon is clinging to his father's side at this very moment, thirty thousand kilometers away on Chaandria. You picture the two of them holed up in some mountain shelter, like the cabin you and Diden used to rent every summer, where they have been eking out an existence far from the reach of the Iib Ch'iib. Your husband, concealing his own concerns, assures him that Mommy wishes she could be there too. All those months you spent at the mine, helping Tello increase operating efficiencies in anticipation of the Tandrex contract, now seem wasted. The things that didn't fit into your schedule then are the only things you want now.
  
  "How long until the cargo pod is fixed?" you asked Tello a few nights ago, as you sat cross-legged to eat at a table in the dining dome. The table was rectangular in shape, but it stood just half a meter above the floor, so you had no choice but to sit on mats around it. For the first few days, in a spirit of informality, you each sat at the wide ends. But this resulted in an uncomfortable measure of closeness between you, so by the end of the first week you started sitting at the head. Tello, visibly disappointed, followed your lead nonetheless and sat at the opposite end, where you were farther apart.
  
  "You're in a hurry to go back into Iib Ch'iib space?" he said, his voice showing signs of weariness. At the mine, in the face of vanishing supplies, rationing had made him gaunt. Here you are both well fed, but the pointlessness of the place was draining him in other ways.
  
  "You know where I want to go."
  
  "They're dead, all right? Just like we almost ended up when we tried to go there after them."
  
  "Just like we'll be if you don't figure out a way to get that pod in the air."
  
  The conversation went even further downhill from there; it would serve no purpose to recall all of the details now, and it is likely neither of you said anything of consequence anyway. The point is that you were trying to mortally wound each other with verbal attacks. It made the distance between you seem twice the length of the low table.
  
  You regret your role in this, although you've noticed the regret goes away whenever you're in the same room with Tello now. Then you can't help yourself but be spiteful. Surely this confinement is affecting you, making you behave in ways you wouldn't ordinarily, but there is also an underlying motivation you can't deny: Tello once had a crush on you, and perhaps fantasized that after the appropriate mourning period for your family, you might someday become "available" to him. Thus you've taken every opportunity to inform him you have no such interest; you do not consider yourself a widow, and you are not in mourning. Instead, it is Tello's incompetence with the pod repairs that is preventing you from rejoining your loved ones.
  
  So, here you are, on the sixty-sixth day of your stay in this exquisite prison. You went through the trouble of coming all the way out to the garage looking for your only companion, and there is no sign he has been here at all today. For that matter, did you see him yesterday? You can't remember. Did you even look for him? You're drawing a blank on that one, too.
  
  You put the air mask on, cycle through the tiny airlock, and then make the short but exposed walk back from the garage to the main complex. The massive cliffs all around you would be an impressive sight if they weren't in fact an integral part of your imprisonment. And at any rate the thin air retains no heat, and the shadows make it bitterly cold. You cross the distance between the domes as quickly as possible, cycling through the next airlock to reenter the comfort of the living area.
  
  It's a game, then: where in Andhepan ka Chaand is Rufus Tello? But given all that you know, all that you've observed, you can't escape the sense of dread that underlies this latest mystery. It's not like there is anywhere he could have gone. So let's approach this systematically: start with the more likely places, work your way to your worst suspicions.
  
  And so it begins with you proceeding through the connected system of twelve domes, feeling something like a lab rat in a maze, ticking off all the places where Tello isn't: he's not in the kitchen dome making himself a late breakfast, he's not in the entrance dome fiddling with the radio beacon, he's not in the office dome perusing the geological surveys. Several of the domes are just for sleeping and storage, and have been superfluous for your purposes. He's not in any of those, nor is he in the central dome in which the environmental and atmospheric systems are housed.
  
  One by one you eliminate the options, leaving only two to check. Of those, one seems almost pointless — but you go there anyway. This is the dome you've appropriated for your own quarters, the master bedroom of sorts where you've always supposed Andrithor himself intended to sleep. But of course Tello isn't here. You knew this, because this is where you came from a short time ago.
  
  This leaves the other dormitory in the other corner of the complex, the bunkhouse where your companion has been wont to sleep. What is it they say, when all other possibilities have been eliminated? Perhaps he's just slept in, lost all track of time.
  
  Or.
  
  None of these domes have proper doors, just canvas flaps that can be raised or lowered as needed. The flap to the bunkhouse dome is lowered. You stop and give it a rap with your knuckles, but all you can produce is a pathetic rasping sound.
  
  "Rufus, are you in there?" There is no response. Do you dare look? You have to, or your imagination will forever run wild. And when you do... your fears are confirmed.
  
  Rufus Tello, aged thirty-eight, a talented engineer who could assess and solve a problem with a delightful efficiency. Until he met his match, the problem to which there was no possible solution — and not just one, but two of them simultaneously: the mystery of the stubborn cargo pod that wouldn't fly, and the disillusionment with the woman who refused to love him, even when he was the last man remaining to her. Manner of death: suicide by plasgun blast to the head, high setting. Only known surviving friend: one Theryl Ureste, former employer, trapped forever at the Moon of Blindness camp. May heaven have mercy on her soul.