Original Fiction: Art Prompt Writing Contest Entry

For @gmuxx's writing contest, with this as the writing prompt:

A Break in the Rain

"Hey, what's the weather out there?" Cruyf said, not looking up from his microscope. Qerd shook the water off her cloak and hung it on the peg by the door.

"That joke wasn't funny the second time you told it. Which was several months ago," Qerd said, plucking three glass vials from her cloak pocket.

Test tubes sat in racks over Cryuf's head. She slid the new tubes into the lowest slot. Possibly the new samples of mud would show some kind of breakthrough, some evidence that the earth-based cereals were taking to the planet's silicate soil. So far, fourteen racks of no.

Cryuf rubbed his eyes. "Those come from the north side?"

"Yeah." Qerd laid her hand on the back of Cryuf's neck. "And before you ask, no, I didn't see that the new hybrids were doing any better than the others."

What she had seen was a field of sludge under sodden skies, without so much as a green blade.

"It's the damnable rain," Cryuf said, shrugging off Qerd's hand. He stood, kicking the chair back from the desk, and dragged a hand through his thinning hair. "Maybe something could grow if we could get a little sunshine. Do you remember what that looked like?"

"Of course I do. It's a...well, dang, I could have sworn I remembered..." she said, trying a joke. It fell as dead as their plants. More softly, "I want a sunny day as much as you do. But one day of sun won't change anything."

Cryuf snorted. "Prob'ly right. Make me feel even worse about all this, I bet." He swept his arm in a half-circle toward the racks of dead plant snippets. "They say it's hope that kills you."

"And I say it's hope that keeps you alive."

He folded his arms. “Yeah? Where’s the hope that cures-”

“Stop,” she said, eyes hard. “Don’t. We have a job to do. We knew this was a one-way trip. You’d rather have spent another thirty years on that asteroid?”

“Some days,” he said. “Yeah. They could fix this.” He pointed to his gut, a little left of center.

“You’d stay alive a little longer. For what? There’s a sunny day in space? And even if there were, they’d let you out of your cubicle to go see it?”

“It’s life,” he said, but his arms slid to his sides.

“It’s as much death as being pushed out an airlock, and you know it. This is our people’s only chance. Our only chance.”

He blew out a breath and turned to the wall, leaning his head against the cool metal. A tinkling patter vibrated against his skull. Ceaseless. Remorseless.

Qerd reached out for him, paused. A look passed over her face, and she pulled her arm back. She stood and flipped open a cabinet, tucking the door into a slot in the wall. Inside, a black box showed a red eye..

“There’s a message from the fleet,” she said, shooting him a look.

He nodded. “I know.” He didn’t look at her.

“You haven’t listened to it?”

“For what? They’re another week closer. There’s another week we don’t have harbor for them when they get here. I’ll be out there in the mud by then anyway.”

She rounded on him. “Why not get out there now and stop wasting time? You’re so attracted to death, why wait?”

His eyes showed something she couldn’t read, then they closed, and he nodded. “Yeah. Great idea. Why wait?” He brushed past her, ignoring her grasping of his arm, and unlatched the lab door. The drumming rain thudded down into the mud outside, and he stepped into it. The door clanged shut behind him.

Qerd’s eyes misted, now that he couldn’t see. For a while, having a purpose, he’d been happier, almost the way he had been at the beginning, but now, whether it was the sickness, or the hopelessness of their mission, or the cursed demonic rain, she was losing him.

The fleet--all their people--would arrive above the planet, and there would be no harbor. And that would be it. Humans couldn’t live in the stars forever. They needed ground. Plants. And sunshine.

Qerd and Cryuf, advance scouts, could only offer one of three. Not good enough.

She reached up and put her eye to the box’s red lamp. It chirped, and a tinny voice spilled out. “22-A and 22-B, this is Fleet HQ on secure. Priority one: harbor has been found. Repeat, harbor has been found.”

Qerd’s breath caught. The message’s flat vocabulary couldn’t hide the excitement in the voice, from systems away, yet right there in the damp lab with her. “Fleet sends regards. A scout ship will be dispatched. Retrieval in sixteen standard months. Reports expected until then.” Pause. She could feel the messenger’s elation like an electric current. “We have a home.” A small noise, as if he were recovering his self-possession. “Fleet out.”

The red light winked off.

Sixteen months. Cryuf might live that long. If he had hope. Harbor was strong medicine, but she had something stronger for him. She dropped her hand to her belly and held it there a moment.

Then she shouldered open the door, forgetting her cloak, and dashed into the rain.

But there was no rain. She slid in the ankle-deep mud, began to fall, and two still-strong arms gripped her, lifted her. Cryuf’s face, though, remained upturned to the sky, the leaden, unbreachable sky.

Not unbreachable. The clouds rolled out like a wall and then, just above them, parted like a curtain. Through it, shining on them, the blazing white sun.

Cryuf stared. Tears mixed with the fading rain. “What does it mean?” he whispered.

Already the clouds began to close back in, slate-gray and implacable, as if they resented the breach of their dominion. A light drizzle began to fall.

Qerd took Cryuf’s hand, staring upward with him, holding on as long as possible. “I’ll tell you,” she said.