Download the Book - Islam and Science Fiction

cutting the black thread after the tight knot against Chuck's skin,
beside the impossibly tiny, meticulous stitches.
* * *
"What really happened? Are you all right?" I listened to the
faint hiss of the open com line, waiting for Jabril to respond. We
hadn't spoken privately in eight days; not since planetfall.
He sounded terse over the line, almost cold. "It was a stupid
mistake," he said. "A regrettable lack of judgment on my part. Let's
not speak of it again. Please."
"But--"
"Please, Susan."
He had used those two words so sparingly in the past, I had
no response. He had never begged for anything, and I could count the
number of times he'd used my given name on the fingers of one hand.
The sound of it from his lips caused an involuntary shiver across the
small of my back.
Liam thought it best to switch partners for the last two
planetside shifts, leaving me to spend two consecutive days in the
Station. I tried not to be annoyed that the second one was with
Chuck.
His headphones had reappeared for the first time since
planetfall. There was still plenty of work to be done before we
departed, but the tinny, hollow sound of secondhand music pulsing
through the air distracted me. I turned my annoyance on myself in an
effort to spur me to get things finished. I needed to catalogue and
document the progress of every lichen sample in all the trays.
Supplies had to be brought over from the ship, and the few final
improvements we were scheduled to make on Mars Station had to be
completed in what felt like impossibly few hours.
We all ceased eating and sleeping in our mad rush. I thought
of the mayfly, struggling to accomplish its entire life's purpose in just
a few hours, and of the rare orchid which blooms only one day of
every century. Time grew elastic for me, unpredictable in my
overworked, fevered mind; some hours slipped by with a beat of my
heart, while the occasional minute took a lifetime to pass.
I was beyond feeling mere exhaustion in the crescendo of
desperation to get things done. I recognized strain in my crewmates'
faces. Liam looked paler than ever, with ruddy spots high on his
cheeks and bluish circles under his eyes. Chuck's dark skin was
ashen, almost grey. Once or twice, his hands shook as he entered data
into the computer, the tremors causing him to swear and delete and reenter.
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