Earthseed

grabbed her waist with the other, forcing her on her back. His hand groped at her shirt. “You like me. You try to act like you don’t, but you do.” His lips found her cheek.
    She raised her arms and pushed against him as hard as she could. He rolled over; she heard him chuckle. She had wanted him to hold her; she had wanted to respond. She got to her feet, trembling.
    He said, “Another time.”
    She walked back to the fire and lay down on her poncho. She was angry and embarrassed, but with those feelings came another that she could not name. I hate you, she thought as she remembered the feel of his arm. The spot where his lips had touched her cheek still tickled.

    Someone was shaking her shoulder. Zoheret slapped the hand away and opened her eyes.
    “It’s Gervais,” a voice said. “Come on, it’s our turn.”
    Her muscles ached as she sat up. Her legs were stiff and sore. She rubbed her neck and groaned. “I feel awful.”
    “So do I. You’ll feel better after you move around.”
    Her head hurt and one of her feet was asleep. She got up and stamped on it, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, then picked up her poncho and put it on. The light, cottony fabric did not make her feel much warmer.
    She followed Gervais to the edge of the sand. “This is stupid,” she muttered to him. “We can’t see a thing. If there was any danger, we wouldn’t know until it was too late anyway.” She shivered.
    “I think it’s already getting lighter,” Gervais said.
    “No, it’s not.” She squinted, at last able to make out the shoreline. “There’s no point in leaving until we can see where we’re going. The others probably need more sleep anyway. Robert grinds his teeth, did you know that? He woke up about five people.”
    “I don’t want Manuel getting mad at us.”
    “He won’t. And so what if he does?”
    Gervais sighed. “I was on a team with him once, a couple of Competitions ago. It was questions and answers.”
    “I remember. I was terrible at it—lucky for me we had Lillka on our team.”
    “Well, I missed a question, right at the end.”
    “I remember. You lost then. I was sure you would win.”
    “We got second place. Manuel was mad. He jumped me later, in one of the caverns outside the corridors, and slapped me around. He told me I’d found out what would happen if I ever messed up again. He knew Ship didn’t have any sensors there.”
    “You should have told Ship.”
    “What am I going to do, go running to Ship with everything? And what’s it going to do—throw him off? I didn’t want him coming after me again.”
    The land around the lake was oddly quiet; even the chirping of the birds seemed subdued. She peered at the nearby trees, then turned back to Gervais. She could barely see his pointed face. A few drops of water fell on her nose, and she pulled up her hood. “It’s starting to rain.”
    “They’ll have to wake up now.”

    Jorge made sure the fire was out. The group huddled together in their ponchos, hoods over their heads; the rain had become a steady drizzle.
    “It isn’t fair,” Dmitri said. “I’ll bet the teams ahead of us didn’t get rain. This’ll really slow us down.”
    “It won’t if we start now,” Manuel responded.
    “No rules,” Jorge muttered to Dmitri as they began to make their way along the shoreline. “Of course, we forgot to ask Ship if it had any rules for itself.” Zoheret, just behind the two boys, slowed down and let Gervais and Annie pass her. She did not want to get too close to Manuel, who was just ahead of Jorge and Dmitri.
    The wet rocks were mossy and slippery; mud caked her boots. The mist, silvery in the faint light, was so dense that the wooded hills on the lake’s other side had vanished; the water seemed to stretch out before them infinitely. The damp air had seeped inside her, making her bones ache.
    She nibbled at some cheese while she walked, forcing herself to swallow it. Her stomach was tight, her body tense. The thought of Manuel made her throat close on the last bit of cheese; she coughed and swallowed. He had taken her will from her, making her feel as though she could no longer control her own thoughts and actions. Her cheeks burned.
    Manuel was keeping up a quick pace. Zoheret paused, and looked behind her. Jennifer had become a shadow in the mist, her body swaying and lurching even more than usual as she struggled to keep up.
    They continued along the shore until the mist lifted and the rain