Cohesion: Chapter Five

The next morning, Djawadi slept in again. Ludwig found this to be especially irritating considering they needed to get an early start on their trek to Beta Site to ensure they would still had time left in the day to start working. He was halfway through reminding Djawadi of this while the man sleepily got into his pressure suit so they could leave.

Ludwig had begun to repeat himself in his lecture when Djawadi finally held up his hand to stop him, “Alright, I get it, Doctor. Forgive me for having trouble sleeping last night, okay?”

Ludwig opened his mouth to retort, but honestly, he was tired of arguing with the man. Today was going to be a long, grueling day getting to Beta Site.

“Are we good?” Djawadi asked, his tone made clear he was ready to continue the argument if need be.

“Yes,” Ludwig said. “Let’s just get going.”

The midpoint of their day found them making good progress. The hike wasn’t nearly as bad as Ludwig had worried since much of it was down a gradual incline. He knew that meant trekking back tomorrow afternoon would be much more strenuous, but for now, he had settled into a groove. The pace they kept meant he could feel the endorphins flowing through his system. It felt nice to just turn his mind off and walk towards their destination. It reminded him of the times when he’d take long walks in the evenings at LunaU. His mood wasn’t even ruined by Djawadi occasionally falling behind and failing to alert Ludwig so they could take a break. Technically, they’d gotten out of each other’s line of sight several times, but since Ludwig had taken the lead—he didn’t make a big deal out of it.

Everything was going smoothly until Ludwig noticed the cavern they followed was beginning to narrow significantly. It had begun gradually enough that he only noticed once the case of equipment he carried at his side kept bumping into the side of the cavern. They kept going, neither of them mentioning the obvious, as if speaking of it would somehow cause the cavern to become impassable.

As the cavern narrowed even more, the ground beneath them grew uneven, forcing them to awkwardly shuffle over large outcroppings of volcanic rock. Where they had been making easy progress earlier, their pace had now slowed considerably.

Ludwig was starting to feel embarrassed when the cavern narrowed to the point where they had to turn sideways to shuffle through sections, helping each other move the equipment along. Though Djawadi hadn’t shown any sign of gloating over Ludwig’s insistence on this path, Ludwig still pulled up the map to Beta Site on his visor, just to check. It didn’t make sense that this path would be impassable—the computer wouldn’t have assigned it if it led to a dead end. Still, Ludwig was relieved to confirm this for himself.

As they continued on their walk to Beta Site, Ludwig found himself feeling gratitude that he hadn’t ever struggled with claustrophobia before. It would have made his custodial job at LunaU difficult. Much of it was spent in tight maintenance corridors welding pipe fittings. He hadn’t even felt bothered when part of their mission training on the moon had been the times they were required to spend time in an inert hibernation pod—it was for simulation purposes, preparing them for the potential circumstance where they might be woken up due to a hard reboot of the pod’s software. But here on their exoplanet forty lightyears away from Earth’s moon, kilometers beneath the surface, it was hard not to feel like the walls were closing in around them.

Little things were starting to add to his anxiety, having to hold his breath during one particularly tight area so his pressure suit would fit through. There was one point where the equipment case he carried had to be slipped through by him pulling and Djawadi pushing. The grinding sound of the metal rubbing against the rock walls set him at edge. But mercifully, they soon reached a larger section of the cavern—almost as big as the one where they’d established their pod base.

“Can we take a break?” Djawadi asked.

“My thoughts exactly,” Ludwig said between catching his breath.

Djawadi set his case down and slumped onto it, wrapping his arms around himself.

Ludwig frowned, realizing how much more exhausted Djawadi seemed. He set down his own pack and sat on it like Djawadi. “You okay?”

“Did you pack extra air filters?” Djawadi asked instead of answering Ludwig’s question.

“Yes,” Ludwig replied. It would have been against mission rules not to.

Djawadi nodded, giving a thumbs-up without lifting his head. “I think we’re going to be down here longer than thirty-six hours.”

Ludwig glanced at the time display on his visor and nodded. They were only about halfway to Beta Site, but they were hours behind schedule. At this rate, they might only get a couple of hours of actual work done after reaching Beta Site before it was time to retire for the night.

Seeing this made Ludwig not care how tired he was, he just wanted to get to Beta Site as soon as possible. He slapped his knees and stood up, “Alright you ready to get going?”

“No,” Djawadi said, defeated.

“Okay, well we need—”

“Will you just give me a goddamn minute?” Djawadi snapped, suddenly sitting upright. The man stared at Ludwig with an intensity in his eyes that was jarring, like he was daring him to pick a fight.

Instead, Ludwig held up both of his hands to Djawadi, “Okay, sorry, we can rest awhile longer.”

“Thank you! You’re always hassling me—fucking hell, man,” Djawadi trailed off.

“Sorry,” Ludwig said defensively. His brow furrowed—he’d never seen Djawadi like this. This didn’t feel like normal anger.

“I mean I told you earlier I didn’t fucking sleep well, man,” Djawadi said.

“It’s doctor,” Ludwig corrected him, though he immediately regretted doing so.

“What did you say?”

Djawadi’s intense look remained, a mixture of rage and something else—like a cornered animal. Ludwig wasn’t sure if he was the one being cornered, goaded into a fight he didn’t want to be in. “I didn’t say anything.”

“No, you said something. It’s been obvious that you’ve had a problem with me since day one. You want to resolve this now? Because I’m so tired of your high-and-mighty judgmental shit. Now, tell me what you said!”

“I said, ‘it’s Doctor!’ Not ‘man,’ you’re supposed to call me Doctor!”

Djawadi looked up at him and burst out laughing.

Ludwig’s gut tightened, though he wasn’t sure why. Something seemed wrong with Djawadi—more than just the mood swing or anger. Unsure what to do, he awkwardly sat back down on his equipment case.

“Well, you’re a real asshole, doctor,” Djawadi said once his laughter died down.

Ludwig sat in the tension. It hung in the air like the corrosive gas they occasionally came across in the caverns. There was something wrong, but he wasn’t sure how to address it. Saying anything else to Djawadi felt like it’d only make things worse.

“I’ll be ready in a minute, doctor,” Djawadi said.

Ludwig nodded, but didn’t say anything.