Her fear fell away. Her trembling lessened. “I could help you with that.”
“Don’t help me. Help yourself. Ask, Noa. What do you want?”
She leapt. “You. I want you. I love you.” She put her hand to her lips, shocked that she had spoken it aloud and more surprised that he didn’t recoil, despite everything he had said. When he just nodded, her courage grew. “I want you to live with me, registered and everything. I want you to stay. Forever.”
He closed his eyes and let out a breath. Then he pulled her to him and kissed her.
Noa closed her eyes and let him hold her, just because she wanted him to.
He wiped her cheeks dry. “By the way, I might have lied, just a bit.”
Alarm touched her. “Oh?”
“When you check the records, you’ll see the apartment is already registered to both of us. I added my name yesterday.”
“Your first apartment.”
“Ours,” he amended and kissed her.
Epilogue
The laboratory where Paderau led them was a sterile, high security facility, which didn’t help ease Noa’s alarm. Haydn held her hand, sensing her fear, even when the director hurried in, his sealed, antiseptic shoes slapping the shining floor.
“Doctor Nielsen wanted to talk to you first, Noa, as it falls under your purview,” Paderau said.
“What does?” Noa asked, startled to realize that she was a director of an institute, too, and therefore, this man’s equal…and Paderau’s, too.
“The shard from the meteor that first holed the ship,” Nielsen said. He had a high domed forehead and a direct stare that made her feel uncomfortable. It felt as though he could read every thought.
“Magorian told me to analyze it,” Paderau said. “I ran out of answers weeks ago and brought the shard here.”
“There’s something wrong with it?’ Haydn asked.
“It depends on your frame of reference,” Nielsen said. “We broke down the component elements and that’s where the fun began.” He pointed to a screen, where a 3D scan of the shard was rotating slowly. “The compounds in the shard don’t exist in nature. They can’t. They’re manufactured alloys.”
Noa could see Haydn staring at Nielsen from the corner of her eye. She felt just as flummoxed. “You’re saying…another intelligence built it?”
“Something intelligent did,” Nielsen said casually, as if that wasn’t the most revolutionary statement in human history.
“It gets worse,” Paderau said softly.
“How can it get worse?” Haydn asked, pushing his hand through his neatly shorn locks.
“The ratio of the alloy components, the processes to use them, are exactly the same as the steel plating you brought back from the hull of the ship,” Nielsen said.
“A piece of the ship broke off?” Noa asked, although she couldn’t see how a fragment of the ship could possibly break free, then build up enough speed to punch through the ship all by itself. It didn’t make sense.
“The shard is steel,” Nielsen said. “What’s more, it’s steel produced by almost identical processes as the steel we brought with us from Terra, except with one glaring difference.” Nielsen brought up a screen of figures and tables.
Noa had no idea what she was looking at.
“No…!” Hayden breathed.
“Yes,” Nielsen replied. “The evidence is indisputable. Radio carbon dating says the shard was made three hundred years after the Endurance left Terra.”
“So how did it get out here?” Noa breathed.
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Special Bonus Story
Now enjoy the origin story, Forever, only availabe in this special edition.
About Forever
Terra, Luna, Mars, the Belt…war rages, while Terra’s environment slowly fails.
Torill Darya will sacrifice her marriage, her health, even her life, in order to see her work on humanity’s generation ship completed, for it is the one hope left to mankind.
Forever is the origin story that begins the Endurance series, which science fiction romance readers call gripping, superb and fantastic. Forever will not be available for commercial release—rather, it is a special bonus for readers who love the series and other stories by award winning author Tracy Cooper-Posey.
__
This book is part of The Endurance SFR series:
Book 0.0 Forever
Book 0.5 5,001
Book 1.0 Greyson’s Doom
Book 2.0 Yesterday’s Legacy
Book 3.0 Promissory Note
Book 3.1 Quiver and Crave
Book 4.0 Xenogenesis
Book 5.0 Junkyard Heroes
…and more to come!
A Science Fiction Romance story.
Forever
Rank had some uses, after all. When Klansky had finally got it through his head that Torill was going out to the station, no matter what he thought of the idea, he had mentioned it to Charles, as they were drinking buddies.
Charles, as her Chief of Staff, had arranged a private shuttle out to the station for her. “You can’t use the public bus,” he told her. “All those families and kids and baggage—”
“On the day run out to the station? They’re all hefty space workers, Charles. Not a squalling baby anywhere.”
“What if you get sick—I mean, tired? They’re not the most comfortable ships.”
“I’ll be fine.”
For the first time ever, Charles played the status card. Her status, which she had almost forgotten about in the last five years. “You’re the Director of Space Development for the goddam Terran Alliance! You don’t take a public bus!”
His distress had forced her to reconsider. As she looked around the plush interior of the small shuttle craft Charles had arranged, she thought that perhaps he had been the smarter one, after all. From Terra to the L4 point just inside Luna’s orbit, the location of the station that had built up around the construction of the Mayflower, took just under twelve hours.
A decade ago, she had barely noticed the stress of the run out to the station. The gravity surges and inertial pressures hadn’t bothered her back then. This time, though, she had been forced to use the tiny enclosed bunk at the back of the cabin. The co-pilot had been helpful. His anticipation of her nausea and needs made her suspect he was more than just a co-pilot. She wouldn’t put it past Charles to slide a med tech into a pressure suit and slap a pilot license in his hands, along with enough credits to make him play along with the dignity preserving illusion that he was just a co-pilot.
“Boston Station coming up in fifteen minutes, ma’am,” the pilot said, turning to address her over his shoulder.
“I see it. Thank you.” Torill looked at the big screen in front of the pilots. This was one of the newer ships that used screens only. There were no windows or portholes like some of the ancient rattletraps still plying trade between Luna and Terra. The screen technology had emerged from the military division of the Terra Alliance. In wartime, technology advanced. The war between Mars and Earth was in its seventh year, now.
Boston Station came into view. It was a clunky, misshapen collection of bolted-together structures, joined to the building frame that surrounded the Mayflower. Over a thousand people lived and wor
ked on the station in short term rotations. Despite the size of the complex, the Mayflower dwarfed it.
Torill drew in a long breath as the shuttle curved around the station, to reveal the size and length and smooth shape of the Mayflower. There was nothing clunky about the ship. She was a sleek, elongated mass, still mostly in the shadow of Luna, which loomed overhead.
As they swung around the back end of the station, heading for the docking bays, Luna moved out of solar eclipse and the Mayflower was lit in sunlight. The light was clear and perfect, unmarred by atmosphere or clouds.
The Mayflower was beautiful, and Torill had built her.
She could clearly remember the first concept art the designers had drawn for her. “Over three kilometers in length…I don’t want to begin to try to estimate the total tonnage,” the engineer had said. “Not that it matters, as she will be built in space.”
“The navigators might have something to say about the weight,” Torill had reminded them. “Every extra tonne is extra time to get up to speed.”
All the arguing, the compromises, the changes they had been forced to make through lack of funding, lack of faith and plain lack of understanding…yet here the ship was, almost exactly as Torill had first envisaged her.
“We have permission to dock,” the pilot said, again turning his head to speak over his shoulder. She suspected he was doing it only because it was her. Any other passenger would have got the back of his head. “They’re waving us straight in.”
“Good,” the co-pilot said softly. He didn’t look at her. “Sooner we’re back in normal gravity the better.”
It confirmed for Torill that the man was more than just a co-pilot. Pilots were more comfortable in zero gravity than they were on horizontal decking.
The station loomed up next to them. As they rushed past the superstructure, the size of the station made itself felt. There were lit windows that appeared to be no more than dots on the exterior of the station, that flashed past as they made the final approach into the open maw of the docking bay. The bay had been built for supply craft, shuttle buses and construction ships. Her little shuttle was a small gnat floating into the far corner of the huge bay.
She was glad when the shuttle finally settled onto the deck and the station’s constant gravity took hold. Her joints creaking, Torill got to her feet and let the co-pilot hurry ahead of her to undog the door and lower the ramp.
Charles must have called ahead because Lucas, the station manager, was standing waiting for her when she emerged, fussily smoothing his beard and shifting on his feet in nervous anticipation.
Lucas was not alone. Torill glanced at the tall figure next to him and halted on the end of the ramp, shock slithering through her.
“Paul….” She whispered it, to hear the name said aloud, to confirm it actually was him.
Somewhere in the last five years, his hair had shifted from ice blond to silvery white, yet his eyes were still the bluest she had ever seen. The laugh lines at the corners were still there. His jaw was still square and his shoulders still wide and thick with muscle. Perhaps there was even more of it there now. Luna’s lack of gravity made weight resistance exercise a mortal necessity.
Paul wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t scowling, either, as he had so often scowled in the last year. There was no anger in his eyes. None at all. Instead, his gaze was drilling into her, making her heart work harder than it should.
Paul took a few steps toward her. Even the way he walked, the confident stride, was unchanged. Her eyes prickled hard.
“Don’t hate me.” His voice was strained.
“Never,” she breathed. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have a moon to run?”
“Ah, Christ, Torill…” His throat worked.
Something in her chest loosened as she realized what he couldn’t say. “You know.”
Paul pushed his hand through his hair, which was as thick as ever, even if it was silver. He didn’t speak, although his eyes said everything.
“Charles told you,” Torill said, vexed.
Paul glanced at Lucas, who was smart enough to stay out of it. They had known Lucas for years, long before the Mayflower had even been an idea. He would understand some of the stress swirling between them.
Torill sighed, glancing around the huge docking bay. “We’d better take this behind a bulkhead. Are my office quarters still where I left them, Lucas?”
* * * * *
Wherever humans congregated, dust followed. Torill could smell it in the air, even though her desk was spotless…and still damp with sterilant. Charles must have given Lucas little warning.
Paul was standing in the doorway to the quarters, holding it open with his hand, looking at the built-in bunk, the screwed-down furniture and the chairs with the magnetic feet. Everything was stocky, square and stackable. Most of it was foldable, too. Life on the station was not meant to be permanent so comfort was a secondary priority. Out of the thousands of workers, specialists and consultants who had passed through Boston Station, only she had insisted on staying for years at a stretch.
That decision was killing her now.
Paul pushed his hand through his hair again and turned to lean against the doorframe with a deceptively casual pose that still didn’t fool her. He crossed his arms. “I’ve never seen your quarters except on screens, before. They’re smaller than I realized.”
“They haven’t been my quarters for nearly a year now,” Torill said carefully. “How much did Charles tell you?”
Paul dropped his arms. His blue eyes seemed to grow darker. “He told me enough.”
“Enough to make you drop everything and dash here from Luna,” she said dryly. “I always did wonder what it would take to get you here. I wouldn’t have guessed it would take dying to do it.”
He threw out his hand. “God, that’s just like you! Jokes about everything that isn’t remotely funny.”
Torill drew in a breath and let it out. She’d had a year to get used to it. She wasn’t being fair. “You’re still in denial,” she said softly. “When did Charles call you?”
Paul gave a soft laugh. It emerged bitter and dry. “This morning.”
Torill stared at him, mentally winded. Most of their permanent workers lived in the Newer Brunswick dome and travelled out to the station every morning. If the bus schedule had not shifted, and if Paul had not changed his own personal routine—and in the twenty-five years she had lived with him, he had never changed his morning routine—then he would have received the call the minute he had stepped into his Luna admin office. That was one of only a few terminals on Luna capable of direct Terra-Luna Mach-transmissions. Everyone else had to put up with the three-minute transmission delay.
“How is it you even caught the bus in time?” Torill asked, amazed.
Paul shrugged. “I ran.”
“On Luna? I’m surprised you didn’t launch yourself hard enough to reach escape velocity.”
“You’re joking again.”
Torill nodded. “It helps.”
Paul’s gaze met hers. “How long?” His voice was strained.
“Klansky told me a year ago I had six months.” She shrugged. “I guess I really wanted to see the ship leave.”
He swallowed. After a while, he said softly, “While we were waiting for your shuttle, Lucas told me the ship is pretty much finished. Outfitted and ready to go. He was going to start the recruiting process, only you told him you would do it.”
“It’s the last job left to do. I wanted to finish it. We’ve actually been recruiting on Terra the whole time. Now, we just have to get everyone up here, fill in the last remaining posts, zip her up and send her on her way.”
Paul glanced out the chunky square window. Through the maze of space scaffolding and superstructure, the Mayflower hung, silent and sleek. They had built an entry gantry leading into the big freight airlock located in front of the torus, which had been rotating for over eight months.
“When is launch day?” he asked, his voice
wooden.
“Thirty-six days from today.”
He considered her for a long moment. The silence was thick with all the things he might say, that she would be forced to respond to. Those things would make her angry. Paul would be just as furious. None of it would address the reason why he left, five years ago. All of it would drive him right back to Luna.
Instead, he unzipped his jacket. “Where do we start?” he demanded.
* * * * *
It was a magical month.
Torill had never worked as hard as she did in those thirty-plus days, yet it didn’t feel like work. Now that the ship was finished, all the doubt and worry vanished. They were on the long slide to take-off and there was an enchanted atmosphere in the station.
Paul didn’t leave. Not for long. Torill had no idea how he was handling his responsibilities on Luna and she carefully didn’t ask. She had heard him say more than once that a good leader developed capable seconds, or they weren’t a good leader. She didn’t worry about it. Instead, she allowed herself to enjoy his company, no questions asked.
He found quarters somewhere on the station. Lucas would have taken care of that. Each morning, Paul would turn up in her office and ask what was next. Torill would tell him and they would get to work.
Sometimes she caught him watching her. It would have been natural to ask what was on his mind at that moment, but Torill never asked. It was safer that way.
Nightly, they shared dinner. It was usually a working affair, while they ran feeds from Terra and from Mars. Luna was in the unique position of being able to see both sides of the war, as the moon was well outside the broadcast filters that surrounded Terra. The news wasn’t good. Terra’s environmental issues were increasing. Mars wasn’t backing off, either, even though Evan Peters, one of the senior Martian generals, spoke of unity and working together.
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