Offworld

by Robin Parrish

  More than anything, she was struck by the emptiness of it all. The rain wouldn't allow her to see more than a few hundred yards in any direction, but nothing here held any meaning, any purpose. There was no death among what she saw, but there was no life either. With neither death nor life to define existence on the planet, what was the point of anything? What were any of these objects, if no one was there to use them?

  She felt her face flush and her eyes burn, and for the first time in a long time she didn't fight it. Didn't compartmentalize it or suppress it. Like the waters churning beneath and above, she just let her emotions pour out. Maybe the weather would camouflage it. She didn't really care if it did or not.

  She'd never been a heavy crier-as the oldest of seven she'd grown up with too many responsibilities to have time for such things-so there were no great, gasping sobs or quaking shoulders. She simply allowed hot tears to spill out quietly, not even bothering to turn so Chris wouldn't see. What difference did it make? She could feel him looking at her, and wondered if he was uncomfortable. To his credit, he didn't find a reason to move away, nor did he prod her to spill her secrets. He merely sat there, at her side.

  If she had a best friend in this world, she decided, it was Christopher Burke.

  Strange to suddenly realize that now, she thought.

  "Paul didn't live there anymore," she blurted out, her voice deep and throaty with emotion. "No one lived there. His house was gutted."

  He was silent for a moment, considering this, before responding exactly as she knew he would. Analytical and measured to the end.

  `Are you sure he didn't just move someplace else, and maybe he'd been waiting for you there?"

  She shook her head. She knew the truth. "He knew how much I loved that house. His house. It was a shelter for me, from all the work and pressures of life as an astronaut. It was the first place I'd ever been where I had no obligations or responsibilities. He promised me he'd never leave it as long as I was in his life. But he did. He moved away. He moved on. Because he decided that I'm no longer part of his life. He didn't wait. He couldn't wait for me."

  Chris blinked and looked away without saying anything. He gazed back down at the water below them. "I'm sorry."

  "Me too," she replied, her eyes searching the gushing water flow for nothing in particular. There was no point in wiping her tears away; they mixed with the raindrops, making the two indistinguishable. And it had been so long since she'd felt the sensation of tears pouring from her eyes ... it was liberating. "It was too much to ask of him. Two and a half years is a really long time."

  "Oh, I don't know," Chris remarked. "The Paul I remember was one very smitten guy."

  "Not smitten enough."

  He was quiet.

  "I don't know what I'm going to do," said Trisha lifelessly. Then she rolled her eyes and gestured at the raging water. "I mean, if we survive this, and we somehow get through ... all of this, this whole last-people-on-Earth thing ... I do still have my family, out there somewhere. My big, crazy family. I won't be alone. But I love Paul. I know him, heart and soul. He was the one, you know?

  "And I don't know what to do now. I'm not sure there's anything I want to do. Not without him."

  "Have you always, you know-" Terry grappled for the words"lived on the streets?"

  "Born there," Mae answered.

  Terry was confused at this and wanted to know more, but already felt like he might be pushing harder than she was comfortable with.

  "So did you ... drop out of school?" he asked, shifting the subject slightly.

  "Nah"

  "Where did you graduate from?"

  "Didn't graduate," said Mae. "Never went."

  Terry tried to keep his surprise in check. "You never went to school? At all?"

  Mae shook her head.

  "But ... there are laws against that sort of thing," Terry said.

  She gave her characteristic shrug as if to say that it either didn't matter or she didn't care. Or possibly both.

  "How could you live this long without anybody making you go to school?"

  "Dunno. Guess I just don't matter like other people."

  Terry closed his eyes. Mae was so broken and hollow, so fragile and full of baggage. Yet for all of that, she had a resilience and a selfsufficiency he admired. And there was something almost transcendent about the way she never seemed defeated by her circumstances. He imagined that if living on the streets was all one ever knew, that person's definition of normal would be very different than other people's.

  "So where do you spend most of your time?" Terry asked, looking deep into those captivating silver eyes of hers.

  Her shoulders rose and fell again. "Here, there. Between the cracks."

  "You said that once before. What do you mean?"

  Mae gazed down at the churning waters inside the lighthouse. "Cracks of life. Cracks of the world. Cracks in the road, sidewalks, walls. The dirty places, the shadows, the in-betweens. That's me. That's where I'm at. The places don't nobody else look at and don't want to."

  Terry hesitated before responding. "Sounds lonely."

  Mae shrugged again. "Don't mind. Some people just don't matter as much. They ain't done nothing to deserve it, they just don't get noticed by nobody else. So they fall through the cracks. Like me. Kinda figure that's why I'm still around even though the whole world's gone."

  Terry shook his head at her calmness as she said these words. She'd just told him she was left behind on D-Day by whatever had taken everyone else because she barely qualified as a person, and she'd done it without any trace of self-pity or remorse. What could have brought her to such a demoralized existence?

  And yet she seemed ever curious and innocent about the world around her, and eager to learn and see more. He pitied her and envied her simultaneously. He was about to tell her that he thought she mattered when she spoke first.

  "What you got against bein' alone?"

  `Are you kidding?" Terry replied. An Earth with no people on it is my idea of hell. I may not have family, but I'm hardly alone. I mean, I'm a crewmember of the Ares. I actually have fans. Had fans. I mean ... I walked on Mars. My feet touched another planet. I couldn't wait to get back home and see my friends. Even though they barely qualify, even though none of them have ever shown any interest in really knowing-at least they were always around. And now-now nothing is the way it's supposed to be, and I can't believe I survived walking on another planet, and here I am back home and ... His voice trailed off as he appeared to be fighting back emotion. "I just ... I waited so long for my feet to be touching the Earth again. And now they're not. This ... isn't how I want it to end."

  Terry was so lost in thought, he almost didn't notice when Mae pulled something out of one of her many pockets and there was a sharp click.

  She tossed something in his direction, and he had just enough light to see it was a switchblade, its blade out. He managed to catch the knife by the handle before it fell into the water below.

  "Wanna end it? Here, now?" she said in a matter-of-fact tone, a serious look on her face. She nodded at the knife. "Do it."

  The water seemed another half meter closer, and Chris found himself thinking like when he was back on Mars that he was going to die. And for some reason this time it hurt more. He tried to reason it out and realized the difference was the four other people with him. He'd let them down.

  He looked into the angry sky and wondered what the five of them had done to tick off the universe. They'd had nothing but trouble since they got home.

  If anybody's up there ... could you possibly send a little help our way? It's not looking too good for its down here.

  Anything? Please?

  He glanced over at Owen and noticed him pull something small out of his pants pocket.

  Chris was stunned, and couldn't keep it to himself. "Beech, what are you doing?"

  "Don't start," Owen replied, pulling a cigarette out of a procured pack and retrieving a lighter from his bag. "Found it at the mote
l last night. Do you have any idea how long it's been since I've had one of these? A lot longer than we were offworld, man."

  Chris still frowned. "I hope the rain keeps you from lighting it."

  Owen laughed without humor. He gestured both of his wet arms wide at their predicament, at the state of the world. Then with practiced ease he lit the cigarette and took a slow puff.

  "I need you on your game if we're going to make it out of this one alive," Chris argued.

  "Relax, Chris," Owen replied. He balled up the pack in his fist and tossed it into the circulating waters below. "See? Only one. Just need to ... calm my nerves. Just a bit."

  Chris wondered if Owen was thinking about his family, but he didn't wonder long. Of course he was thinking about his family. He had to be wondering if he'd ever see them again. He was probably wondering how they'd changed in his absence. Maybe he even felt like he was being punished for leaving them for so long.

  Chris leaned a little closer in Owen's direction, gazing out at sea where he saw an abundance of boats-both of the small, private variety, and the cruise and casino variety-floating aimlessly, and being pushed ever so gently by the current emptying into the sea. If only they could get to one of those, but everything he saw was much too far away. He might've been in great shape-probably the best of any of them, except Owen-but he was no marathon swimmer. Especially in this end-of-the-world weather. And visibility was nearing zero.

  Please. Help its.

  Across from him, Owen had opened his messenger bag and pulled out the laptop. The rain pelted it just like everything else; the waterproof casing could withstand everything but being dropped to the bottom of the ocean.

  "Think you can get a signal in all this?" Chris called out over the maelstrom.

  Owen's response was to tilt the screen in Chris' direction, showing him an orbital view of the massive storm hovering over the Gulf Coast. Even though Owen had said earlier that it couldn't be a hurricane because of how slow its winds were moving, Chris reckoned it had to at least be a tropical storm by now. It had ground to a halt, content to dump its entire bounty right onto their dire circumstances.

  "What do you think's our best play, Beech?" Chris asked. "Try to get our hands on a boat, bypass the weather by heading out to sea?"

  Owen shook his head, bringing up a live image showing the Gulf Coast, all the way from Florida to Texas. There, in the vicinity of Houston, the impossibly bright light was still shining. It looked even brighter at night.

  "Venturing into the Gulf will take us hundreds of miles out of our way," Owen explained. "Just getting around the Louisiana peninsula could take several days in this weather, and those waters are more dangerous now with the river surge and the storm. Our goal should be to move inland."

  The storm reached a whole new fevered pitch, lightning striking and wild thunder letting loose.

  Trisha joined the conversation-apparently she'd been listeningby shouting over Chris' shoulder, "But you said going inland would be suicide, with the hemorrhaging dams and levees."

  "Yes, that is what I said," Owen replied. "But that was before. The damage that way is done. The surge has to be nearing its crest and there are no more dams and levees for the river to take out. And even though the river flow isn't slowing down yet, it's evened out, which means the terrain won't suddenly change on us anymore."

  "How do we move against the surge though? We'd have to have something pretty powerful."

  "Correct," Owen shouted over the din. "Unfortunately, most boats won't be of much use to us."

  "Then what would be useful?" asked a new voice.

  Everyone turned to look. Terry stood just inside the light room, Mae peering over his shoulder. They too had seemingly heard most of the conversation. Terry looked tired and less than happy, but his expression was hardened and determined. Chris knew that look and was glad to see it return to his friend's face.

  "I'm not certain," Owen said, searching his laptop screen again for something helpful he might cull from it.

  Chris' mind spun, his command experience and instincts kicking in. It felt good. Right.

  "Wait a minute, wait .. " he said, gaining everyone's attention. "Doesn't Biloxi have an Air Force base?"

  "Yeah, yeah," Terry replied, his eyes lighting up. "Keesler. No relation to yours truly. They do a lot of training. Electronics stuff, I think. They used to have a fleet of modified C-130s, used 'em mostly for flying into the eyes of hurricanes and stuff like that. I'm not sure what they house these days."

  "Keesler AFB is very close by," Owen said, pointing to his screen. Terry knelt down to see it up close. Chris and Trisha also leaned in to get a better look. "The question is, how to reach it?"

  Owen was right. The base was less than a mile to the northwest, though the buildings likely to contain anything useful were situated on the far side of the base, and they would not be easy to reach if they were as flooded as the coast.

  As if to accentuate this point, a tremendous bolt of lightning arced down a few hundred feet away from where they were, and there was a simultaneous crack of thunder loud enough to split the world in two.

  Please, help us ... Anything ...

  "Look!" Terry cried.

  Before anyone could stop him, Terry shoved them apart like he was running through a crowd, and dove over the side of the balcony.

  "Terry!" Chris and Trisha both shouted at the same time. Owen and Mae joined them at the railing, looking for him in the darkness and unable to see where he'd surfaced. If he'd surfaced at all.

  "Do you see him?" Chris asked.

  "No!" Trisha replied, placing a hand over her eyes to block the rain.

  Nighttime swallowed them completely now and very little was visible in the darkness of the devastating storm. Power had failed in the city long ago, making it hard to get a bead on anything more than thirty or forty yards out.

  "Terry!" Chris shouted again, drawing out his name long and loud.

  There was no response.

  The silence of the moment enveloped them as they searched what little they could see in vain for any sign of Terry.

  Trisha was the first to speak, but her words came out barely audible. "What if he's gone?"

  Chris decided to pretend he didn't hear her amidst the howling winds. A series of blinding lightning strikes fell nearby, illuminating the seashore for a few fractions of a second. For one brief moment, Chris thought he'd caught a glimpse of something small moving in their direction, but then the darkness resumed and he dismissed it as wishful thinking.

  "We can't stay here any longer," Chris declared, watching the nowblack sky carry out what felt like a personal vendetta against them. "With the wind and water, the integrity of this lighthouse is going to be compromised soon. We can't go down with it."

  "What are you thinking?" Trisha asked, still searching the water for signs of Terry.

  Chris opened his mouth to reply when he heard the faint sound of a motor beneath them.

  `Ahoy!" came the call from below.

  All four of them leaned over the rail to look: Terry sat grinning up at them, straddling a tiny high-speed watercraft with just enough room for one or two people.

  "I believe I saw a rope inside the light room," Owen remarked.

  Chris stood next to the open window, and he ducked quickly inside and saw it coiled on the floor. It wasn't very long but it was thick and coarse and it would have to do. Back outside, he and Trisha secured it to the railing and threw the rest down to Terry and the tiny craft.

  Terry tied the rope tight to the jet ski before turning off the engine and then handily climbed the thick rope. With help from the others, he pulled himself up over the side. "It's still got over half a battery!" he shouted.

  "How did you see it in all this?" asked Trisha.

  "Saw a reflection. The thing's got chrome reflectors on the side." There was no wiping the triumphant smile off his face.

  "We're not doing this piecemeal," Chris said, ending the brief celebration. "We all get
out of here or none of us do. We can't all ride on that thing at once, and we certainly can't drive a car.... That leaves only one avenue of escape. And there's got to be something at that Air Force base that can do the job."

  "If it has wings, I can put it in the air," Terry declared. "But even I can't take off from a flooded runway. I doubt a Hercules could get off the ground in this."

  "I wasn't thinking of a C-130," Chris concluded. "How about a helicopter?"

  Looks were exchanged all around. Chris, Trisha, and Terry were all experienced pilots, and Owen, brilliant as he was, understood instantly as well. Even Mae appeared to comprehend somewhat. Launching and flying a helicopter in this kind of weather was something no sane person would attempt under normal circumstances.

  "It doesn't have to be a chopper," Chris added. "I'd settle for a hydrofoil at this point. Or a hovercraft. An F-35 would be fantastic, but I doubt we'll find any at Keesler unless there's been some major changes while we were away."

  "Then let's do it," Terry replied. "We can bring a chopper back with a rope ladder and pick everybody else up."

  "No way. You're not coming. I'm going alone," said Chris.

  "There's room on that thing for two-"

  `But an extra body will slow it down-"

  Terry whipped out the pistol he'd used to blow open the locked door beneath them. He turned it so the handle was out and he extended it to Chris. "Then shoot me," he said. "Nothing less will keep me from getting on that boat with you."

  Chris took the weapon without really thinking and stuck it in the hack of his pants, but threw Terry a very severe gaze.

  "Come on, Chris," Terry implored him, "you know how it works. You don't enter a hot zone without a wingman."

  "You did say no one should go off entirely on their own," Trisha added quietly.

  Chris' rock-hard expression never softened as he stared at Terry. After a beat, he said, "If I tell you to do something, you do it. No hesitation, no questions. If I tell you to bark like a dog, I had better see you down on all fours, you got it?"

  Terry nodded urgently.