Final Days

by Gary Gibson

  ‘I’m sorry you don’t trust me,’ said Mitchell, ‘but what happened to me isn’t my fault.’

  Saul stared at him, feeling even more frightened than he cared to admit to himself.

  Saul had already found that time on board the spacecraft became strangely elastic in the absence of any clear evidence of day or night. Amy and Lester appeared to have run out of minor maintenance checks for either himself or Mitchell to perform and, although he had little else to do, he didn’t have the stomach to keep watching the slow march of death as it continued to spread across the face of the planet. He dozed intermittently, but both module and lander were filled with constant creaks and rattles that did little to soothe his nerves. At one point he awoke to find Mitchell zipped into a sleeping bag across the lander from him, apparently asleep. Yet Saul could see, from the way the other man’s eyes moved under their closed lids, that he was watching or reading something via his contacts.

  When Saul awoke a few hours later, he unzipped himself from his bag and ventured back through to the command module. He sat down next to Amy while her husband was sleeping, securely strapped across the three rear passenger seats and apparently oblivious to the tormented rattle of metal under stress, or even to his wife’s description of endless technical details about fuel mixes and delta vees. All that she said meant little to Saul, but was oddly comforting when delivered with that effortless confidence with which she was imbued. Finally, he let his head sink back and closed his eyes, linking once more into one of the few satellite-feeds still transmitting out of Earth orbit.

  Much of Brazil had already slid beneath those flickering clouds and disappeared forever. Goodbye, São Paolo, thought Saul with infinite sadness; goodbye Rio de Janeiro, rain forests and macaws. All places and things he’d never set eyes on, but now found himself missing with bottomless remorse.

  He discovered a few static-ridden broadcasts still coming out from other parts of the South American continent, and listened to people who knew death was approaching them. He saw a jerky handheld video shot in Venezuela, taken within the hour, that showed black clouds like thunderheads slowly spreading outwards to choke out the sunlight, those familiar twists of light dancing high in the stratosphere.

  One by one, the voices faded into the hissing static, never to be heard again, until all that was left was a single audio transmission of a man alternately praying in Spanish and weeping. Saul listened for a few moments before cutting the link, unable to bear any more of it. There was, by contrast, no news coming out of Copernicus whatsoever, and Saul remembered Amy telling him that most if not all of Copernicus’ population had already been evacuated.

  ‘That’s us officially past the halfway point,’ Amy informed him when Saul opened his eyes again. ‘Less than two days before we touch down.’

  ‘What about the VASIMRs?’

  ‘The last of them already touched down. They’ve got a far more efficient burn ratio than an old-style bird like this.’ She glanced round towards him. ‘You know, if you’d told us about your plan to shut down the gates back there before we took off, we might have tried to get you on board one of the VASIMRs instead.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Saul. ‘I guess I wasn’t sure if you’d want to take me up, if I told you that first.’

  She barked a laugh. ‘You thought maybe we’d just leave you behind? Can’t say the thought mightn’t have crossed my mind, if I thought you were crazy. But I don’t, more’s the pity.’

  He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, feeling momentarily dizzy.

  Amy’s face had creased in a frown, when he opened his eyes once more. ‘When was the last time you ate?’ she asked.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Amateurs,’ she sighed. ‘You need to eat at regular intervals.’ She placed her hands on the steel bars on either side of her acceleration couch, and levered herself upwards until she floated free. ‘Zero gee screws up your body’s internal signals, makes you think you ain’t hungry when you are. Here.’ She pulled a tinfoil-wrapped package out of a cupboard and pushed it into a microwave oven bolted to one of the bulkheads. It dinged after a couple of seconds, and she retrieved it.

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ Saul protested, and it was true.

  ‘Bullshit.’ She unwrapped the tinfoil and pushed the tray of steaming hot food at him. ‘Chicken Surprise.’

  Saul sniffed at it. ‘What happened to all that dried food?’

  She shrugged. ‘Strictly speaking, that’s for the tourists. Can’t feel like they’re being authentic if they’re eating the decent stuff.’

  ‘It smells okay,’ he said, regarding the contents doubtfully. ‘Doesn’t look anything like any chicken I’ve ever seen, though.’

  ‘That’s the surprise,’ she said. ‘Now eat. Can’t save the universe without eating.’

  ‘I guess.’

  Saul felt suddenly ravenous, as if a switch had been thrown somewhere inside of him. He wolfed the contents down, Amy watching him the whole time, a vacuum tube held ready in her hand, but Saul didn’t spill even a drop.

  ‘Hey, check the board,’ said Lester, loosening his restraints and hauling himself upright, before yawning loudly. ‘We’ve got incoming. Transceiver Two.’

  ‘You’re kidding,’ said Amy, her eyes becoming unfocused. ‘Hot damn, it’s that girl Olivia.’

  Saul stared at them both in shock.

  ‘All the way from the Jupiter platform?’ said Lester. ‘How the hell did she manage that?’

  ‘Data looks like it’s been routed through a couple of surviving satellite networks, from what I can see,’ said Amy. ‘Bob’s VASIMR relayed it back to us.’

  ‘Clever girl,’ said Lester, in a tone of appreciation.

  ‘It’s addressed to you,’ said Amy, turning to Saul. ‘And it’s marked private,’ she added, raising an eyebrow. ‘Want me to patch it through?’

  ‘Please,’ Saul replied, and a message received icon appeared before him a few seconds later. ‘Excuse me,’ he added, handing the empty tray back to Amy.

  His heart beat wildly inside his chest as he pulled himself back through to the lander. Mitchell looked like he was genuinely asleep, eyes closed and mouth hanging half open in the dimmed light.

  Olivia’s message turned out to be a pre-recorded video file. He noticed her eyes were red with fatigue, as she sat at a terminal in what looked like a busy operations room, men and women he didn’t recognize hurrying past or talking together in tight groups behind her.

  ‘Saul,’ she began, ‘I hope you made it okay. It took me a lot longer than I’d have liked to figure out how to route this to you, so here’s hoping you still get to see it.’

  He watched her take a moment to gather herself. ‘Before anything else, I want you to know we’re all fine here. We shut down the Inuvik–Jupiter gate without any major problems, except there just wasn’t enough room for everyone wanting to come through. So we . . .’ She paused for a moment ‘. . . We drew straws, basically. And some of those who stayed behind helped to make sure the wormhole collapsed.’

  Saul studied the lines in her face: she looked like she’d aged ten years since he’d last seen her. Then he wondereled himw he would look to her, if she were able to see him. Just as bad, probably.

  ‘You asked me to find out anything I could about Mitchell,’ she continued. ‘And I’m going to have to tell you now I don’t think it’s good news – assuming you even believe what I’m about to say.’

  Here it comes, he thought. His fingers tightened around the hand-grip secured to a bulkhead.

  ‘You know how I already said you didn’t exactly give me much to go on, except that there’s some link between Mitchell and that shipment? I talked to the others here, Bob Esquivaz and the rest, and told them everything I know. I guess it’s no surprise that there are other people here who’ve had some knowledge of the Founder Network. Some of them have higher clearance than I ever did, which means they can get deeper inside the ASI’s security records than I could. That made things a lot easier th
an they would have been otherwise.’

  She licked her lips, her expression nervous. ‘Assuming the records are correct, we now know the precise time Mitchell recovered consciousness after they brought him back to Earth from Tau Ceti. It’s the exact same moment the plane carrying your missing shipment fell off the radar.’

  Saul felt a chill spread through his bones, as he listened intently.

  ‘Now I don’t know what the hell that means,’ Olivia continued. ‘I can speculate certainly, say that somehow Mitchell’s waking triggered the artefacts inside that shipment into becoming the growths, or maybe it was the other way round and something inside that shipment caused him to wake up.’ She sighed. ‘But if you asked me to go with my gut, after seeing how much he’s changed and knowing what happened to him . . . then I can’t help wondering if that really is him, no matter how much it looks or acts or sounds like him.’

  She then went on, Saul listening but not really hearing as she told him their plans for the future. There were three hundred of them on board the Jupiter platform, with stockpiles enough to survive for decades yet, and perhaps even centuries, if their agricultural programme took off.

  Saul felt that same bottomless sadness he’d experienced when he’d last spoken to her directly, knowing that if he survived this day then this would be his one remaining memory of her, sitting bleary-eyed and haggard in front of a terminal, while all those strangers hurried past.

  She started to finish up, but he stopped the file, unwilling to hear her say goodbye a second time. He saw Mitchell peering at him across the lander, and once again Saul felt a familiar chill settle beneath his skin.

  ‘I heard the three of you talking through there in the command module,’ he said. ‘You’ve heard from Olivia?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And?’

  Mitchell nodded. ‘I’m glad to hear that. Can I see it? The message?’

  Saul felt his throat tighten. ‘I’d rather not.’

  ‘Any reason why?’

  ‘It’s . . . personal.’

  He frowned. ‘Can’t be that personal, surely? I—’ A look of enlightenment crossed his face, and he nodded. ‘Do you know, I actually forgot, for a moment there, about you and Olivia.’

  ‘You were out of the loop for a couple of years back there. It’s understandable.’

  ‘You two . . .’ Mitchell traced a loop in the air with the forefinger of one hand. ‘I know you met up while Jeff was still on the run. Did you . . . ?’

  ‘No, all that was over a long time ago,’ Saul replied, unable to hide a hint of regret.

  ‘Right,’ Mitchell nodded, ‘if it’s private, it’s private.’

  ‘Thanks for understanding.’

  Saul tried not to show his relief that Mitchell was not being more insistent.

  More time passed, the seconds ticking by interminably slowly, and Saul drifted into a kind of reverie. It was a half-awake, half-dreaming state, aided greatly by his feeling of weightlessness. Sometimes he slept, or scanned more of the records from the Tau Ceti base. Instead of feeling bored, his mind was occupied by a kind of unrelenting nervous tension. At one point, Saul re-entered the command module and noticed, through one of the tiny angular windows, how the Moon had expanded enormously. He gazed down on its craters and billion-year-old lava plains.

  Lester was now in charge again, while Amy lay curled up on the rear three seats with a pair of large black ear-muffs strapped over her head. She yawned, her eyes flickering open, as Saul floated past her and landed gently in the seat next to Lester.

  ‘What’s the latest?’ asked Saul.

  ‘No news.’ Lester shook his head. ‘I’ve been scanning regularly for live feeds, and can’t find a damn one.’

  ‘You mean everything’s gone?’ Saul felt a spasm of shock. ‘Have the clouds reached Florida yet?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Lester reassured him. ‘There’s still some patches left untouched, but those damn clouds are scrambling signals all over the place, is my guess. Even if there’s any people left to talk down there, we won’t be able to hear them.’

  ‘How long before we touch down?’

  Lester blinked at the empty air for a couple of seconds. ‘Another four or five hours. I’m calling that a personal best.’

  Saul couldn’t contain his surprise. ‘I thought we had at least maybe a day to go?’

  ‘Depends on how much fuel you burn,’ said Lester, ‘particularly during your initial acceleration. Faster you take off, the faster your escape velocity is, the faster you get to your destination. I forgot to mention that we used most of the fuel we’d normally use for the return trip on take-off, for that added velocity.’ He nodded towards the lander, keeping his voice low. ‘Is Mitchell okay?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, he’s keeping to himself a lot, through there.’

  ‘Is that a problem?’

  ‘No, not necessarily. But stress affects all kinds of people in all kinds of ways.’

  Saul shook his head. ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

  ‘My point is, if anyone becomes unbalanced or has some kind of breakdown out here, there isn’t anyone we can turn to for help, and we’ve all got more than enough reasons to lose it right now. I’m not suggesting that’s what’s happening with Mitchell, but when somebody starts hiding away that much, it’s not necessarily a good sign.’

  ‘No, he’s not crazy,’ Saul replied. ‘At least, no more than I am.’

  ‘Les?’ interrupted Amy, sitting up and pulling the muffs off. ‘This might not be a good time for you to chat. We’ve got deceleration coming up. I want you and the boys to get yourselves strapped in.’

  Lester nodded to her, then returned his attention to Saul, throwing him one last leery glance. ‘Then I hope to hell you’re right,’ he said. ‘Now, get yourself suited up, and I’ll go fetch Mitchell.’

  ‘Is it absolutely necessary to get suited up?’ Saul protested. ‘We’re not even on the surface yet.’

  ‘I swear, you’re worse than my damn kids ever were,’ said Lester with a grin. ‘It’s something our insurers have always insisted on.’

  ‘Not exactly something you need to worry about out here, Lester.’

  ‘No, but it keeps Amy happy, since you never know what damn thing’s going to go wrong. So suit up and strap yourself in.’

  Saul conceded defeat, pulling his suit out from where it was stowed, along with the long johns that helped keep his ody temperature regulated. Lester meanwhile pushed his way through the tunnel leading from the command module to the lander, returning a minute later with Mitchell in tow. Mitchell immediately got into his own suit before returning to the seat directly behind Lester, without comment.

  Lester and Amy helped each other put on their suits before conducting more interminable checks on the engines and computer systems. After half an hour, Amy fired the engines. The craft instantly slammed them forward in their seats, as the deceleration burn kicked in, slowing them in their headlong flight, and putting them on target for a lunar insertion. The burn only lasted for thirty seconds but, when it ended, Saul’s lungs ached as he exhaled.

  Amy raised one gloved hand up above her head in a thumbs-up, and Saul closed his eyes, listening to the sound of his own breathing, so strangely close and claustrophobic inside his helmet.

  The Moon gradually began to fill all of the ports over the next few hours, and Saul spent quite some time peering out at the lunar surface from a vantage point he never thought he’d get the chance to experience. His contacts dropped labels over the Mare Imbrium’s ancient lava flows, similarly highlighting the Copernicus crater lying close by the equator.

  Dense ashen clouds had by now covered Canada and much of the Pacific, and had also spread across Washington State like grasping fingers. The Hawaiian Islands had long since disappeared beneath the murk, but a storm front running down the West Coast towards Mexical appeared to be holding the clouds back in the south. Florida remained unaffected, but Saul knew, with grim certainty, t
hat wouldn’t be the case for much longer. More clouds were meanwhile spreading north across the Gulf of Mexico.

  ‘We’re going to all move through to the lander now,’ Amy announced, ‘Then we’ll separate the modules before all heading down to the surface in the lander. We’ll be doing a fair bit of walking across the lunar surface once we land, so I want you all to run more checks on your suits. Access your how-tos and follow the instructions.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ said Lester, ‘separation due in fifteen minutes, and counting.’

  They moved through into the lander, one by one, securing themselves into the padded chairs there as Lester sealed off the hatch. He then made a series of further checks, along with Amy, flipping rows of toggles before strapping in with just a few seconds to go.

  Thirty seconds passed, and the lander jerked violently. At the same moment, Saul heard a dull thump, like an executioner’s blade biting into wood.

  ‘And that, lady and gentlemen,’ declared Lester, ‘is what we call a separation.’

  ‘What now?’ asked Saul, his skin already coated with cold sweat.

  ‘What’s now is that we land,’ replied Amy in a distracted tone. ‘So try not to interrupt your flight crew, okay?’

  Saul mumban apology, and noticed Mitchell’s eyes were closed under the curved plastic of his helmet. Behind their lids, his pupils darted constantly here and there, his lips twitching.

  Saul used his contacts to watch the lunar surface slip by beneath them. Before long it became clear that they were dropping lower and lower, the craft oriented so it was flying upside-down in respect to the surface. More time passed until the nearest edge of Copernicus itself crept into sight, growing wider and deeper as they descended towards the low hills beyond the crater’s rim.

  ‘Tight,’ muttered Amy. ‘Look at that. Not much flat ground round here. Shoulda stuck to our usual designated landing zone.’

  ‘Doing fine, hon,’ said Lester, his tone calm and reassuring. ‘Just guide her in best you can.’