Explorer
Page 4
14.
Tina didn´t have to wait for long. That evening she contacted Verdi and let them know that she needed shuttle transport A.S.A.P. They had told her she would have to wait until morning, and she had reluctantly agreed. So she spent the evening listening to Peter sharing from his "conversations" with the Akhab and the Khawat. It was amazing, hard to fathom, but after a while she began to wonder whether the Akhab ability to communicate across vast distances through space had something to do with the Khawat. She said so, but Peter couldn´t give a straight answer. He said it could be that way, but unless the Akhab decided to share that knowledge, there was no way to really know. Tina didn´t try pressuring Uhuur, since their Akhab companion didn´t seem willing to talk about it. The Akhab had their own reasons, she figured, and would share in due time, if they decided to. She laid it to rest, for now.
The next morning, she got up at the break of dawn. Another day now, and the cabin should be ready to move into. She wouldn´t be there for it though. There were more important things to do. She checked the small bag she planned to bring with her, again, making sure all the contents were in place. She´d checked it a million times already, but she did it anyhow. When she was satisfied, she put the kettle on, dreaming of coffee but having to settle for tea, since coffee was a luxury item these days. It would be a while until the shuttle arrived.
Peter was the first to join her. He looked too damn rested, and she felt a moment´s envy. It seemed the man didn´t need sleep at all anymore.
"You ready?" she asked.
"Yeah. You?"
"Can´t wait. We´ll be back in a few weeks though." Tina had hoped for a quicker return, but they would have to wait for one of the bigger fishing boats to pick them up in Newport.
"I wish they´d let us use the shuttle for the return trip," Peter said. Tina nodded.
"So do I. But I get it. It´s the only one we´ve got left."
"Yeah, only essential business. No taxi service."
With a single shuttle left, it was generally reserved for critical missions, such as maintenance on the Exodus, and not to be used for anything that wasn´t absolutely necessary. That Tina and Peter were allowed to use it today was proof of the importance of what they were going to do.
"So, do you think it will work?" Tina asked. She still had her doubts, but she wanted to believe. Peter just smiled.
"It will work, trust me. I´ve never been so sure of anything in my life," he answered.
Tina went and got their drinks. She handed one to Peter, and sat down cradling her own cup in both hands. It would be nice not having to drink tea through a straw. One day, she might actually do so.
The shuttle appeared in the south, and a few minutes later touched down just a hundred meters away. By then the rest were up and about, and Roger came over to say goodbye. They shook hands, both with a firm grip on the other. Roger smiled warmly.
"We´ll try to get another cabin up before you return," he said. Tina had no doubt about it, and smiled back at the shipwright turned builder.
"You´ve got a good team here, so there might be quite a few cabins by the time I get back," she said. Leah and Li Xao had already proven themselves, and at one time during the night a handful of Akhab had arrived as well. In the last few days Uhuur had begun to take part in the building, and she expected the new ones would as well. In time this might actually be the first joint Human and Akhab town on Aurora. She looked forward to that.
She boarded the shuttle with Peter, and soon after, it took off and set course due south.
15.
The shuttle ride didn´t take long, and soon Tina and Peter were standing on the landing pad in the Stronghold. This was the heart of the human settlement on Aurora, as it had been the heart of the revolution and later the resistance against the Chinzhoi. Peacetime had been good to the Stronghold, and they could see new buildings rising up everywhere, as they walked toward the town center. They passed a big lot where only the concrete foundation of a large building sat, waiting for the builders to put up the rest. A sign next to it said this would become the Kenneth Taylor Institute, the Stronghold elementary school.
The only elementary school children on Aurora right now were the youngest from the New Discovery, the last shuttle to leave Earth, and those were now aged ten and up. Probably no more than a handful. In a few years though, all those babies being born right now, in the post-war boom, would fill this school with learning and laughter. Tina smiled, thinking that would be just how Kenneth, once a professor of Harvard, would have wanted it. He´d probably resisted the name of the place, but she knew him well enough to know he´d be moved to tears by the gesture.
"I hope it´s not too late," Tina said.
"Don´t worry, Tina. The Khawat will take care of it," Peter said, his face the image of calm, and quite the opposite of how Tina felt right now.
"Doc Bowers said it was a matter of days, maybe hours even. We should be running. Come on." Tina sped up and Peter followed, jogging effortlessly behind her.
They reached the hospital, and rushed into the airlock. As soon as Geena Travis, a doctor now it seemed, told her it was okay, Tina tore off her facemask, and stepped inside the hospital proper.
"Is he still alive?" she asked. Geena nodded an affirmation, and they walked over to where he lay.
"He won´t live till tomorrow though. I´m sorry, he lost consciousness yesterday."
Doc Bowers was standing next to the bed, adjusting one of the IV-drips that were giving their first president his life sustaining fluids.
Kenneth Taylor looked so much older than he had just a couple of months ago. His cheeks were hollow and the eyes seemed to have sunken back into his skull. His breaths were shallow, strained.
"I´m truly sorry, but there´s nothing else we can do," Doc Bowers said, a forced smile that only lasted for a second, meant to reassure and soothe, surely. Tina shook her head.
"There is one more thing..." she said. Bowers got a stern look on his face.
"No. He very specifically told me he would do no such thing. Please, don´t even think about it. He has found his peace, and you of all people should know that it´s just not worth it." Tina felt a pang of doubt, but she was determined to go through with this.
"It is different now," she said, and then they told him all about what had happened. At first, Bowers was adamant; there would be no removing the facemask to try saving Kenneth Taylor. But after a while Peter managed to explain his own experience, and Tina supported his claim, emphasizing that what had happened to Ben was something that didn´t have to happen if only they took precautions. Peter produced the Akhab medicine, and told Bowers that one dose would be enough.
"It´s like... The process changes the Khawat, just as it changes us. Now, the Khawat in me is calm. It trusts me and doesn´t interfere with my mind. I´m the same guy I used to be, but I´m also part of the Khawat. It´s changed me, sure, but not into someone else. If anything, I´m more... the true me." Bowers didn´t answer. He still looked skeptical, but when Peter took a syringe and filled it, he didn´t interfere. Peter carefully injected the medicine into Kenneth´s drip.
16.
"We should take him outside," Tina said as soon as Peter finished.
Peter and Tina got Geena to show them how to loosen the brakes, and then they rolled the bed into the airlock. Tina put on her facemask, as did Geena and Bowers. She would eventually take it off, but not until she´d had the medicine. She wasn´t ready for it yet. She watched Kenneth. His short, ragged breaths and his weakened state was difficult to watch, but she did it anyhow. As soon as the outer door opened, they pushed the cart out into sunshine.
"Let´s take him over there," Peter said, pointing at a patch of undisturbed grass right next to the hospital. They rolled Kenneth across, and found a nice place to sit. Geena lowered the cart, so that Kenneth lay just an arm´s length up from the ground, and Tina sat down beside him. She studied his worn face. She thought she noticed his breath had calmed somewhat, but other than that sh
e could see no difference. She remembered how the kids´ skin had looked like insects crawled underneath, and that they had got a terrible fever. It looked nothing like it. But then again, Kenneth had got the Akhab medicine first. Maybe that changed the whole process as well, making it less... violent.
They sat like that for almost an hour, watching the bustle around them, sitting in a bubble of calm anticipation, right in the middle of it all. A few people passing by noticed that it was Kenneth, and once they saw he had no mask on, they all hurried off.
"Don´t worry about them. Fear is a natural thing," Peter said. Then he looked over at Kenneth, and grinned.
"It is time."
Tina didn´t notice anything at first, but then she saw it. The color had returned to his skin, and his breaths were calmer, deeper now. She couldn´t say which happened first, Kenneth´s smile or his eyes opening, lucid, glowing with life again.
Their eyes met.
Tina took Kenneth´s hand and squeezed it. He squeezed back.
"I understand now." he whispered.
"Finally, I understand it all."
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When the world ends, what do you do when you realize you are still alive?
In a world devastated by natural disaster, only the most stubborn refuse to give up. When Ed Walker learns that others have been preparing for the disaster for years, he begins to realize finding them may be his only shot at survival. But time is running out...
In a dying world one man makes a choice to keep going, hoping against all odds there might be a future after all.
Alive is a 10.000 word story loosely based on events in Exodus by Andreas Christensen, but can also be read as a standalone.
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About the Author
Andreas Christensen is a Norwegian science fiction and fantasy author.
He is the author of the Exodus Trilogy, a popular science fiction series in which a divided Earth must face the ultimate extinction event, and build a new life on distant Aurora, more than 40 light years away. He has also published RIFT, a dystopian set two centuries after the events of Exodus, continuing the story line back on Earth. You can find his complete bibliography on christensenwriting.com.
Andreas has a weakness for cats, coffee, and up until recently, books so heavy he'd need a separate suitcase in order to carry them every time he traveled. Luckily, the world has changed, and the suitcase has now been replaced by an e-reader.
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