by A. G. Riddle
“Then we’re agreed,” Fowler says. “We’re leaving Earth.”
Chapter 51
James
A cold wind blows across the snow-covered desert, a chill that oozes through my parka like water soaking in, never drying. The frigid air bites at my exposed neck as I watch the sun peek above the horizon. The sky grows more clear each day as the particles from the asteroid ejections are removed. As the haze fades away, the sun shrinks, as if it’s a light slowly drifting away. That’s what living on Earth feels like, a desolate planet constantly growing darker and colder, with no hope of it ever stopping. Arthur says we have eleven months left until solar output falls below the level we need to heat our habitats.
Eleven months. Can we make it?
We really only have one choice: we try or we stay here and die.
In the past month, Harry and I have developed a productive, albeit paranoid, working relationship with Arthur. Now, our first product is ready to launch: a solar drone that will circle the globe, bringing back images and hopefully messages from other survivors. It will tell us whether we are alone on this ruined world. The craft is about ten feet long with a wide top covered in black solar panels. Two short wings jut out from the body. The underside is white, making it look like a giant penguin lying face down in the snow. We’ve named it Canary One, though Penguin One probably would have been more apt. Just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Harry hands me the tablet. “You want to do the honors?”
I tap the launch button and the drone shoots vertically into the air. Its batteries are full, and the solar panels will gradually refill them as it flies. Even so, it will have to put down a couple of times and wait for the sun to return.
We expect it back within seventy-two hours, depending on wind currents.
In three days, we’ll know whether we’re alone.
For the first time in weeks, I spend the night at home, in the small cubicle in the CENTCOM bunker, nestled in beside Emma, Allie, and Sam.
Emma’s baby bump is just starting to show. The nausea has finally passed, but Allie’s questions about her new sibling seem to have no end. I don’t know if her curiosity comes from me or Emma, but it appears to be inexhaustible. Emma is patient with her, taking it all in her stride.
She’s also found a new role to play here: colony planner. She, Charlotte, and Izumi have been working diligently, trying to envision our life after we arrive at our new home. The challenges are enormous. How will we grow food? What pathogens will we encounter? Will we be capable of defending ourselves against the hostile species we encounter on this new world?
Emma once told me that her dream was to start a colony on a new world. The science of it appealed to her, and I think another part of it was the prospect of creating a new society, one unburdened by the past, a united humanity, working together to master a new world. I can tell she’s enjoying her work, but she’s also afraid of what we’ll find out there. We all are.
When she’s not working with Emma and Charlotte, Izumi has poured herself into examining the stasis process Arthur is proposing. She’s called it brilliant and horrifying. She thinks she can be ready to do a trial of the technology next month. She volunteered for the assignment, but Fowler wouldn’t hear of it. A volunteer will be taken from the army. I think that has made her redouble her efforts to make sure it’s truly safe.
Harry, Min, Grigory, Fowler, and I have dedicated our time to the designs for the colony ships. The approach is simple: the bays that would have been filled with combat drones will now house the human colonists, who will be in stasis bags: thick, vacuum-sealed bags with a mechanical monitor connected to the ship’s systems. Half a dozen mechanical arms will roam the bays, capable of picking a sealed colonist and depositing them in an exit chamber, which will unseal the bag and bring the person out of stasis. One thing our planning has yielded is an upper limit on how many people we can transport in the ships: 12,394. As of right now, we can take all of our survivors—with room to spare. In a few days, we’ll know if there are more people out there, and whether we truly have a spot for everyone. If not, well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
The solar drone launched three days ago, but it hasn’t returned. After breakfast, I stop by the CENTCOM’s situation room and verify that we haven’t picked up any broadcasts from the drone.
Taking one of the radios from the long conference table, I connect with Camp Nine, where Harry’s been staying. “Have you all received any broadcasts?”
“Nothing yet,” he replies. “We’re still within the expected time frame though.”
“I know. Still, I thought we would have gotten a ping on the long-range radio.”
“Might be running low on power.”
“Maybe,” I mumble. “I’m heading your way.”
It’s past midnight when I arrive at Camp Nine. The lights on the outside of the printing plant and warehouse are off to save power, but I know everyone is working inside. We’re running three shifts. Piles of recovered debris sit outside the plant, waiting to be processed, melted into their base elements and reprinted.
Inside the warehouse, work on the new cubicles—or flats as we have begun calling them—is in full swing. Workers in AU Army fatigues are assembling components by LED lantern light, placing the printed plastic bricks together like adults playing with life-size Legos in the semi-darkness.
We’ve converted offices in the front of the warehouse into a series of labs and a small room that doubles as a command post for the military and mission control for Harry and me.
I find Harry in the control room, a warm cup of coffee in hand, wisps of steam drifting upward. Most everyone takes stim pills except for Harry, Fowler, and Colonel Earls. They still drink coffee, though the supply is dwindling. They’re old school, which I kind of like.
“Any word?” I ask, startling Harry, who rubs a hand across his tired face. Arthur is standing nearby, seeming bored.
“No,” Harry mutters.
I point at Arthur. “You said three days.”
“Did I?” he replies, feigning surprise. “Gosh, I’ll have to update my website to let future customers know that ApocalypsePhoto.com can no longer guarantee seventy-two-hour delivery.”
“Very funny,” I say flatly. “What do you think happened?”
“Best guess? One of those fellow apes you’re trying to save shot it down.”
“Doubtful—”
“Hey,” Harry calls out. “We’ve got something.”
Canary One is programmed not to take data input—in the event Arthur tried to take over. But it can broadcast and record audio from radio frequencies. It can also use that audio broadcast to send us encrypted data. Not receive, but send. It was Harry’s idea. He’s using an old audio-to-data modulation standard developed decades ago for dial-up internet. He smiles as the mechanical noise plays over the speakers.
“Doesn’t that take you back to a better time?”
“It was a little before my time, Harry.”
“Well, buddy, you really missed out.”
The noise fades and on the main screen, letters begin flashing:
<>
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“Everybody out,” I call to the dozen technicians sitting at their stations. Like everyone in the Atlantic Union, they deserve to know the results of the survey. But that information is dangerous. It needs to be disseminated in the right way, at the right time.
When Harry, Arthur, and I are alone, Harry puts the summary data on the screen. My heart leaps. And it plummets.
“I thought you’d be happy, James,” Arthur says.
“Don’t be smug. You know what this means.”
Chapter 52
Emma
I feel like a settler in the Wild West. My kids are bundled up. The wagon is loaded. And we’re trekking across the wilderness to our new home, in hopes of a better life.
In this case, the wilderness is a frozen North Africa, t
hat new home is on another planet, and our wagon is an Atlantic Union armored troop carrier. So, sort of the same as the intrepid souls who settled the American West. And like them, we’re heading west, to Camp Nine, to the last place we’ll live before leaving Earth.
The troop carriers are crowded. Mothers like me hold young children like Allie in their laps. The older kids, like Sam, are packed beside us. They sat upright when we left, leaned against us after a few hours, and now, finally, most are slumped over, heads resting on our shoulders, some asleep, others lying on the floor next to the cargo crates holding our meager possessions.
The army has cleared the road in hopes of making the trip quicker. Still, the convoy lumbers along at a slow pace, ensuring they don’t run out of power. We stop three times. Meals are distributed. People exit and use the pop-up portable restrooms, and a nurse comes around and checks on everyone.
I feel as if I’ve been in this truck for days, but it’s still light out when the rear doors open for the fourth time, revealing two buildings towering ahead.
James stands at the front of the delegation, blowing out as white puffs of steam, a pale, yellow sun behind him. People spill out of the troop carrier, glad to be free.
It isn’t our turn, but that doesn’t matter to Allie. She weaves through the legs of people making their way to the exit like an animal cutting through a forest, her prey in sight. James rushes forward, just in time to catch her as she reaches the edge of the troop carrier. He pulls her from the truck and hugs her tight.
A minute later, Sam and I reach the ground and James and Allie wrap us in a hug, the four of us clinging together, almost oblivious as people flow around us, staring, I’m sure. I feel James’s hand move to my stomach as he whispers, “Welcome home.”
The flat reminds me of our habitat: a large open space with doorways to the two bedrooms—one for the kids and one for James and me. Our new home doesn’t have a kitchen or a bathroom, but that’s okay. One way or another, it’s temporary.
The living area has couches salvaged from the wreckage, no doubt repaired and patched up. They don’t look half bad. There’s even a rug on the floor. In a word, it feels like home—the first real home we’ve had since the asteroids decimated our planet.
Life inside this converted warehouse soon becomes routine: we work, we eat, we sleep, and in the hours in between, we snatch at any little piece of joy that comes our way.
The sun grows smaller each day, a constant reminder that time is running out for us. My belly swells, the child inside of me growing, a reminder that we must succeed.
At work, Izumi, Charlotte, and I have made incredible progress on our plans for the colony. James is also making progress on his project. He and Harry have launched a total of six Canary drones, as they call them. They’re carrying messages to survivors in other parts of the world, though I don’t know what they’re saying. That has been kept a secret, and as such, has become the main topic of gossip here in Camp Nine.
One night, lying in bed, just after we’ve turned out the lights, James says, “I need to tell you something.”
“You’re pregnant.”
I don’t hear a laugh, but I know he’s smiling.
“No. I would never keep a secret like that from you.”
“Touché.”
“Canary,” he whispers.
“What did you find?”
“The good news? Survivors.”
“And the bad?”
“There are fourteen thousand of them. Alive and well. Headed here now. We have thousands more people than we can take on the ships.”
Chapter 53
James
For the sake of convenience, we built Arthur’s launch ring at the impact crater in Camp Nine—close to the 3-D printers. The ring is underground, but we’ve built a launch control station above ground, at the rim of the crater. Next to it, sitting on poles sticking out of the snow, is an unbroken field of solar panels.
As the sun sets, I stand on the station’s loading dock, staring at the solar array, its black panels glittering in the dim sunlight like a pool of oil in the sea of snow-covered ground.
The first capsule to be launched arrived last night, and we’ve spent the day testing it. It reminds me of the drone Arthur built to reach the Citadel. It’s shaped like a beetle, oblong and black, with a folding door on top. Inside the capsule is our first space tug, a small ship that will wait out in space, catching the launched capsules and ferrying them to the carriers.
One of the army guards calls for me, and I walk back inside to join Harry, Fowler, Grigory, and Min in the station’s operations room. Arthur stands at the back of the room, the standard attachment of six guards nearby, guns held at the ready.
On the main screen on the far wall, video from a camera in the launch bay shows our prototype capsule, sitting on a metal floor. With a pop, the floor beneath the capsule drops, lowering the little beetle in the launch tube. I feel a tingle of anticipation as I watch.
Text scrolls on the side of the screen, a series of checks ticking off, each passing until red letters flash in the bottom of the screen:
<< CHECKS COMPLETE >>
<< BEGIN ACCELERATION? >>
Harry swivels in his seat toward me.
“Ready to launch this pinball?”
I let out a laugh. “Sure.”
On the screen, the beetle disappears in a flash. The velocity number in the corners climbs quickly. I expected a slight hum or some sound effect, but it’s utterly quiet.
Harry taps at the keyboard. “We’re at escape velocity. I’m initiating the launch.”
I peer out the window at the tube sticking out of the snow. There’s a sharp sound and a puff of white from the end of the tube, but like a bullet out of a gun, the capsule exits too quickly for me to see.
Soon thereafter, Harry says, “It’s cleared the atmosphere. Switching to external cameras.”
The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen is Allie in the moment after she was born. This might be second. The new International Space Station floats in the center of the screen, the two supercarrier ships docked to it. They’re still there, waiting for us. This might actually work.
“Opening capsule,” Harry says. “The tug is away.”
The video image switches to a view from the tug. Its battery is full and it will use its solar panels to stay that way. It fires its thrusters, flying closer to the ships, zooming around them. From what I can tell, they’re fine.
“I told you,” Arthur says arrogantly.
Harry’s face goes slack. “We’ve got incoming audio!”
“On speaker,” I whisper. I had given up hope...
The astronaut is female, her accent German. “Ground control, this is the ISS, do you read?”
Harry clicks the transmit button and glances back at Fowler, who speaks louder for the microphone.
“We read you, ISS. Hang in there. We’re sending more drones. We’ll include food on the next shipment.”
“Thank you. Thank you very much.”
“We had our doubts about you all making it.”
A pause, then: “It has not been easy.”
Indeed. It hasn’t been easy for any of us. But the ships are still there, and we’re still here. We have a chance.
Chapter 54
Emma
Outside, the snow piles higher. Inside, the questions grow as well. They are like two enemies closing in upon us. James and I and our teams are in the middle, fighting the Long Winter outside and fighting to keep the peace inside.
How would the people around us react if they knew the truth? If they knew that we’re planning to leave Earth—and oh, by the way, we don’t have room for everyone. Would it be panic? Riots? Or acceptance? It’s unknowable, utterly unpredictable. And that’s why we haven’t revealed any details. We have told the roughly nine hundred survivors here in Camp Nine only that we have a plan for humanity’s survival, and that we need everyone to help. So far, they’ve kept their heads down and done their
work. Most of that work is scavenging the ruins for material we can use in the printers.
One person in particular has been poking at the edges of our secret: Richard Chandler. Subtly, he’s been undermining us. Asking questions at the weekly public meetings. Whispering in the ears of the soldiers and adults. I wonder if he even has a goal of his own. Or if he just wants to hurt James.
Like me, Chandler walks with a limp now, his cane clacking on the warehouse floor as he approaches, a warning like a crow’s call. I’ve come to dread that sound.
Thanks to the scavenging crews, there are a dozen mounds of material outside the warehouse—everything from habitat parts to mangled cars, all waiting to be processed and transformed by the 3-D printers. Every day, the printers take another bite from the mounds, and the recovery teams pile more salvage on top.
Troop carriers leave the plant each day, transporting the beetle-like capsules to the launch ring. Time is running out, but we’re making progress.
My greatest worry is closer to home. I haven’t felt a kick yet, but my belly is swelling, showing when I’m not wearing the thick parka. With the limited medical resources we have, any complication could be deadly for the child. And for me.
James and Harry have now launched six Canary drones capable of carrying messages to and from the other survivors. What the drones have found out there is both heartbreaking and joyous. Caspia is gone. The asteroid that hit Caspiagrad completely destroyed the city, the crater even larger than the one at Camp Seven. Because Caspia’s population was concentrated in a single city, there were no other survivors. Grigory’s mother and sister were killed. He hides it well, but I know he’s taking it hard. After losing Lina, I can’t imagine what he’s feeling.
