He wanted a thousand things, and he wanted them with me.
And gradually, by the third or fourth night, it hit me that he intended to keep on living. It occurred to me that I wasn’t sure what I wanted yet, except to be with him. So I supposed I would keep on living, too. Maybe one day, I’d find dreams of my own again.
The thought wasn’t so bad.
Twenty-five
One year later
I stood to face my family. They filed in quickly, wrapping me in embrace after embrace, with Ce-ya taking more than her fair share, making my heart beat all the way up into my throat. Long gone were the baby rolls and gummy grin. In their place stood a confident girl who loved to laugh and play tricks on her unsuspecting aunt. Who loved her family with every atom of her fierce, tiny being, including me.
Especially me. I stared a moment longer, thinking of the woman she would become. At this rate, and knowing her parents, she’d be a force to reckon with by the time she hit sixteen. Watching her grow over the past year had been among the deepest joys of my life. The thought made me smile in spite of the wrenching pressure around my heart.
Maxx, too, gave me an unending series of hugs, and I soaked them in. He was tall—as tall as his father—and I smiled as I tilted my face to his. I hadn’t known it was possible to love anyone as much as I loved West, but these two proved me wrong a hundred times a day.
My family was leaving me.
The High Council of the EuroArk could not resist the pull of Earth. Ark Five had long since returned to the destroyed planet, mining what was left of its resources and colonizing its airspace, one bright new ship after another. In time, they would terraform the surface.
Our race was going home. Part of it, anyway. Anyone who wished would receive citizenship and safe passage aboard one of the two Arks leaving Eirenea. The current generation would die in space, warm in their beds, at the end of long lives. But their children might walk among the trees again. A final glance at Maxx took my breath away. He and West farmed the reconstructed biosphere together. One day he might farm the Earth beside his own sons and daughters.
Of course West had chosen to remain with the biosphere. It had been his life’s dream, and now, it was his life’s work to rebuild it. I understood.
In the end, my father had chosen my brother and the promise of the old world. I did not blame him. The EuroArk’s vision was bright, alluring. As a species, we would colonize our first home, rebuilding its poles and replanting its trees, and who knew where we’d go from there? Our race was spreading out over the solar system. We would not be defeated by a meteor—or a madman—ever again.
So the biosphere went with the EuroArk, now that its seeds were planted on Eirenea as well. West and his family went with the biosphere, and that was that. The constant anger I’d lived with since childhood had drained from my heart long ago, and in its place, I felt only love. Love for Mars, with whom I’d buried a portion of my very soul. Love for my niece and my nephew. Love for West and my father, the only people alive who remembered my mother’s smile.
Love hurt.
Eren stood behind me, and I was happy, if not blissful. Happy, I thought. That was the right word. His place was with me, and mine with him. We had a lifetime to figure out the rest. He’d been right, years ago, when he’d placed his mother’s ring on my hand for the second and final time: We made each other strong. The thought would surely be enough to bolster me through the coming days, if only barely.
“You look good, Charlotte.” My father hugged me again, and this time, I let myself relax, feeling his arms around me for the last time. He squeezed a little harder than before, and lingered longer than even Ce-ya.
“You too, Dad.” I drew a breath in sharply, then bit my lip as hard as I could. I did not want to cry. Since this was the last time they’d ever see me, I didn’t want to be remembered like some kind of mess. In spite of everything, I wanted so badly to be strong for them. To be someone they could respect.
Most of all, when they told stories of me over dinner, laughing and acting out the best parts together, I wanted them to be happy, too.
“Charlotte, we’re—” he began, then broke off. “I just wanted—we wanted—to let you know that—”
His eyes and nose were raw, and it hit me that he had cried for me. We met each other’s eyes, and I knew that he’d miss me as much as I him. “You don’t have to go, Dad. It’s not too late.”
“It’s not too late for you, either. You can still join us.”
I wanted to laugh, but it wasn’t funny. We really were so stubborn, the two of us.
I shook my head. “My life is here. There’s still so much to do. The last draft of the Treaty is slated for next week, and that’s just the beginning. I’m really—I’m making a difference, Dad. Isaiah wants me making planetfall tonight, just to make sure everything’s ready.” To be needed. To be necessary, even for a moment. It was more than I’d hoped for.
“He has so much support, he’ll be president forever,” said my dad.
“Ten years, and he’s out. There’s gonna be a whole thing in the new constitution about it, or he won’t sign it. But there’s plenty of work to go around till then. He’s building something great, Dad. We all are.”
All at once, my father stood up straight before me. He placed his hands on my shoulders. “Charlotte. Promise me that you will never forget that your father loves you. That I am proud of you. I’m so—” He broke off again, but West stepped forward to stand beside him, and he became strong again. “I’m so proud that you are my daughter.”
Eren was next to me, his arm around my waist, and my courage did not fail. “I promise, Dad,” I said.
There was a knock at the door, and my chief of staff poked his head in. “Excuse me, Senator,” he said. “The hopper’s ready when you are.”
“Thanks, Kellan.” It was too late to hide my face, so I gave him a weak smile. He had his mother’s eyes.
My dad turned to leave, stopping only to shake Eren’s hand, then pulled him into an embrace. They spoke into each other’s ears, and then my family was gone.
All except West.
“Char,” he said.
I made a sound like a laugh and a heavy sniff, and felt my tears hit my collarbone. “West. I love you. You know that.”
His face was red. I could barely see the child he’d been in the set of his brow, his jaw. He seemed to me a stronger man than I’d yet realized. “Always. You know I love you too, sis.”
I took a breath. “I hope you make it all the way back. I hope that your children see ten thousand sunsets, and that they will stand on the Earth and know that it is their home. And that it is precious, no matter where else we go.” I was crying now. There was no stopping it. “I—I want all the best things in the world for them. For you.”
He laughed, and I saw that he was weeping. My strength faltered at last, so he held my arms, keeping me upright. “Most of all,” I said finally, “I hope you will remember me. The good things.”
He hugged me—my last embrace with my West—and kissed me on the cheek. “They were all good things, Tarry.”
And then he was gone.
Twenty-six
At the hour of the launch, I fastened the straps of the hopper’s jump seat myself. My luggage and my team rode aboard the last OPT—On-Planet Transport—to leave the Ark, but Isaiah and I had some final plots and plans to hammer out regarding the transition, so I was going with him on a hopper.
We were so close to walking on Eirenea that I could taste it. An hour from now, we’d land in the Asian Sea, which An had poured out onto the surface of the planet half a year ago. It was smaller than it had seemed on board her Ark, but the salt and water synths were steadily pumping, fed by the mining operations we’d begun six months earlier. The sea grew bigger by the day.
Like, fractionally bigger, but still.
I couldn’t suppress the excitement that bubbled up inside me. I’d seen delicate rows of crops peeking through the clouds as
we sailed overhead in orbit just last week.
Eirenea was colonized. All that remained were the pilgrims.
“Ark Two to Everest. Come in, Char.”
I flicked the comm switch and smiled. “Well, hello there. I thought you were in meetings all afternoon.”
Eren’s voice filled the tiny cabin. “They can wait. No one expects me to focus while my wife’s making planetfall.”
I fiddled with the ring on my good hand and aimed a twisted smile at the speaker. “We said goodbye ten minutes ago. I don’t even miss you yet!”
“You do. And you will.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. Any word from my family?” I immediately regretted asking. Now Eren would worry about me. Of course they hadn’t sent a transmission yet. We’d only said goodbye an hour ago. Those would come soon enough, and often.
There was a pause, and Eren cleared his throat. “Oh, only about four megs,” he joked. “At least three of that is from Ce-ya. Should hit your screen when you’re in range of the city.”
“I’ll be fine, Eren,” I said, responding to the note of concern in his voice that had nothing to do with the Treaty of Eirenea. “My family is happy. I am happy.”
There was a pause, and I heard his smile through the speaker. “Copy that. Everest out.”
“Everest out.” I leaned back, waiting for Isaiah. He kept a busy schedule, and I didn’t mind the time. I wanted to think. I turned my attention to the panel and let out a breath, piece by piece, until I was empty.
The North American settlement was over a thousand miles from the Asian one, but transports ran between the two daily. They were massive and growing every day.
As Trade Commissioner, Eren ran a small team tasked with coordinating and protecting the ongoing negotiations between them. Like the other task forces formed after the second Treaty was signed, this one was composed mostly of former soldiers and relied heavily on military-grade equipment that had been repurposed. He was happy, too. He’d spent decades preparing for war and devastation. Now, he prepared for a lifetime of peace and plenty. It suited him.
My role as Senator was less straightforward, and I found that it suited me as well. I had never been able to see the world as Eren did, all bright and clear and full of straight edges, though I loved him for it. I’d made my home in the gray for far too long, and it was here that I worked toward the splendid future Eren saw around every corner.
The hopper jostled as Isaiah slid through the hatch. He landed in his seat in a single fluid motion, like a cat. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
“You ready?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I nodded, and his eyes searched mine, unsatisfied.
“No screaming,” he said solemnly.
I laughed, recalling our first trip in a hopper together. “No screaming.”
He locked the hatch, saving the head restraints for last, then gave my bad arm a squeeze. I tried to return the squeeze out of instinct, but of course I had no hand on that arm, and I couldn’t. I wondered if I’d ever get used to missing a part of myself.
Somehow, I doubted it.
“Did you know that Bunyan wrote a sequel?” he said suddenly.
I took a second, waiting for the words to register. They didn’t. “Who?”
“The Pilgrim’s Progress. There’s a sequel.”
I shook my head, utterly confused, and loosened the restraint again. I couldn’t get comfortable. “If you had any idea how long it took me to get through the first one,” I muttered, “you wouldn’t be telling me this. Unless you’re planning to lock me in a cell with nothing else to read, like last time.”
“I like to think we’re past that,” he said. The humor played out under the deepest tones of his voice.
I rolled my eyes and gave a half-snort. “Okay, fine, Mr. President. What happens in the sequel? The pilgrim’s story pretty much ends in the first one.”
“It does.” He gave a satisfied glance at the dash. “Part two is about his family.”
I wrenched the restraint off my head. I hated that thing. Nothing fit. “His family.”
“They have to make a journey, too.”
I had nothing to say to that, so he popped a switch on the dash, and the hangar was filled with the light hum of the engine. “Well,” he said, his voice supremely mellow, in contrast to the sharpness in mine. “Time to go.”
Isaiah took us out into the stars with impressive efficiency. I couldn’t grip his hand, obviously, but he didn’t take his off my arm. I’d resigned myself to being a nervous flyer a long time ago. We were just about to begin the fall when Isaiah turned to me with a devilish look in his eye. “Are you ready for the meteors?” he said.
What was left of my nerve seemed to flitter off into space. “Meteors? Plural?”
He smiled, as though we were sharing a joke. “A shower, in fact. The space debris trailing Ark Three is scheduled to make planetfall about the same time that we do.”
Ark Three had reached Eirenea’s airspace a few days earlier. It was a personnel drop for anyone who wanted to remain on Eirenea before they returned to Earth forever. Our hopper swung around, bringing Eirenea into view.
“Meteors,” I said. “Who’d have thought. Life is strange.”
“It is,” he agreed solemnly. “And that’s not the strangest part. They’re sending out signals.”
“The meteors? What kind of signals?”
He shrugged. “No elevated radioactivity. Even if it’s weapons, it won’t survive the atmosphere. It’s something from Earth, but whatever it is, it’ll be destroyed by the time we get out of the water.”
I squinted out the window, reminding myself to stay calm. Trying not to think of how small the hopper was, how thin its shields. Slender ribbons of red and orange lit Eirenea’s delicate atmosphere. There had to be a hundred at least, and the meteor shower was just getting started.
When we were moments from the atmosphere, about to become a meteor ourselves, the comm crackled to life. “Planetfall in five, Mr. President.”
“Copy that, Chiro. I’m all set. Any read on that signal?”
“Yes, sir,” came the reply. “It’s an auto-transmission of some sort. Intentional. It’s… it’s a list, Mr. President. We haven’t worked through the meaning yet.”
“A list,” Isaiah said, his expression darkening. “Read it to me.”
“Yes, sir. Every signal is different, but they’re all lists. They repeat on a loop. Starting with the first signal we caught: scream, persistence, Guernica—”
Isaiah frowned. “This is concerning, Major. Do we have another?”
“Yes, sir. Starting the second signal we found: Odalisque, Napoleon, Venus, gothic, Olympia—”
“How long are these lists?” Isaiah asked.
“Long, sir. Maybe a hundred in a set. Sir, planetfall is imminent.”
I shut my eyes against the ominous streaks of fire and braced myself for the fall. My grip on the armrest became shaky, but something tingled in the back of my mind, bringing with it a conversation I’d had years ago. I knew once gravity caught us, the shell of the hopper would burn, and after that, we’d be in freefall until the chute deployed. My near-terror clouded out the memory I sought to retrieve.
Isaiah continued as though we weren’t about to fling ourselves into a body of water several miles below. “I’m concerned it could be some kind of biological weapon. Some strains we haven’t heard of, that we couldn’t test for.”
The shields around the hopper began to glow. We were entering the atmosphere. “Ark Three denies knowledge, sir.”
“Is that right?” Isaiah said skeptically. The glow grew to flames. My pulse pounded through my arms and legs, turning them to jelly.
“Sir, your chute will deploy in three, two, one.”
The hopper slammed forward, and my head caught against the strap.
“Prepare for impact in thirty seconds, Mr. President.”
“Copy that, Chiro. Does the team have any—quiet, Char, ca
lm down. Does the team have—excuse me,” he said, shouting now. “Char. Please.”
I stopped screaming long enough to take a breath. The ocean spread before me, and even with the drag of the landing chute, it was coming in fast. My mind cleared only long enough for me to convey a single thought. “ART!” I said, still screaming.
“Senator?” came the voice. “Impact in five—”
“I AM NEVER FLYING AGAIN. IT’S ART. IT’S ART,” I screeched, then took one last breath before we hit and continued to scream for all I was worth. “IT’S ART OH NO OH-AAAHHH.”
Isaiah let out a great whoop, and his face was full of joy. “Here… we… GO!”
The hopper struck the sea, jolting me hard enough to cause a momentary break in my screams, and we spun out across the surface of the water before crashing beneath the waves.
The water hissed as it struck the burning capsule and sucked closed over our heads, and the hopper transitioned perfectly into phib mode. Isaiah gave me a look of mock-reproval and began making preparations for the surface. I took a minute to gather what remained of my senses and recalled, too late, my promise not to scream.
“Sorry,” I said meekly.
But he just shook his head, laughing. We were home.
Epilogue
I am standing on the shore of a new life. Eirenea stretches out before me. The sea beats against my legs, faster than the oceans of Earth. Isaiah surfaces behind me, his silver eyes full of wonder. For the moment, we do not speak.
This planet is warm, like a greenhouse. Too warm for sleeves. I shuck my jacket and dip down into the water once again. I can’t float. It’s probably because of my shoes. When I emerge, Isaiah has made it to the edge of the shore. The waters lick at his boots.
Overhead, the pink-orange sky begins to burn with delicate streaks of red and white-yellow. As promised, the meteors do not survive the enhanced atmo shields. We are awash in the light of their fire.
“So. Art,” he says. He does not look back to me.
“Pods and pods of art. Thousands of works. Charles chose them, designed the pods. He thought they’d stay near Earth, maybe be discovered one day. It’s everything he wanted to save before he built the nursery instead.”
The Fall Page 20
