Stephen Baxter - Last and First Contacts

‘Yes. We can always decide what to do after the summer, if the schools open again.’

Maureen had prepared some sandwiches, and some iced elderflower cordial. They sat in the shade of the house and ate their lunch and looked out over the garden.

Caitlin said, ‘Your lawn’s looking good.’

‘It’s come up quite well. I’m still thinking of relaying that patch over there.’

‘And you put in a lot of vegetables in the end,’ Caitlin said.

‘I thought I should. I’ve planted courgettes and French beans and carrots, and a few outdoor tomatoes. I could do with a greenhouse, but I haven’t really room for one. It seemed a good idea, rather than flowers, this year.’

‘Yes. You can’t rely on the shops.’

Things had kept working, mostly, as people stuck to their jobs. But there were always gaps on the supermarket shelves, as supply chains broke down. There was talk of rationing some essentials, and there were already coupons for petrol.

‘I don’t approve of how tatty the streets are getting in town,’ Maureen said sternly.

Caitlin sighed. ‘I suppose you can’t blame people for packing in a job like street-sweeping. It is a bit tricky getting around town though. We need some work done on the roof, we’re missing a couple of tiles. It’s just as well we won’t have to get through another winter,’ she said, a bit darkly. ‘But you can’t get a builder for love or money.’

‘Well, you never could.’

They both laughed.

Maureen said, ‘I told you people would cope. People do just get on with things.’

‘We haven’t got to the end game yet,’ Caitlin said. ‘I went into London the other day. That isn’t too friendly, Mum. It’s not all like this , you know.’

Maureen’s phone pinged, and she checked the screen. ‘Four or five a day now,’ she said. ‘New contacts, lighting up all over the sky.’

‘But that’s down from the peak, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, we had a dozen a day at one time. But now we’ve lost half the stars, haven’t we?’

‘Well, that’s true, now the Rip has folded down into the Galaxy. I haven’t really been following it, Mum. Nobody’s been able to decode any of the signals, have they?’

‘But some of them aren’t the sort of signal you can decode anyhow. In one case somebody picked up an artificial element in the spectrum of a star. Something that was manufactured, and then just chucked in to burn up, like a flare.’

Caitlin considered. ‘That can’t say anything but “here we are”, I suppose.’

‘Maybe that’s enough.’

‘Yes.’

It had really been Caitlin’s father who had been interested in wild speculations about alien life and so forth. Joining the network of home observers of ET, helping to analyse possible signals from the stars in a network of millions of others, had been Harry’s hobby, not Maureen’s. It was one of Harry’s things she had kept up after he had died, like his weather monitoring and his football pools. It would have felt odd just to have stopped it all.

But she did understand how remarkable it was that the sky had suddenly lit up with messages like a Christmas tree, after more than half a century of dogged, fruitless, frustrating listening. Harry would have loved to see it.

‘Caitlin, I don’t really understand how all these signals can be arriving just now. I mean, it takes years for light to travel between the stars, doesn’t it? We only knew about the phantom energy a few months ago.’

‘But others might have detected it long before, with better technology than we’ve got. That would give you time to send something. Maybe the signals have been timed to get here, just before the end, aimed just at us.’

‘That’s a nice thought.’

‘Some of us hoped that there would be an answer to the dark energy in all those messages.’

‘What answer could there be?’

Caitlin shrugged. ‘If we can’t decode the messages we’ll never know. And I suppose if there was anything to be done, it would have been done by now.’

‘I don’t think the messages need decoding,’ Maureen said.

Caitlin looked at her curiously, but didn’t pursue it. ‘Listen, Mum. Some of us are going to try to do something. You understand that the Rip works down the scales, that larger structures break up first. The Galaxy, then the solar system, then planets like Earth. And then the human body.’

Maureen considered. ‘So people will outlive the Earth.’

‘Well, they could. For maybe about thirty minutes, until atomic structures get pulled apart. There’s talk of establishing a sort of shelter in Oxford that could survive the end of the Earth. Like a submarine, I suppose. And if you wore a pressure suit you might last a bit longer even than that. The design goal is to make it through to the last microsecond. You could gather another thirty minutes of data that way. They’ve asked me to go in there.’

‘Will you?’

‘I haven’t decided. It will depend on how we feel about the kids, and – you know.’

Maureen considered. ‘You must do what makes you happy, I suppose.’

‘Yes. But it’s hard to know what that is, isn’t it?’ Caitlin looked up at the sky. ‘It’s going to be a hot day.’

‘Yes. And a long one. I think I’m glad about that. The night sky looks odd now the Milky Way has gone.’

‘And the stars are flying off one by one,’ Caitlin mused. ‘I suppose the constellations will look funny by the autumn.’

‘Do you want some more sandwiches?’

‘I’ll have a bit more of that cordial. It’s very good, Mum.’

‘It’s elderflower. I collect the blossoms from that bush down the road. I’ll give you the recipe if you like.’

‘Shall we see if your Joe fancies laying a bit of concrete this afternoon? I could do with meeting your new beau.’

‘Oh, shut up,’ Maureen said, and she went inside to make a fresh jug of cordial.

October 14 th

That morning Maureen got up early. She was pleased that it was a bright morning, after the rain of the last few days. A lovely autumn day. She had breakfast listening to the last-ever episode of The Archers , but her radio battery failed before the end.

She went to work in the garden, hoping to get everything done before the light went. There was plenty of work, leaves to rake up, the roses and the clematis to prune. She had decided to plant a row of daffodil bulbs around the base of the new pergola.

She noticed a little band of goldfinches, plundering a clump of Michaelmas daisies for seed. She sat back on her heels to watch. The colourful little birds had always been her favourites.

Then the light went, just like that, darkening as if somebody was throwing a dimmer switch. Maureen looked up. The sun was rushing away, and sucking all the light out of the sky with it. It was a remarkable sight, and she wished she had a camera. As the light turned grey, and then charcoal, and then utterly black, she heard the goldfinches fly off in a clatter, confused. It had only taken a few minutes.

Maureen was prepared. She dug a little torch out of the pocket of her old quilted coat. She had been hoarding the batteries; you hadn’t been able to buy them for weeks. The torch got her as far as the pergola, where she lit some rush torches that she’d fixed to canes.

Then she sat in the pergola, in the dark, with her garden lit up by her rush torches, and waited. She wished she had thought to bring out her book. She didn’t suppose there would be time to finish it now. Anyhow the flickering firelight would be bad for her eyes.

‘Mum?’

The soft voice made her jump. It was Caitlin, threading her way across the garden with a torch of her own.

‘I’m in here, love.’