Elizabeth Bear - Scardown

“The prime minister has people looking for you. Don't you check your messages?” He didn't hold a hand out, and she didn't offer hers.

“I haven't exactly had time. What do you want?”

He blinked, voice grinding as if the words were buried somewhere very deep, and he had to go after them. “She wants you at the provisional capital in Vancouver. And from there, the Montreal .”

“What good am I there?”

He snorted. “Congratulations, Elspeth. You, Charlie Forster, Paul Perry, and Gabe Castaign are suddenly the world's foremost practical experts in communicating with nonhuman intelligences. The United Nations has demanded Canada assign you to their contact team.”

The floor really was a shoddy piece of construction. She caught the toe of her shoe on a ripple in the concrete and would have gone down on a knee if Valens hadn't caught her elbow. “I'm needed here.”

“Ellie.”

Huh. She looked him in the eye. She could swear he'd been crying. But everybody she saw lately looked like that. “What?”

“You're needed there. This is a big push. First contact—”

She gestured around the room. “What about these people?”

“The whole world's sending doctors. They're trickling in, but the trickle's becoming a flood. We're going to start shipping casualties to hospitals in the U.S., Mexico, Iceland. Over the pole to the Scandinavians. International cooperation,” he said through his mask, cheeks bulging under his eyes in what might have been a heartsick smile.

“It won't last.” She closed her eyes and leaned into the strength of his hand on her arm. World cooperation? It'll take more than this . “What about the war?”

“War?”

“China. Russia. That.”

“China claimed a few hundred miles of cold flat country. It's died down to sniping. Russia will take it back in fifty or a hundred years if the fighting doesn't kick up again. Everybody's looking upward now; you'd be amazed how effective it is at keeping them from shooting each other. Why do you care?”

Because I care. It wasn't worth saying. She pulled away from his touch. “Who'd you lose, Fred?”

A long pause. He cleared his throat. “My husband. A son. Couple of”—pause and breathe—“pets.”

“I didn't know you were married.” Pets. Goddamn it, Gabriel. I miss you . “It won't last,” she repeated. “The peace. It always comes down to us and them in the end.”

“It does.” He pointed with two fingers, sweeping gesture that took in the triage shed and the camp and the world beyond. “Us.” And the same two fingers, thumb folded tight against the ball of his hand. A short, sharp gesture, straight up at the sky. “Them.”

Elspeth coughed into her hand, brushing a puff of dust from her mask. “It won't be enough.”

He shrugged. “I have wounded, Elspeth.”

“Yeah,” she answered. “I'll go. But Genie comes with me.”

“Don't tell me,” he said. “Call Riel.”

1315 Hours

Tuesday 2 January, 2063

HMCSS Montreal

I wait at the airlock, Gabe on my left side, Patty on my right. Captain Wainwright is three steps in front of us, Richard hovering like an anxious blind date in the back of my head. Some of his attention, anyway; the rest is occupied with increasingly complex combinations of dit, dit, dah. From two directions now.

Elspeth's gotten so thin. She opens the hatchway hesitantly, peering around the corner, flinching back as Wainwright clicks her heels. “Dr. Dunsany.”

And then she pushes the hatch wide and steps through. “Oh. Captain Wainwright, I presume? Gabe. Patty. Jenny.” Our eyes meet, and she steps first toward Gabe but then reverses direction and comes to me.

And behind her, a weary, addled-looking Charlie Forster. And behind him — Genie.

Genie, lugging a plastic animal carrier in both arms, who squeals and puts it down just this side of the hatch and then runs to Gabe and throws herself into his arms, and Genie looks pink-cheeked and healthier than I've ever seen her, hair shining the way Leah's used to, and as her daddy scoops her up that hair spins every which way. He buries his face against her neck, deep breaths swelling his chest, and I can see the little pale square of her controller chip outlined through her skin.

And Ellie walks up to me, and hands me the carrier, and I hear a plaintive mew from inside, and she keeps walking until I put my steel arm around her and pull her close.

She looks awful.

She looks old.

I don't know which one of us is crying harder, and before too long Gabe and Genie are hugging us, too, and it all dissolves into a soggy pileup with Wainwright dogging the hatch carefully and then she and Charlie and Patty spending five or ten minutes studying the gray paint on the wall, trading sidelong glances.

The captain clears her throat, eventually, and I peel myself away from my family and lug the carrier over. “Captain Wainwright.” Sniffle. Merci à Dieu, I'm turning into a crybaby. “May I request your permission to bring this animal aboard?” I hold the carrier up so she and Boris can see eye to eye, and he does me proud by squinching golden eyes at her and emitting a rumbling purr like a steam boiler.

She studies him for a moment, and sighs. “Housebroken?”

“More or less.”

She chuckles. “Long tradition of ship's cats in the navy.”

“This is the air force, Captain.”

“I won't tell him if you don't.” And she smiles at me like she means it and jerks her head at Elspeth and Genie. “See our honored guests fed, would you, Master Warrant?”

“Yes. Ma'am.”

It's still tofu and noodles, and Genie makes faces until Gabe messes her hair up and glowers — and then she curls into the crook of his arm and won't let go. Boris scratches at the grate of his carrier until I pull him out and hold him in my lap. He quiets when I scratch behind his ears and talk to him in low tones. “Boris, baby. How many lives are you on now?” He rumbles back and settles in with a rattle, even the prick of his claws in my thigh driving my blood pressure down.

Elspeth doesn't seem hungry, so I chivvy her to eat until she at least picks up her bowl and slurps the broth. “Ew,” she says. “Miso.”

“Get used to it, Doc. Happy New Year, by the way.”

“Happy New Year. So what have you and Gabe and Richard figured out about our aliens so far?”

The soup is too salty. At least the cook is starting to figure out how much sugar to put in the reconstituted lemonade. Patty watches silently, pale eyes alert as they shift from Elspeth's face to mine and back again. “They know how to add. Richard's still working on it. But they seem friendly enough.”

“If they're so damned friendly, why the hell did they send two sets of half a dozen ships each?”

“In case we needed an emergency evacuation? I wonder how many species break their planets getting off them.”

“If they're anything like us, a hell of a lot.” Elspeth twists noodles around her fork and then unwinds them again, toying rather than eating.

Gabe clears his throat and looks over at us. “I don't know how you want to start, Ellie.” His eyes meet hers, and she gives him a sad little smile, half a curve of the lips that falls away softly. For Christ's sake, Gabe. Kiss her .

As if he could hear me, he reaches over the narrow table and does. Genie giggles, and Patty and I address ourselves to the salad. “That'll do,” she answers when he leans back. I cough into my hand, and she blushes darker, her lovely bronze complexion yellowed with stress and fatigue. “Captain Wainwright.”

“Doctor.”