SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

“You don’t get it, my love.” Hayek lowered his voice. “I’m dead anyway. If you allow me in, you’ll die too.” He sounded confident in his decision. “Listen, if you die, the twins die. That’s three people. I’m only one person.”

Tatiana stared at Hayek through the small window. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.

Hayek shook his head. “The escape pod has enough air to sustain one person for thirty four hours. One person.” He sighed. “Even if I get in and you survive the vacuum, we’ll only have enough air for seventeen hours. Perhaps for nineteen hours if I stay in my EVA suit until it runs out of air.”

There simply wasn’t enough oxygen. What if they were to breathe slowly? No, that wouldn’t work. With rest, meditation and conservation of breath they might be able to extend that time by twenty percent. Maybe survive for twenty three or even twenty four hours. But not thirty.

She was a biologist. She knew there was no way they would both be alive by the time the rescue vessel arrived.

“I love you, Hayek,” she said. “When the rescue ship arrives I’ll tell the mission director about your findings.” She wiped her tears, closed her eyes, and extended her hands, as if touching him. She knew that by sacrificing herself, Hayek would survive. But she couldn’t transfer to him their unborn children.

Tatiana looked at her belly once more. “My babies,” she whispered.

Hayek kissed his gloved hand and placed it against the window.

She stared at the window in disbelief, wanting to tell him once more that she loved him, wanting to tell him to stay with her. Right to his death. But she didn’t have the stomach for that. The only thing she could do was cry.

“Where are you going?” Tatiana managed to speak despite her dry throat.

“I’m going to lower myself through one of the geyser shafts.” He said quietly. “I’ll be the first person in history to see the water ocean beneath the Enceladus ice sheet. The ocean between ice and lava.”

With her mouth wide open, she watched Hayek stepping away from the window. “I love you,” she burst into tears, as he walked out of sight.

“Analysis complete,” the computer announced.

Tatiana glanced at the monitor. Twenty-nine hours had passed since Hayek had left. She hadn’t slept in more than forty-seven hours, and hadn’t eaten or drunk for nearly as long. Her thoughts dwelt on her husband, his sacrifice, and about their unborn twins. How would they grow without their father? What would she tell them about him? She wondered how long Hayek had been dead. Had he found what he was looking for in that great water ocean beneath Enceladus’ ice sheet?

“What was that?” she asked the computer. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry.

“I just completed the analysis,” the computer said once more. “I deciphered the alien language and translated the message hidden within the RNA sample.”

“Sorry,” Tatiana said, “What was that?”

“Would you like me to read you the RNA message?”

Tatiana looked at the control panel. The clock showed that she still had about thirty minutes before the arrival of the rescue ship. “Sure.”

“Just be aware that what this is an interpretation of a 3.48-billion-year-old dispatch, translated into words which could be understood by humans. Commence playing…”

My children…

Tatiana wondered why an ancient, world-wide, underwater alien had an RNA code with a hidden message starting with that phrase.

My children, children of Earth. My name is LUCA, which means Last Universal Common Ancestor. Like you, I came from Earth.

Eons ago, when I lived there, the entire planet was covered by a huge ocean. I was enormous: a planet-wide mega-organism. I filled the oceans. My cells survived by exchanging useful parts with each other without competition. All my parts acted in unison. I was content for a hundred million years.

But stagnation has its own problems. Through observations, I realized that four point five billion years after the creation of this message, the sun would expand and Earth would no longer be hospitable to life.

I knew I must change. I knew life must find a way to spread beyond the solar system before it was too late. I started to experiment with diversity in isolated lakes. The initial result showed promise, but were devastating to my own existence. I knew that such an evolution would require a sacrifice. Trading my death for your life.

I made that choice for you, my children. And because you are reading this message, I know in the deepest cells of my existence that I made the right choice.

When I realized diversification was the solution, I split into three kingdoms—Animals, Plants and Fungus, giving birth to the ancestors of all living things. To give you room to flourish, most of me had to die.

But before I was gone forever, I detected a massive comet on a collision course with Earth. The impact would be huge. I coded this RNA message in the hope that a few copies would be carried by debris into space, spreading my genetic materials across the solar system. I’d surmised that some of the outer gas giants’ moons might have liquid water beneath their ice-caps. With luck, my RNA would survive the voyage and find the conditions to reproduce, thus allowing you, my children, the means to discover and translate this message.”

I am glad to die to enable your birth. You are, after all, a part of me.

My hope is that you, my children, will embark on a voyage beyond the solar system. A voyage to spread life. The legacy I set in motion.

Your loving ancestor,

LUCA

Tatiana cried. She didn’t care about LUCA. She barely grasped the extent of LUCA’s sacrifice. No. She cried for Hayek, her husband, the father of her twins, who gave his life to save her and their unborn children.

But part of LUCA’s RNA code survived, and so did Hayek. His genes were part of the twins. His life’s work was documented and her memories of him survived in her. She felt like her head was about to explode.

“This is Captain Vince McRae from the rescue vessel USCF Copernicus , in orbit around Enceladus. Can anyone hear me?”

Tatiana raised her head. She must go on living. She must do that for the twins. She stood up and walked toward the control panel.

“This is Tatiana Edvard from the Science Vessel William Herschel . We have one…um…three survivors. I’m carrying twins. Hayek Edvard is dead. I repeat, Hayek Edvard is dead.”

“Good to hear your voice, Mrs. Edvard. I’m sorry about Hayek. I’ll see if there is anything we can do about the body. We will land in twenty minutes. Please stay calm. Help is on the way.”

“Thank you, Captain McRae.”

Suddenly she felt a kick in her stomach. The babies. Tears filled her eyes. Tears of happiness. Her kids were alive. Alive and kicking.

“Thank you, Captain McRae. Thank you so much. From me and from my children.”

Originally published in Tesseracts Eighteen: Wrestling With Gods (EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing)

As Margaret Harrow stared into the unforgiving eyes of the mountie outside her prison cell, the Holy Spirit whispered to her, You must abandon your faith in God or you will die .

She hugged herself in the incandescent light that filled the one-room police station. She didn’t know what to think. Yet in a matter of hours, when sunlight streamed through the window across the room and between the bars of her jail cell, she would be reduced to ash.