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

"Oh," Meg said, a little weakly, trying to imagine what it had been like for the passengers waiting hours in the pitch rural blackness, while distant lights flickered across the landscape and emergency response vehicles fought through the snow and mud. Down on the railway line, a group of emergency workers were using a cutting torch on a train carriage as though it were a tin-opener. The noise stopped, a paramedic in green and high-visibility yellow shouted into the crack, "You’re all right, you’re going to be all right!" and then cutting began again.

"You’re here from the ship and all," Throckley said, in wonderment, and Meg turned to him sharply.

"From London, actually," she said, anxious to correct his misconception. "I’m just a civil servant, I’m here to report back to my department. I’m not that exciting, really."

"No, it’s grand," Throckley said, gesturing upwards, "it’s exciting all right"—and then with a welcome, harsh sound, the torch cut through the metal. Throckley started forwards and Meg scrambled to her feet to follow him, slipping and sliding on the mud on the way downhill, and as they reached the flat ground, one of the rescue workers reached inside the hole and yelled:

"Five to come out!"

It took a few more minutes, but the hole was enlarged, paramedics rushed down to the site and started unfolding stretchers, and a first passenger—ambulatory, Meg noted with some relief—was helped out. The second one had to be carried, and on his way down a paramedic skidded in the mud and Meg instinctively reached out to steady him, and then equally instinctively, helped carry the stretcher he unfolded, grateful for her snow boots. Up the hill there were vehicles disgorging more people, and for the first time, Meg realised that some of the workers were wearing dressing-gowns under the high-vis. "Leave the inside to the professionals, miss," Throckley said to her, but when the remaining passengers were brought out from that jagged-edged hole in the railways carriage, Meg got a whiff of musty air and darkly organic smells, dissipating fast in the metallic tang of snow. The last passenger to be brought out was a curly-headed young man, curled on his side on the stretcher, and Meg watched as a rescue worker squeezed his hand on the journey up to the waiting ambulances.

"All right," she said, turning to Throckley. "Constable, if that’s everyone, and there were"—doubt in her voice, and hope, and trepidation—"no fatalities?"

"No. At least"—there was an echo of that hopefulness in Throckley’s voice—"not yet."

Meg nodded. "I’d be grateful if you’d give me a lift to Alnwick or wherever the injured have been taken."

"So you’re here to make sure they still go up into space?" Throckley said, still rather hopefully, as the wheels bounced beneath them in the rutted ground. " Will they still go, after this?"

"Perhaps," Meg said, remembering suddenly why she’d come in the first place, and the coroner in Alnwick. It seemed a petty concern out here in the snow. "What is that?"

Her attention had been caught by a point in the sky above the supply pod wreckage, keeping pace with them like a star but bright and visible even through the morning light. Throckley chuckled. "That’s your ship, miss," he said, taking a hand off the steering wheel to wave at it, and Meg remembered his earlier gesture upwards. "You’ve never seen it?"

"Yes," Meg said, discomfited, "but I’d forgotten"—and cut herself off by yawning hugely. She meant to keep her eye on the bright star all the long drive down to the town, and would have done, if she hadn’t fallen asleep embarrassingly against the window, her lips leaving condensation kisses on the glass.

"Excuse me, may I come in?"

The figure in the bed turned over, and Meg had his file to hand, knew every recorded biographical detail about him including his date of birth, but was still surprised at the degree of youth in his face. "Oh, hello," he said, with mild surprise. "Who are you?"

"I’ve come from London," Meg said, suddenly awkward, "from Whitehall, you know"—and in lieu of any better way to express it, touched the Halley crystal at her collarbones.

"Oh," he said, “I’d hoped to meet my first representative of the department while wearing trousers”—and Meg laughed, grateful for the release in tension, and sat down in the chair next to the bed.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr Ansari-Campbell,” she said, reaching out a hand and then thinking better of it. There was a drip running into his arm and a suggestion that his skin was not usually so washed out and distant from brown, but nothing glazed about his expression.

“Firstly,” he said, “I don’t actually have my doctorate yet. Secondly”—this with a weary resignation—“call me Leonard, I meant it about the trousers.”

“Meghna Tripathi,” she said. “I’m one of the civil servants from Interstellar Exploration. How are you, Leonard?”

"I’ve been better." He rolled over again, and then something seemed to occur to him; Meg watched the look of dread appear from nowhere on his face. "You’re not here to tell me I’m being replaced?"

Meg shifted in the chair. "I’d rather not have to do that." She hesitated, then asked, "Can you tell me how you are? I mean, really."

"Apparently," Leonard said, "I was in that train carriage for eight hours before they got me out of there. I don’t remember it. They tell me I hit my head and had a seizure of some sort."

"Oh, my goodness." Meg leaned back in her chair, and wondered if he had been the passenger she had seen rescued from the last carriage. "I’m so sorry."

He looked at her levelly. "Well?"

Meg let out a breath. "We don’t want to replace you," she said. "It will be easier to delay the launch than replace you."

"You’d do that for me?" He looked hopeful, Meg realised suddenly; he tried to sit up for a minute, then thought better of it. "I mean—I’m not dead. I can be treated. I can get over this. I will get over this. Can I still…"

He trailed off, his hair falling into his eyes, and Meg pushed away the urge to reach out and take his hand again, this time out of compassion, rather than formality. "Perhaps," she said, very gently. "I don’t want to say for certain that you will go to the ball, you understand? But I’ve had a note from my team in London, and they say it will take so long to train another light-field engineer, and the circuitry in the ship is designed with your particular neurology in mind, and—well." She paused. "I don’t pretend to understand the technical detail. But yes. It might be easier to delay."

"Thank you," he said, fervent and with eyes shining, "thank you, Ms Tripathi, you won’t regret this."

She shook her head, not knowing how to respond. "Is there anything else you need?" she asked after a moment, awkward. "Anything I can do for you?”

“Actually, there is.” He looked up at her, frowning. “My parents are my next of kin—they’re coming down soon. But there’s a couple of people—I don’t want them to hear from the news outlets, they’ll think the worst, you know?” He made a confused gesture. “You know what I mean.”

“Of course,” Meg said. “Let me have their names, my department will take care of it.”

“Thanks,” he said, scribbling on the tablet she offered from her bag. “There’s Pen—she’s my roommate, she’d worry. And my, er, partner up in Leith.”

“Your, er, partner?” Meg said, with a slightly unprofessional flash of humour.

“Three weeks of furlough.” Leonard gestured. “But after that he and I have—a termination agreement. Faster-than-light communication not being, ah, at its technological zenith.” He grinned. “I’m allowed to say that, I’m gonna be the one actually pushing the boat. Ah, inshallah.”