Paul Hardy - The Last Man on Earth Club

“You didn’t get to see this when you came down. What do you think?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Very nice.”

“Ever seen it from this kind of height?”

“Oh, yes. It’s not my first time in space.”

“Really?” A chime went off in my ear. “Excuse me,” I said. “I have to take a call.”

I left him at the balustrade, still somehow uninterested in a view most species never see before they go extinct. I found a seat away from all the others who had the decency to gawp, fished a pad out of my bag, and answered the call.

It was Liss, sitting in her room, presumably with her own pad on her lap. “Hello, Liss. What’s up?”

“Sorry! Are you in space already?” I held the pad out and showed her the view from the window. “Oh, yeah. That’s space,” she said.

“You don’t sound very impressed.” I turned the pad back round to see her; she was frowning.

“Yeah, well, bad things have happened to me in space…”

“I remember. How can I help?”

“Um. I was wondering, uh, if I could talk to someone from Quillia?”

“We could probably arrange that. There’s a few people in the Refugee Service who come from there.”

“I mean with someone official.”

“Oh. Well. That’s a bit more difficult—”

“They’ve got an embassy, right? And consuls and cultural attachés and all that kind of stuff?”

“Yes, they do. Are you sure you want to make official contact this soon? I thought you were investigating what happened?”

“Uh, well, I was, but, um…” She struggled with her point for a few seconds.

“Yes?”

“You know I was fostered?”

“Yes. I remember.”

“Well now I guess I know why. I mean, all that shit about mad child psychologists experimenting on me… they weren’t mad, they were aliens. It was probably normal for them.”

“It’s possible.”

“And why was I there? What were they doing — going on safari and bringing the kid along?”

“I can’t tell you, Liss.”

“Yeah, well… this is it, this is what I want to find out.”

“You want to find out what they were up to?”

“I want to find them . My parents.”

“Oh.”

“It’s like… they’re my family. I don’t even know if they made it out of Calafaria, I mean millions of people died there… I just want to know.” She paused, trying to avoid tears. “They’re the only family I’ve got. And, I don’t know, maybe they’ll help.”

“Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll have a word with the embassy—”

“Oh! Um. There’s one thing…”

“Yes?”

“You know how we’re supposed to have anonymity and all that?”

“We’ll do our best to preserve it. Unless you prefer otherwise.”

“Uh, no. I don’t, I mean yes, I want to keep the anonymity thing. Just in case it doesn’t work out.”

“That’s fine. I think we can work something out with the Diplomatic Service. There’s a few people on board here. I’ll have a chat to them and get back to you. Okay?”

“Okay. Thanks!”

I went back to Iokan. He was where I’d left him, still staring out the window, though we were higher now and the gentle curve of the Earth was turning into a more pronounced arc. I was surprised when he spoke.

“You know, this isn’t the first space elevator I’ve seen.”

“Really?”

“Yes. The Antecessors used to have one, before the cataclysm. They buried it under the Pacific, in a sea mount.”

“They buried it?”

“They didn’t leave it connected all the time. It could retract back under the sea.”

“That’s quite a piece of engineering.”

“The idea was that one strand would come down from orbit, and another would go up from the sea, and they’d connect. When we found it, we set it off by accident, but there wasn’t anything in orbit for it to go to. It jumped up, went into the sky, hung there for a while and fell back down. Started a tsunami. Not one of our best days.”

He fell silent again with an apologetic smile.

“Iokan… listen. I know you think this is going to end with you going off and being one of them, but… I think you should be a little more cautious. It’s not just going to be you and them at the meeting. There’s a lot of Exploration and Diplomatic people with us, and the ICT as well. If we see the Antecessors giving us any trouble, we’re going to come back here straight away. And we’re not going to leave you behind.”

He smiled at my lack of faith, then looked out at the black sky above the blue Earth. “Don’t worry, Asha. It’s going to be fine. You’ll see.” I left him to it and went to speak to the Diplomatic Service about Liss’s request.

Half a day later, the Earth was a black disc rimmed by blue, and the lights of Hub Metro and a few scattered settlements were the only things visible on the night-time surface. We were called to our cabins to strap in for deceleration as we approached the counterweight station, where we took a shuttle to join our ship, the Exploration Service Vessel Geology , a journey of three more days. She was waiting out beyond the moon at the L2 point, where the gravity of Earth and Moon cancels out. The L1 point was nearer, lying between Earth and Moon, but that was occupied by Grainger Station and the main transit points to and from other universes. The Exploration Service preferred to use L2. It was less convenient but allowed them to emerge into a new universe hidden behind the moon, and was easier to defend should something follow them back. A number of vessels were stationed there permanently with as much weaponry as the IU could muster, which isn’t much and hardly what you would need to defend against a serious invasion; but since the Exploration Service is tasked with finding either empty worlds or planets of scientific interest, it’s rarely much of an issue.

Today, it was an issue.

We’d learned from Department Zero records that an EM cage together with a light-opaque shell could be effective in keeping Antecessors out, so the transit sphere had been enclosed and rigged with the most powerful cage we could build. It was necessary because the transit spheres for uncontacted worlds have to be powerful enough not only to send material to another universe, but to bring it back as well. If the Antecessors chose to return with our ship, we needed to be able to contain them.

Iokan sighed as the Geology cruised gently through the entry port of the transit sphere. To him, it was a waste of effort, but he didn’t trouble himself to explain at length. A shadow fell across the viewing deck as we entered, and then there was only the safety lighting inside the sphere, newly rigged because they aren’t usually enclosed. And then that too was gone as the windows polarised and shutters slid into place to block even the slightest view. We were dealing with beings made of electromagnetism who would treat glass as an open door. No chances were to be taken.

“How long does it take?” asked Iokan. A bell sounded throughout the ship. “Not long,” I said.

For a moment, we were nowhere, nothing and no-one. We were conscious of nothing, but very much aware of the nothingness.

Then we were back. Iokan blinked. “That was it?”

“That was it.”

“We’re here?”

“We’re here.”

He got up, suddenly full of energy, taking a nervous breath. “How long before they come?”

“If everything’s going according to plan, we’re sending the signal now. So about eight minutes for that to get to the sun, then eight minutes for them to get back, if they move at lightspeed. Call it twenty minutes, maybe a bit less.”

“Ancients… after all this waiting, suddenly we’re moving fast .”