Paul Hardy - The Last Man on Earth Club

Elsbet shuddered for a moment after we stepped out of the gravity tube. The sky was still a shock for her, but she took a breath and clung to me.

“Are you sure you want to be here?” I asked.

She nodded, fervently. “It’s not really open. There’s a glass dome.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!” She pulled me to the glass doors, scooting around other patients and furniture, and paused at the exit, building up her nerve again, then led me outside.

She gasped as the warm sun struck her. The shaking came to a stop; she looked up at the sky, closed her eyes and smiled. I let her go and she spread her arms to catch more of the sun.

She looked over at me, her arms still wide, as if to say: look what I can do!

“Aren’t you afraid?” I asked.

“Yes!” she cried. “But feel the sun…”

“We’re much closer than the asteroid where you grew up.”

“It’s so warm … I can feel it through my clothes! Did they do something to me?”

“I don’t think so. But I’m glad you’re happy.”

She did a delighted twirl, laughing.

8. Iokan

Iokan stood naked in the snow. He tried to accept the cold, but his body’s natural responses refused: his muscles spasmed in shivering waves, his teeth chattered, his skin grew pale and grey as warmth fled.

The fog thickened, and the sun faded from a patch of light to nothing at all; just the general glow of the sky.

The shivering wracked his body until he could bear it no longer and had to hug his arms close and gasp at the cold. Frost spread through his hair, and the moisture on his skin froze, coating him in rime, chilling him further. He fell to his knees. In this kind of temperature, he had less than an hour to live.

A light bathed him from above.

It was not the sun. The fog was as thick as before. It was something shining down on him with more than just illumination: there was a warmth that was blessed relief to his frosted skin. He rubbed meltwater from his eyes and looked up.

The glow was close, from no source he could see, like another sun come near. The warmth allowed him to stand up again. He shielded his eyes; it was brighter now, almost too much. But he did his best to look into the heart of the light.

“You came back for me,” he said.

He closed his eyes and spread his arms wide.

“I’m ready.”

As Elsbet soaked up the sun, a chime went off in my ear and an emergency message flashed in front of my eyes.

“I’ll just be a moment,” I said to Elsbet, and took a few steps away. I fished a pad out of my bag and put the video through.

Iokan stood naked in the snow, arms stretched out, a beatific look on his face. I sighed. He’d done what we feared and attempted suicide. Nevertheless, it gave me a chance to talk to him.

“Iokan,” I said. “It’s Asha here.” He opened his eyes, surprised and confused. “We sent a rescue drone out after you. It’s very cold out there.”

“Show yourself!”

A beam of light jumped out of the glow and struck the fog surrounding the hole melted by the warmth. It displayed the image from the camera in my pad: me, in a garden, looking concerned.

He suddenly realised what had happened, and closed his eyes with a sigh. The rescue drone was providing a sunny microclimate to keep him alive. The light and warmth were just that — nothing more.

“What did you think was happening, Iokan?”

He looked tired, but not embarrassed; just worn out on a level deeper than the body. “I thought she’d come for me.”

“She can’t do that, Iokan. She’s not even in this universe. And she won’t come for you. You remember what she said as well as I do.”

He didn’t answer. He looked away.

“Iokan?”

He shook his head, despairing. I feared we would lose him to a bout of depression, and didn’t notice Elsbet sneaking up and looking over my shoulder. “Well hello there…” she said, suddenly seeing the image of a very naked Iokan.

He looked back up at the ghostly video image projected into the fog. “Who was that?”

“This is private,” I snapped at her. Too harsh, and I regretted it instantly.

She didn’t care. She waved merrily at the pad. “Hi there, Iokan! Remember me?”

He looked up, confused. “Katie?”

“No!” she cried. “It’s me!’

His eyes went wide. “Elsbet…?”

“That’s the one!”

“You came back…”

She grinned at me. “Oh, he’s clever, isn’t he?” She looked back at him, and his naked body. “Bloody hell, did I really turn you down?”

Iokan looked down at himself, and quickly hid his genitals.

“Okay, Elsbet, I think that’s enough, don’t you?”

“Aw…” she backed off with a disappointed pout. I looked back at Iokan.

“I’m sorry about that.”

“I’m glad she’s well. Did she have the treatment?”

“She did.”

He nodded. “Good.”

“The medical staff will be with you in a moment. Do you think you’ll be able to sit down and have a chat once you’re inside?”

He paused, and I thought for a moment he would withdraw again. But then he looked up at me and said, “I will.”

Iokan sat in the remote meeting room, swaddled in blankets, sipping at a warm drink and looking introspective. Not depressed, though certainly tired. I activated the link between the centre and the room I was in at the hospital. “How are you doing?” I asked.

“Well enough,” he said.

“Do you mind if I sit down?”

“How could I?”

“Thank you.” I took one of the seats next to him.

“How did Elsbet come back?” he asked.

“You remember how Katie attempted suicide? Well, we had to do a lot of reconstruction work on her brain. I suppose whatever neural issue set off the change in the first place did the same thing again. When she woke up, she was Elsbet… and Elsbet agreed to the treatment.”

“You refused her before.”

“With all the brain damage, we couldn’t be sure if the change was permanent. We, ah, erred on the side of caution.”

He absorbed that with a nod. “Will Katie come back?”

“Probably not. It’s hard to tell, though.”

“You don’t like to let us go, do you?”

“We would have, in your case. But it wasn’t up to us. Szilmar made that choice.”

He put his head in his hands. “I still don’t understand…”

“I know it’s difficult. But if you’re willing to listen, there’s more I can tell you.” He looked up. “Szilmar had a long discussion with the Diplomatic Service. She gave us a rough outline of what happened.”

He closed his eyes and looked away. I went on.

“It seems the Antecessors were escaping from attacks on your world, three thousand years ago. They made a lot of enemies — you were right when you said they weren’t very nice people. At the time, your species had gone beyond the human form. But there was a fashion for dressing up in human bodies from time to time, and when the attacks came, a lot of people were trapped in those bodies. Those were your ancestors. Some of the others chose to escape using energy forms that were meant for interstellar travel. But they hadn’t had time to set up colonies, and there weren’t any machines out there to turn them back. So they were stuck in those forms, and they weren’t designed for long term use. Over the centuries, entropy took a toll, and by the time they came back, they were like children looking for someone else to play with. They didn’t understand that what they were doing was wrong.”

He was quiet for a long time, eyes still closed.

“I can give you the report to study, if you like.”