Gary Gibson - Final Days

‘Did he tell you about stealing confidential files from a secret research platform out at Tau Ceti?’

‘He did, yes.’ Lester nodded. ‘But what you just said there is about the sum of what he told us.’

‘We only got the essential details,’ Amy added. ‘But Olivia did say you had copies of the files. Did you bring them with you?’

‘I did. They’re all the proof you need. Here they are.’

Their expressions glazed over for several seconds, as they each received their own copies of the stolen files.

‘There’s a lot of stuff there,’ Saul warned them. ‘It took me a good few hours just to skim through the document abstracts. Jeff wanted to broadcast it all to the world, but it looks like he ended up on the run instead.’

‘Not that there’s much of a world left to broadcast it to,’ Amy said quietly.

‘A couple of days ago I was on Newton,’ said Saul. ‘The military have been moving thir people through, and staging an armed takeover of the colonies. They’re desperate to suppress any evidence that the growths reaching Earth was the result of human error.’

‘Then why are you giving this to us?’ asked Lester, refocusing his gaze on Saul.

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Lester,’ said Amy, her tone sharply admonishing, ‘they want the colonists to know what happened. That’s what Olivia said, remember? And damn right, too.’

‘You can carry the files in your contacts through to whichever colony you head for,’ said Saul. ‘Same for the rest of your people on the VASIMRs. Do you have secure links you can use to forward those files to the rest of your people?’

‘Sure do,’ said Amy. ‘Matter of fact, I’m doing it right now.’

‘We’re getting news back from some of the others who’ve already got to the Lunar Array,’ said Lester. ‘They got detained at first, but then they were allowed through to Da Vinci, along with almost everyone from Copernicus City. From what we’re hearing, it looks like most of whoever they want to bring through from Earth is already through.’ His expression became troubled. ‘But I can’t stop thinking about those millions of refugees back in Florida. It makes no damn sense, just leaving them there to die like that. Couldn’t they at least save some of them?’

‘I don’t know,’ Saul admitted.

‘Oh, it makes sense, all right,’ said Amy, ‘in a twisted, callous kind of way. The colonies haven’t been around all that long, and most of them can only sustain small populations, as it is – especially places like Newton, with the sealed biomes. They’d be hard pushed to cope with even a small increase in their populations.’

‘You’re sure of that?’ Saul asked.

‘Think about it,’ she said, her tone flat. ‘It’s what they call a cold equation. There just isn’t enough food, water and air to go round. It’s the logic of the lifeboat: if you’ve got a lifeboat big enough for six people but seven hundred are drowning all around you, there’s no way you can get more than a tiny fraction of that number into the lifeboat without sinking it and drowning everyone.’

She reached over the back of her chair to touch Saul’s arm. ‘You did a good thing getting those files here, son. There’s nothing we can do for those people back there, much as it makes me sick to admit it, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do our damnedest to make sure the ones responsible for all this will pay for what they’ve done.’

Saul came to a decision and pulled himself into the seat directly behind Amy’s. ‘There’s something I need to tell you both. When we get to the Moon, I’m going to try and shut the Array down – collapse every one of the wormholes.’

‘St it down ?’ said Lester, a confused look on his face. ‘Is that even possible?’

‘Maybe Lester and Amy have got enough on their plates right now,’ interrupted Mitchell, pulling himself through from the lander.

Saul jerked his head around in surprise. ‘You’re awake.’

‘No,’ insisted Amy, ‘I want to hear what Saul has to say.’

Saul turned back to her. ‘Take a look at the files I just sent you. Particularly the video sequences listed under “Copernicus”.’

Amy stared sideways at a bulkhead, as Mitchell floated down to join them, with a look of disapproval on his face. ‘Okay, I’ve got it.’ She frowned. ‘Hey, it looks like—’

‘Like something’s completely devastated the entire city. Is that what you’re seeing?’

She stared in silence at the bulkhead for several more seconds. ‘Shit,’ she said at length. ‘That’s just about right.’

‘Whatever’s about to happen on Earth is going to happen to Copernicus as well, and it’s going to be soon. So I need to shut the gates down before the same thing can happen to the colonies. I’m telling you this so you’ll understand why you can’t hang around once we get up there. You have to find your way through a gate as soon as possible, or you’ll be stranded.’

‘How sure are you that you need to do this?’ Lester demanded.

‘All I know,’ Saul said truthfully, ‘is that I’ve seen what’s going to happen to the Moon, and the only way it could have got there is via the Array.’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Lester. ‘It had to have come through the Array on the way to Earth, right? Maybe they had more of those artefacts stored up there in Copernicus, somewhere. Maybe they caused it?’

‘He’s got a point,’ said Mitchell. ‘You can’t deny it’s a possibility.’

‘Jesus, Mitch,’ Saul rounded on him, ‘don’t you think you’re clutching at straws?’

‘But it’s at least a possibility,’ said Lester, his expression pained.

Amy reached out and touched her husband’s shoulder. ‘No, Lester, what Saul’s saying makes sense. We can’t put our hope on a distant possibility. We have to think for the rest of the human race.’

‘Not all of our people have made a landing yet,’ Lester insisted, suddenly looking all of his years. ‘We already lost Ginny. What if the rest of them couldn’t get through in time?’

‘I’ve seen what’s happening back home – just like you have,’ she said, her voice gentle now. ‘Way I see it, we have a moral obligation to do everything we can to help Saul. I just wish we had a name for the thing causing all of this. Otherwise everything feels so . . .’ She shrugged ‘. . . so random .’

Saul glanced at Mitchell in time to see him shake his head, and push himself back up towards the tunnel leading into the lander.

‘If no more people are being allowed through the Array,’ said Saul, ‘then maybe you’re right, Amy. There’s too many of them for the colonies.’

Amy looked at him with old eyes. ‘Just tell me you don’t want to be the one to have to do this.’

‘I don’t want to be the one to have to do this,’ affirmed Saul, with all the feeling he could muster.

Saul made his way through to the lander, where he found Mitchell waiting.

‘What the hell was all that about?’ Saul demanded. ‘They’ve got every right to know what we’re intending to do.’

‘I just thought they’d been through enough,’ Mitchell replied mildly. ‘You didn’t really need to tell them you were planning on triggering a shutdown.’

‘They got us this far, they deserve to know.’

‘I don’t know, Saul. Sounded to me more like you were making a confession.’

There was just enough truth in what Mitchell had said to hit home. ‘Listen,’ Saul was angry now, ‘something happened to you that I can’t even begin to understand. I saw the footage of you falling into that pit, then being pulled out of it. I read reports that said you’d died and come back. How is that even possible ?’