Gary Gibson - Final Days

‘It depends,’ said Mitchell, ‘on your definition of life and death.’

‘Is all of that why you’re acting so different? You said, just before we launched, that none of this was going to be as bad as I might think. What the hell did that mean?’

Mitchell shook his head and sighed. ‘I shouldn’t have said it.’

‘Give me,’ Saul insisted, ‘an explanation.’

‘Look, when they pulled me out of that pit, I was changed. That’s true. I . . . I knew things. Things about the Founder races, about how the network came into existence, where they went to after they disappeared.’

Saul could hardly believe what he was hearing. ‘How?’

‘I don’t know how. I just woke up and it was all there, swirling around inside my head. But when I said what I said back then, I was trying to tell you something for which I seriously doubt there are words – something so far outside of my own experience or that of any other human being that I’m still struggling to comprehend it. Once I do, assuming I ever do, I’ll try and choose my words more carefully. I’m sorry.’

Saul hesitated. After all, his worries stemmed from a single unfinished statement from Donohue, hardly a man he felt he could trust at the best of times. But, then again, something had put Olivia on edge as well.

‘There’s still something you’re not telling me,’ said Saul. ‘I don’t know what, but I’ve been in my job long enough to know when someone’s not being straight with me.’

‘I’m sorry you don’t trust me,’ said Mitchell, ‘but what happened to me isn’t my fault.’

Saul stared at him, feeling even more frightened than he cared to admit to himself.

Saul had already found that time on board the spacecraft became strangely elastic in the absence of any clear evidence of day or night. Amy and Lester appeared to have run out of minor maintenance checks for either himself or Mitchell to perform and, although he had little else to do, he didn’t have the stomach to keep watching the slow march of death as it continued to spread across the face of the planet. He dozed intermittently, but both module and lander were filled with constant creaks and rattles that did little to soothe his nerves. At one point he awoke to find Mitchell zipped into a sleeping bag across the lander from him, apparently asleep. Yet Saul could see, from the way the other man’s eyes moved under their closed lids, that he was watching or reading something via his contacts.

When Saul awoke a few hours later, he unzipped himself from his bag and ventured back through to the command module. He sat down next to Amy while her husband was sleeping, securely strapped across the three rear passenger seats and apparently oblivious to the tormented rattle of metal under stress, or even to his wife’s description of endless technical details about fuel mixes and delta vees. All that she said meant little to Saul, but was oddly comforting when delivered with that effortless confidence with which she was imbued. Finally, he let his head sink back and closed his eyes, linking once more into one of the few satellite-feeds still transmitting out of Earth orbit.

Much of Brazil had already slid beneath those flickering clouds and disappeared forever. Goodbye, São Paolo , thought Saul with infinite sadness; goodbye Rio de Janeiro, rain forests and macaws . All places and things he’d never set eyes on, but now found himself missing with bottomless remorse.

He discovered a few static-ridden broadcasts still coming out from other parts of the South American continent, and listened to people who knew death was approaching them. He saw a jerky handheld video shot in Venezuela, taken within the hour, that showed black clouds like thunderheads slowly spreading outwards to choke out the sunlight, those familiar twists of light dancing high in the stratosphere.

One by one, the voices faded into the hissing static, never to be heard again, until all that was left was a single audio transmission of a man alternately praying in Spanish and weeping. Saul listened for a few moments before cutting the link, unable to bear any more of it. There was, by contrast, no news coming out of Copernicus whatsoever, and Saul remembered Amy telling him that most if not all of Copernicus’ population had already been evacuated.

‘That’s us officially past the halfway point,’ Amy informed him when Saul opened his eyes again. ‘Less than two days before we touch down.’

‘What about the VASIMRs?’

‘The last of them already touched down. They’ve got a far more efficient burn ratio than an old-style bird like this.’ She glanced round towards him. ‘You know, if you’d told us about your plan to shut down the gates back there before we took off, we might have tried to get you on board one of the VASIMRs instead.’

‘Sorry,’ said Saul. ‘I guess I wasn’t sure if you’d want to take me up, if I told you that first.’

She barked a laugh. ‘You thought maybe we’d just leave you behind? Can’t say the thought mightn’t have crossed my mind, if I thought you were crazy. But I don’t, more’s the pity.’

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, feeling momentarily dizzy.

Amy’s face had creased in a frown, when he opened his eyes once more. ‘When was the last time you ate?’ she asked.

‘Why?’

‘Amateurs,’ she sighed. ‘You need to eat at regular intervals.’ She placed her hands on the steel bars on either side of her acceleration couch, and levered herself upwards until she floated free. ‘Zero gee screws up your body’s internal signals, makes you think you ain’t hungry when you are. Here.’ She pulled a tinfoil-wrapped package out of a cupboard and pushed it into a microwave oven bolted to one of the bulkheads. It dinged after a couple of seconds, and she retrieved it.

‘I’m not hungry,’ Saul protested, and it was true.

‘Bullshit.’ She unwrapped the tinfoil and pushed the tray of steaming hot food at him. ‘Chicken Surprise.’

Saul sniffed at it. ‘What happened to all that dried food?’

She shrugged. ‘Strictly speaking, that’s for the tourists. Can’t feel like they’re being authentic if they’re eating the decent stuff.’

‘It smells okay,’ he said, regarding the contents doubtfully. ‘Doesn’t look anything like any chicken I’ve ever seen, though.’

‘That’s the surprise,’ she said. ‘Now eat. Can’t save the universe without eating.’

‘I guess.’

Saul felt suddenly ravenous, as if a switch had been thrown somewhere inside of him. He wolfed the contents down, Amy watching him the whole time, a vacuum tube held ready in her hand, but Saul didn’t spill even a drop.

‘Hey, check the board,’ said Lester, loosening his restraints and hauling himself upright, before yawning loudly. ‘We’ve got incoming. Transceiver Two.’

‘You’re kidding,’ said Amy, her eyes becoming unfocused. ‘Hot damn, it’s that girl Olivia.’

Saul stared at them both in shock.

‘All the way from the Jupiter platform?’ said Lester. ‘How the hell did she manage that?’

‘Data looks like it’s been routed through a couple of surviving satellite networks, from what I can see,’ said Amy. ‘Bob’s VASIMR relayed it back to us.’

‘Clever girl,’ said Lester, in a tone of appreciation.

‘It’s addressed to you,’ said Amy, turning to Saul. ‘And it’s marked private,’ she added, raising an eyebrow. ‘Want me to patch it through?’

‘Please,’ Saul replied, and a message received icon appeared before him a few seconds later. ‘Excuse me,’ he added, handing the empty tray back to Amy.

His heart beat wildly inside his chest as he pulled himself back through to the lander. Mitchell looked like he was genuinely asleep, eyes closed and mouth hanging half open in the dimmed light.