by Laura Lam
Over the last few months, Naomi had learned Hart was never someone to gloss over the realities of what they faced out here. No sugar-coating or delicate bedside manner. She was gentle, but unflinchingly honest.
Naomi settled into the med bay, a room she’d soon grow distressingly used to. She lay there for four hours, hands rubbing her stomach in soothing circles. She focused inwards. Some deep, primordial part of her knew that the foetus still lived. When she eventually felt the turning and quickening beneath her hands, Naomi went soft with relief. She’d stopped spotting.
Hart monitored her blood pressure every half hour. It held steady, then rose, quickly—too quickly. Naomi felt worse, and she broke out in a nosebleed barely staunched by spare rags.
Hart wasted no time. She checked between Naomi’s legs. Naomi was too afraid to ask if the bleeding had started again. She tried to stay calm but it was impossible. She didn’t need Hart to tell her that this was more dangerous than her miscarriage had been. They were on a ship cleaner than most hospitals, true, but it was just them, alone, with no one who could help if something went truly wrong.
Hart gave Naomi just enough drugs to keep her calm and blur the world about the edges. Hixon left the bridge to help, acting as Hart’s assistant, and Naomi felt the prick of the needle against the crook of her arm. It was as if Naomi had taken a step back from it all, watched it from a distance. As she was put on the autodoc, Naomi tried not to wonder if her liver would rupture or if, even now, her brain was filling with water.
Hart never told Naomi the details of what happened during those reddened hours, and Naomi was grateful for it. She’d filled in the blanks. The epidural pain relief shot right into her lumbar spine. She’d needed blood transfusions, and thankfully she was type AB. Everyone on board ended up donating a little, so as not to overload anyone.
Even Valerie.
Naomi never asked if Valerie had given it willingly or not. She wasn’t sure which answer she would have preferred.
The autodoc had scanned her, pinned her in place, and Hart oversaw the program that performed the surgery. With the embedded AI and steady machinery, it was lower risk than Hart doing it herself. Naomi found it oddly comforting that her mother’s programming would help save her life. She was cut open like a plum to free the stone, then sealed back up. As soon as it was possible to move her, Naomi was shifted to the antiseptic table next to the autodoc, so the glass chamber could function as a neonatal intensive care unit.
Naomi suspected there were complications—a few horrible moments where those around her wondered if she or the babe would make it through.
There had been fractures of pain, of beeps, low, urgent voices muffled by the glass of the autodoc. Strange snippets of jagged visions, overlaid with memories of the miscarriage. At one point, she thought Valerie had come through, to grip her hand tight like she had in the hospital room, but she’d looked down at her palm to find it empty.
Naomi remembered blinking up at the ceiling of the med bay as she came to, one of the little cleaning robots skittering across the white to suck up any errant dust. It moved like a spider, and Naomi watched it make its methodical way towards the vent in the corner.
Her gaze travelled downwards and snagged on the autodoc. The glass was fogged slightly; the autodoc’s temperature had been raised to make sure the baby within didn’t get hypothermia. Naomi could just make out a little wrapped bundle in the centre, impossibly tiny, and a blur of a pink face among the white. She let herself cry for the first time in she didn’t know how long. She’d often pressed tears down, unwilling to show weakness. For a time, she’d wondered if she’d forgotten how.
The sounds of her subdued sniffles brought Hart to Naomi’s side.
“Hey there,” Hart said, softly.
“Is she all right?” Naomi croaked.
“She’s very premature. Weighs in at just over two and a half pounds. So far her vitals are as good as can be expected.” She listed the details dispassionately. “She needs help breathing, and we’re feeding her intravenously with dextrose and general nutrition, though we’ll start transitioning her to milk feeds over the next few days. Her blood pressure isn’t too low. No signs of infection. No indication of any brain damage. So far, so good.”
Naomi’s eyes grew wetter, weaving tracks down her temples.
“This is where we dubiously have to thank Valerie, because she made sure the autodoc was programmed to be compatible with babies, knowing that we might be growing newborns once we landed.”
Naomi released her breath in a sigh.
“You’re doing pretty well too, all things considered,” Hart said, answering Naomi’s next unspoken question. “It’ll take you a while to recover, but you shouldn’t have any lasting effects. Just a few more scars than you had before.”
Naomi remembered her mother’s C-section scar, like a little zipper just above her bikini line. The autodoc would give her a scar so thin it’d heal almost invisible, but she’d be able to feel it.
“Want to see her?” Hart asked.
“God, yes.”
Naomi managed to get up and shuffle to the cot right next to the autodoc Hart had set up so Naomi would be able to rest near the makeshift incubator. She was pumped full of painkillers, so nothing hurt, exactly, but her body still knew it’d been through the wringer. She resisted the urge to lift her medical gown and see the wound and her partially deflated stomach.
Naomi placed her hands against the glass of the autodoc. She could see in better from this angle.
Her first thought was that she didn’t realise babies could be so small. Her daughter was such a fragile little thing, covered in a fine layer of down. She hadn’t plumped up yet and was too thin, arms spindly. Her skin was red, tiny hands reminiscent of a salamander, her veins still visible through her skin. Her eyes were still shut, but there was a whisper of hair on her head—dark black, like Evan’s, rather than Naomi’s own lighter brown. She had a serious, small face, but was that pointed chin a mirror to Naomi’s own? She stared through the glass in wonder for minutes, hours. Her breasts were sore and heavy. She wanted to hold her child, cradle her close, feel the first painful latch and then the rush of endorphins. To run her hands along the softness of the skull, delicate as a bird’s. Her whole body cried out with a fierce possessiveness.
Mine. That’s mine.
“Have you thought of any names?” Hart asked.
Naomi had been turning names over in her mind. She and Evan had come up with a shortlist, but it was up to her to make the final decision once they met.
“Yes, but I’ll sit with it for a day, make sure it feels right.” She paused. “Does Evan know? Did anyone tell him?”
Hart shook her head. “There hasn’t been time, and we weren’t sure if you wanted to tell him yourself.”
“He would have worried,” Naomi said, still staring down through the glass.
Eventually, Hart placed her hand on Naomi’s back, rubbing between her shoulder blades. “You should lie back and rest,” she said. “And express your milk.”
She did, finding it awkward and painful, and Hart dumped the container—Naomi still had too much medicine in her system for it to be usable. Hart left her alone and Naomi finally lay back, woozy. The baby moved her head, side to side, a hand rising, almost in a wave.
“Hello, Grace,” Naomi whispered. “Grace Lovelace Kan.”
She fell asleep with one hand on the glass.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
275 Days After Launch
14 Days in Lower Earth Orbit
By the time they arrived back in orbit, the shape of the new version of the Earth began to emerge.
Grace and Naomi had eased their way back to health. Grace was no longer a salamander child. She had plumped up, pale and soft as peach skin. Her hair was still black, and she had Evan’s eye shape and dark brown eyes. She had a serious little expression much of the time, always listening intently, taking everything in.
Naomi had pointed Grace’
s little face down at Earth. When Naomi had left, she’d thought she’d never see this view again. She’d been entirely prepared to spend the rest of her life on Cavendish.
From above, Earth didn’t look so different. Blue and white swirls, still too much brown and too little green. Despite the vaccine, many of those who had already been infected had still died. They’d had better treatment plans, but fifteen per cent of the population still perished, all told. More than a billion lives snuffed out since she last had this view. All because of the woman the four others on board had vowed to follow to the ends of the universe.
Naomi had to admit she was nervous about what awaited them down there.
By the time Evan was released from custody, the world had turned on Valerie Black with unsurprising viciousness. The house in the hills where Naomi had grown up under Valerie’s watchful eye had been ripped apart, beam by beam and stone by stone. They’d been smart enough not to burn it at least, with the summer grass dry as kindling. It would have been too full circle. With the president and vice president dead, the former Speaker of the House, a man named Nicolas Flores, was the new president. He’d been in a mass shooting at his school when he was twelve and didn’t have full use of his left hand from a stray bullet. He had another scar on his neck from a graze that nearly killed him, just visible above the collar of his suit in a silent reminder.
He was firmly centrist—not radical enough to offend, but not full of enough conviction to inspire, either. He claimed he stood for equality and forward change, but Naomi had little faith left in anyone willing to do what it takes to get into power. She’d wait to see if his actions spoke, rather than his pretty speeches at the beginning of his presidency.
His immediate problem was figuring out what to do with the bodies of the dead—the morgues and funeral homes were overloaded. They’d also worked up a rudimentary universal healthcare system to ensure the Sev was fully eradicated. It was a start. Naomi didn’t know how long it would last, but it was a start.
Flores had decided to paint the Atalanta 4 as heroes. The first baby in space helped the PR spin. They received a pardon for stealing the ship on the assurance that the court would have their full cooperation in the upcoming trial.
Valerie was the one charged with the relatively minor crimes of theft as well as kidnapping and murder of the backup crew. Of course, they paled compared to the charges of terrorism, war crimes and genocide.
The backup crew had received a lavish state funeral, empty coffins lowered into the ground. Naomi had watched the stream from orbit. Dennis’s wife hid her face in her hands the entire ceremony. Dave Webb’s and Josh Hines’s parents were bowed and grey beneath their grief. Devraj Chand’s partner looked lost, as if it still hadn’t hit him that Chand was never coming back. Mel Palmer stood at the front, tear-streaked but strong, holding the hand of her toddler. Naomi’s body had churned with guilt and she’d had to turn the broadcast in the rec room’s wall screens off.
Lebedeva and Valerie had already headed down to the surface two weeks ago. Lebedeva had handed Valerie to the authorities then overseen reloading the shuttle with an unmanned supply payload. Naomi remembered Lebedeva leading Valerie through the ship, her hands tied in front of her. Confinement had not been kind to their former commander. Flat hair, grey skin. She’d been thinner, but that was the same for all of them—nutriblocks had put everyone off their appetite, especially when the machine broke and they couldn’t even taste the echo of vanilla or cinnamon any longer.
Valerie had slowed, meeting Naomi’s eyes almost hungrily. They hadn’t spoken since their last conversation. Valerie had hunched her shoulders when she realised that Naomi had left Grace in another room deliberately. Valerie had not seen her granddaughter, and Naomi would do everything in her power to make sure she never did.
Valerie had said nothing as she shuffled the last few steps to the airlock, and Naomi had offered no words of her own. Valerie’s head disappeared into the capsule. The crew had already said their goodbyes to Lebedeva, and the Russian had gone beyond simply tolerating their embraces—she’d clutched each of them tight, thumping their backs. Naomi would miss her.
The next time Naomi would see Valerie, they’d be on opposite sides of a courtroom.
As they waited for the go-ahead for the rest of them to head back down, Naomi spent hours in the observation room, nursing Grace, drinking it all in.
As she, Hart, and Hixon prepared to take the shuttle back down, her reserve grew. She’d shied away from the chance to be on Cole’s documentary, but now everyone knew her and her daughter’s name. A photo Naomi had reluctantly taken of Grace floating in the bridge, backlit by stars, had been the cover of countless articles.
Grace was still a baby, not a symbol. There was little Naomi could do to protect her from the burning spotlight of fame, but she would try.
The day came. It was time to go home.
“Grace is going to hate this,” Hart said as they tied up the last of their possessions into the shuttle and then finished suiting up. “When we were last in this thing, I did not expect to be heading back down with a crying baby.”
“Me neither,” Naomi said.
“God, I can’t wait to eat crunchy, crumbly toast,” Hixon said. “And fresh, melted butter. Well, margarine.”
“Stop it,” Hart said. “I’m hungry enough.”
They’d had a more varied diet since Lebedeva had sent up a shuttle of supplies. They’d hopefully never have to eat another nutriblock again. Still, it wasn’t the same.
Naomi had taken a last walk through the Atalanta that morning, and it had been so strange to see the lights low, the crops of her lab all harvested. The ship had already had the air of being uninhabited. It wouldn’t be for long. Mechanics would arrive imminently, to check it all over. The ship might still very well go to Cavendish, but the women wouldn’t be on it.
Earth still likely had an expiration date. That exploratory nature that humans had had since they’d first sailed off towards a distant horizon, not knowing if they’d fall off the end of the Earth, was still within them. They’d spread out across the galaxy, if they didn’t self-destruct first. It was only a matter of when.
They finished suiting up. Grace was mercifully still asleep. The poor thing had no idea what was to come.
People on the ground had argued about the best way to transport a tiny baby to the surface—not something any of them had expected to have to consider for decades yet. Water could help cushion against G-force. NASA engineers had at one point considered submerging her entirely in a tank of water, a mini scuba baby. Naomi had been grateful when they vetoed that plan and instead rigged a pressurised pod cushioned with water beds—an evolution of the original chambers they’d sent chimpanzees up in during the 1960s.
They put Grace into the capsule, and she mewled in protest. Naomi hated the click as the door of it shut. They strapped themselves in and Hixon prepped the undocking procedures. The robotic voice started the countdown. Most systems were still automated, but this time they were in full contact with NASA. There were additional steps to go through.
When they finally disengaged, Naomi and the others watched the Atalanta grow smaller on the screens. Its no longer new and pristine white hull was peppered with small scratches and dings from space debris. That craft had taken them to another planet, and almost another solar system. Even though they had not gone through a wormhole, it had undone them and put them all back together again.
The shuttle’s engine brought them to their expected path. They planned to land in the ocean not far from Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. It decelerated, preparing to re-enter the atmosphere. Naomi could hear Grace crying through the mic. Naomi patted the outside of the capsule, singing a nonsense song at her daughter, as much to calm herself as the baby.
The descent module separated from the shuttle, thermal protection protecting against the heat friction as they raced towards the ground.
Grace started screaming. They were all pus
hed into their seats by the force of five times their weight. Naomi’s hands flexed, wishing she could offer comfort.
At the right moment, the parachutes deployed, slowing their descent. The rockets fired before touch down and landing boosters ensured they hit the water at no more than five kilometres per hour.
They hit just where they expected. The boats already on site out in the harbour sped towards them as the capsule bobbed in the water. Naomi’s stomach lurched. She’d turned down the volume on Grace’s screams, but it still grated against her eardrums.
“I know,” she said. “It was not fun.”
The hatch popped, and Naomi looked up through her helmet to see a patch of blue sky—sky!—just before it was darkened by the silhouette of someone from the rescue team. They’d pulled the boat close and secured it to the craft.
Naomi and Hart opened the capsule and Naomi pressed her child against her chest.
“Her life signals seem good,” Hart said, eyeing the readouts from the baby’s monitors. “They’ll double-check her blood pressure when we’re out.”
Naomi stuck her head out first, squinting at the brightness. She flipped down the gold-lined shade of her helmet, then Grace’s, whose screams had only grown louder at the light. Baby’s first sunlight.
Naomi moved unsteadily. Two men’s hands under her shoulders helped haul her out of the shuttle. Grace was still caterwauling, and the men stared at the baby, a little open-mouthed. Naomi pulled off her gloves, passing them to one of the men. The other helped Hixon out, but Naomi focused on Grace, pressing her tight against the chest of the suit. Grace’s cries quieted slightly, turning into hiccoughs. The man with her gloves helped Naomi with her helmet.
The first thing to hit Naomi was the smell. Salt, brine, wet metal, a hint of human sweat. She staggered across to the boat, unsteady on her legs and the bob of the waves. She sat down in the shaded area on the deck, the suit feeling too heavy, waiting for Hixon and Hart to follow. She took Grace’s helmet off, pressing her bare palms against the softness of her child’s head, kissing away her tears.