I broke into a sprint across the sand, boots splashing. I could see Clare grinning, but when I got close, I also saw that her eyes were overflowing with tears. I stopped in front of her, breathless, and saw, too, that the waves and rocks were visible through her. She was a transmission again, like she’d been the first time I’d met her.
“Hey,” she said, sniffling.
“Hi.”
“Don’t worry,” she said, motioning to herself. “I’m not in your mind. I am broadcasting myself through the ship’s holographic transmitter—” Just then a static line rippled through her and she winked out and returned. “Range is weakening. We’re moving out of the atmosphere.”
“How long do you have until you’re—”
“Erased?” Clare hitched, like she was holding back a sob. “The system reboot will hit the main computer’s RAM in”—she glitched—“seconds.”
“How long?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Clare sniffled and did her best to smile. “My parents and brother are safe in the virtual storage. I set the ship’s course for Antares, so if we ever get found, sometime in the future, who knows? Maybe there will be a way to save them. And they can warn everyone about the Antares supernova ahead of time. Maybe it will even be the future version of us that finds the Derelict—”
“Clare,” I said. “What about saving you?”
Clare shook her head. “It’s okay. They’re safe. You’re safe.”
“But—”
“I just wanted to say goodbye. I’m going to miss you.” Clare rolled her tear-filled eyes. “Well, technically I guess I won’t be missing anything soon, but, I mean—”
“I’ll miss you, too,” I said, and now my eyes were also welling up, my whole body feeling like it was being squeezed tight. “I wish you didn’t have to go.”
Clare sighed. “So do I.”
A big feeling broke like a wave in me, and I balled my fists and wanted to scream. Why did things have to end? Why did friends have to leave you? Why couldn’t the good things keep going on, being good, the way they always were right before you realized how good they were? Right before you understood that they couldn’t last.…
Clare’s hand moved over my shoulder like she was trying to pat it. I thought I felt a little tingle of electricity there, as her fingers flitted through my suit, but it was probably my imagination.
“It’s okay, Will,” she said. “I hope you find a new fort.”
I held back my tears. “Yeah.”
“Don’t forget to hang the moss. Use the—” She glitched out again. One… two… My breath caught in my throat. The wind blew steadily, the waves sloshing. Was that it?
Then Clare was back. We just looked at each other. What could you possibly say in the last moment you were ever going to see someone? In the last moment when they would ever even be? Another second passed. Think! I shouted at myself.
“Almost time to go,” she said.
“I know.” And then I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around her. I put my head by her shoulder and closed my eyes. Even though Clare wasn’t really there, even though she was just a brief wave of light, a memory… she was real to me, she—
“Bye, Will.”
The air between my arms sizzled. I opened my eyes.
Only wind, and sand, and water. I looked to the sky. Only clouds.
“Bye,” I whispered.
I stood there for a minute, hating everything. This stupid planet, that stupid AI, the stupid universe that took everything away…
I turned toward the Jupiter. Judy was standing by our parents, waving for me to come back.
Well, it hadn’t taken everything. Not yet, anyway.
“You okay?” she asked as I trudged back to her.
I just shrugged. “Not really.”
She put an arm around me. “Come on, we have to get everyone inside. They’re all going to have quite the headache when they wake up.”
“Do you think they’ll remember what happened?”
“We’ll see. I… sort of remember? The stuff before you broke the spell is really foggy. But even after that…” She glanced out to sea, and then to the sky. “Were we really on that ship? Did all that really happen?”
Did it? The thought was like a spear of ice. Yes, I told myself. It may be over now, but it’s in my memories. Just as real as the Robot. “It happened.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about Clare,” said Judy. “If I had listened, if I’d taken what you were saying seriously, this might never have happened.”
“There was a giant ship with a desperate AI buried right near our Jupiter,” I said. “This was all probably going to happen at some point.”
“Well, then I’m glad it happened to you,” said Judy.
“Thanks.”
“No, I mean it. Clare saved our lives because of you. Just like the Robot saved our lives multiple times—he dragged me out of that ice—because of you, Will Robinson. Apparently, you’re the best friend in the universe.”
The words warmed me, and I raised my eyebrows at her. “Thanks.”
Judy looked past me to the sandbars I’d explored. “Maybe during the next round of spring tides, you can take me exploring with you.”
“Could we build a fort?”
“Only if I get to sit in it and quietly read my medical books.”
I smiled. “Sounds like a plan.”
Judy knelt beside Mom, Dad, and Dr. Smith, and started checking their vitals.
I turned and looked back out across the sand and rocks, nearly lost now beneath the waves of the incoming tide, but there was no sign of anyone else out there.
There was only us, here on our little island, surrounded by this vast world of water.
But maybe, just maybe, that was going to be all right.
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers began publishing books in 1926.
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Lost in Space--Infinity's Edge Page 14