As she lay there on the makeshift bed, she thought about Gracefield. The islanders, after discussions with Marvin, had learned the whole story. They had unceremoniously dumped his body into the sea. There were no tears, no words – just the throwing away of trash.
She knew it would take time for the islanders to be completely united. There would be more struggle, more arguments yet to come, but with the truth learned, and the spectre of Gracefield exorcised, she was confident the island, as small as it was, would provide a home for humanity for a while yet.
On the sixteenth day after the Utah had left for the flotilla, Eva woke to bright sunshine on the island. She quickly got dressed and stepped outside her hut. The central area of the valley was already thriving with busy work, men and women tending the farm, the compost, and the water systems.
Through composting and dredging, they’d managed to create enough soil to establish an allotment large enough to support nearly half of the island’s population. In another year or so, it would be big enough to grow vegetables for everyone.
Even Marcus was hard at work digging, organising people. His efforts had helped to position him in a place of status; he had used his unique skills to gain the trust of the islanders and propel himself to a leadership position, alongside Victoria and a small council of ten others. Eva had decided to stay out of it. She’d had enough of being responsible. She was officially retired, her badge and gun handed in, metaphorically speaking.
She sat down on the edge of the hut’s wooden steps and sipped cool water from her steel mug. She squinted against the bright light. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The floor didn’t rumble or pulse. Even the sea sounded calm.
After a few moments, she headed up out of the valley to take her usual hike around the island’s perimeter. It took her about an hour and was good exercise, enabling her to scramble, hike, and climb, all the while feeling the fresh air against her face.
Some habits never died, however: she always wore her face mask when she was near the water despite it being obvious that their vaccine was still working. Since the others had left in Gracefield’s sub, there hadn’t been a single case of infection amongst the islanders.
When she got to the crescent bay at the southern tip of the landmass, she stopped and shielded her eyes against the sun. A shape had grabbed her attention. At first she thought it was a shark fin, or perhaps a whale’s tail, but no . . . It was larger than that.
And it continued to grow larger as it got closer.
It was them: Duncan, Jim, and the rest of the crew had returned after all.
Eva ran back to the valley to fetch Marcus and some of the others and returned to the bay. By the time they arrived, the crew were already approaching the dock in the motorboat. She spotted Duncan and Annette, although it took a while for Eva to realise it was him: he’d shaved his Viking beard off and had cut his hair short. She only recognised him when he stepped onto the dock, by his crooked gait.
Jim, Gloria, and Marvin were next, and behind them two others. She couldn’t quite make them out until they got closer. Eva ran around the shore to the dock, happy to see the rest of the Utah crew returned; it had been the longest she’d been separated from them since first arriving on the flotilla.
‘We brought you back a souvenir,’ Duncan said, beaming a wide smile. He and Annette parted at the edge of the dock, and Danny burst through.
‘Eva!’ he cried, his arms out, and his legs pumping along the wooden boards of the dock.
Eva received his high-speed hug with a grunt. Her body was still sore from all the efforts at McKinley and on the island. But she didn’t care about any of that. All she cared about in that moment was that Danny was here, in her arms.
‘You’ll break him,’ Marcus said. ‘Poor kid’s going blue.’
Eva released Danny and held him at arm’s length. He was crying, so Eva wiped the tears from his face. ‘It’s so good to see you again!’ Eva said. ‘I missed you so much.’
‘I missed you too,’ he said. Then, as if forgetting something, he said, ‘Oh! I brought you a gift.’ He raised his hands and presented Eva with a small terracotta pot in which was a quantity of soil. In the middle sprouted a tiny green shoot – a plant.
‘Oh, that’s lovely,’ Eva said, genuinely pleased. ‘What is it?’
‘A flower,’ Danny said. ‘I found some seeds in one of the containers. Most of them died, but this one kept going. They let me use some lights on the submarine on our way here.’
Eva held the small bud up to the sun and hoped it would continue to thrive. Light, soil, and a bit of love and caring, and it would probably do just fine, she thought.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A big thanks to Krista Walsh, Jennifer Bender, Maureen Speller, Pauline Nolet, my grandad and my mum for all their help in creating this book. I’d also like to thank the Royal Navy and Simon Warren for their generous help with my ship-related questions.
I’d also like to thank everyone who has taken the time to review one of my books. It means a great deal to me, and I appreciate each and every one of you.
Thank you!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Colin F. Barnes is a publisher and writer of science-fiction and techno thrillers and a member of both the British Fantasy Society and the British Science Fiction Association. He honed his craft at the London School of Journalism and the Open University, where he studied English. Colin has run a number of tech-based businesses, worked in rat-infested workshops, and scoured the back streets of London looking for characters and stories – which he found in abundance. His hobbies include building mechs, pondering the end of the world as we know it, and being manipulated by an evil black cat.
You can connect with Colin at www.colinfbarnes.com and www.facebook.com/colinfrancisbarnes, and you can also follow him on Twitter: @ColinFBarnes.
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