Good Morning, Midnight

by Lily Brooks-Dalton

  Augie told her he was at a research facility 81 degrees north, on the Canadian Arctic archipelago, that he’d been there for some time and had little information regarding the state of the world beyond his icebound island. He told her there had been murmurs of war, then an evacuation that he’d chosen to forgo, and then—nothing. Only silence and isolation. He wanted to tell her everything: how it felt to leave the observatory and cross the tundra, to make a new home for himself beside the lake, how it felt to kill the wolf and bury it in the snow, to take care of Iris, to feed her and teach her how to fish, to worry about her, to feel the stirrings of love; how it felt to watch the snow and the ice melt, to bathe in the light of the midnight sun and then watch it slip away. He wanted to tell her about these feelings—these overwhelming, disconcerting, glorious feelings that weren’t always good, were often very bad, but which were always so vivid, so immediate, so new to him.

  He had so much to say. He wanted to ask about her journey, to hear how it felt to be among the stars as opposed to looking up at them. He wanted to ask how Earth looked from out there, how long she’d been gone—but the connection faltered and then slipped away. Given the vast distance the signal had to travel, the rotation of the earth and the fluctuation of the atmosphere, it wasn’t surprising. He saved the frequency and planned to monitor it for however long it took to regain the connection.

  Over the next twelve hours he left the radio shed only once, to walk back to the tent and make himself a thermos of heavily sugared coffee. Iris was reading on one of the cots when he arrived, and Augustine told her everything that had happened—the woman, the spacecraft full of astronauts. She didn’t seem to care. He tried to get her to accompany him back to the radio shed, but she declined and kept reading. She seemed happy for him but utterly uninterested in the development. He wondered whether she understood the significance of it. He shrugged and shuffled back to the little building, thermos in hand, trying to imagine why Iris hadn’t leaped at the chance to hear a voice other than his, to talk to a woman not of this world.

  Back in front of the equipment, his receivers trained on the correct wavelength and his ears pricked for anything unusual hiding amid the white noise, he leaned back in his chair and tried not to fall asleep.

  IT TOOK HIM a moment to realize that he was hearing her voice again, emerging from a foggy dream and into the freezing shed. When he did he bolted upright and let the empty thermos fall to the floor. He scrambled for the microphone.

  “I’m here,” he said, “KB1ZFI confirming receipt.” He held the Transmit button down a second or two longer, wondering where to begin—what to ask, what to tell. He told himself to be patient. Let her respond. “Over.”

  A man’s voice arrived in his headphones a moment later, gravelly and distorted by the distance it was traveling.

  “KB1ZFI, this is Aether’s commander, Gordon Harper. I can’t tell you how glad we are to speak with you. I’m here with Specialist Sullivan, whom you already know. Sully here tells me you’re as confused as we are about what’s happened. Confirm?”

  “Confirmed,” Augie said. “A pleasure to speak with you also, welcome home. I’m only sorry it’s not under better circumstances. The truth is it’s been a long time since I’ve heard anything over the waves. Over a year since the evac. I’m guessing you have more information than I do, considering your vantage point. Over.”

  There was a long pause and Augie worried he’d lost the connection, but then the commander spoke again.

  “It’s too soon to tell. But we’ll do our best to keep you informed. How are you faring on your own? Over.”

  “Surprisingly well. These research outposts are stocked to the gills. Not sure if things went nuclear or chemical warfare or what, but the effects in this part of the world are indiscernible, whatever happened. Wildlife is healthy, no sign of radiation poisoning. Over.”

  Augie wanted to know if they would reenter the atmosphere, if they even could, and if they did—what they would find. What else was out there, beyond his frozen home? What did the rest of the planet look like? He wasn’t sure how to ask. They were still so far away. After so many months of just surviving, he was suddenly burning with curiosity to know—to know everything. There was an even longer pause this time, and he imagined what they might be saying to each other.

  “KB1ZFI, this is Sullivan, I think we’re about to lose—” And they were gone.

  “Standing by,” he said out loud to the emptiness.

  AUGUSTINE HAD SEEN the last of the sun. It was officially autumn. The polar night began, and with it the temperatures grew extreme. It was time for hibernation again, for staying inside the main tent and keeping the oil stove burning hot. His short walks to the radio shed became more and more difficult; he felt his health failing, and breathing the subzero air hurt his lungs. The more he exerted himself the harder he breathed, and the harder he breathed the sicker he got.

  Even so—he kept his vigil. He kept standing by, as often as he could. He fell in and out of dreams as he waited by the microphone in the little radio shed, dreams that grew more vivid as time passed, until he could no longer differentiate between sleep and consciousness. A fever kept him warm, heating his blood to a simmer within his veins. Eventually he heard the woman’s voice again and shook himself awake. He wasn’t sure how long it had been. Hours, or days.

  “KB1ZFI,” she was saying, over and over. “KB1ZFI, KB1ZFI,” until finally he could rouse himself and find the microphone.

  “Copy,” he said, “KB1ZFI responding.”

  “I thought I’d lost you,” she said, relieved.

  “Not yet,” he answered, his voice rusty, his throat full of phlegm. “Call me Augustine.” He released the Transmit button to cough a deep, chestbound rattle. He wondered how much longer he had.

  “All right, then, Augustine. I’m Sully. It’s just me today. Tell me about the sky,” she said, “or the animals. Hell, tell me about the dirt.”

  He smiled. It must have been a long time since she’d set her eyes on any of those things.

  “Well,” he began, “the sky is dark all day here. I’m guessing it’s late October? No sun till spring, just stars.”

  “It’s October all right. What about the animals? The weather?”

  “It’s cold these days—maybe twenty, thirty below. And the birds, they’re mostly gone. The wolves, though, they’re still here, still howling, and Arctic hares, scampering around on the ice like that damn rabbit with the pocket watch, you know the one I mean. Oh, and there’s a bear. He shouldn’t be this far inland this time of year, but he is. Saw his prints in the snow myself. Between you and me, I think he’s been following me.”

  “A polar bear? Following you? That doesn’t sound so good.”

  “No, no, he’s all right—he’s easy company, keeps to himself. And the dirt—well, the dirt is frozen. Not much else to tell you here. Just hunkering down for the winter. And you?”

  “Fair enough,” she said. “We’re in orbit now. Going to dock with the ISS if we can, see about rounding up the reentry modules.”

  “And your trip? What did you see?”

  “Jupiter,” she said. She sounded wistful. “Mars. The Jovian moons. Stars. Emptiness. I don’t know—it’s hard to describe it all. We were gone so long. Augustine? I think I’m going to lose the signal in a minute, we’re orbiting toward the Southern Hemisphere. But listen—take care of yourself, okay? I’m not sure what’s going to happen next. I hope we talk again. I hope—”

  She was gone. Augie turned off the equipment and struggled back to the tent. He collapsed on his cot fully clothed. It was hours before the stove thawed him enough that he could move again, and when he did manage to remove his boots and his parka, a slippery thought crept into his consciousness and then fell away into his subconscious, in and out, in and out, until he fell asleep.

  THE FEVER HAD its claws in him. He dreamed vividly of returning to the radio shed, of methodically turning on the generator, then the transceivers, but
then he’d realize he was still on his cot, unable to move, and the dream would begin again in a loop: his mind would wake and go to the shed, and his body would remain. The rare moments of true wakefulness were painful and brief. He was hot and cold, shivering and sweating. For the most part he hovered on the edge of consciousness, dreaming about waking up, dreaming about dreaming about waking up. His brain was trapped in never-ending layers of his subconscious: each layer he pulled back led him to another and another.

  Iris was there, in real life, or perhaps it was only in the dreams, he couldn’t tell. She was hovering over the cot with anxious eyes. She laid cool, damp rags on his forehead and steaming, hot rags on his chest. She sang to him; the wolves sang along with their faraway howls. At times he mistook her for Jean, at other times for his own mother.

  When he eventually fought his way back to consciousness the tent was dark and cold, the electric lamp had burned out, and the oil stove had run dry. How long had it been? Where was Iris? He found a small reserve of strength, went outside and changed the oil drum, then rekindled the stove before he collapsed once more. He drank half a gallon of water, so cold it made his head ache.

  He set the jug down and there was Iris, coming in the door, latching it behind her. Lifting the glass chimney from one of the kerosene lamps, then lighting the wick with a match and lowering the chimney back into place. Adjusting the flame. Carrying it to Augie’s bedside, holding the light over him for a moment and then setting it down on the table. Laying her palm against his forehead, sitting down on the edge of the cot and smiling. Her eyes said Go back to sleep, but her lips said nothing at all.

  EIGHTEEN

  SULLY RUSHED BACK to Little Earth and started banging on all the sleeping compartments. She pounded on the frame of Devi’s bunk for a few beats before realizing it was empty, then hurried along the curve of Little Earth to the long table. Thebes was already there, eating dried fruit and looking at her quizzically; the others quickly emerged from their bunks. The overhead lights reached their full morning brightness as she relayed the story of the contact—their first contact since Mission Control went dark. Their expressions of sleepy annoyance gradually gave way to excitement. When she reached the end of her story, however, her crewmates looked more confused than enlightened.

  “That’s it?” Tal asked. “He doesn’t know anything else?”

  Sully shrugged. “I’m going to keep monitoring the frequency and I’m hopeful we can get him back, but yes, he doesn’t know much about what’s happened. He said it’s been radio silence since the other researchers evacuated a year ago.”

  “Why did they evacuate?”

  “I don’t know—war rumors. But that’s all he knew, rumors.”

  “So then, this guy is what, like the last person on earth? Is that what we’re getting at here?” Tal seemed indignant.

  “Don’t joke,” Ivanov admonished him.

  Tal rolled his eyes. “I wish I were,” he said. “Think about it. If this guy has been trying to make contact for all this time and hasn’t been able to, not a peep till now…I mean, if something catastrophic happened, where would the safest places be—the least fallout? The poles, that’s where. Exactly where he is. It’s possible he’s the only one left.”

  They all fell silent for a moment. Harper had been running his hands through his hair, over and over, as though by stimulating his scalp he might arrive at a new idea, a different angle he hadn’t noticed. He dropped his hands into his lap and sighed.

  “I don’t see that we’ve really learned anything new. We’re still looking at a lot of question marks. Sully, let’s try to talk to him again—see what we can suss out. Otherwise, I want our docking seals checked. I think we should hook into ISS and go from there. Reentry sequence as planned. Not much point speculating, right? One thing at a time.”

  They all nodded and Harper went back to the comm. pod with Sully. The others trickled after them, and the search for the last man on earth began again—hours of static, Sully repeating his call sign over and over, until finally, hours later, they got their answer.

  THE SECOND CONVERSATION was even less enlightening than the first. Harper, Sully, and Thebes were crowded into the comm. pod while Ivanov and Tal floated in the corridor. All five of them were only more frustrated by the time they lost the signal, which didn’t last long. They all drifted over to the observation deck afterward, where they could watch Earth moving beyond the glass cupola. Ultimately there wasn’t a lot to discuss—the man on the other end had told them everything he knew, which wasn’t much—but it didn’t stop them from going over and over the meager facts. They would dock with the ISS and then the conundrum of reentry would be addressed. They couldn’t orbit forever, but without a ground team to pick them up in the Kazakhstani desert, things grew complicated and uncertain. Sully went back to the comm. pod while the others continued debating.

  She tried to reestablish a connection with the Arctic but couldn’t. It had become clear that the man didn’t have the information they were hoping for—an explanation—but there were other things she wanted to ask him. She wanted details of Earth: sunsets, weather, animals. She wanted to be reminded of how it felt to be beneath the atmosphere, housed within that gentle daylit dome. She wanted to remember how it felt to be held by Earth: dirt and rocks and grass cradling the soles of her feet. The season’s first snow, the smell of the ocean, the silhouettes of pine trees. She missed it all so keenly she felt the absence inside her abdomen, like a black hole sucking her organs into nothingness. So she waited. No more scanning. The frequency was locked in, it was only the many layers of atmosphere, the angle of the antenna, the rotation of the earth, and the vigilance of the radio operator below that occupied her now. She wondered if it was true—if she’d found the last man on earth.

  In the days that followed, Aether arrived in Earth’s orbit. Sully had no luck finding the Arctic survivor again. She wasn’t able to keep her vigil as consistently as she would’ve liked to; as they circled the earth they had their work cut out for them, and the practical purposes for speaking with him again were minimal. The other crewmembers were focused on more pressing things. The plans for Aether had always been to dock with the ISS—the entire spacecraft was designed to eventually become an addition to the space station—so in that respect they were still within the parameters of their mission, following a plan set years ago. But without the other crew in the ISS to coordinate with, the procedure was difficult and uncertain.

  As they drew closer to the ISS, she finally found him again. He was equally glad for the excuse to talk to her—about anything. He told her about the Arctic—the dark days and the frozen tundra. When he talked about the polar bear tracks he’d found, she recognized something in him: a stubborn loneliness. As though he couldn’t say aloud, even now, at the end of the world, that he was lonely. That he craved connection without understanding how to obtain it; that finding a set of tracks, the merest evidence of another presence, was his idea of company. It went beyond the isolation of his situation, it was a part of him, and she suspected it always had been. Even in crowded rooms, even in busy cities, even in the arms of a lover, he was alone. She recognized it in him because it was in her too.

  The connection broke before she was ready, if she would ever have been ready. She stayed in the comm. pod for a long time afterward. She flicked off the speakers and listened to the hum of the ship itself, the faint murmurs of her crewmates on the control deck. He was all alone down there, tracking polar bears and listening to the howls of wolves. He was older, she guessed from the gravel in his voice, and would be disheveled after so much time on his own in the Arctic wilderness. Long hair, shaggy beard. She pictured his eyes, ethereal blue, she decided, the same color as ice lit by the sun. At first she had imagined saving him—setting down the Soyuz pod on Ellesmere Island and finding his isolated camp—but the fantasy ended there. There would be no way back to warmer climates, and a very good chance they would end up in the freezing ocean or on the frozen tundra a
nd never find him at all. No, the Soyuz pod would be set down in a more forgiving region, a place where the crew could hope to survive. The last man on earth would remain trapped where he was, and she would never know for sure what he looked like. He would always be a disembodied voice, a spectral wanderer. He would die alone.

  From the control deck she heard Tal shouting in excitement—they had the ISS in their sights. She dried her eyes on the sleeve of her jumpsuit and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She took a few deep breaths and rolled her jaw, shaking the grief-stricken grimace out of her face muscles. The ISS was good news. She tried on a smile and checked it in the silvery reflection of a transceiver casing. Good enough. Propelling herself out of the comm. pod and down the corridor to the control deck, she ran into Thebes, approaching from the direction of the centrifuge.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  “Ready for what?”

  “Ready to go home.”

  They drifted onto the control deck together, where Tal and Ivanov were already waiting. Tal had the docking controls ready and Ivanov floated in the cupola, watching the space station grow closer and closer through the window while Tal watched the port come closer and closer on his docking cam. The station’s solar arrays spread out from the silver maze at its center like huge, illuminated wings. The vivid blue of Earth’s oceans, swept with white ruffles of breakers and wisps of cloud, moved beneath it.

  “I’m not sure,” she whispered to Thebes, but he didn’t hear her. Harper came in a moment later, and all five of them watched the two spacecrafts slowly approach, align, and then, miraculously, lock together and become one: a silver angel wandering in an empty heaven.

  NINETEEN

  AUGUSTINE STRUGGLED TO sit up. The flame of the kerosene lamp was burning low, the wick flickering inside the glass chimney. It seemed the tent was empty, but it was so dim he couldn’t be sure.

  “Iris,” he called, and again, “Iris.”

  He heard nothing but the low moan of a gentle wind outside, pushing up against the shell of the tent, the hiss of the oil stove, the sputter of the lamp’s flame. He tried to calculate how long it had been since he’d talked to the woman aboard Aether—had it been yesterday, the day before, perhaps the day before that? He couldn’t distinguish the passage of time from the blur of waking dreams he’d been caught up in. He wanted to talk to her again. He wanted to ask her more—about her mother and father, to learn how she’d grown up and where, if she’d ever had a family, children of her own. He wanted to know how she’d decided to become an astronaut, what it was about the loneliness of space that had made her leave everything behind. He wanted to tell her about his work, his achievements, but also his failures—to confess his sins, and to be forgiven. Here, at the very end of his life, he had so much to say and yet so little strength to say it. His head spun with the effort each time he raised it from the pillow.