“Ah,” he said, and for a moment he couldn't speak.
With the luggage secured, they boarded the van, everyone absorbed in grim silence. Except for Michelle. She talked about how she had never been in a spaceship and how it would be so much fun to tell everyone at school about it—when she started going to school again, whenever that was. Alan punched in the coordinates of the airport, and Rick, in the passenger seat, struggled to leaf through their evacuation paperwork with his mittens. As they pulled away from the house, Alan tried to think of something to say, something to lighten the mood.
“What's wrong, Mommy?” Michelle asked.
“Hmm?” Katherine said softly. “Oh, nothing."
“But you're crying. Did you hurt your hand on the seat belt?"
“Yes, dear. That's it."
“Okay. I'm sorry. I hurt my finger once on one of Grandpa's seat belts, too. It hurts."
“I've got an idea,” Alan said. “Why don't we sing some Christmas carols? I think that would be a lot of fun.” He tried to sound jovial, but he knew his voice wasn't ringing true. “'Jingle Bells,’ anyone?"
“Maybe we should focus on watching the road,” Rick said. “There might be some crazies out there, and the autopilot doesn't always know what to do."
“I'd like to sing,” Michelle protested.
Katherine sniffled. “Yes, let's."
“All right, fine,” Rick said. “Just don't let the van drive too fast, okay? We have plenty of time. We don't need to hurry. Hurrying we'll just get us in an accident."
Alan felt his irritation rise, then let it go. He was amazed he could feel irritated even today of all days. He cleared his throat and began to sing with his scratchy voice, and Katherine and Michelle quickly joined him. Rick focused his attention on his papers for a few blocks, as if there was something there that he could have possibly missed, but soon even he was singing. And that's how they passed the time as they made their way along the slick roads, the vents blasting warm air, the tires sloshing through water, soon out onto the ghostly highway, hardly a car on it. So many people already gone, and those that weren't had headed somewhere in the middle of the country, though he knew it could hardly help them. The asteroid coming their way was bigger than the United States.
When they finished that song, they launched immediately into “Frosty the Snowman,” then “Silent Night,” then “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” He couldn't remember them singing like this ever, and here they were singing fools. When they were nearly to LAX, he wondered if they should be talking more seriously, but he didn't know what the point of it all would be. What needed to be said had been said well enough in the previous months. Now there was only the parting.
The only person he hadn't talked to about what was happening was Michelle, and he wasn't sure he could bring himself to do that.
It wasn't long before they had reached the airport, navigated through three different checkpoints manned by soldiers, past tanks and jeeps with guns trained on them, down a special road to a gated area full of hundreds of cars parked in neat rows separated by red cones. Papers were checked, retinas scanned. At the last gate, they had to get out, and their car was thoroughly searched, their bags run through an X-ray machine before being tagged and dropped into the back of a pickup truck. In the gated area bright fluorescent lights mounted high in the air gave the place the feel of a sporting event. Hundreds of people were making their way slowly to the far end, where out in the middle of the tarmac sat the white transport plane, it, too, surrounded by enough artillery and soldiers to subdue a small country. The transport ships, fat, white, and ungainly in appearance, had been nicknamed “spaceducks.” Now, surrounded by all that army green, it seemed all the more like a duck—a duck sitting on a grassy bank.
For the past two months, all over the world, the spaceducks had been ferrying the lucky few up to Little Earth. And that ship, as big as a hundred football fields, with a self-contained ecosystem that could theoretically (but only theoretically) maintain itself indefinitely, would carry a little over ten thousand passengers and crew to RNL-875—a planet around a star much like the Sun, some 157 light years away. The best scientists in the world had determined that planet, out of the hundred or so identified, to have the best chance of having an environment hospitable to humans.
Alan knew that scientists had pegged the actual odds at something like one in ten thousand, and that was mostly guesswork and wishful thinking, but nobody talked about that much. In any case, it would be hundreds of generations before the ship arrived.
They parked the van and fell in line with the others, heading toward the last X-ray and retina arch before the tarmac; a dozen yards beyond that were the stairs up to the ship. The snowflakes were gone now, the air thick with a wet mist that clung to his skin. Michelle took his hand. Her fingers were small but warm within his own.
“Why is everybody crying?” she asked.
Rick and Katherine trailed behind, and he heard Katherine start crying again, Rick shushing her. All around them, much the same thing was happening. The line was moving quickly. They would be to the final gate in no time, Alan knew. He just had to keep moving. One foot in front of the other.
Alan swallowed. “It's hard saying goodbye."
“But they seem so sad,” Michelle said.
“Yes."
“Are they sad because they don't get to go on the spaceship?"
He didn't answer. They were only ten or eleven people from the front, and a woman near the gate suddenly threw herself against the fence and was shouting someone's name, soldiers quickly pulling her back. Was it Frank? Or Hank? Watching this, Alan knew he could no longer lie to Michelle. The truth may have brought out some ugly things in people, but at least it was truth. When she was older, he knew she would mostly likely look back on this day with sadness, but he didn't want her to look back feeling betrayed.
“No,” he said, looking down at her, attempting a smile. “They're sad because ... because they're leaving. Leaving and not coming back."
He saw the skin underneath her eyes quiver. “What?"
“I'm sorry, honey. We didn't tell you until now because we didn't want you to be upset."
“But why?"
“Well, there's this asteroid that's heading toward Earth—"
“Jimmy across the street told me about that,” she said quickly. “Daddy said they shot it down with a laser. They said it won't hurt anyone.” Her grip on his hand tightened.
Alan nodded. “Your daddy told you that because he didn't want you to worry about me. You see, dear, I'm not going with you."
Michelle stopped, looking at him with an expression of shock and hurt he wished immediately he had never seen. There was only one group ahead of them, a family of five, and the arch beeped as each child passed underneath.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “You see, only a few people can go on the ship that's going to take you to a new home. Old people like me don't get to go, but you and your parents are lucky ones."
He was waiting for her to cry, but the tears didn't come. Instead she looked furious, releasing his hand and clenching her fists.
“But I don't want to go without you!"
“I'm sorry, dear."
“They can't make me."
Katherine touched her daughter's shoulder. “Honey,” she began, but Michelle pulled away.
“No! I'm staying if Grandpa stays!” She grabbed Alan's hands and looked up at him with a pleading expression. “Please don't make me go, Grandpa! Please, I want to stay with you."
They were to the last arch; the plastic was bright yellow, like a children's playground toy. The soldiers waited silently, but he could see the impatience in their eyes. He wondered why any of them were even bothering to do this, then he knew that they must have also been lucky ones. They just had one last job to do before they got to board a transport ship of their own.
He bent down in front of Michelle and took her gently by the shoulders. “You know I love you,” he said.
“But you've got to go with your mommy and daddy. They need you very, very much. And I want you to grow up and be happy, and you can't be happy here with me."
“Yes, I can—"
He put a finger on her lips, quieting her. “Please, don't argue. Just go."
She nodded, though she now looked dazed. He kissed her forehead, looking away so he wouldn't see her crying. If he saw her crying, he knew his strength would desert him. He'd end up just like that woman throwing herself against the fence. He hugged Katherine, then Rick, said a few words of goodbye that had already been said, and then the three of them were ushered through the archway. Alan got to watch them for only a moment before a soldier escorted him out of the line and to a roped-off area where dozens of people stood along the fence. There were no lights in this area, and their faces were shadowy and dark. Alan wondered if that was deliberate. He didn't want to see these people's faces.
He took his place alongside them, and by then Rick, Katherine, and Michelle were entering the ship. He saw Michelle looking around frantically. He waved, but she didn't see him.
“Michelle!” he shouted.
She turned, perhaps not seeing exactly where he was, but definitely looking in his direction. Then she was in the ship. He knew he shouldn't have done it, but he wasn't the only one. Lots of people shouted. He heard a sound, a heavy thumping, and for a moment he thought it might be the asteroid crashing through the atmosphere, since he had no idea what that would sound like, and then he realized it was the pounding of his own heart. A few minutes later the rest of the passengers were in the ship. A woman in an orange jumpsuit was at the hatch, closing it. This is it, Alan thought. They're really leaving.
And then, before the hatch was closed, he saw the woman in orange stumble to the side. A figure emerged, short, dressed in a white jacket, running down the steps. When he recognized Michelle, he cried out, reaching as if he could grab her, his hand finding only the cold and damp metal fence. All around him others were crying out as well. It was as if she had fallen into an ocean full of sharks and they all stood helplessly on the boat.
The two soldiers at the bottom, who had turned aside, now turned back, but Michelle was already at the bottom. She ran for Alan. “Grandpa! Grandpa!” she cried.
She was surprisingly fast for such a little girl, so fast she may have surprised the soldiers, because she was halfway to Alan before they broke into a run. They gained on her quickly, but she was nearly to Alan already, slowing when she got close to the fence.
“Grandpa?” she said.
He hesitated for a second, but then his resolve broke. “Here,” he said. “Here, Michelle, here!"
She dashed to the fence with the soldiers, two thin men with assault weapons slung over their shoulders, close behind. Other soldiers were also approaching. Alan bent down to meet her, reaching to embrace her, forgetting that there was a fence in the way. His fingers closed around the gaps, and then her smaller fingers were over his own.
“Grandpa!"
The light was bad, but he saw the grim horror on her face, the desperation. All of these soldiers here to prevent the unexpected, he thought, and all it took was a six-year-old girl to disrupt them. The first two soldiers grabbed her and began to pull, but she released Alan's fingers and grabbed onto the fence, screaming. Try as they might, they couldn't pull her away. They had her whole body in the air and still they couldn't pry her off the fence.
“Damn kid,” one of them muttered.
“Don't hurt her!” Alan said.
“Grandpa! Grandpa!” Michelle cried.
The other soldiers had reached them now, a half dozen of them all looking the same in the dark. A tall, bald man with a silver mustache stepped between the two who were holding Michelle. “Put her down,” he said.
The two obeyed, putting Michelle back on her feet. Her white-fingered grip on the fence didn't slack, and she pressed up against the metal.
“I won't go!” she said.
“Please, Michelle,” Alan said.
“No!"
“If you don't go,” the man with the silver mustache said, “you'll be left behind."
“I want to stay with Grandpa!"
“Don't you want to be with your parents?"
“I want to stay with Grandpa!"
“Oh, for heaven's sake,” the man with the silver mustache said. “We don't have time—"
“Wait,” Alan said. “Let me come over there. I'll walk her up."
The man with the silver mustache looked at him skeptically. All those guns, Alan thought.
“Please,” he begged.
The man with the silver mustache looked at him a moment more, then nodded back toward the gate. As Alan ran, some of the soldiers on the other side jogged along side him. There was a moment of fuss at the arch, a few words spoken on radios, and then he was ushered through the beeping mechanism, the soldiers on the other side guiding him back to Michelle. He was still a few steps away from her when she turned and threw herself into his arms.
“I don't want to go!"
He stroked her hair, feeling the warmth of her face through his damp sweater. He knew there was nothing now he could say to comfort her. The truth was what it was. With his own private army accompanying him, he turned and headed for the plane. Two people in orange jumpsuits, a man and a woman, watched him from the top of the steps. Michelle's body shook with each breath. The yelling and shouting from the spectators had stopped; he knew they were all watching. When he started up the stairs, feet clanging on the metal, the soldiers stopped and gathered at the bottom.
With each step, his legs seemed heavier. He wasn't sure he was going to make it, but then there he was, at the top, placing Michelle on her feet between the two people in orange.
“There now,” he said, his throat constricting.
She looked up at him with wet eyes, cheeks glistening. He steadied her with a hand on her shoulder.
“Grandpa,” she said.
“It's for the best, honey. Please do it for me."
“But—"
“I know."
“I want—"
“Yes, but you still have to go."
Her chin dropped, and she looked down for a moment before turning toward the ship. Then she turned back suddenly, her hand reaching into her jacket pocket and emerging with the amber-like keepsake. She thrust it at him.
“I want you to have this,” she said.
“But it's yours."
“But I want you to have it."
He nodded and took it from her, kissing the back of her hand when he did so. She turned, not a trace of emotion on her face, and the two people in orange closed in behind her. He placed the keepsake in his pocket, then without waiting, turned and started back down the steps. He had to go quickly. He would not even wait for the ship to take off. He had to get out of there.
When the hatch clanged shut, he jumped. The soldiers watched him as if he was the walking dead, and he knew that to them perhaps he was. When he reached the bottom, a few patted him on the shoulder. The man with the silver mustache personally saw him back to the viewing area, shaking his hand and saying something inaudible before turning and leaving. Some people in the crowd asked him questions, but he didn't listen. He moved close to the fence, pressing his face up against the cool metal, and watched the plane.
The regular engines started turning, rumbling; the plane lurched forward. Even where he stood, he felt the frigid air pushing against him. He knew when it was up higher, the rocket engines would take over for the last leg of the journey. Science, his old friend, would see his family into space.
“Some Christmas,” he heard Janis say behind him.
The plane taxied along the runway, gathering speed. As he watched the ungainly white bird sail up into the darkness, he thought about Christmases past and Christmases future. He thought about a huge hunk of rock hurtling toward
the Earth. He thought about little girls with microscopes and insects encased in amber. He thought about the meaning of the word hope.
“The best ever,” he said.
Copyright (c) 2005 Scott William Carter
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
Hotel Security
by Carl Frederick
“Mag card or retinal scan?” said the hotel night clerk. “Or both if you want to give a key to a visitor."
Roger Royce glanced at the scanner and forced a smile. “Scanner,” he said. “Left eye."
“Oh,” said the clerk, a look of surprise on his face. “You've done this before.” He pushed a button and the scanner swiveled out to the front of the reservations desk. “Almost everyone chooses the card.” As Roger leaned in, his left eye over the metal guide, the clerk added, “People seem almost afraid of this thing."
“I have reservations about this,” said Roger, “but scanners are the way of the future.” His smile edged toward a scowl. Although he much preferred the mag card, he was duty-bound to choose the scanner. After all, it was probably because of him that the hotel even had a scanner.
A flash came from the lens and Roger then bent to pick up his overnight bag and laptop.
“Excuse me, sir,” said the clerk. “But I need to see a photo ID, please."
Roger put down his baggage and took out his wallet. His hand hesitated over his driver's license before withdrawing instead, a phony ID. Performing a spur of the moment test, Roger handed the “Eastern Lycanthropic” identification card to the clerk.
The clerk glanced at it and passed it back. “Thank you, Dr. Royce. Your room number is 2217. Shall I write it down?"
“No, thank you.” Roger picked up his bags.
“Enjoy your stay at the Neotel Riverside,” said the clerk. “Have a good night."
Roger bit his lip for a moment before saying, “Thank you” and then heading toward the elevator. He'd considered apprising the clerk of the lapse of security, but decided there was no need to make an issue of it and embarrass the man. Roger smiled, thinking that the encounter would make a good opening anecdote for his speech in the morning.
Analog SFF, December 2005 Page 18