Thierry looked at the meat again.
Belynn looked at her mother.
Andy was calm, serene.
How could she be? Thierry was too young to make such a choice and the bribes too tempting. Even she would be tempted to say yes.
Belynn reached for Andy’s mind.
Andy shook her head. Let him choose.
The room was silent as a crypt.
Della frowned. “What will it be? Don’t keep me waiting.”
Thierry looked up at her, a smile on his face.
Belynn felt like she’d been knifed in the gut.
Della smiled back. “You won’t regret—”
“Roland was going to sell me to you.” Thierry’s smile was gone. “I don’t need another keeper.” He stomped on her toe, and Della howled.
“You little monster!” She tried to grab him.
The door burst open. Kiryn was there, fighting with a guard to reach her. “Belynn!”
The room went pitch-black.
Belynn waited for Thierry’s touch.
Then his hand was grabbing hers and she could see again. Thierry pulled her toward Andy.
The guards flailed about in their own personal darkness.
Belynn understood now, what Thierry could do. He was a game changer. He could sow fear and confusion on a level few Liminals had ever been capable of before. If Della ever turned him toward her way of thinking….
Thierry put Belynn’s hand in Andy’s good one and let go.
Belynn was plunged into darkness once again.
Aine, you ready?
Yes. We all are.
Thierry returned with Kiryn, and the room brightened. Apparently for everyone, as the guards who were stumbling found their footing and looked around, confused.
Belynn and Kiryn touched palms, and he kissed her cheek.
“Glad you made it.” It was good to have him here.
Della looked around the room and then focused on the five them. “What are you doing? Stop, whatever it is. I command you.”
Belynn ignored her. “Ready?” She took Destiny’s hands. Andy and Kiryn put their hands on Belynn’s shoulders.
“I think so.” Destiny smiled gamely. “I have to be.”
Of all of them, Destiny would bear the brunt of what they planned to do.
“Here we go.” Belynn opened herself up to all the voices, every other Liminal in Forever. She could sense them, but they were all silent, all at once. All waiting for her.
Belynn reached into Destiny. I love you.
Destiny’s thought came back. I love you too.
Belynn felt Destiny reach through her to the first of the linked Liminal minds.
AT BELYNN’S request, Aine had asked the other Liminals to find every person still alive who remembered Old Earth. Each of them had a Liminal with them.
Destiny chose the first one at random, pulling the pattern of a memory from Belynn’s mind.
Se gave it to Thierry, who broadcast it to the people in the room. But not just there.
Aine opened herself to him, as did a thousand other Liminal minds.
The memory spread. From the Residence all across Darlith—the Grid, New Town, even into the hovels of the Warren. People stopped what they were doing and became a part of the memory.
It reached the Verge and the farmsteads outside of Darlith. Soon it stretched from the ends of Forever in Micavery and the nearly empty lands past Thyre, from one end of the world to the other.
In fields, farmers laid down their tools and let it flow through them.
In a brothel in the Warren, a prostitute and her john stopped midthrust on the dirty hay mattress together, entranced.
Along the Rhyl, a boat floated unattended as the fisherman who owned it lay back to stare at the golden light of the spindle, unseeing,
Everyone shared the memory.
TOBY CRIED in his mother’s arms as she ran across the blasted field, with Sara in tow, racing to reach the gate to the ship before it was closed. Behind them, a thousand others ran after them, trampling the grass underfoot. The air smelled like burned grass and death.
Sara stumbled and fell, and their mother leaned to pick her up.
Blood ran down her white stocking from a cut on her knee.
In the distance, bombs went off, a terrible thunder that had kept him awake all night.
Toby didn’t understand what was happening. His orderly world of sleep, eat, and school had been rearranged in an instant with the detonation of the first bomb over Denver.
His father had left two nights before in search of food and had never come back to the camp.
Now they were in a run for their lives. To make it up there. To the stars.
He wanted to cry, but his tears were all gone.
DESTINY FOUND another memory from someone else who still remembered Earth, and through Belynn and Thierry, se flung it out into the world.
CAITLYN LAY on her back, staring up at the blue sky. Fluffy white clouds hugged the margins, but it was already really warm—close to a hundred degrees—and it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet.
Winnipeg summers had gotten hotter and hotter, and every day in July Caitlyn had thanked her parents for getting the pool. The cooler extracted the heat at night and left the weather refreshing for most of the overheated days.
Rick and Vanya were coming over later. She hadn’t decided which one she liked better—maybe she’d keep both?—but either way, they’d all have a good time.
Rick was old enough for the lottery now, and with the wars in Asia Minor and South Africa, he might get called up any day to fight for the NAU.
She pushed the thought out of her mind. There was nothing she could do about it, and worrying her day away warped the mind, as her mother was fond of saying.
Besides, it was a clear summer and she had nothing she had to do.
Nothing but Rick and Vanya.
ANOTHER MEMORY shared.
MANDELA, NAMED for a civil rights leader of an earlier age, crouched behind the well, his fletch gun at his side.
Twice this week the Tanenga gang had tried to take the well. It was one of the few remaining water spots in the district, and Mandela’s Homely Boys controlled it.
His mother needed the water. She was sick and had been for months. The Kenyan Flu, they were calling it.
Many suspected it was a military-created bug that had gotten out to ravage the general population.
When the NAU aid workers had come through town, they had built three of the deep wells, reaching down to the ever-lowering water table.
Sadly, one had been destroyed in a firefight, and the other had seen its last bucket of water two weeks before.
If his mother wasn’t sick, he would have taken her south, to Cape Town. At least in the city the great desalination plants could still extract water from the rising seas.
There. Someone was lurking around the corner at the edge of the square.
He jumped up and let loose two of the fletches. They screamed toward the building and swung around it, finding their mark and blowing him up in a hail of flesh.
ANOTHER.
JIAN CHEN walked through the gardens of the royal palace in Beian, in the Heilongjiang province of northern China. The water imports cost the family a small fortune, but with the cherry blossoms in full bloom, filling the air with their perfume, she considered it well worth it.
The Jian Dynasty had brought prosperity back to mother China after decades of climate-driven losses. Now her troops fought overseas, and soon she would control the vast majority of the world’s resources, dwindling though they might be.
Chen plucked a cherry blossom, breathing in its pleasing scent, and then set it in the small brook that flowed along the path.
Her lover, Lin Ju-Long, was a commoner.
Nevertheless, Chen’s mother, the Empress of a Thousand Stars, had been well pleased when she had chosen a woman to share her bed. China had too many mouths to feed, and only one in ten couples were allowed to h
ave children, the much-hated one-ten policy.
Ju-Long was abroad, fighting in the North American Union city of Seattle, but she called home often.
As if summoned by the thought, her ring code appeared in Chen’s vision. Chen sat on one of the stone benches, closing her eyes and sitting back with her hands flat on the warm surface.
“Hey, baubau! What’s going on?” Ju-Long’s grinning face stared back at her. Her lover wore her battle fatigues, a heavy pulse cannon slung over her shoulder.
“We’re hosting the Japanese Ambassador and their wife tonight. How’s Seattle?”
All at once she was riding Ju-Long’s vision. The city was a dark silhouette against a darker sky. “Lights out. But we’re pushing forward the assault tomorrow.”
“Wish you were here.”
“Me too, baobei.”
ANOTHER.
MINDY STOOD as close to the edge as she dared and stared down.
The Primrose Tower was the tallest superscraper in London. At over three hundred stories above the ground, the public viewing deck had a buffer field to keep out the worst of the winds. Several other buildings in central London came close, but most of the city was far below her feet, so far it was hard to even make out most of the buildings as more than square shapes on the city grid.
“Isn’t it stim? Makes me all fluttery-nervous inside.” David put his arms around her waist and nuzzled her neck. “Told you I’d show you the world.”
He smelled good, like Lorenz Number Nine.
At just seventeen, they’d run away from home up in Blackpool and had gotten married in a historic church down on Abbey Lane. David had saved up his allowance and credit, doing odd jobs, and he’d brought her up here to see the view.
It was time to tell him.
She turned around and took his hand, looking deep into his eyes. “David, I’m pregnant.”
He stared at her for a moment and then let out a joyous whoop. “I’m gonna be a dad!” He grabbed the sleeve of the older man next to them. “She’s pregnant. I’m gonna be a dad!”
She pulled him back and kissed him. “And a right fine one, at that.”
ON AND on they went, memories spun up from all around the globe. Bits and pieces of Old Earth, of history retained in the minds of the few remaining people who had been there.
Tales of wars and lives and loves, of change and fear and death and rebirth.
Destiny was breathing raggedly, exhausted by the work of sharing so much with so many. Se closed ser eyes, supporting serself on Belynn’s shoulder.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I will be. It… drains me.” Se’d never done something like this before. It was exciting and exhausting and immensely satisfying, all at once. Se could feel ser “audience,” the people of her world, as they waited for more.
“We can stop. Don’t push yourself too hard.”
Destiny nodded. “I’m okay. One more.”
Andy squeezed her shoulder. “I have one.”
Belynn cocked her head. “You told me you never went to Earth.”
Andy met her gaze. “Nevertheless.”
Belynn nodded. “Okay.”
Destiny looked around. The guards were on the ground, stunned, and even Della had collapsed on her grand “throne.”
“Ready?”
Andy nodded, while the world held its breath.
Through Belynn, se reached Andy and accepted her memory.
THE SHUTTLE matched velocities with the latest refugee vessel dumped by the coyotes near Transfer Station. It was a beat-up old metal can, probably originally one of the booster stages for the old Artemis rockets used in the 2120s. Andy had studied up on her space history.
In the distance, the blue-and-brown marble of Earth hung against the inky black, star-studded void. It was so beautiful from up here.
One day, she dreamed of going to see Earth herself—to find out what an open sky felt like, clear and blue for as far as the eye could see. What an ocean would look like, with the smell of salt in the air and the cry of seagulls up above.
She suspected that dream would never come true.
The shuttle eased up alongside the booster, reconfiguring its airlock to match the clearly hastily constructed one on the other ship.
As Andy watched through the porthole, the scarred silver skin of the booster drew closer and closer, until the two ships connected with a hollow metallic clang.
Andy already had her seat belt off and was headed for the airlock when her father, Aaron, the station commander, pulled her back.
His face was a mask of fatherly concern. “What’s the big rush?”
“It’s my first time.” He’d never let her come on one of these ever-more-frequent rescue missions before. “I want to greet the refugees.”
“Hold on, sport.” He gripped her shoulder firmly but gently. “Behind that door….” He indicated the airlock “Are probably hundreds of people, trapped inside for days, sometimes even weeks, without enough food and water. People who are desperate. Earth is in chaos, and they are doing whatever they can to get up here.”
“Why can’t they just come?” It was an honest question.
His eyes filled with tears, and he hugged her tightly. “I love you for that, little cricket. More than you know.”
Andy hugged him back.
“I wish all of them could.” He let her go. “Now be strong, no matter what you see. And be kind. These people need our help. Okay?”
She nodded. “I will.”
He led her to the airlock, behind Dr. Ken’s team.
It cycled open, and a horrendous smell assaulted her from the inside of the other ship. She stumbled backward, catching the edge of one of the seats to get her balance.
The team didn’t hesitate, moving into the ship with deliberate efficiency.
“You okay? You don’t have to go inside.” Her dad waited for her reply.
She nodded, pulling her shirt up over her nose. “I’ll be okay.” At fifteen, she’d lived a pretty much tragedy-free life on the station and over on Forever. She supposed it was time she saw a bit of the other side of the coin.
“I’m proud of you.” Aaron handed her a couple of nose buds and put in his own.
She inserted them into each nostril gratefully. They screened out the worst of the smell, but she could still tell it was there.
He held out his hand, and they went inside.
The human coyotes who had prepared the vessel for transport had subdivided the booster into multiple levels. It hadn’t been built for travel in space. Andy was sure its radiation shielding was nonexistent.
She passed three dead dehydrated bodies near the lock, one of which was a dark-haired child who couldn’t have been more than three years old.
Her stomach heaved at the sight.
Her father put a hand on her shoulder. “I know.”
The medical team had found three live passengers a little farther in. They were busy rehydrating them and giving them doxynol to counteract the worst effects of the radiation sickness.
The floor was sticky with vomit and other human fluids.
Andy and Aaron followed one of the doctor’s team members down to the second level on a rickety metal stair.
This level was dark, the illumination from above providing just a narrow beam of light. Andy pulled out her SLED light, palming it on, and started searching cubbies.
There were more dead bodies here, mostly splayed out on the ground, but in one nook she found two people, elderly, by the look of things, in each other’s arms, her head on his shoulder. Their skin was a disturbing shade of gray. At least you died together.
When her time came, Andy hoped she wouldn’t be alone.
As she rounded a corner, there was a whimpering sound ahead. She raced toward it, heedless of the danger. Someone else was alive in this terrible place, and they needed her help.
She paused and heard it again, still ahead.
She maneuvered her way over the dead body of an enormous man
, probably almost two hundred kilos. Then she slipped over a fallen makeshift wall.
Just beyond, she found the girl.
She was small, maybe five years old. She was huddled in a corner in a cheery pink dress with a bow. The dress had seen better days—it was smeared with dirt, stained with spots of something dark, and torn at the edges.
In her arms was a small teddy bear.
The girl’s big brown eyes looked up at her and widened with fear. She screamed and scrambled to get away.
Andy knelt beside her. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m here to help you.” She held her hands out, palms open, to show she meant no harm.
“Andy, you okay?” Her father’s voice echoed through the ship. He sounded worried.
“Yeah. Found someone.” She turned back to the little girl, who had stopped screaming but was watching her warily. She pointed at the teddy bear. “What’s his name?”
“Harrison O’Reilly Smith.”
Andy nodded, putting her hand gently on the teddy bear’s head. “That’s a beautiful name. What’s yours?”
“Melissa Smith.”
“Things are going to be okay now, Melissa. We’re here to help you feel better.”
“What about my mommy?” She pointed off to one side.
Andy swung her SLED to look.
A woman’s body lay there, a sharp broken pipe protruding from her chest. Her eyes were wide open and her mouth was frozen in a cry of pain.
Andy’s gut clenched, and she turned away, desperately trying to keep down the contents of her stomach for the girl’s sake.
Her father’s hand touched her shoulder. “Who do we have here?”
His calm demeanor helped her get a handle on her emotions. “Dad, this is Melissa, and her little friend here is Harrison.”
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