by Anne Corlett
The signal.
The signal.
That word swelled within her, until she was sure her lungs were stretched too tight to contain the pressure.
Lowry was on his feet, already moving across the square, following Rena, and after a frozen moment, Jamie set off after him.
There was a mocking edge to the siren as she made her way along the corridor of the comms station. Just as she reached the door at the far end, the noise snapped off, leaving her ears throbbing with after-echoes.
In the office, Rena was leaning over a complicated mess of wires and switches. The screen was awash with static, with a half-formed something shifting in the fuzz of black and white.
“This is Soltaire station, code three eighteen. Are you receiving?”
There was a twist of sound, something that might have been a response, but it faded into the static.
Rena turned a dial beside the screen. “Are you receiving me?”
Jamie found that she was counting inside her head, counting down the seconds to the moment when Rena would turn away and say, It was nothing, just a false alarm.
A thin, artificial voice echoed through the little office.
“Soltaire station, this is trade clipper Phaeacian.”
Jamie stood very still. If she moved or made a sound it would break the moment, and the voice would disappear. Rena was stabbing at buttons, her hands uncharacteristically swift and confident.
“Soltaire station hailing trade clipper Phaeacian. Hold that frequency.”
The static flared louder, then fell away, leaving the pregnant, edge-of-hearing hum of an open connection. In the same instant, the crackle-glaze of the screen gave way to an image. It was distorted, curving at the edges and flickering sideways every few seconds, but Jamie could make out the face of a man.
Four, Jamie thought. Four of them alive. Another precious step away from zero point zero zero zero one.
Through the imprecise grayscale of the transmission, she could see the man’s mouth moving, but there was no sound. When Rena turned another dial, the room was filled with the tail end of whatever it was that he’d been saying.
“. . . planetside.”
“Could you repeat that, please?” Rena said.
A second’s delay, then the man nodded. “I said, how many survivors planetside?”
“Just three. As far as we know.”
“Who are the other two?”
Lowry stepped up to Rena’s side. “Two of us from a religious house,” he said. “Myself and Rena here. Then a female veterinarian from a cattle station.” He smiled. “No one dangerous.”
The man didn’t return the smile. “Let me see your third.”
When Jamie moved around to place herself in view of the screen, the man glanced at her and then turned away, as though she were of no more interest than some piece of cargo he was being asked to transport.
“What do you need?” he said. “Supplies? Messages carried?”
Jamie felt a catch of fear, as though Rena might say, No, we’re fine here. Carry on your way.
“We want to get off-planet,” Rena said. “We’re going to Earth.”
This time the pause was fractionally longer than could be attributed to the transmission delay.
“I’m not going to Earth,” the man said. “I’m headed to the capital worlds. See how the land lies.” He glanced away, and when he turned back to the screen his expression looked resigned, although that might have been a trick of the static. “You able to check the fuel situation? I don’t want to get stuck down there.”
“You can’t send your shuttle down?” Lowry asked.
The man shook his head. “It was planetside when this whole thing started. It never made it back. There’s an orbiting fuel station not far from here, but I can’t raise anyone.”
“I’ll go check,” Lowry said. “Tell me what I’m looking for.”
The man ran through a few technical instructions and made Lowry repeat them back, correcting him with a hint of impatience when he stumbled.
When the old preacher had left, Rena launched into a series of quick-fire questions about life beyond Soltaire. Had he come across other survivors? Other ships? Any official communications? Any idea of numbers?
The man gave brief responses, making no attempt to nurture the conversation. There were other survivors. He’d caught the tail end of messages on the long-range comms channels. He didn’t know how many. Nothing official yet.
The door swung open as Lowry returned, short of breath, but with confirmation of full fuel dumps.
“Fine,” the man said. “I’ll land.”
“You’ll take us to Earth?” Rena said.
“To the capital worlds,” the man said, with a trace of impatience.
Lowry put his hand on Rena’s arm in a warning gesture. “How long before you can set down?”
“I’ll start the entry sequence as soon as I get offline.”
Lowry nodded. “Safe landing. And our thanks.”
The man’s image winked out, leaving the screen blank.
“Do you think he’s really going to come for us?” Rena turned to Lowry, fingers twisting together. “What if he just refuels and takes off again?”
“He’ll come.” Lowry gave her shoulder a quick squeeze. “Otherwise why would he have answered the signal?”
Rena’s fractured thoughts had already moved on to something else. “What about Earth?”
“The man’s not a hail-and-ride service,” Lowry said. “We’ll take him up on what he’s offering, and maybe talk again about Earth at some point. We better get to the shipyard.”
As they crossed the square, Conrad raised his head and regarded them placidly. When Jamie patted his neck, he shoved at her with his nose, looking for treats.
“Ever hopeful,” Lowry said. Then his smile faded. “I think you might be out of luck with the horse. I can’t imagine there’s space for livestock.”
“I know that.” The reply came out more sharply than she’d intended. There was an image in her head: the old horse standing alone on that ragged patch of grass, watching as a ship disappeared into the sky.
Just at that moment the real ship broke into sight with a dull roar of engines and atmospheric resistance. It was one of the old-style clippers, heavy-bellied and ungainly, like something growing old ungracefully.
They hurried around the side of the shipyard to the concrete forecourt, tucking themselves back against the wall as the ship rotated into place before setting down with surprising lightness and precision for its bulk. It was half the size of the passenger liners that served the central planets, but still a fair bit bigger than the little, multipurpose clipper that had brought Jamie out to Soltaire.
The engine fans were still rumbling to a standstill when the main door cranked open and a gangway slid out. A man stepped out from the dim interior. Even without the distortion of the comm screen, he wasn’t easy to age. There was gray in his dark hair—just a fine speckling at his temples and in the brush of stubble on his jaw—but his face was unlined. Jamie had always thought that men aged differently than women, in clear markers—the first gray, a thinning, a stooping—whereas for women it was a slower, smoother crumpling. Maybe it was because men didn’t fight it as hard as women. She’d seen it all around her on Alegria, that ongoing battle with time, fought with lotions, with dye, with personal trainers, and with subtle surgery that they wanted you to notice but not notice.
The man gave no indication as to what he thought of the motley group of refugees. He was tall enough that the bulk of the ship didn’t dwarf him, and although his stance was relaxed, Jamie could clearly see the hilt of a gun at his hip. From the way his hand was resting on it, he intended it to be visible. Jamie felt a swift clench of fear. What if it hadn’t been caution driving his questions about the survivors? What if he was j
ust making sure he had the upper hand?
“It’s good to see you.” Lowry stepped forward. “Thank you for coming for us.” He paused. “I’m sorry, we don’t know your name.”
“Callan Jacobs.”
He regarded them for a few seconds, then took his hand from his gun. As he stepped down onto the gangway, Jamie’s fear gave way to an irrational flash of resentment. Just like that, he’d assessed the three of them and found them no threat.
The preacher moved forward, holding out his hand. “Lowry,” he said. “And these two are Rena and Jamie.”
Callan walked down the gangway and shook Lowry’s hand briefly before turning to look across the landing site. The fuel dumps were off to the side, their hoses abandoned in a haphazard tangle.
“It’ll take about a half hour to fuel,” he said. “And I need to stock up on some basic supplies.”
“If you give us a list, we can sort that out,” Lowry said.
Callan walked over to the office and ducked inside, emerging a minute later with a scribbled list.
The old preacher scanned the page. “Fine. We’ll see you back here in . . .”
“Half an hour.” Callan set off toward the rear of the ship. “Don’t be late. I want to be off-planet before it gets dark.”
• • •
In the square, Conrad was lying flat-out on the ground, doing his trademark impression of a corpse. The effect was spoiled by the soft nicker he gave as Jamie approached, although he didn’t trouble himself to lift his head from the ground.
Jamie gave his belly a gentle prod with her toe. “Come on. Time to go.”
He rolled an indignant eye at her but heaved himself up onto his knees and then scrambled to his feet. Jamie leaned against his warm flank.
She knew it was irrational, this sudden, intense attachment to the old horse. But leaning against Conrad, she felt like she knew where she was. This world had been decimated, but it was, in a way it had never been before, her world. When she left here, she’d be at the mercy of those pitiless survival statistics once again. She’d have to deal with other people’s tragedies, not just her own.
She turned her head to press her face against Conrad’s neck, breathing in the warm musk of him.
“Good horse.”
Conrad snorted, and then his head jerked up. Jamie turned to see Callan crossing the square, a burlap sack in his hand.
“He yours?” he said.
Jamie nodded.
“Best get on and turn him loose.” He walked up the steps to the store. “We haven’t got much time.”
Jamie nodded again, less definitely.
Callan gave her a look of detached curiosity. “What’s wrong?”
“I . . .” Jamie stopped, collecting herself. “It doesn’t feel right. Just leaving him to fend for himself.”
“There’ll be abandoned stock all over the place.”
“I know,” Jamie said. “I opened the gates at Calgarth, but there’ll be livestock fenced in elsewhere. What’s going to happen to them?”
Callan raised his eyebrows. “What do you think is going to happen? They’ll either make it or they won’t.”
“But we’re the ones who put them there.”
Callan opened the door to the store. “You can’t save everything. Lot of the clutter’s been wiped away from these worlds of ours. I suspect we may find the view in some places a bit too clear for our liking. But no point going around beating ourselves up.” He gave her an appraising look. “You’re a vet. Surprised you’d be fussing so much about livestock. Survival of the fittest and all that.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be refueling?” Jamie turned away to slip Conrad’s bridle over his head.
“Fuel line’s set up and running,” Callan replied. “There’s a couple of things I forgot to put on the list, that’s all.” He looked pointedly at the setting sun. “Time’s getting on.”
Jamie ignored him, picking up the reins and turning Conrad toward the edge of the square.
As the old horse ambled along behind her, Jamie found herself wanting to tell him what had happened to their world, to explain why she had to leave him. When they reached the outskirts of the town, she took off his bridle and turned him in the general direction of Calgarth. Maybe he’d make his way back there to find his stablemates.
“Off you go.”
He didn’t move, and when he turned to look at her, she thought she could detect a hint of disapproval in his gaze.
She gave him a slap on the rump. “Go on. Go home.”
Conrad took a couple of rolling steps, then stopped and dropped his head to graze. Somehow it would have been easier if he were the one to walk away. As it was, there was nothing to do but turn and head back to town, not looking back in response to the horse’s questioning whicker.
Back in the square, Jamie retrieved her rucksack and went into the store. As she lifted items down from the shelves it felt like stealing—although there was no one to take her money, and what use was money now anyway? Still, she limited herself to basics. Some spare toiletries, a travel mug and ready-mix white coffee, a box of fruit snack bars, a notebook and pen. As she gave a last glance around, a small box on the counter caught her eye. It was stacked with imported chocolate bars wrapped in silver foil and colored paper. She hadn’t had real chocolate since she arrived here. There was a local substitute but it had a bitter, artificial taste. She hesitated, then picked up the whole box and shoved it into the top of her rucksack, resisting the urge to give a furtive look over her shoulder as she headed back outside.
The night seemed to have made a sudden surge, damping down the daylight and sinking the port into shadow. Callan had said that he wanted to be gone before the light faded.
Just at that moment, she heard a roar from the shipyard as the ship’s great engines leaped into life.
They were leaving. Leaving her here alone.
She stumbled into a run, her rucksack thumping against her shoulders and her heart hammering.
No no no no no.
The engines surged again, a deep, angry-sounding rumble. Jamie’s lungs were aching, a lingering legacy of her illness, and as she tried to force more speed from her legs, she tripped and almost went down. She recovered herself and ran on, expecting to see the ship’s great bulk lifting into the sky, in the heavy, improbable lurch she’d never quite learned to take for granted, no matter how many times she saw it.
As she reached the gate her panic spiked and then fell away, leaving her off-balance and breathless.
The ship hadn’t moved from the landing site.
Lowry and Rena were standing by the gangway, while Callan was at the side of the ship, detaching the fuel hose. He straightened up just as Jamie dropped out of her halting run.
“Done?” he said.
She took a shuddering breath in.
Callan gave her a scrutinizing look. “Everything okay?”
“I thought . . .” She stopped for another deep breath. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Okay.” Callan turned away. “Let’s get going.”
As they followed him up the gangway, Rena was sparking with some emotion Jamie couldn’t quite read.
“What were the odds?” she said. “Of the three of us finding one another, and the ship being so close?”
“I don’t know.” Jamie tried not to let her irritation seep into her voice. “I suppose it had to be somewhere.”
“It’s God’s voice.” Rena’s smile was pitying, as though Jamie were too slow to understand some simple truth. “We just have to listen.”
“You might find the engines a bit loud for that.” Callan glanced back over his shoulder.
Rena flushed. “That’s not . . .” She shook her head, as though trying to dislodge something. “I mean, this starts with us. Something new, something different.”
Cal
lan gave her a contemptuous look. “I wouldn’t bet on it. It won’t just be us. There’ll be others, and people will do what people always do. They’ll get together, form committees, make rules and regulations, and before you know it we’ll have exactly what we had before. Just smaller, and with more space to roll around in.”
“Why are you heading to the capital?” Lowry said. “If that’s the way you feel about it?”
“Like I said, I need to see how the land lies. When things are up and running, people will need transport, and there’ll be trade. Now are you coming, or would you rather stay put and wait for God to talk to you?”
Lowry shot a warning look at Rena, but she was silent, her lips pressed into a thin line.
As she stepped on board, Jamie could feel the low vibrations of the ship’s reserve power, rumbling away just below the edge of hearing. The hold was lit by striplights curving along the ship’s metal ribs. Near the far end, shipping crates had been stacked to form a wall, and through a gap in their ranks, Jamie could see something that looked incongruously like a wood-framed sofa.
“Welcome on board,” Callan said, pulling down a handle to the side of the doors. There was an edge to his tone, as though he was expecting them to look around and say, Is this it? As the doors began to close, he walked over to the crates. “You can put your stuff through here for now.” He gestured toward the gap. “This isn’t a luxury transporter—things are pretty basic. The galley and rec space is just at the back of the hold.”
As she walked across the hold, Jamie felt a tug of nausea. The floor felt as though it was shifting slightly, and there was an unpleasant pressure in her ears. She knew from experience that she’d adjust to the artificial gravity soon enough, but the first few minutes on board were always uncomfortable.
Behind the crates a steel kitchen unit had been fastened to the wall with brackets. It held a single hot plate, a microwave, a hot-water dispenser, and a small dishwasher. A narrow coldbox stood alongside, its wire disappearing underneath the unit and its door held shut with a bungee.
Two ancient sofas stood nearby, their cushions age-shiny and sagging. The low table between them was so covered in drink rings that it was hard to make out the original shade of the wood. Jamie dumped her rucksack on the nearest sofa and headed back out through the gap, making room for Lowry and Rena to stow their bags.