by Anne Corlett
“On Methuen.”
He nodded. “It was a good place. It wasn’t like I was leaving him to be locked up in some old-world asylum. But . . . the bottom line was that I left him.”
“It would have been the best thing for him,” Jamie said. “Even if you could have taken him, it wouldn’t have been good for him, being dragged all over the place.”
“That’s what I told myself.” Callan’s gaze flitted to the starlit sky again. “But I wasn’t doing it for him. I was doing it for me. I wanted my own ship, my own space.” He shook his head. “I went to see him sometimes, but he didn’t seem to remember who I was. So I stopped going so much. I still called in when I was near, but for the most part I left him to the staff.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” Jamie reached out to touch his arm, but she lost her nerve at the last moment, leaving her hand hovering awkwardly between them. She pulled it back and wrapped it around her glass again.
“It was. I made that choice.”
“But it wasn’t your fault you were left looking after him.”
“No,” he said. “But just because it was someone else’s fault as well, that doesn’t get me off the hook.” He lifted his glass again. “Anyway, it’s over and done now. I just have to live with it.”
Live with it. That was what everyone had wanted her to do after her mother died. Live with it. Deal with it. Talk about it. Work through it. Just like when she lost the baby. At least with the baby she’d been an adult, in charge of her own choices, including the choice to run. But that other time, she was only fourteen, and there was nowhere to run to, except into silence.
Callan was looking at her. “What is it?”
For a moment she thought she might tell him. But she couldn’t think how she might start that old story, and the impulse passed. “Nothing. Just thinking about what comes next. Now, I mean.”
“And what does come next?”
There was an odd clarity about the moment, as though the wine had sharpened her thought processes, instead of blurring them. While she and Callan had been grappling their way through that fraught, tangled conversation, her subconscious had been working away, making the decision. “There’s nothing here for me,” she said. “I’ll come to Earth with the rest of you. New start.” She gave a faint smile. “I sound like Rena.”
He was looking out the window again, his face half in shadow. Her smile faded.
“Sorry,” she said. “You came here for a quiet drink, not to talk about the past.”
He put his glass down on the table and stood up.
“It doesn’t matter.” He still didn’t look at her. “It’s late. I’m going to get some sleep.”
After Callan had gone, Jamie sat looking out at the stars, the too-honest conversation replaying in her mind. She wasn’t sure what they’d been trying to say, or if the whole thing had been just one of those meandering, drink-fueled rambles that only ever make sense at the time.
She shoved the cushions up to one end of the sofa and lay down. As soon as she closed her eyes she could feel the wine pushing at the edges of her senses, as though it had been waiting for its moment. She turned over, curling into the crease of the sofa, and let go.
CHAPTER
15
When Jamie woke, the sun was glaring in through the windows, dragging back the fug of sleep. There was a dull ache in her head, and when she lifted her fingers to her forehead, they brushed the edges of the swollen cut, setting off a sharper throb of pain. She could smell the stale musk of last night’s wine on her skin, and her mouth was sticky, her stomach roiling with a sullen hunger that she knew would turn to nausea if she tried to eat.
She got up and walked over to the window, squinting against the glare. In the daylight the city looked no different than how she remembered. There was no haze of death hanging over the rooftops, no fires burning in the streets. Was it like this everywhere? Just a neat, closing-up-shop-type ending of mankind’s hold on its world?
Another image rose in her mind. Wide, empty skies above a wide, empty shore. The sun was high, glinting off the faint shimmer of waves breaking along the tide line.
Home. She let that idea hang in her mind for a moment, until she felt a little tug of . . . something. It wasn’t certainty, and it wasn’t longing, but it was there. Home, she thought again. She’d go back to where she’d started from. Maybe then she’d know what she was supposed to do. She’d told Callan she’d go with them to Earth, but he hadn’t looked as though he believed her. She couldn’t blame him. The conversation had been full of all the things she didn’t know, or wasn’t sure about.
She’d find him, tell him again. No I don’t know. Just her decision, clean and simple.
Down at the landing site, the ship’s bay doors were open. Lowry and Rena were standing to the side of the gangway with a small group of men, while Mila and Finn hovered nearby. Rena’s voice was raised, and Mila looked as though she’d been crying. When Jamie looked up the gangway, she could see Gracie standing just inside the hold, arms folded.
As she walked toward the ship, one of the men glanced up. He said something to the man next to him, and then headed over to intercept her.
“Excuse me, ma’am. Can I ask what you’re doing?”
“Is there a problem?”
The man was tall and broad-shouldered, with a speckling of silver in his hair. He was dressed in the gray uniform of senior capital security, with a comms clip on his collar and a bulge at his hip. There were other security uniforms in the group, and when Jamie looked around, she could see another couple of officers over by the main entrance to the dockyard. All of them were visibly armed, and all had the cool, neutral expressions of men trained to take in every detail of a situation without letting slip any hint of what they thought of it.
It occurred to Jamie that she’d seen several uniformed officers last night, both on arrival and as she followed Daniel through the main building. How had so many of the security service survived? Surely they would have been frontline when the virus took hold? She had no time to ponder this anomaly as Rena detached herself from the group and scuttled over, her disjointed gait even more pronounced than usual.
“They’re saying we can’t leave.”
“I think there’s been some misunderstanding.” Lowry joined them. “I was just trying to find out who I need to speak to in order to clear this up.”
“No misunderstanding,” the man said. “I’ve been trying to explain to Mr. Lowry and Miss Casella that no one is allowed to leave the capital without the express consent of the temporary administration committee. Emergency protocol.”
“But this was just a stopover,” Jamie said. “We’re heading to Earth.”
“No one’s going anywhere. Not until things settle down.”
“You’re grounding the ship?” Jamie said. “Why?”
The man shook his head. “I believe the ship and its crew have been cleared for search and rescue.”
“I want to talk to someone else,” Rena said. “Who’s in charge here?”
“I am,” the man said. “Down here at least.”
“Not you,” Rena said, scathingly. “Someone in authority.”
“Can I help?” The man walking toward them looked faintly familiar, but Jamie couldn’t quite place him.
“Carl Doxton,” he said. “I’m assistant to Evren Buckley, who’s in temporary charge of the administration.”
“Why can’t we leave?” Rena demanded.
“Ah.” The man’s gaze flickered toward the ship. “Well, at this point I understand that’s not an option. The Phaeacian will be taking part in our search-and-rescue operation. I believe they’ll be heading out within the next twenty-four hours.”
“We’re going to Earth,” Rena said, flatly. “Callan agreed.”
“Plans change,” Doxton said, with a polite smile. “And besides, we need to gathe
r everyone here. If we’re going to rebuild we need to find out where we stand. Survival rates. Skills. I’m sure individual preferences can be considered in due course. But right now we’re in a state of emergency. I’m sure you understand.”
“I’m not sure we do,” Lowry said. “We can’t hope to rebuild what we had. We need to find a new way. There’ll be people who don’t want to come here, places where there are enough survivors for viable settlements.”
“It’s not just about numbers,” Doxton said, as though explaining something to a recalcitrant child. “It’s about skills, balance, finding formulas that work.” He smiled again. “But no need to worry about all that now. Take a bit of time to rest and recuperate. Once things are more settled, if you still decide you want to move on, the situation can be reviewed.”
“Is it true?” Rena took a couple of steps toward the gangway, shouting up to Gracie. “Is he leaving us here?”
Gracie glanced over her shoulder, as though looking for someone. She looked tense and unhappy but made no attempt to answer Rena’s question.
“Could we speak to Callan?” Lowry said. “There may be some crossed wires here.”
Doxton put his arm across Rena’s shoulders in an attempt to steer her away. “No crossed wires. I promise you.”
Rena shook him off furiously. “You can’t do this. We’re going to Earth, and you can’t stop us.”
Jamie turned and walked away toward the main building. Inside she found a young woman at a desk in the main foyer, dealing with queries from a trail of dazed-looking people. As she walked straight to the front of the line, a discontented mutter rose behind her.
“Where’s Daniel Orton?” Jamie said.
The woman blinked, then gave Jamie a tight smile. “If you could just . . .”
“I need to find Daniel. Now. Where is he?”
The woman was looking around nervously. “I can’t give out personal information on administration employees.”
Something inside Jamie snapped. She placed both palms on the desk, leaning forward. “I lived with him for thirteen years,” she said. “I miscarried his baby and spent last night in his bed. If anyone’s in a position to dish out personal information on Daniel Orton, it’s me.” Her voice echoed around the foyer, and she made an effort to lower her voice. “I’m not asking for his inside leg measurements. I just can’t find him.”
“It’s all right.” She turned to see Doxton walking toward them. “I’ll take Miss Allenby up to the boardroom.”
“Wait a minute.” It was a man in the middle of the line who’d spoken up. He was small and dark-haired, and his face was creased with anger. “We’ve been here for hours, and she just waltzes up to the front and gets dealt with.”
Doxton nodded to a security officer loitering by some glass doors in the far corner, then gestured to Jamie to follow him.
“I’m speaking to you.” The man’s voice was growing louder, and it was underpinned by another low rumble from the gathered people. People were pressing closer together, and somehow, imperceptibly, the line had become a crowd. “We keep being told to wait. I’ve got . . .” He broke off, and Jamie saw his hand down by his side, fingers open, as though he was reaching for someone’s hand.
The hand curled into a fist. Something ugly entered the man’s voice. “No one cares about people like us. Only about people like her.” As the guard reached him, the man took a step forward. “It’s always the same.” He was shouting now. The main doors opened and more security officers entered. “Why are we still doing what they say? Why . . .”
His voice snapped off abruptly, and he pitched forward, his arms wrapping across his body. It took Jamie a second to realize that the guard had his baton in his hand.
“Miss Allenby.” Doxton had hold of her arm. “Please. The guards will handle this.”
The other officers were pushing forward, the sound of the crowd changing from angry to fearful.
“Please,” Doxton said again. “I think it would be better if you left.”
Jamie couldn’t move. There was a bloodless chill in her hands and feet. She felt strung out, like a wire, stretched between the struggling crowd and the insistent, oh-so-logical voice of the man at her side, slightly chiding and full of the promise of quiet, normal corridors beyond those doors.
The crowd was being pushed back. The dark-haired man was still on his knees, dazed from the blow, but his hands were half raised in a gesture of surrender.
Or maybe it was despair.
“It’s over,” Doxton said. “Come with me. Please.”
Jamie let him lead her through the glass doors. He didn’t speak, either to excuse or condemn what she had just seen, and she couldn’t find the words to challenge him. Her thoughts kept making little sorties toward justification.
Things were on a knife-edge.
This whole thing was unprecedented.
They couldn’t risk violence.
But all those reasons seemed to be spoken in someone else’s voice.
Doxton’s voice?
Daniel’s?
No. Daniel wouldn’t be part of something like this. Maybe there was nothing to be a part of. A one-off incident. There’d probably be a demotion for the guard. An apology, certainly.
Her hands were cold, and her throat felt tight.
They went up in the elevator in silence, alighting on the fifth floor and making their way along a wood-paneled corridor to another set of double doors. Doxton pushed one open and gestured for her to precede him into the room.
The large corner office was dominated by an allonite table, from which all the chairs had been pulled back to give unrestricted access to the charts and computer screens laid out on the polished surface. Daniel was leaning over one of the e-pads, pointing something out to another man. He looked up as Jamie entered, his expression growing guarded.
“Miss Allenby was looking for you,” Doxton said. “I brought her up.”
“Thank you.” Daniel’s tone was cool. “What’s wrong?”
Jamie glanced at the room’s other occupants. “Can we speak somewhere else?”
Daniel hesitated and then nodded before leading her out into the corridor.
“What is it?”
The face of the dark-haired man flickered through her mind, but she pushed it away and went straight to her reason for seeking him out.
“Why are we being told we can’t leave?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Where were you planning on going?”
“Earth. That’s where we were always heading.”
He studied her. “I thought you were looking for me.”
“I was, but . . .” She tripped over that tangle of intent. “I thought you were on Earth.”
“Well, I’m not. I’m here. And if you’re telling me you don’t want to stay here, then I guess that makes your feelings pretty clear.”
“It’s not . . .” The words weren’t falling into place. “I can’t stay.”
He looked away. “Well, no one’s being cleared to leave right now. We’re assuming most people will want to come to a place where there are other survivors and a functioning infrastructure.”
“There’ll be other survivors on Earth. What’s the problem with us going there?”
“Well, there being no one to take you would be one big problem.” He tapped his fingers against the wood paneling.
“Callan agreed to take us.”
“Things change.” Daniel wasn’t quite looking her in the eye.
Jamie stared at him. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Just a bunch of people trying to do their best for everyone.”
The man on his knees.
“For everyone?”
Resentment blazed in his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “For everyone. You think you could do a better job?”
“Maybe,”
she said. “Maybe I’d start by letting people make their own choices.” She looked straight at him. “And maybe I wouldn’t beat the shit out of people for objecting.”
“What do you mean?”
She described the scene in the atrium in a few brief sentences, and he ran his hand through his hair.
“That doesn’t sound great.”
“Not great?” Her anger had been trapped somewhere down inside her, muffled by shock. Now she felt it shake loose. “Is that all you can say?”
He rounded on her. “What do you want me to say? No, it’s not ideal. None of this is ideal. Do you have any idea how close we came to not making it? The human race, I mean. Just another percentage point in the mortality rate and we’d have been finished.”
Another zero in the zero point zero zero zero one.
A thought snagged at her.
“How did so many security and administration personnel make it?”
“There was a drug,” he said. “Not a cure. And too late to help the settlements. But it boosted the immune system. Gave people a fighting chance. We used it on vital personnel first, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
Anger flared in his eyes once again. “Maybe you should be running things. But you don’t tend to stick around when things get difficult, do you?”
“Looks like I’m being forced to stick around,” Jamie shot back.
“We have to make sure the human race survives.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to go around beating people up for opening their mouths at the wrong moment.”