Winter World (The Long Winter #1)(2)

The truth is this: our use to the people on the surface lies in the Winter Experiments. If we don’t figure out what’s causing the Long Winter—and how to stop it—we’ll never leave this station. We are trapped between the cold dark of space and a freezing planet below. For now, this is home. Probably will be for a while.

It’s a good home. The best I’ve ever had.

I bounce through the collection of modules that make up the ISS, using my hands and feet to propel me. The station is like a series of oversized pipes screwed together, branching at right angles, most holding labs, some simply connectors.

The Unity node was the first US-built element of the ISS, launched in 1998. It has six berthing connections, sort of like tunnel openings in a sewer system.

I pass into the Tranquility node, which houses life-support equipment, the water recycler, oxygen generators, and a toilet that’s about as hard to use as one might expect for a space commode (also, the ISS was designed by and for male astronauts, so there’s that).

I drift through Tranquility, into the European Space Agency’s observation module. It has a cupola with seven thirty-inch-wide windows that provide a panoramic view of space and the Earth. I hang there for a long moment, watching.

The ISS orbits roughly two hundred and fifty miles above the Earth, flying through space at over seventeen thousand miles per hour. The station circles the planet 15.54 times each day, which means we see either the sunrise or sunset every forty-five minutes.

The station crosses the terminator, revealing the part of the planet bathed in daylight—North and South America.

The ice has extended into the Great Lakes, like bone-white fingers dipping in the blue water. The glaciers will cross the water soon and continue south. Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and parts of New York have already been evacuated.

The US has done the math. They know what the last habitable zones on Earth will be. Hint: they’re below sea level. A massive camp has been set up in Death Valley, California. Trade agreements have been established in Libya and Tunisia. But everyone knows the agreements won’t hold. Not when survival is the order of the day.

The world will try to stuff eight billion people through a funnel in which only a small portion can survive.

It will be war.





On the treadmill, I call up a station status report. Sergei still doesn’t have the solar array back online. I want to check in with him, but I’ve learned that he works best when given space. That’s one thing about six people living in very close quarters: you learn each other’s boundaries.

I check for data from the probes again (nothing yet) and begin reading emails.

The first is from my sister.

I never married or had children of my own, but my sister did. And I treasure those kids. In my eyes, they are the sweetest two humans alive.

The email is a video, no subject or content, just my sister, Madison, speaking into the camera as I trot on the treadmill I’m tethered to.

“Hi, Em. I know the video needs to be short, but I have a lot to say. David has heard some rumors. They’re saying that… a lot of things are going to change. That there’s an experiment going on that will tell us why the Long Winter is occurring. People around here are selling their houses for pennies on the dollar and moving to Libya and Tunisia. It’s crazy. They’re sending troops—”

The video cuts out for a minute or so. Censored. I keep trotting on the treadmill, watching the screen. My sister’s face reappears. She’s still sitting on the couch, but her two children are crowded around her now. Owen and Adeline.

“Hi, Aunt Em!” Owen yells. “Watch this!”

He goes off screen, then the camera pans and I see him dunk a basketball in an indoor hoop that looks about five feet off the ground.

“Did you get it?” he asks his mom.

“I got it.”

“I’m going again in case you didn’t.”

I smile as my sister turns the camera back to her. “Are they bringing you home? And if so… what’s the plan? I know you can’t drive for a while after you return and you’ll have to do rehab. You can come live with us, of course, if NASA isn’t going—if NASA isn’t able to help you get back on your feet.

“Write me back soon, okay? Love you.” Madison turns to her two children, who are now arguing in the background. “Tell your Aunt Emma bye.”

Owen pops his head over the couch and waves. “Bye.”

Adeline plops down next to her mother and leans closer to her, seeming bashful of the camera. “Bye, Aunt Emma. Love you.”

I’m typing an email response when a dialog appears:

Incoming Data: Probe 127





I immediately open it and scan the readings of the solar radiation. I’m shocked. They’re far higher than the readings on Earth, but that makes no sense—the probe is at roughly the same distance from the Sun. Unless the probe was hit with a flare? No, it’s not that: the readings are consistent over time. Maybe it’s a local phenomenon.

I open the video telemetry from the probe, and my heart practically stops. There’s an object. Something out there. A black speck in front of the Sun. It’s not an asteroid; asteroids are jagged and rocky. This object is smooth and oblong. Whatever I’m looking at, someone built it.

We are in constant contact with the ground—with agencies in the US, Russia, Europe, China, India, and Japan. I activate the link to speak directly with the Goddard Network Integration Center in Maryland.