Winter World (The Long Winter #1)(27)

But when? An hour from now? A day?

I wish I knew. Just to have a countdown clock for how much time I have left.

I’m hungry, but I don’t dare remove my helmet. I don’t know how stable the capsule is. I haven’t tried to re-pressurize it. Food can wait. Water is another issue, but it can wait too.

The clock says I was out for four hours. Amazing.

There’s a message on the screen. A long one. From my sister.

Dear Emma,



People from the government are here. They gave me your letter and asked me to write you back. They told me about what happened and the request you made.



I can’t believe it. Please tell me it’s a big mistake. That the capsule is fine. The rumors are that some sort of storm in the ionosphere caused the station and satellites to be offline, but not destroyed. I’m still in shock.



I don’t know what to believe.



They’re making us pack up and leave, to go to the camp in Death Valley. I’m scared, Emma. David is too. He thinks the Long Winter is bound to end soon—that if we leave, the government will seize everything and we’ll have to start over when we come back. He’s been shouting at them, but they took him to the kids’ playroom and showed him something or told him something and now he’s insisting we go.



There’s so much I want to say, but they’re telling me I can’t type anymore and to give them the laptop. I love you. I love you. I love you.





Chapter 20





James





After a hectic work session in the briefing room, we have a plan.

Our first-contact protocol is clever. I certainly couldn’t have come up with it alone. So is the communications solution between the two ships and our probes. It’s truly ingenious. And requires no electronic transmissions. Maybe it will save our lives.

I’ve spent the last four hours creating a list of robotic components for the mission. It’s hard to choose. I keep reviewing the list, wondering if I should have picked something else—like a student agonizing over a multiple-choice test as the clock ticks down. And this is a test. The stakes are huge. We only get one shot at this.

Right on time, there’s a knock at the door, and Harry enters. He’s got his list with him. He lays it on the desk and extends his hand for my list. We both made component lists to see if either of us would come up with an idea the other hadn’t thought of.

“Don’t know if you remember, but we met once, before all this,” he says. “At IROS one year?”

“I remember. I’m glad to finally get to work with you.”

“Likewise.” He sits. “Hey, I was real sorry to hear about your—the… what happened to you. Pretty unfair, I thought.”

“Thanks. So, what’ve you got?”





The NASA staffers charged with my crash course education start with some introductory exercises in zero gee, and follow that up with a rundown of the capsule I’ll be launching in. It’s like drinking from a fire hose, but I try to take it all in. The reality is that ground control will handle the launch and capsule maneuvers. My job won’t really start until I get up there and the ship is assembled.

I have eight hours to sleep before I report for launch. The astronaut crew quarters are in the NASA headquarters building, and they’re pretty nice. Compared to my last place of residence, it’s a palace.

I lie on the bed, clothes on, because I’m too tired to take them off. I stare at the ceiling, willing my brain to sleep. It’s like a TV I can’t turn off, constantly jumping from idea to idea, trying to imagine what I might have missed, the piece I haven’t thought of.

It’s funny: last night I stayed awake because I was sure the other prisoners would drag me from the cell and kill me. I thought that night would be my final night on Earth. Now I’m even more certain that this is, in fact, my last night on Earth—one way or another.

Last night, I was ready to fight for my life. Tonight, I’m preparing to fight for everyone else’s life.

To do that, I need to sleep.

I focus on my breathing, and I’m out in seconds.





I’m somewhere between sleep and consciousness when a knock sounds at the door.

I feel almost paralyzed with fatigue, as if I’m lying under the mattress and can’t get it off of me. There’s no way I’m getting up to answer the door.

My voice comes out weak and distant. “Come in.”

Fowler enters. “Sorry to intrude.” He stops. “You were asleep.”

I roll and try to get up. “Sort of.”

“Good for you. You need it. I’ll be fast.”

He lays a folder on the bed, and I flip it open. It’s a personnel file for Emma Matthews, PhD. She’s a geneticist. Crew commander on the ISS. I expected the picture to be a standard NASA head shot with an astronaut in a space suit, staring into the camera, no smile. It’s not. This must have been taken before launch—in this building, in the crew mess. She’s sitting at a table, smiling, hands held out as if telling a joke. Her energy radiates off of the page, like a kid at her first day at camp, a person with a passion for life.

I scan her biography. Her life looks a lot like mine. Never married. No kids. Dedicated to a field that she became interested in at a very young age. And a single-minded focus on that goal. Her choices led her to space. Mine, to prison.