Winter World (The Long Winter #1)(63)

“You’re a terrible liar.”

I smile. “I would think that’s a good quality.”

“It is.” She pauses. “You’re thinking about where we should land. And how to build a boat.”

“Yeah. I am.”

“And?”

“It’s doable.” I turn to her. “We’ve got the pieces, right here in the capsule. I’ll get you to a hospital. I promise you.”

“I believe you. I believe if anyone can, you can.”

We both stare out the porthole then, holding hands, neither saying anything. I’m glad she’s here. Glad the crew sent her with me—for a lot of reasons. There’s one reason I never realized until now: I’ll fight harder to save her life than I ever would to save my own.





In the morning, we broadcast wide, unencrypted. It’s a gamble, a desperate, last roll of the dice.

A response comes immediately, a gruff male voice.

“Mr. Sinclair, this is Colonel Jeffords of the Atlantic Union. Stand by. We’re routing your message to the appropriate parties.”

“Atlantic Union?” Emma whispers.

“It would seem alliances have been made.”

I activate the radio again. “Copy that, Colonel. We’re standing by.”

The next message comes five minutes later. It isn’t from Jeffords. It’s another male voice with a European accent, the enunciation too perfect. Definitely someone who learned English as a second language.

“Dr. Sinclair. We’re glad to hear your voice. My name is Sora Nakamura. I represent the Pac Alliance. The Allies welcome you home. We’re eager to hear your story and to provide assistance. Please verify you’ve received our message.”

Interesting.

Emma turns the microphone off. “What do you want to do?”

“We need to know more.”

“Such as?”

“Such as who the good guys are.”

“And what if there are no good guys?”

She’s cut to the heart of the issue. Desperate times make devils out of the best of us.

“Then we’ll pick whoever’s most likely to rescue us.”

I activate the microphone again. “We read you, Mr. Nakamura.”

“Excellent. I must say, we’re surprised to hear from you so soon. Our colleagues at JAXA and the CNSA are eager to talk to you. We’re currently making preparations for a landing site and recovery off the coast of Australia. There are resettlement camps nearby, and the Pac Alliance government is headquartered in Darwin.”

There’s a pause on the comm, as if he’s talking to someone offline.

Emma turns off the mic once more. “The Pac Alliance. A group of Pacific nations, obviously.”

She’s right. Nakamura’s reference to the Chinese and Japanese space programs as well as camps in Australia implies a geographic alliance.

“Yeah. I bet they crowded into the warm, arid land in Australia. Probably the last habitable zone in the region. Maybe the Japanese, Chinese, and Indians joined forces and moved their people there. Or at least, those they could save.”

“Interesting,” Emma says, lost in thought.

I can’t help but speculate about what’s happened and how the last survivors would organize. Geography and population are the drivers. The Pacific is vast. It covers over thirty percent of the planet. In fact, it covers more area than all of the Earth’s landmasses combined. The Atlantic is much smaller. It’s roughly half the size of the Pacific. It’s conceivable that America herded its citizens into its last habitable zones in the US and then transported the rest to northern Africa, where there will be much more survivable land as the world cools. Based on the telescope’s images, it looks like all of the US is under ice now.

Population is the other factor. Asia has about sixty percent of the world’s population. Twice as many people as North America, South America, and Africa combined. Asian populations, simply put, need more land to survive. Australia is the logical choice. It’s hot and dry. There are some hot areas in Southeast Asia, but they lie in the monsoon regions. They’ll be buried in snow.

If the planet has organized into two spheres, these would be roughly well-matched. And geographically isolated. The question is which we choose.

There’s also the region in Iran that isn’t covered in ice, but there’s been no message from them. Very interesting.

One thing’s certain: there is someone down there to retrieve us. I won’t have to turn the capsule into a boat, which, frankly, was probably a long shot.

Nakamura comes back on the line.

“In the interest of time, Dr. Sinclair, we request that you transmit any data you recovered during your mission.”

With the microphone still off, Emma says, “I don’t like it. They should have gotten the comm bricks already.”

“They may have. Maybe they’re asking about any new data. Or maybe the equipment to read the wireless transmission was lost in the exodus to these last habitable zones. But yeah. I don’t like it either.” I think for a minute. “Technically, the data doesn’t reveal much about the course of climate change on Earth. Just the magnitude of the threat.”

“A threat that is much greater than we imagined. The data confirms that the artifacts are hostile, which implies that the world is in a lot of trouble. The data could spark a war.”