Winter World (The Long Winter #1)(88)

The scene reminds me of Christmas at my parents’ house. My father had a brother and two sisters, and everyone always spent Christmas together. It was a full house. It was a chaotic and joyous event and at times contentious. It was perfect. And so is this, with one glaring exception: Alex. It seems that’s a bridge too far. One with too much water under it. One that might be washed away forever.





That night, Emma and I are lying in bed, both reading, when she turns to me.

“I need to talk to you about something.”

She’s using the tone you see in a movie, when the girl breaks up with the boy or tells him she’s pregnant or breaks some kind of news that shatters their world. It’s nerve-racking. I’m instantly on the defensive. I just want her to spit it out so I can know what I’m dealing with.

I set the tablet aside. “Sure.” The word comes out like the sound of a sword chopping the air.

“I’m going on the mission.”

“What mission?”

“The mission.”

“To Ceres? To the harvester?”

“Yes, that mission.”

“Emma—”

“No. Don’t. I know you don’t want me to go. I know you’re worried about my health. But I’m worried about you too. It was agonizing when you were gone. Agonizing. I can’t do it for months at a time, wondering if you’re hurt or if something has gone wrong out there. I can’t stay here and wait and hope that you come back. I’m going with you. I have to.”

My mind races like a computer doing a dictionary assault on a password—running through combinations trying to find a key to unlock this argument, to convince her to stay on Earth. The harvester mission is a true long shot. Longer odds than the first contact mission. Much longer. It’s a Hail Mary. I can’t take the woman I love up there.

I decide to pursue the most logical approach.

“Emma, you’ve already lost too much bone density. You simply can’t go on another mission.”

“My bone density won’t matter if I’m dead. And it won’t matter if you’re dead.” She swallows hard and inhales. “Just listen to me for a minute, okay? Really listen.”

“Okay.”

“Here on Earth, I’m broken. I’ll never be the woman I was before. I’ll never regain the strength I had before I left for the ISS. Down here I’m weak. Up there, I’m whole again. Strong. And I have a role to play. I can help you. And if it’s your fate to die up there, then it’ll be my fate too. I’m going, James. I’m going.”

I know when I’m beaten. She needs to go. And, deep down, I want her there. So she’s going.

I nod slowly, and she puts her arms around my neck, and the decision is made. We’re going back into space. Together. Possibly for the last time.





Chapter 45





Emma





The next morning, I do something I haven’t done in a long time: I wake up and get dressed for work. It feels good. I hadn’t realized how much I missed it--waking up with a purpose.

Outside the habitat, the sun shines dim on the horizon, the sky hazy, snow dropping in sheets. The weather’s getting worse. And it’s getting worse faster.

At the Olympus Building, James and I visit Lawrence Fowler first. He poses only a single question to me--the same one he asked before I accepted the mission to the ISS--"Are you sure you want to do this?"

I give the same answer I gave then: "I am."





The crew of our ship will be drawn from across the triple alliance. That was one of the conditions the Caspians set forth: mixed crews. The crewmembers from the AU are here in Camp Seven, and they’re all at work when we arrive, milling about the team room.

James escorts me around the large space, introducing me to each of them individually: Heinrich, Sparta One’s German navigator; Terrance, our British ship’s doctor; and Zoe, a lithe Italian woman who will be the ship’s engineer. James activates a camera and begins a recording for the crewmembers in the other two territories, explaining to them that I'll be leading the drone construction and repair team and serving as the backup mission commander.

The video will be couriered to the other two states via drone. Plans for a global communication network have been drawn up and discarded several times, the alliance unable to settle on an acceptable solution. Satellites could be disabled by the array--just like the satellites that used to orbit the Earth. The weather could compromise ground lines or towers. Any option would take time and resources to build--two things we don't have. For now, data between the superstates moves at the speed of drones, and probably will for a long time.

I can't help but notice how guarded James is around our new crew. I know why. I'm perhaps the only person on Earth who would. What he's feeling here isn't about the challenges ahead of us. It's about what we left behind.

In his office, he shuts the door and starts pulling up his drone schematics.

"The drones we're working on are similar to the attack drone we launched from the Pax. With a few upgrades of course.”

“I would expect nothing less.”

“We can run through them, and start talking about the prototypes." He scratches his head. "You want to work here or at home?"