The Edge, page 25
I write him a letter. I say, to love her. She’s your mother, even if she doesn’t act like it, or if she tries to push you away. She loves you; don’t let her.
She’s your mother. She loves you, she’s your mother.
If the equations are correct, I will put all the power the ship has into the communications system. I will die, that’s inevitable, crushed against the wall of the ship if we reach the membrane and the rules are the same; and then, when we’re clear, I won’t come back. I don’t need to survive. If we are correct, there’s no reason for me to go on. The constant feeling in my chest; the constant pull of what I now know to be the nanites that are holding me together. Not indigestion, not confusion, not being up here or missing my child or anxiety: but an interference in what’s keeping me alive.
If we’re out of here and the theory is correct, all the power – life support, everything – goes to the communications relay. The faster the information reaches Earth, the better. As it spins, as the Anomaly engulfs it – a shadow, as a globe spins – there will be a chance for them to get the information. If the equations are correct, there will be a few weeks. A few weeks where they will know, maybe, that it won’t last forever.
Every bit of energy I have goes into this.
How many times, I wonder. I should have kept notches. I should have made notches. But then: do I really want to know?
I count down. Ten, nine, eight. I remember Theo sitting on his bed, dressed for bed, bouncing, the joy of an astronaut; and asking me if he will go up into space someday. Seven, six, five. We hold each other, and I stroke his face, his hair. There, there, I say.
Four, three, two.
He looks at me. All that I need, he looks at me.
One.
The pop of stars. The pop of something else out there. Not the darkness. I cheer, I hear myself cheering, so loudly, so hard, my throat creaking and cracking.
There’s no time. I hit the transfer, to run the software processes.
Listen to the sound of the life support dropping away for God knows what time.
Watch as the lights darken, but the stars are there, in the distance.
Hear my own breathing, in the darkness; as the computer silently whirrs, sending its data into the nothing.
My chest does not ache. I breathe the air, no helmet on, the last of the air; circulating, my in, my out, and I breathe, and my chest does not ache at all.
I see the screen. The software running. Searching for a connection, a relay, anything, one of the hundreds of thousands of satellites we have sent, there to catch my words, to catch my knowledge, to bounce it around between them, to somehow send this little bit of myself home. This thing I have tried to do.
If I can’t save the world, at least I can try to help it. To soothe it.
Calming Theo, my hand stroking his head when he was poorly; I can’t make the pain go away, but I can do this—
A light on the screen. Red, red, red, no connection; then it stutters.
Come on, come on.
A flash of green. A connection made. A connection made.
I have done it, and then the green is gone, the screen is gone, all light is gone—
I think of Theo, and I think of Allanah Becker, and I think of home. That at least I have chosen this, and perhaps it might make a difference.
And I do not hurt at all, in the end.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the excellent Jack Renninson for steering (editing) this home, and to all at HarperCollins for their support and incredibly hard work. Thanks to my agents, Sam Copeland (RCW) and Jonathan Kinnersley & Katie Haines (The Agency). Gratitude always to my first reader for this thing, Cath; and to Matt Hill and Amy McCulloch, who gritted their teeth and helped me find what was broken in its earliest draft. And thanks also to the readers of the first two books in the quartet: I hope this and the forthcoming Book 4 do your constant reader-ing proud.
About the Author
JAMES SMYTHE is an award-winning writer of six novels for adults, and three for young adults. He also writes for television and film. He lives in London with his wife and son.
Also by James Smythe
The Testimony
The Machine
No Harm Can Come to a Good Man
I Still Dream
The Anomaly Quartet
The Explorer
The Echo
As JP Smythe
Way Down Dark
Long Dark Dusk
Dark Made Dawn
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James Smythe, The Edge
