Impact (38 page)

The world disappears.

Okwembu is struggling to get up, one arm clutching her stomach, gasping for air. I don't let her get any. I step back, wind up another kick and drive it hard into her ribs.

The kick overbalances me, and I crash to the ground. Right then, it's as if my muscles just give up on me. The ones in my back constrict, locking in place. I lie next to Okwembu, breathing hard, desperate to get up but unable to do so, fingers clawing at the dirt.

On your feet
, says the voice.
You're not finished.

I roll onto my side, coughing. Okwembu tries to push me away, but she's as weak as I am.

Finally, I struggle up to one knee. Okwembu puts a hand on my leg, trying to pull me down, so I grab her by the front of her shirt and lift her off the ground. My punch snaps her head back. She spits blood and fragments of tooth, cursing now, howling for help.

My second punch shuts her up. My aim is off this time, and I just graze the side of her head. I can't stop my momentum, and I slide forward, falling on top of her.

For a moment, it's as if we're hugging each other, embracing in the dirt. She shoves me off, just managing to get an arm underneath me. I hold on, pulling her with me as I roll onto my back. Then I throw my head forward, smashing my forehead into her face, breaking her nose. She moans, long and low, but refuses to let go.

Is that all?
the voice says to me.
Is that everything you have? After what she's done? Pathetic. You can do much better than that. You can show her pain.

My muscles wake up. I shove Okwembu off me, then stagger to my feet. The sky swims in front of me, and hot sweat trickles into my eyes. I barely notice. I'm going to kill her. I know this as sure as I know my own name. I'm going to send her into the next world with broken bones and torn flesh. I'm going to send her there screaming.

I circle her, watching her try to crawl away. She surprised me before, back on the
Ramona
's bridge. Almost finished me, too. Not this time. This time, she's all mine.

I rest my foot on her head. “Prakesh,” I say, pushing down hard. Okwembu's cheek grinds into the dirt. “Amira,” I say, grinding down, until I can see the dirt entering her mouth, milling around her broken teeth. “Kevin. Yao. Royo.”
Harder.
“Carver.” I lean into it, putting all my weight on her head. “John Abraham
Hale
.”

Just before the last name, I lift my foot off her and slam it into her ribs. This time, I swear I feel one of them break. I fall backwards, landing on my ass in the churned-up sand.

“Please,” Okwembu says. The word is mushy, forced through swollen lips.

Enough. Finish it.

I get to my feet again, unsteady, my fine balance shot to pieces. I take one step towards Okwembu. Then another. She's trying to crawl away again, and I almost laugh.
Where are you going? Got somewhere to be?

I flip her over, onto her back. Then I straddle her, my knees pinning her shoulders to the ground.

I don't know where I find the rock. It's like I put my hand out and it's right there, waiting for me. It's stuck deep into the ground, and it's too big for one hand anyway. I have to lean over to get it, ripping it out of the earth with both hands. It's heavy, caked with clods of dirt.

I lift the rock over my head, holding it high. It takes me a second to understand what I'm feeling. It's not anger now. It's joy. A kind of terrible joy. I look down at Okwembu, one last time. The disbelief and shock in her eyes only makes the joy burn brighter.

“Will it help?”

Eric is standing in front of me, a few feet away.

I don't know how long he's been there, and there's no one else with him. His arms are folded, his head tilted to one side. The expression on his face is completely blank.

The voice is shouting now, a deafening roar that only I can hear. The rock is heavy in my hands.

“Killing her.” Eric nods towards the thing on the ground. “Will it help?

When I don't answer, he says, “You know, I had a daughter. We did. Harlan and I.”

As he speaks, he absently pulls the necklace out of his shirt–the bear's tooth, hanging on a piece of tattered string. He rolls the tooth in his fingers.

I lower the rock, holding it at my chest. I want more than anything to finish this, to drive that rock into Okwembu's face, but I can't take my eyes off Eric. It's then that I realise that I'm crying, tears staining my cheeks.

“She was killed,” Eric says. “Bear. I went and tracked it down myself, put eight bullets through its face.”

He looks at me, a sad smile on her face.

“It didn't bring my Samantha back. And it didn't help. I see her when I go to sleep. Asking me why I couldn't save her.” He says this matter-of-factly, like it barely matters. “It was like I hadn't just lost her. I'd lost something else, too. I could never get it back no matter how hard I looked.”

“This is different,” I say, forcing each word out.

Eric shrugs. “Maybe.”

“You can't stop me.”

“I won't try. But you'll still see them. Everybody you've lost will always be there, whether you do this or not. It won't change a single thing.”

Seconds go by. Eric watches me, his face still completely blank.

It would be so easy. The work of a single movement.

My arms give out. I let the rock drop to my waist, resting on Okwembu's chest. I roll it off, and it thumps onto the ground.

The world comes back. Slowly, one piece at a time. Ocean. Sky. The trees, climbing up from the shoreline. Okwembu coughs, blood dribbling down her cheek, staring up at me in disbelief.

I get to my feet, and, with Eric watching, I walk over to one of the trees. It doesn't have what I'm looking for, so I try a second, then a third. On the fourth tree, I find it: a clump of moss, wispy and threadlike, clinging to the trunk. I tear it off, rolling it in my hands.

I walk back over to Okwembu, and drop it on her chest.

“Old man's beard,” I say. “It's a fire starter. You can—” I swallow “—combine it with spruce sap, and it'll burn forever. And there are lowbush cranberries you can eat. Little red berries, near tree roots. Burdock. Cattail. Ladyfern…”

I trail off, my voice giving out.

There's something hanging round her neck. A data stick, on a thin lanyard. I reach down and pull, snapping the lanyard in two. Whatever's on that stick, she doesn't need it any more. I take a shaky breath, then turn and walk away.

The voice inside me is gone. Like it never existed.

“We can't leave her here,” Eric says. “She's injured.”

“She gets some food,” I say. “Medical supplies. Water. Let her take what she needs.” I see him about to protest, and look him right in the eyes. “But she stays here.”

I'll let Okwembu live. But she's going to have to survive out here, by herself. She's never going to manipulate anybody ever again. From now on, everything she gets is going to come from her own two hands.

Eric stares at me for what feels like a whole minute. Then he nods.

I start walking, back towards the others.

“You're sure?” Eric says.

Prakesh nods. “There are plenty of reactor schematics on that data stick. I mean, it'll take time, and some of us'll need to live on the
Ramona
for a while, but it's definitely possible.”

Eric grimaces. “I don't like it. That ship's barely afloat as it is.”

“Yeah, but the HAARP's fuel got destroyed in the explosion. If we want it to keep going, we need that reactor working.”

“But you're
sure
?” says Harlan.

They're in the hospital basement in Whitehorse, clustered around the table in Eric's quarters. The space around them is full of noise: low conversations, laughter. The sound of life.

He nods. “We can do it.”

Eric leans over the map. The frown hasn't left his face. “It's a shame the other one isn't here. Riley's friend. From what I hear, he was pretty good with machines.”

A little bomb goes off in Prakesh's chest, like it always does when someone mentions Aaron Carver. He knows what Eric means–Carver would have had the best idea of how to get the fusion reactor working again, how to get it joined up to the HAARP. He saw things differently, especially machines. Prakesh misses him a lot more than he thought he would. Jojo, too–and he knew him for less than two days. His body, like those of so many others, is still on the
Ramona
.

“We'll make do,” he says. “We have to.” And they would. They have the astronauts from the
Tenshi Maru
, plenty of whom have technical knowledge. They'll find a way.

They're never going to be able to get the
Ramona
upright. But despite the damage, the HAARP itself made it through. It hasn't had fuel for a while, so it's probably shut itself off, but they should be able to start it up again before any permanent damage is done to the climate.

He doesn't know if they'll have to station people on the
Ramona
permanently, or if that's even possible given the ship's condition. That's all still up in the air. Prakesh has heard Eric and Harlan and some of the others talking it over, late at night, occasionally raising their voices to argue a point. He hasn't joined them yet.
One thing at a time
, he tells himself.

Suddenly, Prakesh doesn't want to be here. It's been like that lately–an urge to move, to walk, no matter what he's doing at the time. It comes out of nowhere, and he knows better than to fight it.

He straightens up, smiles at them. “I'll leave you to it.”

“Where are you going?” Harlan says.

“Just, you know.”

He ducks out of Eric's quarters, wincing as he does so. The bullet punched right through him, leaving an ugly scar–a round crater of painful, puckered flesh, right below his heart. He still doesn't know how he survived. The first thing he remembers is waking up in Whitehorse, in more pain than he'd ever felt in his life.

Somehow, he got through it. The rest of the workers were there, along with dozens of others he hadn't seen before. Eric brought them all, running back and forth to Anchorage. It took three or four trips to do it.

He walks down the central passageway, hands in his pockets. Over at the end, he can see one of Riley's old tracer unit friends, deep in conversation with someone he thinks is her dad. Anna, that's her name. He hasn't said much to her, but she gives him a friendly wave anyway. He returns it.

He intends to head out of the hospital, maybe take a walk. But as he passes the vegetable garden, he changes course. The garden itself is in an area walled off with hanging plastic sheets, sticky with condensation. He pushes through them, casting a practised eye over the large half-drums, turned on their sides and filled with good soil. His fingers stray to the surface of one, and tiny clumps gather under his fingernails.

He'll get his walk in a minute.

The trowel is just where he left it, and he squats on his haunches. His scar complains, but he ignores it, working the soil, letting his mind drift. As it so often does, it drifts back to his parents.

He's read the message Anna brought him so often that he has it memorised. It's not difficult, not for something so short. His mother was the one who wrote it, tapping it out on a small tab screen that Anna brought with her. Prakesh has wondered a thousand times why they didn't record a video. The letter doesn't say, and when he asked Anna she said she didn't know.

We don't have long
, the message read.
Your father and I want you to know that we won't suffer. Nobody on the station will. They've found a way to make it painless–we'll all just go to sleep.

He works the soil harder, the words running through his mind.

We know you took responsibility for Resin. We cannot tell you enough that it wasn't your fault. Nobody here thinks so. It was bad luck, and that's the end of it. I know this probably won't change how you feel but please realise that if you hadn't done it, someone else would have. It was inevitable.

We never thought any of us would ever go back to Earth. It hurts that we can't be there with you and see the things you're seeing. But we know you and Riley will be happy. I wish we could have known her better but she means a lot to you and that is enough for us. Take care of her. I want grandchildren!!!

We love you and we are so so very proud of you.

Prakesh props the trowel in the end of the soil bed, running the last line over again in his mind.

This can wait. He needs to get out.

As he heads back down the passage towards the entrance, his thoughts turn to Riley.

She's getting better every day. She smiles more, talks more. She's coming back to him, piece by piece. He wishes it would happen faster, but he knows not to rush things. He's got a long way to go himself.

Where are you
? he thinks. He finds himself closing his eyes, as if he can find out where she is by thought alone. Then he opens them, and keeps walking.

I let the ice-cold water crash over me. It explodes across my head and neck, runs down onto my shoulders, spatters on my chest and thighs. I give it five more seconds, then I step out of the waterfall, shivering, every inch of my skin tingling.

It's an incredible feeling. No matter how many times I step under the waterfall, I never get tired of it. Maybe it's because we never had showers on Outer Earth. I never had the sensation of having water all around me until we came here.

At first I hated it–it's all too easy to remember Fire Island, and the sick, leaden feeling that came with swimming to shore. But as the winter faded away, I started running in the hills above Whitehorse. Eric and Harlan didn't want me to, said it was too dangerous, but they couldn't stop me. And then one day I came across another waterfall–a trickle, really, a stream running off a six-foot drop onto mossy rocks. On a whim, I took my clothes off and stood under it. I screamed with cold at first, gasping, not sure what the hell I was doing, but when I stepped out it felt like I'd been given a brand-new body.

The water here is different from the ocean. Just as cold, but brighter somehow. I can't explain it.

I move on shivering tiptoes to the edge of the rocks, shake off the excess water and quickly pull on my clothes. A dark jacket, a faded blue shirt, a rough pair of pants. Thick socks, and light shoes. I keep an ear out for movement in the forest–we haven't seen the Nomads for a while, and the wolves seem to have moved on, too. But I still keep my ears open.

There's pain as I pull my clothes on. I spent most of the winter in a hospital bed, drifting in and out of consciousness. I'd torn muscles in my back, my side. I had cracked ribs. Some of my cuts got infected–Finkler would have been furious. I don't remember a lot about that part of the winter, but as the weather got warmer my body started to come back.

I'm still freezing. The air has a serious chill in it, even though winter is gone. A run will warm me up. I jump once, twice, relishing the almost audible crackle of my shocked skin, then take off into the forest.

After all this time, the rhythm of running still calms me, even when I don't have a direction, even when there's no cargo on my back.
Stride, land, cushion, spring, repeat.
I let the movement take me, block out everything else.

I only come to a stop when I reach the big tree.

It's not much–it's long dead, broken off and weathered away, but its stump still reaches two feet above my head. Its roots are huge, digging out of the earth, stretching in all directions. It should be a bad place, a dead place. But it isn't. It's surrounded by plants: old man's beard and cattail, and little white flowers that bend towards it. I look up, like I always do, and can just see a streak of blue through a gap in the clouds.

Aaron Carver is buried in Anchorage. Before we did it, I tore a strip of fabric from his shirt. I still can't fully explain why I took it. I tucked it inside my pocket, held tight to it, and all through the long winter, when the wind roared and howled and icy rain and snow buffeted the hospital and infection turned my body into a furnace, my hand kept finding it.

I didn't intend to bury the fabric at this tree. Carver would have preferred somewhere with machinery, with a worktop and soldering iron, where he could tinker. But I wanted somewhere private, and I liked how the tree made me feel, so I pushed the fabric down into the earth, nestled it against one of the roots.

I've come up here plenty of times since then. I've cried a lot, but this time, as I sit down with my back against the tree, my face is dry. I feel like I've cried every single tear I have. There's nothing left to give.

“Are you there?” I whisper. I've never worshipped any of Outer Earth's gods. I don't know what happens to us after we die. I'm just doing the only thing I can do.

No answer. Nothing but the wind through the trees.

I sit there for a few minutes, until the cold starts to sink into my muscles. Then I get to my feet, looking in the direction of Whitehorse.

Prakesh will never know what I said to Carver in the depths of the
Ramona
, after we sealed the bulkhead door. He can't know. I won't let the choice I made affect what happens next. We've been through so much together, and while our bond might not be perfect, it's still strong.

One of the lucid thoughts I remember from the long winter is that I never asked Prakesh what he wanted. I was so caught up in how I'd treated Carver, and the decision I made, that I never gave any thought to what he might be feeling. I'm going to change that. He deserves some happiness. I think I can give it to him.

Maybe along the way I'll find some of my own.

But that can come later. There's still two miles between me and Whitehorse, and this is my favourite part of the whole run.

I head downhill through the forest, slowing when I come to the tree line. I can see the shape of the Whitehorse hospital in the distance.

Between us is a field. It's overgrown, the ground uneven, but it's filled with long grass. The grass flickers in shades of yellow and green, teased by the wind.

The clouds have faded a little. More gaps have opened in them, and the sun is just peeking through. I raise my face to it, let it warm my skin. The sky beyond the clouds is so blue that it hurts to look at it.

I start running. I sprint across the field, arms out behind me, pounding the ground, focusing on the in–out, push–pull of my breathing. The sun is warm on the back of my neck, the world falling away behind me as I go faster, and faster, and faster.