I settle onto the tall stool near the nanoscope. It’s more comfortable than my own bed lately.
“Can I help with anything?” Leo asks, taking the stool across from me, on the other side of the station. For all hisyou know I’m rightsuperiority, he’s really good about not pushing back when I’ve drawn my lines.
But this—stopping, sitting—changes everything. I’m tired, more so than I care to admit. I squeeze my eyes shut. Open them. Still exhausted.
“I... should go to bed.” I slide a sample I drew from Mila’s blood, just after we found her, across the table. “File this for me, please?”
He gives me a sleepy smile and doesn’t dare sayI told you so.
6
ETERNAL LIGHT, ETERNAL NIGHT
IF ANYONE IS to blame for all that has happened, it’s the moon.
Those who found the loophole in the international lunar treaty, anyway, those who staked their claim without ever actuallyowninganything: I blame them for this present misery.
If they hadn’t found the loophole,
if they hadn’t discovered a way to channel endless, renewable solar power from the moon’s pale face—a sea of panels bathed in eternal sunlight—
if they had worked together,
if they hadn’t raced to be first,
if they hadn’t spurned those who came next,
if they hadn’t threatened nuclear measures to control what was never truly theirs to begin with...
We would not be in danger of suffering the consequences.
We would not be in danger of an obliterated moon, of Earthquite literally spinning out of control, of instability and chaos and seasonal extremes, of hailstorms with a side of asteroid showers. We would never have begun the search for an off-planet home,just in case. No one has blown the moon to pieces yet, to be clear, likely because the solar power payoff continues to be worth the escalating territorial tension.
But things can only be stretched so thin before they snap.
So they made their long-game contingency plan. If not for all of this, theLuscawould never have been created, and my mother would never have been its commander. They would never have filled our station with experts who could support the terraforming efforts on Planet RDX-4, more commonly known simply as Radix—and would never have had such a strong reason to begin terraforming efforts at all. They would never have planted theNautilusat the edge of everything, a station one-tenth the size of ours, home to a smaller team of specialists who explore the far-off places we don’t even know we don’t know about.Lusca’s experts would not have been sent here to support that team, either.
And if theLuscawere never created, and my mother never its commander, and if I’d been born on Earth like every other generation that came before me, I would not behere.
I would not be grieving the effects of this particular virus, in this particular place.
I would not be stranded in eternal night, fumbling my way through darkness, wishing for starlight or fireflies or the dimmest rays of hope.
When I step back to think about it, how my life is what it is because of a string of choices made by people on Earth I’ve never met, it makes me feel terrifyingly small.
How can I get things back under control if control was never truly mine to begin with?
7
TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND TOMORROW
THREE TONES RING over my cabin speakers.It’s a new day, Haven’s chipper voice announces.Time to embrace it!This is her stage voice—we all have one. Hers is more exaggerated than mine, though. More exaggerated than everyone’s.
People complain, say she isn’t being sensitive enough. I even agree, some days, but I think Haven’s mostly in the right. We have to give the station what they need, not necessarily what they want. Wecan’tgive them what they want. We can’t give back their yesterdays, can’t take away their fear or their regret. We want those things, too, as much as anybody.
If only.
So Haven puts a smile in her voice. If they don’t want it today, she likes to say, maybe they’ll take it tomorrow. We’ll see.
