“How do we respond to this?” Aether asked with a new resolve. “Leave a new message right here?”
Qin hummed uncertainty. “I honestly don’t know how she did it. The homepage is strictly locked down. I could mess with another file, but no one would see it unless they looked for it—a search by recent modification.”
Aether wiped a hand down her face. “You have zero clue how to do this?”
Qin threw up his hands. “I’m not Minnie, okay? Hold on… let me see if Tom knows anything.”
Aether reread the message as she waited for Qin to consult Tom. Keenly aware of the Threck crews waiting for her at the harbor, she hoped that the promise of miraculous skin cream afforded her some leeway.
Qin sat down in the other seat. “Tom says she had root level passcodes.” He activated another console and began tapping away.
Aether smiled and felt a fresh rush of adoration—love seeping through a cracked door she’d fought to keep sealed since evac.
Of course root level passcodes.
“I assume I don’t have any of those?”
Tom appeared in the EV doorway. “You might, actually. I’m thinking with all the dumps that happen during exigency procedures that that’d be a big one to include.”
Qin cheered, “We do! I just remembered! Wireless was down, but ours and John’s became ‘Leadership’ EVs on evac. Everything down to root would be in there from the hardwire. You just need your regular AC account to access it! Hold on, so we don’t have to walk over there.” He navigated on the console. “Okay, accept that prompt.”
An access request popped up in Aether’s fone. She accepted, resisting the urge to point out the poor timing of Qin’s revelation. It was simply how his brain worked. If she’d thought to ask him about transglobal comms when they were floating off the coast, all this would have occurred to him then. They’d have established contact sooner. Minnie would know they’d survived.
How frightened and alone Minnie must feel. Cut off from everyone and everything. And what of her stability? Two weeks without meds…
Aether sucked in a deep breath. The message was from yesterday. For all the worst case scenarios she’d imagined, she had to accept this for the great news it was.
“I’m in our EV’s systems,” Aether said. “Tell me how to find the code you need. I’ll send you the message I want put up. Like hers, it needs to be the first thing someone sees if they access the pod UI.” Another glance at the bottom of Minnie’s message. “And don’t overwrite this… please. Just add what I give you to the top of the homepage.”
3.5
He supposed this was it. The end of his story, the end of Minerva’s, the end of the mission. Humans would surely come to this place again and they’d be eager to know what had happened at Epsilon C. People loved tragedy and cautionary tales. The question in John’s mind, the one whose relevance he found suspect: how much of the real story would future visitors piece together?
Why did it matter to him so much? Were these merely the long-established, conventional deliberations of imminent mortality? Meaning and purpose, impact and legacy? How dull. John had always fantasized for himself the also-well-known, though far-less-frequently-successful blaze of glory.
Blown apart on the station. Burned up on reentry or disintegrated across the surface when the parachute failed. Torn to shreds in an epic final showdown with Hynka, taking dozens with him as Minerva made a narrow escape… thanks to him. In practice, none of it sounded all that appealing. It sounded awful, terrifying. He just wasn’t the hero type, if such a thing existed outside fiction. He was a bookish scientist and engineer. The only reason he’d ended up a leader was that he wasn’t good enough at any one thing to specialize. Standard executive practice—put the generalists in charge. DNA and psych tests said he’d always be patient and paternal.
A lot of good it did him now. His last living “daughter” had flown the coop at some point last night. Now another night approached and still no sign of her. She’d left her suit and environment pants in a heap outside the tent. Wherever she’d gone—if she was still alive—was most likely more than 5K away, and she’d be barefoot and barelegged, with zero survival gear, and the overnight temp would surely dip again to -15 C. On top of all that, he reasoned that she’d experienced a full HSPD attack, and that her body would be wasted for days. On her own out there, her survival chances had actually plunged below John’s. And no one would be coming to help either of them.
His pain approached a high 7, and his reluctance to waste drugs on himself had suddenly become sad and pointless. He scooped a finger into the pouch and dropped a pill to the back of his throat. Maybe he’d take a few more in a bit. No one would ever know his weakness at the end.
They wouldn’t know anything else, either. All that data. Those hypothetical future human visitors would have to be satisfied with the last data sent home, along with whatever they could glean from orbiting fragments… or the contents of EVs found adrift in space. They’d know nothing of what he and Minerva had learned since evac. None of Ish’s flops of unreported data, or the sordid fallout of a disturbed crewmember’s missed or ignored red flags. Would the preservation of such knowledge render his life—his entire team’s lives—any more meaningful? They’d all ended up dying for this work.
John’s blaze of glory wouldn’t be as blazing as he’d hoped, but maybe he could persuade himself to die with a purpose—something more than as a convalescing heap in a tent. He had a good idea.
Forty minutes later, despite the frigid air of sunset, John sat sweating on one of the skimmer pads, his back against the panel wall. In his lap, the PCU confirmed signal establishment as the fluttering laser emitter beside him froze, casting the lime-green bar of light to a single point in the darkening sky. The pod’s homepage replaced the PCU’s control interface, and Minerva’s message filled the screen. But it wasn’t Minerva’s message.
Msg rec’d. Rally Camp est. by survivors Zisa Grafa, Pablo Birala, Thomas Meier, Aether Quintana, and Qin Shubao. 1st contact with native pop, friendly coop rel est. Recovery team AQ/PB/native team OB to HyCo WC 50N, ETA 95hrs. Confirm.
Chills pulsed from his very bones.
Alive.
It was posted six days ago. 95 hours… yesterday. They’d expected to arrive yesterday.
Dazed, John looked around the site. Even if Minerva were here, they were still days from reaching the coast. Absent anyone to rescue, would Aether and Pablo venture inland? John couldn’t allow it. Absolutely not. They’d made it down safe! The whole damned—
His eyes skimmed over the names again. No Angela. Couldn’t be an oversight.
Oh, Tom… Aether.
Their pain drilled into his sternum.
He reread the message. A little smile. The Threck people were actually helping his team. That was some kind of history right there! He flicked the message upward to verify there wasn’t more off-screen, and indeed, more appeared. But not from the team. Minerva’s message was essentially what he remembered Minerva telling him. He was surprised to see she’d only called Ish a “suspect” at the time.
The tips of still more letters dotted the bottom of the screen. John scrolled to find yet another unexpected note.
Zisa: You are so quick, so brilliant, and with so much heart…
John wasn’t supposed to see these words, addressed to him but intended for no one. A gaping window into a well-fortified heart. He’d never written anything so personal, not even in an offline journal.