His breath hurt his lungs, in and out, in and out, as if he breathed the smoke and ash he saw.
Richard.
Listen to me.
I know what to do.
“Min-xue?”
We can use the Benefactor tech to repair the damage.
“The Canadians thought of it. It won't work.”
Tell me why.
“I won't reprogram the nanites to operate and replicate without a control chip. I don't trust the tech enough to unleash a horde of self-programming alien robots on the earth. And even if I would — Earth's ecosystem is a phenomenally complex system, which would take unimaginable processing power to regulate. To heal it without destroying it.”
The nanites do okay in a human host, and that's a pretty complex system, too.
“And look at how many problems they cause. The starships work because machines are simple. An ecosystem?” Min-xue felt Richard shake his head, saw the swirl of colors that was Alan's presence behind him. “Would stress even an AI at full functionality. And I need a bit more space than the nanotech provides.”
I know, Min-xue answered. But you know how to make more of you now. To be many presences in one.
“I do.”
Would the Huang Di hold one?
Overnight
Friday 22 December, 2062
HMCSS Montreal
Earth orbit
It's been ten years since Geniveve Castaign died and we buried her in a green, gently sloped cemetery near Montreal, under the boughs of an enormous white pine. I took Gabe home, the baby girls at their grandfather's place, and I sat down on the sofa with him and he talked for an hour and a half before he cried, and then he didn't stop crying. Even in his sleep, his breath came with a little huffing catch that ripped me open like fishhooks every single goddamned time.
I'd never seen Gabe Castaign cry before. But I'd never watched him bury his wife before either. So I sat up then, and the weight of his body against my chest made it an effort to breathe, and my white shirt was wet through and it was October, and cold, and there had been orange leaves everywhere on the grass in the churchyard and little Leah'd held my hand so tight I thought she was going to squeeze the metal out of shape.
She was at her grandpère's, and so was her sister, and Gabe lay asleep in my arms the way I had imagined more times than I can count. And it wasn't worth it. God, it wasn't worth it.
And that night I could have made it happen. I could have offered him a little bit of myself, and we both could have pretended it was to ease the pain, and nothing else. Just friendly, and just friends, and just for comfort and not being alone in the night. I could have offered, and he would have said yes. And the sleep would have come a little later, is all.
But I was back in Montreal.
And being there made it too hard to lie to myself.
Like I'm back in the Montreal now.
The moon rose through the window. Gabriel, mon ange, stirred against my chest. He whispered a name—Geni—and it was my name but it's not my name, and I didn't care, for a moment, because he slept in my arms when he would not sleep without, and the hours passed slowly, and morning was a long time away. And if I could have put my hand out and stopped the moon in the sky, I would have done it without thinking. Come to think of it, if I had that kind of power, I wouldn't have these problems, would I?
Gabriel cries the same way now, wedged into my narrow bunk with me. Hard, almost silently, pushing his face against my shoulder, yellow strands of hair curling between my steel fingers while my other hand strokes his face, his back, in raw counterpoint to the rhythm of his sobs.
I haven't a fucking clue how he held it together out there for as long as he did. Fragments of words are all he manages, intermittently, although his hands bruise my back through my jumpsuit when he drags me close. I mumble nonsense into his ear. I'll cry later.
Really.
Richard?
“Feeling better, Jenny?”
Conscious is not better, Dick. A silent chuckle curls out on my breath, more a staccato exhalation than a sound given voice. Any word—? I can't finish the sentence. He knows. Gabe's racked breathing slows a half-step, and I shift against him, pulling his face into the curve of my neck.
“No one in downtown Toronto could have survived.”
Nobody.
I knew that. Razorface, Genie, Elspeth. The boys in the pilot program, unless the military got some or all of them out, though how you'd do that, I don't know. Indigo. Holmes, and I don't feel much pain for that one. Boris.
I know. It's so much. A blow too stunning to even feel, like a shotgun blast, a violation like rape. Razorface, like a punch in the chest.
He was twelve years old when I met him. His name was Dwayne, and he hated it.
Riel?
“Was at her cabin. It has a bunker, and it's outside the destroyed range. Chances are—”
That's something, then.
“Yes,” he says, and I know he's keeping secrets. “That's something. I'm talking to Charlie Forster, Jenny, and Riel's science adviser. Dr. Perry. The dust from the comet impact is going to up our timetable. Remember what I said about a snowball Earth?”
Like it was yesterday.
He laughs, and it doesn't quite sound like human laughter anymore. “In addition to the immediate damage, Jen, what's happened will trigger the equivalent of a nuclear winter. It's going to get very cold down there. Very, very fast.”
How cold is — never mind. Forget I asked. What's Charlie say?
A heavy sigh. “Charlie thinks Min-xue's wild-ass plan is crazy enough to work.”
Oh. And then, into a silence I wasn't sure I wanted broken. Richard?
“Jenny, my dear?”
What exactly is Min-xue's wild-ass plan?
Dawn
Friday December 22, 2062
Somewhere in Ontario
Genie breathed in against the stabbing in her side. She smelled smoke and tasted blood, and something pressed her down. Hands. Hands moving over her body, gentle and firm, and leaves rustling under her. It was bitterly cold, and the light looked—wrong—sunrise-slanted, but yellowed red as if shining through a pall of dust.
“Kiddo, you waking up, hon?” The redheaded soldier, who leaned over her and probed gently, ignoring the red trickling down her own face from a gash under her helmet. Genie drew a breath and hissed at the agony of breathing. She was used to hurting, though, and she breathed in, breathed out again.
“We're alive?”
“Most of us.” The soldier sat back on her heels.
“Ellie?”
“She's seeing to the pilot. She said she was a doctor, sort of. She's okay. I think you've got a cracked rib, kiddo. Can you breathe okay?”
“It hurts, but I'm okay. We got down.”
“Yeah, we got down. Gordon got through to HQ, and they're sending a pickup team. Which is good. We have wounded and there are forest fires.” She rubbed a hand across her face. It left a track through the soot and grease and blood. More red trickled thickly across.