“Alright,” said Malcolm. “I’m ready to get started.”
Tapestry explained how to pull the broken panels off and what to look for. She was calm, collected, and detail oriented. She was like an angel, whispering instructions into Malcolm’s ear and helping him keep his mind off the terrifying, uncaring reality of the openness of outer space.
It was difficult. Malcolm needed to first snap each broken panel free from its bracing, and then disconnect a cable, two tasks made difficult by the gloves of his suit. When the first panel came free, he moved at an awkward angle, losing his hold on the new solar panel and knocking it out of his reach.
“Go after it!” said Tapestry. “We can’t afford to lose many of those panels.”
“Uh…” Malcolm watched the panel as it slowly floated away. He took a deep breath, and pushed off from the outer surface of the spaceship.
He was moving away from Jupiter, but that only put him slightly more at ease. The safety line behind him seemed like a thin, insubstantial thing. His heart pounded harder in his chest with every meter of distance he put between himself and the ship.
He reached the solar panel before he got to the end of his line and turned to head back. The line didn’t even look like it was attached to the ship with how much slack it had let out. He managed to pull himself back toward the vessel with a single movement, a testament to how little energy it took to shift his direction in space.
Malcolm installed the first panel, and the second, and then the next five. There was only one broken panel left. He made the trip back toward the storage compartment slowly, feeling an enormous amount of relief at being near the end of the task.
“There’s some interference on the sensors,” said Tapestry. “I can’t tell from what. Be extra careful out there in the –”
Something struck Malcolm in the back with the force of a mean fastball. He gasped, praying that his suit would hold against whatever damage had been caused. He realized he’d let go of his handhold in surprise and turned to try to find it again.
Another bit of space debris struck him, pushing him away from the ship. Malcolm felt a surge of sudden, panicked survival instinct. He was going to be knocked loose. He was going to die.
No! I won’t die like this! I will survive, at any cost!
He gritted his teeth and took hold of his safety line. Something twisted inside of him, and he felt a sudden surge of energy unlike anything he’d experienced before. He’d heard of people pushing themselves to the limit in life or death situations and knew that he was right up against his.
He only saw the approaching chunk of space debris for an instant, long enough to guess that it was at least the size of a beach ball. In that moment, all Malcolm could think to do was to use his wind manipulation to stop it. His no longer functioning wind manipulation, which wouldn’t have worked in the vacuum of space, anyway. He called to it with every ounce of his will, and watched as it did nothing to stop the asteroid from striking him hard in the chest.
And then, everything went black.
CHAPTER 22
Malcolm groaned as he opened his eyes. His head was throbbing. Had he gotten jumped in the trading square again? Perhaps what was left of Bennett’s gang had found him and decided to take revenge for his attack on their leader…
His eyes focused, and days of his life snapped back into recent memory. He was in a spacesuit. Which meant that he was still in the middle of his spacewalk, repairing the ship’s solar panels.
Except the ship was nowhere in sight. And his safety line was no longer attached to anything. Malcolm felt terror surge through him at the implication.
“Tapestry!” he shouted. “Tapestry!”
There was no response. Malcolm twisted, spinning in a circle. He could see Jupiter behind him, and it seemed larger than it had been before. Of course. That made sense. An asteroid had knocked him loose from the ship, and it had been traveling in the direction of the nearest planet, pulled in by that immense well of gravity. Just like what was now happening to him.
This can’t be as bad as it seems. Tapestry must know where I am. She’s probably on her way to save me.
He spun around again, searching for the ship behind him. It wasn’t there, and though he saw several small pinpricks of light that might have been it, they might also have been stars.
“Fuck,” he muttered. “Tapestry! If you can hear me…”
If she can hear me… what? I don’t know where I am, and I can’t hear her.
There was a crack on the front of Malcolm’s helmet. He couldn’t hear if it was leaking oxygen or not, but it wasn’t a good sign. And if he was out of sight of the ship, it didn’t matter either way. But he couldn’t have been unconscious for that long. The ship had to still be nearby.
Malcolm drifted without purpose or destination. He tried to slow his breathing as much as he could, and conserve what oxygen he had left. It was something he could focus on, a tiny thing within his control.
Am I… going to make it?
The hopelessness of his situation crept up on him over the next few minutes. Any faith he had in saving himself or being rescued was fading like the sun over the horizon. This was exactly what he’d been afraid of when he’d first stood on the edge of the airlock. This was his worst nightmare. He was helpless, cast adrift into the void. A tiny, pathetic human in an infinite sea of nothing.
“Well…” he muttered. “That’s it, then.”
It’s over. I did my best.
He chuckled, and then felt despair seize him by the heart. A painful lump formed in his throat. He was ready for tears, but they never came. They would have been a pain to deal with in zero gravity, anyway.
Drifting.
Malcolm heard a faint, slightly ominous chiming noise, which he guessed was his life support system informing him that he was running dangerously low on oxygen. He didn’t know for sure, as the heads-up display was broken along with most of the rest of his electronics. He had no way of knowing how much longer he had to live.
I had a good run. I’m alright with this being the end.
He considered it, wondering if that was really the truth. Was there anyone back on Earth who would miss him? Perhaps Rose, but that was assuming that her memories of him ever came back. Maybe it was better for Malcolm to die in space, billions of miles away. He was the last person who knew the painful truth of her past. Perhaps if he died, it would die with him.
And Tapestry. She would mourn for him, sure. But she didn’t love him anymore, not how she once had. She was strong enough to keep moving forward and maybe even rescue Savior on her own. He’d fixed all but one of the solar panels. Surely that would be enough, if the ship only needed to use its electricity to support her.
“I did all that I could,” he muttered. “And I did a pretty damn good job.”
There was no response. Malcolm exhaled and was surprised when it came out shaky, verging on a sob. He’d never felt so alone before in his life. Even living in his hideout in the months after the collapse, scraping by on foraged food and fearing for his life, he’d at least occasionally been around other people.
Was this the fate he’d earned for himself? To drift through space, endlessly. To stare out the faceplate of his helmet at a planet a thousand times the size of Earth, knowing that it would be the last thing he’d ever see. He wouldn’t get to die fighting. He’d go out with a whimper instead of a bang.
The ominous chiming noise sounded again, twice this time. Malcolm wanted to close his eyes, but he was afraid of where his thoughts might take him if he did. He wished that he could see his friend’s faces one last time. Selfishly, he found himself wishing that they were there with him, so he wasn’t alone.