Impact (10 page)

The silence in the cave stretches on forever. The edge of the map has curled over my hand again, but I barely notice it.

Your friends are already dead.

“You don't know that,” I say.

Harlan's face is grave. He doesn't say anything. And, right then, the anger comes back. How dare he? He doesn't know Prakesh. He doesn't know Carver. Wherever they are, whatever they're dealing with, they'll be OK. They have to be.

My fist is clenched, scrunching up part of the map. Slowly, I let go, pulling my hand back. Then I take a deep breath, the anger subsiding. For now.

“What's in Anchorage?” I say. The heat in the cave has built up, drying out my tongue and blocking my sinuses.

Harlan bends down to his backpack, the cave echoing with clunks and thumps as he rummages through it. He pulls out an ancient radio, one with an antenna and a big chunky knob.

There's a crank on the side, and Harlan gives it a few quick turns. A light on the radio flickers on, growing orange, and we hear the thin sound of static. Harlan mutters to himself, adjusting the knob on the front of the radio, and then there's the voice, the message, the one I heard for the first time on the bridge of the
Shinso Maru
.

This time, the message chills me to the bone.

“—can hear us, we are broadcasting from a secure location in what used to be Anchorage, Alaska. There are at least a hundred of us here, and we have managed to establish a colony. We have food, water and shelter. The climate is cold, but survivable. If you can hear us, then know that you're not the only ones—”

“They do a new one every couple of months,” Harlan says, shutting the radio off. “But it's been ever since we got up here. I don't know how they get the power to do it, but it doesn't matter.”

“Who's
they
?”

“We don't know.” Harlan adjusts his position. “Back when I was in Whitehorse, we had a survivor come through. Russian guy. Least, I think he was Russian. Had an accent you had to really listen hard to understand. Massive beard, too, like fur on a—”

“Harlan.”

“Sorry. Don't ask me how he managed to get to here from Alaska, but he did it.”

I don't know where Whitehorse is, and I have only the vaguest idea of where to find Russia. “What happened to him?” I say.

“Told us he was in a big party out of Siberia,” Harlan says. “Winters had got too heavy there, so they were coming east, hoping for something better. They heard the message as they were crossing through Alaska, and decided to check it out.

“They got ambushed, even before they got to the source of the signal. Guy couldn't stop shaking when he told us. Said it was like the night just folded in on 'em. Men, women, children, didn't matter. Anchorage swallowed 'em whole. He managed to get away, along with his wife. She died on the way here.”

“And you believed him?”

Harlan shrugs. “Not like we were gonna go there ourselves to find out.”

“There has to be an explanation,” I say, staring at the map. “Maybe something else took them. Maybe the settlement was—”

“You don't get it, do you?” says Harlan. “Don't you think it's a little strange that they're just broadcasting their location?” He waves his hands in the air, waggling his fingers. “Hey! Everybody! We got food and supplies! All you can eat! Form an orderly line!”

I stare down at the map, not wanting to think about his words.

“If they were really accepting survivors,” Harlan says, “then the Nomads would have cleared 'em out long ago. Them, and anybody else who feels like livin' off what other people got. You want to know what I think? I think whoever sent this message is doing the same thing. Why go out hunting for supplies when you can just have them come straight to you?”

He puts a hand on my shoulder–then jumps when I slap it away. The anger I feel is immediately replaced by embarrassment, and I turn away, hugging myself tight. This isn't his fault.

But, right now, I feel like I did when I looked up at the sky–like the world has gone fuzzy at the edges.

“You ain't gettin' to Anchorage anyhow,” he says, not unkindly. “You're four hundred miles crow flight, and you won't make it even halfway before the snows set in.”

I'm barely listening. I'm back on my feet, pacing, thinking hard. Four hundred miles. It's a long way, but if I leave now I can get there in a month or two. It's nowhere near fast enough, but it'll have to do.

“The person I loved was on that ship,” I say, each word carried on a hot, angry breath. “I have to find him.” In that moment, I don't know if I'm talking about Carver or Prakesh.

Harlan doesn't touch me again. He just steps around until he's in front of me, leaning slightly away, as if he's afraid I'm going to lunge forward and bite him.

“I don't think you understand what you're about to do. How're you planning to feed yourself? Or navigate? That's without talking about the weather.”

“I can deal with the cold.”

“Can you deal with a snap that drops the temperature twenty degrees in ten minutes? I've seen that stream you were at frozen solid. And we got wind storms that come out of nowhere. They'll knock you right off your feet. 'Sides, you've already met the wolves.”

He stops to take a breath. When he speaks again, his voice is quieter. “What's the biggest space you ever been in?” Harlan says quietly.

“What do you mean?”

“When we were on the way over here, I caught you looking up at the sky. Like a goddamn deer in a spotlight.”

“I've been outside the station before,” I say, crossing my arms. “I've been
in
space.”

“Right. Right. But for how long? And I'm guessing you had a space suit.”

In the silence that follows, I realise that I don't have a single thing to say.

“Your mind ain't right,” Harlan says, locking his eyes onto mine. “You're snapping at every little thing, and you just ain't ready for what's out there.”

I look away, refusing to give up, desperately trying to think about how I could do this.
Four hundred miles.
I'll need gear, food, a map. Maybe Harlan can help me. Maybe I can—

When I look back, I see that he's staring at my thigh.

“What's that?” he says, stepping in close.

“Nothing,” I say, my mind still on Anchorage. “Just a cut.”

“Lemme see.” He goes down on one knee, reaching in. I shy away, startled, but stop when I see the look on his face. The worry on it.

“I told you, I'm fine,” I say, baring my teeth as his fingers gently explore the cut, peeling back the fabric of my pants. “It's a flesh wound. I got hit by a piece of shrapnel, but I took it out.”

He stops for a moment, grabbing a nearby lantern and bringing it closer. The heat from the glass bakes onto my skin.

“Deeper'n that,” he says. “And there's still some metal in there.”

“What?”

“Yeah, there, and there, and… yeah, hi, I see you. You didn't get it all out. This from the…” He lowers his hand to the floor fast, making an explosion sound with his mouth when it hits, looking up at me questioningly.

I nod, furious at myself for having missed this. The smaller shards must have broken off the bigger one when it embedded itself in my flesh.

“So we take the rest out,” I say. My gut churns–more pain. I tell myself I can handle it, that it'll be worth it if it gets me moving again. It can't possibly be worse than the pain I felt when I cut that bomb out of me.

But Harlan is shaking his head, sitting back on his haunches. “Can't do it,” he says. “Nope. Nuh-uh. Can't. They're too deep. Do you have any idea how much it's gonna hurt when those things come out? Do you?”

“Pretty good idea,” I say, getting down to his level, stretching out. In the flickering light, the wound looks even more jagged and raw. “Just bring me something I can use. Tweezers, or pliers. A knife'll probably be fine.”

“You don't understand,” he says, his voice shaking. “Even
if
we get them out, I don't got the medicine to stop the cut going bad.”

“You must have something,” I say. I can feel my nails digging into my palm.

He shrugs, helplessly. “Had. It's all gone. Tripped and fell a few months ago when I was checking traps. Got a massive gash all the way up my arm.” He points to his bicep. “Used the last of it on that. Even then, I don't know if it woulda been enough to handle what you've got.”

I run through the options in my head. I could clean the cut, get the slivers of metal out, but I only have to miss one for sepsis to set in. I could burn it–pour lamp oil in the cut and set it on fire–but even the thought of that makes me want to throw up. Besides, I don't even know if that would work. It might just be inviting further infection.

“Wait a second,” Harlan says. He jumps up, surprisingly spry. “This is
perfect
.”

I stare up at him, not entirely sure I heard him right. “I'm going to die of infection, and that's perfect?”

“No no no,” he says, waving his hands. “It's just… listen, I think I know where we can get the stuff you need.”

“OK,” I say slowly, feeling a tiny spark of hope flare up in my chest.

“We go to Whitehorse,” he says.

It's a name he's mentioned before. “What's Whitehorse?”

“Town about twenty-five miles south from here, give or take. Except… shit, I don't know, Eric was already making noises about heading for Calgary, so there's no guarantee they'd even—”

“But they'll have supplies? If they're still there?”

“
If
they're still there, yeah. Only…” He stops, a strange expression of longing settling on his face. In the lantern light it makes him look a hundred years old. More.

“Only… what?” I say.

“You gotta do something for me,” he says. “If they're still down there, you gotta tell 'em I helped you. You gotta tell 'em I looked after you, all right? Made sure you were OK.”

It's such a strange request that at first I don't know how to respond. “Why?” I say, after a moment.

His expression hardens. “Does it even matter? Just do that for me. I get you down the valley, you tell Eric that I did good. That's the deal.”

He's going to trick you
, says the voice at the back of my mind.
He can't just want something that small. He wants something else. Something he isn't telling you about.

I'm about to listen to the voice, but then I remember something Carver told me. It happened right after we escaped from the Earthers, back on the station. He told me that I had to let other people help me–that I couldn't do everything on my own.

I could try get to Whitehorse myself, but it's all too easy to imagine getting lost out there. If that happens, I won't survive. Whatever Harlan's doing, whatever weird game he's playing, I have to go along with it. It's the only shot I have.

“All right,” I say. “Sure. I'll tell them.”

He smiles, showing yellowed teeth. He digs in his pack again, tossing me another stick of dried meat. “Eat up, and get some sleep,” he says. “We got a long way to go tomorrow.”

Anna has to knock several times before Achala Kumar opens the door.

She's wearing a blue sweater with a black shawl wrapped around her shoulders. The skin on her face is puffy, her eyes bloodshot. She frowns when she sees Anna. “You're Frank's daughter.”

Anna nods. “Can I come in?”

Achala considers for a moment, then shrugs, holding the door open for her.

The Kumars have taken over a hab on Level 2. It's even smaller than Doctor Arroway's, and even more spartan. Cold, too–as Anna walks in, she can just see her breath curling in the air before her.

Ravi Kumar is on the small single cot, his back up against the wall. A thin blanket covers the lower half of his body. There's a depression where his left leg should be, and Anna finds it hard to look away. Right then, it strikes her just how much his son looks like him.

Ravi smiles at her, but she can see the puzzlement in his eyes.

Achala closes the door behind her. “I'm sorry I can't offer you anything to drink,” she says. “About earlier: I shouldn't be arguing with your father. It's not his fault.”

“Achala, what did you say to Frank now?” Ravi Kumar says, his voice weary.

“Don't you start with me,” Achala spits back. “Our boy is
alive
, and I'm not going to sit here while—”

“I need to ask you something,” Anna says, speaking over both of them. She sits down on the edge of the bed, telling herself to stop looking at the space below Ravi Kumar's left knee.

She doesn't quite manage it. Ravi reaches over, taps the blanket. “Loader claw closed over it,” he says. “Crushed the shin. I was lucky it didn't puncture my suit.” His eyes bore into hers. “But you didn't come here to talk about old injuries.”

Anna takes a deep breath, irritated with herself. This shouldn't have been difficult. “They keep space suits in the escape pods, right?”

“Space suits?” says Achala.

Ravi nods slowly, his eyes narrowed.

“OK,” Anna says. “But do they keep them anywhere else in the sector? Extra suits, or something?”

“No,” Ravi says. “There's no point–there are only a few places you can do an EVA from, and there's nothing like that in Apex.” He sees Anna's confusion. “EVA–Extra-Vehicular Activity. Spacewalks.”

“And you were in the construction corps, right?” Anna says, more to herself than to him. “So you'd know.”

“Of course,” Ravi says, even more puzzled. He glances up at his wife. “Unless Achala knows something I don't.”

Achala thinks hard, shakes her head. “No. There's a workshop in Tzevya where they did suit repairs, but nothing here.”

She looks at Anna in horror. “But you can't be thinking of going outside?”

Anna thinks back to the nightmare: drifting, weightless, in a black void. She shivers, without meaning to. “Nothing like that.”

“Then why the interest in space suits?” Ravi Kumar pulls himself off the bed, hands fumbling along the wall for the cane propped against it. “What's going on?”

Anna is about to tell them, then stops. She has to be sure. She has to be absolutely positive about this before she tells a soul.

“I'll tell you afterwards,” she says. She sees Achala about to speak, and ploughs on. “I'm not going outside, and I'm not doing anything bad. Promise.”

She smiles, turns to go.

“Anna,” Achala Kumar says, and when Anna turns back she sees that Achala is crying. Her hands are knotted at her waist, fingers clenched tight. Ravi looks down, embarrassed.

“You have to help us,” Achala whispers.

Anna doesn't know what to say. She doesn't know how to tell the Kumars that she has even less pull than they do. More importantly, she can't tell them that she agrees with her father–that the lottery is the only way. The Kumars aren't the only people with missing sons, daughters, husbands, wives.

“I'll try,” she says. It's not a lie, not exactly, but she feels uneasy as she says it. What she has isn't even a theory. It's a hunch, a feeling, based on a collection of things that might not even be remotely related. But what if she's right? What if this all means something? What will it mean for the Kumars?

She walks out of the hab, closing the door behind her. Then she takes off down the corridor, heading for the escape pods.