‘What are you saying, man?’ Alik asked. He held up his beer. ‘I have to give this up?’
Callum shrugged. ‘Water is neutral.’
‘Fuck that!’
‘Cold food is less effervescent,’ Kandara said thoughtfully.
‘Effervescent?’ Alik sounded astonished.
‘Evaporation. Hot food gives off more odour.’
‘You’re saying we eat goddamn cold sandwiches for ten years?’
‘Callum may have a point,’ Jessika said.
‘Je-zus H Christ almighty. No fucking way.’
The food printer flashed a ready light, and the garlic bread slid out of the slot. Callum gave it a guilty look.
‘Garlic is quite strong,’ Yuri said. ‘Worse if you heat it.’
Callum badly wanted to glare at Yuri, who was clearly channelling the devil at peak temptation. But that would’ve given Yuri a win.
‘Seriously, cold food?’ Alik asked. ‘What about – aww, crap – coffee? No! Come on, man.’
Kandara nodded sagely. ‘I think Callum may be right. We shouldn’t take the risk.’
‘I am not spending what’s left of my life drinking . . .’ Alik shouted – then took a breath and spoke quietly. ‘Water.’
‘Vodka has little effervescence,’ Yuri said with low amusement. ‘And is best served iced in the correct Russian way. Even fewer stray molecules given off that way.’
Alik gave a cry of disgust, throwing his hands up.
Callum awarded the garlic bread a last resentful gaze and dropped it in the toilet pan. The flush swirled it away into the atomizer unit at the bottom of the nutrient formulator. At least there was nothing he could do about the risotto now but eat it.
‘The G8Turing should be able to suggest a decent low-emissive menu for us,’ Kandara said.
‘Wait.’ Jessika held up a hand. ‘There’s another ship arrived: the Liberation from Ignorance.’
Startled, Callum’s limbs locked in an idiot pose, fully laden fork just centimetres in front of his open mouth. ‘At the gas giant?’
‘No. Into the enclave. It just came through the gateway. I can feel its thoughts being unified within the fullmind. Oh, shit!’
‘What?’ Yuri asked sharply.
‘They sent a . . . they called it a Reconciliation fleet, to Earth. The Liberation from Ignorance is the first to come back. It’s full.’
‘Full?’ Callum said. He knew what she meant, but still . . .
‘Of cocoons.’
‘Oh, Christ, no. How can that be? We’ve only been here – Oh. Right. Slowtime. It must have been years outside.’
‘Couple of decades, at least,’ Kandara said. ‘More when you take the wormhole flight time to Sol and back. Say thirty.’
‘We’ve not been in the enclave two full days yet,’ Alik protested.
She directed a mocking smile his way. ‘Really slow time.’
‘What happened?’ Yuri asked.
‘Earth fell,’ Jessika said. ‘They sent in thousands of Resolution ships. They broke the city shields. They cocooned everyone left on the planet. Billions of us. Billions!’
‘What about the settled worlds?’ Alik asked.
‘The Liberation from Ignorance feels sad, sort of incomplete,’ Jessika said. ‘Our terraformed worlds were practically deserted when the Olyix arrived. The exodus habitats had all portalled out, and the Olyix couldn’t find out where.’
‘Thank God for that,’ Callum said. ‘They did it. They got out across the galaxy. There’s still hope.’ Somehow he was wiping moisture from his eyes, not knowing how it got there. The kids are safe. Damn, they’ll be old by now; the grandkids will probably have children of their own. At this rate it won’t be much longer – not even a week – and they’ll have lived more years than me. And they’ll never know I’m still alive, that we made it.
‘That went better than I expected,’ Yuri said. ‘They got out – Emilja and the Zangaris, even Soćko, presumably. They know what they have to do. We got the easy assignment, now.’
‘Easy?’ Alik challenged.
‘Sit and wait,’ Callum said. ‘And work out how to call the human armada. When it comes.’
*
Callum had a fitful sleep that night. In his short, vivid dream he walked through night-time Edinburgh, back in the good old days, him and his pals, making their way to someone’s flat after the pubs had closed. The paved clear routes were slick with a cold rain washing down from the Scottish Highlands, reflecting jagged streaks of streetlighting and hologram ads. Then the lights went out one by one, leaving him alone, staggering through a canyon of stone buildings, their walls shifting out of alignment. There was some light remaining in the dwindling city: the windows of kebab shops and chippies and burger joints and pizzerias and noodle bars. People were crammed inside; elements of grills and ovens glared lava-orange, casting occult glows over drawn faces – faces that were losing their features, melting away to ovals of flesh. And the fat smoke rose from charring food, billowing up into the extractor fans. Jets of rank smog flooded out across the street, their stench unavoidable. And in the gutters, rodent noses twitched behind the bars of the drains, pushing up towards the source –
‘Cal?’
He cried out as the dream juddered away. Jessika’s face was poised above him, concern on her gentle features. ‘You were crying out in your sleep,’ she explained. ‘Bad dream?’
‘Something like that. What time is it?’ He unzipped the side of his sleeping bag. Cool air slithered over him. I need a thicker sleeping bag.
‘Five in the morning, on the ship’s time we’re keeping.’
‘Uh, right. Thanks. And sorry.’ The light in the cavern was a minimal glimmer, allowing the shadows to loom large, compressing his world still further. Just like in the nightmare.
‘The G8Turing has reconstituted the formula for milk,’ she said. ‘It’s less of an aerosol with its molecules now. I can warm some for you, if you like.’
Warm milk. What am I, five? Bloody hell.Maybe Alik is right; some sacrifices are too great. Best to go out in a vapour plume of decent Scotch. ‘Thanks. I appreciate it.’ He rubbed his hands together before cupping them and blowing hard on his dry palms. ‘I’m cold.’
‘Get used to it,’ she said as she fussed around the food printer.
‘Damn.
