“Before my brain fries.”
Gordo said, “You get a full pardon. In writing from the President, if you want. We need you, kid. Holle needs you.”
Holle snapped, “That’s so manipulative. It’s a death sentence!”
Matt looked at her. “You’re flying?”
Both Gordo and Liu looked at Holle. Now she understood why they had brought her here. Miserably, she said, “Yes, Matt. Yes, I’m flying.”
Matt nodded. He reached out and shook Liu’s hand. “Give me a monkey wrench and I’m your man, boss.”
Holle could bear no more. She ran to the door, which opened to release her, and fell into the arms of her father.
When they took her out to the car she smelled burning. From all around the horizon, smoke was rising, black and ugly. It turned out that President Peery had ordered the firing of a trench, more than six kilometers long and filled with precious oil, that ringed the whole of the core Zone. The trench would be kept burning until the engines of the rising Ark obliterated it.
40
December 2041
The siren echoed in the corridors. Its pulse came every one and one-tenth seconds, Holle thought sleepily, to match the rhythm with which the thermonuclear charges would detonate beneath the pusher plate to shove the Ark, and herself, into space.
The siren.
She sat bolt upright. The duvet fell away from her bare upper body. A panel flashed brilliant red on her bedroom wall. The wall clock showed her it was a shade after 1800. She’d been asleep since noon, after pulling another thirty-six-hour shift in the sims. “On!”
The screen cleared to reveal Gordo’s face. “-is Pikes Peak control. Get your asses to the Ark, now. Launch has been pegged for 2000.” Flicker. “This is Pikes Peak control. Get your asses-”
She rolled out of bed and ran across the room to slap the panel.
“Gordo! It’s Holle.”
The recording broke up to reveal a live feed of Gordo Alonzo with his tie loosened, and frantic scenes in launch control in the background. Gordo kept his face rigid, his gaze unequivocally not straying over her bare body. “Good evening, Ms. Groundwater.”
“Gordo, what’s happening? The launch was set for 0800 tomorrow.”
“Not any more,” he said gruffly. “Morell says he can’t hold the line for more than another few hours.”
She was bewildered. “We’re not ready.”
“You’ll have to be.”
“There are still civilians here, in the Hilton. Mel’s here somewhere. My father-”
“They’ll have to get out of there.” He pressed a pad, out of her sight. “No, Argent, it’s not a fucking drill. Get your skinny ass to that pad now.” Another touch to the pad, and his hand hovered near his loosened tie. “Mr. President. Yes, sir, this is launch control at Pikes Peak. After the message from General Morell we accelerated the schedule. I’m confident we-yes, sir, I understand. If you’ll excuse me one second.” He glared, as if straight at Holle. “Any of you assholes on the crew listening to me talk to the President rather than getting your butts over to the ship are going to have a long time to regret it. Yes, sir, go ahead…”
“Off.” The screen blanked.
Stunned, she looked around. Half-anticipating something like this, she’d got her stuff ready. Her launch suit lay sprawled over a chair, a loose undergarment with sewn-in medical sensors and comms links, and a tough AxysCorp-fabric bright blue coverall, bulky with built-in anti-impact air bags and cooling system and snap-on interface for the waste system. And she’d half-packed the small pouch that would contain the only personal stuff she’d be allowed to take aboard the Ark, data sticks, Angels, hardcopy photographs-a lock of Mel’s hair.
She moved. She ran around picking up the last items from the bedroom and bathroom, her toothbrush, her case of sanitary towels.
She could hear shouts, revving vehicles, running footsteps, the continual blaring of the siren, and a pop that sounded like small-arms fire. Her hands were trembling as she pulled on the layers of the flight suit. She couldn’t believe this was happening, that the time had come, this final sundering. She longed to pee. She could pee on the Ark.
She hunted for her boots. Outside the window, red lights flared with that ominous atomic rhythm.
The exit chamber on the ground floor was a swarm of crew members, ground staff, military with weapons at the ready, ushering crew members to the armored buses waiting to take them to the Ark itself.
A glass wall had been erected down the center of the hall. For days nonessentials had been excluded from the crew areas in an attempt to keep the crew clear of bugs. Mel wasn’t here. But, among the handful of lovers, children and parents standing bereft on the far side of the barrier, Holle saw her father.
She ran to him. She dropped her bag and pressed her hands against the glass; he matched hers with his. “Dad-oh, Dad. I want to smash this glass.”
He forced a smile. “That wouldn’t be a good idea.”
“I tried to get them to pass you through for the last night. I was going to cook you paella.”
“I’ll cook it myself in your honor, don’t you worry. Anyhow I’ll be speaking to you on the comms links; you won’t get rid of me that easily.”
“Mel isn’t here. He said he’d be here.”
“It’s hard for him, sweets. I’ll talk to him. I’ll make sure he’s fine.”
Somebody was blowing a whistle, the last boarding call for the buses.
“Dad-”
“I’ll tell you one last thing, love, I never told you before. Your mother and I listened to Thandie Jones telling the IPCC in New York how the world was going to end. You were conceived after that. Conceived in hope. But I never told you why we called you Holle. On Orkney my grandmother told me old Norse stories… You’re named for the old Norse goddess of the afterlife-Holle, Hel, Hulda. Holle is the goddess of transformation.” He was crying now. “I always hoped you would fulfill that promise somehow. And now here you are, a part of the afterlife of the whole world.”
This was more than she could bear. “These are the days of miracle and wonder, aren’t they, Dad?”
He stepped back deliberately. “Don’t cry, baby.” His voice was muffled.
Kelly Kenzie ran up and grabbed her arm. “You still here? Come on, damn it, that fucking bus is going now. ”
Holle let herself be pulled away. When she looked back, Patrick had deliberately lost himself in the crowd.
They crowded onto the armored bus. It rolled away before Holle had a chance to sit down, before the door was properly closed. Everybody was stumbling around, dragging their bags, their suits half zipped up; this was nothing like the orderly embarkation they had rehearsed.
Holle got to a seat, but it was too small for her, padded up as she was in her layered suit. Bad design, she thought. Make a note for the integration oversight committee. But this bus would be vaporized in a couple of hours, poorly designed seats and all. She felt a hysterical giggle bubble up. She looked out of the window. Brown, greasy smoke from the oil fire in the moat rose into the air, as it had for six days now.
A dull roar reached a crescendo that crashed down, making them all duck. Two fighter jets screamed across the sky, their lights bright, burning up a bit more of the nation’s dwindling store of aviation fuel. She wondered what threat they had been sent aloft to face.
The bus lurched to a stop. The driver opened the doors, and stood up and waved her arms. “Out! Out! Move it!” She was a middle-aged woman in an NBC coverall, for nuclear-biological-chemical protection. Holle understood her urgency; if the driver didn’t get her bus turned around and out of the blast zone, she wouldn’t survive the launch, NBC suit or not.
Holle got off the bus, clutching her bag. The Ark towered above her, gleaming in a bath of light cast by the powerful floods at its feet. Tanker trucks were pulled up at the ship’s base, their hoses snaking into the superstructure, while far above her head valves vented white vapor.