“Great idea,” said Emily, “but I still need to speak with the captain first.” She caught the eye of one of the two men who had carried Jacob across the snow and he agreed to round up another helper and get Jacob back to the other building.
“Captain?” Emily caught Constantine as he headed back to his office.
“Hello, Emily. Wonderful news, isn’t it?” he said, smiling warmly at Rhiannon.
“Have you given any more thought to what I told you about what could be waiting for us out there?” said Emily.
The sub captain’s eyes narrowed slightly and she saw him blow a puff of air out before replying. Exasperation. Well, at least she knew how he really felt.
“I’ve given it as much thought as a man stranded on an island with no way to contact the outside world can,” he said, his face softening again. “But now that the storm has blown over, I’ve got Jacob and MacAlister trying to establish contact with anyone that they can reach on the base radio. We’ll at least know if there are more survivors out there that can help us.”
The captain turned to walk away, but Emily grabbed his arm.
“One more thing, is there anything else I can do to help you and your crew?”
The captain considered her request for a moment. “Quite honestly, Emily, you and Rhiannon are of more use to us watching over the remainder of my crew who are still hospitalized. If you don’t mind continuing to help out here, it means I can pull a couple of the crew from hospital duty and get them on the cleaning crew instead.”
Emily shrugged off her coat then helped Rhiannon out of hers, the little girl chattering excitedly as they made their way back to their rooms.
“Do you think we’ll be able to go back home? Or maybe there’ll be others out there like us too.” She fired the questions off one after another, barely pausing for breath between each of them. Emily nodded noncommittally at each of them and added a “maybe” to each. But at the door to her room Rhiannon finally paused. “Do you think the monsters will be gone now?” she said, her voice barely audible over the sound of the warm-air vents.
Emily placed both hands on the girl’s shoulders and knelt down until her face was level with Rhiannon’s. It was so very easy to forget the kid was only thirteen, but when Emily stared into her eyes, she could see the traumatized child still hiding just behind those blue orbs, a reflection of Emily’s own inner fears.
“Listen, kiddo. I don’t know what’s going on out there, but I promised you when we were on our way here that I would never let anything bad happen to you, do you remember?”
Rhiannon nodded.
“But the truth is, I just don’t know what’s out there anymore. But guess what? Now we have all these other people who are going to help keep you and me safe. So, don’t you worry, okay?”
Rhiannon nodded and Emily watched as her frown turned into a smile again. “MacAlister likes you,” the kid said from nowhere.
“No way?” Emily replied with mock shock, nudging Rhiannon gently with her shoulder.
“Does too,” said Rhiannon.
Emily stood, her knees cracking in protest.
“Yeah, well, I quite like him as well,” she said, and ushered Rhiannon down the corridor toward the radio room.
Emily heard familiar voices floating down the corridor as she and Rhiannon headed to the communications room. One of them was definitely Jacob’s, the other MacAlister’s, but the third was too faint for her to make out.
MacAlister smiled when he saw Emily and Rhiannon in the doorway.
Only when Emily stepped into the room with the two men was she able to hear the voice clearly.
“Fiona?” she blurted out just as Rhiannon let out a happy cry of “Commander Mulligan!”
The microphone must have been open because the commander of the International Space Station immediately replied. “Emily! Rhiannon! It’s so very good to hear your voices and know that you made it to Jacob safely. I was so worried about you both. The storm blocked all radio transmission from us to you. I…” She paused as if wondering whether she should bring up the next painful subject. “I am so very, very sorry to hear about Simon and Ben. I wish… well, I just… I’m just so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” said Rhiannon, her voice barely loud enough to be picked up by the radio’s microphone. “They’re both with Mommy now.”
Emily pulled the girl closer to her, rubbing her hand up and down her arm.
“Commander, it’s good to hear your voice too. I’m assuming Jacob has told you about our new arrivals? The crew of the HMS Vengeance?”
“Yes, yes, wonderful news in so many ways, Emily. And it’s good to know that a little bit of Great Britain made it through all this.”
“Their timing could not be better; it looks like the storm we outran has disappeared. How does it look from the ISS?” Emily continued, steering the conversation away from Rhiannon’s deceased father and brother as succinctly as she could.
“The commander and I were just discussing that very thing when you walked through the door,” said MacAlister, his smile broadening even more. “Emily, the storm seems to have vanished… worldwide.”
“Everywhere?” Emily said, astonished.
“That’s correct,” said Mulligan. “We noticed it beginning to dissipate about six hours ago. Its disappearance was almost as strange as its arrival.”
“What do you mean, strange?” asked Emily.
“Storms usually take days or even weeks to really lose their full power, but this one was gone in a little over two hours,” said the commander. “It was almost as though it disintegrated, bit by bit. From what we could see up here, the edge of the storm just began to dissolve toward the center until there was nothing left, as though the original process was being reversed, only at a much faster rate. I’d tell you it was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen, but I’ve seen some very odd things these past few weeks.”
“So that’s it? Everything is back to normal again?”
There was no reply from the space station.
“Commander? Are you still with us?” Emily asked, even though she could hear the astronaut breathing slowly over the radio.
“There’s something else,” said Fiona. “While the storm has vanished, it appears to have changed everything on a global scale. I can’t see any sign of Earth’s indigenous flora, nothing is green down there anymore. It’s all red. Everywhere.”
Emily knew that she should feel something at the commander’s shocking revelation, some kind of surprise or remorse at the passing of the final vestiges of the world that had existed since life first sprang forth on this tiny rock. But the truth was that she felt none of those things. She had suspected that when, or rather if the storm ever subsided, the world would be a very different place, transformed and as different as its former human rulers had been when they crawled from their cocoons after the red rain. Even Rhiannon seemed to have accepted that the world was no longer theirs. Only Jacob, who had witnessed the demise and eventual transformation overtaking the world from this distant, isolated island, seemed taken by surprise at the commander’s words.
“Nothing? It’s all gone?” he said, aghast. His skin was slowly fading from pink to a waxy gray, in spite of the warmth of the room.
“Yes” was the answer from miles above their heads. “While I obviously can’t be certain this far from home, I see little other possibility for the changes we are seeing.”
Jacob’s voice became momentarily childlike, almost a squeak. “What are we going to do?” he asked, his eyes wide. He was asking her, Emily realized. Why was everyone asking her what to do? Being a mother figure was not in her survival plan, and she sure-as-shit didn’t fit the job description.