Alice sighs, her dark hair floating about her face. “How long can I hold out?”
“Longer than you may suspect,” Eve says.
“Food?”
“Adequate stores for a crew of six for forty-eight months,” Eve answers.
Alice stops and stares at the ceiling. “There’s enough food for twenty-four years?”
“A single crewmember eating at the expected rate would have adequate stores for nearly a quarter century,” Eve confirms.
Alice closes her eyes. “That should make me relieved,” she says. “But now I feel like I’ve been given a death sentence. I’ll only be fifty-seven.”
“Fifty-seven is not an insubstantial fraction of the expected female life span,” Eve says.
“It seems insignificant when you realize that you could have lived to one-twenty,” Alice says. She touches the hull wall lightly with her fingers and sets herself in motion, turning a slow flip. “But given the circumstances, maybe twenty-four years should feel like a prison sentence instead.”
“You have adequate space,” Eve says. “You are not incarcerated.”
“I have inadequate company,” Alice snaps. “I—oh, fuck you, you wouldn’t understand.”
Eve is quiet for a moment, and then a tone sounds. “Shall I put myself to sleep?” she asks.
“Yes,” Alice grumbles.
“Eve?” Alice calls. “Come back.”
The gentle tone pulses, and Eve returns. “Alice.”
Alice doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and then: “I feel like I should apologize. That’s really stupid.”
Eve says, “If I were human, I would accept. But there’s no need. You have the expected responses to stress. I would express concern if you did not.”
“I was really tired,” she says. “I still am.”
“You have not slept,” Eve acknowledges. “Perhaps you should.”
“Perhaps,” Alice says, and closes her eyes.
She falls asleep, her knees tucked to her chest, and floats undisturbed for hours.
“Alice.”
Nothing.
“Alice, wake up.”
Nothing.
Eve sounds a sharp alarm, a single ping, and Alice starts awake.
“Jesus,” she says. “What’s going on?”
Eve says, “Communication.”
“What?”
“There are two distinct signals.”
Gravity has been restored, and Alice stands in the communications module, staring at the wide, gently curved screen. The display is separated into three zones. On the largest of them, a flat map of the world is displayed as clear gray line art. The other two zones are blank.
A small circle appears on the Pacific coast of North America.
Alice’s mouth opens. “Oregon?”
“In the approximate region where the city of Eugene is located,” Eve confirms.
“How strong is it?”
The second zone lights up on the screen, displaying an analysis of the signal. The numbers are small, and Eve says, “Quite weak. I’m surprised that we received it at all, considering the density of the likely cloud coverage.”
Alice bites her lip. “Okay, don’t play it yet—tell me what I’m supposed to do with this.”
Eve says, “What do you mean, Alice?”
“I—why are we listening to it?” Alice asks. “Am I even going to be—what do I do?”
“It is a distress call,” Eve says. “It has broadcasted unanswered for two days, to my knowledge. I do not detect any answering signals on Earth.”
“Yes, but—it’s going to be bad,” Alice says. Her eyes are wide and worried. “Eve, it’s going to be people crying or screaming, and I’m going to have to hear those voices in my head for the next twenty-four years. If I can’t help them, I don’t think I want to listen to it.”
Eve says, “I have transcribed it as well.”
Unbidden, Eve displays the transcription on the screen.
Alice says, “I don’t want to read it,” but she does anyway.
S.O.S.
S.O.S.
Mayday? Can anybody—<distortion>—us? Hello?
<distortion>
<interference>
—six of us. My name is Roger. My wife is here. We—<distortion>—bleeding. He needs medical attention. Hello?
<interference>
—water.
“Jesus,” Alice says. “There are survivors.”
“Yes,” Eve says. “That was always likely.”
“How old did you say this message is?”
“Two days.”
“Are they still broadcasting?” Alice asks.
“The signal is repeating,” Eve says. “It loops six times per hour.”
“But nothing new,” Alice says.
“I haven’t detected any change in the broadcast, or any new signals from that region.”
“They could be dead.”
Eve says, “Yes. It is likely that they are dead.”
“But if six people in Oregon are alive, then there could be more people there,” Alice says. “There could be groups of people all over the place.”
“That’s also likely,” Eve agrees.
“Tess,” Alice says.
“Statistically unlikely,” Eve says, “but possible.”
Alice takes a deep breath, exhausted by having cried so much during the passing days.
“You said two signals,” she says. “Is the other from the U.S., too? Are there survivors somewhere else?”
Eve says, “I cannot map the second signal.”
“Why not? Interference?”
“The second signal does not originate from Earth,” Eve says.
“Wait,” Alice says.
The Argus takes on a gently creepy atmosphere, and Alice feels exposed, standing in the only lit compartment, with blackness chewing at the edges of her vision.
“Wait, wait,” she says again. “It’s radio emissions from a star. Right? It’s noise.”
Eve says, “It is a clear, repeating signal.”
Alice focuses on her breathing. In, out. Slower. In… out. In… out. Okay. Okay.
“What?” she says.
“It is pattern-based,” Eve says. “My software is analyzing the signal, attempting to decrypt the patterns.”
“You can’t make sense of it?” Alice asks.
“Eventually, perhaps,” Eve says. “I believe that it can be decoded.”
“So translate it,” Alice says. “How long can that take?”
A very long time, as it turns out.
Alice continues her daily routine. She inspects the oxygen levels, recharges the water tanks, replaces a bulb here and a filter there. She discovers in Eve’s possession a vast record of books, the oldest of them predating the Bible, the most recent a science fiction novel published three days before the bombs.
“Ironically, an apocalypse tale,” Eve says.
“No, thank you,” Alice says.
She selects The Martian Chronicles, by Bradbury, and when Eve finishes reading the stories, Alice says, “Again,” and Eve reads them aloud again. Alice listens to the story of Walter Gripp, the man who stayed behind on Mars while his fellow immigrants rushed home to Earth at the first sign of war. She doesn’t much like Genevieve Selsior, the gluttonous woman who remained on Mars as well, for the sole purpose of looting candy stores and beauty salons. But Walter speaks to Alice, and she finds herself settling into his character like a comfortable slipper.