Chapter 3 #2
“Let’s hope that it won’t,” he said, turning back to his work. “Everything is automated anyway. You’ll be fine.”
A sharp bang rattled the airlock’s door on its hinges.
Joe pushed a lever, and the shuttle whirred. Its door slid open.
“You said hope isn’t a strategy,” Nora said.
She jerked as a loud pop sounded again from behind the door. The banging stopped, and the suddenness of the following silence churned within her.
When she looked up, her uncle stood at the shuttle’s door and extended an arm. “It’s not, Egg. But right now, it’s all I’ve got.” He smiled at her, a real one. The kind given where there was acceptance, with the corners of his eyes crinkled.
Tears clouded her vision. “Where’s your suit?”
Joe went to her, then led her gently by a gloved hand aboard.
“I’ve got to shut down the gates, which takes time.
Anyone can go anywhere from here if I don’t.
Can you imagine what these fuckers will do if they get to Valhalla?
There are babies on Mars, Nora. Kids who’ve never known Earth.
I can’t let that happen.” He sucked in a deep breath.
“This way, when I meet your dad and Theo again, they’ll know I did all I could for you. ”
Nora stumbled up the ramp with him, into the cramped space of the shuttle, barely larger than a shipping container. A narrow corridor led to the other end, where a computer blinked on, awaiting input. The two staff chairs were laden with boxes.
“Have I ever told you why I call you Egg?” He pulled the suit away from her neck.
“Why are you sending me away?” Her voice came out in squeaks and sobs, pathetic and small. “You and Mom are all I have left—”
“Because when you were born, you were so damn precious to your parents. They treated you like a fragile little egg. Like if something touched you wrong, you’d crack open.” He shook his head, smiling. “Ridiculous.”
Nora looked at him, lost in the impossible memory when her existence hadn’t been a reminder of pain for her mother. She barely noticed when Joe pressed the dermal injection gun to her neck.
There was a quick prick, a sharp burn, and then, finally, a radiating warmth. “What the fuck…” The words faded on her tongue.
Joe guided her to her knees as she collapsed. “You didn’t eat that sandwich, did you?” He clicked his tongue. “Well, be prepared to be all kinds of fucked up when you wake.”
Nora wanted to tell him that all she had had were a few nutrition bars, but instead, she heard herself ask, “What about Loretta?”
“There’s not enough room for two stasis pods. I can’t save everyone, my girl. Plus, Davis said there’s barely enough room for you—especially with supply shipments on hold—but she owes me a couple of favors.”
She opened her mouth to say that Joe had made the wrong choice—she didn’t deserve this. Anyone else would have been more deserving of saving.
But the looseness of her jaw wouldn’t form the words. Her bones felt like they’d slide from their muscle sheaths and clatter onto the metal floor.
Joe carried her to the rigged stasis pod bolted to the shuttle’s wall with thick straps.
He set her bag next to several stacks of ready-to-eat meals and water bottles.
“I was planning on testing the crew shuttle myself next week and already stocked it in case the H-Gate routed me to the middle of the ocean or something. Here’s a couple of weeks’ worth of food.
In case they quarantine you. There’s a toothbrush, too. ”
He carefully arranged her languid body into the pod, strapping her under the arms and around the hips and ankles.
Nora tried to tell him the ankle straps were too tight, but the thought slipped away.
She was nothing more than a warm bag of water, tears overflowing from her eyes, forming scratchy trails down her cheeks that she couldn’t itch.
Joe slid out a computer terminal, keying into an application that was filled with circles, hexagons, and other elements that Nora would never understand.
When he was done, he stood there, head bent down, silent.
It was nearly impossible to keep her eyes open as the sedative reached the deepest parts of her mind. Still, she could hear the banging on the exterior room door, loud and fast.
To her relief, he finally turned to her, then wiped away her tears. He pulled her hand through the pod window and cupped it between his. She could feel nothing but a bit of pressure and the grief of his gaze.
“Nora, when you get to Mars, you’ve got to stop.
Your heart…it’s just bleeding all over the damn place.
You’re not going to make it like this.” He suddenly sounded very old to Nora—his voice roughened with age.
“And the crazy thing is, I think you know it, too. Sometimes I look at you and think you can’t wait for it all to end.
” He pressed her hand against his cheek, maybe to give his cracking voice a moment to recover. “My girl, you can’t do this.”
Joe stopped again to wipe her tears, then his own. “It was my fault, you know, what happened that day. Your dad said he was busy, but I kept calling. I told him it was an emergency—it wasn’t. I’m so sorry. I told him. I told your mom. But—”
“No,” Nora managed to say. Her throat burned. “No one’s fault,” she said, reciting the words she knew she was supposed to say.
He laughed softly. “If only I thought you believed that.” He pushed the hair out of her eyes, squeezing her hand so tight it hurt, even through the sensory-dulling void drawing over her.
“If I see you on the other side in less than seventy years, know I’ll be very upset, Nora Shaw.
And this time, I’m not gonna take the heat from your daddy for you. ”
She wanted to tell him she loved him. It wasn’t something she said anymore to anyone, but the impulse to say it beat in her chest. And it didn’t matter—there was no way to form words.
Metal crashed, and shouting erupted again.
Joe said something to her from the far side of the shuttle before a beep sounded and the door closed. Nora felt the room shift as icy air filled her lungs with such force she thought she would die.
She hoped he’d fucked up. That he’d given her too much. That she’d never wake again and finally be done with living a life out of obligation.
There was a roar, followed by agonizing screams. There was rumbling, then movement.
And then, there was nothing other than the fleeting thought returning that she’d forgotten her shoes. She wanted to laugh, but she couldn’t even do that.
By her next breath, Nora was nothing more than a body kept alive against its will, flung into the vast loneliness of the universe.