The Last Broadcast

Jo pulls the sock off Anker's foot before she puts him through the freight lock. The microphone needs a cover. His heel catches in the cuff, and she works the wool loose with her eyes on his knee.

The crown finished with him before she started on the sock. It reads a brain by destroying whatever it has already read. Anker's heart quit while the scan bar still showed half his head unread. Jo held the SEND key down the whole way. The key has a spring in it so nobody gets sent by accident; the operator has to mean it until the colony answers. When the receipt came up, she let the key rise and lifted the steel band off his head. The probes left his scalp with a small wet pull. Blood welled in the holes above his ears and stood there in beads, and she bagged the crown before the beads could lift off and find the vents.

She stretches the sock over the microphone. She floats Anker into the lock and clips his tether to the cargo ring beside the outer door. His body starts to roll. She catches his ankle and turns him until his face is toward her, then lets go and seals the inner door.

The recovery pump pulls the lock's air back into the room. It quits before the lock is empty, and the ceiling strips quit with it, and the fans wind down. Jo cranks the outer door open by hand, and the air the pump never reached carries Anker out. Now her breath against the wool is the loudest thing in the handset.

"This is Johanna Stroud aboard Continuance. Can anyone hear me?"

She peels her lower lip off the sock, and a wool thread stays stuck in the split the dry air has opened there.

Anker's other sock slides past the porthole beside the lock. His tether runs back to the ring. The others went out ahead of him on longer lines, and they stay out of view past the rim. She should have given him more line. He turns, and his belt buckle finds the glass.

Tink.

Jo reaches for the channel selector. She has no foot in the console strap, so the reach turns her away from the desk, and her shoulder hits a cable tray. She hooks the strap with her toes and pulls herself back down.

"The crew transfers are complete. Please acknowledge."

The microphone switch gives under her thumb. She takes her thumb off, then puts it back.

"Hanna, if they've put you on a headset, keep it on."

The emergency scrubber is strapped above Anker's chair. Jo pushes the last loose battery into its blower and clips the outlet hose to her collar. The draft lifts the hair at her throat. She holds her face in it until she can swallow without her shoulders rising.

The wall plan shows nineteen decks. She has crossed out every deck that lost pressure, and on the worst of them the pencil went through the paper. The comms room still sits whole inside its little square. Along the switch panel, someone has covered THRUST with white tape and written DISH.

Beyond the porthole, a strip of orange webbing twists past Anker's foot. It trails from the crew boat. The boat still rides its mooring line, and its nose has folded in. Jo reeled it close enough earlier to see the seat backs pressed flat together. The passengers' boats sit on the ground below, and their landing engines burned dry getting them there, and the one engine that could have lifted a boat back up came aboard for the colony and still sits in its crate on the deck where the tank burst. Jo has crossed out that deck too.

Nobody has answered because the antenna feed still runs off the dead main. She moves the plug to the reserve socket. The screen wakes and resumes the film she queued before the power went.

Her own face fills it. Her hair lies flat against a blue uniform collar. A hand comes in from the edge and picks a thread off her shoulder.

"Our children go first."

She drags the playback bar forward. The boarding ramp on Earth slides past, and ash sticks to the wet handrail. Her daughter holds her new shoes against her chest. The soles face the camera, and the laces trail over her fingers.

Jo skims through school concerts filmed in the ship's mess, and Hanna grows out of the shoes and then out of the school uniform, until in the landing film she has to duck to clear the boat's door.

Jo closes the film before her daughter can speak.

The outgoing queue has the emergency transfer forms and a message she recorded while Dr. Leach cleaned the contacts on the crown. Jo plays it. She has cut the part where she can't finish a breath.

"I'll be with you soon."

She deletes it and opens the transfer channel.

A guide from the colony sits in a clip beside her screen. The top photograph shows rows of growth tanks. The next shows a hairless adult asleep on a bed under the words WELCOME BACK. Leach circled the paragraph about family visits in pen. Jo folds the page in half so the photographs face the wall.

On the operator's display, the crew names have turned into receipt numbers. Before the crown went on, whoever sat in the scan chair typed a destination into the hand unit. Leach held it against her chest while she typed. Anker bent over it until his forehead touched the case. Jo watched the carrier lamp and kept her thumb on the key.

The incoming lamp turns green.

"Jo, are you there?"

She presses the handset to her ear.

"Anker, is that you?"

"You're blowing air across the mic."

She turns her face out of the blower's stream.

"Where did you land?"

"Get your crown on."

His voice comes through higher than it should, and when he tells her what to do, his s whistles. She checks the channel meter. The signal is clean.

"Is your son there?"

"We're together."

"Put Kit on."

The buckle knocks the glass again. Anker's bare heel faces her. It has gone the gray of pencil lead.

"Jo, look at the battery."

She lifts the scrubber toward the mic so he can hear the blades catch.

"Get your crown on."

He stretches the vowel in "crown" the way Kit always did. On the school deck, Kit used to lean over his father's shoulder and copy the shapes his mouth made while he talked, and Anker would take the boy by the wrist and lower the arm from his neck.

"What happened to your voice?"

"I can breathe."

At his end, a chair leg drags across a floor, skreek, and stops.

"There's water here. You can drink it out of a glass."

Jo pulls the crown out of its bag, and Anker's blood comes out with it in loose red beads. She blots them on her sleeve. An older brown crust of Leach's lines the chin strap, and Jo rubs it between finger and thumb until the strap will bend.

"Did the children get their bags?"

"Put it on."

She sets it against her scalp and fastens the chin strap. The contacts find the raw places from Leach's test fitting. A green bar appears beside Jo's name.

At his end, a glass goes over. Anker's voice moves away from the mic and drops.

"Open your hand. Leave it open."

"Anker, are you still there?"

"Use the family channel. They're holding her for you."

The line closes.

Until now the hand unit has only passed through Jo's fingers on its way to the scan chair. She touches the tag on her wrist to its reader. The worn plastic has left a pale strip in her skin. The family channel opens.

Hanna sits at a table with a curtain across the door behind her. Her hair catches in the hinge of her headset when she turns.

Jo pushes closer to the camera.

"Move your hair."

Hanna frees it.

"You said the next call would be from the boat."

Jo wipes the screen, and a smear follows her thumb across Hanna's face.

Her daughter wears a green work shirt. It came with a name printed on the breast pocket, and Hanna has sewn HANNA over the print in white thread. A burn crosses the wrist she rests on the table.

"Did you get burned?"

Hanna pulls her sleeve down.

"The bread trays stick."

Through a gap in the curtain, somebody carries a stack of chairs past. Their shoes stay on the floor. Jo finds the split in her lip with her tongue.

"You're making bread?"

"I clean the pans."

Hanna moves a paper cup away from the hand unit in front of her. One of her nails has split down the middle into the bed, and she keeps that finger straight when she lifts the cup.

"Show me your room."

"I'm at the return center."

"I meant when you get home."

Hanna looks toward the curtain and folds the split finger into her palm.

"I moved the bed off the wall. There's room on that side now."

Jo lifts the sock away from her mouth.

"You didn't need to do that."

"I've done it."

The hand unit buzzes against Jo's palm. She sets it in the console slot, and a form opens beside her daughter's face. It names Jo as sender and Hanna as receiving body, and it lists them both under the one name they share, Johanna Stroud. Jo taps Hanna's photograph, and a drawing of a head appears beside it. Her daughter's passenger code sits under the drawing.

The green bar on Jo's side stretches across into the drawing of her daughter's head. She pushes it toward her own photograph. When she lets go, it slides home into the drawing.

"What did they fit you with?"

Hanna lifts her hair. A white pad covers the skin behind her ear. A small tab sticks out from its edge.

"They changed my school port."

"Does it hurt?"

"They put a cold swab on it."

On the next page, Jo's signature slants across the line under PARENT OR GUARDIAN. A child's thumbprint breaks the border of the box beside it.

She puts her finger on the print.

In the departure hall, Hanna pressed her thumb into the ink too hard. The clerk slid a wipe across the desk.

"Hold still."

Jo cleaned the little thumb before it could touch the new shoes. The boarding gates opened while she signed, and the clerk kept a finger on their place in the queue.

Hanna leans toward the camera.

"They said the emergency terms went up to the ship before we landed."

The terms are attached to the old booking. Jo's acceptance sits between a stores release and a landing notice, and one stroke of her pen runs through the edge of all three boxes.

She opens the attachment. The clauses run down the screen until she reaches the one with Hanna's code beside it: THE SENDER SHALL HAVE PRIORITY OVER THE RECEIVING BODY'S MOVEMENTS AND SPEECH.

Jo unfolds the guide and flips it over. The rows of tanks continue on the back. A building schedule crosses the foot of the page: water plant, bakery, housing, a roof for the school. The growth tanks come after the school roof. Someone has printed them in smaller type.

Hanna picks at the rim of her cup.

"Mum, can you take that off while we talk?"

Jo unfastens the chin strap and lifts the crown off. The green bar disappears. Hanna sets the cup down.

"They can grow skin."

"I asked about that."

"They grew Dr. Leach a valve. She showed me the stitches."

Hanna peels a strip off the rim of the cup. She lays it beside the hand unit and smooths it flat with her good thumbnail.

In the terms, Jo searches for storage, then guest, then temporary. The search box goes red each time, and she closes it. "They said families would stay together."

Hanna turns the cup so the torn part faces away from her.

"Did Mr. Anker call you?"

The buckle swings back to the porthole.

Tink.

Jo's elbow knocks the microphone loose, and she catches it before it reaches her face.

"He said they were together."

Hanna smooths the paper strip again with her good thumbnail. "Kit was in here before me. His dad's in him now."

Under the drawing of Hanna's head, a box reads KEEP RECEIVER AWAKE. Jo taps it, and a check appears beside her daughter's photograph.

"You'd still hear me."

Hanna bends to look under the table. "I brought bread for you."

"Hanna, look at me."

"They let us take the ends. I saved you the heel."

The blower's pitch drops. Jo pulls the hose off her collar and breathes straight from its mouth until the plastic rim leaves a wet print on her skin. She takes it away to speak.

"Who's in there with you?"

"There's a woman. She keeps checking through the curtain."

"Can you leave?"

Hanna holds her wrist up to the camera. A passenger tag like Jo's lies against the burn.

"They need you to release the booking."

Jo hits the release field. A box opens and asks her to confirm. She slides it to one side so she can see Hanna.

"I can do that."

Hanna draws her sleeve down over the tag. Jo looks at the white pad behind her daughter's ear. "Are you in pain?"

The red edge of the meter pulls back as Jo dials the microphone gain down.

Hanna touches the pad and lays her hand back on the table. "The headset rubs. I can come back tomorrow."

"Tell me about the bed."

"It came with the room."

"Does the window open?"

"The catch sticks. You have to lift it from the bottom."

Jo's fingertip rests beside the confirm button. Through the porthole, Anker comes around until the zipped pocket on his sleeve faces her. She put his wedding ring in there after it kept sliding off his finger.

"You should go home."

Hanna pushes her chair back. Her hair pulls against the headset, and she stops to free it. She reaches under the table and brings up her apron. She has knotted it into a bundle, and flour marks every fold.

Jo's fingertip stays against the screen.

The blower stops.

She turns the scrubber over and jams the battery down into its seat, and the blades twitch once and stop, and she clamps the case between her knees and bears down with her thumb until the latch breaks under the nail.

Crik.

"Mum, are you there?"

Jo pulls the hose off the scrubber and blows into the outlet. Dust comes back against her lips. She spits into the sock, and when she draws a breath, the wet wool pulls against her mouth.

Hanna sets the bundle down.

Jo shoves the microphone away and hauls herself to the wall vent. She lays her cheek on the grille, and her own breath comes back to her warm. She opens the inspection flap. The needle on the reserve bottle's gauge rests against its stop.

She pulls herself back along the handrail. Her foot misses the strap and kicks the underside of the console, and the camera swings away on its stalk. Jo catches it and aims it at her face again.

"I'm here."

Her sleeve drags the confirm box across her daughter's mouth. Jo closes it with the cross in its corner.

Hanna sits down again with the bundle in her lap.

"Keep talking."

"The bag tore this morning. I had to use my apron."

A foil packet of Kona is taped above Anker's chair. He was saving it for the ground. Jo pulls the binder clip off its folded top, and grains leak out against her sleeve while she fits the clip over the SEND key and lets its jaws close, tchk. When she lets go, the key stays down. The carrier lamp glows green.

She tests the clip with a fingernail. It holds.

The crown has drifted up under the console. Jo hooks its strap with a finger.

"Please keep that off."

Jo lowers Hanna's volume until her daughter's mouth moves without sound. Her own breath against the wool is all the handset carries now, and she takes it away from her ear.

She rests the crown on her head. She can keep it there without fastening the strap.

Hanna cups a hand over the white pad. Jo puts the handset back to her ear and raises the volume a notch.

"I've got work in the morning."

The green bar reaches the drawing of Hanna's head.

Jo works her foot into the strap. The microphone bobs on its cable, and Anker's sock brushes her cheek.

She fastens the chin strap.

Hanna lifts the tab on her port. A red outline blinks on around her photograph, and the ACCEPT RECEIVER field goes gray.

"Hold still."

Her daughter lets the tab fall. The field lights up.

Jo wipes her sleeve across the screen until she can see the buttons. Hanna keeps her hand over her ear.

Jo puts her thumb on ACCEPT RECEIVER.

The crown tightens at her temples. She bites down on the sock as the contacts dig into her scalp. The carrier lamp stays green. On the screen, Hanna's shoulders jump, and the bundle slides off her knees.

Jo's tongue finds an unbroken lip.

A chair takes her weight, and her knees hit the underside of a table, and water slops over the rim of a paper cup and runs toward the hand unit while Hanna's lungs fill all the way down for her.

On the hand unit's screen, her old body stays caught in the console strap by the ankle. The crown sits on its head, and the mouth is open. Anker's sock works its way out between the teeth. Behind it, the binder clip holds the key down.

Jo lifts the cup with Hanna's right hand. The split nail catches on the torn rim. She drinks, and water runs down into the cuff over the burn.

The bundle lies against her shoe. She sets the cup down and reaches for the bread.

The left hand closes on the right wrist and begins to bend it back.