The Last Broadcast

Jo pulls the sock off Dyer’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 fabric loose without looking at his face.

The crown clamped around Dyer’s head reads his brain by destroying the tissue it scans. His heart has stopped. Jo keeps the SEND key pressed while the machine transmits the last of his mind to the colony. When the colony signals that it has received him, she releases the key and lifts the steel band away. Its probes pull free of his scalp. Blood fills the holes above his ears.

She catches his ankle before it turns him face down. She closes the lock’s inner door, waits for its air recovery pump to stop, and opens the outer door.

Now the ceiling strips go out. The fans slow until her breath against the wool fills the receiver.

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

She rolls her lower lip away from the sock. A thread stays in the split.

Dyer’s other sock passes the hatch window. His tether runs to a bolt outside the frame. She has fastened the others farther along the service rail, out of sight. His belt buckle strikes the outer pane.

She should have shortened his line.

Jo reaches for the channel selector. Without a foot in the console strap, the pull turns her away from the desk. Her shoulder hits a cable tray. She catches the strap with her toes and draws herself down.

“The crew transfers are complete. Please acknowledge.”

The microphone switch gives its little click. She takes her thumb off, then puts it back.

“Hanna, if they’ve put you on a headset, keep it on.”

The emergency scrubber hangs above Dyer’s chair. Jo fits 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 over it until she can swallow without lifting her shoulders.

The wall plan shows nineteen decks. She has crossed through the ones that lost pressure until the pencil tore the paper. The comms room remains inside its little square. Along the switch panel, someone has covered THRUST with white tape and written DISH.

Outside the hatch window, a length of orange webbing turns past Dyer’s foot. It trails from the crushed crew boat. Jo has already reeled in the line far enough to see the seat backs folded together. The passengers’ boats lie on the ground below. Their landing engines burned dry getting them there. The launch engine shipped for the colony lies in its crate on the deck where the tank burst. Jo has crossed through that deck with the pencil.

She moves the antenna feed to the reserve socket. The screen comes on and resumes the film queued before the power cut.

Her own face fills it. Her hair lies flat against a blue uniform collar. A hand enters from the edge to remove a thread from her shoulder.

“Our children go first.”

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

Jo drags the bar through school concerts filmed in the ship’s mess. Hanna grows out of the shoes, then out of the school uniform. In the landing film, she ducks to clear the boat’s door.

Jo closes the window before her daughter speaks.

The outgoing queue contains the emergency transfer forms and the message she recorded while Dr. Adu cleaned the contacts on the crown. Jo opens the message. She has taken out the part where she cannot finish a breath.

“I’ll be with you soon.”

She deletes it and opens the recovery channel.

The guide clipped beside her screen shows rows of growth tanks. A hairless adult lies on a bed in the next photograph. Adu has circled the paragraph about family visits. Jo straightens the page and tucks it behind the clip.

On the operator’s display, the crew names have become receipt numbers. Before each scan, the person in the chair entered a destination on the hand unit. Adu held it against her chest. Dyer bent over his until his forehead touched the case. Jo kept her eyes on the carrier meter and her thumb on the key. Its return spring lifts it each time she lets go.

The incoming lamp turns green.

“Jo?”

She presses the receiver against her ear.

“Dyer?”

“You’re putting air across the mic.”

She turns her head out of the blower’s stream.

“Where did you land?”

“Get your crown on.”

His voice comes through higher than it should. When he gives her instructions, his s whistles. She checks the channel meter. The voice signal stays clean.

“Is your son there?”

“We’re together.”

“Put Kit on.”

The buckle strikes the window. Dyer’s gray sole faces her through the glass.

“Jo, look at the battery.”

She lifts the scrubber so he can hear its blower scrape.

“Get your crown on.”

He pronounces crown with Kit’s drawn-out vowel. On the school deck, Kit used to lean across his father’s shoulder and copy the shapes his mouth made while he talked. Dyer would take the boy’s wrist and lower his arm from his neck.

“What happened to your voice?”

“I can breathe.”

A chair leg scrapes across a floor at his end.

“There’s water here. You can drink from a glass.”

Jo pulls the crown out of its bag. Adu’s blood has dried inside the chin strap. She rubs the crust between finger and thumb until the strap will bend.

“Did the children get their bags?”

“Put it on.”

She sets it against her scalp. The contacts find the raw places Adu left when she tested it. A green bar appears beside Jo’s name.

A thud comes down the line. Dyer pulls in a breath.

“Open the hand. Leave it open.”

“Dyer?”

“Use the family channel. They’re holding her for you.”

The connection closes.

Jo picks up the hand unit. Until now, she has passed it to the person in the chair. She presses the tag on her wrist against its reader. The worn plastic has left a pale strip in her skin. Her private channel opens.

Hanna sits at a table with a curtain across the door behind her. Her hair catches in the headset hinge 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 camera with her thumb. The smear follows her across Hanna’s face.

Her daughter wears a green work shirt. She has sewn HANNA over the name issued on the breast pocket. A burn crosses the wrist resting on the table.

“Did you get burned?”

Hanna brings her sleeve down.

“The bread trays stick.”

Through a gap in the curtain, someone carries a stack of chairs. Their shoes stay on the floor. Jo presses her tongue against the torn place in her lip.

“You’re making bread?”

“I clean the pans.”

Hanna moves a paper cup away from the hand unit in front of her. Her nail has split down to the pink. She keeps that finger straight as 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. She tucks the damaged finger into her palm.

“I moved the bed off the wall. There’s room on that side now.”

Jo lifts the sock clear of her mouth.

“You don’t need to do that.”

“I’ve done it.”

The hand unit vibrates against Jo’s palm. She sets it in the console slot, and a form opens beside her daughter’s face. The form labels Jo as sender and Hanna as receiving body beneath their shared name, Johanna Stroud. Jo clicks Hanna’s photograph. A drawing of a head fills the screen. Her daughter’s passenger code sits below it.

The green bar on Jo’s side extends into the drawing of her daughter’s head. She drags it toward her own photograph. It returns.

“What did they fit you with?”

Hanna lifts her hair. A white pad covers the skin behind her ear.

“They changed the school port.”

“Does it hurt?”

“They put a cold swab on it.”

Jo opens the next page. Under parent or guardian, her signature slants across the form. A child’s thumbprint interrupts the border of the box beside it.

She puts her finger against the print.

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

“Hold still.”

Jo cleans the little thumb before it can touch the new shoes. The boarding gates open while she signs. The clerk keeps 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.”

Jo finds them attached to the old booking. Her acceptance sits between a stores release and a landing notice. The same stroke of her pen runs through the edge of each box.

She opens the attachment. The terms give Jo control of her daughter’s movements and speech.

Jo goes back to the growth tanks. She turns the paper over. The rows continue on the back, with a date for completion beyond the end of the colony’s building schedule.

Hanna picks at the rim of her cup.

“Mum, can you take that off while we talk?”

Jo unfastens the chin strap. The green bar disappears. Hanna puts the cup down.

“They can grow skin.”

“I asked about that.”

“They grew Adu a valve. She showed me the stitches.”

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

Jo opens the terms again. She searches for guest, then temporary. The search box stays red.

“They said families would stay together.”

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

“Did Dyer call you?”

The buckle strikes outside. Jo catches the microphone before it reaches her face.

“He said they were together.”

Hanna keeps her eyes on the cup.

“Kit was in here before me. Dyer’s mind is in Kit’s body now.”

Jo returns to the drawing of Hanna’s head. A box lets Hanna remain conscious after Jo takes control. She presses it. The check appears beside her daughter’s photograph.

“You could hear me.”

Hanna turns toward the curtain.

“I’ve got bread in my bag.”

“Hanna.”

“They let us take the ends. I saved you the heel.”

The blower’s pitch drops. Jo draws the hose from her collar and puts it against her nose. The plastic rim leaves a wet ring on her face. She takes it away to speak.

“Who’s in there with you?”

“The woman keeps checking through the curtain.”

“Can you leave?”

Hanna lifts her wrist toward the camera. The matching passenger tag lies against the burn.

“They need you to release the booking.”

Jo presses the release field. A new window asks her to confirm. She moves it to one side so she can see Hanna.

“I can do that.”

Her daughter draws her sleeve over the tag.

“Are you in pain?”

Jo turns down the microphone gain. The red edge of the meter recedes. She swallows against the grit at the back of her throat.

“The headset rubs.”

Hanna brings her hand to the pad behind her ear, then sets it on the table.

“I can come back tomorrow.”

“Tell me about the bed.”

“It came with the room.”

“Does the window open?”

“The catch sticks. You lift it from the bottom.”

Jo rests her fingertip beside the confirmation button. Through the window, Dyer turns until the clipped pocket on his sleeve faces her. She has put his wedding ring in there. It keeps coming off his hand.

“You should go home.”

Hanna pushes her chair back. Her hair pulls against the headset, and she stops to free it. She reaches below the table and brings up a cloth bag. Flour marks the fold where she has rolled it shut.

Jo’s fingertip remains against the screen.

The blower stops.

She turns the scrubber over and presses the battery into its seat. The blades twitch. She holds the case between her knees and presses harder. The latch breaks against her thumbnail.

“Mum?”

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

Hanna puts the bag down.

Jo pushes the microphone away and hauls herself toward the dead wall vent. She puts her cheek against the grille. Her breath comes back warm. She opens the inspection flap. The reserve bottle’s gauge rests against its stop.

She returns to the desk along the handrail. Her foot misses the strap and strikes the underside of the console. The camera swings on its stalk. Jo catches it and turns it back.

“I’m here.”

Her sleeve drags the confirmation window across her daughter’s mouth. Jo closes it with the corner cross.

Hanna sits down again.

“Keep talking.”

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

Jo reaches for the foil packet of coffee taped above Dyer’s chair. She takes off its binder clip. Grains drift against her sleeve as she fits the clip over the carrier key. The transmitter lamp holds green after she lets go.

She tests it with a fingernail. The clip stays put.

Jo finds the crown against the underside of the console. She hooks its strap with a finger.

“Please keep that off.”

She turns down the microphone gain another notch. Hanna’s mouth moves. Jo’s own breath fills the receiver, and she pulls it away from her ear.

She rests the crown against her head. She can hold it there without fastening the strap.

Hanna presses a hand against the white pad.

“I’ve got work in the morning.”

The green bar reaches the drawing of her head.

Jo pulls her foot into the strap. The microphone swings on its cable. Dyer’s sock brushes her cheek.

She fastens the chin strap.

Hanna lifts the port’s release tab. A red outline appears around her photograph. The accept field goes gray.

“Hold still.”

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

Jo wipes her sleeve across the screen until she can see the buttons. Beside release booking, a field asks her to accept the receiver. Hanna keeps her hand against her ear.

Jo puts her thumb on accept.

The crown tightens at her temples. She bites into the sock as the contacts press into her scalp. The carrier lamp stays green. Across the screen, Hanna’s shoulders lift. Her flour bag slides off her knees.

Jo’s tongue meets an unbroken lip.

The chair takes her weight. Her knees strike the underside of a table. Water slops over the rim of a paper cup and runs toward the hand unit. She takes a breath that reaches the bottom of her chest.

On the screen, the crown holds her old head above an open mouth. Dyer’s sock drifts out between its teeth. The binder clip holds the key down.

Jo reaches for the cup with Hanna’s hand. The split nail catches on the torn rim. She drinks, and water runs into the cuff over the burn.

The cloth bag leans against her shoe. She puts down the cup and reaches for the bread.

Her left hand catches the right wrist and begins to bend it back.