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Back Far from the Light of Heaven
Chapters (65)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. Chapter One
  5. Ten Years Later…
  6. Chapter Two
  7. Chapter Three
  8. Fin
  9. Chapter Four
  10. Chapter Five
  11. Salvo
  12. Chapter Six
  13. Chapter Seven
  14. Shell
  15. Fin
  16. Chapter Eight
  17. Chapter Nine
  18. Chapter Ten
  19. Chapter Eleven
  20. Chapter Twelve
  21. Chapter Thirteen
  22. Beko
  23. Chapter Fourteen
  24. Chapter Fifteen
  25. Chapter Sixteen
  26. Chapter Seventeen
  27. Chapter Eighteen
  28. Awe
  29. Chapter Nineteen
  30. Chapter Twenty
  31. Chapter Twenty-one
  32. Chapter Twenty-two
  33. Chapter Twenty-three
  34. Chapter Twenty-four
  35. Chapter Twenty-five
  36. Chapter Twenty-six
  37. Chapter Twenty-seven
  38. Chapter Twenty-eight
  39. Chapter Twenty-nine
  40. Chapter Thirty
  41. Chapter Thirty-one
  42. Chapter Thirty-two
  43. Chapter Thirty-three
  44. Chapter Thirty-four
  45. Chapter Thirty-five
  46. Chapter Thirty-six
  47. Chapter Thirty-seven
  48. Chapter Thirty-eight
  49. Chapter Thirty-nine
  50. Shell
  51. Chapter Forty
  52. Chapter Forty-one
  53. Chapter Forty-two
  54. Chapter Forty-three
  55. Chapter Forty-four
  56. Chapter Forty-five
  57. Chapter Forty-six
  58. Chapter Forty-seven
  59. Afterword
  60. Acknowledgements
  61. Discover More
  62. extras
  63. meet the author
  64. A Preview of "Nophek Gloss"
  65. By Tade Thompson

“Lagos, pharmaceutical sleep, four hours, no interruptions. On my mark. Mark.”

“Affirmative.”

A sleep like death, a curtain of unawareness falling like an asteroid.

Chapter Nineteen

Ragtime: Shell

image

Shell sets all IFCs to receive the video footage from the experimental section, Node E. It’s easier than explaining.

All is quiet and lit with blue light.

It is metal and plastic and glass, vaults, cabinets and conventional refrigerated compartments. In some way, it looks like the lock-box room of a bank. Sterile, straight to the point; a rectangular space with all walls covered in slots and sealed doors. It seems almost holy in its isolation.

Readings show different temperatures on each door as well as humidity and a few other numbers that didn’t make much sense to anybody uninvolved with the programming.

This is not a room anybody enters – at least, not crew. This is an Earth compartment. It is stocked by Earth on Earth, and it is meant to be opened only when the vehicle returns to Earth.

Indicator lights on each door turn red, in a cascade that spreads from the centre outwards. Each opening is followed by a thunk as bolts within locks are slid back and magnetic seals are deactivated. Neither the lighting nor the surveillance camera fails. When one of the doors swings open, the shipwide alarm goes off.

The video feed dies, so abrupt that the IFCs send an after-image to all their owners.

“Do we have an inventory?” says Larry.

“We do not,” says Shell. “Node E is usually none of our business.”

“And we’re sealed back here,” says Joké. “Umm, not cool, I guess.”

“Count your blessings, girl,” says Shell. “We have functional airlocks on this side.”

“We’re killing ourselves?” asks Fin. “I’d like to go on record as wanting to try something else first.”

“Nobody else is dying here. Not crew, not passengers,” says Shell. “But we will use the airlock first. Salvo?”

“Captain?”

“Is the minisat ready?”

“It is.”

“Okay, let’s go to the equipment lock.”

“You have to record the message we want it to broadcast.”

Shell floats towards the device and Salvo activates it. He nods.

“This is the starship Ragtime in low planetary orbit of Bloodroot. Our principal antenna is down and we have four days of life support left. There is also a risk of microbial contamination. We need urgent assistance or hundreds of souls on board will die.”

The message marker has the Bloodroot date and time as well as a counter so that anyone listening will be able to tell how long ago the satellite was launched.