“We’re all going to do it sooner or later,” he said. “I guess I’m tired of waiting. I want to get on with the business of seeing space. I’m going to touch the stars. Not just look at them. We’re going to be part of them.”

“Assuming you take the coward’s view of the transporter problem, sure,” she said. “The one where you don’t have to examine anything, don’t have to question anything. The one where it’s still you on the other end.”

“The one where we have a chance.” David shook his head. “All I want is for us to have a chance. For something of what humanity is supposed to be to survive. Is that so wrong?”

“No,” she admitted. “But I’m not wrong either. It’s not wrong to want to have a heartbeat for a little while longer.”

Graham blinked, turning to look at me. “You don’t have a heartbeat anymore?” he asked.

“Not quite,” I said, unwilling to explain further. My blood—my sap—still moved in my veins. If it hadn’t, I would have been as frozen as any pine, unable to do anything other than stand perfectly still and pray for a thaw. But it wasn’t driven by a drumbeat, not shoved through my body by something fierce and thudding and unforgiving. It moved more slowly, eased along by the thudding pulse of a dozen small internal structures, while my heart sat like a sculpture at the center of my chest, preserved as a memorial to my humanity, otherwise unneeded and forgotten.

“Right,” said Graham, after a long and silent pause. He didn’t meet my eyes. I hadn’t honestly expected him to.

Our circle was closing, narrowing in one by one. Soon enough, we would dwindle into nothing, and where would we be then? I looked at my friends, the people who had been with me since this unasked-for journey began, and silently wondered who’d be standing when the end arrived. Because the end … oh, the end was so damn near.

Flower

… For a time I believed that mankind had been swept out of existence, and that I stood there alone, the last man left alive. Hard by the top of Putney Hill I came upon another skeleton, with the arms dislocated and removed several yards from the rest of the body. As I proceeded I became more and more convinced that the extermination of mankind was, save for such stragglers as myself, already accomplished in this part of the world …

—H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds

So I guess this is how it was always supposed to end.

—Stasia Miller

Dear Anastasia;

I know you will probably never see this, just as I know that isn’t really your name. It’s the name you stole from my daughter when you killed her in the woods, all those years ago.