Page 145 of Stars

“The man General Sevastyanov sent into space on that satellite was my twin brother,” Kilaqqi said. “He was immune to the virus, but he became a carrier, never able to be cured. If he was immune, I may be as well.”

“What are you saying?” Ethan asked.

“When myhutechireturns, infect me. Infect me and use me to treat him.”

“Kilaqqi,” Jack said. “The virus up there… They think it mutated. It’s much stronger now. It destroyed your brother.”

“No, the virus fed on his corpse. My brother was long gone, as was any immunity his life possessed.” Kilaqqi shook his head. “When he died, his body became a reservoir. And when they brought him onboard the station, his corpse became an incubator. His death was the weapon Igor feared. In trying to get rid of my brother, Igor created a time bomb. A delayed outbreak. And we are the ones who must battle this now.”

“If you do possess immunity, we can harvest your antibodies after you are infected.” Song peered at Kilaqqi. “If you donotpossess immunity, you will die with them, horribly. You would risk this for these men?”

“I would do anything for myhutechi. My son.”

Behind Kilaqqi, Sergey was ghost white.

Song turned back to Jack. “Mr. President?”

You know it’s never about right and wrong. It’s about being able to see things through, and to do as much right as possible for your country, for your people, and for the world. Sometimes that means we have to be the bad guys.

Ethan’s hand grasped his and squeezed.

Sometimes one single life is what makes everything in this world livable.

“Go get them,” he said.

* * *

44

Earth’s Orbit

Sasha drifted.

His leg was threaded through Mark’s, their hands interlaced, clinging to each other as their orbit decayed. They hurtled in the wake of the ISS, in the negative space where she used to soar.

The thermosphere pulled on them, oxygen molecules scattered kilometers apart winding around their bodies. Earth was going to reclaim them eventually. Without the maneuvering, stabilizing thrusters of the ISS, Sasha and Mark’s orbit would degrade with every revolution, sliding deeper into the atmosphere until the heat and the pressure broke them apart and incinerated their bones.

But not yet. They still orbited, their speed bringing them in and out of Earth’s day and night sides. They moved in a dizzying spiral through the heat of the sun, through glare that made Sasha squeeze his eyes closed, that turned the universe blinding white, and then into the nightside. In the depths of space, universes of colors Sasha couldn’t quantify dazzled his eyes, galaxies and solar systems and worlds and stars with no names, places a billion years dead already, their shine only now reaching humanity’s gaze.

Hours before, a different illumination had filled the darkness. For the second time that day, an American ICBM had detonated, smearing its nuclear glow across medium Earth orbit and scattering electrons on the solar winds. The ISS had vaporized silently. There one moment and then gone, decades of human engineering and ingenuity and perseverance erased. “I’m sorry, Phillipa,” Mark had whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

Dayside approached again, the sunrise terminator. The curve of the planet sharpened, the horizon falling away in a crystal arc. Sunlight burst off the Pacific, every atom of the thin, fragile atmosphere backlit and glowing from pole to pole for a fraction of a second.

Sasha blinked and the moment passed, the sun drenching the world in light. The rugged landmasses of South America, the spine of the Andes and the Altiplano Plateau, appeared, shaped by millennia of winds sweeping down from the thin atmosphere. Rolling waves of cotton clouds and anvils of thunderstorms hammered the oceans. A hurricane swirled in the empty Atlantic, arms like an earthbound galaxy, a reflection of the universe.

Static crackled in Sasha’s helmet, pops and fizzes and buzzes mixed with a low, unending whistle. They hadn’t heard from Dan in two hours, not since he’d faded away, his voice broken apart by the degrading signal. “Trying… satellites… out… range… Hang on…”

His and Mark’s space-to-space radio still worked. Small UHF transmitters and receivers, a single loop back and forth. As long as they didn’t drift apart, they could communicate.

Until the end.

“Sasha…”

Mark’s breathing had grown raspy, thick, and wet. He shuddered, occasionally crying, sometimes whispering Lindsey’s name as they soared over North America. Sasha would squeeze his hand, try to hold him through it.

But there was no escaping the truth: Mark was dying.

“Sasha,” Mark said again, coughing.