The Lowest Heaven by Reynolds Alastair & McDougall Sophia & Roberts Adam & Warren Kaaron & Swift E.J. & Hurley Kameron

Author:Reynolds, Alastair & McDougall, Sophia & Roberts, Adam & Warren, Kaaron & Swift, E.J. & Hurley, Kameron [Reynolds, Alastair]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Jurassic London
Published: 2013-06-29T16:00:00+00:00

At first there was media attention. People wanted to interview us. Our pictures were broadcast: Saga’s children, said the captions. Witnesses to her final farewell. That was what they called it, the media. Saga’s final farewell. We thought it wrong: it implied she had said goodbye before, and this was not the case, and she had not said goodbye now, not to us. Saga became a rebel. She had thwarted the CSSA, and some even believed she had caused the explosion, which was the result of unstable gases released by the drilling. There was a warrant for her arrest. Interplanetary outrage was so great that the CSSA backtracked and declared themselves Saga’s eternal ally, and wished her safe travels, wherever she was going. Later it was announced that the whole thing had been a set-up: Saga had been dispatched on a secret mission, known only to the Republic of China. Mars made a bold statement: the truth was that Saga had defected. She was working for another planet now. She was an agent, a double-agent, a triple-agent.

The solar system held its breath, anticipating a dramatic return. Months passed. There was no sign of Saga.

Next the experts appeared. Doctors and psychiatrists spoke to Saga’s colleagues and analysed her state of mind. Fellow astronauts agreed: yes, she had been distracted, yes, there had been lapses. She had fallen prey to star sickness, said the doctors. It happened sometimes, to astronauts. She had been consumed by a kind of madness.

We thought of Signy’s penguins in the Antarctic. Had Saga gone the wrong way?

Our opinions were sought, and discarded (we had little to say). The frenzy passed more quickly than we expected. We are less interesting; not so photogenic as our mother. We lack the thing which makes her magnetic, the reckless spark in the storm-sea eyes. We did not know enough to make a story.

We returned to our old lives on Earth and Moon. Once a year we met. We talked about Saga, speculated as to her whereabouts. We did not believe she was dead. We were not sure if she had gone mad.

Every few years there was a new rumour or sighting. Her ship had been spied upon Dione. The wreckage of her ship had been found in the asteroid belt, and a human spacesuit was drifting through the skies. But no, Saga herself had been witnessed in the embassy on Europa. We examined these theories, shared our musings late into the nights.

The years passed.

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