Read Online Earthfall by Stephen Knight - Free Book Online

reports were in alphabetical order, so Andrews didn’t have long to wait. There was no listing for “Rachel Andrews.” He didn’t allow himself to fully relax until the listing progressed through the Ls and there was no “Rachel Lopez,” either. When he saw that, he released his breath in a trembling sigh.
    The list is going to be continually updated, he told himself. Just because she’s not on it now, doesn’t mean she won’t be on it later.
    Adding a small cast of desperation to his thought was that there were almost thirty names on the list. Thirty names, and he knew them all. Thirty people who had been killed during the earthquake. He had grown up with four of them, and one of them, a woman named Sally Kesserman, had been one of his dearest friends when they were younger. He remembered that at first, they played long games of tag in the base, stealing off to areas few adults could get into as they hid from each other and giggling in the darkness, the antiseptic corridors of Harmony Base infected by the sounds of their running feet. Only three quarters of the base was inhabited, so it gave them lots of space to play in, and Andrews remembered they had actually gotten lost twice in the labyrinthine installation. Then later, when they began to mature, they discarded the games kids played and spent the time just talking, just hanging out with each other. While they had never been mutually attracted to each other, the friendship they developed was a strong one.
    But over the decade that had passed since the Sixty Minute War, Andrews had watched Sally grow up. She had become a serious-minded woman, a quartermaster’s assistant, her brow always furrowed by the rate at which the base’s consumables disappeared. While Andrews was in charge of connecting the base with any outside settlements that might exist, her job was to remain below ground and count beans. She was in charge of worrying, something she’d never had a penchant for when she was younger.
    Other than meaningless chitchat, Andrews hadn’t kept up with her for the past several years. That he would never have the opportunity to talk to his old friend again left him feeling hollow and guilty.
    “So many,” Leona said, her voice soft. Sobs broke out around the Commons. In such a small community, the loss of thirty people meant that everyone had lost someone. The bottom had just dropped out of several people’s lives. Andrews looked around numbly. He felt it, too.
    Oh, Sally …
    He looked at Leona, her face tightly drawn. She had always been a super-confident sort, the type of person who never let her true feelings show. He remembered when she was maybe twelve years old, when she and her family had arrived at the base. The rest of the kids would sometimes make fun of her gawky figure, thin features, and lank hair. If the teasing had ever bothered her, she’d never given any of them the satisfaction of seeing it. As he grew older, Andrews found he admired her for that trait, which he himself had never been able to master. But even Leona had her limits, and the sudden notice that thirty people had checked out for the long dirt nap had pushed her past them. Tears glittered in her eyes as she continued to stare at the displays. Andrews put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. She stiffened at the sudden contact, but Andrews kept his arm around her to let her know she wasn’t alone in her grief.
    “You all right?” he asked.
    Leona relaxed suddenly. She bowed her head, as if embarrassed by her tears, and tried to hide them by wiping the back of her hand across her eyes. “Yeah, I’m okay. I just wasn’t expecting there to be so many .”
    Andrews looked at the scrolling fatality list and wondered idly at its power. Millions had died well in advance of these thirty, but it was these thirty that he knew. In the grand scale of things, the passing of thirty souls could perhaps be considered inconsequential. But in the small community of