The Expanse - J.M. Dillard [17]
At the moment, Trip stood beside Reed on a hillside. Florida, of course, had no hills (save for a very few)—the peninsula was unrelentingly flat, allowing an unobstructed view for miles. The first time Trip had visited mountains, he’d felt closed in, claustrophobic, seasick as a landlubber.
At least, Florida hadn’t had any hillsides—until now.
Trip stared down dully into the black, miles-wide crater that separated the remaining half of his hometown from the other. Normally, the smell of the sea and the chatter of gulls had a tonic, calming effect on him—but today, the ocean smell was overlaid by the smell of scorched rubble, and the call of birds drowned out by the sound of reconstruction crews. Trip’s insides felt like the wounded land—gouged open, laid bare.
Across the chasm, tall palms still swayed in the subtropical breeze; tiny workers moved in and around the remains, while half-demolished buildings still smoldered. Overhead, shuttlepods sailed beneath the clouds. Looky-loos, Trip thought bitterly, then realized that he was wrong. Starfleet had cordoned off this airspace to all but essential personnel, locals, and family members. Trip had had to prove his next-of-kin status in order to be permitted to visit the restricted area—and it’d been hard enough to get permission for Reed to accompany him.
Neither he nor Reed spoke for a full minute after setting down; the scene was too horrific, too awesome in scope to permit anything beyond silent contemplation. This was, after all, a vast graveyard, a memorial to the dead. And not just human: every life-form here had perished, both plant and animal, including a great deal of ocean life. Lizzie would have regretted that, too; she loved the sea as much as her brother.
After a time, Malcolm said softly, “I’m so sorry. ...”
Trip couldn’t respond right away. The danger of choking up was too great. Instead, he tried to distract himself by orienting himself to the surroundings, recreating the missing town in his memory.
He pointed to a location inside the crater and felt a stab of pain. “The house was over there ... less than a kilometer.”
That prompted an immediate barrage of unuttered questions: Had Lizzie been inside, working, when the horror had occurred? Had she been in town, running errands? Had she run outside at the sound of devastation and seen the blast headed towards her? Had she had time to realize what was happening, or did it—please—happen too quickly for her to know anything, feel anything?
Or had she been scared? Had she felt pain?
Stop it, Trip told himself firmly. First off, Lizzie was tough and pragmatic; she would have faced death matter-of-factly, so there was no point in tormenting himself. Yet he couldn’t seem to keep his mind from going over every possible scenario, including the one suggested by the Captain—that Lizzie had gone out of town, that she was okay. But Trip knew his sister too well: she was utterly responsible, and would have contacted him immediately.
She knew how her big brother worried about her, despite the fact that she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself.
So Trip had gone through the tedious process of locating a neighbor who knew Lizzie, who might have known whether she’d been in town that day.
It’d been hell finding someone who was still alive—the list of casualties was heartrending, including scores of families Trip had known from childhood. He’d finally tracked down the owner of the Seafood Shanty, where Liz was a regular, who said he’d thought he’d seen her in town that morning. But the trauma had left his memory uncertain.
Thought he’d seen her. That would have to do; that, and Lizzie’s silence. So much for closure.
Trip found himself starting to tear up, and distracted himself again by searching for a landmark. To his delight, he found one