I go down to Liberty Falls, because it’s the only place I can think of being right now, even though Halley isn’t with me. I leave my small kit bag in a locker at the transit station and go for a walk through the town. Winter has arrived, and there’s a layer of snow on the lawns and the sidewalks. Outside the transit station, I step onto the lawn, brush the snow aside with one hand, and then touch the cold and frozen grass underneath, letting my fingers warm it up, remembering what it felt like in the spring and summer. I don’t want to go to Chief Kopka’s place just yet, because I don’t want to see their faces when I walk in without my wife and they will know without me having to say a word. Instead, I walk through the town center and over to the little waterfall that gave the town its name. It’s not overly impressive, just a six-foot cascade dropping over an artificial ledge prettied up with river stones, but it’s a peaceful spot, and Halley liked it.
I stand on the little wooden bridge and look out over the river, the waterfall murmuring softly behind me, and I realize that I have no idea what I will do with the rest of my life if Halley is gone from it. I have a promise to keep to the Lazarus Brigades, to train their troops for a year and a half, and I’ll have to resign my commission to keep that promise. But that’s not something I have to do today, or tomorrow, or even next week. I take the military-issue PDP out of my pocket and turn it in my hands. It’s the electronic leash that can summon me back to service any time, but I’m tired of heeding its call, and if that’s all I have left in life, it’s not much of a life at all.
With its smooth edges and its shopworn finish, the PDP itself looks like a river stone. I remember how many good and bad messages I got on that tiny little black-and-white screen, and I realize how many more of them were bad than good.
I want to pitch the PDP into the river. I want to be done with the life to which this device has me tied. And right now, with my wife missing and the tiredness in my bones seemingly permanent, I have to fight that urge more than usual. The military has given me a measure of self-determination, but also a lifetime of bad memories and an endless source for horrible dreams. But it has also brought Halley into my life, and I know that despite the sadness and exhaustion I feel right now, I’d do it all over again just because of that bunk assignment in boot-camp platoon 1066.
The buzz of an incoming message tickles my palm. I stare at the screen for a moment and consider pitching the thing into the drink anyway. Then I turn the device on and read the message on the screen.
>Still kicking.
It’s not signed, and doesn’t need to be.
The sudden joy and profound relief I feel makes the load I’ve been carrying for the last week roll off my shoulders in the span of a single long breath. I smile and slip the PDP back into my pocket. Then I close my eyes and breathe in the cold and clean winter air of Vermont. And just like that, it smells like home again.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Reduced to the basics, writing a novel is basically just one person sitting in a chair for many hours and writing many words until they can tack THE END onto the bottom of the manuscript. In reality, so many people have a hand in the making of a novel, from the first idea to the time the reader gets to turn to Page One, that the byline should be several paragraphs long.
First and foremost, thanks are due—as always—to my wife Robin, who is not only my beta reader and brainstorming partner, but who also keeps the daily distractions away from me and makes sure the household functions while I am in my office with my noise-canceling headphones on my head and space kablooie on my mind.
Thank you to the team at 47North, who works hard to make sure the novel you have in your hands comes to be after I type THE END and send everything off to my editor Adrienne, and to Luke Daniels, who turns the Audible versions of my books into something special.
Thank you to my agent Evan Gregory, who is in no small part responsible for the fact that money shows up in my account on a regular basis. He’s also solely responsible for the existence of local translations of the Frontlines books in German, Polish, Japanese, Czech, Hungarian, Russian, and Thai.
Thank you to all my writer friends and colleagues, who give me input and feedback and make me feel like I’m part of a community instead of a solitary middle-aged dude sitting in an office and talking to himself in his head all day: Melissa Olson, Amber Lynn Natusch, Joseph Brassey, Ellie Ann Lang, John Scalzi, Elizabeth Bear and Scott Lynch, Steve Gould, Laura Mixon, Chuck Wendig, Delilah S. Dawson, Ann Leckie, Fran Wilde, and a few dozen others I’m forgetting to list right now but who are completely entitled to make me pay for drinks the next time I see them at a convention.
Thank you to the Viable Paradise/Daydrinker posse, who has been very supportive and happy for my success (and not murdered me in a dark alley): Claire Humphrey, Katrina Archer, Julie Day, Jeff Macfee, Chang Terhune, Steve Kopka, and all the other members of the VP tribe.
As I am writing this, I have learned that convention bookseller Larry Smith has passed away. He was a kind and friendly fellow, and he gave me the thrill of seeing my books on a dealer table for the first time. Thank you, Larry—I will miss seeing you around.
And thank you to all my readers—for buying my work and spreading the word, for your emails and Facebook messages, and for enabling me to have my dream job and live my best possible life. It’s humbling and awesome, and I want to keep doing this for as long as you keep reading these books.