At Close of Day
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
― Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
The dust shifted, dancing in the soft, meager light. It rained and whirled. The air was infused with it and carried it to the wood of the floor, where it lay in an untold message. The word spilled from the tessaract, whipping through the universe like gravity. It bore evidence of a father's for his daughter, but it wasn't for her eyes. It was for his and so it could spell disaster for the civilization drilling through space towards its own past salvation. Time was infinitely knowable but not infinite. Like a storm tearing through a city and obliterating everything in its way, time committed its ravages out of no spite. The cruel paradox at time's core was just its nature: if Cooper stayed, he would never send their revered rescuer the data. They would not even die. They would have never even existed. Millennia in time. A new civilization. It would all go away. Vanish without a chance to be.
# # #
The dust shifted. The air burnt with it and the scent of smoldering corn. It smelled of death and decay. Of loss and of nowhere to go. But the tiny, black arm of the watch ticked. And Murphy Cooper understood. And then she wrote. Time was not an enemy. Time was knowable.
# # #
Murphy stood vigil over her nephew's hospital bed. The boy would have extensive lung scarring, but otherwise he would be just fine. His mother was slightly worse but stable, resting in the adjoining room. Given what the doctors had initially thought, it was a near miracle. One that still had to stand in the shadow of that currently wrapped around her wrist. In under an hour, Murphy had gone from despair-fueled determination to save a seemingly doomed mankind to the full-blown elation of discovery. Once an ill-afforded luxury, hope now bloomed into tangible means of escape and survival. The monumental task of launching the tattered remains of humanity into space still lay ahead but was no longer an impossible dream. It could be done. They were able to save themselves, no longer condemned to a painful, slow death on their waning home. A new one awaited them somewhere, out there, most likely in another galaxy. Murphy and her generation were not to see it, but her nephew would. She was certain of it, as certain as she was that her father would be back someday, certain as she ever was of it, even when she had hated him for leaving in the first place.
Doctor Brand had been afraid of time, but Murphy was not. Not anymore, anyway. Time had been the key to the gravity equation. Time was knowable and knowledge had never failed her. Time was not a foe. Time was an ally. Murphy counted on it for her upcoming meeting with NASA. She had to convince the board that her solution worked and that they could indeed fling the station through the wormhole and to their new home, provided that the Endurance had located one. First, however, they had to convince the panicked, squabbling governments of Earth that this was a viable alternative and get a no doubt reluctant population to embark on the ultimate one-way journey. It would not be easy, but yesterday, it had been unattainable. In Murphy's view, that was progress.
NASA's was not Murphy's immediate destination, once she exited her nephew's wardroom. Her most pressing concern might have seemed trivial compared to saving the human race, but the nagging voice of guilt inside her head would not let her do otherwise. No matter how many time Murphy told herself she couldn't have known, she still felt sometimes like she had abandoned her family to chase after her dead mentor's lie. The truth was that just like her father, she had wanted to leave their miserable farm and the school with its narrow-minded teachers. She had wanted to learn and do something that wasn't the rote, soul-killing task of growing corn on an unforgivable land for the vague promise that it would get better. Maybe she had always suspected that it wouldn't. Whatever the reason, she had wanted to leave, and once she had, she had never wished to look back. She wanted to be free and study the universe, not languish in the stuffy air of failing crops and hopelessness.
She trailed through the crowded hallways of the hospital where her friend, Getty, worked and towards his office. What remained of the police was in way over their heads trying to maintain some semblance of order among the people on the run from the global agricultural catastrophe. Even if things were different, Murphy would not have turned in her brother for the incident at their farm. Her own lingering guilt notwithstanding, that was not what Tom needed right now.
Her brother was crumpled in a chair in Getty's office, face hidden in his hands. He looked up with red-rimmed and grimy eyes, when she entered. His face was dirty, smudged with smoke and dirt, lips cracked and beard in disarray. Anger had leaked out of him, leaving only desolation in its wake. Tender pity welled up in Murph then. He seemed so lost. She flashed back to the happy and optimistic boy he had once been. Tom was not built for death and disasters. He was meant to live a quiet life on an idyllic farm, grow old and fat and be surrounded by grand-children. A lump worked its way up Murph's throat and she rushed to her brother's side, knelt by his seat and wrapped her arms around him.
"Murph… I… Murph," he choked.
She tried to rock him back and forth, like she imagined their long-dead mother had to have. "Shhh… it's okay, Tom. Lois and Coop will be fine and we're going to get you help," she promised and silently vowed to keep it.