Space Hostages (29 page)

It was nice to think that Helen was out there somewhere. Going wherever she wanted.

We passed through the light shield. And there, suddenly, was Earth, blue and beautiful and shining.

It's a whole planet, I reminded myself as we plunged toward it. It's full of things I've never seen. Even Wolthrop-Fossey has to have secrets—paths and hollow trees and houses ruined by the ice, things that maybe everyone's forgotten. Josephine and I could try to find them.

So I guess I'll have to make do with that for a while.

But I could see green aurorae dancing over the poles, and beyond the rim of the Earth, the endless fields of stars.

If I ever do get another chance—well then.

No guarantees.

H
i, Alice.

Thank you for emailing me this. I finished reading it last night.

Initial thoughts.

Here.
I think you should add a clarification. Mars can be as far as 249 million miles from Earth when both planets are at aphelion, and as close as 34 million miles when Earth is at perihelion and both are in opposition.

Here.
I
did
admire his apparent accomplishments before they turned out to be fraudulent, but I'm sure I can't have said I thought Rasmus Trommler was a genius.

Here.
I'm not going to talk much about this
part, but you make it sound as if I deliberately threw the cat statuette at you! I
didn't
!

Here.
I knew you and Carl were scared when I took a while to surface after we hit the sea on Yaela. I didn't realize quite how scared. I apologize.

Here.
I would have rendered the WOya word for Krakkiluk as more like
Krakloo'ch
. There was a soft but noticeable fricative on the last syllable.

Here.
Are you sure you want your dad to
know
you weren't really sorry?

Also
Here.
Similarly, is it wise, even six months on, to let your parents know you might go running off to space again, given the opportunity? They're going to read this, presumably?

Passim:
You start a lot of sentences with “and” and you frequently use constructions such as “me and Josephine.” I know that's how you talk, but for publication surely it should be “Josephine and I”?

There are quite a lot of typos. I will send you a list tomorrow. In particular: your spelling of Sklat-ki-Sklak is wildly inconsistent.

As for everything else, you're right: there are advantages in being able to tell people to “just read the book” when they pester us with questions. But it still seems more full of drama and
feelings
than strictly necessary, and it is still very strange to have
lived it once and then see it all again.

I admit, I spent this morning walking along the Avon feeling peculiar and thinking over how I would write this to you. There were passages I intended to ask you to take out.

But I liked reading about the ruined city on Yaela by night. About the Wurrhuya flying. How we all ate pizza on top of the
Helen
. It was almost like being there again, but this time without having to be frightened. It also made me miss the Goldfish, and Helen.

Then I thought of something Th
saaa
asked after we got back to Orbit Station One.

“Could you clarify something for me?” they said before we got into the Space Elevator. “I have been confused.”

“I'll try,” I replied.

“What was it that Alice revealed in her book that you wished to remain a secret?”

I cited the relevant passages.

“I don't understand,” said Th
saaa
. “That you mourned the loss of your mother—surely this must have been common knowledge?”

“It isn't that simple,” I said.

It isn't, you know that. But Th
saaa
said, “It is the strangest thing about humans—that you make it so hard for others to know you. I thought at first it was
only that I did not understand the face movements as I understand colors. But then I learned that you
try
to seem blank, even when you do not feel so. You can see, now, that I am confused and slightly embarrassed. But why should I not feel like that? Why should you not know it?”

“Well, humans aren't Morrors,” I said.

We are not Morrors. But I concede that perhaps Th
saaa
had a point.

So yes, go ahead and publish the book. Yes, I think you should incorporate Th
saaa
and Noel's material. Thank you for not mentioning what was in my father's card to me, as requested.

In answer to your other question, Dad and I had a ChatPort conversation yesterday. It was awkward, but not wholly unpleasant. I made an amusing remark and he laughed slightly.

Dr. Muldoon will be visiting Earth next month. I'll be going to London. Do you want to come?

Love,

Josephine

P.S. You said you hadn't got a title. All I could think of was
Space Hostages
, but that's surely too lurid even for you.

T
hank you to Alyson Day, Abbe Goldberg, and the rest of the team at Harper Collins—as well as for all your work on the book, thanks for showing me the New York skyline and for listening to me scream in a bad American accent in a Manhattan bookshop. Thanks to Lynne Missen at Penguin Canada—especially for the packages of books! Many thanks to Sarah Hughes, Hannah Sandford, Maggie Eckel, and Katy Cattell at Egmont. Thanks for patient, thoughtful editing and surprised reminiscences of Tonbridge Grammar!

Continuing thanks to my agent, Catherine Clarke, for her wisdom and indefatigability—and for the crucial suggestion when I couldn't decide
whether Carl or Josephine should be getting thrown out of the airlock: why not
both
?

Thanks to Zoe Pagnamenta for nimble agenting abroad.

There was much nomadism (both enforced and elective) during the writing of this book. Thanks to Maria Dahvana Headley, who let me sleep on her feather bed in Brooklyn surrounded by her curios and cats; to Glen Mehn and Clare Gallagher for the spare room—and laptop support!—during the summer of 2014; and to Sarah Rees Brennan for wine, pizza, and cupcakes in both London and New York.

As always I have to thank my mother, who has been helping me wrangle stories since before I could talk.

Courtesy of Sophia McDougall

SOPHIA McDOUGALL
studied English literature at Oxford and is the author of
Mars Evacuees
as well as plays, poetry, and the Romanitas trilogy (
Romanitas
,
Rome Burning
, and
Savage City
). She lives in London. You can visit her online at
www.sophiamcdougall.com
.

Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
hc.com
.

Cover art © 2016 by Goro Fujita

Cover design by Joel Tippie

SPACE HOSTAGES.
Copyright © 2015 by Sophia McDougall. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

www.harpercollinschildrens.com

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015947629

ISBN 978-0-06-229402-9 (trade bdg.)

       EPub Edition © January 2016 ISBN 9780062294043

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FIRST U.S. EDITION, 2016

First published in the U.K. by Egmont UK Limited, London, England, in 2015.

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