L. Wallace 1

Half-Life

Prologue

My boots are slick with blood and guano. I push through dead terns and petrels, their

downy wings flopping, their necks lolling. In some places the litter of birds is half-a-foot deep

across this flat headland overlooking the gunmetal sea. Not a sound from the cliff-face rookery

just beyond the edge, an odd clotted braid of birds now and then falling off into dead space. I turn

around and follow my plowed trail over the headland back toward my cottage.

Day without wind—a rarity. Fog creeps past the knobheads of grass and fennel, thinning,

whispering above the flagstone steps of my cottage. It’s simple really. Fog is moisture, water

laden with whatever is in the air: pollution, particulates, poisons. Give us our gales, sea-borne air

currents that daily carry more of the rest of the world to us. Even as far away as the southern

Indian Ocean. No one lives isolated—even on a remote island like Kerguelen. Air circulation

patterns being what they are in our whirlpool pocket of climate, in time we will breathe the same

air as everyone else.

There. My last breath was joined by some remainder of a cough from a 19th century

Liverpool tubercular ward and a little something from a hacking terminal flu case in Coeur-

d’Alene and, of course, the tick-tick-ticking of some isotope, Strontium 90, perhaps, or Polonium.

Some of us considered going underground, but it’s too late for that now. We hope that

each day will bring a topping out, and then we will begin the downhill slide, nursing our inevitable

lesions, losing hair, pressing on despite frail appetites. We’ve all read and reread the survival

manual. We know how it will go. We just hope it won’t turn out as badly as that.

Funny, hope. Something about the human animal, finding ways to hold out, thinking a

corner might be turned, the storm clouds pass, a new day dawns. The skies seem just as blue, the

Half-Life 2

world as green as ever. It’s just that all the signs are there. The east cliff rookeries choking with

dead birds.

I woke up this morning to silence, none of the usual bleating and racket, just stone silence.

Dead puffins, petrels, cormorants, and terns everywhere. Two weeks ago, a pod of whales washed

up on the south shore. Belugas. I didn’t go look.

Someone in town said this kind of thing happened in ’62 and again in ’94, so there it was,

you see, cause for hope. It could just be one of those cyclical events, nature’s way of cleaning

house. Life stumbles on. Some survive to start over. Hope is a fresh start.

So it was. So it is. This waiting to learn how bad it will be, all the while thinking in the

backs of our little skulls somewhere that we are the fortunate ones who will live through it all.

Part of the life urge. As long as a breath can be drawn, what living thing doesn’t believe it alone

will survive this horrible end, this catastrophe?

There’s a word for you. Say it. Say it slowly. Feel its ancient horror. Catastrophe.

You and your pathetic little phalanx, disciplined, well ordered, bound in the fealty of

brotherhood, all that stands between life and death at the hands of a savage hoard—death for the

lot of you—followed by the rape and slaughter of your women and children, their heads smashed

against the rocks at the river bank. You are a shield’s thickness from catastrophe.

But we are moderns. We thought we were beyond the ancient horrors and savagery. We

had science, technology, and a compact among civil nations, surely a sufficient stop against

annihilation. We were wrong. And stupid beyond words.

Chapter One

In the white wicker chair opposite me sits Stanley, legs crossed at the knees, wearing his

calm like a shroud over a knot of anxieties.

Half-Life 3

“Thoo mur vales,” he says through his fiber mask, pinched over his nose with a thin

aluminum strip. He’s suddenly aware that he’s indoors and removes the mask, gingerly. He

withdraws a zip-lock plastic bag from his jacket pocket, inserts the mask, reseals the bag, and

slides it back in his pocket. Then, ever so matter-of-factly, he picks up his cup of tea.

Yes, I’ve told him the lightweight masks are no barrier against radiation, but he won’t

listen. We all have coping mechanisms; this is his. His counterargument is that particulate matter

rains down on us, and it is the one micron and larger rad-binding dust molecules that he’s filtering

out. Keeping toxins out of the soft tissue of his lungs. Reduced REMs, thank you very much, or

as Stanley likes to roll over his tongue—when he doesn’t have a mask on—Roentgen equivalent in

man. It’s all about the Q factor, he likes to say, reducing my Q.

Just to prove it, he said he had Enrique pass the Geiger over a week-old mask, and the

needle visibly jumped.

It’s useless to pretend the mask annoys me, and I’ve even begun understanding his muffled

speech. “Two more whales where? South shore?”

“Yes. Just there.” He nods slowly, glancing at the map on my wall.

“Ah.” I sip my tea and urge him to do the same with a tilt of my head. Something

comforting about the light clatter of cups on saucers. Something reassuring about tea. What

abominations did the colonial Brits witness—what fly-matted wounds, what hunger-deformed

children, what wholesale amputations, what sun-swollen corpses—only to have it all blunted by

late tea? Coffee—the French or the Belgians. Americans, a Coke to undo a napalmed village or a

laser-guided missile misdirected . . . wrong house. Sorry, Coke is it. Life goes on. Any horror

can be stomached if followed by a suitable beverage. I take another sip of tea.

Meanwhile, Stanley begins sliding his tongue over the empty socket once occupied by a

molar. He makes a crisp suction sound every few seconds. It’s another of his habits. One day he

Half-Life 4

was eating toast, and he brought out bits of a tooth between forefinger and thumb. We’ve all been

without Previn, our part-time dentist, for six months now. He flew the coop at the Outset.

Funny, now that we have no dental care, problems are cropping up left and right.

Suddenly, my back teeth have grown hot- and cold-sensitive, and I am sure my gums are receding.

There, that sucking sound again. The only way to get him to stop is to make him talk.

“Well, let’s look on the good side, shall we? More oil for our lamps.”

Stanley nods. “My God, you should have seen Burton on that whale with his flensing

knife. He’s becoming a master.”

“I saw him last time, remember? He was pretty good then.” The image was of Burton,

slick with blood, slicing away strips of whale flesh with relish and abandon.

“Well, he’s gotten even better,” says Stanley, drawing his tea up to his lips. He loudly

sucks in his drink.

I don’t know which is worse, his socket sucking noise or his manner of taking tea. Then I

realize what I’m doing. I let out a breath and relax my shoulders. It’s my own nerves getting to

me. I’ve become increasingly intolerant. Everyone’s peccadilloes and nervous tics rise to the

level of venal complaint in me. Enrique and his filthy nails. Davíd’s sewing machine leg.

Burton? A sot, drinking himself blind—and his foul breath. Marie, our steady librarian-sometime

nurse, the only woman on the island—her bloody audible breathing. And all the rest.

Me? Nearly a month-and-a-half since I’ve been to town. I keep to myself more and more.

I suppose that annoys them. And this is no time to be anti-social, is it?

Another moment passes, a couple sips of tea.

“So? Is that all the news? Whale beachings, blubber, Burton’s blade, lamp oil?”

Stanley takes his time answering, peeking over his hands, the cup lost in his fists.

“It’s the news you want?”

Half-Life 5

My, that’s downright accusatory, but he doesn’t play it for all it’s worth. After a moment,

he shrugs. “Okay, the news.”

He places the cup gingerly on the saucer and from there onto the table at his shins.

“Let’s see now, the news.”

Actually I don’t believe he’s toying with me. For him, too, I think it must be harder and

harder to remember what matters, what counts for something with the world teetering at the brink.

He looks at the backs of his hands, and watches as he flexes them into fists.

“Sandoval cut down on the shortwave—30 minutes every evening.”

“What is he receiving? The steady hiss of the ionosphere?” I chuckle.

Stanley smiles at my feeble joke and shakes his head.

“Actually, he’s been in touch with Western Australia and Cape Town. And then Crozet, of

course.”

Involuntarily, my eyes widen. “You mean there are still voices beyond this godforsaken

ocean?”

“Evidently. Things are worse on Crozet, I’m afraid. These other two contacts—I listened

in one night—you wouldn’t think they have a care in the world. And yet . . .”

I wait, cup to mouth, pulling on my tea. I know Stanley needs no prompting. He much

appreciates the currency of information armed with a live charge.

“They seem very interested in us. In coming here.”

“But why?”

“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Perhaps they’ve studied our meteorology and want to

improve their odds.”

“We don’t have the resources for—what would they be? Tourists?”

Half-Life 6

“Exactly. Sandoval has played his cards close. He tried dissuading them. Said we’re in a

hard way, running low on supplies, which is somewhat true.”

Stanley bends forward and pushes the tip of his index finger against the cup handle,

rotating it in the saucer 360°.

He adds, “Still, it appears they’re coming.”

“What? Both?”

“Yes. Apparently Cape Town and Perth have been talking with each other. Kerguelen

will be their wintering over spot.” Stanley casts a wicked arch to one eyebrow.

Clever of Stanley, his reference to nuclear winter. He’s becoming poetical.

“It’s a bad idea,” I say.

“Of course it is, but how can we stop them?”

I think for a moment. We can’t. But I wonder whether they have been dissuaded

forcefully enough.

“I know you’re thinking Sandy might have put his foot down, perhaps painted Kerguelen a

bleaker picture. You know him. He’s constitutionally unable to lie.” Stanley picks at the

fingernails of his right hand with his thumbnail. “Sandy was asked whether we have any buildings

available. He had to say yes.”

Buildings aren’t the problem. Less than a third of our original population stayed, so we

have space aplenty. Heating those buildings is the first problem; our store of canned food, the

other.

“But how?”

“How what?” Stanley says, evincing a smile.

“How will they come? And when?”

“A flotilla of sailboats, evidently, within the week.”

Half-Life 7

I sink back in my chair. I could already feel the pull of opposites. We’d had a bunch of

people leave, most in the first week at the Outset, but no one had come to Kerguelen—no one

alive, that is. The freighter Star of Macao had run aground in Norwegian Bay last December, our

miracle ship laden with containers, the crew of 12 dead, apparently murdered at each other’s hands

and all showing signs of Acute Radiation Sickness.

In those early days, radio broadcasts evaporated one by one till there were but a handful:

one, fevered, rapid-fire, with no time to waste, from River Plate, Argentina; another, the haunting

resigned final journal of Radio St. Helena on Tristan de Cunha; and, last, a broadcast from

Madagascar. Within days of each other, those voices, too, were lost.

After that, we heard threads of radio transmissions, vaporous and elusive, notes in bottles

from the shores of distant stars. What little came our way wasn’t heart-warming—not a single

word. Two or three transmissions obsessed with 15 August, trying to untangle the cause and

sequence of events that had whirled out of control. Other messages consisted of little more than

phrases describing survival efforts, looters and warring bands, ARS, reports of 600 to 1000 REM,

staggering fatality figures, and litanies on the dead. Last words at death’s door—all of it hard to

stomach.

Except for Sandoval’s recent shortwave traffic, the world had gone silent. So, yes, I was

curious naturally—more than curious. Maybe the corner had been turned. Hurrah. Maybe there

were other survivors prepared to resume life. Survivors, like us few Kerguelanders. Hope.

There was that word again. Who wouldn’t be curious? And yet . . . strangers from

beyond. Barbaroi, you might say. Well, I didn’t want to overstate dark suspicions, but it was a

different world now, wasn’t it? Smaller, stingier, more dangerous. Life more tenuous and fragile.

Half-Life 8

Stanley seems to sense my doubts. “They reassured us that they will bring what they need,

especially food. They only require a building or two. Not a problem. And they will leave after a

time.”

“And they’ll abide by island law?”

“Island law?” Stanley says with a snort, then grinning.

“I mean our code. It’s so natural that none of us questions it.”

He still looks a bit disbelieving, but I am quite serious. It’s disconcerting that we could

have such different views. I suddenly feel the need to convince him that there is a kind of

normalcy and order here on Kerguelen.

“Other than Stavro’s hanging himself,” I say, “we’ve gone without incident. The world is

in disarray—or worse. We’re not.”

Stanley lets his smart-ass grin evaporate.

“No, of course, I suppose you’re right.”

I press on. I have to make him see.

“You forget that we’ve done without a constable—or whatever you wish to call him—and

the quarterly visit of a magistrate for nearly a year now.”

“So you’re wondering whether these visitors will be agreeable.” He clears his throat.

“They just want to lay over, so they say. Anyway, they’re coming whether we like it or not.”

Then Stanley pauses, his eyes lighting up, seeming to remember something.

“One last thing, Alan. You said you wanted the news, and you’ve just reminded me of one

of the reasons I came—the main reason, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh?”

What could outdo the news that life elsewhere had not been thoroughly snuffed out?

Half-Life 9

Now Stanley looks sheepish, hanging his head a bit, nervously reaching for his tea, taking

a sip, and then returning the cup to the saucer in a hard landing. Somehow the cup survives. No

shards of porcelain. My set of four cups intact.

“Sorry,” Stanley says.

“It’s all right, no harm done,” I say. “What’s this other thing?”

“Well, I won’t dance around.” He takes a breath and launches in. “Many of us gathered

after the whale incident—we had a quorum. You, my friend, were selected to take over the

position of constable.”

After all the other news Stanley has delivered, I can hardly believe this last bit.

He pauses, looking me over for any sign.

“The vote was unanimous,” he adds. “Everyone immediately thought of you. It’s quite an

honor, I’d say.”

“We’ve done well enough without one. Why the sudden need?”

Stanley purses his lips and raises his eyebrows. “Let’s just say it’s precautionary, to ensure

that everyone remains civil.”

I sit looking at him a moment, catch myself nodding slightly. I mean, it made sense with

or without visitors in the offing. When resources grow scarce, the law comes in handy.

“We’re hoping you’ll say yes. I mean, everyone agreed you’re a natural for the job. We’ll

keep accounts for standard salary should we come out of this and money ever mean anything. For

now, we can promise you a triple allotment of oil.”

The story of recent times: oil.

“I see.” I glance at my tea, then the wall map, before returning my gaze on him. “Can I let

you know tomorrow? You know, sleep on it?”

Half-Life 10

“Of course. Tomorrow’s fine.” He grows still. “Will you come to town, then? 9 a.m.,

say?”

“Yes, 9:00 is fine.”

He sits another moment, passing his tongue over his dry socket three times quickly, not

seeming to know what else to say. Then he stands, pulling out the plastic bag with his mask.

“Thanks so much for the tea, Alan.”

We shake hands, and I see him to the door. He sets out along the path, his hands jammed

into his pockets, his whole upper body backlit with fog.

I am somewhat stunned, but not at all displeased. I had been waiting for something, the

worst perhaps. This news is neither good nor bad. It just is. I’ve emerged from a vast stretch of

sameness, the desert or the tundra. The monotony of days has been shattered.

Chapter Two

The trip over this rib of rock promises to be tougher for me than for Stanley. Gale-force

winds kicked back up during the night, the interzonal winds that had apparently relieved us of a

full dose of radiation. So here we are with our friendly winds of 50 m.p.h., occasional gusts to 80.

Back to normal, in other words.

As I mount a ridge, my breath nearly leaves me, the howling air buffeting my face. I turn

my head to the right to catch my breath. The sharp crisp green of sedge, grass, and heather catches

my breath, rolling stretches of it, over the crest of a rise and then more of it on the next hill in the

distance, with a formation of volcanic basalt stacked here and there.

Shortly, the trail curls to the right, and the wind angles behind me, shoving me forward.

Returning home later will be no fun. It occurs to me that if I become constable—and I’ve already

decided in favor of the idea if for no other reason than to triple my oil supply—then I might well

have to trudge the eight kilometers daily.

Half-Life 11

I look beyond land’s edge, where the green drops away into stippled gunmetal blue. The

ocean. Man! It is wild, seething with fury, the surface like jagged rock, but alive.

Even though the trail keeps a respectful distance from the cliffs, the air rocketing at me is

heavy, infused with brine. A good smell. Already my mac sheds rivulets of ocean water. Rain

swept Kauai. Fractals.

I step up onto the trail high point. Port aux Français lies in the distance, a motley

collection of roughly 20 prefab, corrugated, boxy, weather-beaten buildings, including an

infirmary, a gym, a district headquarters building and constable’s office, a few Quonset huts for

heavy equipment, warehouses, dormitories, a greenhouse, the radio tower, magnetometer

antennae, and a rather handsome and stylish little two-story cinema and library. Along the edge,

the one other unmistakable attempt at style, the tower and columned porch of the Notre-dame des

Vents launched skyward. Our lonely little chapel with stained glass windows.

Our Lady of the Winds. Before, the wind had been cursed in the most colorful language,

the MF’n wind, some said. Any task outside in the wind was a BJ, our lady blows today. Not

anymore. The wind, an excess and blight for which we now give thanks. There is good reason for

it—more than blind faith, I mean. Once our curse, transfigured into a blessing. The unrelenting

winds. Our Lady. Now there’s a miracle for you.

A gust pushes me down the scooped out trail lined with grass and wild cabbage.

Everyone will be in the canteen. When we were nearly 90 strong, it was a diner, and Port-

aux-Français a small town, with all the functions of a town. With 24 of us, the little restaurant’s a

place to gather, sit around tables, drink coffee or tea, play cards or dominoes. In truth, all of them

could be gathered in any of ten buildings, but I direct my path toward the canteen. Even in the

wind, I think I hear a few voices but realize that too could be the wind.

Half-Life 12

I am determined to stay in town no longer than necessary, but I know that’s just me

succumbing to my anti-social tendencies. I have changed—there’s something wrong with me—

and I’m determined to fight it. I know exactly what’s going on. I blame everyone for what

happened. I look at someone, anyone, and I see the idiots who unleashed their warheads. I count

myself among those idiots. The misanthropic, cynical quotes from my college days have boiled to

the outer surface of my skull. “We are born between the feces and the urine”—Augustine. And

LaRochefoucauld: “We all have sufficient strength to bear the misfortunes of others.”

I know I’m ill, ill at heart, deeply and abidingly ill. In my soul, I guess. But then the

world is thoroughly ill, too. Far stranger that I should be well. There. That’s the ultimate excuse.

The world’s sick, and I’m sick with it, alongside it, in it.

I step into the lee of the building. The voices surge, the wind taken out of them.

Immediately, the door opens. Sandoval, stands there beaming, wearing the world’s whitest teeth.

“Alan! It’s precisely 9:00. I open the door, and here you damned well are!”

“Alan!” A smattering of voices within.

I stomp my boots at the doorway and step inside. My word! It’s absolutely everyone.

Suddenly I’m out of the howling wind and in the confines of four buttery walls, surrounded by a

throng, being slapped on the shoulder here and there. “How are you doing? We’ve missed you,

friend. You mustn’t be so stingy with your company.”

The tables have been pushed against one long wall. Chairs are scattered everywhere.

They’ve broken out the liquor, a half dozen bottles on the bar running the length of the opposite

long wall. There’s no shortage of liquor. I recall the irrepressible good cheer when one of the Star

of Macao’s containers turned out to be case after case of virtually every distilled spirit under the

sun, single-malt Scotch, S.V.O.P., Vodka Wyborova, champagne of a dozen stripes. Only

equaled—perhaps outdone, depending on your mood—by another container of Birds Eye canned

Half-Life 13

vegetables. And there was an entire pallet of baby formula and condensed milk, which serves well

enough for tea and coffee. We seemed almost miraculously set apart and provided for. We could

go on for some time.

All we had to do was grapple hook up over the side, gain steerage, and bring the vessel

around into Morbihan Bay and into port, which we did, thanks to Burton, Enrique, and Partain and

their engineering skills. Burton had once been a merchant mariner, probably where he acquired

his prodigious drinking skills, too.

Through the murmur of voices, Burton gavels the bar top with the near-empty bottle of

Stoli.

“We are joined,” he says loudly. “Come now, be at ease. We can lollygag later.”

Marie raises her voice, with its light French inflection. “You listen to ‘im. Let us finish

this business.”

Burton raps the bottle against the smooth bar-top one more time, and the voices subside.

“Good then,” says Burton. “We know what we’re here for. We’ve met and decided,

haven’t we? By the same process that we chose Marie some time ago to be our storekeeper, we’ve

decided on a constable.”

Burton swings an arm roughly in my direction.

“To the person, we agreed that Alan should be that man. He’s come here today to say—

well, I don’t know what he’ll say, but I hope, we all hope, he’ll say yes.”

“Hear, hear!” voices say. Several heads nod.

Burton lays a hand on my shoulder. “Very well, then, Alan, will you serve as our

constable?”

Half-Life 14

I had no idea how this would go, but I didn’t expect such exuberance, such an upbeat

crowd. They seem absolutely positive and hopeful. Perhaps I am the only morose, depressed man

on the island.

“Well,” I begin, “I told Stanley I would sleep on it, and I did. I’m honored that you have

such trust in me. I guess this is grassroots democracy at work, so I’d be a fool to say no.

Besides,” I add with a smile, holding up a hand to quell the voices that have begun to react, “I can

use the extra oil.”

Everyone laughs.

I give them a chance to exchange their asides with those standing next to them.

“I don’t expect much will change. We are scientists, predominantly. We are ruled by

order and process,” I say. “In light of the state of things generally, we’ve had a stable time of it.

So, yes, I accept your charge to be con-stable.” I’ve stumbled upon this sudden play of words, and

they laugh, delighted.

I raise my voice over the noise. “I don’t expect I’ll have much to do.” More laughter.

Stanley squeezes past others. He has something wrapped up in his hands. I see the pearl-

white handle and know what it is. He passes the bundle to me, and I take it.

Stanley clears his throat loudly and holds up one hand for everyone’s attention.

“Here is the constable’s firearm and holster—mostly ceremonial,” he says. Then he passes

me a set of keys. “And the keys to constabulary. I don’t believe anyone has been in the place for

six months.”

Burton’s voice booms. “All this is a bit precautionary, of course, and I expect you’re right,

you won’t have much to do. Even so, we’ve also decided on a panel of judges, should there be a

need for legal rulings. Just so you know, Alan, what the rest of us are already well aware of, the

Half-Life 15

five judge electees are Sandoval, Matthews, Pembroke, Stanley, and myself. The constable is

answerable only to the five of us. And we are answerable to all of you.”

“Right. And you’d better remember that, or we’ll throw the lot of you out,” yells one

voice, and everyone laughs.

“Sensible,” I say, mostly to Stanley and Burton, who stand next to me, “certainly sensible.”

Then someone yells—Pembroke, by the sound of his gravelly voice—“Why not put it on?”

“Yes, strap it on,” someone else pipes in.

It’s the revolver and holster, they want to see.

“Yes, put it on, put it on,” others agree. Burton grins, nodding.

So I do. I sling the leather strap around my waist, notch it through the buckle. Good God!

It feels marvelous, like a gunfighter, or, rather, like a deputized sheriff in the Old West.

“You look grand,” says Stanley. “We knew it would suit you, being that you’re a Yank.”

“All you need is a horse,” someone yells, and they erupt in laughter.

While voices again fill the room, Burton passes me a small but heavy yellow box and

presses it into my right hand. Remington, 45 caliber, 100 count.

“I suppose you’ll want these.”

I take the box and shove it into a pocket in my mac.

“And these,” Burton adds.

Now he hands me a pair of handcuffs with two tiny keys attached on a string.

I pocket these, too.

Pembroke and Enrique step up to me, lean back—taking in the vision of their new

constable—jab me in the shoulder and smile. “Constable just doesn’t seem right. More like

marshal or sheriff, I think,” says Pembroke, poking me in the ribs. Then they turn and move to

the bar.

Half-Life 16

Others pay their respects. Davíd comes up swaying as though he’s in Tombstone, giving

me his French “Ho, ho, ho.” Marie and Sandoval are right behind.

“You will be good at this, Alan. Congratulations.” She takes a deep breath and exhales,

the air rushing past her throat.

Her horrible breathing aside, Marie has never looked healthier. She seems positively

upbeat. Sandy steps up next. “I feel very good about this role of yours. Don’t you?” He looks

from Marie to me and back again.

I get the chance to ask him directly something that has been on my mind since Stanley’s

visit.

“Sandy, this constable assignment is sudden. It’s really because of the people coming

from Cape Town and Perth, isn’t it?”

Sandy purses his lips, locking eyes on Marie a moment too long, it seems.

“Best to be safe, Alan. I mean, how much can we tell about someone from voice alone?

There was just something in their voices, hard to put my finger on, something indescribable. Too

casual. Too unconcerned. I don’t know. Stanley, Burton, and I all agreed—well, not to be overly

suspicious—simply to be cautious.”

“Yes, that’s best,” I say.

“Come and make yourself a drink, Alan,” Sandy says, tilting his head toward the bar.

“In a minute,” I reply.

Sandy and Marie move off together. I watch them make their way, finding a space at the

bar, Sandy pouring drinks for the two of them. Then I see something that takes me by surprise.

They stand closer than they have to. Sandy lets his hand fall on top of hers, and she smiles, her

eyes resting on his for a moment. Of course, I think, why not? She is twenty or twenty-five years

Half-Life 17

older than him, but they’ve found a way past all that, a way to circumvent loneliness—something

I’ve not been able to do.

Something about their being together pleases me, although it quickly casts a pall.

I haven’t thought about my family for over a week. I haven’t obsessed over what

happened to them, and now it sweeps over me. It’s unnatural for me to shut that out, I know,

probably an explanation for my being a bit unhinged. Am I? I wonder. Am I unhinged? Ill?

Whatever we call it? A melancholic in need of a good stout drink or two?

My own Sonia-Marie—I’m still married to her, on paper, separated though we’d been for .

. . three years. I don’t want to imagine what horrible end has come to pass for them, and my mind

just slams shuts. My girls, Suzy and Ellie—twelve and almost nine. I can’t stand thinking about

them. It’s enough for adults to meet horrible ends. But children. I get a chill. Self-recrimination

overwhelms me. My chest is knotted up. My heart races, lurching into a cold flutter in my veins.

I damned well left them—originally just a year to see how Sonia and I felt about things. So I was

here rather than there.

Never mind that I couldn’t have done a thing to save them. But had I been there, at least I

would have comforted them, I would have died with them. That would have been something.

Instead, I’m alive, and for what?

Question: What if you’ve given up, but you can’t die? To be alive when you’d just as

soon die. You don’t have the guts or crazy resolve of Stavro. Imagine those who had all the

reason in the world to live, and it was suddenly taken from them. Then there’s me, with a revolver

strapped around my waist. Purposeless. Ridiculous.

I head over to the bar. I am without fail a scientist. I favor order and method over chaos

and abandon; therefore, I allow myself two vodka tonics. It wouldn’t do for the sheriff to have to

arrest himself for public drunkenness.

Half-Life 18

During my second drink, I listen in on conversations—about the tentative excitement over

our approaching visitors, about Geiger readings, about indications of radiation poisoning—and I

watch. I see Burton tossing them down and getting back-slapping gregarious.

Mostly, I spy on Sandy and Marie. They are extraordinarily tender with one another. He

strokes the little finger of her right hand with the little finger of his left. The way their eyes fix

each other—for perhaps no more than a couple of seconds—is genuine, unadorned. It’s love at the

end of the world, at the end of time. All pretense gone. Nothing left but to give oneself fully.

There is nothing—nothing—to save oneself for.

None of the others seem to pay them any mind. Either everyone already knows, or

everyone is unusually unobservant. These others, too, are scientists—observant by nature—so

Sandy and Marie must be old news, old news for everyone except the insular misanthrope who has

kept himself apart.

I think how extraordinarily lucky are Marie and Sandy. Every moment matters. Every

moment is precious. When I had that chance, I was careless. I lived as though I had forever.

After issuing goodbyes, I start the trek back to my cottage. No doubt about it, I’m having a

relapse, experiencing a major aftershock. My buildings and bridges are rocked. It’s not the first

time, but I thought I was through the worst of it.

Plunging into the wind, head lowered, like a bull, I feel my mind teetering as images flash

of their partially decayed bodies. It begins with them the way I remember, but then the three of

them are running through a city in flames, and they collapse, not huddled together, but alone. I

can’t stop this cascading vision. It repeats itself again and again.

Of the seven billion people, how many remain alive? I wish I knew. Millions?

Thousands? Hundreds? The numbers are meaningless. I am fixated on the handful of people I

loved.

Half-Life 19

I hardly remember most of the walk back. When I reach the cottage, I get my brazier

going for fried spam, biscuits, and tea. As I wait, I unhitch the holster from my waist and place

the revolver in the middle of the table, and next to it, the box of ammunition and the handcuffs.

They sit right next to my Remington manual typewriter. Oh, joy, at the end of time, Remington

stands tall. If you can’t write it, then you can put a bullet through it—the skull, say—and really

dot the eyes. How like me to connect the Remingtons. Unholy cynicism is one of my symptoms.

Bullets slot neatly into the chambers. I pick up two empty Green Giant tins from my

garbage bin and go outside to test my aim, but mostly to deflect my mind. I stand in the lee of my

sturdy outdoor privy and ready myself for a couple of shots. I hit a can with my second. Even in

this wind, the shots seem loud. That’s good enough. I can take out a kneecap if need be. If I

shoot for the human heart, I wouldn’t know where to aim.

Back inside, I return one can to the refuse bin, but I put the other, with its neat entry hole

and jagged exit wound, on the table next to the revolver. The barrel is still warm. A push against

the revolver’s middle and it pops open, revealing six clean, oil- smooth chambers. Good. Empty

and best kept that way.

The brazier is nice and hot, so I prepare my lunch, ending with that greatest of all comforts,

tea. I think of the Chinese saying, “The problems of life can be infinitely deferred by brewing

another pot of tea.” Inactivity is fertile soil for cynicism and melancholia, especially for me, so I

turn to the other thing that occupies me.

I confront that other Remington, paper still slotted, safety off, perched mid-sentence.

Here’s the article I promised to The Journal of Natural History. My latest, my grand opus,

“Behavioral Indicators of Pre-Seismic Events Among Passerine Terns.” Never mind that the

journal must no longer exist and will never see another issue, never mind that there is no outgoing

mail, never mind that we live in a post-seismic world, this is just about all I’m good for. This is

Half-Life 20

why I came to Kerguelen. This is why I have an estranged wife and two daughters surely dead

and gone in a city along the shore of a continent in another hemisphere. I am here on an island in

the middle of nowhere, with birds. And they, too, have died off by the millions.

Chapter Three

Most of the afternoon, I work on my article. I have found my way to some unusual

conclusions, the first being nest abandonment as a precursor to grand seismic events. The trouble

is that the latest massive nest abandonment I witnessed was not followed by a typical seismic

event—of which there are plenty on Kerguelen—rather the behavior was followed by the human-

initiated cataclysmic events of August 15. Now, that’s curious, to say the least, that birds, perhaps

other species, can predict destructive human behavior. Anyway, I’m writing up my thesis, journal

fashion, for a reading audience of zero. I accept as an obligation the composition of this

remarkable part of the record, for whatever it’s worth.

I take a break, visit my privy, and then leave the trail for the grassy hummocks, in search

of some mature wild cabbage, thinking I’ll make a soup. The only natural green plant on the

island of any nutritional consequence provides a way to ward off scurvy: Kerguelen cabbage, rich

in ascorbic acid.

So I am gathering the most promising cabbage I can find without wandering too far from

the cottage, and I see someone walking over the ridgeline at a good clip—not quite running. He’s

wearing a parka with the hood up. Not Stanley, I think. Too upright for Stanley, too fluid in

movement.

He hasn’t seen me yet, so I move toward the trail to cut him off. As we come up on each

other, he flips his hood back. It’s Sandoval.

“What are you doing out in this gale?” he asks. He looks at the cluster of cabbage nestled

in the crook of my left arm and frowns. “Oh, gathering that awful stuff, I see.”

Half-Life 21

“Yes. You’re just in time to share some cabbage soup.”

Sandy shakes his head. “I’ll pass. Marie forces that stuff on me. But look,” he says, “I’m

here because I just received a radio transmission, a Mayday, about 40 kilometers ENE of us. One

of the Aussie sailboats breeched in heavy seas. The other craft have managed to pull the crew and

passengers from the water, but everyone’s exhausted. There’s some hypothermia. They know

there’s nothing we can do for them out there, but they request medical help as soon as they arrive.”

“Any idea when that might be?”

“They say before nightfall.” He paused and seemed to think for a moment. “Burton

wondered if you might return to town. We may need your help. Marie is readying the infirmary.”

“Of course. Give me a moment to get my gear. I guess I can stay in the constabulary.”

Sandy’s eyes are round with the challenge of crisis. He’s keen with newfound purpose.

He’s much as I would like to be, I think. Like most people. More than the triple allotment of oil,

this must be why I’ve taken on this new role. Starving for purpose.

Sandy says, “You could, but Marie and I have an extra room. We’d be glad to put you

up.”

“Nice of you to offer. Let’s see how things go.”

Sandy nods, and we move toward my cottage.

* * *

Except for whale beaching, bird die-offs, the arrival of the Star of Macao—and the Stavro

suicide—there have been no big events on Kerguelen. Big events swept the world and forgot

about us. Blissfully forgotten—and spared. Or ignored.

We sit in the radio shed behind the magnetic-meteorological lab, a low-slung structure,

close by the several dormitories, with Sandy on the ship’s radio, raising the Perth flotilla.

“Perth group, come in. This is Kerguelen calling Perth group. Do you read?”

Half-Life 22

The male voice comes back amid static, worn, strained: “Kerguelen, we read you. This is

Perth New Hope. Over.”

“Perth, give us your position and ETA, over.”

“We are 50°15′ S and 70°81′ E, about 15 kilometers out, making good progress in heavy

wind and heavy seas. ETA two hours.”

“What is the medical condition of those rescued?”

There is a pause, no answer. Sandy appears ready to rebroadcast when the reply finally

comes.

“Some are recovered. Two are hypothermic, not doing well. We’re trying to keep their

temperature up. They will need quick attention upon arrival.”

“Understood. We will be ready.” Then Sandy adds, “Do you have good charts for Royal

Sound and Morbihan Bay?”

Again there is a pause. “Well, of course we have charts,” is the annoyed reply. “Is that

all?”

“Yes. We will see you soon. Kerguelen signing off.”

Sandy turns to me. “I guess I shouldn’t have asked. He was a bit insulted.”

“No, it was a fair question. We have little idea about what they’re coming from, what’s

available. Think nothing of it, Sandy. They are under a great deal of stress. That’s all.”

Sandy looks reassured. Marie walks in with two mugs of tea.

“What news do we ‘ave?” she asks. She lets out her breath between her teeth.

Sandy watches her set the mugs on the table. “They will be here in two hours. We’ll bring

two of them straight to the infirmary, and you can check them over. A couple of cases of

hypothermia, so we may have to get their temperatures up.”

Marie nods. “I’ll prepare some immersion baths in those large tubs.”

Half-Life 23

“So we wait.” I say. Then I remember. “Do we know how many there are, and where

we’re putting them?”

“They keep promising to come up with a number and then never do,” says Sandy.

“Burton is preparing several unused dormitories.” Marie looks back and forth between

Sandy and me.

“And a large room,” adds Sandy. “They were specific about needing a large space where

they can gather.”

“You mean apart from the rest of us?”

“Yeah, they want to get together, to worship, I think,” Sandy replies. “That’s an inference

on my part. Burton suggested the old fishery building.”

“We do not know what kind of hell they ’ave been through,” says Marie. She indicates the

tea with her hand poised, palm up.

I reach for my mug. “Certainly,” I say, “we have plenty of space. They may have to learn

to render their own whale or seal blubber for oil, but otherwise the Panel may choose to designate

one of the large unused lab buildings.”

A knock sounds on the door. In walks Burton, looking flush-faced, still under the spell of

his stint at the open bar earlier that day.

Sandy turns toward him. “Two hours ETA. They have a couple of hypothermia cases and

want our help on arrival. Marie is getting the infirmary ready.”

“Good, good, and I’ve gotten a couple of dorms ready.” Burton looks at me. “Thanks for

coming back to town.”

“No problem. I can stay over at the constabulary, but Sandy and Marie have offered to put

me up. More efficient that way.”

Half-Life 24

Burton nods. “I’ve got some floodlights out on the dock, hooked up to the generator if

they arrive in the dark. Otherwise, we just wait, eh?

“In the meantime,” I say, “I’ll run over to the constable’s office and see what shape it’s in.”

I take couple of drinks of my tea, set down the mug, and stand to leave.

“Let us know if you need anything over there,” says Burton.

With that I head for the door. Immediately, the wind sweeps me up, the eternal Roaring

50s wind, curse her, thank God for her. No one is out. There’s little reason to be out. Most of

them long ago ceased their scientific work, so the laboratory buildings are empty. I wind my way

up the road to the district building, with its big metal kettle in front and the TAAF letters on the

side of the building. Hard to think of the place as French in any real sense but a part of the Terres

Australes et Antarctiques Françaises it remains.

Everything here is unlocked, so I push down on the latch and the door swings open.

Bulletins litter a large wooden desk. A veneer of dust covers everything. No lamps, no oil heater,

this office a holdover from the purely electrified era. Another pair of handcuffs, with the key still

in them, hangs on a nail in the wall.

Light slants across the floor from two windows. The electrical generator will kick in soon,

before the Aussies arrive, and then will remain on until 8:30, enough time to heat up the buildings,

use light to read, play some cards, shower, whatever they still do in town these days.

The hallway leading back into the building is dark, catching only a little residual light from

the windows. I pull the ring of keys from a nail and make my way down the hall. It doesn’t lead

far. There are two barred cells, side by side, already open. The only purpose they’ve served over

the last thirty years is to hold the occasional drunk scientist and government agent. Bare cot

frames covered by thin pads jut from the far wall about a foot from the floor. Bare toilets and a

sink.

Half-Life 25

What else? I return to the office. A file cabinet, a trash can, an old calendar from 2017 on

the wall, and a plaque with the inscription from American writer Kim Stanley Robinson, “Below

the 40th latitude there is no law; below the 50th no god; below the 60th no common sense and

below the 70th no intelligence whatsoever"—nothing else. I begin gathering the loose papers and

bulletins on the desk and stacking them in a pile. In the desk drawers is more of the same.

There’s another box of ammunition, some revolver cleaning supplies, oil, a rod, and cloths.

I am not averse to sleeping in one of the cells if need be. I may be able to scrounge another

brazier or oil-burning stove for the office. It is a tight office that will stay warm once heated. I

will miss my cottage and my isolation, but I can bring both Remingtons and make do here. I’ve

already come to the conclusion that I will not be able to make do being so far out of town.

One drawer holds what seem to be scribbled poems, each making a narrow passage down

the middle of the page, one, typed and titled, “To the Old Man at the Edge of the Universe,” with

ten like-shaped stanzas, ten atoms of Boron or leaves of holly, like this one that catches my eye:

Which is worse, tales

of your thundering boots

or a packet of yellowed letters,

stamps from São Tomé, the Maldives,

M33?

And then the end of the poem:

Who has attended you

these last days as you look

Half-Life 26

from your sunroom sick-bed

onto wisteria and a hive of galaxies

dew damp?

We cannot grasp

your slipping the edge

into that remorseless void

from which no one, not even you, can

return.

Please come home.

All might yet be as though

you never left nor ever wanted to.

All might be forgiven but this imperfect

remnant

that we are. May you

rally to make one last trip

while we light lamps on our porches,

waiting, catching our breath for any sign

of you.

I catch myself expelling my breath several times as my pulse picks up. Huh, I think,

someone else just as morose as I, someone considering a big bold nothing. Staring into it. How

Half-Life 27

many words written are never read—or read like this, on chance and whim, a thread of words

meandering toward a reader who is distracted, who has his fever and lesions to contend with, who

is incapable of seeing any distress beyond his own? I return the poem and close the drawer.

In the bottom drawer, covered by years of old notices, is another pistol, this one even

older, a Colt of ancient vintage, a few loose shells—likely a collector’s item of the previous

constable. I place it on the desk and look back in the drawer. Where the Colt had been are four

lavender envelopes lying flat. They must have been slotted upright and had fallen over when I

removed the Colt.

Letters from Toulouse, written in a clear feminine hand, a flowing cursive style with

flourish lines at the ends of many words. His wife, Claire, the name inscribed at the bottom. My

French is imperfect, but it’s clear she misses him. She describes their five-year-old daughter and

how she asks, truly begs, for her father to return home.

He did return, I recall, Herve, one of the first to leave at the Outset. How many wrenching

tales like this are there? How many heartbreaks? I can’t read any more, and I put the letters back.

I continue cleaning, and time gets away from me as the afternoon light subsides.

My reverie is broken by the clap of footsteps approaching the office. This time it is

Stanley.

“Alan,” he yells from outside. Then the door opens. “Ah, good, here you are. Sandy just

got off the radio. The Perth group has rounded Suzanne Point and entered Royal Sound.”

“Then it’s time we move down to the dock,” I say.

I close the door behind us, and we walk quickly along the road. The wind is still ripping at

a ferocious clip.

Stanley turns his head toward me. “Burton has cranked up the infirmary van and one of

the lorries. They are already at the port dock waiting.”

Half-Life 28

“And the floodlights?”

“Yes, set them up myself. The electrical generator is on.”

Stanley feels it, I can tell. This island life is about to change. Something thrilling about

that, something challenging. There’s still a world out there, and these new arrivals are

confirmation of that. It feels like, what? Like reassurance, maybe rejuvenation, I tell myself, a

new start.

Chapter Four

The sky is sun-shot with light streaming over Mont Ross to the west. Mont Crozier and

the sail-shaped Mont Trapèze are streaked with blue-white snow. The wind buffets my face to

tears, so I turn back to the bay, just in time to see the first sail round the point, quickly followed by

two more, long sleek white-hulled 40-60 foot beauties. All three are stripping down their lone

main sails. They’ll jib the last bit and motor in.

Daylight ebbs quickly once the sun drops behind the mountains. Someone has already

flicked on the floodlights and the lights on the dock. The Star of Macao, with its dark port

windows whispering the dark tale of its crew, sits on one side of the T-shaped pier. The infirmary

van stands ready at the head of the dock, exhaust swept away in the wind. Sandy and Marie sit in

the cab. Burton and a few others stand further out on the dock, ready to help with tie-downs. All

the rest loiter, walking into the gaping maw of the port building, well-lit within for the first time

since the Star of Macao incident.

Most don’t know what to do with themselves. They are in and out of the terminal building,

as though waiting on a Christmas parade.

The three sailboats glide silently through the choppy water, a few of the crew visible on the

decks, all dressed in white, a bit spectral, it strikes me.

I walk over to the van, and Marie rolls down her window.

Half-Life 29

“How many litters do you have?”

“Four,” she says. “The last Sandy heard, they will need two people carried off.”

I nod, rap my knuckles against the body of the van and turn back to watch the sailboats.

They steadily close the distance. Burton turns, sees me, and waves me over to him.

When I step alongside Burton, he says, “Okay, we have physical proof. There is still a

world out there, and it has come to us.”

“I’ve never known you to be so reflective,” I tell him. “Yes, I’d say this is proof.” Burton,

inveterate drinker, madman with a flensing knife, telling me in a few words just how alone he

thought we were. Most of our fears and hopes were inward—are inward—only occasionally

surfacing for the notice of others.

“Don’t give me too much credit, Alan. I’m still a bit loaded, I’m afraid.”

The sailboats approach in a file now, their motors inaudible in the wind. More of them

have moved on deck, and they stand silently looking at us. Every one of them wears what appears

to be a white parka and a white cap.

“A bit drunk or not, you have never been more to the point.”

The first boat slips along the bumpers of the dock. The crew does not throw lines. Instead,

crewmen jump from the boat to the dock, hauling a line with them. They immediately wrap the

lines around davits. When the boat is still and stable, they begin tightening the lines, putting on

more turns, securing the vessel.

The same procedure occurs in short order with the second and third boats. Only when all

the boats are tied down does a man from the first vessel leap onto the dock and walk toward us.

He removes the white knit cap that all of them wear—he is bald, his scalp glisteningly

bare—and extends a right hand toward Burton, me, and the others who have gathered just behind

us.

Half-Life 30

Burton shakes the man’s hand. “Welcome to Kerguelen. I’m Burton McTaggard, and this

is our constable, Alan Smith.”

“We are glad to be here and to be among the living, blessed as are we. My name is

Hermes, Hermes Sumner.”

“First, let’s attend to those who need medical care,” said Burton.

“Correct,” the man says. He turns back toward his vessel. “They are being brought up

from below now.” Sure enough, two heavily bundled members of his party are being hoisted up a

ladder and onto the deck.

I turn and signal to Sandy and Marie.

They climb out of the van cab, retrieve the litters from the back, and begin making their

way toward us. Quickly, the two who are bundled are carried onto the dock, each attended by four

crewmates. There, they are placed on the litters, filing right past me. The second litter, with a

young woman’s face peeking out of her blankets, pauses momentarily. Her eyes cross and then

focus on me before she moves on. Hermes Sumner joins the crewmen around each litter, bowing

their heads in silence while Sumner murmurs a few words, laying hands on the two before

crewmen tote the litters to the back of the van, where Marie directs them.

Sumner returns to stand in front of Burton and me.

“We’ve endured a difficult few days, no sleep, severe weather. May we be shown our

quarters, and then tomorrow we can discuss plans for the future.”

The man is direct, I’ll give him that. He glances at the van as it rolls toward the infirmary,

a few hundred meters up the incline.

“Of course,” says Burton. “We were not sure of your total numbers, but we have prepared

two dormitories. Each dorm has two bays and each bay has eight beds separated by partitions.

And we’ve provided each dormitory with hot tea, soup, and bread.”

Half-LifePrologueChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter Four