Author: 唇亡齿寒 / Lips Gone, Teeth Cold
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 84
Fourteen-year-old Joshua, carrying an iron cage, crossed a garden blooming with begonias and jasmine flowers and plunged into the woods behind it. Untrimmed branches snagged his sleeves, and as he turned to free himself, something caught in his hair. This annoyed him. He really shouldn’t have followed Kester’s example by growing his hair long like a little girl, having to tend to it all the time.
Once he finally freed himself from the branches, the little creature in the iron cage had already started squeaking impatiently. “Shut up,” Joshua threatened, completely disregarding whether the squirrel understood him or not.
About two weeks earlier, he had found this squirrel on the hillside behind the house when the poor thing was caught by a malfunctioning patrol robot that mistook it for an “intruder”. In its struggle, the squirrel had unfortunately broken its leg—a major tragedy. Fortunately, Joshua was drawn by the noise of the malfunctioning robot and managed to save it just in time.
Joshua had always been interested in medicine (a stark contrast to Kester’s interests), and he had interned in Euclid’s laboratory last year. If it weren’t for the rule that one had to be sixteen to qualify for a medical license, he would have signed up for the exam immediately. Damn the rules!
However, this didn’t stop him from bringing home a model human body for dissection and, during dinner, bathing under Kester’s horrified gaze while showing him how beautiful the human hyoid bone was. “If you were my sister instead of my brother, I’d make you a hairpin,” he said.
“My God, my brother is turning into a mad scientist!” Kester stuck out his tongue and made a face.
Even with his medical knowledge, treating a live squirrel was a first for Joshua. He had to soothe the frantic little creature while setting its splint, enduring Kester’s ridicule for the gruesomeness of the procedure.
Of course, the outcome was excellent. The squirrel quickly recovered, bouncing around the cage, eager to return to nature. So, that morning, Joshua carried the cage to the spot on the hillside where he had found the injured squirrel. He looked around to make sure there were no malfunctioning robots nearby, then placed the cage on the ground and opened the door.
The squirrel couldn’t wait to bolt out of the cage and onto the grass.
“Go on, get out of here.” Joshua gestured to shoo it away. “Don’t get caught again. Go.”
The squirrel circled his ankles a few times, sniffed the air, remembering his scent, then darted up a tree. Soon, its bushy tail disappeared into the dense foliage.
Joshua picked up the empty cage and headed home. As he entered, he smelled breakfast cooking. His brother Kester was yawning and spreading butter on bread. He had only returned home early that morning, resting just a few hours. His fatigue was evident from the dark circles under his eyes. Normally, he could sleep until noon (letting Joshua, who had destroyed countless microwaves, starve), but not today. Today was special.
“Did you let that little guy go?” Kester asked.
“Yeah.” Joshua tossed the cage in the entryway, sat down at the dining table, and began to enjoy his breakfast. Today’s breakfast was neither too lavish nor too sparse, just like every other breakfast they had, with no difference. Kester seemed to imply that the days ahead would be no different from the past. Joshua thought otherwise.
Throughout breakfast, he didn’t say a word to Kester and just buried his head and ate. Occasionally, he felt a heavy gaze on him that made it hard to breathe, but when he looked up at its owner, the pressure mysteriously vanished.
Kester quickly averted his gaze, pretending he hadn’t been staring continuously.
Joshua snorted through his nose. What’s he being shy about? He wondered. This might be their last meeting. Couldn’t they say goodbye like normal people? His brother excelled in many areas but was terribly inept at handling emotional matters. At times like this, Joshua wished Kester weren’t the universally acclaimed scientist but just an ordinary older brother.
After breakfast, Kester cleaned up, grabbed his already packed luggage, and gestured to Joshua. The young man silently followed him. They stood at the front door for about a minute, then heard a car horn from behind the woods.
“Let’s go. Charles is here to pick us up.”
A ground car was parked on the road behind the woods. Charles Titian, chewing gum, poked his head out the window to wave at them. “Hi, Kester!”
“Good morning, Charles.” Kester put the luggage in the trunk and pulled Joshua into the car. Charles started the engine, and the car screamed in agony as it sped down the mountain road.
“You two really are calm,” Charles said. “You don’t look like brothers about to part ways, but more like strangers who just happened to share a car.”
“Mind your own business,” Joshua retorted.
Kester tapped his head. “I believe ‘manners’ are something that never changes, whether on Earth or in the colony.”
Joshua turned his head to look out the window.
Charles smirked. “It’s okay. I’m used to it. I was the same at his age, like the whole world owed me money.” He sharply turned the steering wheel. If it were not for the locked doors, the two in the back would have been thrown out. “I’m saying, Kester, are you really unwilling to go with us?”
Joshua saw Kester’s eyes flicker in the rearview mirror.
“Yes,” the young scientist answered. “I still have important research unfinished, and I can’t bring the equipment on the ship, so I have to stay.”
“God, Kester. Where and when you do your research doesn’t matter. Does it have to be here? You could come to space with us, and once we reach the colony, you can rebuild your lab and continue your damn project.”
“That’s years away! What if someone takes the achievements that should have been mine in the meantime!” Kester laughed after saying this. Charles laughed along. They both knew Kester wasn’t telling the truth. Even if he made any groundbreaking discoveries, the people in the colony wouldn’t know because no one would be there to pass on the message. Once the rest left Earth on the Dante, Earth would be truly isolated in the universe. Those left behind were like ancient people from hundreds or thousands of years ago, calling into the cosmos without any reply.
The car soon reached the temporary spaceport. This port, built temporarily to transport migrants, had only one docking berth, where two ships previously from the lunar spaceport had docked, and now the Dante was parked there. The Dante’s specifications were inferior to the previous two ships, and it was terribly slow. It would reach the colony about a thousand years later than its sister ships.
A thousand years! Joshua could hardly believe the number! Though a thousand years was just a moment in cosmic time, for humans, it was an unimaginably long period. By the time he reached the colony, he would be an “ancient”. By then, where would Kester be? Wouldn’t Kester have long…
Charles parked the car in the public parking lot. The spaceport was unusually busy, with about four hundred fifty people set to leave on the Dante, while less than twenty, all scientists following Kester, would stay on Old Earth to continue their research. Now, these people gathered at the temporary spaceport, representing all that was left of humanity on Old Earth. Soon, when the Dante departed, Earth would become unprecedentedly deserted—all cities abandoned, all settlements deserted. Only the labs would keep their lights on all night, illuminating the Earth’s eternal night sky.
Kester dragged his luggage from the trunk and waved to Joshua. “Let’s go.”
Joshua leaned against the car door, staring at the massive Dante and the ant-like crowd below it. He turned back to see Kester’s silver hair disheveled by the morning chill. The brothers looked extremely similar, both with silver hair and black eyes, although Joshua’s pupils were ringed with gold.
“What’s wrong, Joshua?” Kester said, “Come on, I’ll take you to the elevator. Giorgione is waiting for you there.”
“Kester, are you really not coming with us?” Joshua asked.
He had asked this question countless times, and Kester had patiently answered just as many times, always the same, and this time was no exception.
“I’m staying.”
Joshua suddenly felt his eyes dry. “Then… can I stay as well?”
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