Extinction (35 page)

Then the leash snapped them back to more or less upright, the first wave passing, everything apparently still in place. Carl heard a tremendous groan. He imagined a massive section of metal shearing away from their ark’s side as water fought bolts, dooming them.

“It’s okay,” said an older man in jeans, maybe fifty-five, with a midnight-black beard. “It’s okay, we’re still — ”

As the ship rolled back to center, they leered back in the other direction, now on the secondary wave’s downside, the metal sides of the freighter sounding like they were raking lines in the concrete.
Weren’t there bumpers out there?
Carl thought it crazily as the man with the beard quit yammering, his eyes like saucers of milk with chocolate drops in the middle.
 

The second wave hit, this one cresting instead of rising. It caught them in its surfer’s sweet spot, and for long moments as women screamed and men screamed like women, Carl was certain they’d somehow ended up underwater. This was it. This was the flood, and it had happened in half a minute. The water had risen two hundred feet, and here they were, lassoed to the bottom in an undersea prison.
 

But then the water rolled over the top and the ship swayed and jerked just as hard, toppling the few people fool enough to try and stand between volleys. They were still on the surface.
 

But a quick glimpse — all Carl could manage as the horizon dipped and dove, as his footing and stomach lurched in tandem — proved the other docks gone, like the marina they’d seen farther down, and all of the land, everywhere.
 

The freighter was leaning into the next wave, no longer upright between swells. The ropes were still in place, holding them taut to a pier that was now underwater. They were on their side, about to be swamped.
 

The people around him were skidding on the slanted wet floor, clinging to whatever they could as the ship struggled to right itself, fighting its moorings.
 

“We need to get lower,” Lawrence said. “We’re still — ”

The long, low, tortured sound of bending metal grew from the ship’s side like a machine winding up. Lawrence stopped his lips, looking at Carl. Carl wanted to shout at him but saw the next wave coming and gestured in a way that was supposed to mean
Hang the fuck on or die
. He opened his mouth to shout in case none of them saw the approaching wall of water, as they
leaned right into it
, but then it came and the sound of metal crested and popped like a thousand shotguns blasting in tandem. A fresh shudder ran through the floor and walls and the handles under Carl’s fist, then the ship lurched in one violent arc to the opposite side, now rolling with the water. Then the roll arrested, and Carl realized that only one of the lines or cleats must have busted and the other was still there. The wave, instead of rolling, swung them hard, wrenching and grating as the ship’s bottom struck God knew what underwater that had so recently been above it, the whole works canting, stuttering and digging for purchase.

As they settled with the bow 30 degrees into the wave, with the horizon 30 degrees from normal ahead, water came like a dam breaking, and the front windows finally
did
crack and shatter from their seals at the sides and corners. Water flowed in like a fire hose, and the floor became a skating rink, filling from the bottom, flooding trapped in by the watertight doors, the whole thing like unfunny slapstick as they fell and half swam and coughed and gagged and fought for air as it filled with spray.
 

With a lurch, the final mooring gave way. There was another tremendous racket, and after freeing its bonds the freighter bobbed upward like a cork held underwater, overcorrecting and tossing them all from their feet and scrambling knees in a half second of weightlessness.
 

Another great splash of water.
 

Another great lurch, and then another. Carl found his feet between them and was tossed down hard, on the meaty side of his right leg, muscle striking something on the deck, mashing between floor and meat with the force of a bullet.
 

More water. More bobbing. More tossed horizon, and in the chaos Carl heard someone vomiting.
 

Then another wave, smaller this time.
 

Another lurch.
 

But the worst was over, and the rest was ending. If their violent departure from the pier had put a hole in their side, it was a slow one. They seemed not upright and level, the chaotic rising sea now more like the surf in a small storm.
 

After a few more minutes of tossing, the world seemed to still, and Carl lifted his head from crossed arms, his face wet and dripping, clothes soaked. He found his feet, smarting at whatever blunt protrusion had slammed into his thigh. He looked down, found his pants still in one piece, no blood apparent. But it hurt like a beaten whore, and he was going to have a motherfucker of a bruise.
 

But to be alive? That was something.
 

Carl stood. Slowly, the others around him — battered and shocked, but seemingly unhurt — stood to join him.
 

They looked toward what used to be the shore.
 

But as far as Carl could see on what he thought must be the northern horizon, South Africa was gone. Floating debris was the only thing left. Other freighters had come untethered and floated around them like a child’s game of Battleship.

The man who’d shouted when it started pointed through the window and yelled,
“Look!”
 

Carl did, along with the others. They saw battered-but-alive people on the nearest ship, and the one a bit farther on. There were many boats between their freighter and the large thing in the far distance that had to be the Astral vessel, safely off and upright, and on each, Carl saw survivors who’d thought ahead. Or who’d got lucky.
 

Then he heard a buzzing.
 

A crackle of electricity.
 

And a small explosion, followed by screams.
 

They ran to the far side of the bridge, toward the sounds, and again Carl struck a console and felt that same blunt pain wallop his bruising thigh. He winced but didn’t feel it for long; his attention was stolen as they all watched a shuttle settle over another of the surviving ships.
 

An energy blast.
 

A rain of twisted metal.

And then the shuttle moved on to pick off its next target.

They watched as one by one, shuttles cleared the world of unauthorized survivors.
 

Carl couldn’t speak, could only watch it happen. His hand rubbed his chin. His fingers clutched unknown controls on the unpowered freighter’s panel. He touched his leg where it hurt.
 

There was something in his loose pants pocket. Something big that explained why it had hurt so much when he’d hit the deck. Whatever was in there had slammed hard into his leg.

The shuttles, now moving systematically across the lawn of survivors in a coordinated group, picked off more. And more. And more.
 

Then two of them turned to the freighter. Came closer. And closer. The shuttle’s humming engines set Carl’s neck hairs on end. They all watched as the things came to them broadside, hovering, electricity in the air, charging their weapons.
 

Carl’s hand touched the object in his pocket. It was like a ping-pong ball but harder — smooth and almost powdery, like fine brushed aluminum. He pulled it out and saw it was the ball the man had given him — the strange magician who’d told Carl not to try the cutthroat, but to survive another way.
 

Carl looked at the shuttles. Felt the gathering charge. Waited for death.
 

The ball warmed in his hand.
 

The shuttles seemed to power down, then made small, searching circles in the air.

The shuttles moved away.

And went about clearing the rest of the surviving ships, leaving their freighter alone.
 

CHAPTER 42

Between the blonde and Sadeem was a sort of projection he’d never seen. The closest was something one of the Mullah Elders had shown him after too much wine: an artifact said to have been left behind by the Horsemen —something that would, if you touched it, pull you into a sensory-immersive memory. This effect was similar but more distant. Sadeem, watching the scenes, didn’t just see the world rendered in three dimensions like a hologram. It was more like he’d been there.
 

Or maybe that was simple human empathy. Watching the ships capsize in Hanging Pillars and then seeing the sharks take the swimmers had sickened his stomach as accurately as if he’d witnessed the blood firsthand. And that fit because he’d see it firsthand forever, in his dreams.
 

The projection ended. A soft blue circle of light appeared in the center of the all-white floor. It faded slowly, then the room was again featureless, disorienting as a stroll through nothing.
 

Eternity turned toward Sadeem. “It is done.”

“How long will the flooding last?”
 

“In the past the cleansing phase has lasted forty days.”
 

“And forty nights?”
 

Eternity looked at him as if he were an idiot.

“And then you will leave.”
 

The woman nodded.
 

“Why?”
 

“Because it is not our purpose to be humanity’s stewards. You will be granted another epoch, and when you feel you are ready, we shall return.”

Sadeem wanted to press on and ask more but got the impression that there would be time for that before the Astrals left Earth alone to try again — apparently forty days and nights to ask Eternity questions. Seemed that some facts and figures could indeed survive a few thousand years of telephone without distortion.
 

“So now we wait.”
 

“The cleansing will continue. But yes. You will wait.”
 

“Continue?”
 

Sadeem waited for the woman’s curious gaze to depart. She knew he was Mullah and might be able to read his mind, but Sadeem wasn’t a Temple Elder. Perhaps the scrolls had survived somewhere — hell, maybe the Astrals even had their own copy from the last intergalactic contract-signing. But Sadeem wasn’t senior enough to have read them. He didn’t know all she was assuming, and wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to.

“The human population remains excessive. We estimate your race still numbers in the hundreds of millions.”

“It used to be in the billions.”
 

Eternity was unfazed. “The cleansing is not complete until the proper seed number has been achieved. Your species requires a diverse gene pool for a new epoch, but not one so broad-branching that it introduces variables we cannot control for.”
 

Sadeem wasn’t entirely sure what that meant.

“Optimal target population is an order of magnitude less than is current.”
 

“You’re going to reduce us to
tens of millions?
You’re going to kill
another 90 percent?”
 

The woman ignored him. It wasn’t an air of blatant snubbing — more that she seemed to feel this was unworthy of discussion. A bit of 101-level information obvious to even the dumbest person accustomed to apocalyptic resets.
 

“The Mullah will remain our contacts. You will be the first Elder.”
 

“I’m not an Elder.”
 

“You are now. The location of your previous portal is submerged, and the connection to the old portal has been severed. There has been no contact from those whose energy we have experienced before. We believe they have perished. We will help you establish a new portal once the waters recede and will shuttle your tribe’s remainders to the new location, for you to lead.”

“You
killed off the other Elders?”
The thought was chilling. Sadeem was a respected man in the Mullah order — knowledgeable for sure, a thought-leader without question. It was Sadeem who’d argued most vehemently that the Lightborn were worthy of exploration; Sadeem who, when an unexpected opportunity had presented itself to study one, had jumped at the chance. Clara’s visit to the Mullah and all he’d learned about the children’s unique position in the mental order had happened almost as if by divine providence, and Sadeem had been looking forward to reporting his findings to the Elders. There were many to tell. He was three broad levels from the top as far as he knew, and it was possible there were levels above about which he knew nothing.
 

But now Eternity was saying they were all gone?
All
of the Elders — enough to leave
Sadeem
at the top? Was this how the Astrals treated those who they’d tapped as partners?

“It was unavoidable,” Eternity said. “Any intercession to guide your senior individuals to safety would have compromised the larger plan. Your order did not feel the call to reach a capital, or chose not to heed it. Yet one more example of the failure of this epoch’s interconnectedness.”