The Chaos Crystal (69 page)

'Pardon?'

The captain turned back to him. 'I didn't say anything. I — Oh, my God!'

She was looking at the bed. Randy followed the direction of her gaze and found himself looking into two dark eyes, blinking in the sudden light.

'Dim!' he ordered the computer after a moment of stunned inaction, as he realised the lights were causing her pain.

The woman stared up at him, her face resolving into a mask of abject terror.

'Take your helmet off!' the captain ordered softly but urgently, as she began to release the seals on her own suit.

'But the risk of infection
...'

'The woman survived a vacuum, Randy. And we're scaring the shit out of her. Take it off.'

The captain's orders made sense. The Asteroid Girl looked terrified. She was struggling to sit up, but the restraints meant to hold her on the bed in this zero-gee environment were preventing her from moving.

The captain got her helmet off first, let it float away and then gently pushed the girl back onto the bed, talking in a soothing voice. 'There
...
there
...
it's OK, everything is going to be fine
...'

Randy's helmet floated toward the autoclave, bumping into it with a clatter. A glance at the monitors told him her pulse and breath were a little elevated, but nothing about which he should be concerned.

it's OK,' Randy repeated, as she tried to push the captain away. 'You're on a space ship. The mining explorer
Cape Canaveral.
In the Med-Lab. You've been in some sort of accident, but you're safe now. What's your name?'

The woman answered him in a language Randy had never heard before. Her voice was panicked, frightened and trembling. Maybe the Russian cosmonaut scenario wasn't far off the mark.

'What's she saying?' the captain asked.

Randy shrugged, 'I don't know.'

He glanced over at the main computer console, identify language spoken by patient Jane Doe.'

He didn't need to face the console. Like the suits, the lab was miked with ultra-sensitive equipment and could pick up the sound of a dropped needle (assuming there'd been gravity enough to make it fall). But for some reason everyone, ship-wide, turned to look at the nearest console when they wanted to ask the computer something.

'Patient Jane Doe is speaking no language this database can identify,' the computer's very English and irritatingly smug voice replied after a few moments.

'Excellent. She speaks fluent gibberish,' the captain said, still trying to hold the struggling woman down. 'Come on, sweetie, settle down. We're not going to hurt you.'

Something in the captain's tone, if not her words, must have struck a chord with the Asteroid Girl, finally penetrating the panic she must have felt on waking to find herself in this strange place. She slowly relaxed against the pillow, but her gaze still darted nervously from one to the other, like a terrified animal on the brink of flight.

'Can you tell us your name?' Randy asked, as gently as he could. In truth, his heart was hammering excitedly the way hers should have been.

The woman looked at him blankly, not understanding a word he said.

'Randy,' the captain said, pointing to the doctor. And then she pointed to herself. 'Emma.'

She pointed to Arkady with a questioning look. 'You?'

When she got no response, the captain tried a second time. 'Randy. Emma. You?'

The young woman finally seemed to understand. She pointed to Randy and repeated his name. And then she pointed at the captain and said, 'Emma.'

The captain smiled, nodding and then pointed to her again. 'You? What's your name?'

The young woman hesitated for a moment, almost as if she had to stop and think about it. For an instant, Randy had a horrible thought that this beautiful woman might be a complete amnesiac, and they would never discover the truth of how she got here. But then she pushed herself up onto her elbows, almost as if she'd made a decision about something.

She looked around at the lab and then fixed her eyes on Randy. He bent closer to hear her husky voice. She said something inaudible, followed by several words he didn't understand.

And then she repeated the first word. 'I think she's telling me her name,' he said, looking at the captain in wonder. 'And?'

it sounds like
...
I'm not certain
...
I thought she said
...
Issa?'

The Asteroid Girl shook her head violently at his suggestion. He leaned into her again, straining to make out her words and then looked at the captain. 'No, it's something else
...'

He waited until she repeated the name to make certain he had it right and then he smiled at her.

'Arkady,' he said, 'I think she's saying
Arkady.'

EPILOGUE

'Your guest is here, Mr Hawkins.'

Declan flicked off his screen and its stockmarket report and rose to his feet. He hadn't needed the warning. He could feel the presence of another immortal on the Tide. He glanced out over the city through the hotel window. The view from the penthouse suite was spectacular. Or it should have been. In truth, all he could make out were the tops of the buildings poking up out of the smog haze that shrouded Tokyo and made it such an eye-watering place to live. Declan wasn't fond of Tokyo, but it was the most convenient place from which to embark on his upcoming journey, so he didn't have much choice about being here.

The young man who'd delivered the news was a bright young thing, straight out of the London School of Economics. Declan had hired him about six months ago to replace his previous assistant. He never kept any assistant longer than a year or two, and always made sure their next position in AEVITAS (or one of its many subsidiaries) was good enough — and well paid enough — that their lasting feeling towards Deke Hawkins was one of gratitude rather than resentment. It made them less likely to question him about the irregularities in his life.

This latest young man was of Pacific Islander descent, one of the millions of refugees left homeless by the rising sea level. He'd come to Declan's attention after winning a scholarship from one of Deke

Hawkins' many charitable foundations — set up to ease his corporate tax burden and not from any innate nobility of spirit, according to the popular media.

'Show him in, Taine,' Declan ordered. 'And let me know when the jet is ready to take off again.'

'Yes, sir.'

Taine turned for the door and disappeared into the outer room of the suite. A moment later the door opened again and his guest entered, carrying a large, yet unremarkable, square wooden box with an ivory handle set into the top.

The newcomer was dressed in a well-cut suit, with an expensive silk tie. He was wearing a new gold watch that probably cost more than Taine earned each year and genuine leather shoes, which only the most affluent of Earth's citizens could afford these days. His attire was in complete contrast to the last time they'd met
...
and no doubt paid for by me,
Declan reflected.

That's what I get for putting the Immortal Prince
on the payroll.

Cayal crossed the room without a word and placed the box on the glass-topped desk before he turned to Declan, looking a trifle smug.

'Have any trouble?'

Cayal shook his head. 'Not really. Customs got a bit funny when we landed, but Arryl fluttered her eyelashes at them. That helped.'

'Really?' Declan asked, a little sceptically. In his experience, customs officials — regardless of the country or port — weren't so easily diverted.

'Oh
...
and I think you're now putting at least five children with parents in the Japanese Customs Service through private school and probably college, too.'

Declan nodded. A bribe like that seemed much more likely. 'Where's Arryl now?'

'She took a commercial flight to meet Lukys and Coryna in Paris with the legendary "Skull of Doom",'

he said. Cayal liked calling it the 'Skull of Doom'. Every time he uttered the phrase, he grinned.

Declan nodded but didn't return his smile. Cayal might be having fun with the idea of wreaking some long overdue vengeance on Lukys for the destruction of Amyrantha, but they didn't have time to relish the prospect just yet. 'We don't have long before Lukys discovers it's a fake.'

Cayal nodded in agreement. 'I'm ready when you are, Rodent.'

Declan glanced at the box. 'Did you check —?'

'That this one is the genuine Chaos Crystal? No, of course I didn't check. I thought we'd waste all this effort for a bit of a lark.'

Declan wasn't amused. He glared at Cayal, letting his silence speak for him.

The Immortal Prince grinned, and punched Declan lightly on the shoulder. 'Lighten up, Rodent. If you don't believe me, open the box. It'll suck the Tide right out of you.'

Declan wanted to open the box. Desperately. But he suspected that if he did, the tenuous trust he'd developed with Cayal since Paris would be destroyed. Besides, there was no way Arryl was currently on her way to Lukys with the real thing. Like Declan and Cayal, she still mourned the loss of Amyrantha and was quite determined not to let the same fate befall their new home on Earth. A second, secret meeting between the three of them, a few days after Lukys' announcement that it was time to leave Earth, had brought them to this moment and this dangerous subterfuge.

There might come a time, Declan knew, when he could look back at the trail of dead worlds he'd left in his wake, but that time hadn't come yet. Not for him, nor Arryl, nor — somewhat to his surprise — for Cayal, either.

'Tides. Just open the damn thing,' Cayal said, shaking his head, 'I won't be offended.'

Declan needed no further encouragement. He opened the catches on the front of the antique box and lifted the lid. Although the box was deliberately plain on the outside, the inside was lined with pure gold. In it sat the Chaos Crystal. Much to his relief, the skull looked exactly as it had when Declan found it in the 1880s in the collection of a French antiquities dealer named Eugene Boban. Declan had bought the Chaos Crystal from him for a few hundred francs, and then commissioned the less-than-reputable Frenchman to make several other copies in the hope of confusing anybody looking for the real thing — something quite easy to fake when the Tide was out. He'd then hidden the real one and all but forgotten about it
...
until the Tide had turned.

The Tides here on Earth were different to Amyrantha, their rise and fall much slower, and yet much more devastating. The King Tide that had allowed them to leave — and destroy — Amyrantha, had risen in a matter of months, which oddly enough, limited the damage it could do (providing the Chaos Crystal remained dormant). This King Tide, the one now consuming Earth, had been building slowly for more than a hundred years. No place on Earth was immune to its effects any longer, although nobody but a handful of immortals knew the truth about what was happening.

As he opened the box, it filled with an angry red light. Declan could feel the Tide draining from him as if the air was being sucked out of the room. The world, brought into sharper focus by the rising power of the Tide, was suddenly muted and dull.

There was no question that this was the Chaos Crystal.

'Satisfied?'

Declan nodded, and closed the lid. As soon as the gold shielding encased it once more, the Crystal's Tide- deadening effect vanished and the Tide came rushing back, a thrill Declan was hard-pressed to contain.

'We'll take the jet from here,' he said, locking the box again, 'I have a chopper standing by on Guam to take us the rest of the way.' He studied Cayal for a moment, still wondering if his willingness to help in this enterprise was genuine. 'Are you sure about this, Cayal?'

'Yes.'

'Lukys is going to be very angry with us.'

Cayal shrugged, unconcerned. 'Only if we tell him what we did.'

That was actually a fair point. Declan nodded and reached for the box.

it's okay,' Cayal said. 'I've got it.'

Declan shrugged, if you want.'

Cayal lifted the box from the desk and turned to Declan. 'Let's do this, Rodent,' he said, 'before I change my mind.'

The helicopter took off from Guam as the sun was rising. The island fell away behind them quickly as they headed south, the weather clear, the sky a cobalt blue — a shade rarely seen anywhere other than the tropics. Declan piloted the craft himself, having learned long ago that it was easier, sometimes, to do things for oneself, rather than rely on other people. Besides, as an eccentric trillionaire known to have a preference for flying himself from place to place, it was a convenient way to disappear when the time came to kill off 'Deke Hawkins', something he would have to do eventually. Perhaps sooner, rather than later, now the other immortals had discovered who he was.

'How far is it?' Cayal asked, the precious box on the floor between his feet.

'A couple of hundred miles.'

'And it's the deepest place on Earth, right?'

'So they claim.'

Cayal fell silent after that and they flew on, heading for the Mariana Trench and the Challenger Deep. As