The Dark Shore (Atlanteans) (18 page)

He was tall and lean, with scattered curly black hair and stony features. He wore small, round glasses, and had a short beard. His skin was bronzed, red on his nose. There were dark patches of overexposure by his scalp, on his ear. He wore a collared shirt that might have once been white, jeans, and work boots that were unlaced. He looked like someone who’d spent his youth in libraries and classrooms, and the second half of his life hard at work outside, but also like a time traveler from an age before being outside had been dangerous.

“Hi,” I said.

“We’re glad to see that you made it here in one piece,” said Arlo. “It sounds like you’ve had quite a few days.”

“Yeah,” I said.

Arlo looked at Lilly and Leech. “We’ll get them taken care of.” He called over his shoulder, “Serena! We need the medics!”

“Got it.” A young woman with short hair and a black robelike shirt and pants hurried up the gangway to the ship.

I got to my feet, my legs aching and threatening to buckle underneath me.

“Here.” Arlo grabbed my arm and helped me step out.

“Thanks.” He reached for our bags and I saw that he had an intricate tattoo across the back of his neck. It looked like a bird. Its face was square and menacing.

Cloudy dawn light was beginning to reflect on the buildings. I saw now that there were decorations hung on the sides of many of the structures, metal sculptures that looked like square, angry faces with hooked noses. One was a giant version of that bird on Arlo’s tattoo. It looked like a vulture, and was perched on top of a church steeple, its rectangular wings outstretched, as if to signify that this was Heliad’s domain.

“That’s Chaac,” said Arlo, following my gaze, “our guardian spirit.”

Serena returned with three others, a woman and two men. They wore black uniforms with red bands around their left arms.

“What happened to them?” Serena asked. Two of the medics were lifting Lilly and placing her on a stretcher. The other helped Leech stand.

“We’re all dehydrated,” I said, “probably Rad poisoning, too. Leech got hit with shrapnel during our escape. Lilly was attacked with a curare neurotoxin, but we got her to vomit it out.”

“Curare? There’s sure to be some residual amount in her bloodstream,” said Serena. She looked me over, and produced a metal tube, squeezing a bright blue jelly onto her palm. “This will help your Rad burns.” She dabbed it gently on. “We can do more after you rest.”

“Look at her neck,” said one of the medics, lifting Lilly’s chin.

“Those are her gills,” I said.

Glances flickered around the group. “Gills?” Arlo asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s part of what happened to us, in Eden.”

A voice spoke from nearby. “Don’t worry, Serena. We were expecting it.”

Arlo looked to the gangway and then straightened and shouted, “All Witness the Benevolent Mother!”

She was slim, tall, wearing a long black coat over a LoRad pullover, jeans and high black boots. She had mostly gray hair with streaks of coal. She walked briskly and yet looked, at first glance, more like someone from EdenCorp or Hub’s governing council than the leader of a religion.

“Owen, I’m Victoria Keller.” She stopped in front of me and stuck out her hand. We shook, her skin cool, her hand bony but not at all frail. “It’s an honor to meet you,” she said. “I have heard a lot about you.”

“Hi,” I said. “Thanks for saving us, back there.”

“The least we could do.” She smiled, looking me over, and I remembered something Dr. Maria had said back in Eden, up on the cliffs: Keller was as crazy as Paul. . . .

Yet, unlike Paul, Victoria’s hazel eyes were lively and bright. Her gaze was intense, too, like if she was looking at you, it was for a reason. “I am so sorry about your encounter in Gambler’s Falls. Those traitors that tried to turn you in to Eden . . .” Victoria sighed to the sky. “Thinking about them really upsets me. You must know, we just had no idea what they were up to.”

“Okay,” I replied, not knowing what else to say.

“Anyway, I’m glad we were able to help yesterday. Did you like our version of lightning rains?”

“What was that?”

“Power of Tona,” she said. “Actually, it comes from high-altitude attack drones. We bought them from the People’s Corporation of China. Normally I wouldn’t tell someone that. As far as my people are concerned, it’s part of the magic of Heliad, though I think they know the truth on some level, and yet still find my explanation more enjoyable. But you and I are going to need to talk frankly about a good number of things, so best to start now.”

“Should we bring them to the infirmary?” Serena asked Victoria.

“Right away,” said Victoria. “Owen, you can board with me, if you’d like. Ready?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll take your bags to your quarters,” said Arlo.

“What’s going to happen to this?” I pointed to the craft.

“We’ll load it onto the deck,” said Victoria. “Arlo, see to that, will you?”

“Of course.”

“Excellent. Spread the word that we’ll be departing as soon as possible.” She started back toward the gangway. “We’re not expecting Paul to try another attack right away, but I’d like to keep moving in order to minimize our exposure.”

I followed Victoria toward the gangway, passing between two lines of people. On my left was the supply line. A steady stream of items were being unloaded from the hull of the ship: crates of bananas and long bean pods, and two cages with hulking black animals inside that I figured were the tapir that Harvey and Lucinda had talked about. On my right was a line of people with bags over their shoulders or beside them.

The man in front stepped up to a small table where two more black-robed women sat. He held out his right hand, placing it on the table. I noticed it was shaking. There was a small device, a narrow rectangle with a large razor blade at the top, and a half circle depression at its base. The man slid his pinkie into the depression.

The medic reached around and buckled a strap over his wrist. “Ready?”

The man nodded.

The medic placed her hand atop the device, then slammed down. There was a sick crunching sound. The second medic took the severed pinkie in a white cloth, then leaned in and cauterized the wound with a small, gun-shaped torch.

The strap was unbuckled and the first woman taped a bandage over the stump of finger. “Live bright,” she said kindly. The man nodded and moved on up the gangway, breathing fast. The next person in line, a woman, clutching herself by the elbows, stepped nervously forward.

I turned, feeling woozy, and found that Victoria had stopped just short of the gangway. She took no notice of the finger removals but was instead facing the supply line.

“Is this her?” Victoria asked.

A girl was approaching. Two men escorted her, each with a hand on a shoulder. They nodded.

“You’re Aralene.” Victoria’s voice became soft, motherly.

The girl stared into space. Her wrists were bound with a white cloth. She was skinny, her face hollow. She wore a tattered LoRad pullover and jeans, her hair greasy and matted. She was too thin, bony angles beneath her clothes. She had deep black circles under her eyes, a purple bruise across her cheek. And to either side of the white bandage on her wrists I could see black, scabbed-over lines. Cuts. I heard her mumbling to herself: “I will be the magic, the divine inside me, I am the divine, I am . . .”

“Aralene,” Victoria said again.

The girl stopped speaking. Her eyes slowly tracked up to Victoria.

“Hello, young lady.”

“Hi,” said Aralene, mouse quiet.

Victoria reached out and put two fingers against her forehead. “There’s nothing more to fear,” she said. “You’re with Heliad now. We’ll help you to live bright. No more darkness.”

Aralene nodded, like she was convincing herself. “The divine inside me.”

“Yes,” said Victoria. “The divine inside you. It’s still there. We’re going to set you free.”

Aralene smiled, but then her mouth scrunched and her eyes broke, tears spilling out. She whispered, “Thank you.”

Victoria took the dirty, frail girl and embraced her, rubbing the back of her head. Then she stepped away and held her at arm’s length. “Live bright,” she said.

Aralene nodded again. “Live bright.” She turned and continued into the lower deck of the ship, resuming her chant. “I am the magic, I have the divine inside me . . .”

Victoria turned to me. “It’s a hard time to live in the world,” she said as we started up the gangway.

“Did she try to kill herself?” I asked.

“Yes.” Victoria glanced out at Houston. “I feel compelled to help. I began my career in psychiatry in the ACF back in the fifties. Did you know that, pre-Rise, in the good old days of prosperity, the rate of suicides in the world was around one in ten thousand people? And for every one, there were another ten who attempted it. That might not sound like a lot until you remember that back then there were ten billion people. That’s more than a million suicides, and more than ten million attempts. Those rates actually went down during the Rise, as people’s survival instincts kicked in, but now, in the aftermath, it’s much higher. Some estimates are one in two thousand. But you know as well as I do: There’s not a lot of hope out there, is there?”

“No.” I remembered suicides at Hub. Cave fever was what we called it. People couldn’t take the constant dark, the fear, the sense that things were never going to get better.

“It’s nice of you to take that girl in, to treat her,” I said.

Victoria glanced at me. “We’ll see what you think when we get to Desenna. But I will say this: I don’t know what you may have heard about Heliad-Seven, but we have far lower rates of clinical depression and mental illness than any other citizenry on this tattered planet. People like poor Aralene there, they come to us for help. It’s the least we can do.”

“Oh,” I said. “People up north say things, I guess.”

“I’ve heard. Death cult, cannibalism, all kinds of things. But I assure you, while we are a unique society, we’re nothing like those savage portrayals. At the end of the day, we’re simply a people trying to find the best way to live given the circumstances around us. Not that much different from any other religion, really.”

It sounded sensible. Victoria certainly didn’t seem like the crazed leader of a death cult. “The hung-up bodies are pretty gruesome,” I noted.

“Certainly,” said Victoria. “That’s the point. One thing I’ve learned is that, though we may not really be violent and scary, it is sometimes beneficial to
appear
as if we are, in order to keep our people and resources safe.”

We reached the wide main deck. There was a raised aft section, where the control consoles were positioned under a silver canopy. I saw Leech and Lilly being taken downstairs to the lower deck. Victoria led me to the bow, where we leaned on a metal railing. I noticed that she still had both her pinkies.

Down on the dock, Arlo and two other men were attaching ropes to my craft. A crane began lifting it.

I heard a strange high-pitched call and watched a gray-and-white bird glide by, past the docks and over the heaps of broken wood and debris on the beach. It landed there with others.

“That’s a seagull,” said Victoria. “One of nature’s heartiest birds. None of our destructive ways could harm them.”

I looked out in front of the ship, at the gray sea rolling slowly. I felt disoriented just looking at it, seeing such a wide area move in such a way. I saw, too, that the water was murky, almost rubber looking, its surface a rainbow swirl of oil and chemicals. An infected ocean. The sky had lightened enough that I thought the sun must be up, and yet the horizon was still a misty blur of blues, grays, and whites. I could feel the moisture all around me, almost like tiny fingers holding me up.

“Your first time seeing the sea, I take it?” asked Victoria.

“Yeah,” I said.

“It used to be a source of great poetry,” she said, “but when it rose up and swallowed the coasts like some unthinking monster, people learned to fear it. I still think it’s beautiful.”

“Last call to board!” Arlo called below. There was a thud as my craft landed on the deck behind us.

“That’s quite a machine,” said Victoria. “I’ve only ever seen the etchings of Atlantean airships that we found in EdenNorth. It is amazing. That antigravity engine is technology that we can’t even comprehend, and yet it predates everything we know.”

“You’ve been to EdenNorth?” I asked.

“Of course,” said Victoria. “You may already know that back before I was the Benevolent Mother, I was director of EdenSouth. Paul’s equivalent. Well, I should say I had the same position as Paul. I do not wish to be considered similar to him in any other way.”

“That’s good,” I said, but the idea still made me nervous.

“Don’t worry, Owen,” said Victoria. “I’m not working with Eden. They’d love nothing more than to take me down. But more important, I’m nothing like them. We’ll have more time to discuss this once we get back to Desenna, but you should know that it is my number one goal to see that Paul and his Project Elysium do not succeed. So you can rest easy.” She patted my back. “I need to go see to things as we depart. When you want to go to your quarters, ask anyone to fetch Arlo.”