The Face of Earth (29 page)

“Yes. I do apologize. We’ll leave as soon as we’re able, I promise,” Nanot sincerely replied.

Megg folded her arms across her chest. “We’ll land and help determine your problem,” she told him.

“I appreciate your assistance,” Nanot answered, inclining his head at her. The minute she signed off, Nanot turned to his pilot. “Mayla, run some checks to determine why the engines failed.”

“Yes, sir.” Mayla scanned the affected systems for discrepancies. She had an answer within moments. “Sir, someone has accessed the main drive system and shut it down.”

“Who?” Nanot asked, seething at the thought that it had been sabotage.

Mayla ran another check. “The command came from the guest quarters. A console was compromised and the system hacked. There was an attempt to hide the origination of the command, but it failed.”

“Kevin,” Nanot growled. “Is he still in his room?” he asked Mayla.

“Yes, sir,” she replied.

“Lock it down,” he ordered.

“Yes, sir.” Mayla initiated a lockdown for all guest quarters and Kevin was sealed in his room. The comm chirped. “Sir, the Stelairian wishes to connect with us.”

“Go ahead,” Nanot said. Mayla connected the call to the viewscreen. The Stelairian woman appeared on the screen.

“We’ve landed,” she informed him.

“Thank you,” Nanot replied, “but we’ve already discovered the problem with our drive.”

“What is it?” the woman asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Sabotage,” Nanot said. “We took aboard an Earthling before we knew that Earth belonged to the Stelairians, and he was the one who shut down our engines.”

Megg’s face showed surprise. “Only one? There were three empty pods.”

“The other two Earthlings died,” Nanot told her.

Megg looked confused. “What about the female Earthling? I saw her on Yalsa.”

Now Nanot was confused. “The three Earthlings from the pods were men. There were no women.” Then he suddenly realized that it was an Earthling that Tresar and Flavoi had taken from the site. It must have been the rude woman in Flavoi’s lap. He searched his memory, trying to remember if she had spoken. She hadn’t. She must be the other Earthling the Stelairian was talking about.

Megg changed the subject, waving away the concern about Earthlings with a gesture. “Do you need help repairing your drive or can you do it yourself?” she asked.

“We can handle it,” Nanot replied. “What about the Earthling? Shall we return him to Earth or give him to you?” He hoped there would be monetary recompense for the Earthling, but he couldn’t ask outright. That would be considered rude.

“The Earthling can never return to Earth. Earth has been purged of all former life and seeded with new life, and I will not allow the old DNA to pollute the new DNA. You can keep the Earthling if you like, but you must take him away from here forever. We will remain here until your ship is repaired, and then we will escort you out of the system.”

The finality in Megg’s voice told Nanot that the conversation was over. He inclined his head at Megg in respect and disconnected, hiding his disappointment. “Reconnect the helm control to the engines,” he ordered Mayla, “but first shut down all the consoles in the guest quarters.” He didn’t want Kevin messing with his ship anymore. “I’m going to go have a word with the Earthling,” he informed Mayla, “I’ll be back in a little while.”

“Yes, sir,” Mayla replied as she worked on reconnecting the drive.

Nanot strode toward the guest quarters, livid that the Earthling had the gall to rebel against his rescuers. When he reached Kevin’s room, he input a release code into the keypad next to the door, opening it.

Kevin looked up from his pacing. He had been excited about successfully shutting down the drive, knowing that by the time they fixed the problem he would be back on board with his loot, but then he discovered that he was locked in his room.

The captain’s face was blue with anger as he confronted Kevin. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

Kevin decided to come clean, realizing that without help, he wouldn’t get his jewels back. He sat on the bed. “I just wanted enough time to go back to my building and retrieve some goods,” he replied.

“I told you we didn’t need any of that stuff,” Nanot retorted.

“No, not the technology. Jewels,” Kevin said.

Nanot exhaled, greed replacing his anger. “Jewels?” he questioned, suddenly interested.

“Yes. My office door is hidden behind a wall in the foyer, and I have a safe full of jewels in there. At least,” he added, “they should be in there, since my son hid the location of the office before he cryogenically froze himself.”

Nanot rubbed his chin thoughtfully. There might be a way to make money off the alien after all. “So you sabotaged the ship because you didn’t want to share the jewels with anyone, correct?”

“Yes,” Kevin replied, “but if you help me get them, I’ll share them with you. Nobody else has to know.”

Nanot nodded in agreement. “Let’s go. Quickly.”

Nanot led Kevin off the ship. They slipped past Megg’s ship, and Nanot hoped Megg was too preoccupied to see them sneak back to the ruins. They made it to the building without being seen and entered the foyer.

“What on Earth!” Kevin exclaimed when he saw the wall open and the office door busted down. He ran into his office, Nanot on his heels. The safe door lay on the table, and the safe was empty. He turned to Nanot. “This room was intact an hour ago! On a planet devoid of life, how could someone rob me?”

Nanot shrugged, confused. “It couldn’t have been any of my crew, they’re all on the ship. And the Stelairian just landed, so it couldn’t have been her, either.”

Kevin looked suspiciously out of the room. “Maybe they’re still here. We should check the cryonic room.”

Nanot pulled out a scanner and checked the building. There were no life readings anywhere in the vicinity. Nanot gripped his weapon and turned to Kevin. “You stay here. I’ll check the cryonic room just in case.”

Kevin allowed himself a small smile as Nanot disappeared down the hallway. He quickly searched the drawers of the desk until he found the extra ammunition for his gun. He stowed it away in his pockets. Then he went out into the foyer to wait. As he stood there, he heard a shout from below. He ran down the hallway and into the cryonic room. Nanot stood just inside the room, pointing his weapon at two people climbing up the metal ladder on the wall to the exit hatch above. He fired at the ceiling to get their attention.

“I said don’t move,” he shouted. They froze, staring down at Nanot and Kevin.

“Well, well,” Kevin said with a grin, recognizing them.

CHAPTER 20

After a short stop at Yalsa, Agnar and Karina left the Vontyr Galaxy to travel to the Milky Way. Karina found the oddity of the distortion drive fascinating. “So you’re saying that we age, but time stands still in the universe?”

“Yes. From the perspective of everyone outside the distortion, we’ll come out of it at the same moment, but not the same place, that we went into it. Since we’ll age at a normal rate while in the distortion, it’ll appear to them that we’ve aged.”

“Well, that sucks.”

Agnar laughed. “It would if you still had a life span of only a hundred years. Now that you’ll live for thousands of years without appearing to age, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Karina grinned. “I do like the idea of an extended youth. I miss my twenties.”

“With your new life span you’ll lose track of how old you are pretty quickly. I lost track awhile ago, although I think I’m somewhere between eight and nine hundred years old.”

Karina chuckled. “Well, that narrows it down. I couldn’t tell you my age. I have no idea how long I was frozen, and I didn’t keep track of time after I was rescued, either.”

Agnar smiled. “How old were you when I saw you at the Lazarus League’s building?”

“Thirty-four.”

“It’s been over three hundred years since then.”

“Holy shit!” Karina exclaimed in English, since Tresar hadn’t taught her any cuss words in Yalsan.

Agnar laughed. “Get used to it. The elixir you drank will keep you alive and young for thousands of years longer.”

“I can live with that,” Karina replied, smirking.

After the Vontyr Galaxy had been traveling away from them for about a week, Agnar stopped the ship and called Karina to the bridge. She flounced in and flopped down comfortably in the captain’s chair, hanging a leg over one of the armrests. “So, what’s so exciting that you had to interrupt my meal for it?” she asked.

“That.” Agnar pointed to the forward viewscreen, zooming it in to display a bright planet below the ship.

Karina sat up with interest. “I thought we couldn’t use the distortion drive in a galaxy.”

“This planet isn’t in a galaxy. It’s orbiting an intergalactic star.” Agnar zoomed the viewscreen back out to display a giant, bright red star. In the distance Karina could make out other stars, and farther out, clusters of galaxies with Vontyr Galaxy prominent in the foreground.

“Wow.” For a moment Karina couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Agnar chuckled. “The first time I saw it, it had that effect on me as well.”

“I didn’t know stars existed outside of galaxies.”

“They do. This cluster of stars travels around the Vontyr Galaxy in a continually changing orbit, so it’s never in the same place twice in relation to the galaxy. Its orbit is probably erratic because it is affected by the gravity well of any greater mass it passes. That makes this planet very hard to find, even when you know it exists.” Agnar paused, smiling at Karina. “Would you like to go down to the surface? I know a good place to eat there,” he continued.

Karina was flabbergasted. “That planet can support life?” she exclaimed.

“Sure,” Agnar calmly replied. “A planet’s capability of supporting life isn’t dependent on its location in the universe, but on its distance from a suitable star.”

“Yes,” Karina said excitedly, “I would love to go down there.”

Agnar turned back to the controls and started the propulsion drive. He steered the ship toward the planet. As they entered the atmosphere, the ride became bumpy. Karina clutched the armrests, watching the viewscreen intently. The planet grew beneath them. She could see oceans and mountains, then rivers and trees. Agnar took them to a shining city. They joined with other airborne traffic before finally landing on an empty dock.

“Why haven’t they contacted us?” Karina asked in confusion. “Don’t they regulate traffic here?”

“No. This planet doesn’t receive many visitors. For one thing, people would have to deliberately come out here to even know it exists. Most space travel is done inside galaxies, and most intergalactic travelers take the shortest route possible between galaxies using a distortion drive. The slowest speed distortion drives are capable of is one megaparsec per month. So even if the planet passed right by them, they wouldn’t realize it. And there’s no reason to come out this way unless you’re specifically looking for an intergalactic planet.”

“Then how do you know about it?”

Agnar grinned. “I was deliberately looking for it.”

“Why?”

Agnar gestured to the viewscreens, which showed the surrounding view outside of the ship. The city gleamed around them, shining in the evening sun. “This is an advanced civilization of enlightened individuals who were perfecting space flight when the Bitowans were barely intelligent and the Yalsans were primordial slime. Their star, along with several hundred others, was torn out of the Vontyr Galaxy as our galaxy passed close to a much larger neighboring galaxy. This happened billions of years ago, and only myth remains. I followed that myth, and found this world.”

Karina stared at the viewscreens in wonder. “Atlantis,” she breathed.

Agnar looked at her in confusion. “What?”

“Earth has a similar myth of a lost advanced civilization. The Atlanteans were the richest and most powerful nation on Earth. They attempted to conquer and enslave the world, and the rest of the nations banded together to fight against them. The Atlanteans defeated all of their armies, until only the Athenians stood against them. The Athenian army ultimately defeated the Atlanteans, but then the entire army sank down into the ground as earthquakes and floods destroyed the area. Atlantis sunk into the sea, never to be seen again.”

Agnar silently absorbed the story as Karina continued. “The legend of Atlantis grew over the centuries until it was considered not only advanced economically, but technologically and socially. Their warlike nature was forgotten, and they were portrayed as a peaceful and enlightened people.”

“Huh. Well, the people of this planet are peaceful and enlightened. I don’t know if they were warlike in the distant past, but they certainly aren’t now.”

“Is their civilization older than the Stelairian civilization?” Karina asked.

Agnar rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You know, I don’t know. I do know that both civilizations are extremely old, but I don’t know who evolved first.” He stood up and stretched. “Shall we go?”

“Don’t we have to get permission from the authorities to proceed?” Karina asked in confusion.

“There are no authorities. There is no government. This is a world of individuals who respect themselves and each other. There’s no need for government when you are enlightened enough to govern yourself.”

Karina laughed resentfully, shaking her head. “Why couldn’t I have been born here?”

They disembarked as the sun set. Agnar led her toward an eating establishment not far from the ship. The people they passed looked like Yalsans and smiled at the newcomers, sometimes greeting them as well. Agnar politely replied in their language. It was a lilting dialect and even though she couldn’t understand it, Karina found it pleasant to the ear. They sat at a table in an open court next to a kitchen.

“They watch for guests, and immediately begin preparing your meal,” Agnar explained. “They believe that meals should be a pleasant surprise rather than an expected chore. Our food will arrive in about half an hour. No one hurries here. I find it quite relaxing.” Agnar sat back and stretched out his long legs under the table. He breathed in the spicy air. “Each time I visit here, it gets harder to leave.”

Karina had been staring at the sky. She continued to stare as she answered Agnar. “I can see why. I’ve never seen such a beautiful place.”

The sun had sunk below the horizon and the sky was darkening. Stars began to slowly appear, first one, and then another. Karina had never seen a sky where she was actually able to count all the stars. There were only about fifty of them. The darkness increased, and the Vontyr Galaxy appeared, its disk edge-on to the planet, spanning the entire sky. Farther galaxies materialized, and the moonless sky brightened, lighting the planet with a soft white glow.

Karina breathed a sigh of amazement at the unusual sight. Agnar watched her, a tiny smile on his face. He looked up at the sky he had seen many times before, but seeing it from Karina’s perspective made it new again. He wondered how he had grown so used to such a splendid sight that he had taken it for granted.

A chef appeared, depositing their food on the table. Agnar thanked her in her language and then switched back to Yalsan as he turned to Karina. “The society here is made up of a certain percentage of each job, and each person chooses his career when he reaches adult status. Everyone does their job, and everyone benefits from the jobs of others. There is no money in this system, everyone gives what they can, and everyone is given what they need. Each master takes on apprentices, and the apprentices become masters when their master has determined that they have learned everything they need to know. Once a person has worked for eighty percent of his life, he retires, and society takes care of his needs. These people function in complete cooperation, and no one is left wanting.”

Karina listened as she ate, reveling in the exotic taste of the food. “I never would have believed that an entire world of people could respect and cooperate with each other in this manner.”

“Well, they do have millennia of experience over the rest of us. They would have to be more mature,” Agnar replied, smirking.

Karina laughed. “Then that would make their species far older than even the Stelairians. My experience with Megg has proven to me that her society has not reached the point that these people have achieved.”

“That makes sense,” Agnar agreed. “Megg is one of the oldest Stelairians alive today, and even her maturity level doesn’t come close to the people on this planet. That’s one of the things I like about her.”

“You’ll excuse me if I don’t share your appreciation for Megg. When we first met, I believe she had plans to kill me, and the next time we saw each other I learned that she was responsible for the creation and destruction of my species. She’s not exactly my favorite person.”

“You’d be surprised by how much you’re like her.”

Karina snorted. “I’m nothing like her.”

“Okay, Karina. Have it your way. After all, you would never kill someone just because he was violent toward others and you believed he deserved to die, to stop the abuse,” Agnar replied sarcastically.

Karina felt her face flush. That was exactly why she had killed Fred and the premier. She placed the value of her own life above theirs, and made the decision to end theirs so she could continue to live her life knowing they would never be able to hurt anyone again. And Megg had destroyed the Earthlings for the same reason. Megg saw their violence and stopped it before it could affect the rest of the galaxy. At the thought of having something so fundamental in common with a person she disliked, Karina felt sick and stopped eating.

Agnar saw the change in her expression and put his hand over hers reassuringly. “Hey, that’s not a bad thing. You don’t know Megg like I do; she’s a good person, she just has different values. Those values don’t make her bad, and sharing some of those same values doesn’t make you bad. I happen to agree with both of you; some people don’t deserve to live when they interfere with other people’s right to live. Megg just took that idea to the extreme when she applied it to an entire species. She didn’t account for the possibility that individuals in that species had potential. She should have viewed the species individually rather than as a whole.” Agnar squeezed Karina’s hand lightly. “Even her advanced species makes mistakes.”

“Yes, I guess,” Karina conceded. She returned to eating, feeling a little less hostile toward Megg.

As they finished their dinner, the chef brought them dessert. It was in the shape of a small pie, and tasted slightly sweet. Each mouthful effervesced, releasing the flavor onto Karina’s tongue. “This is heavenly!” Karina exclaimed.