The Far Dawn (26 page)

“They're going to die,” I say quietly.

“Of course, someday,” says Paul, “but that's no longer our concern.”

“No, I mean soon. Don't you know that?” I wonder why I am bothering to tell him this, but I feel it coming out anyway. “Taking the Heart of the Terra from earth is going to make life die out there. It's like . . .”

“Ah, like a Heliad-seven ceremony on a planet-wide scale,” Paul says, his tone awed. “Well, in that case, live bright!” He smiles. But I don't find it funny. “Sorry,” he says, “that probably cuts close to the bone. Oh my, I should avoid puns, shouldn't I?”

“Please,” Rana whispers. “I could rip out his intestines.”

I wish I could let her. Smug, victorious Paul is even worse than the old ruthless version.

“Well,” Paul continues, serious. “She told you this, I gather? The Terra?”

“Yes.”

“It does explain all the violence these last couple days. Mankind showing its true nature, I guess.”

“More like its incomplete nature,” I say.

Paul raises an eyebrow at me. “Ah, more secrets that you know. I can't wait to hear them. All the same, you are still here. You still chose to be part of this over staying behind.”

I just keep walking.

We emerge in the hazy sun of the living area, and take an open elevator and then a walkway. People pass us, a few saying good morning to Paul, most not even knowing who he is. Here and there, some recognize me from yesterday, and look at me perplexed.

As we go, I feel my whole body clenching tighter. I have to consciously open my jaw to get it to relax. Seeing her . . .

I try to get my mind off it and look at the sunny habitat spinning slowly around us. We pass over a small park. Parents are playing with their kids on grav swings.

“These must have been expensive tickets,” I say.

“About half of the selectees were chosen based on experience and value,” says Paul. “And, yes, the rest did pay just an unbelievable sum, but, after all, building something like this isn't cheap. Not surprisingly, people were willing to pay nearly everything they had for what we offer.”

“Living on a desert planet doesn't sound like a huge improvement,” I say.

“Oh.” Paul claps me on the back, which makes me flinch and makes Rana growl. “You mean Mars?”

“Yeah, isn't that where you're going?”

Paul smiles and stops at a screen that's perched on the walkway railing. It shows a list of activities for the next twenty-four-hour period. “Let me show you something.” He taps the corner and types a password quickly into a command box. The screen flashes to a set of folders. Paul's fingers dance around, and then a picture appears. It shows the barren, rust-colored surface of Mars. And a small, steel-looking dome, like a mini-Eden.

“EdenHome,” says Paul. “There's a volcano nearby called Elysium Mons, with a curious set of caverns. Guess what we found there.”

I don't reply and he taps again. A red-walled cavern. Inside, a structure of metal and glass.

Another Paintbrush of the Gods.

“That's on Mars?” I ask.

“Amazing, isn't it?” says Paul. “The Atlanteans were unbelievable. They traveled the solar system, looking for a place to be reborn. They chose Mars. But even though they built this, they could never find the Heart of the Terra again. We found their maps. We found this place, and we thought, what a perfect way to save the human race, to follow in the masters' footsteps, to recapture our alien roots.”

“The Atlanteans were aliens?”

“No, I mean, we all were, in a sense,” says Paul. “Life didn't begin on earth, Owen. Our ancestors are microbes that traveled by comets, frozen refugees from earlier solar systems, dating all the way back to the big bang. Earth is four and a half billion years old, but the universe is nearly fourteen. And over all that time, life has made its way from one galaxy to the next, across the universe. We all come from cryo, if you look back far enough.”

“Wow,” I say flatly.

“Anyway . . .” Paul taps the screen and the image disappears. “That was our plan, when we discovered the maps under Giza and their relic spaceship. We thought we'd find the Heart of the Terra and take it to Mars to use with the new Paintbrush. But, after enough research on the Sentinel we'd found in Greenland, and on the test subjects in my lab in EdenWest, I realized what the true power of the Heart of the Terra really is.”

“Eternal life,” I said.

“Exactly, and we thought: Why settle for Mars and some dangerous terraforming project? Why settle for this
galaxy
? With the power of the Terra, we have all the time we need. We have more uranium mining and water converting to do at EdenHome, but after that . . .”

We reach the end of the walkway and pass through a wide door into a curved hall that leads to the front section of the ship. Windows to either side look out on the black and glittering space.

Paul extends his arms. “We're going to the stars, Owen. We'll find a real Eden, one we don't have to engineer, and we'll start over. How exciting is that? We've realized the greatest quest the world has ever known. The desire to extend life is what brought the first humans out of the trees, led to the first weapons, villages, cities, and religions. And now we have conquered death, and we're ready to begin the next phase of life's journey across the stars. We're the gods now, Owen. And that includes you. We'll travel through the darkness to a new dawn.”

“Yeah,” I say. I want to tell him how much he sounds like Master Solan. And there is still that innocent part of me that finds what he's saying interesting, but I also have that same feeling of not wanting him to have the satisfaction of knowing. “And Lilly will be there,” I say, just to remind him.

“Of course. Both of you.”

We pass through multiple locked doors, past two teams of security guards, and enter a lab beyond that.

We arrive in a dark control room, full of consoles. A wide window looks into a round room of blinding light. I feel my eye whirring to adjust. The Heart of the Terra is inside, held between two steel columns. The Terra sits as she did in my view from Atlantis, legs crossed, eyes closed.

“Erica, Damon, how are we today?” Paul asks.

Two young technicians are busy at the consoles. “Just about to try taking a sample,” Damon replies.

“Excellent,” says Paul. “Let's do that. This is Owen. I know you've heard a great deal about him. He's going to be helping us to unlock the Terra's secrets, show us all it has to offer.”

“She's not an ‘it,'” I say.

“Fair enough. ‘
She
' . . .”

A large robotic arm appears, sweeping toward the Terra. It has a long metal needle at its end and rotates so that this points at the small opening in the side of the crystal cage, the copper-rimmed hole where the masters once took the Terra's blood.

I feel Paul looking at me. “Is this right?” he says.

“Yes,” I say.

The needle slides into the cage. It pricks the Terra's shoulder and her eyes pop open and the cage glows white-hot.

The glass in front of us darkens for our safety. I look away, but I feel her staring at me.

“Running the secondary cooling system,” says Erica.

“What were they like?” Paul asks. “The masters, I mean.”

“I don't know,” I say. “Powerful, believed in what they were doing, wore robes.”

“So you've seen them.”

“I've been there.”

I can feel Paul's gaze on me, until a shrill beeping distracts him.

Liquid light is leaving the cage, traveling through a clear tube.

“You'll have to tell me more sometime,” says Paul.

The needle slides back out of the cage and the Terra's eyes close.

Paul pats me on the shoulder. I want to flinch, and wonder how I'm going to survive this proximity to him for . . . centuries? Even just a few minutes feels too long. “Come on,” he says. “Let's go visit. I'm sure you two have loads to catch up on.”

“Where's Lilly?” I ask.

“Right,” says Paul. “Damon, do we have a feed from the extraction team?”

“Yes, one sec . . .” Damon types rapidly, and then a video screen overlays the window. There are six Eden soldiers standing in the space elevator pod. “We'll be coming up on the target point in about forty minutes,” Damon reports.

“Good. So,” Paul says to me, “it won't be long now. I know you have little reason to trust me, Owen, but please have no doubt that I will bring you Lilly as you wish. You have earned it, to say the least. And hopefully, over time, I can earn back your trust.”

I just shrug, knowing I seem sulky, but again I have nothing to say to him.

“Erica, please open the door.”

A thick door hisses open and we step into a small waiting area. The door closes and locks and then the inner door slides open.

We enter the white room. The Terra is in the center. The walls are smooth and clean. It reminds me of Vista. The large robotic arm is attached to the wall by the window of the control room.

As soon as the door clicks shut behind us, Paul says, “Now, Owen, listen, there's one thing I want to clear up first. And don't worry, I understand, believe me I do.”

“What?”

“We have one other prized possession here with us.” Paul motions to Erica and Damon through the window.

A small, circular panel slides open in the floor. A crystal skull rises from it on a steel stand. The sight of it reminds me of the others so callously killed, of Evan and Mateu and Anna and Colleen and others I never even knew. The skull gleams, and begins to light in my presence.

Come home, Kael
.

“I'm hoping that you can tell me more about it. I mean, its purpose is finished, but the technology . . .” Paul inhales deeply. “So fascinating.” He turns, motioning with his hand again. “And,” he says, “we have the complete set.”

Now a portion of the wall slides open and with a hiss of steam, two tall clear cylindrical containers slide out. One is empty, but the other is lit in black light, and in the purplish glow I see a wispy form, ghostlike with black eyes.

“Kael,” says Rana.

The dead boy looks at us vacantly, and then his mouth moves but we cannot hear him. And yet, that empty container beside him . . .

A burst of electricity leaps from the robotic arm and slams into me before I can even turn. I am thrown to the ground, tingling all over, pain in my head and teeth and joints.

“It's okay,” says Paul. “I'm sorry about that.”

But it's not okay. I feel a vacant sensation.

“Owen!”

I look up and Rana has been separated from me. She is hissing in pain, trapped in the electric beam from the arm.

The front of the empty container beside Kael's pops open and the robotic arm moves Rana across the room and into it. The door slams shut.

Rana beats at the glass, shouting viciously, but there is no sound. She and Kael are like experiments trapped side by side in giant test tubes.

I turn to Paul, ready to scream.

“What?” says Paul. “What kind of frank relationship can we have if you're hiding an Atlantean Sentinel? Which, by the way, is another marvel.”

I want to ask him how he knew, but I won't give him the satisfaction of explaining it. “She wasn't going to do anything,” I say. “She just wanted to come along and be sure I was safe. I was going to tell you about her once I knew you had Lilly. Once I knew I could trust you.”

Paul considers this. “Well, I understand your reasoning, of course.”

“Let her out.”

Paul's lips purse. “Owen, I saw what she did to my men in the Andes. She could tear this ship apart if she wanted. Now, you can visit her anytime. I won't harm her. She's far too interesting.” He looks at the cylinders. “If only we had all three.”

I look back at Rana, burning inside, not knowing what to do with the rage I am feeling, yet another loss I can't control.

Paul turns toward the Terra. “Well, looks like someone knows you're here and has decided to wake up.”

The Terra's eyes are open. She stares at me, and I can barely meet her gaze, knowing that I have betrayed her, if that's even what I've done.

Owen.

As she speaks I feel a strange sensation of warmth, but it's not coming from the Terra. It's from behind me. From my back . . . from Rana's skull.

You are here,
the Terra says,
but . . .

I can feel her reading my thoughts and I feel the floor dropping out of my insides, the flood of guilt. I have chosen wrong, I have not been true, I have let her down, I—

I understand the choice you have made,
she says.

I'm sorry,
I think to her.
It was the only way to—

But I am not the only one with an opinion.

I feel the wind just as I am hearing the words.

Qii-Farr-eeschhh . . .

That voice is a whisper of swirling air and it is not the Terra. It is not in my head. It's . . .

“What is that?” Paul asks, his voice rising over the swelling wind in the room. His eyes flash to my back, and I turn to see that Rana's skull has lit up. So has Kael's, so has the Terra, and everything is erasing itself in brilliant white.

“What's happening?” Paul shouts. “Owen, what are you doing?”

“I'm not!” I shout.

Interesting.
The Terra looks at Rana and then back to me.
Very interesting
.

“What?” I call over the wind.

Qii-Farr-eeschhh . . .

But that voice. I know it, but it can't be . . .

“Adjust the containment fields!” Paul shouts to his technicians. He reaches for my hand—