The Proving (22 page)

“Thank you,” Ben said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest it was an easy process.”

Cleo waved it off. “Could be worse. You could be a Spartan.”

Right, Ben thought. He walked upstairs, opening the door leading to the roof. Everyone was huddled under the tilted solar panels except Skye and her brother. The Spartans were standing near the corner of the building, peering out at the forest beyond the supply depot’s perimeter.

Ben walked with a crouch, feeling a little dizzy. It seemed so dangerous on the roof, but then he peered over the edge and saw the Tumbler. Skye had moved it so it was stationed next to the depot’s front door, aimed toward the road leading back to Neo Berlin. If anyone on watch saw danger coming, everyone could escape to the Tumbler in less than a minute.

Still. Everything seemed to have just a hint of red to it, caused by the red glow of the Ring. There wasn’t really “true” darkness anymore, except in rooms without windows. Sometimes, there were stars, when the Ring’s orbit was nearer the horizon. But even then, the sky along the horizon was a dull red that seemed to bleed upward as if they were living in a snow-globe and someone had place a red light directly underneath.

A hint of the horrors that existed just out of sight.

Reza and Tahlia were arguing about whether the Ring had any redeeming beauty. Tahlia thought it looked cool; Reza thought it looked scary. Wei was somewhere in-between, but seemed to agree with Tahlia that there was something inherently interesting about the occurrence.

“Why don’t they just all fall to Earth?” he asked as Ben sat down beside him. Gabriel was in the process of squeezing all of the sleeping pads together so that everyone could stay under the cover of the solar panels. Seamus, not understanding, sat cross-legged on his sleep pad while Gabriel tugged it closer to the rest of them. Ben thought it was funny; the Historian was so used to being out of everyone’s way that it hadn’t even occurred to him that he should be
closer
.

“Ben, Reza asked you a question,” Tahlia said.

“Oh. Uh, well, a ring typically needs the pull of another object in order to maintain orbit. Otherwise, you’re right: Earth’s gravity would eventually pull all those trillions of chunks of ice right into our atmosphere. What’s stabilizing the ring are a number of larger chunks of rock that arrived with the Spectral comet. They’re large enough that they exert a gravitational pull. So Earth pulls on the ring, but so do these large satellites.”

“He meant why don’t the Specters leave the Ring,” Tahlia said.

“Oh. We don’t know.” Ben glanced at Gabriel. He didn’t mean to, but he didn’t want to offend the Parliamentarian. “We hypothesize it’s because of the ice crystals observed in the Ring.” Ben moved over, letting Tahlia sit beside him and rest her head on his leg. “Wherever the Specters came from, they brought trillions of chunks of ice and rock with them and they didn’t seem to have much choice in the matter. They didn’t arrive on a crash-course with Earth; gravity pulled them into orbit, forming the ring shape. A dozen thin rings, actually. The ice crystals reflect the sunlight and the energy from the Specters. So you have billions and billions of Specters and trillions and trillions of chunks of ice circling the planet. That’s why the Ring shimmers.”

“Neat,” Wei said.

“Dangerous,” Reza added.

“And so think of the force involved when two big chunks of ice crash into each other,” Ben continued, excited to be sharing his knowledge. “The force is enough to send that Spectral Energy in every direction. Some of the Specters fall to Earth. Scientists can use telescopes to see them inside the Ring.”

“Those explosions are pretty,” Wei said, trying her best to sound like a serious adult. It was cute. Ben looked at Gabriel and saw no embarrassment on the young man’s face. That was good. The girl acted like a Young Adult, in no hurry to grow up. He wished some of her immaturity would rub off on Tahlia.

“You wouldn’t think it’s pretty if they all came down at once,” Reza told her, his voice dropping like he was a movie anti-hero. Maybe he watched too many movies. Or played too many videogames. It seemed like he was more talkative away from his sister, Ben noticed.

Ben lay back on his sleeping bag, staring up at the Ring. Somewhere, a buzzing sound rose up and seemed to echo in the direction of the mountains.

“What’s that?” Reza asked. He sat up anxiously.

“Stillness,” Gabriel whispered. “The cicada’s cry . . . drills into the rocks.”

“He’s right — it’s a bug,” Tahlia said. “A grenade cicada, from the family
cicadidae
. The sound of their tymbals clicking is amplified inside their hollow abdomens.”

“Gross,” Reza said.

“No, they’re soooo great,” Tahlia told him, that wonder in her voice returning. “They use evaporative cooling to stay cool, kind of like humans sweating only they probably don’t stink as bad as you. And at night, when it’s cool like this, they can actually
shiver
to enhance the volume of their song. Oh! And every song is unique. And some of the males hide from Specters inside hollow trees and then the click of their tymbals can sound like a boom!”

“That’s great,” Reza said. “You’re smart.”

“How did you learn that?” Ben asked her, not quite sure what to be more worried about: Tahlia’s obsession with disgusting insects hiding from Specters, or Reza’s curious change-of-mind. Tahlia didn’t answer; she was too busy listening to the buzz.

“It’s strange that they’re calling out,” she said. “They must be desperate to mate, if they’re willing to risk attracting a Specter.”

“Can’t we just kill all of the Specters already?” Reza whined. “They’re really
bugging
us.”

Wei snickered.

Ben didn’t get the joke. “We would need a VR cannon set up in space. And we would need lots of energy to power it.”

“We’ll build more Xenoshield systems,” Gabriel said. “And more Phenocyte reactors. We’ll reclaim the Earth one piece at a time until it’s all ours again.”

“Oh!” Wei said, raising a finger in the air. “If we had shields everywhere, the Specters would just bounce off them back into space!”

Ben considered it. “No, I don’t think that would . . .”

“And then we can reintroduce extinct species,” Tahlia said. “Oh, Ben, wouldn’t that be amazing? We could see a tiger in its natural habitat. And a rhino. And a platypus.”

“And a boobie bird,” Reza said with a chuckle, nudging Wei. The girl laughed.

“Look,” Ben said, pointing up to an empty spot in the night sky before anyone else could add more jokes. Thankfully, everyone followed his finger. “The Ark and the Artemis Bow should be right up there, somewhere, just east of the Ring.”

“I can’t see it,” Wei said. “Is that it? That little thing?”

“Everyone put your glasses on and tell them to enhance,” Gabriel told them. “Just like you learned in school.”

Ben reached up, finding his glasses on the top of his head. He pulled them down. “Chi, enhance,” they all said.

Ben’s camera zoomed in, providing him with a pic-in-pic of the enhancement. It took a moment of slow panning across the sky before he could see them, but then it was impossible
not
to see them. Magnified, they looked as if they might fall from space.

The Ark and the Artemis Bow. They were stationed in orbit at the same distance as the last two remaining space stations: 500 kilometers away. But those space stations had long ago been abandoned because of the Specter threat. The Ark and the Artemis Bow were different. There were no humans in either contraption, not yet at least, but there were thousands — maybe hundreds of thousands — of robots at work. Ben didn’t know the specifics, only that some were performing automated tasks and some were being controlled on the ground by specialists in Clan Persia. Sending up parts. Sending up bots. Pulling iron ore from orbiting asteroids. All of it coordinated. Fifty years of building and checking and double-checking.

While Clan Athens tested nutrient-rich foodstuffs and developed the gene banks.

While Clan Sparta developed the weapons system on the Ark.

“How many can fit in the Ark?” Reza asked.

“Seventy-five thousand people,” Ben answered. “Plus two DNA storage vessels to establish ecosystems. The colonization process has been happening for a long, long time. First, we had to find a planet. Then we had to build the Artemis Bow to send us there. Then, we had to begin the terraforming process. Hundreds of thousands of machines were shot through space, and each one had a specific purpose: to help establish an Earth-like ecosystem.”

“That sounds like a lot of work,” Wei said. She seemed interested, sitting on her knees beside Ben.

Ben indulged her, choosing his words carefully to ensure he didn’t overwhelm her with science. “Finding an Earth-like planet is hard. You need a stable solar system, and a stable planet with good gravity and lots of water. The atmosphere needs to be a within a certain parameter. So does the planet’s age. It needs to be tilted on its axis so the planet has seasons. It needs to have functioning tectonic plates to pull down water into the earth to lubricate the plates and weaken the asthenosphere. And that all had to be figured out before the terraforming bots even got there . . .”

“When did all these robots start terraforming?” Reza asked.

Ben was surprised. He thought everyone learned about the Ark. It seemed like every other week, an adult from Ben’s building was being summoned to work on the New Earth project. But of course the young Persian was too busy, wasn’t he? The nearest computer console could be used for a million different purposes, or one could simply waste all of one’s time playing games. “We’ve known about New Earth for a long time, studying it and getting five-year messages back from the bots we send out. But it wasn’t until the Specter invasion that we sped up the terraforming process. It gave us the nudge we needed, I suppose.”

“Will it be just citizens?” Reza asked nervously. “Or can the clans go too?”

“Everyone will be fairly represented,” Gabriel said. He leaned back on his elbows. “But I wouldn’t get too excited about going anywhere. You’re not going to shoot through space and arrive at an Earth filled with cities and your favorite video games. The pilgrims are going to be settling a new planet . . . using the Ark for scrap while they start over.”

Reza looked at Ben for confirmation. “Well,” Ben said, “I suppose that’s true. Although we should, in time, uh, be able to develop a safe transportation route between the two worlds . . .”

Gabriel laughed. “Is that what they tell you over in Clan Athens? And you believe it? It’s a lie. All this talk about space routes and new eras is a lie. As soon as we know the first Ark made it to New Earth safely, mass production begins. Our species is abandoning this planet.”

Ben’s brain whirred. He felt a chill run through his body. It couldn’t be possible, and yet of course it was all too logical. “We can’t all go.”

“No,” Gabriel said, his voice rising. “You’re right. There’s only so many resources here. Only so many iron mines. We’ll send as many of our best and brightest as possible . . . and leave the rest here at the mercy of the Specters.”

Tahlia’s hands found Ben’s. Her palms were cold and clammy. He squeezed them, willing the tips of her fingers to warm up. “I don’t want to be left behind,” she whispered. She sounded so afraid that Ben had to fight the urge to cry.

“You won’t be,” Gabriel told her gently. “Because if that’s what it comes to, you can have my seat. I’m not leaving this planet. Ever.” He lay back. “There are some things worth fighting for. This Earth is worth fighting for.”

Seamus cleared his throat. “The last time Parliament discussed such things, it was to develop a century plan. That is, to plan a hundred years into the future. You will all be dead before abandoning Earth is even considered.”

Gabriel scoffed.

“I was only trying to cheer you up.”

“Thanks,” Ben said, squeezing Tahlia’s hand. “I don’t know if it
worked
necessarily, but your heart’s in the right place, Seamus.”

“For what that’s worth,” Gabriel murmured.

Ben felt an intense urge to tell him to shut up. There was no need to be angry with the Historian. If anything, Seamus was demonstrating more of a personality than just about any other Historian Ben had ever had the opportunity to interact with. The Historian at Ben’s secondary school had taken her job so seriously that not only had she made a point of
not
being collegial with her students, she’d also gone the extra length to ensure her voice was as monotone as possible while she lectured. Ben had fallen asleep a few times, then woken and felt tremendously guilty for being so rude.

He felt sorry for Seamus. The Historian was only eighteen, like them, not some unthinking and unfeeling machine but simply a human being raised in rigid circumstances. For a cause. “History,” wrote the great Parliamentarian Gregory Chu, “cannot be written by the victor. It cannot be written by those who profit from it, nor those who benefit from it, nor those who fear it. It must be carefully preserved, protected, and shared.”

When he’d first heard the quote at the age of fifteen, it had seemed so beautiful. Ben had memorized it and, for a while, had looked up to the Historians. They were rigid and dull and odd but they had a noble purpose. By then, he’d read about so many ancient civilizations that had been burned, destroyed and wiped out entire societies that the idea of an impartial Historian seemed so right.

Then, when he turned seventeen, he graduated into research. He wanted to research gene therapy and better understand the history of the deadly PX54 mutation, which was linked to the more deadly cancer mutations. To do that, he needed to trace genealogies. He went back farther and farther and then . . .

The data stopped.

He couldn’t go back any farther without Historian clearance. He filed a request; it was denied.

There was more, too. Ancient specimens of animals and humans that were off-limits. Details of certain archeological digs scrubbed. Lots of questions.

Only Historians had the answer.

And they decided with whom to share the answers.