Something had happened to bring a lot of faithful back into the fold. It was only then that Theresa pulled back from the video enough to look at the time/date stamp in the bottom right corner of the image.
“This isn’t a live stream?” she said.
“No,” Mahama answered. “This was recorded this morning, just after midnight local time for their village.”
“It’s certainly a big turnout. But what are we looking for, specifically?” Benson asked.
“The answer is coming right about… now.”
A wave of activity spread through the crowd, starting at the temple entrance. The natives parted to either side, allowing two figures to pass into the center of the room. It took a moment for the rover’s cameras to adjust on the pair of dark faces, but once the faces resolved–
“Mei Nakama,” Theresa said breathlessly as the rest of the room erupted in shouting.
“Order,” Valmassoi said sternly. “Quiet down, please.”
“She’s supposed to be dead!” This came from Gregory Alexander, latest heir to a very long line of bigwigs stretching all the way back to the construction of the Ark itself. His family name still graced the tallest residential building in Avalon module, and now he was the owner of the only custom construction company in the city. Since landing, his wealth and sense of entitlement had both grown at roughly similar rates.
Everyone was entitled to a home. But if you had the money and wanted something more than the standard, cookie-cutter layout, Alexander Custom Builders was where you went. And although his power and influence were substantial, he wasn’t a council member per se, even if it was rumored that several of them were deeply indebted to him in the form of exceedingly generous upgrades to their home designs, provided free of charge with a wink and a nod. Theresa found his inclusion at a “secret” meeting troubling, but pressed on.
“We were obviously mistaken, Mr Alexander,” Valmassoi said. “And I’d remind you that you’ve been included in this meeting as a courtesy, so please try to contain yourself.”
Alexander glowered, but returned to silence for the moment.
Theresa leaned back in her chair and smirked. The Unbound, or what remained of them after the trials of David Kimura’s coconspirators had thinned their ranks, had struck out for themselves and established a small fishing village twenty kilometers north of Shambhala. Close enough to trade with the rest of humanity when necessary, but far enough away to maintain privacy and independence, which had been the hallmarks of their hermit society even while they had eked out a living hiding in the sublevels of the Ark.
A sudden and powerful hurricane had leveled their village a year earlier and swept the bodies out to sea. Or so everyone had been led to believe.
“Well,” Benson put his arms behind his head. “That explains why we never found their bodies. There weren’t any bodies to find.”
“Then how the hell did they get across the ocean?” Alexander barked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Theresa said. “They’ve been living as fishermen for two years.”
“Are you saying they crossed several thousand kilometers of open ocean in fishing canoes at the height of hurricane season? That’s preposterous!”
“It’s either that or the breaststroke,” Theresa replied.
“Actually, it’s neither.” Benson circled something on his tablet. “Can you give my pad access to the big screen, please?”
The tech in the corner glanced over at Valmassoi, who nodded his acceptance. Two keystrokes later and a satellite image appeared of the Unbound’s village from a day before the hurricane hit with a big red circle around one of the buildings by the shore.
“Everybody see that ‘barn’ right on the shore? Does it look suspiciously like an upside down boat to anyone else?” He zoomed in on a pair of large triangular tents. “And those are sails, if I’m any judge.”
“What are you suggesting, detecti… Mr Benson?” Mahama’s image asked.
“Simple. The Unbound planned out this whole thing. They built a boat that could handle the ocean right under our noses, then used the hurricane to cover their escape.”
“No way,” Valmassoi shook his head in protest. “We’d have spotted them. The satellites we have in orbit have centimeter resolution, for god’s sake.”
“Not necessarily,” Theresa added. “We don’t have anything near complete real-time coverage of the surface. We only had the eighteen platforms Pathfinder dropped into orbit when it arrived, minus the four we’ve already lost to breakdowns. There are gaps. We have to prioritize surveillance targets, and the open ocean isn’t high on the list. One of our birds can see if you’re holding a tablet. But we have to know where to point it.”
Alexander scoffed. “Are you telling me that a bunch of low-tech fishermen evaded the Ark and her illustrious crew?”
Theresa’s husband couldn’t help but laugh at that.
“Something humorous, Director Benson?” Mahama asked politely.
“Yeah, you. All of you. The Unbound spent their entire lives hiding inside a tube sixteen kilometers long with a million cameras inside it. Hell, they ran a damned farm without us knowing for thirty years. They know our systems, our protocols. They’ve been evading the crew for decades. You really think we could keep a lid on them down here, with an entire planet to hide on?” He snorted. “You’re dreaming.”
“But how did they navigate straight to the rover site over thousands of kilometers of ocean?” Mahama said. “That’s quite a feat.”
“That’s the easiest part to explain,” Benson said. “If you have the rover coordinates, just take a tablet and hack the GPS software and flip it to receive only. Then you’re passive and we have nothing.”
“You have a criminal’s mind, Mr Benson,” Mahama said.
“Thank you?”
“How far behind are we here?” Theresa asked.
“What do you mean?” Mahama asked.
“When did they land? When was actual first contact made and how long have they been in situ talking to the Atlantians?”
Mahama shrugged. “We don’t know. We only know they entered the temple for the first time yesterday.”
“How can we not know that?” Alexander asked with a huff.
“Don’t get so worked up, Greg,” Benson said. “You look like you could use some time outside. Why don’t you come try out for the football league? I’m sure someone could use a center of your… stature.”
“Over my dead body.”
“That’s the perfect attitude for a center.”
“If you’re quite finished, gentlemen?” Mahama scolded. “To answer your question, Mr Alexander, we’re searching back through archived images and data as we speak looking for clues we may have missed.”
“Well look for their damned ship parked on the shore. That should tell you.”
Benson tapped the table. “If they were smart, they’d have made landfall in the middle of the night and scuttled the ship before daybreak. The sats would never have the chance to catch them.”
“Awful lot of planning there,” Valmassoi added.
“And that surprises you?” Benson shifted in his chair. “These folks are survivors among survivors. Maybe it’s time to stop underestimating them.”
“So there’s no way to know how much of a head start they have?” Valmassoi asked.
Theresa held her hands open. “Maybe not. Well, actually…” She swiped her tablet a couple of times and the picture of the old village came up again with the suspected boat circled. “If that’s really the boat they used, and I’m almost sure it is, then it’s around what? Twenty, twenty-five meters long? Last census we took, the Unbound were right at thirty-six people, including four children that had been born since we landed. Between people and supplies, they would’ve been packed in tight. Fresh water isn’t a problem if they took that solar desalinization machine with them, but food would be a real issue.”
“But they’re fishermen, on the ocean,” Mahama observed.
“You sure seem to know a lot about fishing,” Dr Russell teased.
“He loves nature documentaries,” Theresa said. “Drives me nuts with them.”
The village on the screen shrank to a pinprick, then shot to the right side as Mahama took control and zoomed the view out to encompass a flattened representation of the entire planet.
“There are a few archipelagoes along the way where they could’ve stopped and replenished.”
“That’s possible,” Benson added. “But I think we’re shooting for a worst-case number right now, yes?”
Mahama nodded.
“OK, so how fast can a sailing ship average over water?”
Theresa consulted a database in her plant. “Call it five knots.”
“What the hell’s a ‘not’?”
“Right, sorry, about nine kph.”
Benson nodded. “OK, is that an Earth standard?”
“Broadly speaking, with a ton of variables, yes.”
“All right, average wind speed here is a little higher, so call it twelve kph, just under three hundred kilometers per day in ideal conditions.”
“Hold on,” Valmassoi jumped back into the conversation. “Are you saying they made the crossing in two weeks?”
“No, I’m saying they could have, if everything went perfectly. Which, as you know, it usually doesn’t.”
“But that still puts them on site for more than a local year!” Alexander said.
“A year,” Mahama corrected. “Earth’s year doesn’t have any meaning anymore.”
“Yes, fine, a year. That’s still enough time to learn the language and say all sorts of things. We could have a real situation here.”
“And that’s why this meeting was called,” Mahama tried to regain control of the conversation. “The question is what to do about it now that they have made first contact with the Atlantians for us.”
“Yes,” Valmassoi added. “Who knows what stories they’ve been telling the natives. We’ll be lucky if they don’t teach them how to build an invasion fleet to sail right over here and wipe us all out.”
“Can’t happen,” Alexander jumped in. “The Ark’s navigational lasers would burn any ship to ash before they got within a thousand kilometers of Shambhala.”
Theresa rolled her eyes, but Feng was the first to respond to the needless bravado. “First of all, the prevailing winds blow east to west. They’d have to sail right on around Gaia, then cross our whole continent overland. And second, I suspect Captain Mahama would prefer to find a solution that doesn’t involve wholesale slaughter of the people we’re trying to share this world with.”
“Too true,” the captain said. “The task before us now is basically public-relations damage control. The Unbound have forced our hand here.”
“Should’ve spaced the lot of them,” Alexander mumbled, but Mahama ignored him and continued.
“We have to either contain or counter whatever biased information they may have given the Atlantians about our presence and intentions.”
“How do we do that?” Valmassoi asked.
“We move up our timeline and send the diplomatic mission to introduce ourselves to the Atlantians.”
“When?”
“Last year would be ideal,” Theresa quipped.
“Snarky,” Feng said, “but entirely accurate. Maybe we got lucky and they stopped at a particularly beautiful tropical island for a few months and really did only get there two days ago, or maybe they’ve been there for a year already and only now got around to attending church. Either way, we need to get our people there immediately.”
“We’re not close to ready,” Valmassoi objected. “Waiting for a good translator program was the entire point of delaying first contact. We’ve only just started to get a handle on the natives’ language.”
“Because our linguists and translation algorithms have only had the audio/visual feeds from the captured rover to work with,” Mahama said. “And a lot of that has been repetitious prayer ceremonies instead of back-and-forth conversations. No, the best way to do this is just to drop right into the thick of it. We probably should have done it sooner anyway.”
“Indulging in a little Monday morning quarterbacking, captain?” Benson asked.
Mahama looked at him quizzically. “I’m afraid I don’t get the reference.”
“Sorry. I mean you’re exercising hindsight.”
“Perhaps a little. But either way, we need to regain control of this situation as quickly as possible, before the Atlantians start hearing stories about conquistadores, smallpox blankets, and slave ships.”
Benson shook his head. “It won’t come to that.”
“What makes you so sure?” Valmassoi snapped. “Why else would they have faked their deaths just to go running straight to the natives?”
“I don’t know, to be out from under our yoke? They’re human beings, maybe they’re just curious. Maybe they wanted to explore and learn new things, push past their own horizons instead of trading a fishbowl for a fortress. People used to do that, you know.”
“You almost sound proud of them,” Alexander said, putting in no effort to conceal his mocking tone.
“Maybe I am. I’m certainly proud of her,” Benson swapped the screen back to the paused image of Mei’s face. “Or did you all forget that this girl literally saved the whole fucking human race when she turned on Kimura?” Benson shook his head slowly. “I haven’t.”
Theresa couldn’t help but feel a swell of pride at her husband’s passion. He could get so… animated. Righteous. Bryan never went looking for fights, it wasn’t his way. But when presented with one, he didn’t know how to back down either. It was the boy in him. The one with a chip on his shoulder. Theresa found herself smiling.
Captain Mahama’s ghostly image laced her fingers and smiled herself. “Which is why, Mr Benson, you will accompany the delegation.”
And then there were the days her husband’s passion got him into trouble. Benson sat up in his chair. “Me? Why?”
“Because the Unbound trust you, especially this Mei girl. You have a relationship with her.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Benson glanced over at Theresa and tugged on his collar.
“A mutual respect, then,” Mahama corrected. “Mei seems to be a hit with the locals. You can talk to her, see what they’ve been saying and see what their intentions are, maybe even persuade her to make introductions to the Atlantians for us.”
“I’m no diplomat.”
“That’s a massive understatement,” Theresa added with a smirk.
“Not helping, my love.”
Mahama stepped in to diffuse the brewing domestic incident. “While Chief Benson’s assessment of your diplomatic acumen is almost certainly accurate, you’re not going to be the main act, as it were. Your responsibility will be limited to dealing with our wayward flock. The rest of the delegation will handle the Atlantians.”
“Well that’s a relief,” Benson said sarcastically.
“For all of us,” Feng added helpfully.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Benson said.
“Noted. If there are no other objections,” Mahama cut him off. “I introduce the motion for a vote. Is there a second?”
“I second the motion,” Alexander said. Voting now
, Theresa noted.
“But, wait…”
“Motion is seconded,” Valmassoi took over. “All in favor?”
A wave of “ayes” went around the room before Benson knew what was happening.
“Opposed?”
“Me!” Benson said.
“You have to say ‘nay,’ Director Benson.”
“Nay!”
“That’s better. Of course, the ayes have it regardless. Motion carries.”
“Wonderful,” Mahama said. “Mr Feng, you will make the arrangements?”
“Of course, captain.”
“Excellent. Now, I must excuse myself.”
Valmassoi stood up and gave a small bow in Mahama’s direction. “Of course, captain. Thank you for coming.”
“In a manner of speaking.” Mahama smirked as her image faded to black.
The meeting concluded, the council members stood up to leave. Benson sank into his chair. “What just happened?”
“You were volunteered for a high-profile mission, dear.” Theresa patted his forearm, trying and failing to hide her amusement.
“So it seems.”
“I don’t know why you’re upset, you got to vote on it.”
“Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on who’s for dinner.” Benson twisted around to look at Feng. “And exactly what arrangements are you going to make?”
“Transportation, obviously. We’re going to need to fit this little trip into the shuttle schedule. Unless you want to build your own boat?”
“I just might.”
“Bryan,” Theresa moved behind Benson and put her arms around his shoulders. “What’s wrong? Aren’t you excited to meet the neighbors?”
“It’s not that.” Benson reached up to squeeze her wrist. “I just really hate flying.”
Acknowledgments
Writing a novel often feels like a solitary endeavor, but that is an illusion. Every author builds around them a group of like-minded, supportive friends and family to help them manage the expectations, excitement, wild moods swings, bouts of alcoholism, and existential crises.
[Children of a Dead Earth 01.0] The Ark Page 35
