“Please,” I begged, “please work.”
I felt the full power of the aurora wash over me. I stumbled to my feet, unable to look at Chou, the light was so bright now. The sensation flooding my system was almost but not quite as good as my first opiad-induced high. Every muscle in my body relaxed, and after a few moments, I felt… rejuvenated. I took a couple of steps away from the lean-to my attention pulled skyward by the maelstrom of light coursing across it.
Edward stood next to Albert and Evelyn, their backs to me, faces turned heavenward. “It’s so beautiful,” Edward said, turning to look at me. The light played across his face and, again, I was struck by the notion that I knew him from somewhere, but from where continued to elude me.
“The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” I said.
Albert turned at the sound of my voice. His eyes locked on mine, then shifted focus to a point behind me. A huge smile spread across the boy’s face.
“Hello, Chou,” Albert said, beaming now.
I spun around.
Chou was sitting up, blinking hard as the light of the fire played across her face. Pixie dust still moved over her skin and clothing, but with less urgency. She shook her head, blinked a couple of times, then gave a little shuffle of her shoulders as if trying to get rid of a knot in her muscles.
She rose unsteadily to her feet and looked around at the people staring back open-mouthed at her, a slightly confused expression on her face. Spotting Albert and me, Chou smiled and said, “Hello, Meredith. Hello, Albert. I’m very hungry. Do you have anything to eat?”
“How’s it taste?” I asked Chou as she picked apart the last of the salmon. She washed the last mouthful down with a gulp of water before answering.
“Delicious!” she replied, smiling back at me.
Cold Salmon is hardly something I would ever describe as delicious, but hey, under the circumstances, I got it. “I cooked it myself,” I said, which got a raised eyebrow from Chou. “I’ll explain later. Now, will you please tell me how you’re feeling?”
Chou pondered the question for a second while she licked her oily fingers clean, then said, “Very good. I feel… very good.” She pulled up the hem of her blouse and pushed down the waistband of her pants to expose her left hip. The arrow wound had completely healed leaving only an area of fresh pink skin much like I had seen on Phillip’s head wound.
“Miraculous!” said Bull, leaning in closer to get a better look. “Absolutely miraculous!”
Edward stood to my left. Crowded behind him were the faces of the rest of the camp, all fascinated by Chou’s miraculous recovery. “What kind of technology can bring the dead back to life?” Edward asked.
I paused as I tried to think of a way to articulate the complexity of how the nano-clusters worked (not that I had anything but a rudimentary idea myself), but Chou beat me to it.
“From what Meredith has told me, I was not truly dead; at least not for long enough.”
“You were ‘only mostly dead,’” I said, smiling to myself at the Princess Bride reference.
But Chou actually nodded. “You are correct, in a way, Meredith. Your resuscitation efforts managed to keep my heart pumping blood and oxygen to my brain long enough for the pixie dust to rid my body of the poison arrow’s toxin and repair the damage it had caused. So, to answer your question, Edward: Advanced technology. Very, very advanced medicine.”
Bull said, “Does this mean that we are immortal? If we die, will the...” He screwed his face up in obvious disgust at having to say “…Pixie dust… bring us back to life?”
Chou shook her head. “There are too many variables. But I believe it will depend on the extent of the wounds or illness that caused the fatality. And, most importantly, how long before the aurora’s arrival the deceased perished. I think I was both lucky to have expired close to the aurora and to have such a determined friend.” Chou looked up at me and smiled, and I grinned back at her.
“I still can’t believe it,” Evelyn said. “I had scratches on my hands, just small ones, but they’re gone. It’s like magic.”
“Same here,” said Oliver, the guy who had crashed his plane. “Had a three-inch long cut on my arm. It’s vanished. See!” He extended his right arm and showed me the line of pink skin where the laceration had been.
“And I feel so refreshed,” I said. “Like I got a really great night’s rest.”
People nodded enthusiastically.
“It’s like I’ve spent a week at the seaside,” Edward said.
“Yes,” rumbled Freuchen, “that is exactly vot I feel like; as though I have had a relaxing holiday.”
Chou continued, “It seems that whatever brought us to this island—”
“Avalon,” Albert chimed in. “We should call the island Avalon.”
“Ver King Arthur sleeps eternally,” Freuchen said. “Yes, I like that idea very much.”
“A ship with shields before the sun, six maidens round the mast. A red-gold crown on everyone, a green gown on the last,” Edward recited quietly.
“That’s William Morris,” I said, impressed. I had to think for a second before I remembered the poem’s title. Then it came to me, “Near Avalon,” I said, pleased I’d remembered.
“Indeed,” said Edward, who seemed even more impressed that I knew it.
“Yes, Avalon,” said Chou, smiling and dipping her head to the boy. “Whoever is responsible for bringing us all here to Avalon desires that we stay alive and healthy.”
“You think there’s an intelligence behind this with a plan, too. Don’t you?” I said.
Chou nodded. “All evidence that I have observed would point to that being the most likely conclusion, I believe.”
I felt a warm glow of vindication in my chest. I hadn’t had time to tell Chou that I seemed to be the one behind our ability to communicate in each other’s language, but I did so now.
“Interesting,” Chou whispered when I was done. “That would seem to increase the probability that we were brought here with a very specific purpose in mind.”
Edward stood up. “Could it be,” he said, “that we are here to populate this planet? It makes perfect sense to me. Why else would you relocate so many doomed people to this island, heal them, give them abundant food and water sources, if not to have them start humanity over? We were all going to die, right? But we didn’t. We all accepted the offer the Voice made. Now we’ve been given a second chance on this world… to create a brave new world.” He looked down at Albert and smiled, “A chance for the metaphorical Arthur to rise from this island and reclaim that which he was sworn to protect and hold dominion over. Begin all over again. Afresh.”
While I appreciated the romantic notion of Edward’s theory, if anything, it sounded too altruistic.
Chou got up and walked to the fire. Everyone else followed along with her as though she were the Pied Piper. “I do not believe this to be a new world, Edward,” she said.
“Why?” said, Jacquetta, the archaeologist. “Surely, to make that kind of a statement, you must have some evidence to back up your assertion?”
Chou dipped her head in acknowledgment. “You will have all noticed the net-like structure that surrounds this world’s star, yes?”
“It’s hardly missable,” said Bull, glancing up at the dots of light that peppered the night sky.
“I believe those lights are part of a structure known as a Dyson Swarm.”
“What on God’s good green earth is a ‘Dyson Swarm?’” asked Edward, stepping closer.
Chou thought for a second. “Think of it as a way of harnessing vast amounts of energy collected from the sun. Millions of mirrors are placed in rings orbiting a star, collecting unimaginable amounts of energy; all the energy needed to power a highly advanced civilization’s technology.”
“Like a windmill?” said Jorge.
“Or a waterwheel,” Freuchen added.
“Similar in principle, yes,” Chou said, “but on an unimaginable scale. Imagine the powe
r a billion windmills would provide. The Dyson swarm transfers the energy it collects back to earth, where I believe it is collected by the giant towers on the horizon. Some of that energy will be consumed by the aurora on a nightly basis, to power the nano-bots that resuscitated me.”
“But, surely, the energy the Dyson Swarm is collecting can’t all be going to power the aurora?” I said.
“You are correct,” Chou replied. “It would, of course, have taken an unimaginable amount of energy to bring all of us here to this planet. Even so, I estimate there is still a surplus of available energy, collecting in some kind of storage device, perhaps. Unless…”
“Unless, what?” said Edward.
“Unless that energy is being used to power other technology we are not yet aware of.”
“Like what?” Tabitha asked.
“The applications would be unlimited, capable of powering vast computers, starships, and off-world ecologies.” Chou rattled off.
Edward leaned forward, obviously fascinated. “But how does that disprove my theory that we have all been brought here for a second chance?”
“You have observed how bright the sun is?” Chou said.
“It does seem far brighter than our own,” Edward agreed.
“And bigger,” Albert said. “It’s definitely bigger.”
Chou smiled at the boy. “Yes, well done Albert. Both of those things are indications that this star is old; past what you could call middle-age, if you wish to use a human analogy. I believe that the star is only a few tens of millions of years away from becoming a Red Giant, which will mean the complete annihilation of all life on this planet. That observation is backed up by the fact that whatever race lived on this planet must have been extremely advanced to have built the Dyson Swarm; at least level II on the Kardashev Scale. That takes a long time to achieve.”
“Hey! I know that one,” I said. “The Kardashev Scale is a measurement of the amount of energy a civilization needs to power itself, right?”
“Correct, Meredith. The scale starts at Type I and progresses up to III and, theoretically, beyond. Where Type I is a civilization that can store energy that reaches it from its star. A Type II civilization would be capable of building technology that harnesses all its parent star’s energy, and Type III is able to harvest energy on a galactic scale. And as the scale is logarithmic, as a civilization progresses further along the scale, so its energy consumption grows exponentially. An industrial culture such as the one Edward is from at the turn of the twentieth century would not even reach the threshold of a Type I classification. Meredith’s time would be on the low end of Type I, and my own time would be getting close to Type II. To be able to construct and utilize the Dyson Swarm would place this planet’s dominant civilization firmly in the Level II bracket.”
“So, the question is: where is the civilization that made the Dyson Swarm?” Evelyn said quietly.
“Precisely!” Chou said. “Since our arrival, there has been no attempt by the Voice to contact us. There also appear to be gaps in the swarm’s net, which suggests that no one is concerned with repairing it. So, where is everyone? The only conclusion I can draw is that whatever civilization once lived on this planet has either gone extinct or has migrated elsewhere. Which again suggests that this planet is far older than we suspect.”
“Fascinating,” Edward said. “Quite fascinating.”
“In conclusion,” Chou continued, “I see no reason for the Voice to have brought us here if the planet will be rendered uninhabitable in the near future. No, there must be another reason.”
A silence descended over us that lasted until Edward said, “Well, if what you say is true, Chou, it brings us back full circle to the first question we all have: why did the Voice bring us here to begin with? Why save us?”
“That is a question I’d very much like an answer to,” Bull said, more to himself than any of us.
Chou continued, “Anything we postulate is, at best, conjecture, at worst, uninformed. There is only one way for us to be sure, and that is to speak directly with the entity we call the Voice.”
“You think the Voice will try to contact us at some point?” said Tabitha.
“Perhaps,” said Chou.
“You don’t appear to be convinced?” Edward said.
“While the intelligence behind our transportation here is undeniably advanced, I am confused by the way we were… deposited in such a dangerous manner the day we arrived. It strikes me as being very clumsy. Out of character with the finesse and attention to detail of everything else I have observed on this world. To bring all of us here, arriving together from our various times must have been an immense undertaking that would not only have taken an incredible amount of energy, the source of which we can now say we know, but also incredible coordination and planning. Huge computational power far beyond what was available even in my time.”
“So?” Bull interjected. It was obvious he was only barely following the thread of Chou’s explanation, but he seemed to get the gist of it at least.
Chou answered him. “Assuming our belief that there is some kind of a plan for us is correct, why would the Voice drop us so unceremoniously into the ocean? Why risk losing so many of us after going to such painstaking detail to find us and transport us here? Why not simply deposit everyone onto the beach, together? Why leave us to fend for ourselves? The idea that a plan which required such precision to bring us here could then place us in a position where our survival is left to chance, seems implausible to me.”
“Maybe the Voice wasn’t able to do any of that? Maybe their calculations were off?” I said.
“Maybe they did it that way so we wouldn’t be hurt. You know, a soft landing into the ocean,” Oliver said.
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I fell maybe three or four feet, and we were dropped pretty far offshore. Worst case scenario, if we’d arrived on the beach or in the shallows, would have been a few people with broken bones or bruised egos. I saw at least one woman drown and I helped rescue several more who would have died, which means not everyone knew how to swim.”
“And anyone who was hurt on arrival would have been healed the first night after the aurora,” said Edward.
“Exactly,” I said. “As I told you before, I saw one woman drown for certain. There must have been others. Albert would have been one of them if I hadn’t been able to reach him in time.”
Tabitha, Oliver, and Evelyn all said that they had seen people drown or swept out to sea. Edward and Bull said they had seen bodies on the beach and floating in the water.
“Perhaps that wasn’t supposed to be a part of the plan. Maybe something went wrong?” said Evelyn.
“Or perhaps the plan was sabotaged?” I said.
“Sabotaged?” said Wild Bill.
I quickly recounted our run-in with the swordsman that began with Phillip’s murder. “Those two men didn’t seem particularly friendly and would have murdered the rest of us as well if it hadn’t been for you, Wild Bill. So, maybe someone’s working against whatever plan the Voice has for us. I mean, dropping us offshore seems like a pretty good way to screw up the plan early on.”
“It vould help account for the two assassins,” said Freuchen.
“What you’re saying,” said Wild Bill, “is that someone ain’t too thrilled about us being here. Someone who ain’t the Voice. Someone… else?”
“A saboteur? Meredith may well be right,” Chou said. “I believe that an undertaking such as we are a part of must have been planned meticulously and would have been executed just as precisely. For something to go so obviously wrong must mean one of two things: One… the Voice failed to adequately account for all variables of the space/time transference or two… as Meredith has suggested, an extraneous force was exerted on the process in an attempt to kill as many of us as possible upon our arrival. Given the available information, I believe that the second option is the most likely, considering the preparation, complexity and flawless execution of the plan up un
til that point.”
Silence descended over the group. The idea that there might be someone… or some thing else working against us sent literal shivers down my back. And judging by the look of concern on everyone else’s face, I wasn’t alone in how exposed I suddenly felt. “Great, just what we need,” I whispered. This was all weird enough without the idea that someone wanted us all dead.
Edward broke the gloomy silence with an injection of optimism. “We need to remember that this is all just theory at this point. We don’t know for certain that any of it is true, well, most of it, anyway. So, we need to keep our chins up. The one thing we all know is we were chosen for a reason.” He smiled a broad, attractive smile. “I’ll be the first to admit that I have no bloody idea what that reason might be, but we have to look after each other until we do.”
There were returned smiles and even a little nervous laughter.
“Vat do ve do in the meantime?” said Freuchen. “Ve can’t just sit around and act as though none of this is happening? Vat do ve do between now and ven the Voice decides to grace us vith his—”
“Or her,” interjected Tabitha.
“Yes, or her presence,” Freuchen agreed,
“We continue along the same path we are already on,” Edward answered, rising to his feet. “Our priority is to ensure the garrison and all who live within her walls are safe. We continue to build the cabins and the stockade, expand the garrison if we must. We have a fine location here. If this is to be our home, then we need to be able to protect it.”
“And then?” said Sarah.
“Then we canvas the island. Find out what resources there are. There must be more people; we all saw them on the beach. We need to find as many good men and women as we can and bring them into our fold. There’s strength in numbers.”
Chou nodded. “That seems like a reasonable plan of action.”
The Paths Between Worlds Page 15
