Ashfall Legacy

by Pittacus Lore

  We pulled into the station. The three of us were the only ones getting off, the only humans on the train. The sun was out now, this little enclave of humanity bathed in a golden light.

  “Oh,” Hiram said, glancing over his shoulder at me. “That’s right. I guess Grandpa knew your dad. I think he’s got some questions. Like, when are we invading Earth? That sort of thing.”

  21

  I stared at Hiram. “You know about that?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Sure. Your dad was supposed to cure the Wasting, and then my grandpa and some of the other old-timers were planning to go back to Earth and set it straight.” He puffed out his chest. “Our greatest responsibility is to save humanity from itself.” Hiram made a jerk-off motion.

  I didn’t know what to say. The night I left Earth, my mom had made it seem like their plan was a hush-hush conspiracy of the utmost importance. Hiram talked about it flippantly, like his grandpa had dementia.

  He read my expression and continued. “Look, dude, no one wants to go back to Earth. Denza is fucking great. Half of us were born here. You think I want to waste years policing a bunch of dirty savages on a polluted wastewater? No thank you. There’s a whole galaxy out there to explore.”

  I glanced at Darcy, and she shrugged noncommittally. I wasn’t even fully invested in my mom’s bonkers plan. At first, my goal out here was to simply find my dad and, you know, actually get to know the guy. Setting up an invasion of Earth was a distant second, and now it’d been bumped down the priority list even further by Goldy and his creepy prophecies. Even so, the way Hiram talked about my mom’s plan goaded me into defending it.

  “There’s billions of us back on Earth, though. If we don’t help them—”

  Hiram waved me off. “They’ll figure it out,” he said. “Just humor my grandpa, okay? He’s still in charge here for now. Come on. We’ll show you around.”

  The Denzans made a gift of Little Earth to the astronauts who’d fought off the Etherazi invaders, and, when the Senate decided to allow more humans to immigrate to Denza via the Serpo Institute, it became home to most of them. The island was chosen in particular because of its position on the equator, where it would receive more direct sunlight and fewer eclipses than other spots in the vast archipelago, and so better support human life. It was also chosen because it was completely empty. Previously a recreation island for the Denzans, its entire population and all of its buildings had been destroyed by the Etherazi. After learning all that from Hiram and Darcy, I’d expected Little Earth to have a haunted feeling, the human settlement having been built on top of a mass grave.

  Instead, Little Earth was like the quaint town square of a 1950s sitcom. I kept expecting to see a kid with a slingshot following his trusy dog to where someone was trapped in a well. The place was clean, and folksy, and hella dorky.

  The cobblestone streets were lined with flagpoles—the US, Australia, Canada, Egypt, Russia, France, and more—all countries, presumably, that the Serpo Institute had recruited from at some point. This apple-pie-ass main street had a barbershop with the red-and-white-striped pole, an old-fashioned two-screen movie theater currently playing a couple of blockbusters that I’m sure came out like ten years ago, and something called a “malt shop.” There was also a grocery store with a big sign in the window that advertised imported (from Earth) sugar cereals. And, at the center of it all, a pizzeria.

  Part of the reason Little Earth felt like a painted backdrop was because it was so empty. I spotted a few humans wandering around the grocery store, but that was it.

  “Where is everybody?” I asked Hiram.

  “There’s only like five hundred humans that belong to the Serpo Institute,” he said. “A lot of them are deployed on ships or working in Primclef or—”

  “Or doing literally anything to avoid hanging out in this corny Earth museum,” I said.

  Darcy tilted her head. “The Chef always says this is an ideal version of Earth. You don’t like it?”

  I scratched the back of my neck. “I don’t know. It feels kind of . . . phony?”

  “Don’t say any of that to my grandpa,” Hiram said.

  The two of them walked me toward the pizzeria. I sniffed baked dough and spices in the air as we got closer. At least they’d gotten the smells right.

  Just as we were nearing the door, Captain Reno emerged from the restaurant. Off duty, she wore a checkered shirt, some mom jeans, and a visor like she was about to do her taxes. It was the first time she’d actually looked like she was in her seventies.

  “Aha,” Reno said by way of greeting, putting her fists on her hips. “You know, I just now got complaints about a trio of humans making asses of themselves outside the institute. Any idea who that was?”

  We all straightened a bit at the sight of the captain. “Wasn’t us, ma’am,” Hiram said, unable to keep the smirk off his face.

  “Convincing,” Reno replied. She pointed at me. “Chambers, you go on inside and introduce yourself to Rafe. I’m going to have a word about manners with these other two.”

  The interior of the pizzeria looked pretty much identical to one on Earth. Black-and-white-checkered tiles, booths, a glass counter that housed a handful of different pizzas, and a brick oven for reheating slices. I edged over to the counter to scope out the pies. They looked mostly normal to me, if you considered deep dish normal—red sauce, congealed cheese, mostly mushrooms for toppings, except for one that featured some pink circles that looked too spongy to be pepperoni.

  “You’re not going to eat any of that,” a merry voice said. “I won’t allow it.”

  Rafe Butler came through the swinging doors that led back to the kitchen, wiping his hands on his flour-coated apron. Except for his square-shaped head and broad shoulders, Rafe looked nothing at all like his grandson. He was shorter than me and sturdily built with a full head of ink-black hair and a matching goatee, both of which were obviously dyed. He had puffy cheeks and a round belly that had ballooned since the old picture my mom had shown me. He circled around the counter and thrust a hairy hand at me, shaking vigorously as he introduced himself.

  “Seriously, you can’t have any pizza,” he said again. “Don’t even ask me.”

  I hadn’t actually planned to eat any pizza, but now that I was standing there, my stomach was a little rumbly. “Why not?”

  “It’s terrible,” Rafe said. He rested his hands on the case, gazing down at his work. “You’ve just come from Earth. You still remember what pizza actually tastes like. This here is a Denzan knockoff. The cheese is salty and a little chewy because the milk comes from these reef-dwelling amphibians. Those pepperonis aren’t the real thing—they’re basically shrimp, because the Denzans don’t allow us any real meat. And I haven’t even gotten to the worst part yet.”

  I could tell by the twinkle in his eye that this was going to be a well-worn punch line. I went along with it. “What’s the worst part?”

  “I’m not even Italian!” He chuckled. “I’m from Montreal originally, moved to Detroit when I was a kid. A French-Canadian making pizza. Can you believe it?”

  “I mean, we’re having this conversation a few million light-years from Earth, so yeah, your pizza isn’t the weirdest thing I’ve encountered lately,” I said.

  “Touché,” Rafe replied. He talked quickly and easily, moving his hands a lot. I could tell he was the kind of guy with an arsenal of anecdotes always at the ready. “After the war, I couldn’t get pizza out of my head. I thought about going back to Earth, just to get a slice. Sure, I’d die from the Wasting, but it’d be worth it. Instead, I opened this place.” He circled around the counter, looking at me. “Give it a year. Maybe two. Then come back, and my pies will be the best you’ve ever had.”

  I tilted my head. “Why? You going to take a class or something?”

  “No,” he replied. “Because you’ll have forgotten what the real thing tastes like. Once that happens, mine won’t seem so bad.”

  The thought gave me pause. I’d jus
t gotten to Denza, and everything here and out in the Vastness was still so fresh and new. As I dived into the experience, I’d never considered the possibility that I could forget things about Earth. Yet, already, my home planet had started to seem a bit like a distant memory.

  “You look just like him,” Rafe said, shaking his head as if in awe.

  I glanced out the front window, but Reno and my crewmates were gone. “Reno said the same thing.”

  “She was probably talking about your grandpa. Me? I see your dad in there. His mind used to wander off places, same way yours just did.” He gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Marcius was one of the good guys. He genuinely wanted to help humanity.”

  I resisted the urge to correct the past tense. If he’d been talking to Reno, I assumed Rafe already knew about the cosmological tether and maybe even the encounter with the Etherazi. I got the sense that he was feeling me out.

  “I didn’t really get a chance to know him,” I said.

  “There’s still time, kid.” He winked, then untied his apron and set it on the counter. “No customers, as usual. Let’s take a walk.”

  We strolled onto the empty streets of Little Earth. A middle-aged human couple held hands on their way to the train station. They were the only other people in sight. Rafe steered us in the opposite direction, toward a small park with curving Denzan trees that looked like dark green weeping willows.

  “You should import some tumbleweeds from Earth,” I suggested. “Place has a real ghost-town vibe.”

  Rafe walked slowly with his hands clasped behind his back. “Funny,” he replied with a thoughtful smile. “You know, you’re the first human recruit the Consulate has sent us in—oh, probably three years? And you’re a special case.”

  I raised an eyebrow. I’d gotten the sense that the Denzan Consulate back on Earth had a sweeping global operation. I figured they’d been sending candidates to the Serpo Institute all the time. But, now that Rafe mentioned it, the only humans or part-humans I’d met so far had been born here.

  “Why so few?” I asked him.

  “The Senate would tell you that every candidate has to be properly vetted and that they don’t want the Serpo Institute to be flooded with students.” Rafe gave me a deadpan look. “Truth is, they don’t want too many of us up here. They worship us, but we also scare them.”

  I nodded. “We had a welcoming committee from the Merciful Rampart waiting for us at the spaceport.”

  Rafe snorted. “Of course you did. Those guys are dedicated, I’ll give them that. They’re afraid we’ll try to take over. Your average Denzan probably thinks that a little bit too, but at least they feel shame about not trusting us. Generally, they’re more afraid of the Etherazi than they are of us. So they keep us around in case those monsters come back but limit our numbers. It’s a balancing act. There’re exactly 521 humans living in the stars. Some are second- or third-generation, like my idiot grandson. The Denzans prefer that, too. They like humans who were born on Denza because they don’t have any messy ties to Earth. That’s why we see so few Earth-born cadets.”

  I thought all that over. The relationship between Denza and humanity was complicated, and I wasn’t ready to jump to any conclusions after only having been on the planet for a day.

  “My mom said the Denzans should be doing more to help Earth,” I said after a moment.

  “Hmm,” Rafe replied noncommittally. “How much did she tell you?”

  I lowered my voice, even though there wasn’t anyone around. “She said you wanted to bring some enhanced humans back to Earth and take over the planet.”

  “No offense, kid, but your mom has a cynical way of looking at things,” Rafe replied. “We’d go back as saviors, not invaders. We’d show the rest of our species what’s possible if they got their shit together. And, if it weren’t for the Wasting, we’d go back with the confidence that we wouldn’t need to worry about getting gunned down because some authoritarian president or exploitative megacorp didn’t like what we had to say.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Go all Clark Kent. Topple a few governments, make recycling mandatory . . .”

  Rafe grinned. “If that’s what it takes.”

  We’d come to the entrance of the park, an oval area with benches set up around a bubbling fountain. Suspended above the water on an antigravity platform was a gold-plated sculpture of twelve humans. The First Twelve that had come to Denza.

  “Gosh, I was skinny then,” Rafe said, patting his belly.

  Rafe’s likeness stood on one end, standing with his arms crossed, posed back-to-back with another astronaut. All of them wore flight suits, some casually unzipped with the sleeves rolled up, others looking tightly wound and militaristic. I recognized a younger version of Reno up there, her head tipped back, either shouting or laughing. And then the handsome man with his arm slung around her shoulders, giving a cheesy thumbs-up for all of eternity—well, that was my grandfather.

  “This beauty always gets me sentimental,” Rafe said, knuckling the corner of his eye. “How is it back home these days?”

  “It’s . . . uh . . .” I was a little distracted with the image of my grandfather in full health, looking like me if I lifted weights for the next ten years and had one of those dimpled chins. “Not great, Rafe.”

  “I hear the ice caps are all but gone. Sea levels swelling. Droughts and hurricanes and unbreathable air. I get estimates that there’re about thirty years to go before full societal collapse. Millions dead, slowly, from a lack of clean water or else from wars over the remaining resources.” Rafe sighed deeply. “The billionaires with their toy rockets. The politicians with their little armies. All that staring them in the face, and still they don’t change a damn thing. No, I wouldn’t ask the Denzans to wade into that mess. We haven’t proven ourselves to be worth saving.”

  “And you said my mom was cynical,” I replied.

  “We have to help ourselves. We could do that, if returning to Earth didn’t kill us.” He squeezed my shoulder. “We could do that if your dad cured the Wasting.”

  I stared ahead at the statue. My grandpa up there, grinning and goofing. He’d died on Earth so that he could be with his family and be a guinea pig to figure out what’s wrong with humanity. I wondered what he’d thought about Rafe and his big ideas.

  “And you know what?”

  “What?”

  “I think he did it,” Rafe said. “I think he found the answer to humanity’s illness out there and someone on his crew didn’t want it getting out. I think someone sabotaged his way back.”

  Tycius and I had talked about that theory a little bit. It made sense, at least it had until my encounter with Goldy. But if the Lost People were some cosmic threat lost to history, that complicated things.

  “What if he found something else?” I asked, looking over at Rafe. I wasn’t sure how much I should tell him, so I kept it vague. “Something bigger than a cure for the Wasting? Something dangerous?”

  Rafe’s eyes glistened as he gazed at the statue of his old friends. He pointed out a handful of the more formal-looking astronauts. “He died in the war, and her, him too, and him from his injuries right after. They gave their lives to Denza because they were honorable and brave. The best humanity had to offer.” He turned to me. “Sydney, I don’t mean to put this pressure on you, but you’re our only hope to recover your father’s research and hopefully him, which makes you the only hope for Earth. You lived there. You must’ve seen that there’s some good left in our species, even if we’ve lost our way. At the very least, you remember what real pizza tastes like.”

  I rolled my eyes, but that didn’t stop Rafe from talking. His grip tightened on my shoulder.

  “You’re half-Denzan, Syd. I know you’ll need time to explore that side of yourself. You’re going to love it here. Most do.” Rafe took a deep breath of the fresh air. “But when the time comes, I hope you’ll be with me. I hope you’ll remember where you come from and those people who are counting on you. Because, for me, and f
or your mom and dad, there is nothing—nothing—bigger than the fate of humanity.”

  22

  I’d gotten used to the silence of space, the gentle humming of the Eastwood, the stillness. The institute was noisy, cadets moving around the halls at all hours. I shared a wall with H’Jossu, and that first night, I’m pretty sure he watched six straight hours of Bruce Lee movies. I thought about going over to chill with him—the unsleeping Panalax would’ve loved the company—but I had an early class in the morning, my first at the institute, and it was on Wayscopes. After what had happened on the Eastwood, I wanted to be sharp for that.

  So of course, I tossed and turned all night.

  I thought about Rafe Butler and my dad’s disappearance, how so many people wanted him found and others wanted him to stay lost. I thought about how everyone had an angle, everyone wanted something—even an Etherazi. If I listened to the Chef, the fate of humanity was pretty much on me. And if I listened to my pal Goldy, maybe the fate of the whole universe, too.

  Oh, and I was also going to become an adult capable of destroying a planet.

  You try to sleep knowing all that.

  When I did manage to doze off, I had the dream. My dad and I, eating donuts on the hood of a parked car. The greenery of Australia had been replaced by a gray wasteland. Ash fell all around us, sticking to the pastries. Instead of watching rockets go up, we were watching them come down—Earth under bombardment.

  My dad turned to me. “I’m going to be dead by the time you find me, Syd.”

  I woke up with a start, feeling like a weight was pressing down on my chest. Two glowing yellow eyes peered at me in the darkness.

  “Bad dream, human?”

  It wasn’t just anxiety that woke me. Zara was literally perched on my chest, crouched, her fanged snout just inches from my nose. The Vulpin’s fur was delicately perfumed and smelled like a fancy kind of tea that my mom used to drink.