It’s a spectacular panorama.
The slope rolls below her in an endless wash of rock and dead scrub. The lava stream twists and winds to her left, following the easiest track downhill. She can even see the far-off blanket that is the Dead Forest, though the trees look like scratchy black bristles from this distance.
Todd and the others aren’t as far behind as she had expected, though she’s gratified to see them, even Chen, red-faced and sweating. Ysa trails the group, looking like the walking dead, and Ana feels a twinge of sympathy that she quashes as quickly as it comes.
A cool wind blows from the east, chilling the sweat that’s pooled in Ana’s collar. The exertion and the heat rolling off the volcano’s slope—not to mention the baking rays of the rapidly rising sun, Torus, which has now halved its distance to its twin—have flushed her cheeks and made her wish she could strip down to her underwear. Finally she feels restored enough to sit up, and she turns around to face the rest of the slope. She gasps.
The summit is so close—it’s right there! She feels as if she could stretch out one arm and touch it with the tips of her fingers. It can’t be more than a ten-or fifteen-minute climb away.
She rubs the energy bar wrapper briskly between her hands until it biodegrades into a fine powder. Then she throws on her backpack and turns to restart her climb.
“Wait,” comes a croak from behind her. Ana glances back to see Todd, breathless and waving a strip of white tissue like a flag. His look is pleading, and something inside her gives a quick, sharp pulse. She suddenly thinks back to that moment in the scrub, the clasp of his hand in hers as they fled the worm—and her iron grip on her fury wobbles.
“Please, just wait a second,” he says.
“Yeah,” calls Chen beside him. “You can’t summit on your own. We’re a team, even if some of us are psycho!”
In spite of herself, Ana half-smiles. Could I have been overreacting back there? She considers. Suddenly she’s a little ashamed at having made such a big deal out of the situation. There are nine hours to go; is that really so long to wait for answers? If the others think it’s that important, does she really need to force the issue? Not to mention storming off like a toddler in a temper tantrum.
She hates to admit it, but maybe Todd had the right idea after all.
With a resigned smile she lifts a hand in agreement. “Get your butts up here, then, because this mountain climber has a goal to reach.”
And the sooner she gets there, the better.
ELEVEN
00:09:00:57
Now that she’s made peace with the situation, Ana throws herself mindlessly into the rest of the trek. They clear the last bluff, and from there it’s an easy climb to the summit.
She marvels at all the Earth-like elements on this planet. Is that why it was chosen for exploration? How long did it take scientists to find Paradox, among the millions of planets in the galaxy? How far away from Earth are they?
She scrambles up alongside Todd, who seems to have located the easiest path to the top.
“Hey,” she says. “So tell me about the volcano.”
“Mount Fahr,” Todd says. He stumbles a little, catches himself with both hands, but keeps moving. “It blew its top thousands of years ago, if I’m not mistaken. The plant life has come back in some areas, but not in others.”
Ana whistles. That explains a lot about the vegetation all along the mountain. And even … “The Dead Forest!” she says. “No wonder it’s all ashy and, um, dead.” She frowns. “Do you suppose there used to be life on this planet? Real animal life, I mean, more than just the worm?”
“Kaboom!” Chen crows from behind them, apparently still in the volcanic eruption part of the conversation.
“Who knows,” says Ysa. “The planet scans were zip on any current life, that’s for sure. And virtually no signs were found of any past animal life, either.”
“Except the worm,” Ana muses, “which isn’t supposed to be here anymore, but somehow it is.”
Ysa lifts her head quickly and locks eyes with Chen, who frowns. Ana rolls her eyes. More secret stuff, no doubt.
But now their climb is over. First Todd, then Ana, with Chen and Ysa just behind, take their last scrambling steps up and over.
They stand at the very top of Mount Fahr.
The peak is wide and flat—it must go a quarter mile all the way around—and a big gap is hollowed out of the nearest edge, like the first lopsided scoop dug into a tub of ice cream. They all drop their packs in an unspoken agreement to take a few minutes’ break. Ana follows the lava flow across the summit to the edge of the crater. Here the rocky surface is cracked and jagged, the slate-gray stone dark and scorched.
This is where the lava stream begins its down-slope journey, but other molten puddles burble and dance around the edge, little spills and trickles of hot melted rock that don’t go anywhere in particular.
Ana steps cautiously around the pools and peers into the gaping heart of the mountain. There’s not much to see, just smoke and steam. The same horrible stench they’ve been smelling all the way up the mountain is so strong here it’s almost like a physical shove.
And then—“Boo!” There is a hand at her back, but it’s not shoving her, it’s grabbing her to keep her from toppling over the edge of the crater.
“Steady,” Chen says. “I’ve gotcha. Just a friendly jab between travelers.”
Ana spins around and socks him in the jaw. It’s not much of a punch, but he reels theatrically backward. Ana groans at the pain that ripples across her knuckles. “Don’t—ever—do that to me,” she growls. “Not anywhere, but definitely not here. Are you an idiot?”
To her surprise, Todd is chuckling and Ysa is laughing out loud. They’re sprawled out next to their packs on the flat ground that’s set back from the lava pools. “Boy, did he have that coming,” Ysa says between giggles.
“No way!” Chen crows, picking himself off the ground. “You did not just do that. Baby Anagram grew a pair!”
Ana can’t believe it—actually, no, I totally can—but he’s coming at her with his hand up and clenched … not for a return punch, apparently, but for a fist bump.
She groans. “Is it too late to send him back?”
“Mount Fahr,” Chen says, sliding past her without missing a beat, peering over into the pit. “Best lava dipping spot in the universe!”
“What?” Ana says.
“Sure! Put on the right gear, and you can shimmy right down the side, here.” He kicks his boot at the patch of ground by his feet. On closer look, it appears that some obstructions have been cleared away and the earth deliberately packed down to make a wide, smooth area surrounding a flat boulder that’s embedded in the lip of the crater. It all looks quite deliberately prepared, but how could Chen know about this?
“Chen … ,” Ysa says softly.
Something clicks into place in Ana’s mind.
She’d assumed that he knew so much about the planet from having researched it ahead of time. But now … “You’ve been here before,” Ana says slowly. “Or … all along? Were you already here before us? Is that it? You weren’t on that rocket?”
Chen looks at her with a suddenly wide-open and vulnerable gaze. He glances behind her at the others. For a second she thinks he’s going to speak, he opens his mouth even, shakes his head a little as if he’s going to let slip something he knows he shouldn’t. But then he takes an involuntary step back.
And the world falls apart.
Ana’s watching as it happens and still she can’t explain it. He’s on solid ground, his feet flat on the embedded rock. And then, suddenly, he’s not.
Chen topples into the lava pit.
Ana screams and drops to her belly, desperately trying to see through the searing fumes and smoke. At first she can’t see Chen at all. Then there’s a low moan down to her left, and she sees him.
Chen has landed on a rocky outcropping about ten feet down, his left leg twisted under him.
; “Oh, no,” Ysa says, dropping down next to Ana. “Chen! Get up!”
He’s struggling to stand, but something about his face scares Ana. His eyes are so wide they look almost totally white, and his breath is coming in short, harsh bursts. Chen isn’t just in pain, and he isn’t just afraid. He’s flat-out terrified.
“We have to do something,” Todd says, crawling up to Ana’s other side.
“Why isn’t he saying anything? It’s like he can’t hear us calling,” Ysa says.
“Grab my legs,” Ana says to Todd. “Drop me over the side.”
Todd chokes on a mouthful of fumes. “Are you crazy? What are you going to do down there?”
She grabs his wrist and snaps, “It can’t be more than a ten-foot drop. Look at him—he’s not getting himself out anytime soon. Take my feet. I’ll catch hold of him and you pull me back up.”
Todd shakes his head but scoots behind Ana and grabs her feet. Ysa scrambles behind Todd to give him extra ballast. As soon as his grip tightens around her ankles, Ana walks her hands over the rim of the crater and down the side. She wishes she’d thought to tie a cloth around her face; the fumes are almost unbearable and the farther down she goes, the less she can see.
“Chen,” she calls. “Talk to me! Are you okay?”
“Alex!” he shrieks suddenly, then whimpers, “No, wait. …”
Ana is just an arm’s reach away when he shrieks again, incoherently this time. He jumps to his feet, knocking into her.
From the rim above, Ana hears Todd yell, “Hey!” Then his hold is gone and Ana crumples down onto the ledge at Chen’s feet. She feels her shoulder pop back out of place and bites her lip against the pain, forcing herself to scramble right up to her feet.
“Chen,” she gasps, but he seems to have no idea she’s there.
“Not the fire, Alex.” His head swivels slightly from side to side.
Ana leans in closer and grabs Chen’s shoulders. “Look at me,” she pleads. “It’s Ana. Come on, Chen.”
His eyes lock on hers and widen. “What do you want me to do?”
“Just focus, okay?”
A wisp of smoke drifts between them. “I can’t do this, Alex. Please don’t make me.”
What is he talking about? Ana shakes him. “Chen!”
He thrashes from side to side, pulling out of her grasp and taking a step backward on the ledge. “No, please … I won’t say a word. Just let me go!”
His whole body is shaking, and even though he’s talking right to her, it’s obvious that he’s not seeing her at all. “Alex,” he whimpers. “Not the fire, Alex. No, please, not the fire—I can’t. …”
Ana forces her voice to remain steady. “It’s me, Chen. It’s just Ana. You’re safe—what you’re seeing”—she swallows—“it isn’t real. Chen?”
And then for one second his eyes refocus and he’s looking right at her. “It’s like peace, Ana. It’s not giving up. Just letting go.” With those words, Chen lifts his arms up and out to each side. He steps back.
“Chen, wait, what are you—”
He takes another step, this one onto open air, but he shows no surprise at finding no ground under his feet. Instead he just gives a sad smile as he topples, straight-backed, toward the fiery abyss below. Ana screams and lunges for him. As she drops to the edge, hands outstretched, the smile stays on his face until even that is swallowed up by the smoke and the fiery darkness.
Chen is gone.
For a long time, all she can do is lie flat on the ledge, body shaking. She can’t cry, she can’t even speak. Over and over again, she sees Chen fading into the gassy mist, that smile of resignation on his face. After a while, though, the sound of yelling breaks through her grief, and she realizes that it’s been coming from overhead for quite a while.
She looks up and thinks for a moment that her mind is playing tricks on her. Todd’s hand is just above her, and he’s in her light again, just like he was back at the basin wall when she was fleeing the worm for the first time.
Then she sees Ysa behind him. Their faces are filled with pain and concern and horror, and they’re so real and alive that her eyes fill with tears. She is flooded with an urgent desire to live, to move, to go on. Everything that Chen is no longer able to do.
Ana climbs to her feet and slowly scales the wall until she can grab Todd’s hand. His grip is strong in hers, pulling hard as she scrabbles with her feet on the rock face. Slowly, slowly she rises out of the steaming pit and collapses next to the others onto the flat, desolate summit of Mount Fahr.
They lie there panting, all three of them, for long minutes. Ysa is crying quietly.
“What happened down there?” Todd asks. “We couldn’t really see through all the fumes.”
“Something spooked him. He was terrified, Todd. I have no idea why or what caused it, but it’s almost like … he got scared to death.” She knows it sounds ridiculous, but it’s what keeps coming into her head when she thinks of Chen’s face—right up until the end, of course.
Todd sits up straight. “What do you mean? What was he so freaked out about?”
“I don’t know,” Ana says, eyes closed. “He didn’t know me. He was just raving on about some kind of a fire. He kept calling me Alex.”
“A fire?” snaps Ysa, then just as quickly starts sobbing again. “Why would he be talking about that?”
“He was gone somewhere in his head. That’s all I know. And then he just—fell. He let himself fall. He didn’t slip or anything.” Ana goes quiet, and the others don’t press her for any more details.
There’s something bugging her about this exchange, though, and in the quiet that follows her retelling, it suddenly becomes clear. That glazed look in Chen’s eyes, the palpable fear—she’s seen it somewhere before. It’s exactly the look Todd had when he was in the Dead Forest. When he was stuck in that terrified trance. But what connection could there possibly be? The forest is miles away.
Todd breaks into her thoughts then by climbing slowly to his feet. His face is grim and his look flat. “We should probably keep moving.”
Ana sighs. As horrible as it seems to think rationally after what just happened, she knows he’s right. Eight hours left to go, and who knows what else is going to come at them on this forsaken planet? “Yeah,” she says, pushing herself up. “I guess so.”
“Ysa,” Todd says slowly as the other girl struggles into her pack. “Does this … change anything? About, you know, all the stuff we’re not supposed to know?”
Ysa gives him a long look. Then she drops her eyes and shakes her head. “No. If anything …” She shrugs. “Let’s just keep moving.”
Todd nods and shoulders his own pack.
Ana can’t bring herself to care. What does it really matter? They just need to get where they’re going. Stay safe until then. Survive. Those instructions are taking on a whole new meaning, somehow. She bites her lip.
The three of them turn their backs on the pit, and once again Ana fights back tears. She can’t erase Chen’s face from her mind. She feels a touch on her arm and looks down to see Todd’s hand gripping her lightly. “You know you did everything you could for him, right? What happened to Chen”—he swallows—“is not your fault.”
Not your fault. There’s something in those words that drives a white-hot poker through her belly, and for a second there’s a flash in her mind and she’s back at the grave, watching the dirt trickle down. …She shakes herself.
Brushing Todd’s arm aside, she pushes ahead of the others and starts across the wide, flat summit toward the far edge where they will make their descent. Toward the ocean, toward the colony, yes—but above all, away. Away from Chen and loss and madness and piercing slivers of memory that burrow into her broken mind and don’t let go.
As far away as she can get.
TWELVE
00:07:58:21
The summit is wider across than Ana had expected. But the pace she sets to cross it helps push some of the storm clouds out of her head. By the
time she clears the far side of the peak, the fist in her chest has loosened slightly and she’s able to lean over, put her hands on her knees, and catch her breath.
When Ysa approaches, her eyes are fixed on the distant view, her face a mask of wonder. “Oh!” she whispers. She reaches for Ana’s arm and squeezes. “Just …”
The Maraqa Sea is like a glassy jewel, green and glimmering in the glow of the twin suns. Stretching to the edge of the pink horizon, it steals Ana’s words and makes quick tears spring to her eyes. It feels so strange to find this beauty here, so much at odds with the ugliness she has just seen. It can’t begin to make up for everything else. But …
But maybe, she thinks, looking out across the sea to far-off scattered brown dots that must be islands. Maybe it’s a start. She wouldn’t call it a sign of hope—she’s not nearly that sentimental. But with this image of beauty to hold on to, maybe, she thinks, she can continue going forward.
Todd comes up behind them and Ana turns to give him her best I’m-holding-it-together smile. He exhales visibly. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, good.”
“Can we see the settlement from here?” Ana asks. “The colony?” The last discussion on this subject left a sour taste in her mouth, but that’s still their goal, the place where answers lie.
Todd seems unsure, looking off into the distance with brows furrowed. “I don’t think so,” he says.
Ysa waves an arm toward the distant shoreline, pointing off to the right. “It’s a little farther down the coast that way. Can’t see much from here.”
Ana contemplates the distance they have yet to cross. The sea is there, lapping the far horizon. Before this is a wide wasteland that she remembers from the map as a stretch of sand dunes. Before that is the mountain slope, rolling and tame at its base but growing steeper the higher it gets.
Paradox Page 8
