Eleanor realized then that her mom had been surprised, not angry, and it had simply taken longer for Watkins and Hobbes to notice the view.
“Where—” Hobbes stepped up closer to the window, looking out. “Tell me this is a television screen.”
“It’s not,” Eleanor said. “We’re here.”
“Where?” Hobbes asked.
“The rogue world,” Watkins said, a grin spreading. “You clever girl.”
“I can’t believe this,” Eleanor’s mom said. “How—?”
“I connected with the ship,” Eleanor said. “But before that, something up there contacted me.” She pointed out the window, toward the summit of the black mountain. “It wasn’t like the Concentrators or anything else. It needed help.”
“Excuse me, help?” Hobbes pressed his thumb and index finger against his squinted eyes. “You’re telling me you hijacked this ship and flew it into outer space because an extraterrestrial entity asked you for help?”
Eleanor thought for a moment. “Yes, that’s what I’m telling you.”
Watkins chuckled, and that drew the attention of Eleanor’s mom.
“You think this is funny?”
“I find it amusing, yes. And absurd. And impossible. And yet, here we are.” Watkins held up his hands.
Eleanor’s mom shook her head, and then took Eleanor firmly by the shoulders. “Sweetie, I . . . I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Then let me,” Eleanor said. “Last night, I saw the rogue world in a dream. I saw this city. I saw that mountain. Something up there needs me to do something. I don’t know what, and I don’t know how or why, but I know it has something to do with the Freeze. I . . . I was out of ideas. And I know that whatever is up there can help us. When I connected with the ship, whatever is up there took control and brought us here.”
“How far did we travel?” Hobbes asked.
“A long way,” Eleanor said. “The sun looks smaller from here. That’s all I know.”
“I might be able to estimate our position if I can get a look at the sky outside,” Watkins said.
“Outside?” Eleanor’s mom put her hands on her hips. “You’re not suggesting we go out there.”
“We have to,” Eleanor said. “I have to get to the top of that mountain.”
“Eleanor, listen to me,” her mom said. “This is an alien world. We have no idea what dangers there are.”
“I have some idea,” Eleanor said, but decided that saying anything more about it wouldn’t help the situation. “Besides. This ship is damaged. We won’t be able to fly it home.”
“It felt like a crash.” Watkins glanced back down the corridor. “And apparently it was. The ship deployed some kind of protective casing around us.”
“And now we need to move,” Eleanor said. “We crashed because another ship attacked us.”
“Attacked one of their own?” Hobbes said.
Eleanor nodded.
“So what are we dealing with?” Hobbes turned to Watkins. “Civil war? An insurgency?”
“You won’t have any of your questions answered until we climb that mountain.” Eleanor moved toward the cockpit door, but her mom stepped in front of her, preventing her from leaving.
“Sweetie, we don’t even know what kind of atmosphere this planet has.”
That wasn’t something Eleanor had considered. In her dream, she’d stood outside, breathing just fine, but that didn’t mean she could breathe on the actual planet.
“The ship’s atmosphere is apparently compatible with our biochemistry.” Watkins inhaled deeply through his nose. “So either the aliens who built it shared our environmental needs, or the ship was prepared for humans.”
“We should just go see,” Eleanor said. “I’ll open the hatch, and Hobbes can use his sensor thing. I can close the hatch if I need to. Then we’ll know.”
The three adults looked back and forth among themselves. They left the cockpit and found their way back down the ramp, through the corridor, to the ship’s main hatch. This doorway had its own control console, and after placing her palm on it, Eleanor easily opened the door.
Hobbes stood in the rushing exchange of air with his handheld sensor, staring at the little display screen. “Seventy-eight percent nitrogen. Twenty-one percent oxygen. Other gases.” He looked up from the device. “It’s like earth.”
“Remarkable,” Watkins said. “I wouldn’t have thought a rogue planet could sustain an atmosphere.”
“At least we can go now,” Eleanor said, growing more anxious. “Right?”
“Right.” Hobbes stepped forward. “But we know there are hostiles out there. One of them brought down this ship.”
“What are you saying?” Eleanor’s mom asked.
Hobbes pulled his sidearm from its holster. “It means I lead the way.”
In this situation, his bravado didn’t bother Eleanor. He was a soldier, and the only one with a weapon. Hopefully it wouldn’t be needed, but if it would, she was happy to let him go first.
Hobbes exited through the main hatch first and scanned their surroundings before motioning for the other three to follow him out. The air, though breathable, was as cold as it had been in the Himalayas. Eleanor shivered a little and followed Hobbes down a ravine-like street toward the black mountain, leaving the ship behind.
Alien structures leered to either side, their walls like melting wax, scratching and clawing at the never-ending night above them with black talons. Nothing within the buildings gave off any light, and what little sunlight reached them got mired in their vermicular surfaces. As Hobbes marched Eleanor and the others forward, sweeping the city with his gaze, they kicked up a layer of dust so deep and fine it almost looked like they were walking through knee-high fog.
“This place is a ghost town,” Hobbes said.
“A ghost world,” Watkins added.
“What do you think happened to them?” Eleanor’s mom whispered.
“I don’t know,” Eleanor said. “But I think it happened a really long time ago.”
Nevertheless, they crept along the streets, sometimes in the shadow of the world-city, sometimes in the weak light of the sun, as if they might disturb something that shouldn’t be. On earth, Eleanor might have known how far they walked, and how far they had yet to go. But here, with the world shifting before her eyes and in her mind, Eleanor could only keep moving, and hope they reached their destination soon.
Not far from them, a static storm raged, lighting half the sky with searing flashes. Watkins speculated that the churning clouds were made of dust. Hobbes worried it was moving in their direction, posing a danger, so he told them all to walk faster, and a short while later they turned a corner and saw the base of the mountain up ahead. The dark peak filled its corner of the sky.
“I don’t suppose there’s an alien elevator somewhere nearby,” Watkins said.
“I think we have to climb it,” Eleanor said.
The old man sighed and nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
Eleanor looked up at the green light, the beacon on which she had staked the world. That glowing point and this mountain represented the end of her journey. She had done everything she could, and traveled as far as she could, and if this failed, there was literally nowhere else to go, and nothing else to do.
Something whined in the distance, and Eleanor recognized the sound without having to turn around.
“We need to run,” she said.
Behind them, a few streets away, one of the terrible machines crawled around a corner and hurtled toward them, legs clicking, circular blades outstretched.
“Everyone behind me!” Hobbes shouted. “Eleanor, do you know what this is?”
“I saw one in my dream!”
“Hostile?”
“It’s a sentry.”
“What’s it guarding?” Watkins asked. “There’s nothing here.”
“You want to stay and ask it or get out of here?” Hobbes said. “You all make a run for it. I’ll bring up t
he rear and hold it off if I can. Now go!”
Eleanor hesitated a moment, and then turned toward the black mountain. She, her mom, and Watkins broke into a sprint, and a few paces on they heard the first gunshot, a crack that seemed to echo off every uneven surface on every building nearby, growing louder and more piercing.
Eleanor looked back as Hobbes fired another shot, and another in a controlled retreat before the machine. She couldn’t tell if his bullets had done any real damage to it, but the monstrosity had slowed down.
“Come on!” she shouted to him. “Hurry!”
Then she, her mom, and Watkins started up the mountain, grasping at the mass of serpentine pipes and conduit, pulling themselves up with their hands as much as their legs and feet.
Another gunshot rang out. Then three more in rapid succession.
Eleanor glanced down to see Hobbes take a running leap up the side of the mountain, the machine behind him moving considerably slower than it had been, two of its appendages dragging uselessly along the ground.
“I’m with you!” Hobbes shouted. “Keep going!”
Eleanor didn’t know how closely the machine could follow with the damage it had sustained, but she continued climbing. Her mom kept pace with her, and sometimes led the way, but Watkins always trailed behind, his jaw set with pain and determination. Some distance on, Hobbes caught up with them.
“That thing is still following us,” he said. “And two more just reached the base.”
Eleanor looked back down the slope at the scuttling machines. “In my dream it gave up.”
“These aren’t,” Hobbes said. “And I don’t want to keep wasting bullets on them in case we need them later, so let’s keep moving.”
They climbed. And climbed. The mountain had folds, gaps in the pipes that snagged their toes, places where it leveled off, and spots where it was so steep they had a difficult time ascending.
“Do you remember the Great Pyramid, Eleanor?” Watkins said. “We’ve climbed something a bit like this before.”
“I don’t know that it’s quite the same thing,” Eleanor said. “And I think we’re already much higher than that.”
From her vantage point, she could see the world-city’s unbroken expanse for miles and miles, a thick bramble of alien thorns stretching to the horizon in every direction. When she looked up, she saw the green light glowing brighter. Clearer. Closer.
Close.
CHAPTER
25
THEY WERE ALMOST THERE. BUT SO WERE THE SENTRIES, which had steadily gained ground on them in their relentless pursuit. Eleanor’s mom looked exhausted, her movements sluggish, her eyes dark. Eleanor felt the same way. Her muscles had gone from burning to simply quitting without warning. Watkins bore a constant grimace, and Hobbes, the only one of them who didn’t seem tired, now helped the old man with every foot he climbed.
But they were almost there.
The green light had vanished from view. At first Eleanor worried it had gone out, but she realized the top of the pyramid was flat, and the light had simply dropped behind that high horizon.
“Almost there,” Eleanor’s mom said, but it sounded like she may have been talking to herself.
“There better be some kind of shelter up there,” Hobbes said. “Those things are right on top of us.”
With her hands against the metal pipes, Eleanor could feel the vibrations caused by the sentries’ rigid legs, and wondered if Hobbes would have to waste a few more bullets before they reached the top. The static storm had rolled closer, too, violent gray, and Eleanor felt the wind that drove the surge of dust toward them. If lightning struck the mountain while they were climbing it . . .
“Almost there,” Eleanor said, talking to herself.
They had a hundred feet to go. Then eighty. Then fifty.
Eleanor put her head down, staring deep into the warren of pipes. Climb. Climb. Climb.
Close.
The voice was still with her, stronger as she’d drawn closer to the summit.
Climb.
Eleanor reached her hand up to grab onto the next pipe, and felt air. She looked up into the green light, and she was there. She had made it. Her mom heaved up next to her, as if tossed ashore by a storm, and they helped each other to their feet, surveying the top of the mountain.
The light shone from the top of a building shaped like a giant, thorny seashell, a calcified vortex spiraling upward. From this height, Eleanor saw even more of the empty world-city below, and though much of it looked the same as what she had already seen, there were indistinct features on the horizon. Perhaps mountains, perhaps skyscrapers, they filled Eleanor with dread.
Hobbes climbed up next, and then pulled Watkins up after him. The old man looked pale, his eyes absent, and he staggered forward.
“Easy there,” Hobbes said, catching him before he fell.
The sentries would be there any moment. “Let’s hurry,” Eleanor said.
So they rushed and stumbled toward the shell. Eleanor saw no door, no opening. Behind her, she heard the clatter and clang of sentry feet.
“They’re up here!” Hobbes shouted. “Take him!” He handed Watkins off to Eleanor’s mom and pulled out his gun, aiming it at the machines with their saws. “What’s the plan now?”
Eleanor didn’t know. They scrambled up to the shell, and she scanned its rough surface, frantic for a console or control panel.
“Sweetie?” her mom said.
But Eleanor didn’t know what to do.
Hobbes fired a shot. The bullet struck what might have been one of the sentry’s eyes with a spark and ricocheted. “I don’t know what part of this thing to hit!”
Eleanor looked up at the green light. It shone with a glow that almost had substance. Light she could touch. “I’m here!” she shouted. “What do you want?”
Close.
The voice felt as if it were right next to her ear, tingling her neck. She closed her eyes and reached out to the entity.
I am here.
The shell loosened its coils, opening, and the same green glow burst from within, like light through fingers. Then a blinding doorway appeared, a spreading fissure in the shell’s grain.
“Inside!” Eleanor shouted.
Her mom went first, carrying Watkins with her, and they vanished into the light.
“Hobbes!”
“You first, kid!” he said, and fired another shot.
The sentries were almost there, nearly climbing overtop of one another to reach them. Eleanor passed through the portal, blinded, and a moment later she felt Hobbes come through and bump into her.
The fissure started to close, and Eleanor heard the painful shriek of metal grinding against stone. But the sentries were too late, and though she could still faintly hear the muffled sounds of their assault, the door was shut. The light faded as if settling at Eleanor’s feet, and she looked around.
They stood within the hollow shell, perched on a narrow ledge, and Eleanor realized the part of the structure they had seen from the outside was only the tip of it. Its spiral descended into the heart of the black mountain. Here at the top of it, they faced a pit perhaps twenty feet across that opened wider and wider the deeper it went, their ledge little more than a thread following it downward. The cumulative haze of the green light obscured exactly how far it might be to the bottom, and Eleanor felt the height pulling on her stomach with vertigo.
Hobbes peered down into the chasm. “I’m guessing we go that way.”
A subtle, hollow wind blew through the space. Eleanor still felt the entity as if it were beside her, rising up out of the shell. “Yes.”
Eleanor’s mom was still panting. “I don’t know if Watkins—”
“I’ll be fine, Dr. Perry,” the old man said. “You can leave me here.”
“No,” Eleanor said. “We’re sticking together.”
“Besides.” Hobbes holstered his gun. “We might need you.”
“I can’t imagine I’ll be any help anymore.”
“Never thought I’d hear you say something like that, old man.” Hobbes took Watkins’s arm from around the shoulder of Eleanor’s mom and placed it over his own. “Even if it’s true, I never leave anyone behind.”
Eleanor smiled and nodded at Watkins. Then she turned and took the first step down the spiral, trying to keep her eyes from the glowing pit, focusing on the path. The other followed her, and they slowly swung their way around and around, deeper into the mountain’s interior. To her it felt like they traveled in the eye of some kind of vortex. She felt whorls of energy, not unlike the ley lines on earth, rushing up and down the structure.
“What is this thing?” Hobbes asked, with a little bit of a grunt.
“I think it might be like a radio tower or something,” she said. “Sending and receiving.” Maybe that was how the entity had called to her, and then brought the ship home.
“Then why are those sentries attacking it?” her mom asked.
That confused Eleanor, too.
“If it’s a radio tower,” Hobbes said, “that means someone is broadcasting.”
“In a way,” Eleanor said. She glanced back at him and noticed him patting his pocket again, as if checking to make sure something was still there.
He still had a secret. His own agenda. Eleanor had brought him here without knowing what he really intended to do, and she would be responsible for whatever he did.
She stopped walking and turned to face him. “What is that?”
“What is what?” Hobbes asked
“What is in your pocket?” Eleanor pointed.
Her mom looked, and Hobbes frowned at Eleanor. “Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing,” Eleanor said. “I’ve seen you obsessing about it. What is it?”
Hobbes looked back and forth between Eleanor and her mother, still supporting Watkins, who clung to his large frame. “It’s classified.”
“Classified?” Eleanor’s mom said. “As if you’re still on some kind of mission for the Security Council?”
“I am,” Hobbes said. “I still have orders.”
“What kind of orders?” Eleanor asked, incredulous that after every impossible thing that had happened, he still even thought about his orders.
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