The Rogue World
Page 24
“Teleported him?”
“Well, teleported his energy. The Concentrator will receive it and turn it back into him.”
Her mom stared, openmouthed, and then simply laughed. “Watkins was right, you know. What else can you do?” But then she stopped. “Wait. Does that mean we could have teleported here?”
“No,” Eleanor said. “The Concentrators send in only one direction, from here to there. The Builders didn’t ever want a species that stumbled upon the Concentrators to accidentally travel from there to here.”
“Builders?”
Eleanor looked around, trying to remember what the entity had shown her, but it felt like a dream she could barely recall having, let alone remember the substance of it. “All I can say is that their curiosity drove them to reshape their planet so they could ride it through the cosmos. But they weren’t the last ones to inhabit it. After the Builders, other races found it, and corrupted it.” She shivered and looked back at the console. “Now, Watkins.”
This time, instead of teleporting him, she gently raised him up, cradled the entire way by the viscous light, and woke him.
When he first opened his eyes, he stumbled a moment before finding his footing. “I . . .” He blinked and rubbed his head vigorously. “I fell. Did I fall—?” He looked around, at the green light, at Eleanor and her mom. “Something—I think something caught me. It was . . . Where is Hobbes?”
“I sent him back to earth,” Eleanor said.
“Well. That’s good.” Watkins cocked his head. “How exactly did you do that?”
“Matter-energy transfer,” Eleanor said.
“Which you know all about, somehow?”
“I do now. I connected with the entity that controls this whole planet. I know why it called me.”
“Why did it call you?” Eleanor’s mom asked.
“That’s a long story,” Eleanor said. “A really, really long story. Millions and millions of years long. But basically, the last aliens who lived on this planet disappeared. The entity can’t even remember why or how. But after they were gone, the planet’s system went on autopilot.”
“Which means what?” Watkins asked.
“It kept itself alive by doing what it has always done. What it was built to do. It found planets, it tapped all their energy to survive, and then it moved on. It’s been doing that for millions of years, and in that time, stuff has started to break down. Degradation errors are creeping up in the artificial intelligences. They’re all turning wild, and the planet entity can’t control them anymore. That’s why the ships and the sentries attacked us.”
“But why did it call you?” Eleanor’s mom said.
Eleanor did not know how to tell her about the next part. Eleanor was trying very hard not to think about it at all. “It’s tired and run-down. But it can’t stop, because of its programming. It has to meet its minimum energy requirements, at all costs. Unless certain conditions are met.”
“What conditions?” Watkins asked.
“Someone has to take on pilot duties.”
“Which you did?” he asked.
“It needed me to be here, in its place.”
“I see,” Watkins said.
“For how long?” her mom asked.
Eleanor took a deep breath in and then sighed it out. “If I leave, the entity has to take over again, and then it’s back to draining the earth.”
“Are you saying you can’t leave?” Watkins asked.
Eleanor tried to smile and laugh, but it came out sounding like a sob, and then she had tears in her eyes. She didn’t want to do this. But it was the only way. She had the ability to save the earth. She could save everyone, and not just the chosen few. She could keep the promise she’d made to Amaru as he died, and save his son. She could save Mariah, and Badri, and Nathifa, and Felipe, and Uncle Jack, and Luke, and Finn, and everyone she had ever cared about. She could save them all. Wasn’t that worth it?
“Sweetie,” her mom said. “This is ridiculous. Come away from there.”
Eleanor stayed at the console. “We made a plan. The entity and me. I’m going to—”
“You’re going to what?” her mom asked.
“I . . .” Eleanor didn’t want to say it out loud. Keeping it in helped her control her fear. But her mom wasn’t going to let up, and the plan wouldn’t work without her. “I’m going to steer the planet into the sun.”
Her mom looked at her a moment, then at Watkins, then back to her. “You’re not serious.”
“I am serious,” Eleanor said. “This is the only way.”
“Eleanor, listen to me.” Her mom leaned over, bringing their faces very close together. “You always said that you weren’t going to let people die while the G.E.T. picked who got to live, right?”
“Right,” Eleanor said.
“That includes you. You’re not going to die. This is ridiculous—”
“Mom, if this planet isn’t destroyed, it will just keep going. It will kill the earth, and then it will kill the next planet, and the next. We don’t have any weapons on earth that can destroy it. Our sun is the only thing that can. Once the rogue world is gone, the earth will go back to its normal orbit, and the Freeze will be over.”
“This isn’t happening,” her mom said. “Because you can’t possibly be suggesting that I just leave you here. Because that would be insane. That would—”
“I’ll stay,” Watkins said.
Eleanor looked hard at him, wondering if he’d struck his head in the fall after all. “No, you won’t.”
“Of course I will,” he said. “It makes the most logical sense. First, I’m the oldest by far, with fewer years ahead of me than I would probably hope for. Second, like you, I have the needed ability to connect with the console and control the planet. Third, I have personal reasons.”
“What personal reasons?” Eleanor asked.
“They are known as personal reasons for a reason.”
“If you’re trying to take my place,” Eleanor said, “you’re going to have to explain.”
Watkins clasped his hands behind his back. “All right, then. I feel I owe it to the earth. Until quite recently, I was in charge of the G.E.T., and I made some grave mistakes, for which people have paid, some with their lives. You are aware of this. I want to honor them, and perhaps make up for what I did. Perhaps history will then judge me kindly.” He paused. “And finally, I want to save you, Eleanor.”
He spoke with his same, odd, pragmatism, a quality of his with which she had become familiar, and she realized she had grown fond of it.
“I hope you will trust me to do this,” he said. “This is how I am choosing to confront the absurdity of our situation. A frontal assault. I hope you will remember me.”
“Watkins.” Eleanor’s mom shook her head. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Of course you don’t,” he said. “Truthfully, neither do I.”
“Thank you,” her mother said. “I know I need to thank you. And I promise you, the world will know what you did.”
Watkins nodded. Then he turned to Eleanor. “Do you trust me?”
Eleanor did not hesitate. “I do.”
“Then show me how it’s done.”
CHAPTER
27
THEY CHOSE THE ARCTIC CONCENTRATOR, AVOIDING THE Himalayan and Egyptian locations for the same reasons Eleanor hadn’t sent Hobbes to either one. But she didn’t want to be anywhere near Hobbes, so they decided against Peru. That left the Arctic site, just outside Barrow, where Watkins said his team had already uncovered the Concentrator from its burial under the snow and ice. Where this whole adventure had begun.
“But we don’t have the gear for temperatures that low,” Eleanor’s mom said.
“There will be a facility right near where you arrive,” Watkins said, standing at the console. “You won’t freeze as long as you get inside quickly. And let’s not forget that the earth will soon be returning to its natural orbit, and warming up again.”
; “Plus,” Eleanor said, “we can hide out in Barrow with Felipe if we need to until we can find Uncle Jack and Luke.”
“I guess that’s settled,” her mom said.
They both stood in the midst of the green glow and watched as Watkins laid his hands on a different part of the console, just as Eleanor had shown him.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“Ready.”
“I have to admit,” he said. “I’m curious what teleportation would feel like.”
“Wanna trade?” Eleanor asked, smiling even though she was already grieving.
“Not at all,” Watkins said. “I may be the first and only human to fly into a star.”
“That’s true,” Eleanor said.
He nodded, once. “Good-bye, both of you.”
“Good-bye, Watkins.”
The green light enveloped Eleanor, and within a few moments that light was all she could see, and then, in an instant, she saw white.
Snow and ice.
Eleanor stood at the base of the Concentrator, next to her mom, and a moment later, she could feel that it had gone permanently quiet. Watkins had shut it down from the rogue world, and now it was nothing more than a dead, leftover relic that scientists would undoubtedly study for years to come.
It was cold. Murderously cold. Eleanor was once convinced the cold would claim her eventually. That all it needed was time, waiting and watching for the chance to sink its teeth into her. But that was when Eleanor thought the cold might never end. Now she knew that it would end. Eleanor could be patient, too.
Not far away, they saw a new spherical Arctic habitat, and they jogged toward it, hoping to get indoors before they got frostbite. The Arctic Code of conduct for polar habitats mandated that they be let in.
“This reminds me of Amarok,” Eleanor’s mom said, her teeth chattering, clapping her hands together. “I wonder what happened to him and his people.”
“I hope they made a new home for themselves,” Eleanor said. “There’s a place for them somewhere. I know there is. There’s a place for all of us.”
“You think so?” her mom asked.
“I do,” Eleanor said. “We all belong.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Nami Leu Photography
MATTHEW J. KIRBY is the author of the acclaimed middle grade novels The Clockwork Three, Icefall, and The Lost Kingdom, as well as one book in the New York Times bestselling series Infinity Ring. He was born in Utah, but with a father in the military he has lived in many places, including Rhode Island, Maryland, California (twice), and Hawaii. As an undergraduate at Utah State University, he majored in history. He then went on to earn MS and EdS degrees in school psychology. Matthew currently lives in Utah. You can visit him online at www.matthewjkirby.com.
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BOOKS BY MATTHEW J. KIRBY
THE DARK GRAVITY SEQUENCE
THE ARCTIC CODE
THE ISLAND OF THE SUN
THE ROGUE WORLD
CREDITS
COVER ART © 2017 BY PAUL SULLIVAN
COVER DESIGN BY KATIE C. FITCH
COPYRIGHT
Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
THE ROGUE WORLD. Copyright © 2017 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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