There was silence on the quarterdeck as this sunk in, with the alchemists present nodding in agreement—and the naval officers simply looking confused. “So, then, what does that mean, exactly?” Morrow finally asked.
“We have time, Captain!” Franklin said jubilantly. “Cagliostro must traverse the distance between these four points, or otherwise tarry amongst the Main to gather whatever he needs. Even if he loses but a few days, it is to our advantage. And if he must, as I’ve presupposed, gather materials from the four largest islands, then we may catch him before he reaches Mars, so long as we head for the red planet straightaway.”
St. Germain nodded. “Neatly done, Franklin. Neatly done, indeed.” He then turned to Anne. “My apologies, miss. It seems your notion had merit after all. And the grouping of these four islands so close to one another would fit neatly into the Tree of Life diagram that this young man here discovered.”
Morrow nodded and addressed the officers present. “Mr. Nelson, I believe it is time for you to return to the Badger. I am placing you under my command, with orders to escort Daedalus to Mars.” Nelson saluted and, making his good-byes quickly, re-boarded his ship.
“Mr. Weatherby, make your heading Mars. Full royals, stud’sels and planes, if you please. If this Cagliostro is toying with such dangerous forces, I shall want to be there ahead of him.”
I rushed to comply with the captain’s orders, but not before spotting a most peculiar sight off the starboard side, which was facing Callisto. I saw a small light rise from the moon, and unless my eyes deceived me, it originated from the very same spot where we had met the Xan. This light rose quite quickly from the planet and, once it made the Void, went past Jupiter at a respectable speed.
A quick calculation made its course apparent—Saturn. I told the captain at once, and he merely nodded. It seems the Xan, he said, were racing to inform their superiors of what had transpired of late.
So while we are heartened that we may yet catch Cagliostro, should he tarry among the rocky islands of the Main, I am convinced our mission rests upon a knife’s edge. Should he succeed, this madman will not only unleash a powerful evil—but could unleash the Xan upon all of us as well. The emissary on Callisto said his people were once warlike. I pray they do not become so again.
July 28, 2132
Shaila stalked the halls of McAuliffe Base, zapper holstered but loose, looking for signs of trouble as the evacuation got underway. Each group of miners—in the mess hall, in the barracks corridor, in the Hub—represented potential trouble. Would they drink the last of their contraband booze and get unruly? Would some of them refuse to go? Would some try to commandeer a transport and leave before everyone else was ready?
She walked, and looked, her focus sharp despite her exhaustion.
And she saw no trouble brewing whatsoever among the sixty souls about to take a long, uncomfortable ride back to Earth.
Sure, the JSC personnel did get some pretty hard looks. A few choice words were thrown around just within earshot. And a kind of sullen indignation permeated all the Billiton personnel—the kind of ornery frustration usually reserved for lawyers, dentists and government tax agents.
Yet despite the anger and frustration, the miners seemed to be handling the evac well. There were no protests, no disputes. They just packed up, as ordered, with very little fuss.
“You’re damn right they’re behaved,” Kaczynski said when Shaila asked about it. He was lined up with 17 other miners and Greene’s two holovid colleagues, all waiting for the last transport. “The new guy, Tony, wasn’t shy about what he saw today. Between that and what killed Jack, they’re scared shitless.”
Shaila nodded, studiously ignoring the clinking sound from Kaczynski’s duffle bag as he gestured. She didn’t begrudge him a drink in transit; four weeks was a long time to be stuck on an emergency transport with 19 other people and exactly zero privacy. “Just surprised, is all,” she replied. “I’d have thought some of them would petition to stay.”
Kaczynski shrugged. “We’re gonna be at least a couple weeks without digging anyway. And we can’t figure out that collapse at Site Six if the whole damn planet’s gonna quake up. Throw in a pyramid? Screw that. I know I’m outta here. I’ll go dig on the Moon, maybe do some asteroid wrangling for a change. There’s plenty of work that don’t involve this shit.”
Shaila nodded. “All right, then. Thanks for keeping ’em calm, Ed. Safe trip home, OK?”
Kaczynski extended his hand to her. “You’ll be bored without us.”
The light above the emergency transport hatch turned from red to green. “All aboard!” Adams called out from the hatchway. “Next stop, big blue marble!”
Shaila laughed as she shook Kaczynski’s hand. “Kids.”
“Glad he ain’t with us. Good luck, Lieutenant.” For once, the utterance of her rank didn’t come with any snotty overtones.
“Thanks. Go hit a beach for me.”
Shaila watched the men file into the cramped transport, duffle bags in hand, then headed up to the command center to supervise the launch. The two other transports had already taken off and achieved Mars escape velocity. At least Earth was in the right position—it could’ve been up to eight weeks otherwise.
The transport sealed itself and began its long procession to the launch pad, carried on a set of rails. From there, it was a simple matter of issuing the computerized order to launch—the course was automatically updated by McAuliffe’s computers on an hourly basis.
From the observation window in the command center, Shaila watched the little transport’s engines roar to life, and saw it slowly lift off the pad. She kept an ear on her ops team, who were busy tracking the vehicle through the thin atmosphere and into space. Escape velocity was achieved, and within twenty minutes the transport had settled upon its final course. Four weeks from now, it would enter Earth orbit, and JSC would send a shuttle to pick them up and bring them home.
Well, not home per se, Shaila thought. If everything that was happening on Mars was as…big…as Shaila thought it was, the debriefings would take a few days. She thought back to her own experience with debriefings and scowled. They could be altogether awful.
“All right, lock everything down,” Shaila said as she turned to her ops officers. “We’re back on normal watch. Good job, everyone.”
Stifling a yawn—it was just after midnight—Shaila headed for the door. She was stopped by the sound of Washington clearing his throat. “Umm…ma’am?”
“Yes, Washington?”
The young man stood up from his station to address her, looking every bit as awkward as the new recruit he was. “Ma’am, is there any way you can tell us what’s going on? I mean…it’s really been hitting the fan, you know? And we just sent the last emergency transport out the door. We’re kind of stuck here now.”
Shaila turned and leaned up against one of the workstations. “You’re right,” she said quietly. “And I bet you guys heard a lot of stuff today from the diggers, right?”
There were murmurs of assent and nods from around the room. It made sense—Shaila and Diaz had asked a lot of them, but with zero in the way of explanation. If she was feeling stressed, tired and scared, how would they be feeling without even an inkling of what was going down?
“All right. I’ll talk to Diaz. Let’s circle back here in fifteen,” Shaila said.
“Way ahead of you, Jain,” came a voice from behind her.
Shaila turned to see Diaz entering the command center—with a huge chocolate cake in her hands. In a day full of strange sights, it ranked right up there.
“Colonel?” Shaila asked, trying to wipe the grin from her face.
“Birthday cake,” Diaz replied, setting the dessert on a vacant workstation. “My partner sent it. I turn 50 next week—and not a goddamn word from anyone about it!” Soft laughter filled the room before Diaz continued. “You guys really did great today, and I figured you deserved a treat—and an explanation.”
Ten minutes later
, the room was filled with loud conversation, muffled only by cake. Shaila saw that Yuna, Stephane and Greene had joined the party, though Diaz seemed to be keeping them busy, probably getting herself updated. Shaila hadn’t seen Stephane all throughout the evacuation process, and despite her best efforts to convince herself otherwise, she kind of missed him. She also saw Harry quietly walk in, looking drawn and haggard. Usually, he entered the command center as if he owned the place—which, in a way, he did. Now, he simply gave Diaz a small nod and, after looking around hesitantly for a moment, slowly made for a vacant tracking station along the back wall. She almost felt sorry for him…but not quite.
“OK, attention on deck!” Diaz yelled. “I know it’s been crazy, and I know you’ve heard a lot. You deserve to know exactly what’s going on, so here it is.”
The room immediately fell silent, every pair of eyes on the colonel as she set her plate down. With a few taps on her datapad, Diaz called up the holovid of the pyramid on the command center’s main viewscreen.
“This is what’s out there,” Diaz said. “Dr. Durand estimates it to be at least 50 meters tall, give or take, and each side measures 100 meters or so.”
Shaila looked at her teammates. Every single one of them was riveted to the screen. A couple of jaws threatened to brush the ground.
“Three days ago, there was an earthquake within a lava tube on this very site,” Diaz continued. “Yesterday, we discovered there was some kind of wall within that cave, and we captured this holo, showing how it was being built.”
Diaz switched to the holovid Shaila had taken of the rocks rolling through the cave—and rolling right up the wall. It still gave Shaila a shiver when she saw it.
“Today, we’ve had the collapse at Site Six, the sensor outage, and of course, the pyramid sighting. Dr. Durand and Dr. Hiyashi here—ably aided by Dr. Evan Greene, our newest recruit,” Diaz said with a smile and a nod toward the holovision host, “have been unable to capture any more images of the pyramid from our MarsSats. The three remaining satellites still have telemetry and are relaying communications back to Earth, but for whatever reason, their cameras are offline.”
Diaz stepped forward into the command center, looking at each of her junior officers in turn. “We believe all these events are related somehow, but I gotta be honest with you. We don’t know why this is happening. We’re working on the ’how’ first, and we’re making progress. We’ve also sent off everything to Houston. Can’t imagine what that mission meeting’s going to look like.”
More laughter spilled forth, breaking the tension. Shaila, however, noted that Diaz had omitted two key pieces of information—the existence of Weatherby’s journal, as well as the EM ring outside the base.
“So that’s why we kicked Billiton off Mars,” Diaz said. “Who made this pyramid? I have no idea. Obviously, when you see an artificial structure on Mars, you think little green men. But I want to caution you that we just don’t know yet. Let’s remember that the Chinese, the Islamic League, the Russians—they all visited Mars before this base was established. And the U.S. and E.U. militaries played some games down here too. I won’t sit here and say it’s just a man-made thing, because we don’t know. But I’m not saying it’s Wookie or Klingon, either.
“As most of you know, Houston dispatched a survey team here two days ago. They’re still about four weeks out. Given how eventful today was, I have no clue what’s going to happen tomorrow.
“What’s more, thanks to Mike Alvarez and his band of malcontents, we lost a transport earlier. So with everyone else gone, we’re staying on Mars, no matter what. I’ve requested two more transports from Houston, and I expect they’ll send them ASAP. But that still keeps us here for the duration.
“So here’s the deal,” Diaz concluded. “With Billiton gone, there’s a lot less routine stuff to do, but there’s a shitload more interesting stuff going on. You’re needed here. Each and every one of you is going to have to step up in a big way, and I know you will.”
Diaz looked at each officer, one at a time, and to a person, they all looked back at her steadily. Shaila knew, right then, that they wouldn’t have any problems with the crew. They were a good, dedicated bunch. And Diaz was a pretty damn good leader.
“Tomorrow,” the colonel said, “we’re going to figure out a plan to study this thing. In the meantime, engineering will try to salvage Giffords. If shit goes down in a big way, that boat’s our only ticket off Mars. The rest of you will work on getting our sensors back on line. Right now, though, go get a centrifuge spinning and get some rest. We’re back at oh-eight-thirty, ready to work our asses off. Dismissed.”
Diaz strode into her office while Shaila watched the junior officers closely. None of them sat by themselves. None of them even left right away. Instead, in groups of three or four, they called up the video and the pyramid image—and started theorizing.
“Yeah, but here’s the thing,” Shaila heard Washington ask someone from engineering. “This had to start somewhere, right? Even before the first quake. So what the hell triggered it?”
Shaila knew that answer: the homebrew particle accelerator that Harry—or someone else—buried under the Martian surface.
Then the proverbial light bulb went off in her head. But what triggered the EM fields to kick on?
Idea firmly in mind, Shaila hustled out of the command center, brushing past Harry as he sullenly watched the hubbub. There was still work to do.
CHAPTER 19
June 12, 1779
Father,
After our eventful sojourn in the Jovian system, we are en route to Mars and have returned to the typical patterns of shipboard life. The men have drilled for battle every day now, so that if Fortune is with us and Chance has tarried amongst the islands of the Main, we shall meet her and answer her superior firepower with more rapid, disciplined shots than a gaggle of pirates could hope to muster. We’ve also shed our Ganymedean disguise in favor of the black and yellow of His Majesty’s Navy, for I believe all of us wish to engage our quarry as true Englishmen.
Obviously, this is no typical transit. Those of us who met with the Xan and encountered Cagliostro are haunted by the ghosts of the past: the brutal wars that utterly destroyed one planet and razed another, the power that these Saturnine aliens still likely possess, and the fell working that would see this Althotas released upon the Known Worlds once more.
Personally, I am haunted by other matters as well….
“Weatherby, for the love of God, why do you not at least talk to her?” Finch demanded.
They were taking a stroll upon the deck after dinner, Finch smoking one of his caustic little cigars. This was not the first time Finch had brought up the most unfortunate Anne, but Weatherby remained firm in his stance on the matter.
“Doctor, I will thank you to mind yourself,” Weatherby said tersely. “I have nothing to discuss with Miss Baker.”
“Rubbish. You stand your watch over her with naught but detachment, bordering on ill manners. You do not address her at dinner, and when she speaks to you, your answers are frustratingly minimal and terse. What is it, man? Has the bloom fallen off the flower so much since Callisto? Even with the past being what it is, you could do far worse.”
Weatherby scowled at Finch, but said nothing as he continued to stroll past the larboard-side guns. Finch allowed this silence, knowing in his short acquaintance that the young officer was a private individual, and one who would not easily bare his soul.
After a few moments, they came to the ship’s bow, where they could see light seeping from the planks underfoot—the alchemical lab was right under them. “How are our guests getting on?” Weatherby said, his change-of-subject clumsily wrought. “The forward area is small to begin with.”
“Oh, they are peas in a pod,” Finch said, for once taking the hint. “And most intriguing company besides. Dr. Franklin’s explorations into the forces of electricity have fascinated me. My knowledge of mechanics actually surpasses his, but the Count’s knowled
ge leaves us both severely wanting. I am learning much, to be sure, as is Miss Baker. We may yet contribute something to the coming battle.”
“Oh? How so?”
A brief flash of light erupted out of the gunports below. “Dr. Franklin says he was inspired by the Xan’s seeming mastery of electricity,” Finch explained, nodding toward the flash. “I dare say he shan’t rest until he finds an alchemical means of harnessing it himself. Truly, he and St. Germain are most remarkable.”
A small smile crept across Weatherby’s face. “You’re not one to admit a deficit of knowledge, Doctor. They must truly be among the great alchemists of the age.”
“Indeed. I would suggest you try to keep the ship intact in the coming engagement,” Finch said lightly. “Should they fall, I should hate to be the one to advance mankind’s knowledge of the Great Work on my own.”
They laughed together, turning to walk along the starboard side, back toward the quarterdeck. They could see a handful of boulders from the Rocky Main on either side of the ship. The Main was not as dense with debris as the chapbooks and broadsheets would have the Earth-bound believe, but the lookout watches had been doubled for the duration of their transit, so that Daedalus could evade collision if need be.
“I think, Mr. Weatherby, I will retire early,” Finch said about halfway back to the quarterdeck. “I’ve put you where you need to be.”
“I don’t follow,” Weatherby said, his attention drawn back to his companion from the cratered, pitted rocks in the distance.
Behind Finch, he could see Anne slowly walking toward them.
“Mr. Forester was a bit in his cups at dinner this evening,” Finch said with a knowing grin. “I prescribed rest for him, and assured the young man you could be relied upon to take up the remainder of his watch discreetly.”
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