The Tablet of Scaptur

by Julia Keller

  Violet was trying to act casual, but she was so excited that she was almost vibrating. She had to make herself settle down so that she could speak. She didn’t need to look at her left elbow; she knew her chip was sparking like crazy.

  “What does the song say?”

  The little girl’s frown deepened. She started to pick at the scab again.

  “Do I have to tell you? It’s kind of sad.”

  Violet tried to tamp down her surging impatience. She’d done a little babysitting, and she knew that dealing with kids could be a pain in the butt.

  “I really wish you’d share it with me,” Violet said.

  “Okay.” Rachel nodded. “The song is about what happened on Mars. A long, long time ago. The planet was in big trouble. There were wars. All the time. And a lot of people died. But the saddest thing is that they did just what your dad did. They built a city. Up in the sky. Right over the planet.”

  “But that’s a good thing. Why would it be sad?”

  Rachel’s voice lost its brightness. “Because it didn’t work.”

  Violet was stunned. “What do you mean?”

  “That’s what the song says. Scaptur wrote it from inside a cave that was way, way, way down below the surface of the planet. Everybody else was gone. She was all alone.” Rachel swallowed hard. “New Mars failed. After a few centuries the whole thing came crashing down onto Old Mars and people were killed. Millions of them. They thought the new world was going to last forever—but it didn’t.” The little girl blinked. “Do you think that’s what will happen to New Earth? Will we go crashing down, too?”

  Before Violet could reply, her console chirped. The caller ID made her take a deep breath. She hated to interrupt Rachel, but she had to answer it.

  It was Dr. Vivian Terrell.

  * * *

  “Violet Crowley?”

  “Yeah.”

  A long, ragged sigh from the caller. “Good. It’s really you. I’m in hiding, but I’ve been trying to track you down. When I gave you the Tablet yesterday at the museum, I didn’t know who you were. I only knew I couldn’t let them have it. I owed it to Scaptur to keep it out of their hands.”

  The Tablet, Violet thought. And Scaptur. So Rachel was right. Dr. Terrell had figured it out, too. She knew that the odd markings weren’t just words. They were song lyrics.

  “How did you find me?” Violet asked. She looked at Rachel; the little girl was fiddling with her scab again.

  “One of my colleagues—he’s on my side, but they don’t know he is—saw you and your friend as you were running from the museum. He scanned the pictorial data base. My God—you’re Ogden Crowley’s daughter! What are the odds that I’d end up giving the Tablet to the child of my worst enemy?”

  “Enemy?” Violet said, instantly defensive. “No way. My dad loves the museum. It was his idea to start it.”

  “He may love the museum, my dear, but he’s not too crazy about the research division right now.” Terrell gave a low, bitter chuckle. “If he had his way, I’d be on a one-way trip to Old Earth. I ought to hang up—but I can’t. Because you have what I need. I’ve got to trust you.”

  “Look, my father isn’t such a bad—”

  “Never mind,” Terrell said, cutting her off. “Can you meet me somewhere? Talking on a console isn’t really safe.”

  Violet hesitated. She didn’t know this person. And based on what Terrell had said about her father, she wasn’t sure that she wanted to.

  But she really, really wanted to know more about the Tablet of Scaptur.

  She had to know why people were so afraid of a small red rock.

  “Okay,” Violet said. “Where?”

  “The foundry,” Terrell said. “And make sure you bring it.”

  Terrell had probably chosen that location because it was deserted at night.

  “Okay,” Violet said.

  “And come alone.”

  Violet took less than a second to make her decision. “I can’t do that.” She looked over at Rachel. If anybody deserved to be part of the action, it was this little girl. Yes, it might be perilous. And Violet knew she’d never forgive herself if something bad happened to Rachel. But she’d also never forgive herself if she didn’t take her along. Rachel had figured out the Tablet. She deserved to be part of this adventure, no matter how dangerous it might prove to be.

  “What do you mean?” Terrell said.

  “I’m bringing a friend.”

  * * *

  The road leading to the foundry was wide, dark, and scary. Large shapes hunched ahead of them, spaced out across the night-drenched horizon; these shapes were the giant vats in which super-heated liquid roiled and churned. Violet had visited here a few times with her father, when he was inspecting the infrastructure of New Earth. He had explained to her about the immense heat and how it reduced machine parts to a seething red goo, out of which brand new parts could be created. The foundry, she had often thought, was a perfect symbol of New Earth itself: A place where the old became new again, the physical embodiment of a second chance.

  If only it wasn’t so shadowy and bleak.

  Violet held Rachel’s hand as they walked. She pretended it was for Rachel’s benefit but it was really for her own. She felt goosebumps popping up along her arms, even though the autumn air wasn’t cold. She wondered if she should’ve called Shura or Danny for backup.

  No. She had made the right decision. This was her mission—hers and Rachel’s.

  It had been hard enough to keep Rez from coming with them. Before they left she’d sent him a text from her bedroom, explaining that she needed to check something at Protocol Hall. She and Rachel would be back very soon.

  I’ll come with u, Rez had texted back. Naturally.

  No, Violet had replied, her thumbs flying madly over the console keyboard. Just keep hanging out in the library. Dad can’t know I’m going out this late. Cover for us.

  And then she and Rachel had slipped out of the apartment through the side door, Violet in her T-shirt and jeans, Rachel in her pajamas and jacket. Violet had long ago perfected her technique for eluding her father’s security detail.

  They boarded a twenty-four-hour tram for Farraday. A few minutes later they arrived at Foundry Road, a wide dirt pathway marked by the crisscrossing tire tracks of enormous vehicles. The road ended at the foot of one of the giant, open-topped vats. The heat from the churning liquid within it seemed to seep out of the sides in invisible tendrils.

  The only light came from the uprushing glow of the molten steel as it moved restlessly in the vats. Sometimes an especially big wave heaved and then splashed down in a flurry of red-gold sparks, casting a magnificent radiance that temporarily lit up the foundry yard.

  “Over here.”

  The whisper startled Violet. She flinched so violently that the backpack she was wearing almost slid off her shoulder.

  Dr. Vivian Terrell slipped out of the shadows. She was wearing the same clothes she had been wearing the night before, when Violet first saw her in the corridor of the museum. But those clothes were wrinkled now, and torn in some places. Her hair was even wilder than it had been before—which Violet would have sworn was impossible.

  “How did you get away from the guards?” Violet asked.

  Terrell smiled. “I’m old, my dear, but I’m nimble. They locked me in my office while they waited for instructions about what to do with me—and I climbed out the window.” Her eyes narrowed. She looked suspiciously at Rachel. “Who’s this?”

  “My friend,” Violet said. “She figured out the rock, too. The Tablet of Scaptur.”

  Terrell was surprised. “That’s impossible. It took me almost two months of work and a dozen of our most powerful computers to—” She shook her head. “Okay, so it must be true. Otherwise you wouldn’t even know what to call it.” She gave Rachel a rueful smile. “How old are you, kid?”

  “Seven.”

  “Seven.” Terrell sighed. “All right, then. Give me the Tablet.”

&
nbsp; Violet made no move to retrieve it from her backpack.

  “Come on,” Terrell said impatiently. She held out her hand, palm up. “This has gone on long enough. The Tablet—I need it now.”

  “I have some questions first,” Violet said.

  “Make it fast. We don’t have a lot of time.”

  “How did the Tablet get to New Earth?”

  Terrell shrugged. “The best I can figure is that the rock got stuck in the treads of one of the Mars trawlers. All I know is that when the trawler was being unloaded, it fell out. One of the workers saw it and brought it to the museum. Nobody knew what the markings meant. Not until I got hold of it, that is.” Her voices glinted with pride. This was her field of expertise. “Sometimes, objects that are buried very, very deep will gradually work their way up to the planet surface. It can take millions and millions of years.”

  “Once you figured out that the marks were a song, and what that song meant,” Violet said, “who did you tell?”

  “My supervisor. That’s when all the trouble started,” Terrell declared. “Next thing I knew, my colleague texted me that a bunch of armed guards were coming for me down that corridor. I tried to get away—you saw that part—but they grabbed me. I was lucky to be able to keep the Tablet away from them the way I did. I still can’t believe you happened to be there.” She held out her palm again. “But I want it back. It’s mine.”

  “Two more questions.”

  Terrell rolled her eyes. “What is it with you, anyway? Your little friend has already told you what the song says. Why does it matter who’s after the Tablet? Or why?”

  “Two more. Or no deal.”

  “Fine. Two more. But that’s it. I’ve got to get out of here. They’re probably coming closer every minute.”

  Violet put an arm around Rachel’s shoulder. The little girl had trembled slightly; Violet had seen the movement of her small body and wanted to comfort her, to gather her in.

  “Who did your supervisor tell?” Violet said. She was stalling, reluctant to ask her real question: Did my father know?

  “I can’t tell you for sure,” the woman replied, “but given the number of guards they sent—I think it’s a pretty good bet that somebody pretty important knows.”

  Maybe somebody as important as my father. It was so disappointing to think about—to imagine her father authorizing a relentless hunt for an old lady. Being part of a cover-up.

  “And the last thing I need to know,” Violet went on, “is why.”

  “Why what?” “Why do they want you to hand over the Tablet? Why are they hunting you down? Why don’t they want anybody to know about it?”

  Terrell hesitated. She licked her lips. Violet realized that the woman was probably thirsty—and hungry, too—from her effort to elude the security guards.

  “To begin with,” Terrell answered, “that’s really three questions, not one—but I’ll let it slide. It’s been a long night.” She licked her lips again. “Look. The authorities have to keep the Tablet a secret. They don’t want the people of New Earth to know about the song. They want us to believe that New Earth marks the very first time anybody has tried this—the experiment of elevating a new civilization over an old, dying one.” She laughed a hard, cold laugh. “Well—guess what? The Martians did try it. Billions of years ago. That’s what Scaptur’s song is all about. It’s about the dream of a new life—a dream that became a nightmare. Because New Mars didn’t work. Oh, it worked for a while—but then it disintegrated. New Mars fell apart. It crumbled from its own weight. The song tells the story.” She took a deep breath. “Shouldn’t the people of New Earth have all the facts? Shouldn’t they know what they’re in for? Shouldn’t they hear the song?”

  Violet thought for a moment. “It might just be a fable.”

  Terrell frowned. “If it’s just a fable, then why are the New Earth authorities so determined to hush me up? Something tells me they already know—or maybe they just have a good hunch—that somewhere else, right here in our very own solar system, this solution was tried before. Suspending a new world over an existing one. So—look, Violet. I need you to give me the Tablet. Without it, I’m just a nut with a crazy theory. But the Tablet proves my story—that there was once a New Mars. Just like New Earth. And New Earth may suffer the same fate as New Mars.”

  A wave of supernova-hot liquid in a nearby vat heaved up in a glittering curl and then fell back again, creating a cloud of steam and a corona of light that hissed and flared against the night sky. Terrell seemed to tremble at the proximity of the heat, a heat that could dissolve human flesh every bit as quickly as it liquefied steel and iron.

  “Okay,” she said. “Come on. It’s time. Give me the Tablet.”

  Violet didn’t move. The Intercept, she knew, was collecting her emotion and filing it away. Fortunately Terrell didn’t know what that emotion was.

  “Give me the Tablet,” the woman repeated.

  Violet continued to stand there. She still didn’t reach into her backpack. Instead she shifted the strap further up on her shoulder. “I can’t.”

  “What do you mean you can’t? People deserve to know that New Earth might fail.”

  “Anything can fail,” Violet said. “But if the Tablet’s song is made public, people will believe that it has to fail. That it’s somehow ordained. Predestined. That there’s no hope.”

  “Give me the Tablet,” Terrell said for a third time. Her voice was harsh and urgent now. “Give me the Tablet.”

  In a flash, Violet’s hand dived inside her backpack. She pulled out the rock. Gripping it, summoning every bit of strength she had, she tossed it up in a high, wide arc, aiming for the vat. The Tablet of Scaptur looked as if it might not make it over the rim—but a brief wash of phosphorescent bubbles splashed up, proving that it had landed inside the vat, there to be instantly melted down by the cataclysmic heat.

  “Nooooooo!” Terrell cried out, the word rising into a shriek. She had lunged toward Violet as the rock was flung aloft, but missed snatching it back by inches.

  Now that it was over, Violet pulled Rachel away from the woman, to keep her safe. But there was no need. Terrell wasn’t dangerous. She was filled with grief, not fury.

  “Why did you do that?” Terrell said in a sorrowful voice. “It’s gone now. No one will know the fate that may await New Earth—the same fate that befell New Mars.”

  “Exactly—the fate that may await us,” Violet countered. “Not the fate that does await us. If Scaptur’s song is sung, people will lose heart. Quit trying. And that will guarantee that we follow in the footsteps of New Mars.”

  “You’ve destroyed a piece of history,” Terrell said. She almost wailed the words.

  “I had to. We live by our dreams—my father taught me that—and if dreams are taken away, then hope goes away, too. Don’t you see? Doubts can doom New Earth faster than anything—faster than a failure of the wind turbines or a glitch in the gravitational balancing apparatus. A loss of hope would be more catastrophic than a direct hit by an asteroid.

  “All that kept my father alive during his dark, terrible days on Old Earth,” Violet went on, “was hope. Hope fueled by dreams. And then he used those dreams to make New Earth. Other people deserve to have dreams, too. Right?”

  Terrell didn’t seem to be listening. By now she had wandered away from them, head down, muttering to herself. She might have even been weeping. Soon she vanished in the darkness that pooled between the giant vats. The geologist would, Violet assumed, return to her job at the museum. She was surely safe from the retribution of the authorities—because to accuse her of stealing the Tablet would be to admit that the Tablet had existed in the first place.

  “Come on,” Violet said to Rachel. “Let’s get you home. You’ve got school tomorrow.”

  The two of them trudged slowly back toward the tram stop.

  “She’s right, you know,” Rachel said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dr. Terrell. What she said about hi
story. You destroyed it. Forever.”

  “Did I?”

  Rachel stopped.

  Violet stopped, too. She looked around carefully in all directions, making sure they weren’t being observed. Then she drew an object from her backpack. It was covered with red marks.

  “This,” Violet said, “is the real Tablet of Scaptur. What I threw in the vat just now was an ordinary rock. I picked it up in the street today.” She could trust Rachel. She didn’t know how she knew that—but she did.

  Astonished, Rachel blinked her eyes several times before she was able to speak. “The things you talked about back there—the dreams,” the little girl said. “And about how the Tablet’s song would make people lose hope and—” She paused to catch her breath.

  “That’s all true,” Violet said. “No one will ever hear its song. I can’t let them.”

  “But why didn’t you just get rid of it back there?”

  The road was dark, yet each time a giant wave of molten steel rose and fell in the mammoth vats behind them, their faces were briefly lit up by the golden glow. Rachel’s expression was one of confusion. Confusion was an unlikely state for this kid. First time for everything, Violet thought, recalling the girl’s stunning brilliance, her ability to solve every problem set before her.

  Except, apparently, this one.

  “I don’t know, Rachel. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t destroy the Tablet. I just … couldn’t. But I also couldn’t let Dr. Terrell know that it still exists, because she’d always be trying to get it. And once she had it, she’d tell the people of New Earth what the song said—which would hurt my dad. Undermine everything he’s worked for.”

  Violet didn’t say so to Rachel, but more and more these days, she had begun to have similar doubts about the Intercept. She wasn’t sure it should exist—but she couldn’t be against it, either. Not openly. She wouldn’t go against her father.

  But was it right for the government to keep a record of everyone’s feelings? Shouldn’t feelings be private? Ogden Crowley said the Intercept kept New Earth safe. Did that make it right?

  Violet reached down and slung an arm around Rachel’s shoulder. They started moving again toward the tram stop.