Phobos
Page 40
Beck joins Kurtz in the van ten minutes later. The former CIA assassin is cradling the turquoise-eyed newborn. Madelina is sedated in back.
“She’s a cutie, isn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
“How’d her old man die?”
“He accidentally stuck a butcher knife up his own ass.”
“Hey, it happens.” Handing Lilith Eve Aurelia to his friend, Kurtz drives the van, heading for the commuter airport.
EPILOGUE
When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.
—ATTRIBUTED TO SRI CHINMOY GHOSE
Evelyn Mohr opens her eyes. The world is spinning in vertigo, her flesh tingling. For a moment she fears she has been struck by lightning, then she remembers.
The cruise ship … the hole in the Atlantic!
She is lying on her side in a darkness so complete she cannot see her hand in front of her face. She can hear grunts and groans, but she has no idea where she is. Feeling around the carpet, she manages to locate her i-glasses. Tries to contact her husband, Dave, but gets only static.
Adjusting the smart glasses’ setting, she changes the lenses from tint to night vision. The impenetrable blackness becomes an olive-green corridor, harboring several dozen bathing suit–clad passengers, sprawled out in clusters. Most remain unconscious; a few are sitting up, disoriented, their eyes glowing a nocturnal silver.
Searching the corridor, Evelyn locates the steel hatch leading outside. Standing on wobbly legs, she pushes open the watertight door and ventures out onto one of the ship’s privacy sun decks.
“Oh my …”
The sun is long gone, the night sky sparkling with constellations and nebulae and distant spiral galaxies as vivid as images taken from the newest Earth-orbiting telescopes. To the north she sees Jupiter, as big as the moon, its moons twinkling like diamond dust. To the east is Saturn; beyond, Neptune—a neon-blue dot partially eclipsed by its sister planet’s rings of ice.
Her eyes catch movement in the heavens—two small moons. One orbits directly overhead, the other is moving unusually fast, rapidly dipping toward the inky ocean horizon.
“Where the hell are we?”
“A different time, a different place.”
She sees him standing by the guardrail, a lanky Adonis with long dark hair and a bodybuilder’s physique. His eyes appear azure blue in the lunar light.
Evelyn approaches. “You’re Anna’s friend, the one who saved me.”
“Julian. And you’re Evelyn, Dave Mohr’s wife.”
Her heart races. “Did Lilith send you?”
“My mother sent me. You can trust me, I’m a friend.”
“What happened to us?”
“The cruise ship was dragged down a wormhole. Our presence in the portal created an alternative universe of space-time.”
“You sound like my husband.”
“Your husband no longer exists; he won’t be born for another 127 million years.”
“What?” Her throat constricts as other passengers join them. “How is that possible?”
“Look around you. This isn’t Earth, Evelyn. It’s Mars—back when the Red Planet was green and possessed an atmosphere … just before the great cataclysm.” He suddenly pauses, his eyes darting to focus on the water. “They found us. Everyone back inside the ship!”
The gathering crowd shoves its way back inside the corridor.
Evelyn grabs onto Julian to keep from being dragged away, her eyes catching a glimpse of the terrifying lizardlike creatures surfacing off the starboard bow. “Who are you? The truth!”
“My name is Julian Agler Gabriel. My friends call me Jag. Like my mother, Sophia, I’m full-blooded Hunahpu.”
“Why are you here?”
“I’m here to ensure humanity’s future.”
He drags her inside, securing the hatch behind them as the predatory reptilian Martian race begins its assault on the Paradise Lost—Phobos reappearing on the western horizon, glowing orange in the alien night sky.
To be continued …
Visit www.SteveAlten.com for a sneak peek.
BY STEVE ALTEN FROM TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES
Domain
Goliath
Meg: Primal Waters
Resurrection
The Loch
Meg: Hell’s Aquarium
Grim Reaper: End of Days
Phobos: Mayan Fear
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
PHOBOS: MAYAN FEAR
Copyright © 2011 by Steve Alten
All rights reserved.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
eISBN 9781429985635
First eBook Edition : August 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Alten, Steve.
Phobos : Mayan fear / Steve Alten.—1st ed. p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
1. End of the world—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3551.L764P47 2011
813’.54—dc22 2011021554
First Edition: October 2011
Table of Contents
Title Page
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
WARNING:
Epigraph
PART 2 - THE EFFECT
The Final Papers of Julius Gabriel, PhD
1
2
The Final Papers of Julius Gabriel, PhD
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
The Final Papers of Julius Gabriel, PhD
11
12
13
14
PART 1 - THE CAUSE
The Journal of Julius Gabriel
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
The Final Papers of Julius Gabriel, PhD
24
25
26 - Eleven Years Later …
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
EPILOGUE
BY STEVE ALTEN FROM TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES
Copyright Page