Part of me had always felt that the Family Quarter was a beautiful cage to keep us in. Finding out I was right had not been as satisfying as I had hoped. The truth was so horrific, it just made me wish I’d been wrong all along; while everything Cassie had told me, made me hate them even more.
Perhaps, it was my hatred for the creatures who had taken us away from our home that was driving me on with such zeal… Or maybe it was because I just couldn’t exist without some kind of problem to solve. This was certainly a new type of challenge, I smiled to myself.
Time had lost all meaning. I had no idea how long it had been since I’d last moved from the console chair and the muscles in my shoulders and back were like rocks. That wasn’t going to stop me, not when I was this close!
“Is everything OK?” Cassie appeared at my elbow, surprising but not distracting me.
What had she said? I wasn’t really listening. She sounded worried. Maybe it was the alarm that had woken her – I couldn’t do anything about that right now, it was tracking and so I needed the insistent beep-beep noise to let me know it was still working.
“Yeah, sure,” I muttered, hoping it would answer whatever question she had asked.
There it is!
The long-range chart I’d been using to trace the probe’s position was just about to merge onto the short-range chart. We were getting closer and a new system had just appeared on-screen, the details blossoming more fully as the data was received and manipulated in the processor.
Maybe, maybe!
It was looking better every minute now… I scanned the other screens, watching the data from the charts flow into the pod navigation system, allowing it to adjust automatically towards the point of interest I had programmed in.
“What’s that?” Cassie was pointing at the furthest screen, squinting to make out the data on chemicals, temperatures, gas levels.
“Environmental probe results,” I replied, without looking up, too busy re-adjusting the pod position in relation to the new information coming in from the short-range chart. We were out by a few degrees.
“An environmental probe?”
“I sent one out a few days ago – maybe a week – just after I got the orbital routes re-mapped.”
“And what did the probe find?”
“Hmmm…” I replied, still typing and not having heard what Cassie had asked. Did she sound frustrated? Had she asked what I found?
Oh, not much, just water, oxygen, soil, plant debris…
“Balik!”
My fingers froze for a moment when she shouted and I paused long enough to coherently answer what I guessed was her question about the probe. “It found an environment that looks viable.” I resumed work.
“Where – is it close?”
There!
I clicked on the new option that had just become available on the probe. It was some distance away and proving slow at returning the detailed image data collected. The system paused for a few seconds and I hung on desperately. The screen where the environmental results were displayed flickered and changed.
At first the new image was completely black, then a bright light glowed to life. I stopped and stared. As we watched – Cassie was as mesmerised as me – a large illuminated curve emerged from the black screen, as though the probe was focused on a spot some distance away. Gradually, the image became clearer, taking on the appearance of a golden hoop, suspended in the darkness. Every second that we watched, the crescent shape grew wider and bigger.
“What’s that?” Cassie murmured, turning towards me.
My eyes rose to meet hers and I was barely able to choke out an answer. “I think it’s a sunrise”.
We watched as the light grew wider and illuminated a dark sphere, which sat between the probe and the huge star beyond. It was a planet, not a moon. As the light fell over its surface, the planet blossomed into colour: blue, white and green.
Earth.
“You think that’s Earth?” Cassie gasped, guessing the same as me.
I looked up at her. I did not want to be wrong about this, although I didn’t think I was. Everything suggested it was Earth.
“Do you think that’s Earth?” Cassie asked me again.
I took a deep breath and told her the truth. “Yes. It’s Earth.”
That’s our future.
THE JOURNEY CONTINUES IN BOOK THREE
Outlanders
COMING SOON
OR YOU CAN READ CASSIE’S SIDE OF THE STORY IN BOOK ONE
Hope’s Daughter
AVAILABLE NOW
For more information on the author and sneak peeks at the other books in the Ambrosia Sequence visit www.cusick-jones.com
or the author’s blog at www.melcj.com
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