“Their reality is expanding, replacing this version with its own,” Chou said. “Fascinating.”
Near the center of the room, another reality was emerging from the chaos. This time, the restaurant appeared to be empty, the chairs all neatly tucked into the tables, the lights dimmed.
“Vat the hell is going on?” Freuchen rumbled, his gaze shifting from one surreal scene to the other.
“I think our presence here is causing these other universes to attempt to exert their version of reality into this one.”
“What’ll happen when one of them succeeds?” I asked.
Chou said, “I would suggest that we leave this ship immediately.”
“What about the fire?” Albert asked.
“Don’t vurry, little man,” Freuchen said. “The fire has passed beyond us by now. Ve vill just have to be very careful.”
I turned to head toward the exit... and again, stopped dead.
Near the entrance to the restaurant, ten feet of water reached from the floor to the ceiling. We’d been so caught up in watching the passengers dining that we hadn’t noticed this third alternate version of reality silently slip into existence. It was like looking at a huge, slowly expanding fish tank minus the glass. The restaurant wall beyond that appeared absolutely normal. The water was expanding outward quickly, twice as fast, I guessed as the other realities, and as it expanded, everything that was pristine and new here, aged and crumbled. It’s as though it’s been sitting at the bottom of the ocean for decades, I thought.
“It’s going to cut off our exit,” said Freuchen.
He was right. In a few more seconds, the wall of water would grow enough to completely block the one and only way out of the restaurant. And if that happened, we’d be trapped in here with these three competing realities.
“Run!” Chou said and sprinted to the exit, ducking past the amorphous bubble of water.
Freuchen snapped up Albert and dashed for the shrinking gap between the water and the exit. I ran too, managing to slide past just as the expanding water connected with the smaller reality containing nothing but the empty version of the restaurant. The empty restaurant vanished, replaced by the same murky gray water. A large hole appeared in the far wall, ragged and rusted around the edges. Through it, I saw the Titanic’s decayed prow, everything in between it was corroded and broken. After subsuming that reality, the vast bubble of water began growing again.
“Come on!” Chou yelled, grabbing me by the hand and dragging me toward the staircase. As I turned, I saw the bubble of ocean water touch the oblivious diners’ reality and consume it entirely. Instantly, a wave of water exploded through the restaurant, filling the remaining space in seconds.
“Oh, crap!” I squeaked as the water rushed towards us. Everything it touched instantly turned to rot.
Chou, already at the fancy stairs, stopped briefly to check that the rest of us were following, then, two steps at a time, took the stairs down to C-Deck where we had first entered the ship, and where we had left Silas on standby in the cabin.
Freuchen, Albert, and I raced after her.
The water had already reached C-Deck, too, spreading through the rooms and corridor with frightening speed. Chou threw open our cabin door and yelled, “Silas, wake up.”
I stumbled into the cabin, pushed past Chou, fumbled for the slate, and thrust it in front of his eye-bar just as Silas said, “Greetings children of—“ It took him a couple of seconds to read the code from the slate.
“I don’t have time to explain, but we need to get out of here, right now. Come with us,” I yelled and dove into the corridor. The sound of Silas’ heavy footfalls behind me was the only acknowledgment I needed that he’d understood.
The water was less than ten feet from the door and closing in fast. The irony of being chased into this ship by fire only to be chased back out again by water was not lost on me.
Chou, Freuchen, and Alfred were already charging down the metal stairs, heading toward the split in the Titanic’s side.
Ahead, the opening we’d come through was now just one deck away. I saw Chou leap from the stairs, throwing herself through the fissure. She hit the ground and was instantly lost in a puff of gray smoke. I felt my heart seize... then start again as she reappeared, covered in gray ash—all that was left of the fallen trees around the mighty ship’s hull. She stood facing us with her arms outstretched. Freuchen realized what she was asking for and without a word to the boy, tossed a screaming Albert through the remaining space and into Chou’s waiting hands. She spun around, ran, and vanished from my sight just as Freuchen hit the ground next to them. He turned and looked back at me, fear in his eyes.
Out of the corner of my own eye, I saw the wall of water was an arm span to my right side now, so close I could see my reflection in its surface. I forced my eyes forward again and locked onto Freuchen’s face. I could tell from his horrified expression that he knew I wasn’t going to make it. It simply wasn’t possible to cover the twenty or so remaining feet before the water caught up with me. When it did, would I end up like the ship? I wondered. Or would I simply cease to exist like the other realities that had already fallen? It was all too—
I felt a metal arm wrap around my waist as Silas swept me up. Then we were flying through the air, and I caught a final glimpse of the pristine Titanic’s bow before it turned to rust and crumbled. The four enormous smokestacks bent and warped, decayed, and flaked away, turning the smoky air orange with rust particles. Rigging snapped, and the glass in the portholes cracked. Water gushed out of every space within the ship, spilling through before vanishing as the two competing realities finally synchronized, leaving nothing of the once-mighty liner but rot and rust and steel bones.
I hit the ground and heard a loud crack, like a thick length of wood snapping in two. Silas landed beside me, stumbled, and vanished into the gray fog of smoke that surrounded us. It stung my eyes and clogged my throat. I tried to breathe, but the hot air was just too thick with dust and ash. I felt consciousness fade in, then out... then I was surrounded by blackness.
“Meredith, vake up.” Freuchen’s voice pulled me back to consciousness. I opened my eyes to my three companions’ faces staring down at me. “Are you alright?” he said, his face twisted with concern.
Hot tears began to run down my cheeks as I tried to sit up, then fell back into the gray-white ash, grimacing in agony. “I… I think I broke my arm,” I moaned.
“Remain still,” Chou said, kneeling next to me. She gently rolled back the left sleeve of my top. I heard Albert gasp, and I craned my head to look, but Chou said, “Don’t look.”
“Too late,” I whispered as I caught sight of the three inches of white bone sticking out of the skin just below my elbow. I managed to bleat a surprised “Oh!” then I fell back into the darkness.
When consciousness returned, I was sitting upright, my back against the rusted hulk of the Titanic. My left arm was splinted with two thin pieces of metal and resting in a sling made out of somebody’s spare shirt. It still hurt like a son-of-a-bitch but not as bad as it had. After a tentative attempt to get to my feet, I found that moving didn’t add much to the pain.
“Sit back down,” Freuchen ordered. The rest of my friends were gathered around me, concerned smiles on every face.
“I showed them how to tie the sling,” Albert said, his smile broadening.
“I should’ve guessed,” I said, smiling back at him.
“How do you feel?” Chou asked.
“Like I just got hit by the Titanic,” I said, somewhat mirthlessly.
“I have performed a full scan of you,” Silas added, “and apart from some bruising, I do not detect anything more serious than your broken arm.”
I hadn’t had time to really take in my surroundings, but now that I did, all I saw was a wasteland of ash and burned wood. It was close to noon, judging by the sun, which was for the first time since setting foot on the mainland, fully visible in the smoke-swept sky.
“Do you think you can walk?” Chou asked. “We should try to make it back to the forest if we can.”
I nodded. “I think so. Could I get some water first, please?”
Freuchen knelt close to me and lifted his canteen to my dry lips. I drank deeply, swilling my final gulp around my mouth to try to get rid of the taste of smoke.
“Ready?” Freuchen asked when he put his canteen away.
“As I’ll ever be, I guess.”
He supported my good arm and helped me slowly to my feet. My teeth gritted against the knifing pain that ran up my left, and I took a couple of seconds to steady myself then said, “Okay, I’m good to go.”
Silas had both mine and Freuchen’s backpacks slung over his arm and carried them as though they were nothing. He led us through the gray wasteland that had been, until earlier this morning, verdant and lush forest. As we moved away, I took one last look back over my shoulder at the remains of the famous ship, unable to shake the sense of sadness that overcame me at such a thing of beauty being reduced to a decomposed pile of metal. Then another bolt of pain pulled my attention back to reality, and I trudged on with my companions.
In spite of Chou’s excellent first-aid, walking was a lot more painful than I thought it was going to be, especially when, after several hours, we crossed the edge of where the fire had finally burned itself out. Some trees still smoldered, but most were just singed, and past the first couple of rows, the Everwood lay undisturbed.
“Still feeling okay?” Chou asked me after we had covered a few more miles.
“Not really, but I’ll be okay,” I replied, not wanting to slow our progress any more than I already was. I comforted myself with the thought that, in a few more hours, the aurora would arrive and heal me.
Late afternoon, we made an early camp, and Freuchen and Albert settled me into a comfortable position before turning their attention back to the nightly routine of gathering wood and starting the fire.
“Vell, let’s see vat ve have in here, shall ve?” Freuchen said, good-heartedly as he rummaged through his backpack. He pulled out several cans of food we’d taken from the Titanic, opened them with his knife, and set them to warm on the edge of the fire.
“Here you are,” Freuchen said once they were heated.
I used my fingers to pull the oily meat from it, all while trying to banish the idea that I was eating half-billion-year-old chicken out of my mind.
Later, when the aurora illuminated the forest, I felt an immediate sense of relief as the pain of my broken arm evaporated. I had Albert slip the sling over my head, and we all watched in fascination as the pixie dust went to work on knitting my bone back into place. Then, they rebuilt and stretched the skin over the wound. When it was done, I flexed my newly-mended hand in front of my face.
“As good as new,” Freuchen whispered. Then, as a measure of how normal these incredible events had become for us, he threw a couple more branches on the fire and wished us all a good night’s rest.
Four
Two days later, the forest that had surrounded us since we’d stepped off the deck of the Alexa Rae finally faded behind us.
“You have got to be kidding me?” I said, stepping out into a wide clearing that ran like a band between the Everwood and the new challenge ahead. Honestly, I’d have been happy with another hundred miles of trees instead of what lay beyond the clearing—a mountain range that reached into the sky for several thousand feet. It stretched from north to south, horizon to horizon, like a granite backbone running across the land. The lower approach of the mountain swept upward in a gradual rise, gently enough, but then it rapidly grew steeper. Not an impossible climb but a dangerous one for sure.
“Maybe there’s a cave?” Albert said, his eyes screwed almost closed against the sunlight bouncing off the snow that covered the mountain from three-quarters of the way up the slope to the ragged saw-toothed ridge that was its peak.
“Perhaps,” Chou said, laying a gentle hand against the boy’s shoulder, “but I don’t think we have time to check.” She turned to me and said, “Can I have the binoculars?”
I unslung the binoculars from around my neck and handed them to Chou. Even without them, I could see the occasional stunted tree, bedraggled bush, or lonely weed jutting out of the otherwise barren rock, the only things to break up the dull gray monotony of the mountainside. Chou lowered the binoculars and pointed toward a spot about half-a-mile to the north.
“That seems to be the lowest part,” Chou said. “We should head for it.”
“Do you think we can make it to the other side before sunset?” I asked Freuchen. The idea of being stuck on the mountain overnight didn’t appeal to me, and he was the best judge of this situation given the numerous adventures he’d entertained us with each night at camp.
“I don’t see vy not,” he said. “It’s late morning; ve have plenty of daylight left.”
I sighed. “Well, it’s not going to climb itself, I guess.”
Freuchen smiled broadly. “Vunderful!”
We took a diagonal route up the mountain, rather than trying to climb straight up. The approach took a lot of the strain off our legs, but after a couple of hours of negotiating the boulder-strewn terrain, my thighs were throbbing, and my ankles ached. Freuchen, Chou, and of course, Silas seemed completely fine. Albert started to complain not long after we’d set off, his young legs simply not strong enough to take the exertion of climbing at such a steep angle for a prolonged length of time. So, Silas had offered to carry him, and now, the boy was cradled like a baby in the robot’s arms.
“I’m sorry, guys, but I need to take a break,” I said finally.
Freuchen nodded. “Good idea. Let’s get some food in us, too,” he said. “Ve should drink water. It’s easy to dehydrate at these higher altitudes.”
I sat on a flattish outcropping, stretched each leg to ease some of the tightness in the muscles, then took Freuchen’s advice and drank deeply from my canteen, then polished off some jerky. We’d reached the three-quarter mark, and from here on up to the summit, there was nothing but snow, ice crystals glittering on its surface. The air had been growing gradually colder, but now, as I looked at what we had left to climb, I gave an involuntary shiver.
“The snow’s going to make the rest of the trek very treacherous,” Freuchen said, eyeing the layer of white that covered the mountain like frosting on a cake. “Ve vill need to take our time.”
I opened my backpack and pulled out a thick woolen sweater Edward had given to me. I slipped it over my head and instantly felt more comfortable. Everyone but Silas and Chou did likewise. Chou just tugged the white cloak she wore more tightly around her, the two edges connecting by some unseen fastener, so the cloak became more like a poncho.
“That cloak’s not going to keep you very warm,” I said.
“It will suffice,” Chou assured me. I’d long ago learned that my friend’s clothing was far more sophisticated than it appeared, thanks to whatever futuristic super-material it was made of. That, plus Chou’s genetic enhancements, made her all but impervious to anything but extreme conditions. While I chewed on the last mouthful of my jerky, I took it all in. The forest stretched out behind us, green and lustrous, more like a single entity than a collection of the millions of trees I knew it to be. I watched the birds wheel and dive. Heard the calls of distant animals. Above, the sky was gray-blue and spattered with large white clouds that occasionally drifted in front of the sun, casting huge shadows across the scenery.
“Incredible, isn’t it?” Freuchen said.
I nodded. “The Architect should have sent an artist.” But I don’t think even the most talented painter could have captured the magnificence of this view.
We set off again and didn’t stop until we reached the beginning of the snowpack. My leg muscles were still complaining, but the short rest had taken some of the dull edge off the pain.
“Be extra diligent from this point forvard,” Freuchen said from the head of the line we’d formed.
“One wrong step and…” He whistled like a falling bomb while drawing the trajectory we’d take down the mountain with an index finger. “Don’t vant to end up a pancake, do ve?” He laughed uproariously as though he had just told the funniest joke ever, his coarse beard bobbing with each mighty guffaw. Then he turned and began to climb the six-hundred or so feet that remained between us and the summit.
I placed one tentative foot on the snow. It crunched beneath my boots, more like ice than the soft powder I’d skied on the one time I’d visited Mammoth for a long weekend back when I turned twenty-three. “Winter is coming,” I mumbled under my breath, in my best English accent, then crunched through the snow after my friends.
The mountain’s summit lay above us just a few more minutes’ climb. The gusting wind blew flurries of loose snow off the ridge, sending it swirling over our heads, forcing us to dip our heads against its stinging bite.
Freuchen stopped suddenly. He turned back to face us, smiling, then beckoned to Albert. Silas lowered the boy to the snow and walked protectively behind Albert as he high stepped to where Freuchen waited.
“What is it?” I asked.
Freuchen put a finger to his lips, then when Albert was close enough, he knelt and pointed at a large boulder half-covered in snow on our right and whispered, “Look, over there. Do you see them.”
I looked again and saw what Freuchen had spotted. Just below the boulder, almost invisible thanks to its pure-white fur, sat a fox, eyeing us cautiously. Then two cubs, no more than a few months old, I guessed, tumbled into view from behind the rock. They seemed oblivious to our presence as they playfully chased each other up and down the slope and round and round in circles. Their tiny yips of excitement were almost as enchanting as Albert’s gasp of wonder at their antics.
A Memory of Mankind: (This Alien Earth Book 2) Page 4
