Fourteen
Chou started a gradual descent, intending to land the Brimstone in the same clearing as I’d been abducted from.
“Listen! Do you hear that?” Freuchen asked, cocking his head.
“It’s a bell,” I said after a few seconds. “Someone’s sounding a bell.”
Outside, I saw people running.
“What on Earth are they—oh, shit!” I yelled when I saw numerous fires spark to life around the edge of the forest. About twenty men and women stepped from the trees armed with bows and lowered the tips of their arrows into the flames before aiming the arrows right at us.
“If vun of those pierces the balloon, it could ignite the hydrogen,” Freuchen said. That chance was pretty high, judging by the number of flaming arrows pointed at us.
We were still fifty or so feet above the ground. I had no idea how accurate the archers were at that range, but after what had happened to poor Phillip in those first days on Avalon, I knew that they could be incredibly precise and deadly in the right hands.
“Hold us here,” I said to Chou and sprinted from the cockpit. I skidded around the corner and ran toward the exit facing New Manhattan.
“Come on. Come on,” I mumbled as I undid the lock of the door and slid it open. Standing in the opening, my hands holding onto either side of the doorframe, I leaned out into the cold air and looked down. I saw faces staring back up at me from behind their bows. I searched those faces for anyone that I recognized but saw none. Then, from the tree line to my right, a figure lowered the bow it held and began to walk out into the clearing toward me.
“Emily!” I yelled, recognizing her lithe form, long blond hair, and her malamute, Thor, walking confidently at her heel. “It’s me, Meredith.” I let go of the door with one hand and waved.
Emily looked up, a hand guarding her eyes against the hazy sunlight reflecting off the thick cloud.
“It’s okay,” I yelled, not really sure if she could hear me. “We hijacked the airship. The people who attacked you are… gone.”
Emily looked up at me for a few more long moments, and I started to suspect that she hadn’t heard me after all. Then she looked first to her left, waving her hand to her people, then her right. One after the other, the archers lowered their bows but kept their arrows nocked and at the ready. Well, it was better than nothing. I waved to her, slid the door closed then ran back to the cockpit.
“Take us down, Chou,” I said, then made my way back to the door and waited until I felt the Brimstone bump against the ground. I slid the door open and started to move toward the first mooring rope to secure the airship.
“Stop right where you are.” Emily, flanked by three large men armed with swords and bows, was striding across the open ground toward me. The bows were aimed at me. Thor clomped along at her feet, his big brown eyes focused on me, his tail swishing.
At least someone’s happy to see me, I thought.
One of Emily’s bodyguards suddenly switched their bow from me to the Brimstone’s exit. I turned to see Freuchen and Chou standing in the doorway.
“You two, get down very carefully, and keep your hands in the air,” Emily ordered.
Chou and Freuchen did as they were told.
“Emily,” Freuchen said, “if ve do not secure the airship, it could be damaged beyond repair. Or verse, if it drifts into vun of those fires, there could be vun hell of a big bang.” The Brimstone was already drifting toward the line of fires at the edge of the forest. “It puts all our lives at risk.”
Emily thought for a second then called out to her people, four of whom came running to her side.
“Show them what they need to do,” she told Freuchen. “But if you do anything stupid, it’ll be the last thing you do.”
Freuchen and Chou walked with the New Manhattan people and began to secure the remaining mooring lines while Emily walked toward me and stopped a few feet away. “Make sure there’s nobody else on board,” she told two of her bodyguards. They nodded and climbed into the Brimstone. One of her other men began to pat me down. He stepped back and shook his head.
“You haven’t been at all honest with me, have you?” Emily said.
“That’s not entirely true,” I said. “We told you as much as we could.”
“You just left out the part about your three other friends. One of whom just happens to be a robot with a penchant for repeating himself and calling us’ Candidates.’”
She seemed mildly amused, which I took as a good sign.
“Albert and Silas?” I asked. “They’re okay?”
“They’re fine,” Emily answered. “A little weird, but fine.”
I felt a weight lift from my shoulders. “Can I see them?”
She ignored my question. “So, you were working with those… pirates?”
“What?” I said, astounded that she would think that. “No! No way.”
“So, why did they come here. Why did they single you and your big friend out?” She nodded in the direction of Freuchen and Chou who were being escorted back to where we stood.
“We weren’t working with them. They were looking for us. For me.”
“Why?”
“It’s a long story,” I said.
“I’ve got all the time in the world, apparently.”
“Listen. Emily,” I took a step toward her. Her bodyguards’ blades rose and pointed at my gut.
Emily pushed the blades down. “Let her talk.”
“Thank you. I know we’re not in a position to make demands, but if you let us see Albert and Silas, I promise you we’ll tell you everything that we know. It might not make sense—God knows most of it doesn’t to me—but you’ll know as much as we do.” I paused for a second, my eyes locked with hers. “Please.”
“Take them to my cabin,” Emily ordered. Then to another guard, “You go get the boy and the robot and meet us there, too.”
Emily sat behind her desk, her fingers steepled as she watched us. Chou, Freuchen, and I stood and waited, two armed guards on either side of us.
Five minutes later, the cabin door creaked opened, and I turned just in time to see Albert appear, spot the three of us, then run straight to me. He threw his arms around my waist, hugged me, then did the same to Chou and Freuchen.
“I thought… you weren’t… coming back,” the kid said between barely suppressed sobs.
Freuchen swept him up in his arms and said, “Ve vill alvays come for you, little man.”
The light from the doorway dimmed as Silas eased his giant form into the room.
He regarded each of us in turn. “Welcome, Candidates 13, 20078, 207891. I know that you are confused and have many questions. I am here to help you assimilate into your new surrou—“
Albert said, “These are our friends, Silas. The ones I was telling you about this morning… again.” He turned and looked at me. “You took his slate with you, so he forgets everything each night.”
I said, “We’ll figure that out as soon as Emily lets me have my backpack back. Now, tell me, are you okay?”
He nodded. “When the airship came, Chou and Silas told me to stay hidden and that they would be back. But only Silas came back. Silas wanted us to turn ourselves in, but I told him we had to wait for you to come back.”
Emily interrupted. “A group of my people out looking for fresh berries discovered Albert and Silas. Came as a bit of a shock to them.” She laughed, pleasant and bubbly. “They brought these two back to camp, which caused a pretty big commotion, but it didn’t take too long for us to figure out that Silas was not a threat. Now Albert, on the other hand…” She flashed a wry grin and a wink at the boy, who blushed tomato-red.
“Thank you for looking after our friends,” Chou said.
Emily acknowledged Chou with a dip of her head. “I’ve heard an awful lot about you, Weston, from young Albert.”
“Call me Chou.”
“He said that you are a pilot… of a starship?”
“The Shining Way, yes.”
>
Emily nodded slowly and said, rather enigmatically, “And I thought my story was a strange one.” She got to her feet. “I’ve done as you asked and reunited you with your two friends. Now it’s your turn. Give me the truth.”
Chou, Freuchen, and Albert all looked silently at me.
“Okay, I guess I’m nominated,” I said. I took a deep breath and began to tell her the story of everything that had happened to us from the day we’d all dropped out of the sky into the ocean. As I talked, Emily paced slowly back and forth on the opposite side of the table, her head cocked slightly to one side, her eyes moving to each of us as if I was narrating a story, and we were all its characters. When I was done, she pulled out her chair and sat again, her forearms flat on the table.
Albert broke the long silence. “You believe us, Emily, don’t you?” he said.
Emily’s eyes moved over all of us one final time, and to my relief, she said, “Yes, Albert. For some reason I can’t quite understand, because—and let’s be honest here, this is the weirdest sounding shi… story I’ve ever heard—I believe you. And believe me, I know weird.”
I felt some of the tension leave the room.
Emily stood again. “So, this Architect brought us all here because—why exactly?”
“Don’t know,” I said.
“What about the robot? How much does he know?”
“He doesn’t remember anything really,” Albert piped up.
“He just knows that we were supposed to work toward a common goal,” I said. “But what that goal is… or was…” I shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“But I thought you said the robot—“
Albert interrupted. “Silas. His name is Silas.”
“I thought you said Silas had given you some kind of a message from the Architect. To travel to the collector to find this Candidate 1?”
“He did give us that message, yes, the night we first found him. But then he forgot it.”
“And then the Nazis who captured your friends. And the raiders who came on the airship—they’re all agents of this other… entity. The Adversary.”
I nodded.
“And he wants you captured, but you don’t know why.”
I nodded again.
“And we’re all from different dimensions, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that explains a few things, I guess.”
“Like what?” Chou asked.
“Like how you and Meredith existed after 2012.”
Chou and I looked at each other. Then we both looked at Emily. “I don’t follow.”
Emily leaned in closer. “Because in my world… my version, there were only two humans left alive after that.”
“Aliens?” I said, still unable to believe the story Emily had just recounted.
Emily shrugged. “I’m not really sure. All I know is that after the red rain killed everyone but me, their bodies were… repurposed, turned into something else. Weird crab-like creatures that assembled themselves into these giant trees. I was traveling to Alaska—there was a group of scientists alive on an island—when I was attacked by these other creatures in the forest. That’s when Thor here showed up and tried to save me and got brought with me when the voice asked if I wanted to be saved.”
“An amazing story,” Freuchen said. He had sat enthralled while Emily spoke.
“So, what’s your plan?” Emily asked.
Good question. I had no idea what the answer was. “We haven’t had a chance to talk it through yet.”
“We will need your help with something,” Chou said.
“What?” said Emily.
“Crew,” Chou said. “We could use two or three people—people you trust—preferably with some experience of working aboard a ship or piloting an aircraft. Maybe someone with military experience who we could use as security to protect the ship.”
“I’ll ask round,” Emily said. “See if anyone wants to volunteer.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Anything else?”
“Our backpacks. May we have them back?”
Emily nodded.
We each retrieved our packs. I opened mine and dug around until I found the memory slate. I took it to where Silas stood near the door and held in front of his face. His eye-bar quickly scanned the code. Silas suddenly tensed, standing erect, his metal arms straightening, his eye-bar moving quickly around the room.
Emily’s two guards jumped to their feet, their weapons at the ready.
“Meredith? Where are we? How did I—“
“Silas, it’s okay. Something happened, and you’ve lost a couple of days. Let me explain.”
Fifteen
“It’s beautiful!” Albert whispered when he saw the Brimstone for the first time. “Can I go onboard?” he asked, looking up at Chou and me.
“Of course, little man,” Freuchen said. “Come on, I vill give you a guided tour, and you can pick out a cabin for yourself. How does that sound?”
“Really?” Albert replied, his eyes as big as baseballs.
“Really,” Freuchen smiled back before lifting the boy up and disappearing into the airship.
“It really is quite beautiful,” said Silas. He stood next to Emily, towering over her. Thor seemed to have taken a liking to the giant golden mechanical man. He sat between the robot’s legs while Silas stroked his head. “You said the original owner came from a world devastated by nuclear war? And yet, they were still able to create such marvels. Humanity has never stopped amazing me.”
“If there is one thing I have learned since arriving on this planet,” Chou said, “it is that humanity’s drive to survive seems more than capable of overcoming almost any obstacle that presents itself. We are a tenacious species.”
Just then, Bartholomew and a woman I didn’t recognize approached us.
“Hello,” Bartholomew said, grinning broadly. “We heard you were looking for volunteers to help operate this wonderful machine.”
“We are,” I said, eying the woman who stood just behind him. She looked somewhat familiar, but I couldn’t place her. She was taller than me, close to six feet, I guessed. Her hair was thick and looked permanently tussled, covering her ears and highlighting her slim, almost elven face and features. She wore a brown leather jacket that came down to just below her midriff, and light green pants with several large pockets built into each leg.
“We’d like to volunteer,” the woman said, every word pronounced with a precision I’d rarely heard before.
I stepped in closer to her and held out my hand. “Hello, I’m Meredith. That’s Chou, and the big golden guy is Silas.”
Both said hello.
The woman nodded at each of us, still smiling. “It’s a pleasure to meet you all. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“And you are?” Chou asked.
The woman flushed red, dipped her head in embarrassment before raising her eyes to look directly at me. “Amelia,” she said. “My name is Amelia Earhart.”
For the rest of that day and the next two, Chou taught Amelia how to pilot the Brimstone, launching practice flights around the canopy and eventually joy-rides for some of New Manhattan’s residents. To a one, those who took part in the flights came back with a deeper understanding and respect of just how vast and beautiful this version of Earth was.
We left the next day, Chou and Amelia occupying the pilot and co-pilot seats of the newly repaired pilothouse. Emily and a large collection of her citizens waved us off, and we watched them grow gradually smaller until, finally, Chou swung the nose of the Brimstone toward the monolith. The engines revved to max speed, and we began our journey again.
Sixteen
The next three days felt like more of a vacation than anything. Chou and Amelia seemed to hit it off and spent most of their time in the cockpit, switching shifts so the other could get some rest. Albert seemed in a permanent state of excitement, and when he wasn’t in his cabin, he was in there too, in the cockpit, happily providin
g a running commentary on the different trees and animals he spotted. Meanwhile, Freuchen and Bartholomew were becoming fast friends, spending their days playing cribbage and bridge in the crew quarters. They invited Silas in on a couple of games, but after he repeatedly thrashed them, he was promptly disinvited. Bartholomew also turned out to be a hell of a cook and kept us fed better than we’d been since we arrived.
Like I said, it felt more like a vacation, but each day, the collector drew closer and closer, and with it, a sense of unspoken disquiet.
It was at the end of the fourth day that Chou used the ship’s intercom to call all of us to the cockpit. I was the first to reach it, closely followed by Freuchen and Bartholomew. We stopped dead when, through the darkness, looming like some ancient giant, we saw the collector.
“My God,” Freuchen whispered, his voice vibrating with awe. “It’s beautiful.”
Goosebumps broke out along my arms. The hair on the nape of my neck rose, and I was rendered momentarily speechless.
We were about five miles from the collector. It glowed with dim white incandescence against the backdrop of the night. Amelia was in the pilot’s seat, and she angled the Brimstone’s nose slightly away from the collector so the airship’s balloon wouldn’t obstruct our view. We crowded to the window, our eyes tracing the side of the structure up and up and up, until it vanished into the sky, miles above us.
“One cannot help but feel insignificant in the presence of such a terrible feat of engineering,” Bartholomew said.
I silently agreed. It was unimaginably huge.
Chou threw a couple of switches, and the Brimstone’s forward spotlights flashed on, illuminating the land around the base of the collector. A mountain range stretched for miles on either side, encasing the bottom portion of the edifice in gray rock.
“Incredible,” Chou said. “The foundation must be buried deep in the mountains, secured by the bedrock itself.”
“Yes,” Amelia said, “but look at the ground around the mountain.” There was no forest around the base of the collector. Instead, extending out in a perfect circle for what I estimated was two miles or so was what looked like a gray landscape of… nothing. No trees, no brush, no grass—just gray nothingness. It might just as well have been the surface of the shattered moon whose glow was barely perceptible in the night sky.
A Memory of Mankind: (This Alien Earth Book 2) Page 16
