Survive

by Vera Nazarian

  I peer at the feed, not sure what I’m seeing. Similar, nearly identical 3D charts and graphs constantly scroll by and replace each other, and they all show some kind of blurry, blob-like mass—roughly circular, possibly viewed from different angles.

  “See here? Those are energy patterns in the same image captured at different moments, using micro intervals. And these are with different wavelength filters. Darker spots are less dense, brighter light spots are the densest.” Keruvat points one finger at the nearest scrolling image.

  “Why are they changing?” I ask. “Are they moving?”

  “We don’t know for certain yet,” Aeson replies. “Some of this is possible rotation or other motion, some of it is incoming data variations.”

  “How soon will you know?” I find myself frowning with tension. “What about the shuttle Pilots who are looking at it with the naked eye? What does it look like?”

  “They can’t risk too close an approach yet. Not until we know for sure what type of energy is emitted and the radiation levels.” Xelio taps one of the four windows and brings up a live feed of the object in space. “This is the closest image capture so far.”

  I look at what appears to be a large spherical blob of light against the darkness of space. Last night when I saw it with my naked eyes in the sky, it was the size of my pinkie. Here, I’m not sure of the scale, but the image fills most of the view screen. However, seeing it like this in higher detail still doesn’t make it any less vague or nebulous. Nor does it give any better idea of its size.

  “What is it?” I muse. “How big?”

  Aeson just shakes his head. “Next step is to approach even closer, after the radiation safety levels are confirmed. The shuttles have fallen in formation at different angles and distance, in order to triangulate. They’ve sent out more probes and are keeping pace with its general movement. So far, the motion appears circular, almost as if it’s following its own higher orbit over Atlantis.”

  “Woah! This is so weird.” I hear Gordie’s voice as he comes up behind me and peers over my shoulder.

  “Hey—morning, Gee Three!” I turn to my younger brother, looking at him closely.

  Gordie pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he leans in to stare. His eyelids droop over his blue eyes, making him look a little sleepy, as he usually does first thing in the morning. At least he’s wearing a decent looking tan shirt and jacket, and his short hair is no longer a buzz cut and is starting to grow back a little. Meanwhile his cheeks look fuzzy—he definitely needs a shave.

  “What are we looking at?” Gordie asks.

  “Some kind of energy blob,” I reply. “But no one is sure yet.”

  “We’re working on it,” Keruvat says.

  “Is it dangerous?”

  Xel makes a short mocking sound. “Define ‘dangerous.’” And he lifts a finger to tap at one of the four data windows. The window zooms larger and with it, the visual representation of the light object in space, in real color. “What does that look like to you?”

  Gordie squints again and frowns. “Uh . . . the colors are not there, but the glowing stuff looks a little, in texture or consistency, like the purple plasma fields emitted by the Fleet shuttles. Which is the same kind of energy as the big plasma shields around the ark-ships.”

  “Hmmm,” Xelio says. “Yes, could be, except for the violet frequency of the light.” He slaps Gordie on the back lightly. “Good observation.”

  “So, if this is an artificial plasma shield,” Ker reasons, “Then what is it shielding?”

  “My initial guess, again, would be a dimensional rift.” Aeson sits back and exhales, then picks up his mug and takes a drink. “But I want to know why it’s moving in a curving trajectory instead of being fixed in space. In addition, it appears translucent, and you can see through it to the star field behind it. As if it’s shielding nothing.”

  “Unless it’s a hologram?” I say.

  Aeson raises his brow. “Yes, interesting, could be. Or a holographic shield.”

  “A what?”

  “A holo-shield is an energy shield that also has a cloaking property,” Keruvat explains. “Unlike a plain hologram, which is just a light projection, a holo-shield both rearranges light quanta to disguise and creates a protective energy barrier.”

  “Cool,” Gordie says with his mouth full of eos pie, and quickly pops another chunk in, chewing blissfully. Then he picks up the whole plate.

  “For how long is your Father allowing this anomaly to be studied?” I ask Aeson, while giving Gordie a side-eye warning to tone down his feeding frenzy. “I mean—because all this time the ark-ship is actively broadcasting into the cosmos. . . . Isn’t he concerned about that?”

  “At this point he’s more concerned about the connection between this light object and the ark-ship,” Aeson says. “And so am I. There might be answers here that we need in order to shut down the ark-ship permanently, physical details in connection to this object. Once we know more about it, we’ll have more to work with.”

  I nod. “Okay. So, in the meantime it just stays active, I guess.”

  “Right.” Aeson slowly smiles at me. “We just wait—for more data and further orders.”

  “Going to be another long day.” I smile back at him with gentleness.

  Then, with a painful twinge, I remember the Games Final Ceremony happens in just a few hours.

  By the time I finish eating my eos bread, others have come downstairs. Gracie, Blayne, and Oalla join us. And then Gennio and Anu show up.

  “Imperial Lady Gwen,” Gennio says, handing me a small rose-colored chrome box. “I set up your new personal communication and data unit. Do you need me to show you how to use it?”

  “Oh, wonderful, Gennio! And yes, please.” I open the box and take out my very own wrist comm thingie, at last. It’s basically a two-inch wide band of flexible slate-grey material (very likely, orichalcum) in a ten-inch long strip, with an adjustable clasp on both ends. You wrap it around your wrist on either hand and it molds itself comfortably, based on your individual dimensions, forming a bracelet.

  I’ve used Aeson’s to make basic calls, but that’s all I know how to do. “How do I turn it on?”

  Gennio first ensures that I have it sitting around my wrist properly. “Your new PCDU, or personal unit as we call it, needs to be keyed first.”

  “A regular voice keying command?” I ask.

  He nods.

  I focus on my wrist and sing F-A-C, which is my go-to keying sequence. At once the band lights up with delicate hairlines of gold energy running around my wrist, then settles back into grey.

  “Okay, good,” Gennio says. He then shows me how to do several basic functions by means of finger taps and how to read the entry-level display. “Don’t worry about the advanced data entry or media feeds or text messaging and email yet, Imperial Lady Gwen. You can practice on the holo-keyboard later when you get more used to it. The locator ID chip is initialized and I added it to the secure Imperial Network so that your location will be protected from the public and only shared with your personal security and those you allow. As far as the comm function, I programmed the main numbers you will need to call people, including the Imperial Crown Prince, naturally, and the Palace, and—here, you can see the list of people here—”

  “Perfect for now,” I say, glancing over the speed-call list, glad to see Gracie, Manala, all of my friends, and the Imperatris on the list.

  “Let me know if you need more help,” Gennio says, then wanders off to work on some equipment at a nearby table with Anu.

  I turn my left wrist this and that way, admiring the new gadget. And then I look up because of the sudden fall of silence in the small room.

  Aeson, Ker, Xel, and Oalla have stopped chatting and commenting on the data. They have gone absolutely quiet around the small table as they stare at the smart panel screen, one window zoomed larger to fill the entire display.

  I move my chair closer to them and then lean in to stare ov
er Oalla’s shoulder.

  The blob of plasma light surrounded by space fills the screen.

  Except, no—it’s no longer a shapeless, vaguely round blob. The flickering, mutable light mass has thickened, congealed, solidified. It has lost the viscosity of plasma energy. Or possibly, the energy itself has dissipated or faded to reveal what lies at its core.

  I am looking at a high-resolution image of a sphere hanging in space. An object with a non-radiant surface, its pale brightness merely a reflected albedo of another light source—in this case, Hel, shining more than a hundred million miles away.

  The image seems to be gaining clarity every moment. The ghostly, greyscale color palette is enriched, and faint splotches of color bloom forth—faint rose, tan-yellow, and blue-green shadows cast in relief. And now there are rocky surface features visible . . . vague natural blotches, peaks and valleys . . . craters.

  It is a planet.

  Chapter 16

  “What in all the rawah hells of Atlantis?” Oalla whispers, breaking the silence. “That’s a planetary body!”

  “Are we looking at the same object?” Xelio asks. “What happened to the plasma?”

  Aeson does not answer immediately. He minimizes the window back to its original position to reveal the three others and starts tapping on the screen and scrolling through data on two of the windows. “Yes, the location and trajectory overlap with the plasma image from before. This is the same object. It no longer shows a plasma holo-shield.”

  Ker is shaking his head slowly. “And according to this trajectory curve plot for the last several hours, and the projected points to fill in the missing data—” he taps at one data chart, “it is moving in an Atlanteocentric orbit around us—around Atlantis.”

  “What? How?” I mutter. “You mean it’s orbiting like a satellite?”

  “Yes.” Aeson glances at me and the others. He exhales slowly. “This is a moon.”

  Holy crap!

  At this point everyone else in the room has stopped doing whatever they were doing, and they gather around us.

  “Wait, what?” Gracie says, with a glance back to Blayne who’s the only person still seated, but even he is positioning his legs around his hoverboard, ready to leave his small sofa and join us.

  “I thought Atlantis has three moons,” Blayne says, hover-floating up to the table.

  “It does,” Xel says with a confused frown.

  “Well, apparently now it has four,” Oalla says with a strange laugh through parted lips. “Is this crazy or what, Ker? A hidden fourth moon? What is its orbit relative to Amrevet?”

  Ker checks data, still shaking his head, then says, “Based on the actual route traveled along the trajectory, as marked in real time by our instruments, it’s about twice as distant from Amrevet’s average orbit as Amrevet’s orbit is from Mar-Yan’s. And we won’t know the shape of that orbit until a full revolution is completed and we account for closest and farthest apsis point irregularities—”

  “In other words, it’s orbiting very far out there.” Aeson speaks softly, then turns to his wrist comm and starts working the data.

  “Time to let your Imperial Father know?” Xel says with narrowed eyes.

  “Oh, yes.” Aeson makes a short sound. “Best he hears it from me—or from any one of our own personnel—rather than foreign sources around the globe. Though, no doubt, he must’ve heard already—I can just imagine the reports and calls pouring in right about now. . . . Not only from our own agencies but from everywhere else. Because it’s happening globally as they observe that thing and reach the same consensus as we do.”

  Xel whistles.

  “Okay, I don’t understand what’s going on,” Gracie says.

  “You’re not the only one.” Oalla smiles sadly at Gracie.

  “Message sent,” Aeson says. “Now bracing for call.”

  And as if on cue I hear and recognize the Imperial ring tone.

  While Aeson gets up and steps away to talk privately with the Imperator, we continue to watch the data feeds.

  “Time to send surface landing probes to take a closer look at this thing,” Keruvat theorizes, as he reads the band of his wrist comm. “Then, after the probe data comes back, we send shuttles with human Pilots.”

  Meanwhile I turn to stare at Aeson, observing the grave nuances of emotion and stress in his face, his urgent tone, as he speaks with his Father, not bothering to maintain his usual semblance of control. The conversation lasts an interminable half-hour, and when he is done, Aeson comes back to the table.

  “How did it go?” Ker looks at Aeson with worry.

  “Bad,” Aeson replies. “Half the IEC is in his office or requesting a formal audience. The Oratorat is talking to her own strategy team back at Eos-Heket, and New Deshret is demanding we handle the Ra Disk and Grail situation immediately. Multiple foreign government representatives and their local ambassadors are calling on every Palace line. Oh—and we’ve got huge crowds surrounding the Khemetareon and throughout downtown. Half of them are there to line up early for the Games Ceremony, the rest are just raving in the streets in fear, screaming about ghosts in the sky. Poseidon LCA has dispatched additional crowd control units. It’s absolute chaos.”

  “What about this moon? How are we to proceed?” Xelio asks. “Or are you shutting it down to accommodate New Deshret?”

  “At this point, I wonder if we even can shut anything down again,” Aeson says thoughtfully. “Ark-ship, Ra Disk, this moon. . . . If we perform the full command sequence with our three Logos voices right now, and the ark-ship goes to sleep, will the moon also disappear behind some kind of holo-shield? Or has it all deteriorated too far? The energy bonds—have they faded so much that the plasma shielding is permanently gone? Besides, my Father wants us to continue working on this new problem of the moon.”

  “What I want to know,” Oalla says, “is where did this moon come from? Was it brought here from somewhere else by some third party—an unknown force, or entity, or even an automated program somehow related to the ark-ship? Or was it always secretly here, in its own orbit, but just hidden somehow, all this time? And if so, who shielded it and how long ago? And why?”

  Aeson nods slowly. “That’s what we’re going to find out.” He begins entering commands on his wrist device while Keruvat and Xelio scroll through the panel feeds and read the data. “All right, I just sent landing parties to the surface of this moon. They will be reporting back shortly. Meanwhile—”

  “What?” I look at Aeson, feeling sick to my stomach with anticipation of more of the unknown.

  He exhales and looks at me. “Just got a time reminder—you need to get ready for the Final Ceremony.”

  “Oh.” My gut does another somersault. “You mean time for me to put on the uniform.”

  “Yes, unfortunately.”

  Oalla puts her hand on my back and pats me lightly, then squeezes my shoulder.

  “Gwen, you have to be there an hour early to line up with the others,” Aeson tells me, shaking his head. “Which means we need to leave in less than an hour. Hard to believe—considering how much of a crisis this is—but we all have to interrupt our work to participate in this Games nonsense—at a time like this.”

  “Okay, let me go change,” I say softly. “I’ll be right back.”

  Aeson nods at me with regret, then has to return his attention to the screens, where a fresh, new set of data is coming in, and everyone becomes engrossed in it.

  I go upstairs and put on the Vocalist uniform with the usual layer of viatoios armor underneath and a fresh pair of sports shoes to match. For one uncertain instant I wonder if putting on the armor underlayer is even necessary at this point. But then I recall that under normal Games circumstances I would still be wearing the armor and everything else, as I would be coming straight from the last stage, filthy and bloodied. . . . To recreate the original circumstances, it would be necessary for me to wear everything. Besides, nothing is certain; I might still need it.

 
Perish the thought.

  Looking at myself in the mirror, I see my general pallor, gaunt cheeks, the hollows around my eyes, and realize that I might require cosmetics just to look semi-alive for this Ceremony.

  Normally I wouldn’t care, and today it even seems like a ridiculous thing to be concerned about. But for some reason I really want to come across looking like a proper Champion. My gut tells me that, at the very least, I need to put on a brave front for these thousands of people, and for all those cameras.

  Which means I need basic face paint.

  Fortunately, I have servants at my disposal here at Aeson’s estate. And so, I call the staff, using my own new wrist “thingie.” Minutes later, a young and friendly maid arrives and seats me before a table of cosmetics. She gives me an appropriately fierce look of kohl-lined eyelids, dark dramatic eye shadow, and deep plum lips. She dabs a bit of color over my cheekbones. And she brushes my hair until it crackles, then asks me how I would like it done.

  “Let’s leave it down,” I say, admiring her fine work in the mirror. “No decoration, just long hair.”

  And on that note, I am ready to play my version of Champion before all of Atlantida.

  When I return downstairs, Aeson is ready for me. He hasn’t bothered to change outfits, but he is already dressed nicely, and so are the other daimon. It occurs to me that they anticipated this occasion and dressed accordingly.

  “Ready?” Aeson smiles at me with a warm expression in his eyes. I know he is making an effort to set aside the urgent work at hand. But I also see that he has given instructions to his various subordinates, and he has his wrist comm on him at all times. He’ll probably be working discreetly from his seat, even during the Final Ceremony.

  “As ready as I can be,” I say. And we head outside for the hover cars.