by Amie Kaufman
“I don’t know.” She’s still grinning, and the sight of it warms my core a little more, almost banishing the pang I feel at the mention of my father. Almost banishing the fear that’s still pulsing through me. “Being an airplane sounds pretty good to me. For a start, you’d have a way to get off the ground, instead of being stuck here. Better the pilot—or the shuttle, I guess—than the cargo.”
The image of the portal between Earth and Gaia comes back to me for a moment. My backer’s representative, Charlotte, somehow got me formal International Alliance identification—albeit in the name of Francois LaRoux—and I posed as a junior technician being posted to the orbital station around Gaia. I pretended to speak nothing but French, which helped avoid most conversation during transit. “The view on the way here was pretty spectacular,” I admit. “The portal itself, the way it shimmered, you know? Even if the jump through it was disconcertingly like being…stretched.”
“No,” she replies, grimacing. “I don’t know. I spent my trip stuffed in a packing crate.” Her tone does not invite more conversation on the subject of our trip here, and I move along quickly.
“Well, I haven’t entirely ruled the plane option out,” I say. “If this life of crime continues, and I become some sort of evil mastermind, I’ll certainly have the funds. I’ll take you for a ride.” And then, almost as much to convince myself as to comfort her: “I don’t think you’re a terrible person, Mia.”
“You think what I do is terrible,” she replies, looking away finally to locate her own breather mask. “Same thing, really, for you.”
And that shuts me up. I don’t know how to argue with what’s essentially true. Amelia and the others here on Gaia are destroying the only chance we have at unlocking the secrets of the Undying. It’s unfathomable to me, this willingness to disregard everything we could learn—and to take such unthinkable risks with humanity’s safety—just for the sake of quick cash. But I can’t say any of that out loud, not and keep her here with me, so I fall silent.
We’d always thought we were alone in the universe—or that any other life was so unimaginably far away that we might as well be. The quickening decline of our planet, the worldwide realization that we were doomed, was what sparked the formation of the International Alliance. Created to realize the idea of building a ship capable of traveling to the next solar system and the planet astronomers had dubbed Centaurus so that humanity might endure, the IA represented the power of ideas, faith in the future, the infinite vision and reach of our species. It represented hope.
It was such a thing to have done—the whole of humanity pulling together, pooling resources, launching our colonists, an inspired act of cooperation unimaginable before the rapidly changing climate put all our other petty grievances on hold.
But then, eight years into their journey—just over fifty years ago now—something went catastrophically wrong. Their final transmission was a plea for help playing over and over, for the International Alliance to save them. But the IA couldn’t—or perhaps wouldn’t—commit the colossal resources required for a second mission, a rescue mission able to reach them beyond the edge of our solar system. That had always been the understanding—that the Centauri colonists would be on their own once they left the heliosphere for interstellar space.
We’re sorry, was Earth’s response. Godspeed.
There was a camp that thought we should’ve salvaged the Centauri mission at any cost. That we weren’t just saving lives, we were saving our last hope, a journey we had to take. But others argued we simply didn’t have the money, the resources—that we couldn’t afford to attempt rescuing three hundred souls most likely lost already by the time their distress call reached Earth, at the cost of projects that could aid hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people suffering now on Earth.
Eventually their looped distress call simply faded away.
All those lives, those resources, the unprecedented global cooperation…for nothing. The mission’s failure convinced mankind the stars didn’t hold any solutions for us, not that our technology could reach. What we had was all we’d ever have—we couldn’t simply flee the world we were destroying to find another. The International Alliance rebranded itself, turning away from the stars in order to find ways to extend the remaining resources on Earth.
Until, that is, the small handful of astronomers still searching for confirmation of the Centauri mission’s demise picked up a new signal. Until my father, the famed mathematician and linguist Elliott Addison, decoded the Undying broadcast. Until that broadcast led us to Gaia, a planet with secrets and technologies so powerful an entire species destroyed itself fighting over them.
I’m not so naïve as to think that the companies hiring people like me are trying to solve the mystery of the Undying for the good of humanity. They want the alien tech for themselves, a monopoly. After seeing what the solar cell could do in Los Angeles, most of the world thinks this tech will solve all of Earth’s energy problems. The company that manages to unlock Gaia’s secrets will make a killing.
But their vision is locked so firmly on this one earthly goal that they forget to lift their gazes. They forget to see the stars, as humanity once did, as we all used to do when we were children. When we learned about other stories and cultures for the sake of doing so, for how those revelations changed us, what they made us. Gaia is the chance to learn on a scale we’ve never imagined before, and instead we’ve become traitors and thieves.
I accepted Global Energy’s offer to lead their expedition because they could get me here. Their sleek executive, Charlotte, found me through my cousin—and best friend—Neal. He’s an engineering major, and he’s interning with them this year. He and Charlotte got to talking, and she came to understand what others didn’t—that I’m my father’s son in many ways, and knowledgeable enough about Gaia to help achieve both our ends.
So she made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. They could put me on Gaia’s surface, and as long as I shared my findings with them, I could choose my own course. Nobody’s pretending they’re not in this race for their own corporate interests, but Charlotte understands there are bigger questions to be answered here, and she cares about more than profit.
I still didn’t tell her which temple I was heading for, of course—Mia may think I’m an idiot, but I’m not stupid enough to give away the existence and location of what my father believes will be the defining discovery on Gaia, the one that proves once and for all whether we’re saving or dooming ourselves. I intended to hit a couple of smaller temples first as misdirection, to keep them from realizing I’m not here to uncover tech. The one upside to having missed my exploration party is that I don’t have to hide my goal and its significance, and I can head straight for the spiral-shaped temple.
There, I can look for an explanation that will prove my father right, once and for all—or, though I can’t imagine it, prove him wrong.
Somehow, the fact that there was a third option never really sank in. That I might not prove the danger of the tech or uncover it, because I could die without ever making it to the temple or penetrating its defenses. Mouth dry, palms damp, with a girl symbolizing everything my father stands against, everything I stand against—I’m suddenly wondering how much my life is worth.
When I look up, Mia’s frowning, scanning the ridge with her goggles in place—from the way she adjusts a dial on the side, I’m assuming she’s got some kind of magnification lens in there.
“What is it?”
“Maybe nothing,” she replies, though there’s a tension in her voice that makes me question her nonchalance. “Thought I saw a flash up there on the rim, but it’s hard to tell with light coming from two different suns—it’s weird here, eyes play tricks on you.”
“Think someone’s following us?” My thoughts summon up the trouser-less man’s face as he glared daggers at me. I have no doubt he’s both re-armed and re-trousered by now. But would they really deviate from the path they believe holds all the riches and glory just
to take revenge on a couple of teenagers?
“I don’t think they’d bother coming after us for just one bike,” Mia replies, echoing my own thoughts. “But we’d better keep moving, just in case. The farther away from the other path we get, the less likely they are to keep following us. If they’re following us at all.”
We remount the skimmer in silence after that.
My stomach is in knots, and I know it’s not just the twists and turns of the skimmer bike. I don’t like misleading her. I’ve never really experienced…is this camaraderie? I’m not sure I’d know. I’ve just never been very good at knowing what to do with people my own age. Even when we were all very small, the other children knew I wasn’t quite the same as them, and try as I might, I could never fit into their games. I asked too many questions, I think.
My cousin Neal was the nearest I came, with his quick grin and quicker wit. Popular with the ladies, even more popular with the gentlemen, Neal. He more or less harassed me into joining him on the university water polo team against my protestations, and to everyone’s surprise, I loved it. To our collective astonishment, I was good at it.
He dragged me onto the back of his bike as well, giving me the practice I’d need here on Gaia, though neither of us ever could have imagined that. He dragged me out to see and do new things over and over, trying with all his might to breathe some youth into me. When the few friends I’d managed to accumulate left after my father’s disgrace, Neal was the one who stayed. He was the one who kept me on the team. I heard him arguing with the captain when I arrived for practice the night after my father’s arrest, wondering if I’d still be welcome.
“He’s just a kid!” I can still hear the anger in my cousin’s voice—a note I’d never heard before.
“He’s not just anything,” the captain replied.
I nearly turned around and walked out again, but some stubbornness made me continue on to the change rooms. Something in me decided that if I wasn’t welcome there, then they’d have to tell me to my face.
And maybe I was just very good at polo, because nobody ever did. And so I stayed, though the early green shoots of friendship with my teammates died away.
Nothing survives for long in the desert of our disgrace.
Amelia’s the one to restart the conversation a couple of hours later, when we take another break to stretch. She pulls down her kerchief so she can snag a few lungfuls from her breather, silent long enough that I’m surprised when she breaks the quiet to speak. “How do you know you’re taking us to the right temple?”
“How much do you know about the Undying?” The basics of what we know about the ancient aliens are taught even in regular schools, I assume—except I’m not sure how much school Amelia actually attended, so I’m treading carefully.
She shifts, leaning back against a rock and eyeing me. “I know enough.”
Not helpful. I hunt for my least lecture-y tone. “The broadcast that reached us fifty years ago, the one m—Dr. Addison decoded when he was at university, didn’t just give the instructions on how to build the portal to Gaia.”
“It also talked about how they destroyed themselves,” she interrupts. “That the precious technology they’ve hidden here on Gaia is their legacy, that only worthy people can inherit it, blah blah blah. I’m not a total idiot, Jules, I didn’t come here knowing nothing.”
“Ah, but see, what most people don’t know is that there’s a code within the code.” My father was the one who discovered the second layer of encoding in the Undying’s message. “It’s classified. Originally they all thought it was just a distortion in the message, but actually, it was intentional.” And this is where I lie to her. Not about the existence of the second layer of the code—that part is true. Just about what it says. “Beneath the instructions for the portal were a set of coordinates showing which of their structures held the key to finding their precious technology.”
“There’s a what now?” Amelia’s frowning at me. “If there were more information, telling us where to look, we’d know it. The IA’s good at keeping secrets, but not that good.”
I wipe my brow, glad I thought to pull out a handkerchief from the discard pile when Amelia was throwing away half my gear. “They kept this one. And anyway, only a handful of academics know how to translate it.”
The frown’s graduated to a scowl, though it makes lying to her no easier—the scowl’s almost as appealing as her smile. But some of Amelia’s skepticism is fading away in favor of curiosity, and she leans forward. “You’re still talking about Elliott Addison, aren’t you? This is the warning he was trying to give on TV, before they cut the feed. This is what he went to jail for. You’re saying you know what he knows?”
I’m treading on dangerous ground here. I know even more than that, but I don’t want her to realize she’s talking about my father. She’s a scavver, and I won’t ever be able to entirely trust her. She certainly wouldn’t trust me, if she knew whose son I am. “I do. And before you ask, no, I’m not telling you how I know. That’s not a part of this deal.”
She closes her mouth, frowning again. But the expression shifts as she mulls my words over, and eventually she’s eyeing me with cautious interest. “So you’re telling me that you have, essentially, a secret map to all the good stuff that no one else has?”
“Not exactly how I’d put it, but…yes.” I’m lying. I’m lying. But I have no choice.
She squints at me for a long moment, a dimple in her cheek suggesting that she’s chewing at her lip. “I don’t suppose you’ve also got a map outlining the locations of all the traps and pitfalls and puzzles inside, like the ones at the big temple that pulverized half the astronauts in Explorer IV.”
“Not as such, no.”
“But you can read their writing? Understand their language?”
“As well as anyone can.” I pause. “Except for Elliott Addison, of course.”
She’s watching me, eyes narrowed, and for a long, breathless moment I’m certain she’s figured it out. I have lighter skin than my father due to my mother’s genetic contribution, but we’ve got the same hair, the same eyes, the same jaw. I’m waiting for her to ask me how I could possibly know what I know. Someone as savvy as she is wouldn’t just take the word of a near stranger on any of this—she’s going to demand answers. Any second now.
I’ve only told her a fraction of the whole story.
It’s true, about the layers of coding. There’s the first layer, telling us of the riches of the Undying, waiting to be claimed by the worthy.
And then there’s the second. The layer we thought was a distortion in the signal, a blip of no consequence, ignored for decades. It’s different from the first, shoved in there like an afterthought. It’s inelegant, messy…inconsistent, in ways that are hard to quantify. There’s a not-rightness about it that’s hard to pin down. And the message it conveys is much, much smaller than the first.
When you graph it, the mathematical equation in that second layer of code marks out a shape resembling a Fibonacci spiral, like a Nautilus shell or our own Milky Way, but subtly altered. And there’s just one word, its isolation making it all the more difficult to translate. But we think we know what it means.
Catastrophe. Apocalypse. The end of all things.
It’s this secret layer, with its scientific inconsistencies, that stopped my father in his tracks. He was already begging the IA to slow down, to try to understand what the words meant before looting Gaia like the world was clamoring for them to do. But that second layer of code changed everything, for him. Here was proof, he claimed, of what he’d been saying all along—the Undying themselves were sending us a message of danger, and if the IA couldn’t justify slowing down for the sake of discovery, surely they’d have to slow down for practical reasons, for the safety of their expeditions and Earth itself.
But the leaders of the International Alliance weighed the good of the many—already, Los Angeles has a fresh water plant powered by just one small piece of Undying tech�
��against the “unfounded” warnings of an academic already out of favor, and of course they decided against him.
So he defied them. Tried to warn the world. And now he’s locked away.
I only worked out what I had to do a couple of weeks ago. I was staring at the topographical maps of Gaia again, studying the now familiar lines for the thousandth time, when suddenly I blinked out of my daze, and pulled the map in closer, my breath catching in my throat.
Because there it was, at the end of a canyon, backed against a wall of cliffs: a small, otherwise unremarkable temple in the shape of a spiral. Shaped into the same Nautilus spiral as the second, secret layer of code. Only a handful of us even know about the Nautilus, and it’s barely a speck on most of the maps, which is why none of the other scavengers are likely to bother with it.
That temple is where I’ll learn what the message means. Where I’ll learn why they paired this shape with the warning they did: the end of all things. That’s where I’ll find the answers to my father’s questions.
And if I have to lie to her, so be it. She’s all I have to replace the expedition that was supposed to back me up, and my chances without her are slim at best. So I’ll make sure she has reason to want to get to the temple. Even if it means lying to her about what we’ll find there.
I expect her to read all of this on my face, to somehow know. To call me out, to walk away, chasing her loot and leaving me to survive alone.
But instead she just leans forward and shoves to her feet with a groan for sore muscles, and reaches for her pack. “Then we’d better keep moving.”
The bike chews up the ground between us and the temple, and though the canyon’s twists and turns make my stomach lurch, it provides us at least a little bit of cover in case our new friends manage to repair their bikes and pick up our trail. For the last part of our journey, though, we have to work together to heave the skimmer up the steep canyon wall. According to my maps, the temple should be just beyond the stone rim.