by Amie Kaufman
Designed.
“Rise into the stars,” Jules whispers at my side, for once our two minds following the exact same trajectory.
This is what the Undying broadcast and the temples meant us to find—and it’s also what they tried to warn us about, whoever slipped the equation for the Nautilus—for the shape of this thing—into their broadcast, and etched spirals into the temple walls.
Catastrophe. Apocalypse. The end of all things.
This is the treasure they guarded, the prize at the end of the maze, the discovery that will change the future of Earth forever. Because it’s not a temple, or a monument, or a rock formation at all.
It’s a spaceship.
I’M REELING, MY HEART TRYING to hammer its way out through my chest as I lie beside Amelia, staring down at the plains below us, and it’s not because we nearly just plummeted to our deaths.
Everything has been leading us here.
Every test we passed, every note we tuned, every step we took, every puzzle we solved. They were all leading us to the portal in the rainbow chamber, to the path that would bring us to this spot.
We gaze down at the valley floor, our breath puffing out in front of us, the mist of mine mingling with hers. Amelia has her goggles on, and no doubt she’s magnifying the view, but even without that, I know what I’m seeing. It’s a craft, unmistakable, and after the dozens of languages all telling us to rise, there’s no question the Undying meant for us to find it.
Us—humans.
And that’s where my mind stalls, where my thoughts keep beating futilely against the walls of logic. The Undying were long gone before we’d invented those languages, and more than that, I can’t think of any way a species on the other end of the galaxy could have even known about primitive humans evolving on Earth while they built these temples. Beyond logic, what truly makes my stomach shrivel in fear is that they lied.
Their broadcast seemed designed for any intelligent species to decode, and yet the planet it led us to proves they could have just sent their broadcast in English, or any of the dozens of other languages we saw in that temple. Why lie, why deceive, unless the truth would keep us from coming here?
I’m exhausted, and part of me wants to suggest we just stop here, on the ledge that saved us from a fatal drop onto the valley floor. But Liz and her men are still out there, and if they get to that ship first, we’ll never get inside to unlock its secrets.
This ancient, frozen lake and the ship half entombed inside it is what the Nautilus symbols were warning me about. I thought I’d lost my chance to answer all its questions, and now hope’s surging up inside me once more, melting away the pain, the disappointment. I have to be the first one inside that ship. I have to know the truth. No matter what it costs me.
Finding this ship exists is only half of the answers I need to prove my father right. Showing the International Alliance that the Nautilus shape and its warning are attached to something real won’t be enough. I’ll need to show them why the ship is dangerous, and for that, I have to live to reach it.
I’m gathering my breath to speak, to suggest we keep moving, when Mia’s head lifts abruptly. She pulls her goggles off, and I see her eyes go distant—she’s listening. I catch my breath and listen too, and that’s when I hear it.
A humming, faint but unmistakably artificial, like the whisper of a fan or the whirring of tires or—the sound is growing louder—the distant roar of an engine.
“They couldn’t have snowmobiles or something,” Mia whispers, her eyes wide. “We saw all the equipment they had with them, and they couldn’t have known we’d end up at the pole.…” I’m turning my head this way and that, trying to pinpoint the source of the sound, but in all these ice caverns and tunnels it’s impossible to tell echo from origin point. “I don’t think it’s a snowmobile,” I say slowly, mind shying away from the truth. “I think it’s…”
The sound has grown to a low roar that rumbles in my stomach, and with a jolt of understanding I poke my head out of the hole we’re huddled in, out over the drop-off, and look up. There I freeze, and Mia takes one look at my face and joins me.
In the sky, descending with dizzying speed, is a shuttle.
No, not a shuttle—multiple shuttles. Two, three…four…the sky is suddenly full of them.
None are the gray, chunky supply shuttle that dropped me off on Gaia’s surface from the space station overhead—neither are they the triangular white shuttles the IA uses for its exploratory missions. These are sleek and black, more like fighter jets than space-faring vehicles.
They sweep across the valley floor, then circle in formation and land not far from the half-buried ship.
Mia’s the first to find her voice. “Are they from your company? Energy World or whatever?”
Global Energy. I’m staring, shaking my head. “They didn’t have private ships like this, they had to bribe half a dozen station officials to get me smuggled down in an IA shuttle dropping scientific equipment.” The gears in my mind are scraping together, feeling horribly misaligned, the machinery of my thoughts jarring. “Could—Mink? Liz’s crew could have signaled her somehow, after following us through…”
But Mia’s already shaking her head, in echo of mine. “No way does Mink have this kind of tech at her disposal. That’s no salvage op. That’s military, that’s…that’s government.”
“The IA.” At least a dozen shuttles have landed, looking tiny and unimportant now next to the massive ship in the ice. A handful of ant-sized people are emerging from the fleet, throwing the scale of the Undying craft into even sharper focus. “How could they have kept something like this a secret?”
“They didn’t show up until we did,” Mia replies. “Maybe they didn’t know. Maybe Liz was working for them all along—maybe she…maybe…” But we’re out of answers, out of possibilities.
My only comfort, adrift in this dark, sucking ocean of uncertainty, is that Mia’s adrift with me.
One thing does swim up to the surface, flashing in my mind like a beacon. Whoever those people are, they’ll have food. Water. Breathers. A way home. “Those ships,” I begin slowly.
“Right,” Amelia agrees. “No way can we go down.”
“Wait, what?” I blink across at her. “Are you kidding?”
She pushes her goggles up into her hair, so she can get a better look at me. “Jules, are you kidding? That’s the freaking IA down there. We’re scavvers. They’ll shoot us in the face.”
“Well, how else do you propose we get out of here? They’ve got the only transport I can see. Can you fly a shuttle, Amelia? Even if it were possible to steal one, can you navigate it past the security on the portal, handle reentry on Earth, and set us down somewhere nice and discreet? Because I can’t.” I can hear my voice—I know I sound as English and officious as it’s possible to sound—but I can’t help myself. “Whatever the odds are, we’re out of options.”
“Not yet, we’re not,” she counters. “We’re not desperate enough to risk that.”
“I am!” I pause to drag in a breath, and she digs for the breather as I speak. “We have barely any food, a couple more days with the breather, we’re exhausted, and Liz is back there somewhere looking for us. If you really want to find somebody who’s going to shoot us in the face, just head on out and she’ll take care of that for you. At least there’s some chance the people down at that camp have some sort of moral code.”
“Moral code,” she echoes, as if I’m simple, pressing the breather into my hand. “Moral code, now I’ve heard it all. What planet are you from?”
“Not this one,” I snap, yanking the breather strap around the back of my head and pulling it down over my face. It’s enough to stifle conversation, and we both stay propped up on our elbows, staring down at the camp.
As the light grows, so too does the activity below. Teams set up tents and equipment while others search the hull of the ship, moving across it in squads, patrolling the edge of it. They’re looking for a way in, I suppo
se.
Despite everything, a part of me is desperate to be down there. To be a part of the thrill of this discovery, to be there when they find a door they can open, to see it unsealing, opening for the first time in millennia. There must be a way in.
And the chosen will know the final test, and rise into the stars…
Mixed with my wonder, though, is my father’s voice in the back of my head. If carrying pieces of Undying tech back to our planet, like ants carrying precious grains of sugar down into our nest, is dangerous, how much more dangerous is something on this scale? For all we’ve explored, we have more unanswered questions about the Undying than ever. We know nothing about this ship, except that someone among the Undying hid a warning in the broadcast that led us to it.
As I stare down at this ship, my amazement starts to give way to something darker. I feel like the huge, beautiful creature I’ve just met has bared its teeth, and it turns out it’s a carnivore.
“Look, can we at least give it a little longer?” Amelia’s voice breaks the quiet, and I realize that while I’ve been speculating on the future of humankind, she’s had her mind on more practical questions. “Let’s gather a little more information on this operation before we make any decisions. We have a few more hours to scope them out.” But I can already hear the concession in her tone—she knows what we’ll have to do in a few hours.
“Sure,” I say from beneath the breather, because what’s the point in arguing? “You need a little time with this?”
“You keep it a while longer,” she says. Again, unspoken: We’ll be able to refill it down there.
And so we lie side by side, occasionally propped up on our elbows, our chins sometimes resting on our folded arms. We hand the breather back and forth, and let our bodies rest, and find some crackers in my pack to share. And again, I try not to notice her closeness. Try not to think about the moment I smiled and mentioned our kiss, and she said nothing at all. My tangle of feelings for her is more complicated by the moment, and every time I find a string and tug on it, the knots grow tighter.
She, on the other hand, is busy studying the camp below us. It will be a risk going down there, and it’ll be physically challenging, especially as tired as we are. We’ll have to wriggle all the way up the tunnel we slid down, and then find a way down onto the plains and out toward the camp, all while avoiding Liz and her team. Neither of us relishes the prospect.
I’d guess it’s two or three hours later that Amelia nudges me with her elbow, and I realize I’ve been dozing. “Look,” she murmurs, pulling down her goggles and pointing out at the ship below. It takes me a long moment to see what she’s looking at, but when she points, I lean in to press my temple to hers, feeling the warmth of her skin a moment, and follow her line of sight.
There are two figures making their way from the base of the cliffs below us, out toward the campsite. They’re not dressed in black like every single other person we can see—they’re in the same dirty browns and khakis as us, both carrying packs on their backs, their arms stretched out wide to either side in the classic look-I’m-unarmed pose.
“Who is it?” I whisper, as though they’ll hear us.
“Liz,” Amelia replies, just as soft. “And one of the other guys, not Javier, not Hansen. I never caught his name.”
“M.C.,” I supply absently. He was the one with the muttonchops. “I guess Javier and Hansen didn’t make it.” I’m wondering if I killed them. Whether my rockfall caught them, along with Alex. It doesn’t matter how they died, if they’re dead…except that it does, to me. Of course it matters.
“I wonder what Liz is gonna tell them,” Amelia says, as a detachment of figures in black peel away from the camp to trot in formation toward Liz and her companion. They’ve been spotted. “What she’ll tell them about us.”
I go cold at the thought of that. She may not have any more credibility than we do, but whatever she says to warn them about us, it’ll be a first impression we have to try and break. “Perhaps we can convince them…”
I trail away, because far below the two groups of figures have come together, and though we can’t hear them, the pause must be because they’re talking. The figures in black stand arrayed around them in a half circle, and one of them—the leader, I suppose, because this figure’s still in black, but wears a different coat, longer, more generously cut, reaching to the knees—is speaking to Liz and the man she’s brought with her.
Then, without warning, Liz and her companion fold to the ground.
The sound reaches us a second later, the deafening slam of gunfire echoing off the ice and rolling around inside our tiny hollow, setting the cliff face trembling all around us. There’s nothing we can do but press ourselves down low, cover our heads with our hands, pray the whole thing doesn’t cave in on us.
When I eventually crack open my eyes, Amelia’s staring down at the icy plain below us. The figures in black are already on their way back to their camp, led by the one in the longer coat, who’s striding away without a backward glance. Even without the magnification of Mia’s goggles, I can see the blood washing the snow around the two bodies a bright crimson.
“Holy shit,” Mia’s whispering. “Oh son of a…they can’t…”
She’d begun to believe it would be all right if we went down there. So had I.
If we had—if I’d won the argument—we’d be dead right now.
“They…” I echo in a whisper, as if the shooters below will somehow hear us.
And then, though I can’t believe I’m saying it out loud: “They left their gear on them. Their breathers. Maybe when it gets dark, we could—”
Mia twists around, and she’s staring at me as I fall silent. “Holy shit, Oxford,” she mutters.
“I didn’t—”
“No, you’re right,” she agrees quietly. “I just didn’t think you had that in you.”
“I think I’m in shock,” I murmur.
“Fair enough,” she replies quietly, pressing her forehead down onto her folded arms.
We’re both silent, processing what we’ve just seen, trying to understand it, and it’s several minutes before Amelia speaks. “Look, maybe—”
She gets no further, interrupted by a soft sound, as icy debris comes sliding down the way we originally came. We both hold still to see if there’ll be more, though the low-ceilinged cave we’re in seems solid enough.
There is more, and then a scraping sound, and then abruptly, a pair of boots coming into view. Amelia grabs her multi-tool, and I grab my pick, both of us twisting around at once to face whoever’s coming, the image of Liz’s blood on the snow fresh in our minds.
The boots wedge in against the wall, slowing their owner’s descent, and before I have time to register his clothing isn’t black, I find myself staring down the barrel of Javier’s gun.
FOR A FEW SECONDS NO one speaks—Javier’s breathing hard, focus switching between us. He’s wearing goggles, making it near impossible to read his expression, but his body is tense and ready. It’s clear he’s a pro. A mercenary, rather than a simple scavver. Or, at the very least, someone who’s been doing this sort of work for a long time.
“You fire that thing in here and you’ll bring the whole cave system down on our heads.” I’m speaking before I know what I’m hoping to get out of him.
“Maybe,” he replies. “But you’ll definitely be dead if I pull the trigger.”
“Why come after us?” Jules is staying still, not risking a movement that could make Javier’s twitchy finger slip. “That’s what you’re after, down there. You don’t need us anymore.”
“You’re our bargaining chips.” Javier’s head turns a little—I’m guessing he’s glancing toward the relatively bright hole in the cave that overlooks the valley. “Liz is going to trade you two as prisoners and hopefully make a deal with the Alliance forces down there. This operation’s out of our league.”
“Liz?” I exchange glances with Jules, whose brows are raised. He lifts his eyes to the
hole through which Javier descended, and I’m right behind him. Tunneling his way through the ice, Javier would’ve heard the gunshots, but in all likelihood, he won’t have seen what happened.
For a few wild moments, my mind flips through half a dozen ways to use what we know against him. On this, at least, Jules and I agree: knowledge is power. But I’m so tired, and so shaken, and the last few hours are catching up to me faster than I can think.
Javier’s got his attention back on us, and after a few more seconds of silence, he reaches up with his spare hand and lifts his goggles up onto his head. He squints at us, though the gun doesn’t move. “What?”
Now I can see his eyes, I’m remembering the gentler voice he had, the way he loosened my bindings. My resolve to fight him is failing. I have so much else to fight already. “Liz is dead. The guys down there shot her and M.C.”
Javier’s eyes narrow. “Shot?”
“See for yourself.” Jules gestures to the ledge.
Javier inches toward it, keeping his eyes on us. It’d be easy to lunge forward the moment he shifts his attention to the valley, and shove him out over the drop. But when I glance at Jules, and meet his gaze, I know we’re thinking the same thing. Under Liz’s leadership, her team was ruthless, efficient, and smart. And those soldiers down there shot her after a couple of minutes of conversation, and evidently with no warning.
Liz was a nearly insurmountable threat to us, and they just took her out like it was nothing. On our own, Jules and I don’t stand a chance.
It takes Javier only a few seconds to find the distant pool of crimson surrounding the two bodies in the snow on the surface of the frozen plain. He scans the area, then pulls himself back from the ledge and slumps back against the cave wall. “Well, damn.” His gun clicks as he thumbs the safety back on, and he shoves it back into its holster inside his jacket.