Many beings.
The more she opened up her mental conduit, the more beings she sensed. Further, there was that humming presence Eva had heard before. It felt ancient and powerful—beyond any creature she could imagine. The sound of the humming became too overwhelming. Eva opened her eyes and scanned the corridor, but saw nothing. “Zin? Zin, are you here?”
She brushed her fingers along the reeds of voxfruit growing near the canal. Plucking one of the fruits to eat, she spied something large and flat lying on the ground. She knelt down to get a closer look. It appeared to be some sort of metal plaque with writing on it. Eva rubbed the sand and dust away with her hands and read aloud, “This First Municipal Rapid Transit Railroad of the City of New York, Suggested by the Chamber of Commerce, Authorized by the State, Constructed by the City.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Eva saw a patch of lichen move. She turned and crept close to the tiled wall where the foliose lichen was. Its ochre leafy lobes radiated from a cluster of cuplike nodules. Eva went to touch one of the nodules, and it blinked.
“What!” Eva jumped. All the nodules then blinked as a group, like beady black eyes placed in a pattern on a flat leafy face. Eva inspected the lichen closer. It released a tiny puff of colored dust.
I. Do not move. It. Cannot see me.
The words entered Eva’s mind the moment the dust was released.
“I—I won’t hurt you,” she whispered. “I’m just here looking for someone.”
The round patch of lichen loosened itself from the stone’s surface and emerged from a bowl-shaped niche in the wall. Under its flattened lichen head was a squat tubular body. The waist-high creature scurried about on short tentacles. Its basic shape brought to mind the holograms Eva had studied of sea cucumbers.
Several of the creature’s tentacles stretched out to touch Eva. She sat down and let it inspect her face. The lichen-creature released a series of colorful puffs, summoning others of its kind to come forth from their hiding places. Before long there were dozens of the creatures surrounding Eva, leaving the cement walls riddled with hidey-holes.
I. Am curious. What is. It? A new being.
The thoughts came flowing in as the lichen-creatures examined Eva.
“You are cute.” Eva touched a fingertip to the tentacle of one of the natives. “I don’t think you are from the Age of Man.”
“You are correct, human,” a familiar chirpy voice said.
Eva stood and spun around.
From a shadowy alcove floated the one Eva had been searching for.
Zin.
CHAPTER 13: MOULS
Do I know you?” Zin asked aloud, although his large mouth remained closed. He paused where he’d emerged on the far side of the station platform, opposite Eva.
“You do.” She stepped closer. “It’s me, Eva. Eva Nine.”
“Eva Nine?” Zin retreated. “The human captive delivered by Besteel. The one who disclosed the whereabouts of my long-lost sister?”
“Yes! Did you—”
“Also, the one who demolished the Royal Museum and Her Majesty’s cherished collection of artifacts.” Zin pointed several accusatory fingers at Eva. “If you are that Eva Nine, you best leave this sacred location right now before you cause more destruction. Be gone!”
“Wait just a nano.” Eva stormed toward Zin. “You gave me no choice. You were going to dissect me! What did you expect me to do?”
“I had no final say in that decision.” Zin folded all nine of his arms and held his ground. “I was following Queen Ojo’s orders.”
“Following orders?” Eva’s voice rose in exasperation. “Zin, you know a lot about a lot of things.”
“Much gratitudes, Eva. I—”
“So think for yourself for once! Stop doing what Ojo tells you!” Eva turned away. The entire colony of lichen creatures had gathered to watch Eva and Zin’s exchange.
He. Is kind. He does not hurt. Us. He watches. Only.
Eva exhaled in frustration. “I know.” She knelt down next to one of the creatures. It released more puffs of color.
You. Are also kind?
“As I said, I won’t hurt you,” said Eva. Zin drifted right next to her. This close, she could see that Zin’s ivory complexion was now grimy.
“Do you understand them?” he asked.
“Yes.” Eva turned her attention back to the lichen creatures. “I told you before that I can, especially now, since I have been in the Heart of the forest.”
Zin gasped. “You—you’ve explored the Heart? The touchdown site? Did you discover anything?”
Eva stood and looked Zin in the eyes. “I found the Vitae Virus generator, and I drank water carrying the virus.”
“Then it is true. Soon the humans will know.” Zin sank low to the ground.
Eva’s anger left her. Zin looked so . . . defeated. “The humans will know nothing. I would never tell anyone the location of the generator.”
“You would not?”
Eva walked back out into the foyer and looked up at the gigantic lichen tree. “I don’t want anything to happen to the forest. I didn’t want anything to happen to Solas or Lacus. But it happened. I tried to stop it, but I couldn’t.”
Zin floated over to her. “When we first interacted, you had no cognizance of the imminent human invasion?”
“When I saw you last, I didn’t think there were any other humans.”
With stout fingers Zin pulled off his pointed hat and rubbed his forehead. He drifted, mumbling to himself, “Then perhaps she is but the herald . . . not the cause?”
“What are you talking about?”
Zin turned back to Eva. “My sister Arius. She foretold of your arrival.”
“She did? To you?”
“Not to me, but I believe she knew,” said Zin. “Do you recall any memory of what she prophesied directly to you?”
“A little.” Eva shrugged her shoulders. “Why? I thought you didn’t believe in all that stuff.”
Zin floated back toward Eva. “I don’t . . . and I do. I believe, like me, she has exceptional skills of observation.”
“You mean . . . she had,” said Eva, looking away.
“ ‘Had’? What are you—” Zin’s slit-eyes went wide with realization.
“I’m sorry.” As the memory of Arius at the hands of Loroc rushed back, Eva felt tears fall from her eyes. “You—you didn’t know?”
Zin zoomed over to Eva. He seized her arm, rolled up her sleeve, and gasped.
Arius’s mark, the glyph she’d placed upon Eva, had disappeared. “The glyph . . . it’s gone!” Eva said. She rubbed the spot on her arm where the glyph had once been, hoping it might reappear, but it did not.
Zin drifted down to the ground like a dying leaf abandoning its tree.
“I’m so sorry, Zin.” Eva sat down next to him. “When I met her and she told me my fortune, I was frightened. Now I feel as if she were trying to help me. Guide me.”
“Well, she was angry with me,” Zin whispered. He floated back down the passage toward the platform of the transit station.
“But you got to see her, right?” Eva followed him. “She told you what happened to your other sister, Darius?”
“I never made it. The museum was a catastrophe. . . . Then word came of the invasion in Lacus. My time was occupied by my royal responsibilities.”
“I tried to warn her about the invasion,” Eva said. “But I was too late. I failed.” Her mind reeled about how to break the details surrounding Arius’s death to Zin. How would Rovender do it? she thought. He is so good with words.
Zin exhaled. “It is I who have failed, Eva Nine. When I originally analyzed the data provided to me by King Ojo’s research team, I believed Orbona to be a lifeless planet. I stated that it was the best candidate for the King’s terraforming program. It is apparent now that I was mistaken. Your primitive species somehow went undetected. Furthermore, I underestimated the ability of your kind and its impact on us—the introduced species.”
>
“But the planet was dead,” said Eva. “Humans may have even been dormant in underground labs when you saw that data. Only later did Cadmus’s inventions bring us back.” Eva was awash with mixed feelings. She knew Cadmus supported the invasion of Solas, but she also owed her very existence to him.
“The human leader? The one who demolished Lacus, lay siege to my grand city, and murdered my sister?” Anger snarled in Zin’s chirpy voice.
“There’s more to it than that.” Eva kept her tone calm as if she were speaking with Hailey. “You have to listen to me.”
“Elucidate me. Fill me in on every minute detail, starting just after you razed my museum.” Zin crossed his many arms.
“Your brother, Loroc, masterminded the invasion of Lacus and Solas. He helped Cadmus.”
“Loroc wouldn’t—”
“It is he who killed Arius,” Eva said.
“Nonsense!” barked Zin.
“I saw it happen.” Eva took hold of two of Zin’s arms. “He . . . consumed her in one gulp. He told me he’d done the same with your other sister, Darius.”
“Consumed? No. That cannot be.” Zin brushed the spot on Eva’s forearm where Arius’s glyph had once been. He broke free from her grasp and floated toward the inky depths at the back of the station from which he had emerged.
“He claimed he now possessed their powers. I am sorry I have to be the one to tell you this. When I heard you were still alive, I traveled a long way to find you. We even came across a Dorcean searching for you.” Eva trailed behind Zin down the station platform.
Zin turned back. “A Dorcean?”
“Yes.” Eva stifled a shudder. “He had a glowing eye. His name was Redi . . . something.”
“Redimus.”
“Do you know him?” asked Eva.
“He is Besteel’s brother.” Zin floated out from the shadows under an open skylight, his brow knitted with concern. “He is the one Besteel was working to free from incarceration by replacing all the living specimens in the Royal Menagerie.”
Nausea wormed its way into the pit of Eva’s stomach. “Besteel’s . . . brother? He is hunting for me,” she murmured.
“Unlikely. But he could very well be hunting for me,” Zin said. “After all, I did leave the city as soon as the invasion commenced.”
“So you came all the way here? By yourself?”
“Oh no. I fled only to the outskirts of town. It was there that I reunited with your pillar guard.”
“My pillar guard?” Eva looked back toward the foyer of the station. There was no sign of the guard.
“Yes. That is the one you liberated during your ‘escape.’ ” Zin folded his arms behind his back. “But enough of him. Your news is indeed troubling.”
“So why are you here? To hide?”
“Hide? Perhaps,” Zin said over his shoulder. “But also to learn. Learn about your species.”
Eva looked up at the disintegrating tiled walls of the station. “What is there to learn about humans in this place?”
“This is evidence of your species at its zenith, right before your civilization fell. Discovering the truth of the humans’ failure is the clue to thwarting their attempt at dominance at Solas.”
“You’re looking for Cadmus’s weakness?”
“I am.”
“It’s this.” Eva gestured to the ancient architecture that surrounded them. “He wants to return to the Age of Man, when humans dominated Earth and all its resources.”
Zin nodded twice. “And Loroc has reignited Cadmus’s atavistic thinking. If my brother did indeed absorb my sister Darius, and therefore her abilities to see the past, he would know how to manipulate Cadmus’s decisions.”
Eva wrung her hands. “There is one more thing about your brother. He’s coming for you.”
“Of course. Now that he has acquired both of my sisters’ talents, he needs the wherewithal to put them to use.”
“Can he see his own future?” Eva asked.
“I doubt it. Arius’s rants don’t work like that. They are intentionally cryptic. A simple phrase can hold many interpretations.”
Eva remembered Loroc’s threats on the roof of Arius’s home. “He said he won’t fall by my hand.”
“Perhaps he will not, but who can know for sure? A mutation like this, with three Arsian spirits merged into one . . . it has never happened before to my knowledge.” Zin placed his hat back onto his head and sighed.
Eva and Zin watched the lichen-creatures excavate sand from the far end of the station platform. The lichens seemed oblivious to their presence.
Zin smiled. “The mouls, they communicate through color. See? How the puffs are of varying hues?”
“Mouls? Is that what they are called?” Eva watched others harvest the voxfruit and water the giant lichens growing from the rubble.
Zin floated close to observe them. “ ‘Mouls’ is what I have dubbed them. They are likely unclassified. My theory is that they were preexisting primitive life-forms prior to the introduction of the Vitae Virus. It is remarkable to see them thriving in such a desolate place.”
Eva pointed to the colorful haze that hung in the air. “They are happy here. All these puffs they are releasing are phrases of a song. They are singing.”
“Singing?” Zin waved his hand through the haze and examined the colored dust on his fingertips. “About what?”
Eva thought of the fishing song that Fiscian had taught her back in Lacus. She thought of the song piping out of the speakers when she’d entered New Attica. The mouls were not just singing to one another. They were singing to the plants that they were cultivating and the rocks that protected them. They were singing to the air that they inhaled and the water that they drank. They were singing to Eva and Zin.
“I wish I could sing along, but there are no words I know that could convey what they are saying. They are singing about how all the elements and living things are in harmony.”
“How I truly wish that were so, Eva Nine,” said Zin.
“Eva? Are you down there?” Hailey called down from above.
Eva peered up into the afternoon light and saw the silhouette of the pilot standing at the ledge several stories above the underground station. “You found us!”
“Are you okay?” Hailey knelt down over the rim to get a better view.
“I’m fine. I’m with Zin!” Eva waved up to him.
“Who is Hailey?” Zin drifted toward her. There was alarm in his voice. “Is he another human?”
“He’s a friend.” Despite the fact that she was still upset with Hailey over some of the things he’d said, she was happy to see his face. She hopped onto the nearest pile of bricks and began climbing up. “Don’t worry, Zin. You can trust him. He’s here with Caruncle.”
“The trader?” Zin floated up alongside Eva.
Caruncle joined Hailey at the rim. “Zin, it does my tired-weary eyes good to see you. Are you well-good?”
“I am,” Zin replied as he floated into the daylight. “And what a place! You had described this area quite accurately, but I had no concept of how vast it was.”
“It is big-vast indeed.” Caruncle kept his eyes on Eva as Hailey pulled her up to join them. “Eva Nine. Your instincts were well-good. And you left the trail of food for Bix and Bax.” He wagged a Sustibar wrapper at her and grinned. “That was smart.”
“Yeah, that definitely helped.” Hailey dusted himself off and smiled. “And we found the drawing you did with the liquid light pen.”
“Good. I’m just glad you found us.” Eva returned the smile.
“I have to thank you too, Eva.” Caruncle walked over to his hoversloop. The munt-runners brayed as he neared. “You’ve done the toughest part of my job for me.” He turned to face Eva and Zin. In one pair of hands Caruncle held his charging boomrod. With his second pair he pulled a shiny new Omnipod from his pocket and pressed the button. A tiny hologram of Loroc materialized over the glowing eye.
“Well?” Loroc asked.
/> “I found him. Send the ship.” A sinister smile curled over Caruncle’s tusked teeth.
CHAPTER 14: TURN
I knew it!” Hailey balled his fists and kicked the rubble. He stomped around, furious. “Didn’t I tell you, Eva? I saw this coming.”
“Eva, Hailey,” Caruncle said, keeping his aim on Zin, “I suggest you leave. I am only tasked with finding Zin, not you.”
“Don’t do this.” Eva walked toward Zin.
“Do not interfere, or I shall be forced to harm-stop you.” Caruncle kept his focus on Zin, who was floating at the edge of the cave. “You come forward to me, Zin. Now.”
Hailey grabbed Eva’s arm. “We don’t stand a chance against a warship, and I can already hear it approaching. We should go.”
“Yes. Good idea, Eva. For once the thickheaded grall is think-speaking properly.” Caruncle kept his aim on Zin.
“I am afraid your friend is right, Eva. I hear the ship as well.” Zin’s voice wavered. “You both should save yourselves.”
From the edge of the cave appeared several mouls. They stepped out from the shade of the giant lichen tree and watched, silent.
“Looks like we are not alone.” Caruncle waved the boomrod at the mouls. “I hope these plant creatures know what is good-smart for them and stay out of this.”
“Caruncle, stop!” Eva stepped between his boomrod and the mouls.
“Eva—” Zin started.
“Step back,” Caruncle yelled. “Or I shall kill you-human, the boy, and your little creature friends.” Behind him the ominous shape of a warship descended from the clouds.
“Caruncle, listen to me. Loroc is going to kill Zin,” Eva said. “You’ll no longer have anyone to sell your discoveries to.”
“I have a new patron now, and he pays handsomely. NOW LEAVE US!” Caruncle shouted over the whine of the landing ship. “This is your last warning!”
A blast of hot air caused sand to billow out as the large craft settled in a clearing just behind Caruncle. Like the other warships Eva had seen, a snarling mouth and angry red eyes adorned this one’s nose. A ramp hissed open from the ship’s belly, revealing a pair of armed warbots. On three mechanized legs each, both machines marched toward the standoff.
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