by Valerie Parv
As usual, she would unleash only sufficient power to bring the humans to heel, although had she wanted to, she could devastate much of the planet. She played geological systems the way some of their crew played musical instruments in their off-duty times, and was forever tinkering with her programs to achieve more precise control.
She was enjoying herself, he noted, feeling her satisfaction roll over him like one of her ocean waves. Usually the spillover of her sensations excited him but this time he was apprehensive.
“Thrilling, isn’t it?” she said as she worked. “By triggering multiple charges at the correct critical depths in their oceans, I can direct a wave train wherever I want, at whatever magnitude I choose.” Her hands played over the controls. “With a few final adjustments, the gas bubble from the percussive beams I’ve aimed into the ocean will reach maximum size. When the bubble breaks the surface, the result will be a wave of incredible magnitude and destructive power. Beautiful, don’t you think?”
“It is remarkable,” he agreed after a moment’s pause. His praise mattered to her, but in truth, her enthusiasm for the work made him uncomfortable. He hated himself for being too much of a coward to be honest with her.
She was too caught up in her task to notice his hesitation. Her gaze was fixed on the screens and she leaned forward in anticipation. “All I have to do is direct the wave toward the area where you located the beacons.”
“They are not the only beings down there,” Kam pointed out, careful to keep his tone neutral. “Some of the others may be useful to us.”
“Only the beacons,” she reminded him and gave a low laugh. “Don’t worry, I’ll leave enough of them alive to serve our needs.”
“You don’t think this way is as bad as taking slaves?”
“Nothing’s as bad as that.” She adjusted settings.
On screen he saw the mountain stop shaking. Suddenly he knew what she was doing. “This isn’t about finding the beacons, or getting us to Prana, is it?”
“It’s still about that,” she snapped. “But you’re right, there is more. These people killed my son.”
“Revenge,” Kam murmured, recognizing the bitter taste in the back of his throat. The satisfaction he’d picked up from her moments before was nothing compared to the anger he sensed now. Her loss rolled through him like a black cloud, and he had to fight to stop himself from being inundated. He couldn’t keep a tremor out of his voice. “Killing them all won’t bring your son back.”
To his astonishment, she seemed to collapse into herself before she straightened and reset a few controls. “You’re right. We have a job to do. The accounting can come later.”
Although she’d stayed her hand for now, Kam had a suspicion that, by the time Storm left this system, not much would remain alive on the planet below.
*
“You’ve got to evacuate the mansion now, governor. That quake registered at six-point-nine. We can expect aftershocks of not much lesser size at any time.” Carramer sat on the edge of the zone known as the Ring of Fire, where volcanic activity was common. Atai’s administration building was designed to withstand quakes of considerable size and there had been no noticeable damage to Shana’s office, but that didn’t mean they were safe.
Shana’s brief glance acknowledged her security chief, June Young. “I’ll go as soon as I make sure everyone else in the building got out.”
June was a former police officer recruited to Shana’s staff when she became governor. At just under six feet tall and reed slender, June was a steady presence in the background, overseeing a hand-picked team dedicated to the governor’s safety. But her expression was firm as she loomed over Shana’s desk. “That’s not how it works, governor. We need to get you and your key people out of here now. You know the drill.”
Yes, she did, although she’d never liked the idea of being protected while others were in danger. In this, she was like her mother, Terre Akers, the leader of the country’s Mayat people and an agitator for a greater role in government for Indigenous people. Terre was always ready to put herself in the frontline if it served her cause.
When Shana’s predecessor, Gill Leman, was critically injured in the lead-up to the first shuttle launch, Shana, as her deputy, had taken the reins, and was later elected in her own right. She’d never wanted the top job and hated the position it put her in now. Only a handful of people close to her knew she wasn’t contesting the next election, intending to immerse herself more deeply in the Mayat cause. June was one of them.
Shana saw the security chief check a message on her cell phone then look up in alarm. “The tsunami warning net has activated.”
Like many nations in the South Pacific, Carramer had deployed deep-ocean detection devices linked to floating buoys to help their scientists determine whether an earthquake in the region had generated a tsunami, as well as the likely magnitude and direction of the killer wave. The buoys relayed data to a satellite for broadcast to warning centers around the region. In use for several years, the system had saved much anxiety by avoiding false alarms. Shana wished for a false alarm now, even as she recognized the futility of the hope.
All of Carramer’s broadcasters and security agencies received the warnings. The response protocols were well established. People in low-lying coastal areas would be evacuated to designated inundation zones, along marked evacuation routes. A mansion on the slopes of Mount Ekin was her government’s evacuation point.
Shana picked up a briefcase that was always kept close at hand. In the case was a laptop containing the codes she’d need to operate a government in exile. Powerful batteries and satellite connections ensured the computer would function even in the event of total power failure. Quickly snapping the case’s security chain around her wrist, she stood up.
“I guess this is for real.”
In the parking lot, a fleet of all-terrain vehicles waited. As soon as she was aboard the car indicated by June, Shana started issuing orders, gratified to find her personal assistant, Jules, ready with answers.
“Damage to Reve and surrounding suburbs is minimal so far,” he said. “Most of the quake damage was caused to the area around Black Tree and toward the foothills of Mount Ekin.”
Black Tree was the location of the space center. Mount Ekin was home to Elaine Lovell when she was in Atai, and Rosie Granger, Shana’s closest friend. Between them was Adam’s cliff-top home. It was also nearest the epicenter, Shana saw as she scanned the tablet Jules handed to her. Was it coincidence that Adam had vanished only hours before all hell broke loose?
Between the beacons, the Kelek, who could be on their way right now, and the anti-alien group, ESIN, Shana had plenty of suspects. But who among them had the technology to take Adam, far less orchestrate a quake and a tsunami?
“At the same time as the quake hit us, a five-point-eight quake struck about three hundred kilometers from Vanuatu’s Espiritu Santo Island,” Jules read from his pad. “It was at a shallow depth of thirty-five kilometers.”
Shana felt a frown settle across her brows. “What are the chances the quake will lead to an actual tsunami?”
Jules consulted his screen. “Sea level readings indicate a wave was generated, although at this stage there are no damage reports. As a precaution, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued alerts for regional nations as far afield as Australia and New Zealand. Vanuatu, Fiji and New Caledonia report they’re evacuating coastal areas.”
“Have we heard from Prince Lorne?”
“He’s ordered all low-lying coastal areas evacuated,” Jules said. “So far he remains in the palace in Solano.”
A man after her own heart, Shana thought. He could easily leave governance to the elected parliament but was very much a hands-on ruler. He would stay until the last moment, making sure his people were safe before looking to his own safety. She hoped he wouldn’t leave his departure too late. Much more than a figurehead, he was an inspiration to her personally as well as to the Carramer people. If anything happened to
him, morale would hit an all-time low.
Shana didn’t see herself in the same league, but she tried to lead by example, the only reason she’d agreed to be evacuated. A dead governor wasn’t a whole lot of good to morale. Not that she had any intention of dying as long as there were alternatives.
“I want careful monitoring of what’s happening on the outlying islands,” she ordered. Due to rapid currents, danger to boats and coastal structures could continue for several hours after a tsunami hit. A scientist interviewed recently on Amelia Takei’s program had described the effect as like sliding backward and forward in a bath, the waves growing higher with each movement.
On the same program, some conspiracy theorists had claimed that destructive waves could be artificially created, citing the Indian Ocean tsunami of a few years ago, responsible for the deaths of thousands of people, as an example. Personally, Shana doubted it. Decades before she was born, some countries had experimented with generating artificial tsunamis, but the resulting waves had been too small to do any real damage.
Shana smiled inwardly. Why was she wasting time thinking about such lunacy? Atai had experienced a quake of moderate magnitude, generating a tsunami in the surrounding oceans. That was more than enough to worry about – she shouldn’t let her experience with Adam and the beacons carry her away. In the police force, she’d dealt in facts, not fancies. As governor, she had to do the same.
Nevertheless, the fancies nagged at her. Could Adam’s disappearance and the quake coming so close together be coincidence, or were they signs of something more sinister at work? Since the brief power outage this morning she’d felt troubled, but pushed the sensation to the back of her mind. The unease returned now in full force. She reached for her phone and called Garrett.
“Any news?” she said when he answered. She pictured him hunkered down in the earthquake-proof room Adam had built into his house. She wasn’t worried about a tsunami affecting them, the house occupied the highest ground for kilometers. A wave large enough to affect them would likely wipe out half the province. Where Adam was, and whether he was in danger, she couldn’t allow herself to think about.
“On Adam or the weather effects?” Garrett asked.
She chose her words with care, aware of her team listening. “Both. Have you or Elaine … noticed … anything unusual?”
“Guy Voland is with me. He thinks something’s going on around the far side of the Moon.”
At the mention of Guy’s name, her disquiet notched higher. She’d met him only once: in secret at Black Tree. He’d turned up at Rosie Granger’s brother’s home and been taken to the space center for medical assessment. His resemblance to Adam had unnerved her, although she’d kept her cool at the time. “What’s Guy doing there?”
“He says he felt Adam vanish.”
“Does he know where?”
“If he does, he isn’t saying.”
Garrett’s tone echoed Shana’s own mistrust of the man – if Guy could be said to be a man at all. Despite vowing to deal in facts, Shana knew of no science to explain how an exact genetic duplicate of Adam had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. “Keep an eye on him,” she said.
“I intend to. Up to now, he’s only accessed Adam’s computer to try to find out what happened. With no luck.”
“Except for what he thinks is going on up there,” she said, her voice barely audible. “Can any of you see or hear anything useful?”
“Elaine and I have both tried. Something’s blocking our abilities.”
“Then it could be our … previous visitors?”
“Possibly,” he said warily. “Until we can break through whatever’s jamming us, we can’t be sure. But Elaine and I both sense that they’re not far away.”
Shana was no scientist but she knew the far side of the moon would make a perfect hiding place for an alien ship. “Keep me posted,” she instructed. “My cabinet’s being evacuated to Mill Forest. You can reach me there any time.”
Mill Forest House was used as the governor’s vacation residence, or more usually as accommodation for VIP guests of the government. The American president and his family had been the last notable residents, taking a breather after completing an official tour of Carramer. Dating back to French colonial times, the rambling stone and timber house wasn’t a favorite of Shana’s. The architecture was too ornate for her taste, although she appreciated the coolness of the large, high-ceilinged rooms and the spectacular views from the wide terraces.
She’d had the kitchen and bathroom facilities updated, drawing criticism from the republican movement for spending taxpayers’ money on luxuries. She’d taken the wind out of their sails by pointing out the increased use the government could now make of the public rooms for large events, bringing in revenue instead of draining the public coffers. When she’d last looked at the figures, she’d been happy to see the house had become largely self-supporting.
With detailed plans in place for the transfer of power to Mill House, she was back at work in the suite of rooms designated for her use soon after her arrival. She was wading through updates on the quake damage when June interrupted her.
“What is it?” Shana asked.
“It’s your mother,” June said without preamble. “She’s refusing to leave the Mayat Center on Mount Ekin.”
Terre Akers had set up the makeshift center as a protest against a prototype thermal energy plant being built on land sacred to the Mayat people. The mountain was sacred to Shana, too, but she had to govern for all the people, not only those of her blood. As it turned out, the protest had served her political purposes surprisingly well. Having inherited the project from Gill Leman’s administration, Shana wasn’t confident that the science backed up the benefits the energy plant was supposed to deliver: there was a serious risk the project could trigger an eruption in the long-dormant volcano.
A terrorist called Ryn Zael had tried to use those very forces to blackmail Shana’s government. Only Shana, Prince Lorne and the beacons knew Zael was the sole survivor of the Kelek ship that had threatened Earth. Knowing what they were capable of didn’t make the present situation any less worrying.
Shana thought of a meme doing the rounds of the internet: If it’s not one thing, it’s your mother.
“Arrest her,” she said without a moment’s thought.
June’s eyebrows shot up. “On what charge?”
“Obstruction of the evacuation effort, public nuisance – you think of something. Then have her brought here to me.”
With a grin ghosting over her features, June nodded. “She won’t come quietly.”
Shana’s sigh gusted out. “What else is new?”
*
She was right. Shana heard her mother’s protestations long before two police officers delivered Terre to Shana’s office. She dismissed them, knowing they were needed elsewhere, and ordered her mother to sit. Offers of refreshment were sullenly ignored as Terre launched into a tirade about being taken away from her group against her will.
“Which group would that be, Mother?” Shana asked quietly.
“What do you mean?”
Shana linked her hands on her desk. “There’s the Mayat group, and then there’s ESIN. Which concerns you the most right now?”
Terre couldn’t deny that she’d worked with ESIN in return for their support of the Mayat cause. Not that she’d received much help; the group had been too busy using her to get Ryn Zael into the province and lead ESIN to the beacons.
“I no longer have any contact with ESIN,” Terre asserted without meeting her daughter’s eyes.
“Or they no longer have any use for you.”
Shana’s barb had hit home, she saw when Terre’s face clouded. “I was only doing what I thought best for our people.”
You always have, Shana thought on a surge of bitterness. While Shana was growing up, Terre’s activism invariably came before everything, including their family. Nothing had changed. She couldn’t fault Terre for her devotion to the Mayat cause.
And her mother had learned the hard way that just because a group was going in the same direction as hers, didn’t mean they pursued the same goals. After the Zael affair, Terre had narrowly avoided being arrested for conspiracy. Only Prince Lorne’s desire to keep Zael’s true origins quiet had kept Terre out of jail.
“I want to be sure they’re not involved in the weather chaos we’re experiencing,” Shana said.
Terre’s eyes widened. “You think ESIN could be behind the quake and tsunami warning? How would they do that?”
Shana came out from behind the heavily carved desk and dropped into a seat across from her mother. “I hope they can’t. But after what happened with the shuttle mission, and Zael’s attempted sabotage, I can’t rule out anything.”
Some of the tension went out of Terre’s body. “I haven’t heard from ESIN since they cleared out of their base in California.”
Thinking of what Elaine had told her about ESIN kidnapping and torturing Garrett, Shana suppressed a shudder. Wherever the group had gone, and she hoped it was straight to hell, she wished them good riddance. However, if the Kelek had returned and were hiding behind the moon, she couldn’t discount the possibility that ESIN was involved once more.
“I’m sorry,” Terre said, snagging Shana’s attention. “I’ve made things difficult for you, haven’t I?”
Shana felt her jaw drop. “You’ve only just realized this?”
“Of course not. I can’t change my politics because you’re the governor, but I could try to have less impact on you.”
“You could.” Shana felt wary. It wasn’t like Terre to apologize for anything to do with her cause.
“I don’t blame you for being suspicious,” Terre went on. “You’ve always been Ms. By-the-Book, while I’m the family anarchist. Neither of us is likely to change.”
Shana shook her head. “It’s not anarchy to fight for your beliefs. I admire that about you.”