“Slate?” I asked. I was still lying down, and I screamed as the wire connecting me to the chair recessed from the back of my head, letting me sit up. My hand flew to the puncture, where a sharp pain emanated. Slate held a hand on my back, saying calming words that I didn’t quite hear. “Mary.”
I turned to her rigid form on the chair beside me. With wobbly legs, I stumbled over to her just as her eyes widened.
“Mary, it’s okay. We’re back. The wire is about to come…” I was cut off by her shouting. I leaned over, seeing the small three-eighths-inch cord disappear into the head of the chair.
She stayed down, but her hand darted out like a striking cobra and grabbed me by the wrist. “I saw it.”
“Saw what? The vessel? Is that what you mean?” I asked as I pried her firm grip from my arm.
She shook her head and sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the chair. “I saw their homeworld. I know how to get there.”
I hadn’t seen anything but the briefest glance of the Theos.
“Wait, what the hell’s going on here? You guys were gone for like five minutes,” Slate said.
“Where is it?” I asked, ignoring Slate’s demands for answers.
“We have to use the stones to get to the edge of the universe, or as close as we can. From there we fly. There’s an empty world with a ship waiting for us.”
“How do you know all this?” I asked, worried about the look in her eyes. It was unsettling.
“They showed me before I came to. Their world looks amazing. Blue gemstones line the landscape, and we’ll find them inside a mountain of crystals. I know how to get there.” Mary tapped the side of her head lightly. “It’s all up here.”
“Will someone tell me what happened?” Slate’s voice was a low growl.
We explained it to him quickly, and he listened with rapt attention. Describing the terror on the Kraski vessel brought back instant trauma.
“That’s some heavy stuff.” His face was long as he mopped a glove over his mask. “How do we get out of here?”
The stone wall on the opposite end of the room slid apart. A portal room was set inside: four pillars with a large stone in the center. A clear table floated above it through magnetic technology. We all stepped inside, our boots clanging against the hard metallic floor.
“Which one do we go to?” I asked, but Mary was already using the table, scrolling through the icons, looking for the one she was shown while still under the Theos’ influence. She stopped at one, pointing to it.
“This one,” she said.
“Hold on,” I said, setting a hand over the icon. “Why don’t we travel back home first? Get some food, rest, a hot shower…”
“We have to go now,” Mary said. I looked over at Slate, who was frowning at my wife.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m with Dean. Why not get some rest first and do this with fresh faces?” Slate was going to bat on my side, but Mary didn’t look to be having any of it.
The scary zombie Mary was gone when she looked up at me from the table. Her eyes were damp, and she gave me a sweet smile. “We’ve been through so much, Dean. We’re almost there. The trip will take a week or so in the ship. We can rest on that part of the journey.”
“What are we going to eat?” Slate asked, stealing the question from my lips.
“The world we’re going to has abundant vegetation. I know what we can and can’t eat.”
I looked at her skeptically. “They sure gave you a lot of details for you being out thirty seconds more than me.”
She nodded. “Dean, I’m going one way or another. We have to find them. You know we have to stop the Unwinding.”
“Just what is this damned Unwinding? We don’t know anything about it. Maybe the threat’s already over with. The Theos could have been gone for thousands of years, making us worry about nothing.”
She shook her head this time. “It’s real. I’ve seen it.”
“Of course you have.” Slate took a step forward. He was about to speak again when she tapped the icon. I didn’t have a chance to stop her. Light enveloped the room, and once again, I had no idea where I’d open my eyes.
Twenty-Six
We followed Mary’s hurried steps out of the portal room and down a series of alien-built corridors. She led the way, seemingly knowing where she was going. It wasn’t long before we were heading through a colorful hangar with a few ships inside. Mary ran a hand along the side of one ship near the building’s exit.
“This is ours,” she said, stopping briefly to appraise it with a smile.
“This one?” I asked, nodding my approval. It was sleek and green, with large thrusters on the rear, one on top of the other instead of side-by-side. Judging by its diminutive stature, it was made for a very small crew, which was exactly what we were. I shoved the doubts and fears of the last section of our expedition down and decided to take some of Mary’s excitement and roll with it.
If everything went as planned, we’d be waking up the Theos in just over a week. Even Slate was grinning while looking at the ship. “You’re sure this world is empty? Where’d they go?”
“They didn’t tell me. They only said it would be waiting for us.” Mary spun on a heel and pushed the exit door open. Heat blasted us, and I instantly began to sweat inside my EVA. The built-in temperature modifiers kicked in, and I felt my skin cooling.
I stepped outside the hangar and onto thick green grass. Plants grew out of everything in the area. The erected buildings nearby were covered in green moss, and a few had been ripped apart by massive trees growing through them. I thought about the world Slate and I had met Suma on and wondered how many developed worlds sat empty. Where had their people gone? Disease? War?
I had to do a light jog to catch up to Mary’s quick strides. The sky was bright blue, with two large stars hanging in it. I looked in the other direction, and a pale crescent moon held its place in the horizon.
“Over here,” she said. She turned at a twenty-foot-tall statue that was still half standing along the street. It was made in the likeness of a multi-limbed creature, with short legs and a head half the size of its torso. The left side of it sat in a crumbled pile on the ground. Mary called for me, and I broke my gaze with the strange statue.
We passed over a road, with three-story metal buildings lining it, before entering a copse of trees. A dark, heavy fruit weighed the branches down, and Mary reached for some of them.
“We don’t know if this is edible.” Slate poked at one, and it fell to the ground with a splat. Some were quite ripe.
“They told me it’s fine.” Mary reached for her mask and pulled it off. She took a deep breath and smiled at me. “Don’t worry. The air is fine too.”
“Damn it, Mary, be careful. You don’t know what their motives are. This place could have been fine a thousand years ago, but a lot can change on a planet, especially an unoccupied one.” I hated seeing her jump to conclusions without thinking. It wasn’t like her at all.
“The worlds left to the plants are the best-off ones. Take off your mask and have something to eat. It’s been a long time.” Mary plucked a fist-sized fruit from the tree, smelling it before taking a bite. It had a dark outer skin, which she spat out before eating the meat. I wasn’t even going to try to talk her out of it. I rubbed my belly, remembering that the bad diner food I’d eaten wasn’t real.
My mask slipped off easily after I killed the power switch to it, and I took a long inhale of the planet’s air. It was amazing. Lush tropical smells created a euphoric feeling through my brain, and I reached for one of the fruits. Slate was right behind me. Mary laughed as she grabbed another one, and soon the three of us were sitting among the trees, eating different fruits.
Mary knew which ones to stay away from and which would just give you gas. It was as if they’d downloaded information into her mind with the connection. I wondered what else they’d put in there. She still seemed like Mary, but something was off. I’d have to keep a close eye on
her.
“Something wrong, Dean?” She’d caught me staring at her. Juices ran down her chin, but instead of engaging, I just wiped the remnants of the last thing she’d eaten away from her face.
“Nothing at all. Slate, what do you think? Are you full?” I asked. He leaned back on the grass and stared at the sky.
“This is nice,” was his reply.
“What is?” Mary asked him.
“Lying back, watching the clouds. I don’t even know how many days or nights we’ve been gone. We’re running on fumes. Having food and just relaxing is nice.”
“We don’t have a lot of time. Enjoy it while you can.” Mary was already getting to her feet.
“Wait. Can’t we take a break?” I asked. “Are the Theos going somewhere?” If I was the True, I doubted they’d care if we made it there a day late.
Mary looked at me with a hard stare, but it broke and melted after a moment. “You’re right. We have food and a ship with cots. Let’s take some of this stuff and see if we can’t get the thing fired up.”
“Sounds good to me,” Slate said from his horizontal position. He’d found a piece of grass to chew on.
I rolled onto my feet and stood up, wiping the remains of my dinner off my EVA. Mary came over and kissed me on the cheek before glancing over to Slate, who was doing his best to ignore us.
I led her a few yards away and put a tree between us and our third wheel. I kissed her on the lips, which were warm, sweet, and slightly sticky.
“What was that for?” she asked, kissing me again, this time deeper and longer.
When she broke it, I gathered my wits and answered her. “That’s for picking your battles. That’s for getting us this far, and for being an amazing person. Without your energy and focus, we never would have made it here.”
Her eyes watered, something I wasn’t expecting. “Dean, you’re the best. I can’t wait for us to find these Theos and to affirm you’re their True. You can save the universe from this threat.”
Her words brought it all back to me, reminding me it was real. For most of this quest, it had felt like a game, but if the galaxy really was under duress, and it was up to me to help save it, I wasn’t sure I wanted the weight on my shoulders. I’d do what I had to but wasn’t relishing the idea.
“Boss, are you two done playing kissy face?” Slate was starting to come out of his shell a little more each day, but he still liked to call me “boss.” It wasn’t a habit I expected him to stop any time soon.
“Zeke Campbell, one day you’ll be a strapping groom, and you’ll have your very own best friend to kiss.” Mary ripped a bright pink berry from a bush beside her and threw it toward Slate. He easily evaded it.
“Get me home first. Then I can see about that date with Denise, if she hasn’t given up on me yet.” He kicked at a rock, giving him an overgrown child’s silhouette.
“How could she resist a big lug like you?” Mary asked him.
“Yeah, yeah. Let’s get some food and check out our new home for the next few days,” Slate said, changing the subject.
____________
I opened my eyes with protest. Mary was shaking my shoulder lightly, and I groaned and rolled onto my side. “Can’t we sleep just a little longer?”
“We’ve already slept for nine hours. It’s time.”
The room was tight for space. Two bunks were on either side of the cramped quarters, making just enough room for Mary and me to have an uncomfortable sleep. Slate was snoring away, face-down on his cot, his bare feet hanging over the end. Whatever alien race lived here, they weren’t very tall, judging by the ship. Slate had hit his head twice the night before on low doorways and walked around after that in a perpetual hunch. He wasn’t going to enjoy his week onboard.
“You’re sure you can fly this thing?” I asked her again. She’d told me “yes” the night before, but I wanted her to reiterate the fact.
“Dean.” She placed her hand on my chest. “We’ll be fine. They’re close now.”
“If you say so. Want to get going, then?”
“No time like the present.” She stood up, wearing the jumpsuit we’d started the trip with. I pulled mine off the floor beside us and slid it on before waking Slate. He swiped at me like a hibernating bear, but I could hear him getting out of bed as I entered the hall.
Everything was miniaturized on board. The ceilings were just high enough for my hair to brush against, and the walls were only a couple of feet apart, forcing me to walk at a slight angle instead of straight forward.
Mary had adjusted the air levels to accommodate us, and after finally understanding the complicated bathroom area, we were set. Other than the sleeping quarters and the bathroom, there were just a corridor and the bridge. No real room for storage. We did find a cooling compartment near the rear of the ship, and that was where we stored the berries and nuts we’d found on the lush world we were about to leave behind.
“We should come back here for a vacation at some point. The small amount we’ve seen looks amazing. I bet Nat and the kids would like to run around the hills here,” I said, wondering how close Nat was to giving birth. I was glad Magnus was able to sit this one out. He’d grill me about every detail when we got back. He was living vicariously through my adventures now, he said.
I hoped one day I could live through someone else’s.
“Engines are on.” A humming vibration shook the entire ship. The hangar was open from above. We didn’t know if the ceiling was always recessed, or if it had never had one. The look of the place told me they’d left in a hurry.
The bridge was small, like everything else. A molded white plastic bench was bolted to the floor in front of the pilot controls, which were on a screen on the console. Mary keyed things into them like an old pro.
“How much did they dump into your mind?” I asked.
She shrugged as I stood behind her. “Just what I needed to know, I suppose.” She slid a finger along the screen; yellow bars of light followed the movement. We lifted up slowly.
She tapped the console again, and a viewscreen popped on. It was no larger than my old flatscreen TV at home, but it let us see outside of the ship. There were no real windows or portholes on the vessel, just cameras to allow us to see our surroundings. Mary claimed those weren’t even necessary. I took her word for it.
Slate lumbered to the bridge, coming to a stop directly beside me. He chewed on a nut before holding out his hand, which held more. I shook my head, watching as we rose into the sky. The green landscape went for miles and miles. Hills rose and fell like the waves of a large ocean.
“Ready?” Mary asked as we broke the atmosphere. The ship shook as we emerged into the darkness of space.
“Ready.” The Theos were waiting.
Twenty-Seven
The trip was as expected: uneventful. By my standards, that was a good thing.
“There it is.” A quiver in Mary’s voice told me she was nervous. We all were. We’d had nothing but time over the last week to speculate on what we’d find when we arrived. As much as we tried not to, we always came back to the subject.
Mary wasn’t told anything about their home: just an image of a crystal mountain, seared into her brain to direct us there.
She clicked off the FTL drive; the stretching stars became dots in space again as we slowed to in-system speed. A planet hung there, beckoning us to come see it.
From our vantage point, it had the look of the ice planet where we’d first seen the symbol for their homeworld. The closer we got, the more we saw it was nothing of the sort. A small gray moon orbited the planet in a stark contrast of dullness and beauty.
“Hold on,” Mary said as we eased into the atmosphere. Gravity tugged at us, but the ship’s built-in inertia dampers made it nothing more than a light shake.
“Wow,” Slate said from beside me. I had to agree. The land was colorful, like the showcase at a rock and gem store on Madison Avenue. Janine had taken me there a couple times, and I could still see h
er face as she’d longingly looked at the expensive specimens. We’d left empty-handed each time.
Mary took us lower, toward a section of land covered by orange gemstones. As we got closer, I could make out the independent mountains of glorious stones. A wide river of water flowed between a valley of gemstone hills, and it wasn’t until we were right above them that we fully understood how large they were.
“This is amazing.” Mary slowed and flew us lower, careful to stay far enough away from the jutting peaks and terminations.
“I feel like we shrank, and I’m looking at a crystal showpiece,” I said.
“Should we land and check it out?” Slate asked.
Mary shook her head from the pilot bench. “This isn’t it. The image I was shown was blue. Light blue. We just need to find that region.”
“That shouldn’t be too difficult. We can see the colors from ten thousand feet up.” I rested my hand on Mary’s shoulder, and she looked behind to see me. Her smile was wide.
“We made it, Dean.” She turned back and increased our altitude, heading over the huge orange ranges.
We kept climbing into the sky. From our current angle, the system’s star was casting brilliant white light toward the world, and the lime green crystals on the ground just before us danced with light and color. We soared through the atmosphere, passing various landscapes. Each colored region brought a slightly different type of crystal and layout. Some were close to the ground, the formations lower and stout. Others, like the white crystals, reached high for the sky, each termination thin and stretched out like tree branches in the autumn. We were covering a lot of distance, but we could only see so much at a time.
An hour passed, and then two, with no sign of the blue region Mary had us looking for.
“What if it’s not here?” she asked, her shoulders slumping just enough to let me know the earlier wind was billowing out of her sails.
I watched a blood-red mountain pass underneath us as we raced through the dusk-colored sky. A tingle coursed through me, from the back of my head down to my toes. We were close. I closed my eyes and saw the Theos shadow from the first time it spoke to me alone, on the virtual version of the island we’d just left.
The Survivors Box Set Page 83