Dedication
FOR JORDAN
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Prelude
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Interlude
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prelude
EARTH YEAR: 2161
50 KM SOUTH OF THE MARS COLONIAL TRAINING ACADEMY—MOAB STATION
UTAH EXTRACTION DISTRICT
NORTH AMERICAN FEDERATION
Far from where and when the universe as you know it is about to end, at the edge of a sheer cliff towering hundreds of feet above the crumbled desert floor, a green light began to blink. The light was on a glove, or something like a glove. Picture a thick pair of winter gloves, the kind with long gauntlets that stretch up your forearms, only now picture the fabric being a sleek, completely transparent material, so that you can see your hand and wrist inside, except for where wide white bands of padding cross the back of the glove in horizontal stripes. The green light was blinking on a small digital screen embedded just above the wrist, and it indicated that the gloves, along with a metallic backpack, a helmet with a golden visor, and a pair of heavy boots similar to what you might wear skiing—if there is even snow, in your when—were all in sync.
“Ready?” said a girl named Ariel, breathing deep. Her backpack emitted a steady particle hum. The interior surface of her golden visor shimmered with information about wind speed and distance. A message in the corner flashed: Gravity Compensation 62%.
Ariel was fifteen, the same age as the two students standing beside her at the cliff edge. Like her classmates, she was brilliant; they had all been specially selected to be here, and had traveled by mag-train nearly twenty hours from their population zone far to the north, across the parched, deserted interior of the North American Federation, to attend this four-week colonial cadet training program. But though Ariel would go on to work for the International Space Agency, where she would make many notable contributions to the study of long-transit nutrition, and though she would enrich her family’s lives with her kindness and humor, and one time even thrill a crowd of thousands with a stirring piano performance during the Starliner Einstein’s launch party in the year 2204, she was not actually of any importance to the potentially cataclysmic events currently taking place at Dark Star. Had Ariel known this—and there was almost no way that she could have—it would have disappointed her greatly, as she was an ambitious young dreamer who, like most of us, couldn’t quite shake the certainty that the world revolved around her, but alas, during those critical moments in the Centauri system, nearly fifty years in her future, Ariel would be asleep in a stasis pod on the Einstein, completely unaware.
The same was true for the two students beside her, and even for Ms. Yasmin, their instructor. Promising individuals with extraordinary lives ahead of them, all of whom would have been crushed to learn that, in terms of the fate of this universe, they really weren’t that important.
But as you know, these things happen. Or in this case, don’t happen.
However, there was a fourth student with them on the cliff that afternoon, standing not at the edge but about ten meters behind, who was quite important indeed. His green light was blinking too, but for him, the sight of it caused a different kind of anticipation than what the others were feeling.
“All right,” said Ms. Yasmin, tapping her own controls. “Target that outcropping with your guidance system. Once you’ve been on Mars for a bit, you’ll learn to size up these jumps on your own, but for the moment, best not to take any chances.”
Ms. Yasmin was referring to a finger of smooth red rock sticking up about twenty meters from the edge of the cliff. Another thirty meters beyond that stood a wide butte, like an island in the sky. Its sheer sides were colored a deep crimson, its top covered with crumbled tan boulders. The goal of today’s lesson was to take a running start, leap from the cliff edge, and land safely on that spire’s narrow flat top. Then jump again and reach the butte. They had all been learning how to use these MGS suits—short for Mars Gravity Simulation—and had been eager to take this afternoon elective hike with Ms. Yasmin. Getting used to Mars’s low gravity was a key piece of training if you hoped to be accepted for the semester-long program at the International Mars Colony during your senior year of high school. Of course, the three students standing on the edge of the cliff dreamed of such a thing. The boy behind them, however, had a different dream in mind.
“Target locked,” Ariel announced, first as usual.
“Got it,” said the boy beside her, whose name was Theo.
“Yup,” said Victor, next to him. He glanced over his shoulder at their fourth classmate. “Hey, Pete, you look like you’re about to compromise your underwear integrity.”
The fourth student just looked at the ground.
“Mr. Barrie,” said Ms. Yasmin, “everything all right?”
Peter took this opportunity to flip up his visor and make a show of breathing deeply. “I’m just feeling a little ill.”
One of his classmates snickered.
“The MGS suits can have that effect,” said Ms. Yasmin.
Peter shook his head. “I don’t think I’m up for it.”
“Are you sure? You know the reward for reaching that butte is a BASE jump off the other side. It’s quite a fun ride down to the canyon floor. And we won’t be back up here for at least an hour.”
“I brought my books.” Peter motioned to his hip pocket and the outline of his virtual reader.
“Don’t you need these credits?” said Ariel. It was weird, the way she seemed to care, although Peter thought she sounded more like she was offended. Why didn’t he want this like she did?
And she was right: Peter probably did need the credits. Probably did want to spend part of next year on Mars. And yet he just shrugged.
“All right, well . . .” Ms. Yasmin tapped her controls. “I’ll let the station know you’re staying behind. I’m sorry,” she added, looking at Peter sympathetically.
“It’s fine.”
Something made Ariel and Theo and Victor laugh to themselves.
Peter tensed, a wave of frustration rushing through him. That laughter—the kind that never seemed to include him, that he never wanted to be a part of anyway—that was part of the real reason he wanted to stay behind.
Ariel caught Ms. Yasmin eyeing them, and she backed up a couple steps. “Can I go?”
Ms. Yasmin finished configuring her settings. “Fire away.”
Ariel gritted her teeth, her gaze full of purpose, and darted forward, boots clomping. With a burst of magnetic thrusters she leapt off the edge of the cliff, followed by Theo, Victor, and then Ms. Yasmin, all four of them arcing through the pale blue sky in a line of pinwheeling limbs.
Peter watched them land successfully on the narrow spire. He heard their laughter echoing off the rocks. Saw them slapping each other’s backs and pretending to push each other off the sides, and for just a moment, he sincerely wished he could have just smiled and gone along with them. They leapt again, soaring high and far, and by the time they’d la
nded on the distant butte, their voices had been lost to the whipping desert wind. Soon after, they disappeared, BASE jumping into the canyon and essentially out of this story.
Peter sighed. That brief feeling of longing was immediately replaced by a wave of relief. Now that his classmates were gone, he could turn his attention toward the trail they’d climbed to get here. It continued past this spot, drawing a zigzag of dust up the almond-colored slope of a broad rocky mountainside. In the distance, Peter could see where the trail disappeared briefly into a small relic forest and, beyond that, where it crested a bare rocky ridgeline that surely afforded an epic view.
He stripped off the MGS suit to just his sun-protectant base layers—they were made of a silver reflective material with a crisscrossing pattern of coolant wiring that was powered by a battery unit on the belt—and started up the trail. It was a January morning, but the temperature was already pushing one hundred. Though the sun had not yet begun to undergo the changes that would one day cause humanity to flee the solar system, it had become a danger to humans, due to the steady changes to Earth’s climate and atmosphere over the previous two hundred years. You couldn’t live near the equator anymore. Seattle was a popular beach destination in winter. Much of the United States had become uninhabitable desert land, suitable only for mining or, in this case, simulating some of the conditions on Mars. The prime habitable real estate these days was mostly near the Arctic, and so America and Canada had merged. More of a war, really; it had all happened before Peter was born.
His feet scuffed on the broken sandstone, kicking up clouds of dust. He was out of breath in moments; this ridge was over three thousand meters in elevation. He held a hand above his eyes and squinted against the harsh light, wishing he’d brought his goggles. At this altitude, the sun could cause retina damage if you weren’t careful. Ariel had probably remembered hers. Where was Peter’s mind sometimes?
Occupied, he knew. Not distracted, exactly, but busy. Like back there on the ledge. Instead of focusing on doing the jump test with the group, he’d been thinking about getting up to this high point, preferably alone, and seeing what there was to see. Why was he risking his chance at making it into the Mars program? Part of it was that reticence about his classmates; he found them hard to be around, with all their boasting and confidence and ambition, not to mention endless immaturity. Peter had ambition, too, but it wasn’t about grades or achievement. He was one of the top students in his class, but he would never have bragged about it. He didn’t consider the grades or the status they conveyed to be at all important. They were a game, a means to an end. What drove Peter was more like a yearning, a pure curiosity. A sense that he felt every day, like he was searching for something, some kind of understanding, of awareness, almost like there was a larger meaning to the world that nobody else knew about—definitely not his classmates—that he could nearly perceive, and yet not quite. The sensation made him feel big and small at the same time, like he was at once an infinitesimal speck, but then also the most important person in the universe.
Of course, we all feel this sense of importance from time to time. It can be helpful, for motivating us to make great discoveries about ourselves and the world around us, and yet it can also be harmful, when our actions end up hurting others. In his future, Peter would both make great discoveries and do great harm, but what was different about his version of this feeling, compared to that of his peers, or indeed nearly anyone on Earth, was that, in terms of the fate of this universe, he was shockingly close to the truth.
He climbed on, the terrain growing steeper, the switchbacks tighter, and soon entered the relic forest. The trail smoothed out and curved between short, rounded trees, the shadows a welcome respite from the heat. A sweet, herbal smell greeted him. The trees had gnarled trunks curved like question marks, with peeling bark and leaves that looked strangely reptilian. Utah juniper, Peter thought to himself. These trees had been all over this landscape a hundred years ago. Now they only huddled at the highest peaks, where the cooler temperatures provided just enough moisture for them to grow. Little islands of life. Peter heard a warbling birdcall. There had been nothing but vultures during their stay at the cadet program. A little farther up the trail and stubby round pine trees began to mix in: piñon. In a hollow, an orb of jewel-colored leaves: manzanita. Peter was probably the only member of his class who had actually read the ecology primer; who cared about the plants and bugs of a mostly abandoned wasteland. But to Peter, a plant was just as wondrous an organism as a human, if you looked at it closely enough. Maybe more so. You didn’t hear these pine trees bragging about grades or internships or awards.
As he ascended, Peter felt himself opening up. Peaceful, complete. So much of the planet was damaged or ruined these days, spoiled by humanity’s relentless growth and greed. Peter bristled when humans described themselves as something separate from nature, like they were above it somehow. Weren’t they actually part of it? Of the design of this planet, this star system, this corner of the universe? Everybody forgot about that. Even when it came to Mars: Ariel and the rest of them just thought of it in terms of achievement, the next step in human conquest. But Mars was part of the design, too. It had once had oceans. Maybe there had once been Martian pines.
He ducked through the cool shadows, juniper fingers scraping his arms. Soon he broke free onto the bare crest of the mountain. He scrambled up the last steep slope, a succession of slanted sandstone slabs, and reached the summit, where he was greeted with a 360-degree view of the vast empty desert.
Picture Earth, the way you know it, mostly: the sun, searing but still yellow in the sky, the southwestern deserts of the North American continent a scribble of branching canyons striped in cinnamon and cream, though the sparkling rivers at their seams have long since dried up. The sky blue overhead, fading into a rim of chocolate haze: the ever-present pollution that cloaks the planet, yet in this desolate corner of the world it is still thin enough to see to the horizon. Here, the dust whorls from the great mining slags. There, the plumes of the omnipresent wildfires. The largest one, to the north, has been burning for two years, marching its way through what remained of the Rocky Mountain forests.
Peter spread his arms, closed his eyes, and breathed deeply. A mix of hot rock, sweet juniper, and sour wood smoke. Wind whipped around him, almost toppling him. Made him smile. Being up here, so close to . . . what? God? Was that what it was, this thing he felt? Not exactly. But something. The grand design, he’d called it in his journal one time, by which most people might have thought he meant God, but Peter preferred to think of it as the universe at work. Around him, inside him. From a cell to a mountaintop to a distant planet . . .
It was so quiet. None of the silly jokes and dumb video streams. When Peter imagined being on Mars, this, right here, was what he yearned for: a world so silent that you might hear the whisper of true meaning. Except it would be impossible to actually find that there, stuck with your pod of teenagers the whole time. And while this solitary moment was nice, the strip of pollution and the dust and smoke reminded you that Earth had already been ruined. No, what Peter truly dreamed of when he closed his eyes was a world far beyond their inner solar system, somewhere untouched, somewhere new, that he alone could discover.
Peter removed his link from his belt and turned on the camera. He took a selfie with the great spread of country behind him but frowned when he viewed it. The image looked a bit too flat, too still to really capture how alive this moment felt. He switched the camera to its video setting, held it out again, and pressed record. The wind whipped around him, his black hair blowing this way and that. He turned in a circle, so you could see the whole panorama behind him. . . .
It could be said that what happened next was coincidence, but that would rule out the power of curiosity. Simply put, Peter had an inspiration, and yet, is it that simple? Does that spark in our minds come merely from some interaction between our interests, emotions, and the world around us, or could it in fact be something mor
e: perhaps our faintest perception of some energy that our earthbound senses can’t quite perceive, or even an awareness of some higher dimension of reality?
Whatever the true cause, Peter imagined how much better this video he’d just taken would look if it was slowed down. He didn’t even think that much about it. Just activated the slow-motion setting on the camera, began to record, and then spun around a few more times.
When he was finished, he caught his breath and watched what he’d recorded. It was too bright up here to properly see the screen, but it seemed to have worked.
Peter stowed his link, spent another moment with his eyes closed, and then started down the trail, through the shade of the relic forest, back down the switchbacks in the blistering sun. He returned to the ledge, got out his virtual reader, and read for some of his assignments. Soon after, as they’d promised, his classmates and his teacher returned. Peter didn’t even mind.
It wasn’t until later that night, in the dim light of his bunk, that Peter had a chance to revisit his slow-motion video, and it was then, in the playback, that he saw the strange blurry shape that was flickering not far behind him on that mountaintop.
Someone had been standing there.
A figure, one that was clad in long black robes, with dark blue skin and more than two legs. It had been right there, looking upward, as if gazing directly at the sun.
Peter replayed the clip, then again, and each time, the figure was there, like a ghost. He checked the still photo he’d taken, which featured the same view. No figure. The video he’d taken at regular speed: no figure there either.
But in the slow motion, there it was.
Peter had one friend on the trip, a boy named Darius. He showed him the next morning, but Darius, his attention equally divided between Peter’s link and a trio of girls walking by, just shrugged. “It’s probably a VirtCom artifact,” he said. “People say they see ghosts and stuff, but it’s really just malfunctioning packets getting beamed to the wrong nodes. Maybe there was some magnetic rock up there catching a signal fragment. I heard about that happening somewhere else.”
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