“I can’t believe there’s nothing left to do,” Adam said. “We shot across the galaxy like a bullet. Old Doc Quarna would have crapped if he knew we made it to our first target planet in twenty months.”
“Actually, at the speed of a bullet we would still be approaching Mars like 100 trillion miles behind us.”
“When will we know about habitability?” Adam asked eagerly.
“We get our first atmospheric readings tomorrow sometime,” Artie said. “This might all be for nothing.”
Maya stepped between them wearing a stunning lilac gown. Even Adam had to fight not to have his jaw drop. At the punch bowl, Max had to steady himself by leaning on the table when he saw the fully grown-up woman who was to be his intended.
“Don’t tell me you two are standing in here talking about atmospheric readings,” Maya said. “Where are your dates?”
“Hey,” Adam said, “they left us.”
“Oh, that’s a surprise. What with all the great atmospheric talk to be had over here.”
Max approached dizzily carrying a glass of punch for Maya. She reached down to her little mate and took the glass. She could see he had spilled a lot of it on his hand and sleeve.
“Thanks, Max. You’re a real doll,” Maya said before she glared at Adam, then spun away to join the girls.
Max muttered some failed word, but gave up when Maya and her statuesque curves sauntered away.
“Don’t worry, Max,” Adam began, “Artie here says girls emit a bunch of carbon dioxide. Must have left you speechless.”
Artie laughed. Max became even more flustered.
* * *
THERE WERE SEVEN TABLES of four and one table of seven. The big table included Adam with Sylvia, Maya with Max and Artie with Hanna. The seventh wheel was baby Eli, but he was stealing all of Hanna’s attention so Artie was the odd man out of the conversation which was fine by him.
The weather probe would have floated down onto the surface of the planet by now. The chances of it being destroyed by some bad luck on landing was limited. It had been designed to fly away from heat and liquid. It would cut itself out of any entanglement. It would eventually find its way to the soil.
It would give an electrical shock to any creature, intelligent or otherwise, that might attempt to touch it. The probe would have already taken thousands of readings as it floated down from sky and then would need as little as 110 seconds on the surface to dig in and break down the composition of the soil and, most importantly, radiation levels.
Signals would stream results back to the ship which would then tabulate the findings and kick out a final verdict on whether the planet would be worth considering for New Earth.
The sound of a utensil banging against glass woke Artie from his dreams of tomorrow. Sylvia stood up at the table and tapped a spoon against her glass. Max grabbed his spoon and joined her in tapping his glass. Max nudged Artie who reluctantly grabbed his spoon and made it three who called for a toast.
Sylvia beamed. “Well, Commander?”
Adam raised his hand to stop them from tapping their glasses. They smiled in victory and sat down as Adam stood up.
Adam surveyed the seven surrounding tables and then lingered a moment on Eli’s big eyes. He glanced at Sylvia with playful disdain.
“Thank you all for coming,” he said.
“Louder, Sweetie,” Sylvia whispered.
“Commander,” Adam whispered back.
“Louder, Commander,” Maya said so everyone could hear.
Max laughed perhaps too much while all the other kids smiled.
“Thank you all for coming,” Adam said louder this time. “We’ve all come a long way to get here.”
Leo and Nadia raised their glasses. “Hear, hear,” Leo said.
Adam reflected now and became serious. “Children of the Eden Project,” Adam said. Words they had not heard since the last day on Earth. “We carry the flame of the human soul.”
Adam paused to take in his now spellbound audience. The doctor’s final words had an almost numbing effect on the kids.
“We carry a great responsibility,” Adam explained, “and whether it be tomorrow or in the next star system down the road or the next one after that, we will always remember the old world and all who have sacrificed to give us life.”
Tears welled above smiles. Sylvia reached out to squeeze Adam’s hand. He glanced down to see her tender touch.
“It will take great courage one day for us to complete this journey and build a new civilization on a wild new planet, but that courage is nothing compared to what I ask of you now. Gentleman, take the hand of your intended and join us on the floor for the couples dance.”
On cue, Nadia clicked a key on her scrollpad and the music slowly began and then built into a peppy industrial tune from the years just before the outbreak.
Sylvia pulled Maya up from her seat and Adam picked up baby Eli who was grinning like a bandit. When Max approached petrified, Maya had sympathy for him. She took his hand and became the first couple on the dance floor. Hanna grabbed Artie’s hand. To his credit Artie led her to the dance floor rather gallantly.
Soon all the seats were empty, every hand was taken and the children of a lost world danced in the heavens and beyond.
* * *
THERE HAD BEEN AN outbreak of kissing after the dance. The boys had so much fun at the push party that they rewarded their intended mates with courageous first kisses. Some of the kisses traveled from lips to cheeks and ears and necks. A hand or two was even slapped.
The next morning would have been filled with gossip had things turned out differently. There would have been whispers and giggles and blushing behind every console. The commissary would have buzzed. Eyes would have snuck peeks.
None of that happened.
Instead, an ungodly siren sounded off in the middle of the night.
Sylvia lifted her head from Adam’s chest. They had fallen asleep that way, in each other’s arms, exhausted from dancing and kissing and a bit more than that.
Adam jumped to his feet shirtless but still wearing his pants from the dance. He searched frantically for his shirt and shoes as the persistent siren deafened him.
“What does it mean?” Sylvia said.
Adam barely heard her. He decided not to answer. He knew what the siren meant and would rather not alarm her prematurely. This siren blaring in the middle of the night could only mean one thing.
He winked and smiled. He kissed the messy hair on the top of her head and then he ran out of her state room clutching his shoes.
-18-
Adam rushed into flight deck to find Artie sitting alone at his station. When Max ran in behind Adam, Artie hit a key which turned off the deafening siren.
Any questions burning in their heads running to flight deck disappeared completely when Adam and Max saw the screen.
A celestial map. A pulsing red dot just off center.
“They’re 75,000 miles out,” Artie answered their unspoken question.
“A ship?” Max asked what he already knew.
Adam said nothing. He furrowed his brow and walked to the screen. He did not like the red dot on his screen.
Artie turned a dial bringing up a sound, a grinding, high-pitched sound with a vaguely repetitive pattern.
Maya and Sylvia entered. They followed Adam’s eyes to the screen.
“Non-standard distress call,” Adam said indifferently.
“Why non-standard?” Max asked.
“Epic system failures onboard,” Artie said. “Maybe they don’t even see us.”
Adam turned to Artie disappointed. “In what world do you live in, Artie, where maybe is still an option?”
“I’m just saying,” Artie said quickly turning red blocks to green on one of his console screens. “We’re fully weaponized, Commander.”
Shock swept over Maya and Sylvia as Max hurried to his station and banged on his touch pad.
“What are you talking about?” Maya pleaded. �
��Maybe this and maybe that? Why are we weaponized? Who are you people?”
Sylvia put her arm around Maya, but did not say a word. She knew never to question the Commander during a crisis.
“Who are we?” Adam said as he took his seat. “We’re the last line of defense for the species.”
“We can crawl into launch position within six minutes,” Max said nervously trying to avoid Maya’s disapproving eyes.
Maya pushed Sylvia away and walked to the Commander’s chair. “Wait, I thought Artie said they have epic system failures.”
Adam tried to remain patient with Maya. “No, Artie merely threw out a likely scenario, but I don’t care about likelihoods or maybes. Survival depends upon certainties.”
“You would kill a ship full of people who are stranded?”
“We don’t know what they are, Maya. Human or alien. Maybe they are infected or maybe their protocol tells them to destroy us just like our protocol points out very clearly to eliminate all risk instantly.”
“We can get a preliminary energy readout at the launch point,” Max said to help Maya’s argument.
Adam considered Max disapprovingly.
“Right, Max,” Maya said gratefully. “If they have no energy then we go in and at least have a look. Communicate with them.”
“That won’t change anything,” Adam said angrily. “Is it better to offer them a friendly hello before we blow up their ship?”
Sylvia grabbed Maya’s hand and pulled her away from the Commander. “You’ve given him something to think about,” Sylvia said to Maya. “Let’s go check on the young ones.”
Maya relented and let Sylvia lead her to the door.
“Move into launch position,” Adam said. “Keep the guns hot.”
Sylvia stopped now at the open doors unable to leave. “What if it is the ES1?” Sylvia said.
Adam turned back to consider Sylvia and Maya standing in the frame of the flight deck doors.
“Yeah, Commander, what if it is the ES1?” Maya repeated Sylvia’s question.
“It’s not,” Adam said.
“But it could be. It’s possible, isn’t it?” Maya questioned stepping back into the flight deck. “Sylvia and I are two of the three highest ranking officers on this ship and we advise that it could be ES1.”
The fact that Adam began running scenarios through his head betrayed his answer. “Highly unlikely.”
Maya smiled now. “Oh, but I thought you don’t deal in likely. You only deal in certainties.”
Adam could not respond to her. So many thoughts raced through his head. She had weakened his resolve to do the unthinkable, to blow up a ship full of stranded souls.
Artie and Max waited for further commands.
“What if it is the ES1, Adam?” Maya said more tenderly now. “What if your missiles find our friends out there?”
Adam stared at Maya a long time. “The Protocol makes it very clear,” Adam explained. “No one can know we’re out here.”
“Forget the Protocol,” Maya said losing patience. “What if it’s Gen out there you’re going to destroy? Can you be certain it’s not? Huh, Mister Certainty?”
An icy rush of blood hit his heart. Fear and guilt spilled onto his face. Sylvia saw his expression. Her old heartache returned. She began to feel a numbness in her muscles. She hurried out of flight deck.
Maya watched Sylvia disappear regretfully. She knew her words had hurt her best friend. She shook her head. She exhaled. She left Adam alone with all her questions still lingering in his head.
* * *
THE ES3 CRAWLED CLOSER to the distressed ship. According to Artie’s readings there was virtually no power being emitted. Epic system failures seemed the best explanation.
They crawled beyond the launch point. They crawled in closer still beyond the point where survival was being prioritized.
All these months of never-ending darkness made for some vivid dreams. They called them fire dreams. Every kid had them. They woke in the night with the smell of rocket fuel burning in their noses, in their throats, on the roof of their mouths. Even when their eyes opened in the dim blue glow of the state rooms, the faces in the fire lingered.
Their friends on the floor of the dome burning into skeletons. Their friends inside ES2 exploding instead of launching. Now they imagined their friends on ES1 and what ES3’s missiles might do to them.
“It won’t be Zeke,” Artie said. “He would have had to run that ship at the point of breaking for the better part of a year.”
Adam considered Artie’s hopeful eyes. He did not feel like playing that game. The ship would have to be destroyed. Alien or human or childhood friend. He moved in for a look out of curiosity and to let the other officers know what they were about to destroy.
“Why would they even want to do that?” Max suggested. “They could have disabled their ship doing that.”
“Maybe they have disabled their ship doing that,” Adam said losing his patience. “Keep locked in, Artie. If you even see a firefly flicker out there, rain hell down on them.”
-19-
She had dreamed of a tidy world where everything would be in its place. Nothing in such a world would ever bend or break. Streets would be straight. Grass would be green. One boy and one girl would be born into every home.
None of that was in the Protocol, but it had always been in her heart. Simplicity. Fair play. Harmony. These were her guiding principles. She did not think she needed them anymore. She had been naïve to ever see the world in so passionless a form. We have passion for each breath we take, she realized. We have desire for every morsel of food we eat. The splash of water in your mouth is pure ecstasy.
Gen lived alone in the walls. When she found any sealed, air-tight food she had to take it to a remote, germ-free airlock where she decontaminated both her suit and the food packaging before she could remove her helmet and rip open the food. She devoured it quickly like the starved and hunted beast she had become.
Her skin hung tightly on her bones within the hot protective suit. Her lips were bone dry. She could feel her eyes itching and sinking into her skull minute-by-minute. When she slept, she did it sitting up in a hollowed-out support inside the walls.
It had been twenty or twenty-five days since she last saw Trinh and Jax. The week before that she saw Ethan expire. They were out scavenging for water, Ethan and her, when two beasts jumped them from above.
They were more than beasts. They had been crew members of a ship. Ethan pulled a little one off her. Gen recognized the small beast, Logan, who was only nine before being turned. She did not recognize the bigger of the beasts. He must have come from the other ship. A European teen turned into a cannibalistic monster.
Gen scurried away as Ethan battled the two beasts on the ground. She reached for her gun but her holster was empty. The teen beast tore a hole in Ethan’s suit with its teeth.
“ I’m lost,” Ethan’s desperate whisper echoed in her helmet. “Run, Gen. Survive.”
She stood up and backed away. They tore the suit off of him and dived into his abdomen. Inside his helmet his eyes were still alive. She turned from her terrified friend and ran. Days and weeks later she still could not outrun his dying eyes as they ate him alive.
Ethan’s frantic expression lived within the shadows of the walls. His desperate last words swam in and out of her ears while she lay awake.
She slept little and ate less. The walls became her home. She could categorize any sound in an instant and map three-dimensional escape paths in her head whenever any creature ventured into her area.
The beasts would never get her on their own, she liked to think, but starvation slowly crept up on her with its icy hooks. When she wasn’t haunted or scavenging for food sources she dreamed that Tuna had a plan. The day he faced off with infected Lexi replayed in her mind again and again. He had a plan. What was he doing? His determination convinced them all to go into the walls and leave him behind.
Ethan knew of a compartment within
the Terra Rover that was sound proof. They could sleep there. The Terra Rover itself had to be entered through a germ-free airlock so the entire ship would be usable, but far from safe.
They knew the Rover would be checked randomly by the beasts so they had to be on watch at all times. They had to leave nothing out of place. No crumbs. No moisture on a handle. They could not use the burners in the Terra Rover or lay on the beds or even turn on the kitchen devices.
When the beasts came, and often they did, Gen and the others quickly shimmied into an odd space behind the Rover’s cold storage locker accessed only by moving a refrigeration unit carefully and then pulling it back into place to conceal them.
Gen, Trinh, Jax and Ethan lived like that for months. Sleeping four in a space barely comfortable for two. Hiding there for hours while the beasts walked through the Rover looking for any sign of life.
After Ethan saved her and she was separated from Trinh and Jax, she waited a week and finally made it back to the Rover. Her two remaining friends were not there, not in the Rover, not behind the refrigeration unit. She went back a dozen times until she was certain they would never return.
In all those months together, the four of them never laid eyes on Tuna again. They had twice spotted Zeke who had integrated wholly into the band of beasts. No sign of Tuna. No sign of Lexi.
This gave Gen hope. For all they teased Tuna over the years, everyone knew he was the special one. The doctors doted on him since he was a baby. Doctor Becker said he would be the father of nations in a new world.
Tuna’s words were the ones Gen kept reciting in her mind. “I wanted to make sure her sacrifice was worth it,” Tuna had said to her the day they went to the seed vault. He wanted to make sure Cassie’s sacrifice was worth it, that everyone’s sacrifice was worth it. He worked harder to make sure the project succeeded.
The day he faced off with Lexi had to be part of a plan. He must have been working and no one could out work Tuna. No person and no cannibalistic horde.
Until she knew the fate of Tuna, she would not give up. She would survive. She would own the shadows and whisper back sometimes to the ghosts in her mind.
The Eden Project (Books One & Two) Page 25