Dusk (2 page)

Cyrus fired another volley of his own with
his left hand as the key, now magnetically attached to the door,
decrypted the security code. Someone squeezed off a burst at Cyrus
and bullets sparked as they hit the ship just in front of him. Then
something caught him low on his left shoulder. He reeled backward
and to his right, but he continued with the momentum and pressed
himself against the rounded edge of the ship. He steadied the rifle
with the side of the ship and fired again, one-handed. The rifle
jumped violently, but it was enough to make his attackers use their
cover. Cyrus’s right arm began to throb with pain. Something might
have been broken, but the shear Comptex suit had stopped the shell
from penetrating his flesh. It was not the first time he had been
shot. It was not the first time Comptex protected him. And now,
Cyrus prayed once he got this ship out of this god-forsaken hangar,
it would be the last time for both.

Then there was a gush of air as the seal
broke on the giant cargo door, and Cyrus ducked inside as Commander
Uzziah ducked in behind him, still firing even as he cleared the
threshold.

“Five minutes and this whole place turns into
a chimp rodeo!” Uzziah yelled, already moving toward the
bridge.

That meant they had a little more than two
minutes to get the ship started, with only a rushed training and a
little bit of luck to help them. But that was what had to be done.
The sun was setting them all, and that ship was the only way he, or
anyone else he had grown to love in this forsaken place, would ever
see the sun again.

• • • • •

—
Tell me a story before I go to bed,
Dada.

—
What story do you want to hear?

—
The story about Aryal and the Unicorn.

—
You always want to hear that story. This will be
the 50th time.

—
No, just the 47th time.

—
You counted? I can’t believe you want to hear it
again.

—
Come on Dada, I like hearing you tell the
story.

—
Okay, Okay, for the 47th time. Here goes… A
long, long time ago, before the world was as complicated as it is
now, in a time when people appreciated their lives and the world
around them, there was a growing village bordered by a raging river
on one side and a dense forest on all the others.

—
How dense was the forest, Dada?

—
It was so dense that even during the day the
forest was as dark as the darkest midnight, and whenever anyone
ventured too far outside the village, they became hopelessly lost.
They not so creatively named this no-man’s land ‘Where Angels Fear
to Tread.’ Well just on the edge of ‘Where Angels Fear to Tread,’
there lived a beautiful black Unicorn with a golden horn. For as
long as anyone in the village could remember, the Unicorn had
always lived there, and whenever anyone became lost in the
wilderness, the Unicorn would always show up and lead them back to
the village. There was a myth in the village—or it was a long
passed rumor anyway—that if anyone could speak the name of the
Unicorn, he would stay with them forever and lead them to a
magnificent treasure. Many people ventured into the forest just to
see the Unicorn and all marveled over his beauty and his power.
Everyone except Cellius Wormheart.

—
Tell me about Cellius. I like the way you talk
about Cellius.

—
Cellius Wormheart was a blacksmith and owned the
largest and toughest safe in the village. Everyone loved him
because he kept their gold safe, even though he wasn’t a very nice
person.

—
Why wasn’t Cellius very nice?

—
Well, no one was sure, but some of the elders
said it was because his parents spent so much time building the
village that they didn’t pay very much attention to him, so he took
his anger out on the village. But I think he was bitter because no
matter how much he built, or how much money he made, it didn’t make
him happy.

—
Maybe it was a little of both things, huh,
Dada?

—
You may have a point there. Either way, Cellius
was determined to find the Unicorn’s treasure, so he built an
elaborate trap and captured the Unicorn. He then prepared a large
pen and kept the Unicorn in the center of the village and charged
people to look at him. He made a good deal of money, but it wasn’t
enough, so he began to starve the Unicorn and treat him poorly to
try and discover the location of the treasure. Meanwhile, the
people of the village would accost the Unicorn every day, screaming
any name they could imagine at him in hopes one of them would be
his real name.

—
What happened to the Unicorn, Dada? What
happened?

—
The bitterness and spite around him, coming from
people he had never shown anything but kindness to, changed him.
Slowly, he became more beastlike, more hideous, until he was
completely unrecognizable as the Unicorn. He began to snarl and
snap at people and he tugged at his reigns each day until his legs
bled and he collapsed into a bellowing, exhausted heap. People
began to question what they should do with the Beast that had once
been the Unicorn. No one paid to see him anymore and Cellius had
grown weary of him and wanted to kill him.

—
He wanted to put him to sleep?

—
No, Darius, kill him. People who can’t own up to
their own actions ‘put animals to sleep.’ Cellius was many terrible
things, but he was no coward. He could not get what he wanted, so
he wanted the Beast dead. The village folk would not have it
though, until one day, a young boy paid to see the Beast and threw
a tomato at him. And while he had turned to his friends to taunt
and jeer, the Beast bit down on the boys arm and dragged him
through the bars where he devoured him.

—
Ouch.

—
Ouch indeed. Well, the town was outraged, so
they barred anyone from entering the tent where the Beast was kept,
and the Commissary of the town ordered the Beast summarily
destroyed.

—
Summarily means in public right, in front of
everybody.

—
Well, it means without delay, but is usually for
all to see. The people were so angry they made preparations to make
a fancy ceremony of the whole event. Someone even painted ‘Where
even fools fear to tread’ on the outside of the tent, thinking it
was a clever thing to write.

—
But it was their fault, Dada. Why couldn’t they
see that? Why didn’t they just leave the poor Unicorn
alone?

—
I don’t know Dari. I’ve been trying to figure
that one for years. Must take a wiser man than me. So, one day,
this little girl wanders near the cage.

—
Aryal.

—
Yes, Aryal. Aryal wasn’t the most beautiful girl
in the village, and she didn’t score in the highest percentiles in
her school, but she had a kind heart, and she always looked at
things for what they were, not what she wanted them to be.

—
Why did she think that way when the others
didn’t?

—
Maybe it was because she wasn’t beautiful.
Because she wasn’t smart. Maybe she needed to see things
differently just to survive—to know she was more than people saw
her as. Well, Aryal wandered to the cage for the first time ever
because she was poor, and before the execution, her parents could
not afford to take her to see the Unicorn. Not that they would have
anyway, for they were angry and spiteful people, and resented
having such an unspectacular daughter they couldn’t brag about to
their friends. So she went to see the Beast before the execution,
and instead of a snarling, angry beast, she saw a sad, wounded
creature that was wounded to his very soul by treachery, by
ingratitude.

—
Maybe she saw a little bit of herself in the
Unicorn Beast.

—
Quite possibly. Either way, the next day, the
day of the execution, Cellius found the cage unlocked and empty.
Both Aryal and the Unicorn had disappeared, never to be heard from
again.

—
What happened? Where did they go?

—
Most think Aryal spoke the Creature’s name and
he took her away to the treasure and they lived there until the end
of time.

—
And how did she guess the Unicorn’s
name?

—
She didn’t guess. She just did what no one else
bothered to do. What no one thought to do.

—
She just asked.

—
Exactly.

—
So Dada, what do you think the treasure
was?

—
You tell me Dari.

—
I don’t know. Before I guessed gold, money,
candy but I’m pretty sure now it wasn’t any of that stuff. I’m
beginning to think there was no treasure. Maybe it was anyone who
actually could do what they needed to find it, actually had it
already.

—
You know I never thought of it like that. Maybe
you’re a wiser man than me.

—
No, Dada. Not me. You know everything.

—
Not everything Dari. The wisest man knows what
he knows, and what he doesn’t, and is comfortable with those things
he can’t. Sometimes, it seems like I don’t know what I should, and
I think I know what I can’t. Hopefully, when you’re my age, what
you do know will be clear, and what you can’t know will be even
clearer, so that what you don’t know can exist in an attainable
spot somewhere in between.

—
I’m not sure what that means, Dada.

—
Me neither, but I think, by the time you’re my
age, you will understand much better than I.

• • • • •

To Dr. Cyrus Chamberlain, everything seemed smaller.
He couldn’t tell if the launch station being so close to home was a
good thing or a bad one—if he had had to travel to Houston or
Florida, at least the entire process would have mirrored the weight
he now felt on his shoulders. The other scientists milled around
the inside of the large craft that levitated above the track
leading to the launch pad. The tension inside the massive cargo
barge, which had been converted into a mobile ballroom, was almost
tangible. The faces of everyone there, whether somber or excited,
were full of emotion. The hazy morning light that filtered in
through clear plastic windows that surrounded them gave everyone’s
face a morbid, orange glow. The pain of not seeing loved ones and
friends for another ten years, if ever, was visible. As clear as
the craft set on the horizon to take those loved ones away. There
were twenty scientists in all, each surrounded by several family
members and colleagues that had come to see them off. They moved
slowly over the metal-laced track toward the looming Unified
Nations Rosamond Land Dock in the distance, and the closer they
got, the more the ballroom felt like a mortuary. Some cried,
mourning those that still walked among them, at least for the next
hour or so. Cyrus stood with his wife Feralynn, his son Darius, and
his best friend, Dr. Alexander Kalem and watched the dust of
Antelope Valley float in lazy swirls as he felt the sting of his
choice—he was leaving this overpopulated rock forever. Cyrus, one
of the premier astrophysicists in the Unified Nations, had been
notified the moment they had discovered Asha. Ten years later, he
had been formally asked to join the team of scientist-pioneers that
would make up the first expedition to this planet they hoped would
become the sister-world to Earth. Only a few months later, the
Unified Nations Census had revealed the Earth now held in excess of
ten billion people—and that was discounting the Fringe States that
had held out in the Unification. And now, Cyrus was about to leave
his life behind for a new one. And it floored him.

To Cyrus, Kalem had always looked older than
he was. And it seemed he had purposefully promoted that image. The
grey flecks in his hair made his skin look lighter. The pale light
that streamed in through the large windowed side of the conveyance
vehicle gave his light skin an odd glow and accented the lines of
his face that made him look serious even when he smiled.

Cyrus imagined Dr. Kalem would have made an
excellent poker player if he had believed in gambling. But the man,
who had been his closest friend since his matriculation to the
physical sciences tract of the Arcology, was too interested in a
concrete sense of security to gamble on anything except his own
mental ability, which he had in droves.

The lines in Kalem’s face seemed an odd
contrast to Feralynn’s. It was hard to read her expression, but
Cyrus had grown accustomed to seeing the lines that formed around
her jaw line whenever she was quietly upset with something he had
said, or something he had done, or something he had not done that
he should have. But today the lines were gone. She seemed torn, but
was not combative. She was not usually quiet about her emotions,
whether she understood clearly what she was feeling or not, but
today, her mixed feelings were solemn and unmanifest. Standing
there in the pale orange light of the smog tinted sun, Cyrus could
see the fire in her eyes that he had recognized the moment he met
her—the fire he had not seen in the eight years since his son had
been born.