The Antarcticans (41 page)

The word had barely escaped her lips, and he was bounding for the edge of the ice. Noila bounced up and down against the thick saddle; the speed they were approaching made it feel as if they were going to lift off the ground at any moment and take flight.

“Put your head down and hold on,” Lucifer said gruffly.

His hind legs launched them into the air and straight out over the side of the iceberg. His front paws splayed far out in front of him, and for a second, Noila thought they were going to catch wind and fly to the mainland, which was quickly slipping out of sight. Lucifer’s body hit the water, and he swam through it with a possessed fury. As his face dove through the oncoming white caps, he powered through them. The salty coldness splashed over Noila, the water draining through the small holes in the bottom of the saddle. She didn’t have time to put her gloves back on, and the small amount of heat that had reoccupied them was flushed out. Her legs strained against the leather straps as they dug into her. The warming coils in her suit felt like they had stopped working; she was getting soaked, and the world around her was becoming dark and fuzzy. She couldn’t focus on the water or Lucifer in front of her. As she lost the worry that he wouldn’t emerge from the wave, she looked down at her legs; the water coming over the side of the saddle was unstoppable. The white cliffs of the land in front of her were getting closer. As she turned her head to look out into the sea, something in her gave way, and a warm relaxing blanket fell over her.

Lucifer was swimming strongly, heading for the land as quickly as he could. His mouth was filled with salt water, which he drank down, relishing the salt and minerals that fueled his body. The freezing water invigorated him. He started to feel some fatigue in his legs, but he was so close now; he could keep going. A wave came unexpectedly from the side and slammed into them, sending them down into the water. Lucifer struggled against it, but he kept descending. He held his breath and looked back; Noila was slumped over, not fighting against the strength of the water weighing on top of them. When the wave finally dissipated, he was able to get to the top. He was disoriented for a moment, as the land wasn’t in front of them; he spun around and kept advancing. He turned around again to look at Noila. Her body was hanging over the side of the saddle; her face had taken on a bluish hue; and she wasn’t moving. He knew he had to get her to land quickly so she could receive medical treatment.

At the mainland, where the ice had broken off and taken Noila with it, a ladder had been extended down to the water. Addie and a ball of Ptahs were waiting at the top, near the spikes that fastened the ladder into the ice. Lucifer caught the first rung of the flexible ladder with his paw and climbed, just as he had climbed mountains, trees, and boulders for the many millennia he had existed. He reached the top and collapsed next to Addie. His eyes closed, and he rolled on to his side, pitching Noila’s head into the snow.

Addie ran to Noila and supported her head while he unlatched her from the saddle. “Noila?” he whispered. He turned to the Ptahs, who had assembled themselves into a gurney, then picked up Noila and set her on top of them. They raced off and took her to the cavern. Addie unstrapped the saddle from Lucifer’s back, put his hands on Lucifer’s head, and massaged it. “Lucifer?” he said.

“Wait,” Lucifer said, not opening his eyes.

“Are you okay? Can I help you?” Addie asked.

Silence.

“You don’t listen very well, do you?” Lucifer said, still keeping his eyes shut.

Addie smiled. “I’m sorry.”

Lucifer finally opened his eyes and pulled himself up on his four legs, towering over Addie. “I suppose I’m not going to get any rest here with you badgering me.” He playfully nudged Addie, which knocked him back two steps. “Let’s go check on Noila. I want to be there to help if I can.”

They raced toward the cavern. When they arrived on the lift in the large circular room, a crowd of humans and Antarcticans were huddled around the window of cavern five. Addie walked over to the crowd and looked for Joshua and Gavin. They stood at the front, their hands pressed against the glass. Addie looked in. Noila was suspended in the air, with a collection of Ptahs holding her in complete stillness. Three tubes with an orangish-yellow liquid ran from a replicator at the side of the room to her mouth and the sides of her head. Ptahs the size of inchworms covered her extremities and were crawling in and out of her ears. Her left hand twitched every couple of seconds. Addie placed one paw on Gavin’s shoulder and the other on Joshua’s. They turned to look at him and nodded.

“Do you know what they’re doing to her?” Gavin asked, worry creasing his face.

“I’m not sure, but my guess is that they’re trying to repair any cellular damage she suffered. She was in the cold and without oxygen for a long time. I’m so sorry.” Addie squeezed their shoulders then turned around and headed to his quarters in cavern four. He sat down on his bed and looked at an image of Noila looking back at him. He touched it, rubbing her face, which he knew was so soft and scented like lilies. “Get better,” he said softly. The room shook violently, and the panel her face was peering out from cracked. An alarm sounded. He reported to the circular lobby for instructions.

Henri stood in front of the main column, waiting for everyone to arrive. The lights in cavern five were dark. He looked out over the assembled crowd. “I’m sorry to report that we weren’t able to save Noila. The damage to her body was far too extensive. I apologize if this sounds abrupt, but we’re under real threat in the cavern. The falling ice shelf has destabilized the ground that this facility is built in. We need to evacuate the caverns as soon as possible.” He clasped his hands in front of him over his white coat and looked down for a minute, searching for words, then looked up. “Take what you can with you, but not at the cost of slowing you down. An aircraft will arrive in fifteen hours to take us off the continent. We should plan to leave then. A small group headed by myself will stay behind for an additional day to shut down the facility and make sure our technology won’t harm the environment. The plane will return here to retrieve us after you’re safely on the
Dragon
. I don’t know what’s next. Thank you, everyone, for the work you’ve done here. I dreamed we would save the Antarctican race, but I’m afraid we’ve failed.” He turned away and returned to his lab.

Addie went up to Gavin and Joshua, who were staring blankly at the center column where Henri had announced the death of Noila. Their eyes were red and filled with tears. As the crowd dispersed back to their workstations and quarters, Gavin and Joshua still stood there, unable to move against the shock of the news. When the crowd was gone, Lucifer appeared from the column in his human form. He was using a cane topped with a dragon head, and his gait was slow and cautious as he made his way toward Joshua and Gavin. He wore thick white fur cape that trailed behind him on the floor.

“I’m so sorry for your loss.” He stood in front of them. “Please let us know your ritual customs. We’ll be happy to do what we can.”

“I don’t know what I believe anymore,” Gavin managed to say through a haze of tears.

“It isn’t finished. Joshua still has a great purpose here in Antarctica, a purpose his mother made possible.”

“What?” Joshua looked up at him, confused.

“You’ve always been the one I was seeking.” He nodded toward Gavin. “Your father was a man of great faith. In fact, his faith took him on a journey that led him to me, one he believed was evil and corrupt, but it was all part of our plan. My inner circle made it possible that he might search for and find what he believed existed. You see, our myths are a reflection of our past, our experience, and what we hope is to come. Not a static story forever chronicled in a text. Your myth, though—
your
story—is that you’re destined to save a race, and we’re not done with that journey. There’s still a chance.” He reached into his cape and pulled out four vials of the serum. “Your mother discovered a way to make the laws of the universe work in our favor, something we were searching for. Now I need you to go back into your cavern and summon the Ptahs. I believe there’s something left for you to do. These are the last results of your mother’s work. They were just delivered to me by our loyal Ptahs, who worked closely with her.” He handed Joshua the vials and patted him in the direction of the cavern. “Her work is going to change our world.”

…

After much urging from Henri and Lucifer, Gavin reluctantly left his son with Lucifer and the Antarcticans. Only the humans were headed back to the
Dragon
. In several groups, the inhabitants of the caverns took the disk to the surface then made the grim march through Chimeruth. They kept their heads looking at only the feet moving in front of them, feeling guilty that their people would survive while a species was dying in front of them. Stacks of Antarctican funerary bones lay everywhere, and fires in the distance had been lit, filling the clear-blue sky with white smoke, making it look as if a cloud tsunami was racing to overcome the continent. Some of the Antarcticans who hadn’t yet succumbed were making the final preparations for their relatives in the area Gavin was walking through. He watched the somber beasts trudge through the slush, ignoring the crumbling world around them and honoring their dead in their last rites. He wanted to break away from the group and build a monument to Noila, to the woman who had saved him and given him his son. The woman he had betrayed in a moment of weakness. She deserved her mark to show what she had done on this earth.

The humans exited the village, passed through the mountain range, and boarded the Boeing 737. Gavin, still in complete shock, watched the continent fall away as they took off. He wondered whether he would ever see his son again, or if his life would fall off a cliff and he would descend forever deeper into this nightmare of death and destruction that surrounded him. He rested his head against the window and fell asleep, exhausted by sorrow.

The walls of the shaft leading down into the cavern turned metallic, with thousands of Ptahs swarming like termites into the space. The metallic multicolored bodies flooded into the main area, forcing the remaining Antarcticans to uneasily gather on one side, next to the door to cavern one. The Ptahs slithered through the broken glass of cavern two. Addie had his back pressed against the wall just inside that cavern. He usually trusted the Ptahs, but now the whole continent was in a state of desperation. He’d never seen so many of them in the same place. He saw Joshua looking at Zhu, whose body was limp and lifeless. The boy’s remaining heat was melting the small pile of snow it laid upon, which made his body sink into the white powder, disintegrate, and disappear. The Ptahs surrounded the pile of snow, obscuring Addie’s view of it. When they broke apart and continued through the room, the snow was gone. They kept coming, hundreds then thousands of Ptahs, all sizes and colors, a painters’ pallet gone wild against the blank canvas of the room. Joshua held a straight face; Zhu’s death was sudden, but the number of new events happening around him overwhelmed his normal capacity for sadness. He stood in the center of the room and gently lifted his outstretched arms, his palms up to the ceiling. The Ptahs stopped moving and reared their heads deferentially toward Joshua.

He spoke out to them. “Are you willing to serve me?” he asked.

Their polished silver heads spun, creating the sound of a jet engine revving before takeoff.

Joshua closed his eyes and slowly brought his outstretched arms together in front of him, pressing his palms tightly against each other. The Ptahs swarmed together, the smaller bodies getting lost in the mix. They twisted and spun in unison.

He moved his hands to the side of his face in deep concentration. The massive ball of Ptahs began to take shape, forming a small female foot, then an arm, then finally the shape of a woman. She was slim, her body covered in small pink roses. Then her eyes appeared—two clear-green orbs. Her hair was an undulating gold, piled high and reminiscent of the Greek monster Medusa. Addie didn’t recognize the woman. She was standing on a round platform made up of the remaining Ptahs.

Joshua opened his eyes and took in the woman standing before him. “Margie?” he whispered.

She looked at him, did a small curtsy, and waved. “It’s me, sugah.”

“How?”

“I’m always here, just waitin’ for ya. Don’t ever think I’ll leave ya.”

Joshua stepped closer to her then gave her a tight hug, which she returned. He pulled back and looked at her. “Your eyes are so real, so beautiful,” he said.

“It’s me,” she said with a giggle.

“I thought I lost you in the cave, when that boulder fell on you. I thought I’d never see you again. And then when all the voices stopped talking, it was so quiet. I just never…are you sure you’re here?”

“As much as I can be, and I’m doin’ real well too. I ain’t gettin’ chased around no more.” She put her hand on her belly, and it started to grow, pushing out until it was the size of a soccer ball. “I’ve brought you somethin’, something that’s gonna change everythin’.” She smiled as she rubbed her protruding, pregnant belly. “You know what’s in here?” She looked at him expectantly.

“I’m guessing a baby.” Joshua put his hands on her belly.

“It’s gonna be a new world, all this, ya know. I’m not all that sure I can be parta it.”

“Margie, what are you talking about? What new world?” The Ptahs rippled under his hands.