The Far Dawn (14 page)

“When was the last time you saw Lük?” I asked her.

“In ancient Egypt. We had made our way to Sumeria after the fall. We lingered there for many centuries, but it was never the same. We couldn't touch, and we were no longer whole, a part of us lost to the skulls. And people began to fear us, not just because we were spirits but also I think because we were reminders of some memory they had lost, that they knew was back there in the past somewhere, some better sense of the world. They maybe even felt a sense of guilt over losing the Terra.

“They called us
gidim
, or shades,” said Rana. “We drifted through Egypt, during the earliest dynasties, and I briefly became a sort of psychic guide to a daughter of Pharaoh Khufu. But they turned on me. They always turned on us. After that, I retreated to darkness. And I lost Lük, somewhere in that time.”

“I met him,” I said, “in his skull.”

Rana turned toward me. “And did you see the great city of Polara before it was lost to the ice?”

“I did. It was amazing.”

“Such a place could only exist in the Terra's music. The majesty, the magic . . . This world has been dead a long, long time.” She sighed. “You don't still have it?”

“Lük's skull? No, it smashed on the journey. I'm sorry.”

“It's just as well,” said Rana. “Better not to be reminded of things that can never be again.”

I wondered if freeing the Terra could bring that magic back into the world. I didn't think Rana was necessarily right that the world was dead, but it was definitely out of balance. People in my time thought it had been that way for a couple hundred years or so, since the rise of industry and technology, but the truth was that humanity had been out of balance for much longer.

Night passed and we followed the long spine of the Andes south until they became a tail of jagged islands. Then we crossed over an ocean. The sun began to rise, its light catching the whitecaps of the stormy sea, and painting, in the distance, the brilliant whites of the last place on this earth where ice still ruled.

The great Antarctic continent gathered dawn light, nearly blinding us. The ice had long since pulled back from its shores, revealing a rocky black coastline, but behind its collars of mountains there was still more ice than any Great Rise could melt.

“Follow the coast,” said Rana, pointing. “See those mountains just inland? Behind them used to be the great valley that led to the Jaws of Sinassa.”

“Is that the cave with the icicles and the tunnels down to the Heart of the Terra?” I asked.

“Yes, but the world has changed since then. I do not know what we will find now.”

I brought us down along the black coast as the sun cleared the horizon. The oceans were blue here, bluer than I'd ever seen. There was none of the pollution like around the other continents, the oil slicks, gyres of garbage, and brown clouds of plastic sludge. There was the occasional boat carcass, at one point a cruise ship lying belly-up, and some piles of wood that had drifted here from the washed-away cities, but there were also stretches of unspoiled beach; and at one point, we even spotted the gray backs of whales. No one up north still believed in whales, and it made me wonder if Rana was wrong. Maybe there still was a future as magical as the past, maybe it was still here, hiding just out of our sight—

Owen. They've found me . . .

My head exploded with a white noise as the Terra's voice twisted into a scream. It sounded like a cry of pain but electric like sawing and also like Lilly's singing. All of that at once. She was hurting. . . .

“Repeat!” A voice interrupted my thoughts. “Proceed on your current course and bring your craft down.”

“We have guests,” said Rana.

I blinked tears out of my eyes and looked out to see that we were no longer alone in the sky. There were aircraft on either side of us, sleek metallic arrows with short wings and high tails. Their bellies were hung with missiles. They had no cockpits but spikes of antennae instead. Drone fighters. And they had markings on their sides, showing red-and-white stars and three letters: ACF.

“Lower your craft immediately or we will be forced to shoot you from the sky.” The drones weren't the source of the voice, though.

Ahead, I saw two giant helicopters rising over a ridge near the coast. They faced us like predators waiting to pounce.

I wondered if I could outrun them. Probably. But they were right where we needed to get to. And that screaming . . . the Terra needed us.

A sharp series of cracks sounded, followed by the popping of fabric. I caught sight of the sails flapping with new bullet holes, as a gun mount on the port-side drone swiveled to take more shots.

“Would you like me to destroy them?” Rana asked, sounding like she'd enjoy it.

“This is General Mendes,” a new voice spoke. “I'm leading this operation. Your name is Owen, Owen Parker. We know who you are and we're after the same thing. Land your craft and we can proceed together. Otherwise, we're on a mission to apprehend an enemy of the state and I cannot let you interfere.”

I stared at the rhythmic flicking of the helicopter blades. My feet flexed over the pedals. There wasn't time for this. Lilly . . .

“Bring her down, son,” Mendes called. “We're not the enemy here, and neither are you.”

The urge to run was so strong . . . but I let the pedals up and adjusted the sails to luff in the wind. I wondered if this general could be trusted. Every adult we'd put our faith in on this journey had let us down, but I couldn't save Lilly or the Terra if I was dead. I didn't know what other choice we had.

I dropped low over coastal cliffs and headed toward the ridge where the helicopters waited.

“Look,” said Rana. She pointed to a high bluff of rock. “The great beacon of Atlante.”

A half-crumbled tower stood at the edge of black cliffs. It had square sides that narrowed like an obelisk. Most of one side was eaten away. It rose to a crumbled pile, with one finger of wall still sticking skyward.

“It held the eternal light of Atlante, to guide all sailors home from the skies.” Rana sighed. “This was once the first island of the archipelago.”

I flew over the tower ruins and beneath the helicopters. On the other side of the ridge, I found a triangular delta, where a river of milky glacial water crossed black sand and met the dark blue ocean. Here and there, fallen buildings and stone walls stuck up from the gray river silt. The far wall of the valley was crisscrossed by crumbled staircases. The ruins of Atlante.

Three large ships were beached on the delta's edge. The ACF used hovercraft destroyers, as few normal boats could navigate the trash-filled oceans with any speed. Better to skim over it. Each hovercraft had a helipad on the back. A third copter hovered over the far side of the delta. Troops were streaming off the boats, as if they'd just arrived, their boots splashing in the water and digging into the black sand.

I landed beside the river. A cold breeze washed over us. It was still winter, down here at the navel of the world, and this was maybe the only place left where the word
winter
had any real meaning. This was the coldest air I'd ever felt.

By the time I'd pulled the lever to lower the sails, and the other that opened the crystal windshield, soldiers had surrounded us, rifles raised. I could see them eyeing Rana uncertainly.

“What is she?” General Mendes stepped through the line. He was older, his mostly bald head peppered here and there with silver hair. His face was weathered, his nose tinted with NoRad. His barrel chest stretched his silver-and-white fatigues. The soldiers all wore a similar fabric, the sun blinding as it reflected off them.

I glanced at Rana, now transparent in the faint sunlight. “She's a shade,” I said. That likely wouldn't make much sense to them.

“Atlantean?” asked Mendes, as if the concept didn't faze him.

“Yes.”

“So she's, what, a ghost or a memory or something?”

“Basically.” I heard murmuring among the soldiers and felt like I should add: “She's a friend. I know it sounds strange . . .”

“Strange? All of this is strange.” Mendes spoke over a stiff breeze tinged with salt. “More like impossible. But, it doesn't really matter what's possible or not. I've seen enough to know that you trust your eyes, not what you want to believe. But you're sure she can be trusted?”

“As long as you are kind to him,” Rana answered.

Mendes squinted at her for a second. “Fair enough.” He motioned for us to come down. “We need to get moving, so . . .” He turned and stalked off without finishing.

I climbed slowly down the side of the craft. Rana joined me, the black bag with Lilly's skull over her shoulder. The soldiers flanked us, but not too close.

The helicopters were landing farther up the beach, where the delta stretched back into a valley with steep black mountain walls. I could see ice shrouded in the cliff folds, deep in the shadows where the valley twisted out of sight.

Soldiers were in motion everywhere. A unit had gathered at the entrance to the valley. Others were massing around the helicopters. I was guided to General Mendes as he stood with other officers and looked over a computer pad.

“Okay,” he said to them. “Send the scout team in.” There were shouts, and the soldiers by the valley entrance formed two tight lines and began jogging along the edge of the gray river. “We want to preserve some element of surprise,” Mendes continued. “High altitude surveillance shows the Eden team is up that valley, but the walls and the ice get real tight, according to the recon.”

“Here's more data, sir, from the silent drones' pass.” A soldier tapped his pad.

Mendes swiped at images, then held the pad out for all of us to see. “Looks like this is where we're headed.”

This was a view deep into the valley, where the rocky sides ended at a solid wall of blue ice with a narrow fissure down the center.

“Looks like the heat signatures are about a kilometer into that ice fissure. That's where our mark is.” Mendes sighed. “Copters aren't going to fit in there. Drones burn too hot for that ice. Reaching them on foot is going to be tough, too.”

I found myself measuring the fissure in my mind, and imagining Lilly in there in Paul's clutches, forced to place her hand on the Paintbrush's spikes.

“I can fly us in.” The words were out of my mouth before I'd even realized I was thinking it.

Mendes looked at me evenly, no surprise. He glanced over my shoulder. “You want to take our team in on your ancient flying machine, there?”

The circle of tall military officers gazed down at me, unconvinced. I felt a rush of nerves, but looked back at the ice canyon. “I can fly that.”

The officers looked expectantly to Mendes.

He smiled. “From what I've heard, son, I'll take my chances with you. You're one of these . . . Three, I understand?”

I almost said no, and then I worried that Rana might, but she stayed silent and I realized that I didn't need to reveal my true nature. “Yes,” I said. “I'm the Aeronaut.”

Mendes nodded. “Surveillance drones caught your escape act in the Rockies. Damn fine flying. We can probably fit ten men on your craft there. Corporal . . .”

A soldier stepped forward. “Yes, sir.”

“Get platoons formed for everyone else. Have the helicopters set up a distant perimeter, so as not to draw attention. Send our best ten commandos over to me at that ship and—”

“General . . .” Another thought was escaping my mouth before I could stop it, and I thought about how I never used to act this way around adults, never used to speak up, but then again, a lot had changed in a few weeks. “Your goal is to take out the Eden team?”

“Affirmative.”

“And what about Paul?”

Mendes smiled. “He's dead or alive for us, though alive would be preferable. We'd love to get him in front of a tribunal. Why, what's your goal?”

“Same, but . . . there's a girl,” I said, expecting someone to laugh, “part of the group in there. She's a hostage, another one of the Three, she—”

“Lilly Ishani,” said Mendes, reading off his pad. “Resident of EdenWest and noted murder suspect.”

“She didn't—”

“We're not worried about those charges,” said Mendes. “The real murderer is Mr. Jacobsen. He committed an act of war against the ACF by attacking our Cheyenne Depot, not to mention stealing critical supplies. And I have no doubt the list of his crimes is more lengthy than I know. Anyway, don't worry, the hostages' lives will be of paramount importance to us. Now, let's go, men. Make it happen.”

Mendes stepped through the group and put an arm on my shoulder, turning me back toward the craft. “You were in Desenna, I understand?”

“Yes.”

“Northern Federation humanitarian team is there now. Some kind of horror show, as I understand it . . . Cryos brought back to life as killing machines, missile strikes that killed scores. Like that place wasn't bloody enough . . .”

The memories surfaced as he spoke. I realized how hard I'd been trying not to think about all of it. “Yeah.”

“I'm sorry you had to see that,” said Mendes.

Elissa and I used to wish on rocks thrown into the cracks. Cracks in the seams of Hub that we were sure led straight to the center of the earth.

Carey jumping off the cenote ledges.

Seven never counting to three . . .

I tried to focus. “Me, too,” I said.

I led the way up the ladder of the Atlantean craft. The commandos followed, packing onto the deck until there was barely space to move. Rana hovered beside me by the wheel.

“All our evidence points to Eden being after some kind of weapon,” Mendes continued, “the Paintbrush of Gods, we've heard it called.”