The Far Dawn (22 page)

“And you have a plan for getting in . . . ,” Robard says skeptically.

“We do,” Rana replies for me.

Robard can't hide the tremor that passes over his face when she speaks. “Are you”—he seems to be summoning his courage—“an Atlantean?”

“She is,” I say, “and we'll be okay. Robard, thank you for helping me.”

“Owen . . .” Robard wraps me in a big hug that smells of dust and leather. Then he holds me at arm's length. “You're our best hope, and so brave. When this is over, we will sing your name so that all future generations remember you.”

My heart races at this, the fear, the guilt, the hollow, overwhelming feeling. If only he knew the truth. But instead I say: “If I succeed . . .”

“
When
you succeed.” Robard slaps my back and steps away. “We will watch the skies.”

The carts turn and catch a breeze, their sails humming, wheels clattering, and they shoot away and are soon lost to darkness.

“You scared them,” I say to Rana.

“Not the effect I used to enjoy having on boys,” she replies, “but, yes, making them quake in fear isn't so bad.”

We start around the edge of the sewage lake. My boots smack in the sticky mud, and I take the smallest breaths I can. The smell and the flies abate a little when we reach the concrete river, but the gurgling sound of moving sludge keeps me on the edge of vomiting.

We walk beside the river of waste for twenty minutes and finally crest a rise of land.

Before us is a skyline of wonders.

The great pyramids are a few kilometers ahead, standing silent and majestic, thousands of years old. They are lit by the curved rows of white lights on the enormous dome of EdenEast, not far beyond that. It dwarfs them in size.

The dome makes a low, constant hum, all the electricity coursing through it.

We follow the sewage a little farther, then cross a steel bridge. On the other side, we finally start away from the stench and sound.

Rana points to the tallest of a trio of pyramids. “Giza. I must show you that view.”

It takes us another hour to reach it, the pyramids slowly growing in the sky, yet the dome growing even more. Here and there, we pass piles of carved stone and the broken backs of obelisks. “There were streets here once,” says Rana. “It neared Atlante in its greatness.”

We reach the great pyramid of Giza and gaze up its immense side. “It's okay if we skip the view,” I say to Rana. My body hurts all over, already sore from the surgeries, now from the long walk on top of that.

“We can't,” says Rana, “it's lovely. Also, that is our way in.”

“Into Eden? How do you mean?”

“You shall see.”

She begins to float up the steps of rock. I start climbing, hauling myself from one level to the next.

“Of all the civilizations,” Rana says as we climb, “that slowly grew back from the destruction wrought by the Paintbrush, the Egyptians came the closest to that magic, the wonder of my world. They had help, though.”

“What does that mean?” I ask, breathless from the climb.

“I will show you.”

It is a half hour of scrambling, scraping, and slipping in the dark on the shadow side of the great pyramid. My recently repaired wrist aches by the time we finally reach the top, and the knees of my pants are shredded. Sweat stings one eye but not the other. I find Rana sitting peacefully on the weatherworn tip. I collapse beside her, breathless.

“Was that really necessary?” I ask.

“Yes. See the stars?” Instead of pointing up, she points down.

I turn and balance myself beside her, trying not to think about the long drop in all directions, and when I look ahead, still breathing hard, I do see them. A desert of stars, glittering and dancing on the ground below us.

It's the solar panels, I realize after a moment, but that doesn't lessen the effect: the rings and rings of mirrors that surround EdenEast all reflect the stars above, and it is as if we are sitting above the universe, looking down into it, or, if you position your eyes just right, like we are floating in space with stars above and below. There are moments when only the tiny focus square in my right eye reminds me that I am still on earth.

“Okay,” I say, “this is cool.”

And I realize that this is the first time since Lilly died that I have felt inspired by anything, felt any sensation at all other than a dark nothingness.

That this view is inspired by the creations of Eden, of Paul, means something I can barely fathom. The solar-panel sea of space is as wonderful as any of the glimpses of beauty I have had on this journey. And it is made wonderful, too, by the presence of Rana because she thinks it beautiful, which also means something. I feel suddenly terrified that I have been in danger of losing what it is to be alive. And—oh no, oh no—I feel something certain now in the way my heart is racing, not just from the climb anymore.

“Tell me,” says Rana.

“Tell you what?”

“Why you're shaking.”

“It's cold,” I say. “And this is a good view.”

“Don't lie to me,” says Rana. “We agreed I would be the only one you didn't lie to.”

I nod. “Okay. I just realized how much I don't want to die.”

“Of course not.”

“But I might. I just spent two days planning for it.”

Because this is the reason why Robard and the Nomads helped prepare me to get inside EdenEast, to infiltrate the selectees . . . so that I can get to Paul and the Terra, and then . . .

There will be no way to get the Terra off
Egress
. But the cube itself is indestructible. And a space station is not.

We can return the Terra to the earth by bringing the station down.

The scar on my thigh: an untraceable oxygen detonator, stitched into the muscle. It is only a few centimeters long. Space stations are fragile things. And the bomb, despite its size, is extremely powerful.

The plan does not go further than that, because it does not need to.

The plan does not include survival. Rana has known of such plans.

There is no other way. The earth is dying. And the more that chaos reigns, the more distracted the nations get. And no one knows the truth. It is up to me.

A martyr. A hero. That is what I would be to them. But inside all I feel is terrified and empty. That is not why I am doing what I am doing.

“Robard says they'll write songs about me,” I say.

“I had a song written about me, once,” says Rana, “by a Germanic druid mystic. It was unbearable.”

I laugh, but the feeling gets worse, this tightness. I do not want to die, I do not want songs written about me, I don't even want to save the planet or anything. There is nothing for me here, I don't care, I barely want to exist, and I know these are all contradictions. . . .

I feel the tears welling up on one side, and a strange blocked pressure on the other. The bionic eye does not register emotion. It's made to be more efficient than that. I squeeze at the skin on the inside of my eye socket and a squirt of fluid shoots out. Oh, what have I become . . .

“I promised myself I wouldn't feel these things anymore,” I say to Rana. “Wouldn't
feel
anymore.” The tears come harder now.

“I know you did,” says Rana.

“I don't want grief, I don't want sorrow, I don't want Elissa or my family or my dead friends. I just want . . .”

I just want . . .

Rana slides her hand inside my shoulder, her fingers mingling with my muscles and bone, and rubs. The buzzing sensation soothes me. “It's going to be okay.”

“How is that possible?”

“Because we have a plan,” Rana says. “And it's time to go.”

And then she sinks into the stone we are sitting on.

I look around, and nearly lose my balance as I try to find her, but her light is gone.

Then the stones begin to rumble, and a section of the stone grinds open in a cloud of dust. As a rectangle of darkness opens up, a thick metal ring rises from the side of the opening.

Rana floats up out of it. “This way.”

20

I LOOK FROM THE RING TO THE DOOR. “THIS wasn't the normal entrance. That ring would be for tying off a ship.”

“Yes. Now, let's go. The stairs have crumbled in spots, so watch your step.”

I start down the stairs, and Rana turns a copper wheel that makes the ring lower and the door rumble closed. We descend by her pale light, a steep staircase in a passage so narrow I have to turn my shoulders and duck my head to fit. Down and down we go, the staircase making hairpin turns. The air is dank and close and chalky, and I am sure we have descended as far as the actual pyramid's height, but we keep going down farther and farther. The air begins to cool, to feel like underground.

“Shouldn't there be pharaohs' tombs?” I ask.

“We are well below those now. They came much later. This tunnel was built during the original construction. A temple before the pyramid. Long before.”

The lower we go, the better condition the stairs are in, and the hall begins to widen, too. Finally, it flattens and the passage opens into a vast darkness. Rana moves her hand to the wall and illuminates a line of torches in copper sleeves. Below these are holes in the stone. There is a sharp smell of oil. I pull one of the torches from its holder and slip the top, a bundle of tightly strapped reeds, into the hole. It emerges soaked. Rana claps her hands near it, and a spark ignites the torch in greenish-gold light.

We cross a polished marble floor. My torch begins to illuminate the bases of thick columns on either side and in front of us, looming shapes. Giant, arcing sweeps of wood and copper. The hulls of ships, Atlantean ships perched on heavy wooden stands with enormous stone wheels. We pass one, two, and by the fifth I realize this is a fleet, a fleet of Atlantean transport ships that would have held hundreds of people.

“The biggest groups of Atlantean refugees settled here,” says Rana, “in what would later grow into Memphis, the first of the major ancient Egyptian cities.”

“So, these ships were used to build the pyramids,” I say.

“How else could they build something so tall?” Rana asks.

“People in my time think it was aliens.”

Rana points ahead. “Beyond these ships there are passages. Paul and the Eden archaeological teams discovered these not long after finding Polara and our bodies. They also found a great map room in this complex. That unlocked the location of the other major Atlantean sites around the globe, and allowed them to begin their search for the Three.”

“Why didn't they just go straight to Atlante and search for the Paintbrush?” I ask.

“Our people made sure to erase the location of Atlante from the collection. The city had been destroyed and covered in ice anyway, so navigators of the era didn't include it in their maps.”

We are passing under the largest craft yet. Its belly is flat, different from all the rest in that it is coated in small squares. I reach up and run my fingers over them. They are smooth and look like ceramic, like perfectly glazed pottery.

“This is different,” I say. The tiles have burn marks here and there. Scorched sections as if they have encountered incredible fires.

“Wait,” Rana hisses. I stop, and I hear it, too. A faint, clanking sound. Once . . .

Now again.

Rana gazes up at the tiled ship. The sound reverberates through the hall. And now a twisting of metal.

A flicker of white light.

“I should have known,” says Rana.

“Known what?” I ask.

She doesn't answer and I follow her as she floats under the ship, toward its front. A copper ladder hangs down near the bow. I climb up, Rana floating beside me, and find a heavy metal door, half-open. The whole ship is made of copper plates, the seams hammered together. It looks as much like an old submarine as an Atlantean craft. There are no spots for masts on its oblong body. Unlike any other ship we've seen, this one seems to be enclosed, the aeronaut's controls somewhere inside. The copper has black burn marks, too.

And there is something inside. A flickering light, weak, like a flashlight or . . .

Rana slides through the door.

I follow and step into the low-ceilinged compartment, its walls lined with thin girders. The floor is made of panels of hammered bronze, and there are rows of high-backed wooden chairs. It looks like an ancient airliner, except each chair has a crystal globe suspended above it. The globes are half-open as if they were supposed to be helmets. Fabric tubes run from their tops into the floor.

Rana stands in a doorway at the front of this cabin. I step quietly to join her.

I find myself looking into a cockpit, strung with ropes and levers, encased within a half-sphere crystal windshield, with two chairs that each face pedal rudders and copper wheels.

Someone is sitting in one of the chairs, glowing deathly white.

Rana makes her crack-in-the-door sigh.

“Lük,” she says.

The boy looks up with hollow black eyes. He, too, wears white and flickers as if his skin is just a light overlay on his bones. “Rana.” Their voices are a match of sad, hollow tones.

He looks me up and down, his face expressionless, and I wonder if he feels like I did when I saw him in the skull, if he thinks we look familiar. But after a moment, he only turns back to what he was doing.

He holds a modern-looking wrench and is tightening what is also a modern-looking bolt on the wheel in front of him.

“Is this where you have been,” Rana asks, “all these years?” She sounds as sad as she has ever sounded.

Lük twists at the bolt. “Do you know what they were trying to do here?” he asks, his voice thin and windy. “The last descendants of the masters, who remembered the old ways?”

I look back at the chairs and consider the ship we flew to Antarctica. I look at the helmets, remember the burn marks on the bottom tiles. . . .