The Proving (40 page)

The image shifted, featuring a topographical scan of one section of the planet. Gentle, rolling hills. A valley filled with familiar-looking trees — maple, pine, magnolia, palm. It looked, to Seamus, like a very pleasant sort of place to start over. “New Earth was selected from a list of forty potential candidates. Once the Artemis Bow was complete, terraforming began immediately. It took years for the first robotic messages to arrive to Earth via laser signal, which gives you an idea of how far away the planet is!”

“Ugh I hate your voice!” Cleo shouted, tapping madly at her console.

“For the past forty years, more than a million bots have been carefully establishing species crucial to the biodiversity of the planet. Plants and insects came first, along with plankton for the oceans. Larger animals? Now that was a real challenge! The artificial wombs were designed —”

The screens blinked out. Cleo shouted in triumph.

“Docking,” Skye announced. The ship jolted, then stopped. A long blade of lights blinked on in the docking bay, revealing the enormity of the place. There was room for another spaceship of similar size to the Apollo, maybe two. “The doors are closing. Cleo, ping his majesty’s mother.”

“Roger that,” Cleo said. “Pinging the old lady.”

“Then what?” Ben asked. “You two can’t seriously just drop us off and go back down there. What if . . . I mean, they might need you here.”

“They need us down there,” Gabriel said.

Wei’s hand grabbed his arm. “No! Please don’t go back down there! The Specters want to kill us all!”

“I’m not giving up on this planet,” Gabriel said. “I’m sorry, little bug.” He sighed and wiped a tear from his cheek. “And I think maybe you’d be safer away from me.”

“I will come with you,” Seamus blurted out.

They all turned in their chairs to look at him.

“I . . .” He cleared his throat. What was he doing? The memories of all the dead bodies came back. They were replaced by the Sebecus Specter’s fiery red jaws closing around his head. But then something wonderful happened: a memory of the planet, looming large, hypnotizing him with swirling white clouds and endless oceans. He squeezed his eyes shut; a tear rolled down his cheek. “I do not want to abandon this planet, no matter the consequences.”

Gabriel looked over at Skye. She opened her mouth to answer — maybe to say yes, maybe to remind Seamus how little she trusted him — but before she could, a new warning light flashed on all of their consoles. The lights in the hangar shut off, blanketing the ship in a darkness without stars. In the pitch-blackness, Seamus saw only dead bodies. He grabbed the armrest of his seat.

“What’s happening?” Skye asked. She tapped on her console. “I’m locked out. Cleo!”

“It’s the Ark!” Cleo said. She scrolled furiously through three-dimensional screens, stacking them one on top of the other above her console. “Everything’s locked up. The Ark is receiving a signal from the Artemis Bow. Oh, for the love of Hades! It’s about to open a wormhole!”

“Unlock everything!” Skye shouted. She pounded her fist on the console. “Hack through the systems. Do
something
!”

Cleo’s hand flipped the holoscreen. Seamus watched and his vision seemed to blur, as if he’d spun himself around too many times and then stood still. He blinked, expecting it to wear off but instead it only got worse. Cleo put her arm down but an after-image seemed burned into Seamus’s retinas. She was saying something; the sound of her voice echoed, growing deeper, passing his ears again and again like traffic on a busy street. His stomach twisted. His lungs ached for air.

The images came at him, leaving trails. He closed his eyes, squeezing out tears. This was it. He was dying.

And then it was over. The discomfort vanished, leaving no trace. When Seamus opened his eyes, he saw everyone else looking around, just as bewildered. Red warning lights blinked on their consoles.

A memory of the last few moments played out in Seamus’s mind. He could see it all. He could feel the discomfort. He could hear Cleo’s voice traveling past him. The Historian in him tried to put the experience into words, but there were no words to describe it.

“Cleo, what happened?” Skye asked. “Don’t tell me . . .”

“Uh . . . yup. We’re
gone
.”

“No!” Gabriel shouted. He fought with his straps, unlocking them. His body floated out of the seat. He grabbed the back of the seat and pushed himself toward the hatch. His body floated too high; his legs bumped up against the glass ceiling so he kicked it, bringing himself to the door.

Seamus pushed back all of the conflicting feelings and watched, memorizing it all. Whatever feelings he had about leaving Earth, whatever emotions his body might want to express, it was clear that now his training would need to take over. Someday, this might be important. Every single event from now until his death . . . it would all need to be recorded.

Analyzed.

And perhaps hidden away.

Curse the Historians, he thought; curse them for taking the humanity from him.

“No!” Gabriel shouted, slamming his palm against the automatic locking mechanism. “We can go back! We got here, we can get back!”

“Not without an Artemis Bow,” Ben said quietly. He was looking down at the floor between his seat and Tahlia’s. Tahlia wore a confused, panicked expression. Her eyes studied Ben’s grim face with her usual curious look. “The Artemis Bow builds the wormhole. The Ark moves through it. We’re light-years from Earth.” He laughed. “What we just experienced is amazing and incredible and magnificent and sad and depressing. I can’t even process it.”

“How many people did we leave behind?” Reza asked. “Thousands?”

“
Millions
,” Gabriel answered. He was still floating, one foot pressing against the back of Reza’s seat. “She waited for us.”

“Who?” Skye asked.

“My mother. She waited until we were safely aboard. Until I was safely aboard. As if my life matters so much more than anyone else’s.”

But it does, Seamus wanted to tell him. Ben and Tahlia knew science. Skye and Cassidy knew war. Cleo and Reza knew computers. And Gabriel knew law. He knew how society functioned. Historically speaking, that value outpaced all others.

Historically speaking.

“Wait,” Cleo said. “Hold on.” She grabbed one of the three-dimensional screens and crumpled it. It evaporated in a puff of pixelated smoke. She pulled up another screen. It was a video feed, showing the circular atmosphere of their new home . . . and something else. Something floating in space, shaped like a U. “Something’s wrong. This is an image coming in from one of the Ark’s camera systems.”

Skye unbuckled, floating away from her seat. With careful hands, she more or less gracefully floated to Cleo’s seat, grabbing the back and pulling herself down. “What is it?”

“It’s an Artemis Bow,” Cleo said. “It’s a freaking
Artemis Bow
.”

It was Ben’s turn to unbuckle next. He clumsily turned, grabbing onto his seat for dear life. “That’s . . . whoa . . . that’s impossible.”

The kids unbuckled, too, floating, unable to control the smiles on their faces. Seamus wanted to smile with them. A part of him wanted to unbuckle and float across the cabin and let the experience fill him with temporary joy, the kind of happiness that humans can find in even the direst situations. But his fingers wouldn’t let go of the armrest.

Something
was
wrong. Seamus knew it. He swallowed hard.

“That’s an Artemis Bow,” Cleo said, pointing to the image on the screen. It
looked
like an Artemis Bow, floating in the space orbiting a planet that looked very much like Earth. The Artemis Bow’s exterior was slightly more rounded, its curvature lined with glossy solar panels reflecting the bright light of some nearby star. With the exception of a few emergency solar-powered lights illuminating the steel exterior, the immense object was mostly dark, nearly invisible in the void of space save for the blue lines drawn in by the Apollo’s sensors.

Seamus’s lip trembled. There would be no hiding the truth anymore.

“Cleo.” Skye licked her lips. “Can you run a scan of the planet?”

“Sure,” she said, drawing up another screen. Her fingers moved impossibly fast over the keyboard, entering an array of codes. “I can use the Ark’s wireless system to do a topography scan. It won’t be anything spectacular, but it should give us a general reading of the nearest hemisphere.”

She typed in a code. The New Adults waited, holding their breaths. The kids pushed away from each other, bouncing against the walls of the cabin. Seamus watched it all, breathing fast. All of humanity’s hard work. Thousands of years of careful Historical construction . . . and for what? It was all about to fall apart.

“Info coming back now,” Cleo said.

The three-dimensional screen began spitting out details of the planet. Ben scrolled through them, pushing his finger through the image and then wiggling his finger to get more readouts. “This . . . this isn’t New Earth. The topography is all wrong. The size is different. The gravity is weaker. The solar system is bigger. It . . . it has
cities
.”

“What do you mean,
cities
?” Skye asked.

Ben turned to her, wide eyed. “
Cities
. This planet is already inhabited.”

They all looked at Seamus. He cleared his throat. On their consoles, red warning lights continued to blink.

There would be no more hiding the truth.

TO BE CONTINUED . . .

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