Shades of Earth (17 page)

29:
AMY

Once inside, my first instinct
is to reach for the lights, and even though my hand touches the wall where a light switch would normally be, my fingers find nothing, slipping over the smooth paint. Of course not. Stupid of me to think that. Whoever built this might not have electricity like we do. . . . Still, they have something. As soon as Elder closes the door behind us, a small panel opens up in the ceiling, exposing a softly glowing square—something like an automatic, flat lightbulb that brightens the room as efficiently as a fluorescent bulb—but with no hum of electricity or power. I blink in the unnaturally bright light.

“Do you really think Dad knew all this was here?” I ask in a hushed voice. Elder doesn't answer. He doesn't need to. Of course Dad knew about this building, the whole compound. Otherwise, what reason would he have had to stop us from coming here?

A flag hangs over the door. Two white circles, one larger than the other, are sewn into a field of sky blue. The larger circle is slightly off center, and the smaller one is just to the right, below it. I've never seen a flag with this design before.

“Look,” Elder breathes.

And there, engraved on a plaque at the top of the control panel in the little building, is a symbol we both recognize.

“This was made by the FRX,” I say, forgetting to whisper.

Elder leans over, inspecting it. He reads the tiny words engraved below the symbol. “On this site was discovered the first probe sent by the first interstellar mission from Earth in 2310 CE, providing the information needed to develop the first successful extra-solar colony,
Explorer
, 2327 CE,” Elder reads. “This plaque is a memorial to those lost on
Godspeed
. 2036–2336 CE.”

“They think we died out,” I say.

I point to the end date—2336. That's when
Godspeed
was supposed to land.

But we didn't land.

“They found the probe,” Elder says in a low voice. “But not
us.
”

I think about the grav tube and the floppies on the ship—technology made while I slept. “Technology increases at an exponential rate,” I say. “My grandparents paid thousands of dollars for a computer that was bigger than my television and had a fraction of the memory space of my freaking cell phone.” I'm babbling, but I can't seem to keep my voice under control. “My grandparents used CDs to listen to music instead of downloading it, my great-grandparents used tapes, my great-great-grandparents used records.”

Elder's eyes are wide and scared; he's getting what I'm trying to say. “The first airplane was made at the start of the 1900s; the first man landed on the moon in the 1950s.”

I gulp. “In 2029, my grandmother took a vacation on the lunar resort, and by 2036, my parents and I were packed in ice and thrown across the universe.”

Technology moves faster and faster and faster.

I look around this very modern, very well-kept communication bay.

We weren't the first colony from Earth to land here.

“We were late to our own landing,” Elder says hollowly. He touches a small blinking light under the plaque. “A homing device. The same kind on the probes. This is why the shuttle landed here.”

Right in the middle of a world that's already outpaced us.

The first probe was sent twenty years before
Godspeed
landed. The FRX must have liked the data it relayed and sent a faster ship to colonize before we arrived. The ruins are the perfect size for humans not because there were creatures born on Centauri-Earth that coincidentally were the same size and had the same needs as us . . . it's because
humans made the ruins
. The first colony—the real first colony, the colony that landed before us—settled there.

It happened so long ago that now the buildings are derelict and abandoned.

And in the meantime? The first colony progressed to a high-tech modern society, leaving the dusty buildings behind.

I shouldn't be surprised. It's not like they quit designing ships and rockets just because
Godspeed
left. They'd developed something better by then, and when they looked at the probe information and realized that there was something here they wanted, they sent another colony.

Why wait for us to land when this planet has resources Earth could use?

“Our whole mission . . . it was pointless,” I say. “Everything we've done, everything we've sacrificed—it was all for nothing. Earth already conquered this planet. They came, they saw, they left. And now we're here. Alone. This whole damn thing was for
nothing!
” I spit the word out. “What a stupid, pointless mission. Of
course
a faster ship was invented in the centuries while we traveled. Five hundred years before the ship launched? That was freaking Shakespearean times! We're as ancient to Earth now as effing
Shakespeare!
Our ship is the equivalent of a
horse-drawn carriage!
”

Elder grabs my hands, and it's only then that I realize I've been waving them about maniacally.

“They couldn't communicate with us,” I say. “Communication links were broken before the ship even got here. They probably saw us arrive, but since they couldn't talk to us and we never landed, they must have thought we were all dead.” I'm crying now. I don't know why, but I'm crying. “If you're silent for five hundred years, they think you're dead.” Even if we're not.

I remember then, as vividly as if I'd just woken up, the feeling of being frozen. My mind had blocked the memories as effectively as if they'd been nothing but dreams, but now, here, under a sky with stars that sparkle like eyes, all I can think about is how it felt to be frozen in ice, alive but immobile. I think about the silence of it, the way nothing could touch me. I think about how trapped it felt to be aware but unable to move so much as an eyelash.

I think about how all of
that
was worth nothing.

For the first time since leaving the ship, I feel trapped.

“The question we need to be asking ourselves is, where are they now?” Elder says. He looks through the windows as if expecting to see a modern city on the other side of the glass. “If there were people from a colony,” he continues slowly, thinking aloud, “they would have tried to contact us. They had to have seen us land, this close to the compound. If they're human, if they made this plaque”—he points to the memorial embedded above the communication bay—“they would want to help us.”

But no one's come.

30:
ELDER

Amy is white—not pale,
but
white
. “Are you okay?” I ask.

“My dad,” Amy whispers.

I stop dead, waiting for her to continue.

“He knew. He's kept all of this from us. The original colony. This compound. This is what he was trying to hide from you. From all of us.” She takes a deep, shaky breath. “From me.”

I don't know what to say to her. She's right—she can see for herself that her father's been hiding the truth from her.

“Why?” she chokes out.

I step in front of her, capturing her wandering gaze. “I don't know. He must have had a reason.”

She looks at me bitterly. “Orion had a reason. Eldest had a reason.”

“Colonel Martin is a lot of things, but he's not Orion or Eldest.” As I say the words, I know that I don't believe them, not entirely. He's proven already that he's willing to coerce us with lies and hidden truths.

Amy spins away from me, the red curtain of her hair hiding her face. “Do you think the colony that came before us—did the pteros kill them off?”

“There's more than just pteros out here,” I say, thinking of the mysterious animal tracks I found near the shuttle and the crystal scale Colonel Martin took from me.

“There was gen mod material in Dr. Gupta's blood,” Amy says. “Maybe the first colony somehow used the formula here on Centauri-Earth. Maybe that's where pteros came from. Maybe they engineered their own destruction.” She makes a strangled noise, and I realize she's holding back tears. “We're alone,” she says in almost a whisper. “The colony that came before—whatever happened, they died out. Just like we're going to.”

“We won't—”

“We
will!
” The words rip from her throat. She whirls around to face me, and I see the raw panic in her eyes.

“Amy,” I say, waiting for her to meet my eyes. “I would never—
never
—let something happen to you. You know that, right?”

She hesitates before she nods.

She looks so fragile in this moment that it breaks my heart. We both know that I won't be able to protect her from everything.

But I'll do all I can, no matter what the cost.

“Amy,” I say, searching her eyes. “I lo—”

She slams her lips against mine, cutting my words off. I try to put the words she won't let me say into my kiss. Her arms snake around my neck, pulling me closer to her. There's a sort of desperation to our kiss, a hunger, one that neither of us may ever be able to satiate.

I'm not stupid.

Even as my thoughts evaporate in the flames of our kiss, I am aware that she wouldn't let me say the words I meant to say and that she has yet to say them in return.

But I don't care.

Because we can say them or not; it doesn't matter. What is in our hearts is real whether we name it or let it exist only in darkness and silence.

* * *

A long time later,
we break apart. Color has returned to Amy's cheeks, and her hands aren't trembling anymore.

“We're going to make it,” I say, hoping my words reaffirm the idea within her.

She clenches her jaw and nods.

I inspect the control panel under the plaque with the double-winged symbol of the FRX. “This is definitely a communication bay,” I say. “It isn't that different from the com links we used on
Godspeed
.”

Of course it isn't. They were both developed by the FRX.

Amy follows my gaze. “Do you think we could contact the ship? Maybe we can get someone to help us figure out the
Little Prince
clue.”

I shake my head. Even if there were a way to hail
Godspeed
, I'd have to tap directly into the wi-coms—any other type of communication system was destroyed with the Bridge. I glance at Amy. Her eyes are shiny, as if reaching the ship is her last hope. I turn back to the com bay; it isn't that different from the ship's . . . it wouldn't hurt to try.

I pull up a hard, straight-backed chair standing against the wall and sit in front of the control panel, trying to figure out what the controls are and how they're used. I recognize some—this dial searches for a signal, this one adjusts the output. But there are others—a knob labeled
ANSIBLE
, a gauge with a rapidly moving needle—that mean nothing to me.

Amy sits down beside me. A touch screen lights up in front of her, displaying a menu of options. Maybe the old technology is mixed with the new. Amy slides her finger over the screen, then pauses, hovering over one word.

Intercepted.

She glances at me. This doesn't bode well.

Amy presses the word, and the screen goes black with only a small red line labeled
frequency visualizer
on the top and a yellow line labeled
volume visualizer
on the bottom. As sound fills the communication room, the lines bounce up and down in a graphic sequencing of the words. In the center, typed words transcribe the audio message.

 

Congratulations, Godspeed! You have safely arrived at your final destination, the planet circling the binary Centauri system.

 

“I know what this is,” I say, my stomach sinking.

“We're communicating with Earth!” Amy cries, excited, leaning forward as the message continues.

 

We are excited to inform you that the probes sent prior to the ship's landing have indicated not only a habitable world, but profitable environmental resources as well!

 

Amy turns to me, eyes gleaming with excitement.

Until she sees the look on my face.

 

At the time of your landing, a signal was relayed directly to the Financial Resource Exchange. Rest assured that even now, the FRX is preparing a shuttle filled with aid and supplies for your colony.

 

“Earth is coming!” Amy insists, still clinging to her newfound hope. “Earth will come help us out!”

“No, it's not.”

“What are you talking about? They just said—”

“Amy, what was this message labeled as?” I ask.

She frowns. “Intercepted.”

My finger slides across the touch screen, and the message starts over again.

 

Congratulations, Godspeed! You have safely arrived at your final destination, the planet circling the binary Centauri system.

“But . . . ” Amy says.

“It's a recorded message.” I feel sick. I heard this message when Colonel Martin typed in his authorization code on the control panel on the bridge. We both thought it was a live communication from Earth that had just gotten cut off. But it was nothing but a recording—a copy of a message being sent to us from
here
.

I scan forward in the message. In the recording Colonel Martin and I heard, the words were cut off before any details about whatever is threatening our existence were told. This message cuts off too, at exactly the same spot it crackled and died before.

I wonder if this even came from Sol-Earth originally or if it is all a part of some elaborate ruse.

“Who would do this?” Amy asks, disgusted. Her eyes widen. “Not . . . not Dad?”

I shake my head. I saw Colonel Martin's face when we heard the message on the bridge. “That message came moments after he woke up,” I add. “He couldn't possibly have coordinated this.”

I flick the touch screen back to the list of messages.
Intercepted
has only the message from Sol-Earth. Others are marked
Trade Negotiations
,
Labor Details
,
Manufacturing Specifications
,
Surveillance
—and each of these has several messages listed under each label, all marked by a series of numbers that I can't find any sort of pattern to.

I flick the touch screen back again and see a label marked
Live Feed
. I nudge Amy and point to the label. “Live feed of what?” she asks.

“Maybe the people who made this compound?”

I press down on the label. A submenu pops up showing a list of random topics:
agricultural
,
medical
,
community
,
maintenance
,
engine
,
control
.

Amy looks at me quizzically. These labels don't make sense. I touch the last one:
control
. The screen turns black, flashes
ERROR
, and then returns to the submenu. I shrug and touch the first label,
agricultural
.

This time the screen doesn't fade to black. Instead, it shows a rolling landscape. Perfectly even, structured grassy hills. Measured fields of grain, corn, beans. A manufactured agricultural landscape dotted with genetically engineered cows and sheep, all under a metal sky painted blue.

I touch the screen, and the image disappears, replaced by the submenu.

“Elder, that was—” Amy can't say the word.

Godspeed.

That was
Godspeed
. The labels on the submenu make sense now. I tap them quickly.
Medical
shows the Hospital from the outside, a camera angled near the statue of the Plague Eldest.
Community
is the City.
Maintenance
is the Shipper Level;
engine
shows the lead-cooled fast reactor that fueled
Godspeed
.
Control
is nothing but a blank screen because it must have been a live video feed of the Bridge, and there is no more Bridge. Doc blew it up.

“They were watching us,” I say, horror creeping into my voice. “They were watching us all along.”

“
Who
was watching us?” Amy asks.

I don't know. Whoever built this compound. The first colony—or whatever it is that wiped out the first colony, the thing that is
not
human, that the biometric lock on this building intended to keep out.

I click back on
community
. The City is not how I remembered it. The streets are crowded, dirty. The people—my people, the ones I left behind, the ones who stayed with Bartie—have a sort of desperation clinging to them. Some of them move too fast, rushing from one place to another as if their lives depended on it. Others don't move at all. They slump against the buildings. They have given up.

“Something's wrong,” I say. I want to reach through the screen and help them, but as soon as my fingers touch the glass, the screen fades back to the submenu.

Amy puts a hand on my arm. I think she wants to pull me away from the monitor. After all, what can I do? I'm here, and they're far above me, orbiting around the planet. I can't reach them. I can't save them.

I have failed them.

I touch the
maintenance
label to see the Shipper Level. The doors to all the different offices and labs are open, but no one's there. Is it night? No, it can't be . . . the City was lit by the solar lamp. Why are there no Shippers on this level? I go back and touch
engine
. The engine room is empty as well. The camera angle is positioned so that I can see both the engine and, behind it, the massive seal-lock doors that hide the remains of the Bridge. The doors are locked. I try to look at the small screens on the control panel behind the engine—from what I can see, everything seems to be operational.

Why is no one on this level, though?

Then I see the flashing red light on the engine itself. It's massive, but the camera angle blocks most of the red glow. My mouth goes dry. I know what that glow means. The entire Shipper Level must be engulfed in a deafening alarm.

Warning us that the engine is going into meltdown.

I look closer. I can't zoom in, but I strain my eyes to see through the pixels, to understand what's happened. Amy leans forward too, her red hair sweeping across the screen before she brushes it back over her shoulder.

When Doc blew up the Bridge, the engine was exposed to space and the rapid decompression made by the vacuum sucking everything through the hole where the Bridge had been. The engine was built to last, but it was already old. It would have been easy for it to be damaged then—especially since, immediately after the Bridge's explosion, I left with the shuttle. No one did work in those days, no one bothered to check on the engine. It could have been quietly malfunctioning the entire time. Some of the Shippers inspected the engine before I left, but how thorough were they? What if they missed something?

If the engine dies,
Godspeed
dies.

It's as simple as that.

I move to close the screen. I don't want to see this; I don't want to live with this guilt.

I left my people to die.

The thought makes my hand twitch and, by accident, I bring up the video feed of the Hospital. I move to turn it off, but Amy grabs my hand. “Wait,” she says, staring at the screen.

I turn away from it. I don't need the concrete face of the original Eldest mocking me.

“A robe of stars . . . ” Amy whispers. She tugs on my arm. “What's the man in the statue wearing?” she asks.

I don't need to look at it to answer her. “It's the Eldest Robe.”

Amy looks confused, and I remember—she's never seen it. I wore it once, when I announced the planet to the ship, but Amy wasn't there. She was afraid of the crowd, and rightly so.

“It's a heavy wool robe that the Eldest wears on special occasions,” I say. I can picture it in my mind: the surface of the planet embroidered on the hem of the robe and stars stitched on the shoulders.

Stars stitched on the shoulders.

“Elder,
The Little Prince
!” Amy says, excited. “Remember? The illustration showed a king—the Eldest is like a king, isn't he?—and Orion marked the heart of the robe—a robe with stars on it.”