Children of a Dead Earth Book One (20 page)

Right now, his mood was pretty dark.

For days, he'd been getting jerked around by his superiors, but worse still, his own instincts had led him straight into a dead end. Now instead of hauling in a killer, he'd given someone worse the time they needed to make a go at genocide. A fact that was sure to be pointed out once the sabotage was discovered, however long that took.

Benson held no doubts that it had been sabotage. He could almost believe either the capacitor damage, or the reactor failure individually, but both? Someone wanted to turn out the lights permanently. But why? If this Mao was the anti-establishment revolutionary Benson suspected he was, what was the motive for destroying the power grid? If Hekekia's jerry-rigged solution failed, everyone would be dead in a matter of days as the O
₂
ran out.

Hardly a great plan for launching a revolt. Acts of terrorism needed someone left to terrorize into doing what you wanted. Unless they miscalculated? Maybe they didn't realize how much capacitor charge it took to restart a reactor.

Benson pondered the possibility as he moved deeper into the forest of pipes and ducts, holding the hand torch high over his head, trying to be as conspicuous as possible. It seemed improbable. Anyone with enough engineering knowledge, or access to said knowledge, to knock out both systems without being discovered would surely know to keep enough charge in reserve.

Unless that was the point? Maybe they'd gamed out the entire scenario and expected someone to come up with the habitat plan. Maybe someone had even been in place to help it along. Mao's people, if indeed that's who it was, were still being helped by someone among the crew, Benson was absolutely certain of that. He'd just been wrong about who. What about that ensign who had suggested the plan? Had she planted the idea purposefully? She certainly seemed nervous. Damn, what was her name?

But why stop the habitats? A show of force? No demands had been made, no threats. If anything, they'd played their hand. As soon as power was back up and the sabotage was confirmed, every man and woman who could be spared would be hunting for them. It might take from now until the Flip to search all the basement levels, but with enough manpower, they would be driven, cornered, and found.

Which brought Benson back to genocide. The attack only made complete sense if it had been a deliberate attempt to kill everyone aboard and turn the Ark into humanity's tomb. But why in the name of God would anyone want to do that? And if they had, how long before they tried again?

It was the question that had brought him back down here in search of Kimura, hoping the old kook would have new insights to share. But he'd been wandering around far longer already than he had the first time.

“Hello?” His voice echoed around a few times before dying away. No one answered.

“It's Benson!” he shouted. “I've come back to barter. I have hand torches and information to share.”

Nothing.

“Lefty? Mei? Kimura? C'mon, it's important.”

Silence. Benson headed off in the direction he thought their camp was located, but after a half hour he was on the verge of giving up and returning to the lift. Just as he turned to leave, a faint whiff of ammonia bit at his nose. He sniffed again and walked around, trying to get a bearing on the source of the smell. He followed the trail until he spotted one of the mushroom racks. It was completely empty. Someone had pulled up every last white head and shitake, leaving only disturbed soil behind.

The rest of the camp was similarly abandoned. Even the altar of skulls had been emptied. Benson's first thought was of betrayal. Kimura had fed him the line about this Mao to send him on a wild goose chase hours before the nutcase flipped the switch. He certainly had the resources.

Benson stormed to Kimura's shack and ripped the old shower curtain off the rings. Steam still curled up from a teapot sitting on his workstation. Benson growled at the near miss, then rummaged through the piles of old electronics. He didn't know what he was looking for, but he'd know it when he saw it, like a set of reactor schematics titled
My Senselessly Crazy and Evil Plan
.

Instead, he spotted a genuine paper note hanging off one of the Bonsai. He pulled it off the delicate branch, careful not to break it in spite of his anger. In carefully handwritten ink, it read:

D
etective Benson
,

I
apologize
for our hasty departure, but my people voted to go into deeper hiding. We are aware the habitats will be stopped and are taking precautions. Our arrangement is still in place. We will be in touch soon.

S
incerely
,

D
avid Kimura

F
rustrated
, Benson twisted up the note and threw it back on the table, then turned around and stalked off towards the lifts.

B
enson reached the lift
, but as soon as he got command on the intercom to approve an override, he met resistance.

“Aren't you supposed to be in Avalon, Chief Benson?” It was Commander Feng's voice. “Why are you still in Shangri-La?”

“I was coordinating with Chief Bahadur, as ordered. I'm trying to get home presently, commander.”

“From sub-level three?”

“Hit the wrong button.”

“I see.” Feng's voice sounded suspicious. “I'm sorry, chief, but our power margins are just too thin. We can't afford to waste another watt. You'll just have to stay put, unless you feel like huffing it, of course.”

He's enjoying this
, Benson thought.
Fair enough, let him get some of his own back
.

“I wouldn't mind a climb. What's the door code for the maintenance shaft?”

“Ah…” Feng consulted someone off the line. “Seven, four, two, zero, five.”

“OK. Good luck with the repairs. Benson out.”

Annoyed, he walked to the side of the lift tube and found the hatch that read “Maintenance Access.” He punched in the door code, and was a little surprised when the light turned green and popped the seal. He stepped inside and looked up. Illuminated by only the faint amber glow of emergency lights placed every ten meters, the rungs of the ladder seemed to stretch up to infinity.

He sighed, and put his foot on the first rung. Theresa would be furious if he decided just to sit this one out.

Every little emergency light was attached to a small platform, not much larger than a barstool, which gave climbers a spot to rest and recover before continuing. The paint had worn off, and the metal underneath was polished smooth by generations of athletic-minded people challenging themselves, or young lovers searching for privacy. Indeed, some graffiti had been drawn near one platform, displaying exactly the sort of artistic rigor one would expect of swooning teenagers. It declared “Charlie & Kendra 4EVER.” It had been worn down by a lot of sweaty palms. Charlie and Kendra had likely been dead for a century or more.

He wished them well and resumed climbing. Fortunately, each rung shaved a few grams off his effective weight. As he climbed, he grew lighter at nearly the same rate as his muscles tired, downgrading the kilometer-long climb from “completely fucking impossible,” to merely, “really goddamned exhausting.”

The climb gave Benson time to think. At first, he thought about what a petty asshole Feng was for not authorizing a lift. But could he really blame him? Benson had publicly accused him of murdering his lover. Even if the little shit had been acting suspicious as hell, that had to hurt deeply. Couldn't really fault him for carrying a little vendetta.

Vendetta. Feng had used that word to describe his investigation. Benson had dismissed it as an ugly smear. A transparent attack on his sullied ancestry, a last second effort to discredit his case.

But was that all it was? Benson
knew
Feng was guilty before the BILD test, he could smell it. Looking back, though, how much of that had been built on the meager evidence, and how much of it had come from his own prejudice? He'd wanted Feng to be guilty. Had Feng become a stand-in for all of the frustrations Benson had been feeling since the polite veneer of society had started to peel off with Laraby's death?

Even worse, what clues had he
missed
by focusing all his attention on Feng?

Benson was a good two-thirds of the way up the ladder by then, breathing almost as heavily as he was sweating. He paused to catch his breath and take a moment to look down, and immediately regretted it. Somehow, heights always managed to look higher when one looked down from them. The tunnel lacked the sense of infinity he'd felt out in space, but that was part of the problem; a fall from here would most definitely have an ending.

Benson decided it was a sign to stop looking back and focus on the task ahead. Up here, he weighed scarcely thirty kilos. He sprinted up the ladder two, then three rungs at a time. Near the top, he bounded like a scorched monkey up a tree, until he was effectively weightless. He covered the last thirty meters in a single exuberant leap.

I
n fact
, it took Hekekia's teams almost seven hours to finish their work. With the plant network down, his engineers were flying blind for the first time in their lives. They'd discovered the hard way that no one aboard had any experience multitasking. Their plants had always carried the extra load and coordinated activities for them.

This was enough of a problem for the team deep in the Ark's stern racing to repair the reactor damage. It was doubly so for those on the EVA assignment to reverse the habitat's drive motors, who discovered flying their pods while making delicate repairs was like performing thoracic surgery while dangling from a blimp.

However, the delay had a silver lining in that it gave Benson and Bahadur's constables enough time to secure the habitats for microgravity. Everyone had known for their entire lives that the Flip was coming. Countdown clocks had been running on billboards in most public areas starting at T-minus one year. But just like in-laws visiting for the holidays, nearly everyone was waiting until the last minute to get their houses in order. The attack managed to goad the population into doing more preparation for the Flip in those seven hours than they had in the previous seven months.

Benson grabbed the last lift down to Avalon's deck, saving him another arduous climb down the maintenance ladder. As he walked up to the stationhouse, Benson had never seen Avalon so empty, not even late at night. But the most jarring omission wasn't the people, it was the hum. Vibrations from air exchangers, water pumps, waste disposals, and even the habitat drive motors themselves carried through the air, rose up through the decks, and permeated every cubic centimeter of the Ark. You could never escape the low hum of machinery. It was the heartbeat of the Ark. The silence was a sponge, soaking up any sound that did escape into the air.

A siren blared through the seldom-used public address speakers, signaling that command was about to flip the switch. Theresa had everything in hand by the time he arrived. Nearly everyone was locked behind their doors. No one wanted to be caught out in the open when the gravity went away. The stationhouse was packed with constables waiting for the aftermath. Benson took a spot next to Theresa and braced against the wall.

“Here we go,” she whispered.

“How long will this take?” Korolev asked.

“They said it could take an hour or more to stop completely.”

“Could they really need that much energy? I mean, we're spinning a million tons at three hundred and fifty KPH. Do you have any idea how many mega-joules of potential energy that is?”

Hernandez shrugged from the corner. “OK, rookie, I'll bite. How many?”

Korolev's mouth opened, then closed again. “Um… a lot.”

“Pssh,” Hernandez snorted. “Great answer. We got us a regular Einstein here, boys and girls.”

Korolev's cheeks flushed as a round of nervous laughter traveled through the ranks.

“That's enough of that shit,” Benson said.

Theresa patted Korolev on the shoulder. “I think they're probably just covering all their bases, constable.”

A tremor rumbled through the deck like an earthquake as the modified drive motors engaged and stole the module's kinetic energy. It was subtle at first, but grew in intensity as the habitat's structure twisted under the strain like a beer can.

For all their immensity, the habitats were incredibly fragile. Without any internal bracing running through their two kilometer length, they were little more than glorified aluminum and composite balloons. The pressure differential between the inside and the vacuum outside kept them rigid like old Earth zeppelins.

Without looking at him, Theresa reached out and grabbed Benson's hand, squeezing it until he wanted to flinch. He squeezed her back, although not as hard. Everyone shared nervous glances as the habitat groaned like a mythical beast waking from a centuries-long slumber. Benson couldn't remember feeling so powerless in his life.

No one could do anything except put their heads down and wait it out. The deceleration was slow at first, but as Avalon's structure absorbed more of the stress without breaking, Hekekia's people ramped it up. The resulting force pulled everything spinward as the effective gravity pulling down on their feet weakened. Everyone leaned to keep their balance. Several failed, unable to resolve the disconnect between their inner ears and what their eyes told them should be true.

Hernandez threw up with gusto, sending vomit flying diagonally before splattering across the floor.

“Jesus, Hernandez, don't tell me you ate a big breakfast before this,” Benson taunted.

“Yes, chief,” he answered weakly.

“Should have stuck with bananas.”

“They're good for nausea?”

“No, but they taste about the same coming up as they do going down.”

This was met with a round of anxious laughter from the entire room.

“I'll remember that, chief.”

Hernandez wasn't the last to pop over the next twenty minutes as the Coriolis effect they'd lived in their entire lives weakened and threw their sense of equilibrium into chaos. Even Benson felt it after a while, despite thousands of hours spent in micro. Then, as suddenly as it began, the deceleration stopped, sending everyone lurching to one side. The habitat's structure let out the same deep, tortured groans as it settled back into its proper shape. Cautious hands grabbed anything bolted down in case it started all over again.

“What happened?” Benson asked no one in particular after the noise subsided.

“Maybe they got all the charge they needed.”

“Let's hope. How long does it take to restart a fusion reactor?”

The question was met with shrugs and blank stares, confirming that everyone else in the room had just as much physics and engineering background as he did. As the seconds ticked by into minutes, people started milling about again. The good news was Avalon hadn't lost all of its rotation, but everything was at least a third lighter than it had been only minutes before, so everyone had to recalibrate their legs.

Benson felt like he was high-stepping everywhere. He could handle micro just fine, but this fractional gravity was really throwing him off his stride.

“Well, that's the easiest weight I've ever lost. C'mon lads, we'd better get outside and check on the civvies.”

The daytime lights were still dark overhead, leaving the sickly yellow emergency lights to cast deep shadows onto the buildings and trees. Yet even among this eerie landscape, people emerged. Children and adolescents had already taken to the footpaths to see how high they could jump in the new gravity. One intrepid girl was already eight or ten meters up an apple tree when Benson spotted her.

“Come back down here, young lady.”

“But I'm higher than I've ever got!” she announced enthusiastically.

“I can see that. But you could get hurt really badly if you–”

As if to finish his sentence, a thin limb gave way with a
snap
, sending the girl tumbling towards the ground at two-thirds speed through a cloud of white flower petals. Benson ran to catch her, but she met another branch, altering her trajectory. He pivoted to get beneath the shrieking girl and managed to get a shoulder under her. The impact took both of them to the ground and knocked the wind out of the girl, but a few moments later she was up and running back towards her home.

“You're welcome,” Benson shouted to her back.

Kids were a resilient lot, you had to hand it to them. Benson felt the pang of an opportunity lost.

Not lost, he reminded himself. Delayed. Would the test tube births resume once they made landing, or would people revert to the more traditional method? Theresa was a couple of years younger than he, and had plenty of time left on her biological clock, if that's what she wanted for them.

He'd never asked and she'd never said. Partly because Theresa thought their relationship was always one anonymous complaint away from a forced end, but that wasn't the whole reason. If he was to be honest with himself, Benson felt guilty at the idea of bringing children into the world with a cloud hanging over their heads. Chao Feng wasn't the only one to remember the crimes of his ancestors. He remembered the taunts of other school kids before he'd grown big enough to silence them with his fists.

Benson shook the thought from his mind when, far above, a million clicking sounds rained down as the pillar's bulbs began to cycle. The power was back on. This development was met with a round of cheers that seemed to roll through the enormous space like thunder. Benson had never heard anything like it. Not even five thousand shouting Zero fans could match it. The celebration took on a life of its own, growing still more as more people ventured outside and onto their balconies to see what the fuss was about.

“They did it, chief.” Korolev came up and slapped him on the back. “Now what?”

“Now, we go find the people who tried to kill us and crack skulls.”

“While respecting all of their civil rights?”

“Naturally.”