Children of a Dead Earth Book One (31 page)

Da Silva pulled her hand back. “I see. Of course you're right. But if I could have a copy, at least?”

Benson nodded. “Yes, naturally. I'll upload a copy to the lab's server as soon as we're done here.”

“That won't be necessary,” she reassured him. “I prefer to compartmentalize my team, otherwise some of the younger techs get ambitious and we end up duplicating efforts. Just send it to my personal address. I'm sure you understand.”

Benson smiled. “Of course I do. I've read a lot of his personal files, too. He really looked up to you, did you know that?”

“I–” She choked up for a moment and swallowed hard. “I didn't know that.”

“Oh yes, almost like a mother figure, it seems. He loved working for you.”

She nodded. “He was one of my best techs.”

“In fact, the only thing he seemed to think about more was this ‘Atlantis' obsession.”

“Yes, you mentioned that before.” A trace of impatience crept into da Silva's tone, but Benson plowed on as if he hadn't noticed.

“I wouldn't have thought anymore of it if it wasn't for something David Kimura said right before he blew himself up.”

Her posture straightened. “What did he say?”

“Well, I was begging him not to kill an entire race when he said the strangest thing. He said, ‘I'm saving one.'” Benson threw up his bandaged hands in exasperation. “Can you imagine? At first I thought he was spouting some crap about atoning for our sins, or whatever. But then I started thinking about Atlantis. I'd assumed it was just another word for a lost continent, but then it hit me. Atlantis wasn't just a continent, it was home to an advanced race. A race that disappeared.”

“Yes, I suppose that's true.” She walked over to the small rollaway table next to his bed that he ate off and picked up a water pitcher. “Your lips look dry, Bryan. Can I get you a glass of water?”

“Yes, please,” he said.

Avelina smiled down at him and turned her back to pour the water. “You were saying, Bryan? About Atlantis?”

“Right, yes. So, I wondered if Edmond had found something on Tau Ceti G, or more to the point, someone.”

She turned back around clutching a glass and held it out to him. “Here, take a sip.”

Benson held up his mummified hands and shrugged. “Skin grafts. Do you mind?”

Avelina smiled warmly. “Of course not. Here, sit up.” She reached around to cradle the back of his head and held the glass up to his parched lips. The cool water reached his tongue and he gulped it down greedily.

“Whoa, not so fast,” she said maternally. “You'll make yourself sick.”

Benson's expression hardened. “That's the idea, isn't it?”

“What do you mean?” Avelina held out the glass, encouraging him to take another sip.

With his one good eye, Benson locked onto her face like a missile. “The water tastes strange.”

She shrugged off the comment. “Well, you know what they say about hospital food.”

“That it's laced with puffer fish poison?”

Avelina froze, then stood and poured the rest of the glass down the sink. “What do you mean?” she asked over her shoulder.

“I know it was you,” Benson said flatly.

Avelina crossed her arms. “I don't like what you're insinuating, Mr Benson.”

“I'm not insinuating anything. I know the truth.”

Her face softened and she laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I think the stress of the last few days has left you confused, Bryan. You should rest. We can talk more about this later.”

“Oh, trust me, we'll have the chance,” Benson said. “Because I had Dr Russell whip up a dose of TTX antidote before you came in. It's busy neutralizing the poison you just fed me as we speak. Did you hope they'd think I'd just succumbed to my injuries? You don't know Dr Russell very well if you think she'd skip an autopsy.” Benson coughed from the strain of speaking. “The game is over, Avelina, unless you're prepared to smother me with a pillow, but I don't think getting your hands dirty is your style.”

All of the built up tension released from Avelina's body as she collapsed into the chair next to Benson's bed.

“It's not. Never could find the stomach for it. I spend a lifetime ripping organisms apart and putting them back together at the molecular level, but I can't stand the sight of blood. Isn't that funny?” She chuckled, fighting against the tears welling up in her eyes. “How did you figure it out?”

“I had a couple days to read Edmond's work log. He never worked on the puffer fish toxin. That was your project. You tried to pawn it off on him after you thought his work files were erased to throw off suspicion. Files you destroyed while the power was down after Kimura sabotaged the reactors and all the security nets were down. But you didn't know about my copy, no one did.”

Benson leaned back on his bed. “From there, it wasn't hard to guess you were coordinating with Kimura. We already knew a high-ranking crew member was helping him. Someone with a lot of network permissions and coding expertise. The only thing I can't figure out is
why
? That boy loved you, Avelina. Like a mother. Why kill him?”

Tears ran down Avelina's cheeks. “Because he said no.”

“To what, Avelina?”

“To saving Atlantis.” She shook her head and wiped away tears. “I tried to get him to stop, but he just wouldn't let it go. He was like a little pitbull. Maybe that's why he was so good at his job.”

“What's Atlantis?” Benson asked harshly.

Avelina sniffled. “You said it. There's already a sentient race on Tau Ceti G, and we're about to kick down their door.”

Benson swallowed hard, committing himself to the next question.

“Who else knows?”

She laughed through the tears. “The senior command crew, most of the division heads. Everyone who's anyone. We've known since Pathfinder made orbit. As soon as we had scopes in the high orbitals, we could see the grids of their villages, plain as day.”

Loose strands connected in Benson's mind. “All of them on the Dark Continent. Which is where the unexplained storm came from, and why the landing shuttle crashed mysteriously.”

Avelina nodded affirmation. “The storm doesn't exist, it's a cover up. There was never anything wrong with the shuttle or the drones. We've been watching the Atlantians for months. They live in unfired mud-brick buildings, but they're a beautiful, artistic, spiritual people. Do you know they built a temple around one of our rovers? The poor fools have been bringing it offerings and making little animal sacrifices.”

The final connection fell into place. “And you conspired with Kimura to protect them from us, by destroying the Ark,” Benson said. “As soon as you realized Edmond had figured it out, you tried to recruit him into your circle, but he refused, didn't he? He was going to blow the lid off everything and the only way to silence him was to kill him.”

Avelina was sobbing freely by then. “He was too young to understand the truth.”

“What truth?” Benson shouted. Fresh blood trickled down his cracked lips. “What truth could justify genocide?”

“Preventing genocide!” She screamed hard enough that even Benson wanted to sink into his bed and disappear. “Don't you get it? Humans are fallen monsters. Are there any Neanderthals on this ship? Every single time we faced off against a weaker hominid, we eradicated it. When we ran out of other hominids, we turned on our own tribes. And when we were powerful enough, we turned on the whole of Earth.” She stood and dug an angry finger into her chest.

“
We
were the Sixth Extinction, Bryan. Not a super-volcano, or an asteroid, or a plague. Just one short-sighted, greedy, selfish species. We killed the Earth decades before God sent Nibiru to erase His mistake.” She made the old sign of the cross on her chest, then paced around the small room like a stalking predator.

“For the longest time, I thought this journey was supposed to be our atonement. A second voyage aboard the Ark. But we weren't meant to survive at all. God already started a Second Genesis on a world that should have been beyond our ability to corrupt.”

“We're not dead yet, Avelina.”

“That's the problem!” she howled. “Don't you see? We're destroyers. We'd use our technology to eradicate the Atlantians. Just like the American Indians and the Australian Aborigines. How many examples do you need, Bryan? And you almost ruined it. Don't you see? This has to be done.”

“I'm afraid I've already ruined it.” Benson pointed at the door. On cue, it slid open and Captain Mahama stepped through, flanked by two constables, including Theresa.

Understanding dawned as Avelina saw the constables. “You were streaming the whole time.”

“Yes, I was.”

Theresa stepped forward and grabbed Avelina by the elbow. “Director da Silva, I'm placing you under arrest for conspiring with the terrorist David Kimura, as an accomplice to the murder of Edmond Laraby, the death of Chief Bahadur, the attempted murder of Chief Constable Benson, twice, sabotage, and…” She consulted her tablet. “A whole bunch of other charges. Your rights will be uploaded to your plant before questioning begins.”

Avelina offered her wrists to be placed in the cuffs without resistance.

“You've damned us all,” she said quietly.

Benson only shrugged. “We've spent the last two centuries learning how to live within our means. I think we might be ready to stand on our own, without the help of gods.”

She drew herself to her full height. “And who will stand up for the Atlantians?” she asked.

“I will,” Benson answered. “And the humans, and anyone who stands on the right side of the law. Because that's my job, and I'm good at my job. I'm sorry you won't be around to help, I really am.” He jerked his head to let Theresa know he'd finished.

“Goodbye, Avelina.”

Theresa beamed down at him, then led da Silva out and the doors slid shut, leaving Benson and Captain Mahama alone.

Mahama was the first to break the silence.

“Thank you.”

“I didn't do it for you,” Benson said gloomily.

“Of course not. Still, you have honored your line. No one suspected da Silva, not even me. You seem to have a unique insight into the workings of the criminal mind. Maybe that's an important trait we overlooked in our… zeal for perfection.”

Benson snorted. “Takes a thief to catch a thief, is that it?”

“Or the grandson of a thief, at least. Take the compliment as it was intended.”

“Captain, I have to know. Is what she said about the Atlantians true? Is there a sentient race already living on Tau Ceti G?”

“Yes.”

Her blunt, unequivocal affirmation caught Benson off guard. He'd expected yet another wall of obfuscation.

“And what Kimura said about Nibiru? Was it sent after us by some… supreme being?”

“I can't speak to the supreme part, but yes. It was guided to Earth by someone.”

A very bad feeling passed through Benson, like something walking over his grave.

“Why are you telling me this now?”

Mahama pulled out the small guest chair in the corner and sat down before collecting herself to answer.

“Because I, and the rest of the senior command staff, have decided it's time to stop keeping secrets. For a very long time, well before I was born, we thought we had everything under control. But the shouting of twenty thousand dead is enough to wake even the deepest sleeper. Our secrets nearly destroyed everything. Which is why your entire conversation with Avelina, and our conversation right now, has been allowed to stream freely, unedited and uncensored, to the entire ship. We're also going to declassify all of the data Pathfinder has collected on Atlantis.”

Benson tried to whistle, but his lips weren't quite up to the task.

“That's a bold move,” he said instead.

“An overdue one, it seems.”

Benson pushed himself up onto his elbows. “And what about these people who sent the Hole after us?”

“Well, as you've already pointed out, we've learned to live… more quietly these last ten generations.”

“And if they find our forwarding address?”

Captain Mahama stood and inspected one of the vases of apple blossoms.

“Progress hasn't stopped these last two centuries. Circumstances put a ceiling on what we can implement, but that hasn't prevented us from making plans. Inventions and devices that were merely theoretical when we left have run through many generations of testing and refinement in virtual space. An entire navy of ships already exist digitally that make the Ark look like a steamboat by comparison. They're only waiting for us to build up the industrial capacity to construct them. Within a century, we'll jump off from Tau Ceti G and spread across the galaxy like wildfire.”

Benson snorted. “Ready to go toe to toe with aliens who throw singularities around like billiard balls?”

“Maybe, maybe not. But we'll never let ourselves be limited to one planet, one point of failure again. We've been awoken to that risk.”

“Who's going to wake the Atlantians? They didn't ask to be put in God's crosshairs, you know.”

Mahama held out her palms. “We're taking applications.”

Benson fell back on his pillow and shook his head. “Don't look at me. I'm taking five years' worth of unused leave.”

Mahama turned and strode towards the door. “And well deserved it is. I won't keep you from it any longer. Rest well, chief. I have a feeling you're going to need it.”

W
riting
a novel often feels like a solitary endeavor, but that is an illusion. Every author builds around them a group of like-minded, supportive friends and family to help them manage the expectations, excitement, wild moods swings, bouts of alcoholism, and existential crises.

More than once over the last few years, I've had those “What the hell am I doing,” moments. Without the patience and support of my girlfriend, Niki, I may have given into them.
The Ark
is as much a product of her stubbornness as it is mine.

I'd also like to thank my good friends and beta readers, Michael Todd Gallowglas and Bradley P Beaulieu, for their insights and confidence in the project as well as myself. I'd also like to thank my amazing agent, Russell Galen, for taking the chance on a debut writer, his tireless work finding it a place to call home, and his patience helping me navigate the turbulent and unfamiliar waters of the publishing industry.

Speaking of publishers, I'd be remiss if I didn't thank my crack team at Angry Robot, including Penny Reeve, Michael R Underwood, Phil Jourdan, and Marc Gascoigne for their boundless enthusiasm for the book, and Larry Rostant for his pitch-perfect cover art.

And finally, I want to thank each and every person, both online and IRL, who have liked, commented, retweeted, or followed along over the last couple years as
The Ark
came together. You all kept me going and determined to see it through to the end. I sincerely hope you enjoy the finished product, and everything yet to come.