Reborn (The Cartographer Book 2) (16 page)

He nodded. “
Urlan, we mean you no harm. We must set up camp here because we are in trouble. We are former members of an organization called the Consortium, but we turned against them when they did something unspeakable
.
We need your help
.”

Urlan cocked his head and sniffed the air, as if our stench would answer all his questions. Showers have been at a premium lately so he would have to make do with stale sweat and grime. His eyes fell upon the object in Satou's hand—the translator headset. He pointed and growled.

Gard rolled over to Satou and took the headset from him. After grunting out a few words, he placed the headset on his head. Urlan nodded and approached. Gard handed the headset to him and he placed it gingerly on his head. Because of the horns sprouting from each side of his head, it hung at an awkward angle.

“A strange device,” Urlan growled before gesturing his contingent to move closer. Soon the Quark surrounded us. Dark orbs studied us from behind their gargoyle-like faces. “We are simple people who live peacefully in the mountain. We have no desire to enter your conflict but we will allow you to stay as long you do not bring the pain of warfare here. Rest your weary and tend to your wounded, we shall leave you at peace.”

With that, Urlan's forces took to the sky. When they were nothing more than dots in the sky, Vayne turned to Vigil. “Well that went well,” he remarked sarcastically.

Vigil groaned and fixed him with an angry look. “Shouldn't you be counting gold coins or admiring your paintings or something?”

Vayne smiled. “Perhaps,” he replied nonchalantly. “I give you my leave so you can continue playing in the grass.”

Vayne strolled up the ramp and disappeared within his ship. Vigil clenched his fists and fumed. It didn't take a genius to see there had been no love lost between the two. “Let us discuss our next move,” he stated gruffly before disappearing inside the pavilion.

I watched the Urlan and his posse disappear into the mountain. Long after they were gone I continued to study at the mountaintops, watching as the sun glistened off its snowy peaks. I have not received the full story of what happened since my kidnapping, but if we were attempting to recruit strange beasts from alien worlds to our cause, than the situation must be dire. I felt a knot in the pit of my stomach and I started chewing on my bottom lip.

“Nathan, are you feeling okay?” Kedge's hand fell upon my shoulder.

“I need to go back to Earth,” I replied without turning from the skyline. “I need to know what happened.”

He let out a long sigh. “I'm not sure I like that idea.” I turned to protest but he stopped me with a raised hand. “But there is a lot you should know, and a trip to Earth will give me the time to explain.”

Hope filled my heart. “Do you have a ship?”

Kedge looked away and I followed his gaze. He was looking at Vayne's ship and that was when I spied the name upon its hull—
Talon
. “Are you suggesting—,” I began.

“I'm suggesting we hitchhike a ride with the only person in this camp that has been itching to get out of here.” He turned to face me. “You saw the dislike between Vigil and Vayne. Perhaps we can use that to our advantage.”

“So what do we do?”

Kedge laughed. “You grab Gard and hop aboard. I will grab some people who I think will help us.”

“Shouldn't Vayne and his crew be enough?” I asked.

Kedge's smile faded and he shook his head. “I have a feeling Vayne will take us there.” He dropped a hand on my shoulder. “Let me form an exploration party,” he hesitated before adding, “One last time for the Explorer's League.”

Calypso

“Already the time lines have split,” Calypso muttered. He was mad at Corvus for being reckless and enraged at Meta for attacking Earth but when he observed Vayne carving a path of destruction aboard his ship another emotion took over. Fear. This was something he hadn't felt in a long time. Their actions have awoken forces that were better off asleep.

“I'm sorry?” Sam asked who had been busy plotting a course into the navigational computer.

“The universe is a living entity, Sam. Meta's attack scarred it, but it will heal.” Calypso hunched over the shuttle's steering controls and acknowledge the waypoint that Sam entered. When finished, he turned and faced his copilot, who studied him intently. “We are nothing more than a virus that needs to be expunged from its system.”

Sam cocked an eyebrow. “Is that who attacked us? Some sort of universal immune system?” he scoffed. “That was no entity, it was simply a man with guile who caught us by surprise.”

“Fool!” Calypso growled before continuing. “It is his impatience that has cost us. I told Corvus to gather his forces quietly and give me more time to sow seeds of doubt within the Consortium. We had the Universal Map, we had the transceivers and we had the planets. He could have continued bringing his forces through the Richat Structure while I gathered more allies.”

Sam acknowledged his point with a slow nod. “I agree. He may have been too quick to show his hand.”

Calypso slumped in the seat and stared off into space. “No one could have foreseen Meta's attack on Earth,” he conceded. “I'm afraid I erred in snatching Nathan. Perhaps he could have prevented the attack in some way.”

Sam did not respond, instead choosing to pour over the control panel and enter additional coordinates. Calypso glanced at him and noticed the fluorescent lights of the shuttle reflecting off the corners of his eyes. Could they be tears or just a trick of the light? He could have been imagining things but he was aware of their friendship.

“I know this must be hard.” He spoke so softly that Sam cocked his head in order to hear. “But Nathan is so damn stubborn. He needs to be on our side and I know how much that means to you.”

Sam stopped fussing over the control panel, closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “Yeah,” he muttered before reaching into his shirt pocket. He lifted a box of Marlboro cigarettes out of his pocket and shoved one in his mouth. He produced a lighter from his pants pocket and lit it. Calypso had been amused the first time he laid eyes upon it. The lighter was a miniature human skull forged from bronze. The mouth of the skull spat the flame that lit his cigarette. He inhaled deeply and shoved both skull and pack into his pocket.

Corvus. Just thinking of him made Calypso boil with anger. Too many mistakes have been made. Calypso's counsel fell upon deaf ears, and sometimes it seemed Corvus would go out of his way to do the opposite of what he suggested. It all came down to Calypso's son, Draeger, who became a general in the Defense Fleet. A General who some suggested would replace Embeth on the Council. Draeger, the man who questioned the Consortium when he found out how deeply the High Prince's corruption ran. The son who never got his chance because he was sent to die on some hostile planet during a meaningless exploration mission before the High Prince could be questioned.

Of course all of that happened during Corvus' time period. In the present, Draeger was four years old, safely bundled in his mother's arms probably watching the sun set over Charr. His thoughts drifted to his wife, Simone. They met during an Explorer's League meeting on Charr long before he had been named to the Council. He was just a captain sailing around space. She was an event coordinator and the head of the tourism department for the Charr Civics Council. He remembered the first day they met. Her hair had been so red it had looked like it was kissed by fire and her skin was pale and smooth like fresh milk. They were introduced by his father who was head of the Charr Mining Company—sponsors of the event. When their lips met for the first time it was like the heavens opened and fireworks fell from the sky. When Draeger was born, he felt like their life had been complete. He came into the world with one red eye and one blue eye, a sign from each of them.

“What did you mean by 'the time lines have split'?” Sam asked.

The image of Draeger and Simone faded and Calypso rubbed his eyes. “The universe is a living entity. Traveling through time is risky, both to the traveler and to the universe. One small change in the past could disrupt the future. The Explorer's League was very careful when it came to documenting time holes and even more so when traveling through them.” The control panel beeped to advise them of an oncoming asteroid. Calypso made the necessary course correction and continued. “When Meta attacked Earth, he altered the future. Many were killed. You were there…well your young alter ego was there, yet here you are. That can mean only one of two things. You either survived or were killed. If you were killed then the universe healed the rip in its fabric by its only means available.”

Sam's eyes widened when the realization struck. “By splitting the time line.”

“You cannot simply vanish as if you never existed,” Calypso continued. “That would be against the natural order of the universe, yet you can't die in the past but be alive in the future.”

“It's possible I survived,” Sam argued. “Why do you seem sold on the timeline split?”

Calypso recalled the ease with which the many-eyed stranger cut through his crew. He practically unscrewed Natronix's head with his bare hands. Fortunately for him all the years spent in the Explorer's League taught him the art of stealth, which allowed him to barely escape the man's rampage. Sam had the good fortune to be working on the escape shuttle at the time otherwise he would be making this journey solo. A man who could tear through an entire crew with such ease was no man at all.

“Calypso?” Sam's eyes were fixed on him, filled with concern. It was only then that Calypso realized he had been so deep in thought that he bit his lip bloody.

“I'm not completely sure about the timeline split,” he admitted. “I worry more about the person who attacked our ship. He wasn't a part of the Consortium.”

“You mean 'people', don't you?”

Calypso bit his lip and withheld the truth from Sam. The information received from his sources was unreliable so he had decided he would wait until it could be verified. He had too much to worry about now.
Sam was Corvus' soldier and trusted confidant
, Calypso reminded himself. It was for the best to keep some things unsaid until the right moment.

“Yeah, right,” Calypso replied, turning his head to hide his face. Some people had the ability to observe a lie before it even left the lips. “I meant people, of course.”

Because if Calypso's hunch was correct, the alternative would turn out to be much worse.

Meta

He sat, cross-legged, at the end of the jetty. The sun settled upon the horizon of the Obsidian Sea like a top hat. During the summer solstice, the Caelum sun shone for two days before ceding to darkness. It was only now beginning to rise. A crisp breeze tickled his cheeks while the roar of the surf provided the background music. He always came to this spot to meditate, and reflect on the hard decisions which had to be made. His fingers formed a steeple underneath his chin while he contemplated the consequences of the hardest decision he ever had to make. The decision to attack Earth was not made lightly nor was it easy. His precognitive abilities allowed him glimpses into who Corvus was and what his plans were for the Consortium. Once those plans were revealed, he felt better about his decision. Breathing deeply of the salt air he closed his eyes and became one with his ancestral spirit. By the time the footsteps approached he had been so deeply entranced that he didn't even hear them.

“Sir,” the voice called out uneasily. “I bring news.”

Meta opened his eyes. “I hope it is good news finally.”

Varooq sighed. “We have stabilized the unrest, however we have lost more of the Defense Fleet than originally estimated.”

Good news seemed to travel with the bad lately. Meta stood and pulled his hood back, revealing fine strands of gray hair intermixed with auburn which clung to his shoulders. He folded his arms across his barrel-like chest. “Damn Embeth for having soldiers so loyal,” he muttered. “Have any captains remained loyal, or are they all traitors?”

Meta glanced somberly at Varooq. Even though Meta was large by Caelumite standards, Varooq towered over him. He stood over seven and a half feet tall and twice as wide as Meta. He was naked with the exception of orange hair that covered every inch of his body, making him the Consortium's version of Sasquatch. He stood upon legs like tree trunks with arms to match. The native of Sirus Minor had the strength to rip Meta in half without barely breaking a sweat. It was a relief to learn that Varooq had remained loyal to the Consortium.