The Atlantis World (The Origin Mystery, Book 3) (30 page)

When the major questions were answered, and the debate descended into small details, like which districts would be evacuated first and what each person would be allowed to bring, Ares slipped away.

“I’ll leave the vote to you,” he said to Nomos.

They awoke him in the middle of the night, which Ares felt was ironic for someone they let sleep through a ten-thousand-year period in which they had thoroughly ruined his planet.

“We’re close on the vote,” Nomos said. “We need a compromise. A large voting bloc wants to ease the exploration restrictions. They request use of some of the science ships for deep space exploration.”

“To what end?”

“They’re calling it The Origin Project. Just a simple study of primitive hominids.”

Ares turned the idea over. It could be problematic. “Okay. Two conditions. One: there are military beacons orbiting some worlds. They can’t go near them. They perish if they do. Second: they only get one ship. We can’t risk having hundreds of ships parading around the galaxy.”

They again woke Ares several hours later. The second exodus, what was called the Atlantean Equality Act, had been formally approved by a narrow margin.

C
HAPTER
42

The day the Exile Order was signed was the worst in Isis’ thirty five years. In her mind, she debated how she might have been more persuasive, presented the data differently, how she might have bested Ares in the forum.

Around her, the world changed and not for the better. In the aftermath of the vote, the greatest fear had been retribution from the labor population, but none had come, at least not against the intellectuals. Ares’ strategy had been sound. The leaders of the labor revolution promptly released their hostages and actually turned their focus inward, persecuting any laborers who protested the forced relocation. Their methods were brutal and the news coverage relentless. Political leaders ignored it. A small group of intellectuals continued their protests, holding out hope for a single society. The voices mostly came from citizens in cities that hadn’t been touched by the riots or terrorists blasts. The victims who had lived through the carnage counted the days until the exile in silence.

A week after the vote, Lykos had visited Isis at her lab, and to her surprise, thanked her. They had seen each other regularly after that, and each time, she looked forward to it a little more.

She always provided an update from her side. The restrictions on automated technology had been relaxed a bit, easing the post-exile transition for the intellectuals.

With every visit, there was less to talk about, but Isis still looked forward to the meetings. She dreaded the day when the ships would come, load the laborers, and leave forever.

It was during one of their conversations, when Lykos was describing how the labor leaders were codifying the criteria of a laborer, that Isis formed her plan.

“They’re using income, job type, and even what your parents do,” Lykos said.

“Are they considering a genetic definition?”

“No.”

“Have they identified the relocation world?”

“Yes. General Ares and the teams are already terraforming it. But I don’t know where it is,” Lykos replied.

“Can you find out?”

“Maybe.”

Isis shared her plan, and when she was finished, Lykos was silent for a long time.

“Just think about it,” Isis said.

The following day, she visited Janus.

“I’ve reconsidered. I’d love to join The Origin Project.”

She felt slightly guilty that the enthusiasm she shared with him was for different motivations, but that was something to work out later.

Ares stared out the window of his survey ship at the blue, green, and red planet below. Massive machines crawled across the surface, turning dirt and sending plumes of red dust into the atmosphere. The terraforming machines were moving mountains, creating a paradise for the Atlantean Exiles.

“The geological survey is in, General Ares. The tectonic plates in the northern hemisphere won’t be a problem for four thousand years. Should we leave them?”

“No. They may not be able to fix them in four thousand years. Make accommodations now.” The struggle of a global disaster could ignite their evolution. That would be dangerous. Ares wanted life to be easy for them here. That was essential to his plan.

On relocation day, Ares watched the fleet of transport ships from the lunar observation deck. The ships reached to the burning white star beyond, and the sight of the full fleet took his breath away. He felt the hair on his arms stand on end. A single thought dominated his mind:
I have won
.

The Origin Project launched a week after the fleet returned from transporting the last of the Exiles. The launch ceremony was lavish. Pundits and politicians hyped the expedition as the opening of a new age of Atlantean exploration—under the strict guidance of the anti-Serpentine laws. The team of scientists would study human life throughout its galaxy, on the worlds within the new sentinel line, finally unraveling the secrets of evolution and the Origin Mystery itself. Many believed that the breakthroughs could yield new clues about how the Serpentine ring accessed the Origin Entity, and how it might be defeated. The team was given the opportunity to conduct research that had been banned, never even talked about for thousands of years. Janus had been right about one thing: the project was the perfect place for Isis to continue her research. But that wasn’t her true motivation.

The first time Isis toured the massive science ship, she was blown away. The scale of the ancient vessel was staggering. It contained hundreds of science labs, and at the center, two giant arcs capable of harvesting entire ecosystems from a world. The ship had been built in the years after the exodus and used to complete a full survey of the stars and planets within the sentinel line. Probes and survey drones had done most of the legwork, but a large science team had followed up on the ship, studying worlds that might have an impact on Atlantean safety. They had used the massive arcs to bring back entire samples of worlds for study by specialists on the new Atlantean homeworld.

Whereas the arcs had been used for science in the distant past, they would serve as entertainment in Isis and Janus’ time. Citizens clamored at the opportunity to visit other worlds without ever leaving. Each time The Origin Project disembarked, a new wave of speculation rose about what they would bring back. The attention served to rally support and funding for the project, and Isis knew that was a large motivation for the arc component. The other, she felt, was Ares and the council’s desire to periodically check-in on the scientists. Each time they returned home, a team of two dozen specialists from fields including infectious diseases, nanotechnology, and psychology performed a rigorous battery of tests on each scientist. But they never brought home anything harmful. And interest in the arcs they brought back waned with every return visit. Eventually the worlds started to look the same, and Janus and the team began seeking more exotic specimens with every trip, a desperate attempt to reignite the public’s interest. It was a losing battle. The crowds lining up to see the arcs were smaller each time they returned.

Over the years, the data began to look the same as well, and the differences in each new hominid species delivered less excitement at every world.

Public disinterest eventually infected the science team.

They had begun with fifty scientists, carefully chosen from thousands of applicants. Janus had enlisted Isis to help him select their team, and she had felt truly lucky—many of the candidates had much more experience than she did and more right to be on the expedition. But her motivation was stronger than theirs… and very different.

The team that started as fifty dwindled to twenty, then to ten, five, and finally two: Janus and Isis. She couldn’t blame them. The scientists had grown up on a crowded world, in a dense social environment. The abject isolation of deep space exploration, hibernating for years at a time and repeating the same experiments over and over wore on the scientists. And those who weren’t bored with the research longed to return to the Atlantean homeworld where a new intellectual renaissance was happening. The new era of a single united society was a lure none but Janus and Isis could resist. They found themselves alone, and they were both glad for it, albeit for different reasons.

“It feels like we’re the last two people in the universe,” Janus said. On the viewscreen behind him, world 1632 emerged, a marble of purple, red, and white. It grew as the ship approached it.

“Yes,” Isis replied. “It’s the perfect way to do our research.”

Janus had collected his samples alone on 1632, barely speaking to her during their three-week survey. Isis knew that she had hurt him, but lying was worse. She was saving the lying for when she absolutely had to, and she would very soon.

As they entered their stasis chambers, Janus finally broke the ice. “See you at the next world, Isis.”

She nodded as the tube closed, and the fog surrounded her.

The next world, 1701, was the one she had been waiting for. It was just in range.

Janus was his old self again when he emerged from the tube. For each of them, only a few seconds had passed, but two years had gone by outside. The time-dilation bells at each end of the ship, coupled with the stasis chambers, made leap-frogging through time and space as easy as taking a nap.

“Some exotic species have evolved since the initial survey,” Janus said. “Let’s take the
Alpha Lander
. Could be an arc opportunity.”

“I agree,” Isis said. She activated her own terminal and scrolled through, searching for an excuse to escape. “The advance probes also found signs of fossilized life on one of the moons of the seventh planet. I’d like to take the
Delta Lander
to retrieve some samples.”

Janus agreed reluctantly, and then said, “Let’s maintain periodic radio contact.”

“Of course.”

Isis had selected the
Delta Lander
for two reasons: it was the only lander capable of short-range hyperspace travel, and it had a resurrection raft.

At the edge of the solar system, she made the jump she had waited twenty-three years for: to the Exile colony.

The viewscreen inside the
Delta Lander
revealed a civilization taking its first tentative steps. The settlements were still too small to see from orbit, but under the viewscreen’s magnification, she saw farms on the outskirts of simple towns. The Exiles were slowly creating their own utopia, one very different from their homeworld.

Isis made radio contact, arranged the rendezvous, and landed on the surface. She ejected the resurrection raft just before she put down, then stood outside the lander and waited.

The location was a rocky terrain several miles outside a small settlement. After a few minutes, Lykos emerged from an outcropping. His boyish face was more chiseled and weathered, but his features still radiated a charm Isis found irresistible.

Without thinking or saying a word, she closed the distance between them and hugged him, almost bowling him over.

“Hey,” he said, holding her back to look at her. “You haven’t aged a day.”

Isis nodded to the rectangular structure a few feet away. “The stasis chambers do wonders. You’ll see.”

Lykos studied the structure skeptically. “What is it?”

“A resurrection raft. The larger vessels eject them if they’re in danger. If the crew dies, they resurrect there and can be rescued.”

Lykos shook his head. “It reminds me of the old world. Life here is a little more simple.”

Isis sensed something in his tone. Hesitation? Fear? “Are you having second thoughts about our plan?”

“No… It’s just. We’re building something good here. When we talked… back then I thought exile would be our ruin. But we’ve come together here. There’s a unity and purpose.”

“That won’t go away.”

“It’s been over twenty years for me. Tell me again.”

Isis took out a canister. “It’s a retrovirus. You simply release it anywhere. Ideally a populated area.”

He took the silver cylinder. “Sounds like something from the revolt.”