“In Antarctica?” David asked.
“No. That’s a different ship. I’ll explain momentarily. We typically hide our deep-space vessel in a local asteroid belt or, in this case, a moon—for added security, just in case a probe gets by the Beacon. The universe is a dangerous place, and we have no desire to call attention to our subjects or ourselves. We deployed our lander to the surface and remained here. Our routine remained the same after that, just as it was on other planets: we collected samples, analyzed our results, and hibernated, awakening only at regular intervals to repeat our process. However, one hundred thousand years ago, we were awakened early by a distress call. Our home world was under attack. Another message followed shortly after. Our world had fallen in a day and a night to an enemy of unimaginable strength. We were instructed to remain on a shrouded world for our own safety. We believed that our enemy would hunt any remaining Atlanteans to the end of the universe. Our fear was that the Armageddon would extend to all humans, across all human worlds. The next event you know well. Seventy thousand years ago, a supervolcano in present-day Indonesia erupted, spewing ash into the sky and causing a volcanic winter that brought your species to the brink of extinction. The population alarms awoke my partner and me from hibernation. It was our greatest fear. We thought that we could be the last of our species: two scientists who could never go home. And we were watching what could be the extinction of some of the last humans our enemy had not yet found. So my partner made a fateful decision.”
“To give us the Atlantis Gene.”
“Yes. She did it without my knowledge or consent. She claimed it was an experiment, to provide you with the survival gene, to see how you would fare. It was already done, and I went along.
“Approximately twenty thousand years after she administered the Atlantis Gene, another vessel from our world arrived. It landed in Antarctica, where it has remained under the ice since. The vessel contains the last of our people.”
“What is it?”
“A tomb—you were right about that. But it is much more. It is a resurrection ship. On our world, every person is allowed a life of a hundred years. There are exceptions, such as for deep-space explorers such as myself. We have mastered medical science, but accidents happen. In those events, our citizens resurrect in these vessels.”
“That’s what they are?” David asked. “Dead Atlanteans?”
“Yes. Massacred when our home world was attacked. All except for one. Occasionally, our people vote to have a citizen to be archived. Someone of great achievement. It is a cultural honor. The person archived in that vessel was General Ares. He is a relic of our past, something we have moved on from. He was saved as a reminder. He is our most famous soldier. During the attack, somehow he got the ship off our home world. He brought it here.”
“The others in the vessel in Antarctica… they can’t wake up? Exit the tubes?”
“They can. However, we are now a non-violent species. The attack on our world, the brutality, the carnage… the tubes can only heal physical wounds. The people in Antarctica can awaken, but they retain their memories, down to the last agonizing second they died. It would be too cruel to awaken them. Their minds are wired a bit differently from yours. Psychologically, the trauma they endured is too great. They cannot escape the memories of what happened to them. They exist in a constant state of purgatory, unable to die permanently, unable to rise again.”
David wouldn’t have believed it, but he had experienced it—death and resurrection in the tube. Dorian had shot and killed him; and he had awoken, in a new body, an exact replica. “That’s what happened to me, how I awoke in the tube after Dorian killed me. It was just like the people from your home world.”
“Yes.”
“How does it work? Resurrection?”
“The science is rather complex—”
“Dumb it down for me. I want to understand.” David glanced at the cube, which still wasn’t quite out of sight. “We have time.”
“Very well. The piece of genetic technology you call the Atlantis Gene actually performs several functions. The most relevant, in this instance, is organizing radiation from the body into a data stream. Every human body emits radiation. The Atlantis Gene turns those isotopes into a cellular blueprint, a download of your body, including the cells in your brain, which contain your memories, up to the second you died.”