she gripped the straps of three backpacks and reached them down to David. He made a running go, leapt, caught the straps and pushed his feet into the wall, walking up close enough to the top to reach Sonja’s hand. She pulled him close, and the others pulled them in.
The blast woke Dorian. Fear consumed him—he hadn’t intended to fall asleep. The soldier’s head rolled into him. “Sir?” the man whispered, his voice scratchy.
“Stay here.”
Dorian raced to the edge of the rock cliff and followed the noise with the scope of his rifle.
A door. An exit—David’s team had blown it open. Dorian watched that team, which actually numbered six people—none of whom Dorian had ever seen except Kate, crawl up and out.
He exhaled and surveyed the arc. It was quiet, and in the far corner, where the rainforest met the entrance, a sun peeked out. On the opposite rock face, two of the muddy birds spread out, sunning themselves.
Dorian wondered if they would stay there while the sun was out. If so, he would have a clear path to follow Kate and David.
Kate and the team raced down the corridor, away from the arc opening and the danger beyond.
In the portal room, Kate worked the green cloud of light, and then moved to the arched door. “We’re ready.”
“Can you close it? Prevent Dorian from following?” David asked.
“No. The ship’s in emergency protocol. This is the last evacuation route. It can’t be disabled.”
David nodded. One by one, Milo, the two soldiers, and the three scientists walked through the white, shimmering archway of light and onto the Atlantis beacon.
PART II:
THE ATLANTIS BEACON
CHAPTER 22
When Mary Caldwell cleared the portal, her heart almost stopped. The floor was pearl white, the walls matte gray, but it was the wide picture window spreading out dead ahead that captivated her like nothing ever had before. Earth hung there, a blue, white, and green marble against a black canvas.
This was a view only a select few humans had ever witnessed: astronauts. They were the heroes who dared to risk it all to see this, to expand human knowledge while laying their lives on the line. As a child, Mary had dreamed of this moment, of traveling into space and the great unknown, but it had always been too much risk for her. She had settled for a career in astronomy, hoping to contribute what she could while her feet were firmly planted on the ground. But this was the view and the mission she had always aspired to.
Here and now, she knew, no matter what happened next, she would die happy.
A single thought ran through Paul Brenner’s mind: we’re screwed. He had pretty much felt that way every day since the Atlantis Plague had first broken out, but this was different. He now felt himself coming a bit unhinged. His confrontation with Terrance North, killing the man, had almost pushed him over the edge. The race to escape the flood in Morocco, whatever just happened in that bizarre arena in the Atlantean ship, and now this: orbiting Earth, looking down on it.
He was used to trying to contain and control the uncontrollable: viruses. He knew the rules of that game: pathogens, biology, politics.
Here, he had no idea where he stood.
Almost involuntarily, he looked around, to Mary standing beside him. He hadn’t seen her like that… in a very long time.
What Milo saw confirmed his belief that he was here for a reason, that he had a role to play. Seeing the world that, as a child, he had once thought so unimaginably vast, nearly limitless in size, reduced to a tiny ball, floating there, swallowed by the immensity of the universe, reminded Milo of how small he was, how minute a single life was—just a single drop in the human bucket, gone in the blink of an eye, its temporary, fading ripples the only legacy it would leave.
He believed that a person’s drop could be the poison or the cure for the ails of the age—that age simply being the thin layer of water on the surface for a brief instant. Milo wasn’t a fighter, a leader, or a genius. He looked around at his companions, seeing all of those qualities. But he could help them. He had a role to play. He was sure of it.
David scanned the small holding area onto which the portal opened, and then ran the length of the single round corridor, his gun raised, jerking back and forth as he searched. Empty.
The beacon’s habitable area seemed to be a single level shaped like a saucer.
The portal they had just exited occupied the entire interior section, like a round elevator bank in the center of a high-rise building.
He made another circuit, beginning again at the portal opening and picture window, working clockwise. In order, the beacon contained four residential quarters similar to the crew pods on the lander (a single narrow bed, desk, and enclosed sonic sanitation bay—what he simply called “the shower” but was technically more like a waterless shower with multi-colored strobe lights); on the backside, opposite the portal, two large rooms David assumed were labs; and, in the last enclosed section, on the left-hand side of the picture window, a storage room full of silver crates and a few EVA suits.
When he reached the portal after his second trip around the beacon, the rest of the group still stood there staring out the window, mesmerized. He had to get them focused on the task at hand. They were all physically and mentally exhausted, but he wanted to grab the adults, shake them, and say, “Come on, people! Focus! Killers, chasing us, could be here any minute!”
Milo he gave a pass. David couldn’t imagine himself as a teenager standing on a space station staring out at Earth. He probably would have peed his pants.
Kate had this blank expression David recognized: she was using her implant to communicate with the Atlantean vessel. The blank expression dissolved into worry as she faced him. Now he was worried. More worried.
David pointed at the portal. “Is this the only egress?”
“Yes,” Kate said.
The words brought Sonja to life. “Barricade or ambush?”
In his mind, David riffled through the supplies he had seen. Not enough to completely block the portal. Not even close. “Ambush,” he said. He nodded in the direction of the four residential pods. “We’ll build it on that side of the portal.”
He moved to the storage room, and he and Sonja moved all the silver boxes out, stacking them perpendicular to the portal so that their bullets would fire across toward the storage room, and David hoped, into Dorian and any of his remaining men. David wasn’t sure if that was safe, but Dorian was likely to come through the door shooting straight on, so…
Kate grabbed his arm. “We need to talk.”
“I’ll take first watch,” Sonja said, settling down behind the crates.
Kate was pulling David to the closest residential pod.
“There are three other quarters; everyone take one,” David said. There were four of them and three rooms, but they would sort it out.
Paul collapsed on the narrow bed and began peeling the Atlantean suit off. The door opened, and Mary stepped in and set her pack down.
Paul had assumed Mary and the other woman would take a pod. “I can share with Milo.”
“No. It’s okay.”
“You didn’t want to…”
“Sorry. Sonja… she kind of scares me.”
Paul nodded. “Yeah, me too.”
At least there’s some good news, Dorian thought. The soldier the snake had almost killed could walk, and he wasn’t one of the regurgitators on the flight in, so maybe he was one of the better soldiers of the original six. At any rate, he was the only one left.
His name was Victor, and he wasn’t very talkative. That was the balance of the good news.
Several hours into their march into the jungle, Victor finally asked, “What’s the plan, sir?”
Dorian stopped, drank from his canteen and handed it to the man. They could see the peeled metal where David had exploded the exit door in the distance.
“Now we go down the rabbit hole and finish this thing.”
“We have a problem,” Kate said the second the door closed.
David sat at the table, weariness finally overtaking him. “Can you please never say that again, even if we’re totally screwed? The phrase makes me more nervous than actual problems.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know. ‘We have an issue?’ maybe?”
“We have an issue.”
David smiled, showing Kate an exhausted look of complete surrender that softened her at once.
“Janus’ message. It’s not what we thought it was.”
David glanced around, waiting.
Kate activated the screen above the desk and played Janus’ transmission.
“That,” David said, “is a very, very big problem.”
CHAPTER 23