Destination Unknown

  The occupant of the berth was a kid, maybe twelve years old. Maybe younger. Or maybe he was just small for his age. He had dark, deep, almost sunken eyes. His skin was pale as death, so fragile you could see individual veins in his arms and face. His hair was black.

  His eyes were open, staring, as blank as a dolls eyes.

  I know that kid, Jobs said. His names Billy. Billy something. Weir. Billy Weir?

  Weird? Billy Weird? Needs to think about picking a new name, MoSteel said.

  Jobs leaned in and said, Billy. Billy. You were right: Im here.

  2Face exchanged a surprised look with MoSteel.

  Before we left, back at the barracks. He was walking in his sleep, Jobs said. Talking. I think he was asleep, anyway. He said,Youll be there. He said that to me.

  Billy, wake up, man, MoSteel said.

  No response.

  Are we sure hes alive? 2Face wondered.

  Hes alive, Jobs said. Hes alive. It takes a while.

  His eyes are wide open. But hes not focusing at all.

  Hes breathing.

  2Face covered Billys eyes with her hand, then removed it. She watched the pupils closely. They had widened in the dark and were now contracting in the light. Okay, hes alive.

  Hey, a voice called. Hey. Hey!

  A live one, MoSteel remarked. Up there. Come on. Old Billy here is not a morning person. Give the boy some time. Lets go see whos yelling.

  2Face agreed. But Jobs would not stop staring at the impassive face of Billy Weir.

  Come on, Jobs, she said. Well come back.

  He said Id be here, Jobs said.

  Yeah. Come on.

  Thats a total of . . . 2Face hesitated.

  Start with eighty including the baby, MoSteel said. Looks like thirty-four alive or at least look alive. Forty-six . . . otherwise. You want the percent? Forty-two-point-five percent made it. Fifty-seven-point-five percent passed on.

  So far, 2Face said.

  CHAPTER SIX ARE WE THERE YET?

  Billy Weirs eyes saw. His brain processed. But all at a glacial pace.

  The faces were gone almost before he could take notice of their presence.

  He was still taking note of the ships landing. That, too, had happened too quickly to notice.

  Had they ever really been there, those faces?

  There.

  More.

  Faces.

  Gone.

  Fast as hummingbirds wings. The faces darted into view and disappeared. Impossible to recognize. Impossible when they moved so fast.

  More?

  Gone.

  He wished they would slow down so he could see them. He wished they would stay long enough for him to be sure they were real.

  He heard a buzzing sound. Like bees, but only for a split second.

  Silence returned. The silence he knew.

  The silence he had listened to for five-hundred years.

  It was unfair now, not to know, unfair. Or perhaps unreal.

  Once before hed thought hed seen faces, impossible faces. Once before hed thought he had heard voices. But those voices had hurt.

  He remembered the pain. He had welcomed the pain, blessed the pain. It was something. Something in the valley of nothing. Pain meant life.

  Those faces, these faces, they were real, werent they?

  Are we there? he wondered. Are we there yet?

  CHAPTER SEVEN SUFFOCATE IN HERE OR SUFFOCATE OUT THERE. TAKE YOUR CHOICE.

  Yago had a headache that would have killed a lesser person. He wanted a couple of aspirin and a glass of chilled spring water, possibly with a slice of lemon. But that was not happening.

  The first thing hed focused on after waking up was the creepy face of the femme whod breezed him back into the world. That was no way to wake up.

  2Face, that was her name.

  Hed fallen back to sleep, and when he revived again it was Jobs he saw first, and that monkey-boy friend of his, and then some old guy named Errol Smith, and a woman named Connie Huerta who said she was a doctor although it turned out she was an obstetrician and didnt even have a Raleeve or an aspirin with her, which was not all that helpful.

  And as Yago regained full consciousness others came by to offer help or just stare balefully. Some weepy dope who was apparently 2Faces father from the way he kept boo-hooing at her. And then there was a Jane who called herself Miss Blake. At least she was nice-looking, not some half-nightmare like 2Face.

  For some strange reason 2Face seemed to be the one handing out orders. Her dad, Shy Hwang, and Errol and the doctor, as the only revived adults, should have been the ones to assume command, but none of the three seemed to be up for it. So, somehow, it was 2Face the freak chick who was making the calls, and so far Yago, who was feeling like a squashed bug as he climbed, rickety as a three-legged chair, from his berth, had decided to play along.

  The plan was to get out of the Mayflower , which was fine as far as he was concerned. He suffered from a touch of claustrophobia many great men did. Jobs had said something about the external environment being very bizarre.

  As long as theres air, Yago had said.

  We dont know that, Jobs answered.

  Um, what?

  Jobs had shrugged and explained in a distracted way that it didnt really matter much since now that they were off hibernation the air in the Mayflower couldnt last for long. Suffocate in here or suffocate out there, hed muttered. Take your choice.

  Fortunately Yago was too dopey still to experience the full-fledged panic that usually followed the word suffocate.

  Strap it up, he told himself. Keep it together. Be out soon. Theres going to be air. You didnt come all this way to suck vacuum.

  Of course, there was the question of how exactly they were going to get out. Jobs and Errol, busy little tool-jockeys, were evidently already at work on the problem and managed to open the cargo bay doors of the shuttle. Which was fine, but it turned out no one had ever considered the possibility that the ship would land vertically. The whole idea had been that the ship would land horizontally, like it was supposed to do. Then the hibernation berths would open and the people would simply step out and promptly fall any number of feet to the nearest external bulkhead, then, having survived those injuries, would crawl to the only exit door.

  Idiots.

  We dont have a way out? Yago asked in a shrill voice.

  They were in a hurry putting this mission together, Jobs said in defense of the NASA people. To be honest with you, I dont think they really considered there was much to worry about. We werent going anywhere.

  Yago felt a surge of rage, rage at stupidity. He hated stupidity. Hated having to tolerate it, hated having to bite his tongue and swallow the bile. But, by god, if they werent already dead along with the rest of H. sapiens, hed like to find a way to hurt the NASA clowns whod put this fiasco together.

  And yet, he was alive. Alive and seething. It reassured him. Anger was an attribute of the living.

  I have to get out of here, Yago said.

  Yeah. We all do.

  Yago had relapsed back into his berth, too groggy to argue. And some time later he saw MoSteel and Jobs come huffing and puffing up the ladder carrying an inert but apparently conscious kid. Jobs kept talking to him.

  Were there, Billy. Were there.

  That was okay, but it was the next person to climb past that brought Yago up and fully awake with a jolt. A young black woman cradling a great big baby. The baby stared right at Yago with cavernous eye sockets. And no eyeballs.

  Okay, Im awake, Yago said.

  He began to climb after the others.

  Up and up. Past berth after berth of stomach-roiling death. He hoped no one was going to open some of those berths. The smell would probably be fatal all by itself.

  As he climbed, he kept a rough count, anything to avoid thinking about the cramped, crowded, airless . . .

  Maybe forty percent had died, he estimated, weighted toward older passengers. Good. The fewer adults he had to c
ontend with, the better. He could deal with the likes of 2Face and Jobs. Adults would be tougher to manipulate and eventually control, though useful in the short run.

  There was no doubt of the final outcome: Yago would rule these pitiful remnants of humanity. But first, he needed air. Hard to take over a world without air. Kind of pointless.

  He reached the narrow platform just inside the external hatch. The dozen people so far revived crowded close together, crammed on the platform and on the nearest stairs. Yago strained to keep away from the eerie baby and to get close to Miss Blake. Being a Jane, shed be easy to cow.

  Okay, are we all agreed we open the door? 2Face asked.

  Suddenly she was taking a vote? That was weak. A leader should lead, Yago observed. But a rather larger part of his mind was taken up with controlling the claustrophobic panic that kept threatening to boil over and result in shrill screaming and wild thrashing.

  Couldnt do that. Couldnt panic.

  Everyone agreed to open the door. Yago suspected he was not the only one unnaturally eager to push that door open.

  2Face nodded. Jobs set down the blank-faced, wide-eyed Billy Weir and worked the lever.

  Impossible not to hold your breath. Pointless, Yago realized, but impossible to resist. The air outside could be sulfuric acid. Or there could be no air at all.

  Jobs swung the door open.

  No air rushed out of the Mayflower.

  No sulfuric acid rushed in.

  Yago breathed. Held it. Breathed again.

  Suddenly the baby began to chuckle.

  That sound, added to the tension of remaining a second longer in this space-going mausoleum, snapped something in Yago.

  Move! he shouted.

  He pushed past the doctor, elbowed Miss Blake aside, and all at once hung at the edge of a precipice. The shuttles cargo doors were open, exposing the lead-lined Mayflower capsule to eerie sunlight. It was a straight drop down the dull metal capsule, a straight drop down to a crash against the back wall of the shuttles cargo bay.

  Yago windmilled his arms, trying to cancel momentum. The doctor grabbed the back of his shirt but the rotten fabric tore away.

  Yago fell forward, screaming.

  MoSteels arm shot out and caught Yagos spring-green hair. He pulled Yago back inside and sat him down with his legs dangling.

  When youre right on the edge like that, you dont want to windmill, and you dont want to go all spasmoid, you want to sit down, MoSteel advised. Use your heels, bend at the knees, move your butt back, and sit down. Itll bruise your butt but thats a lot better than falling.

  Shut up! Yago snapped.

  Yago stared at the landscape, panting, and wondering how his body could still produce sweat, as dehydrated as he was.

  The view was overwhelming. Overwhelming. Too much color on the one side, too little on the other. The shuttle stood perfectly on the dividing line between the two environments.

  Yagos first thought was that it was all an optical illusion. A picture. But he could feel the awesome depths of the gray-shade canyons to one side, and feel, too, the restless movement in the greens and golds and blues and pinks on the other side.

  He glanced up at the sky. He had to close his eyes. The sky was similarly divided, all in blue with flat-looking clouds with brown-purple edges on one side, gray on gray over the canyon.

  The survivors were all silent, staring.

  What is it? Errol asked.

  Artificial, Jobs said. Has to be. Nothing evolves naturally like this. This cant be the natural state of this planet.

  Shy Hwang said, Maybe its not real. Maybe . . . I mean, maybe were dead. Maybe were all dead.

  Yago snorted in derision. Yeah, maybe its heaven. Right. We flew to heaven on a magic shuttle full of dead people.

  The air seems breathable, a woman said. Of course, theres no way to know what the nitrogen-oxygen-CO 2 ratio is, or what trace gases may be present.

  Yago, with his junior politicians memory for names, remembered her as Olga Gonzalez, MoSteels mother. What was her job? Something scientific, no doubtmost of the Eighty had been NASA or NASA contractors.

  How do we get down? 2Face asked.

  The Marine with the unsettling baby in her arms stepped forward to get a better look down. Spot me, she said to MoSteel.

  MoSteel put a sort of loose half nelson on her and two others in turn held MoSteel. Tamara Hoyle looked down at the drop, at least forty feet. She stepped back.

  Rope is out. First of all, I dont think theres any aboard, and secondjudging by the way our clothes have rotted even if there was, wed never be able to trust it. But there should be plenty of wire on this ship. We braid it together and make a cable.

  We cant go ripping wire out of the ship, Errol protested. This ship is all we have.

  This ship is never going to fly again, Olga Gonzalez said.

  This ship is all we have, Jobs said. But we should be able to safely harvest wire from the hibernation berths that have failed.

  Good. Lets do that, 2Face said.

  And again Yago grated at her assumption of authority. Who was she to be making decisions? But now was maybe not the time for a fight. Although now was definitely the time to start looking at options. Surely one of these adults could be manipulated into pushing 2Face aside.

  Yago surveyed the disturbing landscape. Maybe it wasnt much of a kingdom, but it was going to be his.

  CHAPTER EIGHT USUALLY THERES NO PAIN, BUT THIS MAY BE DIFFERENT.

  It took hours and MoSteel was growing ever more impatient. He assumed hed be the first person down the wire, and he was totally adrenal. Slippy-sliding down a wire to be the first person to step foot on a new planet, that was exalted.

  Besides, he had to get away from his mom. She kept bursting into tears over his dad and over the whole world and all. MoSteel had loved his dad, but he lived by the creed of no regrets. Sooner or later you were going to miss your grip on the world, you were going to push the limit too far, and Mother G. would grab you, run you up to terminal velocity, and squash you flat.

  True, it wasnt gravity that had killed his dad. But, Mother G. or whatever, the principle was the same: Sooner or later they canceled your account, had to happen, no point in boo-hooing over it. It was the deal, if you wanted the rush of the big ride you had to accept the fact that every ride comes to an end.

  Still, he would miss his dad. Hed gone to cheese, and MoSteel regretted seeing him that way. He regretted that memory maybe squeezing out the good stuff his dad had been.

  Come here, I need your help.

  It was the doctor. MoSteel glanced at Jobs to see whether his friend needed him, but Jobs was underneath one of the berths working away at removing wire and optical cable.

  All yours, Doc, MoSteel said.

  He stepped over a prone and still-staring Billy Weir, then climbed down the ladder to a berth where the doctor had laid Tamara Hoyle and her baby.

  You dont faint at the sight of blood, do you? the doc asked.

  MoSteel laughed. Ive seen my own bones poking out through my own skin and didnt faint, MoSteel answered. It was something he was proud of. He was the Man of Steel, with more titanium and petri-dish replacement parts than the whole rest of his class put together.

  The doctor nodded. Okay. How about bashful? Youre not going to go all giggly, right?

  MoSteel frowned. What did she mean? Then he looked at Tamara Hoyle and her baby. And the weird piece of skin that kept them attached.

  He swallowed hard and tried not to lose his balance. Blood was one thing. This was different.

  Uh, maybe you need to get, like, one of the femmes, MoSteel protested.

  I tried. That girl, the one in the frilly dress and the antique shoes? Whats her name? Miss Blake? She agreed to help, but I dont think shes physically strong enough. 2Face is stronger, but shes busy and your mom, shes . . . shes upset. I need someone steady.

  Okay, MoSteel moaned. Okay. Okay. I can do it.

  She drew MoSteel close and spoke in
a whisper. My surgical steel instruments are in decent shape, but I have no bandages, theyre all decayed. I dont have a lot of confidence in any of my topicals; I dont know what five centuries does to antibiotics or antivirals. I dont even have soap or water. And I dont have any idea what kind of shape our immune systems are in. But the thing I need you for is that this umbilical cord if thats what this is is not normal. Usually theres no pain, but this may be different. I need you to be ready to take hold of the sergeant in the event she begins to move around. Can you do that?

  MoSteel nodded, not trusting his dust-dry mouth to form an answer.

  Okay, Sergeant Hoyle Tamara, Dr. Huerta said to her patient, this shouldnt be any problem at all. If you feel any discomfort, just let me know.

  Im okay, Tamara said. She stroked the babys head.

  The baby opened its empty eyes and yawned. MoSteel saw a mouth full of tiny white teeth.

  Good thing they had a doctor. She could deal with the baby. The baby scared MoSteel. Doctors were used to that stuff. Used to giant, silent, eyeless babies.

  Right.

  Doctor Huerta took up position at bedside, kneeling over the young woman. MoSteel squatted behind Tamaras head, arms akimbo, ready to make a grab.

  Doctor Huerta retrieved a piece of fiber-optic cable Jobs must have given her and began to cinch it around the cord, two inches from the babys side.

  The baby turned its head sharply to look at her.

  Doctor Huerta began tying off the cord close to the mothers shoulder. MoSteel looked studiously away, suddenly fascinated by the bulkhead.

  The baby stirred and a low, animal moan came from its mother.

  Did you feel that? the doctor asked her. She held the scalpel poised in her hand, ready for the first cut.

  Suddenly the baby lunged. Its chubby fist grabbed for the scalpel. Doctor Huerta yanked it away.

  The baby bared its teeth in a dangerous scowl and, as MoSteel watched in growing horror, his mothers face mirrored the expression.

  Tamara made her own grab for the scalpel and caught the doctors wrist. The doctor lost her balance and Tamara let her fall.

  MoSteel yelled, Help! Help down here!