“I am not working for them,” Nathifa said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You must understand, I’ve only cooperated with them to keep an eye on what they’re doing.”
Eleanor wanted to trust her but hesitated.
“We know what you are looking for,” Nathifa said. “And we know where it is.”
“We?” Luke said.
“Where what is?” Eleanor asked.
“It,” Nathifa said.
Eleanor and Luke shared a look. “Does the G.E.T. know . . . where it is?” Eleanor asked.
“Not yet,” Nathifa said. “Please, there isn’t much time. If I was working with them to catch you, they’d be here already, and you’d be in custody, no? There is a van waiting right outside, and we can go someplace where we can talk. Will you come with me?”
Eleanor looked at her mom, and her mom looked at Luke and Betty. Luke scratched his beard but nodded. Betty cocked her head to the side and raised her eyebrows, but she seemed to be agreeing.
“Very well,” Eleanor’s mom said.
Nathifa rose to her feet. “Thank you.”
The others slowly stood and followed her. On the way, Eleanor surveyed the other people in the lobby, and then the street, searching for any sign of a trap.
Nathifa was right. There was a van waiting in front of the hotel. She opened the doors, looking up and down the street, and ushered them in. Finn climbed in first, followed by Betty, and then Eleanor’s mom. As Eleanor climbed in, she glanced toward the front to get a look at the driver, and in that same moment heard her mom whisper, “My God.”
Luke stopped halfway inside the van. “What is it?”
Eleanor’s mom stared at the driver. “You’re Johann von Albrecht.”
The driver was a slender man, with long gray hair pulled back tight in a ponytail, and wide, thick glasses in gold frames. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he said, with a slight German accent, and a nod of his head.
Luke climbed the rest of the way into the vehicle, and then Nathifa took the front seat. She gave von Albrecht a nod, and he pulled into the afternoon traffic somewhat less competently than Youssef had.
“You are Samantha Perry, if I am not mistaken,” von Albrecht said.
“I am,” Eleanor’s mom said. “This is my daughter, Eleanor. And this is Luke Fournier, Betty Cruz, and Finn Powers.”
“Dr. Simon Powers’s son?” von Albrecht asked.
“You’ve heard of my dad?”
“Naturally.”
“How?” Finn asked.
“I am working for the G.E.T.,” he said. “Or rather, I was.”
The situation they faced seemed to have changed dramatically in the past few moments, and Eleanor struggled to decide on the question she wanted to ask first. To begin with, it was obvious now that Nathifa had known who they were through her G.E.T. connections. Youssef, on the other hand, hadn’t seemed to understand what was going on, but had Samir? After all, it was he who’d alerted Nathifa to their presence. When Eleanor asked Nathifa about that, she shook her head.
“No, he asks me to come talk with tourists about the pyramids at least once a week,” she said. “He’s tried to get me to give lectures at his café. Usually I tell him I don’t have the time, but when he described you, I had to find out if you were the fugitives we’ve been warned about. The moment Finn mentioned aliens, I knew who you were.”
Eleanor glanced back at Finn, and he hung his head.
“You are looking for the telluric vortex machine, are you not?” von Albrecht asked.
“Yes,” Eleanor’s mom said. “But we call them Concentrators.”
“Concentrators?” von Albrecht said, and then repeated the word a few times, listening to himself. “That is a good name. Watkins calls them the Trees of Life.”
“Nathifa said you’ve found it?” Eleanor asked.
“No,” von Albrecht said. “But we know where it is.”
Eleanor didn’t know what the difference was, but there was a more important question to ask first. “How close are the G.E.T. to finding it?”
“Not close,” Nathifa said. “They believe it is located at Giza.”
“But we have your map,” Eleanor’s mom said. “That is where the telluric nexus is located.”
“I was wrong,” von Albrecht said.
“Then where the hell is it?” Luke asked.
“The Valley of the Kings,” Nathifa said. “Three hundred miles up the Nile.”
“Your map is three hundred miles off?” Betty said.
Von Albrecht pushed his glasses farther up his nose. “Mapping telluric currents is no simple matter, madam.”
“So where are we going now?” Eleanor’s mom asked.
“A warehouse,” Nathifa said. “You will not be discovered there, and we can explain everything.”
The van crawled through the city, past shops, mosques, houses, and hotels, and even an open-air bazaar. They eventually came to a stop outside a tall gate. Nathifa gave von Albrecht a key card. He swiped it through an electronic station, and the gate opened to admit their vehicle, then closed behind them. After they’d climbed out of the van, Eleanor noted the thicket of barbed wire atop the wall that enclosed the courtyard in which they’d parked. Stacks of wooden pallets and crates filled the corners, along with chunks of masonry.
“This way,” Nathifa said, and led them to a low door in a building that rose three or four stories above them, one with a flat, barren facade and tall, imposing windows.
The door had another electronic lock, which chirped and blinked with a swipe of the card, and the door opened. Nathifa led them in, with von Albrecht following at the rear. The interior was somewhat dark and hazy, the only light falling inward from the windows up near the rafters. But Nathifa threw a switch, and a formation of fluorescents buzzed to attention, illuminating a dozen or so rows of freestanding shelves that ran the length of the building, three or four tiers high, stuffed with boxes and crates.
“What’s in all those?” Finn asked.
“Historical artifacts,” Nathifa said. “Property of the Ministry of State for Antiquities.”
“Mummies?” he said, and Eleanor couldn’t tell if that idea excited him or frightened him.
“No. The warehouse climate isn’t controlled. Most organics are far too delicate to store here. This is mostly ceramics, sculptures, that kind of thing. From all periods, so you’ll find stuff from the Old Kingdom, the Ptolemies, the Romans, all of it.”
“Wow,” Eleanor said.
“I’m surprised you still care about all this,” Betty said.
“What do you mean?”
“No offense.” Betty made a gesture toward the door. “But the refugees out there will tell you the world is ending, and some might argue this is a waste of resources.”
“There are some in my own government who argue that,” Nathifa said. “Because of them, my department has almost no budget left. Many of us volunteer.”
“Why?” Finn asked.
Nathifa looked at von Albrecht. “It seems to me that if the world really is coming to an end, it is more important than ever to preserve who we were. To leave something behind.”
That made sense to Eleanor, though it didn’t seem to satisfy Betty, whose toughened skin showed her disagreement in its creases. But Betty was also the type of person who had voluntarily gone to work the Arctic oil fields, and as Eleanor had come to know her, she believed that choice to have been motivated as much by the desire to do something that mattered to her in the face of a dying earth as it was by a desire for profit. It was the practical choice, and it seemed that to Betty, this warehouse of historical artifacts couldn’t be less practical.
“Come,” von Albrecht said, and he strode toward a work area against one wall of the building. There were several tables mounted with magnifying glasses the size of dinner plates, and spread with a feast of small statues, vases, and fragments of both. Von Albrecht assembled a ring of rolling office chairs in the space between the
tables and motioned for them all to sit, and once they had, he asked, “What are they like?”
“What are what like?” Eleanor’s mom asked.
“The Concentrators.”
“They’re . . . how do I even describe them?” Her mom looked up at the ceiling. “They’re about ten meters tall, with branches that span the same distance. They do resemble trees . . . but they have strange physical properties that defy human perception.”
“So they are extraterrestrial in origin?” he asked.
Her mom nodded. “The evidence is conclusive.”
He sighed. “When the G.E.T. came to me, they said they had found a way to harness the earth’s telluric currents in order to keep us alive. I was excited, and I worked with them to identify the places on the planet with the highest energy potential. They had already found the first Concentrator in the Himalayas, of course, only I didn’t know it then. They were only using me to look for more of these . . . machines. They intend to tap the devices themselves, not the telluric currents, which is an insane proposition. We know so little about them. When I realized the true purpose of the G.E.T. here, I left and went to hide among my refugee countrymen. But I have maintained contact with Nathifa.”
“So they have control of the Himalayan Concentrator?” Eleanor’s mom asked.
That would make shutting it down very difficult, and perhaps impossible. It might even make what they were trying to do in Egypt pointless. But Eleanor believed they still needed to try.
“Yes, they have control of it,” von Albrecht said. “But from what I hear, it is very different from the ones you describe. Much larger. Perhaps it is the master, connected to and in charge of the others.”
“Do you know about the rogue planet?” Eleanor’s mom asked.
“Yes.” Von Albrecht’s back hunched forward, as if he were deflating. “Yes, I know about the dead world.”
“But do you know they’re connected?” Eleanor asked.
“What are connected?” he asked.
“The Concentrators and the planet.”
“What? No, they . . .” But von Albrecht stopped then and exchanged a glance with Nathifa. His eyes went to the floor, where his gaze seemed to roam absently for several moments while he worked something out in his mind, and then he looked back up at Eleanor, his eyes wide. “It is a predatory world? Can this be?”
Eleanor nodded, relieved that he believed her.
“It all comes together,” he said. “That is where the energy is going.”
“Yes,” Eleanor’s mom said.
“So it’s not dead after all. Questions I had not previously been able to answer.” He held up two fingers. “Where did the machines come from, and where is the energy going? You have answered both. And now . . .” He pushed his glasses up, squinting, working more things out. “The Concentrators must be stopped,” he said. “Or the earth is doomed.”
“We’re trying to find them to shut them down,” Eleanor said. “I already stopped the one in the Arctic, and the one in Peru. Now we’re here.”
“You shut them down?” Nathifa said. “How did you do that?”
Eleanor felt reluctant to reveal the answer to strangers, considering how her own mother had reacted to it, but if they were to help each other, von Albrecht and Nathifa would find out anyway. “I have a kind of connection with them,” she said.
“Fascinating,” von Albrecht said. “They say the same about Watkins and the Himalayan Concentrator.”
Watkins could connect with a Concentrator? While something about that reassured Eleanor—she wasn’t the only freak—it also meant she shared something singular with her enemy, and that made her feel even less comfortable with her mysterious ability. Who . . . what . . . was she?
“But if she can shut it down,” Nathifa said to von Albrecht, “that would ensure the G.E.T. never find it.”
“What do you mean?” Eleanor’s mom asked.
“They’re looking in the wrong place,” Nathifa said. “Sooner or later, they will realize it, and they will go searching elsewhere. But if we have already shut it down, there won’t be any telluric energy for them to trace.”
“How’d they come to be looking in the wrong place?” Luke asked.
Von Albrecht smoothed his hair. “It was my mistake. My calculations did not account for the ingenuity of the ancient Egyptians. It seems they not only found the Concentrator, they harnessed and manipulated its energy. They turned the Nile into a conduit, sending power up and down the length of their empire. The pyramids were their power plants, a secret they guarded jealously from their enemies, so we lost all record of it. The Egyptians, in a sense, rewired the telluric currents across this whole region, and that’s why I thought the Concentrator would be on the Giza Plateau. But that’s only where they sent the energy. The source is upriver, in the Valley of the Kings. We don’t know exactly where, but it’s there.”
“And the G.E.T. doesn’t know?” Betty said.
“We have kept that information from them,” Nathifa said.
“Then we can do this.” Eleanor felt more hopeful than she had since they had landed here. “We can stop it.”
“You are certain you can shut it down?” von Albrecht asked.
“Yes. I’ve done it twice now.”
“Then we should go soon,” Nathifa said. “I heard the G.E.T. saying Watkins is on his way here.”
“He is?” Finn said. He turned to the rest of them. “If he has my dad and Julian with him, maybe we can rescue them!”
“Slow down, there, kid,” Luke said. “We’re not staging some jailbreak—”
“What? But—”
“We haven’t forgotten about them,” Eleanor’s mom said. “Believe me. But we have to wait until the time is right. I know it’s hard—”
“Do you?” Finn said. “You keep saying that, but I don’t think you do.”
“They’re right about one thing, Finn,” Betty said. “It isn’t the right time. We don’t know for sure if Watkins even has your dad with him. And even if we do rescue them, it’s only going to serve to let them know we’re here. Either way, we need to make a plan.”
Finn brought his hands inward and folded his arms.
Eleanor’s mom turned back to Nathifa. “So how do we get to the Valley of the Kings?”
“By boat,” she said. “That will be the fastest way. We should leave tonight.”
CHAPTER
19
THE SLUGGISH NILE RIVER LOITERED ALONG ITS REEDY banks, only three hundred feet or so across, the moon’s reflection in it quivering and shy, the black water flecked with the city’s lights. As Eleanor and the others had made the journey toward it through the city, Nathifa had told them how, before the Freeze, the river had been wide and deep enough for cruise ships to ply tourists up and down its length. Now, glaciers to the south in the high African mountains held on tightly to the water that once flowed freely.
After parking the van, Nathifa and von Albrecht led their party to a small dock where a rented boat waited for them. The craft was a pontoon style very similar to Amaru’s, which reminded Eleanor of his smiling face at the helm, but also of the blood pouring from his chest. The suddenness of that memory seized her breath and caused her to gasp silently. As she took a seat on this boat that was not Amaru’s, but seemed somehow haunted by him, she wondered how—or if—she would ever escape his ghost. She could not even say if she truly wanted to.
“How long will it take us to get there?” Luke asked. He carried a few duffel bags full of equipment they’d brought from the warehouse.
“It will take us twenty hours to reach Luxor,” Nathifa said. “From there, the Valley of the Kings is only a few miles away.”
“Twenty hours?” Betty said. “I suppose we’d better get comfortable.”
“What about the G.E.T.?” Eleanor’s mom asked. “Will they be looking for you?”
Nathifa scoffed. “They will be glad I’m not there looking over their shoulders. I did leave a message that I am
ill. Trust me, no one will give me a second thought.”
Finn sat down next to Eleanor and mumbled, “I wish we could at least wait to see if Watkins has my dad and Julian with him before we go.”
“I know,” Eleanor said. “We’ll find out when we get back.”
His eyes were red when he looked at her. “I know you mean that.” But then he looked at Eleanor’s mom and Luke and Betty. “But I don’t know if they do. What if they want to just leave them behind again?”
Eleanor wished she could promise him they wouldn’t do that, but she also didn’t want to break that promise later, so she stayed silent.
Von Albrecht and Nathifa stowed the duffel bags and packs in a compartment at the bow, and then Nathifa pulled the boat away from the pier. The rotors gurgled in the water behind them, and once they were out in the middle of the river, Nathifa pushed the throttle and they picked up speed.
It was a bit strange traveling this way at night, like being on an aquatic treadmill; the boat had a spotlight aimed ahead of them, but Eleanor couldn’t tell if the motion of the brown water through its light was the current moving past them, the forward movement of the boat, or both. The city along the banks gave the only clear sign that they were actually plowing south up the river.
Von Albrecht kept watch from the prow for any obstacles in the water, and Eleanor’s mom joined him. They started talking about the Concentrator and its energy signatures, and the conversation quickly reached a level of technicality that drove Eleanor away. She turned to Finn, but he had withdrawn to the back of the boat, watching the water, while Luke had already lain down on one of the bench seats with folded arms and fallen asleep. So Eleanor went to sit near Nathifa.
The woman stared ahead, the wind buffeting her head scarf where it draped loose about her neck, and Eleanor couldn’t tell if her expression was grim or simply resolute. Neither was Eleanor sure if she should fully trust Nathifa or von Albrecht. It seemed this conspiracy had the power to make good people do bad things, and somehow make bad things seem good. It turned people against each other who might otherwise be allies.
“Why are you helping us?” Eleanor asked her, trying to speak loudly enough to be heard over the motor but quietly enough the others couldn’t hear.