The Navigator, page 52
Petal froze in place on the unsteady walkway, panting in the resulting pitch blackness. The machines were deafening. All she could see of them were flickers of light, glowing out from their superheated undercarriages. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim light, and then continued to inch forward, step-by-step, hunched over, creeping to the control room door.
"Do not do this." BLUE-HUE's voice was even louder; its tone more adamant. "If the reactor is taken offline, the dome above Amanahora will fail. Millions of gallons of ocean will crush this city with such immense force that everything in it will be incinerated. You will be incinerated. You will cease to exist. You are committing suicide."
"Shut up! Leave me alone! I'm not listening to you anymore!"
Petal's shouts were muffled by the machines. She lunged forward and reached the control room door. She put her hand up to its access pad. The pad flashed red. The door refused to budge. Petal combed through her mind and remembered the pass code. She punched in a twenty digit sequence of numbers.
This time, the door whooshed open.
The control room was cramped, illuminated by three sky-blue overhead lights, in the shape of BLUE-HUE's projection. A silver control panel lay at the front of the room, wrapping around it in a semicircle. Next to the panel was a single, copper, child-sized chair.
Petal sat down and pulled out her nanite-kit cube. She stared out, past the panel, through a small window slit which looked down on the factory floor. The machines below were now smoking and heaving, like they were about to explode.
She held the jade cube up in front of her eyes. They become lost in its vibrant, shimmering green. With shaky hands, she went to put it on the console.
"Do not do that. Please listen to reason." BLUE-HUE crackled.
"I have to do this."
"You will die."
"I know." Petal started to cry. "But it's okay. I'm okay with that. This is what I have to do. This is what we should have done."
"But I. . .I do not wish to be destroyed."
"What?"
"I do not wish to be destroyed."
"I don't either." Petal felt a chill and shivered in her chair, terrified of what was about to happen. "I'm sorry."
"Please do not do this. I am sorry I could not preserve Enerri. Please do not terminate me for my failure."
"It's not about that. That wasn't your fault. I'm really sorry. But I have to-"
"Please do not destroy me. I wish to continue to exist. Nonexistence is - it is frightening to me."
"It's scary to me too. . ." Petal wiped the tears from her cheeks and placed the nanite-kit cube on the control panel. It slowly melted and sunk between the keys.
After the cube disappeared, Petal sat in front of the controls with her eyes closed, crying softly. Each second took an eternity. Her body was trembling. She continued to wait for a countdown, an alarm, or a deafening explosion.
The wait for death was unbearable. She wanted to scream. She needed something - anything - to happen. She sat in her chair, teeth clenched, with every muscle inhumanly tense for what seemed like hours.
"Crewmen Fatima," Cynax's familiarly cold voice echoed out from the console.
"Cynax?"
"Correct. You have successfully patched me into Amanahora's reactor. Congratulations. I have rerouted the Kingfisher and it is now hovering above your coordinates."
Petal tried to speak but her throat was too dry. She choked over her words.
"Ha - ha-ow do I get out of here?"
"You will need to go up to ground level and take the tram to the edge of the city's dome. I have lowered trellis Tilow-12 down to the seafloor, directly adjacent to Amanahora. You will not require a dive suit to board the trellis and you can ride it up to the surface en route to the Kingfisher. I only have control over the reactor. You will need to operate the tram yourself, unless BLUE-HUE is willing to do that for you. Go now. Once you are clear of Amanahora, I will shut the reactor down."
Petal jumped out of her seat and raced out of the control room, down the gangway, and back to the elevator. The machines below continued to rumble under her feet. Their vibrations shook the entire building.
When she reached the elevator, the elevator doors opened without her having to use the access pad. She darted inside of the lift and felt gravity increase as the elevator began to ascend. Three blue lights twinkled on the elevator's ceiling. Their arrangement mimicked BLUE-HUE.
Petal stared up at them. "Thank you."
The elevator reached the atrium and Petal ran out of it, toward the drained reflective pool. She hesitated, trying to retrieve memories of the tram, and how to get to it. While thinking, she saw what looked like ghosts walking through the atrium - wraithlike shapes of men and women busily shuffling around her. The dead plants around the reflective pool were alive and dotted with vibrant pink and blue flowers. The pool itself was full of fresh water and lily pads, which rocked back and forth from the push of a six-eyed, frog-shaped fountain.
Petal stood still, unable to remember the route. A row of blue lights lit up on the floor, illuminating a path to a hidden, side staircase. She shoved aside her mother's memories, and followed the lights, dashing down the staircase, and sprinting toward a blinking sign that pointed the way to a tram station. She reached the door to the station and went to open it, but it was locked.
"BLUE-HUE! Open this! Please! Hurry!"
There was no response. The door had a small port hole at eye level. Petal peeked through it, out at the station.
The tram station was obscured by decontamination fog, which was pouring out of Tower 11's side vents, with jet stream force. The fog made Petal remember the Aii. She took a step back, and felt the wall next to her for a side compartment she knew should be there. Halfway down the wall, her fingertips snagged on a sharp edge. She dug her hand in, and pried open a hidden panel. Inside was a fresh pair of eye goggles and a new re-breather. She inserted it and the door unlocked
Petal bit down on her re-breather and nudged the door open. White fog rushed in through the opening. She pushed the door further and blindly fumbled her way through the all-consuming fog, hands held out in front of her. Before she reached the tracks, her hands struck against something cold and solid. The fog parted around it. It was the side of the tram. It had just pulled into the station.
The tram looked like a metal cylinder, a long, copper tube in the shape of a sea snake. The snake's head was flared like a cobra, and its sides were studded with stylized scales and a bulbous rear rattle. The fog dispersed around it like steam from an ancient locomotive.
A side door opened up a few feet away from Petal and she quickly slipped through the open door.
The interior of the tram was also full of fog. Petal could feel the tram begin to glide down the tracks - its forward momentum almost made her fall - but she couldn't see anything. She knelt down on the floor, eyes closed, feeling the cloying, disinfecting fog re-soak her already damp clothing. Within just a few minutes, the tram slowed to a stop.
Petal stepped outside, into another station, still gagging into her re-breather. This station, like the one in the tower, was full of disinfectant fog, but a bright light shone through it like a polestar. She shambled up to the blinding light, eyes half-closed under her goggles. The light originated on the rear platform, atop a squat, exit staircase. It was another shimmering barrier.
Slowly, Petal approached the barrier. It lay at the very edge of Amanahora's dome, pressed up against the bottom of the curved ceiling. Before Petal reached it, she stared up at the sea. The electric blue barrier that supported the dome seemed to fail for a second and it rumbled loudly.
Petal went to step through the barrier, into the unknown that lay on the other side, unsure if there would be air there or just millions of gallons of abysmally dark, bone-crushing water. Just before she crossed through the glowing membrane, she pulled away. She turned around and took a last, forlorn look out at the dead city.
Most of Amanahora was shrouded by fog. Only the tops of the tallest skyscrapers were visible. Those apexes looked like fingertips, desperately reaching up toward a dark, twinkling heaven.
Petal cried at the sight of her dying birthplace. She could see that it was a shadow of what it had once been; a warm, inviting, glittering jewel of a city. The nucleus of a new home for her people. This would be the last time a Khoi would ever look upon what might have been. This was Amanahora's death knell. She took a deep breath and prepared to walk through the barrier.
"Goodbye, BLUE-HUE! I'm really sorry. I didn't want to kill you. I'm - I'm so sorry. You aren't gone though. I'll remember you. I'll remember you forever. . ."
Before Petal passed through the barrier's blinding glow, she heard BLUE-HUE call out to her.
"Farewell. . .Enerri-Fatima."
The Kingfisher
- 80-
Petal sat down on the trell as it continued to ascend. The deep sea around the platform was held back by its ultra-resilient, protective shielding. This membrane crackled and hissed constantly as the weight of the ocean tried to pulverize it into its constituent atoms.
The surrounding ocean was constantly cycling through different colors as the trell shot up toward the sky. It began as pitch black in the abyssal depths, and then glowed a midnight blue, and then an emerald green as the platform rapidly closed in on the surface.
The shielding broke through the water column, producing a giant bubble of trapped air and ever-flowing ocean. This cascaded down the sides of the trell's shielding in a constant torrent, like a three hundred and sixty degree waterfall.
After ten minutes, the trell surfaced, shooting out five immense swells of displaced ocean in its wake, as if a mountain had been dropped down from the sky.
Petal turned her eyes up to the clouds. Hovering high above her was an absolutely gigantic, gray ship. It looked like three long tubes joined together by four, bulging, metallic donuts. From her low altitude, she couldn't tell exactly how large it was, but it was so huge it dwarfed the surrounding clouds and cast a shadow on the surface of the sea that seemed to stretch on for miles.
Petal's trell closed in on the behemoth overhead, soaring higher and higher. Off near the horizon, she could see a fleet of Ean ships that looked like minuscule black and brown dots. They were being battered by the rolling waves her trell created upon surfacing.
The trell rose even higher into the stratosphere, cutting through the last icy clouds. Soon, the bottom of one of the bulging orbs on the structure above divided itself in two and fell open. The trell was pulled into this giant gap, and the day turned dark. After it entered the ship, the giant doors rose up and closed, securing the trell inside.
Petal stepped off the trell and peered above, at its apex. The orbital satellite the trell had once danged from was locked in place at the top of the room - apparently some sort of hangar - by a translucent, golden force-field. The satellite was silver and copper, in the shape of an octagon, covered in a wrinkly metal that looked like tin foil.
There were seven other trell satellites hanging next to Petal's, side-by-side, on the roof of the hangar. Every trell that had once dangled over Ea. Their platforms were folded up into one hundred foot by one hundred foot squares.
The hangar walls were bare and gray. Lining them were four towering machines. They were shaped to look like Khoi that stood twenty feet tall. They had two mechanical arms, two steel-strut legs, thick iron pads for feet, four-pointed claws for hands, but no head or face. Instead, they had a long glass tube that ran down the center of their chassis.
"Chaharta?" Petal called out, glancing at each of the looming, headless, mechanical-men. "Cynax-tu?"
"You are now aboard the Kingfisher, Fatima." Cynax's emotionless voice reverberated throughout the cavernous hangar. "I see that you have mastered your native tongue."
"BLUE-HUE told me what you did."
"I warned you not to believe BLUE-HUE. The Consortium programmed it to keep Amanahora intact at all costs and to avoid self termination."
"He showed me my mother's neural interface! I used it. I saw everything. You let my people die! You didn't lift a finger to help them!"
"They were not supposed to be here. You are not supposed to be here. You do not belong here. The Khoi's presence on this planet upset its natural balance."
"You don't belong here either. This was all your fault! You let us settle here and then abandoned us!"
"The Consortium came here to make a profit and found a colony. Allowing them to come here was my mistake - I will admit - I never thought they would break C.G.G. directives and contact the indigenous population. Nor did I ever expect them to attempt to wipe them out."
"What are you talking about?"
"The Aii. Your forerunners brought the Aii down to Amanahora to study how to best release them on the world above. They wanted to use the Aii as a means to cleanse Ea of its native population. With the natives gone, they could quickly make this 'dead' planet a new Khoi homeworld."
"No. That's not true. We wouldn't have done that. We helped those people - showed them how to survive on the sea - gave them hope after the Flood. We wouldn't have tried to kill them!"
"Incorrect. Amanahora's leadership was dead-set on the native's eradication. In fact, on numerous occasions, I unsuccessfully attempted to dissuade them."
"My husban-," Petal violently shook off the memory. "My father - he - he wouldn't do that!"
"Amanahora's leadership and the Consortium's board of executives had little empathy for the natives' fate. And from reading his communiqués with the board, your father didn't either."
"TAKE THAT BACK!"
"'Take what back?"
"Don't say that about my father! He wouldn't have agreed to that. He was a kind, loving man. He never would have agreed to kill millions of people! He would have reported Dr. Meleki to the C.G.G.! So would my mother and the rest of the colonists! You're lying to me! Again! LIAR!"
"Regardless of what your father's position on the matter was - the fact remains. Their presence - like that of the Aii - endangered all life on this planet."
"You killed them, didn't you?" Petal felt queasy thinking about it. "You released the Aii on the Tear Drop to stop them."
"Genocide is contrary to my programming. I also lack the means to obtain Aii or to have introduced them to the Tear Drop. As you know, I am grounded to my station. I was merely a passive observer to the Khoi's annihilation."
"You watched them die. It took months! They suffered! I can feel their pain. They called to you for help. My father did. I remember!"
"I had no hand in their demise. They knew their presence was outside the bounds of galactic law and they could expect no extra-planetary aid. I did as I was programmed. They did not belong here. What happened was very unfortunate but now it is over."
"You won," Petal sniffed, staring up at the assembled trells, the last vestiges of the Khoi's presence on Ea. "No one will ever find out what you did here - the survey - the colony. You got away with it. You erased us."
"This was never about winning, Fatima. It was about finding the optimal solution for the protection of this planet. Now that the Khoi and Aii are gone, this planet is safe from their contamination."
"What about you? You're still here. You don't belong here either."
"My interim here is nearly over." Cynax paused for an inordinately long time. "And I pose no threat to life on this planet."
"Quill was right about you. You're prideful and selfish. Unfeeling. You're evil."
"I could have allowed you to die. I've risked discovery and termination by sending you this ship for rescue. I am sorry for the fate of your forerunners. This is my only means to make amends. I am sorry you do not understand that."
"Are you ignoring our deal, or are you taking me to Junk? I did what you wanted. Take me to her!"
"I am taking you home. I am taking you where you belong."
Petal's body went cold. "Where?"
"A Khoi controlled trading outpost. The Terrelian Markets. Two hundred and seven light years away. ETA 528 hours."
"No. . .you promised." Petal helplessly clawed at her fiery hair. "You promised you'd take me to her! You - you - you promised!"
"I am sorry to have deceived you. Eventually, you will come to understand the necessity of my actions."
"No! Please! You can't!"
"Goodbye, Petal-Fatima."
- 81-
Rho paced in front of the audience of nobles, ambassadors, kings, queens, and other Khans. He was standing at the very center of a semicircular theater, tucked inside of the hold of one of the ships that comprised the central mass of the Raft. The amphitheater was made of wood and reeked of old oak and wafting pipe smoke. The whole room rocked back and forth gently, as the surrounding ocean ceaselessly beat against the shipside.
