Peter David - After Earth

Kitai watched as the soldier was led to his medical transport. Then he hastened to catch up to his father. As they approached the ship together, he whispered to Cypher, “What did you say to him?”

“What he needed to hear.”

He turned away from his son then and walked briskly toward what Kitai was now certain was their vessel.

It was, Kitai realized belatedly, the same vessel he’d seen them pushing the large pod into. He wondered briefly if perhaps the pod was the entire reason they were heading toward another world. Or was it simply a secondary mission? Perhaps even something as simple as an addition to a zoo collection? He didn’t know for sure what any of this was about.

What he did know was that his father wasn’t exactly in a state of mind to be particularly helpful in explaining things.

Well, that was nothing new.

The seats that lined the passenger bay of the Hesper were relatively simple and unadorned. They stretched up one side of the corridor, allowing sufficient space on the other side for people to walk past. There were crisscrossed straps attached to every seat so that people could buckle and seat themselves.

There was an observation port in the wall opposite Kitai through which he could see Nova Prime dwindling to a small dot rather than the planet where he had dwelled his entire life. Within moments it would disappear into nothing and become simply another small bit of matter in the sky field behind him.

Cypher Raige was in the adjacent seat. He was paying no attention to Kitai at all. Instead he was scanning through what appeared to be a dossier on his smart fabric. He was paging through the holographic document slowly, one page at a time. Kitai had always been told that his father had an eidetic memory, and now he was seeing what appeared to be proof of that. Cypher seemed to be studying each page until he had it committed to memory and then turning to the next.

“I’m reading Moby Dick .” The remark about Kitai’s latest reading undertaking simply popped out of his mouth with no serious thought given to what he was actually saying.

“Your mother told me,” Cypher said. He barely glanced at his son when he said it, continuing to go through the dossier one page at a time. Then he stopped, as if realizing that simply informing Kitai of his mother’s knowledge was somehow an insufficient response. He lowered the dossier for a moment and said, “That’s great.” Or at least he tried to say it. Unfortunately, it sounded like a halfhearted attempt to avoid coming across as indifferent.

Before he could continue his less than sterling response, there was a low, sharp whistle from the intercom. The pilot’s voice crackled over it, announcing the travel time remaining before they would arrive at Iphitos.

It was a general announcement intended for everyone on the vessel, but Cypher seemed to take it as addressed to him and him alone. The overhead lights were dimming, and instead of continuing the conversation about an ancient whale, Cypher said brusquely, “I’m gonna grab some rack. Recommend you do the same.”

Before Kitai could say anything to the contrary, Cypher’s head dropped back and his eyes closed. He was asleep in less than a minute. Kitai attempted to copy his father’s behavior, but it didn’t work. Long minutes passed, and Kitai simply sat there, eyes wide open, his brain working furiously. Sleep was simply not an option for him. Perhaps his father was accustomed enough to spaceflight that he could treat it like something to be endured rather than to be excited about. But Kitai simply didn’t have that ability. He was so stoked by the fact that he was traveling through space that all he could do, even in the dimness of the corridor, was sit there with his eyes wide open in endless fascination with the vehicle in which he was riding.

Eventually the only thing left in the section was the sleeping sounds of the other Rangers. Kitai sat there long enough to convince himself that slumber was not going to be coming his way anytime soon. If that was to be the case, what possible advantage could be gained by just sitting there in the darkness?

Softly, softly—because he was positive that his father could hear anything and everything—Kitai unbuckled the belt that was restraining him. He gradually eased it off his chest and rose. The only thing that could be heard was the low hum of the ship and the gentle snoring of some of the sleeping Rangers. They all had their cutlasses with them, tucked across their chests or laps. If Kitai had even been thinking about trying to take one of them, he wouldn’t have gotten away with it.

Instead he crept down the aisle, bypassing everyone as he made his way to the aft cargo hold. He figured that if that pod he’d spotted earlier was going to be kept anywhere, that was where it would be. But at the far end of the hallway he saw a large sign over the exit door that spelled out the parameters of where he could travel in a fairly explicit fashion: RESTRICTED AREA. DO NOT ENTER. HAZARDOUS CARGO.

The sign deterred him for exactly five seconds, time enough to look behind him and confirm that all the Rangers were still sound asleep. Then he darted under the sign and headed into the cargo hold.

In front of him was a small flight of metal stairs that led into the belly of the ship. The area was dark and creepy, and the only thing he could hear was the distant hum of the ship’s engines. At the end of the narrow walkway a heavy mesh fabric was drawn, obscuring what lay behind it.

Kitai took a deep breath to steady the pounding of his heart and then released it slowly to calm himself. Then, ever so gingerly, he made his way toward the fabric. Finally, when he was within a meter or so of it, he tentatively reached out and gripped it. He remained that way for a few seconds and, when it garnered no reaction, pulled it aside a few centimeters and peeked beyond it.

Glancing through revealed only the ship’s cavernous, dark, and mysterious cargo hold. The pod was definitely in there, but all he could get was glimpses of it. Nothing much beyond that.

He started to enter the hold area—that was when something reached out from the darkness and grabbed his arm. Kitai let out a startled gasp and tried to pull away, but he had no luck. Instead, the face of a gruff military officer shoved itself at him. Maintaining a hold on Kitai’s arm, the man snarled practically into his face. “Can you read ?”

Kitai said nothing, mostly because his throat had frozen up, removing any possibility of his producing any useful words.

The security chief looked to be in his mid-fifties. His face was round, the top of his head covered in a shock of red buzz-cut hair. “I said, can you read? There’s a sign back there. Says ‘AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.’ Why didn’t you read that ?”

Kitai took an unusual step: He didn’t answer the question. There was no point in responding to it, because it wasn’t going to end well for him. He’d seen a sign, had ignored it, and had gotten caught. The only shot he had was to move past it and into something more pertinent to him.

“What’s in there?” he said, pointing toward the pod.

“He wants to know what’s in there!”

It seemed strange to Kitai that the security chief was talking to him in that manner, and then he realized that he was not in fact the addressee. Instead, there were several Rangers seated around a small table off to the side. They had a game in progress. Kitai, it appeared, was simply something else for them to play with.

One of the men said, “Might wanna go easy on him, Sarge. That’s the Prime Commander’s son right there.”

This was clearly something unexpected and unknown to the security chief. He looked at Kitai as if seeing him for the first time. “You’re Raige’s kid?”