Jo Graham - Unascended

The ration boxes proved to be a pair of rectangular containers made out of something like rattan with a hinged lid. Inside were several packets wrapped in oiled cloth, more of the sweetbread from breakfast, dried meat, some dehydrated vegetables. There was also a foil packet in each that looked suspiciously familiar. Elizabeth frowned. “Energy bars,” she said.

Margin nodded. “Yep. Two each. One for today, one for tomorrow. Let’s get going.”

At first they walked through city streets in the early morning chill. Many of the buildings were reduced to piles of rubble and the streets away from the city center were choked with fallen debris. Elizabeth wondered if the all the streets had been like this. If so, Cai and his people had moved an enormous amount with no larger tools than shovels. They had to watch their steps constantly. Shards of broken glass, darkened by sun exposure, protruded from piles of broken bricks everywhere, the remains of windows. This must have been a beautiful city once, Elizabeth thought. It was eerily beautiful even now. Here and there a few small saplings thrust up from gaps in the pavement, spreading pale green leaves in the watery early spring sun.

It took an hour or more for Elizabeth to see the rail line they were following, twisted metal rails down the middle of what had been streets, a streetcar line perhaps? As the morning wore away she got better at seeing where the rails had been. No one spoke much. She supposed this had been their home. What could one say? There was no stench of remains. Ten years or more had passed. Any flesh had long since gone, and if there were bones they lay buried under broken concrete.

They halted when the sun stood directly overhead and ate in the center of what had been a square. A broken statue remained, four sets of legs from the knee down, three men and a woman in what had once been a heroic pose. The letters about the bottom of the statue were still cut clear in the stone, but Elizabeth could not read them. Satedan, she thought.

And yet she could read Lantean. The thought teased around in her head as she ate the dried vegetables in the ration box. Then she got the energy bar out. The silver wrapper had only one line of type on the back but it was perfectly clear. “Not for individual sale.”

She handed the energy bar to Margin Bri. “What does this say?” she asked.

The woman shrugged. “I have no idea. That’s Lantean.”

“Ah,” Elizabeth said. Hypothesis tested. She opened the package, nibbling at a corner of the chewy bar. Chocolate. The word came to mind, a flavor she had not tasted anywhere in memory, but she knew it. Chocolate.

“What do you know about the Lanteans?” she asked Margin Bri casually. “Do they ever come here?”

“From time to time.” The other woman nodded. “Ushan Cai got them to help broker a deal to keep the Genii out. It’s better to trade with the Lanteans than the Genii. They don’t want to take over.”

“Why is that?” Elizabeth asked.

Margin Bri stood up, dusting off her hands on her pants. “If you had Atlantis, would you want to be here?” She looked around the square. “OK, people. Let’s head out.”

“Atlantis,” Elizabeth said quietly.

The buildings got smaller as they walked on. The rail line now ran through a culvert, concrete walls on each side and a sliver of sky between. Sometimes the way was nearly choked by a fall of concrete on either side, but more often it ran straight and true, the tracks intact.

“This looks like it could be used again,” Elizabeth said at last.

One of the men nodded. “Not too much work, actually. Probably the biggest damage is corroded power lines, but that’s not nearly as hard to fix as some things.” He looked almost cheerful at the prospect.

Ahead, down the straight line of track, a broad curve of concrete rose to one side, spreading out to cover the track like a huge umbrella. “A suburban station?” Elizabeth guessed.

“That’s the Paiden station,” the man said. “Not far now. We’ll leave the tracks there, but the Regional Clinic was only a block from the station.”

“It looks pretty much intact,” Elizabeth said. The curve of the roof was uninterrupted.

As they drew closer they saw that was true. The glass doors along the front were blown out, and a few pits in the concrete showed where something heavy had hit, but the roof was intact. They walked over the broken glass, past ticket counters and kiosks with faded signs in a language she didn’t read, a few scattered bundles here and there. Elizabeth knelt and picked one up, shaking off the dust. It was a dark red jacket with white piping, heavy wool undamaged. Someone had dropped their jacket as they ran. A little further on there was a metal lunch pail and a child’s shoe.

She stood up, biting on her lower lip.

“Come on,” Margin Bri said. “We’re going to lose the light before long.”

The Regional Clinic had been ransacked. The building itself was intact, but clearly in the aftermath of the first attack it had been overrun by desperate people. The doors had been forced and the cabinets stood open, empty containers and worthless ones spread on the floor. Even the kitchen had been looted. Of course the kitchen had been looted. Any food was priceless, more valuable to the survivors than the medical supplies.

Margin Bri didn’t seem disappointed. She looked around thoughtfully. “Most of the big equipment seems fine,” she said. She stopped by a big machine plastered with yellow warning signs. “If we had power we could test it. But it looks good to me.”

“I’ve got some boxes of sterile dressings in here,” one of the men called from a room down the hall. “Some gloves, some small equipment. Also some bottled cleaning supplies. That’s all worthwhile.”

Elizabeth went into an examining room. It looked like the ones from her childhood, with a padded table and a scale in the corner… Her childhood? Was she Satedan then? Everything about this was more and more confusing.

“You OK?” one of the men asked, and she realized she’d just been standing in the middle of the floor looking.

“Absolutely,” Elizabeth said, and began going through cabinets.

Elizabeth dreamed, and in her dream she knew she was dreaming. She walked through a city of high white towers, the sound of the ocean mingling with the voice of the wind around each corner. She walked through each light-splashed corridor, stained glass making patterns of color on the floor. She paused by an open window, and as happens in dreams it opened, the balcony doors off the gate room. She stood in the bright sun looking out at city and sea, and she was content.

“Because you are home,” a voice said beside her.

Elizabeth turned. It was none of the people she might have expected, whoever they were. It was a woman a head shorter than she was, long straight black hair falling to her waist. Her eyes were pupil-less and wide, her body slight as a child’s. She was alien, and yet strangely familiar. “Do I know you?” Elizabeth asked.

“I am Ran,” she said. She looked up at Elizabeth, her expressionless face serene. “I helped you Ascend. And it was I who suggested that you be placed on Mazatla when you were punished.”

Elizabeth blinked. “You put me on Mazatla?”

Ran nodded slowly. “I put you in the path of good people who were on their way to the Gathering. I wanted to make sure you would come to no harm, and that you would begin your journey.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You could not go somewhere you were known. Surely you understand that I could not do that. But a world with only an orbital gate, a world where no one had ever heard of Elizabeth Weir that I could do. And yet I thought you would find your way home.”