Аллен Стил - Arkwright

“When our ship arrived a few weeks ago—that’s the light your mother saw, Sanjay—one of the first things we did was rendezvous with Galactique and access its memory … talk to it, if you will. We learned a lot of what had happened here over the last hundred and sixty years—sixyarn, I mean—but there were still some mysteries that remained unsolved until we came here and made contact with Benjam and his people.”

“By then, I’d been told the truth, as well,” Aara said quietly, looking at Sanjay. “Like everyone who’s been exiled here, the first thing that I learned was how wrong the Disciples are. Our whole history, everything we know…” Her voice trailed off.

Nathan continued to speak. “One of the worst effects—in fact, probably the single worst effect—of Calliope’s variable phase was the enormous electromagnetic surge that occurred during its peak.” He glanced over his shoulder at Sanjay and Kaile. “I know you’re not going to understand this, so I’ll try to make it simple. Stars like Calliope emit more than just heat and light. They also cast other forms of radiation that you can’t hear, see, or feel but that are present, anyway. The radiation became so intense that it not only destroyed Galactique ’s ability to … um, talk to the Teachers and the Transformers but also the islanders’ ability to communicate with those who stayed on the mainland.”

“We didn’t lose our Teacher the way you did,” Benjam explained, “because it took shelter within this craft, which has adequate shielding to resist against this intense radiation. So we still had the means by which to learn the things we needed to know, including our history and origins. But our Transformer was destroyed, as well as the high-gain antenna. Those had been built up and couldn’t be deconstructed in time.”

“Almost all electrical technology was lost,” Russell said. “Except for the emergency radio beacon. That was inside the lander, where it runs off a nuclear power cell. Once we learned its frequency from Galactique, we were able to use it to figure out where this colony was located.”

“That’s the light you saw, Kaile,” Aara said.

She said nothing. By then, the group had reached the landing craft. It was over forty rods tall, and Sanjay could now see that it was made entirely of metal, its paint chipped and faded with age. The opening midway up its flank was a hatch from which a ladder made of woven vine and bambu had been draped.

“The children who’d been taken to Providence remained there,” Benjam said. “Their Teacher and Transformer ceased to function, and they lost contact with those who’d been left behind. By the time the Great Storm finally ended four yarn later, they’d come to believe everyone there was dead. Without a Teacher to lead them, much of their knowledge was lost. They couldn’t even cross the channel without risking being killed by monarchs.”

“What we call great white sharks back on Earth,” Marilyn added. “Like everything else, they’ve been adapted to provide Eos with a diverse ecosystem. Unfortunately, they also became a barrier between the two colonies.”

“So the colony on Providence formed its own culture,” Benjam continued, “without the benefit of written language or history or even science. In time, their children and children’s children came to believe in Gal, but here”—he laid a fore against the lander’s hull—“we didn’t lose those things. Before our own Teacher ceased to function, it taught our grandparents all that we needed to know. By the time they were ready to build boats and try to restore contact with those who lived on island, the Disciples had made anything contrary to the Word of Gal— Galactique ’s final instructions to the island colony, passed down by word of mouth over the yarns, all the time being reinterpreted and misunderstood—an act of heresy. Even trying to come over could get us killed. All we could do was stay away and accept those your people banished. Do you see?”

“Yes,” Sanjay said.

“No,” Kaile said. “All I see is something left to us by Gal. It could be anything but what you say it is.”

“Kaile…” Aara shook her head, more disappointed than angry. “Everything they’ve told you is true.”

“If you still don’t believe us, go in and see for yourself.” Benjam tugged at the bottom of the ladder. “Here … climb up and look.”

Sanjay didn’t hesitate. Taking the ladder from him, he grasped the rungs with his fores and carefully began to climb upward. As Nathan took the ladder to follow him, Sanjay paused to look back down. Kaile was still standing on the ground; when she caught his eye, she reluctantly began to scale the ladder herself.

The compartment on the other side of hatch was dark. As Sanjay crawled through the hatch, he found that he could see very little. There was a gridded metal floor beneath his fores and hinds and some large oval objects clustered along the circular walls, but that was almost all he could make out. Nathan came in behind him, and Sanjay was startled by a beam of light from a small cylinder he’d pulled from his pocket. But this was nothing compared to the shock he felt when the bright circle fell upon an object on the far side of the compartment.

“A Teacher!” Kaile had just entered the craft. She crouched beside the open hatch, staring at what Nathan’s light revealed.

Sanjay felt his heart pound as he stared at the solitary figure seated in a chair in front of what appeared to be some sort of glass-topped desk. Like the Teacher in Childstown, it had a featureless face and oddly formed limbs; this one, though, wore a loose, single-piece outfit that had moldered and rotted over time, exposing the gray and mottled skin beneath. Yet the Teacher’s eyes were as blank as those of his long-lost companion, and it was obvious that it too hadn’t moved in many yarn.

“Benjam tells me it managed to survive the solar storm.” Nathan’s voice was quiet, almost reverent as Sanjay crouched beside the Teacher. “It took refuge in here, and that’s how it was able to remain active long after the one you have on the island became inert. Unfortunately, it appears that they couldn’t disassemble the replicator—the Transformer, I mean—or the communications antenna in time to save them, so this was the only place where any electronic equipment—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sanjay continued to peer at the Teacher. He prodded its face with a fingertip, something he’d always wanted to do with the one in Childstown. The Galmatter felt nothing like human flesh or indeed like anything that had ever lived.

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s going to take a while for you to—” Nathan stopped himself. “Anyway, here’s something else you need to see.” He looked back at Kaile. “Come closer. You ought to see this too.”

“No. I’m staying where I am.” She wouldn’t budge from the hatch. Sanjay could tell that she was frightened.

“Suit yourself.” Keeping his head down so as not to bang it against the low ceiling, Nathan came farther into the compartment. “Look at these, Sanjay,” he said, running the light beam across the ovoid shapes arranged along the walls. “What do you think they look like?”

Sanjay approached the egg-like objects and examined them. Although they were covered with dust, he could see that their top halves were transparent, made of substance that looked like glass but resembled Galmatter. Raising a fore to one of them, he gently wiped away the dust. Nathan brought his light a little closer, and Sanjay saw that within the cell was a tiny bed, its covers long since decayed yet nonetheless molded in such a way that would accommodate an infant.

“They look like cradles,” he murmured.