CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

The guard’s previously sympathetic expression closes up and he looks at me as though now I’ve become an annoyance.

“Okay, what?” he says.

“I must see Command Pilot Aeson Kass!” I repeat. “The one they call Phoebos!”

The guard looks at me for several long seconds. “You do know what you’re asking?” he says coldly. “That’s a very busy man, very high ranking in the Atlantean Fleet. He isn’t going to have time to talk to you, especially not now—”

“Look, he knows me, okay! Command Pilot Kass knows me, and he will talk to me!”

How do I know this, I have no idea. But I persist, with the full confidence fueled by insanity that comes from desperation. Will Aeson agree to see me? It occurs to me, I don’t really know. I might be overreaching. But at the same time, there’s a strange feeling in my gut that no, I am an asset, my Logos voice and I. . . . And Aeson Kass will give me the time of day.

As the guard continues to stare at me with a growing frown, I hurry to add: “Look, just tell him my name, please! He will agree to see me, you’ll see! Just call him now! Please!”

The guard shakes his head, and lets out his breath in frustration. He then presses one hand to the smart-set in his ear and punches something on the console. After a few seconds, he turns to me and says, “Okay . . . Command Pilot Kass is currently unavailable. Sorry, Candidate.”

“What do you mean, unavailable?” My mouth falls open. I suppose I expected to get some kind of instant response, at least an answer of one kind or another, but—nothing?

“I mean, he is unavailable.”

“But how? Maybe you can ask again? Where is he? I will go to his office right now—”

The guard shakes his head at me. “He is unavailable because he is not here—not in this compound, not on Earth.” And he points with a finger up.

The meaning finally dawns on me. “Oh . . .” I say in despair.

“He’s gone up to the Atlantis mothership.”

The despair deepens. I freeze for a few seconds in silence, my mind spinning, while Laronda and Mia and Dawn stand watching me with grim sympathetic eyes.

“When—when is he coming back?” I try again.

“That information is unavailable.”

“Can you please check?”

“His personal schedule is outside my clearance level.” The guard looks at me hard.

“Okay . . .” Desperation makes me relentless. “But—”

“Candidate—Gwen, is it? Candidate, you need to leave now. There is nothing more I can tell you. I am very sorry.”

“I—I don’t accept that,” I repeat again like a stubborn idiot. And then more wild ideas pop in my head.

“What—what is his office? Where is it? Is it here in this building?” I say. “It is general knowledge, isn’t it?”

The guard bites his lip. “Yes, it is. Office #7, CA-2, first floor. You can get to it if you go outside and then use the next walkway entrance for the general offices. But again, he is not here—”

“But he will be, tomorrow morning! Right? Right? He’ll be there eventually?” I interrupt in a high breathy voice that is again about to crack with tears.

The guard shakes his head again, and then softens up. “All right, yes, he will be here tomorrow. This is not his specific schedule, but in general—he is usually here by seven AM local time, sometimes as early as six-thirty. But again, no guarantees. He may not even show up—”

“Okay . . .” I say, crying once again. “That helps very much, thank you. Thank you!”

The guard only nods, but already I’ve turned away, and I am walking out of the front lobby.

* * *

I stop as soon as I’m outside, and stare into the early twilight, taking shuddering breaths.

“I am so sorry,” Laronda says, holding my shoulder. Dawn is right there too.

Mia watches me. “What are you going to do?”

I wipe my face with the back of my hand and look at them. “I don’t know. . . . No, I do know. I’ll go to his office. I will wait there all night if I have to. And I will talk to him—Aeson Kass. Even if I have to go and wait at the airfield. . . .”

“Want me to go look for your brother George?” Dawn mutters.

I nod, silently.

“Want me to get you some food, girl?” Laronda squeezes my shoulder.

“No thanks, not hungry. But—thanks.”

“You need to eat something! It’s gonna be a long wait. And then there’s the sucky ten PM curfew, what will you do? If you don’t make it back to our dorm—”

“I—don’t know,” I say again, hearing only partially what is being said around me, as I stare ahead and up at the darkening clear sky. There are a few stars out already, and I wonder if any of them are their ships, up in orbit.

Aeson Kass is up there right now.

He has Gracie’s fate in his hands.

* * *

A few minutes later, I am in the large business office area of CA-2. Laronda and Dawn have gone, to get George, to get me food—Laronda insisted—and Mia went back to Gracie’s dorm to see what’s happening there.

After inquiring at the front desk, I am told that Office #7 is right around the corner and down the hall, one of the first ones on this floor, which is the VIP area.

“But, we are closing for the night, hon, and sorry, but you cannot stay here,” a woman guard tells me. I need to lock up this floor. The Atlanteans work late sometimes, but we cannot have any unauthorized personnel here—”

In a dead voice I explain to her what has happened with my sister. And then, “I am just going to wait in front of his office, until Command Pilot Aeson Kass comes in,” I say. “I can sit on the floor. Please!”

But the woman shakes her head. “I’m really sorry, we cannot let anyone stay here after hours, not without permission—”

“But he knows me!”

“Sorry, no, we can’t do that. Go on now, dear, come back first thing tomorrow morning. . . .”

I turn around and exit the building.

And then I start pacing at the front entrance.

My mind is an absolute, swirling, numb mess. I—the girl who always comes up with solutions—I suddenly have none.

I don’t know how much time goes by, and then I see the entrance doors open and someone exit. Probably an office employee or guard, leaving for the night.

I glance up with a clouded gaze, and it’s Nefir Mekei. I recognize his somewhat shorter-trimmed metallic hair and Atlantean features, the slightly blunt chin with a dimple, and his skin tone that’s the dark red hue of river clay.

My Atlantis Culture Instructor from Pennsylvania!

He pauses, looking directly at me, and then there’s recognition. “Candidate Gwen Lark!” he says with a shadow of a smile. “Glad to see you passed Semi-Finals.”

“Oh, Instructor Mekei!” I exclaim. “Please, maybe you can help me! It is urgent, I need to see Command Pilot Aeson Kass!”

And then I explain to him what happened.

Nefir listens to me with an expression that is so hard to read, as always. And then he nods. “I don’t have a direct line for him, but a general one to his command deck. I will relay a message to Command Pilot Kass for you. He may not get the message until tomorrow morning, when the regular ship-to-ground relays are opened, but at least it will be there waiting for him.”

“Thank you!” I say. “Thank you so much!”

Nefir takes out some kind of gadget, and then punches what looks like Atlantean text into it. I recognize the strange hieroglyphic-and-phonetic-alphabet hybrid that is Atlantean script, which looks remotely like ancient Egyptian and Sanskrit rolled into one. In moments he is done, and hits their equivalent of “send.”

If I weren’t in such a state of mind right now, I might have gotten a kick out of seeing someone texting into orbit.

Instead I nod, looking at him numbly.

“It’s done, Gwen,” Nefir says. “Now I suggest you get back to your dorm and get some rest, and then come back here in the morning. Six-thirty to seven should be a good time to catch him. Kass is never late.”

I thank him again, and start walking.

Overhead, twilight has deepened into night, but down here it is dispelled by the bright street illumination of the compound.

* * *

The rest of the night is a mess. I remember almost none of it, only that I get back to my dorm and go directly to bed. I don’t think Dawn ever finds George. And Laronda leaves a small plate of food next to my cot before heading over to her own that’s on the other end of the large girls’ dormitory hall of Section Fourteen.

I wake up with a start, just before dawn, and get dressed in the dark, pull my hair into a messy ponytail, then slip out and downstairs, then outside.

The sky is turning to pale silver on the eastern edges, as I quickly walk through the street. Soon, my walk turns into a jog. I run in the crisp dawning, and in about fifteen minutes I am back at the farthest end of CA-2.

It’s just after six AM. . . . Should I risk checking the airfield first? His shuttle might be landing soon.

Or maybe I need to head directly to the offices and wait at the door of Office #7.

I grow still for a few instants of painful indecision. And then I decide not to waste any time and head directly to the airfield.

Around the corner, the CA-2 structure ends. Immediately beyond the building is an open street space and then the endless row of hangars begin, interrupted only every hundred feet or so with alley passageways between each structure. On the other side of the hangars, the airfield stretches into an immense paved expanse fading in the distance into a tall imposing wall that marks the edges of the NQC compound.

I pause again, considering my next move. Should I linger here and watch for his arrival, or advance forward and walk through the hangars?

To my luck, as I watch the lightening skies, already I can see several Atlantean shuttles approaching. They fall from heaven—grey pinpoint specks that resolve into vaguely oval saucer shapes—and their purple plasma underbellies glitter like cabochon jewels.

Please be on one of them, please be on one of them, I chant silently.

I walk quickly forward, moving through the narrow walkway space between two nearest hangars, past a solitary guard who glances at me but does not stop me.

The first of the shuttles lands, then hovers lightly several feet above the ground, but does not pull inside the hangar. It is one of the smaller models, exactly like the one I entered on that fateful day of the sabotage explosion. . . .

I hold my breath, clutching my fingers until my knuckles are bloodless with tension.

This has to be his, I tell myself. It’s the one closest to his office. It would make sense he would park it here.

The shuttle hatch opens and the auto-stairs descend. It’s open in the opposing side facing the airfield, so all I can see are booted feet descending, then someone coming around.

A man emerges, and I can see long metallic blond hair, but it is not he—the armband is red, and the face, when he turns toward me, is Atlantean but unfamiliar. Meanwhile more people descend, and I stare as two pairs of booted feet come down.

The next one is a woman, also Atlantean, tall, slender, typically beautiful, but not anyone I have seen before. She wears a green armband.

The third man is Aeson Kass.

My heart does a very painful, hard, extreme lurch, so that my throat closes up and at the same time it feels like I am going into cardiac arrest. . . .

I see him come around, with his usual controlled and confident posture. I see the crisp lines of his uniform, the fall of his pale metallic hair, and the half-turned lean jaw-line with its hollowed cheeks and darkness of kohl-outlined lapis-blue eyes and dark brows.

Once again the crazy myth-thought comes to me, he is Phoebos Apollo descended from the skies in his divine chariot. . . .

And then Phoebos raises his face and looks directly at me.

For a moment he pauses.

And then his face becomes like stone, and he walks toward me.

At the same time I start to race toward him, meeting him halfway from the hangar to the shuttle. And then I stop right before him, breathing hard, and I know my eyes, my expression, it is absolutely crazed, wild. . . .

“Command Pilot Kass!” I exclaim. “Please, I must speak to you! It is urgent! It is about my sister—”

“Candidate Lark.” His cool voice interrupts me. “I received your message.”

“Oh, thank God!” I find that I am trembling.

“We’ll talk in my office.”

Aeson nods to the other two Atlanteans, curtly acknowledges the guard’s greeting, and begins to walk quickly toward the CA-2 building. I hurry at his side, barely able to keep up with his long stride.

We move in absolute silence, crossing the short distance to the offices, and he never once looks at me but stares directly ahead, while I throw quick desperate glances at him, and also say nothing.

It’s as if, for some reason, all of a sudden, cat’s got my tongue. . . .

We walk through the front area lobby, past the guard—a different one—who buzzes the security glass door open as soon as he recognizes Aeson Kass. I follow him, almost stumbling on the anti-static floor mat because I am not watching my feet.

At the doors of Office #7, Aeson takes out a key card and opens the door.

“Come,” he tells me, flipping on the overhead lights. I see basic office space with various consoles similar to what he had back in Pennsylvania, except there is no lounge area here, nowhere to sit but his one high-backed chair behind a wide desk. The console panels line the walls behind him. It’s basically a desk inside a machine room.

I take a step inside.

“Close the door,” he says.

I do as I’m told, and then turn toward him and stand with my hands at my sides, shaking with fine tremors. My hands—what a horrible betrayal of me. . . .

I am suddenly terrified.

Aeson Kass goes to his desk and sits down in the chair. He leans forward, puts his hands on the desk surface, palms down.

What surprises me, in that surreal moment of intensity, is that I can sense he is tense also, by the way he holds his hands—straight, composed, under such an excess of control.

Too much control.

“Speak,” he says. And he looks directly at me.

I begin to talk. Strange halting words come out of me, stumbling phrases. . . . Logic out of order . . . a torrent. “My sister Gracie—Grace Lark—she is only twelve, and she is an idiot. I mean, a complete little fool, trying to impress a boy. She did not mean—she is just a kid who screwed up, was part of a prank that went horribly wrong—no, okay, I mean she wasn’t really part of it, of anything. She just made the wrong decision, and she is completely innocent—”

“Innocent?” Aeson Kass interrupts me and his voice cuts like a blade. “Innocent implies true ignorance. I reviewed the circumstances of her case just now, and she knew exactly what she was doing. Her Disqualification is the direct result of her criminal action.”

“But she is just a stupid little twelve year old girl! A kid! I swear to you, she did not mean to harm anyone!” I exclaim, and my voice starts to lose its resilience. . . . I feel a painful lump gathering, and I know that in seconds I am going to crack, and I am going to bawl. “That chip—she only handled it after getting it from someone else—someone who was really responsible! She dropped it in Laronda Aimes’s pocket, and she didn’t even think how much trouble it would cause for everyone. Can’t you see that it was not malice? It was not intentional! You cannot Disqualify her for something like that! She does not deserve such—”

“Do you know how many other teens—kids just as young as your sister, and far more deserving—have been Disqualified already when they simply did not pass the Semi-Finals? And what about all those millions of younger children who did not meet the age requirements for Qualification? Or the older ones? Or the rest of the adult population of your Earth? What have any of them done to deserve being excluded from rescue and left behind to die?” Aeson speaks with measured precision. His eyes are tragic.

“No one deserves to die!” I say in a voice that ends on a whisper. “And yes, I know. I know exactly what you’re saying. But—this is my sister. Do you understand? All justice, all fairness, all comparisons can go flying out the window! Because I don’t care. All I know is, I am not going to let my sister go, and I will do whatever it takes to save her!”

He looks at me silently, and the intensity between us is unimaginable.

“I am sorry,” he says. “There is nothing that can be done. She is Disqualified and she is returning home.”

“No,” I say, and my voice rises in strength. “I do not accept that.”

But as soon as I speak, I can feel it—a prickling sensation along the surface of my skin—I can tell something is different.

There is something definitely strange going on. . . . My voice, it sounds tangible somehow. As though the acoustics of it cause a ripple in the air and a reverb in the walls.

Aeson Kass frowns. He then turns his head slightly, while his gaze remains locked on mine. It’s a strange automatic response, as if he’s shaking off an invisible touch. . . .

“Candidate Lark, what did you just do?”

I frown. “I—what?”

“You just used a compelling power voice on me?” he says, in amazement and rising anger.

“I don’t know what you mean!”

“Oh, I think you do.”

And suddenly I do remember, from one of the earliest Atlantis Culture classes—the discussion of various power voices and how they could be used, among other things, to compel others, and how that was considered unethical, not to mention was highly illegal in Atlantis culture.

Aeson Kass narrows his eyes, and his expression closes off completely. “This has gone far enough. We’re done.” He gets up from his chair and stands before me, pointing to the door.

That’s when I begin to tremble. . . . Suddenly I am so light-headed, so impossibly numb with despair. My breathing becomes so shallow that I cannot hear it. At the same time, those same helpless, disgusting, pathetic tears start flowing down my face, and I am doing it—bawling in front of him in great big shuddering sobs.

At the sight of it, he blinks. I know him enough by now to know that it is his one and only “tell”—a crack in his perfect armor, an expression of vulnerability. A single blink.

“I am truly sorry,” he says quietly.

I continue choking on my tears, and raise my hands to wipe my disgusting face with my sleeves.

“There is also something else,” he continues in a strange voice. “Because of this unfortunate incident with your sister coming to light, you are now formally cleared of all charges. . . . There are no more suspicions regarding your actions in this. Therefore, I owe you an apology.”

I stop crying. And suddenly I look up. My expression is probably crazed—or blazing—or what you want to call it. “No,” I say. “You owe me a life.”

He blinks again. And then he takes a step toward me.

“That is true . . .” he says softly.

“I saved you from that burning shuttle,” I say in a wooden voice drained of all emotion, only driven by single-minded focus.

“Yes. . . .”

“So you owe me! A life for a life! Give me my sister’s life!”

He exhales suddenly.

I stare up at him, breathing fast, waiting.

There is a long pause. . . .

“Okay,” he says unexpectedly, and then returns to his desk. He pushes forward one of the mech arms that extends a console-and-monitor unit, lowering it over his desk surface. And observing the screen, he starts keying in something.

“The Atlantis Central Agency has Disqualified your sister and removed her Candidacy—the entirety of her ID data and all her current points as of yesterday. I cannot reverse the decision, not even with my level of authority, but I can try to reinstate her ID. Grace Lark will be given a new blank ID token and there will be nothing on it, only her name and basic background, vital stats, and residency.”

“What—what does that mean?” I whisper.

“It means—” he looks up at me with a serious expression. “It means Grace Lark will have to earn her place from scratch. She will be a ‘new’ Candidate, with no points and no history. She will be allowed to remain at the National Qualification Center and attend training classes. She will be allowed to participate in the Finals, but without any starting points going in.”

“Oh, but then I can give her my points!” I exclaim with a burst of relief.

Aeson Kass shakes his head. “No. You will not be permitted to transfer your points to Grace Lark. It is one thing I will not allow. In fact, I will set a safeguard on your ID, so that you will be unable to do that—so that you don’t throw your own life away in exchange for hers.”

“But what if I choose to do that, for her?” I exclaim, as the horrible despair returns.

“I do not permit it,” he says. “We need you and your voice—on behalf of Atlantis.”

“But it is my choice!”

“Not entirely—not if your choice affects far more than you or your sister.”

I stare at him, stunned.

He in turn watches me with a careful, unreadable expression.

“But—” I say, as outrage starts to build. “I don’t understand! How can you tell me what I can or cannot do with my own life? Don’t you have a heart? What about basic human compassion? Have you no clue what it’s like to stand by and not help your own family—the people you most care about—when you absolutely have the means to do it?”

As I speak, I notice his face takes on a strange new expression. I simply don’t know what it is, don’t understand it . . . maybe it is not human after all.

He is not human.

“Are you finished?” he says after a terrible pause. His voice has grown low, and very soft, like the slither of a serpent. Its chill makes the fine hairs on my skin stand up in goose bumps.

But like a stupid fool who doesn’t know when to stop, I take a step, nearing his desk, and lean forward and exclaim, completing my humiliation entirely, “Please! I’ll do anything you want me to do! Anything! Just let me help her! Look, I am begging you! Anything you want! Take it! Tell me if there’s anything I can do, anything I have that I can give you. . . ?” At this point, even I am not sure what it is I am saying, what it is I am offering him in my desperation. . . .

We face each other at close proximity, our gazes locked in intensity.

“You have nothing,” he says suddenly, and a faint line of derision comes to his lips. “There is nothing you have that I want.”

Once again I am stunned. “What about my Logos voice?”

“Your voice has value for Atlantis, which is already a given. If you Qualify, we have you.” He pauses, and again there’s that fine subcurrent of disdain. “I thought you were offering something for me.”

“I—” My words trail off.

He is right, what am I saying?

“Look,” he says in a milder tone, after that unbearable pause during which my mind is reeling. “You got what you wanted, Lark. I reinstated your sister, and she has a fair chance of earning back most if not all of her points. Under the circumstances, it is absolutely the best I can do for her—or for you. In fact, I think you should be grateful right now. What do you say?”

I exhale, as general numbness returns, and I am suddenly worn out, depleted completely, emotionally wrung out. There is nothing of me left here, nothing to offer, nothing to barter with. . . . He is right.

“Thank you,” I say.

He nods. “I am glad this is resolved. In the next hour your sister will be discharged, and her belongings returned to her dorm.”

“For real?”

“Yes. Now I strongly recommend you get back to your own dorm and schedule. Strange as it may seem, I have other things to deal with than Lark family drama.”

I nod, then mutter something that sounds like “Okay.”

He watches me as I turn around and move to the door. Just before I step outside, he says, “Before you go—we need to continue your regular voice training. Be here tomorrow night at eight.”

Startled, I glance again at him. “But—I thought you have other things to do?”

“Lark,” he says. “Just be here at eight.”

 * * *