A Planet Called Eden
Chapter 10: The Wreckage of the Armstrong

The sun burned away the silver morningmists. Jack steered the rover north, along the top of a ridge that paralleled thelooming mass of the cliffs — they hoped the extra height would enhance theirscans. Tall statues and pillars of Egyptian design, ancient and weathered, linedthe ridge. A few had tumbled and broken, but many remained erect, the lastsentries of a lost civilization. Thick, leafy vines with white and red flowers twistedand climbed most of the columns that still stood. On their right, the rapids ofa wide and churning river ran between the ridge and the impassable wall of cliffs.

Kim sat next to Jack in the passenger’sseat and watched them with wide eyes as they passed. The flowers looked sickly,like cut blossoms already starting to wilt and rot.

“Maybe those are, like, signposts?” Jack suggested.

“If they are, I can’t read them,” saidKim.

“Maybe there’s, like a city nearby. Orsomething.”

“Maybe there was,” Kim said doubtfully.“A long time ago.”

“What’d’ya think happened to all thepeople?”

Kim didn’t answer, but she didn’t haveto. Jack knew they were both thinking the same thing. They were thinking aboutthe dusty, centuries-dead skeletons they’d found in the pyramid.

On their left, the jungle gave way to shoreof moss-covered stone and a vast lake of sparkling blue-green that stretched asfar as they could see, even with their elevated view from the top of the ridge.Near the shore, a pair of great beasts with long, serpent like necks watchedthem pass, then turned back to munching greenery from tender branches thatstretched out over the water. Something in their faces reminded Jack of giantturtles.

“Abydosaurus,” Kim said. Jack nodded.

The sensor dish on the rover’s hoodturned twice, and then settled back into its forward position. “Calibratingagain?” he asked Dominic. He made an effort to keep his voice light and civil.That seemed like the right thing to do. For Kim’s sake, anyway. If nothingelse, the mission came first. That, and staying alive. Yeah, staying alive was prettyimportant, too.

Dominic let out a heavy breath and shookhis head. “I’ve gone over every scan a thousand times, hoping I’ll replacesomething I missed….”

“But no way through,” Jack guessed.

“Bloody nothing,” said Dominic. Thefrustration was plain in his voice. Jack shrugged. That was something, anyway.

“We’re getting farther from the nexus,”said Kim.

Jack looked down at his countdown clock:Four days, six hours, twenty-two minutes. The seconds were bleeding fast.

“We have to get to that nexus,” saidDominic. “We can’t lose another day.”

“I’m wide open to suggestions,” saidJack.

The ridge was narrower. Jack coaxed morespeed from the rover.

# # #

Near the shores of the lake, a pair of Skareikiwarriors watched the strange object pass. When it was out of sight, one of thewarriors began to drum, a deliberate and careful pattern of sound. The drummerpaused for a moment, and then repeated the pattern.

In the distance, another Skareiki warriorlistened, waited, and repeated the pattern on her own drum.

Moments later, a third warrior heard, andrelayed the signal.

The sun was past its zenith when, atlast, the thumping signal reached a cluster of Skareiki warriors gatheredaround the twisted, smoldering metal wreckage that had fallen from the sky. Onlyone of the warriors was mounted, the leader, General Skarnarak. The windwhipped his cloak of imperial crimson and his beast roared. General Skarnarakremoved his ornate bronze helmet and crooked his head to listen to the soundsof the distant drums.

General Skarnarak turned his gaze to hisaide, Grashsnarragh. Together, they listened as the drummed message began torepeat.

# # #

Inside the wreckage, two Skareikiexplored. The taller was Sharrganaugh, the scout who had first spotted thetreasure from the sky. The smaller and stockier scout, Hurangsharrk, regardedthe ruined metal with unmasked awe. Such wealth! Sharrganaugh remained focused.Sharrganaugh and Hurangsharrk had watched the human creatures through theirtelescopes. They’d seen them unleash fire, unimaginable power. Somewhere, thewreckage hid the secret to that mighty inferno. They were determined to replaceit. They moved slowly, carefully, and deliberately.

Sharrganaugh pointed to the bewilderingarray beneath the great forward window and spoke in a harsh, reptilian tongue —hisses, growls, and chirps. “You saw the human creature. Can you duplicate the itsmotions?”

Hurangsharrk ran his hands over a panel ofglass and some strange, smooth material Sharrganaugh couldn’t recognize. Thepanel was covered with bumps and shapes, some of which gave way whenHurangsharrk touched them. Hurangsharrk touched another shape, a bright redone.

A high-pitched wail exploded from thepanel. Hurangsharrk and Sharrganaugh leapt back, eyes wide and fangs bared.Lights covered the panel, bright and flashing, as though the strange materialhad captured stars.

Slowly, cautiously, Hurangsharrk creptback to the panel. He reached forward, but his clawed hands were awkward. Hetouched the strange material cautious, expecting the lights to be hot. Theyweren’t. “The creature moved like this,” said Hurangsharrk.

His claws pounded the strange panel.

Nothing happened.

He tried to move as he’d seen the humanmove, but the lights were bewildering. He touched more dents, bumps, andshapes. Still nothing. His hands crept closer to a single, red control, flashing,larger than the others. He touched it.

A voice came from the ruined panel, andHurangsharrk and Sharrganaugh leapt back again.

The voice was soft, strange, alien. Itspoke steadily, almost rhythmically.

It sounded like one of the humancreatures.

Sharrganaugh had not learned any speechfrom the few humans his people captured alive. But he would have sworn that theslow, rhythmic speech was counting something.

Time, perhaps?

# # #

Outside, General Skarnarak nodded once asthe drumming stopped.

“The strange humans in their metal beastare still on the ridge,” said Grashsnarragh. “They’ve stopped again for thenight. They are not moving with great speed.”

General Skarnarak nodded again. “They’reheading for the Fallen City. I do not want them to reach it.”

Grashsnarragh bowed. “As you command,General.” He began to drum, relaying the order back.

Before he finished, a great boom tore the night — a sound like athousand thunderclaps, close, all at once.

The general turned and saw — the wreckagewas breathing fire, just as Sharrganaugh had reported. Inside the wreckage, hecould see his warriors scrambling frantically. General Skarnarak watched withgreat interest. Such unimaginable power! After a long moment the wreckage fellquiet. The fire ceased. In the distance behind the metal ruin, trees burned.

A slow smile curled the general’s mouth.He turned to Grashsnarragh.

“Find out if he can do that again.”

# # #

Dominic had to steer the rover carefully.The top of the ridge narrowed, and the way was rocky and uneven. The sheer wallof cliffs still stretched as far as eye could see or instrument could measure. Theywere far of course; there was no way the Collinscould replace them — or even know they were still alive. They were getting fartherfrom the nexus by the minute. He glanced down to check his monitors, stillscanning silently and desperately for a way through.

Nothing.

He passed another pair of the Egyptianesquecolumns, both draped with a wild tangle of flowering vines. One of the columns hadfallen and shattered, but the other still stood in proud defiance of aeons andelements. Dominic snapped a recording, but he didn’t bother to alert Kim. Godknows she needed the sleep.

Dominic glanced down at the scan. He couldn’tread most of the weathered hieroglyphs — even Kim knew only a few — but herecognized one set they’d seen in the pyramid. Those were symbols for the Sonsof Sobek — the unknown danger they hadn’t encountered yet — whatever the bloodyhell they were.

The ones with the flashing weapons.

The … somethingthe people in the tomb had decided to die rather than face. Lovely.

Dominic stole another fast glance at thescan. Here, the symbols hadn’t been carved in haste. So perhaps the long deadpeople had encountered the danger before they’d taken their last, hopelessstand in the tomb. For a time at least, they had resisted. Perhaps. It seemedas good a guess as any.

Sowhat in the name of all the blazing hells happened to them? What changed?

Dominic pressed his lower lips togetheras he considered. Was the ancient pillar a signpost? A description? A warning?

He found himself hoping Kim had misread theancient script. That was certainly possible. Well, unlikely, knowing Kim, butpossible. There was a first time for everything.

The ridge was rockier. Dominic didn’tslow. They were running out of time.

A mist had risen off the lake to theirleft, and fingers of sunlight reached through the clouds and turned it to gold.It was shockingly beautiful, even if it made visibility poorer. A cluster ofinsects, blazing emerald green and deep, crimson red, darted in front of thewindshield like a storm of shooting stars. More of the vines grew along theedge of the ridge, with their cup-like flowers of red and white larger thandinner plates, and something deep inside him, something that had slept far toolong, leapt at the still and heart-wrenching glory.

For one moment, Dominic almost felt thatmaybe, if they never found a way through to the nexus, staying here on Eden,with all its lush splendor, wouldn’t be so bad after all.

But no, no.

The beauty was diseased. Kim had broughtin one of the flowers as a specimen to study. It seemed lovely at first, untilthey saw widening, withering brown and black spots of blight behind the petals,spots that oozed some thick, pusy yellow-white fluid. The flower had smelled …sweet, but sickly, like a woman who wears rose perfume instead of bathing.They’d been careful not to touch the fluid.

There was a plague in paradise.

Anna, though, Anna was a healer. If Annawas here, maybe they could—

No, no.

Anna wasn’t here. And even if she washere, they wouldn’t be together. Not even on Eden. That possibility wasdiseased, too. Jack, in his spite, had poisoned it. Jack had—

Dominic didn’t finish the thought.

The ridge ahead went suddenly dark. Dominicslammed the rover’s brakes, raising a great cloud of dust — and looked up intime to see a giant scaled and clawed foot slamming down in front of them.