The Atlantis Plague(102)

“I think,” Janus said, “that there is still more to this. I wonder if we could wake Kate to get her opinion. It seems the entire mystery hinges upon her.”

David involuntarily pulled Kate closer to him. “We’re not waking her.”

Janus swept his eyes over her quickly. “Is she not well?”

“She’s fine,” David said, in the loudest tone he’d managed since the conversation began. “She needs her rest. Let’s all take a break.”

“Very well,” Janus said. “May I ask our destination?”

“I’ll tell you when we get there.”





CHAPTER 77



Kate thought this dream was far more vivid than the others. Not a dream… a memory. She stepped into the ship’s decompression chamber and waited. Alpha Lander, that was the ship’s name.

The suit she wore moved slightly as the air swirled around it.

The massive doors parted, revealing the beach and rocky cliff she had seen before. The blanket of black ash that had covered the land before was gone.

The voice in her helmet was crisp, and Kate jumped slightly at the sound. “Recommend you take a chariot. It’s a long walk.”

“Copy,” Kate said. Her voice sounded different, mechanical, emotionless.

She walked to the wall and held her hand to the panel. A cloud of blue light emerged, and she worked her fingers to manipulate it. The wall opened, and a hovering alloy chariot moved out into the room and waited for her.

Kate stepped onto it and worked the control panel. The chariot rotated and zoomed out of the room, but Kate barely felt any motion—the device created some sort of bubble that kept the inertia from swaying her.

The chariot moved over the beach, and Kate looked up. The sky was clear—no traces of ash. The sun burned brightly, and Kate saw green vegetation looming beyond the rock cliff that bordered the beach.

The world was healing. Life was returning everywhere.

How long had it been since she had administered the therapy—the genetic technology the humans would come to call the Atlantis Gene? Years? Decades?

The chariot rose to clear the rock ridge.

Kate marveled at the green, untouched landscape. The jungle was returning, rising from the ashes like a new world that had been created from scratch—a vast garden built as a sanctuary for these early humans.

In the distance, a column of black smoke rose into the air. The chariot charged on, and the settlement emerged on the horizon. They had built it at the base of a high rock wall, to better protect them from predators in the night. The camp was arranged so that there would be only one way into it, and that entrance was heavily guarded. Shanties and lean-tos formed a circle, the largest structures built directly into the wall at the rear of the camp. The blazing communal fire at the center of the camp also helped ward off predators.

Kate knew the humans would learn to make fire later, but at this point in their development, they could only keep fires that had already been created by sources like lightning. And keeping the fire burning was imperative to the camp—for the protection it offered and for cooking the food that would help their brains develop.

Four males stood around the fire, feeding it, tending it, ensuring it never went out. The fire rose from a square stone pit. Large boulders ringed the towering blaze, forming a wall that kept the children from the inferno. And there were so many children, maybe even a hundred of them, scurrying about, playing, and motioning to one another.

“Their population is exploding,” her partner said. “We must do something. We have to limit the tribe’s size.”

“No.”

“Unchecked, they will—”

“We don’t know what will happen,” Kate insisted.

“We will make it worse for them—”

“I’m going to inspect the alphas,” Kate said, changing the subject. The issue of their rapid population expansion was a concern, but it didn’t have to be a problem. This world was small, but it was big enough for a much, much larger population—if they were peaceful. That would be her focus.

The chariot set down, and she stepped out. The kids around the camp stopped and stared. Many wandered toward her, but their parents rushed forward and shoved them to the ground. They fell down as well, placing their face to the ground and extending their arms.

Her partner’s voice was even more solemn. “This is very bad. They take you for a god—”

Kate ignored him. “Proceeding into the camp.”

Kate motioned for the humans to stand, but they remained face-down. She walked to the closest one, a woman, and stood her up. She helped the next person up, and then everyone was standing, rushing to her. They mobbed her as she waded past the crackling fire at the center of the camp.