The first thing he noticed was the smell. Antiseptics mixed with burnt hair, and worse. Slowly, other sensations pierced the fog surrounding Benson’s consciousness. Pain, for one, in his hands, neck, and face. And the ringing all around him, like standing between the tines of a giant tuning fork.
He opened his eyes, but only the right field of vision responded, and blurry at that. He tried to raise an arm to wave a hand in front of his left eye, but it felt like an anchor held it down to the bed. A bed! He was in Sickbay… again.
A shadow fell over his face. Benson tried to turn and see who it was, but his neck wouldn’t respond. Frightened, he tried to call out, but he couldn’t hear his own words. Just an intense ringing that seemed to come from every direction at once.
<It’s all right, Bryan. It’s Jeanine. I’m right here.> Her voice in his head was like a calming lullaby. <We really need to stop meeting like this. People might start getting suspicious.>
<I’m not dead?> Benson asked incredulously.
<No, but looking at the state you’re in, you get an ‘A’ for effort.>
<The ship?>
<It’s fine, Bryan. We’re all fine, thanks to you.>
<I can’t move.>
<That’s the anesthetics doing their job. You’re being prepped for surgery. I’m surprised you woke up at all. You’re swimming in enough tranquilizers to drop a horse.>
His vision cleared up enough that he could recognize the general outline of Jeanine’s face. She was smiling, but it masked deep worry. Benson steeled himself for the next question.
<How bad is it?>
She rubbed her mouth before answering.
<The good news is your suit protected you from the worst of the explosion. It absorbed most of the shrapnel and radiation. Both of your eardrums were punctured from the overpressure, which is why you can’t hear. Your left eye took a shard and will need to be replaced, and you have first and second degree burns on your hands and most of your face. You also won’t be in need of a haircut for a few months. There are… deeper injuries, especially to your lungs. The shockwave ruptured a lot of alveoli, so their capacity is way down and you have a lot of fluid build-up. For the moment, we’re oxygenating your blood to make up the difference until they heal, but we’re going to have to watch you for blood clots for quite a while. You also inhaled more than your recommended daily allowance of plutonium, so we’re getting a batch of nanites ready to scrub it out.>
<But, how am I alive at all? It was a damned nuke, and I wasn’t even twenty meters from it.>
<It didn’t go nuclear. Somebody said it was a dud. You’ll have to ask one of the tech geeks about that. It’s not really my field. But we really have to get you into surgery now.>
<No, wait! I need you to do two things first.>
<OK,> she said expectantly.
<First, tell Lieutenant Alexopoulos there’s a tablet in my desk drawer. Have her bring it down here for when I wake up. And second…>
This time, Benson awoke to the smell of apple blossoms.
Vases filled with flowers and other gifts from throngs of grateful fans and admirers filled every available surface of the recovery room. Two days had passed since his showdown with Kimura, and it was another day before the good doctor would allow any visitors through the door. He spent the extra day reviewing the tablet that Theresa had liberated from his desk and getting caught up on the fallout of his confrontation with Kimura, or at least the version of events approved for public consumption.
Kimura was very dead. He was less than a meter away from the center of the explosion. His suit had protected him from bullets, but against a dozen kilos of high explosives and an open visor, it only managed to keep most of his odds and ends in one place. His henchmen had fared better in the short term, but they were going to survive just long enough to be put on trial for the deaths of twenty thousand people and promptly executed anyway.
Apparently, quite a queue had formed to rub elbows with the hero of the day. Fortunately, Benson got to assign priority to the list. The door opened gently, and the moment Benson had both longed for and dreaded for three days had come.
“Hello, Esa.”
Theresa walked slowly into the room. She swallowed hard as she took in the extent of Benson’s injuries. She didn’t gasp or cry, but it was obvious the sight shook her to the core. Shame welled up in Benson’s gut. He regretted asking her to come before he’d recovered more fully. Not that she couldn’t handle seeing his condition, but she shouldn’t have to.
Very gently, Theresa took his bandaged hand in hers and gave it a little squeeze. The pain was immediate, but Benson suppressed a grimace. It was worth a little discomfort to feel her touch.
“You look good, Bryan.” Her voice sounded tinny to Benson’s ears, mostly because he wasn’t hearing with his ears. For now, a pair of temporary implants were dumping an audio feed directly into his plant until his ruptured eardrums had time to heal properly.
Benson gave a dry little cough. “I look like a Friday night fish fry.”
“The doctor says it’s mostly superficial.”
Benson chuckled. “Just like me, huh?”
“That’s just the Zero Hero talking. But I know your secret.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
She touched the side of his face. “You go a lot deeper.”
“Believe me, no one was more surprised than me,” Benson smiled, and promptly cracked his lower lip open.
“Oh God. Here, let me get that.” Theresa dabbed the blood away with a piece of gauze from the tray next to his bed. “Actually, I lied. You’re a mess.”
“Lucky you, huh?”
“Yeah,” she said softly. “Very.”
“Well, you won’t have to worry about competition. They’re not going to be lining up for me for a while.”
“I wouldn’t count on that. You’re a hero, Bryan. Maybe the biggest ever.”
Benson changed the subject. “How’s Korolev? He didn’t get in trouble for letting me in, did he?”
Theresa leaned back. “Hasn’t anyone told you? Pavel pulled you out of the room. He ignored Director Hekekia’s direct order to do it, too. He got a lungful of radiation for his trouble.”
Benson’s blood went cold. “Is he OK?”
“He’s resting in his apartment. They pumped him full of the same nanobots clearing out your lungs.”
“Tough kid. I owe him one.”
“We both do.” Theresa put her hand on his bandaged cheek, then kissed him, careful not to aggravate his injuries, but not repulsed by them either. Benson felt himself get lost in it.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“Because I came back?”
“Because you do what you say you’re going to do.” She smiled. “Even when you say you’re going to do something stupid.”
“I love you too. Now, get ready for one more stupid thing.”
Theresa eyed him suspiciously. “What are you up to?”
“I need you to call the captain and tell her to get down here. There’s something she’s going to want to see in about fifteen minutes. You should stick around, too.”
Theresa shook her head and smiled. “You’re going to make all of this up to me.”
“Count on it.”
Theresa kissed him on the cheek. “Don’t take too long to recover, hero.” She winked, then walked back out the way she came, her hips gently swaying as she left. As he waited for his next visitor, Benson took a small measure of pride that not even getting blown up could dent his sex drive.
Commander Chao Feng passed through the door and gazed around the small recovery room, as if looking for an explanation for why he’d been summoned.
“Commander,” Benson said, in a raspy voice. His mouth was dry from some of the medications, and he was still getting his fluids intravenously. “Thank you for coming.”
“Thank you for inviting me, detective. Honestly, I was surprised to get the invite, considering everything that’s happened over the last couple weeks.”
“Don’t mention it. We both jumped to some faulty conclusions, wouldn’t you say?”
Feng snorted. “Yes, I guess you could say that. Mistakes we’ve both paid for.”
“I’m sorry about your wife.”
A sad sigh escaped his mouth. “She’s at peace now, and our son is safe. I have you to thank, but I’d rather not talk about her right now.”
“I understand.” Benson coughed a dry little cough. “Actually, I’m not sure you can thank me for it. From what I hear, the bomb was a dud anyway. I only managed to land myself in the burn ward.”
Feng shook his head. “Not exactly, chief. We recovered your plant’s recording of everything that happened after the feed was cut. One of your shots hit the device’s casing and left a dent in the shell of high-explosives around the plutonium core. It wasn’t much, but the techs tell me the deformation was enough to make the implosion trigger fail, which is why the bomb didn’t go critical.”
“I was aiming for his tablet. You mean I accidentally saved the human race?”
“So it would appear. Although you might want to leave that part out of the official record.”
“Appearances to maintain?”
Feng shrugged. “It makes a more… satisfying narrative. A falsely accused man and an infamous gun both find redemption in a defining moment of heroism.”
The FN. Benson had almost forgotten about it. “I assume the handgun found its way back, ah, home?”
“It’s back in Curator Feynman’s hands, yes. Although she wanted me to ask ‘Did he really need to use all the bullets?’”
Benson smirked through cracked lips. There really was no pleasing some people.
“She’s not in trouble for springing me, is she?”
“It’s hard to argue with results. The public would not be pleased.”
“I imagine not. How’s the ship? I haven’t seen anything official in the news feeds.”
“Surprisingly good, actually. The feed belt in the compartment you were in was wrecked, and a few dozen bombs were too damaged to use, but the shock absorber assembly is intact. Hekekia has already written a new firing pattern to account for the lost railgun. And as sad as it is to say, all the mass we shed from losing Shangri-La’s atmosphere and lake means we actually have spare bomb capacity, even considering the ones we lost in the explosion.”
Benson’s face darkened as he remembered Bahadur.
“Small favors, huh?”
“Indeed. Detective, may I ask, how did you know Kimura’s plan?”
Benson shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t, really. It just made sense, so I played a hunch and got lucky.”
“We all did, it seems.”
“What happens to the rest of Kimura’s people?”
“That’s… a difficult question. Your young friend Mei led us to their hiding spot. She’s already received a full pardon for her cooperation, you’ll be happy to know. But the rest of them…” Feng shook his head. “Without plant data, we’re going to have a devil of a time sorting out who’s responsible for what, and to what degree. It’s going to be a while before we have any closure. The trials will probably have to wait until after we make landing.”
“I understand. Also, I want amnesty for my people. Alexopoulos and Korolev were working under my orders.”
Feng nodded. “Of course. You’ve also been reinstated as Avalon’s chief constable. When you’re back on your feet, naturally.”
“Might have to be sooner than you think.”
Feng cocked an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“I have one more hunch to test. Is my next visitor outside?”
“I think so.”
Benson sat up in his bed as much as he could manage. “Good, send them in. Oh, and I’m leaving my plant feed open for anyone who wants to eavesdrop.”
Feng nodded a silent understanding and headed for the door.
“Chao, wait,” Benson called after him as the doors slid open. “Edmond was the hero in all this. He figured it all out by himself. I just picked up where he left off. I couldn’t have done it without him.”
Feng’s mouth quivered. “That hadn’t occurred to me. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Are we cool?”
Feng nodded. “Yes, Bryan, we’re cool. I’ll send her in.” The door clicked shut behind him.
Benson took as deep a breath as he could considering the state of his lungs, then exhaled slowly. Oddly, he felt no thrill or satisfaction about the coming confrontation, but it had to be done.
Director Avelina Pereira da Silva swept into the room, carried by an easy grace that had only been enhanced by her age.
“Bryan!” She fell to his chest and hugged him tightly.
“Careful on the lungs, please.”
“Of course, I’m sorry.” She stood back up. “Forgive me, but everyone’s been more than a little emotional lately.”
“Oh, I understand, believe me.”
She tucked a lock of silver-streaked hair back behind her ear. “I’m surprised I was so high on your list of visitors.”
“You shouldn’t be. We have a conversation to finish.”
“We do?” Her voice wavered so slightly, Benson wasn’t sure he’d heard it at all.
“Yes, about Edmond.” Benson held up his tablet. “I’ve been going back over his work logs, trying to figure out why Kimura wanted him killed.”
The air in the room dropped a degree. “You have his work files? I thought they were all destroyed in the sabotage.”
Benson nodded. “So did I, but then I remembered this tablet. It wasn’t connected to the net when the attack happened, so one copy survived.”
“Well…” Her face changed from apprehension to excitement. “That’s great news. I’d thought we were going to have to rerun all of his experiments. This will save us months of work.” She reached out to grab the tablet, but Benson pulled it back.
“I’m sorry, but it’s evidence, and the investigation is still active until all of Kimura’s people have stood trial.”
Da Silva pulled her hand back. “I see. Of course you’re right. But if I could have a copy, at least?”
Benson nodded. “Yes, naturally. I’ll upload a copy to the lab’s server as soon as we’re done here.”
“That won’t be necessary,” she reassured him. “I prefer to compartmentalize my team, otherwise some of the younger techs get ambitious and we end up duplicating efforts. Just send it to my personal address. I’m sure you understand.”
Benson smiled. “Of course I do. I’ve read a lot of his personal files, too. He really looked up to you, did you know that?”
“I–” She choked up for a moment and swallowed hard. “I didn’t know that.”
“Oh yes, almost like a mother figure, it seems. He loved working for you.”
She nodded. “He was one of my best techs.”
“In fact, the only thing he seemed to think about more was this ‘Atlantis’ obsession.”
“Yes, you mentioned that before.” A trace of impatience crept into da Silva’s tone, but Benson plowed on as if he hadn’t noticed.
“I wouldn’t have thought anymore of it if it wasn’t for something David Kimura said right before he blew himself up.”
Her posture straightened. “What did he say?”
“Well, I was begging him not to kill an entire race when he said the strangest thing. He said, ‘I’m saving one.’” Benson threw up his bandaged hands in exasperation. “Can you imagine? At first I thought he was spouting some crap about atoning for our sins, or whatever. But then I started thinking about Atlantis. I’d assumed it was just another word for a lost continent, but then it hit me. Atlantis wasn’t just a continent, it was home to an advanced race. A race that disappeared.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s true.” She walked over to the small rollaway table next to his bed that he ate off and picked up a water pitcher. “Your lips look dry, Bryan. Can I get you a glass of water?”
“Yes, please,” he said.
Avelina smiled down at him and turned her back to pour the water. “You were saying, Bryan? About Atlantis?”
“Right, yes. So, I wondered if Edmond had found something on Tau Ceti G, or more to the point, someone.”
She turned back around clutching a glass and held it out to him. “Here, take a sip.”
Benson held up his mummified hands and shrugged. “Skin grafts. Do you mind?”
Avelina smiled warmly. “Of course not. Here, sit up.” She reached around to cradle the back of his head and held the glass up to his parched lips. The cool water reached his tongue and he gulped it down greedily.
“Whoa, not so fast,” she said maternally. “You’ll make yourself sick.”
Benson’s expression hardened. “That’s the idea, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?” Avelina held out the glass, encouraging him to take another sip.
With his one good eye, Benson locked onto her face like a missile. “The water tastes strange.”
She shrugged off the comment. “Well, you know what they say about hospital food.”
“That it’s laced with puffer fish poison?”
Avelina froze, then stood and poured the rest of the glass down the sink. “What do you mean?” she asked over her shoulder.
“I know it was you,” Benson said flatly.
Avelina crossed her arms. “I don’t like what you’re insinuating, Mr Benson.”
“I’m not insinuating anything. I know the truth.”
Her face softened and she laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I think the stress of the last few days has left you confused, Bryan. You should rest. We can talk more about this later.”
“Oh, trust me, we’ll have the chance,” Benson said. “Because I had Dr Russell whip up a dose of TTX antidote before you came in. It’s busy neutralizing the poison you just fed me as we speak. Did you hope they’d think I’d just succumbed to my injuries? You don’t know Dr Russell very well if you think she’d skip an autopsy.” Benson coughed from the strain of speaking. “The game is over, Avelina, unless you’re prepared to smother me with a pillow, but I don’t think getting your hands dirty is your style.”
All of the built up tension released from Avelina’s body as she collapsed into the chair next to Benson’s bed.
“It’s not. Never could find the stomach for it. I spend a lifetime ripping organisms apart and putting them back together at the molecular level, but I can’t stand the sight of blood. Isn’t that funny?” She chuckled, fighting against the tears welling up in her eyes. “How did you figure it out?”
“I had a couple days to read Edmond’s work log. He never worked on the puffer fish toxin. That was your project. You tried to pawn it off on him after you thought his work files were erased to throw off suspicion. Files you destroyed while the power was down after Kimura sabotaged the reactors and all the security nets were down. But you didn’t know about my copy, no one did.”
Benson leaned back on his bed. “From there, it wasn’t hard to guess you were coordinating with Kimura. We already knew a high-ranking crew member was helping him. Someone with a lot of network permissions and coding expertise. The only thing I can’t figure out is why? That boy loved you, Avelina. Like a mother. Why kill him?”
Tears ran down Avelina’s cheeks. “Because he said no.”
“To what, Avelina?”
“To saving Atlantis.” She shook her head and wiped away tears. “I tried to get him to stop, but he just wouldn’t let it go. He was like a little pitbull. Maybe that’s why he was so good at his job.”
“What’s Atlantis?” Benson asked harshly.
Avelina sniffled. “You said it. There’s already a sentient race on Tau Ceti G, and we’re about to kick down their door.”
Benson swallowed hard, committing himself to the next question.
“Who else knows?”
She laughed through the tears. “The senior command crew, most of the division heads. Everyone who’s anyone. We’ve known since Pathfinder made orbit. As soon as we had scopes in the high orbitals, we could see the grids of their villages, plain as day.”
Loose strands connected in Benson’s mind. “All of them on the Dark Continent. Which is where the unexplained storm came from, and why the landing shuttle crashed mysteriously.”
Avelina nodded affirmation. “The storm doesn’t exist, it’s a cover up. There was never anything wrong with the shuttle or the drones. We’ve been watching the Atlantians for months. They live in unfired mud-brick buildings, but they’re a beautiful, artistic, spiritual people. Do you know they built a temple around one of our rovers? The poor fools have been bringing it offerings and making little animal sacrifices.”
The final connection fell into place. “And you conspired with Kimura to protect them from us, by destroying the Ark,” Benson said. “As soon as you realized Edmond had figured it out, you tried to recruit him into your circle, but he refused, didn’t he? He was going to blow the lid off everything and the only way to silence him was to kill him.”
Avelina was sobbing freely by then. “He was too young to understand the truth.”
“What truth?” Benson shouted. Fresh blood trickled down his cracked lips. “What truth could justify genocide?”
“Preventing genocide!” She screamed hard enough that even Benson wanted to sink into his bed and disappear. “Don’t you get it? Humans are fallen monsters. Are there any Neanderthals on this ship? Every single time we faced off against a weaker hominid, we eradicated it. When we ran out of other hominids, we turned on our own tribes. And when we were powerful enough, we turned on the whole of Earth.” She stood and dug an angry finger into her chest.
“We were the Sixth Extinction, Bryan. Not a super-volcano, or an asteroid, or a plague. Just one short-sighted, greedy, selfish species. We killed the Earth decades before God sent Nibiru to erase His mistake.” She made the old sign of the cross on her chest, then paced around the small room like a stalking predator.
“For the longest time, I thought this journey was supposed to be our atonement. A second voyage aboard the Ark. But we weren’t meant to survive at all. God already started a Second Genesis on a world that should have been beyond our ability to corrupt.”
“We’re not dead yet, Avelina.”
“That’s the problem!” she howled. “Don’t you see? We’re destroyers. We’d use our technology to eradicate the Atlantians. Just like the American Indians and the Australian Aborigines. How many examples do you need, Bryan? And you almost ruined it. Don’t you see? This has to be done.”
“I’m afraid I’ve already ruined it.” Benson pointed at the door. On cue, it slid open and Captain Mahama stepped through, flanked by two constables, including Theresa.
Understanding dawned as Avelina saw the constables. “You were streaming the whole time.”
“Yes, I was.”
Theresa stepped forward and grabbed Avelina by the elbow. “Director da Silva, I’m placing you under arrest for conspiring with the terrorist David Kimura, as an accomplice to the murder of Edmond Laraby, the death of Chief Bahadur, the attempted murder of Chief Constable Benson, twice, sabotage, and…” She consulted her tablet. “A whole bunch of other charges. Your rights will be uploaded to your plant before questioning begins.”
Avelina offered her wrists to be placed in the cuffs without resistance.
“You’ve damned us all,” she said quietly.
Benson only shrugged. “We’ve spent the last two centuries learning how to live within our means. I think we might be ready to stand on our own, without the help of gods.”
She drew herself to her full height. “And who will stand up for the Atlantians?” she asked.
“I will,” Benson answered. “And the humans, and anyone who stands on the right side of the law. Because that’s my job, and I’m good at my job. I’m sorry you won’t be around to help, I really am.” He jerked his head to let Theresa know he’d finished.
“Goodbye, Avelina.”
Theresa beamed down at him, then led da Silva out and the doors slid shut, leaving Benson and Captain Mahama alone.
Mahama was the first to break the silence.
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t do it for you,” Benson said gloomily.
“Of course not. Still, you have honored your line. No one suspected da Silva, not even me. You seem to have a unique insight into the workings of the criminal mind. Maybe that’s an important trait we overlooked in our… zeal for perfection.”
Benson snorted. “Takes a thief to catch a thief, is that it?”
“Or the grandson of a thief, at least. Take the compliment as it was intended.”
“Captain, I have to know. Is what she said about the Atlantians true? Is there a sentient race already living on Tau Ceti G?”
“Yes.”
Her blunt, unequivocal affirmation caught Benson off guard. He’d expected yet another wall of obfuscation.
“And what Kimura said about Nibiru? Was it sent after us by some… supreme being?”
“I can’t speak to the supreme part, but yes. It was guided to Earth by someone.”
A very bad feeling passed through Benson, like something walking over his grave.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
Mahama pulled out the small guest chair in the corner and sat down before collecting herself to answer.
“Because I, and the rest of the senior command staff, have decided it’s time to stop keeping secrets. For a very long time, well before I was born, we thought we had everything under control. But the shouting of twenty thousand dead is enough to wake even the deepest sleeper. Our secrets nearly destroyed everything. Which is why your entire conversation with Avelina, and our conversation right now, has been allowed to stream freely, unedited and uncensored, to the entire ship. We’re also going to declassify all of the data Pathfinder has collected on Atlantis.”
Benson tried to whistle, but his lips weren’t quite up to the task.
“That’s a bold move,” he said instead.
“An overdue one, it seems.”
Benson pushed himself up onto his elbows. “And what about these people who sent the Hole after us?”
“Well, as you’ve already pointed out, we’ve learned to live… more quietly these last ten generations.”
“And if they find our forwarding address?”
Captain Mahama stood and inspected one of the vases of apple blossoms.
“Progress hasn’t stopped these last two centuries. Circumstances put a ceiling on what we can implement, but that hasn’t prevented us from making plans. Inventions and devices that were merely theoretical when we left have run through many generations of testing and refinement in virtual space. An entire navy of ships already exist digitally that make the Ark look like a steamboat by comparison. They’re only waiting for us to build up the industrial capacity to construct them. Within a century, we’ll jump off from Tau Ceti G and spread across the galaxy like wildfire.”
Benson snorted. “Ready to go toe to toe with aliens who throw singularities around like billiard balls?”
“Maybe, maybe not. But we’ll never let ourselves be limited to one planet, one point of failure again. We’ve been awoken to that risk.”
“Who’s going to wake the Atlantians? They didn’t ask to be put in God’s crosshairs, you know.”
Mahama held out her palms. “We’re taking applications.”
Benson fell back on his pillow and shook his head. “Don’t look at me. I’m taking five years’ worth of unused leave.”
Mahama turned and strode towards the door. “And well deserved it is. I won’t keep you from it any longer. Rest well, chief. I have a feeling you’re going to need it.”