Chapter Forty

OUR ROUTE THROUGH the trees had been circuitous for a reason. We left the forest very near the mountains, near a set of tunnels that Bak knew from previous travels.

These were old lava tunnels, he told us. Once, this area had flowed with magma directly below the surface, and the cannibals flocked here for the warmth. Now the volcanoes lay dormant, and the cannibals had moved on. But the tunnels remained and led deep into the heart of the mountain range.

So began the next leg of our journey. The Keplerites definitely had something against walking on the surface like ordinary men. Where before we’d traveled in midair, suspended between heaven and earth, now our way took a subterranean turn.

We no doubt would have been hopelessly lost if not for Bak. I got so turned around among the networks of intersecting tunnels that before I knew it, I’d lost any sense of direction. But in the meager light of his lantern, Bak led us through the tubes with unshaken confidence.

The tunnels themselves, it must be noted, were phenomenal to behold. I’d been many places on Earth, but never had I seen anything like this.

The walls shimmered with minerals, and here and there we found lavacicles—great stalactites hanging from the ceiling, formed by dripping lava. Sometimes, they paired with stalagmites and sometimes they hung alone.

The floors stretched for long spaces in the smoothest, most unmarred rock I’d ever seen. And in other places, the stone rippled and bulged in strange, whimsical patterns. Kayleigh said these were exquisite examples of pāhoehoe lava. Which meant very little to me, but I admired the beauty anyway.

Occasionally, the ceiling hung so low we proceeded on our hands and knees. But for the most part, we had plenty of room to walk upright—usually, with space to spare.

I didn’t immediately see it, but in addition to a wealth of minerals, the walls bore very curious marks of a graduated flow, with new depths indicating the height at which the lava had traveled as the volume diminished. The crew’s geologists, I had no doubt, would be profoundly disappointed to have missed this opportunity. At least, they would have been, had it not come with the ever-present threat of discovery by the cannibals.

That threat weighed heavily on all of us, and most particularly the professor and Bak. Every ring of boots on the tunnel floor provoked an urgent exhortation for caution from one or both. It was a disconcerting turn of events that these two who, in the trees, had been at each other’s throats, now aligned in common purpose.

Their concerns weren’t entirely without justification. Some patches of rock seemed to absorb the footfalls rather well, but the slightest movement rang out sharply on others, echoing up and down the tubes. Still, no one tried to make more noise than we could help, and these panicked demands for silence only put us all on edge.

For two days, we made our way through the tunnels, and the professor’s jumpiness grew with each passing hour. Finally, we emerged midway up one of the peaks, surrounded on all sides by stone.

I had no idea where we were, but Bak didn’t seem fazed.

“We’re headed just behind the primary lava flow. That’s this way.”

And with that, we set off again. This time—finally—above ground. It felt good to simultaneously plant my feet on solid earth and also stand in sunlight. A rare treat I had been mostly denied these past months. It seemed to have the opposite effect on Bak though. Despite the fact that the cannibals rarely ventured into the mountains, he grew, somehow, even jumpier. The professor calmed a little once we reached open ground, but not much.

So their continued unease only added to the tension we all felt, and there was plenty of that already. Our path lay almost directly behind the cannibal settlement.

The settlement, Bak told us, consisted of a large expanse of habitations all along the lava flow. The Mountain—the aptly named source of that flow—was the largest volcano in the area and the focal point of their civilization.

The Mountain itself was actually a set of cojoined mountains, one greater and one lesser. Each spewed its own stream of magma, which joined midway to form the great flow around which the cannibal settlement existed.

Our destination was a crevice on the major peak, high above the cannibals. After our last encounter with them, none of us wanted a rematch, and the thought of being in that kind of proximity—no matter how far above, or how shielded from view below—cheered no one.

So we marched in silence, the professor jumping at every shadow, until we reached the Mountain. Then began the long climb. This proved to be the most difficult leg of our journey so far because of the steep, sometimes almost sheer, grade. And it seemed to stretch upward forever.

It took two and a half days to reach a pass, about three-quarters of the way up. This led toward the front of the Mountain, and from here we progressed in the general direction indicated on the map. Shortly before the third evening, we discovered the ravine.

It was situated almost directly at the point where the mountains merge, and the climb proved hair raising. There were no easy ways down in any direction, particularly in the sparse light of dusk. But the sight of another lost portion of the Genesis nestled deep among the rock gave us the incentive we needed, and somehow, we all made it down with nothing worse than skinned knees and battered nerves to show for our trouble.

Dark had settled by time we reached the ship. Finding an operable pod, we locked ourselves in for the night. Now that we were sheltered and in relative safety, I would have been content to sleep through the evening, but Caspersen insisted we set up shifts for watch. As per our habit thus far, she divided it between me, her, Connor, and Matt.

The night passed uneventfully, and we rose early and eagerly. As far out of the sunlight as we were in the ravine, the ship was still dark inside—not with the same, solid depth of nighttime, but dim like the hours before sunset. Still, we had enough light to make our way around, and no one wanted to wait longer.

The professor almost managed to bury the jitters, and even Bak started to pick up on the excitement.

“All right,” Caspersen said, “let’s scout this place out, make sure we’re alone…and then get to the server room.”

The survey of the ship took very little time. We were at an angle, a good thirty degrees or so, with the flight deck raised as it rested against the cliff face. Our temporary quarters had been at the lowest part of the wing, and a number of rooms lay between those ends.

We discovered some changes, none for the better, in the state of things since Captain Sanders had been here, and not merely due to the passage of time. The cannibals might not have located this wing before the Nation did, but they’d certainly had some time in the intervening millennia. The halls, most of the pods, and storage rooms had been ransacked. Anything that could be carted off and used had gone missing, and what remained had been destroyed.

Our search turned up no visitors. We found evidence of prior encampments but nothing recent enough to give us concern. As near as I could tell, and despite the ancient camps and damage, no one had disturbed the ship in some years.

What the search did turn up, though, was no less worrying. The keypads to both the flight deck and server room doors had been smashed. The server room panel, in particular, had been brutally handled; a chunk of what looked like a maul head was still wedged into the mechanism.

“Someone had a temper tantrum when they couldn’t get in,” Matt said, smirking.

Obviously, this was a poser. Caspersen’s brow furrowed, and she asked the professor, “Is this something you can fix?”

The professor shook his head. “Doubt it. But no need.”

“Then how do we get in?” Matt asked.

The professor only smiled, saying, “Give me a boost, and I’ll show you. Up here.” With no further explanation, he insisted that we hoist him up toward the paneling above the door.

He seemed to relish the idea of being of use as much as I was—but in a far more irritating fashion. Which, all things considered, didn’t really surprise me.

I bit my tongue and lifted him up with Matt. The professor grunted and mumbled to himself, and shifted his weight from one of us to the other so many times I was about ready to drop him and demand an explanation. Then, at last, I heard a hiss of satisfaction.

A moment later, he jumped down, declaring, “There we are.”

Straightening up, I saw now what the professor had been working with—a secondary keypad, tucked into the panel above the door.

Noticing the direction of my gaze, he smiled appreciatively. “Mechanical keypad. Command thought we wouldn’t need them; said the digital panels would be sufficient. This was just added expense. Sure as hell glad now that I didn’t back down.”

The idea of the professor ever backing down on anything struck me as unlikely, but I had to admit I was glad he’d stuck to his guns on this one. Even though the vandals had destroyed the wall panel, he could still enter a code into the keypad. And sure enough, the door slid open when he tried it.

The server room beyond seemed entirely in order except for a few machines knocked out of their racks. The professor stumbled through the chamber in a euphoric haze for the first fifteen minutes, and the rest of us weren’t much better.

The pinnacle of Earth’s learning, the height of our planet’s human knowledge, had been gathered here on these servers and in these databanks. With them sat the answers we’d been seeking about the Genesis’s plight.

One particular server nearly brought the professor to tears when he found it in serviceable condition. “My AI system—it’s here. My God, I thought I’d never see you again. And here you are.” He dabbed at his eyes and shook his head. “My God, here you are.”

“Jesus, get a room already,” Matt said and groaned.

The professor was too delirious with joy to be bothered by Matt’s comments though. After he was finished admiring the server, which, to my eyes, looked exactly like all the other boxes in the room—he moved on, mumbling exultantly about the state of this machine or that.

Caspersen allowed him time to revel in the discovery, but in a bit declared, “All right, let’s get to work. What do we need to get these machines online, Carter?”

The question dragged the professor to the present, and he nodded. “Power. I don’t know how much sunlight we get in this ravine, but the solar panels should be able to power some of the servers anyway.” He headed to a control center at the far end of the room and started poking around. “These machines are old, but they’ve been dormant. In theory, they should just power on.”

I had long ago learned that the words “in theory” and “technology” were rarely good bedfellows. The increasing volume of the professor’s growling and cursing as he worked, flipping various switches, changing cabling, etc., seemed to indicate the pattern would hold awhile longer.

“Anything we can do?” Kayleigh queried in a few minutes.

“Did you pack a portable generator?” the professor snapped. “Then, no.”

No one dared speak after that for several more minutes as the professor focused on rerouting cabling. When he turned to the power button on his console station and pressed it expectantly, to the same results as before, Caspersen ventured, “I take it we do not have power?”

By way of answer, he simply glared at her, jaw clenched.

“All right. What do we do then?”