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  “I am Kassiopei,” Aeson replies without flinching, and a cold smile comes to his lips.

  There’s a long moment of silence as the two men face off, both so different yet so terribly similar in their dangerous expressions.

  My thoughts are feverish as I watch and listen, afraid of what might come next. . . .

  To be honest, I’m not sure if I’m more shocked by the awful new revelations or by the continued extent of the Imperator’s blatant cruelty toward his own son and toward me.

  He is using his son as a moral excuse for all his horrifying actions and plans.

  And he is responsible for my mother’s death. . . . He just tried to use it against me. . . .

  But the new revelations are taking precedence over emotional shock. And so, as usual, my ideas start flying, and so does my big mouth.

  “This rift—this dimensional rift,” I say in a numb voice, interrupting the horrible moment of confrontation between father and son. “How was it created in the first place?”

  At the sound of my voice, the Imperator starts. The fierce tension is broken, and he abandons Aeson (almost in relief) and throws a hard look at me.

  “You can thank our blessed fool ancestors for it. From what we know—or assume—some kind of massive energy tampering went on, and it created a quantum instability, which evolved into a potential energy hole.”

  “You mean a black hole?” I ask, putting one hand to my mouth. “On Earth?”

  “Something like that, yes. Our ancestors shielded it, but still it leaked and fluctuated, and it allowed trans-dimensional movement, bringing all kinds of dangerous things here into our universe—things that don’t belong.”

  At once, I think of the pegasei and Arion. . . .

  “Such as our alien enemy,” Aeson concludes quietly, in a voice still razor-edged with ice.

  “Yes, and more,” the Imperator retorts without looking at his son and instead directs his attention at me. “And all because the ancients had not done their due diligence before experimenting with early quantum technology. So they left you with an unstable, uncontainable, permanently evolving, real-time quantum anomaly—at the location of what you now call the Bermuda Triangle. Yes, even you modern Gebi are aware of it, although you really know nothing. Not only is it a conduit for alien entities into our dimension, but it will continue to expand, decay quantum boundaries, leak matter and energy, and potentially rip apart the multi-dimensional space around it, including your Earth—unless we repair it, once and for all.”

  “I’m sorry, but this is just so much—too much—all of it, so hard to believe. . . .” I shake my head unconsciously, frowning with tension. “Actually, it’s really starting to sound like popular conspiracy theory and fake news nonsense, the kind that’s perpetuated by gullible, malicious, or crazy people back on Earth. The Bermuda Triangle is a man-made black hole? What else? Are vampires and leprechauns involved, too?”

  The Imperator watches me with renewed derision. “Modern-day conspiracy theories are nothing less than future myths and legends, Gwen Lark,” he says. “I thought you Gebi understood this when the Fleet arrived on Earth and you learned our true common history stemming out of ancient myth. But—think what you like. I am not particularly familiar with your current conspiracy myths, but, rest assured, everything has a basis in reality, no matter how corrupted the final interpretation is.”

  “Okay, but. . . . So, your plan is to destroy Earth yourself to prevent Earth from being ripped apart in a black hole? What? That’s crazy!”

  “No, but it is unfortunate. Earth is the past. And it is only one component of the grand equation—of which, again, you know nothing. The safety of Atlantis is my primary concern—”

  “Earth is so not the past for the eight billion people who live there now!” I exclaim. “That’s eight times the population of Atlantis!”

  “And those eight billion will die when the ancient enemy returns to finish what they started over twelve thousand of your Earth years ago. Only this time they will come for both our planets. In the end, all nine billion will die, and there will be no more humanity left.”

  The Imperator grows silent, watching me with his draconian stare.

  I stand, engulfed by the overwhelming ocean of information, much of it conflicting or somehow contradictory, jumbled, with significant pieces still missing. And my thoughts are suddenly disoriented, swimming hopelessly against the tidal forces of a whirlpool, pulling me down, down, down. . . .

  No!

  I find I’m shaking my head, and I start to mutter, “No, I can’t—just, no! There must be some other way!”

  “The only way is to save this world, Gwen Lark,” the Imperator replies. “You will begin by re-keying the ancient ship—now.”

  “As soon as we reach an understanding, Father,” Aeson says, folding his arms before him. “An unbreakable bargain sealed with the Imperial Word. A guarantee of Gwen’s safety, and the safety of everyone she cares about, family and friends. Come now, it’s a simple solution to the most immediate problem. You want to silence the ship, and frankly, so do we. No one wants the alien enemy to find us. Let us put all personal feelings aside and work together on this.”

  The Imperator makes a strange short laugh. “Very well,” he says suddenly. “You make a fine attempt to bargain like a proper Kassiopei, boy. Yes, fine, I give my word that your pretty little Bride will remain safe, and so will her family and everyone else she wishes to keep safe, including animals, birds, and insects, if she so desires.”

  I glance back and forth at son and father.

  Aeson’s mouth remains a straight, impassive line. “In that case—You honor my Bride and me. But—we must have your Imperial Word—say it, Father.”

  “I give my Imperial Word that your Bride and all her human baggage will be unharmed—there, you have it,” the Imperator says in the same tone of strange disdain.

  Aeson nods. “My Bride and I are grateful and honored by your Imperial Word and promise of safety. But just to seal the deal, I am going to make a unique promise of my own. If somehow this formal bargain is broken—if anything happens to Gwen or her loved ones—I will let the public know what actually happened at Ae-Leiterra—what you did not do on the day that I died. . . .”

  “What?” The Imperator’s face turns to stone and his jaw goes slack. “You—”

  But Aeson continues, “As insurance, I’ve recorded and encrypted a very special data feed ready to be released to the media and all the social network feeds. It contains the truth of Ae-Leiterra. If she dies, or if I die or become incapacitated, it will automatically be activated and distributed virally, and the world will know everything—the Imperator will be dishonored. You, my Father, will bear the stigma of a coward who did not perform his primary duty to his people, while his young son had to do it in his stead—”

  Romhutat Kassiopei breaks into a flood of curses. He is visibly agitated, and for a moment I almost feel sorry for him.

  Oh my God, what happened at Ae-Leiterra?

  As if reading my mind, Aeson turns to me and says, “Gwen, I will tell you this sad story later tonight, all of it. But now, my Father knows precisely the extent to which this condition of your safety is never to be broken. You are hereby properly insured.”

  He pauses to smile at me, then turns to look directly in his father’s eyes. “Now I bargain like a proper Kassiopei.”

  In the next several moments the Imperator calms down gradually and with difficulty, continuing to glare at both of us, but he no longer protests or makes sarcastic remarks. Periodically he curses soundly again in Atlanteo, and once even spits on the floor with fury, showing a decidedly undignified, non-Imperial side.

  “We’re not done, you and I, oh no. . . . We’ll continue this talk,” he hisses at his son during one more outburst. “Don’t think for a moment that I’ve forgotten, Son of mine. . . .”

  Aeson watches him impassively. After that one moment of triumph his smile is gone and the mask is back, a practiced i
llusion of patience and composure intended solely for his father. “Yes,” he says. “I have no doubt we’ll return to this ugly conversation . . . Father of mine.”

  At last the Imperator regains control.

  “Very well, accursed whelp . . . and you, girl, listen carefully. You will sing the proper keying sequence—as I was saying before being interrupted with all this idiocy.”

  “But how?” I ask. “I already said I can’t sing like that—not with that kind of throat singing technique.”

  The Imperator snorts. “Bah! You don’t have to! Not like that, not in the way I demonstrated previously. I was simply testing you, and you failed. You’re not as skilled as I am, and it’s a good thing you don’t have to be, or we’d be completely screwed, as you say in your damned Gebi English—”

  “What?” I frown. “What do you mean?”

  Aeson shakes his head with renewed anger. “He means the keying is an ordinary command, and he was only intimidating you with an unnecessary Imperial show of advanced Voice.”

  “Oh!” I exhale in relief, feeling absolute disgust at Aeson’s father—for so many reasons now, compounded.

  One thing he’s right about—we’re not done with any of this ugliness.

  “Listen!” the Imperator says and sings a basic C-E-G sequence in his normal low voice, this time without using overtones. “Repeat after me.”

  I do as he says, singing for the first time since the fateful raising of the Grail. My voice starts out a little faint and hoarse, but I focus and clear my throat and, this time, sing accurately.

  “Good, you are capable of the basics,” the Imperator says with sarcasm.

  “What next?” I ask coldly.

  The Imperator nears the monitor with the live feed of the Stadion and the Grail. He beckons me with one hand. “Approach and sing, facing the screen. Perform the keying command three times as you focus your voice on the ship. Carefully!”

  I take one tentative step toward him, and at once Aeson flanks me. We all crowd around the desk and the monitor. I feel Aeson’s hand slip into mine, and his warm fingers squeeze mine briefly before releasing me.

  And then I face the screen with the feed and whatever embedded audio transmitter, seeing only the same metallic gold surface close-up. The display is still zoomed in somewhere along the “goblet’s” neck. Once more I’m aware of the buzzing of metal against the camera on the other end, and the deep constant hum, rattling my bones even through this remote transmission.

  I take a deep breath and visualize the Grail Monument in its grandiose entirety, and then continue imagining the rest of it, extending deep into the ground—I don’t even know what the ship is supposed to look like, its true shape, I can only imagine something like the modern ark-ships—and then I sing the keying sequence, a perfect C-E-G.

  My voice comes clean and steady, is transmitted remotely. . . . Even as I complete the three notes the first time, already the ancient ark-ship is responding. . . . Suddenly there’s silence, as the hum and buzzing cease, while the ancient program halts, recognizing new input. I continue singing as instructed, repeating the sequence two more times, and then I look up.

  The Imperator looks at me, then glances at his son briefly and nods.

  Next, he faces the monitor and sings the same C-E-G sequence that I just finished, also three times—while the ship remains silent, listening to the input. Then he pauses, raising one finger up for quiet, as Aeson and I observe, hardly daring to breathe.

  Finally, the Imperator follows up with a strange extended sequence of notes which I vaguely recognize as an Aural Block, but with enhancements. This Imperial Aural Block sequence has additional notes, repetitions, and complex embellishments. When the last note falls, there is initial silence. . . .

  For at least three heartbeats.

  And then the ship responds. It seems to sonic-lurch, as we feel a deep subterranean tremor—a sonic wave that resonates across the stadium arena in all directions like the ever-widening circles from an object cast in water. The vibration is so low that the only sound comes from the shifting of the ground itself.

  Remarkably, the remote camera and its audio pick up this effect. It’s difficult to imagine the sound technology necessary for processing the input with such spatial precision, but somehow it is transmitted to us, many miles away, across the sprawling city, here in the Imperial Palace, so that we can feel and ride the ghost wave echo. . . .

  And then all at once the deep hum returns. Except that it continues rising in pitch, turning swiftly into a horrible shriek and rising higher yet, going ultrasonic and disappearing beyond human perception.

  All of this takes place in a split second, and surely it must be heard and felt out there in the city—a sonic boom in the neighborhood of the stadium, all around the urban downtown complex where yesterday the crowds of protesters gathered and today there’s only the usual workday traffic. What must all those people think? Indeed, over the monitor I hear distant flocks of birds rise, flapping all around the neighborhood, fleeing with alarm into the sky.

  But none of it matters right now, because the Imperator moves back with a satisfied expression on his face. “Finally,” he says to us, ignoring our tense frowns. “The Master Lock is restored. Which means the quantum shield is back in place, and we are safe for the moment.”

  In the next moment he keys something on the desk to disconnect the live feed, and the monitor goes dark, to be replaced by the Imperial network logo.

  “Time to call New Deshret,” Romhutat Kassiopei says with a grim smile.

  Chapter 9

  When it comes to heads of state on Atlantis, the Imperator’s closest counterpart is Areviktet Heru, the Pharikon of New Deshret. Aeson explained it to me earlier, and now I’m about to meet this high-ranking individual for myself.

  The monitor screen is activated once more, and Aeson and I watch the Archaeon Imperator of Atlantida make a call to the opposite side of the planet.

  There is no apparent temporal delay and the screen connection goes live, showing the face of a very old man with very dark river-red-clay skin, wrinkled and dried into parchment. In stark contrast, his long hair is white and pulled back in braids—or as I see later, segmented tails. His black eyes are narrow slits among the wrinkles, but his expression is alert and shrewd. And in its resting state his face is as disdainful as that of the Imperator.

  Unlike the Imperator, the Pharikon is formally attired. He wears a wide Egyptian-style collar of gold and dark gemstones over a robe or jacket made of an expensive-looking black fabric. And behind him, I can see some kind of dimly lit, opulent chamber, indicating evening.

  “Romhutat Kassiopei, you are late,” says the Pharikon of New Deshret in a rasping old man’s voice, speaking Atlanteo.

  As soon as he speaks, it makes sense why he might require vocal assistance. At his age and apparently frail condition, the Pharikon is probably barely able to sing, much less execute complex voice commands properly.

  “Shiokuh nuuttos, Areviktet Heru,” Romhutat replies in an overbearing, arrogant voice, the type I’ve heard him use in public during Court Assemblies. And then he continues speaking several more words in the foreign language which I assume is the Deshi language.

  I glance at Aeson, who watches their exchange and gives me a tiny nod of reassurance.

  The formalities over with, the Imperator switches suddenly back to Atlanteo, then English, and casts a negligent look at me. “This is my son’s new Gebi Bride. She is responsible for yesterday’s disruption, but it has now been corrected.”

  Immediately the Pharikon turns his attention to me. I feel a complex scrutiny of his curious black eyes upon me. “This girl is Gebi?” the old man says in Atlanteo, and then switches over into slow, accented English. “From Earth? You are from Earth? How are you the Imperial Bride?”

  “Yes, yes!” the Imperator interrupts him. “That’s another matter entirely—later. For now, I require you to check the situation on your end and confirm that the Ra Disk
has been stabilized.”

  The Pharikon coughs harshly and takes in a deep breath before replying. He does not sound healthy at all, it occurs to me. “Require all you like. You will wait now,” he says at last, regaining his voice. “I waited all this time, so now it is your turn, Kassiopei.”

  The elderly Pharikon grunts, lifts up a wrinkled, bony hand drowning in a wide sleeve and moves into view a second mech-arm monitor, similar to the one here. I can see him turn it around so that we all have some inkling of what’s on his second screen, and it’s another live feed, this one showing a dark evening scene outside. In it, an immense, bright, artificially illuminated gold disk—a convex hemisphere, embedded upright against a hillside—shines in high contrast against the barely visible panorama of indigo mountains and star-filled sky.

  The Pharikon issues a spoken command to someone offscreen, and we observe someone else’s hands take over, and then a young voice sounds—girl or boy, it is hard to tell—singing, then speaking quietly in Deshi. Then the second screen display begins to zoom in on the Ra Disk, and soon the golden metal takes up all of the view. As it does, the golden surface is suddenly visible up-close as the camera makes contact with it.

  I strain to hear any kind of humming, any buzz of vibration, but there is none.

  “Ah, so quiet . . .” the Pharikon says, visibly relaxing. “Good, it is silent again. The Ra Disk sleeps once more, as it should.”

  “Perfect,” the Imperator replies. “Then our business is concluded. Nefero niktos, Heru. You need your rest.”

  But the old man shakes his head, casually pushing the second monitor screen away so that he can dominate the view once more, pressing forward. In that close-up of his deeply lined, clay-colored forehead, his nose with its prominent bridge and flattened nostrils, he is reminiscent of an ancient Mayan king from Earth’s Mesoamerica. “Not so fast. I want to know what other news you have for me. What of the rahuqua sightings in deep space? Do you have updates for me? Where is your son, the Commander of Star Pilot Corps? Or is he no longer the one in charge up there? Well? Speak up, Kassiopei!”