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The first probe was sent twenty years before Godspeed landed. The FRX must have liked the data it relayed and sent a faster ship to colonize before we arrived. The ruins are the perfect size for humans not because there were creatures born on Centauri-Earth that coincidentally were the same size and had the same needs as us . . . it’s because humans made the ruins. The first colony—the real first colony, the colony that landed before us—settled there.
It happened so long ago that now the buildings are derelict and abandoned.
And in the meantime? The first colony progressed to a high-tech modern society, leaving the dusty buildings behind.
I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s not like they quit designing ships and rockets just because Godspeed left. They’d developed something better by then, and when they looked at the probe information and realized that there was something here they wanted, they sent another colony.
Why wait for us to land when this planet has resources Earth could use?
“Our whole mission . . . it was pointless,” I say. “Everythin
g we’ve done, everything we’ve sacrificed—it was all for nothing. Earth already conquered this planet. They came, they saw, they left. And now we’re here. Alone. This whole damn thing was for nothing!” I spit the word out. “What a stupid, pointless mission. Of course a faster ship was invented in the centuries while we traveled. Five hundred years before the ship launched? That was freaking Shakespearean times! We’re as ancient to Earth now as effing Shakespeare! Our ship is the equivalent of a horse-drawn carriage!”
Elder grabs my hands, and it’s only then that I realize I’ve been waving them about maniacally.
“They couldn’t communicate with us,” I say. “Communication links were broken before the ship even got here. They probably saw us arrive, but since they couldn’t talk to us and we never landed, they must have thought we were all dead. ” I’m crying now. I don’t know why, but I’m crying. “If you’re silent for five hundred years, they think you’re dead. ” Even if we’re not.
I remember then, as vividly as if I’d just woken up, the feeling of being frozen. My mind had blocked the memories as effectively as if they’d been nothing but dreams, but now, here, under a sky with stars that sparkle like eyes, all I can think about is how it felt to be frozen in ice, alive but immobile. I think about the silence of it, the way nothing could touch me. I think about how trapped it felt to be aware but unable to move so much as an eyelash.
I think about how all of that was worth nothing.
For the first time since leaving the ship, I feel trapped.
“The question we need to be asking ourselves is, where are they now?” Elder says. He looks through the windows as if expecting to see a modern city on the other side of the glass. “If there were people from a colony,” he continues slowly, thinking aloud, “they would have tried to contact us. They had to have seen us land, this close to the compound. If they’re human, if they made this plaque”—he points to the memorial embedded above the communication bay—“they would want to help us. ”
But no one’s come.
30: ELDER
Amy is white—not pale, but white. “Are you okay?” I ask.
“My dad,” Amy whispers.
I stop dead, waiting for her to continue.
“He knew. He’s kept all of this from us. The original colony. This compound. This is what he was trying to hide from you. From all of us. ” She takes a deep, shaky breath. “From me. ”
I don’t know what to say to her. She’s right—she can see for herself that her father’s been hiding the truth from her.
“Why?” she chokes out.
I step in front of her, capturing her wandering gaze. “I don’t know. He must have had a reason. ”
She looks at me bitterly. “Orion had a reason. Eldest had a reason. ”
“Colonel Martin is a lot of things, but he’s not Orion or Eldest. ” As I say the words, I know that I don’t believe them, not entirely. He’s proven already that he’s willing to coerce us with lies and hidden truths.
Amy spins away from me, the red curtain of her hair hiding her face. “Do you think the colony that came before us—did the pteros kill them off?”
“There’s more than just pteros out here,” I say, thinking of the mysterious animal tracks I found near the shuttle and the crystal scale Colonel Martin took from me.
“There was gen mod material in Dr. Gupta’s blood,” Amy says. “Maybe the first colony somehow used the formula here on Centauri-Earth. Maybe that’s where pteros came from. Maybe they engineered their own destruction. ” She makes a strangled noise, and I realize she’s holding back tears. “We’re alone,” she says in almost a whisper. “The colony that came before—whatever happened, they died out. Just like we’re going to. ”
“We won’t—”
“We will!” The words rip from her throat. She whirls around to face me, and I see the raw panic in her eyes.
“Amy,” I say, waiting for her to meet my eyes. “I would never—never—let something happen to you. You know that, right?”
