Extinction (31 page)

She pulled the ball from her pocket and looked at her reflection in its shiny surface.
 

Don’t worry,
Stranger had told her.
They might know about your intention to meet with the other viceroys, but not what you would say. Just like they know I’m here, but not what I mean to do. Not the ways I’ve made some changes of my own.
 

But the words seemed hollow to S
ū
n now that she watched her vessel fill. The flow was smooth and orderly because only people who stumbled across the thing could board it. Stranger had told her that in other cities, vessel occupants had been decided in other ways — and yes, there had been rioting and bloodshed as citizens jockeyed for their places. The same wasn’t true of Loulan Mu. In S
ū
n’s city, the vessel’s existence hadn’t been announced. No one was looking, so it was only discovered by the lucky few who wandered far. A crew of hearty, healthy loners. People who hiked enough to discover something so hidden by chance.
 

The ball dropped from S
ū
n’s hand, striking the rocks underfoot and rolling away, before stopping quite suddenly at the feet of a man in worn sandals, surrounded by his family, holding several fishing rods and a box of lures and hooks.

He retrieved the ball at his feet.

Then he limped forward.
 

He handed the ball to S
ū
n and made a small, polite bow before limping up the gangway with his wife and children behind him.
 

S
ū
n watched the man. He didn’t fit the profile. A fisherman who’d come as if prepared, with rods and tackle and packs on his family’s backs — a fisherman with a pronounced limp who’d have trouble hiking for a few hours at most?
 

She gripped the small silver sphere. And as she did, S
ū
n heard Stranger’s voice as clearly as if he were whispering in her ear.
 

They know more than humanity realizes, but they don’t know everything.

CHAPTER 36

“Liza?”

“I know.”
 

“Liza!”
 

“I know, Mick! I know, okay!”
 

Mick held up the tablet. “No, this is from our man Tad. You know, the oceanographer? He says — ”
 

Mick’s voice was rushed, urgent, jamming in words before Liza could cut him off. But she was just as rushed, equally urgent, feeling like she barely had the seconds required to rebuke her right-hand man. He was supposed to be helping her finish what needed finishing. The world had enough alarmist assholes, and had since well before Astral Day.
 

“That there’s a huge wave coming at us from Antarctica? Because their big ship just melted the goddamned ice cap? Yes, Mick, I know! Okay? Now
get the fuck over here, and help me with this!”
 

Mick walked obediently toward the desk in their makeshift operations center. The place had the feel of a construction office: a converted trailer floored with cheap carpeting, possibly with company calendars on the walls showing heavy machinery moving dirt, cranes lifting girders. This command center was a bit simpler and starker, but that was mainly because Liza and her staff didn’t need much. Charlize was out front calling cutthroat pairs into a microphone. Jason and Lucy were entering results into the vessel’s passenger manifest just because it seemed right to have one. But really, Liza could have handled this by tossing weapons into a pile and announcing a
battle royale
. And really, now that the clock was ticking, that’s exactly what she wanted to do.

“How long, Mick?” Liza asked. “How long did Tad say we have before the waves hit?”

“Depending on the melt rate and — ”

“Just give me a number. Make a guess.”
 

“Hell. Thirty minutes?”

“Thirty minutes?”
 

“We’re at the cape of Africa. It’s
right there
. He says it’ll hit us before the water from the north cap makes its way down here.”
 

“I just heard from Jabari, and — ”

“I thought we were cut off?”
 

“Just a message. She —”

“But once we get to the satellite hookup, all the viceroys can talk for real, right?”
 

“I don’t think the meeting will happen. Did you see the feed from Etemenanki and Hanging Pillars? Anders and Cocoves are already on their vessels. I’m not sure about the rest. The Da Vinci Initiate never counted on a fucking Noah’s Ark situation. The dishes are either already underwater or will be soon, and I don’t see how we’ll hook up without them. It’s not like a solar sat-phone is the kind of thing that would fly under the Astral radar.”

“But you said — ”
 

“I know what I said!”
Liza held up a hand, palm out, as if to halt her own panic. She’d been deluding herself, and the only way to keep calm in the face of a killer tsunami’s arrival a half hour from now was to keep on deluding herself at least a little longer. Liza’s rational mind understood that Jabari’s plan had probably fallen apart hours ago, when they’d learned the black ship was hovering above the northern pole. But she still had the Canned Heat cylinder in her pocket even now as if she might be able to open the covert frequency. Even as she yelled at Mick for his stupidity in wanting to believe the same.
 

“We thought they might just blow us to bits. Maybe there’d be some flooding. Either way, there’d always be a way to reach the communication points. That’s off now, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to try my survival odds in a Cradle submersible. I’d be much happier in the big ship the Astrals gave us for that exact purpose.”

“Which reminds me, Liza. The shipyards … ”
 

“Forget it, Mick.”
 

“But there are hundreds of ships there. Some of them giant. I don’t exactly know how hard it is to drive one of those things, but they must have manuals, right?”
 

“I said forget it.”
 

“But Liza, half the city or more could probably survive on — ”

“Mick! Focus. We only have a half hour. You know the Astrals are guarding the shipyards. You know we can’t just run over there and throw everyone onto freighters.”
 

“If we just — ”

Liza grabbed Mick by the shoulders.
 

“You know I love you. You’re a great person, and you’ve always been a great help to me, and I really appreciate it and always will. You know that, right?”
 

“Of … of course, Liza.”
 

“Then don’t take it personally when I say this. But if you don’t let it go, I’m going to become a lot more interested in the bonus brackets. Me versus you. Just toss your ass out while I take your spot on the ship. I’ll be drinking Mai Tais on the Lido deck, and you’ll be swimming. You hear me?”
 

She’d meant it as a joke and a smile had made its way onto her face, but the smile was too toothy, an inch from earnest. The ticking clock was in her veins, in her blood. Maybe she
would
toss Mick to the wolves — or sharks — to get this done. She hoped he wouldn’t make her find out.
 

“All right, Liza.”
 

“They’re guarding the shipping yard. And the docks. That big boat there?” She pointed through the command center window. “That’s the only ride out of town. Now are you with me in getting it filled, or do you want to bang our heads against the wall and end up not finishing our business, leaving even more people to die?”
 

“I’m just — ”

“Triage, Mick. Like I said. None of this is easy. It’s not like we can

(walk right past them)

fight the Astrals on this.”
 

Liza blinked at the intrusive thought, returning her attention to the cutthroat brackets. It’s what the Lightborn children had told her when they’d come to her office. It’s what Liza believed. But even if it was all pomp and circumstance on the Astrals’ part — even if she could disobey, knowing the guards wouldn’t stop her — she wasn’t ready to throw the baby away with the bathwater yet. Maybe the viceroys couldn’t meet on satellite like Jabari planned from the start, and maybe Liza’s plan to expose those chats to the Astrals wouldn’t work out. But there were other ways to show the aliens her loyalty. The end was here, and at least some of humanity was going to survive. There were other ways, if she toed the line, to be their new queen.

“Of course, Liza. What do you need from me?”
 

The door to the half office banged open. Charlize stood there, her pretty face puzzled.
 

“Viceroy Knight?”

“Yes?”

“The brackets you gave me. They’re supposed to be live and real time, right?”
 

“Correct.”
 

“So if someone is on here … ” She held up her tablet. “It should mean they’re alive right now, not caught up in one of the flash floods or something, that they passed the checkpoint on the way into the square, all that?”
 

“That’s what Divinity told me. Why? What’s up?”
 

“One of the pairs isn’t responding. We keep calling his name over and over, and there’s nothing. Do we assume he forfeits, and the guy he’s up against gets to stay aboard?”

Liza’s eyes ticked toward the clock. It was 4:21. Seven full minutes had passed since Mick had guessed Roman Sands might only have a half hour left. Her pulse made itself known in the hollow of her throat, and it felt impossible to swallow. But she pushed on, forcing her focus. There was only one way they’d all get through this, and it was one choice at a time.

“Is it a high-profile pairing?” Liza asked.
 

Charlize shook her head and looked at her tablet. “Random guy. Carl Nairobi.’”

“Then move on. If he doesn’t show up to challenge his pairing, he loses the slot.”
 

“Yes, ma’am.”
 

Charlize moved to close the door, but Liza stopped her.
 

“Charlize?”
 

“Yes, ma’am?”
 

“How many more?”
 

She looked down. “Fifty?”
 

“And how many people are calling pairs?”
 

“Ten, ma’am.”
 

Ten callers. Ten pairs being decided at a time. That was five or more rounds remaining, and people always hemmed and hawed, soul searched on the whole
condemning someone to death while saving themselves
issue, walked to the gangway slowly, and generally acted like they didn’t know they were all about to be washed away any minute. Probably because they
didn’t
, and Liza had no plan to tell them.

“Get Jason calling pairs too. And Tanya. Anyone out there who’s not doing something indispensable. Anyone
at all
.”
 

Surprise — or perhaps alarm — crossed her face. But Charlize simply nodded and closed the door.
 

When Liza turned back into the room, she saw Mick at the window, looking south.
 

“It’s hard to believe that in twenty minutes this town will be underwater, and everyone will be dead.”

“Come on and help me with this,” Liza said, grabbing his arm. “Carl Nairobi might want to die, but I don’t plan to.”

CHAPTER 37

Carl Nairobi did not want to die.
 

At 4:41 p.m. South Africa Standard Time, Carl’s shitburg rundown sonofabitch Chrysler with the rusted-out front grill and the duct tape half peeling from the crack across the windshield struck the shipyard entrance fence. His eyes trained on the heavy chain and padlock strung through it as his big hands gripped the steering wheel. There was a bobblehead Jesus on the dashboard, and Carl often thought while driving that Jesus was nodding along with his music. This time his shaking made Jesus seem scared enough to hop off the dash and run away. That sounded about right to Carl because he wanted to do the same. Fuck bravery. Fuck being the hero the white man had said Carl tended to be. Right now he wanted to be a coward, get the hell out of Dodge, and hole up with some beers and a good woman.