Swain burst out laughing. “Oh, my poor dear girl,” he said. “You think I can’t take that thing away from you? Even if I couldn’t, Buckley here would never let you get by him. I have you. You can embrace your destiny with me and live a wonderful life of pleasure and security, or you can fight it and be miserable. It will happen either way, but I would prefer you accept it willingly.”
“Never!”
He shrugged. “Very well. Now, please. Put down that thing and come along.”
She set her jaw. “Come and take it from me if you’re so strong.” But somehow her tongue had gotten very thick and the words came out all garbled.
He cocked his head at her, frowning. “I beg your pardon?”
It seemed he spoke from afar. His face grew blurry, and his eyes gleamed like blue diamonds. “What’s happening to me?” But again her tongue betrayed her and the words sounded more like a slurred moan. Then her knees gave way and she collapsed to the floor, bewildered. Somehow he’d drugged her.
Was it in the mousse?
It had to be, since she’d ingested nothing else. But why was it only affecting her now?
Then the room swooped into darkness, and she ceased to think of anything at all.
New Eden
“Trust no one but God . . . ? What are you doing to me here, Rudy?”
Zowan heard the muttered words clearly as he entered the back room of the Enclave’s library. Cameron still sat where Zowan had left him at one of the library’s ten computer stations. He’ d given no sign of having heard Zowan’s approach, and his words were clearly not directed to him; nevertheless, they stoked his already high level of anxiety. It had been hard enough following the man back into the Enclave after he’d spent the day dreaming of freedom. Now that he was back, the last thing he wanted was to find out he’d risked everything to follow someone who didn’t know what he was doing.
“Who’s Rudy?”
Cameron didn’t seem startled by Zowan’s words so maybe he’ d noticed more than Zowan gave him credit for. “The man who got me into this. The man who got you into this, as well, I guess. Did you find Parthos?”
“No.” Zowan had just run down to the sleepcell block, hoping to find him. “I was afraid to awaken Erebos to ask him, since . . . Well, he’s been a friend for years, but you never know.” Zowan laid the funny retractable “pen” Cameron had loaned him to unlock and lock the library doors on the table beside him.
“No, you certainly don’t,” Cam agreed sourly, his eyes glued to the screen. When Zowan had left him, Cameron had been studying graphics of New Eden’s layout divided into sections of blue, green, orange, and red. The blue and green areas, Zowan had recognized as familiar haunts, but he’ d not even known the deeper orange and red ones existed.
Now Cameron was flipping through more detailed floor plans that, from the small red square at the top of each map, Zowan surmised lay within the red sector. He was pretty sure Cameron was searching for the arks—those things he’ d said Father possessed that could destroy them all—and felt again the jolt of guilt and fear to think he might be betraying the Enclave’s greatest treasures to an enemy.
Then he wondered why he cared, given what Father and the Elders had done to him and his friends. Given all the lies and arbitrary rules and unreasonable punishments. He well remembered Cameron’s horror when he’ d first learned about life in the Enclave, as well as his talk of topside authorities imprisoning the Elders for what they’d done. No, Cameron was more friend than any of the Elders ever had been.
Then there was the part about I Am, as well. The Lord God . . . When he’ d first met Cameron, he’ d thought the man would answer all his questions. Instead, he’d only raised new ones, and offered explanations that were . . . mind-boggling. The seed of the woman was someone named Jesus whose father was God? Someone who’d allowed humans to kill Him so people could be forgiven? He was still struggling to grasp the fact that the God of Genesis really did exist and really did speak to people, let alone things like that.
The screen changed to something completely illegible—not words but black fuzzy bars of different widths arranged in vertical columns. The small box at the bottom of each screen described the graphic in words Zowan didn’t know. But though they were gibberish to him, Cameron clearly seemed to understand them.
Rather like Genesis, it seemed. Everything was a symbol for something. The serpent’s seed bit the heel of the woman’s seed. Was that when Jesus let them kill Him? Having one’s head crushed seemed a more appropriate analogy for killing, though, so again Zowan didn’t understand.
He didn’t know why all of this mattered so much to him, but it did. He couldn’t stop thinking about it, driven somehow to unravel all these mysteries.
Cameron had connected a small rectangular device with screen and keyboard to the computer with a short cable, apparently transferring the information on the computer to the device.
“How does it look from outside?” he asked Zowan. “Do you think anyone walking by will see us?”
“We’re safe, unless they come in, but that’s still a few hours off.”
Cameron clicked a few keys, and a small window appeared on the screen, the blue progress bar slowly inching across the bar window. “Good. Because we’re going to be here for a bit.”
He sat back in the chair and turned to Zowan. “Heard anything from Andros again?”
“No. Though I do keep hearing someone whispering behind me, when there’s no one there.”
Cameron nodded as if this was expected.
“What are they?” Zowan asked.
“The creatures in your seed arks. They want us to come and let them out.”
Creatures in the seed arks?
Zowan stared at him, trying to make sense of his words. “Cameron, why does everything that comes out of your mouth have to be so . . . difficult? It’s like . . .”
“I come from a different world? Because I do. Swain and his people have lied to you all your life to keep you here. Why wouldn’t the truth seem strange and odd and wrong? Why wouldn’t it be hard to believe, when compared to the lie you’ve grown up with?”
“I guess it would be.” Zowan rubbed his finger along the table’s edge. “So, assuming you’re telling me the truth, what kind of creatures are these?”
Cameron leaned back and folded his arms. “First know this: there are no seeds in those arks. And no plans for reseeding the earth— which, as you’ve seen for yourself, has no need of it. I’ve seen these arks before—in a tomb on the other side of the world. Some people think they are special containers for the dead. Except that what’s inside isn’t dead. Others believe they are protective containers whose passengers should long ago have been freed.”
“Which is why Andros—or whoever he is—is trying to get me to come down and let him out.”
Cam nodded. “But even he doesn’t know how you’re supposed to accomplish that.”
“Zowan? Why aren’t you down here yet? I’m hungry. I want out of
here. You owe me.”
“He’s awake again,” Zowan said.
“Yes. I can hear them, too. I think talking about them draws their attention. It’s better to focus on something else.”
They fell silent, the conversation momentarily derailed. Then Zowan went back to their earlier discussion. “Okay, then—tell me about Jesus and why the people killed Him. ‘Crucified Him,’ you said.”
Cam’s brows flew up. “You want even more difficult and unbelievable thoughts to wrestle with?” he asked. But he seemed pleased.
“I may not understand all that you’re saying,” Zowan explained, “but I know this part is truth. And the more I hear of it, the more I know I’ll understand.”
Cameron unfolded his arms, regarding him with a quizzical look. “You are very wise for someone who has been hidden away, Zowan. You do realize, though, that understanding is not going to come in one or two conversations. The pursuit of God is a lifelong process.”
“Yes. But you said we’d be here for a while. And you did promise me a better explanation than what you gave this morning.”
Cameron grinned. “I’ve been thinking about that conversation all day,” he confessed. “Trying to figure out a better way of saying it . . .”
Andros insisted again that Zowan free him. Zowan ignored him.
“We’re all born disobedient to God,” said Cameron. “Unrighteous. And God can’t have a relationship with us when we’re like that. But
we
can’t do anything about it because righteousness demands perfection, and we’re not. We’re lost, helpless, and condemned to go to a terrible place forever when we die. A place without God. We need someone to rescue us. So God sent His son.”
“Jesus.” Zowan supplied. Andros, he noted, had completely withdrawn.
Cam nodded, and went on to explain more of who Jesus was, and as they talked, the blue bar on the computer screen crawled slowly across its slot until it reached the end. Yet still they talked.
And sometime in all that, Zowan believed in the seed of the woman, the son of I Am, this Jesus who wasn’t just a man but God, too . . . though that part he struggled still to comprehend. It didn’t matter. He wanted to know this God who had personally called him out of darkness, who was willing to put aside the trappings of His deity and take on a man’s form, to die on a Roman cross in humiliation and suffering for the sake of His creatures—for the sake of Zowan himself—so that they could come to know Him.
When he told Cameron what he had done, the man sat in his chair as if stunned, staring at him without expression, though for a moment it seemed that tears glistened in his eyes.
Then the muffled sound of voices and the not-so-distant clatter of the library’s front doors being unlocked jerked them back to the reality of their present situation. Hurriedly Cameron removed the cable and his little device, tossed them and the special pen into the duffle bag at his feet, then closed down the program. Meanwhile Zowan stole into the adjoining room and across it to see who was at the door. He was horrified to see four bald, black-robed Enforcers already striding into the library’s main entrance area.
He hurried back to find Cameron stowing the duffle under the far back corner of the table. “Enforcers!” he whispered. “Four of them. I don’t know why they’re here. It’s still early.”
He came over to where Cameron was backing out from under the table. “We’re trapped. There’s no way out from here.”
“Yes, there is.” Cameron stood, his head lamp back on his head. In his hands he held a small gray canister with a ring on it and an extra head lamp, which he gave to Zowan. As Zowan slid on the lamp, an Enforcer came through the door.
“They’re in here!” the man cried.
Jerking the ring off the gray canister, Cam tossed it toward him, gray smoke spewing out of it.
Zowan was standing flat-footed when Cameron pulled him away and into the dead-end sorting room behind the one they had been working in. Only it wasn’t a dead end. At the room’s far end, a narrow stairway ascended to a door with a palm-panel lock that must lead into . . .
“The Wives’ Residence!” Zowan exclaimed. “We can’t go in there.”
“Hit the panel, Zowan,” Cam commanded him.
He did so, and with a series of loud clacks the door opened into darkness. Switching on their head lamps, they raced into a small supply closet, mops and brooms leaning in a tangle against the wall. In passing, Zowan hit one with his foot. It fell to the floor with a crack, but by then he was following Cam into a larger room where girls slept on quilted pallets, already stirring from their slumber at the sounds of the unlocking door.
As the beam of Zowan’s head lamp fell on one, she screamed and lurched away from him into the wall. Startled, he stepped back himself and bumped into a wooden screen, which fell over with a crash.
By now almost all the girls were awake, some screaming, others staring about in confusion. As he turned to follow Cam through the room, Zowan’s light fell on another girl—brown eyes wide in a heart-shaped face framed by rivers of unbraided red-brown hair—and he stopped in his tracks. “Terra?”
She put up an arm to shield her eyes, squinting at him.
“Zowan?!”
Suddenly Cam was back, grabbing Zowan by the arm and dragging him onward as the Enforcers pounded up the stairs in their wake. “You can’t help her now,” he hissed as he led through the mazelike chambers of the Wives’ Residence. He must have seen this when he was looking at the graphics, must have planned out the route in advance, judging from his complete lack of hesitation as they went forward.
Finally they emerged into a wide, low-ceilinged chamber lined with bookshelves and wooden screens and furnished with large floor pillows. Looms and bowls of wool and yarn stood about on a thick, intricately patterned rug, and a huge computer screen hung on one wall. Several more girls slept on quilted pallets, but Cameron ignored them, making straight for the pair of wooden doors on the far side. They were almost to them when the doors crashed open, the lights went on, and three more Enforcers burst through, cutting them off.
“I thought God would help us,” Zowan murmured in horror.
“It’s all right,” Cameron told him. “God decreed this long ago. For our best.”
“I don’t see how this can be for our best.”
Wives stood in the openings between the wooden screens and bookshelves, peering at them curiously, their long hair unbound as was never allowed in public. They all wore sheer, floor-length sleeping gowns, many of them with hugely swollen bellies. Zowan looked at them in added horror, wondering what Father had done to them, and fearing he would do it to Terra, as well. The cry of a small child threaded through the sudden silence as a fourth Enforcer stepped between the others to face them.
“He looks kinda like you,” Cameron remarked to Zowan.
“He is my gene brother Gaias.”
Cameron glanced at him in surprise. “You know what genes are?”
“I know they’re what make us look alike.”
A sweeping glare and a flick of Gaias’s bald head sent the women in the doorways scurrying back into their beds and those on the floor burrowing into their bedding.
Gaias strode up to Cameron, looking him up and down, while Cameron stared in openmouthed revulsion at the oculus on his forehead. “Take this one to Father,” Gaias said to his subordinates. Two of them seized Cam from either side and led him out of the room.