“I think that she’s a woman,” he answered, his voice almost a whisper. Michael Rourke looked behind him, at the four cryogenic chambers which dominated the great room—the two others had been put away into the storage area. He looked at the face of the woman Natalia—he remembered something suddenly. Her blue eyes.
Michael turned away—Annie continued to stare at the cryogenic chambers. And he knew what she stared at. “Did he—did he—“ Michael Rourke didn’t answer her, his sister.
Chapter Eight
It lasted only a minuscule amount of time, but as soon as it began, Michael Rourke hit the buttons for play and record—the radio made sound. Words.
As he listened, he tried to understand them—the words—but the language was alien to him.
He checked the Rolex Submariner his father had given him before taking the sleep. The transmission lasted approximately two and one-half minutes. Annie was already in bed.
The radio had yielded words only twice in all the time he had monitored it. Once nearly five years earlier. Once now.
He had put the words off as an errant transmission bounced back from some object in space. The transmission had been vastly weaker five years ago. It was strong this night.
‘ ‘The Eden Project?” he asked himself. Had they come back, entered Earth’s orbit? Was it a message? Was it that he could not understand the language? Or that the transmission was so garbled as to be unintelligible, the fault of atmospheric disturbance, or the fault of his equipment? He had stripped the radio with Annie’s help several times, searching—in vain—for some fault in the receiver itself.
There had been none that he could discern.
It was impulse, but he had learned to obey that sometimes. He snatched up the Predator as he ran across the great room, toward the storage area. His father’s Bushnell eight-by-thirtys—he passed them by. The forty power zoom lens spotting scope he used as a telescope. He grabbed this, stuffing it box and all inside his shirt. Pulling aside what blocked the emergency exit hatch, he worked the combination, opening it, and started up through the tunnel along the rungs his father had put in place five centuries earlier. He kept moving, through the next hatch, not bothering to put the bar in place, merely closing the hermetically sealed door. He kept moving, upward, the exertion making him sweat, the flashlight in his left hand bouncing its beam across the natural rock chimney in the darkness, a white light. The upper door—he wrenched the bar free, swinging the door open, the cold wash of night air chilling him as he crawled out onto the top of the mountain. He let the hatch swing closed behind him.
I Stars—millions, the night cold and crystal clear ■ and the moon little more than a crescent of light. I The box for the spotting scope—he opened it, f not bothering with the supporting bipod.
The forty power scope—he zoomed the lens to half of full magnification, searching the horizon.
A streak of light.
Holding his position, he increased the magnification—the streak of light gained definition, clarity, color. Orange, tinged with yellow and red. It zigzagged. A meteor, he told himself, would not do that. It vanished toward Earth and in his mind he marked the approximate position. Northwest, beyond the mountains, past which he had never ventured, long past these. Michael Rourke’s hands trembled—had they ceased to be alone? He watched the night sky, shivering with the cold. There was no more light, no further clue.
His voice unsteady—he told himself because of the cold, thin night air—Michael Rourke whispered, “I’ll find you.”
Chapter Nine
“If it was the Eden Project, it was a crash maybe. And if it wasn’t the Eden Project, then it almost had to be some other type of aircraft. That means people—that other people are alive.” » Annie licked her lips—she felt strange hearing Michael’s words. She was used to them being alone except for the four sleeping figures in the blue gas swirling cryogenic chambers. She stood up, slipping off the counter stool, stuffing her bare feet into her slippers, her robe and the nightgown beneath it falling past her ankles, the hems brushing the gap of flesh above the banded tops of the slippers. “What do you want to do about it, Michael?” she asked, her voice low, turning to the stove to pour the boiling hot water into the teapot. She grew her own herbs in the garden and made from them an herbal tea which she had become quite fond of. She could smell it as the water penetrated the holes in the small metal tea strainer, and she placed the lid of the china pot in position, twisting it slightly to lock. She would let the tea steep.
“That’s ^yhat I wanted to talk to you about,” she heard Michbel saying. She turned around to face him, holding the teapot with a potholder, setting it on the counter beside their waiting cups— Michael tolerated the tea because coffee was a scarce commodity.
Annie gathered her robe around her and eased back onto the stool. “You want to go and see, don’t you?”
“Yes—I have to.” He reminded her of the memories she had of her father—he looked
virtually identical to John Rourke and he sounded identical to him. Her father
had made instruc-
AfL
tional videotapes for them regarding minor surgical procedures, gunsmithing techniques, etc. She played them often so she could remember him. She had no specific memory of her mother, though looking at her in the cryogenic chamber where she slept Annie saw their common physical features. But her mother’s hair was darker, auburn colored. Her own hair was, as her father had always called it, a dark honey blond. Specific memories she didn’t have, but general memories—love, warmth, friendship. To have another woman in whom she could confide—it was a dream and soon, when it would be the appointed time for the Awakening, it would be reality. She had read books, seen videotaped movies, where mother and daughter disagreed, where enmity had replaced love, distrust replaced respect. It was something she could not comprehend. And yet her mother would be like her sister. Only four years older physically than she when the Awakening would come.
She poured some of her tea, Michael’s cup first. “Where will you go?” “I marked the point on the mountains and when I came back up top I shot an azmuth on it. I can’t really be too precise as to the distance. But the direction, I’ve got that.”
“Will you take one of the motorcycles?”
“I can use Dad’s maps of the strategic fuel reserves—I’ll be all right.” “You can take some of the dehydrated food. I’ll prepare it for you. When are you thinking of—“ “Today—in a few hours. If there was a crash and there’s someone out there, well—maybe I can—“■
“I know—you sound like our father. You look like him. Sometimes I think you think like him.”
He smiled.
“But you don’t smoke cigars. I can help you get your gear ready—what will you need?”
“I’ve got my guns—and I’ll take an M-16—“
“Take one of the Gerber fighting knives.”
“I was planning to.”
“I’ll pack some socks and underwear and things for you.”
“All right.” Michael nodded. “Will you be all right?”
“Alone? But I’m not alone.” Annie smiled. “And you’ve been gone before.”
“This’ll be for a longer time.”
“Give me a time limit—so I know when to start worrying.” Michael Rourke laughed. “All right, if I’m not back in fourteen days, then start worrying.”
“If you’re not back in fourteen days,” and she sipped at her tea—it was very hot, “I’ll do more than worry,” she promised. The Awakening was to be on Christmas Day and that was seventeen days.
She stood outside the Retreat, the motorcycle— one of the big Harley-Davidson Lowx Riders, blue—between them. It was cold and she hunched her shoulders under the quilted midcalf-length coat she had made for herself two years earlier, the wind blowing up the road leading away from the Retreat, whipping under her nearly ankle-length skirt, making her bare legs cold where her stockings stopped just below the knee. A shawl— she had crocheted it herself—was wrapped around her head and neck, her hands stuffed in the pockets of her coat. She watched Michael as he finished securing the last of his gear aboard the bike. She had helped him check it, had prepared a spare parts kit for him just in case.
“Well.” Michael smiled. “I guess this is it.”
She looked at her brother a moment. He wore one of her father’s spare leather jackets. Slung across his back was the Magnum Sales Stalker, scope covers in place. In a crossdraw holster by his left hip bone was the smaller, scopeless, .44 Magnum Predator. She had helped him to secure the M-16 to the bike. On his right hip was the Gerber Mkll fighting knife. She had given him another knife from her father’s stock—an A.G. Russell Sting IA, but not black chromed like the one that helped to form her father’s battery of personal weapons. This was natural stainless steel finish. “I wish you’d take a double action revolver or a semi-automatic pistol.”