Chapter – 16
My room was warm.
I told my family about the command deck when I returned to the central decks. They listened to me for a short time, but when Cain saw me, he insisted I go to bed. It was obvious how weak I was. We'd discuss my discovery once I'd recovered.
Thank goodness for my family. I was eager to start exploring the halls Robert's memories had shown me, and if my family hadn't stopped me, I would be out there instead of in bed.
I was in my room only a short time before I noticed the temperature increase. No doubt my sister had seen to that. I suppose the extra load on the reactor could be spared. Now my family worked on, perfectly content that I lay there, enjoying the luxury of heat.
My family protected me.
My family loved me.
I was on my back, holding the pearls above my eyes, counting them. There were five, four of which were silver. With my free hand, I singled out individual pearls. I found Mary’s pearl, then Robert’s. There was one between them, one that had not yet shown me someone's memories.
“I’ve missed someone,” I said to Mary, who was lying in bed beside me. She was on her side, watching the pearls. She reached out, placing three fingers gingerly around the pearl. “His name was Aiden, of the Great Gardens Treu.”
“You saw his memories?” I asked, looking at her transparent face.
She nodded, smiling at the pearl. “He was such a wonderful young boy, a scavenger. He would go alone into the Martian wastelands and find abandoned Terran ships. He found these pearls in a Terran junkyard.” She laughed softly. “He wasn’t at all driven to hold them. He picked them up because he thought they were pretty.”
“And when he decided to get rid of them, he buried them next to your apple tree,” I finished.
She nodded again, continuing to eye the pearl fondly.
“If I had ever raised children, I’d have wanted them to be like Aiden, so smart and sweet. His story was a beautiful one. I was allowed to see the Great Gardens through his eyes, so peaceful, yet so fragile.” Her expression changed, now laced with regret. “It wasn’t until I saw what he saw that I wished the Great Gardens were open to me. But I was Mary Tanaka, their enemy…”
She looked very disheartened by it. I wanted to comfort her, and so I did. I placed an arm around her shoulder, and she smiled slightly.
“So, you saw Aiden.”
She nodded.
“What about Robert Peters?”
She looked at me, puzzled. “I’ve heard of him. Was he one of the pearls?”
I dropped my arm from her shoulder and held out Robert’s pearl. “What do you mean you heard of him?”
“He saved an entire ship, steering it onto the proper course towards Mars. Schulz proclaimed him a Terran hero. There was a book written about him.”
This was strange to hear.
“Hard to imagine," I said. "There wouldn’t be a whole lot to say about him.”
She shook her head. “No. The first hand accounts were dry.”
“What about Robert’s accounts? Did he ever mention a mirror?”
“There were no accounts from Robert,” she said simply. “His crew killed him not long after they passed the point of no return. They wrote the book in his honour.”
“So the crew wasn’t punished for what they did?”
Mary shook her head. “The only remaining member of the command crew ordered that the execution be done civilly. Poison to the blood stream I think. Schulz pardoned them because he believed it’s what Robert would have wanted.”
“Well,” I said, thinking it over myself, “…he was right.”
__________
Yes, it was entirely out of interest. I was quite confident nothing would come of it, but I wanted to see what Robert had seen. I wasn't like him. Never had I lied to myself about who I was. There was never any question who I saw when I looked into the mirror. But maybe there was more to see. Maybe there was something hiding deep inside. Where were the criminal parts of me, or the childish ones Robert described?
So I stared in the mirror, willing every corner of my psyche to show itself.
I saw my own face, and nothing more. Perhaps I was one of the many who would never have the chance to see themselves.
I’ve known so few people in my lifetime. I didn't know how often people lied to themselves. The only people I ever truly understood were my family, and they certainly didn’t represent your average human beings…at the time, anyway. I didn’t understand humanity when I was young, but now my family is humanity.
I’m humanity.
It was then I realized what I was seeing. It wasn’t at all the way Robert experienced it. The reflection didn’t speak to me. My darkest truths weren’t dragged to judgement. I was not flooded with emotions I couldn’t control. Instead, I simply realized what was in the mirror.
I was humanity. Countless generations had come to pass, all ending with me, standing here, facing a mirror.
Abel Orion, Humanity.
__________
When making my ship space worthy once again, I had to make compromises. I had to use junk, and be creative. In the abandoned Terran junkyards, there were plenty of parts to be used, but a spacecraft isn’t simple. Some parts took months to properly assemble. A piece of equipment found in functioning condition was a treasure for me. I praised such a find almost as much as my family praised food.
The command deck was a wealth of potential, all of its stations perfectly preserved. Besides the dust and lack of power, they should work. These were problems easily solved, problems people like me adored. These problems took time to fix, not miracles.
The garden needed a miracle.
The hull needed a miracle.
The reactor needed a miracle.
The engines needed a miracle.
This journey needed a miracle.
Fortunately, the Orions were miracle workers.
My brother and I moved around the command deck, making slow progress from station to station. My brother was a skilled worker, no matter the craft. He only needed a short lesson to become a useful assistant. Back on Mars, he was my primary helper. My father scavenged, my mother and sister collected food, but none of them could keep up with me like Cain.
We used rags to wipe away dust on the command deck, cleaning the insides of each station thoroughly. Not surprisingly, Cain was distracted every few minutes by the planet beyond the thick glass window. He couldn’t look away for long. His eyes must not be as bothered by the dirt covering the glass as my own, because Earth was little more than a greyish blue orb to me. I envied Cain. He saw the planet’s detail, its face, its promised beauty.
My brother finished another station. Standing, he rested his hands on the freshly cleaned station surface, looking out the window again. There he stayed.
“Maybe we could finish our work here before wasting our time, Cain?” I suggested.
He turned to me abruptly. “Oh, yes. Sure. It’s just hard to look away sometimes. I’ve been itching to see it straight on like this for years now.”
“I’m sure,” I answered. “You'll have all the time you’d like once we have this deck working.”
He smiled a little, moving to the next station. “I just…love the look of it. I mean, after all this time, I was starting to wonder if it even existed.”
I knew what he meant. We’ve heard so many stories in our lifetime. There were the tales of creatures that roamed the Martian wastelands, feeding on children who strayed too far without their parents. There were the poisons in Terran food if we ever dared to eat their animal meat. Finally, there were the fighting giants in the distance, the reason the ground shook and lights flashed in the night time. The existence of Earth was simply another fable.
“You remember that story dad told us when we were young?” Cain asked me.
I tried to think of any one story in particular. Nothing came to me.
“Which story was this?”
“It was the one about that city surrounded by ocean, the one the gods sank.”
I looked at him a moment, thinking quite hard. No story came to mind.
“There was an island city," Cain continued, "a large and beautiful one. The people there lived happily for a long time, but then their rulers became greedy or something. They wanted to conquer other lands and expand. So, the gods assembled to speak about this troublesome island city and its people. The gods judged and argued about how best to handle these people, how best to stop them, and they reached a decision. They sent floods, storms, and earthquakes, destroying the city.”
Earthquakes.
The word rung in my ear, sparking a passing memory.
“I think…I know that story,” I said, trying harder to remember. The description sounded familiar.
“Father told it a lot better. I bet he still could.”
“A-atlas?” I said vaguely. I felt close.
“A-At-Atlantis!” My brother cried.
“Yes!” I shouted. “Yes I’m sure that’s it. What about it?”
“Well,” my brother began, “The people of that city behaved in a way the gods couldn’t allow, so the people were killed or cast out. After the city was drowned, hundreds of years after, people began to question if it ever existed.”
“You view Earth the same way,” I finished.
He nodded. “I always have. The day I was told Atlantis was a myth was the day I assumed Earth must also be a myth. I believed that for a very long time. Now…” he turned to the glass window. “Now I can see it.”
The orb captured my brother's attention again, but this time I wasn’t annoyed. Hearing him describe it in such a way awakened a curiosity in me. I wanted to see what he saw. My eyesight was poor, but my imagination was not.
I walked to my brother’s side and stared at the orb.
“What do you see?” I asked, casting a quick glance at him.
He thought for a moment, then raised both hands, as if to set them on the orb. “I see…oceans. They’re much darker than on Mars, deeper.” His hands moved to outline the stretches of ocean he described. I stood very close to him, so it appeared he was painting them on a canvas. He added lines and waves, giving the different bodies of water detail. “I see…land.” He outlined the continents. The curves of the coastlines seemed to be thrown down randomly, like pieces of a massive puzzle. His hand began to move with more excitement, as he added details to the land. “I see deserts,” he said. “I see mountains. I see craters. I see canyons.” He continued, adding more and more, using his hands to create a masterpiece. With passion he filled the canvass…bringing a world to life…
With a final swoop of his hands, it was done.
“That’s what I see.”
The image, now painted in my mind, didn’t fade. I wouldn’t allow it to. The orb had become an awe inspiring planet, hanging in space for no eyes but ours. The sheer beauty brought a tear to my eye.
It was a dead world. There was no green, only what remained of a paradise. I didn’t need stories to tell me this. I didn’t need my imagination or a miracle.
I could see it.