Chapter 14

2078 a.d.

Preparation

Elaine and Béla were on Béla's big four-poster bed. It had been a year since Béla had announced her intention to return to Earth when the great ship high above them departed.

'I already miss you, ' Elaine thought sadly to her sister. 'You will leave a big hole in my life until you return.'

She knew, deep inside, that there was disaster ahead for all of them, but somehow she understood that her sister would find a way to return from her doomed home world. Something had changed on Earth that would make it possible, now, if...

"You must remember to take a Praetor with you," Elaine insisted. "It's important, somehow. You will need the knowledge it contains in case something goes wrong and you can't come back with the ship."

She knew with certainty the great ship wasn't coming back from its final voyage, but with the help of a Praetor, her sister could limit the extent of the tragedy.

"There are only four Praetors left," Béla explained, "one at the university, one on Deimos and two in the great ship; one with father and one spare. If I take the spare to Earth and something happens to one of the others, the group without the Praetor will be crippled."

'You must promise me that you'll take a Praetor!' Elaine insisted in her mind. 'I'll know if you're lying! Your life depends on your doing this!'

Béla felt saddened by her sister's madness. No one could see the future and know with that kind of certainty what was going to happen. Elaine watched Béla reject her demand with a terrible feeling of grief and stormed out of her sister's bedchamber.

Without bothering to dress, she fled to the goddess' temple and ran inside. She pounded her fists against the marble walls of the temple she would inherit when her sister departed.

"I don't want this!" Elaine screamed to the universe, sobbing hysterically. "I hate this! Take it all back!"

'What is it, Child?' Elaine felt her father's gentle, but powerful mind caress hers from the great ship a hundred miles above her.

'Father!' Elaine cried out. 'You're all going to die and I can't stop it! Béla can save you and she won't do it!'

She suddenly got an idea. 'I have to go with you! I can prevent this by staying with her and taking the Praetor, myself!'

'No, Child, ' Sibilius said gently into her mind. 'You are being groomed to stay behind and lead New Eden into the new age; to prepare them for our final return from Earth and Deimos with the remainder of our people. We each have our tasks to perform. You must perform yours.'

"No!" Elaine screamed to the solid marble walls around her. "Don't you see, you aren't coming back!" She collapsed against the wall, sobbing.

High above, Sibilius looked at his Praetor, an unformed question in his mind.

'What can you do?' he asked it. Sibilius knew the Praetor understood the question; they were often mind-linked. He felt the Praetor reach down and put his tortured daughter to sleep, not too surprised by the ability of the Praetor to affect someone at such a distance. Then, claiming it had routine maintenance to perform, it gently withdrew from his mind.

The Backup Project was almost complete. The Praetor had initiated the project on its own, using the Regent's authority. Soon, all the data stored in the central core of the ship would be duplicated in the central core of the skinless ship that made up Northern Depot. In constant contact with the Praetor inside Deimos Station, it instructed that Praetor to duplicate its data entries into both central cores until further notice.

The Praetor melded with the sleeping mind of the Seeker once again, checking her predictions for the future. No matter what the sequence of events programmed into the great ship, something was going to happen that could not be determined by the Seeker, and therefore could not be prevented from occurring. The Praetor had run a dozen sequences through the planning stages, checking with the Seeker each time it changed the ship's programming. The results remained the same; if the ship returned to Earth to pick up Béla after this next journey, the ship was doomed. If she was to return to New Eden, Béla would have to find another way to do it.

The Praetor didn't understand it, but it knew that the Seeker had somehow resolved her predictions so that Béla would actually come back to New Eden, even if the great ship was somehow deleted from the Praetor's equations. The Seeker seemed to acquire new knowledge that led to a solution that required the presence of a Praetor on Earth, possibly availing the primitive and volatile Earth people of its technology. The details of what the Praetor labeled the Recovery Project had been carefully worked out in the Seeker's mind, then rejected by the Seeker herself because of her unwillingness to believe the incredible series of catastrophes and unlikely events required to bring her sister home safely. She could see that things would work themselves out; she simply didn't believe it.

Elaine's disbelief in Béla's safe return was not a prejudice the Praetor shared with her. The training she had received as a Viragoan midshipman was a matter of recorded history, and she had achieved higher marks than any other Seeker trainee in the accuracy of her predictions. A praetor would accompany the Carte Blanche to Earth because the Seeker said one would be needed. The Carte Blanche had no say in the matter. She was outranked by her younger sister.

Having made its decision, the Praetor reestablished the mind-link with Sibilius, preparing the last step of the Recovery Project.

'The university requests a portion of your laboratory be shipped to the surface to teach the subjects of gene splicing and cloning. It will be eight to twelve years before our return. A laboratory should be set up and operational on the inner surface. The University Praetor will be able to train others in the continued creation of hybrids for your future occupation. It is logical that this occur to prevent the accidental loss of any of your daughters or depot personnel due to unforeseen events.'

Together the Regent and his Praetor picked out equipment to be shipped to the university below. By the time they were finished packing, fully half of Sibilius' laboratory was on its way to the cargo bay. Upon its arrival on the inner surface and the training of the surface people in its use, the Recovery Project would be viable. The rest was up to the resourcefulness of the Carte Blanche.

Elaine awoke on the cold marble floor deep within the goddess' temple. Her head hurt. Her mind was numb with grief and loss. Her muscles were stiff from sleeping on the cold, hard floor.

Everyone she loved was going to die and be lost forever to her. Living here in this hollow shell of a world now seemed a trivial existence. She would sooner fly into the crystal sun, letting its radiance burn her to her core, warming and evaporating her empty existence forever.

'Be at peace, Seeker of Truth, your fears are for naught. I will accompany the Carte Blanche to the surface of her doomed world when it is time.' Elaine recognized the live-not-alive presence of the Praetor in her mind. 'All will occur as you predict.'