Colonel Martin cuts through the forest, and although there’s no path and he’s leading me away from the colony, I have no doubt that he knows where he’s going.
To the compound.
We don’t talk as we march—almost run. The tree branches whip past us; vines snag our clothing, but neither of us slows. When we reach the compound, there’s only one guard on duty, Chris. He snaps to attention as we approach.
“What are you doing in the hot sun?” Colonel Martin asks, then corrects himself. “Suns. ”
“I was hoping . . . ” Chris’s eyes turn to me, confused. “I was hoping for word on Emma. ”
“Dead. ” Colonel Martin’s voice is gruff. “Open up the communication room. ”
Chris shoots me a questioning glance, clearly surprised that Colonel Martin has brought me here. “After you,” he says, taking a step back as Colonel Martin strides forward, pressing his thumb over the scanner. The way Chris watches me makes me wonder if he only let Colonel Martin go first so he had a chance to size me up as I walk past him. I push the sweaty hair from my face and ignore him.
Chris hesitates before following us inside, but Colonel Martin’s gaze softens when he sees him. “You too, son,” he says, and Chris shuts the door after he enters.
“Young Elder here found the compound,” Colonel Martin tells Chris. “And he found out that the first message, the one we got on the shuttle, was pre-recorded, a hack job. ”
Chris stands back, trying to look impassive, but I can’t help but notice the way his eyes examine me, judging my reaction.
“Here’s what we know,” Colonel Martin says, turning to me. “We know that there was a colony before us. And we know that it made the ruins we currently live in and that it built this compound. ” His shoulders slump as if he’s carrying the weight of the world—maybe both worlds—on him. “And we also know that they are all dead. ”
I grip the edge of the communication bay. I want to ask, “How?” But I cannot seem to form that simple word. Nevertheless, Colonel Martin answers.
“We found these recordings. Or, Chris here found them. ” He nods to Chris, and I’m surprised to see sympathy in his look.
Colonel Martin turns on the touch screen in the communication bay, but rather than scrolling through the menus like Amy and I did, he opens a cabinet to the right of the control panel and withdraws a thin, black piece of plastic about the same length as my thumb. It reminds me eerily of the black med patches Bartie has on Godspeed, and the thought twists my stomach. Colonel Martin presses the plastic into a slot near the touch screen, and it’s only then that I realize the material is similar to the mem cards we had on Godspeed, used to store information.
“This is what we know,” Amy’s father says, punching up the screen. An image of a glass cube similar to the one Emma gave Amy appears. “Something in the soil means that any glass made here, using a specific process, will be able to easily and effectively store solar energy. The first colony discovered this, and for several years, they manufactured solar glass and shipped it back to Earth. The compound we’re currently standing in was used as a transportation center. They’d ship the glass from here to an automated space station in orbit around the planet and from there to Earth. ”
“A space station!” I exclaim. “We didn’t see anything like that when we landed. ”
Colonel Martin arches an eyebrow at me. “This world is rather big, you know. ” He swipes the screen, and it fades to black.
“What happened to them?” I ask. “The first colony? You said they’re all dead?”
Colonel Martin looks at Chris. I get the feeling that they’re both trying to decide how much to tell me. I’m very nearly at the point of demanding answers when Colonel Martin moves over to the other side of the control panel, where the audio communication is. He turns a dial labeled ANSIBLE, and static fills the air.
But—not static. Not just. Words break through, words I can almost not understand.
“ . . . the danger too great . . . have received indication . . . human life once more on . . . Godspeed . . . survive the . . . help coming . . . ”
I strain to make out the words. Through the static and the accent of the speaker it’s hard to understand.
“It’s on a loop,” Colonel Martin says as the message starts over again.
“Sol-Earth?” I ask.
Colonel Martin nods. “It’s not the same as true communication, but it’s an indication that they know we’ve landed. And they’re sending help. ”
I snort. “We can’t wait another three hundred years for help to get here. ”
“We won’t have to, not if we can amplify the signal enough to get a response from Earth. ” Colonel Martin turns back to the touch screen and swipes his fingers over it. “I don’t fully understand the technology being used, but Chris here has been able to explain it to me enough that I get the basic idea. Tesseracts and wormholes and some such. Means travel is so much faster now, way beyond what we had when Godspeed was built. ”
“How much faster?” I ask, barely daring to breathe. We might just have a chance after all.
“A week, or maybe less. Once we manage to get a message back, I’d expect help to arrive at the station—it’s currently unmanned—within just a few days, and they’ll be able to travel to the planet from there. ”
“And then we begin evacuation,” Chris says. I’ve fallen so deep into my own thoughts that I nearly forgot he was in the room with us.