Twin Suns of Arterra

19

She led us to another wing. I followed, fighting every instinct in my body to keep from tackling her. I reminded myself that she was taking me to Camille. I couldn't jeopardize that. It might be a trap, or some kind of sick game, but I needed to see her. I needed to know for sure that she was all right. That she was still alive.

The sound of laughter echoed down the hall. A moment later the hallway opened up on one side, a large window replacing the wall. It looked in on a large room painted in bright colors. Four children stood on one end, tossing something to each other. It glowed as they threw it, etching the air with glowing lines. On the other side of the room, two small boys knelt, stacking small blocks together to build a structure.

It looked like a bridge.

My footsteps slowed. I searched each face, but they were unfamiliar.

"This is one of our physical therapy rooms," Valyn said.

I hadn't heard her come up beside me.

"These are the ones that are responding well to treatment." She looked back off in the direction we'd come. "The others haven't been so fortunate." I saw her glance at Aaliyah. "We found that we needed to start treatment earlier if we were to have any hope of helping them. Once the disease progresses too far, there's much less chance to bring them back."

"What is it that they have?" Aaliyah looked between the playing children and our guide.

"We call it the Phase."

"What does it do?"

Valyn looked back in at the children. "In phase one, it attacks the immune system. The victim becomes susceptible to a host of issues. Virulla, mytosis, blight, even poxias. The only benefit is that the illnesses are often so difficult that we can often achieve quick diagnoses." She paused, and I saw her throat work. "Now that we know what to look for."

"There are other phases?"

Valyn looked at me sharply, as if my question startled her. "Yes. Three in total that we've recorded. In phase two, the victim's chromosomal makeup is affected. There's usually significant DNA degeneration. In rare cases, genetic mutation has occurred."

The muscles in her jaw worked.

"And phase three?"

She looked down. "Once they reach stage three, there's no hope for cure." Her voice was tight. "We call it extinction phase. Survival rate is zero percent."

I wondered, my stomach souring, what phase Brecca was in.

"How many are affected?" Aaliyah's voice, though gentle, carried a trace of the horror I was sure we were all feeling.

"At first, about a quarter of the population." Valyn took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Now it's closer to fifty percent."

Fifty percent! Half of their population was dying? It barely made sense. Even if the number of people on Benterra was relatively small, fifty percent was a huge number. It seemed impossible that so many would contract the same disease, unless something was poisoning them. I thought again of the impression I'd always had of the red planet, toxic and inhospitable.

Deadly.

Some of that impression must be true. Something they were ingesting must be infecting them. Something in the food, or the water. Something in the air.

"Do you know what causes it?" I asked the question absently.

Valyn's whole body tensed.

"Oh yes," her voice growled through clenched teeth, "we know."

I glanced over my shoulder at Aaliyah, but she looked as confused as I was at the vehement response.

Valyn looked at each of us, her mouth twisted in a grimace as she shook her head.

"You really don't know?"

"Know what?"

"The phase was caused by the atmospheric deterioration," she explained. "Arterra's atmospheric deterioration. The same deterioration that caused the ozone depletion also caused an increase in the magnetic levels. This was what caused the oceanic currents to change, and the initial strengthening of the storms and other various weather-related events. But it was the effect on the twin suns that caused the real damage."

She studied us, her eyes probing.

"The magnetic changes caused intense solar flares. The damage to the atmosphere was incredible."

Some of her words began to ring bells in my head. They matched words from my memory. Storms... atmospheric damage... she was talking about the great annihilation.

"After they put up the domes," she said, her voice growing incredulous, "where did you think we went? The rest of us? Those that were left outside your protection? Those of us who didn't conform enough to your political agenda to warrant saving?"

So many, my father had said. So many had died. It had saddened and appalled me to think of it, but I had gone no further in my questioning. I had always assumed that those left outside had succumbed to the weather and atmosphere.

Valyn huffed a small laugh through her nose.

"We had nowhere to go. Nowhere we could hide. We escaped to the only place left to us, in the only way that we could."

"Through the rift." My voice was barely a whisper.

Valyn nodded once, her face hard. "Through the rift. We risked the fire planet to escape our destruction."

The Clan of the Lost, she'd called her people. Now I was beginning to understand.

"We survived the great annihilation, but we could not escape what it did to us. We couldn't outrun the changes that it wreaked on our cells."

Two of the children in the room had stopped playing and were looking out at us, pointing.

"We brought our death here with us," Valyn said as she resumed walking, leaving us to follow or be left behind.

I trailed after her, dragging what felt like an enormous weight behind me. We'd done this to them. We had caused this horrible disease they were suffering from when we'd raised the shielding and then not allowed everyone inside its cover. This was the great evil my father had so often alluded to. This was the guilt he could never escape.

I wondered if he'd known that some of the people outside the domes had escaped through the rift and had come here, whether he'd suspected. The attacks by groups of people known only as Renegades had begun when I was small. Had my father suspected where they came from? Had he connected the events in his head?

When his own daughter had been taken, he must have wondered if it was some kind of retribution. I had made myself the bane of those who had stolen Camille, and those same people were the bane of the ones who had forsaken them and left them to die.

I felt the world turning beneath my feet like a great wheel of fate coming to bear.