They left the atmosphere, the pearly sphere of Atlan shrinking beneath them. The massive spiral galaxy that lighted the night sky shone like diamond dust strewn across black velvet, millions of suns so brilliant the nights were always bright, even when none of the five moons were visible.
Aboard the Vengeance, it hardly seemed possible that four years had passed. They disembarked in the same smooth room and followed Tallyn along moss carpeted corridors to the lift, which shot up to the bridge. Tallyn indicated that they should sit in two empty chairs, and tense silence filled the gloomy room as the crew awaited their orders. Tallyn faced his lieutenant as Marcon approached and saluted.
'Everything ready to go, Marcon?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Good, let's get on with it then.'
Breaking orbit and entering the transfer Net were achieved with little fanfare. If not for Marcon reeling off the list of procedures, and a brief glimpse of Atlan's receding globe, Rayne would hardly have known anything unusual had occurred. The screen went blank, and Tallyn turned to her with a smile.
'It's so mundane, isn't it? Space travel is almost boring.'
She eyed him. 'You read my mind.'
'Of course I did. You still haven't learnt to guard your thoughts.'
'That's rude, and I wasn't trying to.'
'When in the company of so many, it would be wise.'
She glanced around the bridge. 'They're all…?'
'Telepaths? Yes.' He looked at Marcon, who smiled. 'Marcon finds your disappointment most amusing.'
'If you can all read each other's minds, why do you bother talking?'
'We try to guard our private thoughts, so speaking telepathically requires just as much effort as talking. If we all left our minds open, our most intimate thoughts would become public knowledge.'
'I see.' She lowered her gaze, embarrassed. 'Perhaps you should teach us how to do it properly.'
'Well, Rawn doesn't really have to worry about it. His thoughts are pretty murky, since his telepathy is so weak. He can hear the equivalent of a mental shout, but he broadcasts almost nothing.'
'Why didn't Mindra teach me?'
Tallyn's slight smile broadened. 'Mindy's a busy little cat. She didn't have time. She only agreed because of who you are – might be. She likes dealing with VIPs. She did what I couldn't, but I can teach you the rest.'
Rayne nodded, uncomfortable amongst so many people who could read her mind. On Atlan, they had seldom ventured into crowds of strangers, except at the bar, where the number of aliens made mind reading almost impossible, she had discovered. The library was often pretty empty, and the reading rooms had neural dampeners. Tallyn's friends had all been polite and ignored her open mind, it appeared, and crowds always made mind reading difficult. Although the crew were busy, it seemed to her newly awakened awareness that they all listened to her thoughts.
They went to a recreation area, where they ordered drinks and sat around a table. For the next five hours, Tallyn instructed her on the art of shielding her thoughts, while Rawn listened and asked questions. Tallyn rarely had so much time to devote to his guests, so he took this opportunity to teach her. She was making progress when Tallyn received a message from Marcon and took them back to the bridge. They arrived as the main screen activated and a dull, cloud-shrouded globe appeared on it. Rayne swallowed hard, a lump blocking her throat.
'That's not Earth.'
'I'm afraid it is,' Tallyn murmured.
'It can't be.'
'It is.'
She blinked and looked at Rawn, whose expression was drawn, his eyes bright. 'I knew this was a bad idea.'
Rayne forced herself to look at the screen again as Tallyn moved away into the gloom. It looked like a dirty Venus, perhaps after a violent dust storm, if Venus had such things. The blanket of clouds swirled various shades of brown and yellow into a soup of striated, venomous colours. A glance would tell anyone this planet was poisonous, and unfit to support life.
Yet this was Mother Earth, the world that had once had an entire self-supporting ecology matured over millions of years. The horror of it made her want to turn away and remember the glowing blue jewel within a fragile envelope of pure air, patterned with fleecy white clouds. The reality was a lifeless, hostile lump of rock cloaked in a poisonous atmosphere, a product of man's ingenuity. Its ugliness made her want to know more.
She glanced at Tallyn. 'All I can see is clouds.'
'We've launched a probe. You'll be able to see the surface soon.'
A few minutes later, the screen's picture changed, and a wall of brownish mist replaced Earth's dirty corpse.
'The probe is descending through the clouds.' He glanced at one of Marcon's holographic displays. 'The temperature is one hundred and thirty degrees.'
In the Atlantean system for measuring temperature, zero was freezing point and one hundred degrees was boiling point at sea level, which meant Earth's atmosphere was akin to a furnace. The probe fell below the clouds, and the screen showed an alien landscape of ravaged, barren desert shrouded in a haze of dust. Huge chasms snaked across it, vomiting lava in an endless bubbling ooze. The clouds reflected the lurid glow, creating a garish scene.
Seas of cooling lava filled valleys, and steam and smoke rose to thicken the clouds. The probe followed the contours of a savage land, finding a ruined city. A sprawling mass of twisted, rusting metal came into view; the remains of the Eiffel Tower. A solitary, broken statue raised an arm above the jumbled rocks like a drowning man begging to be rescued from this eerie, desolate place.
'What happened to the buildings?' Rayne asked in a horrified whisper.
Tallyn replied, 'Seismic activity has levelled just about everything. The pyramids have survived, and the sphinx. Parts of the Great Wall of China are standing, but everything else is gone.'
The probe flew through huge, alien canyons. 'That's the sea bed; there's not much left of it. Most of the water is now in the clouds.'
A crewman interjected, 'Temperature two hundred and ten degrees.'
'All gone,' Rayne murmured. 'All those millions of people. An entire civilisation wiped out.' She turned away as a drunkenly leaning Big Ben came into view, unable to watch anymore, and sank into a chair. Rawn continued to stare at the screen, which had reverted to the picture of a distant Earth.
Tallyn winced, as if he had sampled her unguarded thoughts. 'Okay, Marcon, switch it off. Run all the usual tests.' He glanced around in surprise as Marcon announced, 'Our long-range proximity repellers are reacting to an approaching mass, sir.'
'What is it?'
'Its density indicates it's a ship.'
'Can we focus a viewer on it?'
Marcon touched a crystal on his console, and an empty star field filled the screen. He touched more crystals, and the stars swelled, but remained enigmatic.
Tallyn demanded, 'Are you sure the repellers reacted?'
'Yes, sir. They still are.'
Rayne gazed at the screen, the excitement a welcome distraction. A star vanished near the centre of it, then another. She jumped up, pointing. 'There is something there, look!'
Tallyn nodded as another star vanished. 'I see it. Marcon?'
'Activating the laser pulse sensory array.' He touched more crystals, studying a hologram that scrolled up before him. 'We're getting a very mushy reading, sir, but it seems to be coming closer. The pulses are not being reflected, but absorbed. Time lapse indicates it's still quite distant, three light seconds. Initiating broad laser sweep.'
One of the other officers looked up with a worried expression. 'It appears to be enormous, sir.'
'Elaborate,' Tallyn said, frowning.
'At least five times the size of Vengeance. Maybe bigger.'
Tallyn swung around. 'Battle stations. Red alert.'
