The Impossible Future: Complete set by Frank Kennedy (mini ebook reader .txt) 📕

me or couldn’t trust me. Kind of creeped me out. Come to think of it, he nearabout fell over in the lab when he saw I was upright.”

“I think he’s in shock, Michael. The base fell. He didn’t believe me when I said your wound was superficial. Then he hid during the fight. Now seeing Hiebimini. It’s too much for him. Keep in mind, he’s been obsessing about this day longer than we’ve been alive.”

“I reckon he knows how lucky he is, and nobody understands luck more than me. Assholes keep trying to kill me, and somehow I walk away.” He massaged his forehead above the left eye. “My Mom always did say I was hard-headed. I must have a fucking steel plate in there to hold off a flash peg.”

Maya cut her laugh short. Michael heard splashing before he turned around to see Aldo racing across the whitewater.

“The hell is he doing?”

They called out to him, but Aldo didn’t answer. The river was not wide – perhaps thirty meters across – but the current was moving at a blistering pace. The land fell steadily toward the horizon.

“I think he’s pushing his luck. He’s …”

Not being swept away. The water never reached Aldo’s waist as the twice-resigned fleet Admiral maintained a straight course to the far side. He waved them onward without looking behind and proceeded toward the giant stones.

“I’ll be damned. Maybe he found something. Should we follow?”

“You heard him, Michael. He spent eleven years studying this planet. How much do we know about it?”

“Good point. Just in case: You know how to swim?”

“I grew up in Marseilles. The beach was my second home.”

“Nice. I spent half my best years in the Alamander River. I think we’ll be good.” He looked himself over. “They say this body armor is all-terrain. Don’t know about the gravmod boots. Fuck it.”

They held hands in pursuit of Aldo, the current strong but never threatening to topple them. Michael and Maya ran on squishy feet until they found Aldo deep among the stones. He bent on one knee, his hands racing over elongated stones with identical geometry. Michael realized these were not carved by nature.

“What is it, Aldo?”

“Proof.” The old man backed off for a moment and gathered his emotions. When he looked up, Aldo displayed tears. “You were right. This is Hiebimini. And I know exactly where we are because I’ve been here. In fact, I was here the day before the Fall.”

“How do you know?” Maya asked.

“I recognized the color and design of the stone, even from the other side of the river. It was used everywhere in Messalina.”

“The capital city?”

“Yes. See these glyphs?”

Michael observed a long, narrow sequence of unfamiliar symbols along what appeared to be a totem.

“What do they say?” He asked.

“This is the ancient language of the Arabis tribes who colonized Hiebimini. It was their way of honoring the past, before Engleshe became standard throughout the Collectorate. You could find these on every building in the city. And by the way, that city stood next to one of those two rivers I mentioned. The Bengalese. It’s all changed, of course, but in a way that makes no sense.”

“Ruins have a way of mucking up the picture,” Michael quipped.

“No. I’m talking about the river current. The Bengalese flowed along the eastern edge of the city, as it does now. It was deeper and wider, but it flowed in the opposite direction.”

Michael and Maya shared a bewildered glance.

“Are you certain?” She asked.

Aldo did not hide his offense. “I hated this city and this planet, but I knew them intimately. I am not wrong.”

“Good enough for me,” Michael said. “So, what does all this mean?”

Aldo wiped away his tears before speaking to Maya.

“It’s what you said earlier. We need to think beyond human science. I knew it was a miracle when I saw it happen. I allowed them to shut me up and keep me away all those years. Cud!”

“I’m sure we’ll find the answers,” Maya said.

“I know one answer for certain. Messalina was far and away the largest city on Hiebimini. It makes sense the pattern sleeve would be programmed to the most high-profile coordinates on the planet.”

Michael remembered what Nilsson told him.

“The Major wasn’t sure if this drop would put me close to Salvation’s settlement or strand me off course, but I’ll bet he figured if I landed in a city, I’d have more of a fighting chance. He couldn’t have known it would be in ruins. Aldo, do you think Nilsson and the Admiralty were working together?”

“To sacrifice the base?” Aldo buried half his face under his hand and sighed. “No. He collaborated with Forsythe behind my back, but Aiden Nilsson would never sacrifice his soldiers. Never, Michael. If he knew what was coming, he would have made arrangements to pull out the entire team.”

“He saved my life, for damn sure. He wanted me to find her. That’s what I’m gonna do.”

Maya nodded. “How do we begin?”

“That’s where my handy-dandy DR29 comes in. Before I left my quarters, I fired up the long-range mapping and sensor gradients. Never needed them until today. They strike out a ten-kilometer radius in the initial sweep. They search for life forms, manmade structures, comm streams, energy signatures, Carbedyne trails. Really, whatever parameters I set. In this case, I’m choosing all of the above. But we don’t have a global Guard network to tap into, or an orbiting ship to balloon the perimeter.”

“Which means?”

“Every sweep will take at least an hour. If we don’t hit the jackpot first time, this shit gets dicey. The farther the reach, the slower the response. The DR29 was designed for combat, not research.”

Aldo slapped Michael on the shoulder.

“Best have at it, 3-L-T. I anticipate another four