Lemuria by Burt Clinchandhill (epub e ink reader TXT) 📕

One of the soldiers looked at Mulder through the scope of his rifle. “We could shoot him.”

“Great idea,” Lindsey remarked. “Let’s see if he survives a one hundred-foot drop.”

“Can you stop the launch?” Ignatowski asked Fawcett.

“I have no idea how, but if there is a way, it would be from the control center.”

“Can you take me there?” Ignatowski asked.

Fawcett looked at the clock. “Not in less than two minutes.”

“Are you sure you want to stay here?” Mulder shouted as he sat down with his legs dangling from the support tower.

“He’s right. We need to go.” Fawcett pointed to a door on the other side of the launchpad. “We need to go through there if we want to be safe. Come on.”

“Let’s go,” Bishop added, giving the clock one last look. As fast as they could, the group ran across the concrete to the other side of the hall. There, Fawcett opened the heavy steel door by turning a big wheel. Everyone hustled into the corridor on the other side.

Before crossing the doorway, Bishop turned and looked at Mulder in the tower’s elevator.

“Quickly,” Fawcett called out as he pulled Bishop in and closed the door again. “Now, open the door on the other side.”

Bishop and De Cremonese stepped forward and turned the wheel on the next door. Within seconds, that door slowly opened.

Mulder’s voice sounded from a speaker in the ceiling. “Thirty seconds until launch.”

Fawcett moved to the other side of the corridor. “Go inside quickly. Now.”

Without hesitation, the group went through the door and into another concrete room that was empty except for a large video screen on one of the walls.

“Close that door,” Fawcett called out as he put a hand on the display. On the screen, an overview of the launchpad appeared. “This is it,” Fawcett called out.

Everyone in the room backed up against the rear wall. De Cremonese mumbled a prayer as Jennifer moved as close as she could to Bishop. Lindsey closed her eyes, and Ignatowski covered his face with his hands.

“We’re going to be okay,” Bishop whispered to Jennifer.

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

A deafening rumble filled the room as the first beams of fire emerged from below the rocket, and everything began to shake.

Mulder’s voice returned inside the room. “Eight... seven... six... five... four... three... two... one. Liftoff. We have liftoff. Lemuria One blasts off and is on its way to the stars.”

Epilogue

New Haven, CT, One Week Later

The last visitors of the Beinecke library left the unique gray-veined marble building to go back to their spouses or evening dates, after a day of taking in knowledge from ancient books.

Father De Cremonese stretched his neck, admiring the fifty-foot-tall glass tower in the center of the building that rose from underground and held an enormous number of books.

“Reflecting on your sins, Father?” Monroe’s voice sounded loud through the almost empty building.

De Cremonese chuckled. “I guess I got lost in my thoughts. As I’ve said before, I’ve never been here before and was admiring your beautiful and vast collection. I heard about the place and have seen pictures, but it’s so much more amazing to see with my own eyes.”

“Over one hundred eighty thousand volumes in the glass tower, and another million in the underground stacks.”

“Incredible.”

“Please join us.” Monroe pointed to the other side of the glass tower where a small group of people gathered at an old Louis XIV table with a marquetry top made of an assortment of woods, pewter, copper, horn, brass and tortoiseshell. The golden evening light coming through the marble walls reflected on the table and projected golden speckles on the people’s faces.

“So, Father,” Bishop asked. “Did you two have enough time to get acquainted?”

“Well, of course we already met on-screen. I flew in just a few hours ago from Italy and didn’t have time to look around myself. Walker was so good as to give me a tour of the place. It’s mind-boggling, all this knowledge in one place. So much more knowledge than any one man could ever possess. In his head, I mean. Makes you feel tiny and unworthy.”

“That’s why humans work in groups, Father,” Lindsey said.

“Please sit down, Father.” Monroe pointed to a chair next to Ignatowski.

“It so good to see you all together again.” Jennifer widened her arms over the table. “I’m so glad you accepted my invitation to have a drink together so I could thank you all for what you did for me. Who knows where I would be now if it weren’t for you?”

“Maybe on your way to Mars?” Bishop grinned.

“Sure.” Jennifer puckered her lips.

“Amazing. Why not?” Ignatowski said. “You could have been the first human on a distant planet. Like Armstrong on the moon, they still talk about him after more than fifty years.”

“And probably will be for a long time,” Lindsey added. “The first human on another planet could have been a woman.”

Monroe cleared his throat. “I guess now we’ll never know.”

“What do you mean?” De Cremonese asked.

“Well, you said three rockets went up. And we are currently tracking them from the Specola Vaticana, but should they land, there’s no way of knowing what happens next. It’s not that we have a telescope that can see objects on Mars.”

“Maybe,” Ignatowski interrupted. “I understand NASA is sending its rover Perseverance to the calculated landing site. With a little luck, he will be in the right place at the right time to send pictures.”

“Wouldn’t that be great,” De Cremonese replied. “I’m still wondering how Mulder expects the people from the tribes to know what to do when they get there. I mean, how do they even get out? How do they know how to grow crops or get water?”

Bishop replied, “Fawcett told me that the rockets were fully stocked with food, water, tools and seeds. I guess the rest is up to the ingenuity of the colonizers.”

“Wouldn’t it be something,” Monroe added. “Now, live on CNN, the first man on Mars, a native Peruvian wearing a loincloth, descending from a ladder onto the red