He was willing to risk death to live on Earth again.
And the view was worth it. “Come on, Colin,” Xavier said. “Look!”
Edgely was behind him. “Oh, I’m looking.”
The Ring above Site A was one of the most spectacular things Xavier ever hoped to see. It was like watching a Ferris wheel the size of a city, glowing and rotating in the sky.
And growing bigger as he watched. “Crazy, isn’t it?”
“Not as crazy as this, mate,” Edgely said, forcibly turning Xavier to the east.
At first it looked like a full moon, the biggest and brightest he’d ever seen.
But this moon continued to grow brighter, becoming so bright he wanted to squint.
And it was moving, beginning to glow as it created a plasma field with its passage through the incredibly thin but still detectable atmosphere of Earth at a thousand kilometers.
Keanu on approach.
And streaking toward it, another bright light—the vesicle.
Would they make it?
And if they did, where would they be? Even Zeds had been unsure . . . the Sentry thought Keanu was making a close approach, to strike at the Ring and Reivers while allowing Rachel and the others to get home.
But no one knew for sure.
The vesicle seemed to merge with Keanu. Hard to tell . . . Keanu was so big that Xavier felt he was only seeing part of it now.
“The Ring is moving!” Edgely said.
Xavier turned. Good God, the Ring had expanded so much that all he could see now was its lower rim.
And even that was edge-on.
Feeling overwhelmed and about to be crushed, he stepped back, stumbling.
“Don’t bother,” Edgely said. “There’s nowhere to go!”
Here came Keanu, filling the sky, its very passage creating a hot breeze, roaring like an electric waterfall.
He knew he should close his eyes because this collision would be blinding, explosive, deadly . . .
“Oh my God!” Edgely said. “It went through!”
Xavier blinked, and thought he saw the last section of Keanu disappearing through the Ring.
As it vanished, the tower behind them exploded with a zap so loud it hurt their ears. They could see it toppling. Flashes from its destruction were reflected in the mirrors.
Now his eyes hurt, too.
He covered them, looked away, hoped for his vision to return.
And hoped that he wasn’t being baked by radiation.
“How are you doing?” Edgely said.
“As well as can be expected. How about you?”
Edgely opened his mouth to speak, then closed it and shrugged.
“Now we move,” Xavier said, heading back to the van.
Edgely was still staring at the fractured sky. Finally he turned, shaking his head. “I imagine this is going to be challenging.”
“Las Vegas is only a few hours away. It’s not Houston or even New Orleans, but amazing things are possible in a place like that.”
“Won’t police be looking for us?”
Xavier shrugged. “I think everyone is going to be a bit distracted for quite some time.”
Epilogue
How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to Earth, you who once laid low the nations!`
ISAIAH 14:12
“Are you up?”
Rachel stirred, opened her eyes. She was in the small residence she shared with Pav. All was quiet, calm, as it should have been.
As if she had never left.
“I think so.” Pav lay next to her, spooning her, his voice muffled.
“I suppose it’s time,” he said.
They both began to stir.
It wouldn’t have been difficult to convince Rachel that the past eleven days had been a kind of feverish nightmare . . . that she had never launched to Earth, met other humans, fled across half a planet, escaped from Reiver captivity.
And returned a Reiver to Keanu.
In every morning of their life together, she and Pav had held each other briefly, exchanging kisses, resetting their relationship ahead of the day. Even on Earth.
It was especially necessary today, because they had to go to the Temple now and face Jaidev and Harley and Sasha and the others, all seven hundred of them.
And Yahvi and her new friend, Whit—and her other new friend, Nigel.
And Zeds and Carbon-143/A72.
And Zhao and Makali Pillay, their rescuers—Bobbi and the others aboard the vesicle.
And Sanjay Bhat, still alive, thank God, demonstrating with every breath that Revenants might live longer than a few days. He had relayed a message from Keanu itself, or rather, from Dale Scott, who had vanished while somehow inserting himself into the system. “Keanu wanted to go home,” he said, the only real explanation Rachel had received for the NEO’s dive through the Ring.
She pondered their new situation, living inside an entity that was now alive and functioning in a new way. Would humans be able to control Keanu? Or were they now just passengers, insects carried by an indifferent, uncaring vessel? She hated that idea, not only because it might lead to her death and the deaths of those she loved.
It was just the wrong way for humans to face the universe.
More immediately, Rachel had yet to consider what might still happen with a working Beehive. Would Pav’s father, Taj, reemerge now? Would her own father, Zack? For that matter, what about her mother, Megan?
And what if Keanu chose to create Revenants from people none of them knew, the dead of Earth? Rachel simply didn’t know what to expect, if anything.
That much hadn’t changed.
They had been back on Keanu a day, by their internal clocks. But Keanu was in a new place, a new space . . . and aimed toward the home world of the Architects. Soon, surely, they would detect signals, perhaps direct communications. They might be welcomed. After all, this was Keanu returning . . . the original Architect warship launched ten thousand years ago.
They might be shot at. They might be destroyed.
They might be ignored. It was impossible to predict. All Rachel knew was that she and the others would deal as best they could.
She wondered, though . . . had their magic leap meant a farewell to Earth? A door had opened to take them here. Might some other door open to take them back one day?
That would be another adventure.
Assuming anything that had happened in the past twenty years was an adventure. Yes, she had had unusual experiences—but so had those she left on Earth. Love was a unique experience. Parenthood. Work. Accomplishment. Failure.
Death.
Adventure was really just life, the days flowing into and out of each other.
And a new day was beginning.
Acknowledgments
Our families have been silent passengers on Keanu’s voyage for the past five years, so we thank them: Marina, Sayle, and Milo; Cynthia, Ryan, and Alexandra.
We are also grateful to Simon Lipskar at Writers House, to Ginjer Buchanan at Ace and Bella Pagan at Tor/Macmillan UK, and to Nellie Reed and Lauren Bello at Phantom Four.
Special thanks are also due to those who offered encouragement at various stops along the way: Michael Engelberg, Andre Bormanis, and Emily Mayne, and the gang at HeavensShadowtheTrilogy on Facebook.
D.S.G. & M.C.
Los Angeles, March 2013