“Where the hell are you going?” she whispered to herself. Intrigued, she took off after him, following his tracks through the snow. It was a daunting trek, through one of the most inhospitable environments she could have imagined. But it never once crossed her mind to turn back. Her reporter’s instinct told her there was a story to be had, and she wasn’t going home without it.
Hopefully it would be worth a touch of frostbite.
She trudged across a huge shelf of floating ice, hugging herself to keep warm. Ellesmere Island, her research told her, had the largest ice shelves in the world, some of them extending for more than a hundred square miles. She assumed Joe wasn’t planning that long a hike, since nobody human could stay out in this cold too long. But where did he think he was going?
The aurora barely provided enough light to see by. She lost sight of her quarry amid the rolling hills and depressions, but his tracks led her on. Rounding a stony outcropping, she spied an enormous glacier looming ahead. A bright ruby light, not unlike a laser beam, glowed at the base. Clouds of steam obscured her view.
What have we here? she wondered. Another excavation site?
Her face seemed frozen and she couldn’t feel her toes anymore, but she made her way to the base of the glacier. A crystalline white cliff, glistening darkly in the night, towered above her where the glacier wall met the ice shelf beneath her feet.
A tunnel entrance, which looked as though it had been newly carved, stood before her. Rivulets of fresh water dripped from the ceiling and ran down the slick walls, continuing the length of the tunnel. Her boots splashed through puddles of slush.
The sloping tunnel appeared to lead deep beneath the glacier. Despite her professional curiosity, Lois hesitated before entering. She didn’t feel like getting buried in the ice for another twenty millennia or so, like some long-dead Siberian mammoth.
But she had come too far to turn back now. She swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and started down the tunnel.
All right, Joe, she thought. Let’s find out just what you’re up to.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Clark’s eyes glowed like twin red suns. Scalding clouds of steam billowed around him as his fiery gaze melted away the thick sheets of ice. The tunnel he had drilled had brought him to a huge cavern far beneath the ancient glacier. Now only a final layer stood between him and what had he had come so far to find.
His eyes dimmed and the steam cleared, revealing…
An immense alien spacecraft, many times larger than the one in which his parents had found him. The size of a cruise ship, the vessel was distinctly organic in appearance, resembling the fossilized shell of some gargantuan horseshoe crab. Icy water tricked down its flowing contours. Although longer and more streamlined, it was unmistakably akin to the capsule hidden beneath the old barn.
Clark stared in wonder at the ship, which had been buried under the ice for millennia. Alien glyphs were etched into its smooth, ceramic hull. The exotic characters were unfamiliar to him, except for one that resembled a capital “S.” Excitement surged through his veins as he fished out the strange black key his father had given him, so many years ago. He compared the symbol on the head of the key to the mark on the spaceship’s hull.
It was a match.
He couldn’t believe it. Might this forgotten starship actually hold the answers he’d been searching for all his life? Was he finally about to discover the truth about his past—where he came from? You have another father, his dad had told him. Another name. At long last, the truth seemed within reach.
Clark didn’t know whether to be thrilled or terrified.
Maybe a little bit of both.
Working up his nerve, he stepped forward and touched the hull of the sleeping vessel, then jumped back in surprise as polished ceramic plates slid open before him. He peered inside the silent ship, then gulped and stepped inside.
The interior had the same oddly organic appearance as the craft that had brought him to Smallville. Walking through its ribbed corridors was like exploring the fossilized remains of some gigantic mollusk, or crustacean. Curved arteries, disdaining right angles, branched off in unexpected directions, including up and down. The further he went, the more convinced he became that this ship had originated somewhere light-years away. The unearthly architecture was strange, unsettling, and alien.
Just like me?
He’d assumed that he had the empty ship to himself, but suddenly he heard servomotors whirring behind him. He spun around in time to watch a robot drop from a valve in the ceiling. The metallic creature wasn’t humanoid in appearance—it resembled a large rectangular lantern, and had an illuminated three-dimensional display screen at the center of its chest. Glowing tendrils sprouted from its base.
Some sort of automated sentry?
Clark backed away cautiously as the levitating mechanoid scanned him with a beam that shone from its central monitor. He raised his hands, showing empty palms, in what he hoped would be seen as a universal signal of peaceful intentions.
It didn’t work.
The robot zipped toward him aggressively, lashing out with its white-hot tentacles. Clark moved to defend himself, and a tendril whipped around his upper arm, burning right through his winterwear to sear the pink flesh underneath.
He cried out as he experienced something almost entirely new to him.
Pain.
A welt formed across his arm. He panicked and stumbled backward, glancing about frantically for a way he might protect himself. His desperate gaze fell upon a small diamond-shaped port in the wall above his head. It was shaped like the S-shield on the head of his key.
Still the hostile robot advanced toward him.
Acting on instinct, Clark jumped up and plugged the key into the slot. It slid in effortlessly, fitting perfectly. The port pulsed in response—and the robot froze in midair, halting its attack.
Clark gasped in relief, thanking his lucky stars that he had held onto the key all this time. He clutched his arm, which was still stinging like blazes. Was this what ordinary people felt, whenever they were hurt? His heart went out to them. He had never quite realized what it felt like to be… vulnerable.
Dropping back down, he circled the immobile sentry warily. He kept his guard up, but apparently the ship’s long-dormant security system had recognized the key, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was somehow connected to the vessel.
Now what? he wondered. Where do I look first?
A flicker of movement appeared in the corner of his eye.
Another robot?
Turning quickly, he glimpsed a tall, bearded man, standing at the end of the corridor. He wore a textured robe over what looked like a blue, skintight wetsuit. Clark started toward him, but the figure ducked silently around the corner, vanishing from sight. He shifted his vision to peer through the walls and find him, but the alien substance resisted him along the entire spectrum, from infrared to ultraviolet. Further evidence that it was not of this world.
“Hello?” he called. Clark chased after the man, his mind awhirl with questions. This ship had been buried for twenty thousand years. How could anybody still be alive aboard?