Save for one.
Crab-like robotic gardeners, equipped with sharp metallic pincers, tended to the growing stems and buds, trimming away excess shoots, nodes, and even the occasional defective fetus. Designed to function in a liquid environment, the ’bots were smaller and less sturdily built than Kelex.
Other robots scoured the inner walls of the spire, keeping them free of unwanted mosses and fungal growths. Jor-El eyed the busy mechanisms apprehensively, but they appeared programmed to ignore him as long as he did not disturb the babies growing on the vines. It pained his heart to realize that none of the gestating embryos would live long enough to be harvested.
He kicked his way downward, trying to stay clear of the endless stems and sacs, yet the shaft grew more densely fertile as he descended, slowing his progress. Despite his efforts, he swam too close to a cluster of fetuses, which retracted back into their stems like the polyps on an undersea anemone. A nearby ’bot, busy pruning a stray branch, turned its sensors toward him, but did not take action.
Jor-El hurried away before it changed its cybernetic mind.
He was running out of breath. His cheeks bulged and tiny bubbles escaped his lips. Despite his clenched jaws, briny fluid invaded his mouth and nostrils. His lungs cried out for air. Self-preservation urged him to turn back, but he kept on swimming, hoping that he was nearing the end of the shaft—and that the central hub was not much farther.
The shaft slowly widened. Swaying stems obscured his view, but he spotted an opening ahead. Holding on tightly to his last breath, he kicked toward the large circular portal which led to an immense spherical chamber at the center of the complex. Artificial light filtered down from above.
Jor-El prayed it wasn’t just a mirage caused by a lack of air.
Light-headed, lungs aching, he swam up toward the light. His head broke the surface of the water and he gasped, then sucked in air hungrily. Amniotic fluid dripping from his hair and beard, he found himself bobbing in the center of a wide reservoir surrounded by pulsing organic walls. Taking a moment to recover, he glanced around at the cavernous hub of the Genesis Chambers, from which the entire gargantuan complex was controlled.
Soon his questing eyes located what he was looking for.
The Codex.
An ancient Kryptonian skull, inscribed with glowing green glyphs, hung just above the basin, suspended by numerous neural fibers. The glyphs pulsed continuously while the Codex dictated the genetic code of millions of Kryptonians as yet unborn. In the past, such directions would have determined their futures as well—but that was when Krypton had a future.
Reaching upward, Jor-El hastily disconnected the skull from the fibers that held it in place. The pulsing glyphs dimmed and went dark. A high-pitched alarm echoed off the walls around him—like the screeching of a frightened jewel-bird.
The alarms sent a jolt of adrenaline through him, spurring him on. War or no war, his unthinkable violation was bound to trigger defensive measures—and attract the Sapphire Guard. He needed to be away from here, with his prize, before it was too late.
He unhooked the last of the ganglia and seized the Codex. Clutching it to his chest, he dived back beneath the water. Numerous openings led to the complex’s myriad spires. Unable to determine which passage he’d used before, he chose an opening at random and swam into the waiting shaft, which was identical to all the others.
Kicking upward, he rose past drifting stems laden with doomed fetuses and embryos. His lungs were tested once more, but this time he knew where he was going.
If he could just reach the open pool at the top of shaft…
But the robots had other ideas. Abandoning their gardening, they chased after Jor-El, converging on him from all directions. Metal pincers, designed for pruning, tugged on his legs and ankles. The layered fabric of his skinsuit shielded him from immediate injury, but the ’bots kept coming, determined to retrieve the stolen Codex.
Sharpened pincers dove at his face, but he batted the ’bot away with his free hand, while kicking and shaking more ’bots off his legs and torso. Shattered bits of metal and circuitry sank out of sight, yet the aquatic robots were not deterred. Whoever had programmed them had clearly impressed upon them the paramount importance of the Codex.
They were not going to surrender it without a fight.
Crimson sunlight, seeping down from above, called out to him. Breaking free from the clinging ’bots, he breached the surface of a pool at the top of a towering spire. H’Raka and Kelex were nowhere to be seen, which implied that this was a different shaft than the one into which he’d dived before.
Still holding on to the Codex, he started to haul himself out of the pool onto the sturdy, solid lip of the spire. He was halfway out when unseen pincers bit down on his ankle, squeezing hard enough to bruise him beneath his skinsuit, and yanked him back down into the fluid. Startled, he lost his grip on the skull, which rolled across the top of the spire toward the outer edge of the lip.
No! Jor-El thought.
Nightmarish visions—of the Codex tumbling over the edge and plunging to certain destruction—flashed through his brain, giving him the strength to shake loose the relentless ’bot and lunge from the water. He dove for the skull, his hands stretched out before him. His fingers closed on the runaway Codex only a heartbeat before it rolled over the brink.
Rao be praised!
Gasping in relief, he scrambled to feet, only to hear a metallic scraping behind him. He turned to see a pair of ’bots clambering out of the shaft after him. He backed away from the pool, toward the edge of the precipice. Glancing back over his shoulder, he spied a vertiginous drop. Again, no Kryptonian could survive such a fall— not unless he knew how to fly.
The robots, clumsy once they were out of the water, advanced toward him. Their pincers clacked viciously. Given a chance, they would surely snip his fingers off to rescue the skull from his grasp.
He couldn’t let them do that. The Codex had to survive.
And it must be kept away from Zod and his renegades, he resolved.
Suddenly a familiar buzzing reached his ears, drawing nearer by the instant. Jor-El smiled. Trusting fate, he turned and leapt from the spire.
He plummeted toward the ground below, accelerating according to a mathematical constant he had memorized as a child. For a few heart-stopping seconds he found himself wishing that Krypton’s natural gravity wasn’t quite so formidable. Terminal velocity approached at an alarming pace.
He prayed that Lara would be able to carry out their work without him.
You must save the child, Lara. No matter what!
Then H’Raka swooped in beneath him, with Kelor docked at her rear. Working together, they timed the catch perfectly so that Jor-El landed heavily in the saddle rather than crashing to his death many lengths below.
He settled into the seat, checking to make sure the Codex had not been damaged by the fall. To his relief, the sacred skull was still intact, which meant there was still hope for the future.
“Home,” he instructed H’Raka.
CHAPTER THREE
The war-kite soared upward, leaving the Genesis Chambers and mechanical sentries behind. It seemed as if the worst was over, but then a burst of plasma shot past them.
Pivoting in his seat, Jor-El saw that the ongoing battle had spread, and was moving toward them. Deadly sprays of energy streaked the sky as the Sword of Rao fought the Sapphire Guard for control of Kandor.