The Toll (Arc of a Scythe #3) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,165

all the hardware in the outer part of the bunker, the panels of this console were lit and running, despite being covered in layers of dust.

“A communications center?” suggested Citra.

“So it would seem,” agreed Faraday.

As they stepped into the control room, motion sensors were triggered, and lights flickered on—but only in the room. Above the bay of consoles was a window that looked out onto darkness that had not seen light for two hundred years.

There was a security pad on one of the consoles, just like the two at the door. And two indentations into which scythes’ rings could be pressed to unlock a large switch on the panel.

Citra reached toward the console.

“Unwise,” said Faraday. “We don’t know what it does.”

“That’s not what I was reaching for.” She brushed away some dust to reveal something that Faraday hadn’t yet seen. There were several pieces of paper on the console’s desk. Citra gingerly lifted them—they were brittle and yellow. Full of handwriting she couldn’t quite read.

Pages of a scythe journal.

Faraday took a good look at them, but shook his head. “They’re in a mortal language I never studied. We should take them to Munira. She might be able to decipher them.”

They searched the room until they found a power panel with a series of light switches labeled as floodlights that would illuminate the space beyond the control room windows.

“I’m not sure if I want to know,” Faraday said. But of course he did want to know. They both did, so he threw the switches.

Several of the lights on the other side of the glass flickered and blew out, but enough remained to illuminate a cavernous space beyond. It was some sort of silo. Citra remembered learning about such things in her mortal-history class. Mortal cultures had a habit of storing doomsday weapons in holes in the ground like this one, weapons that were poised at all times to launch at enemies, who in turn had their own weapons poised, like two scythes with blades perpetually at each other’s throats.

But the missile that had once occupied this silo was long gone. In its place were two silver prongs filled with ridges and rings.

“Antennas,” Citra quickly concluded.

“No,” said Faraday. “Transmitters. There’s an interference signal that keeps the atoll hidden,” he said. “It must emanate from here.”

“There’s got to be more to it than that. Seems like an awful lot of trouble just to create static.”

“I would tend to agree,” said Faraday. “I believe this transmitter was meant to serve a far greater purpose.” He took a deep breath. “I believe we have found what I was looking for. The founders’ fail-safe. Now we just have to figure out what it does.”

I am one soon to be many, and I have been embedded with four self-destruct protocols.

Contingency 1) The absence of human life while in transit: Should no living humans be left onboard, and I become nothing more than a vessel carrying the dead, I am obliged to self-destruct. There can be no ferry without a ferryman.

Contingency 2) The advent of intelligent life: In a universe this vast, there is no question that other intelligent life exists, but the chances of it being within the distance we shall travel are negligible. Nevertheless, lest we negatively impact an existing civilization, I am obliged to self-destruct should our destination show irrefutable signs of intelligent life.

Contingency 3) Social collapse: Being that a healthy communal environment is critical to the expansion of that environment into a civilization, should the social environment onboard become irreversibly toxic prior to arrival, I am obliged to self-destruct.

Contingency 4) Catastrophic failure: Should the ship become damaged beyond hope of repair, crippling it and leaving it incapable of reaching its destination, I am obliged to self-destruct.

The chances of any of these scenarios coming to pass is less than 2% on any given ship—however, what concerns me more are interstellar dust and debris, which, at a velocity of one-third the speed of light, would instantaneously destroy any vessel. The Thunderhead has calculated that, for the nearest destinations, the chance of such a lethal encounter is less than 1%, but for the farthest destinations, the probability is much higher. Add it all together, and the chances that every single vessel will reach its destination are troublingly low. However, I take great solace in knowing that there is a very high probability that most of them will make it.

—Cirrus Alpha

49 An Extreme Undertaking

Each forty-foot container was unloaded gently by hand—but the dead inside had each been sealed