A Memory of Mankind: (This Alien Earth Book 2) Read online

“Up it is then,” I said, smiling.

  “Vait a minute. The purser’s office is open,” Freuchen said before we could take a step. He was pointing back in the direction we’d come from to a recessed alcove I’d somehow missed. A set of wooden roll-up shutters was half-pulled down to an ornate teak counter. Behind the bar, a pigeonhole cabinet took up the back wall, letters and documents still in some of the slots. Adjacent to the counter, a door stood ajar, the word PURSER written in large black letters across the frosted glass.

  “It might be vorth taking a look,” Freuchen said. “The first-class passengers kept a lot of valuables in there.”

  “Really?” I said, surprised that Freuchen would take an interest in anything of value.

  He must have caught the surprise in my voice because he clarified by saying, “Ve may find something ve can use to barter vith ven ve find other people.”

  I felt my face bloom red, embarrassed that I’d doubted my friend. Instead of offering an apology, I smiled, shook my head, and walked toward the open door.

  The room held three desks with accompanying office chairs and a large filing cabinet. But what was of interest to us were the three large metal safes set against the far bulkhead. There were no combination locks on any of them, just a keyhole and a brass handle. All were closed.

  Freuchen tried the handle of the first, but it was locked. I tried the second with the same result. Albert tried the third handle, and, to all our surprise, the heavy steel door swung open.

  The safe had four shelves and multiple compartments. Most were filled with rolls of US cash, legal documents, and other now worthless documents.

  “Here, take a look at vat is in here,” Freuchen said, handing me an embellished gold-plated jewelry box. I flipped the lid. The box contained five rings and a beautiful diamond necklace, all obviously worth more than most people probably made in a lifetime back then. I handed the box to Albert.

  “There you go,” I said to the boy. “You’re now an official millionaire.”

  Albert smiled broadly and began to go through the box.

  Meanwhile, Freuchen had handed Chou a hand-sized satin pouch. She undid the drawstring fastening and pulled out a beautiful diamond-and amethyst-encrusted gold necklace.

  “Put’s the Heart of the Ocean to shame,” I whispered.

  Chou looked at me oddly and said, “As Freuchen mentioned, this will make a fine bartering item. Several if we break it apart.”

  I winced at the idea of destroying such a beautiful piece of art, but she was right.

  Several more pouches followed, each containing more stunningly excessive jewelry than the previous. When we were finished, we had a pile of precious stones and metals that was probably worth a half-a-billion dollars in my time.

  “Hey,” I said, “what about that?” I pointed to the bottom shelf of the safe. Leaning against the back wall was a leather bag, the size of a laptop computer. Freuchen reached in and handed it to me. I unzipped it and pulled out a wooden case.

  “What is it?” Albert asked.

  “I think,” I said, as I turned the case over, “it’s a... yes, it is a book.” The wooden outer casing was just to protect the tome held within. I tilted it so I could see the spine and read the embossed title aloud, “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.” I’d never heard of it, but apparently, Freuchen had judging by his gasp.

  “Please, may I see it?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said and dropped the encased book into his outstretched hands.

  Ever so carefully, Freuchen removed it from its slipcase.

  The cover was stunningly beautiful: three peacocks stood atop a heart, tail-feathers spread wide. Flowers were intricately embroidered in gold-leaf and ink across the soft leather. On the back cover, a lute, inlaid using actual wood, was surrounded by more intricate embroidery.

  “It is a book of ancient quatrains by the Persian astronomer-poet of the title, translated by Edward Fitzgerald. I had read about it in a newspaper before the Titanic left on its maiden voyage, but never had I thought I vould actually place my hands on it. Look.”

  Freuchen reverently flipped the book open to a random page, and now it was my turn to gasp in astonishment. The pages of the book were even more intricately inlaid with gold and...

  “Are those rubies?” I asked, pointing at the small stones embedded within the illustration in their own gold settings upon the page.

  Freuchen nodded, flipped the page. “And diamonds.”

  “Wow!” I said, then added, “I know someone who would like that.”

  Freuchen smiled. “I vas thinking the very same thing.”

  “Edward,” said Albert.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Vell, I think it vould be a vunderful gift for the man ven ve make it back to Avalon. Here, you hold on to it for him, Meredith.” Freuchen handed me the book, and I placed it back into its slipcover and leather bag then put it in my backpack.

  Meanwhile, Chou had divided the other jewelry into three separate piles and placed each into one of the velvet bags.

  “Better not keep everything with one person,” she said and handed us each a bag of loot. After another quick check of the room that turned up nothing, we left and headed back to the Grand Staircase.

  We took the Grand Staircase up to C-Deck then followed a sign that indicated the restaurant was back in the aft section of the boat.

  “If I remember correctly,’ Freuchen was saying, “there is a pantry attached to the first-class restaurant’s kitchen. Vith some luck ve vill—“

  A man appeared from nowhere, materializing from thin air, his eyes wild with fear as he rushed down the corridor toward us. Chou was the first to react, leaping like a cat to her right, then dropping to a knee, her eyes locked on the stranger. I stood frozen, directly in his path, jaw almost to my knees as the man, dressed in a navy blue double-breasted jacket, with a white and black peeked cap stumbled toward me. In the second or so he remained visible, I saw terror written across his face but no recognition of our presence. It was almost as though we were invisible to him. I turned just in time to see him vanish again as though he had never been there.

  Now the corridor held only me and my companions.

  “What the ever-loving shit just happened?” I stuttered, looking to Freuchen. He stood unmoving, eyes as wide as proverbial saucers, his back pressed firmly against the wall, staring at the space where the sailor had just dematerialized.

  “A ghost,” Albert whispered as if his voice might bring the man back. “I think the ship is haunted.”

  “No,” Chou said, moving to the boy’s side, “not a ghost. Something... else.”

  “Vat else could that have been other than a spirit?” Freuchen spluttered, his voice cracking.

  “A hallucination. A projection. But no, most definitely not a ghost.” Chou knelt down to examine the carpet as though it might hold the secret to what had just happened, then stood again, slowly. “Did you notice anything about the corridor when the man appeared?”

  Nothing sprung to my mind, but then my heart was still pounding so loudly in my chest I was surprised the others couldn’t hear it too.

  “The lights,” Albert said. “The lights were all on.”

  “The boy is right,” Freuchen said, regaining his composure. “The lamps in the ceiling were all aglow as if the power had been returned, but they went off again as soon as the apparition vanished.”

  I had no recollection of any of the overhead lights being on. All I could conjure up of the encounter was the fearful look on the man’s face.

  Chou continued to examine the air the man had walked through as if searching for something. Finally, she said, “Turn off your flashlights, please.”

  “What? Why?” I said. I don’t believe in the supernatural. Still, despite Chou’s protestations, I was not sure that what I had just witnessed wasn’t actually a ghost. After all, it had done a pretty damn good impression of one, that was for sure. I thought it was reasonable that the idea of plunging us i
nto complete darkness didn’t appeal to me one little bit.

  “Please,” Chou insisted, turning off her own light.

  Reluctantly, we all did the same.

  “I really don’t see what we have to gain by standing in the darkness,” I said, my thumb nervously caressing my flashlight’s switch. Except, we weren’t in darkness. Not completely, at least. Suspended in the air between the ceiling and the floor were four irregularly shaped slits—fissures in the blackness. A faint, yellow light leaked from them. There was one at chest height just a few inches from me.

  “Is it pixie dust?” I said, reaching out a tentative finger to touch the dimly glowing hole.

  “Stop!” Chou said, grabbing my hand, while gently moving it away from the fissure.

  “Not pixie dust then,” I said, gulping.

  “No, not pixie dust.” Chou inhaled slowly and deeply. “I believe,” she said, her voice just above a whisper, “that some kind of temporal anomaly has taken place here in this corridor. Perhaps a residual effect of the process the Architect used to translocate us here. Look, lean in closer, and tell me what you see. But don’t, under any circumstance, touch it.”

  “Why shouldn’t we touch them?” Albert asked, looking sideways at her.

  “The results of our reality combining with the other universes would be... unpredictable.”

  “By ‘unpredictable,’ do you mean the end of the universe? Everything goes boom, don’t cross the plasma streams kind of ‘unpredictable?’” I said.

  “No, no,” Chou answered, slowly circling the nearest anomaly, its light painting one side of her face, then the other. “But the probability is that the stress exerted on the membrane between the two realities is fragile. If it breaks, a large part of that other corridor would be pulled into this reality.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad. I mean, isn’t that what the Architect wanted to happen?” I said.

  “Yes, but the temporal aperture the Architect would have used to bring us or this ship into this reality would have been scaled accordingly. In this instance, I believe the result would be the equivalent of forcing a large volume of water under immense pressure through a hose. Matter from the other universe would be compressed to the size of the aperture and would explode into our reality. It would cut through everything and anyone in its way.”

  “Oh-kay,” I said. I leaned in until my eye was six inches away from the bright line. I gasped. Through the hole in the darkness, I saw the corridor. But the ceiling lights, dark in our world, glowed then dimmed like the power was being turned slowly up and down. Men and women rushed along the corridor, dressed in suits and dresses. Every one of them looked terrified.

  By the time I had stepped away from the aperture to make way for Freuchen, Chou had moved on to the next, this one about four feet away and close to the floor. She dropped down onto her chest and edged slowly toward its glow.

  “Here, come and look at this,” she said, rolling aside so I could lie down beside her.

  I edged closer. I was looking at the same deserted corridor. The lights glowed strongly now, with no sign of fading in or out. One of the cabin doors opened, and a waiter who looked like he could have worked in some high-end Manhattan restaurant stepped out of the room with a silver tray in one hand. He said something I couldn’t hear to whoever was still in the cabin, smiled courteously and nodded, then reached and closed the door behind him. He took a couple of steps down the corridor, checked he was alone, then popped what looked like half of a bread bun into his mouth before walking on.

  While all this was happening, Chou had moved to the next aperture, this one also at chest height. She moved aside as I stepped close to her. The version of the corridor I saw through it was awash with water and tilted at a disorienting angle. Only one lamp still worked. Though, it stuttered—off more than it was on, which gave the corridor a terrifying and unnerving haunted house effect.

  “This doesn’t make sense,” Freuchen said after he had looked through each of the tears and allowed Albert to carefully do the same. “It appears to be this very corridor, but each seems to be experiencing a very different reality.”

  Chou said, “I believe that this is not the Titanic...this is multiple Titanics. Or at least many potential Titanics. The Architect must have established connections between this world and numerous alternate universes. In some, the ship may have sunk. In others, it may never have at all. The Architect would have to have established a temporal connection with these alternate universes to identify whether the disaster had taken place or whether the ship sailed on, its passengers blissfully unaware of the fate they had avoided. For some reason, some of those connections have never disengaged.”

  “But where did the sailor come from?” Albert asked.

  “Perhaps our presence caused his appearance,” Chou answered.

  “But why on Earth would the Architect be so interested in the Titanic?” Freuchen pondered aloud.

  Chou thought about it. “Perhaps there was something significant about this ship.”

  “Or, someone,” Freuchen added.

  “Oh, God. You don’t think Candidate One was aboard, do you?” I said.

  Chou shook her head. “That does not seem likely to me, Meredith. But I would imagine there would have been numerous well-educated people, along with experts in many fields who would have perished when the ship sank.”

  “Of course,” I said. “It would have been a fantastic resource for the Architect to have brought here.”

  “And that vould make it a prime target for the Adversary, too,” Freuchen added.

  “So, I guess the Architect and the Adversary must have gotten into some kind of a struggle that resulted in what we’re seeing here in this corridor. But that still doesn’t explain what happened to the passengers and crew.”

  “Perhaps those who made it through vandered off into the Evervood?” Freuchen said.

  “Seems like the most likely answer,” I said, but that still didn’t feel right. And I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something we weren’t seeing.

  “Ve should continue,” said Freuchen.

  Chou nodded. “Yes, just be careful. And I’d suggest that we keep only my flashlight activated. That way we will see any other anomalies, should they exist.”

  She weaved her way between the apertures, and we carefully followed behind. Soon, we passed a narrow corridor connecting the port side of the ship to the starboard. Chou stopped and shined her light into it. A door was labeled ‘crew access.’ She pushed it open and leaned in, moving her light up and down, illuminating a metal stairwell similar to the ones found in modern apartment buildings.

  “It vould probably be used by the crew to move through the ship vithout being seen by the gentry,” Freuchen commented.

  Chou allowed the door to swing shut again

  “The restaurant is this vay,” Freuchen said, pointing to a sign with an arrow on the wall. “The pantry vill be somevere vithin it.”

  Chou elbowed through a pair of red baize-covered swinging doors, holding the left one open while the rest of us stepped through. She shone her light into the larger room beyond, illuminating several overturned wing-backed chairs that lay around a still upright mahogany table. We followed a short teak-paneled corridor through another set of double doors and found ourselves standing in what had been, according to Freuchen, one of several dining halls or restaurants. The room was littered with overturned tables and chairs, broken cutlery, and discarded utensils.

  “That vay,” said Freuchen, pointing past what had obviously been a buffet station on our right to another set of doors. Once through the doors, we found ourselves in a room with three huge cupboards, two oversized sinks, and an extensive cooking range. Freuchen threw open the doors to the nearest cupboard and flicked on his own flashlight. Instantly, his face lit up with a huge smile. He reached in and pulled out a brown paper bag about the size of a sack of flour. Darjeeling was written in extraordinarily neat cursive across it.

&nbs
p; “Tea!” Freuchen said. “Finally, civilization has returned to this land.” He laughed heartily, unslung his backpack, and dropped the tea inside. “And sugar, too.” He pulled another bag from within the cupboard and lowered it into his bag alongside the tea.

  “Is there anything more substantial in there?” I asked, unable to keep from smiling at his boyish excitement.

  Freuchen shook his head. “Not in this vun. Try the other two.”

  The second cabinet held masses of flour and other baking accessories. I took a single bag, weighed it in my hand.—it was easily ten pounds—and put it back on the shelf. There was no way to justify carrying that kind of weight when we had no way to make the bread I suddenly missed more than anything else from my old life.

  “Oh, imagine a sandwich?” I said. “Or even just toast and jam?”

  “Over here,” Albert said, stealing me from my reverie. He and Chou stood in front of the largest of the cupboards.

  Freuchen ran his light beam over the shelves. They were packed full of canned goods: beef, pork, sardines, condensed milk. The list went on.

  “We should take as much as ve can comfortably carry,” Freuchen said. “Ven Silas vakes up, ve can have him carry most of it for us.”

  We packed our backpacks with our newfound bounty, to the point that Freuchen had to help me get mine over my shoulders. Feeling more positive than I think any of us had since leaving Avalon all those weeks ago, we turned and headed back through the doors leading into the main restaurant area... and froze.

  In the corner opposite of where we stood, the room was no longer a disheveled mess. Three of the overturned tables now stood upright. Men and women dressed in beautifully tailored suits and long, elegant dresses and wide-brimmed hats sat at each of them, talking amongst themselves while eating off unbroken crockery. Servers bounced between the tables, disappearing in and out of view as they crossed some unseen boundary between our world and theirs.

  They seemed totally oblivious to our presence.

  “Look at that,” Freuchen said, pointing to a table that, in our reality, had been tipped on its side. But in this other version of the restaurant, the table was slowly being replaced by one in its upright position, its lacy white linen tablecloth and bone china all neatly placed and waiting for new diners.