“Look,” I say. “Do you accept that Mia and I were on Gaia?”
Mink and De Luca nod. “If nothing else, the data there in Mr. Addison’s journal confirms you were on the surface,” De Luca says, tilting his head toward the motley array of belongings on the far table.
“And do you accept that the ship that is causing so much trouble now came through the portal, and that Mia and I took a shuttle from it down to the surface?”
They both nod again.
I turn my attention to Abrantes. “And, Captain, you found the two of us beside that shuttle, which was clearlynotjust another downed satellite, along with two others, correct?”
“Yes,” he says, gaze flicking warily toward his two superiors. “Your accomplices on the ground, to help you perpetrate the hoax.”
Mia snorts. “You were there within minutes of us hitting the ground. How could they possibly have joined us? You’d have found some trace of their approach, a car or bikes nearby.”
Director De Luca’s reply is smooth. “You are correct, Miss Radcliffe. It is far more likely that they came with you from Gaia. That they were scavengers.”
Mia turns to Mink. “Look,” she pleads. “Just take a look at them. You hired everyone on the surface of Gaia, right? As part of tricking Jules into helping you? You’ll know they’re not scavengers.”
Mink’s reply is an age in coming. “Show them to me,” she says eventually.
My heart’s beginning to beat harder, relief threatening to tumble loose and flow through me, however much I try to suppress it.Fool me once, I think furiously. But I can’t help it. Mink might have used us unforgivably, but I certainly don’t doubt her competence. She knows who she put on that planet.
More important, she knows who shedidn’tput on that planet.
With an irritated twitch of his mouth, the Director walks over to a blank pad fastened to the wall beside the door. His thumbprint brings it to life, and he taps in a couple of commands. The wall to our right lights up—it’s a screen—and it’s running a live feed of our detention cell.
Dex and Atlanta are still in much the same positions as we left them. He has his head bowed, and she’s murmuring something in his ear. There’s no audio on this feed, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a microphone somewhere in the cell, picking up everything we’ve been saying.
Mink studies them for a full minute, until Atlanta turns her head again, giving the camera—or one of them, for I’m realizing now there must be many—a front-on view of her face. Mink is still staring at the screen when she speaks. “I didn’t hire them.”
“No,” I say. “You didn’t. Because they’reUndying.”
Mink’s sharp eyes flick back toward me. “The only people aboard that ship when it traveled to Earth were you and Amelia Radcliffe—I know that for a fact. We had agents in every part of the ship right up until its launch.”
“That’s because there are portals on board the ship—it’s a Trojan Horse. Dex and Atlanta—those two—they came through with hundreds of othersafterthe ship went through the portal to orbit Earth.”
Mink’s eyes stay on me, and though there’s no flash of horror or understanding to tell me she believes me, she’s not denying it either. I can almost see her thinking, in an eerie echo of the way Ican sometimes see Mia thinking—both their minds work at light speed, calculating every angle of a situation.
“They certainly weren’t on Gaia,” Mink says finally, her tone even. “Perhaps Abrantes was mistaken, and there was more time between the craft’s landing and when his men arrived.”
Captain Abrantes starts to bristle, his eyebrows drawing in and face tightening, but before he can protest aloud, De Luca kills the feed. “Or,” he says smoothly, turning to Mink, “you didn’t have as tight a control over transport to and from Gaia as we were led to believe.”
Mink’s gaze is subzero. “I did.”
He lifts his hands as if to indicate his helplessness. “The evidence says otherwise.”
“Look,” I try. “I am begging you to at leastconsiderthis. The people in that cell are part of the first wave of an invasion. TheyareUndying. The ship above us is full of them. We have to ready ourselves.”
Abrantes, spine still stiff with indignation, leans forward. “The Undying have been extinct for centuries. Millennia. How do you explain away the gap of time between the construction of the Gaian temples and this so-called invasion? Do you really think a civilization with that kind of technology would wait fifty thousand years for humans to rise to dominance on this planet before invading?”
I open my mouth, but I’ve got no ready reply to that one. For all that we spent a week aboard that ship, eavesdropping on the Undying soldiers, Mia and I have no answers. If anything, all that we saw and heard only raised more questions.
My eyes skitter sideways, seeking Mia’s, but she’s not looking at me. She’s watching Mink, her face still and set—stubborn, like that look she gets when she’s preparing to fight me on something. Except that she’s quiet now, not fighting at all. And that’s enough to kick my dread up into high gear.
Finally De Luca steps forward. “It’s a clever story,” he says inthat calm, cool voice like stainless steel. “But until the International Alliance has allocated the ship’s resources among the world’s nations, and overseen the process, we can’t risk dissension from anyone high profile enough to cause further agitation.”
“High profile?” I echo stupidly.
“You are the son of the world’s leading expert on the Undying,” De Luca replies, raising one eyebrow.
