Part 32 (2/2)

Less than three days.

He wrapped his arms around his wife and pulled her close. Looking out across the sea, they held each other as darkness gathered. ”What can we possibly do in three days? Even if we had all the resources of Krypton and the full cooperation of everyone in the world?” He stroked her dark hair. ”Do we even tell our people? My mother? Do we inform them all that they'll be dead soon? It could spark a worldwide panic. Maybe it would be better if we just allowed them a few more days of peace and happiness.”

Alura pulled back. ”You can't do that, Zor-El. You've always trusted your people before, and they've always believed in you. They put their lives on the line to support your decisions. You can't hide this from them. It's not right.”

When they told Charys, she agreed wholeheartedly.

And so Zor-El issued his statement. Despite the late hour, gongs were rung, people came out to their balconies to listen. With his wife and mother beside him, Zor-El paraded solemnly down the long, flower-decked streets. Every time he took a step, he was acutely aware of the ground beneath his feet. Somewhere deep below, a hungry monster was devouring the heart of the planet.

He followed the whispering ca.n.a.ls, breathed in the perfume of the beautiful plants, and announced with utmost sincerity that the end of their world was coming.

Zor-El did not sleep, still struggling to find a solution, even a hint of a possibility, but he found very little hope to cling to. ”I have the s.h.i.+eld that I used to protect us from Zod. I can cover Argo City with a protective dome. We can hide under it and hope that will make enough of a difference.”

”My greenhouses could support our population for a long time-but what chance would we have? How can your golden dome, however powerful, save us when all of Krypton crumbles? What possibility is there that any of us will survive?”

He bowed his head. ”Almost none.” Then he clenched his fist, struck the table, and looked up again with fiery eyes. ”But what other choice is there?”

She gave him a wan smile and repeated his words. ”Almost none.”

CHAPTER 86.

The huge telescope dishes stood as silent sentinels, still watching for now-irrelevant threats from s.p.a.ce. With Krypton's time slipping away minute by minute, Jor-El went to the distant early-warning outpost, hoping for inspiration. The twenty-three receivers looked like gigantic flowers, their petals spread wide to drink electromagnetic signals. Soon they would all be swept away. as silent sentinels, still watching for now-irrelevant threats from s.p.a.ce. With Krypton's time slipping away minute by minute, Jor-El went to the distant early-warning outpost, hoping for inspiration. The twenty-three receivers looked like gigantic flowers, their petals spread wide to drink electromagnetic signals. Soon they would all be swept away.

Lara accompanied him out to the site, holding the baby as they walked toward the observation array. She refused to leave her husband's side, knowing they had so little time left together. Kal-El nestled in his mother's arms, looking at the sights around him as if trying to see every detail of Krypton before it was too late.

Jor-El whispered to his baby son, ”Kal-El, I am so sorry that you'll never be able to grow up, never meet your potential. I wanted to give you everything, but I can't hold the world together for you.”

Lara fought back tears. ”It's not your fault, Jor-El. The other members of the Council closed their eyes to the truth. They didn't want want to see it.” to see it.”

”They feared my knowledge rather than respecting it. Tyr-Us and the others were so tied up in politics and alliances and feuds that they couldn't imagine a man might speak the truth just because it's the right thing to do. And now their willful ignorance will kill them.”

No-Ton, Or-Om, and Gal-Eth-the Council members who did believe Jor-El's dire prediction-begged him to suggest a project they could undertake-even something desperate and high risk, no matter how little likelihood it had of succeeding.

Although their chances were vanis.h.i.+ngly small, Jor-El gave No-Ton and his companions his old plans for the arks.h.i.+ps to be used if the red sun threatened to become an imminent supernova. Working with complete abandon, racing for their lives, a frantic army of engineers, builders, and other volunteers from all walks of life stripped down buildings and tore apart bridges, then used the structural girders, alloy plates, and curved crystal sheets as raw materials to build the vast vessels.

No-Ton tried to cajole Jor-El to join them, promising him pa.s.sage for himself, Lara, and his son. But Jor-El had done the projections, and he knew that there simply wasn't enough time to build such s.h.i.+ps. He had to find another way.

Standing at the base of the vigilant telescopes, Jor-El suddenly wondered if someone else might listen, even though the Council had not. He could alter the big dishes in the great array, convert them into powerful phased transmitters, and shout a signal into the interstellar gulf, begging for aid, for rescue.

But Krypton had only two days left. Even with a transmission spreading out at the speed of light, no rescuers could possibly hear him and respond soon enough. In the time remaining, Jor-El's call for help would barely reach the boundary of Rao's solar system.

Even so, when he explained his idea, Lara suggested that he try. ”At least someday others would know what happened to us. Maybe our tale will save some other race from their own closed minds.”

”Like the last message from Mars,” he said.

”J'onn J'onzz may have been very much like you, Jor-El.”

The plight of the lone Martian survivor had certainly wrenched his heart. He had never imagined Krypton's fate would be so similar-and so imminent. When Donodon had visited Mars, the blue-skinned alien had found only dust and the echoes of a lost civilization. If only he had Donodon's help now.

At that moment, Jor-El would have welcomed a fleet of s.h.i.+ps from the kindly alien's race. With those s.h.i.+ps, they might have- Suddenly his eyes flew open wide and his heart began to pound. ”Lara, we have to get back to the estate! There's a chance-a small chance, but only if I can do it in time.” He could barely catch his breath as the ideas thundered forward. With a shaky hand, he touched their baby's face. ”Maybe I can save us after all.”

The estate was quiet and empty. Jor-El had excused his few remaining servants so they could be with their families during the end. Only his chef stayed behind, claiming he had nowhere else to go. ”This is my home. I'll stay here, if it's all the same to you.” Neither he nor Lara could complain.

Jor-El hurried to the exotic translucent tower his father had built. Inside, with an intensity brought on by desperation and hope, he plunged into work he had left unattended for far too long.

All the components of Donodon's small s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p sat in the middle of the tower room where Nam-Ek had brought them. Over the months he had made halfhearted attempts to rea.s.semble the vessel, but the Commission had not given him much of the s.h.i.+p's framework or the ”nonessential” pieces. Now, he carefully catalogued and organized the components, separated according to mechanisms that Jor-El understood and those that remained unexplained. Alas, the ”unidentified” pile was much larger than the other. When he'd worked side by side with Donodon, Jor-El had learned much about the alien vessel, but the two had been intent on the needs of the new seismic scanner, not on understanding the details of the exotic stars.h.i.+p. Now he had to do it himself.

Kal-El rested comfortably in a crib Lara brought into the tower. Their time was now measured in hours, and Jor-El felt the oppressive loss of each second that slipped away. Every breath he took brought him one breath closer to his last.

Red-eyed with weariness, Jor-El tried to decipher the alien engines and systems, relying on logical guesses. It would be impossible to manufacture other vessels like Donodon's to begin a ma.s.s exodus from Krypton-but if he was lucky and worked hard enough, perhaps he could rea.s.semble and expand this one, placing the still-functional components in a single s.h.i.+p.

He remembered when Donodon had originally demonstrated the controls of the vessel, proudly telling him that the s.p.a.cecraft was so sophisticated it could fly itself, explaining that its life support could adapt to other races. But Jor-El didn't know how how anything worked. He couldn't unravel it in time. anything worked. He couldn't unravel it in time.

”I could install the heart of Donodon's small s.h.i.+p in the framework of a larger vessel. Large enough for the three of us.” He looked intently at Lara. ”Just the three of us. It might work.”

”What about the rest of the people on Krypton?”

Jor-El hung his head. ”It's not possible, Lara. In my entire life I've rarely admitted that, but this is one of those times. Do I save my family...or do I save no one? Those are the only two choices now.”

”Tell me how I can help.” Lara a.s.sisted him, working herself to exhaustion helping him and taking care of their baby. There was no time for sleep. Fro-Da kept them fed, but didn't ask what they were doing. Believing his master's conviction that the end was near, the chef found contentment in his daily routine.

Jor-El took components from several of his enclosed personal vehicles-a dome from a floater raft, seats and cabin from a groundcar, concentrated food supplies, medical kits. He needed to make a structure large enough for two adults and a baby, to last them for the unknown length of an interstellar voyage. Even the expanded s.h.i.+p would be cramped for an extended journey, and he had no idea how long their flight would be or even where they might go. But if Jor-El succeeded, then he, Lara, and the baby would be alive...at least for a little while longer. Alive. At the moment, that was the most Jor-El could strive for.

Taking precise notes, Lara captured images of his every step to make certain he could put the components back together. Jor-El finished reconnecting the engines, the power source, the navigation grid, and the planetary databases. Those were the most important parts.

Using a levitator crane, he installed the systems into the makes.h.i.+ft vessel he had constructed, a s.h.i.+p large enough to save the three of them. Though he tried not to, he continued to glance at the chronometer, feeling each moment drop away to vanish forever. He worked faster.

Meanwhile, Lara tackled another important task. From the library on the estate, she began to load as much of Krypton's knowledge as she could cram into memory crystals-history, culture, legends, geography, and science. She couldn't save the planet itself, but she could save its essence. She included the long and detailed journal recordings she had kept for so many years, the story of Kandor, her romance with Jor-El, the dark reign of Zod. The s.h.i.+p would take not only the three of them, but also all the information they might need.

With very little time remaining, Jor-El hooked up the engines and the power source to the large vessel. With Lara beside him, her expression hopeful and her faith in him complete, he tried to activate the systems.

When nothing happened, he tried again.

The power drain was too large. The sophisticated systems that had been precisely designed and calibrated for Donodon's small blue-and-silver s.p.a.cecraft refused to recognize the much larger vessel built to accommodate Jor-El and his family.

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