The Darwin Elevator
THE DARWIN ELEVATOR
Book One of the Dire Earth Cycle
Jason M. Hough
Del Rey
Publicity Contact:
Ballantine Publicity
(212) 782-8678
www.delreybooks.com
Del Rey
An imprint of the Random House Publishing Group
1745 Broadway • New York, NY • 10019
The Darwin Elevator
is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A Del Rey Mass Market Original
Copyright © 2013 by Jason Hough
Excerpt from
The Belém Towers
by Jason Hough copyright © 2013 by Jason Hough
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
ISBN: 978-0-345-53712-6
eBook ISBN: 978-0-345-53713-3
www.delreybooks.com
Del Rey mass market edition: February 2013
For my wife, Nancy, and her confidence in this crazy dream.
For my sons, Nathan and Ian. May they never stop exploring.
For my friend, Kevin, and all the stories he left us with. Rage on, brother.
Humanity is trapped. A blind newborn dangling from the umbilical cord of an unknown mother.
She sets the world afire, even as she swaddles us in the flames.
—a verse from the Jacobite
Testament of the Ladder
They said “The meek shall inherit the Earth” like it would be a good thing.
Thanks a lot, assholes.
—Skadz, 2279
Contents
Cover
eBook Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Map of Darwin
Map of the Orbital Stations
First Epigraph
Second Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Acknowledgments
Excerpt from The Belém Towers
Chapter One
Above the Indian Ocean
12.JAN.2283
Blood streamed down the inside of the tiny vial and pooled at the bottom. A finger, the source of the fluid, knocked against the glass with a dull thud.
Skyler turned the vessel over again. Fresh from its temperature-controlled sleeve, the vial felt cool against his skin. A small refreshment in the otherwise balmy cockpit.
The scene replayed again in his mind. The dead subhuman, half its scrawny body still smoldering, the scent of burned hair so strong that Skyler had retched. Then Samantha, always acting, never thinking, stood triumphant over the corpse. In one swift motion her dark combat knife flashed from a sheath on her calf, flashed again as she brought it down on the poor creature’s hand. Two fingers, and half of a thumb, skittered away. “Before it all burns,” she’d said.
“We only need one,” Skyler had replied when his nerves allowed.
Hair would have been simpler, cleaner, but the hair had all singed away. A messy piece of work, though the end result was all that mattered, or so he kept reminding himself.
“Visual on the Elevator,” Angus said from the pilot’s chair.
Skyler grunted acknowledgment and flipped the vial over again. The muscular digit was caked with dirt and ended in a yellow, cracked fingernail chewed to uneven length. It almost defied belief that it had been shorn from a once-human hand. Almost.
Even by subhuman standards, this creature had been extraordinarily aggressive. And part of a large pack, twice the typical “family.” Strange, yes, but thankfully in the past now.
He glanced up. Ahead, a series of lights marked the line of the Elevator cord. Eight climbers, Skyler counted, from the peaks of the clouds all the way to the stars above. He watched them long enough to discern which way they were going. Up, at the moment. Air and water then, for the Orbitals. Some spare parts, maybe. A little contraband thrown in for good measure.
He pictured the contents of his cargo bay, flush with spoils from a decaying Malay air force base outside Kuala Lumpur. Tomorrow, maybe the day after, one of those climbers would lift the items stowed back there. Paid for first, of course.
Skyler grinned. Success felt good. He’d almost forgotten the sensation. The finger alone would cover the mission’s cost, if the DNA matched.
“Do you want the stick back?” Angus asked.
The grim, hypnotic spell of watching blood slide down the glass tube vanished with the question. He slipped the vial back into its sleeve and sealed it. Out of pure habit he reached for the flight stick, then stopped himself. Old habits die hard. He balled his fist and pulled his hand away. “You handle it this time.”
“Sure?”
“You’re ready. Just take it slow.”
Angus turned in the pilot’s seat, trying to see Skyler over his shoulder and failing. A few seconds passed before the kid flashed a halfhearted a-okay.
The
Melville
tilted forward and began to descend. Skyler leaned to his left and looked down, watching mountainous clouds rise toward them. Lightning danced beneath the purple morass, which grew and grew until finally the aircraft slipped into the thick haze.
A ghostly fog roiled around the cockpit window for less then ten seconds and then they were through. Once below the storm, monsoon rain pelted the cockpit window and hammered against the fuselage.
Another minute went by before they passed under the storm. Over Darwin itself the sky was clear, such a rare thing in wet season. A nice welcome to their return.
“Aura’s Edge,” Angus said. “In ten, nine …”
Skyler closed his eyes. Some small part of him wanted to
feel
it, wanted to know the Elevator’s strange aura on a physical level. The invisible field emanated roughly nine kilometers out from the space elevator before abruptly ending. It protected those within from the alien disease that had laid waste to the rest of the planet. How, or why, the aura did this was as much a mystery as the Elevator itself.
“… five, four …”
The shifting, rippling effect ended in a zone coined Aura’s Edge. A no-man’s-land where the protection faded.
Skyler leaned his head back against the copilot’s seat. He would feel nothing. He never did; nor did the rest of his crew. The disease had no effect on them.
They were immune, an inescapable fact. A blessing and curse, a trait few others shared. Very few.
“… three …”
Though immunity allowed him to leave the city at will, there remained that small part of him that wanted to be normal, to be trapped like all of the rest of them. He didn’t want to be special. Or sought after. Truth be told he’d rather be back in the Netherlands, flying mundane patrols for the air force, living a good life. But that was a long time ago, in a different world.