Children of a Dead Earth Book One by Patrick S Tomlinson Page A

shudder through the pod and gently pressing Benson back into his seat. The outer hull fell away.
    For the first time in his life, Benson left the Ark. His eyes adjusted quickly to the total black of space, revealing it to be anything but total. A billion points of light stared back at him like eyes in a dark forest.
    It wasn’t anything like the deep sea vids. Those were closed in, claustrophobic, extending only so far as the submersible’s lights could claw their way through the dark. He entirely forgot about the close confines of the pod as his consciousness ran in every direction trying to fill the immense void. Primal fear grabbed his heart in its cold embrace and squeezed like a vice.
    He grabbed the control sticks and cranked on them in a desperate bid to turn the pod around, but nothing happened. Then the infinite abyss sucked Benson’s mind into its depth.
    â€œDetective,” said a tinny voice in his ear. “Your vitals just spiked. Are you OK?”
    â€œToo…” He gasped for breath. “Too big.”
    â€œYou’re having a panic attack, detective,” Hekekia said. “Listen to me. This isn’t unusual. Focus on something in the cockpit, anything. Look at your hand if you have to.”
    He ignored him and strained against his harness in a panicked attempt to get to the hatch.
    â€œDetective Benson!” Hekekia shouted. “If you can’t get a hold of yourself, I will have to abort and return the pod to the ship.”
    A significant portion of Benson’s fragile psyche thought that sounded just lovely. However, enough of him remained that he managed to listen to Hekekia’s commands and fixated on his own palm. For a long, long moment, Benson forced himself to be very interested in the stitching on the inside of his glove.
    â€œDetective, be advised, we’re going to spin the pod around a hundred and eighty degrees. Keep your focus on the Ark herself. This will give you a point of reference. Just avoid looking at the stars for now.”
    â€œOK,” he said weakly. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead. A thruster fired and the pod gently spun around on its central axis. The Ark drifted into view in all its glory, starting with the enormous, ablative orange cone at the front that was the meteor shield. Very quickly, the command module came into view, with the Operations sphere right at the front, followed by the myriad of cylindrical towers and wart-like projections that held the labs.
    Next, the two gigantic cans of Shangri-La and Avalon rotated into view. From this angle, Benson couldn’t even see the module that housed the Zero stadium nestled between them. It was too narrow. Barely visible in the dark, the flags of every nation of Earth had been painted on the ribbed hulls of the habitats, over two hundred in total. Some were larger than others, a none-too-subtle reminder of which countries had contributed the most to the project. A final boast to ensure their legacy far into the future.
    Benson didn’t recognize more than a handful of them.
    The engineering section drifted into view. Compared to the simple, almost organic aesthetic of Command and the habitat modules, it was a jumbled mess of pipes, conduits, and sharp angles. Benson saw a half dozen of the fleet of atmospheric shuttles stuck to the hull like remoras. Soon, they would begin to ferry people down to the surface of Tau Ceti G. Each one could hold almost five hundred passengers. They were all individually bigger than any airplane mankind had ever built, but were still dwarfed by the Ark herself.
    Beyond engineering, thirty-two stupendous two-stage shock absorbers stretched backwards over two kilometers until they joined with the aft shield dish. For over two centuries, the shock-absorbers and aft disk had waited patiently for their second and final spot in the limelight.
    And sitting right in the middle of it all, a repository of almost inconceivable destructive power sat