Chapter 4

By 1:20 a.m., the invitation had a voice.

The chamber beneath Blackcap Mountain hummed low.

Briar stood in front of the socket with the plate in her hand.

It had taken all of Friday night to get here.

Her mother had to open the inner door, and she only did it because the pod’s light had begun to stutter.

Aru lay just inside the chamber, still inside the glass.

The beacon rose from the stone floor at the center of the room.

It was not big.

Briar had expected something huge, but the beacon reached only to her shoulder.

A ring of copper and cloudy glass circled its top.

The socket in its side glowed like a stove eye.

Lorna had already drawn a steel lever halfway down from the wall, against its heavy spring.

Red paint flaked off in curls where her fist held it.

“One full pull burns the beacon out,” Lorna said. “Let go, and the spring takes it back.”

“And the ship?” Briar said.

“The ship sees no signal. It leaves.”

Aru made a low, scratchy sound.

The pod’s display changed.

It showed the ship above the clouds, a long black fin.

Then a stick figure pulled a lever.

The fin did not turn away.

It widened.

Rings spread from it across the sky.

The rings touched the mountains.

The trees bent.

The air turned pale.

Then the display went dark.

Briar’s throat ached.

“She’s saying destruction triggers it.”

“She’s saying what she wants us to believe,” Lorna said.

“She can’t want anything except to live.” Briar turned to her mother. “You saw her, Mom. She’s been trying to warn us since Thursday.”

Mace stood by the door with a crowbar.

He had not let it go since they left the truck.

“I ain’t getting between you two, but that picture looked like a dead world.”

Lorna’s jaw flexed.

“Then there’s only one other path.”

She pointed at the plate in Briar’s hand.

“The contact plate fits that socket. If you put it in, the beacon sends a new order. It tells the ship Earth is not empty.”

“Then why didn’t you ask me?” Briar said.

Lorna didn’t look at her.

“Because the order goes out loud. It reads as a hundred small lights. Every descendant’s mark will answer, including yours, including Aru’s. Satellites will see it. The government will see it. Every quiet life we’ve kept in this valley will be on a list by morning.”

Briar looked down at the plate.

It was warm.

Her silver mark had spread from her wrist to the inside of her forearm.

She thought of the old sketch.

“You could have told me this years ago.”

“I was protecting you.”

“You were deciding for me.”

Lorna’s hand closed around the lever.

“Yes.”

Mace took a step forward.

“How many people we talking about?”

“Enough,” Lorna said.

Aru tapped the glass four times.

Briar looked over.

Aru touched her own wrist, then pointed at Briar.

Then she drew a slow circle in the air.

The pod displayed the hillside again.

Hundreds of tiny silver threads.

Briar understood.

“If I choose the plate, they stop hiding,” she said. “Every family.”

“And if I choose the lever,” Lorna said, “we may all die before they learn what we were.”

“Then let me use the plate.”

“You don’t know what you’re trading away.”

Briar laughed, a dry sound.

“I traded it away the morning I pried that pod open. I just didn’t know it.”

The clock on the pod read 3:41 a.m.

Mace checked his phone.

No signal.

Then the beacon began to hum on its own.

Aru’s eyes widened.

“It’s waking for the window,” Lorna said.

She pointed at the socket.

“Put the plate down and walk away. I’ll handle the rest.”

Briar moved toward the beacon.

The plate was shaking in her hand.

Lorna’s knuckles went white on the lever.

“Briar.”

“I know.”

Briar held the contact plate over the glowing socket while Lorna’s hand closed around the only shutoff lever.