COMPETE: The Atlantis Grail (Book Two) - Preview

CHAPTER ELEVEN (draft)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Saturn's a big draw, but I'm guessing it's mostly the notion of a final glimpse of Earth that brings everyone to the outside windows.

There are so many people on the ICS-2 Observation Deck this time that it's elbow-room only. Once again, the fly-by pass will only be seen from one side of the ship, so everyone has converged here.

I push my way inward, jostled by other teens, hearing the din of many languages all around me, smelling sweaty humanity.

In this messy crowd, there's no one I know, and I wonder momentarily if Blayne has made it here with his hoverboard. I scan the vicinity, but if Blayne's here, there's no sign of him. Seriously, there's got to be thousands of people on this ship, and it feels like they all crammed onto this one deck.

I think of my siblings, Gracie and Gordie, probably also crammed in a similar observation deck on their own ark-ship, and elsewhere in the Fleet, Laronda, Dawn, Hasmik, Logan. . . .

I wish Gennio was here.

"How close will we be when we pass Saturn? Anyone know?" a skinny dark boy asks behind me.

"No idea," the girl immediately next to me says. "I hope we at least get to see the Rings. I mean Jupiter was a big 'ole let down. Or should I say a teeny tiny one."

"At least we got to see Jupiter at all," I say, as I crane my neck to look over the crowd at the large windows and the blackness of space beyond. There are hardly any stars visible, only rich darkness.

"Okay, that bright thing on the left, what is it?" a boy says. And now that everyone notices, voices rise in amazement.

"Nyet, ne mozhet bitz—neuzheli eto sontse?"

"Sí, creo que esto es el Sol!"

"Is that the Sun? No way! That's tiny!"

And as we point and stare at the far left of the panorama, there's only one solitary star-sized object, but extraordinarily bright, and it has to be the Sun.

Wow. . . .

The Sun. It has grown so unbelievably remote. . . . All that's left of the familiar orange fire disk is now smaller than the head of a pin. . . . But it's still powerful enough to cause retinal damage, even at this distance, if we stare at it directly without the shielding filter on the windows.

"What about Earth? Can anyone see it?"

"Now entering Saturn orbital perihelion," the ship's computer says.

Instantly the crowd goes silent.

And then we see it.

It starts as a tiny point of light in the general center of the window panorama, and it grows in split seconds to immense proportions, filling up all the observation windows with faded yellow pallor, like a balloon being blown up—and oh, the Rings! They are huge! Great oval fixtures spanning the whole cosmic vista outside unfurl like great wings, all in a split second. . . .

Saturn is hurtling directly at us! Or we are crashing into it!

There's not even time to blink!

People on the observation deck scream, because suddenly we are being swallowed by Saturn's immense albedo. There is no more black space outside, only Saturn, casting the grand illusion of a universe of soft pallor and light, and the Rings are overwhelming . . . and oh lord, did I just see one of its many moons briefly silhouetted against the Rings? Atlas? Titan?

There is no time for the mind to acknowledge or correctly process anything that's suddenly visible out there, because it's all happening too crazy-fast. . . .