The Last Days of Krypton - Kevin J. Anderson [147]
“Then we’ll find a way to remember,” Korth-Or insisted. His sandy-brown hair was streaked with gray, as if he had rubbed ashes it in; his face was narrow, his lips generous, and he spoke with a faint lisp. He had escaped with his family on the night before Zod destroyed Borga City. Korth-Or had temporary quarters in Argo City, but he made no secret that he would have been much happier on the march against General Zod.
In the bright morning, Zor-El faced the sunlit room full of anxious but determined men and women. Alura had placed verdant potted plants along all the walls. “Those of you who can, go back to your own cities,” he advised the secret group. Korth-Or sat fuming with indignation, reminded that he had no home. “Speak to your populations, find volunteers. We have to gather an army strong enough to stand against Zod—and soon—or we are lost.”
“Are you sure we aren’t lost already?” Or-Om had been imagining disasters since long before Krypton had actually faced one, and it had taken much convincing for him to join this gathering, leaving his industries behind. “Our resistance to Zod was based in Borga City, and now that’s gone.”
Such talk angered Zor-El. “The resistance is here now. But if that’s how you truly feel, then go to Kryptonopolis, and bend your knee to Zod. Be my guest.”
No one took him up on the offer.
As soon as she found the mysterious message crystal left just inside the villa’s portico, Charys carried it to Zor-El in his high tower laboratory.
He had been struggling day and night to increase the scope of the force field. When it was no more than a small bubble around the diamondfish, the design had been simple. But to form a whole hemispherical dome over Argo City was a nearly insoluble problem. Red-eyed, he continued to test his shield, raising the shimmering barricade higher and higher above the seawall. There must be no weak point against an attack from Zod’s minions.
His mother held out the crystal, and he realized exactly who had sent the message. “It’s from Jor-El.” He had been angry after their recent argument about Zod, but his brother had also made possible the defiant transmission through the facets of the towering crystals, and—much to Zor-El’s astonishment—he had also revealed that he’d sabotaged the Rao-beam generator. And Jor-El was absolutely right about the threat of the comet, and he had sent urgent warnings to Borga City, which allowed many of the people to escape.
Charys thrust the crystal at him. “You can’t change the message by avoiding it.”
As soon as Zor-El cupped the message crystal in his warm hand, the image began to form. The ivory-haired scientist spoke to him insistently, “We need to help each other. No matter how terrible Zod’s actions, we both know that our most pressing problem is Loth-Ur’s Hammer. Our time grows shorter day by day, and we’ve already lost a month during which we should have pooled all our resources and brainpower to divert the comet. Zor-El, you and I might be Krypton’s only hope, the only ones who can see.”
Charys did not take long to speak her mind after the message faded. “He’s right—and you know it. You’ve got to help him.”
He shook his head slowly. “You’re my conscience and my sounding board, Mother, but what if Zod forced him to send that message? Jor-El has a wife, and they’re about to have a baby. General Zod has ways to coerce him.”
She stared intently at him. “And do you believe that?”
He looked at her for a long moment before he finally shook his head. “No.”
“The two sons of Yar-El can find a way. Share your defensive shield with him.” Charys gestured to the calculations strewn on his table. “Maybe he’ll show you how to expand it to help other cities.”
“I can’t do that! Do I dare risk letting the shield fall into Zod’s hands? He would use it to make his defenses impregnable. How can we ever defeat him if he hides behind an impervious barrier?”
He stepped out onto the open balcony where he breathed in the cool evening air. “Even if I accept what