The Last Days of Krypton - Kevin J. Anderson [184]
CHAPTER 88
To Zor-El, the impending loss of Argo City, of Krypton, made everything seem more beautiful, all details crystalline sharp, each memory vivid with meaning.
His mother sat on a broad, flower-filled terrace and absorbed the world around her, all too aware of the approaching end. In a way, Charys seemed oddly contented. Zor-El said his goodbyes and left her alone.
He wanted to walk with Alura through her greenhouses, to hold her one last time and just wait together. Zor-El had always been an impatient man, insisting on action rather than complacency, but now there was nothing left to do. He understood vividly what was happening far beneath his feet. He stood on a ticking bomb and could not find a way to defuse it.
Another city might have reacted with wild riots, frantic last-moment hedonism, rampant vandalism, but Argo City was brave. The people had accepted the news with remarkable stoicism. He was proud of them.
Zor-El and Alura had walked along the streets, enjoying the gardens that hung like verdant curtains from the balconies and walls. Unaware of the catastrophe about to occur, the blossoms spread their petals wide to entice flying insects to pollinate them. Every breath tasted sweet. Even with the solar storms, the red sunlight felt warm and nourishing. Zor-El’s dark eyes sparkled with tears.
Some stubborn fishermen had taken their boats out onto the water, as if this were any other day. Soon, Zor-El would have no choice but to activate the force-field dome, for whatever protection it might offer. It was likely to be a futile gesture, but it was all the protection he had to offer.
He returned to his tower and watched the readings come in from his distant seismic devices. Deep in the core, the singularity must be on the verge of its sudden, critical expansion. By the time the seismic signals reached his detectors, as soon as the acoustic waves could travel up through the mantle and resonate in the planet’s crust, the fatal shock wave would already be on its way.
As he watched, the needles jumped, shuddered, and went off the scale. His heart leapt in tandem with the traces. “It’s happened, Alura. Krypton’s core just vanished into the Phantom Zone.” He drew a deep breath. “Our world is about to implode.”
Even now, huge portions of the interior were rushing to fill the void. The crust itself would crack and crumble, falling inward under its own immense gravity.
Loud sirens shrieked through the city. People rushed back inside the perimeter that the force-field dome would cover. Gondolas and powered sailing craft plunged through the city’s canals to reach the protected area. Several large fishing boats, either unaware of the alarm or purposely ignoring it, remained where they were.
Zor-El remembered how peaceful it had been that night out on the water with his wife, spreading their gossamer sails and drifting under the starlight. If the world was going to end, he could understand why those fishermen were content to spend their last moments out on the ocean.
One final craft raced into the mouth of the largest canal; sailors jumped from their small vessel and ran along the docks and up the stairs on the seawall. Their abandoned craft floated away.
Zor-El was amazed at how swiftly the knotted black clouds converged overhead. The ground bucked and lurched, and the sea became suddenly stormy, stirred from deep below. Waves crashed into one another, building higher and stampeding toward the coastline. Already a series of enormous waves approached, much larger than the tsunami that had caused so much damage almost a year earlier. Waterspouts, giant pillars of silvery foam, whirled about, careening toward the coastline.
“I’m activating the dome.”
From the control bank, he powered the generators, and the crackling shield appeared, sweeping over the boundaries of Argo City like a huge umbrella and slamming into the ground. Now they were completely isolated. This shield had held against General Zod’s weapons, but Zor-El had no way of testing or calculating whether it would be sufficient