The Last Days of Krypton - Kevin J. Anderson [58]
He winced as a twinge of pain from his recent injuries shot through him. Alura frowned with disapproval. “You should have rested another day or two. Here, come into the main terrarium.”
She gently took his bandaged left arm and led him into one of the transparent domes. The air was filled with the perfumes of flowers, warm resins, and oils from shrubs and herbs. One large plant with thick, soft stems had burst into bloom, displaying seven radically different flowers, each blossom exuding a distinct, potent scent. Root tendrils emerged from a basket of loose, peaty moss, at the ends of which Alura had installed tapered, transparent vials. Liquids dripped from the ends of the distended roots, drop by drop, to fill each vial with a different substance.
She removed a tube of clear yellow-green fluid from a root, held it up to the light, and nodded. “While you were gone, I created this to help your burns heal.” She cut away the loose cloths that bound his arm and side to reveal angry red skin and dark scabs. During the long trip, Zor-El’s energetic passion had been enough to drive away the pain, but now he could feel the underlying ache.
She snapped off a blossom and squeezed it over the healing scabs; with deft fingers she began to rub in the greenish liquid like a salve. “This will prevent infection, and it should smooth the skin. There’ll still be scars. You’re always going to carry the mark of this.”
He flexed his fingers. “Scars are nothing. Each time I look at my arm or my side, I’ll be reminded of how blind the Council was.”
Then, as if Krypton itself were listening to his complaint, the floor of the greenhouse shuddered. The plants in the terrarium cases began to sway, rustling against one another. Increasing vibrations made the tiles and shift out of alignment.
Zor-El grasped his wife’s shoulder, pulling her out of the way as one of the transparent panes of the greenhouse split. It shattered, dropping shards onto the floor. Outside, he heard a tinkling crash as a poorly balanced flowerpot toppled from a balcony and smashed into the thoroughfare.
The quake lasted no more than a minute, but it seemed like an eternity. When it was over, Zor-El’s stomach felt leaden. “Those will occur much more often as the months go by.” He grabbed Alura’s hand and hurried with her to his tower that overlooked the open sea. “I need to check my seismic probes. That may have been the worst of it, or we may be at the weak fringe of a much larger event.”
In the high observation tower, he had installed receivers for the scientific apparatus he had already deployed across Krypton, including automated buoys out on the oceans. As he watched, the readings went wild. “Look at how the underground tremors spread!” Shuffling papers, he scanned the patterns his devices had detected during the past few days while he’d been in Kandor. He saw that three more massive eruptions had occurred down in the southern continent; the seismic signatures were unmistakable. “This is definitely not normal. The core is changing more dramatically than I predicted. How can the Council ignore this? Maybe these readings will be enough to show them.”
Alura went to the balcony where cool breezes wafted around the tower. Out on the open sea, colorful pleasure craft dotted the waves. Kite-driven fish skimmers floated along, scooping up the day’s catch. Catamarans with bright blue or red sails tacked along the coast, their passengers diving overboard to swim in the warm water. The red sun reflected off the sea. It all looked so peaceful.
A signal came in from one of Zor-El’s drifting buoys. The seismic trace was massive, an undersea signature nearly as great as the largest volcanic eruptions in the southern continent. He could barely believe what he was seeing. “What we felt here was only a minor temblor, less than a tenth of the actual