Kepler62 #6: The Secret E-Book

Bjørn Sortland

• Herausgeber: Arctis US
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: Kepler62
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 81

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

After reaching the distant Kepler62 planet, Ari, Joni, and all the others at the basecamp is consumed by panic. The weapons cabinet is empty and the virus antidotes have gone missing. It's clear that the mysterious extra passenger is to blame, but who is it? It's not long before the children find out that they've been used as nothing but a means to an end. Now they must take flight and fight for their survival. Just as all seems lost, a surprise hero emerges with an army in tow.

Leseprobe

Timo Parvela / Bjørn Sortland

BOOK SIX: THE SECRET

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are from the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously.

W1-Media Inc.

Arctis Books USA

Stamford, CT, USA

Text © Bjørn Sortland, Timo Parvela 2017

Illustrations © Pasi Pitkänen 2017

Complete Work © Bjørn Sortland, Timo Parvela, Pasi Pitkänen, and WSOY, 2017

Layout Design: Pasi Pitkänen

First published in 2017 simultaneously in Finnish by Werner Söderström Ltd with the original title Kepler62—Kirja 6: Salaisuus, and in Norwegian by Piggsvin with the original title Kepler62—Hemmeligheten.

This English-language edition has been published by arrangement with Bonnier Rights Finland.

First English edition published by W1-Media Inc. / Arctis Books USA2024

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024930606

English translation copyright © Owen F. Witesman, 2024

This work is protected by copyright, any use requires the authorisation of the publisher.

ISBN978-1-64690-635-2

www.arctis-books.com

1.

My body doesn’t want what my brain needs.

My legs, my stomach, my lungs—everything resists. I taste blood in my mouth. I didn’t believe anything like this could happen. How could I have known? I skipped everything even resembling a physical education class. And now I’m paying for it. I should have focused more on my training, I think as I run as fast as my legs will carry me. I’m chasing a runaway child. It’s unbelievable the power and tenacity a ten-year-old can have.

We have to catch him before his strength gives out.

Fortunately, the snow has started to melt, so moving is easier now than last time we were out here. But the wind has picked up. The weather on Kepler-62e hasn’t turned out to be as pleasant as we thought at first. What makes it change so fast?

The taste of blood changes to rusty iron.

But at least I’m not alone.

Ari reaches Joni first and jumps on him.

“No, no, no. Let me go!” Joni screams.

“But where are you going, Joni? Why are you running?”

Joni stares at us for a long time. Ari seems rattled now, too. Joni doesn’t blink or anything; he just stares straight ahead until his eyes start to water. He’s frozen, as if someone pressed the pause button. Joni has been sick for a long time, and the strain on his body has been immense.

“It’s all my fault,” Joni says.

“What?” I ask.

“I killed them. I killed the Whisperers. I don’t deserve to be with you. I’m going to find more Whisperers so I can apologize and—”

Then the lights in his eyes go out, and Joni collapses on the ground.

“This is Olivia’s fault,” Ari says as he crouches and picks up Joni. “Everything is Olivia’s fault.”

I take Joni’s limp hand.

“I’m not a doctor,” I say. “But his pulse doesn’t seem very high even though he was just running. He’s breathing steadily, and his skin color is normal. I don’t think he’s in any danger.”

We set his small body on a sheet of titanium to drag him back to camp. We walk as quickly as we can.

The snow is melting fast even though the landscape was pure white moments ago.

This planet is a very strange place. Sometimes I suspect that something other than natural forces is controlling the weather here.

2.

“Joni’s sound asleep,” I say.

Of course, we could ask for help from Olivia, our expedition leader and doctor. But she isn’t in a very good mood because she’s still tied up in the storage module. We mutinied after she told us how we ended up on this planet.

“Will he be okay?” Lisa asks. “Did he run away because he was afraid of the king? Did Joni see the king? Is the king human? Is he dangerous?”

Lisa trembles.

I snort. “The king? No. Has anyone seen him? Does he even exist? Who knows what Olivia meant when she mentioned ‘the king.’”

“The capsule is open. Someone opened the thirteenth capsule. And we all saw the footprints in the snow.”

Lisa looks genuinely terrified.

“And the virus Olivia talked about,” Lisa says. “That we were supposed to infect the Whisperers with. We all have it. We have to find the antidote Olivia hid. Think about what happened to Albert. And what if the Whisperers come and kill us all . . .”

“The Whisperers aren’t dangerous,” I say. “They’re our friends. Olivia is wrong. Go back to the habitats with Svetlana and Min-Jun. We’ll come there. I have a plan,” I say, and smile.

But I don’t actually have a plan at all.

3.

“Fear and panic aren’t going to help. We have to think,” I say.

“True,” Ari says. “I’ll go get Olivia. She has to have a look at Joni.”

I pull out a can of Go-go-go! It’s an energy drink developed by NASA and the United States Air Force. It’s really strong, but it still doesn’t give me as much energy as I need this time.

I sit down on the floor. I can still taste the iron in my mouth.

For a long time, my life on Kepler was like a fun movie. Surreal but fun. I’m sitting on the floor of an amazing sick bay like something straight out of Star Wars. If I tried to repeat everything that’s happened to me, no one would believe me. I’m a fourteen-year-old girl, and I’ve traveled 1,200 light-years to another planet. Think about that, I say to myself. Really think about that. One thousand two hundred light-years! And now I’m in the most beautiful place I could imagine. I get to pretend Ari, Joni, and I are a family. I’ve never had a real family.

My father was always traveling, and Mom died. I lived with two elderly servants, Magda and Alfred. I feel more at home with Joni and Ari on this distant planet in another solar system.

But unfortunately, we don’t have any access to real hospital care here. We’re on planet Kepler-62e, which NASA officially discovered years ago. We were told we were the first people here.

But a little while ago on an expedition, we found a large probe in a cave. We were shocked to realize that someone had sent it here from Earth ahead of us. We were chased out of the cave, back to camp. Here is where the fun movie turns into a spine-tingling thriller.

“Hi,” Olivia says. She doesn’t look like she’s been suffering much.

Ari’s expression is one of discomfort. He doesn’t like playing prison guard.

“Untie my wrists,” she says. “I can’t help otherwise.”

“Of course,” I say.

I have to pretend to be Olivia’s friend even though I don’t trust her. And she pretends to be my friend, even though I doubt she trusts me, especially after we tied her up and forced her to tell us why we were brought here.

“Okay,” Ari says, and stands up. “Joni still isn’t better. He’s bleeding again. You have to give him the antidote right now.”

“The king says I can’t give it to anyone until the Whisperers are destroyed.”

So there may only be six of us humans alive here. Olivia might be a robot after all.

“No more Whisperers are going to die,” I say. “We’ll be better off killing this king person, wherever he’s run off to. If he even exists. We have to give the antidote to Joni, Lisa, Svetlana, and Min-Jun before it’s too late.”

I hate that my voice trembles.

“I know you don’t like me,” Olivia says.

“Ouch. Is it so obvious?” I say. “But now that you bring it up: Have you thought about why that might be? And I should add that I also don’t trust you. You infected children with a virus, and you were part of a conspiracy that—”

Not uttering a word, Olivia interrupts me with a gaze. She’s good at that. She always avoids answering unpleasant questions.

The sun, Kepler62, is setting, and soon the sky erupts in an incredible blaze of colors.

“We have to stick together,” Olivia finally says. “And I’ve told you the truth. We didn’t just travel here from Earth to explore. Earth is dying. It isn’t a good place to live anymore, and it never will be again no matter how much people want it to be. Hope is a problematic concept these days. And the king is coming. He’s real, and he’ll be able to explain everything better than me. Do you want me to look at Joni now?”

Olivia walks to Joni’s bed.

Using a syringe, she takes a blood sample from Joni’s arm. Then she checks his temperature and listens to his breathing. She attaches a pulse oximeter to his forefinger, and the red light makes the tip of his finger glow.

“Joni is tired, but otherwise he’s fine. Can’t you let me go? We’re on the same side.”

“Are we?” Ari asks. “Joni has the virus. Just like everyone else, except us three. Unless you give us the antidote, I couldn’t care less what you say. Marie, take Olivia back to the storage module!”

4.

Olivia walks in front of me willingly. It feels a little silly to tie her up.