The Last Days of Lorien by Pittacus Lore Page B

arrived at the airstrip in time.
    I parked the cycle and raced to the ship with the kid in my arms, searching for Brandon, pushing past a group of Kabarakians and LDF Garde who were chaotically arranging a perimeter around the airstrip.
    The Mogadorians would be here soon. These Loric would be the only thing protecting the ship as it took off. Like me, they would remain behind. We were going to die. There was no way around it. But with a little luck, the nine children and their Mentors would live, and with them, the Lorien people would survive.
    The eight Mentor Cêpans stood outside the ship, waiting to go, while eight young children—ranging in age from infancy to six years old—were arrayed in a circle on the ground. Another man was leaning over each of the children, touching their heads.
    It was the Elder Loridas. It looked like he was blessing them or something. Well, if I was going to die, at least I could say I finally saw one of the Elders.
    When Brandon saw me approach, a look of disgust began to creep into his face. Until he saw the boy.
    “This is the ninth,” I said. I knew they’d be leaving any minute and, anxious to make my case, the words tumbled out in a rush. “It’s not too late. You have to . . .”
    “Quiet,” said Brandon, taking the child. He rushed over to Loridas, who had just finished whatever he was doing with the children. I nervously watched them confer, wondering how Loridas had made it to the planet.
    “He’s the last.” I turned to see a woman with long dark hair in her early thirties. She had read my look of confusion. “The other Elders are gone. They sacrificed themselves for us.”
    “Pittacus too?” I asked, stunned. I had never really thought much about Pittacus Lore, never reacted to his name with the unreserved awe that so many other Loric had for him, but it was still a shock. Even with everything that had happened tonight, it had never occurred to me that he could be gone. It was almost unimaginable.
    An uncertain frown crept across the woman’s face. “Pittacus is . . . missing,” she said. “He may still be alive. We don’t know.”
    I didn’t respond. What was there to say?
    “You look awfully young to be a Mentor Cêpan,” she said.
    “I’m just a trainee,” I said, my eyes locked on Brandon, Loridas, and the boy. “Engineering. Not a Mentor.”
    “Could’ve fooled me,” she said, glancing over at the boy. Loridas took him by the hand and laid him down in the sole remaining part of the circle. The other children all looked on as Loridas began to perform some kind of ritual.
    “Why are they all so young?” I asked the woman. “They’re too young to have been trainees at the Academy.”
    “These children were identified by the Elders as the most powerful of their generation,” she told me. She sounded wistful as she said it. “They have a long road ahead of them. They will have to learn to adapt to a new home, and a new way of life that’s unlike anything we know here. It will be better if they have as little memory of Lorien as possible. It will be easier for them.”
    I nodded sadly and turned back to watch the ritual. I was eager to take the whole sight in, but Brandon pulled me out to the edge of the airstrip.
    “He has been admitted. The Eight is now Nine,” he said. “Funny thing is, Elder Loridas wasn’t fazed at all. When I said the ninth had arrived, he turned to me and looked at me as if he’d known he was coming all along.”
    I turned back to the collected Mentor Cêpans, to the Garde arrayed on the ground, to the ship that would take them off this planet. I feared what my own fate would be, but was determined not to let Brandon see my fear. I wanted to make a gracious and noble exit.
    “Go,” I said. “I’ll join the perimeter guard.”
    The suns were just starting to come up, the dusk colored by the flame and smoke of the planet’s destruction.
    “Good luck up there,” I said.
    “Stop,” said Brandon. I turned