“We’ll want to get that as soon as possible,” John says.

Five nods eagerly. “Yeah, of course. I remember exactly where I put it.”

“The Chests are imperative,” my dad blurts out. He pinches the bridge of his nose, which I’ve noticed he’s started doing whenever he’s struggling to remember something. “Each of the Chests contains something—I’m not sure exactly what, or how it works—but there are items in those Chests that will help you reconnect with Lorien when the time comes.”

Everyone’s staring raptly at him now.

“How do you know that?” John asks.

“I—I just remembered,” my dad replies.

Nine looks over at me, then back to my dad. “Uh, what?”

“I suppose it’s time for my story now,” he says, staring at all the expectant faces. “I should warn you that there are gaps in my memories. The Mogadorians did something to me. They tried to tear what I knew out of my brain. Things are coming back to me now, in pieces. I’ll tell you what I can.”

“But how did you find that out in the first place?” Eight asks. “We don’t even really understand what’s in our Chests.”

My dad pauses, looking around at the group.

“I know because Pittacus Lore told me.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

YOU COULD HEAR A PIN DROP.

John is the first to speak. “How did he tell you? What do you mean?”

“He told me in person,” my dad replies.

“You’re telling us you met Pittacus Lore?” exclaims a skeptical Nine.

“How is that possible?” Marina asks.

“We found a skeleton in your workshop wearing a Loric pendant . . .” John swallows hard before continuing. “Was that him?”

My dad lowers his gaze. “I’m afraid so. When he arrived, his wounds were so grievous that there was nothing I could do for him.”

Now the questions come on in a rush.

“What did he tell you?”

“How did he get to Earth?”

“Why did he pick you?”

“Did you know Johnny thinks he’s Pittacus resurrected?”

My dad motions downward with his hands, like a conductor would when he’s trying to quiet a noisy orchestra. He looks exhilarated by all the questions, and simultaneously like he’s struggling to remember the answers.

“I don’t know why I was chosen out of all of Earth’s population,” my dad explains. “I was an astronomer. My particular area of interest was in deep space, specifically with trying to make contact with alien life forms. I believed that there were signs here on Earth of visitation from aliens, which didn’t exactly make me popular with some of my less imaginative colleagues.”

“You were right, though,” says Eight. “The Loralite is here. Those cave paintings we found in India.”

“Exactly,” continues my dad. “Most of my peers in the scientific community dismissed me as a madman. I suppose I must have seemed like one, ranting on about extraterrestrial visitors.” He glances around. “And yet, here you are.”

“Thanks for the résumé,” interrupts Nine, “but can we get to the Pittacus part?”

My dad smiles. “I’d begun sending communication bursts into space from my laboratory using radio waves. I believed I was on to something. This was on my own time. I’d been—ah, dismissed, I suppose, from my position at the university.”

“I kinda remember that,” I say. “Mom was pissed.”

“I don’t know what I was expecting from my experiments. A response, certainly. Perhaps a burst of alien music or images of a strange galaxy.” My dad snorts, shaking his head at how unprepared he was. “I got more than I bargained for. One night, a man showed up at my door. He was wounded and rambling—at first I mistook him for a crackpot or a vagrant. And then, before my very eyes, he grew.”

“Taller?” Six asks, an eyebrow raised.

My dad chuckles. “Indeed. It doesn’t seem like much now, considering all I’ve seen, but it was the first time I’d seen a Legacy at work. I wish I could say that I reacted with proper scientific curiosity, but instead I think I did a fair bit of screaming.”

I nod. Sounds like the Goode way.

“A Garde on Earth,” breathes Marina. “Who was he?”

“He called himself Pittacus Lore.”

Nine scoffs and shoots John a look. “Everyone thinks they’re Pittacus!”

“You’re saying you met an Elder?” John says, ignoring Nine. “Or someone claiming to be an Elder?”

“What did he look like? What did he say?” Ella asks.

“First, he told me he that his injuries were caused by a hostile alien race that would soon be coming to Earth. He told me he would not survive the night and . . . he wasn’t wrong.” My dad closes his eyes, willing his brain to work. “Pittacus told me much in the short time he had left, but I’m afraid the details are fuzzy. He asked me to prepare a group of humans to receive you, to help your Cêpans get on the run, to provide guidance. I was the first of the Greeters.”

“What else did he tell you?” John asks, sitting forward eagerly.

“One thing I remember is about your Chests. The Inheritances. He told me they would each contain something—he called them Phoenix Stones, I think—taken from the heart of Lorien. Although he called them stones, I don’t think we need to take that literally. The Phoenix Stones could come in any shape or form. And when restored to your planet, these items should jumpstart the ecosystem. I believe, right now, you are in possession of the tools to bring your home world back to life.”

Marina and Eight exchange an excited look, perhaps thinking about that lush Lorien that John’s always going on about.

“But what about the Chests we’ve already lost?” Six asks. “I thought the contents were destroyed when their Garde dies.”

My dad shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t have an answer to that. I can only hope that what remains of your Inheritance will be enough.”

“Look, restoring Lorien is cool and all,” Nine says, “but I’m not hearing anything that’s going to help us kill Mogadorians or protect Earth.”

“My Cêpan told me each of us would inherit the Legacies of an Elder,” Eight says. “I always thought I was Pittacus, but . . .” He glances over at John, then shrugs. “Did he tell you anything about that?”

“No,” my dad replies. “At least, not that I can remember right now. When your Cêpan said you’d inherit the Legacies of an Elder, he might not have been speaking literally. It could have been a metaphor for the roles you will grow up to take on in a rebuilt Lorien society. It can’t be as simple as you becoming the Elders, because three of you are already lost. And Ella’s presence here seems to indicate that nothing is so cut and dry.”

“So we’re just as in the dark as we were before,” Six says curtly, then looks over at me. “Not that it isn’t an interesting story.”

“Hold on,” says John, still mulling over what my dad said. “There’s definitely information we can use. The Chests, for instance. We need to take an inventory, see if we can figure out which of our items are these Phoenix things.”

“Probably anything that doesn’t stab, shoot or explode,” offers Nine helpfully.

“I’ll try to help you there, if I can,” my dad offers. “Seeing the contents of your Chests might jog something in my memory.”

“What happened to the other Greeters?” Five asks. “Are they still alive?”

My dad’s expression darkens. Now we’re getting to the part of the story that I know something about. Pretty soon, we’re going to be hitting the whole good-Mogadorian-saved-us-from-certain-death bit. My dad still hasn’t given up hope for Adam; he was checking his phone right before dinner. With him not getting in touch for this long, I’m starting to think he didn’t make it out. Dead or alive, I’m really not sure how Adam’s existence, and our involvement with him, is going to go over with the Garde.

“I assembled the Greeters myself. They were people I could trust—like-minded scientists working on the fringes. But I can’t remember their names or even their faces. The Mogadorians saw to that.”

My dad picks up his glass of champagne with a shaky hand and takes a quick drink. He makes a bitter face, like it didn’t help ease the pain of memory. Or lack thereof.

“We all knew the risks,” my dad continues, eventually. “We took them gladly. It was a chance to be part of something amazing. I still believe that,” he says with a note of pride, looking around at the Garde. “Just as the Mogadorians were searching for you, so were they searching for us. Obviously we were easier to find—we’d been living on Earth all our lives, you see. We had families. One by one they tracked us down. They hooked us up to machines, tried to rip out our memories, looking for anything that would help them in their hunt. It’s why there are so many things I’m still foggy on. I don’t know if the harm they did to me can ever be fixed.”

Ella shoots a look at Marina, then John. “Could you guys heal him?”

“We could try,” Marina replies, studying my dad. “I’ve never tried healing someone’s mind before, though.”

My dad runs a hand across his beard, frowning. “I was the only one that survived. I lost years to those bastards.” He looks over at me. “I intend to pay them back.”

“How did you escape them?” John asks.

“I had help. The Mogadorians had me sedated for years in a catatonic state, waking me up only when they had a new experiment to run on my mind. Eventually, though, a boy set me free.”

“A boy?” Marina asks, her eyebrow raised.

“I don’t get it,” Eight says. “How did someone manage to get into a Mog base? Was he one of the government agents? And why did he help you?”

Before my father can answer, Five speaks up. The way he’s eyeballing my dad, it’s like he’s already pieced together the entire story. “He wasn’t human, was he?”

My dad looks first at Five, then over at John before turning his gaze on me. “He called himself Adam, but his actual name was Adamus. He was a Mogadorian.”

“A Mogadorian helped you?” Marina asks quietly, as everyone else stares at my dad in stunned silence.

Nine stands up suddenly, looking over at John. “Dude, this has trap written all over it. We have to lock this place down.”

John raises a hand, trying to placate Nine. None of the others stand up with Nine, which is a relief. Still, they’re looking at each other anxiously and, even though I trust the Garde, I’m suddenly worried that they might not trust my dad.

“Calm down,” John tells Nine. “We need the whole story here. Malcolm, what you’re saying is pretty crazy.”

“I know, believe me,” he replies. “What I learned is that there are two kinds of Mogadorians. Some of them are grown through genetic engineering—they call them vat-born. I believe they’re like the throwaway soldiers you’ve run into so often. The hideous ones that could never pass for human. They’re bred simply for killing. And then there are others, they call themselves Trueborn. They are the ruling class. Adam was one of them, the son of a Mogadorian general.”