He was surprised that the swarm didn’t seem to have made it to the heart of the village yet, and had nearly finished carrying wood piles inside with the help of the others as night struck without more than a residual scratch.
“I guess it isn’t wet season yet.” He said to Kit as they were guided by tight channels of white from their flashlight.
“That’s the gospel.” Tarma said, sitting on the edge of his bed and dropping his gear.
“I wonder if it's the plants.” Kit offered.
Huston paused, hovering over the fire pit with his flint. Maybe. He had thought the smells coming from the bright blue salvia-looking flowers and lemony grasses familiar.
“The Fisherman spread repellant plants.” Huston smiled. It seemed obvious now, there was a faint symmetry to the location of the plants, though the time since the attack had swept some of the air of selectivity away. And the grasses were just everywhere, but only where the sun hit the river banks and here in the village beneath the window of open canopy.
They continued talking about it as Huston built the flames and Coop tested various degrees of open and close for the awnings.
“What do you want to do tomorrow? You have ideas of where your Clouds are?” Coop finally asked as he sat next to the ring, cooking the fish.
Huston looked up from his efforts to pulverize grains on the stone he’d found. Truthfully, he didn’t know what he was doing.
“No. I’ve an idea of where we are, so we can follow the river upstream to a spot I’ve been to before. From there, I was going to hike back to the tree-top village again. Here.” Huston reached to pull his journal from his bag and tossed it on the ground next to Cooper. “Last couple pages are some maps I drew up earlier.”
“Excellent. I’ve got images from the drones, but you’ve been on the ground.” Kit said, watching Cooper as he focused on a few of Huston’s maps. “Can I see that when you’re done?”
He stabbed a hunk of fish onto one of the highest branches over the fire and stood up to carry his mobile unit to Huston, gesturing Kit to join them.
The minister had seen the images and had used them to help remember things while drawing. Regardless, it was helpful.
“I think they’ve moved along this ridge, away from the tree-top village and their temporary camp. Away from the Cavers too. They wouldn’t drop into the valley if they didn’t have defense there already.” Cooper’s sense of movement was built on defensive necessity and environmental advantages.
“So they stay high, but there’s no reason to think they’re wandering. They’ve got another village somewhere.” Huston leaned back and stared at the sprawling shadows flickering on the ceiling from the fire. They looked like wings from this angle. His mind flicked to some falconeering he’d tried as a graduate student. It was forever impressive that the birds could find their way back from such height and distance. Height. Something about the crackle of the fire and the thought of height pulled his attention to the moss he’d seen the Clouds burning the first couple nights. He’d expected to see it as they hiked through the forest, but hadn’t yet. Not anywhere he’d been.
“I saw them cooking a mossy material at night. They might’ve been smoking it. I don’t know. It might’ve actually been some sort of tuft of grass or fungus.” Huston spoke aloud, as much to himself as the others. “I didn’t see it close enough to know for sure. But I know it's color, and I haven’t seen it since.”
“I have drugs.” Tarma replied quietly.
“I think I might’ve tried some local stuff on accident a few days ago. Touched a shimmery liquid and hallucinated pretty bad.” Huston said, turning his head to look at Tarma. “My point was that I haven’t seen it at any of the heights I’ve been to yet- not the plain, the ridge, or the mountain sides. Only place I haven’t been is all the way up.”
“And a lot of alpine plants have medicinal uses! I spent some time a few years ago working on conservation of some in the Himalayas.” Kit said. “That could be right.”
Coop looked at each of them.
“Let’s summit.”
“Ok.” Huston was glad to have a second step in mind now.
They were all quiet for a bit as they ate. Huston relented and had some of the fish Cooper had caught, though only after lining his belly with the spruce pine and grain stew he’d improvised. The night cooled comfortably, and they were all silent with pleasantness, listening to the wind brush through the grasses outside, the humm of insects warming to the time of year, and the creak from the wooden frame above them.
The light from glowing embers had all but burned out by the time Huston’s eyelids grew sticky- time passing without recognition as he slowly faded. Snapshots of the hallucination he’d had hovering somewhere between dream and memory.
Chapter Fourteen
Huston opened his eyes to darkness around him. Enough moonlight misted through the doorway that he could see the shapes of beds around him.
He had to go to the bathroom.
Convinced after a few moments that it wasn’t going away on it's own, he heaved his frame to its feet and out the door.
To his right, he was able to see the swamp glistening through the thin forest. Walking toward a tree, too tired to be more selective than that, he finished and turned back to the cabin.
And stopped. He stood still, looking between the cabin and the tree. How many beings had stumbled to that tree in the middle of the night?
He felt like a ghost.
Birds chirped over his head, in pursuit of things only small birds could ever be in pursuit of. Mostly each other. He watched them slalom through the trees to noisily rest in the waterside branches of what he would’ve called an Ash tree at home.
He rubbed his eyes and massaged his face. Mornings felt the same on alien planets.
Snatching his foot up as something crawled across it, a long orange bug bounded to the dirt and scampered beneath the cover of grass. He thought of scampering back to bed, but didn’t really want to anymore. So he followed the birds. Thankfully they’d gone to a spot upriver from the attack site. It wasn’t hard to pick his way to the bank. The Fisherman had tread many trails and the low growth of ferns were easy to see over.
The bank was thinner here. He sat down in soft grass at the river’s edge. The night was so still. It felt wrong to move.
“Huston,” a soft voice twinkled behind him, causing him to turn. “You didn’t come back, so I wanted to make sure you were ok. Saw you walking down here.”
“Sorry, Kit. Didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“I think I’m a little too excited to sleep...and nervous.” She admitted with a long yawn.
She peered up, her eyes soft as she looked at the stars through thinly dressed branches.
Huston repositioned himself in case she wanted to sit down. He gazed into the water a few moments, feeling warm through the chill.
“You’re not wearing shoes.” She said, crossing her arms and laying in the grass next to where he sat.
“I guess I didn’t think about it.”
Birds leapt from their spots high in the tree above him as Kit wiggled closer to him so that her side was against his legs.
“Cold!” She explained with the glimmer of a sly grin.
They looked into each other’s eyes for a long moment. Kit bumped her shoulder against his and looked back to the stars.
He picked at a twig and tossed it into the water, watching it float toward the swamp shacks before losing sight of it in the dark. Splashing his toes into the icy water, he leaned back to look at the Universe as she was, sleepily collapsing on the ground.
He’d missed her more than he wanted to say. He’d adored Kit since the first day they’d met. They’d spent a lot of time together at the launch facility in Kazakhstan during their year of training. If he hadn’t felt it inappropriate for his position, he would’ve melted months ago, before they went into cryo, before they took off, before the orientation day at the training facility was over. But it was. The co
lonists’ would be together for years. He’d felt he couldn’t risk it.
But that was before she was laying next to him in an alien forest. It hit him harder than it ever could that he’d advise anyone in his position to live life.
He felt electric.
“I missed you.” Kit said, barely above a whisper. “Just running off all the time. You were tough to find even on the ship.”
“Being lost all the time is part of my mystery.” He smiled.
She laughed.
“A lot of people miss you, actually. You’ve had a big impact on them.” She continued into the silence. “Know who I saw go into your temple yesterday? Julie.”
Huston’s eyes widened a little in surprise.
“I should’ve locked the place.”
Kit grinned. “Nooo.”
“I don’t know. Not sure that feels right. I’m not here to convert.” He doubted she was there for spirituality so much as the comfortable space. It was the only building made of wood at the moment.
“You’re not here for atheists?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
She laughed. “It looks great, by the way. Your temple. We have so many different faiths here. We’re a nice little capsule from Earth.”
“Damn near full-spectrum, I guess.”
“It’s such a good idea. Individualized ministry.”
Bird chirped from above them again, hopping from branch to branch,
“The bird noises might be the least alien thing about the place.” Huston remarked.
She lay silently smiling.
“I’ve been thinking about God a lot today.”
“What’s brought that on?” He asked, turning his face toward hers.
“Aliens….I guess…” She opened her arms to the river. “Dying far away from where anybody I love is buried.”
“Mmm.”
“But I know what you think about that.”
“I thought about my grandma today. I asked her about aliens once when I was a little guy. Whether she believed in them.” He started, not directly responding to her. “She was a deeply spiritual, sweet woman. It was the only time we’d ever had a conversation that felt at all...contentious. Her Christian backbone struggled with the idea. I’ve been thinking about it since you got here yesterday, actually.” He smiled and looked at the cross she wore on her necklace. “That was one of my first experiences being inspired by that kind of faith in an idea and text. A much tighter interpretation than anything I can relate to, but an inspiring furnace all the same.”
“Yeah. I like when you talk about her.” She covered her yawn and pulled her beanie further over her forehead.
He thought of his grandma. Aliens hadn’t been in the Bible. Jesus hadn’t been to g159c. His words had, though, with Kit’s arrival. How important was the difference?
He looked to the symbol on her yellow jacket. The one he’d designed so long ago, which Wallace had asked for permission to use.
Several minutes passed without either talking. Small blips from the river and the slow sway of the branches drew Huston’s eyes closed for longer and longer gaps in consciousness. Kit must’ve been falling asleep too.
“You want to go back?” Huston asked groggily.
“No, this is perfect.” And she pressed her shoulder tighter to his side.
Light crept into his vision. It was dawn. Kit had fallen asleep against him, which meant he didn’t want to move. Luckily, dawn was a time for that.
“Oh wooowww.” She said.
Huston opened his eyes. A heavy mist hung in the air above them. He thought he knew what she was reacting to. The branches above them had erupted with the morning sun. Brilliant pastel purple flowers seemed to light like stars through thin clouds. It was one of the more magical things about Spring: laying eyes on the other side of whatever threshold all the trees and plants of the community had decided on.
“Huston!” She laid her hand on his chest and shook him.
“I’m up, I’m up!” He laughed.
She stood up. What she saw must’ve been even better than she’d hoped. She spun excitedly.
Huston stood up too. Most of the shrubs and trees had transformed into a dazzlingly bright array of colorful flowers.
He sniffed. The air was irresistibly, thickly sweet.
“I think some of this might fruit!” Kit said happily. She’d ran over to a row of bushes covered in white trumpets.
“I think those are my favorite.” Huston stretched his back, pointing into the sea of moss drenching the branches of a sprawling broad leafed tree. Orange, yellow, and blue wildflowers grew out of the upper levels. One plant burst into an enormous yellow flower at the top of its stem, which must’ve stood twice his height, to drop solar panel sized petals from its center.
“Hard to find ancient forests like this at home. What’s this place gonna look like in a few weeks?” Huston sleepily called to her, fighting a yawn.
“Look, we couldn’t see these last night!”
Huston walked over. The tree she was standing under was dangling pods of bead like berries from its branches. The vibrant red pods were the size of zucchini.
“I’m going to need to come back here later. Or somebody else will, to get samples. This might be practically a native pharmacy for all we know.” She continued.
Glancing downriver to the beach site, he grimaced at imaging the length of time necessary for the beings here to have accumulated such knowledge. Of course, they may have been surrounded by poisons for all he and Kit knew.
“I can’t wait for you to piece this planet together.” He said, leaning close to a pod.
He was surprised to see Tarma awake when they got back to the beds. He was huddled over the fire pit.
“Morning” he whispered, watching Kit walk by him to lay on her bed.
“What you doing up?” Huston asked quietly, sitting on the edge of a bed closest to him.
“I want to film around the houses before we leave. Poppa needs some coffee first.”
“Do you—“
“Poppa needs a lotta coffee first.” Tarma interrupted him, making too much eye contact for the time of day.
“I’ll make it.” Huston mouthed, slapping his hands away from the small pile of twigs Tarma was building.
“Thanks.”
“Coop, there’s room for you to make your own damn fire next to ours.” Tarma yelled across the room.
Huston smiled over to Cooper. He hadn’t known the man was awake.
“What’d you think is best? Want to kayak upriver as far as we can take it?” Huston asked, watching Cooper stand up and begin stretching.
“Morning, guys. Yeah, at least until we get a clearer sense of what the terrain is like.” He answered, crawling into a deeper back stretch.
Eventually water boiled and coffee was brewed. By then, they were all packed up to leave. Cooper was still stretching. He’d gone to bed packed up. Huston poured them each a cup, handing one to Tarma, who was laying down reviewing some footage from the night before, and took a refill of coffee outside with him.
The sun was beaming along the horizon, dimly lighting the eerie stillness that preceded the full strum of daybreak. Cooper joined him outside first, and then Tarma, and they talked about what Huston had found in the houses the day before. They all felt the need to move on from the Fishermen Village, so began exploring houses well before morning fully struck.
The time passed quickly. Much of what they found was consistent with Huston’s initial experiences. The houses were all individualized in structure and decor, most supported 3-5 individuals, probably families, and a few others had Cloud dolls. As best as they could tell, there were fifteen distinct symbols adorning the homes, though no house had more than one.
Huston had wandered the farthest in, climbing the steadily sloping mountainside a few hundred feet. There were a few interconnected housing complexes built in the trees, similar to the Treetop Village he’d been to with the Clouds. The complexes suggeste
d a powerful alliance, possibly by family or clan, but he couldn’t find any symbols to associate them with.
They also found a steep, sun soaked rock face rising a hundred feet into the air. More of the large, pink flowered trees grew at its base.
“I think they climbed this beast!” Coop had whooped, pointing at the clan markings at the top. They weren’t equally elaborate or the same size, suggesting to Huston that it’d been something of an honor to climb it and mark the top. Cooper had given the bottom a try, but a slip and a tumble from several feet up had discouraged him.
Around noon, Huston and Kit walked back to the waterside to cobble together some working canoes and load them with their gear. He also gathered some of the fish traps, spears, and cordage he’d found in the swamp shacks.
They were standing on the beach, looking back at the tops of the two central structures, when Tarma and Cooper got back.
“All my creative juices are flowing, Hu-ston.” Tarma said, walking up and putting his forehead against the minister’s.
He was hard not to like.
“Let’s do it?” Huston asked Cooper as Tarma loaded his camera into a water-proof bag.
“Let’s do it.” The man replied.
Cooper walked over to the canoe Huston had loaded with his gear and pushed it's stern into the water. Kicking gray mud from his boots, he planted a foot in the boat and pushed off with the other, the momentum carrying him into waters deep enough for the kayak to slowly spin adrift.
Huston helped push Kit in before tossing his shoes into his own canoe and walking it into knee deep water.
The current was stronger than it’d been on their way in, but they were able to paddle forward easily enough. They couldn’t help looking back at the scorched riverside scene as it slipped from view behind a bend.
Still Human- Planet G Page 12