He realized he had seen such a being before! It was the kind of being he had collided with at the embassy. He had not known what manner of creature she was, and now he knew that she was a beautiful, graceful creature of the air.
Geniato also saw appearing at the gate a gang of hulking gray-green creatures with massive heads and protruding jaws. He had never seen such monsters before, and he prepared to flee into the safety of the prison building. But many of the imprisoned Allies approached the creatures with welcoming shouts.
Geniato decided they must be friendly, despite their horrific appearance. In fact, it was apparently that appearance that made the guards—the ones who had been so cruel to him and the others—shrink away, leave their posts, and disappear.
The winged creatures landed outside the compound and, together with the gray-green creatures, swung open the gates.
The men began to stream out, and Geniato leaped up and followed them. He asked those around him what had happened. They said that the Mythicals had gotten them out, rescued them!
What were these creatures, he asked?
Fairies, he was told.
Amazing! He thought for a moment, before the worry over his mother reasserted itself.
He quickly followed the men out the gate between two lines of the male fairies, who thanked them and escorted them to waiting cars, to be returned to their homes.
But Geniato could not go home. He asked a fairy where the women were being held, and the fairy pointed at a distant building with a fenced yard. He ran toward it as fast as his legs would carry him, as did several other men. Ahead of him, he saw women streaming out through the gate, also walking between lines of welcoming fairies.
He reached the yard and scanned the crowd of women, seeing some old, some young, but not his mother.
The crowd thinned, but still he did not see his mother. He rushed into the prison yard frantically searching for her among the few women who were still preparing to leave. He asked several other women if they had seen her, describing her to them.
Finally, one of the women pointed into the prison building, and he rushed inside. He ran along the row of open cells, abruptly stopping at one in which a young woman was sitting with her back to him, bent over another woman lying on the bottom bunk. The woman moved, and he recognized his mother, rushing into the cell.
“Is she okay?” he asked. “She is my mother!”
The young woman turned toward him, smiling kindly. “She has not been well. Some kind of heart problem. But the doctor here has given her pills.”
His mother stirred, looking up at him, smiling beatifically. “Geniato, my Geniato! You are all right!”
She struggled to sit up, and hugged him warmly.
“This wonderful girl has taken good care of me. We were in the same cell, and she took care of me when I had the pains in my chest. This is Meri.”
And Geniato Belligrado found himself looking into the most beautiful brown eyes he had ever seen.
• • •
“You’re okay, Jack. You lost a lot of blood, but you’ll be fine.” The smiling woman stood over Jack, as he opened his eyes, bringing the hospital room into focus. He tried lifting his arm to feel the wounds on his head, but failed—weakness permeating his body, like lead weights holding him down.
The woman wore the white coat of a doctor, and her golden curls were tied back. “You’ll need to stay here a couple of days to regain your strength and check for infections.”
“What happened?”
“We brought you into the hospital. I’m Dr. Wendy Burns.”
Jack suddenly remembered that radiant face. “You’re—”
Wendy brought her finger to her lips, still smiling warmly. “Shhh. I put on my flesh-suit before the emergency van came. These folks might be put off by seeing an angel, even though they know about us now.”
Jack struggled to remember. “Somebody . . . some thing brought me out of the woods. Saved me from the werewolf.”
“Yes, that was a friend whom A’eiio asked to watch over you. He went back into the forest. He’s rather shy.”
Jack was fully awake now. “He was rather huge!”
“They tend to be. But they’re gentle.”
“He wasn’t very gentle with the werewolf.”
“They are called bigfoot. They don’t much like werewolves. They consider them too aggressive. It’s ironic because bigfoot are quite peaceful unless they are angered. Then . . . look out!”
“So that’s what he was? A bigfoot?”
“Yes. You may see him again. They’re very faithful. Once they commit to a task, they stick with it. You have a friend for life.”
“Useful friend to have.” Now Jack was awake enough to begin peppering the angel with questions. “Where is the werewolf? Do you have to stay in hiding? Are the Mythicals still being interned?”
“The werewolf escaped. We’ve all been freed. E’iouy argued for us. The Supreme Court ruled that it was illegal and, in fact, dangerous to some species.”
“Sam? Is Sam all right?”
“Not at first.”
“What do you mean? I’ve got to see her!” Jack struggled to rise from the bed, snatching at the catheter in the back of his hand. But Wendy gently eased him back down.
“She’s fine now. As a matter of fact . . .” Wendy backed away to reveal Sam standing in the doorway. “She’s been waiting for you to wake up.”
Wendy gave him a pat on the shoulder and departed. Sam approached the bed, a worried look on her face. She wore a brightly printed short dress and flowers in her ringleted hair, but the decoration didn’t disguise her haggard appearance. She took Jack’s hand.
“I was so worried about you,” she said quietly. “I heard what happened.”
“You were worried about me?” Jack chuckled. “Last time I saw you, you were near . . .” he stopped. He didn’t want to use the word “death.”
“We bounce back pretty quickly,” she said.
“Hey, you did quite a bit of bouncing when the cops were after you.”
“Pixies aren’t weaklings.”
“I love you,” he said.
“I know,” she answered matter-of-factly, tossing her head with the faintest of smiles. The declaration seemed to please her now, perhaps more than the several times he’d blurted it out before.
“What will you do now?” she asked.
“Tell everybody. Write the article. Can you get my computer? I need to start writing.”
Sam bent down and kissed him gently on the forehead. He suddenly felt better. Much better. For some reason he could not fathom, she began to remove the bandage covering his lacerated shoulder. But before she could finish, a middle-aged couple appeared at the door—a spare, balding man and a short, matronly woman with white hair.
Now Jack forgot his weakness; even momentarily forgot Sam in his surprise. “Mom! Dad! What are you doing here?”
“We heard you’d been hurt,” said his mother. “We were so worried! Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Mom. This is Sam.”
They made introductions, and Sam excused herself, telling him she’d be back with his computer and some better food than the hospital could offer. He watched her leave, distracted until she was out of sight. Then his attention returned to his parents. They hugged him and asked him if he was in pain, if he needed anything, that they were so worried about him. But a question puzzled him.
“How did you find out? It just happened.”
“Well . . . uh—” his mother began to stammer, but his father interrupted.
“That doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we know you’re preparing to reveal something that needs to stay secret. For your sake, for our sake, for the sake of your people.”
Jack felt the pang of uneasiness rise within him. “What does that mean ‘my people’?”
His mother took his hand, while his father closed the door to the room. He stood for a long while staring somberly at Jack, as if trying to find th
e words.
“You are not one of these people.” He gestured at the door, indicating the outside world. “You are not even of this planet.”
Flaktuckmetang stood waiting for the praetorians, holding his broken arm close to his chest, refusing to wince in pain. It would be a sign of weakness, and werewolves killed weaklings. Having it set and cast was out of the question. These kinds of injuries were supposed to heal naturally—or not. They were badges of battle, and Flaktuckmetang would display a deformed arm as evidence of his fearlessness. He managed a pained grin in satisfaction. Perhaps it would even get his sentence reduced on this Planet of Morons.
On schedule, the wormhole descended from the cloud-filled night sky to hover over the lake. The hole was a pitch-black void in the heavens, an ominous portent for this planet’s puny creatures, thought the werewolf.
Hovering above the water, the hole wafted to the shore where Flaktuckmetang had come after escaping the cursed monster that had robbed him of his kill.
The Alpha praetorian was the first to emerge from the hole. Climbing down its ladder to stand, sniffing the air for any whiff of an enemy. His olfactory reconnaissance completed, he turned to glare at this deplorable exile who stood tentatively before him, shaking his great head in disdain.
They proceeded to sniff one another, taking in each other’s characteristic scents. Flaktuckmetang took care to keep his head lower than the Alpha, not a difficult task, given the Alpha’s imposing height.
“You lost your prey,” accused the Alpha, after they had finished. “You fled from your enemy, Warren Lee.” The Alpha used the exile name as an epithet, not honoring him by saying his real name.
“I made a strategic retreat against an overwhelming foe,” said Flaktuckmetang.
“You fled from one creature! One! And now we must track down your prey . . . what is its name?”
“Jack March.”
“Yes, him, as well as the fairies, the vampires, the ogres . . . all those who work against the Palliation.”
“But they cannot stop it, can they?” Lee realized he had made a linguistic error. Werewolves always made statements; never asked questions. Another sight of weakness.
The Alpha shook his head again in disdain. “Of course, they can. The other Wardens are not unanimous in supporting it. And even though they are of weaker species, they could cause serious problems in the Alliance. And we need the Alliance for the network it provides. We will find a way to neutralize the objectors without raising the Wardens’ suspicions.”
“Well, I shall—” began Flaktuckmetang, but the Alpha interrupted.
“Lead us to our target, Flaktuckmetang. And be prepared to report our victory.”
The werewolf nodded enthusiastically. Now the Alpha had used his native name, indicating that his honor could potentially be restored.
The Alpha raised a claw to signal a lieutenant standing on the other side of the wormhole. The lieutenant began to send praetorians descending from the hole, hauling down their assault rifles, grenade packs, and missile launchers with them.
With Flaktuckmetang leading them, the commandos quickly moved from the narrow shore into the thicket.
From there, they would seek out and kill their prey.
• • •
“Jack, you must see your home planet,” declared James March, as he drove with Jack sitting beside him through the winding country lanes.
Jack, still weak from the blood loss, shook his head in deep confusion. “I just don’t understand. I can’t even—”
Louisa leaned forward from the back seat, patting her son’s shoulder. “You will, dearest. You’ll see.”
They reached the village where he had grown up while the sun was still rising, and the early morning light cast a golden glow on the farmhouse and the warehouse-sized barn.
They left the car and entered the barn to see, hovering high in the cavernous space, a shimmering wormhole, the aurora of colored lights playing around it.
Jack stood silently, trying to absorb the reality that his own family, the people in this village were aliens, and that they had arrived in a wormhole just like the ones the Mythicals used.
“You never told me about any of this. Why?”
“Yes, we never told any who were brought here as infants. We wanted you to feel that this planet was your home. Our strategy was to allow you to immerse yourself in its society, to become expert in its ways. And at the appropriate time we would reveal your heritage to you. To enlist you in our mutual cause. This is that time.”
“Are you part of the Mythicals network . . . the Alliance?” asked Jack.
“No,” said James. “They don’t know about us. They can’t know. Our aim is not to use this planet as a prison.” He said the last word with derision. “Our aim is to make it our new home. Now, you will understand why.”
With that, he signaled and a ladder descended from the hole. Louisa climbed upward, and James pulled himself onto its bottom step, turning to his son. “Come through with me. See your home.”
He disappeared, and Jack followed, finding himself in a large, steel vacuum chamber much like the ones he had encountered when traversing to the fairy planet. The same magnetic probes extended from its interior, containing and guiding the wormhole.
His father unfastened the chamber’s inner airlock hatch, and all three of them went through, and after sealing the hatch, exited through the outer door.
They stepped out into—not the pristine, soaring terminal of the Mythicals transfer station—but a scorched ruin of a building, its corrugated rusted metal sides full of holes, its dirty concrete floor scattered with metal parts and crates. Instead of the crisp coolness of his village, now he felt a dank, smothering heat.
A portly man dressed in a black suit introduced himself as Christopher, and the three began to speak in a language Jack did not understand.
Christopher turned to Jack and explained, “We call ourselves Pilgrims. We are seeking a new home for our race . . . your race, Jack. And we want to show you why.”
They led Jack out of the building and into a sprawling fortress-like compound, with high steel walls topped by coils of razor wire. Guardposts were spaced along the wall, manned by ragged-looking soldiers with tripod-mounted machine guns. Armored personnel carriers were parked along one side of the compound, with grease-strained mechanics working on their engines.
“What is this place?” asked Jack.
“Our terminal,” said Christopher. “It has to be well fortified against those who would thwart our mission.”
They climbed a steel observation tower that reached above the wall, and Jack found himself looking out over a desolate, empty landscape of gnarled, dead trees. A lead-gray sky hung low overhead, with a faint brownish smog obscuring any long-range view. The air enveloped them like a smothering muggy shroud that reeked of smoke and organic decay. He felt a nausea rising when he realized that scattered on the cratered landscape beyond were what looked like corpses.
Jack stared in shock at the bleak landscape. “I am from here?”
“Yes, sweetheart,” said Louisa. “This is your home.”
“What is it called?”
“This is Earth.”
“They tried to kill us!” rasped Steve the troll in his guttural voice, punctuating the statement with an emphatic, furious grunt. He stalked back and forth in the warehouse that had been their clandestine meeting place for decades.
“They did kill Robin,” said Vladimir, rising to address the gathering of exiled fairies, ogres, vampires, elves, angels, leprechauns, pixies, and trolls. “And they murdered her with no provocation. And they killed many others around the world.”
“We can’t really say there was no provocation,” said A’eiio. “I am as sick as all of you over Robin’s death . . . the other deaths . . . the imprisonments. But the creatures were frightened. The werewolves made sure of that.”
“The werewolves merely triggered a blind, ignorant hatred that would have come out, anyway,” said
Vladimir. “Maybe the only solution is a final one. Maybe ironically, saving this species and their planet means instituting the Palliation.”
“No, it does not mean that,” declared Mike the ogre, in his resonant gurgle. “Some of my fellow exiles are also advocating that, but I do not.”
“What about the Wardens?” squeaked Ryan the elf, managing a few words. “They are the final arbiters.”
“The Council is divided,” said E’iouy. “Some favor it, some oppose it. Those who oppose it hope to persuade the species to adopt the Remediation . . . to save themselves and their planet.”
“So, the Council is deadlocked,” said Vladimir. “Meanwhile, we are stuck on this planet between those who would destroy it and those who would save it. We are the ones in the middle of this problem.”
“Vote,” said Sam. “Let us all vote.”
“The pixie is right,” said Wendy the angel. “Let us call for a global vote. All the exiles. It will influence the Council.”
“You can vote all you want, but in the end, it will be the werewolves who decide,” said Vladimir. “Them and the others who side with them. Maybe us.”
“And maybe even some of us,” said Mike.
Several of the Mythicals voiced the sounds of their species signaling their agreement.
“Then, at least we can agree—” began E’iouy, but he was interrupted by a burst of weapon fire from outside and a scream from one of the Allies who had been guarding the warehouse. The scream abruptly stopped. More gunfire, and the howling of werewolves.
A young woman burst into the warehouse, blood streaming from a wound on her shoulder.
“THEY’RE OUTSIDE! THEY WANT TO KILL ALL OF US!” she shouted.
• • •
Standing on the tower, gripping its rusty railing so hard that its sharp grit bit into his hands, Jack stared in unbelieving shock out at the desolation that stretched away beyond the walls of the Pilgrim compound. He lowered his stunned gaze to the battered hulk of a building harboring the wormhole that had transported them here. On the other side of that wormhole was the planet he had thought was his home—Thera.
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