Alpha Rising
Page 24
After downclimbing a series of switchbacks through a maze of gnarled, skeletal trees, the two headed toward the housing area. As they approached, a warm, swirling breeze enveloped them in a putrid odor smelling of dead flesh. Ahead was what looked like a concentration camp. Star covered her nose and mouth with one hand and slapped at swarming bugs with the other. Bach held his breath as long as he could. Nostrils stinging from the stench, he moved cautiously into the camp-like area where scores of near-skeletal, unwashed residents in shabby clothing wallowed in filth and misery. Oblivious to their surroundings, some conversed with invisible partners and others stared into space from sunken eyes. Moans and cries of anguish arose sporadically.
The foul air permeated Star’s hair and clothing. She didn’t open her mouth more than necessary to speak, fearing she’d taste it. “This is worse than I could ever have imagined. They’ve been robbed of everything.”
Bach shook his head in disgust. “I don’t think we’ll see the symbol here.” He looked beyond the campsite. “There has to be another housing area, and those who run the co-op exchange. Let’s ask someone.”
A woman sitting on the ground in a makeshift shelter was closest to Star. The rail-thin woman, her skin the color of chalk, had drawn her knees to her chest and stretched her tattered brown dress over them as if to hold her in place. Star knelt alongside. “We need your help,” she said to the tragic figure. The woman reached out, but grabbed only air. Star took her hand. “Where are the ones who run the co-op?”
The woman stared from under corn-colored hair that seemed glued to her head, and erratic words tumbled from her thickened tongue. “I’ken help, if you help me.” She wrapped her arms around her ankles and rocked back and forth.
Star lifted the woman’s chin and looked into her vacant eyes. “We have nothing to give. Please, we need directions.”
A blank stare gave way to more of the woman’s rocking and rambling with her face pressed against her knees. Then she lifted her head and spoke words that seemed coherent. “Don’t go to the village, they kill each other. The leaders are kings—we are slaves. Please … a drink.”
Someone nearby shouted, “The Specter—he bestows carnal pleasures then steals the soul.” The Arkmates turned around to see a black youth lying on a nearby park bench. The teenage boy, his long hair matted in clumps, spoke with the wisdom of an old man. “The dark side’s cultivator kings are faithless.” His chest rattled with congestion. “Don’t believe their lies.”
A gray-haired elderly man clothed in tattered undershorts, with open sores on his body, gazed up from what seemed his home at the base of a tree stump. When he tried to join the conversation, a wracking cough convulsed his bony frame and a thick plug of mucous silenced him. Struggling for breath, he plucked a flowering weed from the dirt and nibbled on the petals in a bid for pleasure.
“This is almost unbearable,” Star said.
“Whew!” Bach sighed hard. “I wish we could help them, but there’s nothing we can do.” He walked to the teenager. “Where’s the co-op?”
The boy looked from matter-filled eyes. “All destroyed.”
“Destroyed?”
“Micro robots in food.”
Bach hated what he just heard. He stared at Star. “Could that be true? Does the enemy have programmable robots small enough to put in people’s food?”
“Anything is possible. It would be a means of total control.”
His heart raced. What if he puts mind control robots in Kaz’s and my crewmates’ food?
The rocking woman shouted without lifting her head from her knees. “No past, no present, no future. I need something to drink!”
Bach yelled to her, “I’m sorry, we have nothing.” Hands flailing in exasperation, he spoke to himself, “Is the whole planet like this?”
The youth replied, “Only for the commoners. The cultivator kings and principals live royally.” He slid his legs over the side of the bench and sat up ramrod straight. “A few beyond the graveyard once worked in the co-op effort.”
Bach looked at the boy. “Graveyard?”
Star looked around. “Where’s the graveyard?”
“Too much rain to tell. It might be that way.” He thumbed over his left shoulder.
The woman blurted out, “Not that way. The kings will kill them.”
The old man chimed in with a song. “Look for goldfish, do be do be do.”
Bach grumped, “Too much rain? His mind’s playing tricks on him.”
“He was our only hope. And I don’t see a graveyard.”
“And no goldfish.”
Star rubbed the teen’s back. “Where else might someone help with the co-op?”
“Some try, but they die,” he replied.
“You’re seeking the co-op group?” came a voice from nowhere.
Bach whipped around and reactively grasped his chest at seeing a well-groomed, dark-haired woman three feet away. “Where’d you come from?”
The woman’s hard-looking face softened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I overheard your conversation. You asked about the co-op workers?”
“Yes, yes,” he stammered. “Were you here all this time?”
“No. I just got here. I come each day to care for the alms people. They can no longer help themselves.”
Star spoke up. “This young man seems to have hope.”
“He’s delirious,” said the woman, stepping in front of the teen. “He told you no one helps in the co-op, but he’s wrong.”
Bach extended his hand. “I’m Bach, this is Star. Maybe you can help us.”
“Of course.” The woman shook Bach’s hand. “My name is Sapphira. I deal with your co-op crews. Griffon and Nova are due here soon.”
“Sapphira?” Star mused. “I’ve never heard them mention you, and that’s such a beautiful name, I’m sure I would remember.”
“I’m the new liaison for co-op missions. I walk a fine line to keep in good graces with the cultivator kings. Their wrath is virulent. I often feign addiction just to survive. The lords are ruthless in their quest for total reign, and their substances, forced on all, provide every form of mind control.”
“You seem okay,” Bach said.
“I’m guided. I know the secret to avoiding addiction.”
Bach flashed his electric smile in relief. “Guided! I didn’t think it would be so easy. Do you have a mate—a partner—another guided one?”
Star pressed close to his side. “No symbol.”
Sapphira’s cool demeanor shifted to a slight smile. “Symbols? My brother has symbols—that’s what you want, right?”
Bach hesitated. “Uh, yeah.”
“I’ll go back for my brother. He’s in the city posing as a lord to keep us safe from control. I’d ask you to come along, but it could turn deadly. Where’s your ship? We’ll meet you there.”
Star faked a smile and motioned beyond the herb garden. “We’re by the ocean at the co-op ships’ landing site. It’s damaged, but we fly a different craft and were able to land there anyway. How long before you’ll be back?”
“Oh, it won’t take long at all.”
“Then we’ll wait here for you,” Star said.
Sapphira was barely out of sight when the rocking woman cried out, “No! Don’t stay—the graveyard will end it.”
Bach went to the woman, framed her face with his hands, and tried to make eye contact. “The graveyard will end it? What do you mean ‘the graveyard will end it?’” She rocked and said nothing more. “Please,” he said, jostling her by one shoulder.
The teenager shouted, “Sapphira’s tricking you.”
Star put her arm around the boy. “We don’t trust Sapphira, but I trust you. Why do you keep talking about a graveyard? Which way should we go? Help us.”
His eyes welled with tears and he pointed in the direction opposite of Sapphira’s travel. “Leave now. Hurry. Go to the stream.”
She patted his matted hair. “Thank you, friend.”
The Arkmates high-stepped over dense weeds and plowed through ravaged herb gardens before stopping on a weed-covered hill. Bach looked around. “I hear trickling water.” He walked to the edge and saw on the plain below a slow-moving brook sculpting soft curves through green hills and valleys. With feet sliding against dry, rocky ground, the two made it down the embankment and headed to the stream. What had appeared greenery from the hill, turned out to be mold and algae coating the rocks and ground. Bach stared at the thick water and rubbed his forehead in agitation. “Look at that pearly sludge floating on top. What a disappointment.” He dragged a twig across the water, then examined the sample. “Looks like oil, but feels waxy, smells toxic.”
“There have been several disasters here,” Star said. “I remember stories about the Ultimate World burying chemicals and unwanted drug experiments in the ocean and under the river beds.” She looked around. “That young man talked about a stream. Maybe this is the one that leads to the co-op unit.”
They followed the murky creek around the base of a hill where it should have fed into a river, but hundreds of dead goldfish floating belly up clogged the narrow channel. Bach held back a shout. “Carp … goldfish! That old man sang about goldfish—this must be the way.”
Then he saw a sprawling plot of land two hundred yards left of the stream. Tangled, withered grapevines clung to arched, wooden frameworks laid out in hundreds of evenly spaced rows. Visible on a hill overlooking the vineyard were dozens of boulders and headstones—the graveyard.
Dreading the navigational challenge ahead, Bach complained. “Picking our way through all those grapevines to get to the graveyard won’t be easy, but there’s no choice.” They jogged toward the grape arbor and had covered more than one hundred yards before the ground beneath their feet suddenly turned marshy and their boots left four-inch deep imprints. “Part of an irrigation system for the vineyard,” he said, breathing hard. “It’s like running across a wet sponge.”
At those words, their feet sank ankle deep in gruel-like muck, and both pitched forward. Star managed to right herself and turn around. She helped Bach stand, but by now he had sunk to his knees.
“Quicksand!” he yelped.
Star tried to take a step, but her legs were in calf-deep. Bach grabbed her around the waist and pulled with all his strength to lift her, but the mire gripped like wet cement. “Sinking fast,” he said with a hard breath. He locked his hands behind his right knee and tried to free his leg, but with the forward shift of motion the quicksand claimed his thighs. “Star, we’re trapped!”
Both struggled in desperation, but with every passing second the unrelenting quicksand pulled them deeper. Bach had sunk to his waist; Star to her thighs. She stretched her arms sideways and stuck her hands into the mire. “Feel underneath. Maybe there’s something we can latch on to and pull ourselves to the side.”
Bach reached beneath the surface. “Left side. I feel something.” He wrapped his hand around what felt like a slimy rope and pulled on it, but the clump of cattail reeds and marsh grass he’d grabbed turned to mush in his hand. Again he strained to the limits of his left arm, this time feeling something like a small tree stump. He wrapped his fingers around it ever so gently and tried to ease himself from the quicksand. The waterlogged stump uprooted and the momentum took him another inch deeper. His anguished cry echoed through the barren vineyard.
Star leaned as close to Bach as she could. “Hold on to me. I’ll try to turn on my side, then maybe I can float on the top and you can push me to the edge.”
The two clung to each other in a bear hug and Star tried to free her legs by kicking up from behind. The upward movement allowed her a glimpse over Bach’s shoulder for a brief moment. Hunkered down a few yards away, a dark-skinned man and woman in shabby clothes watched the Arkmates’ struggle. “Help us!” she called out. “Bach, there are two people over there.”
He couldn’t turn to see, but yelled with all the strength left in his lungs. “Help. Please. Find something to pull us out.”
The man started to stand, but the woman pulled him back.
By now, the quicksand had gulped another three inches, taking Bach chest deep, Star to her waist. “You can’t let us die!” he yelled.
Star struggled to see over Bach’s shoulder.
He yelled again, “Help us.”
“They’re gone,” she said breathlessly.
His heart sank along with another inch of his body, and his head began to throb as pressure increased on his chest and squeezed his lungs. He closed his eyes.
Star tapped his face. “Don’t sleep, Bach! Open your eyes!” She looked around in a panic. The man and woman were back, closer and off to the side.
The haggard-looking man inched toward the quicksand and stopped a few yards away. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
Bach reached out in a plea for help but couldn’t speak.
“We’re from Dura,” Star replied loudly, “looking for those who used to run the co-op. Please—”
“Why do you want them?” The man snapped.
The woman stepped forward. Her puffy face and dark-circled eyes looked like she’d been crying for days. “Why haven’t we seen you before?”
Bach’s breaths came fast and short. “We’re on a special mission … the regular crew isn’t here … need to find the co-op … to help your people.”
The man glared. “We don’t want your help. Everything here turns out bad.”
“Please give us a chance,” Star begged.
The couple looked around fearfully and whispered to each other, then headed to the vineyard where they knotted old grapevines into a lifeline, carried it back to the quicksand pit, and tossed one end to Bach. He slipped it around Star’s upper body and the couple pulled her from the mire. He was next.
The Arkmates stood motionless as lumps of quicksand slid down their silver jumpsuits and pooled around their boots. Bach could barely speak. “Thank you.”
The man’s eyes moved uneasily across the land. He took the woman by the hand and started to walk away.
“Don’t go,” Star pled. “Please help us find the co-op area. My name is Star, and this is Bach. We’re from Dura.”
The couple stopped but didn’t turn around. The man’s body started shaking and he sobbed. “This planet is in evil hands. Cultivators have everything.” He turned and looked Bach in the eyes. “Your exchange crews are in great danger.”
Star stepped to his side. “A lady named Sapphira wanted to help us. Who is she?”
The woman gasped. “Sapphira? You spoke to Sapphira, the deceptive queen leader?”
“I sensed her deceit,” Star replied. “We’ve led her astray.”
The man whispered to the woman. She nodded. “I’m Hope, and this is my mate, Freeman,” she said. “We were the last commoners to help with the co-op effort before the takeover. We hid the food and supplies from the last two co-op deliveries in the graveyard. At night we sneak into the campsite to feed the alms people. They’re dangerously undernourished.”
Freeman added, “We’re in great peril—our lives in danger. The lords are looking for us. We’ve been hiding.”
Bach stared at the bedraggled pair. Could they be the chosen ones? But there’s no symbol. He pointed to Star’s necklaces. “Have you ever seen anything that looks like this?”
“We commoners have no jewelry,” Freeman replied. “Everything’s been taken from us.”
“No—it doesn’t have to be jewelry,” Bach added. “It can be anything … anything that looks like this … a crossed circle.”
“A crossed circle? No,” Freeman replied weakly. He stared at the symbol then pulled Hope aside and talked in private. “We can think of only one thing,” he said quietly. “But you’ll have to come to our hiding place to see if it’s what you seek.”
“Behind a waterfall.”
“Waterfall?” Bach groaned and plowed his dirty hands through his hair. “We’re short on time.”
Star said, “We passed a cliff with three waterfalls after leaving our ship.”
“Those are the ones,” Freeman answered.
Bach pulled the map from his pocket and showed it to Freeman. “We’re parked here, but we’ve covered a lot of ground since we passed the waterfalls. What’s the quickest way there?”
“A back trail. Follow me.”
#
Freeman and Hope’s hideout was in one of two caverns behind the waterfalls. The few remaining animals lived in the other. As soon as she entered, Hope cleared pebbles from an area of the floor and dug in the dirt to uncover a small, round, clay box. “This is all I can think of that looks like your symbol.” She handed the box to Star.
Star lifted the round lid. The box had two crisscrossing dividers inside. “This looks right. It’s a symbol.”
“Our oldest daughter, Kyrie, made it to hold four family treasures—one from each grandparent.” Hope’s eyes teared. “Our elders fought hard to break free of this planet, but there’s no way to freedom. Our children hid the last of our animals here in the cavern and cared for them. When our shelter burned down, all three children went missing. We’ve hidden here ever since.”
Star comforted Hope with a hug. “Children are missing from all of the planets. I’m going to find out why. How old were they?”
“Nine, eleven, and twelve.”
“Come with us now. You’ll be safe,” Star said. “We’ll do our best to find your children.”
#
Bach and Freeman boarded the animals, and Star led Hope to the E-module.