Jumpship Hope

by Adria Laycraft

  The aliens began gesturing at seats and helping with straps. They walked with astounding elegance, wings folded to their backs. They had a strange curvature to their spines, beak-like protrusions for faces, and downy feathers of various shades. Janlin couldn’t help but reach out to touch one of them as they passed, connecting with a smooth bit of arm, cool and silky, like a dolphin she had touched in a zoo once. The creature turned at her touch before she could try a feathered wing, gently guiding her into a seat and adjusting the straps.

  The rest of the group seemed awed. The room fell quiet, and the aliens moved around with agile grace. They were everything the Imag were not. Janlin watched them and wondered at Anaya’s animosity. She’d expected something unlikable and had hoped to avoid them at all costs. Now she felt privileged to have touched one.

  The floor shuddered, and the ship rang with a clank. The aliens left, closing the hatch, and the room’s atmosphere changed to one of fear.

  “Rudi might be down there,” Gordon said.

  Janlin’s eyes welled up. “I hope so.” She already knew there were surviving humans down there, but how many of the Renegade’s crew made it?

  “You keep hoping, babe.” Gordon winked. “Life’s gonna get better than what we’ve had of late.”

  “These . . . Birdfolk,” she said, almost calling them Huantag again. “They seem so peaceful.”

  Gordon opened his mouth to reply, but conversation became impossible as re-entry began, and Janlin squeezed her eyes shut.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  SUNLIGHT BATHED HER skin in warmth, shining from a pale green sky laced with wispy clouds. A breeze tousled her hair, making her lift her chin and close her eyes to relish it. Others crowded out onto the hard-packed dirt, so she opened her eyes and stepped forward, inhaling again and again the aromas of earth and wind and growing things. She scanned, relieved at the open spaces and lack of guards and weapons. Had she died and gone to heaven? Certainly, the sight of winged aliens gliding overhead nurtured the idea.

  They all had different reactions. Gordon’s mouth hung open as he turned slowly to take it all in. Tyrell whooped and danced in celebration. Jari Lovell knelt on the ground and kissed the earth. He wasn’t the only one.

  Janlin cried tears of joy at the viable planet, grief that Stepper would never see it, and a restless hope that her father was waiting for her here.

  The aliens moved among them, handing out woven hats and containers of water. Janlin accepted her gifts, grateful that someone thought of such necessities in the heat of the day.

  They stood on a high plateau stretching north and west to meet the rugged mountain range that dominated the skyline. Further southwest, a misty horizon suggested coastline and ocean, and to the direct south, the land opened to the horizon in rolling grasslands.

  This scrub plain held little plant life, however, and the shuttle’s scorching blast at landing seemed to do no harm to the landscape. A turn to look east revealed distant cliffs that seemed to be terraced. She shaded her eyes to peer closer. Was that . . . movement?

  A cry went up, and Janlin echoed it. Figures ran from the cliff-side village, human figures: wingless and stuck to the ground and oh, so beautiful.

  The light gravity made it easy to run, and Janlin laughed like a child at the long strides and bouncing leaps she could take. The grasses were more prominent here, accented by clumps of thorny bushes of the deepest maroon. She vaulted each one effortlessly, others following her lead. It was still too far to make out individuals, but she exchanged a look of hope and joy with Gordon as he matched her pace.

  More and more people emerged into the scrub field from the group of buildings in the distance. The settlement was made from squat buildings the same colour as the dirt, a fine, soft tan that verged on sand. The huts were unlike anything she’d ever seen, rounded and smooth, seeming to grow organically from the very earth itself.

  The first face Janlin recognized was the young woman with the teardrop scar. She ran headlong towards them with a look of consternation.

  “Why didn’t they tell us you were coming?” she demanded before she even reached them. She scanned Janlin, then Gordon, then the group as a whole. “Are any of you in need of medical care?” she asked, clearly bewildered that they seemed whole and hale.

  “We’re great,” Gordon said. “We worried about you, though. They pulled you without any reason at all, and now we find you here, living the high life.”

  People were meeting all around them with hugs and shouts of joy amongst the waving sea of grass and the heat of real sunshine. Janlin saw three scientists, Jari one of them, exchanging excited greetings with hand pumping and much slapping of backs.

  Those that met them wore hats, too, and little else. Ship wear was “modified” for the new circumstances—torn off sleeves, shortened pants, open collars.

  The medic grinned. “This place is fantastic,” she said, nodding in recognition at Janlin. “But usually the Imag trade the injured. You will practically double our numbers here.”

  “Seems they’re done with us,” Gordon said. “Shipped us all off except for Fran.”

  Janlin stood on tiptoe, leaning this way and that to scan faces while Gordon and the woman chatted. Tyrell, heads together with two pilots from the Renegade, turned and saw them and waved with a smile. She waved back. Many faces were familiar, but she didn’t see the one she searched for. Her heart thudded from more than just the run, and she licked dry lips to try and speak.

  “Come along, then,” called the medic, raising her voice. “We’ll have some serious building to do, and some creative cooking to finagle dinner for everyone tonight.”

  “Wait,” Janlin called to her. “Is there a man here named Rudigar? Or Rudi?”

  The young medic hesitated, and Janlin felt her gut clench.

  “There’s a small gravesite on the hill—”

  Without knowing how, Janlin found herself on her knees. Her chest heaved and heaved. People knelt by her. She knew Gordon’s voice, attempting to console, and soft hands squeezed her own.

  “Come, let’s get you out of the sun.”

  Words, sounds, heat, tears. Don’t cry, she told herself. Not yet. Not sure yet, right? None of it made sense. Janlin felt all her hopes spiralling away into a dark void, and she gave herself to it.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “. . . JUST TIRED. I think she stowed away . . . no food or drink . . .”

  Janlin phased in and out, listening to the low rumble of Gordon’s voice in counterpoint to the medic’s soft one. She really needed to ask for her name. She couldn’t just keep calling her Teardrop, even if it suited her.

  And then consciousness brought home the painful knowledge once again.

  She wished now she was dead and gone and unknowing. What was her father’s death in the grand scheme? Nothing, except to her. Her muscles were leaden, and she kept her eyes closed, faking sleep. There was still some hope that he was alive, and if she didn’t rise, that hope couldn’t be taken away. Yet, in her heart of hearts, she knew. Teardrop would know him, or of him. That’s just the kind of guy Rudigar Kavanagh was.

  “Just give her some time to rest,” said the woman. Teardrop. Without meaning to, Janlin opened her eyes. She lay on a low cot, a rounded ceiling of beams and packed mud bricks over her. It was cool despite the heat outside. Other cots were set around the walls, each one empty, and a table and chair sat in the middle. Various shelving units held bowls, folded linen, and medical tools.

  Janlin sat up. The voices had moved away, and for that she was glad. She certainly didn’t have a monopoly on grief, but she didn’t feel ready to face anyone just yet. Even as she wallowed in her heartache, it wasn’t until her pain at losing Stepper surfaced that she really broke down.

  Guilty over that and so many other things, Janlin dropped her head in her hands. She had selfishly let Ursula convince her that Gordon should go on this doomed mission. She had nearly killed Candice and Weston through sheer negligence. She had rel
eased Stepper from the horror of slavery and torture right before hope arrived. And now her father might lie buried six feet under on an alien hillside. Dismay overwhelmed her, but she fought off the temptation to stay on the cot.

  She longed for an escape, and her gaze fell on the table that held strange-looking surgical equipment. There were scissors, knifes, clamps . . . although all shaped differently than what she’d seen before.

  She lifted a knife, letting the light from outside glint off the sharp surface. She had contemplated it before. Was this her way out?

  Gordon would be heartbroken, she realized. And what of Anaya? Janlin took the device from her pocket, amazed that she’d almost forgotten.

  In one hand, a knife. A way out, to not care or hurt anymore. Oblivion.

  In the other, a connection. Possibly a way home. Gordon still had Ursula waiting for him. How could she not struggle on for his sake?

  She set the knife on the table. It could never really be an option, she knew, yet it was surprising how tempting it was. She understood her willingness to let Stepper go, in that way, understood his desire to go, and finally made some peace with it.

  So many good people lost. She straightened up, slid Anaya’s comm-unit into her pocket, and decided to go find the gravesite.

  Janlin stepped into heat and brightness and wind. Squinting, she stared at her surroundings. So amazing to breathe the air without fear. Amazing to see the clear sky, even if it did seem more green than blue. Anaya said these Huantag brought this world back from the brink of ecological destruction. Maybe there was something to learn from these Birdfolk.

  Clusters of the rounded buildings—no, shelters, Janlin realized, and temporary ones at that—were nestled under the cliffs. As she registered the huts and dirt trails, she wondered why these advanced beings housed their guests in such primitive ways. Would they be subservient here, too?

  The land sloped gently away from where she stood, revealing terraces full of the adobe-style huts. Trees of brilliant green and purplish bark offered the occasional patch of shade. Over a low wall down in the valley she realized some of her old crew bent to till soil and tend plants growing there. A garden? Janlin longed for Ursula to see this place and revel in its botany. It only darkened her mood to think this way, and she held dear to her plan to get them all home again, even if it meant leaving such a utopia.

  She wandered now, lost in the surreal surroundings. She imagined her dad living here. Did he garden, and draw water from that well? Janlin leaned against a wall in the shade so she could watch her own kind living as if thrown backwards in time.

  Except—there were no children. Without a way to reverse SpaceOp’s nano-contraceptive, there would never be any.

  Janlin shook her head. Having children here wasn’t part of the plan. She would not give up on going home. This place only proved they could find other planets. Once home again, they could go looking elsewhere, preferably for uninhabited planets without different races battling over possession rights.

  She straightened, noticing a quiet path above the quaint village. She had to face reality so she could move forward and look beyond just surviving this adventure to find better solutions for those back home.

  If Anaya played her part, it would all work out. She’d get Gordon home to Ursula. To think, she’d have done and seen none of this if Stepper hadn’t—

  Rounding a bend, she collided with someone coming the other way along the narrow footpath between the squat buildings. Janlin looked up into familiar brown eyes and her heartbeat faltered . . . before starting again double time to rush against her ribcage.

  “Stepper,” she whispered.

  It seemed that everything she learned, everything she believed, every promise she’d made to herself, she forgot when she saw his face.

  “Janlin?” He broke into a wide grin and took her into a tight hug, her arms squished against her sides. Then, before her breath returned, he quickly stepped back. He looked sideways at her, as if daring her to scold him for his intimacy.

  “But,” she floundered, wanting his arms back around her as much as she wanted to smack him for having the audacity to be alive. “Dammit, you died! I—I released the tourniquet.”

  “You did?” Stepper’s eyebrows knitted with this announcement.

  “How . . . ?”

  He lifted his arm, and above his elbow ran a network of angry red scars. “The Imag brought me here under the care of Renegade’s medic, and the Birdfolk rendered their magic on me. They did a great job, put me right back together,” he said. His eyes were wide, his emotions naked to her. “Did you really let me go?”

  “You asked me to!” Conflicting emotions roiled through her, but outside she just stared, numb, at the man she’d let die, the man who broke her heart, now here and impossibly alive.

  “I’m glad to see you safe,” he whispered. “I thought you were the one dead. I worried that you’d suffer for my stupidity.”

  Janlin studied him, his bare shoulders tanned darker than ever, and his eyes twinkling when he grinned at her. “Isn’t it great here?” he said, waving a hand to indicate the surrounding village.

  Janlin swallowed. She didn’t know what to say, and so said nothing, simply staring at him as if he were truly a ghost. Then he stole any hope she might have had left.

  “I am so sorry about Rudigar.”

  Janlin pushed past him, determined to see for herself, fleeing from the turmoil inside.

  “Hey!”

  She slowed, looking back. “What?”

  “Didn’t you just arrive with the latest group?”

  Janlin didn’t understand, didn’t want to talk to him anymore. “Yeah, so?”

  “You’re clean.” His confusion was accusatory.

  Janlin swallowed. “Yeah. I’ve got a story to tell regarding that. Later. After I see his grave for myself.”

  Something passed over his face. “Of course. Just keep going, stay to the right . . . it’s beneath that outcropping over there.”

  She glanced the way he pointed, and when she turned back, he was walking away.

  Janlin watched until he turned out of sight. With some effort she put one foot forward, then the other, until she found a path leading away from the settlement and right to the overhang Stepper had pointed out.

  The sun dropped low in the sky now, blazing and huge on the horizon. The hike left her winded and sweaty—yet calm. At least one hole in her heart was filled. Even if the man drove her crazy, a weight lifted knowing he was okay.

  The little gravesite stood bathed in reddish light, the upright stones throwing long shadows onto the dry ground, shadows taller than the men and women they remembered. Seven names stood out in stark relief. Rudigar’s was the third one in. A marker bore rough words chipped into the stone.

  “Helmsman, Renegade. A fine man and good friend. Rudigar Kavanagh.”

  Janlin knelt, pain coming from both her grief and her guilt. She turned and sat beside the stone, facing the setting sun.

  “I wish you’d told me,” she said. “I can’t believe you’d go on some crazy mission like this under Stepper’s command. I bet you always knew I still loved him, even if I couldn’t admit it to myself.”

  She brushed at the dirt, smoothing the sand and picking at small rocks. The sun dimmed and finally winked out beyond the horizon. Little creatures ran to and fro, some with fur, some with scales . . . one with both. Shapes rose and circled in the distance, and she could just make out colourful sparkling lights on towering buildings to the southwest.

  Still she sat, until finally Gordon came. At first, he stood to one side, paying his own respects. Then he reached out his hand for her, pulled her up, and led her away.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  JANLIN’S EMOTIONS BECAME suspended in the crisp evening air. She relished the light gravity lifting the body aches away, if not those of the heart. At least now she could let her father go with forgiveness and peace. He hadn’t abandoned her, but had pursued an adventure in hopes of
returning a hero. Her hero.

  Dusk settled slow on this land, building shadows and stretching them out to fill in all the highest places. Little creatures made the grass rustle, and the breeze wove through odd-shaped leaves.

  Gordon and Janlin walked together in silence, neither able to offer consolation to the other. The sounds of the gathered group grew closer, and the strange Huantag glowlights illuminated the growing dark.

  “Why did you think Stepper was dead?”

  Janlin glanced at Gordon, then away. “Long story,” she finally said.

  He slowed. “Tell me the condensed version.”

  She didn’t want to tell him. “We should hold a memorial for my dad.”

  He nodded in agreement, but said, “Don’t change the subject.”

  Janlin swallowed. “He got injured, was bleeding to death. You see the scars?” Another nod. Suddenly she was there, kneeing in the bloody pool again, her ears berated by the pounding screech of the machines around them. She tasted despair. “He asked me to set him free. I released the tourniquet. I watched him bleed.”

  She lifted her head, confronted her friend, challenging him to hate her now so she could feel justified to run far away until lost in this wide-open land. She saw the questions growing there in Gordon’s face, but they’d reached the edge of an open area lit by larger lights and filled with people. Food crowded the tables against one wall. Celebration filled the air. Janlin looked away from his questioning and faltered, reluctant to move into the brightness. She didn’t belong here, not right now.

  “Wait here,” Gordon said, leaving her in shadow as he moved towards the food. Janlin appreciated what he was trying to do and sank down onto a bench set against a low wall. From there she could watch without being noticed. Most faces were familiar. To one side Ron, an engineer, spoke with a tall lady she didn’t know. Over at the cooking station were two young programmers she knew to be nicknamed Huey and Duey, though she was sure those weren’t their actual names. They laughed and raised drinks in a toast with Tyrell.