Shadows of Empyriad (The Empyriad Series Book 1)

by Josi Russell

  She looked at the two with simultaneous pity and disgust. "We destroyed their home."

  "They say. Coulda happened anyway."

  Sol edged away from the conflict. He needed to get back to his truck before the Rangers got annoyed. He had heard it all before, especially living on the edge of Yellowstone. Aliens in the park were old news to him. The Stracahn were here, whether people liked it or not. As he looked over his shoulder to catch one last glimpse of them, he was glad.

  8

  Coming down the ramp, Zyn'dri paced her steps exactly between the woman in front of her and the old man behind. The woman was carrying a child in her arms, and her steps were smaller than Zyn'dri expected. The old man shuffled, leaving a gap if Zyn'dri wasn't careful.

  It took a long time to move down the winding ramp. She looked up and out, over the broad expanse of her new home. What she saw scared her.

  Thousands of Stracahn wove their way through lines that led to tents. Around them, directing them, humans dressed in black suits, their faces obscured by helmets and their hands gripping weapons.

  Beyond the tents, she saw rows of round huts arranged into a little village. Vehicles crawled among the huts. Zyn’dri was surprised at how gracefully the big machines moved. There had been nothing like them on Empyriad, not even after the humans came.

  She was at the end of the ramp now, and she stepped off the wooden ramp onto trampled grass, where so many of her people had stepped upon arriving. There she felt this new world under her feet. She was jarred as she felt its tempestuous soul. It was not the old and serene world she had come from. This world was turbulent. Things were happening inside it that she did not understand. What she did know, immediately, was that it was no place for the tranquil Stracahn. She pivoted and stepped back onto the ramp, and the old man behind her stopped and looked at her.

  "What's wrong?" he asked kindly.

  "We can't stay here." Zyn'dri heard her voice, and it sounded small and scared. No one would listen to her.

  "Keep the line moving!" one of the humans barked. But Zyn'dri was paralyzed. She didn't want to step back onto that ground, or feel what she felt in it, again.

  "Didn't you hear?" another of the black-suited officials growled. "Keep the line moving."

  Her parents were in a different line, with the other middle-aged adults. She looked for them but only saw the back of her mother's head, her orange hair tied up in a high knot. Crowds of people and a labyrinth of rough ropes separated them. Zyn'dri tried to calm herself. The only way to get back to her mother was to get through this line. She made fists of her hands and stepped back onto the Earth. She caught up with the woman in front of her and looked down at her feet, counting the steps they took.

  She flinched each time she stepped, feeling this new place under her feet. Her line worked its way through the ropes, weaving back and forth and coming ever closer to the stern humans in their black uniforms.

  Looking at them, Zyn'dri felt a chill she'd never felt before. Something threatening in their manner, in the way they spoke, loud and sharply, and the way they moved with so little restraint, caused her alarm. She looked up to reassure herself that her mother and father were still in the other line and found her mother was watching her, too. Her mother's gaze met her own, and she drew confidence from the liquid pools of her mother's eyes.

  It was a long time before she reached the table at the front of the line. Zyn’dri was hot and weary, her legs burning from the sensation of the new world and from the endless shuffling steps she took as she wound along with the other Stracahn. When she stepped up to the table, a weathered woman scrutinized her from under the raised faceshield of her helmet. The woman reached for Zyn'dri's hand and pressed it to a scanner. Light shot through it as the Ranger made a digital image of first that hand, then the other.

  “Name?” the Ranger barked.

  Zyn’dri found her mouth suddenly dry. “Zyn’dri.” She responded.

  “Cindy?” the woman began to write.

  Zyn’dri tried to make her words louder, and she emphasized her name. “No, Zyn’dri.”

  “Sydney.” The Ranger wrote it down and gestured her aside. Zyn’dri felt a knot in her stomach. She wanted to correct her, but she also wanted to get away from this place as fast as she could. She stayed silent. If the humans wanted to call her Sydney, what did that matter? Her people knew her name.

  The Ranger called to the man behind her, and he pulled a garment from a box. It was pushed roughly into Zyn'dri's hands and the woman gestured her aside and reached for the hands of the old man. Zyn'dri moved out of the way, pressing the clothing to her chest. Another Ranger, in the same type of helmet, gestured to her, glanced at the clothing, and directed her down a path to the right. She moved uncertainly along it like the others, until she came to another uniformed human who motioned her to a small dwelling.

  Zyn’dri went inside. It was fresh and shaded in there, and she sat on the floor clutching the new clothes, waiting for someone to find her.

  It was a long time before her mother swung the door open and entered the room. Zyn'dri looked up and realized she'd been sitting in the dark. Her body was sore and tired. Her mother clicked the switch and pale light glowed. "Where's Father?" Zyn’dri asked in a small voice.

  "He's still being processed. It won't be long. He'll be back soon." Zyn'dri's mother reached down and gathered the child into her arms. "It's all right, Shshaa. We're here together."

  Zyn'dri felt the tears starting. "I don't like this place. I don't like the hot air and the dry smell and the people with the helmets."

  "They're called Rangers, and I think they're trying to help. They're just a little afraid of us, too." Her mother stroked her hair and began to sing a song from home.

  9

  Ranger Justin Caldwell watched them come, his gaunt face hard and angry. He was hot behind the faceshield, and sweat ran down his temples as he turned back to the trail he was marking. He wanted to be back in his regular day uniform: hiking pants and a light button-up shirt. This manmade armor shell didn’t fit in here in Yellowstone. The others were wearing their shields up, but he wasn't taking any chances. He'd been here two hours already, hauling head-sized stones out of the wheelbarrow and thumping them into the ground to show where the aliens could walk and where they'd better not.

  Every blade of grass he crushed as he dropped the stones made him feel more like a traitor to this place that had saved him.

  He glanced around at the Rangers, processing the Stracahn, leading them to their huts. They were all traitors. His conversation just hours ago with the park director, Karson, had convinced him of that. Karson had said, "Like it or not, Caldwell, this is the way it is."

  Caldwell was taller than Karson, and he had leaned in, glowering down at his superior, trying to make him see reason. "Do you have any idea of how long we've fought to keep people OUT of here? To make sure the park was preserved for the future? The bears, the wolves, the bison, the pronghorn? Nobody even remembers those fights."

  Karson's voice had been much too calm when he answered, "Look, nobody wants to see the park destroyed. But you need to remember that we don’t own these parks. The Terrene Park Service doesn’t even own them. They belong to the Consolidated Terrene Leadership, and if they need a perfectly fortified place to stick a few thousand aliens, they have every right to use them that way.”

  “They have no right.” Caldwell had responded.

  Karson’s tone had turned patronizing, “It’s temporary, Justin. Damen says they will be out of here within 60 days.” Caldwell flinched at the mention of the Agent in Charge. He had been in the park last week, and his presence had shattered the little serenity Caldwell had left. Yellowstone was a place that Damen was never supposed to come. It was the place that had, until now, protected Caldwell from him.

  “After those 60 days, we’ll go right back to preservation and protection.” Caldwell had known Karson was trying to pacify him, “and when they’re gone, that’s when we’ll espec
ially need you to help rebuild.”

  “Get them out, Karson. Get all of them out before they do irreparable damage.”

  Karson had shaken his head. “I’m sorry, Justin. The Consolidated Terrene Leadership says—”

  “Get them out, too. If you care at all about this place.”

  Karson had shaken his head. “You need to accept that for now, the goals and designs for these spaces have changed."

  "Well, I haven't." Caldwell had spun and left the office.

  Now, he flinched as he looked across the ugly refugee camp. The great wide grassland was dotted with QuickForm huts, their rough brown profiles breaking the smooth sweep of Hayden Valley. The Stracahn moved between them, crushing two centuries worth of conservation initiatives under their hand-me-down shoes. Caldwell spat.

  He saw a grizzly wandering along the hillside behind the village with her two cubs. Their raw power made Caldwell smile. He had just finished a predator study here in Hayden Valley last fall. The predator counts were very high. That could have spelled trouble for the elk and bison herds, but maybe there was a point at which all these problems could intersect and help solve each other.

  It cheered him to think that perhaps, with the influx of aliens, the predators would have more to eat. Perhaps the park would cleanse itself.

  The second-oldest Ranger in the park, Sylvia, came up beside him and edged her wheelbarrow past his, setting to work on the other side of the trail. Caldwell swore under his breath.

  "What is it, Justin?" She asked, straining slightly with a big chunk of igneous rock. He heard it hit the ground, and he spun incredulously.

  "Are you kidding me? You know what's wrong. This whole situation is wrong. Hundreds of people, all over Hayden Valley, what's right?" He felt the intensity that always burned behind his eyes threatening to erupt.

  Sylvia nodded. "It does take some getting used to." She said noncommittally, hauling another rock out and dropping it along the trail.

  Caldwell took a menacing step toward her. "No. I'm not getting used to it. No Ranger in this park should get used to it."

  He wanted her to flinch, to apologize and tell him he was right, but Sylvia merely laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Easy, Justin. I'm on your side, remember?"

  He swore again and shook her hand off, stepping back to heft another rock and dropping it. "We don't even have a side anymore, Sylvia. Since the Consolidated Terrene Leadership took office, the whole world's gone crazy."

  "I don't think that's what they intended. The Leadership is just trying to make everyone get along. And they’re trying to please everybody. That generally only ends up making everybody mad."

  "I'm mad." Caldwell spat the words like a challenge.

  "I know. We all are." She didn't sound mad. Not mad enough, anyway.

  Caldwell tried to stir her up a little. "The Consolidated Terrene Leadership was supposed to eliminate conflict. That was the promise when people shifted power to them."

  "See, there's the problem." She said. "People expected them to end conflict, but only individual people can do that, not leadership." She made a little grunt as she rolled a big rock out of the wheelbarrow. Caldwell glanced up to see it narrowly miss her foot.

  She went on. "Now there are so many splinter groups, and the Consolidated Terrene Leadership is so far away, in Melbourne, that it seems the world is just a tangle of different groups all fighting for their own agenda. The harder the leadership tries to force them to get along, the deeper the divisions between them become. It was even that way when I left to come live here."

  "You've been here a long time." It was the one thing he respected about her, and about her husband, Walt. They had spent their lives in the park.

  "And now humanity is trying to deal with the thought of aliens on their planet. There’s bound to be some adjustment. Anyway, they're here, and we can't change that. Not now."

  He knew she was trying to convince him to calm down and accept that these aliens would be in the park. He knew she thought—all of them thought—he was taking this too hard, too personally. They thought he was losing it. In truth, he felt maybe he was. He had always been on the edge, and from the moment they'd received word that the refugees from Empyriad were coming to Yellowstone, he'd felt the rage taking over more and more.

  "It’s temporary." She said, encouragingly. "The leadership promised only to have them here 60 days, and some of them have already been here a few weeks. It may seem hard, but the goal is to get them out of the park."

  He hated ignorance as much as he hated complacency. "Come on, Sylvia. You've seen the reactions out there. The people are burning Stracahn effigies. Nobody's going to let these aliens come live in their towns. The Park the only place to stick them." He slammed another rock to the ground, knowing full well that it wasn't enough barrier to stop someone if they wanted to cross it into the thigh-high grass of Hayden Valley. "Ironic, huh?" he said, hearing the bitterness in his voice, "We spent decades fortifying this ecosystem against human encroachment, and that's what makes it the perfect place to dump aliens."

  Sylvia was quiet. He didn't know for sure what she thought of the Stracahn, but he could tell she didn't have the hatred for them that he and many other Rangers did. He wasn't sure she could be trusted. How committed was she to this place, anyway?

  But then she spoke. "It is a shame about the park, that it will no longer be protected from habitation. But I read that in the old days up to 6 million people came into the park, and though they took a terrible toll, the park made it through those dark days." Sylvia caught his eye. "There are many fewer Stracahn—only about 10,000—and I still can't believe that they will be forced to stay away from human society forever. We'll get them out of here eventually, Justin, and then the Rangers will do what they've always done and put this place right again."

  There was something about Sylvia that calmed people, and though Justin fought the comfort she was offering, he was able to drop the next rock a bit more gently as he held in his mind the idea of getting the Stracahn out of Yellowstone.

  10

  Sol pulled out onto the road, the huge transport behind him, empty now and being rechecked to go back to space and shuttle more of the Stracahn down into the park from the ships that had brought them from Empyriad. He had loved seeing them, but now his attention was fully on this mysterious place he was driving through. He'd seen all the footage of Yellowstone Global Park in school, and he'd heard all its stories, but he saw now that the virtual experiences were nothing like the real thing.

  There was wildlife everywhere. A massive bear looked up as Sol went by and he hoped the growl of the truck didn’t make it mad. The truck was energy efficient, but it was also deafening. Most of his friends had the new solar skimmers, and Sol admitted that sometimes he envied how quietly and easily they moved. But his uncle didn’t trust them, preferred an unsealed engine that he could take apart with his hands, so the ranch was something of a machinery museum. Even Uncle Carl’s crawler was unsealed. He’d had to special order it that way.

  It wasn’t all bad. Sol could see that the Rangers appreciated the truck. Crawlers, even small ones, certainly left more damage in their wake than four low impact tires. All the Rangers used spiders, which traveled on eight delicate articulated legs and left footprints no bigger than a dinner plate. The Terrene Park Service was still fighting to keep Yellowstone pristine, even in the face of thousands of aliens moving in. No one outside the park could stop talking about the injustice of the fact that even though no humans could enter Yellowstone except the 55 Park Rangers who lived inside, the Consolidated Terrene Leadership had decided to open it to the aliens.

  There had been other plans, of course, when the Leadership realized that Empyriad was dying, and the humans there insisted that the Stracahn be allowed to return with them to Earth. Politicians had discussed refugee programs where each Stracahn family would live with a human host family, but public opinion had been strong against intermingling them with humanity. Sol had heard the
y were physically superior to humans, and that some of them had dangerous powers, though no one seemed to know really what those powers were.

  There had been talk of clearing out the Mars research station and sticking them out there, but because people were actually living and working there, Mars seemed more valuable than Yellowstone. And the research station was expensive. It was hard enough getting funding for the humans who lived there. No one wanted to pay taxes to keep the Mars station habitable just so aliens could survive, so here they were.

  Yellowstone was perfect because people liked the idea that the same safeguards that had kept them out would now keep the aliens in. People liked that they would not have to see the Stracahn, or interact with them. If they had to deal with this unfortunate situation, they preferred to deal with it from afar.

  As Sol navigated the old truck up over a small rise, he plunged his foot on the brakes. The rolling green landscape before him was black with the lumbering forms of thousands of hairy bison. The herd moved like flowing water, slow and gently over the undulating hills. Sol parked and climbed out of the truck, watching as they walked across the road thirty feet in front of him.

  Sol sat and stared. They were enormous and powerful and shaggy. Not so different from his uncle's cattle, but certainly more majestic, and wilder. They seemed more alert to the environment around them.

  The people on either side of the fence weren't so different, either, he thought. They all felt passionate about the land; they just couldn't seem to agree on how to balance their needs with everyone else's. There were so many ironies, and neither side could see them. He wondered how many of the Rangers knew that the first bison conservation efforts were undertaken by cattlemen who saw bison disappearing and wanted to preserve them. He wondered if they knew that without them, the bison would have been gone long before the earliest Rangers were sworn in. Sol's father had believed that people could always find common ground if they would look for it, and there was a grain of that belief in Sol, too. He wanted unity, wanted an end to the violent disagreements that had killed his father, but it didn't seem like that would ever happen.