by Josi Russell
“Not anymore,” he said darkly. He had spent a lot of time this summer reading the reports from the scientists and soldiers who had gone to Empyriad. Many had come back and were sharing their research. He knew where they worked, what they were doing. Many of them were at the University in Shoreline. He would love to go and talk to them.
"I know what I'm going to do." He said suddenly.
"Oh do you?" she ran a hand down his forearm and tangled her fingers in his.
He was mildly annoyed. "I'm serious. I know where I want to go."
"Oh, yeah?"
"I'm going back to Shoreline. I’m going to meet the people who have been to Empyriad. I’m going to find a way to help the Stracahn."
Mezina was quiet. When she did speak, her voice was flat. “Help them with what, Sol?”
“With their integration.”
Now Mezina sounded annoyed. "Sol, that's not going to happen, not if the human population has anything to do with it."
He pulled his hand from hers. "That’s why they need help. I thought they’d be taken care of in there, but nobody is looking out for them. The Rangers want them out, and the world won’t let them in. Somebody has to do something for them. I didn’t watch out for that little girl, even though I felt like I should. And now it’s too late for her. I can’t help her now, but I think I can find a way to help the others."
“They’re dangerous, Sol! They have weird powers.”
“Mezina, I’ve met them. I’ve talked to them. They’re not dangerous. They’re beautiful.”
Mezina scoffed. “You’re throwing that word around pretty easily tonight.”
He tried to make her see.
“This world is entirely new to them. You don’t know because you’ve never left Liberty, but it’s scary going to a new place.” The night wind ruffled the edge of the blanket, and Sol heard the crickets in chorus around them. Even those peaceful things might hold unknown dangers for the Stracahn. “And there are already so many threats to them, without adding in humanity. Do you know how many of them died because of a stupid allergy? I saw their dead—”
She interrupted. "But Sol, that’s the point. They can't survive here because they don't belong here. It's natural selection."
"That’s heartless."
“It’s just a fact.” She said.
Sol tried to step back from the conflict. “I just want to help them, Mez.”
She pushed harder. “So you want to help them? Where does that end? You give them a place to live, but they also have to have food, and they have to have clothes, and then they have babies, and the babies need all that stuff, too. But they can’t do it themselves because they’re allergic to our wildflowers.”
Sol shook his head. “You’re cruel.”
"I'm not. I’m practical. I don't dislike the Stracahn. I just don't want them coming here and making humans miserable just because they're sick and useless."
Sol stood up.
Mezina called after him. “And don’t you realize that bringing them here could mean more war? You hate fighting with the Cascadians so much, but what happens when the Stracahn numbers have grown? When Yellowstone’s not enough for them anymore, and they come for Silver Lake Ranch? How do you feel about them then? And what about when there are more of them than there are of us? You think they’re pitiful now, but what if all your help makes them powerful? That’s a very different alien race you want to bring into our world.”
Suddenly, even with the moonlight glinting off her raven hair, Mezina didn't seem quite so attractive.
The next day, Sol had so many chores that he didn’t make it to the warehouse until midafternoon. Since school had ended, he usually went early and made three, sometimes four supply runs every day. And he was getting a pretty good amount saved up. Shoreline didn’t seem quite so distant now.
The warehouse where Sol picked up things that needed to be delivered into the park was one vast room. At one end the donations were stacked. The ones which had traveled far were taken to the middle, uncrated, inventoried, and crated again before they were sent out. Local donations were moved right to inventory.
Sometimes Sol stopped to help unload the donation trucks, and sometimes he just picked up his load. Today he ran into Syd, the Ranger he’d met in the village, who took him along to help where they were shorthanded in the inventory and recrating section.
The building was sweltering. Though nights here in South Edge were cool year-round, the temperatures spiked in these late summer afternoons, and the big building was only cooled by fans near the roof that pulled outside air in. It wasn’t really meant for humans to work in. Before the Stracahn refugee crisis, it had stored the Park Service’s fleet of spiders.
To make things worse, Sol was inventorying blankets and coats.
Sol was often surprised at the strange things people donated to the refugees. Sometimes boxes left at the door would be full of old paint cans or office supplies. Sometimes people brought knickknacks or picture frames, as if the donators were just cleaning out their closets and thought the aliens might be able to use a resin teddy bear to ease their transition to Earth.
“What are they going to need these for?” Sol held up a heavy wool jacket with one hand and wiped a hand slick with sweat across his forehead. “Are we even sending these in?”
Syd nodded and stepped close. “Listen, Sol, don’t mention it to anyone, but it looks like the Stracahn will be in the park a little longer than we initially thought.”
“Really?” Sol began folding the coat.
“Right. The big integration is called off. They are going to send a few Stracahn out in the winter, but most of them will be there through next year.” Syd shook his head, “And living in those Quickforms through the Yellowstone winter; they’re going to need all the coats they can get.”
Sol laid the coat in a crate. So the humans’ outcry had had its intended effect. The Stracahn would not be coming out.
He was so distracted by the thought that he almost didn’t realize what he was folding next. He was about to lay it in the crate when the bright purple pinwheels caught his eye, and he recognized his mother’s quilt.
He turned it over. It was, absolutely, the quilt she had been making. So this was why she didn’t want Uncle Carl to know about it. She wasn’t worried about the cost. Molly was secretly making quilts for the Stracahn.
Sol swallowed hard. He was proud of his mom. He felt suddenly closer to her like they had more in common than he had realized. Though Sol hadn’t told her about his job yet, he resolved to tell her the moment he got home.
“Syd,” he said as he laid the quilt in the crate, dropped the lid into place and tapped the tacks in to hold it closed, “I’d better go get my delivery made.”
“Okay, kid. Thanks for your help.”
Sol hesitated. “Syd, could I deliver this one?”
Syd shrugged. “Has the stuff been entered?” Sol nodded. “Great. Go for it. One less crate in the way here.”
Sol lifted it and loaded it into the truck, then pulled around to finish out his load with food crates.
He was, for the first time in a long time, excited to get his delivery over and go home. He wanted to talk to his mom. Maybe he would even tell her about his plan to go back to Shoreline. Maybe she would even come with him. Out there it wouldn’t be this constant battle between what he wanted to do and what everyone else wanted him to do. His dad would have understood that. His dad had always been able to make the tough decisions. Sol pushed away the thought that perhaps if his dad had done what someone else wanted, just that one time, he might still be alive. The thought cast a cloud over his excitement. That's what Sol found exhausting about life. Just when you think you've found an absolute, an "except" turns up.
Ranger Allison was at the gate. She was smiling as she came up to check his permit. She was always friendly and seemed glad he was helping. That wasn't true of all the Rangers. In fact, another one, a dark-haired man whose nametag said "Henley," followed her,
scowling at Sol. As she handed him the pass back, Henley barked, "What you got in these?"
Sol shrugged. "It’s a food load. Just picked them up at the warehouse."
"Pull forward and get 'em out. Let's have a look." Henley gestured to the pull-out just through the gate.
Sol maneuvered the truck through the big entrance, parked, and stepped out. He moved to the back and dropped the tailgate. What would he smuggle in here? A bomb? He jumped into the truck bed, scooted the first crate back, then hopped down, strained to lift it, and carried it over near the guard station, where the dark-haired Ranger was waiting. Henley popped it open with a crowbar, revealing canned goods.
"Fine." He said, "Get another."
Sol brought another, and another. Henley checked them and passed them off. On the last crate, the Ranger swore as he pulled the lid off.
"Hey!" he said, "does this look like food to you?"
Sol stepped around the other crates and peered inside. A cool breeze was blowing, and he saw it ruffle the edge of his mom’s quilt inside. Henley dug through the box full of blankets and coats.
"Tryin' to pull somethin, here, kid?" He growled. Sol realized that in the excitement of his revelation he had forgotten to get the coded label for the crate.
Allison stepped up, "Cool it, Henley." Then, to Sol, she said, "this happens all the time. It's label probably just fell off. Just take it back to the waystation."
“Actually, I helped pack it,” Sol said. “I just forgot to label it. Sorry.”
"He's not takin' it into the park," Henley said.
Allison stopped just short of rolling her eyes. "Okay, well, leave it here. Just pick it back up on your way out." She said.
Henley stepped forward aggressively, "And get the rest of these loaded back up.”
“Yes, sir,” Sol said. He was a little disappointed he wouldn’t get to deliver his mom’s quilt, but he knew better than to argue.
Henley kept on. “I know you, kid. I know this truck sometimes gets ‘lost’ in the park and takes some detours. I’m going to be watching for you. You'd better get these up to Hayden Valley and be back here before my shift ends at ten."
Sol kept his biting remarks to himself like he always did. "Yes sir," he said as they turned to go back into the guard station. His arms and chest burned as he lifted the crates and loaded them back into the truck. He left the box of blankets where it was.
Grunting, he lifted the last crate of food and shoved it into the little space left between the others. Sol reached for the tailgate.
At that moment, a clicking sound made him half-turn, and he heard before he saw a bright, deafening explosion behind him. The rolling shockwave that hit him threw him down on the tailgate of the pickup, where months ago the bison had left the dent, sharp and now laced with rust. Sol felt sharp pain where his head struck it. The blast pushed the truck forward and slid the crates to the front of the truck bed with a crash. He fell to the dirt and laid there, his head spinning.
Sol’s lungs burned with the dirt in the air. Stones and wood and debris from the building rained down on him. He scooted under the tailgate of the truck, wiping blood from his eyes, watching, and trying to breathe.
Through the thick air, he could see that things had changed. There was a crater bigger than the truck where the crate had been, and the rocks and dirt that had been in the crater were now piled in a ring around it.
Sol stared at the gate. Or what used to be the gate. Where he had entered, the fence had fused closed. Though the base of the fence was hidden behind boulders that had been churned up by the blast, and others were still falling from the high peaks above, what he could see of the fence ran in one smooth, unbroken barrier between him and home.
He looked away. Dirt and smoke still hung heavy in the air, but the largest of the debris had crashed back to Earth.
Adrenaline hit Sol’s system. He scrambled to the cab of the truck, turned it on, and threw gravel from his tires as he fled. He looked in the rearview and saw motes of dust clouding the mountain of rubble where the gates had been.
The world was spinning. Sol gripped the wheel and tried to keep the truck straight. As Sol drove, he saw the outline of a man, frozen for a moment on the edge of the Lewis River. Sol slowed—the man would have to come back onto the road, there was nothing in front of him but the water. He couldn't hike forward any farther. Sol glanced back at the road, easing over into the middle to give the man room to come back on the road. When he looked back, the man had vanished. Only the bright river lay glinting in the sun. Sol shook his throbbing head and tried to focus on the road.
21
Zyn'dri heard a sound like distant thunder. She called the semballa and held it close as she slipped back into the cabin. She listened for more thunder, but she heard nothing except the forest silence as she settled onto the floor. She was weaving a rug with the long grasses, one like they'd had at home on Empyriad. The pattern wasn't quite right, and the grasses were a bit too thick, and her work was much sloppier than her mother's had been, but it felt good to do something they had done together, and the work brought Zyn'dri's mother closer to her somehow.
Zyn'dri noticed the rug slightly shaking as she worked. When she glanced over at the semballa, he was contentedly chewing the end of one long, unwoven blade of grass. She breathed out in annoyance and scooped him towards a pile of the tattered ends she'd been clipping off with her teeth. "Eat those, not my rug!" she said gruffly. The semballa switched to the new fare without seeming to mind.
22
Caldwell stooped at the edge of the river and watched the last of the light fade. They wouldn’t even be able to track him because he was hiking up the river away from the gate. He’d use the next few hours to rest before heading into the backcountry. Everyone else’s panic and the chaos he had left behind would provide the perfect cover while he got on his way.
They wouldn’t be looking for him. Three days ago, when he’d had a shift at the warehouse in town, he'd seen a crawler filled with homemade explosives parked on Main Street in South Edge. Some rancher had been taking homemade bombs to the Milguard armory, he’d guessed. He had snagged eight of the explosive packs and used them on the gate. So if they got around to looking for the cause at all they would start looking outside the park. More likely, though, they'd spend the first while on recovery. He could hear the Ranger’s crawler ambulance siren cutting through the night already. Not that there would be much to recover.
The packs had been effective. Quality military-grade stuff. They had compromised the fence, and it had fused just as he had hoped, and brought down some of the peaks beside the gate for good measure and dramatic effect. He hadn’t had time to check the site fully, but everything seemed to have worked according to plan.
The other three gates would be harder, now that they were alerted, and he would have to change his tactics, but he was satisfied at how well this one had gone. Once he completely sealed this place off from the outside it would be easy to take care of the malignancies inside. And Damen couldn’t come in. And then the park could heal. He would help it. He just had to be patient.
Caldwell froze. Impossibly, there was a vehicle approaching. The young driver may already have seen him. Heart pounding, he slid smoothly into the water and crawled away from the road. The vehicle didn’t slow, and as it moved past him he pushed away a weak thought: it was too bad about Allison.
23
Walt sipped his stinging nettle tea. It was too hot, and too strong because he'd made it himself, but he didn't care. Sylvia was worse. He'd had to leave her this morning for the Ranger meeting, and now she was weaker than she had ever been and vomiting. Late evening light streaked through the windows as he tucked an extra blanket around her shivering shoulders and tried to keep her distracted. He told her about Caldwell's outburst and how he had subsequently stormed out of the meeting.
She spoke, but he couldn't hear her. She licked her lips and tried again.
"I saw him." She said softly, moving her
head on the pillow to look out the front window, which revealed the woods behind the Ranger housing.
Walt blinked. "When?"
"This morning." She said. "Thought he was going hiking. He had that big black pack he keeps by his door."
Walt's heart stopped. "The black one? Are you sure?" He didn't mean to sound so intense, but he had to know.
She nodded, drifting back to sleep.
"You're sure?" Walt asked, but Sylvia was asleep, and he was already on his feet, stumbling to the front door to grab his radio and gun. He had to get ahold of the Rangers on duty.
But as he switched it on, he knew he was too late. The radio was clogged with the panicked voices of the Rangers. Something had happened. Something terrible. For the second time, he had been too late to stop Caldwell.
He strode to the window. The voices on the radio were talking about the South gate. He could see little more in that direction than the menacing outline of the trees, standing against the fading sky like rows of teeth. But he did see two spots of light approaching, and he did see Sol pulling into the parking lot below in his old truck.
"What's he doin'?" He wondered as the pickup door swung open. The boy got out, stumbled, and slumped against the hood of the truck. Walt bolted out.
When he got down there, Walt could see that thick, dark blood streaked Sol's temple. A cut on his head was bleeding profusely, throbbing as each heartbeat hit. Walt jammed a shoulder under Sol’s, supporting him and leading him up the stairs and into the front door of their little apartment. Walt led the kid to the couch and watched him sink gratefully into the softness of it.
Walt knew how to tend to people. He went to work cleaning the wound, then disinfected it and got some pain reliever into the kid.
"What happened down there?" Walt asked when Sol's eyes had cleared a bit, and he lay easier.
"An explosion," Sol said. "I was just getting back in the truck." Walt watched his eyes cloud as he sorted through the memory of it, “There was the boom, and it knocked me into the back of the truck. But before that . . ." He trailed off, then was quiet.