Tiera's Earth (Andromeda 9 Book 1)

by Ethan T. Marston

  I wish I had my phone. Tiera thought of how Leon had snatched it and wished she could have been more prepared. I’m a Blue Belt for goodness sake. Thinking of Leon made her think of the walk through the university building, the stares she felt as people peeked through their doors, the heads that turned on the street as people recognized her. Well, they recognized me until Leon had asked for a blanket to be put over my head. It all made her feel so alone.

  After she had waited for what felt like several hours—but was probably much less than that—Tiera’s door slid open. A very clean-looking man in a long gray shirt and white apron walked in with a tray of food. He was a tan man with angular eyes and a strong jaw, but he had the same buzz cut that Tiera had seen on many men since she got here.

  “Does that hairstyle mean something? Or is it just fashionable here?” Tiera asked without thinking.

  The man set Tiera’s tray on her desk without looking at her, then turned to leave. Just before the door shut behind him, Tiera swore she heard him mumble “fashionable.” She wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or to laugh.

  Tiera hopped up from her bed and hurried to her desk, which only took two and a half steps. She realized she hadn’t had any solid food since she had left Farr’s Ice Cream three days ago, and with food in reach her brain finally let her feel her hunger pangs. She pulled the lid off of her plate and was surprised to see rice, broccoli, and some sort of fish filet. Their food isn’t different here? she thought, grabbing the spork they left and hefting some rice into her mouth. Normal rice. She took another bite. And normal broccoli. And another. And normal . . . tilapia?

  With just a few bites left of her meal, Tiera heard her door slide open. She turned, excited to see what else she could weasel out of the quiet apron man—but that excitement died quickly. Standing in the doorway was Chief Leon Uedent, stoic as ever.

  “Oh” was all she managed to say.

  “Good evening,” he replied ironically. “I wanted to get started as soon as possible, so we’ll have to talk here in your cell.” Leon stepped forward and sat awkwardly on Tiera’s bed. She wasn’t sure if he was just impatient or uncomfortable. Or both.

  “Don’t you need some sort of witness?” Tiera asked, staring at the man on her bed.

  “This cell has been monitored from every angle since you arrived,” he said simply.

  “Oh.” Tiera thought of her shower. “I didn’t see any cameras.”

  “Of course you didn’t.” Leon spoke slowly, as if he wasn’t sure he understood what Tiera meant. “Let’s begin. I am Chief Leon Uedent,” he pulled his smart glass out of his uniform pocket, “and it is 20 Faroan standard time, day 22 of 7 of 6027. State your name,” he told Tiera. “Or whatever you call yourself.”

  “I have a name,” Tiera said, annoyed that he thought she might not. “It’s Tiera Lorraine Jasperson.”

  “Could you spell that in Original?”

  Tiera was surprised to realize that she could. She spelled her name with their phonetic alphabet without skipping a beat.

  “Good. Now, could you explain to me how you came to know Kert Yematoro?”

  “I never knew him—we never even spoke with each other. He left before I finished learning Original.”

  “Then how did you first meet him?” Leon clarified.

  Tiera explained the blobbish light sphere that she saw him walk out of the night of the banquet.

  “You mean the wormhole. And how did you interact with him after that?”

  So it was a wormhole. Tiera wasn’t really surprised—the sphere did exactly what a wormhole would do after all. It was just weird to have a name for it.

  Tiera went on to explain the mall incident, as well as what had happened in the video she had recorded. After a while Tiera went from being annoyed with Leon to being impressed with the thoroughness of his interview. She still didn’t like him though.

  “And the language learning program?” Leon asked. He sounded surprised that she had stopped without explaining it further.

  “I honestly don’t remember much about it—it feels like a dream at this point. I didn’t even remember drinking any water or . . . using the bedpan until I thought about it afterward,” Tiera explained apologetically.

  “Well, try thinking about it then,” Leon suggested.

  “It’s all I’ve been thinking about it since it happened,” Tiera said, somewhat impatiently. She took a deep breath. “I’ll try again.”

  Tiera closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating, trying her hardest to remember anything. She could only remember bits and pieces, and they were only things that she had heard or said since Leon and his officers barged into that office. She opened her eyes and met Leon’s questioning stare.

  “I . . . I think I can only remember what I’ve encountered since I woke up from it. Does that make sense?” Tiera took Leon’s look of confusion as a “no.” She decided to try again. “Like, I remembered drinking water because I saw the bottle, and I remembered using the bedpan because I saw it too. Right now I think I can only remember learning words and phrases that I’ve heard or used since the program ended.”

  “But you heard Kert Yematoro say that he put the key to their insurrection in your mind. Can you not remember what that key is?” Frustration was beginning to crack Leon’s professional façade.

  “I believe he said ‘revolution,’ and he said my ‘unconscious mind’—but I don’t think it works that way. I can remember learning the words he used in that sentence, but I don’t know what the key actually is.” Tiera still wasn’t even sure whose side was right, these government officials or the insurrectionists. Or are they called revolutionaries? Whatever. She did, however, feel some pity for Leon. “I’m sorry I can’t be of any more help.”

  His eyes closed, Leon sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’ll try again tomorrow,” he finally said. “Maybe it will help if you get some rest.”

  “Tomorrow?” Tiera tried to remain calm. It will help if I’m cooperative. “Chief Uedent, when can I go home?”

  “You can’t leave until we’ve figured out exactly what the insurrectionists want with you. It wouldn’t be safe for our citizens. Nor would it be safe for you, Tiera Lorraine Jasperson.” Leon stood up and turned to leave.

  “Wait! What if we don’t find out? And why wouldn’t I be safe?” This man really knew how to scare her.

  “Like I said when we first met, everyone in the city heard Kert Yematoro’s message that day.” Leon faced Tiera again. “The insurrectionists are highly disorganized. Some, like us, may not know what the key to their revolution is. And some, like us, desperately want to know what the key to their revolution is.”

  Tiera tried to understand what he was implying before her panic could bubble to the surface, but when that understanding came her panic began to boil. “The key is in me. They would come after me.” Tiera folded her arms, trying to hold herself together. “So send me back to Earth! They couldn’t find me there!”

  “Uth is . . . your planet?” Leon guessed. “But Kert Yematoro said that you and your planet would be our government’s downfall. They would try to access your planet, as Kert Yematoro did—that could prove disastrous. No, both you and your planet are safer if you stay here, Tiera Lorraine Jasperson. You must stay here until we can learn how to keep you and our people safe.”

  “It’s Earth, not Uth, and please just call me Tiera, and what am I supposed to do here? Wait? Stare at the wall?” Tiera’s vision began to blur with tears. “My family is on Earth—my home!”

  “I—” For once it looked like Leon wasn’t sure what to say. Then his face hardened back into that professional mask. “We can discuss this tomorrow. Please try to remember what it was Kert Yematoro hid in your mind in the meantime. This interview is over. Good night, Tiera . . . Jasperson.”

  Leon left and Tiera let go. She didn’t try to calm herself as she sank into her bed. She didn’t try to quiet her mind as her worst possible fears stampeded around her skull and trampled
whatever sensibility she had left. She just cried. She cried until the lights dimmed and she stumbled into sleep.

  Chapter 8

  Tiera woke up to the gentle clatter of her breakfast tray being set on her desk. She rolled over just in time to see the apron man leaving her room, the door sliding silently shut behind him. He’s just as quiet as the door—I would have slept through that if it weren’t for the tray.

  Wrapping her blanket around herself, Tiera got up and shuffled over to see what was on her tray. Her sore muscles still limited her movement a bit, but she felt a little more cheerful this morning—especially since she was actively trying not to think about her conversation with Leon from the night before.

  Breakfast was eggs, milk, and some sort of fruit pastry—its filling tasted like something between an apple and a raspberry. Without much else to do once her breakfast was gone, Tiera took another shower. The hot water was just the right pressure for the aches in her back, and it certainly helped her relax. It even loosened the chokehold she had on the thoughts she was trying not to think.

  What will I do in this galaxy, if I have to stay? Tiera couldn’t imagine she would be needed—or respected—as a journalist. She had little idea of the culture of this place. She knew nothing about their politics, their entertainment, their environment, their lifestyle. Remembering the way everyone stared at her, the subtle condescension in the way she was spoken to, Tiera wasn’t sure anyone would talk to her for long enough to teach her. Or that she’d have the patience to learn from them.

  When she left the shower and reentered her room, Tiera saw that, once again, someone had taken her crumpled pile of dirty clothes and replaced it with a neat pile of clean ones. Tiera whipped her head around, trying to look at all the walls at once.

  “Can I at least get my phone—my smart glass—back? I’d rather play games than stare at the walls today, thanks.”

  Tiera waited a moment for a reply, but when none came she decided to get dressed. As soon as she had her shirt and pants on, however, her cell door opened—it was the officer whose gender Tiera thought was ambiguous, the one who had gone through her purse the other day, and he or she was holding her phone.

  “Here you go,” the officer said, handing the phone over. “We only got it back a few hours ago from our tech people. They said it was surprisingly simple technology—easily hacked. But everything seemed such low quality that they didn’t bother to take or convert any of your files.”

  “Right. Thanks.” Tiera wasn’t sure if she should be insulted. She decided to make this an opportunity for her to learn something instead. “Um. I don’t mean to be rude, but should I call you ‘he’ or ‘she’?”

  “Whichever,” the officer said, then headed for the door.

  “Really? You don’t care either way?” Is this a cultural thing?

  “I won’t reproduce,” the officer tried to clarify. “I guess some people have a preference, but to me it’s ultimately irrelevant.”

  “Oh. Okay. Thanks for bringing me my smart glass.” Tiera still didn’t understand, but she decided to let this one go—the officer was beginning to look at her like she was weird. I guess people here don’t typically ask those sorts of questions. Or they don’t need to, because they already know everything.

  “You’re welcome.”

  The cell door shut once more, and Tiera sat cross-legged on her bed with her phone. Between then and lunch, Tiera re-watched the video with Kert’s message several times, accidentally tried to access social media dozens of times (there was no wi-fi, of course), and completed about 20 Sudoku puzzles.

  Lunch was a mostly normal turkey lettuce wrap—the only weird thing about it was the chunks of a green, root-like vegetable that Tiera was sure didn’t exist on Earth. Just after lunch, though, a woman’s voice emanated from the invisible intercom above her.

  “Tiera Jasperson, will you accept a visit from Daven Theo?”

  Tiera frowned. “I guess. Do I know this person?”

  The wall Tiera was facing suddenly showed a headshot of the man that Tiera had seen with Kert while she was on Earth. The image lasted long enough that Tiera noticed his eyes were blue, and she realized some might consider him handsome. She had never gotten a good enough look at him on Earth, and when she saw him at Kert’s lab she was a bit too panicked to notice much about his appearance.

  “Will you accept a visit from Daven Theo?” the woman repeated over the intercom as soon as Daven’s picture vanished.

  “Yes.” Tiera figured it couldn’t hurt. Why does he want to visit me? Does he want to talk about Kert too?

  After a few minutes of waiting, Tiera’s door slid open. She was expecting Daven, but it was the same officer she had spoken to earlier—she decided to call this officer “he,” as long as he didn’t care either way.

  “Come on,” he said. “I’ll take you to a visiting room.”

  Tiera got up and followed the officer down the short hall and toward the entrance to the jail. It was a pretty small jail from what Tiera could gather, but she had never been to a jail before, so she wasn’t sure. The same white walls as were in every room greeted her as she rounded the corner with the officer (the building seemed to be shaped like a wishbone) and he stopped her next to a row of small, open rooms. Tiera could see the double doors that marked the front lobby just down the hall.

  “What’s your name?” Tiera asked, just then realizing that she didn’t know.

  “Officer Ferrer,” he replied, then motioned for Tiera to enter the room closest to them. The room had a large space in the middle, but the walls were lined with low, cushioned benches that formed an unbroken, gray U. Tiera sat by one of the far corners, but Officer Ferrer stayed outside the doorway. Daven joined her hardly a moment later.

  “Hello, um—Tiera,” he said after taking just a few steps into the room. He was wearing loose gray slacks and a long maroon shirt; the shirt had some sort of crystal logo on it. “I just thought you might like company, and I know you can’t understand me, but I wanted to apologize. I—”

  “I can understand you,” Tiera interrupted him. “Wait—why do you want to apologize?”

  Daven’s face looked like a mixture of shock and disbelief. “How can you understand me? I haven’t understood a thing you’ve said since I first saw you on C2406! And why didn’t you say something before? You just kept shouting stuff at us in your language—”

  “Hold on,” Tiera laughed. “I didn’t learn your language until I got here. Kert sped up the process with some sort of computer program that I’m pretty sure linked directly to my brain—either that or he just likes putting stickers on people’s heads. Anyway, why do you want to apologize?”

  “Oh, well, I feel like I kind of brought you here, and now it looks like you’re stuck. And that sucks.” Daven’s shoulders were hunched in discomfort, and he didn’t quite look at Tiera as he said all of that.

  “Isn’t Kert your professor? You weren’t in charge of all that, were you?”

  “Well, he was my professor. And he was in charge, yeah.”

  “Then it couldn’t have been your fault—it was his. Or mine. I haven’t quite decided.” Tiera really wanted to blame Kert for all of this, but she did run into the wormhole uninvited. But then . . . “Why did Kert have all of that language learning stuff ready for me? I mean, was he planning on me following you two? How could he have known?” Tiera began to bring up the questions that she knew Leon couldn’t help her with. Daven worked with Kert directly though—he has to know.

  “I didn’t know he had even developed something like that—I don’t know if anyone knew. And if he wanted you to follow us he never told me about it.” Daven sighed, then joined Tiera on the bench. “I thought that I knew him. But he’s been an insurrectionist this whole time.” Daven leaned back until his head rested against the wall and closed his eyes.

  “So Kert never seemed like he was up to something?” Tiera asked.

  “No!” Daven jerked forward. “Yematoro was a model citize
n. He believed in the Origin Right with a zeal you almost never see among us academics!” After a pause, Daven continued, “I mean, it looked like he believed in it. I guess he never did.”

  “The Origin Right?” Tiera asked, confused.

  Daven looked at Tiera, eyes wide. “Oh my gosh!” (Tiera’s mind matched the Original phrase Daven used with its English equivalent.) “You still don’t know anything about this place, do you? There’s stuff I learned when I was a toddler that you still have no idea about!”

  “Yeah,” Tiera said flatly. “Please just tell me what the Origin Right is.”

  “Sorry—it’s just so weird for me to have to explain this kind of stuff. Um.” Daven fiddled with his hands for a moment as he decided what to say. “So since all intelligent life started on Origin, we’re all citizens of Origin’s government—Origin has the right to rule. And Yematoro was always super enthusiastic about our leaders.”

  “How many other planets have life? Does everyone look like us—like humans?” That was something that really surprised Tiera when she saw all of the people here. She had always thought of alien races as little green men, or at most Ewoks or Klingons. But the people here were practically indistinguishable from the people on Earth—except ethnicities seemed to be a bit different. Though Daven could have passed as some sort of North European if Tiera didn’t know better.

  “There are eight inhabitable planets in our galaxy, including Origin. The seven other planets were colonized by Origin, so yes, everyone is human,” Daven gave Tiera an odd look. “Honestly, I was surprised to see humans on your home planet. Well,” Daven added, “I’m not entirely sure your people are human. Phenotypically sure—you look like us—but genetically? We’d have to do some tests to be certain.”