by J. Blanes
“Maybe they made this book for a non-Pakma being,” Albert remarked. “Maybe they compiled this information specifically for the alien who lives here.”
Blip nodded. It would make sense, but who outside the Pakma would learn to read this difficult writing system? He shook his head. These riddles didn’t appeal to him at all, so he decided that the best he could do was forget about it. He left them with their book and let himself fall onto the sheets.
Meanwhile, the others perused the pages as if they had found an important treasure, excited at the many strange and odd-looking animals and plants they depicted, until two pages shocked them to the core. Until now, the book pictures had shown only animals, plants, and objects, but this one represented for the first time the figure of the hunter. In these two pages, the book explained in pictures how the hunter should apply camouflage makeup and how to hide, picturing him in different positions relative to his targets. Their shock didn’t come from the disturbing images of an ugly, weird alien applying camouflage makeup or killing horribly innocent alien animals. They could have coped with that. Their shock came from the fact that, instead of an alien, the hunter in the book was clearly a person.
“This is not possible,” Dylan snapped in disbelief. “Why would the Pakma make a book with people on it?”
After pondering for a while, a revealing thought came to Keira’s mind. “They were tomato plants after all!” she shouted.
“What?” Albert asked with interest at her unexpected remark.
“Don’t you see?” she said excitedly. “It would make perfect sense. This place, the book, the tomatoes outside. A person lives here, a human, not an alien!” The evidence in favor of such an unlikely theory had piled up fast. It was hard to believe but no less true because of it.
To Dylan, the realization came as if a lightning had struck him in the head. When he recovered from the shock, a feeling of pity invaded him. Another person, left on this forgotten planet to live alone under these miserable conditions for who knew how long, made him feel sad and angry, and for the first time since he had heard about this mission, he embraced it with passion. Saving a person was completely worth his time, and he found a sense of purpose that had abandoned him since they had first boarded the small ship on Earth.
When Dylan woke up to reality, Albert was talking to Keira. “…and you have to explain to me about those tomatoes.”
“They’re outside, in the garden among other plants. Blip didn’t know what they were, but I’m sure they were tomatoes.” She looked down at Blip. “Blip, what are the odds for two exact plants developing and growing on different planets?”
“None, it just doesn’t happen,” he said bluntly. “Life can be similar but never exactly the same.”
“This would also explain why this planet is so similar to Earth,” Albert commented. “The Pakma selected it on purpose, so the person could live here without having to resort to any additional devices.”
Keira couldn’t bear the doubt. “I have to know for sure,” she said. “I’m going to fetch some of them.”
Dylan knew better than to try to persuade her. “I’ll go with you,” he volunteered. “You’ll need someone to keep watch while you gather the tomatoes. It’s nonnegotiable,” he added when she was about to complain.
“I’ll stay outside by the door. You can use another pair of eyes from a distance,” Albert also volunteered. He was as interested as she was in confirming her hunch about the tomatoes.
Blip, on the other hand, was not interested at all in these Humans endeavors, much less in putting himself in harm’s way again, and decided to wait comfortably on the bed sheets.
Keira and Dylan left for the garden, which was about ten yards from the door. Albert posted himself a few feet in front of the door, looking back at the roof where the animal’s attack had originated. The roof and the boulders behind the house were the most likely places for an animal to conceal itself and launch another attack over them. The rest of the view was clear of obstacles, and they would see any animal coming from a distance.
Keira jumped over the fence and hastily gathered some tomatoes while Dylan watched over her with his gun drawn. The errand was over soon, and they hurried back inside the house where they gathered in the middle of the room to examine their loot.
Albert picked one up and ate it before anyone could object. “Hmm, delicious. You were right. They are tomatoes without a doubt.” He wasted no time in grabbing another one. Seeing that there were only four left, the others rushed to grab the rest in despair. Any real food tasted like a delicacy by now, and they enjoyed the tomatoes as if they were an exquisite steak.
“Well, a mystery solved,” Albert commented, still savoring his unexpected snack. “I can understand now why the Tolok would send us to bring this person back to the ship. The only problem is, where is he?”
“We have to wait until he comes back,” Dylan snapped as if someone had suggested the contrary. “We can’t abandon him now that we know he’s a person.”
“Calm down,” Keira said soothingly. “Nobody said anything about abandoning him. We’ll wait until he comes back. I just hope we’re not too late.”
Dylan gave her a puzzled look. “What do you mean late?”
“I don’t want to be the pessimist here,” she replied, “but I know about tending gardens, and I noticed that this one has been neglected for a few days. And there are also the flowers; they’re starting to wither for lack of water. It seems as if this person hasn’t been back here for several days.”
“That doesn’t prove anything.” Dylan would not give up. “Maybe he’s out hunting. And you don’t know anything about the gardens and plants on this planet; maybe this is their normal state.”
Keira didn’t reply. No matter what she said to him now, he would take it the wrong way. She truly hoped that this person was still alive. It would be heartbreaking to know that he had died on the verge of his own rescue. “Rescue!” she shouted suddenly. “How could we be so stupid?”
“Rescue?” That was not the answer Dylan expected from her. “What do you mean by rescue?”
“As with Albert on the other planet. We can ask the ship to scan the area and find his location. Maybe he’s in trouble and we can help him!”
“Oh, my God! You’re right,” Dylan agreed excitedly. “We’re wasting time here. Blip, ask the ship to scan the area, now!”
“OK, OK, but I can’t do it here. We must go back to the small ship for this.” He was about to get up when one of his big feet got entangled with some loose threads on the sheet. He tried frantically to free himself, but he only worsened the problem.
Keira knelt next to him. “Let me help you.” She started to untangle slowly his feet from the threads when she realized that the threads were white instead of the sheet’s worn blue. She followed one thread to its source and smiled when she found out what it was.
“This definitively proves that this sheet belongs to a person,” she said enigmatically.
She took the sheet and showed the others her discovery. A tattered, washed out white tag had still a few readable words on it: MACHINE WASH C—and, on the other side, MADE IN VIET…
“Well, that settles it, unless an alien visited Earth and took a souvenir with him,” Dylan said happily. “By the way, what do we do with that?” He pointed at the unconscious animal.
“I think we can safely leave it here with the door open,” Albert replied. “It’ll get out when it wakes up.”
This decided, they returned to the small ship at a fast pace. Inside the control room, Blip plugged himself to the small column and asked the ship to scan the area for the missing person. The others waited in expectation around him. After a tense and long wait, the ship informed Blip that no Human was present inside a two-mile radius from the house. This was disappointing, and Blip ordered to widen the search an additional three miles.
“
It’s going to take a while,” he informed them. Dylan had started to bite his nails, and Keira was visibly tense. “The area to scan is big. You should relax a little, maybe go and eat something.”
They didn’t move from his side and waited anxiously until the scan result finally came in. Blip’s expression spoke by itself; the results were negative again. “Maybe he isn’t a Human after all,” he commented.
“No, we’re sure he’s a person,” Dylan snapped. “Widen the search again.”
“I’ll do it,” Blip complied, “but it’s not likely that he would have ventured so far from the house.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Dylan insisted. “Just find him.”
Blip did as he asked and widened the search to a thirty-mile radius. “This time the search will take more than two hours. You can go eat something, and I’ll inform you when the results are back,” he said as he sat on the floor. This time they obeyed him and slowly, one by one, left for the kitchen.
After his meal, Dylan spoke with sadness in his voice. “Do you think this will be our fate?”
“What do you mean?” Albert was not sure which fate Dylan was talking about.
“Being abandoned alone on a remote planet,” Dylan explained. “Who says they won’t do the same with us when this is over?” His words hung in the air while Keira and Albert pondered them.
Until now, Albert had rested his hopes in the good faith of the Tolok and firmly believed that they would let them do whatever they pleased once their job was done, but now, having witnessed firsthand the cruelty the Pakma were capable of, his confidence wavered, and Dylan’s theory seemed disturbingly plausible. Keira, on the other hand, had started to distrust Blip’s reassurances about the Tolok bringing them back when everything was over. Had he lied to them, or did he really believe it? She decided to confront him about this when this mission was over.
“Your silence is really encouraging,” Dylan said when the others left his question unanswered.
Then, Blip’s screaming interrupted them. “I found him! I found him!”
They rushed to the control room where Blip had already displayed the 3-D map of the area. His somber face didn’t bode good news. “The ship didn’t expect to find any settlement in a hundred-mile radius,” he informed them, “but there is one, from a primitive tribe, about ten miles south of here. Their natural habitat is much farther to the south, and the ship has no data about them in such northern latitudes. They must have migrated here recently.”
“What does this have to do with the missing person?” Keira interrupted.
“The ship scanner not only checks the surface,” Blip added. “It can also penetrate the ground to more than one hundred feet. I instructed the ship to scan the underground, too, in case the Human had been buried recently or was hiding in some kind of cave.”
“And?”
“He’s underground, but not dead. He’s inside a system of interconnected caves artificially made by the tribe I just mentioned to you. He seems to be their prisoner,” he said gravely as he zoomed in on the area on the 3-D map, where an X-ray view of the cave system showed a closed, tiny room with a blurry human shape lying on the floor. “This is a snapshot of the area a few minutes ago,” Blip went on. “As you can see, there are also hundreds of members of this tribe inside the cave complex.”
Blip zoomed out from the 3-D view to include the entire cave system so they could grasp the extent of the problem. A swarm of red dots, each one representing a member of the tribe, spread throughout the caves and the corridors interconnecting them. Most areas had several members inside, and not a single one was empty.
“What are you trying to say? That we should give up?” Dylan asked defiantly.
“I’m just presenting to you the reality of our mission,” Blip replied, equally defiant. “Whatever you decide, I’ll help you, but keep in mind that the rules are still the same; either we bring him in with us, or we’ll stay here forever.”
Dylan’s attitude relaxed. Blip was on his same page after all; leaving that person to his own fate was not an option.
“Do they ever leave the caves?” Albert asked suddenly. He had been studying the 3-D projection and noticed that not one of the members of the tribe roamed outside the caves.
“They avoid direct sunlight whenever possible,” Blip explained. “Their main problem is their single eye, because it’s too developed and sensitive to light. Exposing it to a bright light could leave them blind for several minutes, not to say the burning sensation they feel when that happens.”
Blip’s reply was too vague and not what Albert was looking for. “Will they or will they not leave the caves at some time?” he insisted impatiently.
“Hunting parties will probably leave at sundown while the rest stay with the youngest inside or near the caverns. A few of them will venture outside to gather some plants and water nearby.”
“That’s our opportunity window,” Albert proposed. “We wait for them to leave the caves and rescue him tonight. We’ll need the ship to scan the area constantly to help us avoid any encounters. It can guide us inside the cavern maze, too.”
“Perfect,” Dylan agreed. “I’ll go.”
“I’ll go with you,” Keira volunteered, too.
“I’d go, too, but my leg could be a problem if we need to run. I could be more of a burden than a help.” Albert still limped from his leg and knew that he couldn’t keep up with them in an emergency. He was not a coward, but he was no fool either.
“Don’t worry, you can relay the positions of the tribe members to us from the ship,” Dylan suggested. “I trust you more than him,” he added as he stared at Blip.
“Well,” Blip said leaning forward and disconnecting himself from the small control columns, “your plan is almost perfect, except for one little detail. The ship’s underground scan doesn’t work in real-time, it has a ten-to-fifteen-second delay between impulses. In other words, it can only give you their delayed positions once every ten to fifteen seconds.”
This could be a problem in case they needed fast and accurate information, but they had nothing else. It was definitively better than nothing, and it would prevent them from getting lost in the caves anyway.
“We don’t care,” Keira said firmly. “We’ll settle for whatever the ship can provide us. By the way, does the ship have some kind of weapon that could put all of them to sleep at once?” she asked, just in case.
“The ship does not carry any kind of weapon,” Blip replied bluntly.
“OK, just checking.”
EIGHTEEN
It was almost midnight, the right time for springing into action. Earlier that evening, they had flown with the small ship to a place near the cave complex and landed on top of a cliff overseeing one of the main entrances to the caves, which were excavated inside a small, isolated hill that rose in the middle of a rocky valley. The ship kept activated its invisibility mode and provided a perfect watching spot. From there, they could view the whole hill and its surrounding area. Not a leaf moved when they arrived, but everything changed just after sundown. Hundreds of ugly aliens grouped into small parties of twenty to thirty spread in all directions.
The image of the tall, green, big-headed alien was shattered. As Blip had already explained to them, these were dumpy beasts, with three crablike legs in a tripod arrangement, two bony arms, and a cone head. They lacked a sense of smell and didn’t have noses, but their lack of ears was misleading, as they could sense the air vibrations through their skins and pinpoint the exact source of any sound with accuracy. Their mouths, positioned in the middle of their bodies, had two rows of teeth, which they could retract at will, one of sharp, sharklike teeth for eating meat, and the other of blunt, round ones for chewing plants. A distinct, huge, gray eye completely circled the aliens’ heads, giving them a 360-degree field of view. It was extremely sensitive and perfect for night hunting. It was also their w
eak point, as they were temporarily blinded when a direct bright light was pointed at them. They had developed a primitive language that sounded like growling, and their weapons consisted of simple wood-and-stone spears, axes, and bows. At midnight, only a few individuals remained inside the caves, mostly younglings with their caretakers, while some sentinels kept watch on the entrances, roaming around the complex perimeter, probably to prevent the attacks from wild animals.
Near midnight, they moved the ship to a spot a couple of hundred yards near the rear entrance, which they had selected as their entry point because of the giant boulder–dotted landscape in front of it, which made it perfectly suited for a stealthy approach by foot.
Their plan was simple. Keira and Dylan would approach the rear entrance, using the ship’s scanning technology to stay away from the guards and the boulders for hiding. This part of the plan should be relatively easy, as the scanning information would be relayed in real time to them. Once inside, they would navigate the maze of corridors, targeting the less crowded ones, guided by the same scanning information. However, they would have to rely on delayed information inside the caves, as the scanning process would take some time to reveal the position of their enemies. They had no option but to take the risk.
In the small ship’s secure room, Keira and Dylan put their helmets on, both for communicating with Albert and Blip on the ship and to help them see inside the dark caves. They would try to avoid an encounter with a member of the tribe, but they carried their guns with them in case they bumped into one. Blip had adamantly begged them not to use them unless strictly necessary because, even though the guns were not lethal, he suspected that in this case the guns would damage their sensitive eye permanently.
Keira and Dylan abandoned the ship exactly at midnight. It was an astounding, clear night but not exactly moonless, as the planet had three tiny moons, all of them visible and reddish because of their red-sun reflection. It was different from Earth’s night, and beautiful, too, but Keira missed the moon and wondered how much more beautifully and impressively it would shine in this night’s sky.