by Rob Favre
I managed not to roll my eyes at this, but just barely. The last time Captain Jimmy had “performed” a “miracle,” he had just taken credit for something I had done.
Mom was standing next to me. She’d been one of the first to respond when I called for help. I think she was worried that something was happening to me. Anyway, she started asking questions now, and from the tone of her voice, I could tell she skeptical about Captain Jimmy’s miracles too. “Unexpected fruit? Where did it come from? Because I’m pretty sure any fruit on this planet would have to be stolen from us.” There was a rumble of agreement from the gathered crowd.
Haris shrugged. “Believe me or do not, it makes no difference. But what Jimmy found could not have been stolen from you. The things in that cave were old, covered in the dust of many, many years. They were there long before you brought us to this place.”
“Wait, what cave?”
“A cave of metal. Inside there were strange things. Many boxes of objects with no purpose. But some of the boxes held jars of food.”
A lot of the colonists exchanged astonished looks. Could he be telling the truth? Why would he make up a story like this?
Vlad spoke up. “You must take us to this cave.”
Haris shrugged again. “I can easily take you there, if you promise to feed us.”
Vlad nodded. “Very well. Now, tell us how you came to be back in the colony.”
There wasn’t much more to tell. They moved into the metal cave and managed to survive on the food there for a while, but once it was gone, there were no more miracles. One by one, the true believers died off or wandered away, including Jimmy. The survivors got hungry enough that they started following our expeditions, trying to steal food. They knew there would be a big feast for Exmass, and figured it was worth the risk to try to sneak in tonight to steal some. They didn’t look too upset about being caught. Whatever fate we had in store for them, it wasn’t going to be any worse than starving to death in a lonely cave somewhere.
Vlad met briefly with the rest of the council to decide what to do with the prisoners. Within a few minutes he was back. “You will take us to this cave tomorrow. Tonight, you will stay here. You will be given food and a place to sleep. You will not try to escape. Is this clear?”
Haris nodded. He and the others were too weak to put up much of a struggle. And anyway, where would they try to go? They had just returned to the only place on the planet where they had a chance of not starving to death.
Vlad wasn’t finished. “One more thing. Do you still believe Jimmy was right? Are you still looking for a way back to your old life?”
Haris didn’t look up. “He was wrong, or he was not clever enough to prove himself right. Either way, I do not wish to starve.”
Vlad nodded. The “prisoners” were escorted away and the crowd began to scatter, back to whatever was left of the Exmass celebration. Personally, I was just glad to have something to think about other than what a lonely, miserable failure I was.
“Did you and Mom have a good time?”
Late that night, as all the conversations and celebrations broke apart, and kids fell asleep on their parents’ shoulders, Dad found me. The colony was starting to feel like its normal, quiet self again. Instead of shouting and singing, I could hear the whistling of the wind. I had kind of missed it.
“Yeah, we did. It’s funny. We’ve put months and months of work into this place to keep everyone alive, but it didn’t start to feel like home until today. Memories being made. Good food. Good times. Really bad booze.” Some enterprising folks had fermented fruit and grain so that there would be drinks worthy of the celebration. My dad was right: it was ghastly. But of course, he didn’t know that I’d tasted it. “How’d tonight go for you? How is it that you came to catch our invaders?”
I told him about my attempt to attend the party, about Zoe, about going outside because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. He nodded along, patient and understanding. When I was done, he gave my shoulder a squeeze.
“You did the right thing by making an appearance. I get that it hurt too much to stay. And hey, look at what happened. You ended up a hero again.”
“I guess.”
“That seems to happen to you a lot, have you noticed?”
“You’d think it would make me more popular.”
“You just keep doing the right thing, son. The rest will work itself out.”
I didn’t say it, but I was tired of waiting for things to work out. I wanted to be happy now. I wanted to not feel lonely now. I wanted someone to think I was awesome and interesting and funny now. My dad, if he had ever felt this way, didn’t remember what it was like.
I changed the subject. “What do you think about what happened to Jimmy?”
His voice became icy. “I was glad to hear it. This world is better off without him.”
“Don’t you feel bad for him at all?”
“He tried to stab my son. Starvation is better than what he deserved.”
“What do you think about the cave? Do you think it’s really there?”
He considered for a moment. “Probably. Don’t see why he would have made that up. Looks like we’ll be out there in the morning. What do you think we’ll find?”
“I’m kind of hoping for tentacled aliens. But at this point, I’m used to disappointment.”
We walked back home. The Lawn was covered in empty socks, and discarded cups, and goat bones. There would be a lot of cleaning up to do tomorrow. A woman’s laugh echoed through the colony.
Merry Exmass to all, and to all a good night.
In time, I probably could have grown to like Exmass, to watch it grow and change and adapt every year, shaped by the people that were, in turn, shaped by it. It’s possible that, without the heartache and stupidity of this particular Exmass, future Exmasses could have been full of happy memories for me as I grew older and wiser.
What I didn’t know was that I’d just celebrated my last Exmass.
She woke, tangled in the sheets, and knew something had changed. The light was different. She opened the window. The wind was strong and hot. It felt like a storm was coming, but the sky was cloudless. The morning light was closer, more forceful. It pushed down on her in a way she had never felt before.
Hal was still asleep, breathing peacefully. She tiptoed in to check on the boys, and they were still sleeping, too. She kissed their heads and tried to keep her stomach from tying itself into a knot. Not time to panic yet. But she needed answers.
She tried sending a message, but her device was off the network. The antennas were probably damaged by the wind. This would to have to be an in-person visit.
On the trip across town to the research center, she had to lean into the fierce wind, covering her eyes to shield them from the blasting dust. By the time she stepped inside, every fold of her cloak was full of grit. She wondered how much was in her hair, and how long it would take her to wash it all out.
“Hello, little sister,” he said when she found him. His eyes were red and tired. He had been working all night again. “Allow me to guess why you are here.”
“Is this it? Is it happening?”
He sighed. “I have nothing conclusive. We need more data to be certain. But…” He chewed carefully on his next word. “Perhaps.”
Deep down, she’d expected this answer. But hearing it out loud, she felt like she was standing outside herself, watching a character in an old Earth movie where a flood or a volcano was going to destroy the world.
She heard herself say, “They are not coming back, are they?”
He shrugged. “We do not know how long this process takes. There may yet be time.” But she could see in his eyes that he did not believe it.
Chapter 8
The morning air was cool and breezy. About twenty of us were standing in a field of dewy grass. It was covered in damp socks.
One nice thing about being part of the expedition on the day after Exmass was that I wouldn’t have to help
clean up after Exmass. There were a lot of areas that needed some serious work: the dining area, the Enchanted Forest, my self-esteem. There was at least some hope for two of those things to be better by the time we got back.
We were a ragtag bunch. All seven members of the Council, Chief Engineer Frank, my Dad, others who knew about biology, or computer systems, or chemistry. A couple of big, meaty Young Ones that I’m pretty sure were our security detail. And me, of course. I hadn’t thought to ask the night before, but this morning I had begged and begged my Dad to let me come along, and he convinced the council to make me part of the expedition as a reward for my vigilance in spotting the intruders the night before. Who says loneliness and misery don’t pay? We were just waiting for Haris to lead us to his mysterious cave. I watched Keeth and Kris working on the “Days until Exmass” sign, scrubbing off the zero and replacing it with a three-digit number. It started with a “4.” Fine with me. I wasn’t in any hurry to relive that nightmare holiday.
Our group was still moving a little slowly, but there was a lot of quiet, excited chatter about whether this cave was real, and if it was, what we were going to find there. Someone joked that maybe this was all just a trick and we were being led into an ambush. Nobody laughed, and it got real quiet for a minute.
The dew was starting to burn off the grass by the time Haris arrived. We all watched in silence as he made his way slowly across the lawn from Central where he’d spent the night. Someone had given him a fresh set of clothes to replace the rags he’d been wearing, but they hung loose on his spindly limbs, like clothes on a scarecrow.
Vlad nodded at Haris. “Show us this cave.”
Haris didn’t say anything, or nod, or even look up. He just turned and started walking. We followed him.
We were in good spirits, at least at first. There was lots of chatter about the feast and the party. The only one not saying anything was Haris. The farther we walked, the quieter it got. By the time we reached the cave a few hours later, most of us were trudging in silence.
I wouldn’t have noticed the cave at all if Haris hadn’t been there to show us. We climbed to the top of a rocky hill, making our way between car-sized boulders of rough gray stone flecked with tiny green crystals. At the top, Haris led us over to what looked like a natural crevice, but when we got close enough, we saw there was actually a dusty staircase leading down into the hill.
We all gathered around the entrance. All except for Haris, that is. He made it clear he had no interest in going inside. He had brought us here, and that was all he had promised. He sat on a smooth rock in the shade and sipped some water. A chill ran down my spine as I looked down into the darkness below. Nobody wanted to be the first one in. What would we find in there? Who had built this cave and filled it with food that people could eat? Was that all a story Haris invented to get himself a meal? Was it a trap, Captain Jimmy’s latest clever gambit to lure the new colony’s Council out so he could capture them and hold them hostage?
It turned out to be none of those things, but something even more surprising: Haris was telling the truth.
There was no sound except the moaning of the wind through the canyon. My Dad’s voice broke the silence. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes… I’m going to wonder why you waited fifteen minutes to come check on me.” He got a couple of nervous chuckles, which probably made him proud. Then he descended the stairs, which made me proud. I held my breath as he made his way down, but he didn’t find any booby traps or ambushes. When he called the all clear, I sighed with relief. We all followed him down the stairs into the dusty darkness.
The thing that surprised me most was the smell. It was sharp and musty, like a locker room that needed disinfecting in the worst way. There were blankets, some rolled neatly, some just bunched up in a heap. In the corner was a pile of empty cans that looked like they had been bashed open with a rock. I later discovered this was because they had, in fact, been bashed open with a rock. Something felt strange about the trash pile, and it took me a little while to realize what it was: I was expecting a pile of trash like that to be covered with a cloud of buzzing flies, but there weren’t any here. Not that I was disappointed or anything. There were a lot of things I missed about Earth. Flies were not one of them.
I ran my hand against the wall of the room. It was cool to the touch, like metal, but it wasn’t flat like the bulkheads on the Hope/Freedom; it had soft undulations, in a pattern that was regular but not uniform, like someone had frozen the surface of the ocean in metal. There were no lightbulbs or fixtures that I could see, but the whole room was filled with a pleasant dim glow that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. There wasn’t much in the way of furniture – no chairs or tables or beds, just some empty shelves against the walls. It looked pretty much like a basement. We were in the basement of a building that had long ago been removed from the hilltop.
A couple of guys had gone over to examine the cans, to see if they could learn anything from the labels. Others studied the walls, the shelves, the stairs. But I saw something on the far wall that grabbed my attention. It didn’t seem like anyone else had noticed it yet.
I strolled over, casually, not wanting to seem too excited, in case I was wrong about what I’d found.
When I got close enough, I smiled. I had been right. It was a panel of flat black glass.
A video screen.
“Hey everyone,” I called out. Twenty pairs of eyes all swung toward me, twenty tense and expectant faces wondering what I had found. “Check it out.”
I took a deep breath.
I placed my hand on the cool glass.
Absolutely nothing happened.
A couple of nervous chuckles echoed around the room. People went back to what they were doing. My dad came over to see what I’d found.
“That’s always worked before,” I said to him.
He shrugged. “It was worth a try. Whatever this thing is, it probably hasn’t had power in a very long time.”
If this were a video game, I would have expected to find an audio journal on a desk or in a dusty pile in the corner, just waiting patiently for us to find so we could learn everything we needed to know about who had been here and what had happened to them. Plus, if we were lucky, something about what type of weapon we would need to use against the final boss, or where to find a stash of credits. But whoever built this place neglected to leave a record for us to find. I felt a flash of guilt about ignoring my mom when she told me to keep up my journal on the trip here. Whatever. I could write a whole memoir about it someday when I was old. We spent a few more minutes looking around, but you can only learn so much from ratty blankets and empty cans. The labels on the cans were disappointingly familiar. I saw pictures that were pretty clearly beets and corn, though I didn’t recognize any of the writing, and I wasn’t even sure what alphabet it was using. I really wanted it to be an alien dialect, but in my heart, I was pretty sure it looked a lot like some form of Chinese. Vlad grabbed a couple to bring back with us.
When we got back outside, Haris was still sitting in the shade. He may have been napping.
The late afternoon light from two suns cast long half-shadows ahead of us as we made our way back across a sandy plain. Dad and I chatted about what we’d seen in the cave.
“Who do you think built it, Dad?”
He looked around, thinking. “Definitely people.”
“Could have been aliens.”
“Son, your tenacity in the face of all tangible evidence is something to be admired. I don’t know how you do it.”
“Years of practice. But seriously, how were there people here to build it?”
“I don’t know for sure. The Heifer, amazing as she was, was only our first attempt at building a ship to travel across the stars. Maybe, while we were already on our way, someone else figured out a faster way to travel in space.”
“Or… they were already here before we left. A lost Roman legion accidentally got sucked into a wormhole that whisked them across th
e galaxy, where they had to build a new civilization.”
“I’ll say this, son… I don’t have any proof that it was not a Roman legion.”
“Maybe there were aliens, until the Romans came along.”
I knew my dad was probably right, but I couldn’t help feeling a little sad about it. If it turned out we weren’t the first ones to visit this planet, learning that the previous inhabitants had been aliens would at least be exciting and fun. If it turned out that all the mysterious stuff that had been going on was just boring old people, it made the whole thing feel cheap somehow. Like we thought we were taming a vast, unknown wilderness, and we just learned it was a park all along.
It seemed I was the only one feeling that way, though. All the Old Ones were swapping theories about how another expedition could have beaten us here, what sort of fuel they’d used, whether they’d come directly from Earth, or whether maybe there was a whole empire of humans spread across the nearby stars now. The Young Ones mostly listened and tried to look like they understood what the Old Ones were talking about.
I found myself drifting toward the back of the line. I wound up next to Haris. We walked side by side in silence for a few minutes. I had something I really wanted to ask him, but I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea. Finally, some combination of curiosity, boredom, and bravery clicked into place and I went for it.
“Haris – what was Jimmy like… at… at the end? Did he ever… consider coming back?”
Haris’s face was stony. He shook his head. “No. Not for a moment. Nothing was more important to Captain Jimmy than his faith. He truly believed he was just being tested. Right to the end.”
“Are you mad at him for almost starving you to death?”
“I chose to follow him. He did not put a spear to my throat.”
I frowned. “Well, he did put a spear to mine. It wasn’t very much fun.”
For a few minutes, the only sound was the crunch of gravel under our feet and the jumble of soft voices from the others up ahead.