It was a bit awkward because we didn't dare wake her until she was safe in her house, but I managed to hand her off to her father, then waved goodbye as he went inside.
Alis smiled and waved before shutting their door against the fog. Driving the rest of the way home was far more nerve-wracking than I'd like to admit. I couldn't see for crap, even with the fog lamps on. I was worried that one of the other folk would pop up out of the fog like a boogieman out of a closet and I would hit them – even going as slowly as I was, injury could happen, to them or to the truck.
I was worried somewhere in that fog was a faery-eating hunter. It seemed like hours before I reached home, though I know it was not even a single hour. My back was drenched with cold sweat and my hands were slick with it. I decided to hell with it and parked so close to the back door that I could open the truck door, step down, open the back door and be inside the house.
Even so, once the truck was stopped, I stalled. I thought about calling up Soren and asking him where the herd was, but damned if I'm going to make everyone aware of how goddamned cowardly I was being.
So I sat there, just sitting in the truck, trying to figure out what kind of weapon I might have handy and how I'd use it, thinking about what to listen for, what to feel for. In my younger days I could have done all this in split seconds, but it's been a long time since I've had to hold a weapon in my hands.
By then I was furious. Pissed the hell off at the hunter, at the fog, and at my yellow streak, even at the stupid sweat making the truck door handle difficult to grasp. To hell with this. I whipped open the truck door and jumped out, slamming it at the same time I was opening the back door with my other hand, and there I was, spinning around, slamming and locking the crate door, just like that, safe as houses.
Goddamned pointy-head faeries and scary goddamned fog monsters and little big-eyed girl children with too much imagination. Damned if she wasn't almost as much trouble as Benjones Almaric.
I know. You're laughing your ass off by now. I am chuckling too. I started laughing almost as soon as I had the door locked. And then I took a nice, long, steaming hot shower. One thing to be said for this fog; the moisture collectors have never had a problem keeping us in water.
After that I decided to have a quiet night in listening to music and reading something new. I found a collection of Old West Indian folk tales on my pad, made some hot tea, and put Mozart on the sound system.
All the night was lacking, by the time night fell, was the sound of you puttering around in the kitchen and checking in by com with your friends and your sister. I used to get so annoyed that so many people wanted your time, I never realized that the sound of you on the com was one of the sounds that signaled home for me.
So, tomorrow I'll go get our new bed. I'll bring it back here and set it up, and tomorrow night I'll right my letter to you from that bed, sprawled out comfortably up against the headboard with the pad on my knee and my stylus in my hand.
Good night, Marda. Think of me.
Night 53
Dear Marda,
So here's where everything goes weird. You're going to guess right away that we had another visit from the hunter. It appears that he avoided the fences entirely and this time left the remains of his dinner at the door of the science center. There were gouges deep into the foam near the door, and that foam should have been about as hard as rock.
I don't need to tell you about that creepy feeling coming back. I really, really don't want to ascribe human motives to this foreign animal, but if I were to, I would say he watches us enough to know where we took the remains of his last meal, and he's letting us know.
But I can't say that, because he's – it's – just an animal, just an unknown creature tossing dead animal around our town.
Looks like at least two of those little purple bastards, the wrasskeys. I saw two chewed heads in that mess. Soren said Simon the little bastard spitter was shrieking in alarm just as the fog was rolling in, and once the fog rolled over the building, Simon curled into a ball beneath his bedding and was absolutely silent. Soren was in his lab when the fog came, he didn't leave until late. The animal remains were not there when Soren left.
Soren's a little disturbed, I don't mind saying. You don't have to be a mind reader to see he's thinking about being out in that fog with that hunter nearby, perhaps even waiting for Soren to finish up at the science center.
I myself am more disturbed that it dragged two of the wrasskeys down here. I suppose it could have carried them both in its mouth, but it just seems like a level of planning I don't want to allow the creature.
But that's not even the weird part, Marda. If you can believe that.
Soren found, mixed in with the remains of the wrasskeys, tiny fragments from yet another creature. They're far too fine to be one of Simon's brethren; they don't match up to Simon's scans. They aren't the remains of a wrasskey, or a chomper, or a spitter, or one of the land hippos. They're potentially humanoid, though this humanoid would be only about twelve centimeters tall. But the part that made me gasp out loud, Marda, was the half a skull, chomped clear in half – the miniature, pointed-dome skull.
“It's a faery,” Huw said, his voice hushed. “It's one of the twins' faeries.”
We had Alis send over some of Catrin's drawings to illustrate what he meant, but most of us had heard of Catrin and Cadell's little “imaginary” friends. I have no words, Marda. I swear I sat there looking at those tiny bits of faery wondering if I had gone completely barking mad. If perhaps I'd been killed by that hunter as I reached for my back door, and this was the hallucination of a dying brain.
Pretty sure it wasn't though. Dinner was awful. I wouldn't hallucinate that crap.
Huw went to fire off a note to Edgerift, but then paused.
“What do you think happens if we tell them there's a sentient species here?” he asked me.
“Potentially sentient!” Soren called from his lab table. Huw turned to stare at Soren. “My daughter talks to them. They talk back. They've given her information about...” and he trailed off.
“Trevor said there were people here. Sick people. They burned their city to the ground because of the sickness,” I said.
“Catrin says Trevor said,” Soren corrected patiently. “I think before we start assuming everything is not in Catrin's imagination, we need to talk to Catrin and Cadell, and try and find one of these little fellows intact.”
“And if they are sentient,” Huw said, frowning heavily, “they may want their kin back. They may have rituals.” Soren's look reminded us we were getting ahead of ourselves, but he carefully separated out the remains of the little faery (potential faery) and lay them on a clean washcloth in a small sample box. After scanning them and saving the scans, he covered the miniscule remains with another washcloth and closed the box, sealing it and pressing the button to start up the preserver, which would remove bacteria and enough moisture to keep the specimen useful and keep it from rotting.
I went and got Bets Almond. Still don't like psychologists, but I couldn't think of anyone better to advise us on how to proceed with little Catrin, or anyone better to actually talk to the little girl. called in Randi Jones, too, and we all met up back at the science center with Basilio and Laure, Soren, and Huw and Alis. Toondie Renfrew had the younger Gethin kids come over to play with Benjones and Blaines, Elyan had gone off to play board games with the older kids at the town hall.
Soren carefully opened the sample box with the faery's remains, uncovering the tiny bits with more reverence than I think he realized. Randi gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.
“Well, I'll be,” she said behind her hand. She saw the little pointed skull immediately.
I know she has to have seen more than a handful of Catrin's drawings.
“What are we looking at?” Bets asked.
So Soren explained about Catrin and Cadell's imaginary friends, and this little body.
“Oh my,” was all Bets said for a long time.
“Lets sleep on it,” Bets said. “Are we in a hurry?” “Well, no,” Soren said. “But this is of pretty hefty importance. There's a new species here, and if they are sentient, if they do hold conversations... we've been out in the galaxy for a century and a half now and we've never yet met a species that could talk back to us. We've never yet met a species that meets any criteria for self-awareness or sapience. There are procedures for documenting and procedures for announcing this. There are procedures for making contact that are all blown out the window now that our first ambassadors are seven year old twins.”
“Even more reason to sleep on it,” Bets said. “Make sure we're coming at this with a clear mind. If it's all right, tomorrow I'll have an official meeting with the twins, one at a time, in my professional capacity.” We all nodded, though really only Huw and Alis needed to.
“What do I do with this?” Soren asked, indicating the little dead faery. “Keep it here. If we need to turn it over to the twins' little friends, we can do so after talking to the twins. Treat it with the respect you'd treat a person's remains, can't hurt to err on the side of caution,” Bets suggested.
Seemed like sound advice. I know I didn't want to put that tiny body back outside where the hunter might return to take it. So I've been reading about first contact theories and suppositions and wild stories of flying saucers and anal probes, trying to find information that will help us as a community. I wish you were here, Marda, you have a real talent for social behavior.
I bet the beacon lit up with searches for first contacts and aliens and the like tonight. We're too small a community to keep secrets. “I'm concerned,” Rumor said over coffee tonight. My coffee, since I finally got my ordered supplies and our bed from the supply dome, and it's high time we treated her to some coffee after drinking so much of hers.
“About what, kiddo?” I asked, and she laughed. She's fifty, no one else here but me is old enough to call her a kid. “If this is what it could be, and this is a sentient species... We're all going to be moved, don't you think? Room made for the scientists and the politicians. We'll have to pack up and vacate. And I know it's crass, but some of the families can't afford to move, and for me... I don't think Misty can tolerate it. She's finally doing well. I can't stand to take that away from her. Jelly and Tundra have their mother acting like a mother for the first time in their memory. She's been ill so long.”
I reached out and squeezed her hand, and she gave me a grateful smile.
“Could be there's no sentient species here,” I said. “Might be just a humanoid shape and a pair of wild imaginations.” “I might have thought that,” Rumor said. “But the story about the human settlement from before, and the sickness... there's just something about that story that rings very true, and seems like something that a seven year old wouldn't come up with on her own.”
“It was the part about burning the city down that did that for me,” I admitted.
“There's nothing in the book about a previous settlement. I've put in for articles from the Commonweb, but I'll lay money that we're not going to find any mention of any previous settlement here. You know what that means.” I sighed. “It would mean this was an Exile planet, and that the plague chased the Exiles off – or that Edgerift or whatever corporation Edgerift bought the rights from did.”
“What if that plague is still here?”
“What if the Exiles want their planet back?”
She shuddered. “Good lord, there's no group I can imagine being less suited to being humanity's representatives to a new species than the Exiles.”
“Well, the good news is, if this is what it seems, then there's no way the Commonwealth will give up the planet.” “You've read the news, Paden. The Exiles are looking for a reason to attack, a reason and a starting point. The more I think about it, the more I think... maybe this is something no one needs to know. Maybe this is news we need to keep to ourselves for the time being.”
“It's far too late for that, Rumor,” I said softly. “There's only a few of us here, but it's still too many to keep a secret.”
She shook her head and stood up. “I'm going to go home and pray for us, Paden. I'll see you tomorrow.”
“Goodnight. Try to rest.”
She gave me a sardonic look, and was gone, the front door swinging shut behind her.
The more I think about it, the more I think she's right. But I can't see any way to keep this to ourselves.
If you got any ideas to share, my dear, I am all ears, all hairy old ears.
Goodnight, Marda. I love you so much.
Night 54
Dear Marda The twins are missing. Alis is out of her mind with worry, Briallen is terrified, Elyan's trying desperately to be manly, and Huw is so pale he looks like a ghost, but he's holding his ground and ordering people around like a military commander.
And we are all jumping to do as he asks. He's calm and rational and exactly right, he's dividing us into search groups and a group to feed the searchers and someone to help Alis and so on. It's not a job a father should have to do, but no one will take it from him.
They can't be far, but now it's full dark. Alis first noticed them missing shortly after their meeting with Bets Almond; they were in the main room of the town hall while Alis and Huw met with Bets and Randy in Huw's office just off the main room, and then they were gone.
We're all dreading that the fog will come rolling in while the children are gone.
We'll be searching all night. I just took a break to eat and get some coffee in me, then Soren and I are going back out in my truck. I have an idea on where they might be.
Love you, Marda. Pray for those kids, please. Put in a good word for them with that God you talk to.
Night 55
Dear Marda,
This is how it happened. They discovered the twins missing when they finished up their meeting, Huw and Alis, Randi and Bets, to discuss what Bets and Randi had learned from the twins about the faeries. They hadn't even closed Huw's office door all the way, but no one heard the children leave.
Doc Raines, in his office writing down his weeks notes, saw the twins skipping across the street from the town hall to the science center. By the time Huw and Alis got to the science center, only minutes after the children had gone through the front door there, the children were gone.
This is when Huw and Alis really started to worry. Alis got on the com to ask everyone to keep an eye out for the twins, they were off hiding or something and they were needed at home. Huw searched through the whole science center and didn't find them, but did find a back door ajar.
Bets Almond thought maybe the kids went to check on the faery's body, that they'd heard about it through the grapevine, so to speak. She peeked in Soren's lab and saw the specimen preservation box in the middle of his lab table, just as it had been the night before.
I had a bad feeling about all of this, so I got Soren and a few others and we started searching and calling for Catrin and Cadell.
An hour passed with no sign, neither sight nor sound, of the children, and it was clear they were missing and not playing a game. Now Huw organized the whole town.
Laure Carver checked the rolling map for the herd's location to see if the hunter might still be in the area. The herd was miles to the east, and hopefully the hunter was with them. Toondie Renfrew, Alis Gethin and Misty Watson gathered the smaller children up at the town hall. The older kids – Katsu, Tau and Kojo, Elyan and Iris Blue – helped search. Rumor Watson manned a command station, keeping coffee hot and food warm, just inside the town hall.
As night fell, the smaller children camped out on the town hall floor. We activated the fences between the hall and the storage dome, and Rumor sat in a chair next to the open front door with her stun rifle ready.
The rest of us walked, and shouted, and called, cajoled and begged. Huw kept in consta
nt contact with all the searchers, and kept track of where we were on the rolling map from the command station with Rumor.
None of us said it, but we didn't want the Gethins walking with us in case we found something terrible. We didn't want Huw or Alis to be the ones to find the twins' small bodies.
Just after nightfall the thought itching at the back of my mind about Bets Almond checking Soren's lab finally made itself clear, and I ran back to the science center and threw open the door to Soren's lab.
There was the specimen box in the middle of the table.
The indicator light was off. The seal had been broken and not reset.
There was no tiny body in the box.
“Huw,” I said, rather more loudly than I intended, into the com. “The kids are up at Bald Knob. They are bringing the faery's body to Trevor and Liberty.”
I heard him swear. We'd walked by Bald Knob already, calling, and heard nothing, but now we knew they had to be there. “Please, Paden, bring my children home,” he said hoarsely, and I was already jumping in somebody's truck in the back of the science center. Soren came running out of the town hall, dropping a cup of coffee, with one of the stun rifles slung over his back. He vaulted into the cab of the truck and winced, rubbing his leg.
His brace is off, but he's clearly still a little sore.
Didn't matter. He shut the door as we were already in motion, racing up toward the hills, head lights and roof lights on full blast.
You see, Cho and her small group were down at the shore, and they'd just hit the com to say it looked like a fog was rolling in. Soren was bopping up and down in his seat, releasing an expletive with every bounce, as if the words or the motion could make the truck go faster. He hit the window button and the window slid down, and he leaned out. He opened his mouth to shout, but I stopped him with a hand on his arm.
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