Guardians (Caretaker Chronicles Book 2)

by Josi Russell

  “You’ll need to fill out a job request and get in line, ma’am,” he said.

  Just as Kaia was about to answer, three men in dusty red jumpsuits came in the front door. One of them was carrying a stack of coveralls. Another stepped past Kaia and laid a sheet of paper on the desk in front of the kid. He looked it over and then stood up, tapping a microphone.

  “Good news, folks. We’ve got six mining spots available. Disability restricted, health restricted, age restricted.” Several people scrambled forward and formed an impatient line at the desk. Kaia stood aside and watched as the kid reviewed each paper.

  “I said age restricted,” he said to a man whose hand shook slightly as he reached to take the paper back from the kid, who spoke over his microphone again.

  “Age restricted, people, means that nobody over fifty-five is fit for these jobs.” Kaia watched the shaky man walk back to where he’d been standing against the wall.

  Kaia glanced up to see her reflection in the long glass window. There was a woman unfit for a mining job. She looked around the room. Several people her age and younger sat in dejected silence. She wondered how often they came here, how many days they sat and listened to the list of restrictions edging them out of their chance to earn a little scrip.

  The press of people barely moved to let the three miners and the six new miners out the propped-open door. As they passed, Kaia caught sight of someone waving at her from just inside the door. It was Chip, one of her passengers, and she had walked right past him. She crossed the room to hug him.

  “Chip! How are you?” She regretted the formulaic question the moment it left her lips. She could see how he was: gaunt, weary, hemmed in by the press of the line.

  He looked away briefly. “This could be the day,” he said with forced cheer. “I was here early, and I’ve made it in the door.”

  Kaia shook her head. “What’s going on? Why are all these people here? Don’t they all,” she corrected herself, “mostly all have jobs?”

  Chip looked around him, catching the eyes of the others in line sympathetically. “They do, but from what they tell me, a lot of their jobs are at a standstill because of these little plants that the city is infested with.”

  “They’re that bad?”

  “Some places. The water plant and the mill have whole stations full of them. Usually I come here and pick up a day’s work at a time, but the last few days, with so many of the stations down, it’s tough to get anything.”

  “I’m here to see what I can do about that,” she said, patting his arm reassuringly.

  But when Kaia left the office an hour later, she had changed nothing. Saras’s employment specialist was insistent that only “skilled” workers would be utilized. When she listed the skills of her passengers, the man had the audacity to laugh.

  “Lady,” the specialist had said, “your friends are on the wrong planet.”

  Chapter 5

  Ethan walked onto the short liftstrip outside the Saras Company’s Coriol Headquarters the next morning. He saw the little airship that would fly them over the forest and deep into the Karst Mountains to do the survey the UEG had requested. Saras’s survey crew was standing on the strip, waiting for the airship door to open. They were dressed in red jackets marked with the Saras triangle and toting big packs. Ethan could see nine of them and through the window of the craft, the pilot. There were six men and three women outside. One of the women had short, curly gray hair. She gestured to the others as she spoke, herding them toward the craft. By her commanding demeanor and the silver triangle on her jacket, it was obvious that she was in charge.

  She glanced at him as he approached. Her eyes narrowed and she put herself between him and her team members, who were entering the craft.

  “I’m Maggie Schübling, captain of this crew.” She had the rough voice of a miner: the growl of vocal chords worn raw by years of breathing Yynium dust.

  Ethan smiled, trying to put her at ease. “I’m Ethan Bryant, the Colony Offices sent me to ride along with you today.”

  “To keep an eye on us,” Schübling said. She chuckled. “That’s backwards. The Colony Officers are the ones that need watching.” She dismissed him with a grunt and followed her team onto the craft.

  When he climbed aboard, most of them were already sitting and chatting. One seat remained, near the front, beside Schübling. He sat down and she turned immediately and looked him in the eye as the craft lifted.

  Though Ethan liked being out of the office, he didn’t always like the role of government overseer. Whether he was doing inspections, reports, or observations like this one, he still felt more akin to the workers than to his colleagues in the government, but the refiners and haulers didn’t see him as one of them. Judging from the look she was giving him—as if he were a krech, the many-legged Minean cockroach, scuttling across the bathroom floor—neither did this woman.

  “We don’t need a babysitter, you know.”

  Ethan nodded. “I know. It’s a good excuse for me to get out of my office, though.” He meant it to be funny, but he could see from her face she didn’t think it was.

  “You don’t like working in the temperature-controlled, reinforced Colony Offices then?” she asked.

  Ethan glanced out the window. As the craft rose above the city, he was again taken aback by the sprawling industrial district. He could see the dust rising from the refinery, and lines of weary workers making their way through the barren streets. She was right. He had nothing to complain about.

  “I like my job,” he said.

  Coriol, like all the settlements on Minea, had been planned and filled very carefully. Every ship they’d intentionally brought here had doctors and teachers and managers and even strong laborers chosen for the contribution they would make to society. It reminded Ethan of the old playground activity of choosing teams. Each company chose, from the available applicants, the people who would give them a competitive edge over the other companies and fill a slot in their workforce. If he hadn’t been voted a Governor, he wouldn’t even have a job here.

  Ethan glanced past the pilot, out the front windscreen, and saw the cottages passing underneath. They were as pretty and as modern as the brochures back on earth had promised, but paying for their utilities and living at the opposite end of the city from their work had been too much for many workers, and they’d moved from the cottages to the cement tenements in the industrial district, leaving room for the passengers of Ship 12-22 in the blue cottages at the edge of town.

  Thinking about the tenements crowded, stifling apartments that had originally been built to house the first builders and farmers on Minea made Ethan feel claustrophobic, and he was relieved to see his house as they passed over the edge of the city. It was easy to spot because of all of Aria’s plants, which seemed to spill out of the house from the window boxes she had built, and which were growing all over the yard.

  The craft was very fast, and small and light. Ethan hoped it would be maneuverable enough in between the karst peaks.

  The Karst Mountains were not like the folded mountain range to the west, where most of the other settlements were. Those mountains consisted of large, thick peaks kilometers in diameter. The Karst Mountains were stone towers, jagged and steep, that dropped to valley floors covered in jungle. Vegetation clung to the towers, and their sheer faces made them nearly unscalable.

  The captain grunted, pulling his attention away from the scenery. “Don’t get in our way today. You can take your location notes when we touch down, but I don’t want to see you again until rendezvous.” She reached down and pulled a device out of her pack.

  It was yellow, with a black screen and the word “Suremap” across the front of it. She tinkered with some dials and pointed it out the window, pressing a button.

  Instantly, the scene they were seeing in between the patches of fog appeared on the screen in two-dimensional detail. She pointed it at her feet and pressed the button again. What Ethan assumed to be the land below appeared. />
  He loved the tools of various trades. When his friend and former passenger, Luis, showed him the tools he used to work clay into plates and cups and platters and bowls, Ethan had itched to become a potter. Now he wanted to get his hands on a Suremap device learn the layout of this new land.

  He gazed at the screen. On it Ethan saw a sharp spike of land directly in front of them. As he opened his mouth to shout to the pilot, a towering stone peak suddenly materialized out of the fog and the little survey ship banked sharply to the left. Ethan was thrown sideways against his seat straps, glimpsing for a dizzying moment the thick forested ridge of the karst tower they’d almost clipped.

  “Sorry,” the pilot said.

  “Nice flying,” Ethan replied. “Thought that one had our names on it.”

  The pilot chuckled. “It wasn’t as close as it looked. I think we’re about there.”

  The craft set down in a narrow meadow between two of the shrouded blue monuments. Grass grew up to their knees and ringing the field were lush trees and bushes. Ethan fought the urge to lie down and watch the fog rolling through the little valley. If Aria was here, and the children, he could spend the morning that way, but now there was work to be done. Though he was along only to observe, he introduced himself to the crew and then helped two of them, Carlisle and Collins, unload the survey crew’s equipment from the ship. Then, as they began to fan out over the meadow, aiming their Suremap devices around them, Ethan quickly jotted down location notes to prove they’d come where the UEG wanted them. He stood watching them until the crew captain glared at him, then he wandered off to let them do their work.

  Ethan still loved the taste of early morning air on Minea. It was fragrant, especially here among the karst where white aurelia flowers glowed among the rich greenery. Thick round calpha fruits hung from gravity-defying vines covering the limestone formations. The air was still crisp in the shadows of the towers, and he walked a little slower as he watched the fog shifting between the peaks. He took out his missive and snapped a photo of himself in the meadow, then tried sending it to Aria, but there was no connection out here.

  As he left the little meadow, he heard the laughing sound of water and followed it. The grassy meadow gave way to a narrow passage between two of the towers and he pushed his way through the vines that hung down from the massive monuments like a curtain. On the other side he found a small, swift stream. Beside it, nestled between the stream and the tower, was a boulder worn smooth from eons of rain. He settled himself on it and pulled out a nutrition bar.

  Chewing, he leaned back against the tower and closed his eyes. The sound of the water was immensely calming, and the silence beyond it welcome. Though he had become used to life with his wife and two small children, and though he’d lived in the bustling city for four years, his time as Caretaker of the stasis ship still affected him. He had been, then, completely alone, and something about those years of isolation had never left him. It was part of why the onslaught of other people’s thoughts had been such a shock. If he’d been used to hearing the voices of those around him, perhaps hearing their thoughts wouldn’t have been so difficult.

  It hadn’t helped that at the beginning he’d been swarmed by people so much of the time. They came to praise him, to thank him, to question him. They came at all times of the day and night, and the Caretaker had come to dread the knocks on his door.

  They had known he was telepathic. He told everyone who came. Thoughts were sacred, intimate. By hearing them, Ethan could know a person in an instant better than their mother knew them, better than their spouse knew them. Once, after he’d been made governor, the UEG asked if he would gather some intel using his telepathy. Ethan had walked out of the office. He didn’t blame them. They saw it as an advantage. But Ethan knew that crossing into the threshold of someone’s mind was more than that.

  Even when the people of Coriol didn’t come to his cottage, the incessant presence of their thoughts was with him. He had increasingly withdrawn from people and had found himself escaping into the forest behind his cottage and clearing his mind in solitude.

  Minea was an excellent place for that. Though colonization efforts had continued, there were still only a few million people on the planet. It was simply impossible to get people across the vast reaches of space fast enough to fill the new planet very quickly. And, there were fewer coming. Since Ship 12-22 had originally been diverted from Minea by the hostile aliens, people back on Earth were much more hesitant to undertake the journey.

  The vines next to him rustled and Brynn Tucker, a young woman on the team, stepped through. She jumped at the unexpected sight of him, then smiled. “Sorry, sir. I didn’t know you were back here.”

  “Who’s back here?” Schübling called as she shouldered through the vines. “Oh,” her eyes narrowed, “Bryant.”

  Ethan sat up. “Just enjoying the quiet.”

  Schübling eyed him then dismissed him. She waved her hand at Brynn. “We’ve got two valleys comin’ up. You go west with the cousins. Collins and Jade will be with me. We’ll rendezvous with Carlisle, Espinoza, and Baker back at the craft when we’re done.” She stood aside, waiting to relay the instructions to the rest of the group.

  Brynn nodded, making her way past the boulder and splashing across the stream, then veering off to the right. Ethan scrambled down to follow her. Schübling didn’t want him in her group, and he didn’t want to wait on the boulder all day, so he might as well stick with the group going west. Behind him, two other men whose badges read “Ayo Ndaiye” and “Badu Traore,” followed him through the stream. They chattered as the group wound their way deeper into the maze.

  “Did you go out with her last night?” Traore asked Ndaiye, who was struggling along behind him with his pack of equipment.

  “Tonight,” Ndaiye said laboriously.

  “Ahhh, what you gonna do?”

  “The best noodle stew in Coriol,” Ndaiye responded.

  Traore stopped on the trail and turned around to throw a playful punch. “Cousin, you take her to the cheapest place in town, you won’t see that girl anymore,” Traore laughed.

  “Well, you know a lot about running women off,” Ndaiye jabbed back. “Syllia took off after, what, two weeks?”

  “Shut up, Ayo.” Ethan glanced back to see Traore’s sudden sullen expression.

  “Sorry, cousin, too far.” Ndaiye’s voice was warm and apologetic.

  Ethan felt for them both trying to date on their meager wages. Scrip was tight. He’d heard things were getting tough for the workers around here. These guys didn’t make as much as they would have back on Earth, especially if they were relatively new. The way Ndaiye was struggling with his pack made Ethan suspect he hadn’t worked in surveying long. And they were the lucky ones. Surveying was relatively easy and clean work, and not a bad way to pay off what you owed to Saras.

  “Ay, Bryant.” Ndaiye’s thick accent made Ethan’s last name sound exotic. “You been out here much?”

  Ethan appreciated the man’s attempt to include him. “Not this deep. Mostly just out to the parks with my family.”

  “Nobody been this deep in these mountains but us!” Ndaiye called. “Ahhh, you’re in for a treat today! I’m going to find you a big juicy kwai fruit to try!”

  Ethan had heard of the kwai fruit. Though common, the kwai plant was not an abundant producer, so it took skill and no small amount of luck to find a fruit. “I hope you can. I’ve heard they’re delicious.”

  “He’s got a good eye for finding them,” Traore spoke up. His feelings were seemingly mended and he and Ndaiye picked up their banter again. Ethan glanced up to see the wisps of fog clearing. The wind swept them aside and the peaks appeared at their full height above the little group.

  They hiked up and over a little ridge, then down into a pristine valley. Ethan had never seen anything so serene. Around him, the pale blue formations jutted from the ground, draped in greenery. The lake was perfectly still, the peaks reflected in it like frozen kings. Za
n birds, their bright blue plumage shimmering, rose and fell on their wide wings as they dipped above the lake, catching insects in the still morning air. Once in a while a tail feather or wingtip would strike the surface of the lake, and then the ripples danced across it in ever-widening circles as beautiful as music.

  “Your first time here,” Ndaiye said from behind him. “So you have never seen the ghosts.”

  “What ghosts?” Ethan asked, still transfixed by the birds.

  “The ghosts of the lakes. They come at dawn and dusk. We’re too late now, we’ve missed them. I’ve been in the mountains twice, early in the mornings, and both times I’ve seen them.” Ndaiye looked around. “Traore’s terrified of them, but I think they’re friendly.”

  Ethan nodded. He remembered the forms of animals like calterlek and illumbra when he’d seen them through the fog. There really was something ghostlike about them.

  Ndaiye went on. “Our people, we have a lot more spiritual teachings than some on Minea,” he said. “We know the ghosts are all around us, and sometimes we can see them.”

  Ethan wanted to ask more questions, but Ndaiye had work to do. Ethan watched him walk away, taking out his Suremap. As the surveyors plotted and measured, Ethan enjoyed the spring sunshine filling the valley. The foliage began to steam in the damp Minean heat. Ethan sought shade. When he crossed out of the morning sun’s intensity into the shadow of the peaks, Brynn was just leaving the valley.

  “Going over the ridge?” he asked. She nodded, toying with a silver pendant she was wearing.

  “These valleys are one of the best things about these trips,” she said brightly. Then hefting her pack higher on her shoulders, she said, “I’ll see you at rendezvous.”

  ***

  Aria wondered briefly about Ethan’s survey trip today. He’d said they were going deeper into the karst maze than anyone had ever been yet, and while that sounded exciting, it also worried her. Every passenger of Ship 12-22 carried with them a subtle fear of the unknown.