by Josi Russell
“It must be the glaze,” he said. “I mix it myself, you know.”
Ethan nodded. “I know. And you’re going to have to mix a lot more. When Polara was the most sick, we put the trays in her hospital bed and by morning she was awake.”
***
Ethan called his passengers to come and help with the Taim trays. They met first at Reverend Hardy’s church, as it was more centrally located than Ethan’s cottage. But they were scared, and weary of having no work here. They were not the same passengers who had opened their eyes to gaze with hope on Minea four years ago. They were discouraged and bitter, angry and disappointed. As they crowded angrily to the front of the church, he began to think that gathering them here together had been a mistake.
Ethan tried to speak to them, but they were shouting.
“What are we going to do?”
“Where will we work, Ethan?”
“What do these aliens want, anyway?”
Suddenly, Ethan heard Silas’s gentle, sincere voice. A single word, “Friends,” caught the attention of the clamoring mass.
Ethan turned to see the motivational speaker standing with his arms raised, his artificial left hand, fingers spread, caught the light.
“Friends,” Silas said again, and waited until they stilled. “You are unique,” he said, allowing the silence that followed his words to soak in around his listeners. “We were not wanted on Minea, it’s true.” He spoke quickly and gently. “But we were needed.”
Ethan saw, like magic, the passengers quieting. This was Silas’s gift.
“Beauty.” Silas let the word glisten in the air and gestured toward Hannah and Luis and several artists in the crowd. “That’s needed here. When we walk through the streets and see the tenements, with the people packed inside, when we see the hungry children, when we see the spots of Minean fever creeping across the skin of people we love—we need beautiful things to kindle the flames of our hope that flickers when these painful experiences come. We need beautiful things to draw our hearts and minds back to that hope and lead us upward again. On Earth, lots of people are creating that beauty. Here, if you,” again he gestured towards the passengers, “don’t create that beauty, no one else will.”
He stood and looked at them. The passion in his voice kept their attention. Ethan found himself caught up in Silas’s words.
“Help.” He looked toward Minz, Walters, the Reverend, and others in the service industry. “Your gifts of helping others are needed. You can serve. When people are weary from the mines or ill or angry, they forget the small things—” he pointed at Minz specifically, “a clean shirt,” then at Walters, “a hot bowl of soup,” and then at Reverend Hardy, “a prayer in a dark moment. Never mind what Saras says, that the sanitizer and the server can bring those, and that prayers are only needed at weddings and funerals. Those things that you can do can give others mental and physical and spiritual strength to get through one more day.
“When I was on Earth,” Silas’s voice grew stronger, “I was proud and greedy. I made my money by stepping on other people and taking it from them. But then, I fell off a cliff. Literally and figuratively. In the desert backcountry, I slipped on a slick rock ridge and fell thirty meters.” He paused, letting them imagine it. “It took this.”
He gestured to the stump of his missing arm, with the artificial limb attached, and paused again. There wasn’t a breath in the room.
Then he said, “Must have knocked somethin’ else loose, too.”
Softly, Silas laughed. A self-deprecating chuckle that allowed the crowd to laugh, too, and provided a perfect moment of rest in his intense story.
He continued. “Because I didn’t want to be that guy anymore. I wanted to find something good in people and help them embrace it.” He walked across the front of the room once, twice, then turned toward them. “You embrace it. Embrace what you can give the people here on Minea, in Coriol, and even if nobody else sees its value, give it anyway and know that it is needed.”
He stepped back, placing his one hand in front of his chest and bowing his head. Ethan’s passengers cheered.
After that it was easy to organize them. Ethan explained the Taim trays and sent many of them to his cottage to help Aria. The Reverend started a conversation about other needs, especially the food shortage. Several of the passengers committed to helping Aria with her fruit deliveries. Walters volunteered to wait outside the steel and stone mansions and collect food donations, which he promised to deliver all over Coriol, as if it were one giant restaurant and he was the head waiter.
Somehow, Silas had given them, with his words, a sense of duty, a self-respect, and a drive to overcome their challenges here and make the kind of contributions that Coriol, and all of Minea, was lacking.
***
Aria was delighted when the passengers of Ship 12-22 showed up to help her make the Taim trays. She’d had them bring Taim from their houses, but they needed more. While the passengers gathered at her cottage to unpack Luis’s pottery and transfer the Taim from her walls to the trays, she went out to gather more Taim.
Taking a large bucket with her, Aria started in the first neighborhood after Forest Heights. She knew a few people here. Some of them had children in Polara’s school. She knocked first on the Woods’ door, since she had worked with Lela on some class parties last year. When Lela Woods opened the front door, though, her smile froze.
“Hello,” Lela said guardedly, keeping the door partially closed between them. News had gotten around that Polara was in the hospital, that the plague had reached their neighborhood, and Aria didn’t blame her neighbors for being scared.
“I have a strange request, Lela,” she asked directly. “I need to know if you have any of the little plants that have been growing everywhere.”
Lela looked offended. “Of course not. I scrape the mold off every day. I scraped off a whole bunch today.”
Aria brightened. “You don’t use Zam on them?”
Lela shook her head. “Usually I do, but I’ve been out for a week.”
Aria knew the next part sounded crazy. She tried to think of a way to soften it, to make it sound like she wanted to borrow a cup of root sugar, but she just blurted, “Do you have the ones you scraped off today? Could I have them?”
Lela’s eyebrows drew together. Considering, she finally waved a hand toward the backyard. “They clog up my disposer, so I dump them in the back. If you really want them, you’re welcome to them.” Aria could tell that collecting plants from the garbage was not something Lela approved of, but she thanked her neighbor quickly and went to retrieve them. As she scooped handfuls into her bucket, she glanced up to see Lela peering out the back window at her, dismayed.
“They’re not a mold!” she called helpfully. Lela shook her head quickly and disappeared into the depths of her house.
Aria’s hands were covered with bright green, and the sharp, sweet smell of the little plants—almost like Earth’s mint, with a hint of orange scent—filled her house as she carried the bucket back in to the kitchen table.
Aria pulled a wide oblong serving tray from a crate, then she sat down at the table. Several of the passengers gathered around. She glanced up at them. “When you remove them from the walls, break as few of the tiny roots as you can.”
“Can you show us how you replant them?” Hannah asked, leaning closer.
“Sure. Like this: Come here, little Taim,” Aria said as she carefully grasped little bunches of the plants and disentangled them from each other. “I have a new home for you.”
Many of them were damaged, their roots sliced through from Lela Woods’ scraping, and Aria set those aside. The ones that were whole, though, she carefully arranged in the trays, spreading their roots below them.
“They want to spread their roots out, so it helps if you don’t crowd them,” she said.
Soon she ran out of trays. There were still plants in the bucket, so she looked for another box full of Luis’s pottery. Several crates stood empty ar
ound her, and the bright colors of Luis’s plates danced as the passengers snatched them up, filling them with the little plants. It was a good thing he hadn’t given up making them. There were plenty now, when they really needed them.
A knock came at the door. When she opened it, it took Aria a moment to realize who was there. The cousins who had been with Ethan in the cave: Ndaiye and Traore.
“Ethan sent us a message that you needed some help over here,” Traore said. Their broad bright smiles added to the cheery environment and she put them immediately to work. Ndaiye’s singing filled the little cottage.
Maybe this could be the one really good thing that Saras gave Coriol.
But as she looked at the trays in front of her, she felt a pang of worry. The scraped Taim lay wilted and limp. It may be too late. They may not make it. The broken ones which she had set aside were already drying out, and they crumbled in her hands as she swept them into the bucket to dump outside. They would have to get word out to people not to destroy them.
The cure for Minean fever was growing on their very walls, and they were scrubbing and scraping it into oblivion.
“Chip,” Aria called over her salesman friend, “I need you to go to the HHSD and have them issue a bulletin this afternoon for people to grow the Taim, not kill it. I want you to write it. Make people want to protect the Taim.” She knew he could convince them. There were few people immune to Chip’s sales tactics.
“Do you know where it is?”
Chip nodded. “The public health office is across from the Saras Employment Office. I’ve been staring at their sign for hours every day for a month. I think I can find it.”
“I don’t think you’ll have time to waste your days down there for a while,” Aria said. “Saras paid well for these trays, and that scrip is coming to all of you.”
Chip flashed a smile as he headed out the door. He left just as she saw Hannah and two other passengers start for the door with an enormous load of Taim trays.
“Ethan told us to take these to Polara’s school.” Hannah called back as Aria caught her eye. Aria waved, a bright hope growing within her. The cottage buzzed around her with activity and conversation.
Chapter 36
What had he done? Marcos lay in his bed back at the mansion cursing his moments of weakness. How had he let Bryant talk him into stopping work on the new shaft? And what, really, was keeping him from starting it again?
Looking out the window next to his bed, past a tray of Bryant’s plants, he could see the skyline of Coriol. And he could see heavy Asgre ships, three of them, hanging still over his city.
He wondered about the aliens. How far was their home world? How long had they been traveling? Did they have creatures they loved back there? Could they love?
This Taim thing seemed like an excellent solution to the mining problem. If there were Taim, there was no gas. If there was no gas, people wouldn’t get sick, and without people getting sick, production numbers would go up.
But he still needed to get his hands on that Yynium under the karst peaks. That new shaft had to go on. He had to win this land grant.
Theo came in. He’d been distant and nervous lately, not his usual friendly self. Perhaps he was afraid of catching Minean fever. Marcos still hadn’t allowed the release of the news about the gas from the mine, and now that the little trays of plants were soaking it up, perhaps he wouldn’t need to.
“Marcos,” Theo said, “I need to discuss something with you.” He was agitated, and paced the room with a hand in his pocket.
“What is it, Theo?”
“Something big. Something you’re not going to like.”
“Theo.” Marcos was glad that his voice was returning to its usual strength. “Just say it.”
Theo stopped and looked Marcos in the eye. “Veronika is trying to undermine the company.”
Marcos had seen this coming, knew that they would eventually go after each other. Marcos had seen it in Theo’s eyes the day the passengers of the P5 had awakened and there were suddenly two VPs. He and Theo both knew Veronika wanted all of it, and knew she was likely to get it, because she’d stop at nothing to do so. She thought it was owed her. Theo had been trying to keep her from outpacing him ever since.
“Too vague, Theo. What is it that you’re concerned about?”
“Well, I don’t have all the information yet, but Gaynes down at the market told me she’s been involved in some shady dealings with some of the miners.”
Marcos sat up straighter. “Shady dealings?”
“Apparently a miner kid showed up at the market with a sample from the mine. Told Gaynes that Veronika had paid him to steal some from the Colony Offices Air Quality crew. The kid had one left, and Gaynes bought it off him.”
Theo leaned in conspiratorially. “Gaynes says he paid the kid for a sample, but when he got around to looking in the case, it was empty. He wants the kid arrested. I need your permission to . . . question the kid.”
Marcos heard a strange tone in Theo’s voice. “Why do you need my permission?” The words ‘plausible deniability’ flashed in Marcos’ head again.
Theo sidestepped the question. “If these are really gas samples from the mine, we don’t want the UEG getting hold of them. I need to know what happened to all three of them.”
“We need to talk to Veronika about all this.” Marcos knew where one of the vials had gone. He reached for his missive.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Theo said, “not yet.”
“Why not?” Marcos didn’t like asking this many questions in a single conversation. He liked answers.
Theo crossed and stood beside the bed, putting a shaking hand on Marcos’s shoulder. “Listen, Marc, I don’t know what she’s capable of. She was pretty worked up when she found out about you sending out that dirty Yynium.” Theo shook his head slowly, “She told me you would bring the company down, and you know the company’s all she’s got. She wants to run it alone. I don’t think there’s anything she wouldn’t do. You go confronting her about it and she could lash out. Just let me look into it for a while. I’ll see what I can find out.”
Marcos felt weak and worried. He wanted to hand this over to Theo. He put a hand on the older man’s arm and nodded, wondering how to avoid Veronika until Theo had it figured out.
Theo left, and Marcos ordered the smarthouse on emergency lockdown.
He had to get the mines back on track. The land grant still depended on it. With the shafts destroyed, mining the Yynium under the Karst Mountains was the only chance he had. He picked up his missive and called the crew leader from the karst tunnel.
Chapter 37
They weren’t leaving. The Asgre ships still hovered over the planet, and Reagan saw on his screens that the original ships had been joined by many more.
They had reclaimed some of the Vala, but according to Ethan, many still huddled in the cave system below the mountains, and Reagan saw that Galo was going to come after them.
Reagan thought about his responsibility. He was to “guard the inhabitants of Minea from planetary and interplanetary threats.” Did that mean all the inhabitants of Minea? Reagan felt relieved that these beings, the Asgre, were not here for humans. They were not threatening Minea or Yynium production. The UEG maintained that they had simply come for their property.
But Reagan couldn’t convince himself of that. Not really. Though he’d only seen those few, the Vala were, from what Kaia reported that Ethan had told her, at least a Class 6 civilization, with family groups, creations, mineral manipulation, and written and spoken language. They were not livestock, were not objects.
Reagan laid his head against the cool wall. He was in this moment again. His position dictated that he bow to the UEG orders and hand over the Vala, even if he had to extract them with his own troops.
But it wasn’t right. He knew it to his core.
He walked out of his Coriol Defense Headquarters office onto the second-floor balcony. It overlooked the first flo
or training facility, and he watched as the Coriol Defense Troops practiced advance tactics.
The CDT was using the latest UEG recommendations for hand-to-hand combat, a tactic called the trigon, where the squadron of soldiers broke into teams of ten, each with a single, strong point man. The point man stood at the front of the trigon formation, supported behind by three strong soldiers. This central column was surrounded by two supporting flanks of three soldiers each, falling slightly behind the point man to make a triangle. They held their weapons at all angles, the sides of the trigon pointing out and the center soldiers pointing up. It was a beautiful formation, and Reagan imagined it against a front line of enemies. In his mind, the front line was made up of Asgre mercenaries.
Reagan went back into the office. He locked the door behind him. He pushed the button that darkened the windows. In the dark, he reached into his briefcase and pulled out his missive. On it he called up the passenger list of Ship 12-22 and let the missive play through the list slowly. The passengers’ faces appeared one after the other in front of him.
Reagan opened his contacts and dialed Ethan. “Son,” he said, “I need to talk to you.”
Reagan was waiting on the balcony when Ethan stepped off the elevator. Below them, the Coriol Defense Troops practiced sharp, triangular formations.
Reagan lingered a moment, watching them, then waved Ethan into his office.
Ethan sat across from Reagan. “I’ve heard from everybody about this situation,” Reagan said, “Saras, the President, the Asgre. But I haven’t heard from you and I haven’t heard from your friends.”
Ethan was somber. “The Vala are peaceful, Phillip. They don’t deserve to be imprisoned. They are compassionate. They helped us in the cave, when there was nothing in it for them. They have children. The Asgre use them in their ships somehow.” Ethan ran an agitated hand across his forehead. “I don’t even know how, or for what, or where their ships go.”
Reagan cleared his throat and tapped the screen, bringing up surveillance photos of the Asgre ship, up close, when it was on the ground outside of Coriol. “You don’t want to see this, but you should.”