Stone in the Sky

by Cecil Castellucci

  “Shall we?” he asked when he noticed that we’d all reordered ourselves and led the inspectors by the crowd and out toward our claim camp.

  Hendala took the first step toward following him, but she made eye contact with me as she passed me by, rotating her antennae toward me in a stealth greeting. Forming a long line out of town, the Imperium snaked down the road toward our claim camp.

  “What’s that?” a Dolmav inspector asked.

  “No concern of ours,” Brother Blue said. “That’s not our claim.”

  “But there are different kinds of aliens working in the field together,” the Brahar inspector said. They could understand that there would be mixing in town, just like on a space station or somewhere like Bessen where there was bound to be mixing, especially in the upper power classes. That was not punishable, just undesirable to the Imperium. But working together was a whole other thing.

  I looked out at the countryside and could see that a large group of mixed aliens were carefully sowing seeds into a freshly tilled field. We had all helped each other to sow and plow at some point or another. It was tiring work and went so much more quickly if everyone gathered together. I’d forgotten that today there had been a call from a Kao claim for help.

  “Are they working together?” the Imperium general, a Brahar barked.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Brother Blue said, trying to move them all along. But the entire party had stopped and was looking at the field. The guards were waiting for orders. The inspectors were talking among themselves.

  “We’re here to inspect the Humans,” Hendala said, trying to move the delegation along.

  “Whose idea was it to start working together?” the Imperium general asked Brother Blue. “Was it yours?”

  “Not at all,” Brother Blue said trying to smooth things over. “We Humans stay on our own land. We don’t mingle at all. If you’ll notice there is not one Human working that claim.”

  I looked again to make sure that he was telling the truth, and he was. We had all stayed at our claim for the inspection. I could see now how Brother Blue did what he did. He could convince you of one thing because one day it was true. It didn’t matter if it wasn’t true the next.

  The Brahar refused to move on right away. He called to the guards.

  “Separate them,” he said. He gave a signal to the Imperium troops. They went up the hill into the field and forced everyone into their own species group, shoving those who wouldn’t cooperate into place with the butts of their two-shot guns.

  I felt for the Kao speculator, whose field was getting trampled. He would have to start his work all over again.

  Brother Blue stepped closer to the general. He was distancing himself from us, and just like he’d done so many times before, moving over to the side that he thought would win. The Imperium was life, and we were death.

  “Pers and Dolmavs should not be helping a Kao,” the general said. His scales shifted colors as he yelled. They flicked from gold to green.

  The Per inspector scolded the Per speculators. The Dolmav inspector scolded the Dolmav speculators. I noticed that Hendala was standing in front of the Loor that had helped the Kao, but she was not scolding them.

  “It is unfair for a Kao to benefit from the work of others,” the general explained. “It muddies the claim, the value, and the currency.”

  He spoke as though we were all children. Or stupid.

  The Kao was trying to clean up the mess as he listened to the general.

  “Here is one thing we can all do together,” the Brahar general said. “We can ensure that this Kao gets no benefit from having been helped. We must completely destroy the claim.”

  He then took a hoe that had fallen to the ground and began destroying and uprooting anything that he could. After a moment of hesitation, all of his guards followed suit. The inspectors, including Hendala and Brother Blue, urged us all to trample the Kao’s field.

  I did not stamp the ground. I just swayed back and forth in the crowd so as not to be singled out. But when Brother Blue saw me, he grabbed my arm in a menacing way and hissed at me under his breath.

  “You will help to destroy this field, or I will destroy you.”

  “Enough,” the Brahar general shouted when the field was ruined. “Let that be a lesson to you all.”

  “I don’t know how one of my own kind would get such an idea,” the Kao inspector said.

  “It has the smell of Humans behind it,” the Per inspector said.

  “Likely how they get such good harvests and such good profits,” the Dolmav agreed.

  We couldn’t help but overhear what they were saying about us.

  “No, no,” Brother Blue said. “Not Humans. Just one Human.”

  Then he did it. He raised his hand and pointed at me.

  “It was her,” he said. “Tula Bane. She’s been organizing the aliens to work together. I’ve tried to stop her, but she’s persistent. I do not like to punish my own kind, but she’s left me no choice.”

  The inspectors turned to examine me.

  I stood up taller. I wouldn’t deny it.

  “No,” Reza said behind me. “It started in my fields. I was the first one here.”

  The Brahar general stepped up to Reza.

  “This is a hard planet, and the alin is tricky to cultivate,” Reza said. “I taught everyone here all that they know, and we’ve all done better by working together.”

  “Is that true?” the Brahar asked all of the aliens gathered together. “Have you been helped by this Human?”

  The aliens looked around at one another and then they all looked at me. No one said anything, but it was clear that they were waiting for me to answer. Their faces looked frightened, worried that the inspectors would come and destroy their fields next. This was what so many of them had run away from.

  I put my hands out to comfort the crowd and implore the Brahar general to see our point of view.

  “We’re very few that live here, and we are all far away from home,” I said. “Things are hard to get, and so we have to work together, much like you do.”

  The Imperium inspectors let out various forms of gasps. The Brahar opened his eyes very wide to show me how enraged he was.

  “I told you. Tula Bane is the real instigator,” Brother Blue said, stepping in front of me.

  “Pack up now and leave immediately,” the Brahar general commanded to the aliens still gathered in the field. They didn’t need to be told twice. They left the Kao with his ruined field.

  “I don’t need to see anything else,” he said.

  Brother Blue followed the general down the road, babbling away in an attempt to charm. To me he looked like a dog begging for scraps.

  * * *

  News of what happened during the Imperium audit traveled fast. And within a few days, murmurs in the eatery and the entertainments spots were brimming with frightened aliens ready to take the first ship out of here. Some of the larger speculators gathered at Reza’s to discuss how to help the Kao whose field had been trampled.

  “We can’t let them scare us,” I said. “They’ve done their inspection, but now they are gone.”

  “We can go back to our way of life,” the Nurlok who ran the eatery said backing me up.

  “They’ll kill us,” a Freng said. “My species is not even Minor.”

  “Or they’ll go after our homeworld to punish us,” a Calwei said.

  “They won’t really do that,” I said.

  “What are you going to do?” a Loor in the corner asked.

  “We’re going to stay,” I said to the aliens.

  But we Humans had nowhere else to go.

  44

  I could see them in the sky. Battleships. They were low in the atmosphere. What were they doing here?

  There was a noise, like metal gears coming to a grinding halt. And then there was a flash of light. The field behind me blew up. I could hear the scream of some injured Humans. Where alin once bloomed, there was now falling dirt a
nd yellow petals.

  People were yelling.

  I looked up at the ships, trying to see where they were aiming. A bright light of a laser blast cut the field again. I unfroze and began to run for the road.

  Dirt sprayed around me as I dove for cover behind a large rock. I heard the rumble of the ships as their cannons revved up for another shot.

  They did not seem to be hitting the settlement.

  Lights streaked across the sky, like a storm of lasers.

  “To town!” shouted Ednette.

  Soon anyone who was not injured was running down the road to town.

  The town seemed to be only place that was safe. Throngs of aliens pushed and pressed into the square. Alien helped alien get to safety.

  I pushed through the crowd looking for Reza, hoping that I would find him. Finally I saw him being held up by a Dolmav, who was breathing heavily through his blowhole. Reza was bleeding.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “They’re going for the alin!” Reza said.

  After more blasts, we could see the battleships lifting out of the sky and disappearing into space. It was quiet for a moment, and then we could hear people and aliens of all kinds calling for each other. We could see all around us a ring of fire as the fields burned.

  “They only hit the alin,” Ednette said.

  “They didn’t want to strip the planet for resources,” I said. “They just wanted to get rid of the source of wealth.”

  I had not wanted the other aliens to suffer, but by having Brother Blue audited, I could see now that it had served to expose all the aliens and their affairs on Quint. The Imperium wanted to make sure that they controlled the wealth.

  “They didn’t want us getting along,” Reza said.

  I had no time to mourn for the lost alin, or for all the beings who would not benefit from it. These burning, razed fields meant death to many.

  “Form a line!” I shouted. “We save what we can!”

  Buckets, hoses, wet rags were found. I shouted instructions to water down the buildings, and Reza organized aliens to help to fight back the fire from the closest fields.

  While I ran forward to help, I noticed Brother Blue and others running toward the launchpad to board the last ships off of Quint.

  Coward, I thought.

  But I could give him no more of my attention. There was work to be done, and a community to save.

  These were my people. Human or alien, they were under my care now.

  45

  At some point, a rush is over.

  With the alin mostly destroyed, nearly all of the aliens left.

  It was stunning how quickly a place could empty out. Within days, there were shuttered houses and shops. Within weeks there was a desolate feeling as the claimed fields around us were abandoned to the elements.

  For those few aliens who were still on Quint, there was talk of new seasons and the replanting of the blooms that had survived. But you could see the defeat in everyone’s faces. People were pressing out of the fertile Dren Line and trying hard to make things grow in ruined land. The amount of pollen harvested now compared to a few weeks ago was small and the reward nearly nothing.

  At the launchpad, it was obvious that more ships were leaving than coming.

  There were still a few aliens who arrived late to the rush and still excited by the prospect of speculating. They took advantage of the abandoned claims, but there were not as many as before; and it didn’t stop the sense that what was once a buzzing planet was now dying. I was struck with a sadness that everything that I had helped to build up was crumbling.

  Brother Blue had disappeared from Quint back to the Yertina Feray, but we were in the fields trying to salvage what we could. I had managed to give every farm some of the seeds that Reza had. Not just alin, but other things. We were parceling up the acreage and planting things. We sent the children, alien and Human, to gather all the insects that they could and release them into the scorched land. Anything that burrowed and turned. Anything to begin the healing.

  Every seed I held felt as though it was a piece of a broken dream I had. I was enraged at how helpless I felt. Quint was ruined. It would take years to get back to where we had been.

  In town, all the aliens gathered to hear the galactic news, and it wasn’t good. The Imperium had a few planets in their sights as marked for review. They were mostly Minor Species, and Earth was one of them.

  “This is my fault,” I said to Reza.

  “You couldn’t have known that they were going to burn the alin,” Reza said.

  “He’s probably up there, restoring his reputation as best he can,” I said. “I can’t just sit here.”

  “Well what are you going to do?” Reza asked.

  “Listen to the news. It’s causing the aliens on the Yertina Feray to react. There are commotions and Hochts nearly every day.”

  A Hocht was a kind of duel that two aliens of the same species could call on each other to settle a disagreement. I rememebered when I had fought Caleb in a Hocht when I refused to help Els, Reza, and him upon their station arrival. A commotion was when all aliens came out and screamed in a mob. A commotion could quickly turn into a riot if not kept in check. It was one thing to do that when the Yertina Feray was empty and had a low population, but by all recent accounts she was bursting at the seams. If the aliens went back to their worlds suspicious and fighting one another, then that would trickle down to every aspect of interstellar politics and a government like the Imperium would stay in power longer. They had not burned the alin for no reason. They knew they were vulnerable unless they made sure everyone was fighting each other and not rising up against them.

  “I need to get up there,” I said. “I can calm everyone down, I know I can.”

  “Why do you think you can do that?” Reza asked.

  “Because I’m the one that all the aliens up there trust,” I said.

  Reza couldn’t help but agree.

  “I got everyone to work together down here,” I said. “Now I need to go do it up there.”

  “I’ll get a message to Caleb,” Reza said.

  I would tell Tournour that I was coming home.

  * * *

  We could see the Imperium battleships in the sky once we cleared the atmosphere.

  “They’re everywhere,” I said, staring out the window as we approached the station. It looked like a flower surrounded by bees.

  The Yertina Feray was completely hemmed in. All those ships meant that no one could get out.

  “Can you even get us in?” I asked Caleb.

  “Never underestimate the will of a determined man,” Caleb said.

  He pressed a button and began to talk to the docking bay operators.

  “You are not cleared to dock,” they said. “Please hold your position.”

  “I’ve got a standing game at Kitsch Rutsok’s,” Caleb said. “A full credit line. How about I turn that over to you and you let me slide in?”

  “Negative,” the docking bay said.

  “You’re a Kao, right? How about I find you a pleasant little hole for your nest?”

  “I do not have the authority to accept your offer.”

  “You don’t need authority. Just push a button and open a door,” Caleb said.

  He did what I would do. He started trading favors for a way in. He was still not the best at it, and I knew I could do better. I told him to offer the waters that he had. I pitched in my small load of alin. I started giving him thumbs up and thumbs down, increasing or decreasing the amount of moves it would take to get us on board.

  We were still circling the station hours later, hoping for a clearance to dock when Tournour broke in. It was not like him to deal with docking matters.

  “This is Chief Constable Tournour. Am I talking to the captain of this ship?” he asked.

  Just hearing the sound of Tournour’s voice made the anxiety that coursed through me calm down.

  “Affirmative,” Caleb said. He shot me
a look, and I knew that something was wrong.

  “Your business partner, Brother Blue, has requested to meet you due to irregularities in your agreement, before you are cleared to dock. I can’t allow for any aggression to be brought onto this station. You must resolve your conflict prior to boarding.”

  “Do you have suggestions for resolution?” Caleb asked.

  “I suggest that either you leave the system or you jettison the package that you may have with you.”

  Caleb looked at me. I shook my head no. I did not want to leave the system. He knew better than to argue with me. He knew my mind was set.

  “I must deliver,” Caleb said. “The package is aboard and too precious.”

  “I am well aware of that. You must jettison the package or the package will be destroyed upon boarding. This is not a threat. This is a fact.”

  Then the com went silent.

  “Look,” Siddiqui said, pointing out the bridge window. “Trouble.”

  Looking through the window, we could see a small Imperium ship leaving the docking bay, heading toward us. We were quiet for a minute and then Caleb jumped into action.

  “We have to get you off of the ship,” Caleb said. “I know what to do. Follow me.”

  Caleb grabbed my arm, and I followed him as he rushed to the airlock of the ship, Siddiqui following fast on our heels. Caleb led me to the bay and started pulling down a suit and gear for me. He measured me with his eyes.

  “What am I going to do? I can’t leave the ship. Where am I going to go?”

  He pointed outside. To space.

  “Let’s get you suited up,” Siddiqui said calmly as he grabbed the elements to make up a spacesuit from various drawers and lockers.

  “I can’t go out there,” I said.

  “Yes you can,” Caleb said, pulling at my clothes. “You have no choice.”

  “I have never been in a spacesuit. I have never space walked. People train for years to do that,” I said.

  “Did you have emergency training when you were on your colony ship?” Siddiqui asked as he helped me into the cooling garment.

  I nodded.

  “It’ll be similar to that,” Siddiqui said. “Just like the drills that you were made to do one hundred times.”