Alien Nation #1 - The Day of Descent

by Judith Reeves-Stevens

  “I am not kidding, Miss Laurie,” Sikes said, making no attempt to hide the anger in his voice. He could see Theo looking over at him. “Tell Sam to get back in so I can take him to Medical Screening, or I’ll have the MPs carry him in.” Medical Screening was an absolute necessity for any Tenctonese entering the ACP. Almost all of them had come down with some sort of red rash on the backs of their necks in the first few days after the crash, and though most cases had spontaneously cleared up, there was now a disease resembling pneumonia beginning to spread. Plans were already being made to split up the Tenctonese population into widely separated camps so that any potential alien plague could be more easily prevented from infecting them all.

  Miss Laurie stumbled over the words in her own language as if she had to force herself to tell T’ksam to do anything.

  T’ksam stared at Sikes and Theo, who now was at Sikes’s side. T’ksam grinned. “See-iiks,” he said loudly. “See-iiks, See-iiks, See-iiks.” Then he got back into the Humvee, still clutching the child’s clothes.

  An ambulance pulled up behind the Humvee, and two attendants got out. One was a human. The other was a Tenctonese in ill-fitting hospital whites. The human let the Tenctonese move the child from the Humvee to a wheeled stretcher. The kid seemed to be coming around. He was mumbling things, and he said one set of words often enough that they almost were clear, though they sounded like another sneeze to Sikes.

  “Kleys cawnt zoom,” it sounded like, with an odd little click on the end. Whatever kleys were, and who knew why they couldn’t zoom?

  But there was something about those words that made the Tenctonese attendant look at the child with worry in her eyes.

  Then, before Sikes knew what was happening, T’ksam was out of the Humvee and standing by the stretcher and slapping the child’s face.

  “Hey! What the hell does he think he’s doing?” Sikes said. He felt Theo place a restraining arm against his chest. Their orders said that they were to do nothing to interfere in the aliens’ normal interactions amongst themselves. But as far as Sikes was concerned, what T’ksam was doing wasn’t normal on any planet.

  “It okay, fine,” Miss Laurie said nervously. She added her hand to Sikes’s shoulder to hold him back. Her grip was surprisingly strong.

  The child opened his eyes and looked up at T’ksam, then shouted, “Kleys cawnt zoom! Kleys cawnt zoom!”

  And T’ksam’s hand rammed into the kid’s rib cage under his arm, and the kid jerked back as if his neck had been snapped.

  T’ksam made a move at the ambulance attendant, and she backed away quickly.

  “Who the hell is that guy?” Sikes demanded, struggling to free himself from Theo’s and Miss Laurie’s firm hold.

  “Okay fine,” Miss Laurie said, almost desperately. “Sam I. Am. Ordinary Tenctonese.”

  “The hell he is,” Sikes snapped at her. “What aren’t you telling us?”

  “Tell you everything,” the nervous Tenctonese said. “Okay fine. Okay—”

  She stopped in midsentence as T’ksam yelled at her. Her hand dropped from Sikes’s shoulder. It had been an order in any language. T’ksam walked back to the Humvee and got back inside.

  Miss Laurie bowed her head as far as it could go. “He say you can drive Sam now,” she said to Sikes. Theo released Sikes.

  Sikes turned to Theo. “He was trying to kill that kid, Miles.”

  “That’s what it looked like to me, too. But the kid’s still breathing. Remember, we don’t know what’s normal for them. Maybe it’s just a dad beating some sense into a son.”

  That brought back too many memories for Sikes. “It doesn’t work that way, man. It just doesn’t work that way.”

  The MP told Sikes to get his rig out of there. The ambulance had to get past him into the camp.

  Angrily Sikes climbed back into the driver’s seat. T’ksam didn’t look at him. But he did say “See-iiks” one more time.

  Theo stood with Miss Laurie by Sikes’s door. “You not coming?” Sikes asked.

  Miss Laurie bowed her large head.

  Theo gave Sikes a small wave. “I’m her escort outside the fence, kid. I’ll meet up with you back at the mess tent.” He walked away with the Tenctonese female. After a few steps he put his arm around her as if comforting her. It seemed like a completely natural thing to do.

  Sikes scowled as he started up the Humvee. The MP came over to the side of the vehicle to advise him that the fastest way to Medical was between the fences. The inner fence ran out at the medical compound, and that way Sikes wouldn’t have to drive a mile out of his way around the barracks construction sites.

  Sikes thanked the MP for the shortcut. The less time spent in the vehicle with T’ksam the better. He slammed the Humvee into gear and kicked up a cloud of desert dust as he drove through the first gate, then hung a hard left. He checked to see what the turn had done to T’ksam, but the male was sitting perfectly upright, still holding onto the ball of gray fabric. He met Sikes’s stare, challenge in his eyes.

  Sikes turned away. He accelerated. The Humvee roared. Sand and rocks thundered up against its underside. Sikes hit forty with the chain-link fences rushing by ten feet from either side.

  T’ksam had the nerve to chuckle.

  Sikes floored it. The Humvee started sliding in the loose soil as he banked to follow the same twists and turns in the terrain that the fence did. He fishtailed on a tight turn and missed an extinguished oil pit by two feet. One of T’ksam’s hands shot out to grab the narrow dash.

  Sikes gritted his teeth and smiled. There was still a mile to go. He started edging closer to the inner fence, pulling away every few seconds to miss the thick posts. The whole Humvee rocked. The wheels started sliding again. He came closer and closer to the posts.

  Then Sikes swore and jammed on the brakes, and the Humvee slid to a stop in a cloud of dust less than a foot away from a pile of fence posts that blocked the whole corridor between the fences. Whoever had dumped the shipment there had left only a few feet of clearance on either side, no room for any vehicle to pass. Sikes kept his hands on the wheel and waited for the dust cloud to blow away. Through the chain-link fence he could see the orderly rows of the white medical trailers that had become the quarantine zone’s hospital just beyond the pile of posts. But the end of the inner fence was still a couple hundred feet away.

  He opened his door and stepped out into the blazing sun and dry air. The sweat was pouring from his forehead now, and he tossed his hat back onto the driver’s seat. His dark uniform was punishment enough in the desert heat. “Come on, Sam. We’re going for a walk.”

  T’ksam got out of the Humvee and stared at Sikes. Sikes pointed past the medical trailers and took a few steps toward the left side of the pile of posts.

  T’ksam took his own good time examining the immediate area, then began to walk toward the right side of the pile.

  “Hey!” Sikes shouted. His voice was oddly flat in the still desert air. “I’m your escort.” He made exaggerated gestures to himself and to T’ksam. “You walk with me. Get it?”

  T’ksam stopped to watch Sikes. He adjusted the rolled-up clothes under his arm.

  “What is it with you guys?” Sikes exclaimed. “Half of you learn the language in an afternoon, and the rest of you are dumber than the back end of a truck.”

  T’ksam waited.

  Sikes did his pointing routine again. “You walk with me. Get it? Sam. Sikes. This way.”

  As he said both their names T’ksam scowled.

  Sikes caught the reaction. “Sam. Sikes,” he repeated.

  T’ksam’s jaw clenched, he turned around, he walked past the posts on the right side. Sikes jogged after him, swearing. T’ksam kept walking.

  Sikes fell into step beside him. “I’m getting sick and tired of taking this shit from you guys,” he yelled into T’ksam’s ear—or at least, what passed for an ear. “Shit. Monk! You know, monk?” There, he thought with satisfaction, I’ve learned my first word of Tenctonese. />
  T’ksam hissed at Sikes as Sikes repeated the alien expletive, as if no one had ever said it to his face before.

  “C’mon, asshole,” Sikes said with a huge smile on his face, “if I know one word of your language, I bet you know a couple hundred of mine.”

  T’ksam returned the smile. “Eat monk,” he said, then he laughed and picked up his pace, easily distancing himself from Sikes.

  Sikes wanted to let him go. He wanted to turn back to the Humvee and just let this alien go. Let them all go. But he had his orders. No unescorted Tenctonese were allowed outside the ACP. He had no choice.

  “Wait up, asshole.” Sikes broke into a sprint to catch up to T’ksam. As he got within arm’s reach, the Tenctonese suddenly spun around and faced Sikes as if he were about to launch some kind of martial arts attack. Sikes made himself laugh. “Am I making you nervous? A dumb little human like me?”

  T’ksam snarled something at him.

  “Eat monk yourself,” Sikes said. “Talk English, buddy, or don’t bother talking at all.”

  T’ksam spit onto the dirt at Sikes’s feet.

  They faced each other.

  Then Sikes realized what he was doing.

  He shook his head. “Keep walking,” he said. He was an officer. He had orders. These people had crashed here and didn’t know what was going on any more than Sikes did. It wasn’t fair that he take out his bad day—bad week, bad life—on some poor sap a zillion light-years from home.

  T’ksam gloated in triumph. He started walking again, his feet crunching against the dry soil. The end of the fence was about three hundred feet away.

  “Chee vot!”

  Sikes glanced over to the inner fence, fifteen feet away. A Tenctonese female was there. She looked to be about fifty years old, was dressed in the usual tattered gray clothes, had one hand on the chain-link fence, and waved urgently with the other, motioning Sikes over.

  Sikes shrugged. He pointed down by the end of the fence. If she wanted to speak with him, she could meet him there.

  “Chee vot!” the female shouted again. “K’ul zoo!”

  Sikes saw T’ksam glance at her. Her mouth widened in shock.

  She pointed her finger through the chain-link mesh. “Na wask vot!” It was a cry of recognition. “Na wask vot!”

  Sikes looked at T’ksam. T’ksam didn’t look at the female. Instead he started to walk faster.

  The female ran ahead along the fence, then grabbed the mesh again and shook it furiously, making an angry metallic rattle. “Kleezantsun!” she wailed. Sikes felt goose bumps rise up on his arms despite the heat. “Kleezantsun!” It sounded like what the kid had been trying to say when T’ksam had punched him out.

  Behind the female, other Tenctonese among the medical trailers started paying attention to what she was shouting. More of them began to come up to the fence. T’ksam ignored them all.

  The female ran ahead again to keep up with T’ksam’s deliberate strides. This time when she stopped it was with a group of others, all ages, speaking quickly amongst themselves and pointing to T’ksam. They all began to shake the fence, sounding like a giant snare drum beating out a march.

  And they all screamed out the same word: “Kleezantsun! Kleezantsun!”

  Sikes looked at T’ksam. He could see the Tenctonese was about to break into a run. Sikes didn’t know what was going on, but he decided that T’ksam wasn’t going anywhere until he could figure this out.

  At the same moment T’ksam began to run, Sikes reached out to grab his arm. He missed, but he snagged the bundle of clothing instead. It fell out from under T’ksam’s arm and bumped to the ground. That was the first time that Sikes realized that something was hidden in it.

  “Hold on here,” Sikes said as he stooped over to pick up the bundle. Even stricter than the orders requiring Tenctonese to be escorted were the orders forbidding the transport of any object into or out of the ACP without having it looked at by a technology inspector. “This isn’t going anywhere.”

  His hand closed on the bundle just as T’ksam’s foot connected with his chin.

  Sikes went flying back as if he had been slammed by a linebacker. His fingers clenched tight on the fabric and unrolled it. He looked up from the ground, gasping for breath. There was a black metal cube lying in the dirt, small enough to fit in one hand, with one side covered in Tenctonese writing.

  A word rushed through the crowd by the fence faster than “Kleezantsun” had spread. “Sobat!” they cried as if the world were ending. “Sobat! Sobat!”

  T’ksam picked up the cube. Sikes got to his feet. “I don’t think so, Sam.”

  T’ksam snarled at him. Then he said, “You go now.”

  Sikes rubbed at his jaw and smiled. He knew the guy could speak English. “I definitely don’t think so. That thing has to go through the inspection station.”

  T’ksam angled his body, putting the cube out of Sikes’s reach.

  There were about a hundred Tenctonese pressed against the fence now. Some were crying. Some were shouting. All were panicked. The fence shook with an ancient rhythm. Drumbeats of war in any language.

  “I guess this thing’s pretty important,” Sikes said as he began to move to the left, making T’ksam shift to follow him.

  “Go now,” T’ksam said in the same tone he had used to order Miss Laurie.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Sikes said. “And neither are you, pal.”

  The fence shook. Back and forth. Sikes made a feint to the right, expecting to swing in with his left. But T’ksam moved like something molten. His fingers kited into Sikes’s stomach, slammed against his neck, a foot to his chest, then the cube came arcing through the air in T’ksam’s fist and smashed into Sikes’s nose.

  All four blows had landed in less than a second. Sikes felt the desert whirl around him. For a moment he thought he might be in his bed after the party at Casey’s, as if everything that had happened in the past three weeks had been nothing more than a dream.

  The crowd of aliens roared and screamed, and everything they said was meaningless and yet so clear. They were terrified.

  Sikes fell to the ground. Dimly he was aware of T’ksam standing over him, the cube still grasped in his hand. Sikes narrowed his eyes against the sun. He looked over to the fence. They had stopped shaking the chain link. They had stopped shouting and crying. There was silence. He looked at them. They stared at him. And at T’ksam. And at the cube.

  And through his blurred vision Sikes saw no aliens. There were only people on the other side of that fence. Frightened people. Lost people. People who had nothing. People who desired only one thing.

  Justice.

  Sikes stared up at T’ksam. He didn’t know what crimes T’ksam might have committed beyond beating a child. He didn’t know what the cube meant other than that its presence frightened everyone who saw it. But sometimes details didn’t matter. Sometimes there was just right and wrong. It was the same in any language.

  Sikes tried to get up, but his muscles cramped and his head fell back against the dirt. A moan escaped the crowd. T’ksam was just a black smear against the blinding sky. But Sikes could hear the sneer in the alien’s voice as he said one word perfectly clear, though it made no sense.

  “Cargo.”

  Then T’ksam turned and began to walk away.

  Sikes lay flat on his back. The sun burned into him. Dust stuck to his face on each rivulet of sweat. But there was only one thought in his mind, one voice in his heart.

  No.

  It wasn’t over.

  It would never be over.

  Sikes was tired of being beaten. It was time to win one.

  C H A P T E R 1 1

  GEORGE CRADLED DAREVEEN in his arms and sang her a song of Tencton. The little podling cooed sleepily, and his hearts melted.

  “I think she needs a nap, Neemu.”

  George looked over at his mate. She looked so beautiful in her human clothes. He found it to be a good omen that the color used for
holy robes on Tencton was the same as that worn by those who cared for children on this new world. Susan held out her arms for their baby. “Here, let me put her in her . . . bed.”

  They smiled at each other as Susan used the human word. The trailer was filled with tiny bed-ta for podlings. In the other trailers nearby were larger bed-ta for adults. The humans had asked for all cargo specialists to come to these trailers marked by the Red Cross to help the sick and the injured Tenctonese and to teach humans how to do the same. The humans were obsessed with the notion that none should die, no matter how old or how young. These were days of miracles.

  That didn’t stop the Tenctonese from dying, though. George and Susan had seen the trucks arriving by night carrying large metal cans into which the bodies of the dead were sealed. The bodies would be returned, the humans said, when it was certain that they would pose no threat to this world. George wasn’t clear on how they would know when the bodies were safe. It had something to do with going to a group of holy elders and asking them to dispense an Environmental Impact Statement before a single body could be buried or burned. These aliens were a kind people, George knew, even if they did appear to be hopelessly complicated some of the time.

  Little Dareveen squeaked happily in her bed and closed her eyes. Susan slipped her arm around George’s waist as they stood watching their child. There was a sign on the end of the bed. It read: EMILY DICKINSON. George was very proud that his daughter had been blessed with a human name to bind her to this planet. His mate had one of her own, too: Susan B. Anthony. George looked forward to the day when he would be judged worthy enough to have a job, and the humans would bestow a name upon him so that he, too, could be entered into the records. It would be a thrilling day.

  Susan nuzzled George’s neck. “I have a break in just a few minutes,” she whispered into his ear valley. “And I know a trailer where they have lots of bed-ta and the doors can be locked.”