by Rob Favre
A Daring Rescue by
Space Pirates
The Oldest Earthling – Vol 2
By Rob Favre
For my dad
My attempt at a PG-12
Table of contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Chapter 1
I had news, and it couldn’t wait.
I stepped softly through the stillness of the dark settlement. The night wind was cold against my face. The air had that familiar sour tang, like it always did when it blew from the sea. There would probably be another storm tomorrow. An electric blue trapezoid glowed on the ground outside an open window, and when I stepped into it, my shadow, crisp and black, stretched out far out into the night. Just for a moment, I was fifty feet tall.
The air was chilly, but I felt my palms begin to sweat as I approached the door. This was it. The moment of truth. I was going to drop some news on my parents. I had no idea how they would react, but I was pretty sure they weren’t going to be happy about it.
The door creaked as I pulled it open. “I’m home,” I called out, maybe too loudly. I felt like I was shouting in a library.
My dad stepped out of the bedroom and into our small living room, which doubled as my bedroom. He smiled but his eyes were tired. My mom was right behind him. “Glad you’re back, Tom. You were out pretty late tonight. Everything okay?”
I hesitated. If I just didn’t say anything, they would never know. Oh, sure, someone else would probably find it. Eventually. But then someone else would have to figure out what to do about it. Not me. I would just pretend I had never known anything, and take my secret to the grave.
But I knew I couldn’t do that. This was too big, too important. I took a deep breath.
“Mom, Dad… the toilets aren’t flushing again.”
My dad shook his head and cursed. The plumbing over in the wash area had always been real flaky. He had just worked on it a couple days ago. Now he was going to have to go back in and figure out what had gone wrong this time. Mom just nodded. “Thanks for telling us, Tom. I’m afraid it’s going to have to wait until morning. Are you going to bed?”
Dad excused himself and went to go lie down. He didn’t seem too excited to work on plumbing problems again tomorrow. I sat on our couch, which was conveniently also my bed, and chatted with my mom for a few minutes. Well, she chatted. I mostly just said “Yeah,” or “No.” Or shrugged. I was good at shrugging.
“Is Zoe is going to be going on the expedition tomorrow?” I knew what she was trying to do, and it wasn’t going to work. I shrugged as casually as I could.
“Well, alright then. I’m going to get some sleep. You should, too. We have a long day tomorrow.” She got up to leave, trying to hide a quarter of a smile. That smile meant that, despite my shrugging, somehow I had given everything away. Again. I had shrugged! How could she have learned anything from a shrug?
Of course Zoe was going to be on the expedition tomorrow. And of course I was going to be on the expedition tomorrow. But that didn’t mean anything. A lot of people were going to be on the expedition. Besides, I was trying not to think about Zoe too much. She had made it pretty clear where we stood, and where we stood was at a respectful distance.
I was tired, but after suffering through my mom’s grueling interrogation, I knew I wasn’t sleeping anytime soon. It was times like this when I really missed having movies and games in my room. The only place I could do that kind of stuff was all the way back in Central, and besides, they had already shut off the power. I stared out our tiny window at the stars, wondering which one was Sol. I’d heard some theories from a few of our astronomers, but no one had figured it out for sure. I must have been more tired than I knew, because I woke up in middle of the night, shivering, still leaning against the wall by the window. I slid down onto the couch. I was still cold but too tired to go find a blanket. Eventually, I fell back asleep anyway.
The next morning, we were up at second dawn, which probably sounds like sleeping in, but it still felt early. Cordelia, the star playing the role of the sun on our new planet, rose at the start of each day, but her sister stars came and went at different times depending on which part of the year we were in. Currently we were in a phase where Regan came up about twenty minutes after Cordelia, so it was more like hitting the snooze bar than getting a slow, lazy start to the day. And of course, our days weren’t exactly twenty-four hours long. Well, they were, but not the way you probably think. See, New Newton makes a rotation in 22 hours and 19 minutes of Earth time. Early on after Planetfall we all agreed to keep the same number of hours in the day, and the same number of minutes in an hour, just because that’s what everyone was used to. So, our minutes are still sixty seconds long, but our seconds aren’t quite long enough to spell “Mississippi” out loud. Which is a long way of saying there was less time for me to sleep, which naturally made me grumpy in the morning.
We gathered on the Lawn, the grassy area in the middle of the outpost where the goats spent most of their time. It had started out small, but was getting a little bigger every week. Mom was always talking about how strange it was that the soil here was perfectly suited for our plants to grow in. I usually tried to listen for about five minutes before I got bored and just nodded politely. There was enough grass now for a regulation baseball diamond, with an outfield and everything. I asked about it one time, but my parents both objected to the idea of tearing up a bunch of perfectly good grass to make the infield. My dad had joked that there was already another baseball diamond I could use, and I had rolled my eyes. It didn’t really matter. Almost everyone but me had other things they wanted to spend time on anyway, since baseball wasn’t exactly a global pastime here on New Newton. Not yet.
Anyway, there were about thirty of us gathered that morning, ten Old and twenty Young, feet wet in the dewy grass. It wasn’t hot yet, but I could already smell that it was going to be. I looked around for Zoe. There were always more volunteers for these expeditions than there were available spaces. The expeditions meant exploration and possibly adventure, discovery, or excitement. Also, they meant you didn’t have to do your regular chores that day, which probably explained the high number of volunteers more than anything else. They drew volunteers randomly or each expedition, and this was the first one that both Zoe and I had drawn together. She was standing with some of the other Young Ones, Pen and Rose and some other girl I had seen around. Zoe saw me looking her way and smiled. I smiled back and then suddenly remembered I had to check something in my pack. I hoped she didn’t realize how long I’d been looking at her.
Kruger gave a little briefing about where we were going to be looking today. I wasn’t listening, and it didn’t really matter where we went – I would just follow everyone else when we started walking. I was mostly thinking about how I could get close enough to Zoe that she might notice me and strike up a conversation while we walked, but not so close that it seemed like I was trying to get close. Kruger also s
aid something about what we were looking for, and how we’d know if we found it. I think that was mostly for the benefit of the Young Ones. I was pretty sure I would know.
We started just as Goneril joined her sisters in the sky. We stepped off the grass and hiked across smooth black stone and white sand. You wouldn’t call what we were walking on a road, or even a path, but there was a definite trail of footprints. A lot of people had come and gone this way in the last month.
I found myself, coincidentally of course, walking next to Zoe and her group of friends. I tried to look past the girl whose name I couldn’t remember to see if Zoe had noticed me, but she was talking in hushed tones with Rose and Pen. I didn’t see a way in, at least not without pulling the “pretend to trip and fall in front of her” maneuver, but I had tried that one a week ago, and if I used it too much people were going to wonder if I had forgotten how to walk. I was just going to have to find another way.
The morning dampness had all burned away by the time we got to Galactic Park, and I was sweating. I hoped I had brought enough water this time. Galactic Park was what we called the baseball diamond. Okay, it’s what I called the baseball diamond. Sooner or later it was definitely going to catch on, though. It was the starting point for all these expeditions. Every day, we started there and searched a nearby area for any signs of where it might have come from or who might have built it. Kruger led us off to the southeast. There was no trail to follow now; we were going where nobody had been yet.
As far as we knew.
When Zoe and I reported on the baseball diamond we’d discovered, everyone except my parents assumed I was either joking or making it up for attention. Okay, my parents also thought I was joking, at least at first. The next day, Zoe and I took a bunch of people who were curious, or maybe just bored, and showed them what we had found: a regulation baseball diamond, complete with bases, buried in the sand, nestled between two arms of a little valley where you could imagine people sitting to watch the game. The air was still and silent as people walked around checking it out.
Then, the speculation had started.
Of course, for a long time most of the colony thought I had just made it all up, planted the bases under the sand and pretended to find them. Luckily for me, some tests on the bases revealed that they had been there a long, long time. Like, hundreds of years. That should have been enough to clear me of any blame, but a lot of the Young Ones didn’t trust the tests any more than they trusted me. The Young Ones had lived their entire lives on the Hope/Freedom, raised in fear and distrust of Old Ones like me who had been born on Earth and spent the journey here in frozen sleep, which probably didn’t do much for their opinion of me. There were other theories too, of course. The “Battlestar Galactica” theory held that we’d stumbled upon the remnants of a much older forgotten civilization that colonized Earth, bringing baseball with them. The “Stargate” theory said that we’d found the remains of an alien civilization, but that aliens must have visited Earth and taught humanity about baseball. A variant of this theory was that Abner Doubleday was himself an alien in disguise. And, of course, the “Planet of the Apes” theory was that we’d just wound up back on Earth somehow, far in the future, and this baseball diamond was all that was left of civilization.
There was also a short-lived “2001” theory that said we would learn incredible cosmic secrets by touching home plate. This theory fell from favor after Kev touched home plate and remained an idiot.
But so far, all we had were theories. There was no evidence at all. No statues or ruined cities or alien starships buried in the sand. Just an ancient baseball diamond on a distant planet, and no reason for it to be there.
Today’s search zone was a rocky plateau about two miles from Galactic Park. We slowly picked our way to the top and Kruger had us all fan out. Through another strange series of coincidences, I found myself searching the same area as Zoe. I tried to pay attention and search for relics or whatever. I really did. But you can only look at rocks and sand for so long before it all starts to look the same. I glanced up to see what Zoe was doing. It had been long enough, maybe I could offer her some water.
Someone fell to the ground in front of me.
I jumped a little.
“Are you okay?” I asked as I helped her to her feet. It was Zoe’s friend, the one whose name I kept forgetting.
She nodded, a little too eagerly. Probably she was just embarrassed about falling. “Thank you, Tom. Yes, I am fine.” She brushed the sand off the knees of her leggings and winced a little. She pulled the fabric up to reveal her knee. “Can you please look at my knee? Does it seem injured?”
It looked like Zoe was getting ready to sit down. If I didn’t move fast I was going to miss my chance to take a water break with her. I took at quick look at this girl’s knee – I didn’t see any cuts or scratches. “I think it’s fine. You’ll be okay. Just sit and rest for a minute. Excuse me.”
I pulled out my water bottle as I hustled toward Zoe, but she was drinking from Pen’s before I could get there. So much for my plan. They laughed about something. Before I got close, they stood up and walked off.
The girl was still there, sitting in the sand and holding her knees against her chest. She was staring away into space. She looked hurt.
“Hey,” I said as gently as I could, “are you okay? Knee still bothering you?”
She shook her head without looking at me. “My knee feels much better, thank you for asking.” Without another word, she got up and walked after Zoe and Pen. I picked up a weird vibe from her, but I couldn’t begin to guess why. Maybe she was just odd. She had nothing to be mad at me about. It’s not like I was the one who knocked her down or hurt her knee.
I was about to sit down, alone, and drink some water, alone, when I heard her call out. “Tom? Tom, can you come see this?”
I walked over to where she was standing. Were her eyes a little red and puffy? Maybe her knee was more hurt than she wanted to admit. “I am sorry to bother you again. But you were the closest one. Is that what we are looking for?”
She pointed down at something glinting, half-buried in the sand.
I was pretty sure it was what we were looking for.
“Mom, can I have more?” Will handed her a cup, empty except for some clattering ice cubes and a thin layer of bright purple syrup.
“No, sweetness. If you have any more, you won’t make it to the seventh inning.”
She knew that he wouldn’t make it to the seventh inning anyway, but there was no sense in rushing things along.
A round, metallic thunk, followed by an excited roar. She looked up just in time to spot the ball flying over the fence, down the third base line. Just foul. The crowd’s excitement leaked out like air from a deflating balloon.
Stanley pounded his bat against the ground in the batter’s box. He was going to have to break out of this slump if the Fire Cows were going to have any chance at the playoffs.
Will was swaying from side to side in a familiar pattern. She tapped Hal on the shoulder and pointed.
“What, already? Will, how many of these have you had?”
Will looked hurt at the accusation. “Just one, daddy.”
“Come on, little goat. Let’s get in line now, before this becomes an emergency.”
“Can you bring me back something to drink?” she asked.
Hal smiled and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Okay, but if you have to pee, you’re waiting in line by yourself.”
She laughed as they made their way up the aisle. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of her neck. It sure was hot.
Chapter 2
Kruger turned it over and over in his hand. It made a faint metallic clink when he tapped it against his water bottle.
“Is that what we were looking for, Mr. Kruger?” Renay’s voice was soft, not quite a whisper, as if she was afraid someone might overhear the conversation. That was her name, by the way: Renay. I had learned this when she handed her discovery over to Kruger. He hadn’t
known who she was either, and had to ask her name. Saved me from an awkward conversation.
“You know what?” Kruger held up the object, delicately, like a flower he was afraid to bruise. “I think it just might be. Where did you find it?”
She led us back to the spot. We looked around for a while, tried digging in the charcoal-powder sand, but there was no sign of any others. Not even a matching spoon or knife.
I had never seen such a fuss being made about a fork.
There wasn’t anything special about it. It was still surprisingly shiny after its long stay under the sand, and maybe a little more delicate than the bits of scrap from the Hope/Freedom that we used in the dining area back at the colony. Kruger wasn’t sure what type of metal it was made from, but it was metal, not glass or carbon or a solid dimensional quark matrix. I asked specifically about that last one. Kruger looked at me like he didn’t know what I was talking about, which is probably because I had made it up. But you have to admit, a fork made out of dimensional quarks would be awesome. We could call it a fark.
Cordelia was setting, which meant her sisters weren’t going to be far behind. We weren’t in any danger of getting lost in the dark; the settlement glowed bright in the darkness once night fell, at least until they shut the power down. But walking home in the dark meant lots of tripping and stubbed toes and scraped knees, and there was always the danger of someone not seeing a drop-off and falling into a ravine. So, we headed home. We were all hot and tired, sweaty and grimy, but the walk back was a good one, full of jokes and laughter echoing through the still night off the distant hills. For the first time since the baseball diamond, there was a clue. Nobody knew what it meant yet, but now we at least had a place to look. I was feeling pretty relieved. After all that time not finding anything, I think part of me had started to wonder if maybe I really had made the whole thing up somehow. Some of the colonists would still have doubts, but I was used to that now. I was just glad I didn’t have them anymore.