by Rob Favre
Someone shouted from the valley rim. I looked up. A couple of the Young Ones that had climbed up were waving and calling down. “We found something!”
They threw down some ropes and we all climbed up, some of us more quickly than others. The top was a flat plateau, slate gray and polished smooth, not at all like the rough and rocky valley floor. In the distance below was the old baseball diamond I’d found all those months ago, right after Planetfall. It seemed far away. It seemed like a long time ago.
It wasn’t until later that I actually noticed the view, though. I was distracted by what was right in front of me at the top of the plateau.
There was something shiny and metallic, flat against the stone. When we got a little closer, it looked like a puddle of silver, about ten meters across. When we got real close, I reached down and touched it. It was solid metal, warm from being in the sun all day.
And in the middle of the puddle, coated with a thin layer of glinting metal, were four human skeletons.
She stepped into the forest, felt relief as its quiet wrapped her and surrounded her. She looked up at the stars in between the gently swaying branches. The sharp smell of pine never failed to remind her of the old days. Those memories seemed like they were from another lifetime. She wondered what the boys would think of the celebrations she remembered. Back then, the socks had actually been socks, not the bulging loot bags that were customary now. The feast back then was a meager thing compared to what they had now, but it had felt special at the time. Now there was just more, of everything. She loved to watch the boys bounce around and celebrate, but a part of her would always miss the way things had been back then. Simpler.
After a time, she felt ready to return, and she walked back home. As soon as she stepped through the door, the boys pretended to be doing their homework, but a paper starship hadn’t quite glided to a landing. She smiled and pretended not to notice.
Chapter 5
The next day, I didn’t get to go back. I wanted to go back. Everyone wanted to. There was a door that couldn’t be opened. There were skeletons coated in wind-polished metal. There were probably no aliens, but hey, only yesterday nobody had expected any metallic skeletons either, yet there they were. Anything could be out there.
But spots on the expedition were limited, and I didn’t get picked. Instead, I spent the day scrubbing pots in the Central kitchen. It was cramped, and hot, and wet. It seemed impossible that such a tiny space could produce enough food to feed thousands of people every day. Even if it was mostly rice.
“Hey, Old One.” Zhon put a big metal pot back onto the shelf with a dense metallic thud. “Did you one time cause a Miracle that kept us from having to fill the tanks?”
I had been trying to avoid him all morning, but he snuck up behind me before I could finish rinsing off a pot. I wasn’t going to be able to avoid talking to him.
“Yeah, I did.”
“Can you make another miracle that causes the pots to wash themselves?”
Paul and Bry laughed. Zhon looked pleased with himself.
“You know what, Zhon? That’s amazing. First time anyone has ever made that joke. Well done.”
Zhon looked confused. “I am very surprised to hear that, Old One. I would expect that joke has been made many times.”
“It has been, Zhon. It’s been made a lot. I was being sarcastic.”
“I see.” He actually looked a little disappointed. I think for a moment he really thought he’d come up with something original. “I meant no offense.”
“Forget about it.”
He came a little closer, lowered his voice so the others wouldn’t hear.
“For truth, though – how hard is it to create a miracle like that? I am quite tired of scrubbing pots.”
“Sorry, man.” I finished rinsing the last one. “If I had any miracles left, I’d use them to make some pizza.”
I left the kitchen and made my way through the empty dining room toward the door. My footsteps echoed off the metal walls. They had once been bare metal, until some of the more artistically talented young ones decided to paint them a while back. Now, three of the walls were covered by murals of life the way it used to be on the Hope/Freedom: a crowd shopping in Central, a ceremony in the Obstick led by a young woman I didn’t recognize, an old man pouring water into one of the tanks in High Drough. This had all been very strange to me at first. We had finally gotten off that crowded, rusty ship and onto the planet; why would they want to be reminded of it every time they sat down to eat? Later, of course, I realized what you’re probably already thinking: that was their home, and now all that was left of it was memories. For the Old Ones, this colony was our goal, the reason we’d taken the journey in the first place; for the Young Ones, it was where they had to live now that their home had been destroyed.
It had taken some of the Young Ones a while to get used to the way we ate here. Because our food was still being rationed, meals were prepared and eaten in the common dining room. This had to happen in shifts, of course, with thousands of people needing to eat. And the rooms each family had to live in weren’t big enough to have private kitchens anyway. The Council kept assuring us that one day we would be able to cook at home again, but for now, we got to eat together and get to know each other.
I stepped outside, spent some time walking around the Lawn. My fingers were all pruny from washing pots. The Sisters were shining bright, and a warm, dry breeze blew down from the mountains. It felt like spring. Across the Lawn, near New Upper Stoor Edge, the choir was practicing some of their songs for the upcoming Exmass celebration. The words to The Twelve Days of Christmas hadn’t changed too much, except that the third day had “fresh hens” rather than “French.” It might have been enough to make me miss snow, but I grew up in Los Angeles. Everything I knew about snow was from watching Christmas movies and the winter Olympics.
I was just about to go back inside and face the rest of the dirty pots when I heard a gentle voice behind me.
“Hello, Tom.”
I turned around and Renay was there, her cheeks flushed and a little pink, probably from the warm breeze. The bright afternoon light made her hair the color of milk chocolate.
“Oh, hi, Renay. You taking a break?”
She smiled, nodded, looked down. “I was making butter, but they had to go get more milk, so they said I could go for a walk.”
“You know what, those goats are going to have to step it up and just make milk faster. It’s not like they have any other work to do.”
She laughed. “It is true. They sometimes have trouble getting into the Exmass spirit.” It looked like she wanted to say something else, but she took a deep breath and looked south toward the mountains on the horizon. I stood there with her for a few seconds, but I wasn’t sure what else to say.
“Unlike the goats, I have a job to do, and those pots aren’t getting any cleaner on their own. See you later.” I turned to go.
“Tom… wait.” All the color drained from her face. “Can I… may I ask you something?”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“Are you… will you be going to the Exmass party with anyone?”
My stomach tightened up into a hard knot. I had no idea how to answer her question. Did I have a firm plan to go with anyone? No. Did have a way I wanted the night to work out? Most definitely. Had I asked the person I wanted to go with if she would go with me? Come on, you’ve been reading this, you know the answer to that one.
I didn’t want to say all of that, though, so what I said was, “Um, no.”
“Oh, good! I mean, I am sorry. Not good for you. Of course, not for you. But, good.” She caught herself, took a quick breath. “Tom, would you like to go with me?”
I froze.
Renay was nice enough, I guess, but she wasn’t who I wanted to spend the evening with. I had never been in this situation before and didn’t have a clue how to handle it. Could you tell someone that you would go with them if the person you really wanted to go with h
ad other plans? Like a wait list? Was that a thing? I couldn’t say yes to Renay and then just wonder what might have happened with Zoe. Which meant I had to find a way to say no. I had no map for how to handle a situation like this. What did people do when this happened in a movie? This didn’t usually happen in zombie movies. Was I going to have to start watching romantic comedies?
Luckily, just at that moment, a threat to our colony’s safety sent everyone into a panic.
We heard shouts and turned to see the morning’s expedition returning. But something was wrong. They were calling for help, and it looked like they were carrying someone.
I turned to Renay. “We’ll talk later, okay?” She nodded, and we both ran toward the expedition.
“What happened?” I panted to Chief Engineer Frank when we got there.
“Someone attacked Harrison.” Harrison was on a crude stretcher made of shirts and sweaters that had been tied together. Gloria, Chris, Kris and Skinny Charlie were carrying him. Everyone was sweaty and tired and covered in grime. Harrison was holding his head.
“I’m fine, Frank. I’m okay to walk.” Harrison tried to get up.
Frank shot him a look, and he got back into the stretcher. “I really am fine.”
A few dozen more people gathered around, and Frank explained what had happened. They were out at the Door, trying to find a way in and studying the skeletons on top of the plateau. Harrison was sitting down and taking a break to eat, when something hit him in the head. He blacked out for a second, and when he looked around, the food was gone, and a pair of shadowy figures were fleeing around a bend in the canyon.
“It wasn’t a very long break,” Harrison added from the stretcher. “I only had a couple of bites.”
“More than we got,” grumbled Kris.
“It’s not my fault they took the food!”
“Maybe you should have been guarding it.”
“From what, exactly? There’s nobody here to guard it from.”
Kris looked toward the distant mountains. “Looks like maybe there is.”
They took Harrison inside to have his head examined, not metaphorically, and the rest of us spent the afternoon scrambling to prepare for something we had never had to think about until now: defending our colony from a hostile force. You know in the movies when there’s a crisis and a charismatic, cool-headed leader takes charge and rallies everyone to get things done? What happened to us was the opposite of that. One group wanted to send out scouts to see if anyone was approaching; another wanted to get everyone inside and lock the doors. One group wanted to start making weapons; another wanted to build a wall. The Council planned an emergency meeting that night to discuss what to do. But before their meeting could take place, at least two armies had organized themselves, formed a battle plan, and were ready to march out in the morning. One of these armies had eight soldiers, and the other had five. And, to a man, every one of them was, well, a man, and an Old One. The Young Ones had dealt with conflict on the Hope/Freedom, of course; they had plenty of fights and their share of crime, which they dealt with in their way. But they had never had to deal with a threat from outside, from the unknown, and most of them didn’t seem to know what to think about it.
I watched this flurry of panicked directionless scrambling on a rock near the Enchanted Forest with Rick and Kev. A black-and-white goat munched on some grass nearby. The goat did not seem very concerned with our new security problem. Rick and Kev, on the other hand, were.
“So, this was an all the time thing, back on Earth?” Kev asked.
“Not all the time, no. Not where I lived. But we had a pretty big army and oceans between us and anyone who might try to take our stuff.”
“An army is a group of fighters?”
“Yeah. Their job was to fight anyone who tried to invade our land.”
“But there was not always someone trying to fight them.”
“Nope.”
“What do the fighters do when no one is there to fight?”
I shrugged. “Mostly practice fighting, I think. And playing cards.”
“That seems a waste. They could be farming or fixing things.”
“Maybe. But if you don’t have them, pretty soon you won’t have any farms, or anything to fix.”
They had lots more questions about how the fighting was done, what weapons the army used, all that kind of thing. They understood clubs and swords. They even did okay with guns. Once we got into air forces and submarines and drones and ballistic missiles, Rick and Kev were pretty sure I was making it up. Our discussion came to an end when Henrietta came and found me. Invasion or no, nobody was eating tonight if there weren’t any clean pots.
Later, at dinner, I was looking at the modest pile of rice on my plate and wondering what I could do to trick myself into eating it when Dad came and sat by me. I asked him where Mom was.
He chuckled. “We may not be seeing your mom for a while, Tom. Did you hear about the expedition today?”
“You mean the attack? That’s all anyone has been talking about, Dad.”
“Exactly. Which is why you probably haven’t heard that they managed to pull one of the bones out of that metal.”
“Oh.” Mom’s absence suddenly made a lot of sense. She had probably locked herself in her lab, where she would perform every possible test on that sample until she found out what it was, how old it was, the owner’s middle name, and his or her favorite book. I would probably have to stop by later to remind her to use the bathroom. Sometimes, when she got really absorbed in her work, she forgot.
“So, what do you think about this invading army, Tom?”
I scraped up nine of my last eleven grains of rice with my fork. “Doesn’t seem like much of an army. But it is kind of scary that there’s something out there we don’t know about.”
I finished my last two grains of rice. Normally I would have stayed and talked to my Dad, but I couldn’t bear the thought of staring at my empty plate any more, and besides, there was something I had to do. I excused myself and walked around the tables for a while until I found her.
“Hey, Renay?”
She was sitting with her parents and her two younger brothers. She turned around and glowed. “Hello, Tom.”
“You have a minute to talk?”
She pushed back her chair and got up. Her plate was still half full. For half a second, I thought about asking her if she was going to finish it.
We stepped out of the thick humidity of the dining hall and into the cool night air. Renay didn’t say much, but she was beaming. For the first time I noticed that she was cute when she smiled. Maybe I hadn’t ever seen her smile before. It only made me feel worse for what I was about to say.
“Renay, look… I once made a mistake.”
“Just the one time?”
“Yeah. So far it’s the only one.” If only that were true. “Anyway, one time I kept what I knew from someone and it ended up really hurting them. So, here’s the thing: it was really nice of you to ask me to go to the party with you. But I don’t think I can.”
Her smile withered. “Oh, I know. That is, I mean, I understand.”
“It’s not about you. You seem really cool. I just… there’s someone else I’m going to ask.”
She nodded.
“But it really was sweet of you to ask me.”
She nodded again. She was smiling, but her smile was held in place by ropes and pulleys and nails and rivets, solidly constructed, built to last, and empty.
“I hope you and Zoe have a good time. Good night.” She turned and walked, maybe marched, away into the night. The night breeze played with my hair. Voices murmured from the dining hall. A dog’s bark echoed off the distant hills.
I hoped so too.
I opened the door carefully. I knew from long experience that loud noises could lead to drops and spills, and drops and spills could lead to me being yelled at and thrown out of the lab. One Saturday back on Earth, I’d tagged along to the lab with my mom. I went to the ven
ding machine to get a candy bar, and slammed the door when I came back in. Not on purpose or anything, I just closed it a little harder than I meant to. Anyway, mom jumped and spilled a drop of something into a beaker of something and she basically had to start over on whatever it was she’d been doing. She was so mad she dunked my candy bar in liquid nitrogen and then shattered it with a hammer. Once it warmed back up a little I still got to eat the pieces, though, so it didn’t end up being much of a punishment. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.
“Mom? How’s it going?” I said in the most indoor of voices.
She answered without turning around. “Don’t know yet. Won’t know for a while. Come take a look.”
I walked over to the table where she was working. Her lab here wasn’t quite as sophisticated as the one she’d used on the Hope/Freedom, and it was basically a broom closet compared to the one she’d run back at UCLA. No expensive imaging computers or roller coasters of glass tubes. It looked more like a kitchen counter where someone was making a big meal. What was different was the glinting, chrome-plated skull sitting right in the middle of the table.
“Cool,” I said.
“It is cool, isn’t it?” She flicked it with her finger and it rung like a skull-shaped bell. “I’ve named him Judas.”
“As is the guy from the Bible?”
“No, as in Priest. You know, the heavy metal band.”
I rolled my eyes. Mom could never get enough of that old fart music. I kept trying to play her actual, good music, but she said everything I liked sounded like a broken washing machine.
“What do you know about it so far?”
“So far, I know two things. The first is that he’s human. The second is that he died about a hundred years ago.”
I felt a chill whisper down my spine. “And what are you still trying to find out?”