Uninvited

by Carol Buhler

  “What would he be doing, anyway?” I asked.

  “Swords and knives would be relatively useless against the human’s guns. We’d have to get in too close to use them.” He turned on me abruptly, Paddyon shifting to insure he remained steady. “Maybe we should be developing guns ourselves. I know I could get some for our blacksmiths to study.”

  “Until now, I never felt the need. And the aggression appears to be coming from our side, not theirs.” I indicated the far-off eastern horizon. “Come see what they’re building there.”

  I didn’t return home until late that night. Sardon and I had arranged to meet again in five days to conduct an invisible survey, from the air, of Petersborough. We hoped not to find evidence of war preparation, but Sardon admitted he hadn’t looked closely at the burgeoning city. We knew for sure, from the positions of the new “homes,” that Xagdon was preparing to attack the delivery routes of whatever the next ship brought.

  Petersborough was an appalling mess. Buildings of all sizes and shapes seem to have been laid out with no plan whatsoever. The “streets,” as Sardon called them, zigged and zagged every which way, with no order that I could see. Sam’s village was round, with orderly passageways providing easy access to every building. Don family homes were designed gracefully and flowing. This! This was a muddle of inefficiency!

  But I wasn’t there to criticize. I was there to observe, and even though we spent the day spying on the humans in around Petersborough, we found no sign of an offense brewing. These humans seemed intensely busy—too busy to worry about a war.

  7. Pushing the Agreements

  The third supply ship landed and unloaded three thousand more settlers, more animals, and a dozen more tractors, along with some larger machines I couldn’t guess the use of. Seeing these things didn’t make me happy. I grabbed Sam just outside the small office the humans had set up near where the ship landed. “Do you really need them to keep bringing support?” I asked, striving to disguise my anxiety.

  “It’s not to help us, so much. Especially with the people. Earth needs to relieve its overpopulation. The animals you see have to be specially nurtured, protected from the masses on Earth so they can have a chance to survive, not be annihilated. They’re the only species we have left. It’s the same with the trees, bushes, and food crops, but especially the trees.

  “The people? They want to escape a miserable life.” He stared west, across the vast plain both of us knew was there even if we couldn’t see it from the spot we were standing. “You have so much room. The pilot said this has been the most successful of the colonization efforts. These folk, from this flight, had to prove their worth and work ethic in a worldwide competition to get to come here. They’re the best of the best, and the luckiest of the lucky.”

  Indeed, the humans had walked slowly down the ramp, looking wide, with tears streaming down their faces. Men, women, children. I didn’t have the heart, or the authority, to tell him to stop the supply ships from coming. I didn’t know if he even could.

  At least the caravans that transferred the newcomers to various corners of the human settlements were not attacked by Xagdon and his family. It worried me that I didn’t know why not.

  **

  I came to regret that Xagdon hadn’t stopped at least one of the caravans. Sam called us out to witness the new road-carver/paver in action. I hadn’t understood the significance of the name. To my horror, one of his citizens was cutting through the prairie, building what Sam called a road: a flat ribbon of packed dirt covered with a hard substance.

  “Stop,” I shouted. “What do you think you’re doing?” I doubt the driver heard over the noise the machine was making.

  “Joedon, we have to have a way to move produce and people around,” Sam said.

  “You have the air-cars!”

  “Not enough for everyone,” he said soothingly. He thought he was being reasonable in the face of my agitation—I could feel his patience blasting me.

  “We never gave you permission to cut through the prairie from one settlement to another!”

  “Well…” He looked thoughtful. “I suppose you didn’t. But we have to get around. The air-cars won’t last forever and Earth’s not gonna send us more. Someone’s already started building ground-cars in Petersborough. We need roads for the cars to travel on. That’s why this last shipment contained the road-grater/pavers.”

  When he saw I wasn’t calming down with his explanation, he started talking faster, repeating himself. “The previous ship’s cargo master said Earth couldn’t send more air-cars. We have to make roads, don’t you see?”

  I yelled in his face, “No, I don’t see! Have him shut that thing off.” I ran to stand in front of the monstrosity with Sam huffing behind me. “I can’t let you start carving up our land. Does he even have a plan where he’s going?”

  “Yes! We know exactly where we’ll put the road from Samsville to Petersborough. Come—look at the map.”

  “Not until you shut that thing off!” I screamed. We were so close to the device, I heard Sam more from his body language and the emotion he broadcast than through my ears.

  It finally dawned on him that I was furious. His eyes wide, he stared at me a moment, then waved to the driver. The machine creaked, clanked, and stopped; the noise died.

  “Sam.” I tried for reasonable calmness—it came out more like a curse. “I can’t let you cut up our prairie. Your cars will have to cross the ground as it is.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Yes, of course I’m serious. We value our prairies. We treasure the long-distance vision of rolling grass land. You simply can’t cut it up for your stupid cars. Tell them in Petersborough they have to construct something heavy-duty enough to handle the land as it is if you have to have something like that.”

  Again, he stared at me, then glanced at the quiet mechanism beside us. “Not use the road grater/pavers?”

  “Never!”

  He sighed. “I’ll have to spread the word.” Frowning, he went on, “Maybe we can repurpose them for some other duty. Seems a waste.”

  “What would be a waste is for you to tear up our land! It can’t be replaced.” I left before I said something that would sever our friendship.

  Later, I checked and learned that, indeed, he had spread the word and the factory in Petersborough had modified its design and machinery to deal with crossing the land without roads. But the problem didn’t remain solved. A delegation of six came to my home, via air-car, to request a new allowance.

  Sam was accompanied by Adam, as usual, and introduced the other four as representatives of the car producers. The head man asked bluntly, “Will you permit the construction of bridges to allow our new land-cars to cross gullies and canyons or must we somehow design them to negotiate such obstacles?” His tone informed me that making such concessions in their construction would cause great hardship.

  I’d never particularly thought about gullies or canyons before. We just flew over them. Often they were beautiful, with steep rocky sides and narrow streams flowing along the bases. Other times, they were thickly covered with brush and trees. Some had wide sandy bottoms—others flowed continually with water or were always muddy. I could immediately see the problem they’d cause for ground-cars and groaned in frustration. Just between my home and Samsville, I pictured two that would be impossible to negotiate with the type of vehicle I knew they were manufacturing.

  “What, exactly, is a bridge and how would you build it?”

  Sam grinned and unrolled a large piece of the plastic they used to draw on, stretching it across my desk. Two of the men held down the curling edges while the man Sam introduced as engineer Giovanni Mazza explained the bridge and its construction. The extruders would be used to build pylons, he said, on either side of a gully, with possibly one actually in the gully if it was very wide. They would place steel girders across the opening to support an extruded covering. His explanation was clear, the drawing was precise, and it didn’t look all tha
t bad.

  I sent for my brothers, uncles, and older cousins to ask their opinions; Korola and several of my aunts joined us. Everyone listened intently to the engineer’s explanation and studied the drawings. Then, we flew to the major canyon between my house and Sam’s and had the man explain again exactly what he and his team would create to cross it. With an impromptu meeting right there on the edge of the canyon, we, as a family, gave Mazza approval to build his first bridge.

  “When it’s done, we’ll have other don families inspect. I’m warning you,” I said to Sam and his engineer, “each family will have the right to allow or not the construction of these bridges, just as they allow or not your occupation of parts of their land. If any family doesn’t let you build one, you’ll have to figure out something else for that territory.”

  “Fair enough,” Mazza said over Sam’s beginning objection. “We’ll make it work.” He held out his hand—I’d learned that hand shaking to them was like a verbal agreement to us. It sealed the deal. I took his hand and clasped it. For a person from Petersborough, he seemed a nice guy.

  As the group left, I couldn’t help but wish someone like him was the mayor in place of Pete Mason. That set me to wondering if they’d change the city name if they elected a new mayor. I shook my head, sending the side thought away. Even humans wouldn’t be so stupid.

  To my awe, it took them only a month to complete the bridge and I had to admit it was a good-looking construction. Elegantly simple, it blended into the countryside and was not at all the eyesore I’d expected. I informed Sam whenever don families planned to visit; he made sure he and Mazza were present to explain. The engineer, cleverly, I thought, also brought several different drawings to show the don families so they could have a say in what was built on their land.

  It took me over a year, a complaint from a neighboring don family, and a sweeping recon flight over Joe land to realize that allowing the bridges had caused a problem I never would have expected. The humans and their ground cars created ruts to and from the bridges as they traveled. Almost as bad, I thought, as if I’d let them carve out their roads.

  A year after that, we don agreed to let them use their road carver/paver to smooth out the ruts and we had roads running between a few of the human cities. None, however, crossed Xagdon’s property. Humans avoided the valleys beneath his son’s homes.

  8. Friendships

  Jol had grown like a weed and now looked me in the eye, as a fifteen-year-old! Korola thought his rapid growth had been augmented by all the fresh vegetables and fruits we got from the humans but I wasn’t ready to accept such an explanation. He maintained his curiosity and spent a great deal of time among the humans of Samsville, learning continually about their agricultural practices. He was also the one who handled the weekly bargaining when he and Korola took the kids to Petersborough. Like me, he was an expert at illusions and loved to entertain the young humans, and his younger brothers and sisters—two more of each—with his tricks.

  One day, he came charging into the house, reminding me of the day eleven years earlier when the humans had landed, shouting “Papa, Papa!”

  A tall-for-a-human-boy followed him into my study. “This is Jackson,” he said in a loud, enthusiastic voice. “He and his family have just moved to Samsville. We’ve had a great time today, fishing in the lake!”

  The boy seemed shy to meet me but I didn’t feel any such withdrawal in his overall aura. He radiated confidence, just as Jol did. Glad he’d made a friend, I still wondered if my son remembered to restrain himself and his abilities among humans.

  “Welcome to our home, Jackson. Where have you moved from, may I ask?”

  “Yes, sir. We came from Petersborough. Dad says it’s gotten too much like Earth and wanted to get out of the crowding. We came on the first ship and Dad knew Sam pretty well before we left Earth, so when he asked, Sam said ‘come ahead.’”

  “And do you like Samsville?”

  “Oh, yes. I never got to fish before. Jol showed me the good places.”

  “Both on the river and at the lake,” Jol added. “We’re hungry. Is Mom cooking?”

  “I’m sure she is. Introduce your friend to your siblings.” I turned back to Jackson to ask, “Do you have younger children in your family?” as I heard Jol’s, “Do I have to?”

  “No, sir. I’m the youngest of six.” So much for sending at least Kora and Kardon with Jol for a play date away from the house. The Joe household was currently overrun by children and I dreamed of a quiet break for a few hours. I didn’t bother to respond to Jol’s whine.

  The boys became inseparable. Jol didn’t have a cousin near his age living with us, so he literally adopted Jackson. The boy often spent the night with us. As soon as we’d met his parents, we allowed Jol to stay with them. Having him out of the house periodically reduced the overall noise since he fought constantly with Kora and Kardon. And Taggart was willing to carry the two wherever they wanted to explore.

  Aarnyon watched over the reeth carefully at first, to determine his relationship with the human boy. He reported that Taggart was acting stupid and simple whenever Jackson was around. Jol and his mind-mate were keeping the reeth communication secret. I was proud of them.

  **

  Oddly, although Xagdon had completed his construction, nothing came of it. I never directly asked him what he was doing; I’d heard he’d shared his architectural designs with several of his neighbors. Sardon and I conducted an informal inspection. We found that the five families to the south and east of Xagdon’s property had also erected walls around their households, and extra buildings that seemed to be lookout huts, not nearly as elaborate as Xagdon’s semi-fortresses. Yet, neither Sardon nor I heard rumbles of major unrest from any don or human. I stopped worrying about it and concentrated on my own concerns with Joe land and family.

  **

  My brother Kaldon and I were discussing a drawing of a new water diversion project we were planning when we heard the collective reeth scream. Aarnyon and the other, already outside, took off the instant we landed on their backs.

  “Where?” I asked, breathless with alarm. Arrnyon showed me a moving scene of Jol in the water, Jackson clinging to his ankles, and Taggert gripping Jackson’s heavy trouser leg in his teeth. They looked like a rescue line but I couldn’t see what they were after. The force of the river sucked at them and they slipped further into the flow. Taggert braced with butt almost on the ground and rigid front legs slipping through the mud toward the edge.

  “What are they doing?” I cried.

  “Sam’s son fell in,” Aarnyon yelled back. “Taggert says Jol has him by a foot and is trying to pull him closer to get his head above water.”

  “Chut!”

  By the time we arrived, Taggert was shaking with effort—but he’d held firm. Jol had Sammy cuddled against his chest as he floated on his back. Neither Jackson nor Taggert had enough energy to pull him back. Kaldon and I grabbed Jackson’s legs and heaved. The three boys came out of the river coughing and choking—all alive, they clutched each other in relief.

  Taggert lolled onto his side, drawing in deep breaths. Jol ran to him and started massaging his legs. Kaldon and I joined him.

  “Wow!” Jackson said from behind me. “I can’t believe how your reeth reacted. I’ve never seen anything like that!” His words tumbled with excitement and released adrenaline. “We’d have died without Taggert. How’d he know what to do?” He dropped to his knees beside the reeth’s neck and copied Jol’s pressure circles.

  “Rub with the hair,” Jol snapped. “We have to get this shivering stopped or his muscles will tie-up and he’ll be crippled.”

  Both boys trembled almost as hard as the reeth, but I knew they would be fine. Taggert, however, could suffer lifelong injury from muscle cramps. Sammy huddled next to me as I worked, crying and whimpering in apology. Unfortunately, I couldn’t give him the attention he needed at that moment.

  Then, Korola and Kora arrived, each bringing a human. Sam s
wept his son into his arms and cuddled the boy between him and Jemima. Sammy’s tears faded.

  Taggert finally lay still, the shuddering stopped, his muscles relaxed. Now, he just had to recover his strength. It had been a close call.

  We made our way slowly back to Samsville, walking at Taggert’s pace, as the boys explained their adventure. Jol soothed Sammy, saying there was no way they could have known the mass of grass Sammy had chosen to fish from would give way and dump him into the river.

  “I’m just glad I was standing right there,” Jol said as he ruffled the eleven-year-old’s hair. “None of us planned anything. We just did. And it worked.” He turned suddenly on Jackson. “Thanks for grabbing my legs. I thought I could swim good enough, but that flow was fierce.”

  “I thought we were goners when I started sliding in, too!” Jackson wrapped his shorter arm around Jol’s waist--he couldn’t reach the shoulders—and pulled Sammy in next to him. “We make a pretty awesome team!”

  “With Taggert!” Sammy yelled.

  “Yes. With Taggert,” Jol and Jackson said as one.

  I was afraid the reeth secret had been revealed that day. Jackson, however, didn’t spread stories of Taggert’s actions and Sammy hadn’t seen or understood what the reeth had done.

  To my impatience, Jol and Jackson took Sammy under their wing, including him in all their adventures, and totally ignored Kardon, only a few months younger than Sammy. I guess we were lucky that Kardon and Kora got along so well. They didn’t whine about being left out of Jol’s adventures.

  **

  Sardon and I set off on a five-day tour to the south. We’d received regular reports from the don leaders along the southern coast but wanted to see for ourselves what the humans were doing there. Most of the villages we visited were similar to Samsville. In each location, we stayed with the local don families, listened carefully for discontent during meals, and found nothing.

  As we were approaching the Vud holdings, we saw in the distance what looked like a major city, similar to Petersborough. No one had mentioned the sizeable structures arising along the coastline. Jetting into the water were long wooden structures with boats floating alongside. They were big boats, several times the size of anything we had on our lakes to the north. We flew over and saw humans loading and unloading barrels and cases.