“WHAT!”
“Do. Not. Make. A. Move,” Rovender whispered, and pointed behind her.
Eva turned to see an enormous sand-sniper towering overhead. The monster was an impossibly large, sand-colored crustacean armed with an arsenal of spiked claws and barbed graspers. At its head two bowl-shaped eyes moved independently of each other amidst an array of corded feelers and paddle-shaped antennae. The sniper was accompanied by its brood of clacking, snapping nymphs.
CHAPTER 3: CLUES
The sand-sniper mother called out loudly with a series of clicks, and the nymphs chirped in response. Slowly, carefully, Rovender drew his pistol and began to charge it. “When I give the word, Eva, you run as fast as you can,” he whispered. “Head straight toward the ruins. It won’t follow you there. And do not look back.”
In a spray of sand another sniper shot up behind Rovender and pinned him down. The pistol fell from Rovender’s grasp and was snatched up by one of the nymphs.
“Don’t hurt him!” Eva called out to the mother sniper. Eva made a move toward Rovender, causing the sniper on top of him to rear up and flex its many graspers.
“It’s a threat display, Eva.” Rovender remained under the sniper, unmoving. “They’re protecting the young. That’s why they haven’t killed us. You have to go now!”
“No. Let me help you.” She took another step toward her friend.
Suddenly, Eva was whisked up several meters off the ground. Immediately she realized she was being held tightly by the graspers of another large sniper that had emerged directly behind her. As the blood rushed through her ears from her pounding heart, Eva fought all instinct to scream or struggle.
“Please don’t kill me!” she called out. The pinpricks of the graspers that held her pierced her tunic and sank into her skin like dozens of long needles. The sniper could crush her as though she were a bug, but for some reason it had not. Eva concentrated on blocking out the pain inflicted by the pincers that held her. She needed to see what the snipers would do now that they had seized control of the confrontation.
The mother sniper’s large eyes rotated independently, watching both Eva and Rovender at once. The monster’s multiple graspers flexed in rhythm to the clacking sounds that emanated from deep within its spiky carapace.
Eva kept her gaze fixed on the mother. She calmed herself and thought out to the monster in the same way that she had communicated with Otto. Please don’t hurt us, she thought. We are just looking for something that belonged to me—my Omnipod. The clicking device I used to call you up from your home.
Eva created a mental picture of the Omnipod in her mind. Just like an animated holographic program from her Sanctuary home, she replayed the events of the previous day. Besteel holding Rovender captive. Eva atop Otto with his herd close by. Eva throwing the Omnipod into the desert sand while it played the recorded call of a sand-sniper. The mother sniper rising up behind Besteel, skewering him.
One of the sniper’s thick antennae quickly dropped down. It tapped Eva’s head and rose back up. The sniper then called out loudly and opened up every pair of its mighty barbed claws.
Can you help me? Eva held her breath, waiting for some sort of thought response. She could feel a trickle of blood running down her arm. Once we find it, we will leave you and your babies. I promise.
One of the nymphs clicked and chirped loudly. The mother sniper turned one eye down toward it and chittered back.
In the nymph’s mouthparts a milky ball, the size of Eva’s head, formed. The nymph spit the ball out toward the sniper that held Eva, and it landed in the sand below. The mother sniper called out again. Slowly Eva was lowered, and the entire family sank back under the sandy dunes. Within moments the wind erased all indication of their presence.
Eva’s legs gave out from underneath her, and she collapsed in the scorching sand. Rovender rushed over and helped her up. “Eva, are you all right?” he said. “We have to go before they return. We will tell Hailey.”
“No!” Eva scrabbled toward the gooey ball that the juvenile sniper had spit at her. She thrust her hands into the warm mass and felt around inside. Though the substance was milky, Eva could see small bones and other indigestible matter suspended within. Finally she felt a familiar form that she recognized all too well. Eva pulled her Omnipod out and wiped it off on her tunic.
“Greetings, Eva Nine,” the device said in its usual singsong voice. “How may I be of service?”
Eva stared at the Omnipod in disbelief. Rovender laughed out loud and put a hand on her shoulder. “Come, Eva,” he said. “Let’s get to safer ground.”
Eva was quiet as she and Rovender trudged through the soft sand back to their campsite. While her tunic administered SpeedHeal ointment to her many bodily wounds, Eva’s mind processed all that she had just witnessed.
At last she spoke. “Rovee, I think I can talk to the snipers, kind of in the same way that I can speak to Otto.”
Rovender kept on walking, his face shadowed underneath his wide-brimmed hat. “Those snipers are vicious mindless fiends, Eva. You’ve seen what they can do.”
“I have.” Eva’s broken fingers wriggled in her bandaged hand—a reminder of her encounter with the young sniper in the Royal Museum at Solas. “But I think somehow they can understand me. Almost like they can feel what I am feeling. . . . You know?”
“I believe what we just witnessed was a family satiated from their recent meal and a mother protecting her young. Nothing more,” replied Rovender.
“But, Rovee, they could have just killed us. Instead I think they understood that we would do no harm—that we were just looking for something,” Eva said.
Rovender was silent as the two continued on their trek.
“Remember what you said about people’s actions?” Eva cleaned her Omnipod with the hem of her tunic. “Those snipers gave me the thing I desperately needed. It’s sort of like—”
“The trees in the forest,” Rovender finished her sentence. He nodded in agreement. “Perhaps you are right, Eva. Clearly your species is as ancient as this planet. Therefore, you may have a connectivity to its denizens.”
Eva took all of this in. Both were quiet for the remainder of the hike back to camp.
“Hailey! Hailey!” Eva called up from the entry ramp of the Bijou. She sprinted across the cargo hold and scrambled up to the main deck.
“Ho there,” Hailey said over the loud music. He was now at the stern side of the main deck galley, opposite the cockpit entrance, in front of an open electrical panel. Grease and grime covered his hands, face, and undershirt. “Did you find your Omnipod?” He kept his attention on the tangle of wires he was combing through.
“I did,” said Eva, satisfied. “It was in the stomach of a baby sand-sniper, but I was able to persuade it to give it back to me.”
Hailey paused from his task, holding a sparking cluster of wires in one hand. A smirk grew on his face. “A sand-sniper, huh? And how were you able to do that?”
“I asked it.” Eva stood tall and cocked her head to one side.
“You . . . asked it?” repeated Hailey, now with a broad grin. “Did you ask it for a new pair of sneakboots while you were at it?”
He doesn’t believe me, she thought. I can’t believe this. He doesn’t believe me. “I’m being serious! Do you know how scary these things are? Look at this bandage on my hand. I was wounded by a sand-sniper.”
“O-kay. Yeah. Sure.” Hailey chuckled and turned back to his work. “We’ll be leaving just after sunset. So you can hang out here in the galley or go up to the cabin if you want to catch some REM before we take off. Don’t forget to tell your blue buddy.”
Eva glared at Hailey. She thought out to him the way she had with the sniper. Turn around. Turn around and say you’re sorry and that you’re impressed that I found my Omnipod.
But Hailey kept his back turned and began humming along with the song blaring from the ship’s speakers.
Eva slapped his old Omnipod down onto the deck table. “Here’s y
our junky old Omnipod back. Not that it helped much.”
Hailey stopped the music and looked over at her. “Were you out in the sun for too long? What’s wrong with you?”
Eva gulped. She hadn’t expected him to ask, or even care, at this point. “You,” she blurted out. “You’re what’s wrong!”
“What did I do?”
“You’re not what . . . You’re not like . . . Ugh!” Eva threw her hands up. “I’ve never even seen another human. I’ve dreamed all my life of finally meeting one, and he’s . . . he’s . . .”
“What?”
“Just forget it.” She turned to leave.
Hailey grabbed her arm. “Look.” His voice was softer now. “I’m sorry you didn’t get the warm welcome and all the attention you were expecting. But I need to finish some stuff on this ship so we can get you to New Attica as quickly and safely as possible. Okay?”
Eva relaxed and studied Hailey. She watched his Adam’s apple move up and down in his throat as he swallowed audibly. He’s nervous, she thought. Is he telling the truth? Or is he hiding something? She remembered Rovender’s words about trusting Hailey until he proved otherwise. “Okay. I’ll go tell Rovee to get our things,” she said.
CHAPTER 4: DREAM
Eva sat on a bunk in the upper cabin deck of the Bijou. As she combed her wet hair, she felt cool air from the overhead vent cascade down over her. The crew’s quarters had a small bathroom that had allowed her the chance to bathe. This had also given Eva a moment to inspect the multiple bloody pinpricks that ran up and down her sides where the sand-sniper had seized her.
Dressed in a clean blue flight suit, Eva removed the bandage and splint from her right hand. The SpeedHeal ointment from her old tunic had mended her palm and fingers well, though a puffy pink scar traced where the caged sniper had struck her. Would Hailey believe me now if he saw this?
Down on her forearm the glyph—a circle within a circle—was still vibrant under the skin. The glyph had been imprinted there by the alien soothsayer, Arius. Its presence had saved Eva from being killed in the taxidermist’s lab back in Solas, when Arius’s brother, Zin, had recognized it. Eva was wondering if the glyph would disappear in time, when she noticed a ring of dots forming around the outer circle. I never noticed those before. Eva rubbed the image on her skin but felt nothing.
She leaned back against the wall of the cabin and remembered the chain of events that had brought her here. She thought of her WondLa and its joyous image of a family in a field of red flowers. She thought of what adventures awaited her and Rovender in New Attica.
She thought of Muthr.
Despite the fact that she had switched off the speakers piping Hailey’s music into the cabin, Eva could still hear the electronic rhythm below as the pilot finished his work on the ship. She climbed up to the top bunk, knowing that Rovender would soon join her in the cabin. The lanky alien was down in the hold loading up Besteel’s glider. Since flying machines were a rare commodity among the general populace of Orbona, Rovender thought it best to bring the glider along, though Eva wondered why he would need it once they arrived at their destination.
Outside a tiny porthole the red sun sank low in the sky, casting a wan beam into the cabin. Even through the thick glass Eva could hear the crying call of turnfins perched atop the airship. She peered out the window at the decayed buildings and imagined the city at the height of its splendor. Eva lay back on her bunk. Will New Attica look like this? She wondered why her Omnipod knew nothing of the city, as the cool air and the soft bed summoned Eva into a deep slumber.
A dream slowly materialized in Eva’s mind. She was back in the waterfront village of Lacus. Amidst the distant call of birds, she walked along the rickety pathways that took her around the many tiers that made up the village. As Eva passed the rows of huts, it became apparent that the place was deserted. She looked out into the open bazaar that formed the center of the village, but it too appeared abandoned. Judging from the toppled carts and overturned baskets, the residents had left in haste.
Eva called for Muthr, her voice echoing out through the empty homes. The only reply was a sound like Hailey’s airship rumbling across the darkened sky. From a dilapidated shanty emerged Besteel clutching his boomrod. The huntsman was bloodied and battered, missing body parts and limbs. He knelt in front of Eva, laying his weapon down at her feet. Frightened, Eva ran off, searching for a hiding place. She found herself in the home of Arius.
Eva stumbled through the cluttered hoard of offerings and into the smoky den. The pale, plump alien floated near an open window illuminated only by the waning sun. Using her nine stumpy arms, Arius held up an ornate nesting doll. One at a time, Arius twisted a hollow doll open and removed a smaller doll from within.
“Is this your doll?” Eva asked. “I had a Beeboo doll when I was younger.”
Arius lined the dolls up on the windowsill. It was clear from their descending size that one of the dolls was missing. Arius looked back at Eva through small slit eyes but said nothing.
“Are you asking me where that missing doll is?” Eva asked.
The soothsayer remained silent.
Eva felt frustration creep over her. “Arius, where is everyone? And why is it so dark out?”
An enormous mottled snake slithered down from the ceiling above. Its jaw was unhinged as it consumed a giant egg.
Eva backed away from the snake. “Arius, what is going on? You know, your brother, Zin, is looking for you.” A chill breeze swept through the room, knocking one of the nesting dolls over. It rolled on the sill for a moment before dropping to the floor. Eva looked down, and the doll materialized in her hand.
Eva watched the last fiery rays of the sun slip out of the room as she walked to the sill and reunited the doll with the others. Arius held out a stumpy hand, and Eva took it. She felt her body go limp and was overcome by the sensation of weightlessness. Eva and Arius were now adrift in outer space, floating among the constellations. Without moving her large mouth the alien soothsayer began a chant that reverberated in Eva’s head:
“The ancient hive returns again,
to claim a land no longer to claim.
A nymph, born of the earth, forged by machine,
will lead a way through hate, through fear, through war.
The heart will be thy ally, and the feast will come to an end.”
The words felt so familiar to Eva, like a long-lost childhood song summoned from her memory. Then new words came. Words Eva did not know:
“Ancient beliefs, ancient leaders, and a shadow rule the roost.
Illusion shepherds a flock just as a queen protects her hive.
A gift has been given, a gift many wish for themselves—
yet a gift none may own.
And so one society flourishes as another one perishes.
Soon there will be a reunion,
but it will end falsely in death and then truly in rebirth.
Foster your wit, your heart, and your soul,
for the waters of life will quench your thirst,
heal all wounds, and allow your spirit to soar.”
With the last incantation Eva found herself back in Arius’s den. The sun finally set, smothering the room in darkness. As Eva searched about the gloom for the soothsayer, she soon discovered that she was alone. There was no Arius, no Muthr, and no Rovender—only the hollow ache of loneliness.
Eva blinked as the dream evaporated into the recesses of her mind. Through the porthole she could see that it was now dusk. She sat up and looked around the cabin. Rovender’s belongings were there, but he was not. Eva lay back on her bunk and thought of Arius and the dream. “What was with those dolls?” she wondered aloud. “And that creepy snake?”
Her thoughts were interrupted by the whine of the Bijou’s engines resonating through the cabin walls. Eva sat up as the sound rose higher and higher in pitch. The whine was soon muffled as the air pressure dropped in the cabin. Eva hopped down from her bunk and felt the floor under her sway
back and forth. She rushed out of the cabin and down a ladder to the main deck.
Rovender was standing in the doorway of the cockpit watching Hailey pilot the airship for takeoff. Through the expansive windshield the grand silhouette of the ancient ruins dropped away, and the Bijou rose straight up into the evening sky.
Good-bye, Muthr, Eva thought as she watched Muthr’s final resting spot vanish below the clouds. I’ll never forget you.
CHAPTER 5: FLIGHT
We’re off !” Hailey glanced over his shoulder at Eva and Rovender as he worked the controls. He seemed more relaxed now that they were airborne. “The return trip should take a little less than three hours, depending on the weather. I’ll let you know when we’re getting close.”
Eva watched quietly as the ship broke through the cloud cover and soared up to the stratosphere. High above in the twilight the Rings of Orbona glimmered brightly. They arced like mighty ribbons over the horizon and under the waning moon. It was as if the Bijou were traveling through another world, another dimension entirely, to arrive at its final destination. Eva felt light-headed and energized all at once. “Is there anything else we need to do?” she asked.
“Nope. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.” Hailey kept his attention on the ship’s instruments. A detailed hologram of the Bijou, along with numerous readouts regarding wind, weather, and other virtual controls, hovered over the dashboard.
“What about Rovee?” Eva looked over at her friend. “Is there anything he needs to do to register with New Attica?”
Rovender mumbled in agreement with Eva’s question and took a sip from a bottle. His breath carried a pungent smell.
“I’ve got it under control. Don’t worry, Emma,” Hailey said.
“It’s Eva. Are there a lot of other Orbonian aliens there?” Eva replied. “I hope we meet some Halcyonus. I really enjoy their company. Do you know any? They prepare the best seafood.”
Hailey drew in a deep sigh. “Just go back to the galley and grab a SustiBar or relax up in the cabin. We are coming up on some turbulence, and I’ve got to concentrate.”
A Hero for WondLa Page 3