by Archer Swift
***
We were on our way at first light, slipping into the thick jungle replete with the first splotches of spring’s saturated colours—an exhilarant sensory overload coupled with an electric adrenalin rush. We never travelled in the dark hours. That was when they preyed on us. They didn’t like the light and seemed to keep away from our river. We were not sure why, but it was one reason the clans were located against the river, a thousand strides from each other. Anything to try to keep them away.
I hate them. Like a caged animal hates a cattle prod.
The river came from the northern mountains in the far distance and ran past our camp, down towards the dark, sunken valleys in the south we called the Shadow Valleys. At a hunch, it was about thirty thousand strides away … and it was from where they loomed. We were the second last clan downriver. The last clan, a thousand strides south of us, was the one closest to the Forbidden Region—the area between us and the Shadow Valleys.
A thousand strides upriver from us lodged a third clan, and at least every thousand strides thereafter dwelt more clans. There were nineteen in total. At least, that was how things stood last year when the Mzees shared their report at the Gathering of the Clans. Once upon a time, there were more of us. A lot more.
We had six thousand strides to cover this morning, or as we preferred to say, six treks—one trek measuring a thousand strides, roughly eight hundred metres.
Six treks might not sound far, but it was through dense, untamed jungle, and we dared not carve a pathway through it. The thick jungle was our friend, not our foe—it provided cover despite making the journey arduous.
A half-smile peeled onto my face at the memory. Of my first fearful ventures into the thick grip of the jungle: knotted-branch arms and gnarled-root fingers that seemed eager to grab me, claw me, throttle me. Now, I plunged into jungle foliage, knowing its embrace offered protection.
Even though they appeared phobic of the light, they knew we gathered once a year and might attempt to sabotage our trip. A full attack on the gathered clans wasn’t entirely out of the question either. If we stayed on into the dark hours, it was pretty much a sure bet. Needless to say, our anniversary each year was a bitter-sweet concoction of apprehension and celebration.
Six treks north lay our destination where the clans gathered, close to the main camp. A little over one trek west of the main camp was the Ark … or at least, what was left of our spacecraft.
That was where we landed ten years ago.
Thirty thousand of us.
I still remembered the mixed feelings we had on that first day, on arrival at Eden. We had left Earth behind knowing it would become a molten fireball sometime during our six-month space odyssey. Some called it the Venus Syndrome—the theory that once a planet’s ozone layer was destroyed, temperatures would rise exponentially until the planet turned into a raging inferno. Absolute worst-case doomsday scenario. This was the fate that probably befell the planet Venus. Or so it was speculated. For Earth, speculation turned into a horrifying reality.
Most of us felt a measure of guilt for leaving Earth and its remaining fifty million inhabitants … especially because the selection process had been so clinical, so cruel. Initially, it was done in secret. Then the news leaked and it became public knowledge. Anarchy. Bedlam. Chaos. The ABCs of Earth’s final hurrah. Already cracking up, planet Earth became one big, bloated, blistering madhouse.
The only reason Dad was chosen over another brilliant, equally qualified microbiologist was simple: I was over the five-years-of-age bracket, seven to be exact. That Mum was dead probably helped, too. The other doctor, Joseph Reynolds, was married and had two children. One aged four and the other just six months old. Children under five would not make it on the long, treacherous voyage, the selection panel claimed. At least, that’s what the party-line was. Clinical. Cruel.
Was there any other way?
Plus, selecting the two of us opened up two additional spots for other people with the necessary skills to give humanity the best fighting chance of survival. The Ark could only hold thirty thousand.
We never passed judgment on the selection panel. I certainly would have buckled under that responsibility. And of course, we were selected, so why would we complain? We weren’t left guessing what those not selected felt. It was difficult to see any dignity in the human race during those final, mad, crazy days. Dad only lived two years on this unforgiving planet, but he lived those two years with a back-breaking load of guilt. He agonised over Dr. Joseph Reynolds and his family every single day.
On the day we arrived on Eden, the culpability we harboured was partly dissipated by the new sense of hope we all felt. Our new home in an adjacent solar system, one that could sustain life.
Similar to Earth in so many ways, Eden was younger and larger, and it had just one land mass surrounded by oceans. Pangaea-like. And the land area was a fraction of the Earth’s—basically, a planet of raging oceans with a little garden strip in the middle.
Because Eden was so far far away, the research conducted on the planet was limited, and when the temperatures on Earth started to double every day, Ark-I was launched well ahead of schedule. They planned to complete the building of nine more. Planet Earth lost its race against time.
That we’d made our six-month voyage to another galaxy—I was too young to understand the scientific breakthroughs in the years before the launch that enabled us to travel so far in just half an Earth-year—meant when we landed safely on what was a beautiful, paradise-looking Eden, the guilt was replaced with relief and joy … and hope.
Didn’t last long.
Ten thousand died in our first forty-eight hours.
Many of those who perished ate the wrong food. The Hazardberries—our inaugural horror story. They looked absolutely delicious, luscious, appetising. Seemingly the first fruits of our new Eden, the first reward of a long, long expedition. Especially when your body had been subjected to an induced coma for six months, fed intravenously.
Captain Hazard guzzled a mouthful in celebration, and in the three minutes it took for the first stabbing pains to strike, hundreds had tucked in.
I can still remember the ear-splitting screams. Nerve-shattering. Enough to curdle the blood. Within minutes, everyone who had so much as tasted the toxic fruit was dead—its juice appearing to be a kind of slow-releasing acid that, once in contact with human saliva, burnt through tissue, muscle and skin.
It was a gory, terrible first hour on our new planet.
An unforgiving, savage planet on which the odds were never in our favour.
During those ghastly first two days, many were killed by the strange, wild beasts that seemed to think food had just dropped from the sky. The Raptor, Sabre, Serpent and Wolf were the main beneficiaries.
But most were killed by them.