The Alien Element

by M. G. Herron

  They had been divided the whole time. Gods, how had he not seen it? He’d been an utter, ignorant fool. The pretender as the chief.

  The cave dweller will know what to do.

  Without his father around, the cave dweller was the only one Rakulo trusted to give him good advice.

  Rakulo slowed as he approached the caves. The ground was treacherous here—pockmarked limestone hidden beneath the ever-present scattering of leaves made for uneven, slippery footing. He could break an ankle if he wasn’t careful.

  What is breaking an ankle to this shame? Twigs. A light rain. A dead turkey running around with his head cut off. He laughed at the thought, a kind of hysterical burble that began in his chest and shook his whole body.

  He stopped walking so he wouldn’t laugh himself right into a hidden hole. Ahead of him, the ground rose slightly to a low limestone wall the height of a medium tree. Along this wall, several low overhangs had been cut out over time by the wash of rainwater. Rakulo had often escaped here as a kid to get away from life in the village—the cutouts provided good, quiet hiding spots.

  And that was also how he’d met the cave dweller. The old man had lived out here for as long as Rakulo had been alive, not in a cutout but in one of the several caves carved into the deeper sections at the far end of the limestone outcropping.

  Rakulo moved parallel to the wall until he came upon the deeply shadowed cave he was looking for. As he was searching the dark mouth of rock for the old man, he heard a noise behind him and spun.

  “What are you doing sneaking around out here?”

  He flashed Rakulo a mischievous smile. The old man was short, stocky, and barefoot. He wore an old dirt-stained tunic with more holes than fabric wrapped around his waist and one shoulder. He held a thick walking stick polished smooth by the oil of his hands over years of regular use.

  “Gehro!” Rakulo said, exasperated. To the cave dweller, he must have looked just like that turkey he startled earlier. Rakulo scowled. “You scared me. How do you move so silently?”

  “Many years of practice, my boy. Come inside, come.” He rattled a pouch at his waist. “I found some good mushrooms today.”

  Rakulo wrinkled his nose. “You know I don’t like mushrooms.” But he followed the old man silently into the darkness of the cave.

  Gehro stoked a fire back to life in the middle of a ring of stones. The fire cast shadows that hid the back of the cave, which curved around into the darkness. Mushrooms came out of his pack—meaty things with broad hats and thick stems—and the old man nestled them down between the rocks ringing the fire and the hot coals. His callused fingers arranged the coals with a few deft swipes.

  They sat in silence for a while. Rakulo brooded over his failures. Gehro focused on cooking the mushrooms and said nothing.

  It was funny—his father would have done the same thing, and somehow his silence would have been judgmental and made Rakulo feel even worse about himself. Gehro’s silence made him feel comfortable and safe.

  Rakulo lifted a hand and rubbed the bruise on his chest, took a deep breath, and let it out. “I think I messed up, Gehro.”

  “I can see you chewing on something heavy. Want to talk about it?”

  “Ekel disappeared from the village. My mother thinks Maatiaak had something to do with it, so I confronted him.”

  “What did Maatiaak have to say about that?”

  “He denied it.”

  “What did you accuse him of?”

  “Well, I…nothing exactly.”

  Gehro picked a mushroom out of the fire and rolled it from one hand to the other while it cooled. “And then what happened?”

  Rakulo pushed a pile of dirt around with the toe of his wooden sandals. His feet were tough, but, unlike Gehro, he didn’t have decade’s worth of calluses built up to protect him. Even if he did, the sandals provided more protection if he were to accidentally step on a sharp rock or a pointed stick while running.

  “We fought, in front of everyone.”

  “Did you win?”

  Rakulo shrugged, not looking up to meet the old man’s eyes. “I guess. I’m stronger than him, and a better fighter, but it didn’t matter if I won because I couldn’t prove that he had anything to do with Ekel’s disappearance.”

  Gehro nodded. “You’re learning, at least.”

  “Learning what? How to make a fool of myself in front of the whole village?”

  “Do you think the others believed Maatiaak when he said he didn’t know anything about Ekel?”

  Rakulo snorted. “No. Some might have, but anyone who has a head of their own would know it was suspicious.”

  “Then what are you so worried about?”

  “I never should have confronted him without proof.”

  “Sometimes you learn more by losing a fight than by winning one.”

  The old man said no more, and Rakulo looked up to demand what that meant but came eye level with a steaming mushroom. Gehro blew on it to cool it off, then handed it to Rakulo.

  He took it because refusing would have been impolite. He didn’t really like mushrooms but had to admit he was hungry enough to eat anything right now. Rakulo had been so angry hearing about Maatiaak from his mother that he’d forgotten to eat after the long journey home.

  He took a careful bite. It was warm and rich. The earthy flavor made his nose wrinkle, but he had to admit that the mushrooms were good—for mushrooms.

  “Good, right?” Gehro said.

  “Palatable.”

  The old man chuckled. He tossed another mushroom between his hands and popped it into his mouth whole. Gehro moaned with pleasure as he chewed.

  Rakulo had another, and then a third. He refused a fourth. He was no longer hungry enough to tolerate them. Gehro poured water into a wooden cup and handed it to Rakulo, who took it gratefully, swishing the water in his mouth to wash the taste of mushrooms away. He swallowed and handed the cup back to Gehro.

  “Not even Maatiaak will go against me when I find a way around the wall,” Rakulo said.

  “That is not the way to win their hearts.”

  “You just wait.”

  Gehro reached over and smacked him upside the head.

  “Ow!” Rakulo said, rubbing the spot where it smarted. “What was that for?”

  “A good leader is not measured by his deeds, but by how much compassion he has for his people. They will not care if you walk straight through the wall if you do not show them that you care about them. You must put your people first.”

  “I’m trying to free them! Isn’t that good enough?”

  “No. Besides, you’ll never make it in those flimsy wooden canoes.”

  Rakulo felt the blood drain from his face. “What are you talking about?” he said.

  “Don’t play coy with me. You think you can hide what you are doing in my forest from me? Trees don’t just go missing, boy! Same as people.”

  A moment of silence passed. “The only way around the wall is by water,” Rakulo said.

  “It has been tried. It is not possible.”

  “Why not?”

  “It is not possible.”

  “That’s not an answer, old man.”

  “Many have tried. How many have returned?”

  “None. But what happened to them? Maybe they got away and decided not to come back since they were free.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  Rakulo huffed a breath out.

  “You know what else good leaders do?” Gehro asked.

  “What?”

  “They keep their people alive.”

  “I’m going to get on the other side of that wall,” Rakulo said, inhaling air from the fire, which smoldered low and hot now.

  Gehro nodded. “I hope you do. But I don’t get many visitors. And if you die, who will be chief then? Maatiaak?”

  Rakulo stared into the red hot coals as the flames danced. A vivid memory of Maatiaak’s smug expression stared back.

  8

  The Kakuli Carv
ing

  “Incredible,” Eliana whispered, her face close to the carving of two moons. Stone had a distinctive scent, even covered with foliage—it was the smell of dust and sand, nearly smothered by the wet humid smell of lichen and mud. But sharp, as if the scent of cut stone had lingered for all this time.

  “Is that what you were looking for?” Lakshmi asked, apprehension evident in her voice. Eliana glanced around and noticed the twins and Ross were all watching her expression closely.

  “It’s more than I ever thought we’d find,” Eliana admitted. She could see them all light up. “Let’s take core samples in the topsoil all around this area. Be on the lookout for potsherds or anything else we can carbon-date. We need to figure out exactly how old this carving is.”

  The twins began digging in their backpacks for gloves and sample bags and the coring drill, which came apart in several pieces and had to be assembled. Eliana fished out the camera from her bag and began to snap more photos.

  “I gotta ask,” Tanner said. “How did you know we would find something here?”

  “I didn’t. I hoped. I saw one very similar to this in Kakul, on the inside of a stone archway among other carvings. Maybe when we clear this monolith we’ll find more of the story.”

  Her fingers traced the two overlapping circles. Time and rain and the growing plant matter had worn the edges of the carving smooth, but not erased them. Had the person who made this carving been to Kakul and come back to document what they had seen? Surely the sight of those two moons in the sky had made as much—if not more—of an impression on the ancient artist as they had on Eliana. Or had someone else told them what to carve? And if so, who?

  “What does it mean?” Ross asked.

  “I think it’s a depiction of the two moons over Kakul. Ky and Kal, the natives called them.”

  “How come we’ve never heard about this other world before? In all my studies of the ancient Mayans, I’ve never seen anything even remotely close to this symbol.”

  “So many Maya tribes died off or were lost. It could be that any evidence of these symbols was destroyed by the conquistadors. Their influence was devastating to the cultural artifacts of the Maya. They burned records and destroyed many sacred buildings.”

  “We’re not your students anymore, El,” Lakshmi reminded her. “That canned answer doesn’t convince me. In fact, it doesn’t even sound like you really believe it.”

  Eliana blushed. She knew immediately that she had reverted to professor-mode to hide her real opinions. If she spoke honestly in academic circles—where she had spent years earning her education and where she had recently been fortunate enough to spend more time—she would have sounded like a lunatic. Before she admitted anything, her first instinct was to gather as much hard evidence as possible to back up her claims.

  More evidence than normal, considering how outrageous this theory would seem. The whole world knew Eliana had gone somewhere exotic when she had disappeared. But only those closest to her knew the details, and Eliana had been close-lipped with the press. Amon, the FBI, and Dr. Badeux from the LTA had all warned her to be careful about what claims she made—not that she had needed the warning. It was hard enough for people to accept that Amon’s Translocator had worked. How would they react to finding human beings living on another planet?

  But this was her team she was talking to—not just her colleagues, but also her friends. They were out here stomping around this humid jungle, wearing mosquito netting and lugging heavy packs full of archaeology equipment because of her crazy theories. She owed them the truth—at least the truth about what had been troubling her, and what would keep her up at night even more with the first piece of evidence in hand.

  “I suppose I don’t believe it,” Eliana said. “But I can’t fit the pieces together. If this carving shows the two moons in Kakul, that means those people came from here. I knew they were of Mayan descent because of their language, which brought us to Mexico in the first place. But how did they get from here to there? Or, an even wilder idea, did they come from Kakul first?” She gestured out toward the dense jungle surrounding them. “They didn’t have rocket ships, let alone Translocators, back then. So how did they do it? It just doesn’t make any sense. I was hoping that what we found here would tell me more of the story, but…” She glanced at the lichen, like a thick coat of fur, on the monolith. “I guess we’ll have to find out the old fashioned way.”

  Lakshmi scuffed at the dirt with a boot. Ross swung the machete casually at a stray leaf that extended down from a low-hanging branch, slicing it in half. The twins busied themselves collecting samples of dirt. Turner exposed a piece of rotting wood and shoved it aside to get at a spot of soft earth where they might be able to dig down.

  Eliana shrugged, and they all set to work carefully clearing the monolith and the surrounding area of plant matter and collecting more samples. They celebrated by dancing and cheering when Lakshmi dug up a potsherds nearby—scrapings went into separate sample containers, as the paint would have contained organic matter that could be radiocarbon dated. They found what might have been a bone, but it wasn’t buried very deep and didn’t seem human. They bagged it anyway.

  Night eventually fell and they were forced to abandon the search after taking a single core sample six feet deep. They began the hike back, the weight of their packs which had been filled with food and water now doubly stacked with dirt and other samples. It was slow going. The sky was dark and they were all exhausted when they finally reached the camp.

  Eliana washed her face and brushed her teeth and wearily climbed into the tent. She stretched her sore body out on her narrow bedroll to sleep, only to remember that she hadn’t remembered to call Amon today, or checked to see if he’d tried to call her. She pulled her phone out of the back, and sure enough, there were several missed calls and practically an essay’s worth of text messages.

  Her blood went cold as she read the words on the screen, and she immediately called him back. The phone only rang once before he picked it up.

  “Hey baby,” he said. The sound of weariness mingled with relief in his voice had a calming sensation on her. She practically melted into her bedroll.

  “It’s good to hear your voice,” she said.

  “Yours, too. I was so worried about you.”

  “What happened? I mean, I read your texts, but…”

  He told her about his day, from the morning’s work with the Translocator to finding the guards dead outside Audrey’s lab, to his conversations with the FBI agents. Last, he talked about Reuben, how heartbroken he was for his friend, and how painful it was to see him in that state, having just found out that his husband had died.

  As he spoke, Eliana came to a slow realization.

  “I’ll fly back tomorrow,” she said. “I should be there for the funeral.”

  Amon let out a breathy sigh. “I hate that you have to leave after you just got there, but I can’t say I’m not going to be glad to have you home.”

  “Is that sympathy pains?”

  “That’s definitely a part of it,” he said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, love. And I don’t have to imagine what it feels like to lose you—I already know that, and it hurts just to think about it. But now there’s some other lunatic out there with a dysfunctional Translocator, and I’m worried.”

  Eliana chuckled.

  “What’s funny?” Amon demanded.

  Her chuckles turned into deep belly laughs. Amon brooded silently on the other end of the line. When she regained control of herself, she said, “Dysfunctional Translocator? You don’t think that’s funny, after everything that’s happened?”

  “What happened to you was an accident. Whoever has this Translocator is maiming people intentionally. They’re using people as test subjects. It’s irresponsible. It’s immoral.”

  “I understand. It’s Lucas, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know how, but yes. Who else could it be?”

  “Don’t worry. I need to brin
g some soil samples back for testing anyway,” Eliana said. “Which reminds me…”

  She launched into her own story about the carving.

  “Eliana, that’s incredible,” Amon said. “Now, I feel guilty asking you to come home.”

  “Don’t. I’ll fly back tomorrow. I want to be there. Besides, we took some samples today, and this is a good excuse to get them dated.”

  “Okay. It’s not technically allowed, but you know I could just come get you…no one would know.”

  “Not a chance in hell am I going through that thing again.”

  “Okay. I get it. No worries. I’ll see you at home.”

  “Goodnight,” Eliana said. “And Amon? I love you.”

  “Love you, too, babe. Sleep well.”

  She hung up the phone. Eliana lay awake for a while, thinking about poor Reuben and how it must feel to watch your soulmate die slowly like that. Was it worse to have it happen slowly, or all of a sudden? If it were her, she would choose all of a sudden. She definitely wanted to be there for the funeral.

  But in the back of her mind, she was already thinking about how to fit the samples they had taken today into her suitcase and considering who would be able to carbon-date them the fastest—and with the utmost confidence. A few days in Austin and she could be back here to continue her work.

  9

  Sunk Cost Fallacy

  After he got off the phone with Eliana, Amon swung aside the landscape photo of the lunar surface—a barren, dusty gray plain with only an American flag and a spacecraft for decoration—and unlocked the safe hidden behind it. He took out a sealed metal canister containing the carbonado solution before locking the safe and returning the picture to its original position.

  Amon cradled the canister in the crook of one arm as he walked through the quiet halls of the building down to the Translocator lab. He didn’t have to go through security because, like Audrey’s lab, his office was behind the checkpoint.

  After the excitement, Amon figured people could use a break. He sent everyone home so the FBI could finish their work undisturbed. The crime scene investigators carted out the bodies and departed several hours later, and Amon was left with an empty campus. Apart from a few security guards, he finally had the peace and quiet he’d been looking for earlier that day.