by Nadia Hutton
“I was making it for Shannon,” she explained with a sad smile. “She always got cold ears the minute there was a chill in the air. I thought you might have a similar problem. Interior girls always catch cold easily. I would hate for you to get sick.”
Lena smiled, putting the hat over her ears.
“Be good to it,” Janiya warned; “I don’t know when I’ll next get my hands on some yarn.”
“Thank you. I’ll treasure it.”
Janiya scoffed, but her face softened when she realized Lena’s sincerity.
“You’re welcome,” she said kindly.
*
As the snow whipped around the tent on a dark day after they’d left Golden behind, Lena held a shivering Janiya to her.
“This the first time I’ve really seen winter,” Janiya admitted. “They always told me out of the city it would be worse. They say everything’s reverting on the planet, they say it might swing entirely back into an ice age. I always thought it was bullshit, but after today…”
Lena said, “My father told me that his great-great-grandfather died in the Iqaluit explosions. He said that the story was that there was an utter pure whiteness; all you could see was white, and it was cold, colder than any human had ever felt. And then it was all gone. The radiation travelled through Canada quickly, like a poison. The sky went almost orange. We had screwed up the planet so much already and then, just when things were coming back to life, we nearly destroyed it all over again. The story goes that after that my great-great-grandmother was one of the first immigrants to Eneres. Eneres, I’m told, was beautiful. Cool, the air sweet … paradise.”
Janiya laughed, “Bull. For one, how would anyone know what the explosions were like and live to tell about it? Two, if she had fled, why on earth would any of your ancestors come back?”
Lena shook her head. “I figured that out myself when I was about twelve. When I called him out on it, he said that we weren’t the type to give up on our homeland. He said it was our duty to fight until the very end. I believe his exact words were ‘paradise is for assholes.’”
Janiya chuckled, pulling Lena closer to her.
Lena muttered, “Figures. It decides to wait to snow until the end of the world.”
Janiya said nothing, quietly snoring. Lena smiled, curling closer and closing her eyes. She was still wearing her green toque when she finally fell asleep.
*
They crossed over the archaic line between British Columbia and Alberta the next day, after two days of marching through the old glacier fields. Their party reached the summit of a mountain just before daybreak. They paused, watching the spectacle of light breaking over the frosted peaks.
Calvin said quietly, “After the greatest clouds, the sun.”
Kozol continued hiking, the others slowly following him until only Lena and Calvin stood behind. They shared the moment, saying nothing, before they continued down the mountain.
*
They pushed through the early daylight, Kozol promising them a quick end to the journey. The base was built in the side of the mountain that was in their sights. They only had a few kilometers to go now.
Janiya was moving slower, falling behind the others. Lena stayed back with her, offering an arm to help steady her friend as they made their way downward. They rested for few moments and Lena realized Janiya’s ankle was swollen.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Lena asked, taking off her friend’s shoe and binding the swelling as much as she could with her sock.
Janiya winced. “I just tripped, I didn’t want to make a big deal about it. It’s not much longer. We can rest when we’re there.”
Lena crouched down to pull Janiya onto her back. Janiya protested at first, but held on to her as Lena stood and began carrying her the last kilometer through the snow.
The group ahead stopped and Lena paused, Janiya turning slightly to see what was happening.
The three cougars prowled through the trees, golden eyes intent on their straggling group. The rising sun glowed on their dun colored coats. Lena’s hand went to her holster, her heart skipping a beat as she realized there were no bullets left. She had used the last days ago to snare a coyote for the evening meal.
“Stay in a group,” Kozol ordered loudly, “And follow me. We can make it to the entrance from here. Don’t run.”
Lena walked as softly as she could, Janiya weighing heavy on her back. She heard the snap of a twig underfoot, cursing herself as she almost stumbled.
“I thought they don’t hunt in packs,” Janiya whispered.
“They don’t usually,” Lena replied. “It’s a mom and her two little ones. She’s teaching them how to kill on their own.”
Lena could see the entrance a hundred meters away, two hefty iron doors rusted in the snowfall. It seemed like someone had already brushed them off.
The mother cougar approached them. Lena glanced back and froze as she realized the creature was sizing her up. The others walked faster, going as quickly as they could. Yet the cougar did not follow them, her eyes fixed on Lena and Janiya.
Kozol turned to look at Lena.
Lena hissed, “You guys go. Get the shelter open. I’ll run for it when you’re safely inside.” She took a very careful step backwards. The cougar lowered her head, her mouth open, panting, her eyes focused.
“They want me,” Janiya whispered, “Leave me here, there’s no point in both of us going down. We have too many anyway. Leave me.”
Lena did not answer, walking slowly as the others continued through the trees behind them. Her eyes did not leave the cougar’s.
The cougar had what she wanted, alone and isolated from the others. Why didn’t she strike?
The cougar moved toward her, her cubs following. Lena kept walking, staring at the creature, and unconsciously baring her teeth.
The cougar snarled deep in her throat and Janiya gasped into Lena’s shoulder.
Lena ran.
She made it a few meters before the creature’s paw knocked her leg out. Lena twisted, throwing Janiya in front of her. She kicked out with her other leg, freeing herself as she shuffled back. The cougar struck again, her teeth coming down on Lena’s injured leg. Lena closed her eyes, pain stealing her breath. She fought with fists, elbows, anything. Then a shot rang through the mountain air.
She opened her eyes as the cubs fled and the cougar limped away, blood running down her side.
“Damn. I was hoping to get a cleaner shot than that.”
Lena looked up in shock, “Sam?”
The doctor smiled at her, “Good to see you too. Come on inside before you bleed to death.”
Chapter Twelve
After Lena was bandaged and sewn together, she leaned on Sam as they walked into the shared living space of the shelter.
Lena looked blearily around. It was similar to the bomb shelter they had stayed in after leaving Hope, though significantly larger. She could see that there were other rooms leading off from the main area, but now was not the time to explore. She blinked under the lights as Sam helped her to the couch. Janiya sat beside her, her foot elevated onto the table before them.
“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” Calvin said in amazement, “but how the hell are you still alive?”
“I could ask the same of all of you,” Sam chuckled, “And where on earth these other four came from. But I suppose I can guess.”
“You were in Vancouver,” Lena stated, “How did you escape?”
“I flew,” Sam smiled.
They looked at her incredulously as she began her story, “I was in the clinic at home. Delia was getting her weekly examination. I was taking some swabs when the message came through the vid-screen. That American general was on screen, warning of possible hostile activity in the area. We thought … well, I have no idea now what we thought then. Martin and his team
had already returned from North Vancouver, the client had canceled the job at the last moment. I packed everyone into the shelter in the basement. We waited for news and for another twelve hours, it didn’t come. Then it all trickled in. Farther north, there had been attacks, people had been captured, killed. There was some footage of the ships, but very little. There was one shot of an alien in an exo-suit, but I couldn’t make out any of the details.
“We waited until the second announcement came through. The Canadian government had officially surrendered to the alien forces. They’re called the Mokai, by the way. At least that’s what they told us to call them. You may have heard all the clicking, it’s a bit hard to translate.”
“Why are they here?” Lena asked.
Sam continued, “I honestly don’t know. They took some of our kind for ‘understanding’, they said. They left a few of their kind with us, as if they’re confident we can’t hurt them. They want our submission. Beside that I don’t know. And the plague … the plague is real. There are at least three strains of it. I’ve managed to create antidotes for two of them; I’m working on the third. I’m going to take skin samples from all of you and see if I can continue my research. It’ll give us all a fighting chance against the thing, at least. Nasty thing. Haven’t seen anything so bad since that smallpox outbreak a few years ago.”
“You didn’t say how you got here,” Kozol reminded her.
“Right,” Sam continued, “Sorry. Scientific curiosity always gets the better of me. When the general abdicated to them, communication ceased. There were updates from a translator, but each update seemed to say less than the one before. We were running out of food in the basement. Derek decided to stay, in case the rest of you tried to come back. Delia, Martin, and I decided to come here. I knew going on foot was too dangerous, so I decided to find us another option.
“We made our way through the city just after daybreak. The Mokai seem to realize most of us sleep through the day, so they do their patrols then. With their exo-suits, it doesn’t seem to matter anyway. They didn’t ask for papers, they don’t seem to be tracking us per say.”
At those words, Lena touched her shoulder. If these things were co-opting humans to do their work, she needed to deal with the tracker embedded in her muscle sooner rather than later.
Sam continued, “They would just watch us in the street. I think they have eyes somewhat like ours, but that was all I could make out. We were making our way down to the docks. All the ships, the transports, the air ships, all of them were destroyed. The markets, they’re gone. But there were no bodies, no bodies anywhere. I thought then that they might not be violent, might just have been aggressive so we did not strike back. But I was wrong.
“I saw a group of humans being brought to one of their ships; it was almost like seeing a chain gang. When one tried to protest, they were just simply killed. The others had to drag him through the rain, and they were so blistered, so sick from the radiation. We watched, the three of us, sick to our stomachs, and waited until the coast was clear.
“We ran. There was an old military hanger nearby; I remembered it from studying maps of the city. That’s where I found the old helicopter. It took a few hours to get her working again, but it would get us over the mountains much quicker than by foot. I nearly crashed the stupid thing just making it past the skyline. We weren’t shot at, which was a surprise. They seemed … amused, maybe. We passed one of their ships, just floating there in the sky. They don’t have portals or windows on the things so I guess they didn’t see us, luckily. I think they’re just meant for space travel.
“We went as far as we could on the fuel in the tanks. I ended up crash landing us just outside of Revelstoke. Martin, he didn’t make it through the crash. We buried him the best we could outside the town limits. Delia and I decided to stay there overnight, get supplies for going into the mountains. We spent the night at an inn; seemingly everyone in the town there with us watching the one vid-screen that worked, watching the alien ships invade cities all over the continent. The satellites stopped working around that time, I remember. Maybe they shot them out of the sky, maybe they took out the satellites the same way they took out the grid, I don’t know.
“But stopping was a mistake. If I hadn’t been so… Delia caught the plague. It took her so quickly. We barely made it to the base by the time she died. I kept the body. I was able to synthesize a cure for the first strand that way. I had the second already; it’s a bit of a longer illness. I nearly wasn’t fast enough for myself.”
“I’m sorry,” Calvin said.
“So am I,” Sam replied quietly, “But the question is what do we do now? This shelter wasn’t built for an alien invasion; it’s built for a civil war. We can adapt it, change it to our needs, but it will take time and work. Hopefully our presence isn’t detected until then.”
“As is, how long do you think we can survive down here?” Kozol asked.
Sam sighed, “With eight of us? Maybe two years. If we adapt it according to my plans, we may get ten years out of it. We can probably get more if outside resources become available.”
There was an uncomfortable silence as each of them looked at each other in turn. The ex-priest stepped forward.
“It’s the end of the world,” Elias said quietly, “do we really want to last ten years?”
“We’ve survived occupations before,” Sam replied.
“By other humans,” Elias said, “The Americans didn’t bring a deadly disease with them. Couldn’t shoot our ships out of space or disable our tech within minutes. What future is there for us? For our children?”
Sam sighed, “I know this is a lot to take in, and we need to discuss it further, but I’ve already delayed too long. I need to screen all of you. So if we could continue this later, I’ll take you one at a time until I have skin samples from each of you. Janiya, I’m told you’re a doctor as well. If you could assist me, I would very much appreciate it. I’ve got a chair for you in my office.”
Janiya nodded, standing up with a wince and letting Sam assist her.
Lena waited as the others trickled by, one by one, to give their tissue samples. She listened to the wind outside, swearing she could hear the cougar crying in pain. When it was her turn, she limped into the office, trying to shut out the sound.
Part Two
Chapter Thirteen
Approximately two Earth year cycles later
Thegn watched the footage over again as the committee below murmured threats and coercions to each other. He half listened, watching the Toola female on his monitor bare her teeth at one of the Mokai before slinging the older female over her shoulder.
He laced his long green fingers together, studying the face of the female as he froze the image. He had not learned many Toola facial expressions; he had only met a few in captivity just recently. They appeared to speak a different language from the ones in this footage. Clearly, their languages were more diverse. In other footage, the Toolas spoke with clicks similar to his own; it had been much easier to learn to communicate with them. It was a shame that many of them had resisted captivity; they had been rare specimens for collectors.
Thegn adjusted his earpiece, the small bud that remained pinned to the exterior of his outer lobe. It had been acting up since arriving at the station. He wondered if there was some exterior interference, but he was not technically adept enough to fix it on his own. Driaen might be able to look at it, he thought, as the Chancellor called the meeting to attention again.
The strange humming of the Elchai minister sung through his earpiece, and there was a momentary delay as the device clicked in response, translating in standard Renkair.
The minister was calling for a ceasefire. This invasion had lasted for 3.7 standard years, far too long to allow the Mokai to senselessly kill and maim obviously sentient creatures. It was against every code they had established, every treaty.
Protest
ran through the Mokai representatives. Thegn did not have to wait for the translation to hear some of the choice words thrown at the minister.
Thegn tapped his sound device and said calmly over the fray, “I think what my colleagues are trying to say is that attempts have been made to move the Toolas to other, less resource rich, areas. It has never been a slaughter. It has been a culling. It is no different from moving any other species from valuable land.”
“The Mokai people are tired of being vilified for expanding their empire,” a Mokai Degan announced, standing as his people cheered him on. “We have the right to seek space for our growing numbers. Our population is finally recovering; we have the right to reclaim the glory that we have lost. We are tired of this Council denying us the right that all other members have.”
Thegn raised his palm as a sign of embarrassment, expelling the air from his lungs in a quick burst to indicate annoyance. As he did so, the tattoo on his palm was obvious to any witnessing the outburst, the three suns of the Goddess shining on his pale blue and green mottled skin.
The crowd calmed as he did so, his fellow ghelu around him raising their palms as well, their tattoos showing in solidarity with Thegn. He closed his eyes in appreciation.
The translation reached others faster than he, and he heard the uproar among the Elchai people first, then the Crisu, and J’Hai, until the translation in Renkair came through.
“There will be an investigation,” Thegn heard, as he pressed the earpiece closer to his lobe. “The Toolas are to be documented for signs of sentient activity. If they are at a comparable level, they will be offered a treaty of peace. If there is war, let them fight as equals, or if there is peace let them be treated as guests. The Council has selected ghelu Thegn as its representative. The Council fears it may be traumatic for the Toolas to see another Council species at this time, but the Mokai must be represented by the Council itself.”
Thegn heard the complaints as they flooded the earpiece, all said in the same monotone translation. He was Mokai first, ghelu second. How could they trust one of them to report on their own? Why would ghelu agree to be part of this? Their vows were service to the Goddess, no other.