Aliens in Godzone

by Cotterell, Genesis

  Finally, a harsh law was passed, banning Ryxins both male and female from mating with each other. In fact, a whole series of laws had to be passed. They started with detection at birth, and Ryxin babies having their species differences stamped onto their birth certificates and subsequent identity cards, and new ID photos had to be taken every year.

  A sentence of twenty years’ imprisonment without trial was passed, to be applied to any Ryxin having children with their own kind. These babies’ IDs were then taken and as a result such children became an underclass of so-called abandoned babies who were never allowed to know who their parents were. There was no way of finding out either, for when their new lives as abandoned babies began, so too did their identities. Even Kieran didn’t know which children belonged to which parents. It was a cruel way to ensure the Ryxin people were decimated.

  But the Ryxin patriarchs laughed quietly. They knew that no matter what Humans did to them their race was genetically programmed never to die out, even when one parent was Human - or so they thought. What they hadn’t foreseen were the changes that slowly began to show up in the male babies. Some of these babies were now being born without any Ryxin traits at all, and as time went on there were more and more born this way.

  Of course Human officials were delighted. They called them neutral babies. This word was stamped onto their birth certificates plus the word success because the happy Humans thought their breeding laws were finally working - the Ryxin race must therefore eventually die out. And not only were these boys born neutral but so were their own babies when they eventually married Human girls. In fact both boys and girls of these neutral fathers were born without any Ryxin traits at all. But what Human authorities couldn’t figure out was why no female baby of a Ryxin and Human parent had ever been born neutral.

  No matter that the law insisted on Ryxins having a Human partner if they wanted children. The female babies were all, without exception, born with either extra toes or fingers, the latter being the most common. Ryxin elders were triumphant. Their men would still know who to breed with in secret, behind the backs of the authorities and they needed to, since their legitimate babies were so often born neutralised. The secret Ryxin Breeding Programme was the outcome.

  Curtis flicked to the pages that dealt with The Ten, as they had come to be known, even though there were twenty - ten men and ten women. But the males from Ryxin, being strictly patriarchal, had no desire to change their ways when their small band of refugees came to Earth.

  He scanned quickly through the names: Garvey, Applen, Werven, Hurzy, Tretze, Lavenox, Kurlty, Pentezek, Logopex and Yanly. Between them The Ten had produced thirty-seven children - eighteen boys and nineteen girls. On further reading it became clear that only nine had produced these children because Lavenox had been murdered, just two weeks after his marriage, by an Irish farmer who caught him stealing a sheep in the early hours of the morning. Because of this Mrs Lavenox was permitted to marry a Human if she wished, and she had done so only six months after losing her husband.

  He read on to see that Werven and his wife had produced identical twin girls, both of whom had eventually married the two Garvey boys. Curtis immediately thought of Jack and the woman now carrying their child. Was she carrying twins, he wondered?

  Curtis also found out that of all the children of The Ten there were only five who hadn’t married pure-blood Ryxins. One of the four Kurlty girls never married and two others married Humans. Of the eighteen boys, only two of the four Yanly boys married Humans, so obviously the next generation was going to contain an overwhelming majority of pure-blood Ryxins. If Curtis was right and the members of the Ryxin Breeding Programme committee were all soulless, then who were their parents? None of the four had surnames of any of The Ten – or, as it turned out, the nine.

  Now he scanned the names of the other 150 Ryxins - ninety men and forty women - who were sent out to find themselves Human partners. Curtis wasn’t overly surprised to find all the names of committee members there among the ninety: Onyx, Chrys-Morngel, Frurster and Xyle. But if the four were all without souls, and surely they had to be pure-bloods to be like this, then how had that purity come about?

  As he flipped through the pages of the great tome that held all the details of his ancestors he finally found a clue. It seemed that after the first ten couples had been chosen by the Ryxin leaders there was some dissension, since several Ryxin men and women had already become couples before they’d left their own planet. They’d wanted to remain together when they reached Earth and were planning to mate for life and have children together. But the leaders had not chosen them as couples. At least five such women and three men were now part of The Ten, and had been allotted to different partners. They protested, but the leaders remained firm. No matter, they said. You must now marry and produce children only with your newly appointed partners.

  The names Onyx, Xyle and Frurster came up among those men who caused the most trouble after the naming of The Ten. They were severely punished, of course, in ways only used by Ryxin authority. Starvation until near death, and then being forced to watch their mates being solemnly pledged to their new partners for life. Further disobedience would have meant the ultimate punishment of slow and tortuous death, watched by all other Ryxins in order to convince them of what would happen to anyone who disobeyed.

  And so it was that all the Ryxins carried out the orders given them, their only options being to meet their ex-partners in secret. But the penalty for being caught doing that was immediate sterilisation.

  But what if, Curtis surmised, rebel couples mated in secret and what if the offspring of those liaisons then mated with one of the purebred children of The Ten? He looked down the list again. What if the two Kurlty girls and the two Yanly boys really had mated pure-bloods, but ones posing as Humans, a fact that was known only to themselves and their real parents - and was, of course, carefully planned? Then a rebel strain of pure-bloods could co-exist in secret. The ancestors of the current committee must have been from this pure-blood line, hence the soulless state of the four. This would also explain their zealous Ryxin ideology and fervour for the continuation of their race at any price.

  Curtis closed the book.

  CHAPTER 21

  “I’m waiting by the lookout,” Janux telepathised.

  Curtis knew she needed his help. He didn’t know why but that didn’t matter. She was his client and he was committed to helping her. “On my way,” he sent back.

  But before rushing to his car he phoned Siegfried to tell him where he was going and why he couldn’t meet him later that day as arranged. Then he went to the garage and pulled out the old tent and camping gear he and Marzy used way back when they could still think about a future together. Marzy had loved to camp out at the northern end of Tauiwi Bay where they’d watch the sunrise together before swimming in the wild sea.

  He knew Janux couldn’t go home to her bach. It was too dangerous. He threw all the gear into the boot of his car, plus some canned food from the pantry that Janux had bought a few days ago. He wondered how she’d got to Moa Bay but there was no time to think. Luckily he’d followed Rule No. 7 from The Ryxin PI Handbook. Keep your car filled with petrol at all times and Rule No. 1: Always carry a bag of strong peppermints plus Rule No. 4: Make sure you can whistle or carry a sheep-dog whistle with you. It was no use thinking now about the rule he’d already broken. No. 6: Never have an intimate relationship with a client.

  Rule No. 4 was something Curtis only knew about from his PI training. It was a well-guarded secret that whistling loudly and continuously in the presence of Ryxin males made them feel sick. Since the effect was linked with the telepathy gene, which was doubled in pure-blood males, the sickness was particularly severe with them. Some had even been known to collapse and die. For this reason whistling as a weapon was only used as a last resort.

  As he checked that the whistle was safely in the glove-box of his car Curtis thought about Janux, who also had the telepathic gene. He hoped he
would never have to use it in her presence.

  Within half an hour he was on his way, securing the house behind him - something that had never been necessary before. But when he thought about Lion Chrys-Morngel he knew it would only be a matter of time before the rest of the RBP Committee made their own decision about what could have happened to their comrade. And when they did he hated to think what was to happen to those they considered responsible. He knew of course that locking his house wouldn’t deter the marauding Ryxins.

  After what he’d read this morning concerning his ancestors, Curtis felt as if a light had come on for him. The history of his people’s time on Earth, especially the first few years, had always seemed so distant he’d never really thought of it as mattering a lot. Most Ryxins when he was growing up simply accepted their lot and got on with their lives. They knew that to break the Human-imposed rules brought down heavy penalties and Curtis had been taught how to stay out of trouble.

  But now things were different. He had tasted the ugly side of specism in his marriage and staying on the right side of Human law wasn’t the only thing that mattered any more.

  Now he was learning that his people were being exploited by a rogue element in Ryxin society that had been in existence since the first Changeover Day and was obviously imbued with an increasingly fanatic kind of ideological ruthlessness.

  Curtis was now convinced that this rogue element - of which Sly Onyx appeared to be the leader - would stop at nothing to ensure they ruled not only their own people with an iron fist, but eventually Earth itself. He thought about this as he drove to Moa Bay, how the oppressed sometimes became the new oppressor, with personal freedom and happiness being sacrificed in the process.

  “C’mon,” he called to Janux through the open window as he screeched to a halt at the Moa Bay lookout. Everything was quiet but Curtis was filled with unease, looking up and down the road as he waited for Janux to get into the car. “What made you come this way?”

  “I wanted to go back home but I stopped myself. After what I heard a few hours ago I changed my mind. You see, I went to the Onyx homestead. I hid in some bushes and found out that there are now five other pigs joining number one pig. They’re roaming on a mission to find Lion, and when they do they’ll start looking for his killers, who will be put to death slowly by torture while all the pigs sit round eating and drinking and watching the entertainment.”

  Instead of driving away Curtis looked over at Janux. Her face was pale and drawn. “I think we should hide out,” he said. “We must go now, regardless of the fact that they will never find Lion’s body. But they might see the plot of earth we dug up to hide him in.”

  He did a U-turn and speeded back towards the eastern side of the island. At any time they could meet up with the marauding Ryxins, and if that happened there would be no escape. “What are their vehicles like?” he asked.

  “A silver four-wheel- drive and a red-and- black ute. Sly left about half an hour after the others. He had a red-haired woman with him.”

  A vision of Mistle came to his mind, followed by a vivid picture of 17. He shook his head and pulled himself back to the present moment. There was only one way for vehicles to leave Ngahere Road but once they reached the junction with Tahatika Janux would have been too far away to have seen which way they went. He supposed they would investigate Janux’s house and grounds first - after all, that was the last place Lion had gone. He thought about Claudette Peace and her visit to Janux. What had she reported back and to whom? He felt a sense of trepidation because the island he’d come to as a refuge now seemed twisted and menacing.

  Once through the village at the southern end of the island he put his foot down hard on the accelerator and didn’t even slow down as they raced past his home.

  “Hey, where are we going?” Janux yelled, straining her head to look back at his house.

  “We’re going to a very private beach. I think it’s best to be less conspicuous right now.” He kept checking the rear-view mirror.

  About five kilometres further on, the road narrowed and was now unsealed. He slowed down, and they bumped along until they came to a clearing. Through the trees they could see the coarse, golden sand of North Tauiwi Beach. It was as untouched as ever. All they had to do now was get the car off the road and out of sight, set up camp and decide what to do next.

  Curtis realised with a sense of despair that he had no idea what that was going to be.

  CHAPTER 22

  Janux woke with perspiration dripping from her face. She’d been dreaming that Roscoe was rowing a small boat towards North Tauiwi Beach, trying to rescue her. In the dream the waves were getting bigger and bigger as he struggled to stop the boat from being overturned so he could reach the shore in safety. Helpless Janux stood on the wet sand watching him.

  She hauled herself up from the lilo on the floor of the tent, unzipped the flap partway and peered out. Seeing one of the rear doors of the car was open she remembered Curtis had insisted on sleeping there. She unzipped the tent flap all the way and stepped out into the warmth of a beautiful sunny morning. The view of the beach and the deep blue sea beyond was breathtaking. She saw Curtis a little way along, wading in the shallows.

  After retrieving her sunglasses from the car, she was about to go down to the beach and join him when the sound of vehicles startled her. She was hidden from the road by the car and immediately ducked down behind it, fearing it was them. The Ryxin marauders who were going to truss them up and eventually put them both to death for what she’d done to Lion Chrys-Morngel, a pure-blood.

  Janux knew that Curtis would have heard the vehicles approaching just as she did. She stood up again to see where he was and saw him running towards her but then he stopped – clearly whoever it was had already seen him. He was looking towards the road and sending her a telepathic message.

  “Hide and keep quiet, someone’s coming.”

  “Okay, but please tell me if you need my help,” she sent back, retreating into the bush.

  Pretty soon she could hear noisy engines, and then loud voices as the men surged down to the beach.

  “Come on, brothers, here is our prey just waiting to be caught.”

  And from another. “Stand still, McCoy - you are the one who must obey us now.”

  And then another, even more sinister and evil sounding: “I look forward to seeing you starve and die a long, painful death. You, who dared to harm a pure-blood Ryxin. You will never use your hands again, man. They will soon be made into ashtrays for the Master.”

  After this they all laughed heartily. Janux felt herself go freezing cold. Then another message came from Curtis. “Start whistling loudly - it makes them sick.”

  She moved so she could see, and immediately her legs felt like sponge-rubber prongs. Curtis was surrounded by the five ugly men she’d seen outside the Onyx homestead yesterday. Three of them had guns trained on him and the other two - the shorter, thickset ones who had huge arm and shoulder muscles - were slowly approaching him with coils of rope in their massive hands. All five hooted with laughter and then the two ape-like ones were behind Curtis, pushing him to his knees and tying both his hands and feet so tightly that he couldn’t even stand. The same two then began dragging him by the arms over to where their vehicles were parked.

  “Where’s the woman?” one demanded.

  Janux began to whistle the way her father had taught her, loud and piercingly. He had told her she might need to use this one day, but didn’t elaborate. She remembered not being able to do it for long as she always felt nauseous. So did her father, but still he’d made her practise.

  So she whistled now, over and over and to her relief and surprise saw all the men were vomiting.

  Curtis knew they needed more help and thought of Siegfried, but how to let him know? Then he remembered Siegfried’s grandson, Jack, was staying with him for a week. Maybe he could communicate with him telepathically and get him to bring Siegfried to the beach.

  “Tell Siegfried that Cur
tis needs him urgently at North Tauiwi Beach,” he telepathised, hoping Jack wasn’t yet too immersed in Ryxin corruption not to want to help his fellow Ryxins. “Be careful, danger,” he added to the message.

  Curtis was lying on the sand, unable to move, as the five marauding Ryxins staggered around him, vomiting and groaning. He wanted to run to Janux so they could escape but he was helpless, the ropes around his hands feet and legs so tight they were cutting off his circulation. He also felt nauseous. How long could Janux keep up with her whistling anyway? Long enough to come and untie him, he hoped. He remembered the sheep whistle in the glove-box and telepathised this to her.

  Janux was keeping up with the whistling as loud and piercing as she could, but even she was feeling a little nauseous. She heard Curtis’s message and considered whether to go to the car and get the whistle. But once she saw that all five Ryxins were doubled over in pain, dry-retching their stomachs out; she stopped to allow her own nausea to subside. Then she ran to where Curtis lay, his hands and feet white through lack of blood.

  One of the short, muscular men was kneeling on the ground nearby, groaning and holding his stomach. When he saw Janux he grabbed his gun, but as she whistled again within metres of his head, the gun fell to the ground and he heaved repeatedly and cursed her. She knew the whistling crossed the ear barrier and interfered with their minds, and even perhaps their telepathic powers. She herself was feeling queasier by the minute and was sure she wouldn’t be able to send Curtis a telepathic message.

  But she knew the first thing she must do was untie him so they could try to escape, though where to she had no idea.

  Janux knew that the Human authorities would do nothing - inter-Ryxin crime had been relegated to the too- dangerous-to-solve tray years ago.

  There had even been a recent case where Human policemen had looked on as a Ryxin woman was raped by a gang of her own species. There was not only no help offered to her, but also no recourse to justice afterwards. She was simply told to get on with her life and say nothing about it to anyone if she wanted it to be a long one. To speak up would be to taint herself with the name slut or whore.