Earth Keepers

by Jorge Alejandro Lavera

  “It’s a good thing I can’t have children,” she thought. Though, at the same time, it gave her a pang of grief. “I wouldn’t mind having children with such a handsome guy, but what kind of mother would I be, traveling all the time?” she thought resignedly. She thought about Leonora and for a minute and wanted to cry, but she thought of Robert behind the bathroom door, and swallowed her tears.

  After taking a shower together, completely satiated, they got dressed again. It was almost six in the morning when they left the cabin. There was no one around and Robert caressed her face with the back of his hand, at which she smiled and they gave each other a light kiss. They separated to go in different directions.

  THE TRUTH

  Rho, December 4, 2027. 7:00 a.m.

  First thing in the morning, members of the crew prepared a motorboat for Leora and Robert. They filled up their own backpacks with provisions, water and tools that they had on board for emergencies.

  “I would like to accompany you, Captain,” Lionel pointed out.

  “Don’t even think about it, until everyone is vaccinated, we can’t risk it.”

  The first officer bit his lips, looked at Leora, then at Robert, and said nothing more.

  Leora started the engine with no problem. They loosened moorings and began to sail upstream at a good speed according to the instructions that had been sent to them from the city.

  After several hours, when they finally approached the pier where they thought they were supposed to disembark, Robert jumped off and quickly tied off with the rope that she threw, securing the motorboat. They took their backpacks and started to climb toward the all-terrain vehicle that was waiting for them a hundred fifty feet away. There were two people, a man and a woman, waiting in front of it.

  Leora moved forward with Robert. When they were almost there, she said:

  “They look friendly...Robert?” she asked, because she noticed that he’d stopped cold.

  He’d gone pale and his mouth was open. She saw him lift his hand a little and saw that both his hands were shaking. The woman in front gave a little shriek of excitement, while the man at her side clearly inhaled in surprise.

  “Alexis? Alexis Pavilis?” shouted Althaea.

  “Althaea? Ponteus? I can’t believe it, I thought...and Gea, and everyone else? And...my son?”

  Althaea jumped forward and hugged him.

  “You’re alive! But how...? Where were you all this time?” asked Althaea, while she separated a step from Alexis without letting him go to look at him.

  “Friend, it’s so good to see you. It’s incredible,” Ponteus said, astonished, when he was able to close his mouth. “As far as Gea and your son, I’m sorry but...”

  Leora had stopped short.

  “So, Alexis Pavilis? What happened to Robert Miles?”

  Alexis still had a grin from ear to ear stamped on his face. When he seemed to realize where and with who he was, the smile was suddenly wiped from his face. He looked at Leora, then at the others, and then back to Leora.

  “Oh, hell.”

  Leora brought her hands to her hips in a clearly aggressive posture.

  “Oh, hell? That’s all you have to say?”

  Alexis thought for a minute. If he asked Leora to calm down, it would have the opposite effect. He appealed to his vast experience, took a deep breath and decided to tell her:

  “Leora, I am going to tell you everything and I ask your forgiveness for not telling you the truth about who I am. You’ll understand the reasons when I explain it to you, if you give me the opportunity.”

  “You know these people?” Leora asked, pointing to the others.

  “Yes, for a very long time.”

  “A very long time? From when, kindergarten?” she asked, crossing her arms.

  Alexis bit his lips while Althaea and Ponteus looked at each other.

  “How about if we get inside, get comfortable and have a drink? I think we have a lot to talk about and the sun is strong here,” Ponteus offered.

  Leora shrugged her shoulders in resignation.

  “We’ve come this far...”

  “There’s still quite a stretch to the city, we can talk on the way,” explained Ponteus, inviting them to get into the truck.

  They got in, Althaea driving, Ponteus to her right, and Robert, now Alexis, in the back with Leora.

  Leora kept her arms crossed, frowning, looking forward.

  After about five minutes of travel, seeing that she hadn’t changed her position, Alexis addressed her.

  “Leora...”

  She turned her head and looked at him in fury.

  “Why are you so angry?”

  “Because I don’t like to be lied to, that’s why!”

  Alexis sighed.

  “I only lied to you about my name. For personal reasons, I have to keep my name secret.”

  Leora raised her eyebrows.

  “Personal reasons? Ha! Like you’re a spy or something like that?”

  “In reality, it’s much more complicated than that.”

  “Ugh.”

  Alexis ran his hand through his hair.

  Ponteus, who had been watching through the rear view mirror, turned in his seat to look at him.

  “There isn’t any need to keep the secret any more, Alexis. In Rho, everyone knows the truth and she will know it soon, too, anyway, when we get there.”

  “What truth? What are you talking about?”

  Ponteus looked seriously at Leora, then raising an eyebrow, looked at Alexis and finally turned back around to watch the road ahead.

  Leora looked at Alexis, who looked into her eyes. For a minute she thought she saw a slight glow in them, like she’d seen on the ship, but it was so fleeting she thought it might be a reflection. He moved his hand and took hers, and she resisted, but just for a moment. Leora closed her eyes and frowned. Why, oh why had this marvelous man lied to her? What was he hiding?

  “Look at me, Leora.”

  Leora looked at Alexis and very clearly heard Alexis’ voice saying “Look at my hand.” Except that he was looking at her and he hadn’t opened his mouth. She half-closed her eyes. Was she hallucinating? She lowered her eyes to his hand, and for a second didn’t notice anything, but something bothered her. Suddenly she understood, her heart jumped and she yelled, frightened, very unusual for her, while she drew back the hand Alexis offered her as if she’d been burned.

  She tried to say something, but words failed her. She looked again at his hand and then at Alexis. She finally managed to say something.

  “When did you grow an extra finger?”

  “Oh, a long time ago. Since I was born, to be exact.”

  “And...how is it I didn’t notice before?” The more she thought about it, Leora couldn’t understand how she couldn’t have seen it before when he’d given her his hand. Good god, she’d touched it and caressed it while they made love. While she’d had the best sex of her life, that is, she corrected herself.

  She heard Alexis’ sigh and noticed she’d closed her eyes, remembering her experience with him. The truth is that no one had ever made her feel that way. She opened them again and looked at him, waiting for answers.

  “You didn’t notice because I didn’t want you to notice.”

  Leora snorted.

  “You cad, if you’ve taken advantage of me,” Leora snapped in Italian, lowering her head and holding her hands.

  Alexis touched her cheek and pushing her very gently on the jaw, forced her to raise her head.

  “No, Leora, I didn’t take advantage of you and if I’ve hurt you, I ask your forgiveness,” Leora heard while she saw once again that his lips didn’t move.

  “I’m not hallucinating,” thought Leora, as she got goosebumps.

  “No, Leora.”

  Leora shrunk down in her seat, looking alternately at Alexis, Ponteus, and Althaea.

  Alexis took her hand and, startled, she almost yelled.

  “Don’t be afraid. Nothing has changed, Leora.
Look, my name is Alexis Pavilis and I’m an expert in combat and navigation...”

  During the next fifteen minutes, Alexis told her about Atlantis, about his species and about his life. The nano-organisms, his longevity, the mental communication, everything there was to be known. Leora kept quiet the whole time, while he told her, explained, and gesticulated.

  At first she refused to believe him. “Impossible,” she told herself, “Maybe they’ve given me some hallucinogenic and I’m imagining everything...” However, the evidence was in front of her. And the story he was telling her made sense. If he was making it up, it was the most fantastic lie she’d ever heard. But the details, the coherence of the story—only an eyewitness could narrate something with so much detail, unless he was an incredible phony, of course. On the other hand...Atlantis? Living thousands of years? It was too much to accept that easily. But there were the other witnesses, who agreed with Robert’s...that is Alexis’, story. At one point, Ponteus continued the story, narrating about the evacuation from his point of view; the death of Gea and their son, and the happenings in Tzedek’s cities until the present.

  “...and since there were more and more electronic controls I’ve had to change my identity every twenty years or fewer. As much as I dyed and grew a beard, there comes a time when it’s clear I don’t show my age,” Alexis continued as they arrived at the city gates.

  They went through the formalities to enter and changed vehicles to get to the center.

  Leora was mute, trying to process everything Alexis had said. She had a chill for a moment. For the love of god, she’d had sexual relations with a being from another species. In spite of him seeming like a god, she couldn’t help but think that she’d done something bad. Very bad.

  The autonomous vehicle took them at a high speed to the tower, where they went up to the command center. While they walked, Althaea described the area to Leora and Alexis.

  When they entered the control center, Juan Carlos and Damaris were working on something in a corner while Sofía studied there. She stood up and Althaea noticed with surprise that she looked much more mature than she had a couple of days ago. She didn’t look like a fourteen old year girl any more, but more like sixteen. Her waist was more narrow, her hips wider, and her breasts had grown substantially. And she even looked taller.

  Sofía had been looking at Alexis. For a second nothing happened, but then she let out a strident shout of joy.

  “Alexis!” she screamed, jumping into his arms. She kissed him on the mouth while she hugged him tightly.

  Alexis froze, and hadn’t even reacted yet when Sofía separated and pushed him back, yelling:

  “But what the hell, how disgusting!” she exclaimed, as she slapped him.

  Alexis stood there with his mouth open and a lost look, while Sofía continued on with a dialogue with herself.

  “Don’t ever do that again!”

  “What are you talking about? He’s my consort! My partner!” shouted whoever it was, apparently Gea’s personality inside of Sofía’s body.

  “Well, in case you didn’t get it, I don’t like men! And much less the old ones!” Sofía said, offended, shuddering.

  “This is ridiculous, he’s my consort, I’m not going to deprive myself from touching him because you don’t like him!” shrieked Gea, kicking.

  “Child...” interrupted Alexis, looking at the tiara.

  “I’m not a child!” shouted Sofía and for once, it seemed like the shout was completely shared by Gea.

  Alexis turned to Althaea looking for help and they looked at each other for a second, communicating. Leora was near the door, arms crossed.

  “Ugh,” sighed Alexis. “You could have told me on the way, Althaea.”

  “Well, you were busy with Leora and I didn’t even know if Gea would recognize or remember you.”

  The others had been coming closer. Not only Leora, but Juan Carlos and Damaris were showing a certain hostility towards Alexis.

  “I’d appreciate if you weren’t slobbering all over my daughter,” grunted Juan Carlos.

  “But she was the one who...”

  “And wait until one bed gets cold before jumping into another...” complained Leora, still with crossed arms.

  “Leora, I’m not going to jump into another bed...”

  “Leave Sofía alone,” Damaris ordered, putting her arm around her, as if protecting her.

  “Enough!” Alexis shouted, losing his patience. “I’m not interested in the girl, and in fact no one but Leora interests me right now!”

  “Ah, if I had my sword you’d be apologizing to me from the ground,” Gea said, pale with fury.

  “Child...Sofía...Gea! I don’t know what the hell has happened here, but you aren’t my Gea, although you look like her and you’re using her tiara. And even if you were her, I haven’t seen you in I don’t know how many thousands of years. I thought you were dead. And right now I’m in a relationship with another person.”

  “With who?” said Leora and Sofía at the same time.

  Alexis rolled his eyes.

  “With Leora, of course. If she wants to be, of course. After all of this, I wouldn’t blame her if she left in her ship and never came back,” he gestured with exasperation.

  Sofía crossed her arms while Leora uncrossed hers, brought her hands to her hips with pursed lips.

  “What, did you think I was just using you, that I was going to sleep with you and then toss you as if you weren’t worth anything? Or maybe you were using me? I slept with you because I like you and I recognize a good person when I see one.”

  Leora turned crimson.

  “Way to be honest. Why don’t you just announce it through the loudspeakers?”

  “I didn’t know it was a secret, I didn’t mean to offend you. Would you rather we keep it secret?” huffed Alexis.

  “As if everyone didn’t know it already now.”

  “Just the people here and it’s inevitable since they can read minds, as I can, Leora.”

  “You don’t need to read minds to see there’s something between you two, Captain,” Althaea intervened, looking at Leora.

  Leora got even more red, if that were possible.

  “Leora, please, why are you so angry?” implored Alexis, moving closer to her.

  “Because....because...because all of this is out of my control, that’s why!” she shouted.

  Althaea nodded, and Alexis moved even closer.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re a captain, Alexis, you should know. I’m used to giving orders and having them complied with, to know everything that happens under my domain and to know precisely what will happen in the next few hours. Suddenly I am nothing.”

  “Believe me, I know how you feel,” Gea agreed.

  “Things are complicated, but they haven’t changed that much, Leora. You can go if you want, keep running the ship and take it wherever you want.”

  “I can’t do that and you know it.”

  “Actually you can, but you don’t do it because your responsibility requires you to look for the best solution for the passengers and that implies disembarking in a safe place. Here you can have security and help. No one is making you, you can take it or leave it.”

  Leora made a small pout that almost made Alexis smile, but he saw that she was thinking about it.

  LYING IN WAIT

  Negro River, December 24, 2027. 6:00 a.m.

  The alarm woke him up immediately, like it did every day. He turned on the light, got up and went to the bathroom. Then he went to the maintenance room to check the charge on the battery and that the air filtering was working. The filters looked good and the wind turbine was generating load. It was too early for the solar cells to be producing electricity, but they would be soon. He went to the kitchen and had some coffee while he checked the pantry. Today he didn’t feel like eating canned food, so he would go hunting.

  He dressed in camo, took his rifle and left the bunker, leaving it closed. Town was a fe
w miles away but there wasn’t anything in that direction. Of course the times he’d gone back to town since he went to the shelter, he’d done it with a biohazard suit. He didn’t trust that the bodies weren’t still contagious, so he’d dragged them to the quarry where they were out of the way. As far as he could tell, the virus had dissipated from the air and he didn’t need special suits to go hunting away from the areas with corpses. He’d tried to burn them, but the smell and the smoke was worse than the stink of decomposing bodies. He always headed south, hoping to find deer, though for the past few days they were disappearing faster than in hunting season, due to the damned dogs.

  A few days ago they almost cost him his life, the damned things. He was following the tracks of a deer and when he got to the top of a small hill he found it...its body, at any rate, surrounded by about twenty dogs who were devouring it. Stripped of their food supply from human beings, the dogs had returned at full speed to their ancestral origins, becoming wild and organizing themselves in packs like wolves. It was almost funny to see German shepherds mixed with Dobermans, Belgian shepherds and dachshunds, but when they saw him and started chasing him, it stopped being funny, above all when he started shooting at them and they still kept trying to follow him and eat him. Thanks to his training he was able to climb a tree and stay out of their reach, but even though he killed the most aggressive ones from the comfort of a branch, the rest continued to harass him. He had to wait several hours until they decided it wasn’t worth the wait and instead started eating their companions. Not that they had eaten much. They were all so skinny he could see their ribs. If there was any chubby one, it would have become the menu of the day a long time ago.

  He supposed their numbers would decline soon, as they started finding their ecological niche. Meanwhile, it had made it harder to find fresh meat. After walking quite a while towards the south, he got to the edge of the river. He started walking along it, hoping to find some prey that had come to drink water. The river was cleaner, which also indicated that the worst of the disaster had already passed.

  It had been days since he’d had contact with anybody by radio. Most of the people he knew were already sick when they took refuge in the bunkers around the world and from what he could deduce, they died closed up in them. Others took refuge in time, but in his last communication with one of them a few days ago, they told him that they were going to the city to look for supplies and never contacted him again. He suspected that they’d died, too. Whether they were victims of wild animals or they caught the damned virus, he’d never know. But the fact that the river water was increasingly clean and potable indicated that all the cities between where he was now, to the springs in the mountains, had stopped pouring their waste into the water, which meant that almost certainly everyone had died.