Horizon Alpha, page 19
We’d have to come up with a more permanent solution someday. The sound system from Horizon would probably last at least a decade since we had pulled it all down and safely stored it in the caves. But no matter how many we managed to kill, the Flood would never stop. At least we had some time to figure it out.
A noise snapped me out of my vengeful rumination. It sounded like a strong wind, but deeper, and I couldn’t place where it was coming from.
“You guys hear something?” I looked out across the valley and back behind me into the cave mouth, but saw nothing.
“I hear it,” Josh said, and Shiro nodded.
“It’s getting louder.”
The deep rumble was joined by a higher pitched whine.
“Um . . . guys?” Shiro was looking straight up into the sky.
Through the distant fluffy clouds came the unmistakable silhouette of a spaceship.
It wasn’t shaped like our little winged shuttles or our huge, ungainly transports. The ship was sleek and oblong, tapering to a point at what I assumed was the nose.
I turned to Josh. “Get everybody inside, now.”
Shiro refused to move, and before Josh could start herding anyone into the caves, people started pouring out. In moments, half the population was crowded around the plateau, staring at the smooth silver ship descending slowly from the sky.
It gleamed in the light, reflecting the sun straight into my eyes. I stared until tears were running down my cheeks.
The people of Carthage were space travelers. We had come from a distant sun far across the galaxy to a planet that was full of alien life. We knew we weren’t the only space-going species out there. But knowing you’re not alone and seeing an alien craft landing in your sheep pasture were two very different things.
Mayor Borin had been moved back inside after the Flood, and was unable to come down in his wheelchair. I looked around the gathering, and almost everyone was shrinking back into the cave mouth. Nirah and Sara pushed forward to stand next to me and Shiro.
“So . . . what do we do?” Sara was looking at me. Why does everyone always look at me?
“I think . . . I think we go down and see what this is all about.” There was no point in hiding. Anyone could tell from the gleaming state of the ship to the smooth, controlled landing that these space travelers were more advanced than us. If they wanted us dead, hiding in the caves was not going to help. Better to be a welcoming committee than a bunch of frightened shrews scurrying away.
The three of us marched down the hill and stood near the ship. Nothing on the slick surface indicated where a door might open, but there were some markings on the back end. They looked scratchily familiar.
Sara sucked in a breath. “See that? It says . . .”
She was cut off by a hissing noise. The side of the ship retracted and a long ramp slid out. We all backed up despite our brave intentions.
The first one out of the ship was a Birdman.
The second one out was my father.
***
I couldn’t have stayed still if I tried. I rushed forward and threw myself into Dad’s waiting arms. He was shaking and so was I, both of us clinging onto each other, standing on the ramp of the Birdman’s ship.
When we finally pulled apart, I stared up into his face. “How did you . . .?”
Josh interrupted us, flinging himself into our hug.
The Birdman was watching silently just a few feet away. As my family hugged and cried, four more Birdmen joined us, and Dad herded us down the ramp onto the ground.
I stared at them. We had seen their drawings and read their messages, left by the last of their colonists here. We even had the mummified remains of their archivist, reverently left where he had died, still clutching the paint that decorated our great hall. He was shriveled and dry, his brown feathers patchy and sparse.
Live Birdmen were magnificent. Three of them were brightly colored in patterns of blue and green. Their faces were beaky with bright black eyes. Their arms were covered in shimmering feathers, and ended in taloned fingers. The feathers looked like wings, but the only way these birds would fly was on a spaceship. No way the feathers would support their bodies, which were only a little shorter than me. The other two were feathered in shades of brown like the mummy in the cave, and I realized with a start that if they were like Earth birds, the brown ones were probably females. Which meant our mummified Birdman was actually a Birdwoman all along.
A squeal from the plateau drew my attention. With a delighted cry of “Birdman!” my sister Malia raced down the hill and across the field. Mom bolted after her but Malia was a streak of pale hair. She ran straight up to one of the brown ones and threw her little arms around the Birdwoman’s legs, her little feet planted between the wicked sharp talons.
“Birdman!” she repeated.
Mom skidded to a halt just a few feet away. Nobody moved. Those talons could rip a little girl apart in a heartbeat.
The Birdwoman crouched down next to Malia, her feathered head cocking from side to side.
Malia reached into her pocket and pulled out her doll, the little Birdman toy Mom had made her. She thrust it into the Birdwoman’s clawed hand and beamed up at the curved, sharp beak. “Look, it’s you! My doll is you!”
The Birdwoman took the doll and turned it over, examining it carefully in her clawed fingers. She opened her beak and made a little chirping noise, and handed it back to Malia. With a gesture apparently common to mothers across the galaxy, she patted Malia on the head, chirped a little song, and gently ushered her back into Mom’s waiting grasp.
And we all exhaled.
***
We sat in the sunshine and told our stories. Mayor Borin had been carried down, and the Birdpeople appeared fascinated by his wheelchair. They kept trying to lift up his pants to see what was wrong with his legs.
Dad and Mom sat with Malia between them. Josh held baby Teddy, whom Dad pronounced “perfect,” and vowed to love as his own son. “We’re all a family here. And now we’ve got some interesting new friends.”
We were desperate to hear how he’d ended up on the Birdmen’s ship, crazy to know what they were doing on a planet they’d abandoned decades before. But their chirping songs made no sense to Sara, who had disappeared into the caves with one of the females, no doubt heading for the Painted Hall. She’d be singing in their language in no time.
Dad told us his side of those last moments on Horizon.
“There was no way to get that arm off the shuttle. I had to do it manually from inside.” His eyes were shining as he looked at Josh. “Closing that door, seeing your face through that window was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And I knew I was a dead man. But it’s funny how time slows down in those final moments.
“Horizon Alpha had escape pods.”
My eyes widened at his words. “You ditched Horizon in an escape pod?”
He told us about his fall and crash into the ocean on the other side of the planet. “I just wanted to smell that fresh air once, feel the living planet under my feet. It was more than I could have ever imagined. The island I washed up on was tiny and desolate. No ‘saurs, and no fresh water. I figured when the food and water from the pod ran out, that would be it for me.”
Dad grinned at the Birdpeople, who had branched out and were now exploring our baby ‘saur pen, tweeting excitedly at Ryenne who looked like a proud mama showing off her little pets. Ryenne’s mom was standing at the gate with Rogan, who was rocking back and forth in excitement.
“They heard my pod’s beacon.”
Nirah looked puzzled. “How far did that beacon travel? Did they just happen to be passing by?”
Dad shrugged. “I don’t think so, but I’m honestly not sure because I don’t speak Birdman. But after they picked me up, which was quite a shock for all of us, they flew almost directly here. We went around by the mountains in the north, and I could see a couple of wrecked transports, but nobody alive. I was able to show them on their maps where you were, and we played space charades trying to get them to understand I wanted them to fly here. And here we are.”
I looked at the smooth hull of the ship, and remembered the other times I had seen gleaming metal like that.
“Nirah, remember the pod in the mountains? You plugged in the numbers for pi and it started to flash?”
She nodded. “Of course. It was their own beacon. They must have left it when they abandoned this planet. Maybe thinking some other sentient species might someday come here. I wonder if they have them all over the galaxy?”
We marveled at the idea. How many worlds had these space travelers been to? Where were they going, and how would humans fit into their plans?
The sun was setting over the mountains and we harvested enough food for a feast. The Birdpeople were delighted with the fruit from the trees their ancestors had planted and left for us. They sniffed our dried meat and turned away, shaking their heads in presumed disgust. We gathered in the Painted Hall for the meal and the Birdpeople were obviously thrilled with the paintings left by their long-dead cousin. Sara was already working on a Birdpeople/English spoken dictionary, struggling to make the whistles and chirps with her new friend. The Birdwoman was attempting to croak out human words along with Sara, sounding a little like a scratchy parrot.
“It’s a hard language for our mouths to make each others’ sounds,” she said around a mouthful of beet salad. “But it helps that I know the writing. Their ship, for example.” She swallowed and took a long drink of water. “The markings on the tail are the ship’s name. It means ‘Fighting Bird.’”
That didn’t sound promising, though they had shown no aggression in the hours we’d been escorting them around. “Like, Bird of Prey, you mean?” My younger, movie-loving self jumped up and down in my head, screaming excitedly in Klingon.
“Yeah, like that. ‘Raptor,’ maybe,” Sara said.
Nirah and Sara were itching to get aboard the spaceship and check out the Birdpeople’s technology. Everyone in the colony seemed to want to touch their shimmering feathers, which the Birdpeople didn’t appear to mind. They were apparently fascinated by our hair, and reciprocated by pulling the women’s long hair through their talons, chirping happily.
Mom held baby Teddy, and Dad held Malia on his lap. She didn’t remember him, having left him on Horizon when she was just a baby, but we had raised her with stories of her father, and just like she accepted her new best friend the Birdwoman, she happily snuggled with this stranger we called “Dad.” Josh and Shiro sat together across from me, and I looked at my family, complete and safe for the first time in three years.
My throat closed up as I gazed at each face. Mom had been my rock through every trial. Josh was my forever protector, the big brother who never believed in himself, but lived on my belief in him. Shiro, my almost-brother, the bravest soldier in Carthage. Dad, lost twice and found, weak and thin but beaming with joy. Baby Teddy, who had his biological father’s eyes, blinking up at me with old wisdom and courage in the tiny round face. And Malia, who would be forever credited as first contact with a sentient alien race.
This was my family. This was my home. Whatever storms Tau Ceti e could throw at us, we would weather them together. For the many lives lost in the pursuit of this moment of peace, I grieved. And for the generations to come, who would find their way in this strange and beautiful galaxy, I rejoiced.
We never would have come here if we’d known.
But in all the universe, there was nowhere else I would rather be than here with my family in a cave painted by bird aliens, on a planet full of dinosaurs.
The Wilde family was finally home.
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Homecoming,
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Chapter 1
Noah
I lined up with the other boys, heart pounding in excitement.
Today’s the day!
Eight of us boys were ready for the Ranking. Over the next three days, our fates would be sealed.
The Master directed us in the elegant, clicking language they used to speak to us. Among ourselves we spoke the Lowform, but I was particularly adept at making the clicking noises. That had to count for something. Surely my ability to converse with them would be a leg up in the Ranks.
I could tell them apart, though they had no need for names. The Masters were all one mind, one great “We.” They shared each other’s thoughts, and if one fell, another rose into its place. We Lowforms had no such power. We were individuals, alone in the world. We had names given to us by our mothers, that group of females living deep in the tunnels, surrounded by crying babies and screaming toddlers. I hadn’t been back to the Mothers’ Hall since the Masters came for me over ten years ago. Since then I’d lived in the boys’ area, where we learned the skills we would need once we were Ranked.
The clicks of the Master brought me to attention. I looked up past its huge pincers and into the expressionless, hard brown face.
“Running. White Rock. Return. Run fast.”
Oh, I would. I would run fast.
I stood next to my best friend Chen, sweating in the morning humidity.
“Man, Noah. I wish we had diving today,” he muttered. “Too hot to run.”
I laughed. It was always too hot to run. But that’s what the Masters wanted.
“This is the Ranking. Just do it,” I said.
He would do his best. We all would. The prize for the chosen few demanded it.
I squinted across the low field. Anything could be hiding in those grasses. But the Masters were there to protect us. Without their great, stinging tails, we Lowforms were at risk from all the other insects that buzzed, hopped, crawled, and flew over the dry, cracked land to the soft sand where the ocean rolled in crashing waves. None of us felt entirely safe outside the thick mud walls our Masters built, the huge, towering Hive that sheltered us all. But the wind in my hair lifted my thoughts away from the dangers that lurked outside the Hive. It was time to run.
With two sharp clicks, we were off. My feet pounded on the hard ground, heels driving into the clay. White Rock was an outcropping in the distance, far across the grassy plain that separated our towering Hive from the green mountains beyond the plain. Between the rock and the mountains lay the Forbidden Zone, but we would turn back before we reached it. The first few steps I ran in the welcome shadow of the Hive, but soon it was left behind and the morning sun beat against my bare back. The cloth I wore around my waist flapped in the wind of my speed.
My mind raced as I ran. I didn’t want to win the race, but I thought coming in second or third might be best. The winner was certain to get Ranked as a Runner, one of the Lowforms that accompanied the Master Soldiers on their patrols, bringing back messages to the Hive or scouting around. Runners didn’t live long. The few I saw in my training always looked haggard, thin and ropey, eyes darting around all the time. I admired their service to the Hive, but I didn’t want to be one. Too dangerous out there.
I was in front of the pack, cruising through the grassland, bare feet swishing along. My eyes scanned the high grass around me, alert for danger. Workers kept this path cut short, but anything could hide in the tall field around me.
A sharp elbow knocked me off my stride and I stumbled, crashing off the path and into the tall stalks. Gil shot past me, laughing.
“Did you fall? So sorry!” He skittered away down the corridor while I picked myself up off the ground. A couple of leaf-eaters had hopped onto my legs and I brushed them away before they could bite me, stumbling out into the short grass as the rest of the boys pounded past. Chen was at the back of the pack and I loped along next to him. He was breathing hard, sweat pouring off his face.
“I . . . saw . . . it,” he panted. “He . . . pushed . . . you.”
“He did,” I answered. “It’s okay. Don’t wanna be Runner.”
But I didn’t want to lose any of the events in the Ranking. I was a great swimmer. Everybody said I was a shoo-in for Diver, whether in the dark, clear water that flowed in rivers under the Hive or in the sea where the waves beat the shore. Diver would be a great life for me. I’d be happy as a Diver.
Even if I came in last on this footrace, I could still be a Diver. But if I came in second or maybe third, the door would still be open. The shining door that led to the highest honor the Masters could bestow. I had dreamed about it for years. Only the very best were granted the title, and I wanted it so bad I could taste it.
Queen’s Servant.
Every Ranking, the very best boys were taken into the depths of the Hive, to the secret, forbidden tunnels that led to the Queen herself. No other Lowforms ever got to see her. I couldn’t imagine the glory of it. The Queen of the whole Hive. If I became her Servant, I’d get to see her. I’d be sent on some mission with her blessing, or remain in her chambers as her trusted protector, or . . . I didn’t know, really. I’d never seen a Queen’s Servant after they were chosen. They were far too exalted to return to the rest of us Lowforms. But maybe, just maybe, if I did well enough, I could join those ranks.
I grinned at Chen and poured on the speed.
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Homecoming,
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Acknowledgements
The Horizon Alpha journey has brought me so many new experiences and opportunities. I’m forever grateful to everyone who’s embraced Caleb and the ‘saurs, and lived this adventure with me.
