Bach made another trip to the closest giant stalk and inspected the new pods again. “I can’t believe this.”
Clay tossed piles of produce onto the cart. “You might as well come along, Bach. She’ll find the Commons before she finds you.”
Bach filled his cheeks with air and blasted it out with a fluttering sound. “This is awful.”
“We have to hurry now,” Calla said. “You come with us. She’ll be all right.”
“We can’t be separated for long,” he stated.
As the withered pair began to pull the cart, Bach suddenly registered the cart’s mass relative to theirs—twenty times their size. “Here, let me take it.” He stepped alongside Clay, and helped him and Calla aboard.
While pulling the cart along the flagstone trail, Bach’s worries over Star’s whereabouts multiplied, and he huffed out breath after breath of frustration.
Calla broke his train of thought by calling ahead to him. “We’re not as old as we look, Bach. It happened when the Rooks experimented with rapid growth.”
Saddened and angered by what he heard, Bach barely found words to reply. “I’m distressed by what they’ve done.”
With the marketplace in sight, Clay shook his head as if irritated. “Don’t be surprised when you get to the Commons. Exactly ten seasons ago it housed our bounty, but famines and lack of use have left it too long without care. Only through co-op exchanges have we stayed alive. Now, at last, we have a successful harvest. I hope people stay peaceful.”
*****
In the Commons, hundreds of small, prematurely old people deposited crops into holding bins for the massive food exchange. Bach helped Calla and Clay unload, then set out in a rush to see if Star might have made it there on her own as Clay had said.
“Bach! Over here,” came the sound of Star’s voice. She stood deep in the crowd, arms crisscrossing over her head.
Bach elbowed his way through wagons and piles of produce and arrived breathless at her side. “You’re here! I almost panicked. I didn’t know if you’d find your way.”
She smiled with wide eyes. “Me? I was worried about you. After I noticed that the pods grew right back I was afraid you’d be lost for hours.”
“You noticed that? Why didn’t you yell at me?”
“I tried, but the crops soundproofed my voice.”
“How did you find your way here before I did?”
She shrugged as if it had been no big deal. “Followed a yellow flagstone road. They’re throughout the fields in a grid pattern—every ten rows.”
Bach huffed. “Then how’d you know you were going in the right direction?”
“The stones are triangles. They point to the Commons like arrows. How’d you get here?”
He looked away to hide his fib. “Just figured it out.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “Well, this time I mean it. I’m not letting you out of my sight again.”
“Okay, this time I’ll agree. And, I can’t lie, I ran into a couple and they gave me a lift.”
“Ohhh,” she said, “the easy way.”
He looked into her amazing blue eyes. “It wasn’t easy. My blood was pumpin’ with concern.”
Nearby, a withered-looking boy unloaded the last few purple fruits from his cart. “Did you bring something for the exchange?” he asked.
Bach shook his head. “Not this time, but we’re not here to take anything from you either.”
A small female shuffled vegetables from her cart to a bin, but spoke with her head down. “When the Rooks come, they take things so they can help us.”
“They’re untruthful.” Bach stifled frustration. “They’ve ruined your planet and shortened your life span with scientific tinkering.”
She looked up. “Can you change it back?”
He grimaced. “This has evolved over years, decades, generations. There may be a way to change it back, but it won’t happen soon.”
Her tiny voice held sorrow. “I wish it could happen now.”
The Alphamates continued to search the Commons for those with a symbol. Star made eye contact with a male nearby who smiled and selected two huge red fruits from his bin, then broke into a run to greet her. He jumped up and dropped the fruits into her hands as if depositing basketballs into a hoop, then ran off. She shouted, “Thank you,” and he acknowledged it with a wave of his hand over his head.
Star pressed the smooth-skinned fruits to her nose and inhaled their sweet aroma with delight. She handed one to Bach.
He juggled the grapefruit-sized sphere hand to hand. “Enough for a whole meal.” He took a bite, and his wide-open chomp left but a peck in the ruby-red fruit. Rolling the bitten piece around in his mouth like a child eating a too-big piece of candy, he hummed with pleasure. “Mmmm, tastes like an apple and peach together.”
After he’d eaten about a third of the crisp, red fruit, to his surprise Bach noticed two small seeds in the center—one circular, the other like a cross. Curious, he broke the fruit open all the way. The four-sectioned core looked like the symbol of hope. He showed it to Star. “Could this be it?”
“Let’s look at mine.” She struck hers against a rock and broke it open. The fruit’s circular core had two crossed lines and the seeds looked like x’s and o’s.
“C’mon, let’s go find the little guy who gave them to you.”
She hesitated. “I don’t think it’s a symbol, because everyone with these fruits would have it. How would we know the two people we’re to take with us?”
He looked again. “We have to try. If this isn’t it, maybe the little guy will lead us to it. I haven’t seen anything else, and time’s passing fast.”
“Do you remember what he looked like? They look a lot alike, and he just seemed to disappear back into the crowd.”
“I don’t remember,” Bach said. “Blue pants, I think.”
Their height gave them a good view, but in the sea of people and carts in the Commons they didn’t find the man in blue pants. Bach scanned the crowd and beyond and noticed a couple on a side pathway struggling with a damaged cart. The man braced his fragile body against a broken wheel over and over again, trying to keep it on the spindle, while a small lady attempted to pull the wagon. Each time the wagon moved forward a foot, the little guy’s legs splayed in a desperate stance against the overpowering load. He fell, got up, held the wheel, then fell again.
Bach shouted ahead, “Hold on, we’re coming.” He covered thirty yards in large bounds and stabilized the swaying cart while Star helped the farmer up from the ground. The little lady scurried around retrieving fallen flowers and vegetables.
“How long have you been pulling this broken cart?” Star asked. “You must be exhausted.”
“I am very tired,” the fair-haired lady replied. “We’ve loaded, reloaded, and pulled for half the morning. We have a good harvest to share, a bounty from our Creator’s hand.”
“See the problem,” the man said, waving his arm. “Our wheel has given out, and now we’re late for the Commons.”
Star examined the broken wheel while the man looked on. Four spokes remaining within the circle formed the symbol. Star nudged Bach and softly said, “The lady spoke of the Creator.”
Bach knelt to eye level with the man. “Come with us. We’re fulfilling the Creator’s plan.”
The man and woman stood back and whispered to each other, then she spoke, “My name is Violet, and my spouse is Noble. Where are you going?”
“To Dura aboard a spacecraft,” Bach answered. “We have passengers aboard from other planets.”
“Others?” Violet looked apprehensive. “I’ve never met anyone from the other planets except Dura’s co-op crews, and Rooks.” She hesitated. “Will you tell the others that Noble and I are not old? We just look old. Even the youngest on Maon look old, it’s the same for everyone.” She stepped beside her mate. “Our ancestors didn’t suffer this degeneration. It came from the Specter’s experimentation.”
Bach bent down and held Vi
olet’s hands, then looked into her eyes and said, “You’ll fit in just fine with the rest of the group, and you’ll have your own quarters on the ship. Please trust us.”
“Will we be safe from the Specter?”
“I believe so.”
“Someone’s taking all the children,” Violet said.
“Yes, we’ve heard that from the others on board. I promise to investigate as soon as we get to Dura.”
Star filled two crates from the wagon with a variety of fruits and vegetables to take along. She looked at Bach. “Without animals there’s nothing else to bring, right?”
Noble interjected, “We’re supposed to bring something else?”
Star nodded. “We’re collecting all the animal species, but you have no animals.”
“No animals—only insects.”
Insects? Bach thought about it. “Yes, let’s bring insects. They’re beneficial. But how can we capture them?”
“Violet keeps them.” Noble climbed onto the cart and lifted a hinged flap covering a storage bin. Inside were numerous wood and screen boxes filled with insects, two as small as a matchbox. He set the containers at the edge of the cart, talking as he worked. “Most of the insects died during the famines, but we rescued those we could and nurtured them, then released them to pollinate this year’s harvest. It wasn’t easy to recapture them and they don’t live long, so Violet keeps the younger breeding pairs in her loving care. If not for her, we would never have had a successful crop.”
“I learned from worship what was necessary,” she said. “I take no credit myself.”
Noble added, “She loves all living things, makes sure every insect has a mate. Even names them.”
Star’s eyes widened. “The insects have names?”
He handed her a box. “Grace and her mate, Honor.”
A bulge-eyed praying mantis and its partner, hands drawn in prayer, stared at Star.
Bach looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Grace and Honor … love it.”
The four carried two crates of fresh produce and a dozen small boxes with ladybugs, bees, caterpillars, dragonflies, and a plethora of propitious insects to the ship.
#
With Violet and Noble secured in their environmental chamber, Bach released the insects in the hydroponic garden’s screen room and pondered the discovery of the same insects as found on his home planet. It’s the same Creator, he rationalized, the one who made Earth and all the things on it. The one who brought me here.
*****
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Bach enlarged a viewscreen image showing Baalbek’s open plains, rocky mounts, and jungle forests, then zeroed in on a well-worn area leading through the underbrush of a lush green area near the landing site. Several interconnecting trails led from nearby villages to a circular arena where he detected activity.
Having read that the planet was aligned under intersecting paths of all three daystars, with temperatures reaching extremes, he and Star disembarked wearing soft, transparent head coverings and thin, white E-suits over their jumpsuits. They followed a footpath deep into the surrounding jungle, and trekked through trees and shrubs for two miles when they heard and felt a rhythmic drumbeat. A few yards more and they were at the perimeter of the spacious arena that Bach had seen on the terrain scan. Staying under cover of jungle brush, they watched dozens of dark-skinned natives in the distance brandishing spears and chanting in ritual around a blazing fire.
A contest or celebration was in progress, and one area of the arena had been set aside for a special event. Two natives facing opposite directions stood guard over a large, man-shaped target constructed of rocks. A padded, red-fabric heart on the rock-man’s chest served as a bullseye.
The Alphamates observed for a while, trying to get a feel for the event. But they quickly realized that their arrival had not gone unnoticed. Two boys in loincloths with warpainted faces ran toward them from a nearby trail, shouting and chattering with raised spears. The youths skidded to a stop five yards away. The smaller of the two, with purple stars outlining his eyes, held a bunch of white flowers in one hand and a spear in the other. The bigger boy, his face painted to look like a lion, clutched a handful of orange berries to his chest and pointed his spear at the visitors.
Star noticed the white flowers in the smallest boy’s hand. She smiled from behind her headcover and waved.
Neither boy moved.
Bach bent down to their level. “Hi, kids. My name’s Bach; this is Star.”
The boy with the lion-painted face stepped forward and shoved a handful of the orange berries toward Bach’s face. After Bach took them, the youth motioned with his spear for him to share them with Star. Bach handed a portion of the berries to his partner.
With a look of expectation, the boy focused on the Alphamates’ faces as he brought his cupped hand to his mouth and ate the last of the berries. He chewed for a few seconds then opened his mouth and dangled his orange-colored tongue.
The smaller boy moved alongside his brother. Staring from wild-looking eyes, both kids pointed their spears at the intruders.
Bach looked at Star. “I guess we’re supposed to get orange tongues, too. It has to be okay or he wouldn’t have eaten them.”
As the brothers looked on, Bach and Star lifted their headgear just enough to eat the citrusy berries. Then Bach stuck out his orange-tinged tongue. Star hesitated for a moment, then did the same.
Seeming more pleased than his big brother, the smaller boy shuffled his feet in a little dance and stuck the white flowers under his brother’s nose. Then he tauntingly shook the flowers toward Bach and Star and yelled, “Hex.” Both kids yelped gleefully, then beat a hasty retreat along the arena, dust flying from their bare feet as they ran.
Star looked at Bach. “Hex?”
“I think they’re just playing. But I’m trying to figure out why they’re still here if all the children are missing.”
“Those on the other planets said that kids are disappearing slowly. We must check on that as soon as we get home.”
Bach looked around. “We didn’t read much before we got here. What does Baalbek contribute to the co-op effort?”
“Meat, and minerals, and the people have great physical strength.”
The two continued around the clearing’s edge at a safe distance from the event. The sound of a heavy, thumping drumbeat shook their insides, and tinkling rainsticks, warbling wind instruments, and intensifying chants and yells added to the ceremonial composition. Women spectators lined the distant sidelines, and over a hundred body-painted males joined in an ever-circling dance around a five-foot-high bonfire in the center of the arena.
“Just looking at that fire makes me hot,” Bach said. “Startin’ to sweat.”
“Me too,” Star replied. “It must be hotter here than recorded in the logbook. I feel it through the E-suit.”
Bach bobbed along to the drumbeat. “I like this music. Wonder what’s going on?”
“Seems a bit ominous to me,” she replied.
“The celebrants don’t seem to know we’re here,” he said, “but I have a feeling we should stay under cover.”
Star pointed off to one side to a sprawling tree with a makeshift platform nine feet up. “I saw those two boys scurry up a rope ladder on that tree. Maybe they’ll tell us what’s happening.”
Bach and Star headed to the tree tower. When they looked up at the platform, two faces and four black eyes glared down.
Star shouted to the boys over the noise. “Will you come down and talk to us?”
Crouched on their knees, the expressionless children said nothing.
Star stood on her tiptoes and extended her hand, but the boys didn’t move.
Bach noticed Star’s face covered in sweat. “I’m uneasy, too,” he said, moving closer to the tree. “Here, let me try. I know they’ll see me smiling through this headgear.” He yelled up to the kids. “Don’t be afraid. We’re friendly.”
In one quick move, the boy with
purple stars around his eyes thrust his hand toward Bach.
Bach jumped back.
The youth gripped the open edge of a giant snail shell and lowered it toward Bach as if he wanted him to take it.
Bach stretched until he hurt, waved his arm back and forth, and came within a fingernail of the shell, but the kid wouldn’t give an inch.
Then the boy’s lips curled up with a smile. He drew the shell to his mouth, and with one long blow produced a hornlike blast that trilled to the skies above Baalbek. The ceremonial music stopped abruptly and hundreds of savage faces focused on Bach and Star at the base of the tree. A lone drumbeat, like a signal, drove the mob of chanting natives with raised spears toward the intruders. A large native emerged from the throng and strode forward. His body seemed a walking wall of muscles.
“Uh-oh. He must be the high chief.” Bach shielded Star with his body.
The stately leader, covered head to toe in shimmering gold paint, looked like a gilded idol wearing a white leather loincloth. A flash of light sparked off of a golden, sun-like medallion embedded in his forehead.
The tribe hummed like a swarm of bees as the chief strode forward, smooth muscles quivering with each step. Three yards from Bach and Star, he stopped and planted his huge bare feet wide apart, and with a flip of his head, flung shoulder-length dreadlocks from his face. He raised his left hand and the aroused natives fell silent.
Bach suddenly felt like he couldn’t swallow. A stream of sweat trickled from his throbbing temples, down his neck, onto his pulsing chest. He hyperventilated and struggled for a breath.
Star latched onto his arm. Weak and perspiring, she whispered, “I feel sick.”
The chief’s dark eyes dissected the pair inch-by-inch.
Bach extended his arm hoping for a handshake, and coughed out the word, “Peace.”
“Do not speak!” bellowed the high chief. He placed his hand on Bach’s shoulder and, with a powerful grip, shoved him to the ceremonial circle and seated him in front of the roaring fire. An underling delivered Star to a spot beside Bach.
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