by A. G. Riddle
From the tablet’s speaker, a computerized voice says, “We copy, Lander One. Status?”
“Base camp established. Team one is clearing a path to the Carthage colony.”
“Copy that. Good luck, Lander One.”
The path through the grassy plain is straight and wide, as if a giant lawn mower plowed through. With Izumi on the back, I drive the ATV along the path, watching closely for any predators that might crawl out of the tall grass.
At the tree line, the light, breezy plain turns to a dense jungle that reminds me of a rainforest. The canopy is thick and it’s dark and cool on the ground. It feels as though we’re driving through a cave made of trees and plants.
Where the path through the plain was wide and straight, the route they’ve carved through the jungle is winding and narrow. Cut vines and limbs lie across the path. Stumps of skinny trees and bushes dot the ground.
Every hundred feet or so, the trail diverts to go around one of the massive trees. Through the foliage I can see their trunks, which are dark reddish-brown with rough bark, similar to the redwoods on Earth.
It’s silent except for the animal calls and responses echoing through this dim ecosystem. Leaves rustle as unseen predators and prey flee and slip past us.
To the west, in the grasslands that border the desert, lies the natural habitat of the Eos rex, or E. rex as we’ve begun calling them. Thus far, the predators haven’t ventured into the jungle, but we’re all on alert for the giant beasts. Brightwell is sure we could bring one down, but as they say, no plan survives contact with the enemy.
Driving through this forest, it finally hits me how truly different this world is.
The forest breaks at a small creek, bordered by black rock and purple moss.
Brightwell and her troops are standing in the small clearing, panting. They must have just gotten here.
“Any trouble?” I ask Brightwell as I bring the ATV to a stop.
“No, ma’am,” she says, her face a mask. Several of her soldiers shoot glances at each other, giving me the impression that cutting this swath through the jungle was anything but easy.
At the creek, Izumi bends down and takes a water sample to test. “The water’s frigid,” she mumbles as she studies the tablet holding the tube.
“This creek must be fed by the mountains to the east, from the frozen far side,” I comment.
“It’s refreshing,” Private Scott says as he bends down and cups his hand, bringing the water to his mouth.
Izumi opens her mouth to protest, but the tablet beeps, apparently an all-clear message.
She sighs. “Please wait for me next time, Private.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Their canteens full, the soldiers ford the creek. On the far bank, Private Scott and Brightwell clutch their rifles, alert, while the other two soldiers detach long blades and poles from their packs. They affix the blades longways on the hard-plastic poles, which they slide into loops on their forearms. The razor-sharp machetes extend nearly four feet from their hands, making the soldiers look like monsters with swords for arms.
They hack at the vines and shrubs, clearing a path, the rest of us following behind, watching for predators. Soon, the forest breaks into another grassy plain where the white domes of the long barracks loom ahead.
From orbit, the holes in the barracks looked like rifle shots. Here they are wide gashes. In some, rotten limbs protrude from the openings. In others, there are skeletons of massive animals, E. rex from the looks of it. It’s as if a herd crashed into the barracks. Were they hunting the colonists? From what we’ve seen, this is far outside of the E. rex natural habitat.
As in the video feeds, there’s no movement at the camp.
The two point soldiers detach the blades from the poles and reattach them to the end at right angles, turning the machetes into grass hooks again. They march slower across this grassy plain. The Carthage colonists could have placed land mines, booby traps, and automated defenses out here. By the time we reach the first barracks building, however, we’ve found none.
“Hello!” Brightwell calls out.
The only sound is the wind and the distant animal calls from the forest. What occurs to me is not what I don’t hear—it’s what I don’t smell. The air is clean and fresh, with no hint of death and decay. No dead bodies—none that died recently anyway.
At the entrance to the closest barracks, the point soldiers stow their grass hooks and take out their rifles, aiming forward as Private Scott pulls the door open.
The long corridor that runs the length of the barracks is empty.
We march down the lane, throwing the doors to the rooms open and scanning them. All empty. The sheets on the bunk beds are disheveled. Tablets lie on the floor. People lived here. From the looks of it, they left in a hurry. Because of the storm that destroyed the camp? Or something else?
At the end of the barracks, Private Scott picks up a toy car lying on the floor of a bunk room. “They brought this?”
“No,” Brightwell responds. “The Carthage carried a disassembled 3-D printer. The Jericho has one too. They must have gotten their printer operational and recycled the matter from their landing capsules into the toys and other items.”
Private Scott nods.
“It would have taken at least a month to assemble the printer,” I point out. “They would have likely erected the barracks first. They were down here for months—at least. Let’s search the rest of the barracks. And try to find their comm patch.”
After a few hours of searching, it becomes clear that the barracks are all empty. But they’ve been lived in. Izumi has tested the water and surfaces throughout the camp. She hasn’t detected any pathogens that are known threats to us, but there are surely bugs that will pose a problem. The good news is that the landing party is healthy so far.
I don’t know exactly what I expected to find, but I expected something. Some sign. Some clue about what happened. There are no notes. No records left on the tablets—they’ve all been erased. It’s as if the colonists just got up one morning and left forever. It’s as if they wanted to leave a mystery behind.
I’m standing with Izumi and Brightwell at the edge of the camp, ready to leave, when Private Scott calls from the tree line, “Colonel! We’ve got something.”
We follow the path through the tall grass. At the edge of the jungle, Scott is holding up a comm panel with a strange symbol on it. I study it as we draw closer.
Brightwell turns to me. “Ma’am, do you recognize it?”
“No.”
Brightwell holds her tablet up, positioning the symbol in the camera view. “It might be one of the comm characters.”
She waits, studying the screen; then she shakes her head. “It’s not translating.”
“No,” I mumble. “It’s too orderly. The comm symbols look more random. The colonists drew this. Or… found it somewhere.”
Private Scott holds up another tile. “They all have the same symbol. Looks like the wind blew them over here to the tree line. Should we leave them?”
“No,” I reply quickly. “Bring them with us.”
They’re the only clue we have about what happened here.
The drive back to the lander is a lot faster than the trip going. The four soldiers ride silently in the trailer, rifles held at the ready.
Despite the weaker gravity on Eos, I’m dead tired when we get back to the lander. We make our report via the comm panels and lay out our plan: tomorrow, we’ll search the woods around the Carthage camp. I doubt we’ll find anything. The colonists are gone. Where, I can’t imagine.
I glance at the symbol on the tile. What does it mean? Is it a clue about what happened? A warning?
As the landing team trudges up the ramp and toward the waiting bunks, I stand in the sea of grass and stare up at the burning red star beyond the mountain peaks. This world is very different from the one we left. The biggest change of all is that here, the sun never sets. There’s no night. No winter. I’m
okay with that.
Chapter 75
James
In the Jericho’s med bay, three small stasis sleeves lie on the tables. Sam is inside the largest, Allie in the middle, and in a sleeve no larger than the length of my forearm, Carson sleeps.
I haven’t brought my children here to wake them. I wouldn’t dare. I can’t even imagine how frightened they would be. I brought them out to make sure they were okay. I don’t trust the ship’s computer. Not anymore. Not knowing that Arthur has been awake during this journey, with unrestricted control.
Gently, I run a hand over Allie’s head. The stasis sleeve is sealed tight to her body, the material milky and too opaque for me to see her. But just touching her, and Sam, and Carson, and knowing they’re alive and healthy is enough for me.
I instruct the robotic arm to stow them again. They’ll go down in separate capsules, along with the rest of the colonists and cargo.
On the bridge, the viewscreen shows the eastern valley and the plain that holds our new settlement, which we’ve creatively named Jericho City. Capsules are touching down quickly, their parachutes drifting down, covering the leveled blue-green grass. The first barracks building stretches out like a caterpillar sunning itself on a lawn.
North of our camp lies the abandoned Carthage settlement. What chills me is that our barracks and roads are taking the same shape as theirs, as if someone is slowly copying that part of the planet into this area.
We’ve opted to leave the Jericho and Carthage up here. There’s a risk that the orbiting vessels might draw the attention of an alien species, but I figure any species sufficiently advanced to be strolling around the galaxy could easily spot us on the surface. And you never know when you might need a spaceship or two in orbit.
Up here on the ship, Min, Grigory, and I have formed a routine. We work, eat, sleep, and play cards. For days, we orbit, deploying capsules each time we pass the eastern valley. On the viewscreen, Eos flies by in a pattern that becomes almost normal: desert, valley, ice, valley, and desert again. The two sides of the world are opposites and somehow they meet to form a perfect sliver of habitation for us.
In so many ways, Eos is like the history of our last days on Earth. The ice on one side, the fire and desolation from the grid on the other, us trying to survive in the narrow space in between.
Grigory and I convinced Min that we should be last off the ship. When the orbital tug takes control of his capsule and nudges it toward the atmosphere, I close the outer doors of the cargo hold and pressurize the space.
I hold the energy weapon as Grigory unlocks the box that holds Arthur.
He crawls out and straightens up, affecting a tired expression and a weary tone. “Don’t you just hate moving? It’s like, you always have more stuff than you think you do.”
I hold the tablet up, showing him the symbol left by the Carthaginian colonists:
“What is this?” I ask.
“If this is charades, I just need to know—is Grigory on my team or yours?”
“I’m serious, Arthur. The colonists from the Carthage are gone. This is all they left. You know what it is, don’t you?”
His tone turns serious. “I’m guessing you know what it is too, James.”
Grigory cuts his eyes at me, silently asking if that’s true. I don’t know what it is. The symbol has haunted me since the Lander One base camp sent it back. But I have a theory.
“It’s a map, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Arthur says flatly.
“Of what?”
Arthur breaks eye contact and shakes his head.
“Is it the map of an orbit? Is the dot in the middle this star? The rings the eccentric path of a comet or asteroid?”
“No, you’ve got it all wrong.”
“Where does it lead?”
“You’re asking the wrong question.” Arthur focuses on me. “And you shouldn’t be asking it at all. Leave the past in the past, James. It’s safer for you. Just go down there and be with your family and live your life.”
“What does this symbol mean?”
“It means that Harry, Charlotte, and Fowler were smarter than any of us thought.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“The answers are right in front of you. Consider the fact that they knew they had arrived here before you and they didn’t leave you any messages or clues when they disappeared.” He nods to the image on the tablet. “I’m guessing that wasn’t left in plain sight.”
“Not exactly.”
“You may not know what that symbol means, but you know what that camp means.”
“That they left in a hurry.”
“It’s more than that, James. They don’t want you to come looking for them. You ought to take the hint.”
“Not good enough,” Grigory says, fighting to keep his composure. “You tell us what it is or we kill you.”
Arthur smiles with mock sympathy. “That’s so cute. Keep in mind I’ve been playing hostages and heroes a few million years longer than you. If you were going to kill me, I’d already be dead. So let’s get on with it. I’ve said all I’m going to say.”
Grigory grinds his teeth, but I can tell he’s come to the same conclusion I have.
With the energy weapon, I motion toward an open capsule in the center of the cargo hold.
“Get in.”
Striding toward the capsule, Arthur calls over his shoulder. “Where are we going?”
“You are going nowhere.”
He shakes his head theatrically. “Same thing my parents said when I went through that long awkward phase in high school. I hate being grounded.”
When he’s inside the capsule, I point to a box on the side. “When we seal this capsule, a sensor ring will be activated. If the seal breaks without us unlocking it, it will explode.”
Arthur raises his eyebrows. “Talk about some dynamite outside-the-box thinking!”
I ignore the quip. “The capsule will be tethered to the ship at a safe distance. You try to escape, it explodes.”
Arthur exhales. “You’ve really boxed me in this time. And hung me out to die.” He pauses. “I guess this is goodbye. Don’t miss me too much.”
“That’s not going to be a problem.”
I’m the last to leave the Jericho. On the bridge, the viewscreen shows the growing city in the valley. Three barracks dot the blue-green plain now. Capsules are stacked in rows, like a car lot filled with inventory. Our people are down there, waiting to awaken at their new home.
This place is dangerous. Mysteries surround us. And many of us will never get over what happened on Earth. But the next generation won’t have to. They’ll grow up on a world where they have a chance at happiness. That’s worth the sacrifices we made.
Chapter 76
Emma
On a ridge a mile from camp, I stand with the binoculars to my eyes, watching the capsule burn through the atmosphere. The parachutes deploy and it drifts lazily to the ground. This is the last capsule to arrive. James is aboard.
I drive the ATV to the touchdown site and tow the beetle-like capsule back to camp. The barracks remind me a little of Camp Seven—the long, domed buildings are made from the same materials, the roads hard-packed dirt, the power provided by solar panels atop the habitats.
Colonel Brightwell decided to dye the AU winter fatigues, Pac Alliance uniforms, and Atlanta militia outfits solid green. The change was in order. Though the clothes are different below, they’re the same color. We’re no longer fighting each other. Now it’s humanity against our new world, its predators and pathogens. And whatever took the Carthage colonists.
In the medical habitat, Min and Grigory lift James’s stasis sleeve on to the table and Izumi starts the process to bring him out.
A few minutes later, he’s pulling the mask from his mouth and looking around, gasping, seeming groggy.
“The air takes some getting used to,” I whisper.
He nods as I kiss him on the forehead. “Welcome to Eos.”
We’re all anxious to get our families out of the stasis sleeves, to start our new lives here. But no one is more eager than I am. I’ve been accumulating my breastmilk for Carson and each time I pump, I wish I was holding him in my arms. It’s been painful to be separated from him so soon after his birth. It’s a sacrifice—a necessary one, for his safety. Soon. I’ll see him, Allie, and Sam soon.
Above, Jericho is still in orbit, passing like a shooting star every few hours. It is our overwatch, an early-warning system for storms and, thus far, one stampede of deer-like animals that came close to the camp.
I think we’ve all found the work somewhat therapeutic. After the asteroids hit, every bit of work we did was to survive in the short term. Here, we’re working to build something for the long term, something that might endure.
James has changed in ways I can’t quite put my finger on. As usual, there’s some great question bouncing around in his head, a mystery dogging him. Or perhaps it is just his paranoia, his fear that we’re truly not out of the woods.
I’m pretty sure it’s the disappearance of the Carthage colonists that’s bothering him. I’ve broached the subject several times, but so far, he’s seemed to have very little interest in discussing it. Maybe he’s doing that to protect me. Maybe he thinks if he acts like it’s not a big deal that I’ll think the same. I don’t. Not only do I miss my friends that were lost, I worry that our fate will be the same as theirs. For now, the only thing I can do is put one foot in front of the other and get everything ready to bring our children home.
