The Newcomers: a novel of global invasion , human resilience, and the wild places of the planet

by Pamela Jekel

  “Outstanding,” Jomo said. “Can you get those permits done today as well? I know it’s a load, but Commissioner will be peckish if they don’t reach his desk today.”

  She nodded and left, and he looked over her research notes. Amazing stuff, he thought. Baalbek, Lebanon, a three-million square foot platform with stones weighing twelve-hundred tons, where the Sun God Helios landed with his fire chariot, according to legend; Easter Island, carved stone figures, each with bulbous heads, arranged in circles, some of which weigh more than one-hundred and sixty-five tons; Okinawa, ten-thousand year old stone ziggurats found eighty feet under the surface of the sea, obviously created on land; Stonehenge, dated to 8000 B.C., sixty stones and lintels which supposedly showed the March and September equinoctial movements; Teotihuacon in Mexico 200 B.C., Tiahuanacu in Bolivia, 2000 B.C., the Thunder Stone in Russia, the Western Stone in Jerusalem 20 BC, Gomateshwara in India 1000 A.D., the Pyramids, the Colossi, the Trilithon, the Avebury Stone Circle, all huge stone monuments, spanning through time and over the planet, many of them carved, some moved, all of them part of ancient worship and rituals. Was it possible that thousands of year from now, our ancestors would worship the fused high-rises of Johannesburg and Boston, Jomo wondered, just about the time we’ve once more begun pushing the planet past the tipping point?

  At home, they celebrated the emancipation of the planet with beefsteaks and wine and chocolate cake. Chase was, of course, eager to get online for any news and then came to Jomo and Asha with his eyes wide. “I got an email from my Dad,” he said. “They’re at my grandpa’s house in Athens, about fifty miles from Atlanta. They walked there from the camp!”

  Asha embraced him, and Jomo said, “That’s splendid, my boy, just splendid! You must send an answer right away. They’re alive, then! Fifty miles walk, they have to be more than just alive to make that. They must be healthy as well.”

  “They’re trying to make it to our cabin in Watkinsville,” Chase said. “That’s all he wrote. Except that there’s some sort of Navy ship coming to Mombasa, and he wants me to try to get home.”

  “When was it sent?” Asha asked.

  “June 1st,” Chase said, “less than a month ago. Way before the aliens took off, though. I guess they must have escaped from the camp.”

  “What a courageous father you have,” Jomo said, patting his shoulder. “You should be very proud of him. What will you do?”

  Chase shook his head. “I don’t know. I have to think about it. My home is here now.”

  “Perhaps they could come to you?” Asha asked. “Certainly, they would be welcome. Families should be together.”

  “No guarantee they’ll make it out of Athens alive.” Chase dropped his eyes. “They could even be dead by now.”

  Asha said, “No, Chase, don’t say that. You must think positive, yes? God has brought them this far, He will not abandon them now.”

  Chase allowed that a small smile. “Yeah. Maybe you’re right.”

  That night they gathered before the television to watch for any footage from America. The announcer led a discussion among several university scholars about the meaning of the monolith list and the farewell message. The news was that every country that could report had confirmed the disappearance of the alien spacecraft, and that the departure message was identical in all languages. Moreover, the computer screens all over the world were once more back to their normal colors. Camps all over the world, those that were still operational, were opening to release refugees, and governments were urging their citizens to welcome these refugees, sharing whatever resources were available.

  “Yeah, like that’s going to happen,” Baako said. “They’ll fight like dogs for scraps.”

  “Perhaps they’ll be given some supplies when they leave,” Desta said. “Surely they can’t simply put them out with nothing.”

  “Chase’s family made it more than fifty miles,” Asha said. “There must be more food available then we thought.”

  The newsman’s face sobered. “It has been reported from at least four camps, one each in London, Delhi, Beijing, and New York, that the Newcomers demanded and received the delivery of groups of refugee females, twelve to eighteen years of age, as a condition of their departure. It is estimated that more than one thousand young women were delivered to the Newcomer ships and have departed with them. It is unclear at this time whether more deliveries were demanded and if so, from which cities.”

  Asha gasped. “Holy Mother, pray for their souls.”

  “How in the world did they make them go?” Desta asked. “What did they want them for?”

  “They probably chose the orphans,” Jomo said. His face was grave.

  “We have footage from one of the London camps,” the announcer was saying, and behind him scrolled a film obviously taken by a handheld camera at street level. “This was received from our BBC affiliated station, broadcasting from north Scotland.” The camera panned up to tall fused structures, black spires that once were Parliament buildings, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Oxo Tower, and the Canary Wharf Tower. Curiously, the Nelson Column still stood untouched. The vast lawn before the Parliament building was planted to trees, and the blackened Westminster spire sat among plowed fields with some sort of crop. People were working the fields, and laundry hung on lines stretched along the Thames. Small fishing boats were moving over the water; tents and small shacks leaned against each other at the edges of the fields, and the smoke from a thousand cooking fires made a low-lying haze over the streets. The sky above London was empty. No large, black ship hovered over the city.

  The announcer was discussing the departure message again, revealing little that they did not already know. Jomo turned the volume down.

  “Your sister was with your parents, yes?” Desta asked. “She wasn’t taken.”

  Chase nodded. “Why would they take the girls?’

  “Perhaps some sort of breeding program?” Jomo shook his head. “One cannot fathom it. Maybe they’re going to use the young women to breed new life elsewhere.”

  “But they took no boys,” Desta said.

  “Well, they needn’t, need they?” Jomo asked. “They need only their seeds. There is a theory, panspermia they call it, that life began elsewhere in the galaxy and was seeded here by comets and meteors, seeded on other planets, too. Maybe this isn’t the only planet they’re harvesting--”

  Asha turned off the television. “I think we’ve had enough news for one evening,” she said. “Chase, your family is safe, the aliens have left the planet, and that is what is important. Have you answered their recent email?”

  “I will.”

  “Yes, dear, do so right away; they’ll be so anxious to hear from you.”

  That night in bed, she said to Jomo, “I’m surprised to hear you speak of such before the children. They look to you for spiritual leadership.”

  “The Bible may even speak of it,” Jomo replied. “Who spoke to Moses? Who told Noah to collect all the DNA and protect it? Who made man in His own image? Who had a tree of knowledge from which man was forbidden to eat? Who were the Sons of God, the Nephilim, Elohiym, and the angels?”

  “God, of course,” she said. Her mouth was firm.

  “Or what we understand as God,” he murmured.

  She took his face in her hands. “Have you lost your faith? Is this one more thing these invaders have taken from us?”

  He embraced her. “I haven’t lost my faith, no,” he said. “The only hope for this planet is faith, it seems to me; faith that we are all of this earth more than we are Catholic or Islamic or Protestant or Hindu. We are earthlings. Perhaps that is what they came to show us after all.”

  She looked stricken. “Why did they take the girls, do you think?”

  “Why do we have thousands of lab rats?’

  “Do you think the ships’ll be back?”

  “Probably not in our lifetimes. I hope, not in our children’s lifetimes either. But just like we colonize and have been colonized, with our
missionaries, our slaves, taking resources, doing science projects, expanding our territories, so do they.” He paused, as though wondering if he should say more. “I don’t think there’s just one alien race. I think there must be dozens of them. Coming and going from our planet, jockeying for position and dominance, taking what they need. You know, I always wondered why Africa was the cradle of life, as they say. Doesn’t seem like a likely spot, does it? Not enough water or fertile soil. But if you look at photos from space, this land mass is smack in the middle, hardly ever cloud-covered, hard to miss. From space, this continent looks like the bullseye. Maybe that’s what they did, just aimed some seeds at the most obvious target.”

  “And where is God in all of that?” She gazed into his eyes.

  He met her gaze. “Where, indeed?”

  * * *

  After Sunday, they walked to Chase’s land to see how his shamba was coming along, and Jomo was impressed that he had framed in the building. He had a crew of two who came when he needed help, but it appeared he had done most of the work himself.

  Chase showed them around the place proudly. As usual, Baako was silent, brooding, refusing to show any enthusiasm, and Asha and Desta did their best to make up for his rudeness, praising the smallest innovation as clever and any improvement as a leap forward. The house had three rooms, a loo, and a kitchen that was half-indoors, half-out, with a wide porch which faced the river. No roof yet, but the walls were readied, the windows cut out of the framing, and the floor was in place. Chase had also created a small pool in the river as it ran by his property, and the noise from the water falling over the rocks could be heard on his porch.

  They sat in the shade by the river. Asha pulled some of Jata’s lemon bars out of her satchel and passed them around. “It’s coming along so nicely,” she said. “You’ll have the roof up in no time.”

  Jomo added, “I do admire your tenacity. Some might have left off the whole project by now, too taxing, too daunting. But you’ve made a fine start and mean to keep at it, one can see that much. Think you’ll be able to take a break to do a bit of hunting soon? Once Baako finishes his Form Four, we should celebrate. A bit of a ramble!”

  “Doesn’t he have to take the KCSE straight after?” Desta asked.

  “Don’t mention it,” Baako groaned.

  “Oh, you’ll do a sterling job,” Asha said.

  “Is it truly eight subjects?” Desta asked innocently, keeping a straight face.

  Chase grinned. “And your entire future depends on it?”

  Jomo chuckled. “He’s already in a state about it, you two, and your turns will come round soon enough. The Certificate of Secondary Education is a gate through which all university hopefuls must pass, and I expect Baako will perform brilliantly. Directly after he does so, we should have a go at another adventure.”

  “I’m up for it,” Chase said. He glanced at Baako.

  “Excellent! My dear,” Jomo said to Asha, rising and extending his hand. “Let’s take a little ramble of our own, shall we? Where do you think Chase should put his garden plot?”

  She rose with grace, laced her arm through his, and they walked down the river path. Desta glanced at the two young men warily, and she kept her seat between them. “So Chase,” she asked, “is it truly your plan to move into this place all alone? Won’t you be lonely or frightened out here by yourself?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t think so. I think it’ll be cool.”

  “For awhile,” Baako said. “And then you’ll tire of it soon enough.”

  “Maybe,” Chase allowed. He tossed a pebble into the river. “But I doubt it.”

  “What about your home? Don’t you miss it?”

  Chase shook his head. “Not really. I think when people say they’re homesick, they’re probably not really missing the place. They really miss the past. And I can’t ever get that back. Nobody can. It’s not going to be the same, not ever. I might as well make my own future here.”

  “But your family?” Desta frowned. “Don’t you miss them?”

  “Yeah, I miss them,” Chase said, “but not like I did. It’s like it was so long ago, I can hardly remember what it was like before Moz died. Maybe some day, they can come here, I don’t know. But right now, I need to take care of myself. I figured that out the minute they put me in the Program.”

  Baako rolled his eyes. “Take care of yourself? When is that going to start? You’ve been sucking off this family’s tits since you got here.”

  Desta turned on him in a fury. “Just stuff it! You’re such a whiny child!”

  “It’s okay,” Chase said to her. “I’m used to it. He thought I was going to go back to America someday. So did I.” He shrugged. “Plans change. Look, man, once I get this place finished, I’ll be out of your face. Believe me, I live for the day. You’ll be off to university soon, and I’ll be the least of your problems.”

  “Except you’ll border my land for the rest of my life,” Baako said.

  “Ah shit, man,” Chase said tiredly. “Life is long. Who knows what’s coming? The last four years are certainly proof of that. Give it a rest.”

  Baako picked up a larger rock and threw it into the river. “Sod it. I’ll become a barrister and sue your sodding ass if you step one foot onto my property.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Desta said. Her voice was forced and cheerful. “I call that a draw.”

  Jomo and Asha came up the path then, and they walked back together through the twilight towards home.

  In October after Baako had taken his university entrance exams, Jomo announced their hunting trip to Sweetwaters Game Reserve, almost a hundred square kilometers of private game park that bordered the Ewaso Nyiro River in the Laikaipa plains.

  “It used to be the private hunting domain of the multimillionaire, Adnan Kashogi, in the 1970’s,” Jomo said. “The highest density of wildlife per square kilometer in Kenya. I had to pull some strings. But as this might be the last time we safari together in a good while, with Baako going off to university soon, spare no expense, I say.”

  They drove two hours in the jeep up towards Nanyuki, and at Naro Moru, they went off road to the southern border of Sweetwaters. “We’ll set up camp well away from the park lodge and tents,” Jomo said. “We’ve got leave to take impala, zebra, wildebeest, and gazelle, preferably close to the park boundaries. They want a few of the buffalo culled as well, but somebody else’ll take that lot.”

  They put up their green tents, their metal safari table, coolers, and their canvas wash basins in the lacy shade of some huge mimosa thorns and went by foot to the river nearby. It flowed wide and brown, like thin shining oil in the sun. A small herd of elephants were at the river. They sat down to enjoy the packy spectacle, well away from the watchful eye of the matriarch and downwind.

  The pungent, musty smell of the elephants was stronger when they were wet. The elephants were bathing peacefully, rolling in the muddy shallows, and splashing themselves with water. One little male elephant started shrieking about something, slapping his short trunk and stomping in the mud. His exasperated mother rumbled at him to be quiet, shoving him slightly with her foot. That set him off to new levels of tantrum, and he ran back and forth, shrieking loudly and destroying the serenity of the bath. Aunties and grannies grumbled loudly, and when the mother of the infant could tolerate his antics no longer, she screeched a strident warning to him. But still the little male refused to be silent. She then raised her voice to a stunning trumpet that shattered the air and shivered the trees. Some startled baboons barked in complaint, and the hippos downriver boomed their annoyance as well. Happy with himself now, the infant sat down in the mud, rolled himself into a dripping ball, submerged, and patted himself on the head with his trunk with satisfaction.

  After a lunch of biltong and fruit, they got in the jeep and rode out over the plains to find the herds. Small clumps of animals dotted the savanna, nothing like the crowds on the Mara. “We’re going to have to do some real hunting,” Jomo said with g
lad eyes. “Earn what we shoot this time.” They drove the jeep down a dirt path, little more than a rutted donga, or gully. A small herd of impala stood in the road. They froze at the jeep’s approach, then took off zigzag down the road. They stopped, froze again, watched the jeep come at them, and then bolted again in the same pattern, never leaving the road. It made for very slow progress. “Want to drive?” Jomo asked Baako.

  “Absolutely.” He slid over to take the wheel.

  Chase was cramped in the back among the guns and gear. Two years ago, he’d fit back there just fine. Now, his legs had grown to where he felt like he should hang them out the open window. “Why don’t we take one of those?” Chase gestured to the racing impala.

  “Not from the jeep,” Jomo said. “We’ll set up a blind; be more sporting.”

  They left the gully and went across the plains towards some low buildings in the distance. “This lot is just on Sweetwaters’ boundary,” Jomo said. “We’ll stop and ask about the herds.”

  A few dusty thatched huts clustered by a muddy river. The constant buzz of insects made it sound like the village sat within a giant sizzling frying pan. No electricity, no water except for whatever the river provided, no tin roofs or block foundations. Piles of thorn bushes corralled a handful of goats and cattle, and some spindly trees stood in rows at the edge of the village. They parked, and a cluster of near-naked children approached them boldly, peering at their shoes, touching the jeep and then darting back. Jomo addressed them quickly in Kikuyu, waving them away. Two women pounded millet in a hollow log with a wooden club, a rhythmic drumming that seemed as much a part of the scene as the tinkle of the goat bells. Jomo ignored the women and strode to the nearest hut, rattled the thatch door, waited, and then was admitted within.

  “Do you know these people?” Chase asked.

  Baako shook his head. “Not our clan.”

  He looked around curiously. “Looks like they’ve been here a hundred years.”

  “Probably no more than about five, actually,” Baako said. “It’s just mud-bricks and palm fronds; the huts fall down soon enough. But the only expense of building another is time, and they’ve plenty of that.”