by Hugh Howey
The stillness was deadly.
These brutes created the only sounds, but they didn’t seem to notice.
“I will go then, to obtain my belongings and return at dawn,” Hain said to Keeb, struggling to contain the hysteria that rose inside her.
He frowned and glanced around at all the others, working diligently. Killing, killing, killing. “Do you need an escort?”
“No need,” she said. “I know this place well.”
Her soft voice was overtaken by a shout. “Keeb! You’ve got to see this!”
Keeb barely gave Hain another glance before striding toward this newest excitement.
Hain slipped away, the words of the enthusiastic animal carried on the wind to her as she loped through the grove. “It’s a damned face! Can you believe it? I whittled it down, careful-like, with a small laser-carver. Look! There’s eyes and everything!”
The animals chattered excitedly over the dead member of the Mother. She left them behind.
* * *
Hain ran, darting through bright spots of sunlight whenever possible, to keep her energy up. She hadn’t run since the days when her legs were new. It had felt so good then. Freedom was a wonderful thing.
And now she was on the cusp of a new kind of freedom, if she could make it in time.
She’d depleted her short-term sources of energy and was actively consuming starch now. It made her slower and clumsier. She couldn’t convert it fast enough to maintain such a breakneck pace.
But she made it to the ship. And just as she reached it, Hain saw the first motes of yellow skimming the wind. They were a haze, coloring the scenery, making it look like the decaying art she’d seen in some of the oldest buildings in the cities. As she tapped out the code to gain entry, a yellow speck landed on her finger. Instinctively, she brushed at it—but it wouldn’t wipe away. It held fast to the corky lichen. She thanked the Mother for the symbiont’s dense protection.
The keypad beeped and flashed a red warning.
What? In her haste had she keyed in the code incorrectly? She steadied herself by leaning against the side of the ship. Sunlight washed over her. Her stomata gulped CO2 from the air, cleaving it and recombining it into carbohydrates and ATP energy packets, discarding the wasted oxygen back into the atmosphere.
Suddenly she panicked. Would there even be CO2 aboard this ship? How foolish that she hadn’t looked to see if the gas was stored somewhere on board. She was so preoccupied with drive technology that she hadn’t made certain she could survive inside. Then she remembered Do’Vela, and her panic eased slightly. Do’Vela and all of the bacteria in her enclosure could provide Hain with all the CO2 she needed, as long as she didn’t expend a lot of energy.
The wind picked up, and she looked over her shoulder. Visibility was rapidly decreasing. The haze was rolling away from the Mother, filling the air like a slow-moving wall from ground to sky. She had to get inside fast.
A particle landed on skin scraped raw from her earlier escape efforts. Pain screamed in her head upon that tiny contact.
She ignored that and tapped out the sequence again, very carefully.
The keypad flashed red and the portal did not open as it had before.
Her hungry body felt the sunlight begin to go.
She tried again, but somehow they’d locked her out. They didn’t want her inside their domain. They wouldn’t let that happen twice.
Tiny amber grains pelted her. Pain burrowed into her skin with each contact. She tried to shelter within the small concavity of the portal, but the wind swirled, and the devilish pollen granules found her.
The Mother was meting out her justice. The Mother wanted to survive, too. And she had. She had not only survived, she had thrived. This world was hers now. There wasn’t a corner of it that she didn’t oversee.
There was nowhere else for Hain to hide. She slipped one leg out of the hollow of the portal, making contact with the ground. Her last, desperate option was to take root and hope to outlast the caustic pollen storm. If she could tap into some water in the soil and keep a fraction of her stomata functional under her lichen armor, she might endure.
She closed her stomata tight, as she did at night, hoping to preserve the integrity of her skin. No point in gas exchange now. The atmosphere was so thick with pollen that the sun had virtually disappeared. The light had gone dull, shadowless, deepest goldenrod. There would be no more photosynthesis for a long while.
The pollen swirled around her like snow. Her flesh burned, pinpricks of agony, wherever it struck.
In the distance she heard roars and yelps of pain. She squinted over her shoulder to see the indistinct shapes of the mammals far down the edge of the glade. They’d blundered out in the wrong place. She couldn’t believe their lungs were still functioning—surely the pollen had turned that fragile tissue to a bloody mass.
Her leg stiffened as the transformation began, toes slowly curling into rooted tendrils, her heel gradually growing into a spur to anchor her securely to the spot.
Could she hear the Mother’s whisper? Was she closer to knowing the Mother’s truths, the Mother’s peace?
Hain tried to curl into herself, to shield some part of her body, to protect it from the ravaging particles on the wind. Pollen burned her eyes. She was sticky, oozing precious fluids from broken veins. If she couldn’t reach water in the soil, she would desiccate right here in this shallow alcove.
She heard a beep.
Hain opened her eyes to slits and scanned her surroundings. The beasts continued to advance. She could see them more clearly now, their shaggy fur frosted with pollen. How they could endure it, she didn’t know.
They’d be angry when they arrived. They’d blame her. They’d tear her limb from limb.
The beep sounded again. She turned, holding up a hand to shield her eyes. The compartment that housed the keypad for entry was still open. She peered into it. The tiny screen next to the keypad was scrolling the words, “Is it you, Hain?”
Hain blinked. She read it three times before she believed it. It was Do’Vela. It had to be.
She wrenched her foot from the soil and crouched in the small hollow of the portal, hurriedly typing, “Yes, I am Hain.”
“You wish access? There is something amiss!”
How would Do’Vela know this? Then Hain remembered how Do’Vela rode in others’ minds as a mental escape from her despicable confinement.
“Yes! Please!”
A moment went by. Hain put her hand over the crack in the portal. Her foot and leg ached. She tried not to think about what that might mean. She glanced over her shoulder. The animals were almost to the ship. They would not be happy to see her inside. They might punish Do’Vela for giving her entry.
The door mercifully popped inward. The mammals were steps away, staggering and raging, yellow-encrusted berserkers.
She ducked inside and pushed the door shut with a loud metallic crash. She darted to the nearest interface and sent a message: “Change key code.”
Do’Vela responded. “Why?”
There was no time. She could hear them outside. She stared at the door. She heard a soft sequence of tones. They were punching in the code on the other side.
The opening mechanism of the door was exposed on her side. Her discarded tool bag still lay just inside the portal. She grabbed blindly in the bag for a tool, came out with a rasp, and jammed it into the mechanism, hoping it would prevent the latch from turning—from both inside and out.
She heard infuriated bellows. The mechanism wriggled, but the rasp held firm.
Hain dashed back to the interface. The word “Why?” still lingered.
Hain hesitated for a second, then sent, “We don’t need them.”
There was no answer this time. Hain stood there, unsure how to convey the urgency to Do’Vela. The enraged animals could break through the portal at any moment.
She reeked of ozone. Her fingers were sticky with sap. She’d left blotches on the screen. She began to falter
. Perhaps she’d doomed herself. She leaned heavily on the console and sent, “I will take care of you. It will be better.”
Do’Vela remained silent. Hain moved unsteadily to the portal. The tool was starting to buckle under the strain as the angry animals battered against the door.
She was out of options. She went back to send another plea to Do’Vela, but when she got there, there were already two words on the screen: “I understand.” Hain stood there, swaying on uneven legs, her vision swimming as she blinked away the sticky moisture seeping from her burning eyes.
She wasn’t sure what Do’Vela had understood, but the side of the ship thundered with the sounds of meaty paws pounding on it. Threats barked and roared at her, though they sounded tinny and far away. The portal rattled.
Then it stopped rattling, went solid as stone.
Another beep.
She turned back to the screen. Words scrolled by. “She is yours. Come to me and together we will fly from this place and be free.”
Hain did not hesitate for a moment.
A Word from Jennifer Foehner Wells
I doubt it would be any surprise to anyone who knows me to learn that I love alien stories. I wear my love of science fiction like a badge. From early familial indoctrination with the Star Wars and Star Trek universes, to later exposure to television shows like the original Doctor Who, Farscape, and the Stargates, to Bradbury’s short stories and books like Wyndham’s Day of the Triffids and Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, I developed into someone who craves alien stories with a burning, rabid passion.
Overall, what interested me most were tales of first contact—of misunderstandings and cultural exchanges, the more bizarre the better, and the human (or sentient?) response to them. I wanted to taste new worlds and leave the mundane Earth behind. I wanted to lose myself in mysteries, in foreign ways of thinking, in outlandish but plausible species. I wanted to be tricked into believing in all of the possibilities that I’ve always known in my heart are just a star away from being real.
When I started writing Fluency, my first novel, I wanted to write a “fish out of water” story, with the kinds of characters that I loved, and a mystery revolving around an enigmatic alien and all the issues that would arise in an uncontrolled first-contact situation.
I didn’t expect it to do well, as it was my first published effort. I immediately pushed forward, beginning another novel in a completely different setting with new characters. This new novel would be a superhero origin story—again twisting history to fit my own universe’s cosmology as I had done in Fluency, but with a new spin. It’s called Druid, and as I write this, it’s unfinished.
As I was writing Druid, there was one character that bedeviled me—Hain. She was supposed to be a minor character, but I became fixated on her, developing insane amounts of backstory, something I’d never done quite to that extent before. It wouldn’t fit in the book, but I couldn’t help myself. I promised myself that one day I would write a story about her. She deserved it. She was too intriguing not to.
Well, Fluency did do well. I was encouraged to stop work on Druid in order to deliver what my readers were demanding—a sequel to Fluency. So, with reluctance, I did. (But I’m coming back, dammit!) The success of Fluency earned me invitations to opportunities like this anthology—and immediately I realized that here was my chance to write a story about Hain that would be a prequel to Druid—and a nice counterpoint too, because “The Grove” is a villain origin story. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.
If you did, you may also enjoy Fluency. For more information on that novel, check out my website, and sign up for my newsletter to be the first to know when I publish something new. Thank you.
Life
by Daniel Arenson
Neon lights flickered, the last pot of coffee percolated, and even the janitor had gone home when the first photo of an alien life form came in.
Eliana sat alone in the sprawling office, her coffee mug down to dregs, her eyelids heavy. She often stayed late. She liked the silence of the night, the hundreds of monitors gone dark, and the headlights from the highway outside streaming through the windows like beacons from other worlds. While her coworkers spent evenings with spouses, friends, children, safe and warm in cozy houses, Eliana sought her quiet time here. She had always been alone. She had always been a dreamer. The stars had always been her family, her port of call.
“It’s here.” She sat up in her chair, and tears filled her eyes. “The first photo. It’s here.”
Her breath shuddered. She could scarcely believe what she saw. Alerts popped up across her monitor. A life form detected. Data streaming in. A photo being downloaded.
Her mug fell from her hand, spilling its last drops of coffee across the desk.
She leaped to her feet.
“Oh stars, it’s here. It’s downloading.”
In only a few minutes, the last bytes of data would arrive—arrive from out there—and she would be the first person in the Agency, the first human in history, to gaze upon alien life.
She spun away from her desk. She padded across the carpeting, barefoot, and placed her hands on the windowpane. Outside, the highway stretched through the desert, and above shone the stars, countless, brilliant, the celestial roads of the cosmos.
“I always knew,” she whispered, voice trembling. “I always knew you were out there.”
As tears streamed down her cheeks, she was a girl again, a girl alone in a very different desert, in a very distant country, climbing up the hill with her father, lying in the darkness, gazing up at the stars, the falling comets, the brilliant moon, the Milky Way the elders claimed was the heavenly path of chariots. The war had taken her father, and her life had taken her here to the Agency, but the stars remained forever above her, forever inside her, forever a dream of finding a better world. Of finding wisdom up there. Of finding hope.
She blinked the tears from her eyes. For so many years, the others had mocked her, pitied her—the woman with no family of her own, no house but her trailer in the valley, no life but her search for other life, for life above.
But it was worth it, she thought, fresh tears budding. I’ve found that life. I’ve found the hope and wisdom I’ve always sought—up there. In the stars.
Behind her, her computer dinged.
The data had downloaded.
The photo was here. The first photo of alien life.
Shakily, Eliana returned to her office chair, sat down, and leaned forward. The file blinked; she just had to click. She just had to open it. She just had to look.
And yet she hesitated.
How would one process such a thing? How could one prepare to see such a monumental sight, such a fundamental discovery, the culmination of one’s dreams in an image? Would her brain process it at once, or would the photo sink in slowly, breath by breath? Perhaps she should wait until tomorrow. Perhaps she should wait until her coworkers returned, to look with them, to—
She realized she was panting. She took a deep, shaky breath.
Just click, Eliana, she told herself. Just look… and the universe will open up before you, full of light and wisdom, full of welcome and comfort.
Again her tears fell. Perhaps all the hatred she had felt, all the loneliness—the fire that had taken her parents, the flight across the sea, the life in darkness, the unbearable loneliness of stargazing—perhaps it would all fade. Perhaps the eyes of the alien would gaze upon her through the monitor, telling her it was all right. That she was safe. That they had always been watching, that the cosmos was not cold and dark and barren but warm, full of life, full of love for her.
Her hand trembled on the mouse.
She clicked the file open.
And she looked.
And it looked at her.
It’s… it’s…
Her breath caught. Her fingers shook. Her reflection stared back at her from the monitor, superimposed over it, staring back at her, gasping, pale.
Oh stars.
She screamed and placed her palms against the monitor. But she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Her cry echoed, her voice hoarse, torn.
“So ugly,” she whispered. “So ugly…”
She fell to the floor. She curled up. She wept.
She wanted to rise, to smash the monitor, to run, to jump out the window, to die. To die. To stop seeing. To gouge out her eyes.
So ugly…
She lay on the floor, hugging her knees, and sobbed.
* * *
Joe was sitting at his desk, reading an old western paperback, when he heard the scream.
He leaped to his feet, keys jangling at his belt, and began to run.
That was Eliana screaming, he thought.
He had been working night security at the Agency for ten years now—ten years of long, quiet nights, of escaping the unforgiving neon light into worlds of cowboys, sultry saloons, and the sweeping landscapes of eras long gone. The hours were long, the job dreary and dull, but in his books, Joe could become a hero—a younger, stronger man, battling bandits and saving damsels.
Tonight he would have to be a true hero.
His ample belly wobbled before him as he raced down the hall. Sweat dampened his uniform, and he was breathing raggedly by the time he reached the office doors.
“Eliana?” he called, wheezing. “Eliana, are you all right?”
His heart pounded as if trying to escape his rib cage. His shirt slipped out from his pants, and sweat dripped into his eyes, stinging. He stumbled into the office, wishing the Agency had given him a gun, a baton, at least a transmitter to call for help.
Oh God, don’t let it be an intruder. Don’t let me die. Please, God, I have a daughter. I have a daughter.
The office spread before him, hundreds of monitors dark and lifeless. He saw nobody. One neon light flickered, and the headlights from the highway outside streamed across the walls like ghosts.
“Eliana!” he called again, heart thumping.
He heard no reply.
