The Gods and the Builders

by Brandon Hale

  “Maybe,” Alice said. “I’ll tell you one thing, though. I understand why they refer to us as builders.”

  “That’s obvious, I think,” Arthur said. “We build.”

  “No,” Alice said. “It’s not as obvious as you think. They don’t call us builders just because we build. They call us builders because, to them, that‘s all we are. Literally. We’re not self-aware. We’re not evolved. We just build. To them, there’s no more depth to us than that. It’s like anteaters. We call those animals anteaters because that is the behavior that defines them. They eat ants. We’re builders because we build. To the aliens, it’s just some instinctive thing we do.”

  “That’s a little disturbing,” Arthur said.

  “Yeah,” Alice said. “And it made me wonder the same thing Hope wondered. Why are they helping us?”

  “I really hope it’s because they see potential in us,” Arthur said again.

  “Me too,” Alice said.

  “We’re there,” Ivey said.

  Everyone turned to face the little girl. “Open a window and look,” she said. “We’re not in space anymore.”

  Everyone on the ship stared out from various windowed areas as the ship glided over the surface of the planet.

  The first thing Alice noticed was the purple sky. “Is that because it’s dusk or dawn, or is the sky always that color?”

  “No idea,” Arthur said.

  “Either way, it’s very pretty.”

  Beneath the purple sky, Alice saw a sea of pyramids. They covered the entire surface of the planet, in every direction. They all had a purple tint, but Alice suspected they were really white, or maybe silver, just reflecting the color of the sky above. The pyramids were all connected by what appeared to be walkways or roads. These walkways connected the pyramids on all levels, from the ground to the peaks, giving a grid-like appearance to the scene.

  The sky was filled with other ships, all bringing people to the surface. To Alice, it looked like a giant swarm of diamond shaped insects.

  “Don’t they have nature?” Hope asked.

  “Maybe this is nature,” Arthur said. “We know the ships are alive, after all.”

  “No,” Alice said. “They made this. Or they grew them or something.”

  “Did they tell you that?” Arthur asked.

  “No,” Alice said. “But I’m sure of it. If I had to guess, this planet was a dead rock before they came here.”

  “This is unbelievable,” Arthur said. “How long did it take them to do this? It looks like centuries of building. Eons. They did this for us?”

  “Maybe it doesn’t take them as long as it would take us,” Alice said.

  “Apparently,” Arthur said. “You could ask them, you know.”

  “I’ll ask them this stuff later,” Alice said. “It would take hours to figure out how to ask questions like that.”

  “Speaking of time,” Arthur said, looking at his watch, “according to my watch, it took us just over two days to get here.”

  “That’s impossible,” Hope said. “We were on that ship for more than two days. It felt like weeks to me.”

  “Me too,” Arthur said. “I guess we were riding the watery time.”

  “I wonder if we aged,” Alice said. “How much time passed for us? A few days or several weeks?”

  “A few days,” Arthur said, rubbing his face. “I’ve got heavy stubble, but that’s it. Amazing.”

  “Hard to grasp,” Alice said.

  “The kids said we wouldn’t understand,” Arthur said.

  Their ship flew toward the top platform of one of the pyramids. As it landed, they saw that a large field was behind it.

  “What is that?” Arthur asked.

  The field was cluttered with dozens of diamond-shaped ships. The field was surrounded by a large wall. Windows ran along the outside of the wall, giving evidence that it contained rooms. The outside of the wall appeared to be made of the same material as the structures covering the planet. The inside of the wall had a soft blue glow.

  “I think it’s a shipyard,” Alice said. “Where they’re all born.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Arthur said. “There are other fields all over this place. Why would they need those here, if they built this place for us?”

  “Again,” Alice said, “maybe they can do this stuff very quickly. We know nothing of these people.”

  “Yeah,” Arthur said. “That fact is starting to make me wonder if we were a little rash in deciding to come with them.”

  “No,” Alice said. “This decision was a fifty-fifty kind of thing. The bad could have been on either side of the decision. I’ll be honest, though. If things go straight to shit, I won’t regret coming. The ride here was worth giving my life for.”

  Arthur looked at her. “That’s a bold statement.”

  “It’s true,” Alice said.

  “Look at the moon,” Hope said.

  As their ship landed on the top platform of the pyramid, they looked at the moon. It was slightly above the horizon, either in the process or rising or setting. They didn’t know which.

  Alice held out her arm again, with a thumb pointing up. She closed one eye and tried to cover the moon with her thumb.

  “You look like an idiot when you do that,” Arthur said.

  “Shush,” Alice said. “It seems to be about the same size as our moon. I can completely cover it with my thumb.

  “It could be much bigger,” Arthur said, “just farther away. It‘s very oddly shaped.”

  This moon wasn’t perfectly round like Earth’s moon. It was slightly oblong.

  “It looks like a potato,” Alice said.

  “That might be because of the position in relation to their sun’s light,” Arthur said.

  “Our sun’s light,” Alice corrected. She smiled. “Get used to the potato moon, Art. It’s ours now.”

  “We’ve been on the planet for ten seconds,” Arthur said, “and already you’re laying ownership to the moon. How very human.”

  “Shut it, old man,” Alice said. “You know what I mean.”

  Arthur laughed. It was the most overwhelmed he’d ever been. “Questions aside,” he said, fighting back tears, “this place is spectacular. This is our home, Alice.”

  “This is our home,” Alice whispered. “It’s okay if you tear up, tough guy. If I‘ve learned anything in my few short years of life, it‘s that you should never hide from your feelings. If something is sad, cry. If something is funny, laugh. And if something makes you want to stand up and cheer, stand up and cheer.”

  Arthur laughed again, and the tears began to run down his cheeks. “What if something is simply beautiful?” he said.

  “Let the beauty consume you,” Alice said.

  Ivey cackled as the floor began to lower itself. In all, there were seven people in this room. Ivey, Hope, Arthur, Alice, two men and a woman that Alice didn’t know. Roger and Linda were apparently in another room.

  The floor lowered them all to the roof of the pyramid. They stepped from the platform and it immediately raised itself back into the ship. The top tier of the pyramid looked to be about the size of a football field.

  “It looks smaller from the sky,” Hope said.

  The platform continued to lower others onto the pyramid until all forty passengers were standing on the roof.

  As soon as the last passenger was on the roof, the ship lifted into the air and flew toward the atmosphere.

  “As soon as we can,” Arthur said, “I want to visit the nursery down there.”

  Alice stared in the direction of the shipyard. “Me too,” she said.

  “I’m not sure I like the way you said that,” Arthur said.

  “What do you mean?” Alice asked.

  “You just had this creepy serenity in your voice,” Arthur said.

  On the other buildings, the ships were leaving, all of them flying into the atmosphere.

  “That’s just great,” a voice said from the crowd. Alice in
stantly recognized it as Roger. “How the hell are we supposed to get down?”

  “Maybe there’s an elevator somewhere,” Linda said. “To take us inside.”

  “These walkways go to the other buildings,” Hope said. “Maybe some of the other ones have doors.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” Arthur said. He walked toward one of the walkways.

  As they got closer, Alice realized that it looked more like a road. It was about ten feet wide. It stretched from the top of their pyramid to the top of the nearest one, which appeared to be several hundred yards away. Maybe a mile or more.

  “This one’s longer,” Arthur noted, “because it passes over the nursery.”

  “We can take one of the other ones,” Hope offered.

  “Go ahead,” Arthur said. “It’s probably better if we split up anyway. That way we can tell the others there are no entrances on our roof.”

  Alice knew that Arthur was only being half truthful. “You just want to look down at the shipyard.”

  “Don’t you?” Arthur said.

  Alice nodded as they began to cross the walkway.

  They split into two separate groups. About twenty went on one walkway, while twenty or so went on the other. Hope, Ivey, Roger, and Linda were in the group led by Arthur.

  “You can’t really make out any detail,” Arthur said, looking down.

  “Well,” Alice said, “it’s a very long drop.”

  “At least a mile,” Roger said.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Linda said. “It’s not a mile. You wouldn’t be able to see ground if it was a whole mile.”

  Roger looked at his wife. “You’re damn lucky you were a looker when we were young.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean,” Linda said.

  “I’m just saying,” Roger said. “You’re lucky I wasn’t looking to marry someone for their brains. You‘d still be single.”

  “Mommy,” Ivey said, “what’s a hooker?”

  “He said looker, honey,” Hope said.

  “What’s a looker?”

  “It means she was pretty,” Hope said.

  Ivey jogged up to Linda. “I think you’re still very pretty,” she said.

  Linda laughed. “Thank you, very much.”

  “And he’s mean,” Ivey said, looking at Roger.

  “Hey,” Roger said. “I was joking, kiddo.”

  Linda looked at Ivey and winked. “You’re right,” she said. “He is mean.”

  “No fair,” Roger said, sounding very much like he was Ivey’s age.

  Ivey looked back at Roger. “Old people can be pretty,” she said.

  Roger snorted.

  “There are definitely people on the other roof,” Arthur said. “Quite a few. They must have been on a larger ship.”

  As they got closer, Alice saw that it was a much larger crowd. At least fifty or sixty people, probably more.

  “They look like office workers,” Hope said.

  Alice chuckled. Most of the men were wearing suits, and most of the women were wearing what Alice always called “office dresses.” In the crowd of adults, there was one child. A boy about Ivey’s age.

  As they got closer, one of the men walked onto the walkway to greet them.

  “Good morning,” the man yelled. He was smiling. “Or good afternoon. Whatever the damn time of day it is, good that.”

  “My God,” Roger said. “Do you know who that is?”

  “I’m sure I don’t,” Linda said.

  “It’s the goddamn president,” Roger said.

  “It’s not,” Linda said.

  “I’m telling you, woman,” Roger insisted. “That’s him.”

  “I’ll just play it safe,” Arthur said to the man, “and say hello.”

  “Name’s Jim,” the man said with a chuckle.

  “Yes,” Arthur said, his eyes slightly wider than normal, “it is.” He extended a hand. “It’s truly a pleasure, Mr.--”

  “Just Jim,” the man said as he shook Arthur’s hand. “Here, it’s just Jim.”

  “See?” Roger whispered.

  “Since you walked all the way here,” Jim said, “I guess that means you don’t have a way off that roof either.”

  “No, sir,” Arthur said. “We don’t.”

  “We haven’t found a damn thing here,” Jim said. “We’ve looked everywhere. My boy there,” he pointed to the young boy, “even tried finding us a door like he did on the ship. No dice.”

  “Interesting,” Arthur said. “My wife had some extensive success on the ship. Maybe she can find something.”

  “Wife?” Alice whispered.

  “For simplicity’s sake,” Arthur replied.

  “I like it,” Alice said quietly. She looked at Jim and said, “I’ll try.”

  She stepped from the walkway to the pyramid and sat down. She reached down and placed her palm against the roof.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Damn,” Arthur and Jim said.

  “Jinx!” Ivey yelled.

  “I get the feeling that it normally would open with a thought, like the ship,” Alice said, “but these won‘t because they‘re… well, they‘re empty.”

  “That makes no sense,” Arthur said. “Why would they construct this place for us if we can’t even open the doors?”

  “Maybe they don’t know we can’t,” Hope said.

  “Or maybe they think we can do the same thing they can?” Alice said.

  “No,” Arthur said. “You said it yourself. They don’t see us as sentient.”

  “Pardon me,” Jim said, “but what the hell are you talking about?”

  “We can explain later, sir,” Arthur said.

  “Enough with the ’sir’ crap,” Jim said. “My name’s Jim.”

  “Sorry,” Arthur said. “We can explain this later, Jim.”

  “Better,” Jim said. “So I take it we’re stuck up here.”

  “Apparently,” Arthur said. “For now.”

  “There has to be a way down,” Alice said.

  “Maybe they’re coming back,” Hope said.

  Arthur looked at Jim. “Did you have any direct contact with the aliens?”

  “Nope,” Jim said. “They were MIA the entire trip.”

  Ivey walked up to the little boy. “I saw you on TV,” she said.

  “Yeah,” the little boy said. “They wanted me to talk to God. My daddy’s President.”

  “Told you,” Roger whispered to Linda.

  “My daddy’s a deadbeat,” Ivey said. “He lives in Richmond with a whore.”

  “Ivey!” Hope said. She looked around with an embarrassed smile. “Honestly, I don’t know where she gets this stuff.”

  “I have a pretty good idea where she got that,” Arthur said. Alice smacked him on the arm.

  “Kids,” Alice said, “do you have any idea how we can get down from here?”

  “Do you have a rope?” Ivey asked.

  “No,” Alice said.

  “Hmmm,” Ivey said. “We need a rope.”

  Alice looked at the little boy. “What’s your name?”

  “Tim,” the little boy said.

  “Do you know how we can get down?”

  Tim thought for a moment, then said, “My daddy has an airplane.”

  “That’s not here, Tim,” Jim said.

  “I suppose it’s safe to say the kids don’t have any ideas either,” Arthur said.

  “This is a problem,” Jim said.

  “Yes,” Arthur said, “it is.”

  “We’re missing something,” Alice said.

  One of the men in suits walked up to Jim and said, “Sir, we see some activity on the other side.”

  They looked and saw that most of the people were looking over the edge of the other side of the roof.

  “Well,” Jim said, “what do you say we go check it out?”

  They walked to the other end of the roof and looked out over the giant city of pyramids.

  “Over there, sir,” the man said, po
inting to a field between two other pyramids.

  “It’s another nursery,” Arthur whispered.

  “But it’s active,” Alice said.

  A ship lifted from the field and began to fly toward the sky.

  “How far you think it is?” Jim asked the man beside him.

  The man shrugged. “A long walk. It’s probably a mile or two, if those ships are about the same size as ours.”

  Jim looked at Arthur. “We’re hoofing it. You coming?”

  “Yes,” Arthur said.

  They walked across the next walkway, then crossed that roof. The people on that roof began to walk with them. When they crossed the next roof, more people followed. By the time they reached the roof in question, they had gained at least two hundred people.

  “I think we’re officially a mob,” Arthur said as he walked to the edge and looked down.

  The field below was like the other one, except the light on the inside walls was considerably brighter. Several aliens were walking into the wall on the other side, then reemerging inside the field.

  “That wall’s creating doors for them,” Arthur said.

  Alice just nodded and continued to watch as the aliens boarded the ships and launched into the air.

  “You reckon they’re construction workers?” Jim said.

  “Maybe,” Arthur said. “Maybe they built these places and are leaving now that we’ve arrived.”

  “It looks like thousands,” Alice said, looking at the crowds of aliens pouring into the walls and reemerging on the other side.

  “We need to get their attention,” Roger said. “Anybody have a rock?”

  “Look,” Hope said. “Over there.” She was pointing to another part of the city.

  A solid stream of ships was lifting into the air. Alice looked in another direction and saw several other streams of ships, all of them leaving.

  “They’re leaving,” Alice said. “All of them.”

  “Maybe they just dropped off more people,” Jim said.

  “I don’t think so,” Alice said. “They’re leaving from the ground. They seemed to be dropping people off on the rooftops.”

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Arthur said. “Why are they leaving?”

  “Maybe because of the rock,” Ivey said.

  They all turned and looked at her.

  “You know,” she said, pointing to the potato-shaped moon. “The rock. Maybe they’re leaving before it gets here.”