by Wendy Vogel
Chapter 37
The crowd quieted down, and General Enrico spoke again.
“We are fortunate to be here, and fortunate to have a special treat tonight. Sara Arnson, will you please come forward?”
Sara stood up and joined the General.
“As you all know, I’ve been studying the writings and pictures on the walls of these caves since the day Caleb found them.” She glanced at me, and I grinned at her. She’d done little else from the moment she first saw the ancient paintings left by the strange birdman mummy. “It’s taken me all these months, and I had to guess a bit, but tonight I’d like to tell the story of the bird people that’s written on these walls around us.”
The crowd murmured. We had left the birdman where he died clutching his bowl of paint. Someone fenced off the room to keep the smaller children out, but everyone had peeked inside to see the dry old corpse with its odd beak and taloned feet. Stories had been made up about his origin, and everyone had a theory. But tonight it seemed we would finally hear the truth.
Sara read from a sheaf of papers she had scribbled, months of painstaking work to decipher a language no human had ever seen or heard. The drawings in the mummy room unlocked the code, and she had transcribed her way around the huge cave. She admitted filling in a lot of the details herself, but she was certain she understood the gist of the history painted all around us. The huge cave was silent as we all leaned in to hear Sara’s words.
“We came here for sanctuary. Our home planet became too crowded, too barren as we used up our natural resources. War and famine threatened our existence as food grew scarce. We had to find new worlds, new lands to spread our species across the galaxy. Ships went out from the homeworld and we came here.” The crowd nodded. We understood.
“We were awestruck by the abundance of life. Never had our kind seen so much water, such lush forests. We landed near a great sea and opened our hatchways to breathe in the moist air. But this world is full of monsters, beasts of evolution gone from our planet for millions of years.”
I had been shocked when Sara first told me this bit. She and I had talked a lot more these last few weeks, bonded by our journey through the forest.
Sara continued.
“We fled into our ships and circled the planet, searching for a refuge from the monsters. We found these fertile valleys, and we made our homes in these safe caves. We felt at home within the rocks, and we dug out our small city. We planted our native fruit trees and prepared the roosting grounds. When the time was right, we laid our eggs in the warm soil. But the eggs didn’t hatch. We moved the roosts away from the damp ground into the dry caves, and again we laid our eggs. But still, they lay dormant. No chicks emerged, and when we opened the eggs we found our young undeveloped, stunted, dead.
“We prowled through the forest outside in the dead of night, collecting the eggs of the monsters. Their shells were soft and moist, while ours were hard and smooth. Their eggs hatched on the damp soil, and we killed the young before they could kill us. Again we tried, and again, but there is something in the humid air of this world, or the water we drink, or the soil that grows our food. Something here will not allow us to breed. Our species cannot continue here. And so we must leave this place to the monsters.”
Sara paused and turned over the page she was reading. No one said a word.
“I watched the ships sail away into the sky, carrying my people to some other world. I hope they find a haven to live and breed and flourish. But some of us are too old to travel with them. We would not live to see a new world and do not wish to die in the cold void of space. So we will remain here for what days we have left.”
Sara lifted her eyes from the paper. “He went on for a time about his homeworld, about his family. But here are his final words.” She turned back to the page.
“And now I am the last. My aged companions have flown free from their bodies and I have buried them one by one. Only I remain here in this beautiful planet of death. Soon I will join them in the night sky. I do not fear death, for it is my reward. I have written our story here for any who might come after us. I hope this place is more welcome to your kind than it was to mine.”
We sat in silence for a moment, caught up in the spell of the birdman’s last words. I knuckled away the moisture that threatened my eyes, sorrow for all those lost here, bird people and human.
General Enrico broke the silence and bade us good night. We stood up, stretching in the somber room. I imagined the birdman all alone, the last of his people, painting his message on the wall in hope that someday some intelligent life might read his words and know his story.
“You sure found us an amazing place.”
My brother threw his arm around my shoulder.
“I wonder what would have happened if the bird people’s eggs had hatched,” I said. “They would have been living here all this time. They would have been here to meet us. Things might have been so different.”
Josh smiled. “Maybe. Maybe they were worse than the ‘saurs. Might have killed us all.”
“No,” I shook my head. “I’ve seen his face. The birdman was all right.” I laughed.
Erik limped up to us. “That was some story.”
“I wonder how much of that Sara really read? She has to have made some of it up,” Josh said.
“Not much,” I answered. “She showed me some of the letters, how she pieced it together from the drawings. Pretty amazing stuff.”
Josh yawned. “Sure something to think about. Goodnight, little bro.”
“‘Night,” I answered and watched him help Erik through the crowd. They shared a room in the cave system. Erik told me Josh still had nightmares about the Rexes outside the fence. He dreamed he wasn’t fast enough, couldn’t get the last grenade thrown in time, couldn’t make it up the tree to safety. I had those nightmares, too.
I walked over to where Mom still sat with Malia, murmuring greetings to everyone I passed.
“Ready to turn in?” I asked them.
Mom smiled. I helped her up off the bench. She was getting bigger every day. I patted her swelling belly.
“Good thing we’re not bird people. You don’t have to lay an egg that won’t hatch.” Malia giggled and mom smiled.
“It’s a good name, son,” she said. When we finished shuttling all our people, our livestock, our medical equipment to the safety of the caves, General Enrico had suggested we call this place “Paradise.” But I thought “Carthage” was a better name for this new city, and he agreed. Tonight it became official. The new little brother or sister my mom was carrying would never know his famous father, but when the child was old enough, I would tell the story.
I walked between my mom and my little sister, an arm around each one. We passed the painted walls, the story of a people who couldn’t live on this planet. I touched the flaking paint as we strolled past it. We weren’t like the birdmen. Maybe we were the only humans left in the universe, but here in Carthage we would find a way.
After Eden
Sara shook me awake. Her words were still ringing in my ears, the story of the birdmen. I’d been dreaming about them, scuttling through these caves, pursued by a pack of Wolves. My heart was still pounding as I blinked into her flashlight.
“What? What?” I muttered.
“The map,” she said. “Caleb, you have to show me where this is on the map.” She thrust a pile of papers into my face and I batted them away.
“In the morning, okay?”
“No, now,” she insisted. She hauled the blanket off me and I shivered in the chill.
I pulled on a shirt and followed her out of my cavern room, grabbing my own belt and flashlight. “What’s so important?”
“Just show me this,” she said. She held the papers under her light and pointed to a section of the map.
I took it from her and held it up, turning it in my hands. “Here?”
“There,” she confirmed.
“We ca
n’t get there,” I said, turning to head back toward my bed. “It’s down a couple of levels and the tunnel just ends. Rock fall.” I knew the tunnel she meant. Sometimes a breath of air wafted up those stairs, but the cave led nowhere.
She held up the paper again. “Caleb, I’ve been working on this language for weeks. And studying the map the birdman painted. We have to get through there.”
“Why?”
“Just . . . just get some guys and meet me at the top of the stairs.” She trotted off down the corridor. “Oh, and tools. Bring tools. Whatever heavy stuff you can find.” She disappeared and left me shaking my head.
Who am I going to wake up? This is nuts.
I found two soldiers making nightly rounds and woke Josh and Erik. We grabbed some of the farming equipment that was currently unused, since the shuttle flights had used all the power core’s charge, dashing our hopes of wiring off some land to plant our crops. Every day we sent troops out to hunt and gather, and to bring back armloads of forage for the sheep. The ‘saurs were learning where we came down now, and we had lost three more people since the move.
Sara was standing at the top of the staircase. “Feel that?” She turned her cheek to the moving air in the corridor. “We have to clear the tunnel.”
We grumbled, but Sara had been our teacher when we were little kids. It was habit to follow her orders, so we trudged down the stairs to the pile of rocks that blocked the tunnel’s end.
“Here!” she cried, staring at the map in her hand. “Move these rocks!”
It took two hours. As we pulled down the rocks and rubble that blocked the way, her excitement seeped into us all. Fresh air blew into the tunnel, more and more with each rock we hauled out.
Finally it was clear enough at the top to wiggle through. I pulled myself up and over the remaining pile of rocks, tumbling down the other side. The rest of the guys followed, except for Erik. Josh helped Sara down the pile, and we shone our lights down the newly revealed tunnel.
“This way!” She held the map in front of her and dashed down the passage.
We turned a corner and stopped, snapping off our flashlights. Light streamed into the cavern.
The tunnel opened with a wide mouth onto a small rocky plateau. Stretched out in front of us, bordered by the mountains on all sides, a green valley was still in the shadow of early dawn. The sky was fully light, but the sun had not yet risen over the high, steep crags all around us.
My heart skipped. Open air meant ‘saurs, and none of us had brought a gun. We stood and listened, peering out over the valley. Wide grassy fields were dotted with copses of trees, and a large lake glittered in the middle.
We waited and watched, barely breathing.
Nothing drank at the water’s edge. Nothing stomped through the open fields.
“Is it possible?” I murmured.
Sara looked around the high mountains surrounding us.
“They can’t get in. They can’t climb those mountains. Look, there’s snow at the top.”
We looked, and she was right. The peaks were so high that even in the heat of Tau Ceti e, white snow capped them. ‘Saurs couldn’t possibly get over the tops. If they weren’t here now, and the longer we stared the more we became convinced they weren’t, then they weren’t coming.
Sara had tears in her eyes when she turned to look at us. “This is it. This is Eden.”
“Carthage,” I corrected her, and we burst into laughter.
The morning sun peeked over the mountaintops and we stood for a moment, soaking in the light. Together we climbed down from the cave mouth and into the green valley, our new home.
Acknowledgements
I offer heartfelt thanks to all those who helped bring Horizon Alpha to life:
To Ted , who started my love of dinosaurs with the 1970s plastic dino playset. We didn’t know dimetrodon and tyrannosaurus couldn’t possibly have been friends. We didn’t care.
To Mom and Dad for encouraging my love of science.
To my trusted readers Naomi Hughes, Donnie McGovern, Andrew Millard, and Jessica Shroyer, who first followed me to Tau Ceti e.
To L. L. McKinney and the Pitch Slam family for encouragement when I needed it.
To my amazing agent Carly Waters for believing in me.
To my friends at Cincinnati Fiction Writers. You’re my kind of crazy.
To Heather, Ami, and Ryan for incredible support at Future House Publishing, to Jeff for coordinating the gorgeous book cover, and to Emma and Mandi for polishing up the Horizon for its long voyage.
And to my patient husband Andrew for undying support of this new phase of my life. You married a vet. I’m so glad you’ve stayed with the writer.
About the Author
When not dreaming of distant worlds, D.W. Vogel is a veterinarian at Animal Care Centers in Cincinnati, where she has practiced companion animal medicine and surgery since 1997. She started writing in 2011 while undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, suddenly realizing that the time to write that novel was no longer “someday.” Chemo, radiation, and ten surgeries later, she’s back to running marathons, SCUBA diving, endurance cycling, and wishing she cared about gardening so her yard could be as nice as her neighbors’. Wendy’s first fantasy novel, Flamewalker, debuted in 2015 from Word Branch Publishing.
Her husband, Andrew, is a business analyst by day, professional chef by night. Together they are parents to a houseful of special needs pets.
