Red Moon Rising

by K. A. Holt

  “Well, see to it that you get it working. And quickly. Then, if you please, bring your mama back here. It’ll be a tight fit, but I think your one-man can handle it. Your mama and Aunt Billie will be safer together and must work the fields for the next few days. The rest of us are going to the cooling flats before any other gum thing goes wrong.”

  The room goes as still as a dune before a storm.

  Aunt Billie is the first to break the silence. Her voice is quiet with alarm. “The cooling flats? Now? Is it safe? The township will miss your presence.”

  Papa shrugs. “At this point, nothing is safe anymore. If we go today, we can hope the Cheese are satisfied with having Heetle as recompense and they’ll leave us be. We’ll be able to gather what we need and get back in time to hole up in case they return and lay siege.” He sighs deeply. “At least it’s early enough in the season that we’ll be the first to the flats and have our pick of the minerals.”

  “First of the season?” I pipe up. “It isn’t even the season yet. If someone like Old Man Dan sees us out there . . .” I don’t even finish because we all know what could happen. Charges filed, fines, penalties, Papa could lose his position as Sheriff Reverend . . .

  Papa slams his hand on the table and we all jump. “You have put us in this situation, Rae. You.” He points at me in case I’ve forgotten who I am. “We go now while we’re maybe safe from the Cheese—if they see fit not to raid us two days in a row—or we wait until the law dictates the season and lose all our ears or lives, or find the flats blocked by angry Cheese who would just watch us burn to death in the high summer.” He pauses, taking several quick breaths, and stares at me, his eyes boring into mine like light arrows. “So what is my choice here, Rae?”

  My throat has gone dry. He’s right. This is all my fault. “We go today,” I choke out, barely above a whisper. I clear my throat, but then say nothing else. Aunt Billie looks at the tabletop. Temple is watching me with soupy, watery eyes. I don’t want to see the mix of pity and terror and bravery in those blue, blue eyes. I turn to Boone, who looks like he wishes he could fall in a hole and tunnel his way back home.

  “I’ll . . . ,” Boone says, backing toward the door. “I’ll go get the one-man. And Mama.”

  Papa nods once and follows Boone to the door. He glances down at the pile of armor. “We’ll take this with us and sell it in the market. No need for it now.” I want to tell him Raj could use it. I could make new buckles so it would fit better. But I don’t say anything.

  8

  IT’S CALLED A ONE-MAN for a reason, I think, as one of my legs hangs off the side of the seat, my skirt gathered in a lump in my lap to keep it from dragging and tangling in the scrub. It’s a struggle not to be thrown to the rocks as Boone drives us quickly over the prairie.

  “Just imagine a gum night beetle trying to fly a dactyl.” That’s what Rory would say, and her laugh would shatter the heat. Boone would whack her in the head, or try to race her if she was driving her own one-man. That giggle of hers . . . it would carry on the wind, infecting all of us, making us smile and forget why we were out here.

  Rae. Stop. No more Rory.

  The awful machine belches acrid smoke all around us; smoke that mingles with the dusty air and clings to the sweat on our skin like a gritty caul.

  I should not complain. These tiny vehicles are thirty summers old and survived the crash of the Origin. They were not meant for long-term use; their patched and reinforced aluminum frames prove this. They have no doors, no protection from the suns, and hollow, plastic wheels. They were only meant for moving supplies around in the belly of the Origin. It’s not their fault they had to be retrofitted with awful combustion engines. It is a wonder and a miracle that they have lasted this long.

  Even so, I hate them.

  Papa and Temple are just ahead. She’s small enough still to sit on Papa’s lap. Heetle’s heat armor is tied to the top of their one-man’s frame, offering them coveted shade even as it slaps up and down, fighting against the wind.

  “This stink’s gonna burn out my gum nose hairs,” I yell to Boone over the engine noise.

  “Runs on bodily wastes, rockhead. You think it’s gonna smell like cakes?”

  I guess it doesn’t matter if my nose hairs all burn off. After hours of traveling like this I’ll be lucky if my whole nose doesn’t bounce off altogether.

  Papa waves his arm up and down twice, and slows, signaling us to pull up alongside him.

  “Gonna stop for lunch,” he shouts over the belches and whines of both the idling engines. He points a ways into the distance at an outcropping of rock that’s been carved by the wind. Strangest-looking thing—like a horseshoe, standing on its end, sticking up out of the prairie. Might as well be waving a flag to the Cheese. “Hey there! We’re eating our biscuits! Want to attack? That’d be mighty fine!”

  Papa lurches ahead in his one-man, Temple’s shouting laughter at almost being tossed out carries on the thick breeze. Boone kicks our beastly machine into gear and we follow after them, arriving at the outcropping in only a few minutes. While Boone helps set out the canteens and biscuits, I check the small metal cart we’ve been towing. Just like everything else made on-planet, it was put together with supplies scrounged from the Origin.

  I don’t know what part of the hull the metal pieces were carved from, but I imagine our cart came from the giant exposed belly of the ship. The silvery quality of the lightweight metal is rough and scratched from years of use—but maybe also from the glances and close calls of asteroids and other space debris. It amazes me to think of it.

  The jugs and boxes meant to carry back a season’s worth of cooling minerals for both my family and Boone and his mama are still tightly bound to the cart, despite the bouncy journey.

  “Rae! I will eat this biscuit if you do not get here in one minute!” Temple is in a jolly mood today. She always loves a trip away from the homestead. I usually do, too, but because of the circumstances, and without Heetle, this one feels . . . wrong.

  I jog over to the rest of them and sit on a boulder at the foot of the horseshoe-shaped colossus.

  “Seems like a funny place for lunch, Papa,” I say, squinting at him as the suns sear the sky behind his head. “Not very subtle.”

  Boone shoots me a look. But I’m not baiting Papa. I’m genuinely curious.

  “It’s not like we’re being very subtle anyway,” Papa says, gesturing at the two vehicles parked in front of us. “There’s no sneaking around in a one-man.” He takes a bite of his biscuit, swiping crumbs out of his beard, but missing a few. “We will partake of what little shade we can find. And no one’s out this way yet, so we should be safe.” He swallows his biscuit and rubs his forehead with his handkerchief. “Hopefully.”

  I cast my eyes from one end of the horizon to the next. During the season, this part of the prairie is full of tracks from travelers going back and forth to the flats. You’d think the first homesteaders would have settled closer to the crystals, seeing as how important they are when it comes to surviving the high summer, but no. Papa says our seeds won’t grow by the flats, something to do with the chemicals in the soil. I imagine the proximity to dactyl nests didn’t help much, either.

  Today the prairie is just dirt and scrub. No tracks. No one in sight. No Cheese, either. I want to ask Papa about the Cheese at Old Settlement—Fist. I want to know how they met, how long they’ve been working together. But Papa’s mood is temperamental at best and if I were to anger him he might just forbid me to come on trips like this ever again—leave me at home to do the wash with Aunt Billie.

  It may be Papa’s curse and Aunt Billie’s fathomless sadness, but it is our greatest blessing, mine and Temple’s, that there are no boys in our family. We have freedoms other girls in the township do not have. If you count memorizing poultice recipes, pushing boulders, and bouncing your nose off in a one-man to be great freedoms. Which I d
o.

  My biscuit is gone, though my belly growls still. I pick the crumbs from the front of my blouse and lick them from my dirty fingers.

  A loud caw breaks through the whistling wind and all four of our heads jerk to the sky as if some mighty hand has yanked a string. The dactyl swoops low once, twice, and then begins a high circle around us.

  Boone and I jump up. Our handbows are in the one-man. But Papa holds his arm out to stop us. He holds a finger to his lips and never takes his eyes from the sky. His head is tilted so far back his hat must be staying on by sheer force of will.

  The dactyl is huge, glittering in the sky. Each of its scales must be at least as large as my head. I can feel my breath coming in spikes, my chest tightening. Oh no. Not now. Easy, I think. Keep it calm, Rae. Easy now. The edges of my sight are going dark as I struggle to right my breathing. Temple takes my hands, looks into my eyes. She starts counting in a whisper.

  “One. Two. Three. Four.” I count with her. We get to twenty-five before the darkness goes away. I try to swallow, but my throat is too dry. I reach down for my canteen, but my shaky hand knocks it from one boulder to the next, making a clattering sound that can probably be heard on the Red Crescent itself.

  The dactyl shrieks and dives and we all instinctively flatten ourselves to the scrub. The creature has gotten so close this time I can see that it has no rider. Wild dactyls aren’t unheard of, but usually they fly in packs. A lone wild dactyl . . . I turn my head, the scrub scratching at my face, and look at Temple. She gives me a shaky shrug and grabs my hand.

  The air-splitting screeches of the creature are fading now and I glance up into the burning pink sky to see it retreating, flying in a direction I’ve never been—away from both the township and the cooling flats. There must be a nest nearby. Papa will have to ask the scholars to add it to the maps.

  “Where’s it going?” Boone asks, sitting up and shaking dirt and scrub from his hair, which is longer than mine since I had my way with the shears.

  “Away from here,” Papa says. “And that’s all that matters.” He stands and helps Temple to her feet. I scramble up on my own, grabbing my canteen, which has rolled to the ground. No one makes mention of my clumsiness or breathing attack. But they don’t have to. I can feel it in the silence around us. I am a liability. I will get us all killed someday if I can’t be more careful, if I can’t make better decisions. The problem is, I seem to cause dire circumstances by trying to save people, by trying to drink from a canteen. I will get us all killed someday for just being Rae.

  Without another word, we set off again toward the cooling flats. We’ll have to camp tonight no matter what, but I know Papa wants to get as far as possible the first day. I do, too.

  9

  I WANT TO DRINK THE air. The cooling flats gleam in the light of the suns, throwing a blue haze against the ever-present Red Crescent. I feel like I can breathe all the way to my toes. Something about the flats doesn’t just cool the air, but quiets the winds, too. Each lungful of air is equal to ten dusty gasps on the homestead. If only we could bottle the air of the cooling flats, I wouldn’t need any more of the breathing drops.

  Thankfully, even after the excitement of the lone dactyl, we all got a decent rest last night. Or at least I did. And we only had to travel a few hours this morning before arriving. It’s nice that we made it without any of us falling out of a gum one-man or getting eaten by a dactyl or choking on our own lungs. It makes one’s spirit much lighter to be alive after a trip across the prairie.

  We have hiked over the first of the flats, where the min­erals mingle with the scrub and dust. Papa is right to head straight to the center. We can find the purest crystals there, the ones that will last the longest.

  “Quickly,” Papa says. “We leave as soon as we can. And don’t grab everything from one place. It must look as if we’ve never been here.”

  I drop the hitch of the cart and begin untying the boxes and other vessels. My arms burn from having pulled the thing this far, but even though we are technically poaching, we know better than to drive a one-man through the flats. That would be a crime against nature, which I think can sometimes be worse than a crime against humans.

  “Look sharp!” I call out to Boone, tossing a box at him. He catches it easily and grins. The waves of coolness are making us giddy. I toss a box to Papa, and even he smiles. My ears are chilled and this makes me grab Temple so I can hold one of them up against her flushed cheek until she squeals. She takes a box, too, and we all head out in separate directions to make our poaching less obvious.

  The smaller crystals are easy. I just grab them from the surface and toss them into the box, feeling the metal of the container getting cooler and cooler the fuller it gets. Boone is off in the distance, on his hands and knees working at something. I can hear the clink of his chisel and I hope he’s not tearing away at a big one.

  “Gentle!” I yell toward him. “They work longer if they haven’t been mangled!”

  Boone looks up and makes an ugly hand gesture at me, which makes me laugh. Even with a lame ear he still heard me from this distance. There is magic at the cooling flats.

  I’m tying down the first wave of full boxes when I hear it. Another dactyl screams. Boone, Papa, Temple, and I are so spread out on the flats now, I can only see the others as specks in the distance in front and to the sides of me. But by the way the specks all stand as still as shadows I can tell they heard the shriek, too.

  The Red Crescent is low in the sky now and the clearness of the cool air shows off the swirls and curls of the white clouds on the planet. I think I can even make out some green on the surface. Then, coming over the horizon, blocking out the swirls of the Red Crescent’s clouds is a swarm of pink. At first I think it’s a dust storm, but there’s no wind. Then the swarm gets larger and comes into focus.

  More dactyls than I’ve ever seen in one place. In a formation of some sort. They are coming at us in a V shape, cutting through the air like a blade.

  The specks that are Boone, Temple, and Papa all start running toward me and the cart. I grab the hitch of the cart and begin hauling it as fast as I can toward the edge of the flats. Toward the one-man. Toward escape.

  We are not fast enough.

  The dactyls are upon us before we are even together again.

  The first scream I hear is Temple’s and my breath lurches in my lungs. I drop the cart and swing around just in time to see her form as it is lifted from the flats and hurled into the sky. She floats free for a moment, like a girl-shaped piece of dust caught in a swirling wind. Then another dactyl catches her with its talons and she screams again.

  My breath is coming in jagged bursts. My chest is caving in on itself. Even in the cool air of the flats I can’t breathe. Whether it’s a breathing attack or from fright, I can’t guess. But I know I will pass out if I don’t calm down.

  The second scream is Papa’s. A low yell, full of swearing. He is jerked into the sky, but when the dactyl releases him another does not catch him. I watch in terror and disbelief as he falls to the flats, a black smudge against the blue crystals.

  I start running toward the fray now, despite the fact that my handbow is nowhere to be found (where did I leave the gum thing?!) and despite the tightness in my chest and despite those gum stupid stars that flutter before me. The air is filled with shrieks and screams and it’s hard for me to tell what is animal and what is human and what is Cheese, because yes. I see them now. Their face paint glitters in the light.

  It is a raiding party.

  The stars have almost completely taken over my vision. I stop and fumble at my skirts, but realize suddenly I’m not wearing my apron. The bottle of medicine from a few days ago is not with me.

  Panic upon panic.

  The dactyls are swooping and screaming. The Cheese are also doing that vibrating whistle they do. Temple screams in the distance. I have lost all sight of Boon
e.

  And then.

  And then my feet are off the ground. The blue crystals shrink as I blink over and over, trying to understand what’s happening.

  My shoulders are wet and I don’t understand until I see the blood running down my arms, the talons puncturing my shoulder blades and chest. Then, just as quickly as they grabbed me, the talons let go and I am falling. The blue crystals zoom up toward me faster and faster and then I am caught. Not by the ground, but by pink scales, a rough arm.

  I’m sliding off the side of a dactyl and I kick out, not knowing if I’m kicking to stay on or kicking to escape. Just instinct. Just lashing out. I am screaming, “Fist is supposed to keep us safe! Fist! Fist! FIST!” The rough arm squeezes my waist. The Cheese screams at me in words I don’t understand. His face is furious, painted, sweat dripping from his scaly temples, and as he screams at me drops of sweaty paint fly into the air around his face like golden flecks of light. The oval ear skins on the sides of his head tighten then bulge as he yells. His ropes of hair slash through the wind.

  It is no wonder he is not responding to my shouts of “Fist! Fist! Fist!” Because this is Fist. Papa’s acquaintance. He is angry. So angry.

  He wears a necklace of ears.

  Fist grips the dactyl with his knees and swivels his torso to grab me with both hands. His nails are long and dark as claws. Maybe they are claws. It strikes me—in the middle of everything—how much the Cheese and the dactyls are alike.

  I am sprawled on my back, like an overturned beetle, sideways across the back of the beast. I kick and slap Fist’s hands away, losing purchase, sliding off the monster. He spits in my face, startling me. This gives him enough time to yank me into a sitting position behind him, scratching my neck in the process. He twists back around and grabs a long stretch of rope that is like a set of reins, but huge. He throws the reins around my waist and his own so we are tied together, and tied to the beast. He makes a noise that I can feel more than hear and kicks the beast, which flies straight up into the sky like a flare.