Forsaken Planet

by Rinelle Grey

  Some of his tiredness evaporated and he couldn’t wait to see more.

  Folly clipped her makeshift harness onto a rope that was tethered to one side of the hole, with proper pitons screwed into the wall this time. “See you at the bottom.”

  Kerit waited, listening to the sound of the carabiner sliding down the rope, until it stopped. Then he clipped his own harness to the rope and followed her down.

  He expected a short drop. Steep, yes, but not more than twenty or thirty metres. But he just kept going down, and down, and down. It must have been nearly a hundred metres before he was standing next to Folly on the sandy floor, staring in disbelief.

  Trees towered above him. Not just weakly growing saplings, but full on jungle trees, with vines and everything. Bats squawked and squabbled nearby. Smaller bushes and ferns filled in the undergrowth. And a stone path, lit by small up-lights, some of them broken, led away from the entrance.

  “Wow.”

  The words were woefully inadequate for the surprise. But he couldn’t come up with anything else.

  Folly grinned anyway. “I bet you weren’t picturing this when I said we lived in a cave, were you?”

  “Not even remotely.” Folly had implied that it was no ordinary cave and had even mentioned the trees. But nothing she had said prepared him for this.

  The roof of the cave was far above his head and stretching off into the distance. Just how big was this place?

  Big enough that five thousand people could live here in comfort, and he could see no sign of them other than the path and the rope.

  “So where now?” he asked.

  Folly frowned. “It’s late. Everyone will be asleep.” Her voice was uncertain.

  “We can’t afford to wait until morning,” Kerit reminded her. “We need to get everyone moving as soon as possible.”

  She nodded, lips pursed. “We need to speak to Nora, she’s the mayor. But I’m not going to wake her, she’s cranky.”

  Kerit was glad the darkness hid his grin. He shouldn’t be amused. This was serious, and they didn’t have time to worry about making people ’cranky’, but the expression was just so like Folly, he couldn’t help it.

  “I’ll wake her then,” he said. After facing that alien, it wasn’t like a cranky mayor could scare him.

  “No, I’ve got a better idea. We’ll go tell Ma, and she can wake her. She won’t be cranky at Ma.”

  “Fair enough. Lead the way.” Kerit waved.

  Folly set off confidently, weaving her way through various paths without hesitation.

  Lucky he wasn’t alone, he’d be totally lost in this vast cave. Kerit looked up again, still amazed at the sheer size of the underground cavern and almost tripped over a loose brick.

  “Careful,” Folly cautioned. “The path is rather rough.”

  “Right.” Kerit forced himself to stop staring at the roof and focus on where he was walking.

  Which meant he didn’t miss the wooden shack appearing on one side of the path.

  Half hidden in amongst the leaves, it blended well into the surrounding jungle, probably because it was made with the same wood. The only reason he noticed it was the flickering bulb that lit up the small porch, glinting off the door handle.

  “Is this where you grew up?” he couldn’t help asking.

  It almost looked like a fairy tale house, and as Folly made a face and nodded assent, he half expected a fairy or gnome to appear when the door opened.

  Instead, a young man opened the door. His eyes widened at the sight of Folly. “You’re in so much trouble. Ma has been worried sick about you. Where have you been?”

  Folly pushed past him and into the house, ignoring his questions. “Where is she?”

  Kerit hesitated. He didn’t quite feel up to barging his way in as Folly had, and so far, the young man, Folly’s brother he guessed, hadn’t noticed him. “Um…”

  The man’s eyes swivelled towards him. They opened even wider than they had been. “Who are you? And where did you come from?”

  “What’s all this noise about?” A middle aged woman waddled through the doorway in a loose, oversized nightgown.

  Kerit averted his eyes. Only to be drawn back by her voice.

  “Tahlia. Just what were you thinking, child? Running off like that without telling anyone. You had us all worried sick. Your Da has even been over at the old town searching for you.”

  Tahlia? What?

  Folly put her hands on her hips. “Like any of you care where I’ve been. You’ll just tell me I was making it up if I told you.”

  Kerit winced. He was kind of glad, now, that he hadn’t made it into the room. He didn’t really belong in this family argument. Though he did wish he could back Folly up.

  That thought propelled him into the doorway. The young man moved aside wordlessly, and the woman’s eyes flicked to Kerit, away, then back again. “What is going on here? Who are you?”

  “If you’d give me a chance to explain,” Folly said. “I was about to tell you.”

  The woman crossed her arms and squinted at Folly. “I’m listening.”

  “I was on my way to Tadig,” Folly began.

  “You were looking for that ship again, weren’t you?” the young man broke in. “When are you going to give up on that fantasy?”

  Folly turned on him. “Shut up, Aleck. It’s not a fantasy. It’s true!”

  Her voice rose at the end. A little curly head, eyes barely open and one thumb in her mouth peeked around the door. “Tata. You home!”

  Another door on the opposite side of the room opened, and two more faces appeared around it.

  “Tahlia! Stop arguing with your brother and tell us what is going on.”

  Folly heaved a sigh. “Well, I was climbing over the mountains and I ran into Kerit.”

  All eyes followed Folly’s pointing finger, staring at him.

  Kerit resisted the urge to take a few steps backwards out the door and away from the attention. Instead, he cleared his throat. “Um, hi?”

  The faces in the doorway came into the room and started asking questions.

  “Who are you?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Where did you come from?”

  Kerit stared at them, a little overwhelmed, not sure where to start.

  Folly solved his dilemma. “Kerit came here in a spaceship.”

  You could have split the silence with a knife. Like cheesecake.

  An older man stepped into the room. “You have a spaceship?”

  Kerit nodded. “I came down to the planet in a shuttle, yes. And my brother has a bigger ship in orbit. We can take you all back to the Colonies if you like.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  Kerit glanced at Folly’s mother, who stared at him, arms crossed.

  “Looking for a new home,” Kerit said honestly.

  A suspicious frown crossed her face, and she looked over at Folly, then back at him. “Is this a joke?”

  “Not even remotely.” He was beginning to see why Folly had issues with her family. “Why would I joke about something like this?”

  “I don’t know whether you’ve noticed or not, but this planet isn’t a particularly pleasant place to live,” she said dryly.

  Why did he feel like he’d had this conversation before?

  “No, but we have the ability to terraform the surface, to make it more liveable. And there aren’t too many other options available. We’re desperate.”

  If he expected cheers, he was disappointed. The woman’s face didn’t change. “You can’t terraform planets. It’s not possible. If someone sold you some hack that they claimed would do it, then you were scammed, young man.”

  Annoyance bubbled up in Kerit. “My mother is the head scientist on this project and although this technique is experimental, she believes it will work. And I don’t appreciate you calling her life’s work a ‘hack’.”

  The woman stared at him for a long moment before her face softened. “Well, the
n, I guess we’ll have to see. I’m sure everyone here will be interested in hearing if you have a method that works. We’re all scientists ourselves, so I’m sure when your mother arrives there will be some healthy discussion on the viability of your plan. Until then, how about we get you settled for the night.” Now her tone sounded placating.

  This wasn’t going how he’d planned. At all.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Folly demanded. “It’s not that simple. We don’t have time for discussions and debates. That could take weeks.”

  Her mother raised one eyebrow slightly. “Are you in a hurry, Tahlia?”

  “Yes. Because there’s an alien out there that could attack us at any moment.”

  Folly’s voice was raised and her face taut.

  Kerit waited for gasps of surprise or a reaction of fear, but when he looked at the faces surrounding him, he saw only pity. Even from the children.

  “Tahlia, when will you learn that you don’t have to make up these sorts of stories for us to listen to you?” her mother said softly.

  “She’s not making it up.” Kerit stepped in before Folly could open her mouth. “There really is an alien and it’s been chasing us all day. Folly saved my life.”

  The adults exchanged glances. “Aliens don’t exist. Not intelligent ones anyway.”

  “Then what did I see?” Folly challenged, her arms crossed. Her eyes spat fire.

  “That’s enough of this nonsense,” her mother said firmly. “Whatever happened today, I’m sure you both need a meal and some sleep. We can discuss this in the morning.”

  “It won’t wait until morning,” Kerit said softly. “The alien is buried under a pile of rubble at the moment, but it’s still alive and it could crawl out at any moment and come looking for us.”

  “How could you know it was alive if it’s buried under a pile of rubble? Did you ever actually see this alien? Or are you just basing all this on what Tahlia has told you?”

  This was crazy.

  Yes, the story was a little hard to take in. He might struggle to believe it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes too. But the amount of disbelief and downright hostility towards Folly was hard to believe.

  “Never mind,” Folly said, her voice hard. “You can all stay here and die for all I care. I’m leaving this planet and leaving all of you behind.”

  And she turned and flew out of the room.

  Kerit stared after her. His first instinct was to run after her. But much as she might like to leave everyone here to die, he knew that wasn’t an option. He needed to make these people see that there really was something wrong and convince them to act.

  Folly’s mother put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry she’s dragged you into her games. Her mother died when she was a wee tot, you know, and she’s never been the same since. She makes these things up as a way of getting attention. We’ve all fallen for them some time or another, so don’t feel bad.”

  Couldn’t she see?

  Kerit shook her hand off. He pulled his shirt off one shoulder, showing the shallow scratches where the alien’s claws had dug into him. “And am I imagining that the alien picked me up and flew off with me? Am I imagining the crashed alien ship out in the desert? And is my brother imagining the alien lifesigns his ship’s sensors are picking up in the ruins?”

  The woman’s eyes widened and her hand flew to her mouth. She exchanged a glance with Folly’s dad.

  “We didn’t think…” she trailed off.

  “Folly is an incredibly clever and brave woman. Maybe if you showed her a bit of respect instead of assuming that she was making things up, you’d all be a bit better off.”

  Kerit turned and stalked out of the door, slamming it behind him.

  The action gave him only a momentary feeling of satisfaction. When he stared out at the forest towering above him and the path stretching in both directions, the satisfaction evaporated. He had no idea which way to go or how to find Folly.

  “Folly lives back near the entrance to the caves,” a voice said behind him.

  Kerit turned and saw the young man who had opened the door earlier, leaning against a tree. “Aleck, right?”

  He nodded and pushed himself up from the tree. “I can show you if you like?”

  “That would be great,” Kerit agreed. “I’m afraid I’m a little lost.”

  Aleck headed off down one path at a brisk pace and Kerit followed with only a slight limp now.

  “It’s pretty easy to get lost I guess if you haven’t grown up here.”

  “But you don’t get too many visitors, I take it?”

  Aleck grinned. “No, you’re the first.” He hesitated, then asked, “Is it true? Is there really an alien?”

  Kerit nodded solemnly. “There is,” he confirmed. “And a pretty nasty one, with claws, and wings, and impenetrable armour. If it finds its way here, it’s going to be nasty.”

  The man nodded slowly. “So does this mean Folly’s stories about her dad’s ship… they’re true as well?”

  “Well, I haven’t seen it for myself yet, but I’m certainly interested in helping her look for it after the terraforming is done.”

  The man paused and stared at him. “I do believe you mean it.” He held out a hand.

  Mystified, Kerit took it, and Aleck shook it. “Good luck.” He nodded his head towards a door in the cave wall, half hidden by a rocky outcrop. “That’s Folly’s place. You probably have a better chance of talking her out of her tantrum if I’m not around.”

  Chapter 16

  Folly swiped away her tears and stared around her home. She’d be happy if she never saw it again. They were all the same here, too stuck in what they could see under a microscope. They missed all that was happening, all that could happen out in the real world.

  Then her shoulders slumped. And just where was she going to go? Kerit had said he could take anyone who wanted to go back to the Colonies.

  Chicken wriggled in her pocket and then stuck her nose out. Folly patted her absently. “Hey, girl. What are we going to do now, huh?”

  Did she want to go back to the Colonies? She didn’t know anyone there. And they hadn’t believed her father any more than the people here.

  In fact, the only person who had ever believed her was Kerit.

  With no evidence other than her word, Kerit had crossed half of Tadig with a sprained ankle and an alien chasing them, without even knowing what it was she was looking for. And he hadn’t blinked an eyelid when she’d told him what her father’s ship could do. Just accepted it with the same faith he’d shown when he spoke of his brother’s bravery or his mother’s scheme to terraform the planet.

  He didn’t ask how or debate possibilities. He just nodded.

  Her eyes filled with tears.

  What did he see in her? Did he really care or was it all about achieving his aim and getting her people off the planet.

  Much as she tried to tell herself that’s all it was, she didn’t believe it. Kerit wasn’t like that.

  There was a knock at the door, and her heart skipped a beat. Was it him, or was it one of her family, trying to convince her to be, in their words, ‘reasonable’?

  “Go away,” she said, then held her breath.

  “Folly? It’s me, Kerit.”

  She took a deep breath, then let it out shakily. Why did she suddenly feel nervous? Why were her legs shaking?

  She made herself cross the room and open the door. “What do you want?”

  Kerit didn’t answer, just pushed his way into the room, closed the door behind her and pulled her into his arms. She resisted for a moment, struggling to be angry at him. He hadn’t backed her up when her family started disbelieving her… well actually, he had. But he had stayed when she left, still trying to talk sense into them.

  But he was here now.

  Really, she couldn’t find any fault in what he had done, much as she wanted to.

  Her resistance deserted her, and she let herself relax into his arms, her lower lip
trembling.

  “Are your family always like that?” Kerit joked.

  Folly gave him a wan smile. “Usually.” She swiped away a tear, refusing to let him see her cry. “What are you going to do now?”

  “Well, I think I gave them something to think about. Maybe by the time Tyris lands tomorrow and backs up our story, they’ll be willing to listen.”

  He sounded tired, as though he’d had enough of everything. Folly realised she was exhausted too. “If there’s nothing we can do until then, we should probably sleep,” she said.

  Kerit nodded. Then he cracked a grin. “Can we eat first though? I’m starving.”

  As if in response, Folly’s stomach growled.

  She walked across and checked her supplies, the familiar task soothing her pounding heart. What to pick? Something Kerit would like, but what? He’d enjoyed the pie at the ruins, but she didn’t have any more of that. What else?

  Then she saw it. Her one last tin of chicken soup. She pulled it down and set it under the can opener. Chicken fled as usual.

  “Did you make that?” Kerit crossed the room and watched the machine intently.

  Folly shrugged. “Yeah. Not much to it, just some gears and a blade.”

  Kerit looked at her and reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

  Folly froze, not game to move, not even to take a breath. Kerit’s smile held all her attention.

  “You need to stop putting yourself down. You can do some amazing things.” He paused. “You’re an amazing woman,” he said, his voice soft.

  Folly shook her head and opened her mouth to deny what he was saying, but his finger on her lips stopped her.

  “You’re amazing,” he said again.

  He took a step closer to her.

  She could feel his breath on her face, warm and gentle. Her heart was hammering in her chest. As he leaned closer, panic welled up.

  The familiar whir and click signalled the can opener completing its task. Chicken scrambled up her leg. Folly stepped back and reached for the can. “It’s ready.” She fished the lid off with the magnet, trying to ignore her hands shaking. “I know it’s not terribly exciting, but once it’s warm it’s quite nice. Pity we don’t have any bread.”