“My parents and I are in charge of developing crops that can survive the radiation. Crops that can survive not just the weather changes, but also the fluctuations in the radiation landscape around us. Without those crops…” She looks down, biting her lower lip. She gives me a thin smile.
“I’m not sure why I’m telling you all of this. You’ve just gotten here. Uh— this is strange though, it feels like I’ve met you before.”
Her eyes grow wide. I fight the urge to hold her. I’ve just met her. I turn my mind back to the problem of the crops.
“Well maybe I can help with the crops,” I say.
She nods. “I’d be happy to get help from anyone. I mean, you, of course, you’re from the stars! You must know so many things that we don’t.” She peters out. Gives me an apologetic smile. “It’s been a long couple of days.”
“I get that.”
Starz is up ahead. He’s with what appear to be the leaders of the village. He’s telling stories about other planets and other worlds, asking questions about what’s happening here. He’s done this before. I haven’t. I’m not sure what the protocols are, although, from the amount of information that Starz is sharing, there certainly don’t seem to be too many.
“So you said that shuttles have appeared here before?” I ask. I’ve got so many questions, but they’re all colliding into one another in my mind. “How long has the world been this way?”
She looks around as though analyzing her own world, like her eyes don’t always believe what she sees here. From the mountains to the fields to the clouds up above, still shining with unspent lightning.
“It’s been like this forever,” she says, her voice barely a whisper. “I mean we have stories about great cities beforehand. This place used to be a city. But now, and for what seems like forever, this is what we have. This is how we live.”
That didn’t make much sense. The accident had only happened a couple of weeks ago. But for these people, it seemed like it had been forever. And this city? This wasn’t a city, this was a series of caves connected to each other. Where were the skyscrapers that the files showed should be here? The rivers, and the roads? Where were the great buses that carried people across the land, and the airships? Where was any of that?
I couldn’t even see the remnants of these things, like the world had been wiped clean. Wiped free of all marks of the earth that had been before the explosion. Pre-radiation earth, if you will. I had so many questions to ask Starz. But I didn’t want to ask them in front of this girl.
Sybil. Her name soothes my weary soul, like meeting an old friend again. Like coming home after a long journey.
“I’ll help you figure out your crops,” I redirect my thoughts. I have so many questions, and I’ll probably never get those answers. I’m still not sure I’ll find the bones of my parents. I’ve barely thought about them since looking upon the blonde-haired girl of my dreams.
But maybe, at least while I’m here, I can make a difference. Maybe I can do some good, and help these people. And then figure out what the next steps would be, once my head cleared again.
Something I doubt I can do easily as long as Sybil stays near me.
Chapter 8
Sybil
It was all just so strange. The whole day progressed like a dream. Maybe because a man who’s only inhabited my dreams until now suddenly walks beside me.
Glast seems taken by impressing the bigger stranger, the reptilian alien named Starz. They swap stories back and forth. Though Starz seems to be getting a little weary of the boasting, he certainly enjoys hearing about the technology.
The other man, the one from my dreams named Eron— he’s more quiet, more stoic in a strange way. Observing everything, as though absorbing it for future use. His strange eyes wander up and down the landscape, capture the details of our technology, our people, and how we live.
I stay near him. Even if I wanted to break away, I don’t think I could. I’m drawn to him like a fly to honey.
Glast brings us all to the various labs around the compound. The biggest one, of course, is the biology lab. It’s still pretty small because it has to fit into whatever cave we find ourselves in. But it has three workstations. One for my mom, one for my dad, and my own, which is a bit messier. I would have cleaned it if I had known we were about to have company.
But there’s so much to analyze because of the failing crops that I didn’t take the time after each day to clean everything. Mom and Dad give me a quick look, letting me know what they think about the state of my station.
“This is my workstation.” I say, for reasons that are not quite clear to me. Eron smiles at me.
“What are you studying?” he asks, sounding actually interested.
“Well, right now, we’re trying to figure out the molecular composition of the plants that have decayed. It’s almost like the radiation, or something in them has shifted their molecular structure and made them age much more quickly. So, they’re at the end of their lives— already turning to brown liquid before they’re even grown and edible.”
He frowns, looks down at them.
“What’s this piece of equipment?” he asks, pulling up my latest radiation meter.
“Oh! This one calculates radiation, but at the cellular level. You stick it into a plant, and you get some of the water from within the cellular membrane, and it can tell you how much radiation it has absorbed. That way you’re not always stuck just depending on the degree of radiation that’s accumulated on the outside of the plant since we make our plants to deflect the radiation. Instead, we get to look at what’s happening inside the plants, quickly and effectively. Because our lives depend on us saving these crops.”
I’m talking fast, and I know it. I’m getting excited at the thought of sharing this new technology with Eron, who seems interested in what it does and what we’re working on here. Most of the villagers treat us like we’re casting magic with our science, and we’re supposed to be able to solve any problem, including melting crops, with the touch of a magical science wand. Well, it didn’t work that way, and Eron seemed to understand. It was refreshing, different. I could get used to this.
“That’s pretty impressive,” he says, a lazy grin on his lips.
I could definitely get used to this.
Glast leads us out of the caves again, towards the communal eating area. Usually, all of our meals are shared. It’s faster and more convenient. We don’t have kitchens in each of the caves. That’s a luxury that we can’t afford. Most of our technology is made to save our crops and keeping us alive from the radiation. We don't waste our resources on creating new ways to cook a meal, which can be done just as effectively over a fire.
There’s food cooking now in preparation to greet our guests. It smells good. Some animal cooks— maybe some wild boar. Some of last year’s crops, which had been preserved, were pulled out for the occasion.
“That’s amazing!” I hear Starz say. “I mean, the way you’ve handled your food production, down to the societal level, and protecting yourselves from the radiation— it’s really impressive! I hope that you know that. I’ve never seen anything quite like it on any other planet, and I’ve visited quite a few!”
Glast acts as though it’s a compliment to his own leadership. We mostly ignore him and thank Starz. It’s true now that I think about it, too. I mean, we have advanced a lot. When I was a kid we couldn’t read the inside of cells to see how the radiation had spread in them. Now we can. But even then we always had the lightning and radiation rods to protect us. We could always predict when the radiation started to swirl and prepare to come down from the clouds. When the lightning shifted its pattern and the colors turned from pale to dark, it meant that soon the radiation would increase, and the lightning bolts would track them down.
I couldn’t even remember anyone who died from radiation storms since I was a child, because we knew how to take care of ourselves— and we did. I didn’t like everybody in the village, but I certainly under
stood that we worked better together. That we had to rely on each other.
Which is why it’s so important to find out what’s destroying the crops. And that’s on us— on my family.
I can see the fields from here. I look over them, my mind tumbling back to the problem. What could cause them such decay? Even the radiation storm didn’t destroy the crops…the fields the lightning had hit that had small scorch marks but that was it.
We were familiar with that particular type of radiation. This one? The one destroying our crops? Not so much.
There was something new getting into our fields and into our crops. That’s what was killing them now. If we could isolate that problem, figure out what was infiltrating them… but it was something that even our cellular membrane readers couldn’t quite detect.
“Even with the ruined crops,” Eron says, walking up beside me. It’s just the two of us now. It feels so natural, and so strange all at once. “Your land is beautiful.”
“Thank you,” I say. “But we need to figure this out. Without our crops, we only have a few months of food stored up. The radiation storms get worse in the winter. We can’t grow anything then. We can barely leave the caves. If we don’t figure this out soon and we lose more…” I trail off. I can’t quite complete the sentence. Just the thought of failing the village, failing our people— it’s too painful to bear.
“We’ll help you,” he promises. I believe him. He puts his hand on my arm. An innocent gesture, something that you do to comfort a friend. When he touches me, it’s like I’m struck with lightning, like radiation courses from his cells into mine. He feels so real to me, more real even than my own world. Like the field, and the caves, and the food, and the people are just temporary.
Like they are the dream, and the man from my dreams is real.
He draws his breath in as though he feels it too and pulls his hand away. Our eyes meet and we hold each other’s gaze for a few moments. And then we look back at the fields.
His eyes are so orange. He can’t be anyone but the man from my dreams. Am I forcing this man’s face onto the memory of my dreams? What if he’s not that man, and I’m just trying to believe he is because I need something to hold on to while everything seems to collapse around me?
But no, I know it’s him. I’ve stared at him so often. I’ve tasted those lips. I’ve felt his hands, with the same lightning shock as the one that I’d just received. He’s more real to me than this entire world seems to be.
For one second, I think I will tell him everything. I will turn to him and tell him about my dreams, about us, about how we seem to belong together, and everything feels right when I’m in his arms. For one second, I consider the possibility, and then I drop it.
I need to focus on the now.
No matter how I feel, no matter if what I feel is real or not, this land needs me. My village needs me. I stare out at the fields, though I can’t ignore Eron’s presence beside me. And I try to think of what I could possibly do to make sure my world survives.
Chapter 9
Eron
Night begins to coat the landscape - not with a sunset hidden behind the ever-present clouds— but with a change in the light’s quality, becoming dimmer and dimmer. Then in the color of light. First, it turns orange, then the entire sky seems to turn a dark purple, and now, in its final stages, some pink splashes around in it.
It’s absolutely beautiful. It reminds me a little of home, except that pink coats the sky at the beginning of our sunsets, before the first moon rises. And then the second— always full— following shortly behind. Like their clouds here give extra light from the dancing lightning, so our moons do. The lower one, much brighter and the second moon, the color of blood.
We worship those moons back home. Or did, at one point. We used to believe that they gave us our powers until we understood how we could shift at will, and not just at night.
I wonder if they worship anything up above here? The dancing lightning, the clouds? Probably not. Their focus seems to be on the ground, on the earth that supports them, beneath their feet. It could support them, or kill them if it doesn’t produce enough crops.
That’s why Sybil’s work is so important. Why her parents trained her in biology as well.
I’m sure I can help them. I just have to figure out how. Some of the technology that we’ve brought with us might help, but the shuttle took massive damage. Still, we have to try something.
My train of thought is interrupted as Starz joins me, sitting me on a rock next to me near the outcropping of the village, close to one of the lightning rods.
He hands me some type of drink, a bitter brew.
I sniff it and take a swig. It tastes vile, like partially fermented plants. But I’m thirsty enough to drink it, anyway.
“Still can’t reach the ship,” he says, not looking overly concerned. “All of this radiation, it must block our communications. Or maybe the time rift, somehow. Who knows? We’ve never been this central to one. Isn’t it fascinating? I mean, these people have been caught here for only a few weeks, according to our time… But here, they’ve lived like this for centuries as far as they’re concerned! Like earth’s history was thrown back a thousand years! It’s amazing. The research we could do here!”
He shrugs, leans back. Swigs down his entire drink. “Then again, if we never get contacted by the ship again, I suppose we’ve got bigger problems.” He laughs. He’s not really concerned, I can tell.
“Can we help these people?”
His pupils grow more vertically, which by now I know to interpret as a question. Like raising an eyebrow, if he had eyebrows.
“I mean, with the crops, can we help them while we’re here? Is there some kind of… of…rule where we can’t, I don’t know, interfere or something? These people aren’t space-faring themselves.”
Starz laughs and hits me on the shoulder. “Now, now, Prince Eron, you’ve been reading too many trashy novels. They all know that there’s more life out there. Most people know from the time they’re evolved enough to be able to create writing. They look up to the stars. They see the shifting of the planets and the great celestial dance of everything around them, and they think: this universe is too big. Surely there are other worlds that are inhabited as well. So do these people. So we come. And yeah, we help! I mean, why let someone die because their survival forces them to focus on the ground instead of the stars? Sounds murderous to me,” he pauses, turns to me. “You’re thinking about their crops?”
I nod. “Sybil says that she thinks that there’s some kind of animal that may be giving off some different radiation that the crops aren’t reacting to well.”
“Sybil?” he asks, looking off to the horizon.
“The younger blonde biologist.” Starz nods, although I’m not sure if he actually noticed her. I suppose if I hadn’t been dreaming of her all this time, I might not have noticed her either. Even still, I doubt that. Not her. I would always spot Sybil, no matter where she is, or how crowded the room, even if I never dreamt of her. I was pretty sure of that.
“Well,” Starz says, “if you want to help them with their crops, go ahead. I’m going to keep trying to reach the ship, see if we can get someone to come and give us a ride off the planet, because that shuttle of ours is not moving. And I’m going to help them here, too.”
I nod. He stands up to leave and looks up to the sky. “It’s funny, you know. I mean, time is such a funny thing. We’re still linked to our own time outside of here, so time will pass differently for us. But when we leave this planet, the second we step off of it, we’ll have been gone for a long time. The rest, though— their time will have progressed at a different speed. So they’ll have lost decades. All of these people we’ve met today? Everyone— by the time we get back to our time— they’ll be seniors, most of them dead. Time is a funny thing, and I say that as a Time Agent.” He snorts and walks back into the caves.
I stare up at the sky.
Are Starz’s words true? Can
they be true? If centuries have passed here, while only a few weeks since my parents’ death passed everywhere else… I can’t think about it. Not now. Not after finding Sybil. The second I’m gone from here, she vanishes to dust, already dead.
I can’t think of that.
I head back in. It’s time to go find Sybil and figure out exactly what is destroying their crops. If I can’t find my parents’ bones yet without our ship’s instruments working, then the least I can do is do some good here, for the time that I’m on this planet.
I walk into the caves, an argument catching my attention. One voice is Sybil’s, I’m positive of that. I’d know that voice anywhere. I knew that voice even before meeting her in the flesh here on this planet. I walk into the back towards the lab.
Several villagers are gathered there, including Sybil and her parents and Glast.
“We’re going to break up into teams of two,” Glast says. “Sybil, you’re teamed up with Jordain, it’s as simple as that.”
Her face is flushed red with anger. “I’ll not go with him into the forest alone! I can’t trust him as far as I can throw him, and I’m pretty sure I can’t even pick him up!” There’s acid in her voice.
I step up beside her and take stock of the man named Jordain. He’s about my age, just a few years older than Sybil. Smug looking. I don’t like the smell of him.
“I can go with Sybil,” I offer, stepping forward.
Jordain turns, a look of disdain on his face until he sees that it’s the stranger from the ship. He looks concerned suddenly, as well he should.
I don’t like the smell of him at all.
Sybil looks relieved at my intervention. “That’ll do, I’ll go with Eron,” she says. Her parents don’t look pleased that she’s taking part in this, but I can see that they’ve drawn names, and her name is up on the board. So’s Jordain’s. Mine’s not, of course. Why would it be? I’m a stranger from another land. But it doesn’t mean that I can’t help.
Her Merciless Prince Page 5
