Third Rock

by S E T Ferguson

  It took Beryl another moment to realize the song they were singing was the old, triumphant chorus to a movie that had been changed at some point, when people thought there was value in attempting to update films that people loved in part because they weren’t modern and perfect according to the particular values of the new time.

  Someday, if she ever had the time, Beryl would go back and try to figure out why people in the late 20th and early 21st century had worked so hard to destroy all the great things they created. It certainly made no sense to her.

  “Well, look at this,” Iris said as she helped Heming march their group of captives into the clearing. “It seems you guys have been busy.”

  Beryl saw Heming counting the captured Civitians now gathered in once place. “We’re missing two of them, by my count.”

  “They apparently killed one of their own,” Vlad said, looking at Oly. “At least, we haven’t seen him. And I got the distinct impression he was no longer with them, from listening to these guys talk on our way here. And a very suspect dark spot on the ground back at Whit’s compound.”

  “The big one?” Iris asked.

  “Nope, one of the redshirts,” Vlad said, the reference to the unnamed people who were quick to die in an old TV show not lost on anyone in the group. A few of the Civitians tied together looked at each other, as if they knew who among them were the remaining redshirts, and were not happy to be in that position.

  “So where is he…Quince?” Heming asked, coming up with the name of the giant.

  “Back there on the Bird,” Fawn said, coming out of the Bird and pointing behind her, at the way she had just come. “I had to give him about six times the normal dosage, but I finally got him knocked out. Poor guy, I don’t know how he got mixed up with these assholes.”

  Heming and Iris looked at their fellow Columbinians, clearly confused as to why they were discussing Quince in a way that suggested they liked the giant man.

  “It’s a long story,” Vlad said. Beryl saw he didn’t want to explain everything immediately. “As, I am guessing, is the story as to how you managed to capture this entire crew.”

  “Eh,” Heming pulled something out of his belt, where he seemed to have stored it. “Not as complicated as you would think. They aren’t the smartest bunch of space travelers in the world.”

  Beryl saw what was in Heming’s hand.

  The knife the Civitian had taken from her. Heming held it out for her, and Beryl happily took it, replacing it in her boot where it belonged.

  She felt a lot better with it there than she had without it.

  Heming and Iris began making the Civitians get to the ground, cajoling them and otherwise roughing them up a bit to get them to comply with their orders. Beryl didn’t think any of her fellow Columbinians were too upset at seeing the Civitians get a little manhandled.

  Wolf was the most difficult to get to comply. Iris finally just got fed up and smashed the small of his back with a swift kick, which made him collapse. It was a good way to seriously hurt someone, but it was clear Iris no longer cared what happened to someone who had wanted all of them dead

  As Wolf fell to the ground, something caught Beryl’s eye in a pocket of his pants.

  Without thinking, Beryl’s hand went to her chest, where the normal weight of her necklace was gone. She had her knife back, but she was still missing something.

  Wolf lay on his side, and before he could sit himself up, Beryl reached down and pulled a long, gold chain from his pants pocket. At the end of it, the large emerald gleamed in the sun streaming into the clearing.

  “I’ll take this now,” Beryl said. She kicked Wolf in the side for good measure, knowing it was a petty thing to do over a nearly worthless necklace. Still, it felt good. Especially when she saw him wince from the pain of the kick.

  It felt even better to slip the familiar object over her head and feel it rest once again next to her chest.

  Beryl held the necklace away from her chest so she could see the gem. As she did, the bracelets on her wrist caught her eye.

  And then she realized something.

  An emerald. An aquamarine. Both were different varieties of beryl.

  Her father’s last statement.

  “Beryl is the key to finding me.”

  Beryl.

  The riddle.

  It had nothing to do with her, after all.

  That had been part of the riddle. The key part of the riddle.

  “All emeralds are beryls, but not all beryls are emeralds,” Beryl said out loud. Vlad looked at her, questioning either her sanity or the statement or both.

  It was something her father had said to her many times as a child, when telling her what her name meant. A beryl was a mineral. There were many types of beryls. An emerald was a beryl. An aquamarine was a beryl. All emeralds were beryls, but not all beryls were emeralds.

  Vlad continued to give her a look suggesting she might be crazy, but Beryl didn’t care or bother to call him out on it. It didn’t matter, because she knew wasn’t crazy.

  She knew where to find her father.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  All the Civitians except Quince sat lined up in a row in the clearing.

  “What do we want to do with them?” Vlad asked. He knew what the Civitians would have done with them in this situation, and it wouldn’t have been good for the Columbinians.

  Iris put her hand to her chin, rubbing it as she thought over options. “I can think of a lot of things, most of which don’t end well for these guys.”

  “If you ask me, killing is far too good for them.” Beryl said.

  “Agreed,” Vlad poked Wolf in the stomach with his gun. “Further thoughts?”

  “We could drop them off at the Caterkiller rookery,” Heming said. “See how they like that.”

  “I like it. A nice combination of terror and potential for death,” Iris considered the suggestion. “The only thing I am worried about is that we already took out most of the Caterkillers who were there. We might just be setting them up to hang out on a plush lawn and get a little nap in. And I don’t know where we’re going to find another rookery, if we wanted to put them in a different one.”

  “They are afraid of the jungle,” Beryl said. “If you want to scare them, the woods are a good place to start.”

  “The woods?” Fawn asked, as if she couldn’t believe it.

  “Yup—on the Bird, they were very clear that they did not want to walk through the woods to get back to Whit’s compound,” Vlad added. “Considering that when they ventured into the woods, they managed to get themselves captured, I guess it is a good worry to have. Though I suspect the reason they didn’t want to be in the woods had more to do with the creatures they imagine they might find while walking around than with the chances they would fall victim to an Ewok trap.”

  “Even my kids weren’t afraid of the woods—and they lived somewhere with well-known man-eating Vos lurking and looking for snacks,” Fawn said. “I mean, if you’re going to be scared of something, be scared of the water.”

  “What’s in the water?” Wolf asked, looking at the river beyond the clearing. The confidence that had been evident in his voice the rest of the time they were on Columbina was gone.

  Vlad saw the opportunity. “I don’t know what might be in the water here on Libertas. But back on Columbina, the water is much worse than the woods. I’d take my chances with the Vos any day than risk a swim.”

  A chorus of agreement came from the rest of the Columbinians.

  Wolf looked scared, but almost everyone else with him looked terrified, including Oly.

  “I think I know what we can do with these guys,” Beryl smiled. “Have any of you ever taken an island vacation in a tropical location before?”

  *

  Oly watched the Columbinian’s Bird pull away and swore.

  Loudly.

  She had no idea how they were going to get out of this.

  Oly could hardly move. The Columbinians had tied her
legs and arms together behind her, leaving her lying on her side. Some small bush or young tree dug into her side, making the already uncomfortable position even worse. Unfortunately, the way Oly was placed up against a tree, she couldn’t move enough to get away from the little bush.

  Oly suspected the Columbinians had purposely given her a particularly bad location to spend the rest of what she expected was going to be a short life.

  If something didn’t eat her or kill her, she was quickly going to starve to death.

  Around Oly, each of the other Civitians was similarly tied and left for dead. None of them were close enough for Oly to see, but she could hear them in the woods around her.

  That the Columbinians had used the ties the Civitians had brought for tying up the Columbinians just added insult to injury.

  The entire situation was, Oly thought, a humiliating way to end this mission to capture Whit. They should be the ones on the Bird, headed toward the man who would be able to make them the most powerful group of humans who had ever existed, harnessing the powers of artificial intelligence in their own biological bodies.

  Instead, somewhere above them, the Columbinians were headed off to find Whit and thwart all the plans the Civitians had worked toward for months. With them would be that traitor, Quince. Oly couldn’t see what the Columbinians saw in the giant. He had always been more trouble than he was worth. If it hadn’t been for Wolf and his attachment to the dumb man—a sentimental attachment Oly did not understand, even knowing the big man had once saved Wolf—they wouldn’t be in this situation.

  If it hadn’t been for Quince, Oly could have saved the mission.

  And yet, here they were.

  Oly shouted another curse at the Columbinian’s Bird, which she couldn’t see but could hear was moving away from the island where its passengers had stranded them.

  “Fuck!” Oly shouted as the engines of the ship faded away, replaced by the sounds of nature around them. Every sound out in the jungle was worrisome. Oly couldn’t tell what was making any of the noises. Maybe they came from insects and maybe they came from birds.

  Or maybe, those sounds come from something none of them wanted to run into.

  Then again, Oly realized, the sounds could come from a small but poisonous animal. Not every scary creature was large.

  “Fuck!” Oly swore again, having failed to inspire any response from the men around her.

  “Jesus, Oly. Shut the fuck up,” Wolf said. His voice sounded far closer than she expected. She turned her head as much as she could, and saw Wolf’s figure towering over where she was lying on the ground. Neither his hands nor his feet were bound.

  In his hand, he held what looked like a very sharp rock.

  Things had started to look up for the Civitians.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Looking down on Libertas from the bridge of Rediviva, Beryl wondered how a virtually uninhabited place could have caused them so much trouble.

  And the worst part was, they weren’t done with the planet yet.

  Beryl knew the planet likely wasn’t done with them yet, either.

  After they had left the Civitians on the island, Iris had strongly suggested they go back to Rediviva to regroup. Despite Beryl’s vehement protestations against going back, as she looked at Libertas while wearing new, clean clothes and after two full nights of good sleep in a real bed, it now seemed like it had been a good idea.

  Plus, there was also something nice about having her phone and all their communications working again. Beryl hadn’t realized how much she relied upon the device until it was unavailable.

  However, as excited about having those communications working again as Beryl was, the one who seemed most excited about that development was Camp. For the first time in days, he could finally make himself understood again through his translator and understand the humans around him.

  The dog sat at Beryl’s feet now. He seemed content and happy to be back on the ship, awaiting whatever was next in his life, wherever and whenever it might be.

  Beryl wished she could find that sort of contentment.

  Despite the Civitians being trapped on an island and the comforts of Rediviva, Beryl couldn’t relax. Perhaps finding her father was slightly less urgent now, but Beryl had the distinct feeling they were not done with the Civitians. She didn’t know how the Civitians would cause trouble, but Beryl had a sinking feeling that they would.

  Behind her, Beryl heard the door of the bridge slide open. Beryl didn’t turn around to see who it was; she was expecting Iris.

  “I was hoping I would find you here.”

  Beryl turned at the voice. It wasn’t Iris, but Vlad. Camp jumped up and happily trotted up to his second favorite person in the world, also seemingly surprised—happily—at who it was.

  Vlad smiled at her, and Beryl couldn’t help but notice how good he looked. Despite everything that had happened to the two of them, he looked as good as he ever had. The teeth Wolf had knocked out were almost regrown. If you hadn’t known they had been knocked out, you would not have seen that they were still slightly smaller than the teeth around them.

  Beryl added the quick healing to the long list of things she needed to talk to Iris about. Clearly, Iris had done something that helped Vlad heal—an unnaturally so—but whatever it was she had kept them in the dark about it.

  And it wasn’t just Vlad. Whatever Iris had done to Vlad, she had done to Beryl. All of the wounds she had received planetside were healed, including the gunshot wound to her cheek. Beryl felt better standing on the bridge of Rediviva than she could remember feeling in a long time. It was almost as if Beryl was not just healed from the injuries she had suffered on Libertas at the hands of the Civitians, but that she was more refreshed than she had been when they arrived.

  “I’m waiting for Iris. We’re going to discuss the plans for finding my dad again. We think we have the location settled.” Beryl explained.

  Vlad took a spot at Beryl’s side and looked out at the same planet she had just been gazing at. He echoed the thoughts Beryl had running through her mind. “It looks so peaceful from up here, doesn’t it?”

  “It does. It would look a lot more beautiful down there, too, if there weren’t a bunch of people there who wanted to kill us.”

  “And don’t forget the creatures down there who want to kill you as well.” Vlad smiled. “How are you doing? Excited about getting back down there?”

  Beryl nodded, but didn’t say anything. She was excited, but that feeling that they weren’t done with the Civitians nagged at her. She was trying not to set any expectations for what was going to happen.

  The two silently watched Libertas below them.

  “So why were you hoping I was here?” Beryl asked.

  “I wanted to talk to you.” The tone of Vlad’s voice suggested whatever he wanted to talk about, it was both important and something he would rather not talk about.

  “About what? The fact that you’re entirely healed up? Unless you’re one of those people who has an extra set of teeth, Iris did something to help you heal at an inhuman pace.”

  “That’s not it. But speaking of that, I suspect Iris is just waiting for the right moment to tell us what she did. It’s why I haven’t asked her about it yet.” Vlad ran his right hand through his hair. “No, this is something else entirely. It’s just not an easy something to talk about.”

  Beryl searched Vlad’s face, trying to figure out what he wanted to say before he did.

  “These last few days—months, really, going back to Columbina and everything that happened with the Earth AI—I just…I wanted to tell you that they have made me miss you. Miss us, really.”

  Vlad stopped abruptly.

  Beryl continued looking at him, now trying to figure out what to say back to him.

  She had thought of a lot of things he could have said, but that hadn’t been one of them.

  “You don’t have to say anything,” Vlad interjected, as if he was reading her thoughts. “I j
ust wanted to let you know. I don’t want something to happen to either of us, and to have failed to let you know. I love you, Beryl. I never stopped loving you.”

  Vlad took Beryl’s hand. She didn’t stop him, although she didn’t know if this was what she wanted. Vlad put his other hand behind her head, the touch so familiar to Beryl it was as if it had last happened the day before instead of years earlier. She knew what came next, the feel of his lips on hers. Beryl may not have known what she wanted, but she felt herself leaning in toward him, even if part of her was telling her not to go down this road again.

  Then, the door to the bridge opened again, and the hand Vlad had behind her head flew back to his side, as if he had been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. A moment later, Beryl pulled her hand out of his other hand, realizing that, too, would give away what had almost happened.

  Iris, standing in the doorway, looked at Beryl, then Vlad, then back to Beryl.

  “Do I even want to know?” Iris asked.

  Beryl shook her head. She knew Vlad did the same next to her without looking.

  “Good. I just don’t want to pick up the pieces of this,” Iris waved her hand in a circular motion at the two of them, “yet again.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Vlad pushed through the woods, trying not to let the branches around him flail back and hit Heming, who walked behind him.

  Based on how many times Heming had sworn, Vlad was pretty sure he was doing a poor job at it.

  “I don’t see why we couldn’t just park the Bird right at the mines,” Heming said, then swore as another branch hit him in the arm. Vlad rolled his eyes, knowing Iris had already explained the reason they needed to park the Bird away from the giant aquamarine mine where they suspected they would find Whit. At this point, Heming seemed to be complaining just for the sake of hearing himself talk.

  “It’s just a precaution,” Iris replied, explaining the situation yet again for Heming. “Unless you forgot, we stranded a bunch of people who want to kill all of us on an island two days ago. If, by some crazy chance, they’ve managed to get off of the island and find a way to get here, I don’t want to lead them straight to us and Whit.”