by J. S. Bailey
“You’re making them sound intelligent!”
“They assured me their tribe would not harm me or any other human again as long as we kept our peace. Other tribes are not as understanding as they are.”
“And that—” Carolyn nodded at the gathered masses— “is the tribe you met?”
Gwendolyn bowed her head. “They sensed things were going badly here the day before the hotel burned to the ground and started heading this way. They had to veer off course to get around the sandstorm, but here they are, ready to help.”
Carolyn had to be dreaming. Reality couldn’t have been half as baffling. “How are they going to help?”
“They say there will be a battle here, and soon. They will fight on our side because we share a common interest.”
Errin stepped forward then, their expression grave. “Gwendolyn, how do you communicate with them? They don’t speak.”
“Touch them, and you’ll feel their minds. I don’t think . . . ” The old woman’s voice trailed off, and her gaze went to the ground. “So many walls.”
Carolyn cursed. “I think we’ve just lost her again. Errin, go bring her a chair.”
Cadu gave a light cough while Errin complied. “Um. People are going to start noticing all the Greens out in the street.”
“Yes.”
“If Gwendolyn is right and this bunch here aren’t going to hurt us, shouldn’t we tell people to leave them alone?”
“Good idea.” Carolyn could practically feel her mind buzzing. In ordinary circumstances, she would have dismissed Gwendolyn’s claims about the Greens as mere fantasy, but the gathered tribe waiting patiently as if for orders lent some credit to those claims.
Touch them, and you’ll feel their minds, Gwendolyn said.
“Cadu,” she said evenly, “I’m going to attempt communication with these creatures. Do not harm them, no matter what you see.”
“But Carolyn—”
“That’s an order.”
She drew in a deep breath and stepped outside.
Leaves rustled in the light, nighttime breeze. The nearest Greens to her were at least two and a half meters tall, and they’d trained their eyestalks on her.
“Hello?” she said, suppressing a shiver. “Which one of you is in charge here?” She looked up at the tallest of the Greens in the front row. It had four arms and blue-green leaves that appeared faintly iridescent in the light of the streetlamps.
A shorter Green stepped out of the line and reached out one of its lower arms, as if in greeting. Carolyn ground her teeth together to stop them from chattering as she held out her own arm in turn.
The Green curled its fingers—were they even called fingers?—around her wrist, and it was as if someone switched on a movie screen inside her mind.
She no longer stood in the center of Richport. Instead, she was whisked into a forest teeming with alien life—winged insects the size of pillowcases fluttered past her head, and eerie cries filled the air as some unseen predator found its prey.
Four Greens knelt beside a stream, filling jars with water. A peculiar sound came from above, like the hum of engines, which made the Greens look up at the sky and drop their jars in terror.
The Greens ran deeper into the wood, and the image faded out into another, where two Greens huddled together as still as they could while two human women in old-fashioned military garb marched through the forest holding what looked like machine guns. Carolyn was nearly overwhelmed by the sheer, visceral terror that the Greens felt at seeing these aliens intrude upon their home as if they owned it.
Something scurried through the underbrush, and one of the women opened fire while the other laughed, and the image shifted again so Carolyn saw a human man swinging an axe at a motionless Green, which let out a bloodcurdling scream as its left leg was severed.
We must kill the demons that fell from the sky, Carolyn thought. She caught glimpses of ichor and blood, and understood.
She opened her eyes, and the Green let go of her wrist and stepped back into line with its kin. “Why do you want to help us after our ancestors were so cruel to your people?” she asked, and even though she no longer touched the creature, she had the sudden mental impression that these Greens were here to help because it was the right thing to do.
She went on: “You don’t know the Greens who attacked our city the other day, do you? They killed several of our people.”
A few of the Greens turned and looked at each other, somewhat cluelessly. Carolyn got the distinct impression that nobody from their tribe had harmed any human since they had studied the Gwendolyn. “The” Gwendolyn? Dear Lord, she was starting to think like they did.
“And what about Piney Gulch?” she asked. “Your people slaughtered many of my people. They weren’t even hurting anyone.” She pictured the gorge as best she could in case that might help.
Another impression intruded upon her thoughts, clear enough this time to form words: the place which you imagine is holy ground to one of the northern tribes. We know of no massacre, but we would guess that tribe did not want intruders in their place of worship.
Carolyn started to feel a trifle dizzy.
We will help you now because there is a grave threat to this planet. New demons will fall from the sky, and we will do our best to help you defeat them.
“Others of your kind killed my people. How can we trust that you’ll leave my people in peace while we fight the intruders together?”
The tribes that harmed you were not part of our number. They may have panicked when their homes burned. Those who panic do not think with clarity.
A cry rose from down the street. “Greens!”
Carolyn tore her attention away from the tribe and broke into a run toward the voice. “Do not harm these people!” she shouted. “They’re here to help us!”
Of course, the Greens could have been lying, but she couldn’t see what they might gain by doing so. If they wanted to burn Richport to the ground, they would have started already.
Carolyn caught up to the human figure, panting. It was Jae Liu, who worked as a receptionist at the salon where Carolyn got her hair done. Jae wore a terrycloth dressing gown and an expression of abject terror.
“Jae,” Carolyn said calmly, grabbing their arm, “if you shout again, I’m going to lock you in the nearest prison cell and throw the key into a sand dune.”
The young androgyne tugged out of Carolyn’s grip. “But they’re Greens! I couldn’t sleep after the siren went off, so I decided to go for a walk, and nearly walked into them!”
“They’re not typical Greens, Jae. These Greens are going to help us fight the Haa’la.”
“The what?” Jae blinked, and Carolyn cursed herself for forgetting that the presence of the Haa’la was not yet common knowledge.
“Alien invaders. That’s why Cadu sounded the sirens earlier tonight. More Haa’la may be coming soon, and these Greens will help us fight them off. If you don’t want to fight with us, you should go home and bar the doors.”
Jae let out a whimper, then turned tail and fled.
“Holy shit, look at that!”
Carolyn turned to see yet another citizen standing in the street, this one holding a flamethrower. “Remain calm!” she ordered. “Do not fire on these Greens!”
She wished Dalton were here. With the way her luck was bound to go, her own people were going to wipe out their allies before the battle even began.
Chapter 21
Dalton remembered a time long ago when he and his family—that was to say, his parents and his brother and himself—had gone to an amusement park.
TerrorWorld had held many wonders for the seven-year-old Dalton, including costumed characters who roamed the park and jumped out at you when you least expected it. There had been a funhouse maze done up in disorienting neon colors that glowed under blacklights, a haunt
ed lake ride where zombies rose out of the water and lunged at your boat, and restaurants serving such delicacies as Shepherds Die and Beans on Ghost.
Most terrifying of all, however, had been the Terror Drop.
Dalton had been tall enough to ride the coaster, but only by millimeters. The Terror Drop was the park’s crowning achievement: it had, at one time, been the tallest roller coaster on Earth, and the first drop was steep to the point of being vertical.
There had been no question that he and Rob would sit in the very front car. He remembered the ominous clack-clack-clack as the train climbed to the top of the first drop, and that final, yawning moment before the ride released them and let gravity do the rest.
His young stomach turned inside out when the car plummeted straight downward into a hellscape complete with bursts of flame, mechanical demons, and lots of red smoke that stung his eyes.
Dalton felt much that way now, as the great, bloated sphere of Leeprau grew even closer on the screen. Chumley and Ashi’ii had gathered on either side of him to watch what would become either their demise or their victory.
This drop, unlike the roller coaster, was thousands upon thousands of kilometers in height. They were either going to make it, or they weren’t.
Dalton swallowed, remembering that as soon as he’d gotten off the roller coaster, he’d ambled to the nearest dustbin and vomited. Funny, the things you remembered at times like these.
A burst of flame flared across the screen, and Dalton sat up straighter. “What was that?”
“We’ve entered the atmosphere,” Ashi’ii said dryly. “If we were actually inside the Cube, we would be feeling extreme turbulence.”
The image on the screen shook. Dalton wondered if anyone on Leeprau was looking up at the sky right then, commenting on the pretty meteor.
They were above the night side of the planet now, and Dalton’s stomach clenched as he watched billions of lights below them spinning like flecks in an out-of-control kaleidoscope.
“Do you think we’ll make a crater when we hit?” Chumley asked.
“Depends on where we hit,” Dalton grunted, not wanting to let his companions know the extent of his fear. “If we land in an ocean, we’ll make ripples.”
Chumley’s face grew long. “If we land in an ocean, we’ll drown trying to get out.”
“Better hit land, then. Wouldn’t want the fish to eat us.”
“Our fish do tend to be quite large,” Ashi’ii said.
The image on the screen spun even faster.
“Or we could land in a volcano,” Dalton said.
“I don’t know if we have any active volcanoes on Leeprau at the moment,” Ashi’ii said. “We’d be more likely to land in a factory smokestack. We could fall straight down into a furnace.”
Chumley put his hands over his ears. “Stop, it, both of you!”
They looked at him. Dread glistened in his eyes.
“Are your magical powers telling you what’s going to happen next?” Dalton asked.
Chumley’s jaw clenched. “No.”
“Then shut up.”
His deputy’s lower lip quivered, and he turned and went out onto the veranda, closing the door behind him.
Ashi’ii said, “We’re almost there.”
The spinning lights of the cities below them looked awfully large now. Not that the cities themselves were spinning; the Cube’s wild trajectory just made it look that way.
Dalton gripped the edge of the desk with both hands. Ashi’ii gripped his shoulder.
They held their respective breaths.
The cityscape grew closer, closer, and . . .
The screen went black.
Some of the tension went out of Ashi’ii, and she released Dalton’s shoulder. “I believe we have landed.”
Dalton nodded and swallowed, grateful they hadn’t felt the impact, which surely would have killed them. “We’re on the ground!” he called to Chumley, who failed to reply.
Waiting around in here all day didn’t seem an effective course of action, so Dalton rose, squared his shoulders, and slapped the button to activate the doorway. As soon as the holographic exit appeared, smoke wafted in and itched his eyes, just like the special effects from that damned roller coaster.
“Ready?” he asked Ashi’ii. Chumley still hadn’t appeared, and the door to the veranda remained closed.
“Just go,” she said, irritated. “If he wants to mope in there, let him.”
Dalton shrugged and strode out of the Cube.
He brought a hand up to cover his mouth when he entered an acrid cloud that the Cube had stirred upon impact. Ashi’ii appeared behind him, then bent and picked up the Cube. “Take a look at that,” she said, holding it out for Dalton to take.
Dalton goggled at the device. Its surface was as shiny and silvery as ever, giving no evidence it had just fallen from space as a fiery streak.
He hit the button on it to deactivate the doorway and stuffed it inside his pocket.
“Right,” Dalton said. “Where are we?” He blinked to see through the smoke and spied several Haa’la onlookers cowering together in a small cluster. Various midsize buildings rose in the distance, and lights mounted on poles illuminated rows of parked vehicles.
“We are in a parking lot,” Ashi’ii said, dusting herself off. “And that is a supermarket.” She pointed at the nearest building. The sign on the front had red, glowing letters that Dalton couldn’t read.
Ashi’ii cursed.
“What?” Dalton asked.
“We’ve landed in Hedjka.”
“What’s that?”
“A country on the other side of the world from mine. I can barely string two sentences together in their language. I need to find a translator who can help me book passage back to Molorthia Six.”
She strode toward the gathered Haa’la and said something to them in Haa’anu. They gave her blank stares, so she kept on going toward the nearest street.
Dalton started after her, feeling almost floaty in the lower gravity, then looked back at the massive dent the small Cube had put in the parking lot. “Sorry about the crater,” he said to the Haa’la who were still watching him. “We didn’t know where we’d land.”
“Tik-tik! No worries, friend,” one of them said. “Nobody was harmed.”
“Well, that’s good. Nice day.” He took two more steps after Ashi’ii and halted as something vital clicked in his increasingly-weary brain. “Wait—Ashi’ii! Get back here!”
Two hours later, Dalton and Ashi’ii sat side by side in the cramped cabin of a ship they’d chartered at the nearest spaceport.
“It’s a good thing you have money,” Dalton commented as he snacked on the unsalted nuts that had been provided for them. “I never could have paid my way off your planet.”
“I should be the one thanking you for having that Cube. You know,” she went on, “I’ve never actually spoken with someone from one of our project worlds before.”
“No?”
“Not even once.” Her gaze went to the porthole beside her head. It provided a view of unbroken blackness. “I never planned on getting into this business. It was a family thing. Lots of us from Leeprau are part of family businesses. We go out into the galaxy, we mine worlds until they’re spent, we profit. I’ve got operations running on three dozen backwater worlds. Nydo Base Corporation is the third most profitable of our type on Leeprau.”
“Does it ever get boring?” Dalton asked.
“Oh, there’s never a dull moment when money’s coming in.” Ashi’ii paused, reflectively. “Do you think he’s ever coming out of there?”
“Pardon?” Dalton asked, thrown by the change in subject.
“Your friend hasn’t come out of the Cube.”
“Right. I’ll check on him.”
They were the only two pas
sengers on the flight, so Dalton had no shame in setting the Cube on the floor beside their seats and activating the doorway. He went inside, noting that the door to the veranda was still closed and the drapes were still drawn over its windows.
He rapped on the door.
Chumley didn’t open it.
With a sigh, Dalton swung the door open and stepped “outside” to see Chumley sitting there with his elbows propped on his knees, staring morosely at the digital garden before him.
“We’re on a ship headed back to Molorthia Six,” Dalton said. “Care to join us?”
“I figured you were dead,” Chumley said, his voice hollow.
“We had to charter a flight. It was cheaper with only two passengers.”
Chumley’s shoulders shook. “I thought it must have been so bad outside that I’d die if I went out there, too, so I stayed here so I could suffocate in peace.”
Dalton scratched his head, uneasily. “Ah. How about you come out into the ship with us?” It was then that Dalton spotted wood shavings clinging to Chumley’s sleeve. “What’s that?”
Chumley looked where Dalton indicated, flushed, and swiped the shavings to the floor. “Nothing.”
“Was that from your pet cage?”
“I suppose it must have been.” Chumley peered back out at the digital garden, not meeting Dalton’s gaze. “Maybe someday I’ll tell you about the hamster.”
After a short, awkward silence, Dalton said, “What do you think about the Haa’la fighting these Verdants?”
Chumley flicked at another wood shaving clinging to his sleeve. “I say let them duke it out, and we can go home and call it a day.”
“Can’t object to that.” Dalton felt a sudden stir of unease. Humans were as alien to Molorthia Six as the Haa’la. If the Verdants didn’t like the Haa’la doing business there, what did they think about the humans?
“What’s that look for?” Chumley asked.
“I need to ask Ashi’ii something. Come outside with me.”
They emerged into the Haa’la ship. Ashi’ii was tapping furiously at a datapad she’d purchased immediately before they’d chartered their flight, since her old one had exploded into smithereens along with the cargo ship.
