I fell asleep with Vox cuddled up beneath my neck and dreamed of golden palaces with spiraling towers and handsome sun-browned, men and women.
5
“Man selects only for his own good: Nature only for that of the being which she tends.”
—Charles Darwin, The Origin of the Species
Posted in the communal dining hall of the grounded SS Dominion
The next morning, I slipped Vox into the pocket of my jumper. Like Gehnny, I could not bear to let go of him. With baby lapids and Tok to care for, we needed to obtain fresh food every day. At this stage in their development, the baby lapids preferred the grey lichens which grew in good quantity near The Cliffs.
Dawah, Vox, and Layfe’s Tok, Botto, couldn’t chew the tough dry lichens as well as the lapids. We had to pre-chew the leaves for them, instead of chopping them. The dry grey, leathery leaf fronds tasted a bit odd at first, but it was a flavor that all three of us quickly became accustomed to. A bit peppery, but not at all unpleasant. Once chewed, we’d spit the leaf/saliva mixture into a small bowl and our new charges gobbled it up.
Rae had already moved out of the girl’s dormitory and into one of the storage rooms, which Lyle had converted into private sleeping quarters, just for her, until the new adult residential annex was built. Since neither Rae nor any of us kids could tolerate an oxygen-rich environment for more than a couple of hours, the new adult residence would have dual environmental controls.
At dinner that night, Rae was allowed the same free seating privileges as the adults, while I was again seated at my “private” table in the middle of the dining hall, this time with Robert.
After dinner, Father Isaac announced that he’d completed his preliminary analysis of the yellow-striped hatchlings.
“Based on both the physical and genetic comparisons done between the normal grey Lapidis Laruae hatchlings and the yellow-banded variety, I have determined their DNA to be a 95% match. Physically, at least from the outside, they appear identical except for a minor color variation.
“And while there may have been some minor psychic capability demonstrated, I’m not certain as to the practical value of this ability to us. However, in all fairness, I will continue to give this matter further consideration.”
Layfe looked as embarrassed as I felt, but I don’t think Gehnny understood. Robert chided me for my childish fantasies about talking animals. Bekke caught my glance, and I wondered if the others all thought the same thing.
Fine. I decided to keep all my conversations with Vox to myself.
Over the next few days, the excitement around Dominion Colony gradually settled into a new normal. By day, I tended to the children and our studies, worked in the greenhouses, and in the afternoons, set out with the other kids to gather fresh lichens for the baby lapids.
In spite of what Father Isaac had told us, Gehnny, Layfe, and I refused to believe that the Tok weren’t anything other than what they said they were: descendants of a great civilization whose people would return for them once they were old enough to make the journey back to their homeland. And like all babies, they needed our help to survive.
Father Isaac retested the Tok and the lapids several times. He even had us run them through a series of mazes. The Tok performed so much better than the lapids, even Father Isaac conceded that their problem-solving capabilities far exceeded that of the lapids, but still didn’t fully accept what we told him about their ability to mind-speak.
Once we began adding greens from the garden to the lichens, the lapids and Tok grew quickly. Twelve turns after we found them, the lapids stopped eating and went dormant. We couldn’t help but notice how much larger and plumper our Tok had become compared to the lapids. Four days after the lapids pupated, Vox, Dawah, and Botto each curled into a tight little ball and went dormant as well. We couldn’t even reach them through mind-speak.
6
After sleeping with Vox curled into my neck every turn for the last two weeks, I detested the sudden isolation, but I had little time to think of him. Robert and Lyle had taken the whole courting thing to heart, and seemed intent on claiming my every spare moment.
With our afternoons now freed up from lichen gathering, I’d expected to spend them supervising the kids by hiking and playing games. But now I also had Robert or Lyle as my constant escort, a daily reminder of my responsibility to procreate for the sake of the colony, and to set a good example for the other children. Rae had taken to her new status with a confidence and sense of purpose I secretly admired. She seemed to be looking forward to her coming pregnancy and new living quarters. Why couldn’t I?
I quickly grew to dread the time I spent in Robert’s solemn company, even though our time together was limited, due to the long hours he put in at the power plant. Dinner conversation topics were technical in nature, generally focused on the latest problems in the plant. After dinner, he preferred to sit next to me and hold my hand throughout story hour, when a rotating group of adults read stories to the children.
Lyle, on the other hand, took an entirely different approach. Unlike Robert, Lyle had flexible work hours. Every afternoon, as we emerged from our lessons, I’d find him waiting for me.
“Come with me. I want to show you something.” He tucked my hand into his arm.
Minutes later, I’d be strapped into the passenger seat of one of the colony’s two solar-powered Personal Local Transport Vehicles, and Lyle would take me wherever I wanted to go. I don’t know how he got permission to take the restricted-use hovercraft out on joyrides with me, but he did.
Every day we went someplace different.
I loved it.
We visited the impact crater fields, some twenty kilometers from Dominion Colony. I’d seen pictures of them in the instructional archives, but never by hovercraft. Lyle took me up, up, over the lip and we hovered above the massive impact site for as long as I wanted. He flew the ship parallel to the steep-sided walls, and when I asked, he brought the little craft to rest on the crater floor so we could get out and explore.
That first time, I collected bits of melted glass and broken chunks of meteor created by the impact. Other days, we’d go fossil hunting, or discover the desiccated remains of some predator’s previous meal. Every trip was a new adventure; we never knew what we’d find in the next crater, or over the next ridgeline.
Lyle even taught me how to pilot the hovercraft, which was without a doubt the most fun I’d ever had. It was complicated, but once I got the hang of it, not at all difficult. Sometimes, he’d let me pilot it the whole afternoon.
For an hour or two, I was excused from tending to the children.
It felt strange, at first. Almost as if I’d forgotten something. But as our trips took us farther and farther afield, I began to view these escapes as brief glimpses of freedom. I wanted to know more. To see more.
I searched the instructional archives, looking for the topological surveys for Hesperidee done by the original settlers. I wanted to find evidence of the lost Tok civilization Vox had described. I pushed Lyle to take us beyond even where he had ever ventured before. There was so much I wanted to see.
Even hampered by his oxygen suit, Lyle seemed to enjoy these excursions as much as I did. It became a regular thing for us. And on the nights we dined together, we talked about what we’d seen and found and where we’d go next.
Sometimes, I’d catch the other adults nod knowingly as they watched us make out plans over dinner. I wanted to say, no, it’s not like that—we’re just friends, but I just couldn’t.
Nothing was ever going to happen between me and Lyle. Even without saying it, I think we both understood that. But even I had to admit, we’d become friends. Good friends.
7
“A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections—a mere heart of stone.”
— Charles Darwin
From the instructional archives of the
grounded SS Dominion
Gehnny was the first to get sick. Within hours, her entire body puffed up like an overstuffed sausage. Tiny blood vessels in her eyes burst; her bloody tears stopped only when she slipped into a coma.
Mother Flor, the physician, could do nothing for her.
Within days, we were all sick to varying degrees. The symptoms started with a fever accompanied by severe body aches and nausea, followed by vomiting and diarrhea, ending in coma and death.
Jonahs, who at six, dreamed of piloting a spaceship like the SS Dominion; and Mia, a sweet darling of a girl who ran faster and could jump farther than anyone, died within a day of the onset of the first symptoms.
Mother Alora, the first adult to die, was followed within hours by Bekke’s husband, Father Torov.
Father Isaac and Mother Flor immediately isolated all the sick, but nothing they did contained the virus. Ten days later, twenty-one adults and six children were dead, including my beloved baby Gehnny, who died in my arms.
I thought I would die of heartbreak. How could I live without her? An orphan like me, I thought of her as my own child. Every time I closed my eyes, her sweet face came to me.
For weeks after, the ghostly voices of dead children called to me in my sleep. I’d wake and rush to them, only to be confronted by the fresh misery of their empty bunks.
A sense of doom settled over the colony. As if the emotional loss was not enough, the virus left a lingering weakness and ache in our joints.
Gradually, as our mobility improved, our grief began to abate. The colony began to return to a slowed-down version of normal. Us kids recovered more quickly than the adults, and returned to our studies. The water and power plants came back online. The laundry and kitchen reopened. Lyle and his men buried the dead in a mass grave a good distance from the colony, and posted bio-hazard signs around the perimeter.
The evening meal, once a cheerful experience for one hundred and eleven people to come together and enjoy each other’s company, now hosted a silent, hollow-eyed group of seventy-five adults and nine children.
Grey with fatigue, Father Isaac reminded us of our duty.
“We cannot allow something like this to overwhelm us. Yes, the loss of our families and friends is painful and disheartening, but our imperative has not changed. Think of Jamestown and the early colonies of North America. Those settlers faced similar disasters, and their colonies rebounded and thrived. We are not done here. We will persevere because we must.”
Mother Jean stood. “It’s those damn Tok. They’re the cause of all this. They’re the only thing that’s changed around here.”
More than a few heads nodded in agreement. Layfe gave me a stricken look. I knew exactly what he was thinking.
But Father Isaac came to our rescue.
“I do not believe the Tok are the source of the illness. Their biology is too dissimilar from ours, and they’ve been dormant for quite a while. The source of this virus could have come from almost anywhere, even from within our own cells. Every one of you was born infected with the HRV2211-A virus, which was designed specifically to mutate aggressively and vigorously. The generational effects of that virus are unknown, and it is possible that a variant of that virus is the culprit here. Or it could be something airborne, in the soil, or simple transference from an infected surface. We may never have the answer.”
But I didn’t like the doubtful expression on Mother Jean’s face. I excused myself early, saying I wasn’t feeling well, and headed back to the dormitory, with Layfe right behind me.
We checked the cupboard where we’d placed the Tok pupae.
Two of the pupae were elongated, heavy, and thicker around than my calf, the third had shriveled like a raisin.
“It’s Dawah,” Layfe said.
It happened to the lapids sometimes. The body inside desiccated into nothing more than a leathery bit of tissue instead of developing. The process took several days, but nothing could be done. Dawah must have died on or near the same day as Gehnny.
I choked back sobs, missing Gehnny all over again. I didn’t think my heart could stand any more losses. Any more death. I thought of the expression on Mother Jean’s face and knew the Tok weren’t safe. I couldn’t lose Vox, too.
“We’ve got to hide them. If anyone wants to take them away from us, this is the first place they’ll look,” I said.
We moved them into a storage closet in the basement furnace room, concealed behind a stack of empty bins. It was clean, dark, and dry, even if not quite the same environmentally as the cupboard in the climate-controlled dormitory.
8
“It’s often just enough to be with someone. I don’t need to touch them. Not even talk. A feeling passes between you both. You’re not alone.”
—Marilyn Monroe
From the instructional archives of the grounded SS Dominion
After three weeks of dormancy, the lapids emerged from their cocoons.
At this stage, the lapid nymphs had morphed into something that might have looked like a distant relative of a soft-shelled crab on Earth. The rounded torso had flattened out to the size of a dinner plate. Their eight legs had lengthened and sported four distinct segments. They moved slowly, using the back four of their eight legs for locomotion. In the front, the first pair of legs was used to shove food into their mouths and the second pair, which were tipped with tiny pincers, used to pluck at vegetation. Their large expressive eyes rested atop retractable eye stalks, and their hatchling shells, while still soft, had developed a more leathery texture. In color, the nymphs remained a pale, mottled grey. Their bodies would not harden into the distinctive mahogany armor of the adults until their final molt.
Grown too large for the raising drawers, they roamed free on the floor of the raising room, fed on a diet of lichen, weeds from the greenhouses, and whatever other vegetation we could find.
Layfe and I checked the Tok pupas several times every day, but there was no change. After three days of waiting, we were both on pins and needles. What if they didn’t emerge? What if the furnace room was too warm? Or too dry?
Finally, on the fifth day, we were working in the greenhouse, and Layfe heard Botto’s summons. “Come on, Ettie—it’s time!”
We dropped our baskets filled with green beans and raced to the dormitory furnace room.
Botto lay panting on the concrete floor. Her gills fluttered from her recent effort, her skin glistened with moisture.
Vox’s pupae had a long horizontal split in it, and I could see his back pulsing gently as he pushed himself clear of the stiff leathery husk. I wanted to help him, but didn’t dare interfere. With a final effort, Vox shoved himself out and away from the stiff outer covering. Blindly, he struggled to untangle his folded limbs, and when he touched my hand, suddenly he was in my mind again. I gasped with relief.
“’Ello, Etta. I am ’ere. What do you think?”
“Oh my God, you can speak!” Not clearly, but understandably, and their speech was undeniably English.
Layfe and I could hardly believe it. The other kids crowded into the cramped furnace room, eager to say “’ello” and touch their caramel-colored skin, so like ours.
They looked so different. For one thing, they had faces.
Each had evolved a somewhat triangularly-shaped head, a proper human jaw, and two auditory slits where ears might be perched atop a single thick neck stalk about three inches long. New eyelids framed their beautiful brown eyes, and while not particularly expressive, their faces appeared undeniably humanoid.
They’d also developed a trunk-like, golden-brown torso; rigid enough to allow them an erect posture. Their hindmost legs had lengthened and jointed in places that mimicked our human legs. Their leg joints and proportions at the hip, knee, ankle, and ball of the foot mirrored those of us kids. Twenty minutes after emerging from their old husks, they could walk on their hind legs. Both
Vox and Botto stood about as tall as a three-year-old child. Their two middle pairs of appendages dangled shrunken and useless from the sides of their torso, while their first pair of appendages jutted from their shoulders and ended in a rubbery, two-fingered pincer.
I sent Simon to get Father Isaac and the adults, and we all trooped out into the courtyard to see what the Tok could do with their new bodies.
They could do a lot.
They could run and climb and walk almost as well as we could. When Father Isaac and the others arrived, they were just as astonished as we had been. No one in Dominion Colony could possibly believe that the Tok were lapids anymore.
Father Isaac spoke to them and they were able to understand and answer him. They readily asserted their names, and demonstrated their obvious intelligence by answering as many questions as quickly as Father Isaac and the others could ask them. It felt great to finally be believed, even as I realized what being believed might mean for the Tok.
Some of the adults, like Mother Jean, seemed openly hostile, while Father Isaac appeared overly concerned about the rest of the “Tok Horde” as he called it.
In particular, he asked about what kind of ships and weapons the Tok possessed, what kind of technology they possessed, whether or not they planned to invade Hesperidee, and what they wanted from us.
“Tok cannot answer all ’uman questions at this stage,” Vox answered. “Botto and Vox not yet adult Tok. When Botto and Vox emerge from final pupal stage, we will be fully adult and able to communicate with Tok universal mind. Only then will we be able to summon our people to return for us. Only then will we ’ave answers to the questions you ask.”
This caused a stir among the adults, and I began to get nervous. Father Isaac didn’t seem to notice. He wanted to know more about their biology and adult forms.
“Tok can adapt to any form,” Vox said. “We chose ’uman form to improve communication with ’umans. We ’ear now to improve communication with ’umans. We change our form to match ’umans.”
Writers of the Future Volume 31 Page 10
