Alien Nation #1 - The Day of Descent (55 page)

The Overseer knew he had been recognized. It was obvious from the arrogant way he ignored the crowd that chanted at him. But George could see that his nerve was about to break and—

Sure enough, T’ksam began to run. But at the same exact instant, the uniformed human reached for him and pulled a bundle of old clothes from under the Overseer’s arm.

The bundle of clothes unraveled. A dark device fell to the ground.

It was something from the ship.

“What is it?” Susan asked, pressing closer to George.

“I . . . I don’t know,” George said.

But someone did. The cry went up like a plea to the heavens.

“It’s a beacon!” “A ship’s beacon!” “They can call the fleet with it!”

“A beacon!”

Hundreds of hands shook the fence in terror, trying to tear it down. George looked down the fence to see if it would be possible to get around the unfinished end. But there were armed human guards there, already coming this way to see what the disturbance was.

The uniformed human said something unintelligible and bent to pick up the beacon. T’ksam moved swiftly and kicked him hard. The human fell back.

The crowd moaned. T’ksam scooped the beacon up from the ground.

George held his breath. Amazingly, the human was getting up to face T’ksam again.

“Maybe he
isn’t
an Overseer,” Susan said hesitantly.

“Then what could he be?” George asked.

“A fool,” an old male said, shaking his head. “The Overseer will split what little there is of his skull.”

Hundreds of hands still gripped at the fence. But now there was silence instead of chanting.

The human moved against T’ksam, far too slowly. T’ksam exploded in a standard quartet of
chekkah
blows.

The human wobbled back and forth, perhaps already dead, then fell back against the desert floor.

T’ksam stood over the human. He held the beacon aloft in victory.

The silent Tenctonese stood frozen behind the fence, helpless to change their fate.

The human tried to lift his head. He couldn’t even do that much.

The Overseer turned and began to walk toward the approaching human guards. George knew that if the humans didn’t use their weapons from a distance, they would not survive a hand-to-hand encounter with T’ksam.

It was not fair. To have gone through so much. To have had freedom so close, the bounty of a new world filled with beings who held out their hands to help without asking for anything in return—and now to know that it had all been lost before it had truly been gained.

George felt he was back at the table. He heard the
wojchek
spinning. But this time he wanted to live. He had so much to live for. All his people did.

The human got up.

“George, look,” Susan said.

The human began walking unsteadily after T’ksam.

“He is dead already,” someone whispered.

The human began to run, his pace gaining in strength with each stride. The silver badge on his chest blazed with the purity of the planet’s sun. George heard the human cry out, and though he knew little English he knew that the cry was inarticulate.

The human was possessed. He cried out with such force that it was almost as if he knew what it was to be a helpless slave himself.

The crowd gasped in awe as the human tackled T’ksam and threw him to the ground.

T’ksam had whirled to see the last moment of the attack but had stared in disbelief at the charging human.

No one attacked an Overseer
twice.
No one.

The human was on top of T’ksam, pounding fist after fist against his face.

The crowd was absolutely still. What they were seeing was unthinkable.

With one blow T’ksam knocked the human from him, then leapt quickly to his feet. The human stood up, too, though more slowly. The Overseer threw the beacon onto the ground and moved toward the human, bent over, spitting hatred in a foul string of words.

In the language of the Tenctonese he called the human “cargo.”

“Stangya,” Susan asked, “is it possible that he is just an . . . ordinary human?”

George didn’t know. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the spectacle of courage—or foolishness, he didn’t know which—that he and the rest of the crowd were witnessing.

T’ksam lunged. The human dropped to the ground. The Overseer sailed over him, and the human jumped up again, shouldering T’ksam into an uncontrolled fall.

In the low gravity of this world, the arc of T’ksam’s trajectory was clearly longer than he had anticipated, and he overcompensated and smashed headfirst into the dirt.

The crowd gasped and then cheered, raggedly at first, and then the cheers increased in strength until it sounded as if there were thousands pressed against the fence.

The human bent over the Overseer. He kicked him in the side. “Yes!” George said. “He knows about the nexus!” Kick after kick rained against the Overseer, and all T’ksam could do was lie there with his arms at his side to protect his sensitive nerve clusters.

The crowd screamed in amazement.

Then the Overseer’s arms flopped at his sides. His head rolled into the dirt. It was impossible. But the human had
won.

The crowd called out its thanks to Andarko and Celine and Ionia and a host of other holy names. What they had witnessed could only be a miracle. There was no other explanation.

The human looked hurt, but he was still standing. Some of the crowd called out to him, pointing frantically to the beacon lying in the desert sand. The human understood. He limped over to the beacon and picked it up. The crowd called out to him to throw it to them. He hefted it in his hand. George couldn’t read his alien features to tell what he was thinking.

Human voices shouted. The guards had almost arrived.

The crowd cried out as one in warning.

T’ksam was back on his feet, lurching toward the human.

The human understood the warning and wheeled to face the Overseer.

George couldn’t breathe. Surely the human was exhausted. He couldn’t withstand another attack.

The human braced himself for T’ksam’s charge. But as the human moved to protect himself from a repeat of the
chekkah
quartet of blows, T’ksam changed his attack and grabbed the human’s arm, lifted it high, then made a killing fist and howled with the sound of death.

The crowd cried out their horror. They knew what was going to happen. The killing fist. The human was lost.

The Overseer struck. He swung his fist in against the nexus under the human’s arm—not powerfully, but perfectly aimed to hit just those nerves that could cause the hearts to falter in their rhythm.

The fist struck.

The crowd groaned. The chain-link fence swayed with their anguish.

The human hung there, supported by the Overseer’s powerful grip.

Then the human turned to look at the Overseer’s fist in his ribs. Then he turned to look at the Overseer.

The Overseer’s spots paled in fear, and George knew why. The human had survived the death blow.

George’s spots puckered. He could feel the shudder that moved through the crowd as everyone else’s spots did the same thing.

What manner of creature was this being?

Then the human drew back his free arm, and with the beacon firmly in his fist he smashed T’ksam directly in the face.

Pink blood sprayed out from the Overseer’s nose, and he collapsed facedown in the dirt of the planet.

It was as if the heavens themselves had burst, so loud were the delirious cries of joy from the crowd.

The human swayed but managed to keep his footing. George was fascinated.

“Look, Oblakah, he is injured. That means he has
not
been blessed by the gods.”

The human looked at the beacon in his hand. He swept his eyes across the crowd calling out for it. The guards were only a few feet away, closing fast.

“Then he
is
just an ordinary human,” Susan whispered.

The human’s eyes met George’s. George felt his spots almost wither. The human’s eyes were so alien, so unreadable, and yet . . . there was something in them that George almost understood. As if the creature were about to make a decision.

He wondered if the human could recognize anything in his own Tenctonese eyes. He wondered if two different beings from two different worlds could ever span the gulf between them and their people.

The human glanced away toward the guards. They were almost on him. Then he looked back at George and did something odd. He nodded his head at George, just once. George was certain it was a deliberate gesture, but what its significance was he had no time to consider. Because an instant after, the human pitched the beacon into the air.

The crowd fell silent with a collective gasp. The fate of the Tenctonese and the humans combined spun up against the eerily blue sky. It glittered in the alien sunlight. And it fell perfectly into George’s outstretched hands.

Shouting, the guards surged past the human and ran toward the fence. George’s hands closed tightly around the beacon. It was too large to pull back through the mesh, but George knew he had only moments to act—the humans were obsessed with anything from the ship. He returned the odd gesture to the human, nodding just once. The human’s face broke into a broad smile. Whatever the meaning of the gesture, George felt a sudden connection between them. He found himself hoping it was a good sign for whatever the future held.

Then George slammed the beacon to the ground, close to the fence’s edge. At once the force of a dozen hands tore the mesh from the sandy soil, and the beacon vanished into the crowd. George heard the sweet sound of the beacon’s destruction as it was smashed into fragments no bigger than the dust of the desert.

“No, Oblakah,” George said in wonder. “He is not ordinary.”

The human shouted something at the guards as they gathered around him. He took special care to brush the dust from his uniform. He adjusted the silver badge he wore and gave it a wipe with his sleeve until it appeared as if a second star blazed from his chest.

“Look at the costume he is wearing,” George said. “And that badge of honor on his chest. I don’t know what he is, Susan, but whatever he is on this planet, that is what I shall become.” He felt Susan looking up at him as his people crowded all around in joy, calling out to the human, blessing him to the stars. “Whatever that costume is, I shall wear it. And whatever acts it takes to earn that shield upon his chest, I shall undertake them myself.”

“To thank this world for what it has given us?” Susan asked, smiling lovingly at him, understanding as always.

“Yes,” George said as the human walked away. “And because it is my choice.”

A few moments later, two human guards arrived to clear away the excited, joyful crowd inside the fence and search for whatever might be left of the artifact that had been thrown at the fence.

But there was nothing left to find.

M
OODRI GAZED DOWN
at his great-nephew and gently touched the focus points on the child’s chest and neck that would bring him back from sleep.

Buck woke instantly. Confused but alert. He asked his great-uncle where they were.

“In what the humans call a
hospital,
” Moodri said. “Like the ship’s infirmary, only larger.”

Buck tried to move his arm, and Moodri saw the surprise on Buck’s face as he realized his arm had been encased in a chunk of white rock.

“Not to worry, Finiksa. They don’t know how to treat broken bones, but they’re quick learners. I have great faith in them.”

Buck lay back upon his pillow with a sigh, and Moodri could sense the pain and fear the child felt. He had done what was necessary, he had done what his own hearts had said he must, but the burden was too great for a child. He had seen too much death, experienced too much loss. In time, perhaps, he could deal with his actions, but not now.

Moodri touched his knuckles to Buck’s temples, preparing to give him a great gift—something no one among his people had had for almost a century: a childhood. The spinning crystal was in his robes, ready to be used again. But there was something else to do first.

“Open your hand, Finiksa. I have something for you.”

Buck did as he was told. Moodri dropped a pebble into his hand.

“What is it?” Buck asked.

“The name of this world.”

“You know what it is?”

“We all know it. We have known it in our hearts since our journey began.”

Buck waited patiently, as if he knew that there was no more need to hurry. That everything would be all right.

“In the language that they speak here, this world is called
Earth
.”

Buck repeated it. It made his tongue tickle to say it.

Moodri smiled. “It has other names as well, in other languages. Older languages. But
Earth
will do for now.”

“Earth,” Buck said. Moodri could see he was comforted by the sound. But the comfort left him as he remembered. “What about the beacons? What about—”

“Shhh,” Moodri said. “The beacons have been destroyed.” There was no reason to tell the child about the fourth beacon, still somewhere in the desert where it had been ejected. The humans had cooperated in setting up a strict quarantine zone. In time the final beacon’s power would fade. It would not be a threat. In time.

Moodri closed his hand around his great-nephew’s fist, making the pebble safe. An entire world in the hand of a child. Right where it belonged.

“Aim see terrata yas rifym vacwa vots tla,”
Moodri said. May the Earth stay firmly under your feet. It was the first prayer of the new world.

Buck looked up at him searchingly. “Does that mean we’re going to stay here?”

“Yes,” Moodri said. “We are home.”

I
T WAS LATE
. The hospital was still. There was only the sound of the nitrogen misters, still humming from the room where Susan and Emily slept.

Vessna gurgled in Buck’s arms. George reached out to her and gently traced a finger over her tiny spots.

“How long have you known?” George asked.