Homicidal Aliens and Other Disappointments (13 page)

“Yeah,” I say.

“Anyway,” she says, “what’s the worst that could happen? The aliens get angry and want to kill us.” She laughs.

“I suppose the worst would be we all die during the raid,” I can’t help pointing out.

“Another thing you shouldn’t say to the recruits,” she says.

I look over the crowd again for Lauren, but I don’t see her. I see Catlin talking to Zelda and Zack. I watch her for a few seconds, then look away.

“Why did you say ‘oh’ like that when I said Lauren doesn’t have much talent?” I ask Sam.

No answer. I turn. No Sam.

The town meeting is almost as well attended as the one last night. It’s at the same time, so the sun has already slipped behind the mountains and the day has slipped away with it. Running Bird and Doc are at the front again. I walk over to where Catlin and the others are.

“I’ve saved a seat for you,” Zack says a bit louder than necessary, like he hopes other people will overhear. He acts like I’m a celebrity. And he’s not the only one. I can feel other people looking at me the same way Zack does. But none of them are seeing me. They’re seeing something they hope I am.

Doc announces news of New America. He kind of makes a point of calling it that. Mary Sanchez had her baby. The community garden is going well. The search parties charged with looking for farm animals have good news: two roosters have been found.

“We don’t need the boys,” a woman says. “We need the girls. We need some huevos rancheros.”

Laughter. You’d think no one would be able to laugh anymore, but you’d be wrong. People find ways. It’s one of the things about people that is a good surprise.

Doc promises that we’ll have hens before the end of the month. I can’t help thinking that we may not be here — or anywhere — by the end of the month. These thoughts are never far away, though I’m glad I’m at least able to shield them now. I guess they exist side by side with the laughter here at the end of the world.

Then it’s time for open discussion. The woman whose tent is next to the snorer is first, and she gets pretty worked up about the need for a good night’s sleep and how the roosters will just make this harder.

“We already have the loudest snorer in the world,” she says. “Something needs to be done.”

The snorer follows her and offers a rebuttal. He talks about freedom and individual rights. He considers his tent his property, and he believes his right to snore in his tent is protected under the Constitution. I’m not all that familiar with the Constitution, but I’m pretty sure there’s no right-to-snore amendment. The snorer ends by saying, “Give me liberty or give me death,” which isn’t the smartest thing in the world to say to a woman who looks like the choice would be an easy one for her.

Then Lauren has her turn. She stands and says that the snorer’s comments have made her think that we, in New America, should consider a new constitution. Then she tells the rebels about SAF and the New Bloods Club, and she says I will explain some reasons why SAF is so important.

Because of my training session this afternoon, I didn’t have time to memorize the script Lauren gave me. But I don’t need a script to know why I think staying and fighting is the best — the
only
— option. “Look,” I say, “I know that running away sounds tempting. But do you really think there’s anywhere we could hide where the aliens wouldn’t find us eventually? We all know how powerful they are. To be honest, we may die no matter what we do. I’d rather die fighting.” I sit down. There’s an uncomfortable silence.

Lauren’s eyes remind me of one of my favorite old martial-arts movies,
Daggers of Death.
I can hear her thinking how I’m totally messing up the presentation and how I should have stuck to the script.

Dylan jumps up on the stage and looks out over the crowd as if it’s assembled just to come and hear him speak. “The New Blood is wrong. We don’t have to die. Make me your leader, and I will lead you to safety.”

Lauren jumps up on the stage, too. It’s getting kind of crowded up there. Just before she says what she’s about to say, I hear her say it in my mind. I consider rushing the stage to stop her, but I don’t. Maybe it’s right that everyone should know. Maybe Lauren’s right. She says, “Dylan is wrong. There are more aliens coming. Millions more. My friends and I met an alien smuggler who told us this, and Jesse had a dream and saw them. Millions. They’re a few weeks away, but they’re coming.”

There’s an explosion of voices, both mindspeak and vocal. “Millions?”
Millions?
They’re frightened and angry, and the sharpness of their feelings gives the air a quiver.

“All the more reason for us to find a safe place now!” Dylan shouts above the noise. “We can’t fight millions.”

People are asking Doc if this is true, if there are millions more aliens coming.

“What is true,” he says, “is that the newcomers have been told by an alien that more aliens are coming. What is true is that Jesse had a dream that seemed to support this statement. But other than the dream and the word of an alien, we have no verification of this information. Can we rely on the word of an alien?”

It’s the first time I’ve seen the politician Doc. He’s good.

“But if he’s right,” someone says, “and millions more are coming, then what do we do?”

There’s the pop of nerves everywhere, anxiety crackling in the air.
What do we do? What do we do?

Dylan says, “It doesn’t matter if they’re coming or not. Enough are here that we can’t stay. We know we’re being hunted. We stay here, and we die. I say we live. We hide. We survive. We keep alive so that one day our sons and daughters may fight.”

“We can’t,” I whisper.

Desperation ripples through the crowd, and not even my strongest shield can protect me from the sheer force of it. So then I try to tell them what I told Doc and Running Bird about the possibility of the settlers not settling here. I try to say this is our chance. We’ve got to stop them somehow.

They listen, but they’re too afraid to see this as hopeful. I can’t really blame them.

“
That’s
our best shot?” a strangled voice calls.

We need to run and hide!
A lot of people are mindspeaking this.
Run and hide.

Running Bird calls all the minds to him, and they obey. His voice is so loud that it’s hard not to. It’s weird: sometimes Running Bird seems like a total joke, and sometimes he seems like the most powerful person in New America. “The Chosen One is saying that the first way and the second way, the fighting and the running, will not save us. He’s saying there is a third way.”

I am?
I thought I was saying we were screwed either way — more or less. Better to fight and probably die than run and probably die was what I thought I was saying.

Running Bird mindspeaks just to me.
Keep quiet, Warrior Boy.

The third way catches on immediately with the crowd. It’s a big hit. I can feel the anger and confusion take on a different hue. The Warrior Spirit is leading the Chosen One with a third way. This is just the kind of thing the Warrior Spirit would do. Yes.

There’s no third way,
I mindspeak to Running Bird.

Maybe you don’t know what you know. Maybe the Spirit hasn’t revealed it to you yet.

Maybe I don’t know what I know, but I know what I
don’t
know, and I don’t know a third way. Still, I keep quiet.

“What is the third way?” someone asks.

“He cannot tell us yet,” Running Bird says. “The Spirit is not ready for him to reveal all.”

You’d think people would see right through this and call him on it. But they don’t. They want to believe. They need to.

Someone prays that the Chosen One gets the information soon before more are killed. I hear amens all over the crowd.

A lot of people look at me with hope. Lauren and Dylan look displeased — or, more accurately, disgusted.

My eyes seek out Catlin. She alone looks at me with sympathy. Only Catlin seems to know how I feel without my saying a word.

As soon as the meeting is adjourned, I rush off into the dark to get away from all those voices. All that want and need. No matter what Running Bird says, I can’t save these people.

But there’s one person I
can
save. I’ve been going back and forth and back and forth about it. Is this the choice that the man at the circus foresaw or remembered or whatever? Do I take the chance that Michael — irritating ex-jock, fellow former slave, best friend Michael — is really alive and try to save him, or do I do the smart and safe thing and stay where I am? Is this the choice?

I hide out in my tent for a few hours, ignoring the gentle “knocks” and whispers from people wanting to talk to me, including Lauren and Zack, until the camp is quiet. I wait until they’re all tucked away in their tents. Slowly, I unzip my tent flap and crawl outside. The air is chilly. I reach back inside to get a jacket.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Lauren says. I didn’t hear her unzipping her tent, but there she stands.

Just then, Catlin comes up the trail. She looks beautiful in the moonlight — both of them look beautiful. It’s an odd thought for that particular moment, but what can I say? Sometimes a girl in the moonlight or girls in the moonlight will trump everything.

Catlin doesn’t look startled to see us, and I’m happy to see her because now I won’t have to find her.

“I’m going to go get Michael,” I tell Lauren.

“No, you aren’t,” Lauren says. “You can’t.”

“Actually, I can.”

“We’re hanging on by a thread here. You can’t be so selfish.”

“He’s my best friend. If there’s even a chance he’s alive, I’ve got to go. Maybe I’m even supposed to go.”

“First of all,” Lauren says, “that’s total crap. You’re supposed to be here helping us organize this group. Anyway, you can’t even be sure it was him. It was just a dream. Or maybe some kind of hypnotic trance Running Bird forced on you. Second, you remember how long it took to drive here? You’d be gone half a week even if you managed to get there and back, which is unlikely. Third, these people are counting on you. SAF is counting on you. We have to focus on that.”

“I’m not going to drive to Austin,” I say.

This stops Lauren, who, I think, is about to launch into an even longer explanation of what I can and can’t do.

Catlin smiles. “You were coming to get me, weren’t you? You need me to fly you.”

“Maybe,” I say.

Lauren frowns at both of us. “Those ships belong to New America.”

“Technically, I helped steal the one today,” I say. “I think I’m entitled to one night’s use. We can be back by morning.”

“You can’t do this.”

“It’s Michael we’re talking about,” I say. “We can’t leave him.”

“Michael is just one person. You have to think about everyone here now. They look to you for leadership. I can help. I can help you lead them. We’ll do it together. But first you have to see that you have a responsibility to the whole group. One person is just one person, no matter who he or she is.”

Maybe I’m not suited to leadership, because one person is not just one person to me. Michael is not just another person.

I can see what Lauren’s about to do. I have an image of it, like I’ve stepped a few moments into the future. In that future, she screams. She wakes up the camp to prevent me from leaving. Or she will.

I don’t have time to wonder how I manage to step ahead in time, or if it’s even possible to prevent something that’s already happened — already written in the book, Running Bird would say. I just react.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“For what?” Lauren says.

I’m as gentle as I can be, but I do it fast. I put her to sleep. I’m not even sure I can do it until I do. I rush to catch her and end up mostly breaking her fall by letting her fall on top of me.

So if all is/was/will be written in the Big Book of Time or the Universe or whatever, then how did I change what was written? Unless it was written that I would change what was written. Confusing. Not so confusing is that Lauren is a heavy body of unconscious flesh fallen on top of me.

“A little help,” I say.

Catlin helps me move Lauren. We get her back in her tent and into her sleeping bag. When we’re outside again, I ask, “So are you going with me?”