Overture (Earth Song) (56 page)

“
Please,” Kadru whispered and pulled the trigger. Volant’s gun fell from his hand and he fell over backwards with a bloody hole between his eyes.

“
Thank you, Vishnu,” she said and let her own gun fall into her lap. Mindy finally freed herself from the rope and ran to her.

“
Good God,” she said to the horribly wounded woman. She grabbed a discarded lab coat nearby and pressed it to the most grievous wound, the one spewing blood from her neck. “I don’t know who you are, but thanks!”

“
If you see Detective Harper in Heaven, tell him thank you for everything he did for us,” she said and closed her eyes. The flow of blood had stopped. Mindy let her gently slip to the metal floor and stood back up. A clipboard fell from a counter nearby making her jump to her feet in surprise. Then a table a few feet away gave a rattle and jump. “What-” she started to ask when the floor gave a hard bump. On the dais her stack of crates teetered dangerously.

Mindy
looked at her watch and screamed. The shock wave was there. She ran for the dais. The Earth gave a great shuddering groan. She took the steps two at a time, grabbing the rope as she passed and looping it over an arm; she dove through the Portal just as the rolling mega quake slammed into the dome.

The
rope went taut and jerked her to a stop, almost dislocating her shoulder. She could see the rope running from her arm through to Portal to Earth where it was still tied to the crates but it had come no farther through than the end of her arm.

She
gave it an experimental tug then let it go where it hovered in space. Billy came up behind her and looked at her bloody hands. “Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes wide. “It’s been several minutes, I was getting worried.” She could see that a half-dozen men surrounded her on the dais, all watching the swaying crates on the other side of the Portal.

“
I’m fine,” she said, “but the rope gag is a bust.” He just nodded his head and put his arms around her, the relief etched into his face.

“
I was so afraid we'd lost you. We can make it without that stuff,” he said. She sighed and reluctantly nodded her head. They all watched the other side as the crates suddenly jumped as if they were being bounced on a trampoline.

“
The shock wave is hitting,” she said simply. The crates were hit by the violent ground tremors yet again and tipped toward the Portal. Everyone backed up, hoping they were about to get lucky and that they would tumble through the Portal. An instant later they began to fall in the other direction. “Damn,” Mindy moaned.

Then
crates suddenly stopped their fall and reversed. Caught by some invisible force they began spilling through the Portal until it suddenly swirled and closed. The time limit was up.

“
What the hell was that?” Billy gawked.

The
answer stumbled through the Portal a moment later. Leo Skinner waddled through carrying a surprising number of crates. Mindy gasped, she'd completely forgotten about him after he'd given her the gun. He fell to his knees as soon as he crossed over, gasping with the effort. “I hope this helps a little,” he said as he gulped the strange tasting alien air.

“
Some,” Mindy admitted, “I guess you got to go after all.”

“
I hope I can eventually earn that.” She nodded and held out a hand to help him up. 

Back
on Earth the dome was shattered by an incredibly violent shock wave. The dome disintegrated and the crowd cried out as the concrete pieces fell to reveal the outside morning. There was a quick vista of the New York City skyline being heaved into the air at a wild angle, buildings tumbling and colliding like dominoes before the Portal on the other side hit something.

Chunks
of concrete and other debris flew through the still functioning Portal, making everyone yell and jump off the dais. A garbage can sailed over Mindy’s head and Mark Volant's dead body cartwheeled past the view.

“
Get back!” yelled the military commander as the now wildly spinning Portal encountered even more debris. Several more chunks of concrete flew through the Portal, and miraculously an equipment crate marked with Mindy's green tag, before the weight limit was exceeded and the things started bouncing off the other side. A second later, a fire truck slammed headlong into the Portal. The impact sent the Portal soaring high into the sky. There was one more brief view, the Portal now a thousand feet in the air looking down toward the Earth. A vast jagged canyon was visible, spreading across the landscape and devouring Manhattan. The rivers themselves were being thrown up into the air as the continental shelf was propelled upwards, spewing red hot lava from the Earth’s depths.

Then
it was over. The Portal swirled and shut down to show only the view of their new world. Mindy looked around her realizing for the first time there were tears in her eyes. Many of those around her were crying as well, some on their knees praying or just sobbing in grief at their lost world. Many of the younger children were asking questions while the older ones were shaking their heads and crying. No one said anything for a great long time. What was there to say after watching the death of five billion people?

“
Well,” Lt. Col. Dan Wilson finally spoke, “I guess that’s it.” He made his way to Mindy and held out his hand. “I’m Lieutenant Colonel- no, that’s not right. I’m Dan Wilson, and I guess I should welcome you to Ft. Eden. You're not the kind of colonists we were expecting.”

“
The plans were changed,” Mindy said with a twinkle in her eye.

“
I can see that.”

Leo
Skinner stepped forward and shook the Colonel’s hand. “It’s just the way it worked out,” he said and shrugged. 

Wilson
nodded his head. “Okay, not much else to be said, I guess. We’ve been doing our best to get things ready for you. Unfortunately, due to the local animal life we’re a tad behind schedule.” On cue, there was a distant roar from a pair of fighting Komodo sloths. Many of the new arrivals gasped and began asking excited questions. “Nothing to worry about at the moment, please remain calm. I know you must all have a million questions to ask but right now I have to put as many of you to work as possible.” There were military medics helping the wounded police already and still more soldiers were piling up the vast number of crates that made it through.

He
looked around at Leo and scratched his head. “Which one of you is in charge?”

“
She is,” Billy said and pointed to Mindy. Leo nodded and before she could say a word there was a gathering wave of head nods quickly followed by applause. In moments, all the adults and many of the children were applauding as well.

“
No, no, I’m just an astronomer, I’m no president, or mayor!” she complained.

“
They say you’re in charge,” Wilson said and came closer.

“
You don’t understand,” she complained, “leadership is not my cup of tea.”

“
What you don’t understand is that leadership is no one’s cup of tea until they practice.” He leaned close to her and spoke quietly. “These people have just been through a traumatic situation. They’ve chosen you to be their leader. You can say no, there’s nothing I can do about that. But if the civilians don’t have a leader, I’ll be forced to run things, and I’ll run it like a military unit. I know from experience that is a disaster waiting to happen. So unless we want to sit here playing good democrats and vote for a new leader, you’re it until further notice. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

“
Crystal,” she said as she stood up tall and steeled her resolve. Looks like a nap would have to wait. “First chance I get we’re having an election so I can get out of the way.”

“
Fine, but for now you’re it.” She nodded her head. “Good, now here’s the situation.” Mindy listened to his report for several minutes. At some point, someone pushed a paper and pencil into her hands and later food and drink was provided. By the time night was approaching, the survivors were organized into work assignments and provided temporary tents. She'd sat in on at least a dozen briefings to explain the situation on Bellatrix to the scared and confused survivors.

Long
after the rest of the colonists drifted off to bed, Mindy was still up with Wilson, his second in command, Leo Skinner, and the two scientists who'd been on Bellatrix for weeks. They were working out the details of how life was to proceed. Finally, as the dark face of Romulus, the larger of two moons named by the soldiers, rose over the horizon she stumbled to the small tent she’d been provided. A tiny solar lantern, one of her picks, glowed inside where Billy was using a computer to read a copy of the Foxfire book. As she crawled in he rolled over and looked at her, his eyes gleaming in the glow of the lantern.

“
How did it go?” he asked.

“
It’s going to be rough going for a while,” she said and kissed him warmly. The evening was chilly but the high-tech tent was cozy, especially with her snuggly hubby to lie next to. “I think we’re going to manage. Most of the good carb-yielding plants we have from Earth seem to be taking to the native soil. We’ll have to wait for the chickens to see how that works.”

“
I meant your first day as a world leader.” She snorted and he laughed. “Really, I’m proud of you. I guess this makes me the First Man?”

“
It makes you my husband,” she said and folded into his arms with a sigh. “I’m taking off the leadership hat first chance I get.”

“
I don’t blame you a bit. I’m sure with my extensive skills, I’ll be swinging an ax to make a living.”

“
You might be surprised,” she said and nodded toward the computer, “you have the right idea. You know that scientist who came over, Gibson? Well, he was hatching a clutch of those monster lizards!”

“
You're kidding, right?”

“
Wish I was.”

Billy
shook his head. “What did you do about it?”

“
Funny thing happened. A beam collapsed a few minutes ago and crushed them all. Accident, you know how it goes.”

“
Oh, you'll be a fine leader, wife of mine.”

She
gave him a cockeyed look and he laughed before kissing her and turning out the lantern. Howlers and roaring lizards weren't enough to keep her awake one more minute.

Hundreds
of millions of miles away, the asteroid’s shock wave traveled around the globe with unbelievable speed. Billions of human beings died in minutes. On an office rooftop in a city known as Portland, Jake Channely stood by himself near a small group of his fellow office workers and watched as the asteroid shot by overhead like God arc welding the Heavens. Now as the glow from the impact faded, a mountain of water bore down on them at hundreds of miles per hour. Death was painless.

“I resist calling this a thanksgiving,” Mindy said from where she stood at the head of the biggest table, “for we have all lost too much. Where to start? Countless billions on Earth and much of the knowledge that they had accumulated? We also mourn those lost since we arrived.” All heads bowed to the stone monument erected a few yards away by the palisade exit. “Eight brave men, five valiant women, and one unlucky child left our numbers. One man was lost to an illness none of us could figure out, and that was a frightening time living in fear of an alien organism. Those seven men fell to the kloths during the migration before last winter. Their sacrifices saved all of those who had been in the fields. One of the women died in childbirth, and four just couldn't live with our fate and took their own lives.”

There
was a long moment of head bowed silence around the tables before she continued. “But we do have things to be thankful for. We are still here, one year later, and stronger in number than before.” Around the table, dozens of men and women bounced babies on their knees. Those that had been born in the weeks after their arrival were already learning to walk and talk on an alien world they would never think was anything but normal. “We can be thankful that only one baby was lost, and that one a stillbirth, but sad nonetheless. Even though our medical supplies are waning, we are beginning to find interesting local cures. Our crops are struggling as we’re making new inroads. We are not only managing to survive, we are pushing forward.” There was polite applause.

“
And finally, we give thanks for our friends,” she said and gestured to a place at her right. Two men in unmistakable Israeli Defense Force uniforms nodded to her and smiled, “who arrived earlier this week with offers of aid and an alliance. That arrival put the idea of this celebration in my head. It is a new beginning we have on this anniversary, which is why the tables are covered with only foods of our new world. So join me in welcoming them to our table with a round of applause.”

Mindy
stood and shook hands with them for everyone to see, big smiles all around. The Israeli tribes, as they called themselves, lived a little more than a hundred kilometers away. They'd spent the last two days discussing how the two groups could join forces. The Israeli lived in an arid and exposed location; to them the plateau looked like a paradise.

The
IDF men moved off to meet many of the other people who lived on the plateau while Mindy took a deep breath of relief. She hated speaking in public.

“
Not bad for someone who didn’t want to be a leader,” Billy said. She gave him a sour look and moved closer. He was one of those bouncing a baby on his knee. Their daughter, Elisia, had been born six months ago. Mindy had been wondering what was going on with her body in those final hectic days on Earth. Too much going on, not enough time to figure it out. Elisia had been born almost a month premature, but she'd come along fine and weighed more than twenty pounds now. Luckily, for kids born on Bellatrix, women came equipped with everything babies needed for the first couple years of life. By comparison, the adults were having a much harder time.

“
Oh shut up and gimme that baby,” she said and snatched Elisia from his arms. She spun the little dark-haired baby around and pulled her into a hug, giggling all the way. Being a mother certainly had its advantages. The little girl giggled and cooed. Billy stood and joined in a warm, loving family hug which only ended when Wilson got her attention.

“
Sorry to interrupt, Governor, but the Israeli representatives want to talk about our kloth control measures.”

“
Certainly, Captain,” she said and he grinned. He’d been the one to suggest a new rank for himself shortly after the colonists’ arrival. “Doesn’t make much sense to call myself a Lieutenant Colonel when I’m only in charge of fifteen men,” he’d said, and it made sense. So he’d accepted a reduction in rank, and command of their meager military forces. It turned out the Israeli were still organized around a military command structure and they were interested in the plateau’s form of self-rule and how it was working for them. They also had considerably more weapons and ammunition than the Americans, something Mindy’s people were running low on. The kloth were a constant problem. She hoped the two groups together could come up with a more permanent solution for the lizards.

“
Sorry,” she said to Elisia and Billy both, “duty calls.” He took their daughter gratefully and Mindy headed to where the two Israeli men were inspecting the palisade that now circled the entire settlement. As she headed that way, they passed the Portal where it sat quietly. Mindy had tried a dozen times to reactivate the artifact, but nothing she did caused the slightest reaction.

“
Your defenses are quite impressive,” the Israeli commander told her as he approached. “Of course we have something similar, but not nearly this strong. The kloth as you call them are not common in our territory.”

“
They’ve taken several lives since we arrived so we had to take strong measures. The swamps you came through to get here surround the plateau and are the biggest kloth breeding grounds we have found. The grasslands around our plateau are lousy with the big, lazy tuck, the lizards the kloth eat. We might as well be in the center of a big all-you-can-eat buffet.”

The
tour continued for a time and eventually led back to the banquet tables. A small group of colonists had retrieved musical instruments from their huts and struck up an impromptu band. Mindy smiled to see her people laughing and dancing to the music. This little get together had been a good idea.

“
As I mentioned,” the IDF man said, “we’ve had contact with those who came through the South American and Japanese Portals. It would be worth our time to try and find out how many humans are here now.”

“
I have to agree. And no word from the Russians our people heard on the radio months ago?” Mindy could see the milky white dais of the Portal in the corner of her eye.
Will the Avatars come back some day?
She wondered. Nearby a group of older children was enjoying being up late into the evening by having a mock war. Instead of toy guns as they might have used on Earth, these children had turned sticks into swords to fight their battles. What will they find if they do come back? There were no answers for her questions, so she turned to rejoin the celebration.