Quarantined Planet (4 page)

Saucer City appears tiny from the hillside of wilted forest the Back-to-Earthers call home. Forty or so outcasts have cobbled together a few metal structures from pieces of terraforming machines the Greys left behind
and clustered them among the dead trees.

Gordon helps Tivis Lowe, a fit, short black man in his forties, secure a door to one of the shelters. Like everyone on Gaea, Tivis is quite thin. He speaks with a deep, raspy voice. “If I graciously decline, will you hold it against me?”

“Look, T, I really need a proper co-pilot.” Gordon smiles, something he doesn’t do often. “Going to be tricky navigating that asteroid field.”

“And Carver’s allowing me back into the fold?”

“Well, now…no. Not exactly. It’s help us, or it’s the hole.”

“He’d put me away again? That son of a bitch.”

“Come on, Tivis. Listen, yeah? We’re an endangered species. We don’t have the luxury of staying divided.” They stop working on the troublesome shelter door.

“Well, the hole it is then. You expect Carver will do it himself or send that Irish prick out here?”

Prison, jail, the hole. He had spent a good share of time in all of them. Before his abduction, he’d clocked five years in New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center for insider trading. None of that bothered him.

“Look, you stubborn git, just come back with me and help us.”

Tivis drops a hand-made hammer and canters off into the forest. “Help you bail out a bunch of slates? You know how I feel about that.”

Gordon follows close behind. “No, no. It’s about us, T. We need what’s on that ship.”

“Good. Then retrieve it and let them rot, since they won’t take us home.”

“I’m still not convinced they have a choice in that matter.”

“Don’t tell me you believe that ‘Earth is gone’ nonsense. They saved us? Really?”

“Hell, I don’t know,” Gordon sighs. “How’s Jane?”

“Well, she’s…emaciated. Suicidal, you know? Like the rest of us.”

“Wasn’t she a nurse? She has medical experience, yeah?”

“No, Gordon. Don’t even start.”

“Look, I need your help. Both of you.”

“You need your head examined.”

“Tivis. It’d be the hole for her, too.”

Tivis stops cold.

There’s a path of downed trees up to where
Sephora
rests from Chloe’s sixth failed attempt at landing. Gordon is giving his ship a walk around inspection as the young woman runs up, holding her hand-bound ship’s manual. She and Gordon must yell to be heard above the low pulsing hum from
Sephora
’s anti-matter engine.

“What changed your mind?” he asks her.

“Guess I’m not the quitting kind.”

“Suit up quick and take the radio seat.”

The spark goes out of her eyes. “Radio?”

In
Sephora
’s flight deck, Nix is strapped down tight at a station behind Gordon’s chair, and Tivis occupies the co-pilot’s seat.

Jane Li, a pretty Chinese woman who celebrated her thirty-third birthday one day prior to her abduction, is busy securing small storage boxes at the rear of the cabin as Chloe enters.

“Hello, Chloe,” she says in her delicate and quiet way.

“Hi, Jane, nice to see you again,” Chloe responds before removing her
T
-shirt and pants. Nix is captivated as she, in skimpy underwear, retrieves her space suit from beneath a chair and puts it on. Tivis can’t help but look either until Jane glares at him.

The girl finally takes her place to the left and behind Tivis. Nix, directly opposite, continues to eyeball her for some time, but she avoids his gaze.

Gordon enters and doesn’t take long to settle into the pilot’s chair.
“Chloe, Jane, strap in.”

“Maybe you should leave your clothes off,” Tivis whispers over his shoulder to Chloe, “being a tease, you’re good at.”

“I get it—you don’t like me,” she says.

“If you could fly, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Knock it off,” Gordon tells them. “Let’s go.”

The craft lights up and lifts off, shooting straight up into the Gaean sky.

Sephora
slows and hovers near one of the troublesome gaps in the rock buster grid. Just beyond is the swirling, violent asteroid field surrounding Gaea. Normally, the Greys would have fixed any such issue with the protective field. Their absence has left everyone not only very hungry, but quite anxious as well.

There’s a moment of shock and awe across the faces of
Sephora
’s crew. “Wow, wow, wow,” is all Gordon can think to say.

“How are we ever gonna find this ship?” Nix questions. “I mean, its space. It’s…big.”

“Earl somehow calculated the course they take to get here,” Tivis explains. “I happen to know what it is.”

“So that’s why you’re here,” Chloe says.

“Not entirely,” he answers followed by a scowl in Gordon’s direction.

“I don’t understand,” Jane talks over him. “How do the big supply ships get through this?”

“They have big guns,” Nix says.

Gordon’s wrinkles deepen. “Everyone, shut it. Ready, T?”

“No,” Tivis responds without hesitation.

Sephora
’s engines ignite, and she nose dives straight into the asteroid field. The sleek ship zips in and around a cascade of space rocks, weaving from side to side through smaller stones
, clipping
a colossal ice ball. The jolt sends a box of tools crashing across
Sephora
’s flight deck.

Nix leaves his seat to look out a side porthole. “Holy Mamma.”

“Nix, sit down,” Jane implores.

“Damn it, Nix, strap in,” Gordon commands.

The young man ignores him while Tivis blurts out, “Go left.”

Sephora
, nearly blind-sided by a jagged boulder, swerves around others before reaching a bit of a clearing that allows Gordon a few seconds to catch his breath.

“This is insane,” Tivis wipes his brow.

“Guys,” Nix says with urgency. “Gordon! Move!”

Gordon and Tivis see the massive boulder coming their way.

Sephora
zings out of the rock’s path with a second or two to spare but is soon caught in another barrage of stone and ice. A couple of smaller fragments bounce off her hull.

Chloe gasps and Nix is tossed across the deck as
Sephora
makes a sharp turn. She zigzags over, under, and around more rocks, barely passing between two as they
scrape
together, pelting her hull with bits that sound like hail on a metal awning.

“We have to come back this way, you know,” Tivis says in his low, raspy way.

“I think they’re thinning out,” Gordon observes.

And just like that, the space ahead is mostly clear with only an occasional and easily-avoidable rock visible out
Sephora
’s forward windows.

“Bloody hell,” Gordon sighs.

There’s a few seconds of silence while everyone gathers their wits, and then Nix pipes up with, “That didn’t seem so bad, actually.”

The man’s hit with a volley of violent ‘sit downs’ and ‘shut ups’ from all but Gordon who says, “Nix, you mop head, strap in!”

“Okay.” Putting his hands up as if to surrender, the young man sits down.

Gordon didn’t feel like sharing with the others, but he thought it was a bit too easy as well. Along with most, he’d been led to believe that, in this solar system, Gaea had once been the only rock big enough and with sufficient gravity to become a planet, floating along in a river of materials that never would—an endless asteroid field. From out here, however, the rocks and ice seemed limited to an orbit just a few kilometers above. He checks his crew and winks at Chloe.

“Let’s go find that supply ship.”

Sephora
is not capable of generating a space-hopping wormhole and, like all Alien Grey vessels, isn’t able to travel faster than light but she’s fast. After a flash from her engines, the tiny ship disappears in a field of stars.

Several meters from the alien bunker rests
Lilith
with her engines ablaze. The ship’s interior is similar to
Sephora
’s, but it’s newer and better taken care of. Unlike
Sephora
,
Lilith
is organized and clean.

Earl walks slowly in stocking feet through the spotless bridge, running his fingers along its seats. He stops at a handprint of dried Alien Grey blood on one chair and rubs it with furious determination.

Frey surprises him by saying, “Are you not eating?”

“No.”

“You’ll feel normal again.”

“I’m fine. Tell the others to split my portion.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure,” Earl says, walking away. He has become so accustomed to hunger that the sensation doesn’t bother him anymore. It was homesickness for the sights, tastes, and smells of Earth that left him with a sick, empty feeling. Every piece of alien fruit and that horrible protein substance they tried to pass off as meat only made him more desperate to get back. He opens the hatch to
Lilith
’s midsection.

“They may be having second thoughts, I think,” Frey says with some hesitation and begins working to get the bloodstain out. He has seen Earl, a clean freak, become enraged over such things and wants to prevent another flip out.

“And you?” Earl asks. “You’re having second thoughts now?”

“No. No, I think we’re doing the right thing by these people, of course.”

“Then we don’t need the others.”

Frey watches with concern as his captain steps into the ship’s middle and pauses to examine several glowing metallic cylinders.

Clara Meeks passes a watercolor creation to her husband John Meeks. Both are beautiful and impeccably dressed, as if they’d just returned from an evening at the symphony. John examines the painting.

“Oh, that’s wonderful, Chloe,” he tells his six-year-old daughter.

“W
e have an artist in the family.” Clara smiles.

Chloe sits on the floor, legs folded under a coffee table in the middle of a large and beautifully
furnished room. A
 
sizable collection of paints and brushes are spread out before her. A glass of water is darkened to brown from many brush cleanings. She’s beaming from the praise as her father kneels.

“Is that a barn?”

“It’s Grandma’s house,” she replies matter-of-factly.

John hands the watercolor to Clara. “Well, yes, it is. I see it now—how perfect. Come on, Bopper, time for bed.”

“Okay.” She gleefully runs out of the room with Mom and Dad not far behind.

Chloe jumps into bed, throws up the covers, and begins to bury herself in them.

“Where’s Chloe?” Dad begins to poke around, purposely missing the cave his little girl has made for herself. “Is that Chloe—no?”

She giggles from under the blankets. Clara smiles and tidies up an already perfect room, fit for a princess. “Is this Chloe?” John continues. “No.”

Under the blankets, Chloe continues to dodge her father’s hands, laughing hysterically. Then suddenly, there’s nothing. Even the small amount of light filtering through her covers begins to dim. Chloe’s smile goes away with the long silence. “Daddy, find me.”

The light disappears completely. Chloe’s breathing becomes labored, and her little heart pounds. “Daddy?” Someone is walking around her bed, maybe more than one person, but it doesn’t sound like Mom or Dad. She jumps at the clang of metal on metal. The covers are stripped away. Chloe is on a black surgical table surrounded by three Alien Greys. They reach for her, and she screams.

With a gasp, Chloe wakes.

“You okay, love?” Gordon asks, concerned.

She takes a second to check her surroundings. “Sure,” she says with a deep breath. Tivis is glaring at her. “What?”

He shrugs and returns to flying the ship.

Directly across is Nix, fast asleep. She doesn’t know anyone who can sleep as easily and peacefully as he can. The nightmares and survivor’s guilt that seem to plague everyone else never bother him. He is just Nix, uncomplicated and untroubled in an almost child-like way.

It does annoy her at times. “Nix. Wake up.”

He opens one eye. “Are we there yet?”

“No, we’re not there yet.”

“What’s goin’ on?”

“I had that dream again.”

“Oh yeah, which one was that?”

“You know the one I always have.”

He hesitates. “Umm, I don’t…”

“You know.” She looks at him as if to say, c
ome on, this is an easy one
.

“Well…”

“You know,” she continues after a frustrated sigh, “the one where I’m running naked along the beach.” He perks right up. “And you’re trying to catch up to me, and then a huge wave comes in and sucks you out to sea.”

Nix thinks for a moment. “Really?”

She chuckles and gives him a friendly smile. “No.”

Tivis is staring at her again.

“What?” She glares back.

“Hold on,” Gordon pipes up, getting everyone’s immediate attention. “I think we found our ship.”

Sephora
slows as it approaches the smooth, tube-shaped Alien Grey supply ship, now spinning slowly.

Nix and Chloe release their straps to get a closer look out the ship’s forward ports, while Tivis glances over his shoulder at Chloe’s abandoned station. He deciphers the alien symbols flashing across her computer screen. “They’re not transmitting anything,” he says, “and her engines are cold. I’ll send them an automated greeting.”

There’s a long silence as they wait for a response. Jane asks the question on everyone’s mind.
“So…are we going aboard?”

“We should have guns,” Nix says, wringing his hands.

“Yes,” Tivis sneers, “you with a gun, Nix, would give me great comfort.”

“Swellhead.”

“Knock it off,” Gordon shushes them. He knows they’re all waiting for a definite answer from him and maybe a comforting word or two, but he says nothing.

Chloe is suddenly aware of her
l
oud
,
nervous
breathing and holds it in for a few seconds.
“Why would we need guns?” she asks with a crack in her voice.