Shades of Earth (24 page)

47:
AMY

I push through the crowd
waiting on Dad and his men to return. But it's not Dad who emerges from the smoking forest.

It's Elder.

When my eyes meet his, we rush to each other. Elder crushes me in a hug so fierce that I'm left breathless.

“What happened?” I ask when he finally releases me.

“Your father wants me to bring everyone out.”

“Out? Where?”

He looks grim. “The compound.”

I nearly stop then, I'm so surprised. “But Dad—”

Elder shrugs. “He told me to get everyone there.”

“Why?”

He shoots me an inscrutable look. “I don't know.”

 

Everyone grows more anxious as Elder gathers us all together and leads us away from the forest and past the lake. Once the compound is in sight, the nervous energy has made us all as combustible as the bombs that ripped apart the shuttle.

Chris stands outside the communication building. “What's going on?” he asks Elder as we approach. He looks tired and dirty.

“I don't know,” Elder says. “Didn't Colonel Martin tell you?”

“He just said to meet you here.”

Dad strides out of the forest then, followed by the men he took with him to the explosion. He doesn't speak until he reaches Elder, Mom, and me. He looks a bit surprised to see Chris, but he doesn't comment on it as he presses his thumb over the biometric lock. When it flashes
HUMAN
, the door unlocks. He motions for Elder to join him, but I walk right in behind him, looking at Dad defiantly and daring him to exclude me. When I go through the door, Mom follows, then Chris. Dad opens his mouth—to kick us out, I think, but with a look of defeat, he just closes the door.

“What is this, Bob?” Mom demands the minute the door locks behind us. Through the big glass windows, I can see Dad's military directing people to the far side of the compound, just off the asphalt.

“Maria—” Dad starts.

Mom looks as if she would very much like to hit Dad. “
This
is the compound you told me about? Why didn't you tell me it was so—so advanced?!”

“I had orders.”

“Orders! Screw the orders! I'm your
wife!
”

Dad crosses the room and grabs hold of Mom's hands. “Maria, let me explain.”

She rips her hands out of his grasp and throws them in the air. “Fine! Explain!”

Dad heaves a sigh. “This compound was built by the first colony from Earth.” Mom opens her mouth to shout something else, but Dad silences her with a look.

“The first colony encountered . . . problems. Aliens. Highly intelligent, aggressive aliens. They killed everyone in the original colony. And it's clear that, since we've landed, they're intent on doing the same to us.”

Mom opens her mouth again, but Dad raises his hand to silence her. “We had trouble establishing contact with Earth, but last night my tech crew figured out how to amplify the signal. We were able to send one message through, and we got one message back.”

“You did?” It's Chris who's spoken this time, his voice shocked. Dad smiles at him, and I can't help but wonder if the two of them, both military, know something that they're not telling us.

“We were able to tell Earth that we had landed and were being attacked by the native population. And Earth sent back an answer.”

Dad turns to the touch screen panel on the communication bay and swipes it to life. After scrolling through the menus, he brings a block of text up on the screen, then steps back. We all crowd around it to see.

 

Message received.

Aid deployed; estimated TOA five days.

Station contains life support for five hundred humans

and a weapon to eliminate threat.

 

We each notice a different thing. Chris asks Dad about the weapon that's big enough to “eliminate threat.” Mom asks about the station. Elder asks about what kind of aid is being sent.

But me? I'm stuck on the first line.
Message received.
Dad spoke to Earth . . . and Earth responded. I breathe a sigh of relief I didn't know I'd been holding.

“Here's all I know,” Dad says, stepping away from Chris, Elder, and Mom as they barrage him with questions. “There's an auto-shuttle under the compound, and it's designed to ship cargo—and people—to and from the space station over the planet. It isn't large enough to hold all of us, but we'll send the most at-risk, the weakest members of the colony, the ones who can't fight. And a few of the military, arms specialists who can inspect whatever weapon the FRX has made at our disposal.”

“What is this weapon?” Elder demands immediately. Chris watches us all silently, an unreadable look on his face.

“The message came with instructions on how to remotely detonate the weapon from the communication bay, but I don't like how little information the FRX has given us. I'll have my men tell us more after they inspect it.”

The others all have more questions, mostly about the weapon, but I have just one.

“When?”

The word slices through the chaos, and everyone stills to listen to Dad's answer.

“Now.”

48:
ELDER

Amy grips my hand so tight
that I lose the feeling in my fingers as Colonel Martin uses the voice amplifier to explain the situation to the crowd outside—that we weren't the first humans to land on Centauri-Earth, that the others were killed by aliens who want to kill us too.

The sky is a cloudless blue, the air mild and calm, the trees vibrant—but no one sees this. They still see the dark gray smoke, they still hear the explosion. I watch my people's faces carefully as Colonel Martin tells them that they'll be relocated to the station. I can tell immediately that some of them—many of them—are happy to hear this. They want safety, and to them, living in space is safe. They cannot wait to go to the station. It won't be
Godspeed
, but it'll be better than this planet. At least to them.

But more of them balk at the idea. And that gives me courage.

“Once aid from Earth arrives,” Colonel Martin calls over the loudspeaker, “we will have some options. Those in the station will be able to board the next interstellar ship immediately.”

There's confusion over this, and Colonel Martin quickly clarifies. “Back to Earth. You will have the option to return to Earth.”

This
is something else entirely. Many more of my people aren't happy about this. If going to the station means they have to go on to Earth, they are far more reluctant to do that. At least this planet is theirs; Earth definitely is not.

I step outside the communication room to help control the crowd. As soon as I do, my people descend on me like birds of prey.

“They can't make us go!” one of the former Shippers shouts in my face. “This planet is our home, and they can't make us go!”

“It's for our safety!” another man counters.

“And for our children,” says a nearby woman.

“Ain't safe nowhere!” a Feeder shouts. “Might as well be here as there.”

“We can't trust the FRX!”

“Sol-Earth don't care about us!”

“But we can't stay here!”

“Enough!”
I shout as loudly as I can. I grab the voice amplifier from Colonel Martin. “No one is
making
you go!” I shout into it, and my voice is enough to drown out the crowd. “But if you
want
to go—the option is there.”

Someone yells from the center of the crowd, “What will you do?”

“Me?” I say into the voice amplifier. My words sound brittle coming from the gadget, and I wish—again—that the wi-coms still worked. Colonel Martin frowns at me. “I'm staying here.”

Cheers—and shouts of protest—break out over the crowd. They're already dividing themselves between those that want to stay and those willing to go. I cannot help but feel triumphant at the number of those who don't care about the danger, who are willing to fight to claim what's theirs.

“Silence!”
Colonel Martin shouts into the voice amplifier. The crowd settles—but they're still muttering and worried. Colonel Martin switches to the radio at his shoulder, giving instructions to the military, then he goes inside the communication room to the control panel. I watch as he punches a series of buttons and dials. Outside, the ground rumbles, and the crowd screams, thinking this is another aftershock of the earlier explosion. Amy and her mother rush to the window of the building, the first time Amy's left my side.

Outside, the asphalt runway shifts, opening like a hinged door on a pair of hydraulic lifts. A grinding sound leaks out from under it. I watch, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, as a humongous shuttle rises from the ground. It looks like an oversized fighter jet with a fat, pregnant belly under sleek wings. The bulbous underside of the shuttle opens up as it rolls forward onto the asphalt, exposing hundreds of human-sized vertical boxes. The panel closes, leaving only the shuttle and the runway.

Colonel Martin said it was an auto-shuttle, designed to use homing signals to fly straight up to the station and back to the compound here, but all I can think about is whether or not it can take a detour, to
Godspeed
, so I can save my people still trapped on the ship. From the size and shape of it, I think it must soar like an airplane until it reaches atmo, then shift its rockets down to reach orbit.

While Colonel Martin's explanation of the situation and my words did little to make the crowd outside calm, the presence of the shuttle silences everyone.

Before, it was just words. But this is reality.

The auto-shuttle represents a parting of ways. Some will leave, and we'll never see them again. They'll go to Sol-Earth, a whole separate planet, and they will no longer be a part of our colony.

Colonel Martin strides forward. Using the military to take count, he organizes which of the “civilians” should enter the shuttle first. Pregnant women are instructed to leave and able-bodied men to stay, but families and friends don't want to be divided. They hang back or refuse to separate, while others, more eager to go, take their place.

Sorting who will go and who will stay seems to take forever. Finally, people are sent to the shuttle. The small vertical boxes I noticed earlier are lined up in the belly of the auto-shuttle, each one designed to hold one person.

“They look like the automatic racks that dry cleaners use,” Amy says, a high-pitched, nervous giggle escaping her lips.

The first people get in. A small ledge sticks out in the center of each box, similar to a bicycle seat. Straps pull down over each person's chest and waist, securing them to the box before a thin, transparent, plastic door seals them inside.

“See?” Colonel Martin calls to the group of nervous shipborns as he loads up the first round of Earthborn scientists into the auto-shuttle. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

After the first row of individual compartments is filled, the next one drops down automatically. My people move forward nervously, hesitant to trust another ship, one they don't know.

Just as some of my people draw closer to the auto-shuttle, I notice how others slowly separate from the group, stepping back. Their eyes keep going to the left, past the trees and the lake, where the ruins are. Where their home is.

Hours go by as the shuttle's loaded. Amy stands beside me, watching, an unreadable expression on her face. I touch her hand, but she jerks it away. A worrisome feeling I can't name starts to gnaw at the inside of my stomach. She . . . she couldn't be thinking about leaving me, could she?

When there are two spots left in the rockets, Colonel Martin stops taking volunteers.

There's a roaring in my ears. Something's wrong, but I can't quite pinpoint it.

Colonel Martin walks over to the communication building, where Amy and her mother and I are standing.

Oh, no.

He holds his hand out to Amy's mother. “It's time,” he says.

She nods.

They both turn to Amy.

“It's time to go,” they tell her.

And then I realize: they want to send Amy back.

49:
AMY

I knew this was coming.

As soon as Dad started talking about who would stay and who would go, I knew what he expected of me.

They want me to go.

I glance at Elder. A look of dawning horror grows on his face as he realizes what Dad means to do.

“Amy.” Dad's voice is stern. “Come on.”

I hesitate.

“It's not optional this time. I'm not giving you a choice. You're going on the auto-shuttle.” He pauses, searching my eyes. “It's for your own safety.”

I step forward.

Elder makes a sound as if he's being choked, and he lunges toward me, but I'm already out of his reach.

All the sounds around me fade to background as I approach the massive auto-shuttle. I know what I must do, I just don't know
how
to do it. I can see the people inside their individual transport boxes, staring at us through the clear, thick plastic that seals them inside. The little boxes don't look comfortable, but the journey won't be long. Just a short trip up to orbit, then to a space station. In a few days, another ship will arrive, and it will basically zap everyone waiting at the station back to Earth.

This—all of us, packing ourselves up into boxes and returning to space—feels like running away.

I don't like that—it's as if the aliens have won. They didn't want us here, and they chased us off their planet.

I feel dull and senseless as we stop in front of the transport boxes. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Elder. He looks pained and wounded.

My heart aches for him. I didn't even tell him what I planned to do. But it's too late now.

“I'll go first,” my mother says, stepping forward. Dad nods in agreement. Mom looks up at him, an expression I can't read on her face. “Let me tell Amy something.” When he doesn't move, she adds, “Girl talk.”

Dad steps back.

I look into Mom's glistening eyes. I think about the words I have to say to her, the way I have to break her heart. I reach to my neck, pulling out the little gold cross that, three months ago, I took from her cargo box. “This is yours,” I say. “I'm sorry I took it.” I start to undo the latch.

She touches the cross, pressing it into the skin on my chest. “Keep it,” she says. “I've known you had it since you passed out from the flowers. It's yours now. My mother gave it to me, and now I'm giving it to you.”

“Mom, I can't—”

She nods, and I think she understands what I cannot say.

What I cannot do.

She steps away from me, smiling, her eyes watery. Then Dad straps her into the transport box and seals it shut.

He turns to me.

“I'm not going,” I say.

I take a step back—toward the crowd, toward Elder.

“What did you say?” Dad already sounds angry.

“I'm not going.” I don't leave any room in my voice for doubt.

Dad strides forward, twin infernos in his eyes. “For
him?
” he asks furiously, pointing over my shoulder to Elder. “Are you throwing away your family for
him?
”

“No,” I say, and the answer is enough to shock my father from his rage. “I'm not staying for him. But I'm not going to go for you.”

“I will make you go,” Dad says, grabbing my arm. He yanks me a few paces closer to the auto-shuttle before I have a chance to jerk my arm free.

“You can try,” I say, retreating several steps. “But I will fight you every step, and I will find a way to come back here.”

“You're going back to Earth!” Dad shouts. “You're going where it's safe!”

I laugh, a bitter bark sound that sounds ugly. “It isn't safe anywhere. You want to know what I learned in the three months I was awake and you weren't? That's pretty much it.”

Dad looks as if I've slapped him across the face. “You're going,” he says. “We all are. I'll go up as soon as the mission is done here. We're going to be a family. Together.”

“You were willing to give me up once before,” I say.

“And what? Now you're willing to give us up?”

The words cut into me, make my heart bleed. But I step back again, farther away from the auto-shuttle. I glance over Dad's shoulder, at Mom in her transport box. She smiles at me again and mouths three words. Even though I can't hear them, I know what she's saying—
I love you
. I touch the gold cross around my neck and mouth the words back to her.

Then I turn from my father and walk away.

I stand beside Elder. I don't look at him, I don't look at the crowd of people behind us. I watch my father. I wait.

He's madder now than I've ever seen him before.

But he turns to the controls in the asphalt and starts the process of launching the auto-shuttle. Without me.

I watch Mom, who stares at me with sad, forgiving eyes. A
whoosh
comes from the pipes plugged into all the boxes—oxygen for their journey to the space station in orbit over Centauri-Earth.

Something in Mom's face changes.

A small red light starts flashing on the control box at Dad's hand.

A knocking sound diverts my attention.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
People in the transport boxes beat against the plastic sealing them inside.

Horror washes over me.

The transport boxes jump on their tracks as the people inside shake and pound at the plastic, trying to get out.

My face whips around to Mom. Her mouth is hanging open oddly, as if she no longer has control of her facial muscles. Her eyes are staring straight ahead. Empty.

“Something's wrong!” I scream, running forward. “There's something wrong with the air!”

Dad's cursing, trying to make the controls work, but that little red light just keeps flashing, and the gas—the gas that I fear is not oxygen at all—is whooshing inside the sealed transport boxes.

I hurtle myself against Mom's transport box with all my might. The plastic bends but doesn't break, doesn't unseal. “Open the boxes!” I scream. “Open them all! It's poison!”

“I can't! I can't!” Dad shouts, pounding against the control and cursing.

I use all my strength to pull against the box door. My fingernails break off, but I don't care. I can't get it open, my mom's inside, and she might already be—

A loud hiss erupts from the boxes, and all five hundred open at the same time.

“Mom!”
I scream as a wave of the gas that had been inside the transport box washes over me. I collapse, dimly aware of my senses deadening. Dad rushes to me, picks my head up from the ground. Elder's on my other side.

“Amy? Amy?” Dad asks, shouting in my face, but the gas has made me frozen.

 

I can't move.

 

Everything seems so

 

slow.

 

I've felt this before.

 

Like living underwater.

 

The sky is so blue.

 

Daddy. Daddy yells at me.

 

I wonder why.

 

There's Mommy.

 

She's quiet.

 

Still.