Shades of Earth (26 page)

53:
AMY

As I watch the transport shuttle
roar to life and shoot away, an ominous feeling sickens my stomach. I am hollow inside. I try to shake off my worries, but all I can think is,
That was the last time I'll ever see Elder
.

“Colonel Martin will be here soon,” Chris says. “He can't have missed that.”

“Let him come,” I say. It's too late. Elder's already gone. I move to the communication bay, waiting for Elder to start talking to us over the radio. Chris stands by the window, waiting for Dad.

Sooner than I'd expected, Chris says, “There's Colonel Martin.”

I squint through the glass but can't make anything out.

“There.” Chris points, but it's just darkness and shadows to me.

I turn back to the control panel. A warning flashes over the communication link with the auto-shuttle:
Launch in Process
. I don't want to distract Elder when he needs his attention on the controls.

I glance back to the window, and I finally see what Chris is pointing at. Dad, and about ten other men, all with guns, running toward us.

“Great,” I mutter.

A moment later, I hear Dad's voice booming, so loud that it's like the glass and walls aren't between us. “Come out now!” he orders. “The building's surrounded.”

“He doesn't know it's us,” Chris says. There's real fear in his voice. The glass cube is still illuminating the room, but the shadows it's casting must have made it impossible for Dad to see inside. I go over to the door and throw it open. For a split second, I can only hear the metallic rattle of nearly a dozen guns aimed at me.

“Dad, will you put the guns away and be quiet?” I say impatiently.

“Amy?”

“Yes. Now put the guns down and come inside before the aliens see us out here!”

Dad curses roundly, and he and his men crowd into the communication room. “Do you really need everyone here?” I ask. “Wouldn't these people be better off guarding the colony?”

Dad turns back to the military with a command, and one woman and one man break off from the rest of the unit while the others return to the colony. “Amy,” Dad says, turning to me. “What the
hell
are you doing here? And where did the auto-shuttle go?” He eyes Chris, and there is such furious rage in his look that I'm afraid Dad's going to punch him—or worse. “What did you tell her? What did you do?”

“It was Elder's idea, Dad, not Chris's.” I can feel the fight rising within me. Dad might object, but Elder's a leader, too, and in this case, he was right. We shouldn't rely on weapons from the FRX. And although Dad will never admit that Elder might be able to save us, I believe he can.

Dad looks around him. “Where
is
Elder?”

I point out the window, toward the far-distant stars. And even though I'm proud of Elder in this moment, it's not until now that I realize just how out of reach he is. It takes a moment for Dad to realize what I mean.

“Did he go to set off the weapon?” he asks. “That's a damn stupid thing to do! We can operate it remotely, right here from the compound. I was only going to send a few arms specialists there to inspect it.”

“No,” I say, squaring my shoulders. “He went back to
Godspeed
.”

“What? Why?!”

I try my best to explain the clue, and the fact that the people on the ship need to be saved before the engine goes into full meltdown, and that they can bring back supplies for all of us. I can see that Dad thinks we're being foolish and wasteful and that the only answer that could have brought him any happiness would have been if I'd told him that the weapon was launched and targeted at the aliens right now. He doesn't care so much about our survival, not compared to revenge.

“That isn't going to save us, Amy,” he says, glaring at me. “We need to get rid of the alien threat once and for all. That weapon—”

“Is something you don't even understand,” I say, cutting him off. “All you see is the possibility of destroying the aliens. You're not even thinking that it might hurt us too! What kind of weapon picks and chooses who it kills?”

Dad opens his mouth to protest.

“At least let Elder try to find more information,” I say. “There's a chance he can figure out what the weapon is and how it works—
then
we can detonate it.”

“The aliens have killed a third of the colony already,” Dad says. He stares at me with hard eyes. “They've killed a third of our
family.
”

“You think I don't know that?” I'm barely able to get the words out.

“How are we going to protect ourselves while that boy is up there playing the hero to the ship that should have landed with the shuttle?”

That? That I don't know.

54:
ELDER

The auto-shuttle ascends much faster
than I would have thought possible. It climbs higher and higher until I'm competing with the falling suns—as they sink below the horizon, I shoot above it, leaving the whole shuttle in perpetual twilight until I break atmo. My stomach jerks and my hair lifts as I rise slightly from my seat before the grav replicator kicks on.

My heart thuds around inside my chest.
I'm going back to Amy,
I tell myself over and over. It's not just a promise to her; it's the vow I make for myself too.

The auto-shuttle slows as I hit orbit. A flat screen on the control panel lights up. A red bar of light illuminates the curve of the planet on the lower half of the screen and two blinking dots above that. This must be some sort of locator system.
Interplanetary Preparation Station—Centauri—FRX
flashes under one dot.
Unidentified Orbiting Satellite
is under the other.

That must be
Godspeed
. Downgraded from ship to satellite, nameless.

I peer out the window of the bridge. When the shuttle from
Godspeed
landed, I remember seeing a bright flash against the horizon. As I squint into the star-speckled darkness now, I see neither the space station nor
Godspeed
. From the looks of the locator, I'm between the two.

The control panel lights up again, flashing a message:

Manual Input Required

Beneath that, I'm given the option to direct the auto-shuttle to
Godspeed
or the space station. Briefly, I consider going to the station. What
is
the weapon there? Could it really eliminate the alien threat? It can't be that far away, despite what Colonel Martin's said.

But then I remember Bartie and the black patches, and I know even if I could wipe out the aliens and keep the planet for myself, I have to get to
Godspeed
first. But before that, I have one more task to do.

The ship is silent, and that seems appropriate. I click open the panel of controls. It still looks intimidating and complicated, but I'm looking for one thing specifically.

Finally, I find it. A tiny label.
Cargo Evacuation
.

I close my eyes after reading the words. Amy was once labeled as nonessential cargo, and I promised her that she was so much more than that. But the four hundred and ninety-nine dead bodies in my cargo hold cannot hear my promise now.

First, I flip the switch to undo the safety harnesses around each body, then I open the doors of the transport boxes in the hull. The grav replicator affects only the operational level of the auto-shuttle, and the bodies below deck float effortlessly into space. The release of air causes the bodies to drift, like lotus flowers floating in water, toward the cockpit. Weightless, the bodies rise from the bowels of the ship past the window before me. I recognize individual faces as they waft up before floating into the abyss of space. I try to say a silent goodbye to each of them, the Feeders who had only a few months without Phydus before being overdosed by it, the women who came here to give the babies growing inside of them a home without walls, the Shippers, the workers in the City, the engineers, all of them
my
people, gone. But I won't forget them. I force myself to say their names aloud, memorize each one—Rhine and Lucien and Cessy and all the rest. I will never forget them.

Four hundred and ninety-nine people.

I lean up, pressing my face against the window as I seek out individuals, begging each person to forgive me for my part in their disastrous end.

A flash of red glints out of the corner of my eye, and my head whips around.

Amy's mother.

Her pale skin and red hair are just like Amy's, and though her eyes are open, she is too far away for me to see the green that lies within, though I know it's there.

Amy almost entered the five-hundredth chamber. If she had . . .

Amy's mother's body moves like a dancer in the weightlessness of space. Her arms stretch out, pale skin against the blackness of the universe, and I imagine that starlight makes the golden highlights of her hair gleam.

I stand there, watching the bodies float past, until the very last one is gone, and all that's left in the sky are stars.

 

My eyes are burning and watery as I sit back down in front of the control panel. I touch the
Unidentified Orbiting Satellite
dot on the locator screen. From the edge of the cockpit window, I see rockets burst along the right side of the auto-shuttle as it slowly turns around. More rockets kick on, and I soar closer and closer to
Godspeed
.

Soon I can see it.

Godspeed
looks ravaged. The shuttle's gone, of course, and the Bridge is nothing but mangled ruins. Still, my heart sings as I peer down at the ship I thought would be my home forever.

The auto-shuttle gets closer and closer—so close that I start to worry it won't stop and I'll just crash right into the ship. Instead, the rockets reverse thrust, and the auto-shuttle stops. I'm still several meters away from
Godspeed,
but I'm close enough that my window is filled with the image of it.

The red-and-white location system flashes a message:
Destination Arrived.
Another panel lights up.
Disembarking Process Initiation.

Frex. I hadn't thought of this. The only door to the outside of
Godspeed
, the hatch from which Harley threw himself, was a part of the shuttle that landed on Centauri-Earth, the same shuttle the aliens just blew up. The auto-shuttle is designed to automatically dock in the space station.

The problem?

I'm not at the space station.

Beep, beep-beep!
My wi-com jumps to life just as I'm pondering whether I'll be able to connect to the hatch inside the koi pond. I touch my neck. I'm close enough now to pick up the signal directly from the ship, just as I'd hoped.

“Com link req: Bartie,” I say.

I wait, a silly grin plastered on my face.

“Elder?!”
a voice—Bartie's voice—says into my ear.

“Hey, Bartie,” I say.

“The
frex!
Elder! What? How?!”

I'm so happy I laugh out loud. Bartie's not just the rebel who took control of the ship after me. He's my friend, the one who used to chase rocking chairs with me across the porch of the Recorder Hall.

“Doesn't matter how,” I say. “I just wanted to see if the new leader of
Godspeed
would be willing to let the old one back on the ship.”

After a moment's pause, Bartie barks with laughter. “Good one! Tell you what, you figure out how to get up here, and we'll throw you a party.”

“Start baking a cake,” I say, grinning widely. “Because I'm already here.”

 

55:
AMY

Dad keeps us close
to the trees as he escorts us back to the colony. Part of me wants to fight him on this point, stay in the communication room. What if Elder needs us? He's farther away from me now than he's ever been before—the least I could do is keep the communication link open. But Dad leaves one of his military guards there and the rest of us return to the ruins.

I wish we could take the quick way, straight through the meadow and up to the buildings. But it feels so
exposed
going that way, and while the trees are dark and dangerous, they give us the illusion of safety. I keep my eyes cast down. Every shadow reminds me of Elder, each warm breeze that brushes against my skin makes me wish I could fly up to him.

A light spritzing of rain starts to fall.

“Be careful of the flowers,” Dad whispers to me. I'd almost forgotten about the purple string flowers. I watch them out of the corner of my eye. As soon as water touches the delicate petals, the flowers unwind in an elegant twirl, blossoming into a beautiful, nearly transparent bloom. So beautiful . . . but I remember the way they made my mind go numb, the way I couldn't move my body. One of the flowers hangs low, nearly at the level of my face. I grab it and crush it in my hand, the purple petals sticking to my skin.

We creep back to the ruins. Everything is silent. The air is pregnant with expectation, as if the silence is just an indicator of something worse to come.

Dad doesn't speak to me again until we're in the building, safe from the pteros and the aliens who must control them somehow through the gen mod material. Chris follows us inside. Dad starts to object but then gives up, collapsing into the same chair he sat in just this morning, dunking a cracker-biscuit in his “coffee” as if everything was normal.

And I guess that in a way, everything was. We still had Mom.

And I still had Elder.

My eyes burn. I look away. I cannot let myself crack.

“We'll have to go into hiding,” Dad says heavily.

I look up at him.

“If we're waiting to detonate the weapon, we'll have to go into hiding. Only for a few days, a week maybe. Until the aid from Earth comes.”

“What's wrong with the buildings?” I ask.

Dad shakes his head. “The aliens know we're here. They can attack us anytime. The only weapons we have are the ones my men carried with them—and once the ammo runs out, there will be nothing left.” Once he lets his words sink in, Dad adds, “Got any ideas?” I look up—but Dad's asking Chris, not me.

Chris shakes his head. I look down at my hand, stained purple from the flower I crushed earlier. “The flowers,” I say.

They both turn to me.

“The purple string flowers,” I repeat, excitement growing in my voice. “Dad, what if we made a weapon using those? They knocked me out immediately! We could use them to make the aliens pass out if they get near the colony.”

“How?”
Dad asks, clearly frustrated with me. “Even if we got the flowers, they only bloom when wet. And even if we made them bloom, how could we force the aliens to sniff them?”

I pick the petals stuck to my hand off my skin, setting them in a little pile on my knee. “We could grind them up,” I say, thinking aloud. “Throw the dust in their faces.”

“While they shoot at us with exploding bullets,” Dad says.

“We could hang them nearby, keep them wet with the water pipe from the lake. . . . ”

“And they'll see them and hold their breath,” Dad shoots back. “Or just attack us from a distance. We don't have time for this, Amy. We have to come up with a real plan.”

“You could smoke them,” Chris says.

For a moment, I have an image of rolling the string flowers into cigarette paper and lighting them up.

“I mean, we can use the smoke as our weapon,” Chris says. “Not that
we
would literally smoke the flowers, but that we could blow the smoke on the aliens. They'd be forced to breathe at least some of the air, and hopefully the properties of the flower would still exist—perhaps even be stronger—in a smoke form.”

“But you can't control smoke,” Dad protests. “It can just as easily knock
us
out as the aliens. And we still don't know if the creatures—whatever they are—are affected by the neurotoxins in the flower.”

But he's thinking about this plan, I can tell. He jumps from the chair and starts pacing. He pauses when he notices me watching, then looks straight into my eyes—the same jade green as Mom's—and says, “Your mother would like this plan.”

“It could work,” I say, hopeful.

Dad's voice is filled with doubt. “Your mother would know how to test the flowers and smoke, figure out the effects of it on the aliens. If she were here . . . ”

“It's a better plan than trying to run,” Chris says quietly. “Think about the way the aliens have been attacking us. They know what makes us weak—which means they probably share the same kinds of weaknesses.”

It's not hard to be weak compared to an attacking ptero, but the aliens' interest in Phydus does make me think that Chris is right.

“I don't know. . . . ” Dad starts to pace again.

“You don't think the aliens are watching us?” Chris says angrily. “They are. They're just toying with us at this point. Waiting. If we try to run, they'll mow us down. Our best bet is to be aggressive—they won't expect that. Do something, anything, to buy us time.”

Dad glowers at Chris. I don't think he's used to having someone younger boss him around, especially not someone under his command. But whatever Chris has said is starting to crack through Dad's doubts.

“I think we should stay too,” I add. “We've got a mountain to one side—probably not going to be attacked from that angle. They'll come from the front, and at least here we have stone walls to protect us.”

“Against weapons that can explode a steel shuttle,” Dad points out, but he's softening to the idea.

“Better than nothing,” I counter. “Look, they hate us. They want to kill us. There're more of them, they have more supplies, and we have nothing. I've got five bullets in my gun. How many do you have?”

Dad frowns, and I know I've hit on his biggest worry. If we run, we can't defend ourselves. We just have to hope we can outrun them.

“We
can't
fight. We can't run, not really. We have to hole up here, where we at least have access to fresh water and the possibility of surviving an attack.”

Dad snorts, a bitter facsimile of a laugh. “Survive?” He looks around at the old, dusty, yellow stones of the building. “That worked out well for the first colony.”

Chris looks grim, and for a moment my father almost seems to regret what he's said.

I brush the little pile of torn purple petals into the palm of my hand. “This is the best chance we have,” I say. “It's our only chance.”