The Second Wave (24 page)

“We didn’t slack, sir!” Phil huffed, arms
crossed.

“We’re not talking about the orbital
movements of the planets.” Tom stepped in. “We’re talking about
tiny, teeny-weeny, random movements
away
from Alternearth’s
orbit.”

Fatique blinked. “Is that even possible?”

“No,” Tom said.

“Completely not possible,” Phil agreed. “But
it is undoubtedly what happened, and it’s what caused the
fluctuations in the wormhole connection. The planet is shifting
infinitesimally off its course. Enough to break the connection with
Earth every now and then.”

It had happened twice so far. Both times the
wormhole had destabilized, and at least once everything on
Alternearth had changed in the meantime. There was no telling what
would await the scout team who were gearing up this instant to go
through the newly established wormhole.

* * * *

Life returned to normal in the village over
the next days. The air brought a fresh warmth with it that revived
the settlers’ spirits because it stirred memories of spring. The
fact that the wormhole was open once more and exchange with Earth
was possible again, was irrelevant to most people. They had come
here for a new life and this was what they’d got. It was a hard
life, filled with dangers, but it was theirs now. The only change
the rekindled contact with Earth brought with it was that they had
to build another village now after all. Simon Jones immediately got
to work and modified the original plans to incorporate some
necessary changes, so the new wave of settlers could ease into the
daily life on Alternearth with less disturbances.

At the hospital, Summer Paige worked the day
shift. There had been a batch of admissions in the last night. One
of the kids had had a birthday party, and among the presents was a
beautiful, night blossoming plant, whose spores caused an intense
but, despite the teenagers’ outraged protests, mostly harmless
allergic reaction.

She was just administering what she and her
patients hoped to be the last shot of antihistamine.

“Is the swelling ever going down?” Isabel
Moralez, one of the party guests complained. She was the only one
of the lot who was still able to speak more or less clearly. Summer
smiled reassuringly, patted the girl on the head and carefully
avoided answering.

“Nurse Whitmore will be around in a few hours
to check on you.” She spoke slowly and clearly through the surgical
mask she was wearing. “Try to sleep.”

“
Is
the swelling ever going down?”
asked Emily Eleven, amused when her friend stepped out into the
corridor and closed the door behind her.

“It is indeed,” said Summer. “But not anytime
soon.”

In the meantime the teenagers were contagious
at least for another two days, and needed to stay in isolation.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” She asked,
but walked Emily down the corridor nonetheless.

“Your boyfriend sends me. He was out on
patrol with Sally, and he kindly asked me to relay the following
message to the Queen of Hearts—I presume he meant you by that.”

“He’d better. What’s the message?”

“They’re coming.”

“I’ll get my coat!”

She also got her binoculars from her office,
then followed Emily out into the snow.

Others were on their way, too, all heading
for the South gate of the fenced in village. A group had built a
high seat next to the entrance three years ago, large enough to
carry about ten to a dozen people. It was built for the sole
purpose of watching the migrating harbingers: animals who had no
resemblance whatsoever to any animal on Earth. Larger than a horse,
smaller than a house, with four clawed hoofs, white skin, and big,
intelligent eyes. They fed mostly on fish and carrion, but Captain
Eleven and Timothy Niman had once seen one of them kill two of the
hounds in self defence. Twice a year they passed by the village in
some distance; once in the late summer, heading East, once in the
winter, heading West into the great forest. Once their departure
marked the end of summer, once the beginning of spring. Thus they
were named harbingers.

The children climbed up the high stand to
watch from above, while the others who had assembled to view this
amazing spectacle gathered on the ground, binoculars at the ready.
It was better not to get close to the harbingers. As graceful and
marvellous as they were, they were a lot more dangerous than the
ferocious-looking, yet docile hounds in the subway tunnels.

Summer made her way through the small crowd,
her feet sinking up to the ankles into the snow. Someone brought
hot tea, and Tyson was handing out cookies in the shape of
harbingers. She declined the tea, gratefully accepted a cookie and
made her way to the front, where Timothy Niman, her boyfriend of
thirteen months, was waiting for her. He greeted her with a kiss,
pressing his cold nose against her cheek.

“They’ll be here any moment, love,” he said.
“Keep an eye on the tree line behind the riverbank.”

He was right; it didn’t take long until the
first harbinger dashed out of the forest and leapt over the river.
Its tall, slim body hovered in the air for a heartbeat, defying
gravity, before it touched down on the other side of the water. The
first one was closely followed by the rest of the group—first two,
then three at a time; then a group of eight animals, all jumping
simultaneously, like a perfectly attuned squad of athletes. When
their hoofs touched the sand, their secret audience applauded
softly.

The whole scene lasted mere minutes, but it
was going to be the talk of the settlement for the rest of the
week; and, more importantly, it was the sign that winter was coming
to an end soon.

When it was over, when the cookies were
eaten, and the tea was drunk, Summer leaned into Timothy’s embrace.
They stayed rooted to the spot for a little while longer, while the
crowd around them broke up. Just gazing out into the glistening
white landscape. The sun was distant, but high in the sky. No wind
was blowing.

Of course, Timothy Niman, who had no sense of
romance or timing, spoiled it by confessing, “You should know that
General Fatique has offered anyone on our team to be replaced, if
we so wished.”

Summer turned her head to look at him.
“Replaced?” she asked, understandably baffled.

Timothy shifted uneasily. “Yeah, you know our
assignment here wasn’t permanent. Five years kind of wasn’t the
idea.” And so, even though only a few hours had passed on Earth,
the General made an offer to those who were supposed to be only
temporarily stationed on Alternearth—the workmen and the
protectors—to return to Earth as soon as they liked and be replaced
by someone else.

Summer gave a curt nod. Just her luck, she
thought, just like usual. Not that she had had her doubts about
jumping headfirst into a relationship with a man who was sixteen
years her junior. She didn’t easily open up to people, and it
seemed that every time she did, she ended up heartbroken and alone.
After Helena, she hadn’t wanted to let anyone in. It had taken
Timothy months to get her to go out with him, and after their first
date, a long, heartrending summer to just let him kiss her. She
gave him credit for his relentlessness, though.

“I can’t believe you’re even considering
this!”

The open offence in his voice made her snap
back into the present again. “What would I consider?” she asked,
honestly confused.

“You were considering that
I
was
considering going back to Earth, weren’t you?!”

“Weren’t
you
?”

“No!”

“No?”

“Of course not! I worked so bleeding hard to
get you, I’m not ever letting you go. You’re my Queen of
Hearts.”

She laughed. With relief and with
amusement.

“In fact,” he crowed, “I was going to ask for
your hand in marriage today.”

It took a few seconds for the proposal to
really sink in, and when Summer was finally done with being
speechless, she couldn’t tell him she thought it was probably not a
good idea to get married, because Tyson came running towards them,
shouting her name, gesticulating wildly. “Doctor Paige!” he called,
out of breath, “It’s John. He sends me to fetch you. Come
quickly!”

Timothy didn’t even get to show her the
promise ring he had made.

* * * *

Summer, Timothy in tow, hurried through the
snow after Tyson, who was making up the front of their little
queue.

Young Tyson, the wunderkind chef, had changed
from a skinny twelve-year-old to a brawny teenager of seventeen
years. He wore his hair fashionably short and kept the fringe out
of his eyes with glittery barrettes. He still wore dresses,
something his current girlfriend especially fancied about him.

Tyson and John had struck up something like a
friendship over the years. Whenever the boy wasn’t in the kitchen
or with one of his girlfriends, he was found in the stables or at
John’s cabin, playing cards or just discussing life and the
universe until the wee hours.

The front door to John’s house stood ajar.
Tyson pushed it open without even stopping and rushed to the small
bedroom, followed closely by Summer and Timothy.

John sat on a small, wooden stool next to his
bed, one foot tapping impatiently against the side of the
nightstand. He rose when the puny crowd barged in. A frown appeared
on his forehead as his gaze fell on protector Niman, but he didn’t
send him away. It was not until John spoke that Summer’s eyes
shifted to the bed, where Eugenia lay. Her face was paler than
usual; small red blotches on the cheeks made a stark contrast to
the almost alabaster looking skin. The eyes glassy and unfocussed,
her breathing shallow and short-winded. Without further checking,
Summer immediately saw that she was running a high fever.

“It has been going up and down all night,”
John explained.

“But I saw her yesterday—she was fine then!”
Tyson butted in.

Summer patted her perpetual problem patient
down, checking the temperature with one, the heartbeat with the
other hand. “Did she do anything out of the ordinary
yesterday?”

John shook his head. “The fever started
sometime during the night with no premonition.”

He woke up to the sound of her voice,
babbling nonsense, sobbing quietly. Arms stretched out into the air
as if she was feeling for something that wasn’t there. Seeing her
like that terrified him, he didn’t mind admitting to that.

“Let’s pack her up,” Summer decided. “Get her
to the hospital.”

“No.” John’s fingers quickly and adamantly
wrapped themselves around Timothy’s wrist when he made a step
forward to pick Eugenia up. She was not leaving this room or this
bed.

“I can provide better for her at the
hospital,” Summer insisted.

But John stayed resolute. He was not letting
her out of his sight; it was the one thing Eugenia had made him
promise in between two fever attacks this morning.

“Fine.” Summer held up her hands in
surrender. “At least get her to sweat it out, then. I’ll come back
later with my kit.”

Despite the words, her lips were tightly
pressed together, her voice dangerously melodic. She knew it was no
use arguing with him, but she also knew he would take good care of
Eugenia, perhaps even better care than her nurses would provide, as
much as it pained her to acknowledge. It was still hard to let go
of Eugenia, after everything she had done for the girl. All the
nights she sat at her bed, pointlessly chatting away, hoping to say
something that would trigger a response. After all this, Eugenia
loathed the hospital, and held no feelings for the woman who had so
wholeheartedly nursed her back to health.

When John was alone with her again, he stood
up and walked the two steps over to the bed. The frame creaked
feebly in protest when he lay down next to her. Her fingers
immediately began searching for him under the blanket. Some focus
crept back into her pupils.

“She left me,” she repeated for the umpteenth
time, her voice barely more than a whisper. “I’m all alone
now.”

He pressed a kiss to her hot, sweaty
forehead. The words made no sense to him, he had no idea who she
was talking about; every time he asked he got the same, useless
answer. This time he didn’t say anything at all.

They lay like that for some time; silent,
listening to the sounds outside and the crackling of the fire in
the hearth, whose flames painted elegant shadows on the walls.

“There is still one story left you haven’t
told me,” Eugenia whispered when she was able to form coherent
thoughts again.

“Twice you have asked me about this story,”
John replied, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “Twice I have
answered that I will not tell you. It is a sad tale. One I do not
want to burden your mind with.”

“It’s not sad. You only think it is, because
you don’t see what lies behind the words. Please. Tell me it.”

* * * *

Embolimon: The Tale of the Black Snake and
the White Flower

Before Time there was Chaos, and out of the
Chaos stepped Zamná who was all light and who ruled all.

Zamná came out of the water that destroyed
all sins. He stepped onto the shore and he walked twice seven days
until he came to a great plain. There he sat down on a stone. He
told his people, who were called Itzá, to build a temple in this
very spot and a city around the temple.

And so they did and the holy city Itzmál was
born. When it was finished, Zamná returned to the sky and into the
sun where he was born. There was great mourning, although the
people knew that his spirit was still surrounding them. The Itzá
took his bodily remains, buried them and built another temple on
top of it.

People came from all across the world to set
foot in the holy city of Itzmál. It was the Golden Age of Light.
All was beautiful, but that was before the downfall.