Fugitive From Asteron (9 page)

As she turned away to walk toward
her quarters, words I had just spoken became a lie, because something indeed
could and did shock me about this alien pilot who lived in a world where her
life was not threatened and who flew a plane for no other reason than playing.
Across the back of her jacket, in slanting black print inside a silver rocket,
exactly as I had seen them on Feran’s folder, notepad, and pen, were the
letters
MAS
.

Chapter 9

I saw no one as I crossed the road and returned to my field.
A few birds in the shrubs scattered when I climbed up to my spacecraft and
slipped through the unlocked door. The branches outside the windows provided a
dark curtain around the flight deck.

In the dim light I stared at the
ship’s radio recorder, dreading the task I had to perform. I turned the
instrument on, and its dormant black screen lit up to a pale blue. I had to tap
an icon marked
messages
to know if anyone had sent the ship a
communication. As I reached for the icon, I hesitated, afraid to know. But more
afraid
not
to know, I finally pressed the button. The screen remained
blue, with the words “no messages” appearing. I sank back in my chair, the
tightness around my shoulders easing. Feran had not contacted the spacecraft. I
wondered if my scheme had worked and he was headed for a body of water miles
away to search for my ship.

The sun was higher in the sky and
the air was warmer when I climbed out of the craft. I jumped to the ground in
time to spot Kristin’s plane rising vertically. The little red ship headed in
the opposite direction from my field, flying straight and upright, a style that
seemed too tame for the talent and inclination of its pilot. Kristin was going
to work this time, not playing.

While I watched the red object
recede in the distance, more questions about Planet Earth sprouted in my mind
than there were flowers in Kristin’s garden. I wanted to visit the Center for
Alien Orientation to learn about this strange planet. But with Feran searching
for me, I thought it best to avoid places where refugees gathered.

Instead, I cautiously walked around
the area, and the sights I saw were amazing. I passed many buildings even
smaller than Kristin’s quarters, which could house only a few citizens. Each
residence was different from the others and had its own garden, which in turn
had its own distinctive mix of blooms, shrubs, and trees. I saw people dressed
in fantastically colorful clothing in countless styles, textures, and patterns.
There apparently did not exist a single gray worker’s uniform on this planet. I
wondered if my eyes would burn from the assault of colors. Maybe Earthlings had
superior vision that allowed them to absorb the brightness that marked their
world.

Everywhere I looked I saw sights
unprecedented: people who were not moving in mass unity; people who were
remarkably unequal and distinct from one another in their appearance; people
who were . . . unafraid.

I spotted a male and female walking
hand in hand. To my surprise, they threw their arms around each other and
kissed when they paused at a corner. I feared for their safety after such
shocking behavior, but no one came to arrest them. An adult male hugged a
child, then lifted her high in the air, making the little girl laugh. Young
boys in a park tried to hurl a large round ball through a hoop while they
leaped and shouted excitedly. A cosmic artist seemed to have transformed the
gray existence I knew across the galaxy into a lively palette of life here.

The modes of transportation seemed
as varied as the users. Small ground autos and froglike car-planes moved around
the roads and in the air. Some people had vehicles new to me, including
battery-operated platforms that looked like flying harnesses, which moved just
above the buildings. After descending, the riders secured these flying
platforms on special racks along the street, similar to the way Asteronians
parked bicycles. Others used small aircraft like Kristin’s, with powerful
engines that flew at higher altitudes. Still others operated planes I had never
seen before, quiet ships that ran, I assumed, on an advanced form of electric
battery unknown on Asteron. These vehicles traveled at an altitude between the
power planes and the platforms. In addition, there were underground roads for
buses and trucks. Because of the different layers of traffic, the vehicles
moved quickly, free of congestion. There did not seem to be a central mode of
transportation, but rather a variety of inventive avenues left to the individual
tastes of the travelers.

Food apparently had immense
importance to Earthlings. I saw that instead of having a regulated ration,
people obtained a wide range of different foods from robotic carts on the
street. The carts had multiple arms that grilled, prepared, and dispensed the
food, then accepted coins in payment. People indicated their food selections by
talking to computer monitors, some of which were designed to look like human
faces. Much of the food was unrecognizable to me, and like everything else, it
was spectacularly varied. I suddenly became aware of a sensation I had ignored
throughout my trip—and my life—a hollow, aching feeling in my stomach. I walked
over to an open trash bin in a nearby park. It contained enough food to incite
an entire Asteronian village to riot. Furtively, I reached into the bin to grab
a half-loaf of bread filled with meat, but I quickly withdrew my hand. Despite
my hunger, I could not take anything from the garbage. I somehow did not want
to soil this amazing place with an act unworthy of it.

Despite trying to remain unnoticed,
I found it impossible to do so because the Earthlings looked directly at me,
smiled, and said, “Hi.” Every time a passerby looked at me, my body tensed in
fear:
Is this one a spy?
I wondered. However, I did not recognize any
of the people as spies from Asteron. I tried to imagine how it would feel to be
free of my suspicions. On this walk that seemed like a scene from a child’s
imagination, could I not perhaps set aside for a few minutes the load I
carried?

But just when I tried to relax,
something startled me. A male in a blue uniform with a badge and weapon got out
of a vehicle marked “Police.” The man came directly toward me, then raised his
hand and touched my shoulder. For a chilling second I felt like a trapped
animal too stunned to flee. However, the officer did not seize me, but simply
brushed by me to stop at a robotic food cart, where he bought a monstrous item
called a “jumbo hot dog with cheese sauce.” As he took a giant bite, I forgot all
caution and stared at him, aghast. He noticed my stare and held the gruesome
object up to me, smiled, and exclaimed with great satisfaction, “Best dog in
town!” To my astonishment, the officer intended not to arrest me but merely to lavish
praise on his food.

Despite my desire to ease my fears,
I found it impossible to be calm. A gray fog clouded the rainbow of sights
before me. In that fog floated Kristin and Feran, the two people I did not want
to collide. Why did Feran’s folder, pen, and pad have the letters
MAS
in common with Kristin’s jacket? I did not want Feran to have even one letter
of the alphabet in common with her. Why was he coming to Planet Earth? Would
his plans here somehow touch a young pilot who danced through the skies in her
plane?

Later that afternoon, as the Earth’s
sun arched across the ocean, I returned to Kristin’s street. Walking to her
quarters, I saw grassy hills with winding, flowered paths that led to one- and
two-story domiciles like hers, partially hidden from the road by trees. I
glimpsed large sheets of windows, slanted roofs, and porches with hanging
plants in the serene landscape. I heard the buzz of an engine as Kristin flew
her bright red craft above the empty field. She was already in the air, and
this time there was another person in the plane with her.

I walked up the hill to her garden.
There the entangling arms of the ground robots were motionless and their
commander, Jack, was out of sight. Many of the little blossoms had made their
way into the moist black soil. Trowels, shears, and other tools were now stowed
in the robots’ midsections. I was relieved that the machines and human gardener
had evidently completed their shift, so I would not have to encounter the alien
Jack again.

Sitting on the grass alongside the
robots, I watched Kristin’s plane floating through the sky in thrilling
maneuvers. Soon the little craft was hovering above its landing spot near me,
stirring the grass as it descended. The door opened, then Kristin and a male
companion jumped to the ground. She waved her hand at me, and her companion
said, “Hi.” After a day of hearing this word, I sensed that I was expected to
reply, so I too said, “Hi.” I leaned back on my elbows, watching the two of
them by the craft.

“You did real well today, Kris.
You’ve mastered all the advanced techniques for the air show,” said the tall
young male with alert eyes who I realized was Kristin’s teacher.

“I’m ready!” Kristin replied.

“I scheduled a meeting tomorrow at
five in the west conference room to go over the group formations for the show.”

“Okay, I’ll be there.”

“I’d like to ask Roy Gilmore to
join the group. With an extra flier, we can use the eight-pilot formations and
you can have a partner for the opposing solos.”

“Oh no, Jeff. Please don’t do
that.”

I sat up straight, suddenly
concerned.

“What do you mean?” asked the
instructor.

“I mean I don’t want to fly in
formation with Roy.”

I rose to my feet. Kristin was
refusing to cooperate with her superior.

“Why not, Kris? Roy’s an excellent
pilot. He’s ready for the show.”

“I don’t think so,” she said.

Kristin was contradicting her
teacher. Such behavior was unthinkable! I wanted to shout
no
to warn
Kristin, but it was too late. I watched the instructor. His smile had vanished.

“Jeff, the last time I flew with
Roy, he made some mistakes that showed poor judgment. I told him about them.
I’ll explain to you, him, and the group, if you’d like, but Roy’s not ready
yet. I don’t feel comfortable flying at high speed with his wingtips close to
mine in the formation.”

“So you’re refusing to fly with
him?” the instructor said.

“I am.”

As I watched the two pilots, I had
a vision of a slim female standing on a wooden stage with her hands tied. A
robed man declared that she had refused to obey an order. I heard the vicious
jeering of people in the crowd who thirsted for human blood. I saw a platform
with a rope—

Kristin’s instructor turned to the
plane and reached in to get something. I saw the loops of a rope fall out of
the door. In the next instant I was standing beside Kristin, with shears from
the garden raised high in my hand like a knife ready to strike. I saw Kristin’s
look of horror and felt her struggle to lower my arm and grab the shears, but I
would not budge. Then I saw an object attached to the ropes, which the
instructor was pulling from the plane—a parachute that was coming out of its
packing, its ropes exposed. Instantly, the biting fear left me. I lowered my
arm and the shears fell to the ground. All of this occurred before the
instructor’s head emerged from the plane and he turned to face us.

“Okay, Kris, I won’t invite Roy
Gilmore to the meeting. If you don’t feel comfortable flying with him, then of
course he can’t join the group.”

“Thanks, Jeff,” said Kristin, her
voice unsteady, her eyes darting nervously to me, her nails cutting into my arm
to hold it down. “Oh, and this is Alexander. He’s new around here.”

“Hi, Alexander,” said the
instructor, extending a hand to me. Kristin placed my hand into his, and this
alien stranger, whom I had been about to . . . harm,
squeezed my hand firmly while he smiled so broadly that lines formed around his
eyes like rays from the sun.

“Hi, Jeff,” I managed to utter,
returning the hand-squeeze.

After repacking the chute and
putting it back in the plane, the instructor said good-bye to us and left. As
he walked down the hill to a vehicle parked on the road, Kristin turned to me.
“You were going to
stab
Jeff! You could have—” She covered her face
with her hands, as if to block out a fact too horrible to see.

“I was mistaken.”

“I’ll say you were mistaken!
Whatever were you thinking?”

I was silent.

“Explain to me why you did that,
Alex, and why I shouldn’t think you’re crazy.”

“I am crazy.”

“I can’t fly with you if I think
you’re . . . disturbed.”

“I am disturbed.”

“Tell me why, Alexander, or you’ll
have to go away and never come back.”

I paused. I sighed. Kristin waited.
Finally I spoke. “You contradicted your teacher and refused to obey. When your
teacher reached into the plane, and I saw the rope, I . . . I
thought it was something else. I expected you to be punished.”

Kristin stared at me in
bewilderment. “You mean because I disagreed with Jeff, you expected him to . . .”—she
suppressed a laugh—“to
beat
me with a rope? Or no, maybe you thought
Jeff would
strangle
me?” Kristin threw her head back and laughed. “Or
wait, I’ve got it—you thought he’d fling the rope around a tree and
hang
me, didn’t you?”

I remembered a lively spark of gold
hair against a dead sky. I wanted to reach out, but my wrists were tied. I
wanted to cry out, but my mouth was gagged. I had to stop an unspeakable act,
but I—

Then I felt two warm hands covering
mine. “Alex, you’re shaking. Your hands are so cold.” Her rising laughter had
vanished. Her untroubled face had creased with lines. “You really thought . . . something
horrible. . . . You tried to
rescue
me . . . again.”

I wanted to erase the dark lines I
had marked on that face. “Laugh at me, Kristin. I want to feel ridiculous, to
know that what I thought would not happen here.”

Kristin did not laugh. “I don’t
know much about those planets where the refugees come from. But I probably will
someday, when I become a space pilot. I know only that here on Earth no one can
hurt me. I’m in no danger, believe me. But
you
are.”