Paradise 21 (21 page)

He should check on Aries’ progress. Perhaps her brother had been able to change her mind. Barliss had offered him an excellent promotion as a reward. He stepped forward and his wrist beeped. At first Barliss thought it was some alarm, that he’d trespassed on the herbs cultivated by the foliage team, but his feet stood solidly on the plastic walkway. He brought his arm up and looked at his locator.

The devices were only meant as beacons to locate members of the crew. Messages were rarely sent and had to be approved by the higher in command. He stared at the tiny screen as letters flashed before his eyes, creating a full sentence.

May I request a private audience?

Barliss blinked to make sure he wasn’t imagining the string of letters on his locator, but they were still there. He pressed a button on the side, identifying the sender. The device flashed a name: Commander Gearhardt.

Only the commander would have the power to alter the internal systems of the locators. It made perfect sense. What didn’t line up was why he needed to speak to Barliss so soon after his return, and why the meeting was so clandestine. Barliss broke branches in his haste to get out of the atrium.

Striker peered over the ridge at the remnants of the raider den. Black smoke stained the clear blue sky, creating shadows as it rose from piles of ashes while the raiders gathered bodies and cremated them. More raiders picked through the desolation, some of them probably looting, while others roamed without direction, perhaps looking for lost family members. Striker felt a pang in his chest. Even the “lizard men,” as Aries had called them, didn’t deserve this kind of devastation.

There were too many raiders to win a fight against them, so he couldn’t drag the processor right through their territory. Jumping down from the ridge, Striker skirted the den and searched for a discreet path around the refugees.

A body lay on the edge of the ridge. The raider’s two-pronged tongue hung from an open mouth, which contained two small incisors that were as sharp as pins. Laser fire had blackened his midsection, and his scrawny leg bent at a strange angle.

Striker had never come this close to one besides the boy who’d chased the snake up so close to where he’d hidden with Aries. He pulled off its bone mask and looked into the blank stare of its dark eyes, wondering what thoughts had flitted behind them. The mask was carved with slits and tied with pieces of desert cowhide.

Striker held his breath from the smell of burnt tissue and pulled the crude coat from the creature’s back. He tore off a strip of animal hide and shook it out, lizard scales glimmering as they fell into the sand. After wrapping it around his head, he tied the bone mask on as well. They did block the wind and sand, and hid a large portion of his face. He put the remainder of the lizard man’s coat over his own black cloak. It didn’t reach down to cover his black boots, and he had no way to fake a tail, but it might get him through. Consumed as they were by their colony’s devastation, Striker doubted the raiders would be on the lookout for new victims. In any case, he didn’t want to be confused with the humans who had brought the destruction down upon them.

Weaving his way in and out of the fallen tents, Striker worked toward the canyon where he and Aries had hidden the processor. He tried not to look at the bodies, because each one left a searing impression on his mind: a blackened arm reaching from a fallen tent, a cracked bone mask small enough for a child, an unraveled string of beads. He had to remind himself the people who’d created this mess had taken Aries, and the only way to get her back was to find the processor. Stepping over what must have been a raider’s living area with broken clay pots, Striker avoided contact with the other wanderers.

Hissing erupted ahead of him. A fight had broken out, two raiders pushing at each other while others looked on. Striker walked around it, ducking through one of the only tents left standing.

A small raider with dull coloring bent over a pile of eggs, white and wet as the sides of someone’s eyes. Was it a female? She licked the round tops with her tongue, flicking it in and out of her mouth to keep it moist. The vulnerability of the female with its eggs distracted Striker as he thought back to the eggs on his ship. In times of overwhelming destruction, every species struggles to protect its young, to survive. Feeling like an intruder, he tripped, knocking over a stand of clattering pots.

The female hissed, a long and drawn-out noise. Striker stepped back, but she ran at him, tail swinging behind her. Not wanting to fight her, he retreated until she pushed him through the front flaps, right into the middle of the dispute.

The two raiders engaged in the fight froze, and the onlookers turned their heads at incredible angles, by human standards. The female clicked her tongue and flicked her three-taloned hand at Striker in a rude gesture, as if to say he’d committed some blasphemous act by invading her egg tent.

The raiders stepped forward, closing in. He stumbled backward, but raiders surrounded him on all sides. They reached behind their backs and drew their spears. Striker put up both hands to show his peaceful intentions, but he’d forgotten he wore no gloves. As the crowd stared in shock at his tanned skin, he expected them to slaughter him right then and there and braced himself for a final fight, making fists with his fingers.

The raiders stared at his bare skin with wary eyes. One by one, they dropped their spears and scattered, running in all directions. The female disappeared back into the tent. Striker stood alone in the ring of sand made by the dueling raiders’ claws.

For a moment, he felt a great sense of disgust for his own species. For all of recorded history, humans had forced their will on the natural world, exterminating other species and driving them to the far regions of old Earth. It was partly the reason he stood on this barren planet today. Perhaps humans were doomed to repeat history wherever they went. Perhaps the
New Dawn
would make a barren world out of a paradise.

He’d colonize Refuge, and he’d make his world different. Striker remembered the processor. Tearing the mask from his face, he ran toward the canyon at the far end of the colony. His heart beat faster with each leap he took. What if the
New Dawn
’s crew had found it? What if it wasn’t there? When he entered the shallow cave, the pearly white shell of the alien construct peaked out in the shadows of the rock.

Striker leaned against it and caught his breath. He’d been here with Aries days ago, and she’d tried to tell him something, tried to open her heart. He wished now he hadn’t shushed her. Her people had been closing in and he’d wanted to get her out of there. He’d thought there was no time for words, but now he kicked himself for not staying to hear her out. What would she have said?

Striker’s determination hardened. He
would
see her again. He’d told the biggest lie of his life when he’d pushed Aries away and said he couldn’t love her. The truth burned in his chest, waiting to be spoken. She had to know.

The processor was too heavy for him to lift alone, and so he got behind it and pushed. His legs ached from chasing after the hovercrafts and traipsing across the sand dunes to get back to his own ship. He gritted his teeth against the pain and heaved. The processor slowly budged and he pushed it from the cave into the canyon, muscles burning in his arms.

It took him the entire day to drag it back to the alien ship. The duel suns rose and set on each horizon, casting pools of shadows between ridges and bathing the pristine white of the ship in red and orange light as he approached. The coral seemed to glisten stronger in the rays, as if the possibility of completeness tantalized its inner workings.

A rising sense of anticipation overtook him, and his heart beat faster as he dragged the processor to the prow. Five years of work, and now he’d know if it had all been for naught, if he’d be able to get Aries back, if he’d be able to repay the alien race by bringing their eggs to Refuge.

Striker dusted the sand off the processor with the stolen raider coat and inserted it into an indent in the side of the hull, the place where he thought it had broken off. He prayed under his breath as the processor slid into place. The coral fused together, reconnecting with the mother ship. He smoothed his fingers over the melded crack. The entire white shell glowed brighter and brighter until the blue light obliterated the red-orange rays of the suns. His skin prickled with anticipation as he rode a tidal wave of emotions all overwhelming him at once. If the outer shell had that much energy, he couldn’t imagine what it was like inside. Collecting himself, he jumped onto the ship, tracing the hieroglyphs to open the hatch.

…

The monster’s claw tasted better than anything Tiff had ever eaten. She shoved it in her mouth and chewed, enjoying the sensation of her teeth puncturing the flesh. She ate until her belly felt round and she grew sleepy in the arid heat.

Drifter turned another portion of meat over the fire and smiled. “Not bad, huh?” His beady eyes had that arrogant look that drove her crazy and she turned away, spitting out a piece of shell. She wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of agreeing with him.

A piece of meat hung from Loot’s chin and he sucked it in with a grin. “It’s so different than our recycled food back at the station.” Drifter handed him another spit from the fire.

Tiff turned toward the horizon. “When are we going to head out?”

The feeling of time slipping away came back to her in a wash, and a sharp anxiety made her dizzy all at once. Maybe she’d just eaten too much, or maybe Striker slipped farther away every minute they wasted. Tiff wondered if he knew they’d landed. Would he run from them or greet them with weapons? She couldn’t bear to imagine what he thought of her.

“Give us time to digest our food, will ya?” Reckon chugged water from a bottle and Tiff made a mental note not to touch that one once he put it down. Her eyes wandered to a black cloud rising behind the next mountain.

“Over there! I see smoke.”

“Where?” Loot ran to the edge of the ridge. Tiff glanced at Drifter, but he gave her a suspicious look through his oily hair and rotated another chunk of the monster claw.

“She’s right.” Loot pointed to the horizon. “It’s coming from the canyon between those two mountains. Well, that’s where we oughtta go, you think?” Loot looked at Tiff with eagerness in his eyes. His optimism pulled at her heart, but the place beyond the ridge exuded negative vibes.

Reckon shuddered and wiped his face. “I don’t know. Seems to me, we should stay clear of anything smoking.”

“Wrong.” Drifter’s voice had an edge of finality to it, like he’d cast the deciding vote. “I say we pack up and see what’s over there.”

Tiff closed her eyes. Something about being on the planet and feeling the gravity, the wind and the sun, and tasting real food, made her body charge with an acute feeling of being alive. She allowed the wind to carry her thoughts, feeling the ground’s pull underneath her feet and the sun’s rays at her back. She sensed Striker’s presence near, like the shadow of an old friend. Tugging on the strand of thought, she pushed the boundaries holding it back. She saw a flash of black fabric, a whitewashed shell, and the curve of a strong-boned cheek.

“He’s been there.” She blurted without a thought as to how her companions would react. She opened her eyes and saw them all staring at her. She’d have to be convincing if they were to believe her. Her voice hardened. “His presence is fading. We must leave now.”

Drifter kicked sand on the fire and reached for his laser gun. He clicked the safety switch off and nodded in the direction of the smoke. “Let’s go.”

Tiff stared at Drifter. “That’s it? No questions, no complaining?”

Drifter jerked his head and flung back his hair. It used to make her skin hot with desire, but now that move just annoyed her. “You don’t think I’ve ever suspected you have the same sixth sense as your mom?”

Surprised by his faith in her, Tiff’s heart opened a little, but then closed back up. “You always called her a crazy bitch.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t mean her fortune-telling.”

It took them most of the day to reach the canyon, skirting the mountainside and stepping over fallen rocks. Patches of scraggly shrubs poked through the jagged terrain with prickles the size of needles. Tiff and Loot scouted for the safest path, since they had the best balance. As they took the lead, Drifter kept his distance, shuffling behind them and whispering with Reckon.

Loot walked beside her as they slid down an incline of pebbles. “Why did you abandon Striker here, anyway?”

“You know, it was so long ago I don’t even remember why, exactly. Kind of like when it’s been so long, you forget to be mad at the person you’re supposed to be mad at.”

Tiff dusted her knees off and continued, looking back to make sure Drifter was far enough away he couldn’t hear. “Striker had crazy dreams of finding a paradise planet and relocating all of Outpost Omega. When he found Refuge, I wondered why he didn’t just want to be there with me. The two of us, alone, together. If he brought everyone else along, it would just end up like another ruined old Earth: wars, pollution, overpopulation, you know. You’ve heard the stories.”

“Yeah, I heard ’em.” Loot kicked stray rocks and hit the cactus five meters ahead of them, causing a spider-mouse to scurry for shelter. “Still, it’s really good of him to try to save everyone like that. I mean, what a hero.”