Our tiny Siitsi shuttle was packed with people. We cruised over a lush green planet. Below, an unbroken carpet of green stretched out as far as I could see. Ahead, a mountain range cut into the bright blue sky.
I gripped the edges of my seat as the shuttle swooped up and over the snowy top of the highest mountain peak. We burst over the crest to reveal a bustle of activity in the valley beneath us. Small buildings dotted the flat ground, and the wind of our passing ruffled what looked like the ripple of some kind of energy field over the whole valley.
Shane had the window seat, and I leaned over his lap to take it all in.
We passed through the energy net and landed on a solid pad of dirt. Through the window I saw a rush of people crossing the field to meet us.
I took a deep breath. “You ready for this?”
Shane grinned at me. “We’re home. Our home now.”
Our hatchway popped open, and Shiro was the first down the ramp. A man about his age ran up to greet him and they hugged, slapping each other on the backs like little kids.
I stood in front of our people at the top of the ramp. I should say something. This is a big moment. But nothing suitably momentous came to mind.
“Everybody ready?” I asked and got a bunch of nervous nods.
The ramp bowed beneath us as we trooped down. A warm, fresh smell hit my nostrils, and I breathed in, sucking the hot wind. It smelled a little like the interior of the Botanist’s ship. Plants. Growing things everywhere, and a faint, sour tinge I didn’t recognize. I held Shane’s hand and our feet touched the hard-packed earth together.
“Welcome,” said the man who still had an arm around Shiro’s shoulder. “Welcome to Carthage.”
I moved out onto the landing pad, making room for the people behind me to take their first steps on solid ground. The sound of all them sniffing the air made me smile. I raised my chin a little. Their first time on a planet. The thought made me chuckle. Jonah Campbell, galaxy traveler.
Shiro brought the man over to Shane and me. His skin was brown, and the edges of his eyes crinkled when he smiled at us.
“Guys, this is Caleb Wilde. He runs the colony here. Caleb, this is Jonah and Shane from Horizon Delta.”
Caleb grinned at us. “I’ve heard bits and pieces of your story from the Siitsi. Can’t wait to hear it straight from you.” He met my gaze for a moment. “You sound like my kind of kid.”
We fanned out behind him, heading for a wide, flat plateau on the side of a cliff. The dark mouth of a cave opened behind it. He pointed out the sights we were passing.
“These are our fields and orchards.” He pointed to rows of trees behind us. “Most of those fruit trees were planted by the Siitsi who lived here a couple hundred years ago. I expect you’ll find the fruit familiar from your trip.”
Siitsi and humans bustled around the fields. Some of the equipment they were using to till the soil looked like scraps of metal salvaged from a wreck. Other things looked bright and new, obviously Siitsi technology.
“We all live here together,” Caleb continued. “It’s a joint colony, first of its kind. With their help, we’ve been starting to expand beyond this valley into the mountains all around, so there’s plenty of room for all of us.”
We passed a wooden corral where a bunch of waist-high creatures scrabbled in the dirt. I stopped and stared at them. They were little, but there was no mistaking what they were.
“You keep dinosaurs as pets?”
Shane rushed to the fence, laughing and pointing.
Shiro nodded. “One of our people domesticated them a while back. They’re not pets, but they’re great egg-layers. And very tasty.”
The Siitsi crew of our shuttle squawked a protest. They didn’t eat meat of any kind, but apparently the humans here did.
Caleb turned to Shiro. “Oh, hey, did you get the seeds you were hoping for?”
“Better than seeds.” Shiro glanced back at our parked shuttle. “We started germinating them on the trip out here. They grow like crazy.”
A shrieking cry above made all of us wince and duck as a huge triangular shape soared over the shimmering energy net far above our heads. The call sent a shiver down my spine. Dinosaurs. This is a planet of dinosaurs.
Shane did not share my fear. He had climbed over the corral fence and grabbed one of the little ones, which struggled in his grasp. “Jonah, look! He likes me!”
I laughed. Shane would do just fine here.
Caleb called to some of his people. “Hey, let’s get those crates off the shuttle and start planting on the north outer wall. Keep some back inside in case they don’t grow well on the slopes.”
I remembered Shiro on the day he had found me caked with algae, huddling in a cage on the trade world a million years ago. I had asked him what he was trading for with the Botanists.
Dinosaur repellent.
They had created a plant that the dinosaurs here would hate. He hoped it would keep a bunch of tiny ones he called “The Flood” from trying to get through the mountains every year.
I looked back at my people spread out behind me. They were peering around in speechless shock. I had been through so much since our days on the Botanist ship . . . This green valley was the safest place I could have hoped for. Bright sun beat on the back of my neck, and sweat rolled down between my shoulder blades. It would take some getting used to, this life we should never have had.
A woman took the squirming dinosaur from Shane’s grasp and shooed him back to our group. We continued our trek across the field and up a steep slope onto the plateau.
“Welcome,” Caleb repeated once we were all assembled. Shiro stood next to him and they faced us with their backs to the valley. We all looked out over this place that would be our new home. “Welcome to Carthage valley.” He waved an arm, indicating the huge, green landscape. “We’re so happy to have you join our colony. We’ve been here over twenty years now, and we’ve got most of the bugs worked out.”
I smiled at that. Shiro and the crew had offered to take us to the other planet where the Horizon Beta people lived with the insects they adored. But I had seen what the pheromone could do. Even if it didn’t work on humans and bugs the way it worked on Botanists, I’d take dinosaurs over mind-control bugs any day.
“There’s plenty of room, and we have quarters already set up for you. Our people will get you settled.” He paused. “No, not ‘our people.’ Your people. All of our people. The descendants of Earth are together again, along with the new friends we’ve made along the way.”
Shiro and Caleb ushered everyone into the caves where I’d been told we would live, and Shane went in with Tishi, the Siitsi female that had taken him under her wing on the three-month voyage here.
I stood outside on the plateau as the sun dipped below the mountaintop, throwing long shadows across the valley that was my home now.
Home.
It was a word as alien to me as the birdpeople that fluttered around the land. Horizon Delta had been my home, the only one I thought I’d ever know. The air here was sweet and fresh, and the noises all around were happy, laughing voices, chirps, and whistles. Everyone seemed content. Shane was safe. He could grow up here without fear and find a place in this budding society.
But as the sky darkened and the first stars appeared in the purple dusk above me, I knew I wouldn’t stay here. This wasn’t my place. The people here weren’t my people. I was born on a spaceship, and that’s where I was supposed to die. My life was meant to be spent in the blackness of the night sky, with stars as my companions.
As night on the dinosaur world fell, I realized that one day I would leave this place. When Shane was grown enough not to need me, I’d board another Siitsi shuttle. I’d fly away into that sky, toward whatever adventures waited in the far corners of the galaxy. One day there would once again be a spaceship captained by a human, speeding for a distant world.
I might never make it back to Earth. I might never see Chara d, where the people of Horizon Delta were meant to go.
But my destiny was not here on this warm, green planet.
My destiny was in the stars. And one day I would find it.
“Jonah, you coming?” My little brother’s voice echoed in the mouth of the cave. He was silhouetted against the brightness inside.
With one long glance at the darkening night sky, I took his hand and walked into warm light and laughter.