The Earthling kidnap victims should have been too busy to fight among themselves. Especially while dawn spread so beautifully across those distant, purple and white mountains, as if the planet were apologizing for an awful night. But …
Seven killed. Before the first rays of sunrise, a junior girl bled out from a neck wound—arterial—that Ms. O’Brien could not stop. And Mark carefully sat down on the gym floor with his head spinning when he heard it was Arlene Hsu. Brilliant, watchful, pretty Arlene. She was sixteen years old, confident of both a swimming scholarship and doing pre-med at Stanford. Planned to save the world. Gone.
And little Glen Shapiro, whose asthma had stymied him a month ago, when trying out for the varsity climbing team. Though Mark recalled the freshman’s grinning vow to come back next year. Now—some reaction to bat-thing saliva had sent the poor kid into convulsions, then cardiac arrest. And several more had seizures, causing all the wounded to wonder about poisonous bat-thing toxins. Am I next?
The other five dead were all strangers to him, for which Mark was grateful—which made him feel sick and guilty. But he pushed that aside. Except for Arlene, his friends were alive.
Breakfast was disorderly. Hundreds of colorful little boxes were passed around the gym, granola bars, fruit bars, fruit wraps—lots of carbs. But when he stepped outside, blinking at the dawn, Mark smelled eggs and bacon, coming from somewhere in the main wing of the school. Not the cafeteria. A bunch of kids ran inside, poked around and reported the caf was empty. So, there were people holed up in an office or classroom somewhere, using Bunsen burners or a camp stove.
“Oh, man,” said uber-nerd Barry Tang, putting his hand on his belly.
Alex scanned the second-floor windows. “I hope they choke on it.”
“Well, there’s no sense letting fresh grub go bad,” said Mark. But a dark corner of him wanted necks to strangle.
Anyway, who had an appetite? While students gathered on the main steps, a cluster of somber teachers carried the dead into strange, slightly orange sunlight, two of the bodies wrapped in American flags, the other five in school banners. Most the island's population followed—a solemn, whispering procession—to a patch of lawn between the flag pole and the parking lot’s rows of useless automobiles.
Principal Jeffers was already there, having personally helped to dig graves, aided by the no-nonsense efforts of Greg and Nick Hammar. And Mr. Perez the campus cop, whose burly, bare torso gleamed as he sent final shovels of earth flying. Soil stained the tears rolling down his cheeks, and he had to be dragged out of the final pit as Jeffers whispered “Enough. That’s enough.”
Mark would have chosen another place to begin a cemetery. The space around the mounds of dirt was too big. To him it looked like Jeffers was planning for more casualties, but it was also as quiet a spot as they'd find on their island that wasn't paved over, and maybe Jeffers was expecting more.
The reporter from Channel Six news—trapped along with everyone else when the Garubis aliens hurled over a thousand humans to another world—recorded the scene for posterity as four members of the school band ad-lib’d “Amazing Grace” on trumpet, saxophone, tuba and snare drum. Ms. Najarro—the soft-spoken, very religious freshman-class teacher—led a prayer, then half a dozen students made brief attempts to memorialize their friends. Most did surprisingly well, but one victim, a recent transfer student, had nobody. So, Helene Shockley stepped in, gorgeously dark and charismatic—followed by Principal Jeffers who added some comforting thoughts. Mark didn’t take in many words, though the tone seemed right. Reassuring. Determined.
One sour note might seem a bad omen, to some. Toward the end of the ceremony, Avenue Annie blundered through the crowd, panhandling for spare change as she had done along Rimpau for years, while out-thrusting a cardboard sign with slanted lettering in red marker, shuffling along a path that only she could sense, as students made way for her. She was said to live in the small homeless encampment at the edge of Twenty-Nine Palms, beneath an overpass that now lay many light years away, along with the homes of every student who used to snicker or take pity on her. At fifty or sixty, with bad teeth, she was puffy-faced and gray beneath her trademark San Diego Padres cap. Annie jingled her cup, oblivious to the reason for this gathering, delighted to find coins, and even paper money thrust on her, just to make her go away.
“Gimme change. All my stuff is gone,” he overhead her mutter. “All my stuff is gone.”
Yeah, Mark realized. My stuff, too. We’re all homeless now.
“Somebody better talk to her,” Alex murmured. But she needn’t have worried. As the funeral broke up, two girls took Annie by the arm and gently guided her toward the Food King market, where volunteers were setting up barbeques again. On today’s lunch menu? Anything in the grocery that seemed on the verge of spoiling.
Barry accompanied Alex and Mark partway, as they headed for a group rendezvous at the northern Edge. No one spoke, at first, as they passed the campus maintenance man, Mr. Ortiz, and a crew of student volunteers, who were sweeping together piles of dead bat-things. There were lots, stunned first by fire extinguishers then smashed by vengeful student athletes wielding baseball bats. More than Mark expected. Mounds of them. He felt a mix of satisfaction, curiosity and … well, a little touch of shame. After all, we’re the invaders here. They were minding their own business, preying on other creatures of this world, when our mere presence drove them into a frenzy.
“Well, I have duties in the bio lab,” Barry told them. “We’re trying to hack the gene sifters, chemsynths and Molecu-Macs, so they aren’t locked into curriculums anymore. For some reason the Board of Education was paranoid about students using genetics equipment for other things!” He gave a dry laugh. “But I think we’ll manage.”
“Are you guys joining the expedition?” Barry added, nodding toward the Edge, where a cluster was already gathering around Gracie Donner. Even after last night’s horror, she had no lack of volunteers, including—especially—Dave McCarty, along with several burly fellows bearing formidable, saw-edged pruning tools at the end of long poles. Mark glanced at Alex.
“Looks like we better hurry if we want a spot.” She nodded. “They’re already passing out gear. Ooh, Lacrosse sticks! Those should be perfect for grabbing samples.”
Mark nodded with a faint smile. Of course, that’s where they both belonged. Only … each step that he took brought sharp muscle twinges. Yesterday was hard on me—rappelling down cliffs to fill great big buckets with spilling gasoline and all that. Then fighting bat-things half the night. Maybe I’m getting old.
But he and Alex had some important suggestions for the expedition and Mark doubted there was anyone with more experience in jungles than he had, in Colombia, so …
They made it twenty paces toward the Donner group before someone—the skinny sophomore who showed real guts last night … oh yeah, Leonard Kelly—sped over and plucked at Mark’s sleeve.
“Mr. Castro wants you,” Leo said. “For a meeting at the faculty lounge.”
Another meeting? Mark moaned within. His body felt relieved, but suddenly he worried about Alex and his other friends, heading out there without him. It must have been plain on his face.
“We’ll be fine,” she assured.
“Um. I guess. We talked about leggings,” he began.
“Yeah. I’ll make sure everyone wraps plastic around their ankles, from shoe-to-knee.”
“And—”
“I remember everything we discussed.”
“Yeah, smartass? Just be—”
“You’re not my dad, you know. Even though I know you want to be.”
There were mixed meanings and layers in that, but Alex cut off any further talk with an embrace that lasted maybe a microsecond, before hurrying off to join the expedition.
“—careful,” he finished, watching her go with a blend of anxiety and envy for the adventure, before turning back to the fretful encampment of Earthlings.
✽✽✽
A lingering grease-and-salt smell of bacon was strong inside the school halls. That made him ravenous, and he was already in a fragile mood. Hovering somewhere between dread and anger, he was tempted to go upstairs and hunt around for somebody to punch.
The carnie boss, Zach Serpa, rounded a corner down the hall, clomping toward him in heavy leather boots. Dark stubble clung to Serpa's long face and the man stared at him, then glanced back over one shoulder as if lost.
Mark tamped down on his emotions, trying to be friendly. “Can I help you?” he said.
“Faculty lounge,” Serpa said, tersely.
Okay, another invitee. An obvious one, representing one of the groups who had been snatched up, along with students and faculty. But why me?
He led Serpa back to the corner and through two doors, to a large room that had lights and one wall self-illuminated to serve as an electronic whiteboard. Well, power from the rooftop solar, stored in the school’s battery arrays, could be allocated to specific places, and this meeting was high priority.
In the lounge they found a leadership gathering: Principal Jeffers and Mr. Castro, along with almost a dozen other teachers and coaches. Also Mr. Marshall, owner of the Chevy dealership, representing the townies. Scott Tepper and Helene Shockley for the student body. And Colin Gornet for … the jocks? Or for the rich-folk community at the south end of Twenty-Nine Palms, and on the other side of a galaxy maybe? Gornet’s glance at Mark was far from welcoming. But Mr. Castro came forth and greeted him with a squeeze above the elbow, careful of Mark’s bandaged wrist. “How are you doing?” he asked softly.
“I’m okay.”
“No, seriously.” Castro bent a little to make direct eye contact. “How are you doing?”
“I’m …” Mark realized that he was in a bit of a daze and must be showing it. He bore down a little, straightening so that his spine crackled. “Just not sure why I’m here.”
Castro glanced left and right. “Not everyone is blind, Mark. Some of us can see who’s always in the right place, doing useful things.” Another arm squeeze and the teacher turned away, letting Mark find a seat in the far back corner, next to Kristina Zhirinova, another student who seemed as puzzled as he was, over being invited to attend.
Last to arrive was Ms. O'Brien, a robust brunette in her thirties. The former Navy medic looked haggard and pale beneath her southern California tan. I doubt she’s slept a wink.
“Okay, we're all here. Thank you for coming,” Principal Jeffers said, then seemed to stumble, blinking to find his focus, and Mark wondered if it had been a mistake to put the funerals first.
“We'll have to be quick,” Mr. Castro said, encouraging.
The principal nodded and agreed, “Yes. The students are frightened, tired. We all are. Last night …” He stopped himself and shook his head, as if retreating before he made an accusation. “We need to do a better job of setting an example.”
Mark nodded once, then looked around at the others. Ms. Liang and Ms. Pacheco sat on worn, brown leather chairs by the mini-kitchen, effectively removing themselves from the discussion, while the rest of the group stood or sat in a haphazard circle—though the physics teacher, Mr. Davis, stared at the floor, while Mrs. Swain gazed out the window. Seated on a folding chair, Coach Lavallee took a tool from his cane and used the opportunity to adjust some setting on his artificial leg. Everyone else watched each other, uneasy and tense. Zach Serpa, leader of the carnival workers, fidgeted in his denim jacket.
When asked to report on the bat-thing aftermath, Ms. O'Brien spoke with guarded optimism. “We were desperately worried that the parasites’ scratches and bites and … tongue licks … carried something lethal. There is a toxin, clearly. But as it turns out—” she exhaled a deep breath “—most humans seem to neutralize it, pretty well. Except for a few cases like poor little Glen Shapiro, who had some kind of desperate allergic reaction. Which he only made worse by injecting himself with an epinephrine-zixol pen. The same thing happened to Laurelyn Palo, and she barely survived. So now we know something not to do. Next time.”
Her last two words cast a pall over what had—overall—been pretty good news. The combination of pain and numbness in Mark’s wrist seemed to take another quality, knowing now that it wasn’t a death sentence. Not this. Not yet. But there was always the next thing.
“Still,” Coach Lavallee muttered. “To know we can never venture out at night …” In addition to running varsity athletics, he was sponsor of the astronomy club. Others murmured at that grim prospect, especially with darkness stretching here so long. All of them had grown up fearless of any time of day.
Mark discovered that Mr. Castro was looking at him. The teacher inclined his head slightly. Twice. When Mark stayed silent, Castro cleared his throat.
“I believe Mr. Bamford here has some tactical observations. Don’t be shy, Mark. We all know what you did last night, with the fire extinguishers and the rescue parties.”
Clearly, most of those in the room were not aware and stared at him, though it was Helene’s expression of appreciative encouragement that had him nonplussed.
“I … don’t think the extinguishers are anything but a last resort. Sure, we can rig a way to recharge them with compressed air … and maybe add something … some powder that the bat-things hate. Should be easy enough to test—”
Helene scribbled on her pad and Mark saw his suggestions flow concisely across the whiteboard wall.
“—but I think we’ll accomplish more with a simpler technology,” he continued, then ventured a single word. “Umbrellas.”
Colin Gornet snorted and Serpa groaned from his perch, sitting atop the kitchenette counter.
“They … they always attack from above,” Mark explained, stammering a little. “In a dive. It probably works for their normal prey. Our best … tactic … last night was to wave stuff or hold stuff overhead. Sure. I guess a single person would be helpless against a swarm, even with an umbrella. But in groups, it might present a kind of shield. With careful clothing, of course. And with lookouts to spot a swarm … Maybe rigging something from the audio lab to detect their sound as they approach. With all of that, sure. I think we can learn how to go out at night.”
His voice trailed off and Mr. Castro’s look of encouragement didn’t help much.
Umbrellas? Idiot! You sounded so lame.
“We can do better than that!” Gornet scoffed. “I say use fire!”
“Torches?” Mr. Davis asked. “I suppose we could experiment, burning different things to see if smoke repels—”
“No, you don’t get it,” Colin interrupted the teacher, something he knew he could get away with, now. “I mean take fire to them! Find their nest or cave—whatever—and burn it out!”
The big linebacker stood and spread his arms. “You’re all thinking too small. We should do what settlers did, back on Earth. They’d clear a wide zone around their settlement. Burning a defensive perimeter, far enough so that nothing and nobody could approach without coming under fire.”
Mr. Davis winced. “That sounds pretty harsh on the—well—natives.”
“What natives? Do you see any signs of intelligence out there?”
“I meant native creatures—”
“Who attacked us, last night!”
“—but that raises another question,” Coach Lavallee asked. “Will we recognize a higher race, if we meet one?”
Mr. Castro mused. “The Garubis said they were giving humanity a ‘gift.’ Clearly, we’re that gift—a second home. An interstellar colony—”
“Maybe a penal colony, a prison, as punishment for the way their envoy was treated.”
“Until he was rescued and given hospitality.” Castro shrugged. “Either way, reward or punishment, doesn’t that imply this world is for us, alone?”
Zach Serpa scowled at mention of the alien kidnappers. “We need to survive. Whatever it takes! Then find some way to get payback on those bastards.”
And Serpa glared directly at Mark, making evident why the fellow was so hostile. Less than a year—or a lifetime—ago, Mark and Alex had saved the life of Na-Bistaka, the Garubis agent who was stranded on Earth, which led eventually to humanity earning a ‘reward.’ And some would never forget who made this abduction possible. Serpa’s expression seemed to say watch your back, kid.
Principal Jeffers spoke, for the first time in a while.
“That’s a … very aggressive proposal, Colin. I’m sure we’ll give it serious consideration. Though we should wait to hear from Miss Donner’s expedition. We can take it up, when we find out what they discover.”
Clearly, he was worried sick about sending a party of teenagers down into an alien jungle. But with food running low, and water even faster, there was no choice.
The Garubis wouldn’t have dropped us into a place where we could breathe, only to then starve. They’re nasty. But they mentioned some kind of honor code that limits them. We’d have a chance, at least. And, of course, Mark knew he could just be kidding himself.
The other coach of Boy’s Sports, Mr. Hensen—short and sharp—took a step into the circle.
“Even if we do find things to eat out there, that won’t last for long. Hunters and foragers deplete an area and then move on. Isn’t that right, Harry?”
Mr. Castro nodded, and Mark realized he hadn’t known the history teacher’s first name.
“But we can’t become nomads,” Hensen continued. “Beyond a few months, at most, we have to establish agriculture! Kristina, has your club worked out a plan?”
Oh yeah, Mark recalled. She’s president of the school’s 4-H chapter. It went unspoken that Ms. Takka, the club’s nervous faculty adviser, was in no shape to attend. Kristina has more reason to be here than I do.
The young woman aimed her pen-phone at Helene’s tablet and a chart appeared on the whiteboard. “We have a variety of seeds, vegetables, corn, wheat,” she began, in her Russian accent. “Not enough for crops to feed a thousand, but to make a fair-sized seed harvest. That harvest of seeds could then be planted—”
“Two growing seasons, then, before we can get a sustained and big enough yield to be self-supporting,” Scott Tepper summarized, scanning the chart. “That’s a long time.”
Kristina nodded. “This climate feels temperate and the jungle that surrounds us suggests there’s never snow in this zone. The good news? That could mean two, possibly rapid, growing seasons. Still, that may actually be bad news over the long run.”
“Why is that?” Ms. Liang asked, quietly.
“The winter reset,” Mr. Castro murmured. Then he looked up. “Low-tech agriculture does better, actually, in places where snow falls for at least a short time, killing or knocking down all the weeds and grasses and insects that compete with crops. Farmers can plow in the spring, taking on nature from an even start.” He glanced sidelong at Kristina and Mark. “I grew up on a farm.”
“So?” Colin Gornet said. “Whatever advantage those farmers got from snow, others got from fire! Isn’t that right?”
Castro nodded, reluctantly.
“Tropical agriculturalists would slash down a patch of jungle, let it dry, then burn it. The ash made a fertile clearing, weed-free, for their gardens. But—” Swiftly changing the subject, he turned again to Kristina. “But you seem to be saying we should get busy, planting those first seed gardens, right away. Starting in Earth soil.”
“We will need every patch of lawn, yes … I mean …” Her voice trailed off as, clearly, she realized what that would entail. Eyes turned to Principal Jeffers, who had led the dawn burial detail, and who now looked pale.
The bodies we just put in the ground. They’ll have to be moved.
“Everything depends on water,” Mark reminded them. “Gracie’s first expedition is aiming for those heights, just north of us. If there’s a nearby stream or creek, and we can rig some way to get it here …”
He stopped, as spring/stream ➔ WATER and bring here appeared on the whiteboard. This time, he was able to return Helene’s encouraging smile.
Easy fellah. She’s friendly to everyone.
“There’ll be other needs,” Kristina added. “Like fertilizer. That part of the hardware store is gone. Left behind on Earth.”
Mark sighed. He had already spoken too much, but—
“The poop decks.”
“What’s that?” Mrs. Swain asked, archly, perhaps suspecting bad language.
“The … toilets we’ve been using. They hang over the Edge, getting rid of human waste. Clever for an emergency. But maybe we should find some way to … collect … and use it all.”
Mark sank a little as everyone stared at him, some of them with disgust and others with approval.
“Terrific!” Scott Tepper commented after a couple of seconds. “You take charge of that committee, will you Bamford? And helping the 4-H kids prepare all the lawns as gardens.” The Student Body President glanced sidelong at Principal Jeffers, who looked stricken, but nodded.
And who made you king? Mark was tempted to retort. But he didn’t, as Tepper continued smoothly.
“All of that is secondary, and we’ll deal with it in due course. But first what we need to do is make sure we're safe,” he said, earning nods and agreement from Zach Serpa and Coach Hensen.
Mrs. Swain turned from the window at last, her age lines tense as a bulldog's. “I agree,” she said. “Find the bats. Burn them out. Burn it all! Burn a buffer zone far enough away from us to be secure.”
Colin and two other teachers murmured support as Helene added Burn a safety zone to the whiteboard. Mark saw Kristina lift her head, too, nodding agreement.
Then Scott launched into his main agenda item—what Mark's dad would have called a law-and-order ticket.
First, he proposed guards. More guards, and not just haphazard patrols, but two athletes in each of ten fortified positions along the rim of their island, with four in the bell tower. And two at every door to the stockrooms, where they would gather, secure, and ration everything of potential use, exactly as Principal Jeffers had secured the liquor and pharmaceuticals on the first day.
“You were right,” Scott said smoothly, setting Jeffers up to look ridiculous if he disagreed.
Food. Water. Tools. Batteries. Everything would be tallied and locked up. At a glance, it made sense. Moreover, even if a council of some kind had official authority, choosing the guards would leave Scott and his buddies as gatekeepers of every key resource. For the good of everyone, naturally.
Smoothly, eloquently, he was selling fear.
Mark could tell what Mr. Castro was thinking. This is an ancient pattern. And it wasn’t just dry lessons from history class. Mark recalled stories told by his father, about petty tyrants at home and abroad.
But just because of that, is it wrong? Maybe dynamic leadership—a strong voice and a clever manipulator—is just what’s needed, to get across an emergency.
Only most of the time, the ‘emergency’ never ends. And the strong, above all, look out for themselves.
Mark mostly listened, except at one point to say—“I don't see how two guys in a tower at the rim are gonna make any difference, if the bat-things come back. Meanwhile, that’s a lot of manpower taken from useful tasks.”
Scott's expression passed quickly from irritation to ingratiation. “That’s a great point, Bamford. We need to strengthen all the project teams, by making work mandatory. Everyone gets on a crew and works, or you don’t eat. It was like that for the Pilgrims, for the settlers. It’s like that on a ship, sailing unexplored waters. And that’s pretty much what we are.”
Good metaphor, Mark thought, somewhat in awe. Only, are you angling to be captain? Glancing at the Principal, he saw Jeffers rouse himself, sitting up, as if aware what was at stake.
“I was about to propose the same thing, Scott. Work is the medicine that our students and citizens need.”
The head of the carnies fumed.
“I’m not part of your ship, boy.”
But Scott was resilient. “I’m sure the Carnival Tribe can work out their own schedules and tasks, for the good of all. Would you be willing to coordinate that, Mr. Serpa? Naturally, several of your people will be on the security and supplies committees.”
Masterful, Mark thought, truly admiring Scott’s smoothness and agility with people, as the carnie settled back onto his counter-top perch, grunting acceptance.
Almost as if it had been planned in advance, Coach Hensen said, “The people with discipline are the ones we can count on right now, right? Only a few of us had military experience.” He nodded at Lavallee and O’Brien. “But we have something close. The sports teams.”
And so, Colin Gornet slid, by nods of consensus, into leadership of the public safety committee. He spoke for a minute about giving priority to fashioning weapons: “In case there’s nasties out there a lot bigger than bats.”
The outline of goals took shape. And while Tepper kept deferring to Jeffers, he came across as the one with a Bold Plan. Except that—
—Except that it was small. Mark figured that soon the human beings on this world must worry less about each other and look outward, weigh and deal with challenges, instead of creating their own.
“Discipline is vital,” Scott said. “We've got to work together or we're in real trouble.”
There were other matters. But Mr. Davis and Mrs. Swain were especially anxious to get this meeting over with and make sure that lunch was handled better—more fairly—than breakfast had been.
“We have maybe three more meals of perishable food from the market,” Swain explained. “After that, it’s pastas, and canned goods. Then crackers … then nothing. But long before that, we’ll need water.”
Well, at least someone has priorities right, Mark thought, a little surprised that it had been her.
“Yes, okay, let's go,” Jeffers said uncomfortably. “We’ll meet again tonight.”
But it was Scott Tepper who led them out of the room.
Mr. Castro stopped Mark as the faculty and others went down the hall.
“It's unfortunate that so much of what we learned was divisive,” Castro said quickly, and Mark noticed he said 'we', including himself with the kids, and why not?
“Who's cool, what's cool, I'm popular, you're not,” Castro went on. “Maybe if the bats hadn't attacked …” He shook his head. “In some ways our civilization was too successful. So much luxury and idle time.”
Mr. Castro had been staring after the others. Only now he turned to face Mark.
“Every little bad boy music video, every fad for shoes or new slang … every rich suburban kid who pretends to be ghetto … Those things speak to something real and deep in us,” Mr. Castro said. “Who's big. Who's tough. We're going to see more of it. ”
And your point is …? Mark thought without speaking it.
“I want you to be ready.”
“Me.” Goosebumps crawled up the back of Mark's neck like an icy hand.
“We’re in this for more than survival, son. Assuming we can solve our immediate crises, there’s a civilization to build here. Ideally one built on everything they learned on Earth—and not repeating their mistakes.”
It was the first time Mark had heard his homeworld referred to that way. As they.
“In order to do that, we must hold the middle,” Mr. Castro said. “Wherever there's common ground, move to it. Do you understand?”
“Me,” he repeated, in a level tone. But a confused question.
“You're a natural leader, Mark.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Seriously, though a very different kind than Scott or Colin. A time will come when you’ll admit it.”