Day after day had been so eventful. And every evening meeting had been filled with so much tension. It seemed like tonight would be more of the same, with reports on recovering bat victims, and Gracie Donner’s punitive war expedition, and progress by various work parties, and a second, tentatively friendly meeting with a native, and reporting on preparations for the next lake expedition … and it was only much later, while settling down for sleep with several hundred other girls in the main gym, that Alex realized—it was almost all good news.
Oh, some of the imagery, from Gracie’s lapel-cam, was distressingly violent, for sure. Though it was good to see Barry Tang given hero treatment afterward, for playing a key role in humanity’s victory over a vicious threat. Some other reports were bummer-mixed, like the continued failure of well-digging efforts, contrasting with headway at aqueduct-building and food testing. But after the Night Meeting broke up, for the first time in her recollection, most of those in Women’s Country seemed ready to bed down without a pall of dread.
And about time, too. Last night, amid all the Bat Attack tension, some had expressed hardness toward Alex. I never dreamed that taking one sponge bath, by a mountain lake, would mark me for resentment, simply because I don’t stink quite as much.
This time—(is it Thursday?)—the mood as sheets and pads were handed out seemed much more live-and-let-live. And Alex felt content.
Content? Really? Well sure. Me and my buds are doing important things. And Bam has achieved his heart’s desire. (Good for him, for now at least.) And you?
A twinge within, and Alex made a mental note: see Ms. Pacheco and find out the situation for sanitary products. An adjustment was coming for roughly half of the Rock’s human population, for sure.
Only my fifth. What a time for long-delayed puberty to set in! And especially bad for all those ‘changes in attitude’ they told me to expect. This I don’t need, right now!
She had never liked the expression “misery loves company.” It seemed callous and even nasty. But there was a kind of consolation to be had from knowing.
We’re all in the same boat. Rowing hard for some kind of shore.
✽✽✽
The girls were getting efficient at morning—predawn, actually—tasks. Rolling up bedding. Gathering sheets to be hung up and sanitized by sun and breeze. Helping prepare tureens of meager breakfast slop. Pulling out the rolling bleachers and trying for a cheerful greeting as the menfolk stumbled in, rubbing their eyes, grunting, and carrying with them a wave of odor that hit like a wall.
Alex saw some of the girls—women—close their eyes and inhale deeply, even swaying a little, as if actually liking it!
That has to be an act. If puberty does that to me, you can have it!
Still, you could tell that, despite hunger and thirst and exhaustion, it had been a better night for many. And some of the better aspects of hope seemed to nourish as much as the morning goulash. The chatter was a wee bit more animated as folks settled into the stands with their groups and friends, until finally the Council entered.
Mark too. Now a member, and not trying at all to hide his satisfaction, walking in alongside the Chief of Inventory. But they parted company with chaste restraint as Helene took her place on the dais and Mark stepped up two layers of seating to join the X-Crew, plopping down next to Alex.
“Give yourself a chance to rest-up, will you?” She murmured without turning her head. “It’s all catching up on you.”
He nodded, as he did often at her advice. “You don’t know what it’s like yet, to get old.”
Alex smiled. She had little energy to spare for doing more, knowing a long day lay ahead.
She saw Helene Shockley tap her tablet, and up on the big overhead screen, there appeared a new administrative chart—the re-organization the Principal had promised. And clearly it included a major shift in who controlled inventory and the storehouses. Gone was the predominance of sports team jocks and close pals of Scott Tepper. Only one of the carnies—the woman business manager—still had access, and no one got in without a partner in company, chosen not to be a crony or pal.
The principal waited for the new chart to sink in and the murmurs to die down. Then, without commenting on it at all, Jeffers gestured for Scott to come forward with work party assignments—letting the student leader save face and visibly accept the new order …
… when a shout interrupted from the rear of the gymnasium.
“You can handle politics however you like on this Rock, Denzel. But we’re leaving!”
All heads turned. Alex saw the speaker was Coach Hensen, the other teacher of boy’s P.E., who stood with a crowd of maybe thirty or so—mostly students—near the double doors leading toward the New Building. Pale dawn light seeped around the edges of that portal and through windows above.
“We’ve been waiting days for our request to be answered,” the gruff instructor barked across the length of the basketball court. “And now we’re losing patience.”
“Ethan,” Jeffers called back, in a voice meant to soothe. “We all share your concerns. But I thought we had agreed to wait—”
“To wait for the situation to improve? Well it has! The lake expedition returned with pictures and measurements. The uplands are habitable! We don’t have to live like this, starving, dying of thirst in a sweaty jungle!”
“The pipeline ought to be finished—”
“In seven days? Ten? When we’re all too weak, from dehydration, to move? Far better to migrate some people to the water! Let us take fifty brave souls out there, establish a colony of our own, and relieve the overpopulation pressure down here.”
Jeffers shook his head.
“You saw images of those hell-lion predators.”
“So, give us guns! Serpa was right about that. We can shoot lions. That’s a lot better than cowering to hide from swarms of bat-things, down here.”
“We killed the bats, yesterday!” Colin Gornet stood and shouted at his former coach.
“And when the next, colony or hive spins off a swarm to fill in the same territory; isn’t that what bees and hornets did on Earth? And the next and the next? I mixed your napalm, son. And that trick is gonna run out of material, real fast.”
The back-and-forth was not doing the crowd’s mood any good. Alex squelched any wish to stand and take part and she cautioned Mark with a look. It would be stupid.
He nodded, accepting her advice. Only, then he had no choice in the matter.
“Bamford!” Coach Hensen shouted, pointing directly at him. “In your famous ‘there are no children’ speech, five nights ago, didn’t you say we need to stop huddling on this Rock, and start making this planet our home? And didn’t you recommend making a second colony site, just last night?”
Alex blinked, amazed how much things had changed, with Bam being cited as an authority! And of course, that cornered him. Damn, I’m glad it’s not me, she thought. Clearly reluctant to take sides, Mark was obliged to stand. And speak.
“I … I said it looked like a good spot for a secondary settlement. But we need to study that place, and others. Check the water—”
“Ms. O’Brien fed lake water to a dozen rats, last night and they’re still alive, right Katy?”
Put on the spot, the older biology teacher stepped forward.
“There don’t seem to be any immediately toxic poisons. But it’s too soon to eliminate parasites and diseases …”
“So? In the beginning we’ll use kamens, just like Bamford’s people did.”
Alex felt behooved to stand now, next to Mark.
“The lake itself … we think it might … maybe … be artificial. The dams could be deliberate—”
“Okay, then we’ll make a treaty with the natives! That’s what your team started doing, yesterday, right? First contact? Language? Good relations? Terrific! We’ll make a deal! They have vast, vast tracts of land. We’ve got plenty of tech-things they might want. Shiny things they’ll be impressed with.”
Alex couldn’t help it. She glanced aside at the history teacher. Harry Castro watched it all with an expression that seemed to say when have we heard this before? But Henson was still talking.
“So, we want to be part of the palaver team, when that alien returns, this afternoon. Let’s settle this. Buy or lease the land we need to clear for a settlement.”
Alex recalled how Hensen wanted to do any “clearing.” With fire.
Barry Tang stood up, his voice cracking as he shouted.
“And what if the native people don’t agree?”
Coach Hensen shrugged. “We all saw the pictures. There are plenty of nice sites, next to streams and meadows. If they leave us alone, we’ll leave them alone!”
Scott Tepper lifted his hands, attempting a soothing tone.
“In just a few days, we’ll not only have water here but we can start careful human trials on the best candidate foods. We’ll have a good idea what’s edible. Till then, you’ll have nothing to eat out there—”
“Nothing to eat?” Coach Hensen interrupted with a short, harsh laugh. He looked at some students standing nearby, in his coterie of would-be settlers, and some of them were grinning. “Human trials began six days ago, shortly after the Donner Expedition returned. And especially after Noriko’s report, night before last. Admit it. Humans can eat most of the meat on this world!”
Wearing a please-don’t-drag-me-into-this look, Ms. Takka stepped forward reluctantly, and clarified.
“Some animals have toxins in their glands and internal organs. But the muscle tissue itself appears to be benign. Except for the bat-things. And anything with scales. And we’re not sure yet, about the bird-things. And—”
Hensen grunted satisfaction. “Then we’ll be hunters! We’ll live off the land … and send meat down here to the Rock. All the more reason to give us guns!”
Katy O’Brien took several strides out, past the overhanging basketball hoop, simmering angrily. “Are you telling me you permitted students to be guinea pigs? To risk their lives eating untested meat?”
“Not just meat,” the coach answered with satisfaction. “Also the pulp they get from boring out those bamboo pipes. Noriko said the hamsters love it, after a good soaking, so we experimented. Boil it and you get a nice paste, kinda like natives on Earth do with taro or sago.”
Alex marveled how the heroic and the stupid can sometimes overlap. As if you haven’t done plenty that fits both categories.
“I want every student who’s done this silly thing to report to the clinic, right now!” Ms. O’Brien commanded. But nobody moved.
Alex knew there were ways that she and Mark could tip the scales. Like pointing out that Hensen and his followers had kept taking rations from the general kitchen, even while packing away native food. That could turn the crowd against them. But in truth, she wasn’t ready to take a stand on this. Or even sure that a stand was needed.
“Beyond guns and supplies, we could use an expedition guide,” the gym coach said, looking directly at Alex’s area of bleachers. And at first Alex thought: Me? And Bam? We already have our hands full with the pipeline and …
But no. Alexandra Behr let out a low gasp as someone stood, nearby to her left.
Gracie Donner. The tall senior took a step downward, and others made way for her—for the already-legendary explorer. She offered a quick, backward glance at Mark and Alex. Perhaps a little apologetic. But not much. As if to say I have to. I was born for this.
She called her answer to Ethan Hensen, in a voice that was low, but clear.
“I’ll do it.” And as Gracie descended the benches, another group moved toward Coach Henson and his cabal. Doc Hutnicki, the veterinarian and driving force behind the bat counter-strike, accompanied by ten or so of the zealous young women she had taken under her wing.
Grinning and confident, the P.E. teacher then turned to face Principal Jeffers.
“Well? You just assumed full authority. So, will you give us supplies and your blessing? Will you let our people go?”
Alex saw Jeffers smile. But he shook his head and answered, clearly.
“No.”
✽✽✽
Mark found himself in an awkward position. The pipeline had top priority, so his teams got first pick of both labor and supplies. Of course, that meant working side-by-side with Helene some of the time, a real pleasure, and her organizing skills were impressive.
But responsibility kept Mark tied to the Rock, maintaining contact with several teams in the field, when he truly longed to be back out there, in person.
The best time I had on this planet was leading an exploring expedition. How come some people—like Gracie—get to do what they’re made to do? I’m not an administrator. And I never went looking for power!
All the more so, as angry mutterings spread across the clearing and digging crews, both pro and against the group demanding a Second Site.
Harry Castro joined Carl Davis and several other teachers out there—alongside the chastened Channel Six news crew—doing ground work while all members of the TNPHS Climbing Team—except for Mark—scrambled through overhead branches. Including Alex. And for her sake, Mark was glad of the guards patrolling beneath the work details. Chuck and his rifle. Leo and his shotgun.
And he managed to not irritate her with too many be careful repetitions.
By radio, Kristina Zhirinova reported careful measurements back to Jane Shevtsov, who did calculations from her perch in a nearby Tahoe, making sure the aqueduct’s slope stayed shallow enough to reach the hills at a decent height. The water will have to roll downhill, not too fast and not too slow.
Pipes and fasteners had to be hauled out, along a somewhat-straightened version of the path Mark’s team had pioneered, while Bryant Marshall and his crew back at the half-ruined Chevy dealership refurbished precious hybrids, and Helene collected supplies for the next lake expedition. Otherwise, Principal Jeffers had confiscated the keys to every other vehicle, further angering the Hensen faction.
Mark tried to include many of the would-be émigrés in his teams, but several refused—significantly Gracie. Until they got their own, far more massive stocks of supplies to depart as colonists, they seemed to prefer hard labor in the clearing crews, at the forest edge, or else working hard to improve and widen the roughly built Big Ramp.
What’re they up to? Some gesture of martyrdom? He wondered. They must know they’re being watched. Colin Gornet’s security details were beefed-up and the sound of donkey-powered pile drivers thumped across the valley, pounding in stakes for his palisade wall. And grumpy rumors spread: Is it meant to keep people IN, as much as to keep local creatures out?
On an inspection round, Mark watched crews who were preparing fresh sections of boo, reaming them to become either pipes or wall-slats. Only now they also carefully collected the inner pulp in baskets made from jungle reeds. Not far away, atop one smoldering pile of jungle brush, a kettle boiled away. The resulting glop smelled terrific and had everyone’s stomachs grumbling.
Hope can make things worse, he pondered for the umpteenth time, before things get better. Officially it was still taboo to sample the boo-paste without further testing, though Ms. Takka and Ms. O’Brien promised to expedite their appraisal of the stuff. They had better. All morning, guards chased away students sneaking up to grab a handful. Which meant that today’s guinea pigs were mostly … the guards themselves. Mark saw several with telltale, beige smudges at the corners of their mouths.
This fight is over, Mark realized. Hungry people won’t wait for a full, scientific process. By nightfall, half the population will be doing ‘human trials’ of native food.
A little later, from the top of the school’s bell tower, he peered through a telescope at flags that Dave McCarty’s teams stuck atop some tall jungle trees. With a few unavoidable zigs and zags, they were making good progress toward the hills. By radio, yet again, he urged each team to work safely, rather than quickly … while amazed by the stodgy, worried-grownup tone of his own voice.
It’s not time that makes you old, I guess.
It’s responsibility.
One question he couldn’t help asking repeatedly.
“Has the alien showed up again?”
None of the teams had seen the creature, though Barry Tang felt sure that the third afternoon rendezvous would happen. Now, more than ever, much depended on it.
Mark handed the transceiver back to Penny, and started down the spiral steps, only to collide with someone at the bottom. One of the better collisions of his life.
“Hi, you,” Helene said, stepping back a pace.
“Hello to you too,” He replied, unable to say anything more. Mark cleared his throat, clamping down in order not to stammer. Yesterday, I had distractions and exhaustion, to keep from being nervous with her. Now? She must be able to tell …
“How … how’d the carnie inventory go?”
Helene shrugged.
“Okay, I guess. They had boatloads of stuff. And lots more earlier, judging from all the empty bottles and wrappers. Carnival junk food, sure, but better than starvation. Jeffers is still there, arguing over non-food ‘essentials.’ I just finished stashing stacks of candy bars and cokes at the big store room and came to see how your teams are doing. Do you have everything you need?”
Her infamous inventory pad was slung at her side. Mark nodded.
“So long as we get lunch to everyone out there.”
“Already on its way. Gatorade and energy bars, I’m afraid. Courtesy of the carnies. Double rations for the climbers. We don’t want anyone getting weak or wobbly, up there in the trees.”
“Fine, good thinking.”
They were walking along the second story hallway. Helene paused by one of the darkened classroom doors.
“There was one other matter,” she added. And before he could reply, she grabbed the front of his shirt with both hands and—tugging fiercely—dragged him into the room.
Um, was all he could think. Resistance was useless.
✽✽✽
No one questioned his right to join the Contact Commissioners, at the edge of the clearing, as the sun’s afternoon progress approached a certain point in the sky. The hour of rendezvous, when the native emissary had agreed to return. Carl Davis, Harry Castro and Katy O’Brien joined a small throng of official onlookers, along with Coach Hensen. The Channel Six woman reporter woman joined the group, seeming chastened to keep her recording-of-history stints to a couple of hours a day. And this sure qualifies, I guess. She wore just her miniature recording headset, not accompanied this time by her technician.
All the observers stood some distance back from the main contact team, which—by consensus—would be three students, Barry, Dave and Kristina, who had proved themselves over and over again.
We’ve been here less than two weeks, Mark thought. And already the adult-student divide has broken down. Dad was right. Competence speaks for itself, especially in an emergency.
Coach Hensen shifted his feet nervously. Soon, Gracie Donner arrived and the two of them spoke briefly, in quiet conference. Gracie nodded and Hensen hurried off, returning to The Rock, leaving her to represent the would-be émigrés. Mark caught her eye … but all he got from Gracie was an indifferent shrug.
Things sure change fast around here, he thought.
Ms. O’Brien suggested the encounter be put off till Denzel Jeffers could arrive. Delayed by one more crisis over inventory, the principal had said he would come as soon as possible. But how do you delay something like this? The natives will come when they’ll come.
Barry Tang lifted the rim of his straw hat one more time to peer at the tree shadows, judging their angle. “It should be soon,” he murmured, perhaps a little worriedly. A subdued Dave McCarty shrugged, clearly tired from what on Earth would have already been a full day’s hard labor. All the pipeline crews had been recalled and were heading in now, along the narrow road. But Mark turned around as a small altercation broke out behind them, toward the Rock.
Most of Gornet’s guards were out in force, either at watch posts set around the clearing or warding off would-be gawkers, sending them back to work. None of the guards had tried to stop Mark—a measure of his new status. Only now a small throng was trying to get through.
Serpa, Mark realized, along with one of his carnies and a pair of the senior girls who had latched onto them. Gornet himself blocked their path, but Mr. Castro intervened then, to let them pass … as well as Alex Behr, freshly arrived from the pipeline project and filthy from head to toe.
Mark sniffed audibly, lightly brushing some leaves and dust from her shoulder as she sidled alongside. “You want a towel and my ration of water?”
“Screw you Bamford,” she replied amiably. “Oh, yeah, that job’s taken, thank Gawd!”
Mark couldn’t help but blush. Alex shrugged.
“Anyway, two more days and we should reach the first stream, to get at least a trickle going down here. Another two and we’ll tap the lake. If all goes well, that’ll be ahead of schedule.”
He nodded. “Fantastic job. So long as we can do it carefully, without injuries.”
“Sure, dad.”
“Hey, it’s bro. No?”
Alex furrowed her brow and seemed about to say something more than banter … when a mutter of excitement fizzed through the other onlookers. Mark turned back to the forest.
“Woolly,” Alex breathed.
And there it was. The gray-furred alien.
No, alien isn’t the right word. Native, sure, though we should find out what they call themselves. But one thing at a time.
“That is an intelligent being!” Dave said. “Look at the tools in his vest!”
Barry stepped forward a couple of paces and was already gesturing with the visitor again, his slim fingers trying to mirror the movements of the creature's padded paws and mobile wrist-claws.
“You want to give that thing a chance to rip your guts out? Go ahead. Be my guest,” muttered Zach Serpa, clearly still caught up in revulsion. Some people would never let go of the profound separation they felt from this world and everything in it.
I made a real enemy in this character. And yet … Mark stole a glance at Chuck Hewman, who was wary nearby, keeping his face toward the forest, but also with an eye cocked at Serpa, in case the carnie leader tried something. Mark couldn’t be happier to have the big biker around, along with Chuck’s apprentice, shotgun-packing Leo Kelly.
“He carries pouches and tools, ” Alex reiterated, watching the creature repeat a couple of Barry’s gestures, then respond further when Kristina held out several pebbles in one hand. “And he knows math! Or, at least he seems able to count, up to four … five … six.”
“I don't care what that freaky goddamned thing is wearing,” Serpa growled. “And hell I can count to six. But I wouldn’t claim to know math.”
The carnie leader seemed surprised when that jibe made everyone around him—including Mark and Alex—chuckle. Warily, he smiled, taking ownership of the joke.
“We probably look as scary to him as he does to us,” Alex said.
“She … they must live nearby,” Gracie agreed, clearly wondering why her expedition saw no signs. But we did … maybe … when we found those dams, Mark mused. Though no other signs. Which is kinda weird, in fact.
And Mark wondered. The creature's coloring struck him as wrong. Gray didn’t seem like very good camouflage on this crimson-green world … and yet back home, zebras had evolved their black-and-white stripes on the green-and-brown savannahs because their major predators were color blind. Maybe there was a similar heritage in this place. They didn't know enough.
If we can just pick up some of their language, we can learn so much! Like how to avoid the bats and other dangers. What's on the other side of the mountains. What they use for food.
They could probably save us years of blood and sweat if we can just keep from ruining the chance.
Mr. Castro must have been thinking something similar.
“We could sure use help from a Squanto,” the history teacher murmured, referring to the Patuxet native who helped the Mayflower Pilgrims to adapt and survive.
A murmur spread in the crowd and Serpa hissed as Woolly reached into the same big sack that acted as a scabbard for some kind of weapon. Only the creature pulled forth a familiar item: the tablet Kristina gave him … it, them … yesterday, with toddler education programs.
Several facial expressions crossed that rhino-like face, probably conveying nothing useful to a throng of Earth mammals, as Woolly made as if to hand it back … and seemed disappointed when Barry accepted it. A courtesy ritual. Clearly, he expected to be told to keep it.
If that was disappointment, the mood lightened when Kristina offered another tablet, in exchange. This one—she had explained earlier—she and Jane had spent an entire day reprogramming to help smooth communications even better. Mark recalled the mobs and specialists and vast computers that had been applied to the same function, back when communications were established with Na-Bistaka, back at Twenty-Nine Palms Marine Base.
Barry handed the first tablet back to Ms. O’Brien, who (with gloved hands) slipped it into a bag of her own. Bio scrapings first—a way to sample the alien without him/her/it knowing. Then downloading a record of Woolly’s image swipes … and pictures taken with the tablet’s camera. We’ll learn a lot from all that. Though Mark felt a little guilty over the unsuspected invasion of privacy. Well, he was watching us from the trees for days, before finally approaching Dave.
Woolly seemed—if human impressions were any judge—to be pleased by the exchange, tapping the screen a few times … and then tucking the tablet away. At which point he put both lanky, furred arms over his head.
Abruptly, Chuck Hewman gestured to Leo and called gruffly, over his shoulder. “Everybody in the crowd—move back!”
Pointedly, he did not unsling or bring his big rifle to bear. With a nod, the biker indicated that Barry, Kristina and Dave could stay where they were. But Leo swiveled, motioning everyone else to retreat a few paces. Then, just as most of the observers drew backward from the jungle, there came answering movement in the brush.
“Oh my God!” Alex said. Her voice was choked. Then other people took up the sound.
There were more natives in the brush, squat gray shapes like moving boulders. They emerged in two lines on either side of the first emissary, edging through the vegetation. Their crushing footsteps made an eye-watering cloud of the jungle's acid stink, which preceded them despite the fact that they were downwind.
Smart enough to come from downwind, Mark thought.
He saw five of them, then eight, and then … over two dozen of their oversized rhino-shaped, lemur-eyed heads nosing into the clearing. Mark was reminded of heavy warships or even tanks. Their long, heavy skulls emerged from the tall green-orange brush like armored vessels, swaying and ponderous.
“Should we run?” Serpa groaned.
Barry never moved. The black-haired boy repeated the steady semaphore of his fingers again and again, while Kristina focused on entering data into her own pad.
Was the first one a diplomat? Mark wondered. Then, almost as swiftly, he felt a touch of anger. Why didn't our lookouts warn us? The creatures must have spotted all our pipe teams and sentries, moving deliberately around them. Possibly during the night, then waiting patiently under cover, till now.
Dang. Colin Gornet was right about something.
Their large, blue eyes blinked slowly and Mark felt the people around him buzzing with tension, as if they were an electric fence. No one seemed to know what to do.
“What’s he saying?” Mark asked Barry. He suppressed the urge to step to his friend's side, not wanting to spook the boy or the strange creatures. So he pitched his voice with quiet urgency. “Barry? What should we do?”
“I'm trying—” Barry said, as he touched his own chest. “Human,” he said carefully. And he repeated it. “Human.” Then he pointed at the native. “Who are you?“
The heavy rhino head didn't react.
“Human,” Barry said again, before he gestured behind himself at the rest of them. “People.” He went through his pantomime another time, reintroducing his simple finger math to what he was saying. “One human. Many humans. People.“
Those blue eyes only watched him placidly. Perhaps the claws twitched again.
“Dummies,” Serpa sneered.
“They might communicate by ultra low frequencies like elephants,” Alex said. And Mark nodded, because the creatures vaguely resembled rhinoceroses, they might share any characteristics with Earth mammals.
“You mean they can't hear us?” Harry Castro asked.
Ms. O’Brien knelt, putting her hand to the ground. “I feel something. Very faint and low. Vibrations propagating through the compacted soil.” Gracie and Alex dropped too, with Gracie even putting her ear down on the loam.
“Infrasound,” Barry said, working his fingers again. This time, the alien in front of him definitely responded to his gestures—but even from fifteen feet away, Mark could see that the movements of the alien's paws and claws were not as fast or as sure as the boy’s.
“Alex could be right,” Carl Davis said. The history teacher looked sweaty and nervous. “Look at their skulls. They might have the sinuses and throat muscles you need to generate infrasound signals. For all we know, they're shouting at each other right now. We'd have to rig up a good microphone and some kind of computer program to transform those signals into the audible range, see if we could pick anything up.”
“Elephants talk?” Serpa asked. “Hell look at ’em. They're just dumb animals.”
“They're carrying tools,” Mark reminded him, but Serpa shrugged.
“Monkeys and crows use tools. Who cares? Look at ’em! You don't know anything about these Dummies except they're meat eaters. Those are four inch claws, man. And those pointy mouths. If you had any sense, you'd help me drive them off before they circle us in.”
A new tick of adrenaline went through Mark's blood. Serpa had a point—the long string of aliens seemed to be constricting slightly, bending into the loose shape of a 'U' with the few human beings in the center. Was that from simple curiosity or a preparation for aggression?
One to one, they must outweigh us … And there are maybe thirty of them and barely ten people here …
Maybe we should back up to join the guards. Just in case.
Barry had the opposite idea. He stepped back from the alien, but waving for it to follow him. “Come,” he said. “Come with me. Meet my friends.”
The alien's giant face inclined, looking away from Barry toward its companions.
Are they predators? Mark wondered. They don't look like they can move very fast with those oversize heads … Maybe they lie in wait and jump out at their prey …
No. Serpa doesn't know what he's talking about.
“Those mouths belong to herbivores,” Alex said, “Did you see when he opened his? How most of the teeth were flat grinders? You're still thinking like we're on Earth.” There was also a note of surprise in her words, Mark thought, at Serpa's display of analysis. The rough-looking carny leader was better educated than he pretended.
“The plant life here can be dangerous,” Alex continued. “Those claws are probably for picking through blister vines and worse. Their mouths stretch down to those pointed beaks for the same reason, maybe so they can reach past firesap and thorns for berries or roots.”
“So you're saying they're cows,” Serpa said. “Dummies either way. And don't tell me those claws aren't dangerous if they … if they stampede or something. Heck, a clawed herbivore can gut you just as quick! I knew a guy who raised ostriches …”
“Let's just chill out, okay?” Chuck rumbled easily, scratching one meaty hand in his beard. “Don't make any sudden moves. We can figure out what to do if we just stay quiet.”
The herd, as he was beginning to think of them. Dummies. Serpa's name for them was cruel and undeserved. If the tables were turned, how would he like it if the herd called the human colonists Screechies? We’re certainly noisy enough. “Monkeys” would be an even better term. It was almost funny how often people could sound like a mob of chimpanzees, rattled and afraid—and the habit was growing stronger. They shouted at everything now.
“Good job, Barry,” Alex said. “Let's see if we can get them to move away from the jungle. Maybe we can sit down and have some water together. They must drink water, right?”
“Safe bet,” Barry agreed.
“I brought some extra canteens and samples of food,” Harry Castro offered, though clearly he too was also unnerved by the commotion in the bushes, almost surrounding the observers.
“Okay,” Barry said softly, almost to himself. “Okay.” He continued to backpedal toward his friends, urging the first native to follow him with slow, easy motions. It seemed to work. The creature took one tottering, tentative step after Barry, and another.
The others followed. In fact, the natives were still approaching from three sides. Behind the contact team—and the dozen or so observers—Mark heard nervous chatter from Gornet’s guards. He swiveled and made shushing gestures. This didn’t feel like an attack, though thirty or so shaggy, rhino-headed, clawed bipeds were getting awful close. Mark felt sweat pop on his brow. He heard Zach Serpa moan, staying put, as his carnie companions backed rapidly away. Mark wanted to send Alex with them … and knew she’d plant one in his ribcage, if he tried.
A low rumble accompanied the approaching creatures.
“Infrasonics!” Kristina said. “You were right, Barry. Super low frequency, barely audible to us. Only—” she cocked her head. “Can you hear that? Something new and higher pitched …”
Dave McCarty motioned for silence from the humans. And yes, there it was. A higher tone than the low rumble.
“Harmonics,” diagnosed the science teacher, Carl Davis. “Multiple sources combine at one frequency, and they can push it up to another one.”
Barry nodded vigorously. “A resonance! Combining many voices in a low tone, they can pop up an octave or so. That’s why they’re coming together like this, in a choir!”
Sure enough, as they approached closer, those two tones were joined by a third that was higher still, at about the pitch of a woman’s alto voice.
“It’s modulating,” Kristina proclaimed.
“It …” Katy O’Brien observed. “It’s starting to sound like …”
Warbling, accompanied by syncopated hisses and pops, the third and highest tone gathered shape.
“P-p-peeeeee-p-p-pul.”
The lead alien, standing at the focus point of a half circle of others, pointed at Barry, then Dave and Kristina.
“Pee-pul.”
Alex nodded.
“People.” Then she glanced archly at Zach Serpa. “So much for them being dummies, dummy.”
“Yes!” Barry nodded eagerly, pounding his chest and gesturing at other Earthlings. “People. And what do you call yourselves?” He moved his hands to sweep, indicating all the chorus of humming natives.
That was that moment when Mark thought he heard another sound—ominous—a distant, plaintive wail, coming from the direction of the school, spilling down to the clearing. Far away, but disturbing. Somebody was very unhappy, back at The Rock.
✽✽✽
“What the hell is going on back there?” Serpa asked, glancing backward, his words agitated and quick. Most of the other humans were still too captivated by the visiting choir, or else more would have noticed the keening cries of several voices, coming from the transplanted disk of Planet Earth. Mark wondered nervously. Do people on The Rock know something we don’t? From their vantage point above, folks at the school might see a lot more. Maybe there’s more than just these thirty! Is this group just here to distract us? He briefly envisioned armies of them surrounding the Earth colony on all sides.
Then the walkie talkie at his hip erupted, squawking his name. “Mark!”
This time, the native creature glanced over, sharply and the chorus fell into silence. So, something about the electronic device was audible to them. But as he lifted the transceiver, Mark looked back toward the Rock and saw a figure—it was Froggi Hayashi—running across the field, dodging through the toppled logs and heaps of smoldering vegetation. The wiry youth arrived drenched in sweat.
Mark was glad to include him in this incredible moment. “Be quiet, okay?” he said. “We're making progress.”
But the X-Kid would not be repressed. He panted, gulped, and then blurted awful news.
“Principal Jeffers is dead!”
“Whuh …” Mark faltered as if he'd been shot. Shock was a cold, plummeting weight and he barely got out a coherent word. “What?”
“That can't be,” Alex said in a whisper.
But there was no mistaking the pale horror etched into Froggi’s face. Dave McCarty hurried to his friend and grabbed the boy’s arm to support him as he gasped for air, eyes wide.
A rollercoaster of voices was still lifting and falling across The Rock, and Mark recognized the timbre of that sound at last. The news writhed among them all like an invisible snake, a refrain of disbelief and pain. And the walkie talkie added confirmation, blurted by Penny Hill, up in the bell tower.
“Somebody killed Principal Jeffers!”
End of High Horizon Book II