Chapter Thirty-Five
RUSSELL WOKE UP a while later, and Marge fitted us with loose tunics. Then, with a smirk, she handed Kayleigh a pouch and a smaller packet and sent us on our way.
“What was that about?” Russell asked.
“It’s for Nikkole.” The corners of Kayleigh’s lips twitched despite the evenness of her tone.
“What is it?” I tried to keep the wariness out of my voice.
“It’s another root and more balm,” she replied, flashing me an impish smile. “Just in case you find any more welts that need attention.”
We made the trip back to Gat’s residence in relative silence. When we did converse, Kayleigh instigated it. She’d been quite impressed by Marge’s skill and knowledge of Kepler-186f’s plant life, and the medicinal purposes of those plants.
Russell seemed to be still under the influence of the bark he’d chewed—a substance known to the Keplerites as bitter bark. And I was smarting a little from being the object of ridicule, even if I had been a little ridiculous. Together, we said very little.
Caspersen was waiting for us when we returned, and I saw a flicker of relief cross her features. She said only, “Ah. Good to see you back so soon. They’ve saved you dinner.”
“I’m starved.” Kayleigh sighed. “Is it good? Hell, it doesn’t even matter.”
“It’s better than MREs at any rate.” Caspersen smiled. “It’s this way.”
She headed past one of Gat’s attendants, toward the rear of the building.
“Everything okay?” I asked in as nonchalant a tone as I could muster. If there was trouble brewing, the less they realized we realized, the better off we’d be.
She nodded. “Yup.”
“Are we…expecting trouble?” Kayleigh asked.
“No,” Caspersen said. “Not exactly.”
“But we are strangers in a strange land, so to speak,” Russell piped up.
“I think we’re among friends,” Caspersen added. “But nonetheless, caution is the byword of the day.”
Kayleigh’s brow puckered, and she nodded thoughtfully.
“Careful now,” I sniped. “Our ‘herbalist’ is feeling quite at home here.”
“If we’re lucky, this will be our home,” Caspersen said. “But until I know that, I’ll be sleeping with one eye open.”
Our meal was served at a long table, and we were bid to eat our fill. The food was presented on wooden platters, and we found a variety of offerings. I would have traded the whole thing for a single cheeseburger and a side a fries; but the Keplerites weren’t serving either burgers or fries, so we were left with what choices we had.
These consisted of three main types of food, though the selections of each were many: trays of brightly colored fruit, leafy salad arrangements, and some sort of stuffed leaf rolls. These last in particular caught my eye, despite that they were wrapped in foliage, because the color and texture of the filling reminded me of a meat roll.
I had practically swallowed one whole by time the taste hit me. Suffice it to say, I was sadly disappointed. I didn’t object to the flavor; it tasted fine, I thought. But it was definitely not meat either. “What the hell is this?” I sputtered.
“Some sort of ground nuts and seasoning. Along with what sounds like vegetables,” Caspersen answered.
I looked up and down the table and counted more than a dozen different types of food. “Is there anything with meat?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s like a vegetarian smörgåsbord.”
“Hell.” Russell sighed. “We would have to be rescued by vegetarians, wouldn’t we?”
“How do we know this isn’t poisoned?” Kayleigh said. She still wore a subtle frown as if she hadn’t quite moved past the conversation in the hall.
“We don’t,” Caspersen answered. “But at this point, not eating isn’t really an option.”
“Anyway, look on the bright side,” I said. “If it is poisoned, at least we won’t be stuck eating vegetarian food for the rest of our lives.”
*
IT WASN’T POISONED, and for all my whining, the food was actually quite good and perfectly filling.
We all woke the next morning, alive and, what was more, unmolested. There had been no surprise attacks during the night, no sudden confiscations of our property as we slept. Either the Keplerites truly meant us no harm, or they were waiting until they knew more about us to spring a trap.
Gat was waiting for us, and after we had breakfast—another meatless meal—the conversation began anew.
“You have slept well?”
“Yes,” Kayleigh replied.
He wrote, “Marge tells me your wounded people will be well.”
“They are doing much better, thank you,” she answered.
This was true, for Russell rose with more energy, and the swelling on the treated areas of my body had almost entirely gone. My backside and lower body were another story, but I still had the herbalist’s salve.
He sat back now and crossed his arms, studying us for a minute. Then, picking up his charcoal, he wrote a list of names—our names.
Caspersen
Johnson
Russell
He ran through the list, counting all of us. We exchanged glances, and Kayleigh nodded.
“These are familiar names,” he wrote, watching us carefully as he passed the note over.
At length, Kayleigh put down, “I do not understand.”
Gat rose then, walked to a trunk behind his desk, and retrieved a box. We, all of us, took in our breaths at the sight of it. It was one of the long-term storage trunks from the Genesis. From this, he retrieved a book and a uniform—a NASA uniform, identical to our own.
He set the uniform in front of us. Long years had begun to fray the edges, but despite its tattered appearance, I could read the name patch clearly. Sanders. The insignia of a captain in the United States Navy had been equally well preserved.
Sanders, I thought. David Sanders. He was—had been—one of our crewmates, a naval captain who had joined the Genesis mission. I didn’t know him well, but I recognized the name.
Gat, meanwhile, opened the book. He flipped through to the spot he had in mind and tapped the page before handing it to Kayleigh. It read:
Day 2: The crew, what remains of them, is awake and responsive. We’ve lost Smith and Diaz. Resuscitation did not complete for Smith; machine malfunction. Diaz went into cardiac arrest after waking; could not save him. With the shattered pods, this brings confirmed crew deaths to 17.
In addition to missing, presumed dead, crew is down 183 souls.
The page then listed names—one hundred and sixty-six names—of missing Genesis crew members. This tabulation continued onto the next page and the page following that. But near the top of the list was a handful of names we all knew: Carter, Caspersen, Cohen, and Connor.
An icy chill settled in the pit of my stomach when my eye rested on my own name listed as missing, presumed dead.
Kayleigh passed the book to Caspersen and penned the question on all of our minds. “What is this book?”
“The log of my ancestor, David Sanders, first president of the Nation.” Now, it was his turn for a question, and he watched us with sharp eyes when he presented it. “Why does he list you among the dead crew of the Genesis II?”
With a word to let her take the seat, Caspersen took the pen from Kayleigh and wrote, “Because he believed we were dead. But we were not. Our pods crashed in the mountains.”
“The Genesis landed sixty generations ago. It is not possible that you are still alive.”
“We remained in cryosleep until about two months ago.”
“What are ‘months’?”
“A measure of days, in Earth time.”
“You were in the mountains in the same manner of pods that my ancestors traveled here in, from Earth? All these years?”
I would have pitied the liar who sat before him in that moment, under the full intensity of Gat’s shrewd gaze. Caspersen held it evenly, then replied in the affirmative.
“How did you wake now, if you did not wake then?” Gat asked.
“A rockslide shifted the ship. Johnson’s pod was damaged, and her resuscitation sequence initiated.”
He fixed me in his gaze for a minute, and then apparently satisfied she was telling the truth, returned his attention to her. “You knew my ancestor?”
“Captain Sanders?” Caspersen spoke aloud. “Yes, I knew him.” She then wrote simply, “Yes.”
For a minute, he seemed pleased with the answer. But the wary look crept back into his eyes as he wrote, “Why did she—” He looked up from writing to point at Kayleigh. “—not tell me you, too, were of the Genesis yesterday?”
Caspersen held his gaze and then wrote, “I directed caution. I wanted to be sure you meant no harm to my crew before divulging more.”
An eyebrow raised as he read this, and he glanced up to meet her still steady gaze. He seemed at once surprised by and pleased with this frankness, for he laughed aloud. Then he nodded and wrote, “Fair answer. But I spoke true yesterday. We are pleased to welcome you among us.”
Caspersen smiled. “Apologies for my caution. We are deeply grateful to you for your hospitality.”
Gat waved this away with a brush of his hand. “You have given the meat-eaters reason to fear. That is enough. You knew our forebearers. That is more.”