The alien began once again for the stairs. Jill followed him. “Are there records of what the machine did, of what happened?”
“Our records are excellent, but you would be wasting your time. It was bad technology.”
But what Jill wanted to know, and badly, was why, why it was bad.
Nate was right—he had always been right. If she had remained on Earth she would have gone to work for the DoD and she might well have made a machine just like that one. And maybe what she had seen on that tape would have happened to Earth. There was a branding iron in the pit of her stomach, an anchor in her chest. It was like having a terrible nightmare that one had committed murder only to wake and realize with relief that one had not. Only she wasn’t sure if she had really escaped her destiny or not.
By the time they pushed open the bunker door the alien was worn out from the long climb. He was a frail thing, and his body heaved with the effort. He looked even more insubstantial than he had before.
“I must return to my work,” he said between gasps. “Good-bye.”
“I’m going with you.”
As if too depleted to argue with her, the alien only waved his fingers in the air and went to his car.
19.2. Sixty-Forty Denton Wyle
Denton and Eyanna traveled for another three days. After the night of the… the incident, he got sick. It was probably some horrible local virus, but he was sick to his stomach, shaky, and the thing in his throat burned like a lump of radioactive coal. And he was afraid that at any moment Eyanna was going to leave him.
Between that and the constant worrying about skalkits he was a basket case on two legs. Trying to make himself feel a little better, he bombarded Eyanna with apologies, sticking to the “I was asleep” story. He picked their fruit, made their fire, tried to help her over obstacles (which she wouldn’t allow), and in general was the picture of abject misery around her. He did not touch her or sleep close to her again.
At first she would not speak to him. But finally his persistence wore her down. On the morning of the third day she commented with amazement on how big the mountains were now that they were close to them, and he felt reprieved. Maybe, in her own way, Eyanna needed company, too. Even a yellow bellied bunny like him.
On the evening of the seventh day after they’d left Sapphia, Denton and Eyanna found another village. They were at the foothills of the mountains, and there were strange small peaks in the land, like baby mountains or blips on a heart monitor. They were passing one of these abrupt peaks when Eyanna stopped and pointed upward.
There were bright bits of color up there, like the dyes the Sapphians used in their native fabrics. And as Denton squinted he saw movement—tiny people. There was a village at the top of the hill.
Eyanna was nervous about approaching strangers. She also didn’t like the looks of the place. “It is a bad place to live,” she said with contempt. “Look how far they have to go to get food.”
She was right. Even from the valley floor they could see that the top of the peak was rocky and barren. The inhabitants of the village would have to climb up and down a considerable distance to reach the jungle primordial and the food the Sapphians took for granted.
Denton studied the layout, hand shielding his eyes from the sun; then he grinned. “Yes, but that is good, Eyanna! The skalkits cannot get up there! That is why they put the village on the hill!”
Eyanna looked unsure, but Denton was convinced he was right. With a little difficulty he talked her into checking out the place. He was tired and sick, and putting an end to their barrel-of-laughs journey sounded just fine.
It was a difficult climb. The hill was not so steep that it couldn’t be walked, but it was close. About halfway up, the vegetation gave way almost entirely to rock. Denton had second thoughts as they neared the top. He had already been suckered once on this world. But this was exactly the kind of physical refuge he’d been searching for, and if it came with some people for company who were not playing nun like Eyanna and who also, by the way, didn’t hand-feed their members to huge predators, then he’d be one happy camper.
The village at the top of the hill was small and modest. It consisted of no more than thirty huts around a single community circle. They were seen at once and were soon facing about forty or so staring inhabitants.
They were a more ragtag group than the Sapphians—not as elaborately groomed, not as uniformly attractive, and among them were several who looked very old. Denton was happy to see the old people. If he hadn’t still been just a teensy bit wary, he would have hugged ’em.
An old male stepped forward. His abundant hair was white and his long, narrow face was wrinkled. He bobbed his head in greeting.
“This place is called Khashta. You are welcome. From where do you come?”
Eyanna looked at the ground. Denton answered, smiling for all he was worth, “We are from Sapphia.”
The old man took in Eyanna’s fading scratches knowingly. “Be at rest. You will not be harmed here.”
Denton believed him. The old man had a sympathetic face and his eyes were warm. He seemed different from the Sapphians. He felt… sincere. Denton knew he could be seeing what he wanted to see, again, and, certainly, he would keep his guard up, but for the first time in days, things were looking up.
He squeezed Eyanna’s hand. “I think this is a good place.”
She still looked nervous, but she was a brave girl, god knew. She hesitantly made the Sapphian gesture for “yes.”
That night they shared the community meal. There was meat, which they had not had since leaving Sapphia, fruit, grain, and a fermented beverage. Denton nodded and smiled at everyone, ingratiating himself. He decided to forgo the hard stuff until he was more sure of the place, but it warmed the cockles of his heart to know it was there. The old man who had greeted them was named Yulehulha or something like that (Yule, Denton decided). He even offered them hand-rolled cigarettes. Denton passed.
As the night wore on, his relief and gratitude to have found a new place, which he expressed freely to anyone who would listen, was dampened a little. It was not exactly the party atmosphere he’d gotten used to in the gorge. There were a dozen or so attractive young females but not nearly the bounty the Sapphians had. And the licentiousness he had come to appreciate so fully as a perk of this interstellar voyage stuff was not at all apparent. The Khashtans were more subdued, which he supposed was due to trudging up and down the mountain all day carrying food and water, something he himself had to look forward to. Yippee.
He couldn’t help but feel a spark of resentment toward the Sapphians.
After the meal, Yule got up. He reached behind his back and produced a small brown egg. He showed it to Denton and Eyanna solemnly.
“Khashta means ‘place of the egg.’ Our people revere the egg because it shows the way of all creation.”
Denton smiled and nodded, looking at Eyanna to make sure she was being polite. She was listening quietly.
“All of creation is like this egg when it is conceived inside the mother. The egg has life inside, but it is unformed and soft. As it grows, all that is bad and impure in the egg hardens out to the edges until it becomes the lifeless shell. And all that was good in the egg has become something else.”
He cracked the egg with a flick of a fingernail and carefully pulled it apart. In the center was a baby bird, its feathers bright blue. It unfolded its wings and shook them, emitted a sharp cheep.
Eyanna smiled radiantly. The old man gave her the baby bird and Eyanna held it on her slender palm, smiling.
“And what kind of ‘baby’ does this world create?” Denton asked politely. He half expected some native legend about a giant fox or crow or something. But that was not the answer.