After Earth (34 page)

Norah Kincaid was content to sit and watch. Life on
Nova Prime was never easy, but the people were enjoying a nice respite. Their alien enemies, the Skrel, had not been heard from in decades, and their vile creations, the rampaging Ursa, had been largely wiped out. The last attack had been around thirty years ago, and all but a dozen of the Ursa had been killed. Those remaining beasts were elsewhere on the planet, and every night, as part of her prayers, she asked that the United Ranger Corps or age would destroy them and keep her people safe.

Those prayers appeared to have been answered—there were very few such sightings in the last handful of years.

As a result, the people once more were gazing up at the stars, wondering what else was out there. The news was filled with word that the latest anchorage, Avalon, had been successfully opened for business out in the next spiral arm. The planet Tau Ceti beckoned nearby, and Norah’s cousin Atlas had been captivated by the notion since he was a boy. Such thoughts were good ones, but the actions they might lead to were a constant source of concern. Humankind had fled Earth nearly a millennium ago and, hundreds of years after that, learned they were not alone in the universe. There were dangers out there, including but not limited to the Skrel. She had understood the warnings against tempting the fates and the hand of the creator, but there remained those who wanted to explore. It was human nature, and rather than fight it, she sought ways to embrace the yearnings while tempering them with grounded reality.

Anderson stood up, grinning at her and waving the shovel. “Come see!” he commanded.

She rose and took three steps toward him to admire the formation of a massive structure. There were towers clustered together and several smaller buildings in a semicircle. Clearly, he was the architect and had convinced the others to build from his ideas.

“All you need now is a moat to protect the village,” she said admiringly.

“What’s a moat?”

Before she could answer, sirens broke the sounds of play. She knew that sound all too well. She reached out and grabbed Anderson, who was in the process of covering his ears, his eyes clenched in disapproval.

“What is it, Mama?” he shouted.

She didn’t answer him as her eyes darted from side to side, seeking some sense of the alarm’s source. Jason looked at her, and she nodded in confirmation: an Ursa sighting. He reached into a satchel and removed a communications device. She might have taken the afternoon off, but her oath meant she could never shed its responsibilities. She took the comm unit from him and spoke into it.

“This is Dr. Kincaid. What is happening?” she asked.

The voice on the other end replied,
“At least six Ursa have entered the city. One is by the main market, the other heading toward the park! You said that’s where you were going; if you’re there now, get out of there. Rangers are in pursuit.”

“I’m coming in,” she said, Anderson squirming in her arms. She handed the device back to Jason, who already had collected the toys. “Emergency protocols should already have begun. If not, someone is going to be flogged.” People were screaming and rushing about, children wailing almost louder than the siren. There was so much noise that she didn’t yet register the commotion at the other end of the park. A squad of eight Rangers had rushed in through the far gate, their shape-shifting weapons—called cutlasses—configured into swords.

Norah swiveled her head around. Where was the Ursa?

The octet of Rangers also seemed confused, forming a loose ring back to back, scanning the park. People continued to flee.

She studied the men and women, noting just how young and nervous they appeared. No doubt they grew up on tales of the genetically engineered monsters that the Skrel sent to the planet with frightening regularity,
all in a vain attempt at ridding the world of life for some unknown reason.

They stood their ground, uncertain where to go. If they weren’t moving, neither was she. She tightened her grip on Anderson, who studied the Rangers in their brown smart fabric uniforms with fascination. He knew what a Ranger was; after all, her older cousin Lucius was Prime Commander, and Anderson, even as an infant, was drawn to the uniform. It was in the Kincaid blood and had been for many generations.

One Ranger heard something and looked up. Norah followed her gaze and looked at the brown- and yellow-leafed tree.

That was when she heard it: the unearthly, ferocious cry of an abomination. It became visible amid the foliage, bellowing in a horrible tone. Her nightmares had manifested, and she had to flee. In the rush of activity, Anderson squirmed free and rushed across the sandpit, away from her. She cried out to him, but with the siren and the other noises, her words were swallowed and the boy, unaware of the danger, headed right for the Rangers.

The moving target was all the Ursa needed, and it leaped from the tree toward the boy.

Time slowed for Norah as her heart slammed against her chest, each beat drowning out all other sounds.

Anderson finally stopped moving and watched the Ursa in the air. He was paralyzed with fear.

One of the Rangers also leaped into action, trying to draw the Ursa’s attention, but the monster had other ideas.

The last thing Norah saw before her world went black was the Ursa’s maw opening to devour her son as the Ranger’s bladed weapon swung through the air.

The boy woke up hours later. Norah never left his side. She was accompanied by her husband, Marco, a slightly
paunchy man with dark, slicked-back hair and a mustache that once had been fashionable but now seemed oddly out of place. Anderson was groggy, blinking repeatedly as he looked around the room before focusing on his parents.

“Where … am I?” he croaked.

A nurse, also present, leaned over and gently squeezed water from a yellow bulb into his mouth. He swallowed, sputtered, swallowed again, and seemed to be becoming more alert rapidly.

“Hi, love bug,” Norah said, tears streaming down both cheeks.

“You’re in the hospital, Andy,” his father said. “How do you feel?”

He shrugged. “I dunno … sore. What happened?”

Anderson drifted off before he could hear the answer. Over the next few hours he could only hazily recall snippets of conversation. None of it seemed real to him, but it all sounded scary, so he took comfort in sleep.

He heard his father ask, “Can it be reattached?” His mother sobbed. The doctor started talking about prosthetics and how far they had progressed through the years.

Anderson also heard his parents arguing, and that hurt him in ways different from the ache in his shoulder. He heard his mom saying, “I never should have stayed in the park.” His father was agreeing but sounded very angry.

As he fully woke up, he wasn’t sure what to expect. All he knew was that he ached all over and was very thirsty.

“Mom?”

Norah turned to look at her son, and he saw that her eyes were red. His father was right behind her, his hand on her right shoulder.

Shoulder
. He turned to look at where he ached. All he saw was a huge bandage and beyond that … nothing.

“Mama! Where’s my arm?!”

“The Ursa was about to kill you, but the Ranger stopped it …” she continued.

“The creature took your arm,” his father said as gently as possible. “It could not be reattached.”

Anderson blinked, his left shoulder under thick white bandages shuddering in response. “But I feel it. Mama, you’re a doctor; can’t you put it back on?” The question sounded so reasonable, and it was, if you were seven. Norah Kincaid, though, knew that there were limits to what medical science could do.

Just then, a middle-aged man of Asian descent entered the room, followed by a different nurse with a rolling cart. Atop it was a readout of Anderson’s vital signs that the man consulted before looking at the boy.

“My name is Dr. Zeong, Anderson. How do you feel?”

“What about my arm?” he asked, ignoring the question. “Mama’s the best doctor on Nova Prime. Can’t you put it back on?”

“The arm was too badly damaged at the base for successful grafting,” the doctor explained in a low voice. “I’m sorry, son, but it couldn’t be saved.”

There was some talk about prosthetics, which he knew meant a fake arm, and that didn’t interest him. As he lay back in the bed, he tried to recall what had happened. He remembered the sandpit, then the siren. And he remembered the Ranger who ran toward him.

“Mama,” Anderson said, breaking the silence. “What happened to the Ranger who saved me?”

She sighed heavily and kissed his forehead. “She died doing her duty to protect you.”

He nodded at that and thought a lot about the Rangers as the adults chattered among themselves about things he couldn’t follow or care about.

Year after year, Anderson grew up, training himself to qualify for the Rangers. Every few years, as his body
continued to grow and develop, he would visit the hospital, where a new arm had to be attached. There were weeks of clumsiness as he adjusted to each new prosthetic; this usually was accompanied by some depression and frustration as the simplest tasks proved difficult.

Never once did Anderson think his arm was “fake”; that was a little boy’s way of thinking. As he matured, he treated the arm as a real limb. Thanks to the smart fabric technology woven into the synthetic skin, it actually tanned in the sunlight, even freckling to match the rest of his body.

As Anderson grew, he studied the history of the Rangers and his family’s lengthy connection to them. His family could trace its proud Ranger heritage to at least 306 AE, when Carlos Kincaid became the first Kincaid to be named Prime Commander. He pestered his cousin Lucius for information about what it was like and what was required and never tired of hearing stories of the family’s Ranger-related exploits. Despite the tarnished reputation of his grandfather, Nathan Kincaid—considered the worst Prime Commander in history—Anderson wrote several school reports addressing the man’s notorious tenure as Prime Commander.

He also learned more about the Kincaid family’s lengthy rivalry with the Raige family. It stunned him to hear the genuine hatred in his family members’ voices as they recounted how the Raiges had stymied the Kincaids’ progress time and again. For every achievement his family had, such as developing the cutlasses, the Raiges seemed to trump it. He didn’t know any Raige in school, and they remained an abstract concept to him with the exception of Cypher Raige. The Ranger had been his cousin Atlas’s close friend despite the familial animosity, and Anderson had met Cypher a few times. The tall, stern, quiet man was the epitome of what it meant to be a Ranger. But more than that, he was a legend. The year Anderson lost his arm, Cypher Raige managed to do something they called ghosting—becoming
invisible to the Ursa. It enabled him to become the first to kill the creature single-handedly. It sounded like the stuff of myth, but Atlas and his mother had assured him it had happened. Cypher himself never wanted to talk about it, disliking being the focus of attention.

Growing up meant overcoming the replacement arm’s limitations. He constantly adjusted it to match the strength and dexterity of his right arm so that he could play sports and function without an unfair advantage. Working with weights and other equipment, he honed his muscles and improved his endurance. He learned how to box and shoot, how to ride, and how to fence. The teen was guided by his father to balance the physical with the mental, which meant not neglecting his studies. Though not at the top of his class, he was proud of his accomplishments.

At night, Norah arrived home from her work and tended to her son. Even though his body was exhausted and his mind weary, he would absorb her lectures on the philosophies of Nova Prime and its people. Although the Kincaids had a deep connection to the Rangers, several served as the Savant and as such were in charge of the scientific community of Nova Prime. Currently, their aunt Liliandra led the planet’s religious order as the Primus. Their family served the planet in whatever honorable way possible. When those lectures occurred, he reminded her time and again that it was all well and good, but he was determined to qualify for the Rangers. Testing began as early as age thirteen, but he wanted to make sure he nailed the admissions the first time out. She nodded encouragingly and continued her lectures as he fell asleep.

Maybe it was her medical training and her concern for the sanctity of life, which was constantly at risk, but she didn’t necessarily encourage him in his pursuit. She did, though, know he had been focused on this path as a form of atonement or honoring the dead, and she couldn’t argue with that.

Then came the afternoon the eighteen-year-old appeared
at Norah’s offices in a sweat-drenched shirt, a towel wrapped around his neck. Maybe it was the glistening sweat, but it appeared to her that Anderson was glowing.

“I’m ready,” he told her.

“For a shower, I would think,” she replied tartly, sniffing at him in disapproval.

“Fine. But after the shower, I’m going to go sign up,” he announced.

She said carefully, “Is this truly what you want?”

“Mom, it’s all I’ve been thinking about since the attack,” he said in a tone that indicated this was old territory. His mother pressed the point.

“Yes, and it has been good to stay focused so you can heal and get strong. But now that you are fit, you have so many other options. There are other ways to serve the people.”

“I already heard Aunt Liliandra and how wonderful the augury is,” the teen said. “I don’t care.”

“Show some respect for your aunt and the faith,” his mother said. “I don’t know where I’d be without it. I prayed and prayed you’d survive that awful attack.”

“I did, Mom. I did because a Ranger risked her life for mine. Aren’t you always telling us to give back? This is me, giving back.”

“You could explore medicine or other fields,” she said. He had heard it all before and knew she was just trying to get him to at least consider other careers. But after so many years being focused on the Rangers, nothing else felt quite right. “You really have your mind made up?”