Guardians (Caretaker Chronicles Book 2) (2 page)

It was a good throw, though, and his stone sailed
across the calm surface, bouncing and leaving behind widening circles wherever
it hit. All in all, six skips. Not bad.

An unusual movement in the water caught Ethan’s
attention. In the ripples left by the skipped stone, some small, smooth, glossy
bodies were arcing.

Swimming lizards. Ethan would never get tired of
seeing them. Called natare, they were curious and friendly, ranging in color
from warm charcoal to pale lavender. The females were speckled, to help them
blend into the dappled shadows under the foliage. The males had a ruff around
their necks which streamed behind them as they swam after minnows to carry to
their nesting mates.

Minean creatures were not the same as Earth’s
creatures, but many, like the natare, were similar to the animals of Earth.
Though some had been catalogued and named, many species were still being
discovered. The colonists usually referred to the animals by the names of their
closest Earth equivalents, sometimes with a specific quality of the Minean
species, like swimming lizards. Even after four years here, the surprising
differences in Minean creatures instilled Ethan with wonder.

The natare rode the ripples to the water’s edge,
reaching their delicate feet forward and climbing out onto the bank. Their eyes
were inquisitive, searching. Ethan held out his hand. Three of the little
creatures came forward. They knew humans, knew that they liked the taste of the
salt that humans carried on their skin.

Soon they were licking his fingers, and Ethan
took his hand back and broke off a piece of the sandwich to offer them. The
boldest, a dusty purple male, snatched it and raised his neck ruff toward the
others. Ethan watched them back away from the challenge on their webbed feet.
But they followed the purple natare. When he wasn’t looking, one grabbed a bit
of the sandwich from his mouth and dived into the water, swimming rapidly for
his mate on her nest a few yards away.

Polara’s voice surprised Ethan. “What about that
one, Dada?” She said, pointing to the third natare. “He didn’t get any.”

Ethan offered her the last bite. “Here you go.
Share this with him.”

The child brightened and took the sandwich. Ethan
watched her careful steps as she crept along after the little lizard, calling, “Here
swimmer, here swimmer. Come have a sandwich.” She was a bold child, a brave
one, and he loved seeing her fascination with animals and people. Watching her
embrace the world was one of the great joys of his life.

And Rigel—Rigel’s quiet thoughtfulness brought
him insurmountable peace. Still not talking at almost two, and deeply
empathetic, Ri spent most of his time watching others closely. He didn’t walk
yet, didn’t seem to need to move around and explore like Polara always had. The
pediatrician had been a little worried about Rigel’s lack of speech, but after
tests on his ears and cognition, had sent them home telling them not to worry,
he would soon be making a racket alongside his sister.

Ethan felt a familiar need to check on his son.
Though he didn’t have the charge to look after 4000 sleeping passengers
anymore, he still heavily felt the responsibility to protect the people he
loved, and when he glanced toward the picnic blanket, he saw Rigel looking at
him and reaching for his bread. The nearly-two-year-old had knocked it just
beyond his own reach. Ethan rose and retrieved it for him.

It was in that second, that small moment when his
back was turned, that Polara fell into the lake. He heard the splash, and
turned to the spot he’d last seen her. But she was far beyond that. How had she
moved so quickly? She was flailing now in the inlet where the tumbling river
flowed into the lake. He ran.

Blindly, Ethan charged into the water, fighting
its pull against his legs. The river rocks were slick and round, but he barely
noticed as his ankles cracked into them. She was being swept by the current. He
had to get to her. Suddenly, the bottom dropped away, and Ethan felt his head
go under. He swam, hard, and broke the surface just in time to see Polara’s
small hand reaching horribly toward the sky.

He lunged, grasping at whatever he could. He felt
her jumpsuit, soaked and slick, and clenched it, hauling her toward him and up,
up toward the air. He went under, but held her above him, relieved to feel her
squirming and fighting in his arms. Kicking, he rose above the surface again
and gasped, “Polara! It’s all right. I’ve got you. You’re all right.”

His girl was crying, gasping. He got her to the
bank, where helpful hands of onlookers steadied him as he came out. He collapsed
on the stones, cradling her in his arms, curling his body protectively around
her, and speaking in a low, calming voice, though he didn’t feel calm himself.

Her hysterical crying continued. Suddenly, he
found himself singing an old Earth lullaby, gentle and low, that had calmed
them both during long nights and tense moments. Slowly, he felt his heart rate
returning to normal and heard the child’s tears subside.

Aria was suddenly beside them, her arms
encircling them both. She didn’t say anything, just held them, but he heard her
fear in her ragged breathing.

Soaked, Ethan carried Polara back to the blanket.
He tried to still the trembling in his arms. He had watched over his family
across the stars, and even now his greatest fear was that something would
happen to them, something he couldn’t stop.

Ethan pulled his eyes from Polara, who was now sipping
olona juice, to catch Aria’s gaze. His wife was holding Rigel tightly. Her
smile was shaky as she looked back at Ethan.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m glad you were so
fast.”

He nodded, trying to push away the growing dread
that had been sparked by Polara’s near miss. He tightened his arm around her.
She was strong and bright, but still so fragile. He was going to have to guard
her more carefully.

Across the park, Ethan heard the chiming of
bells. Lucidus was reaching its perigee, the moment when it was closest to
Earth, and it hung bright and round in the sky above Tiger Mountain. He pointed
it out to Polara as Aria retrieved from their basket the four silver hand bells
they’d brought along. Polara, her fear forgotten, stood to ring hers with
vigor. Its bright sound joined the others, echoing off the karst peaks as the
crowd began to cheer. A few people set off bright fireworks which threw sparks
of color into the air around them. Ethan smiled to see Polara, born here as a
true Minean, embracing the tradition.

Ethan glanced up at the bright planet and his
smile disappeared. A dark smudge appeared and traveled directly across the face
of Lucidus. Others had seen it too. The crowd sunk into an uneasy stillness,
choking the clamor of the Lucidus bells. Uneasy murmurs arose at the sight of
the opaque spot streaking smoothly across the planet.

Ethan felt a surge of fear, an old apprehension.

“It’s just an orbital defense sphere,” someone
said, as the spot dropped off the crisp edge of the planet and the bells began
again.

It could be one of the orbital defense spheres. Ethan
tried to let that make him feel better.

***

Admiral
Phillip Reagan paced in his temporary office in Lumina. His windows were open
and the office smelled of mud and greenery: spring. It was his fourth Minean spring
since they had made him Admiral of the Minean fleet. He’d been promoted after
he arrived, when news had broken that he had disagreed with selling Ship 12-22
to the Others of Beta Alora, and now he got to oversee the ships and command
the fleet. Well, train the fleet. There hadn’t been much commanding necessary
in the ever-peaceful skies of Minea.

But something troubling had been seen in those
skies this morning. He shouldn’t even be here today; the day of the Lucidus
festival was a UEG holiday. But something unusual had been spotted, and he wasn’t
going back to the barracks until he got some answers.

Until then, he was listening to the guitar riffs
of an old Earth band. He was glad that he’d had the Caretaker’s drive, full of
old Earth music and movies, downloaded from the ship on which he’d arrived
before it was scrubbed and repurposed. Now, the thumping bass rhythm provided
just enough distraction to keep Reagan’s thoughts from running away with all
the possibilities of what that spot in front of Lucidus could have been.

He had seen it, a shadow on the bright circle that
was the planet, at the height of the Lucidus festival this morning. It showed
up and moved across just as the bells rang in the city and the cally blossoms
were released from the tops of the buildings. He had seen it just for a second,
and had known it wasn’t the orbital defenses as others speculated. One thing
that made him fit for admiralcy here on Minea was his impeccable eye for
detail. The orbitals wouldn’t have been in the right place to transit Lucidus.
The spot wasn’t the right shape or size. And he’d never seen anything pass in
front of the planet at perigee.

“You seem cool,” Sergeant Frank Nile surprised
him.

Reagan turned down the music. “Just waiting for
the analysis team.”

Nile crossed to the window. “Exciting first day
down here.”

Reagan’s laugh was a little bitter. “Yeah.”

“So what’s your itinerary, Admiral? How long will
you be with us here in Lumina?”

Reagan breathed in the light spring air.
Everything depended on what the analysis team found. “Well, the original plan
was to do all the routine defense checks here in the next two weeks. Your
reviews of personnel, equipment, and procedure haven’t been done in far too
long. But with this new . . . development, I may be heading to
Flynn. I’ve got to make sure we’re ready for whatever happens.”

Sergeant Nile gestured toward the map of the
Minean settlements on the wall. “Maybe we’ll get to try out some of our
strategies, huh?” His voice was light.

Reagan stood slowly and walked to the map, laying
a hand on it. His voice was stern when he said, “Sergeant, I hope you
understand that the best military strategy is the one you never have to use.”

Reagan ran his fingers across the eight cities
spread almost in an X across this part of the planet. He felt the weight of
every settlement, of every person in each one. He lingered for a moment on the
city that lay at the northwestern corner of the settlements: Coriol, where he
lived with his daughter, Kaia. Lumina, the city he was in now, was at the
opposite edge of the settlements diagonally: the most southwestern of the
cities. Between them lay the Azure Mountains, a range of folded mountain peaks
that divided the continent almost in half.

Nile was at his shoulder, and Reagan saw the man
glance from the map out the window, where the peaks of the Azures fringed the
sky in the distance. Reagan felt a certain comfort in seeing the mountains. The
Azure range was the larger of the two major mountain ranges near the
settlements. Much like the Rocky Mountains back on Earth, they had been formed
by folding and faulting and they rose from the plains on either side of them to
elevations over 6000 meters. The other range was the Karst Mountains out near
Coriol, past the Eastern Plains. It had been formed from the dissolution of
Minean blue limestone into freestanding towers. It was as dramatic as it was
remote and largely unexplored. Reagan had heard that a new vein of Yynium
discovered underneath it was causing quite a stir among the companies. Both
ranges offered a certain amount of protection to their neighboring cities.

Nile must have been thinking the same thing. “The
mountain cities will have a bit more cover than we have out here.”

Reagan nodded. “Oculys and Kantara are in the
foothills and they have our best surface-to-air missiles. Minville, Sato, and
New Alliance are easily defensible from the ground because they’ve each got the
Azures on two sides. But the plains here in Lumina leave us a little exposed.”
He considered for a moment. “I don’t worry about Flynn. It has two advantages:
being surrounded by the Azures and being in the center of the settlements.”

Both men glanced at Coriol. It was the outlier.
To reach it you had to cross the Eastern Plains, and it lay at the edge of the Karst
Mountains, which did not have the altitude of the folded mountains, but made up
for it in the sheer grandeur of its towers. They would at least offer a place
for people to flee if anything happened.

Reagan found himself growing increasingly tense.
Coriol looked so isolated up on the corner of the map, so vulnerable. And Kaia
was there now, in their blue cottage, alone.
These days away
from her were hard. Reagan missed her, and he worried about her. Even after
four years on the planet with her, he had still not gotten used to the fact
that she was older than he was now and that she was slowing down. Reagan feared
the day when he would get a call that she’d fallen or that her heart, which had
been beating so long now, had stopped doing its work.

 These last few years had been like his first
years as a new father, when he’d found himself worrying at odd times about the
myriad dangers the world posed to his new daughter. Only this time, instead of
becoming more able and more independent each day, she was moving in the
opposite direction, and the end of his worrying now would be very different from
end of his worrying then, when he’d dropped her off for her first day of
school.