Odyssey Rising (11 page)

On the three-wheel ATV vehicle, Theo and Ravi rode in a straight line, traveling up and down the small hills. They dodged some large limestone boulders shaped like a narrow figure eight. The boulders were as tall as the figures of Earth’s Easter Island. Though the figure eights were majestic and unusual, they were hardly as mysterious as men with big, long heads positioned in an orderly fashion for some unknown purpose.

Aboard the ATV vehicle, they reached the edge of one of the seven moon craters and Theo rode along the lip of it before they reached a flat stretch of land. They sped for the area where Ravi swear he had seen the Sshaped creature rising and falling in and out of the low lying hills of pale yellow sand.

“Stop,” Ravi said into his brother’s ear. “This is the one.”

Theo brought the ATV to a quick stop at a series of three hills. The Pod was about a mile behind them.

The brothers jumped off the ATV. Ravi had the portable strobe light and a shaft of long white light was shining brightly around the area. He paused the light on three small hills. Each of them looked partially destroyed, as if they had been tunneled through by something.

“See, something … ate the hill,” Ravi said.

“That’s crazy,” Theo said.

“I know it is,” Ravi answered, “but I also bloody know what I saw.”

“What did you see?”

“A thing. Long. Big. Alive. Pounding through the hills. I’m serious.”

“Then where is it?”

“I don’t know.”

Ravi kept pacing around the area and shining the strobe light along the ground and off into the horizon. There were semi-circle holes that were at least ten feet in circumference, but other than that detail there was nothing unusual around, just a half destroyed hill.

While they searched the area, Theo took digital photographs with his Communication device. The brothers stayed side by side and used the strobe as their guiding light to investigate the half destroyed hills.

The most interesting detail was a large pattern in the lit soil around the half eaten hill. It was a series of diamond imprints in the soil. The imprints repeated consistently every four or so feet for quite a long stretch of the terrain, perhaps as much as a hundred feet.

They reached a flat stretch of land parallel to the three half destroyed hills. And then they heard a far off, pounding sound breaking through the howl of the wind. Looking to their right, they saw a long wind column spiraling up into the black sky.

Something was coming toward them. It was a herd that was alive and the herd was charging hard and fast right for them.

Theo had the taser gun and Ravi was keeper of the light, a portable rectangular device that he shined out into the wilderness of dust and blackness.

“Theo! Theo! You see?”

“There’s your monster,” Theo said.

“No. That’s not what I saw,” Ravi said, “not even close.”

They saw a herd of creatures. There were dozens and they were all low to the ground. In the darkness the creatures were oval shadows of gray. Like fast moving shadows. Almost flying. It was hard, in the far off darkness, to tell if there were ten of them or as many as a hundred.

The herd was getting closer. Following them was a wind spiral that was thirty feet high.

Each of the herd creatures had three humps in the center of their plump bodies. There were something like wolves in the face but their bodies were longer and thinner. The movement of their running also was more like a hop up and down.

From this distance, even through telescopic goggle setting, it looked like the creatures had only one eye in the center of a narrow, long oval head. The camelback herd was a collective freak show. Each creature’s eye glowed a bright yellow. Even amidst the night shadows, the brothers saw the yellow shining brightly.

“What are those?”

“Almost like…camels…

“…like half a camel.”

“Camelbacks.”

The camelbacks, generally, were around four feet tall and almost twice as long.

Other than the three humps in the center of their bodies, their two stubby legs were their most distinguishing characteristic. It was these two legs that made the creature’s running something more like a short hop.

“They’re coming right for us,” Ravi said.

“We’re prepared,” Theo said.

“We are?”

Each of the camelbacks had one huge golden eye set into its head area. It twinkled in the blackness of the night.

With his taser, Theo made one shot into the herd. The electric charge went sparkling and soaring into the darkness like a Tesla lightning bolt.

A small cluster of the herd broke off and stopped advancing toward the Starling brothers.

Each time he shot, Theo picked a different segment of the herd and shot with their tasers. Every shot caused a subset of five or six camelbacks to change direction.

When he had one shot left, there still was a small cluster of the camelbacks charging right for them. They were close enough to get an accurate count.

Theo ran to the back of the ATV and from the flat bed, he grabbed a camping pole. He extended it out to its full length, which was about six feet.

Rushing to the front seat, Theo ripped the ATV seat cushion.

“Kevlar,” he announced to his brother.

“What are you doing?”

Quickly, Theo took a chunk of the Kevlar seat stuffing and pushed it onto the end of the camping pole.

“You have one shot left,” Ravi observed.

“I know.”

“You going to bloody use it?”

“Not on them,” Theo answered.

“What? Use it on them! Bloody now!”

Theo discharged the last taser shot onto the end of the pole where the Kevlar seat stuffing was attached. It instantly caught fire.

And then the herd stopped and surrounded the Starling brothers.

“What do we do?”

“Fight,” Theo said.

“We can’t fight them all,” Ravi said.

“But we can make them believe we’re huge and scary.

“Like them?”

“On three, we’re going to scream.”

“This is not a bloody plan,” Ravi yelled, “not even close!”

“One. Two. Three.”

The brothers let out a huge scream.

“AH---HHHHH!!!!!”

“Again!”

“AH--HHHHHH!!!!”

It was a primal scream. While making the roar, the brothers Starling threw their arms up in the air and pranced around.

The herd of camelbacks stopped moving forward.

“It’s working,” Ravi said.

“Again.”

“AH--HHHHHH!!!!”

Their eyes glowed yellow and their thick black fur blended into the blackness of the GidX7 night. Even amidst the shadows caused by the flickering of his improvised torch, the brothers saw their angular and lucid jaws. Their cutting white teeth shone brightly.

Theo swung the camping pole torch in a wide circle. He came within only a couple feet of the encroaching herd. The flame flickered in streaks of orange and black.

The herd edged closer and Theo and Ravi had nowhere to retreat, nowhere to hide, nowhere to go, nowhere…

This world had become more than the brothers could have ever imagined. It had become a confusing, out of control game – all too real, all too dangerous but a game nonetheless. The game was life, and life – they both knew – was a game of survival.

To survive, it’s you or them. Theo thought to himself. He knew them too well.

Theo was staring at the camelback, almost eye-to-eye, tooth-to-tooth and then without warning, it struck forward into Theo’s legs. It wanted blood and it got it.

Kill or be killed was Theo’s defense.

Theo wanted to let the attacking herd of camelbacks live, but as it was their life or his and Ravi’s.

In a splinter of a second, the brothers had to act. In ancient days the saying was: turn the other cheek. In the age of now, it was thrust and attack.

From a whisper to a scream, impulses and suggestions raced through Theo’s ears and into his heart.

The brothers let out another huge scream.

“AH---HHHHH!!!!!”

Live or die, you choose. It was Theo’s hand, his claim, his thought. He pocked the torch in to the closest part of the camelback herd. The fire seared into their bodies and two camelbacks flailed and jumped back.

Theo did it again. The fire kept the camelbacks away from the brothers.

With a last whimper, the smaller subset of the herd of camelbacks stopped moving forward and calmed their attack. They would not get close to the fire.

Like scared animals, the camelbacks turned around and hopped away from the brothers.

The brothers ran to the ATV, jumped back on to their vehicle and sped away from the looming herd of camelback creatures. The golden-eyed hoppers did not follow.

“I thought they’d never leave,” Ravi said.

“It’s only just begun,” Theo said.

“What?”

“The war.”

Behind them, in the distance, the burned camelback retreated into the shadows to be with the larger herd. Theo and Ravi traveled back to the Pod safely with photos and video recordings. The torch burned the whole ride back.

Upon their return, the other classmates greeted Theo and Ravi like conquering heroes. The Pod door was wide open and Ellie, Sam and Harry Wolf met them just outside the first step. Once they were all in the Pod, they kept the door to the structure partially open. Shades of the moonlight cascaded through the doorway threshold and shone on the floor.

For a few cold moments Theo almost felt like it was snowing but it was just the dust swirling and occasionally falling on his head and into his hair. He ran his fingers through it and shook the snow like dust.

Ellie saddled up to Theo. “We saw the video feed. Man, those things were crazy.”

“We are definitely not alone,” Sam said, “So did you kill any of them?”

“No, just scared them off,” Ravi answered.

“Maybe they weren’t scared,” Sam said, “maybe they’re getting reinforcements.”

“They scattered and didn’t follow,” Theo said. “We’re safe now.”

“Did it have blood?” Sam asked.

“Don’t know,” Ravi answered.

“Maybe it’s green or even blue. That would be really, really radical,” Sam said.

“How many where there?”

“Forty. Maybe even fifty,” Theo answered.

“Where there’s fifty, then there’s probably fifty more,” Ellie said.

“Yeah,” Ravi agreed, “and where’d they bloody go?”

“And are they going to return?”

“I don’t know,” Theo said.

“Why didn’t you kill any of them?” Sam asked.

“They didn’t attack,” Theo answered.

“Yeah,” Ravi agreed, “it was like they were waiting for us to make the first move.”

“Be careful,” Ellie added.

“Of?”

“Applying a sentient intelligence to those freak shows.”

“They did not attack,” Theo said again.

Later in the night, the group went into their separate sleeping bunks. It was quiet and they were left alone with their thoughts of the day.

The wind settled into a modest howl while the dust blew around the Escape Pod.

For what seemed like hours the Positives tossed and turned. In those long gestures several hours passed. There was some small talk, some calm breathing and very occasional sleep, but who could sleep with the wind and the rock pelting the Pod.

Throughout the night, their Communication Devices were still set to auto-connect and they sent message after message into the void. The messages they sent confirmed that they were on the planet, that they were safe, no one was sick yet and that the Pod was undamaged. These messages repeated all night long. It was a standard procedure to wait for a response, some link, some connection, but it fell upon deaf and silent ears.

Ravi meditated and then fell asleep.

Ellie the new geothermal maps she had produced earlier that day. She circled the reddish spot on the map near the place she had started to call the Not So Grand Canyon.

In his bunk Sam photo-shopped two of the rolling golden hills of the planet so that they looked like woman’s breasts, the Twin Peaks he thought to himself, perhaps even Everest and McKinley.

Theo rose from his sleeping bunk and went to the outer room with the deck of computer consoles. He sat down at the main console with the viewing window in front of him. The terrain was as dark as the sky above him. He wrote a text message to Ellie. Sometimes typing gave him a comfort and a privacy that speaking into a tiny metal box did not. It was a local connection and even though she was only twenty feet away, this form of communication gave them both a strange though peaceful comfort.

THEO: the others are asleep im not tired. R u awake?

ELLIE:yES

THEO:on watch. 4 what i dont know.

ELLIE:danger.

THEO:3 headed aliens little green men.

ELLIE:mayb dont know. wind almost stopped.

THEO:almost quiet

ELLIE: 2 QUIET!

THEO:we R not alone. earth is not only planet that can sustain life.

ELLIE:But 3 moons??

THEO:no orion’s belt no big or little dipper.

ELLIE:there r stars, more stars than i could ever count so bright.

THEO:staying + never sucked so much

ELLIE:tomorrow is a new day. We’ll be ok

THEO:here is supportive of life

ELLIE:hopefully ours

THEO:definitely

ELLIE: U were brave

THEO:or stupid

ELLIE:brave

THEO:thanks I guess

ELLIE: getting tired.

THEO:Me2. good night

ELLIE:u2

When Theo clicked off his device, he realized there finally was a peacefulness and a silence to the group. Even Harry Wolf was sleeping soundly, though it was an uncomfortable silence, a forced solitude.

Theo wasn’t hungry but thirst already pervaded his dry mouth and started to creep deeper into his throat. Was this his future? Dehydration?

In his sleeping bunk, Theo knew he should thank God that he and the others were still alive. Perhaps so, but he just wasn’t sure there was any kind of divine plan for him and the others.

Even though the human race had conquered space travel, even some forms of cancer, if not caught early enough, still were deadly and incurable. Doctor Starling liked to call it the race for eradication. Just a fancy way of saying they had to get rid of an alien cancer. It was now the same mission with getting rid of the Yin-Yang Twins.

The first night of sleep on GidX7 was one of the strangest and longest of nights of their life. The wind and the dust and the pebbles of rock and even some larger stones pelted the side of the Escape Pod.

They were seeking some unknown “It” that would help find a cure. They were looking for some theoretical original host who had helped spawn the Yin-Yang Twins and also potentially had some kind of virus that either killed or tamed the parasitic invaders, while it would not kill an infected human being in the process. Simply, they were looking for an infection to fight an infection.

After an hour of sleeplessness, Theo stood up from his sleeping bunk. He took his Communication Device with him. As quietly as he could, Theo propped open the door just enough for him to slide his thin, pale body through to the outside.

The wind was at rest, a peaceful calm. It felt safe. It looked safe and so he quietly went outside. There was a glow from the two moons, a frequent sparkle and shine from the pinpricks in the night. There were stars. He had been around them his whole life.

Theo had argued with the others aboard Odyssey about this night sky, this blackness, this celestial playground of stars. What millions had called the heavens had been surveyed and explored since man could see. We are not in heaven, Theo had argued dozens of times, we are nowhere near heaven, perhaps closer to hell. There are no angels dancing on a crown nebulae. No God lurking behind Orion’s Belt. Of course, when they were children, Theo and Ravi had actually looked for God around every star from the observation deck. Even down on GidX7, Theo was still looking.

Now that he was back on solid ground, looking up at the explosions of light, Theo really wasn’t sure about anything. Space may have always been thought to be divine. Theo saw it a different way: the stars were knowable, navigable, steady and constant. Still, he wondered if there would ever be an end? Odyssey like other shuttles sent out by the Furman Corporation had not yet found it. Was God at the end of the Universe or the beginning or just the center or somewhere along the edges of another galaxy or in another time and another place?

Some called this time the dead of night. Others called it sleep, but not Theo. All was calm but not for long. A gathering storm hovered in his mind and then he realized the storm was actually a loud explosion of barks coming from Harry Wolf. The dog was in full attack posture, his dewclaws poised for action. Harry Wolf was tearing at the front door of the Pod, trying desperately to get outside. Rising from his bed, Theo rushed to the door and yanked at Harry Wolf’s collar. Ravi joined him.

“Stop it, boy. Stop it.”

“What’s wrong boy? What’s wrong?” Ravi asked.

“Quiet, boy, quiet,” Theo commanded.

Harry Wolf kept barking and tearing at the Pod door.

“What’s wrong?” Ravi asked.

“I don’t know,” Theo answered.

“Maybe there’s something out there,” Ravi added.

“There is something out there,” Ellie said. “Those camelbacks.”

Except for the howl of the wind all was quiet outside and inside the Pod.

“I guess he was scared by the wind,” Ravi said.

“Or maybe scared of what’s out there,” Sam added.

Calming down, Harry Wolf lowered his body down to a resting position on the floor by the door to the outside.

That dustbowl hell of a night was a silent one punctuated every so often with the howl of the wind. They slept in their sleep bunks, which folded out from the wall. The Pod was dark except for the faint glow of each of their Communication Devices. The devices could always be recharged in the morning when the sun and the wind could be harnessed.

The silence late into that first night on GidX7 was finally interrupted by a familiar sound, the little “ping” announcing a series of new messages. Each of the Communication Devices started receiving a series of messages, dozens of them in quick succession and the Communication Devices started to glow with energy and communication.

Was it morning? Still night? Somewhere in between? All a dream? Or was it just a nightmare ringed with some shadow of truth?

Theo rolled awake and grabbed his device and started to read the messages. They arrived in rapid-fire succession from a variety of people aboard the Ark, Odyssey and the rescue shuttle transporting Doctor Starling. They were a series of quick statements, some questions and links to the DB. The others woke and climbed out of their bunks and joined Theo by the console of computers.

“Whoa. Did you hear that?”

“We’re back online!” Ravi yelled.

They received the text messages in a flurry. Communication had finally been established, if only temporarily.

Theo and Ravi’s attention both went to a message from their father.