The Navigator (6 page)

WE BARTER. WE SHOWER. WE SLEEP FOR WHAT
seems like a very long time.

We try to adapt.

We check into three rooms at what I understand to be a nice temporary dwelling called a hotel using names Zophie assigns us. We split the Chimærae among us, letting them sleep at our feet in the oversize beds. We try to cobble together some kind of semblance of normalcy. After being stuck in a metal tube for a year and a half, the ability to wander around a city for an hour—just moving my legs and feeling the wind on my face—seems like a blessing.

I sell much of Raylan’s stuff to pawnshops around town once I discover what a pawnshop is. A few of the nicer things I take to places that specialize in jewels. The shop owners there look at me suspiciously when I say they were heirlooms passed down from my family
in what I’m sure is butchered English. They buy things from me anyway, and we amass a stockpile of the currency used in Giza—though, to be honest, the wads of paper and coins are fairly meaningless to me without context of what it costs to survive on this planet. But Zophie’s the one in charge of the finances, and she says we have plenty of money to live on for now.

The city itself seems safe enough, but I take to carrying one of Raylan’s blasters in my pocket whenever I leave the hotel. I’ve learned too well how everything can change in an instant. Also, Earth doesn’t have the most reassuring history when it comes to violence and war.

I take a portion of the money to buy a laptop, which on this planet is considered state of the art but to me is an archaic machine that I imagine my grandfather might have used. Still, primitive as it is, some of its hardware is based on Loric systems I know well. I disassemble the computer that must weigh more than Ella and reassemble it¸ incorporating components from the two data pads we had on the ship. The result is a decent upgrade.

The communications systems on this planet are just as rudimentary as the computing gear, but they’ll suffice. I get to work harvesting data, scouring the internet for any information on the other ship, anything that might be related to the Loric at all. But this planet is so
large, with so many places to hide, in so many different languages. Progress is slow. I feel at home, at least, back in the world of ones and zeros and code.

But the days wear on Zophie. Each hour that goes by without an idea of where her brother might be puts another crack in her shell. It’s unsettling to see. In the ship, we were frustrated because we were trapped, unable to do anything. But now on Earth, where we can actually do something, our inability to find any leads weighs heavy on her. It doesn’t help that—although she is the specialist in otherworldly cultures and affairs—I am the one who is plugged in. The one she has to rely on. She might be able to type something into a search engine, but I can really navigate the internet on this planet. I know its back doors and recognize the things that are hidden in plain sight. She feels helpless. With each day, the bags under her eyes grow larger.

It’s a few weeks into our indefinite residency at the hotel that I finally find a solid lead to Janus and the others. I run across a forum of people posting “evidence” of close encounters with alien species. Most of the photos are grainy and blurry, and I can see the wires hanging from a few of the flying saucers users are trying to pass off as legitimate extraterrestrial spacecrafts—what a strange thing it must be to live on a planet without any knowledge of what cultures and species exist in the universe. But I find a picture from
a few weeks ago that’s got an unmistakable silhouette in it. A Loric ship.

Spotted in the United States.

Zophie and Crayton are out buying grocery supplies. Ella sleeps behind me in a crib rolled in from Crayton’s room. I’m alone and can focus on the task ahead of me. My fingers fly across the keyboard.

Through a little digging, I track the IP address of the user who posted the photo. This points me to a small county in the northern part of a state called New York. A population map tells me the place is secluded, sparsely inhabited—the perfect place to hide a ship. I continue investigating, trying to find more information on the user who uploaded the picture. He hasn’t responded to any of the comments on his post—most of which are banal or useless. In fact, his online presence on the forums seems to completely disappear a few days after the picture goes up, which is strange, since I can tell he’s normally a heavily active user. When I email him through the address connected to his username, I get an automated response saying the message was “undeliverable.”

I pick out clues about the man’s identity based on the large amount of personal data he leaves behind in his comments on the forums and track his username across several other websites. It doesn’t take long before I discover his true identity: Eric Bird. After a little research,
I dig up property records in the New York area with his name on them.

And a home address.

It’s not much, but it’s something to go off of.

There’s a phone number attached to the address, but when I call it, I get a busy signal. I keep trying, every ten minutes, for the next hour. Eventually, Zophie and Crayton come back. When I tell them what I’ve learned, Zophie drops her groceries and rushes over to me. She’s hugging me before I can even get out of my chair.

“I knew you’d do it,” she whispers. “Oh, thank you, thank you.”

I can’t help but smile. Zophie has needed news so desperately. It feels good to be able to deliver it to her.

“We’d need certification of some type to go to another country, right?” Crayton asks. “Identification?”

“Passports,” I say. “We need passports. I can handle that.”

“How?”

“Earth isn’t so different from Lorien. There are people willing to do anything for the right price. I’ve been investigating a portion of the internet most humans probably don’t even realize exists. It’s mostly used by criminals on this planet. I’ve found people nearby in Cairo who will help us.”

“We have to go,” Zophie says. “We have to find Janus and the others.”

“We don’t know that they’re still in the United States,” Crayton says, his voice full of skepticism. “Besides, I don’t feel comfortable trusting Ella’s life to the hands of . . . what, some counterfeiters?
Criminals
on a planet we barely know?”

“It’s the best lead we have.” Zophie slams her palm down on the desk, her voice getting louder. Crayton stares at her for a few seconds before turning to me.

“When was this picture taken?”

I hesitate, glancing at Zophie. “A few weeks ago.”

“They could be anywhere by now,” Crayton says. “Look, I don’t want to seem like I’m not excited about this, because I am. I’m just trying to be practical.”

“Janus is smart enough to know that zipping around in a ship on a foreign planet is a bad idea,” Zophie says. “This picture is probably from their landing. Janus said they had a contact here, someone Pittacus set up for them. They’ll want to be incognito, just like we’re trying to be. To blend in. I think the best lead we’re going to get on them is this photo. And the longer we wait to follow up on it, the colder their trail will get.”

Crayton looks to me, his eyebrows raised, waiting for me to respond. I bite the insides of my cheeks, staring at the lush green landscape in the background of the photo.

“Let’s take a day to think this over,” I say, even though I know what the decision will be. Of course we
will track this down. Zophie wants to find her brother.

And I want answers.

There’s only one problem.

“It’s going to be incredibly expensive to get fake travel documents,” I say. Even though I’m not really familiar with the cost of things on this planet, I know that the price of arranging for fake passports is going to take a serious chunk out of what we’ve accumulated. “We have a couple of options. I can look into this planet’s banking systems and arrange for some funds to be siphoned into an account for us from other businesses and corporations. I’ve been so focused on finding leads that I haven’t looked into this, though. I don’t know how long it would take.”

“What’s the other option?” Zophie asks.

I walk over to the hotel dresser and pull out a small box. I toss it to Zophie, who opens it and finds a gold ring with a chunk of glowing Loralite in the center. One of the more ostentatious pieces from Raylan’s collection.

“There was a jeweler who said he’d pay me good money for any more items that had this ‘strange stone’ in them. Emir, I think his name was. I can probably make enough to pay for most of the documents that way. Maybe as soon as tomorrow.”

Zophie grins.

ONE OF THE PIECES I SOLD TO EMIR THE JEWELER
—a silver necklace with a small Loralite pendant—is on display in his front window. Crayton stops to look at it before we go inside. Ella reaches a chubby fist out towards the glass.

“I probably should have saved some of these for her,” he says quietly, brushing Ella’s hair out of her eyes. “I think they were her grandmother’s.”

“She’ll be served better by safety and answers than by baubles,” I say.

He frowns a little. He’s seemed a little uneasy—unsure—since I broke the news of the photograph last night. Zophie has had the opposite reaction, of course. While Crayton and I are out selling the belongings of a man who is almost certainly dead, she’s packing our things up at the hotel.

“Come on,” I say, holding the shop door open for
him.

We’ve come early, and Emir is the only person in the store, standing behind a counter in the back. He freezes when he sees me, obviously recognizing me as the woman who brought him the necklace with a stone he’d never seen before in it. His expression isn’t as excited as I’d hoped it would be, and I worry that maybe we won’t be getting as much for Raylan’s ring as I thought we would.

“You’re here,” he says as I cross the shop.

“You did say you’d be interested in any other . . .
special
pieces I had,” I say. I take off my backpack and start to dig out the ring.

Crayton pauses at one of the many tall jewelry cases that dot the store to point out some glittering trinket to Ella, who giggles at the sight of all the shiny objects.

Emir’s eyes go wide when he sees the child. He starts to say a few different things but stammers, never quite getting a full word out. Something about seeing Ella seems to have deeply unnerved him.

“Is everything all right?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.

Emir shakes his head. I slide my hand into my coat pocket, curling my fingers around the hilt of my blaster.

He takes a few seconds to compose himself as he stares at a photo taped to the side of his computer. It’s of him and a young girl who looks to be a little older than Ella. His daughter, I assume. A bead of sweat drips
from his temple, which he ignores. It’s only then that I notice the bruises—peeking out from his hairline and the collar of his shirt.

Everything suddenly seems very wrong.

“Oh, yes, the piece in the window,” he says as if I’d asked about it. He springs back to life, smiling for the first time since I walked in but in a forced, anxious way. “You’re right. The necklace
is
beautiful. But I’m afraid it’s not for sale. We’ve had very particular interest in that piece. Buyers who are
very
interested in where it came from. I’m afraid I can’t let you try it on.”

We stare at each other. His eyes flit to his right, nervously looking at something across the store. I follow his line of sight to find a camera mounted on the wall.

It becomes all too obvious that we shouldn’t be in here. Someone’s been asking questions about the Loric jewelry—someone who has obviously scared him. Someone is watching us, and I don’t want to find out who. At least, not like this. Not unprepared and with the child here.

“A pity,” I say, keeping one hand on my weapon as I turn away from Emir. “Good day.”

I grab Crayton’s arm with my free hand and pull him towards the door. He starts to protest, but I shoot him a look that causes him to go quiet. He follows, clutching Ella to his chest.

We’re almost to the entrance when a big, white van
pulls up onto the sidewalk in front of the shop. Figures spill out of the back. I recognize them, even if they’re in dark, human clothes instead of the body armor they wore on Lorien.

Mogadorians.

“Run!” I shout. Crayton and I both turn—there has to be a back way out of the shop.

Emir is saying something about how sorry he is—that he’d already described me to “the monsters” and that he didn’t know there’d be a baby. He’s stopped midsentence by a bolt of energy that drops him to the ground behind the main counter.

“Going somewhere, Loric scum?” a huge Mog standing in front of the back door asks. He’s bald, but his head is completely covered in tattoos similar to the ones I saw on an invader the night Lorien burned.

There’s a blaster in the bastard’s hands.

I fire at him through my coat pocket but miss. At the same time, the windows behind us break as the Mogs from outside pour in.

We jump behind a jewelry case. Glass falls down over us as the top display is shattered in a barrage of blaster fire. Crayton huddles over Ella, protecting her and shouting desperate prayers to her in Loric. I peek around the corner. There are six Mogs advancing towards us and one—the big guy with the tattoos—blocking our exit through the back.

It’s not exactly the best odds.

I fire over the counter. The snarling bastards duck out of the way and behind cases. We have to do something—we’re outnumbered, all our exits are blocked and the only thing we have to protect ourselves with is a single blaster that I barely know how to use.

Actually, that’s not exactly true. We have something else.

I dig into my bag and pull out one of the small grenades Raylan included in his supplies. It’s a short cylinder covered in markings that identify it as a concussion and electromagnetic short-range hybrid bomb—in other words, not exactly a precise weapon but one that should be enough to knock down most of our assailants. I’ve never actually used one before, so I can’t be sure. Crayton looks back and forth between me and the grenade.

“You can’t be thinking—,” he starts, but another barrage from the Mogs causes chunks of our shoddy cover to shatter around us. I return fire, noting where our enemies are. The big guy has moved and is closing in on us fast.

We don’t have time to plan or argue. I see only one way of us—of Ella—getting out of here.

“It’s our only chance,” I say. “Make for the back exit after it goes off. I’ll hold off any survivors.”

“What about you?” he asks.

“I’ll meet you back at the hotel.”

Before he can protest, I click the top of the grenade and toss it over the jewelry case. There are a few beeps as I dive to the ground, pulling Crayton and Ella down with me. And then a wave of force explodes from the center of the room, flattening us. Jewelry, glass and pieces of displays crash into the walls. The lights go out. The Mogs grunt, and I can’t help but grin when I see one of them slam into the cinder-block wall of the shop and disintegrate.

Not all of them are dead, though. A few have been blown outside and are already picking themselves back up when I check. The big guy from the back of the store is laid out on the ground, seemingly unconscious.

“Go!” I shout, pushing Crayton.

He hesitates for only a moment before running towards the back door, Ella in his arms. I try to fire at the Mogs outside, but my blaster has powered down due to the EMP.
Shit.

Fortunately, the Mog weapons don’t seem to be working either.

Crayton’s almost to the back door when I see the big Mog move. Something shiny flies through the air and catches Crayton’s calf. Crayton falls onto his side, Ella still in his arms, a big sliver of glass sticking out of his leg. The monster crosses the room in just a few strides as Crayton struggles to get up. Ella starts to babble.
Crayton looks back at me and then to the big Mog, now just steps away from him. I can see some kind of calculations being worked out behind his eyes. He knows there’s no way he’s going to outrun the big guy. Not now.

He winces as he shouts to me.

“Catch her! Don’t let them take her.”

Ella’s body flies through the air. She doesn’t cry. In fact, I think I actually hear her giggle. I catch her with one arm, pulling her in to me, trying to protect her. When I look up again, the big Mog is holding Crayton up off the ground, a sinewy hand around his neck. The monster’s black eyes are furious as he snarls. The creature pulls a small dagger from his belt and rears back, ready to plunge it into Crayton’s chest.

“No!” I shout. But it’s too late.

There’s a bang, and the Mog stops. His arm falls to the floor. Another shot sounds, and the Mog begins to disintegrate. Crayton falls to the ground, gasping.

It’s only then that I realize Emir is standing again, blood pouring out of a wound on his shoulder as he reloads what I think the people of Earth call a shotgun.

“Get that child out of here,” he says to me.

The two remaining Mogs look so stunned that their leader has fallen that Emir has just enough time to fire off a few shots and take them by surprise. They turn to ash as Crayton picks himself up off the ground and hobbles over to me. Emir babbles in a language I don’t
understand, shaking his head. His eyes dart back and forth between the piles of ash, trying to comprehend what’s happened.

There are sirens coming from somewhere down the road, and we can’t be here when they arrive. I grab Crayton, and we sprint out to the van that brought the Mogs, our enemies, to us. We climb inside. The engine seems to be running, so I pull on various levers and push buttons until the vehicle is moving. The controls aren’t so different from a tractor I’d driven once or twice out on the Kabarak. Crayton and I barely speak to one another as we try to come down from the shock of what’s happened. Cars honk as I pass them, sometimes screeching to a stop—I’m probably breaking dozens of traffic laws. But I keep going. Eventually we park the vehicle far, far away from our hotel. From a small market, I buy some water, alcohol and gauze that Crayton uses to clean up the wound on his calf in a side alley. When he’s finished, we climb into a taxi to return to Zophie.

It’s only then, as we shoot through Giza, that Ella starts to cry, and Crayton turns to me, his face contorted with desperation.

“We’re not safe on this planet” is all he says.