With the return of the Lord Admiral to Hearst Castle, the number of guards increased dramatically. Eva berated herself mentally for not noticing before how significantly unguarded most of the castle had been in his absence. Juan and Mark could have strolled in unopposed and the three could have had lunch together, undisturbed, on the West Terrace.
Not really, but it felt good to think of her friends and of doing something normal with them.
She only saw Tomes when his duties required he be in her presence, but the Lord Admiral hardly left her alone, even running with her the morning of his first day back.
“I missed you so much,” he said many times. She smiled and thanked him, told him she missed him also, and inwardly began to fear his wrath if he ever discovered her deception.
Or her and Tomes’ affair.
For his part, the Lieutenant Grenadier acted reserved and formal as always, not even blinking when the Lord Admiral asked how Eva’s self-defense training was coming along.
“She can defend herself quite adequately now.”
“Good job, thank you.” He pulled Eva close and kissed her head, his face lingering a moment in her hair, smelling the fragrance of the shampoo she’d used. “I hope you will never need to use those skills, my dear, but I’m grateful you have them. Keep practicing.”
“Yes, Lord Admiral.” Eva looked at Tomes as she spoke but he turned discreetly away, not looking uncomfortable, just looking professional.
Before the Lord Admiral had left for space with the Ambassador, he and his generals had met daily, the Ambassador and Eva invited, and the Hrwang had wrung their hands and complained about the warlike nature of the people and how they had no power to stop the devastations that were occurring. When he returned, she expected the useless staff meetings to resume, but they didn’t.
“Where’s the Ambassador?” she asked at breakfast on the second day.
The Lord Admiral grinned as if he couldn’t control himself. His eyes looked mischievous and Eva detected the smirk that meant he wasn’t being honest.
“He has remained in space.”
He pushed the mouse of a man out an airlock, Eva thought.
“Why?” she asked.
“To fulfill your people’s destiny, my dear.” The grin grew wider. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I have to tell someone. It’s like a story in your bible.” His tablet came out and he searched a few seconds. “Noah and the ark.”
“What?” Eva cried.
“The situation on your planet is hopeless.”
Eva knew that. If that hadn’t been the point of those daily meetings, to reinforce how hopeless the Hrwang thought the situation to be, then she didn’t know what their point was. It certainly hadn’t been to get anything done.
The Lord Admiral continued eating without elaborating. Eva wondered how much she could push.
“So what is the Ambassador doing?”
“My dear, I can’t tell you any more. I apologize. Enjoy your breakfast. We have a treat tomorrow morning. I can’t wait to take you there.”
“Where?” she asked as sweetly as she could, needing to know. She didn’t know what the Lord Admiral meant by the Noah and the ark reference, but it disturbed her. She had to get word to Mark and Juan somehow.
“I’ll give you a clue. It will be breakfast time here, but we’ll be enjoying dinner there.”
Eva conjured up a mental image of a timezone map and his clue meant somewhere in Europe or Africa. That narrowed it down.
“How long will we be gone?”
The Lord Admiral switched to Est. “So many questions, my dear. Just enjoy.”
It impressed Eva how much Est she understood now. The alien language wasn’t overly complicated, much like the Spanish she’d studied in high school, but it would be a while before she became proficient in it. If more Hrwang spoke it to her, she’d pick it up faster, but they always wanted to practice their English around her.
Tomes was almost fluent in English now and the Lord Admiral wasn’t far behind.
She ate her breakfast in slow motion as she tried to figure out what the Lord Admiral plotted. Why would they be going to Europe or Africa? Why had Stanley, the Ambassador, stayed in space, hopefully aboard a Hrwang vessel and not floating in the vacuum? And why did the Lord Admiral compare him to Noah and the ark?
Moles just go with the flow, right? she thought to herself and resolved to figure out how to get word to her friends.
Two hundred seventy-five thousand souls, roughly. Twenty per trip, roughly. It would take thirteen thousand seven hundred and fifty trips to get them all up into space. Roughly.
A monumental undertaking and yet the two hundred and seventy-five thousand didn’t even represent the population of a small city. More like a large town.
If Stanley had been religious he wouldn’t have known how better to characterize his role, as that of a Noah leading a few into the arks to save them from upcoming and total annihilation, or more like Moses, who led his people out of danger and into the promised land after forty years of wandering in the wilderness.
Their wandering would be five years. Five years, and humanity could restart life on a new world. Five years and he would lead them to developing utopia. A scientific paradise, free from religion, free from war, free from prejudice and military. Free from the traditions and sins of the past.
Humanity would be free and he would be their savior.
Stanley’s flagship would be the transport previously called Fourth Transport of the Fleet of the People. It contained the most extensive hospital facilities and was the spaceship where he’d been operated on. The First Doctor had graciously suggested Stanley take it and ensure that many medical staff would be aboard. When they landed, it could be used as their hospital and colony center.
Stanley agreed with the suggestion and any police or military who pledged non-violence and were accepted as colonists were brought aboard Fourth Transport along with doctors, surgeons, nurses and other related scientists.
In the unlikely case of a mishap, the Hrwang Chief Colonization Engineer suggested a mix of skills be aboard every ship, even if some ships focused more heavily on one skill than another. Stanley readily agreed.
Fourth Transport would also be renamed after one of Stanley’s purported ancestors, a great colonist with a storied history. His flagship would be called the William Bradford, after a colonist who sailed to America aboard the Mayflower and served as governor of the Plymouth Colony for over thirty years. Stanley hoped he would be as successful as his famous progenitor.
The name caught on with other colonists and they asked that their ships be renamed also and soon Second Transport became the Peter Stuyvesant, Third Transport became the Benjamin Franklin, and so on. Non-American colonizers followed, and ships were named the Paulo Dias de Novais, the Queen Isabella, and the Lehi, among others.
Some of this was explained to new recruits as they were divided up by skill sets, given a brief indoctrination, then put into cold sleep. Those who changed their minds were returned to the planet, although rumors abounded that the aliens dropped them off on the other side of the world from where they’d been picked up. Stanley didn’t believe the stories.
Kell realized he was being followed as he ran down Claddagh Quay to South Park to the open fields used by students for games of Gaelic or even soccer. With a view of the bay, the treeless park would be a perfect place for alien space ships to land and take off from.
He ran as fast as he could.
A crowd had already gathered in front of him, in the distance, surrounding something. A thrown brick landed on Kell’s right and he decided his instincts were correct. He needed to outrun those who followed.
Two alien ships hovered in the air over the park as Kell reached the crowd, trying to blend into it and determine what was going on. Those chasing began pelting the group with stones and bricks.
The crowd panicked. Someone knocked over a table and two men who looked liked soldiers in black coverall uniforms stood and drew some sort of hand held weapons. Kell didn’t recognize the guns.
Amidst screaming, he could hear yelling about alien lovers and traitors to mankind. All he could think about were the bodies he had found in the dormitory and what humans had done to other humans. He’d take aliens any day over that.
One of the alien ships landed, the other moved toward the brick throwers. Kell watched as lightning struck from the ship and the attackers dropped their bricks and scattered like cockroaches. A soldier yelled something indicating that everyone who had been accepted should board now. Kell didn’t care. He wasn’t going to be left behind. He ran for the open hatch on the landed ship, a curly red haired young woman running next to and then passing him. The soldiers abandoned their notes on the overturned table and ran also.
Kell smelled ozone.
The alien aircraft chasing the attackers moved farther away in pursuit, and a group burst out of an alleyway behind it and headed straight for the one that had landed. Straight for where Kell was headed.
They had more bricks and also carried sticks and metal rods.
Kell would easily beat them to the alien vehicle, but others wouldn’t.
Not his problem.
Just run.
The curly red head stumbled and Kell slowed down against his better judgement and grabbed her arm to help her up. She got to her feet and ran faster, outstripping him again. He’d been running since he found the flyer at the University, and his legs ached, but he had no intention of being left behind. He followed the girl’s bouncing curls and they were at the ship. She climbed into a hatch and others crammed against Kell, shoving him from behind. He went through the opening.
Relief at having achieving his goal was replaced with a sudden apprehension about being on board an alien vessel. The inside was austere, a few seats toward the front facing forward, banks of benches along either side with recessed, curved doors all along the hull, and a mass of humanity already packed into the back.
“Move back!” an accented voice commanded and more piled into the ship behind him. He thought about horror stories from school about Nazis packing people into cattle cars and shipping them off to concentration camps.
Had he just signed up for a life of slavery? Maybe he should have taken his chances with the gangs.
Bricks began striking the outside hull. Someone screamed. Then he heard cracks and knew someone was shooting.
The engines on the craft whined, the weight of humanity inside must have been too much for the vessel, and Kell thought for the fourth or fifth time that day that he was about to die. A hand grabbed his. He looked and saw the red haired girl, she was about eighteen or nineteen, who had squirmed to be next to him.
“I’m Kell,” he said but she couldn’t hear him over the whine of the engines and the voices of the other passengers. The hatch closed, more sounds of pelting against the hull, and then they were weightless, floating inside. He knew what the harnesses along the benches were for now.
People screamed again. He admitted it shocked him that they were in space already. No lift off, no acceleration forces. Just in Galway City in the park one second and somewhere in space the next. He’d thought maybe the ship would simply ferry them to a lift off point, but here he was, floating in outer space. His brother, if the lad still survived, would be jealous.
The red haired girl held on to him and they tried in vain to avoid kicking and elbowing their neighbors as everyone floated about uncontrolled. Two men began fighting and didn’t stop until someone suggested that the aliens might throw them out of an airlock.
Hrwang soldiers moved back, their boots sticking to the decking, and they helped everyone get settled on benches or at least holding cargo tie down points. The girl sat next to Kell, not letting him go.
“Kell,” he said to her when things were a little quieter.
“I’m Gwen,” she replied brightly, her smile missing a few teeth. Kell was afraid to ask why.
“We’re in outer space,” he said stupidly.
“I know. Can you believe it?”
“Why did you come?”
“You don’t want to know,” she replied. She looked away. Kell had to come up with something to keep the conversation going.
“What skills do you have?” he asked. He realized the question sounded rude. That hadn’t been his intention, but it was too late to take it back now. She just looked around them, then cupped her hand up by his ear.
“I have a PhD in agricultural science.”
He grinned. “Seriously?” Now that he had a better look at her, he knew she wasn’t older than eighteen. Maybe even younger.
“I know more about farming than those blokes.”
“Welcome aboard, Doctor Gwen,” he said mock seriously.
She giggled.
“I do have a lot of experience farming,” she added. “I even worked in a nursery growing hothouse tomatoes. Me Ma and Da owned a place when I was little.”
“You’re perfect for a colony.”
“I am,” she replied.
Gasps interrupted their conversation. They followed the stares and the pointing out the front of the cockpit. They could just make out some sort of tremendously large spaceship in front of them. It dwarfed anything Earth had ever manufactured.
A heavyset woman not far from them began throwing up, the sounds of retching and the globules of bile floating around sickening Kell. He felt a hot burning rising in his throat and he looked around for a barf bag. He didn’t find one in time.
“That’s so gross,” Gwen cried.
“I’m sorry,” Kell gasped between heaves, tears brimming in his eyes and the taste of vomit filling his mouth.
Hrwang soldiers pulled out bags and handed them to the offenders.
“Clean it all up,” one told Kell and handed him a trash bag. Kell unbuckled his seat harness, opened the plastic bag, and tried to catch the former contents of his stomach. Gwen laughed at him.
A man also wanted to throw up and grabbed Kell’s bag and vomited several times into it. Kell felt sicker than he’d ever felt in his adult life, and when the man handed him the bag back, it was filled with a disgusting mass that wanted to escape. Kell twisted the top closed.
“What do I do with this?” he asked in the direction of one of the soldiers.
“Finish cleaning up!” the alien ordered, and Kell reopened the bag and continued trying to do the best he could, trying to catch floating bits without letting any more escape. He finally gave up.
“I need a new bag.”
The soldier pointed him to where he should put the old one and gave him a new one.
“Me, too. I’ll help,” Gwen said and she took a bag also. Kell looked at her to thank her and saw a chunk in her curls.
“I’m so sorry,” he said and he took it out of her hair.
“It’s okay,” she replied with a smile. “Pigs and cows do worse.”
They cleaned the rest of the trip. Five or six other passengers also ended up vomiting but managed to keep it contained.
The ship set down in a hangar bay.
“I’m getting pretty good at this,” Kell said, controlling how he floated in the zero gravity. With his stomach empty, he had no need to throw up any more.
The soldier pointed to where each individual with a barf bag should place them, without touching any of the bags himself, and then directed everyone’s attention to the hatch.
“There is no gravity in the ship. Once we open the hatch, propel yourself toward the open door. Someone will catch you there.”
Gwen became concerned.
“I guess we’ll be okay?” she asked timidly.
“Just follow me. We can do it,” Kell replied.
She whimpered.
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bsp; Kell put his arm around her. “When we get inside, stay close.”
She nodded.
They had to wait for the passengers ahead of them, a Hrwang soldier giving instructions he repeated for each person leaving through the hatch. The man was Kell’s first chance to get a good look at one of the aliens up close.
He looked like a man. Tall, maybe six one or six two, not too heavy, no more than thirteen stone, dark hair, some afternoon shadow on his tanned face, gray or green eyes. Nothing said alien about him except for his accent, although he spoke better than most of the foreigners in Ireland. He did sound faintly American, which made sense to Kell since the aliens claimed to learn Earth languages from radio and television broadcasts, and the Yanks had the corner on that market.
Kell still imagined scales and reptilian bodies underneath that human skin.
“Do you remember that old TV show where aliens show up and they have this book about serving man, and when the scientists finally get it translated, they realize it’s a cook book?” he whispered to Gwen.
“Shut up,” she replied and elbowed him. Her eyes were rimmed with tears.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“What’s going to happen to them?” she asked.
“To who?”
“To everyone who stayed behind. To everyone who couldn’t get aboard one of these ships and sail through outer space to a new colony. To everyone we ever knew and loved.”
“I don’t know,” he replied and hugged her. They floated up a bit and she leaned into him.
When it was his turn, the Hrwang told him to take it easy, push off with a fluid motion, aiming for the double doors on the other side where three soldiers waited to catch him. He didn’t know why he did what he did next. He felt a need to impress Gwen, although he would have denied it, even to himself. He’d just met her, she was five or six years younger than he was, wasn’t necessarily attractive, and had lied about her qualifications to get on board.
Kell had been prepared to lie also; he’d just never needed to with the attack by the gangs.
He shoved off the hatch much harder than he needed to and the soldier barked a warning.
“Turn,” he heard someone shout. “Feet first.” Kell didn’t turn, didn’t get feet first, and he felt something crack in his wrist when he hit the wall. The Hrwang soldiers said something to him in their language that probably translated into ‘idiot’, then helped him. Gwen showed up just behind him, one of the soldiers grabbing her gracefully.
“Are you okay?” she cried, maneuvering next to him.
“I’m a bleeding idget,” he replied, and he laughed.
Soldiers directed Gwen one direction while one guided Kell another. She fought against them, the momentum of her struggle carrying her and a soldier in an awkward somersault.
“I can’t leave him,” she said.
“He’ll be fine. Doctor. Hand,” a soldier said.
“No.”
“I’ll be okay. I promise,” Kell said.
“I won’t be okay.”
“I’ll catch up to you.”
Two soldiers blocked Gwen now, forcing her back into the stream of other colonists heading away from Kell. He smiled, giving her a helpless expression, and she blew him a kiss. He regretted not blowing a kiss back at her as the alien soldiers forced her to join the rest of the group.
“So, do idiots like me get tossed out the airlock?” Kell asked the Hrwang escorting him.
“I apologize. No English,” the man replied.
“Wonderful.”
Gwen kept looking over her shoulder, hoping Kell would be brought to where she was, that he would catch up with her. She felt lonely in the crowd without him.
She was almost grateful he wasn’t there when the aliens insisted everyone undress. There were grumbles and arguments, but Gwen meekly took her clothes off, leaving her socks and underwear on. Surely the aliens didn’t expect a girl to get completely naked.
They did.
“Everyone must undress completely before we can start,” one of the soldiers shouted over a small bullhorn. A few that had already stripped yelled at those around them to buck up.
A woman in front of Gwen reluctantly undid her bra, covered herself the best she could, and finished undressing.
Gwen couldn’t do it.
The woman turned partially and looked up apologetically at Gwen.
“It’s okay, love,” she said. “Just like in the movies.”
“The movies?” Gwen asked.
“You know. The ones about the holocaust.”
Fear gripped Gwen. She couldn’t speak.
The woman stood straight now, completely naked, but covering herself as best she could with her hands and arms.
“I’m sorry, love. I didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”
Her words failed to comfort Gwen. She looked around her, not knowing what was going to happen next and not knowing how she was going to avoid taking the rest of her clothes off. She already felt more exposed and vulnerable than she ever had before.
“Please undress completely. You must be disinfected,” the alien voice shouted through his bullhorn. “Thousands have been through the procedure before you.”
Someone shouted something about Auschwitz and a soldier pushed through the crowd toward him.
“Do you know what happens when you panic a crowd on a spaceship?” the soldier said into the man’s face. Gwen could barely hear him over the others around her. “You will not be harmed unless you harm yourself.”
The soldier stared firmly into the man’s face and Gwen saw the naked man back down. It was suddenly clear to her how people could have walked into gas chambers. The vain hope that if they did what they were told, everything would be okay. They couldn’t have imagined that the Germans could be as inhuman as they had been.
The aliens surrounding them looked human, some even spoke English, but Gwen wondered how inhuman they were and reconsidered what she had gotten herself into. She wished Kell were still near her. Of course, as a man, he would probably enjoy watching her get undressed. Would he have leered at her? Or looked politely away? She hoped the latter.
“It’s okay, she’s just a little shook up. I’ll help her out.” The woman who had spoken to her earlier now blocked an alien soldier from approaching her. She turned to Gwen. “Listen, love. I think you need to get undressed now, or go back home.” The woman uncovered herself and reached out to help her.
“It’s okay. I’ll do it.” Gwen’s words came out barely as a whisper, but she used one foot to push her sock down, then stepped on it and pulled her foot out of it. She repeated the actions for the other side, careful to keep one foot hooked into the anchor that kept her from floating away. Satisfied, the alien soldier turned away from her and went to encourage others who were also shy.
She couldn’t decide which part of her underwear to take off first, her bra or her knickers, and found herself moving automatically, as if she were alone in her bedroom getting ready to hop into the shower. She was quickly naked, covering herself like the others did.
She felt more vulnerable.
Everyone finally undressed and the soldiers left. Others in hazmat suits entered and began foaming everyone down. Gwen knew she was going to die now, but took courage when the first to be foamed didn’t fall to the ground. They didn’t even complain.
A suited alien reached her and she closed her eyes. Warm foam cascaded over her, soaking into her hair and skin. It smelled fruity, but she still kept her eyes and mouth tightly shut. She used her hands to wipe her face off, aware that meant she exposed herself, but no one looked at her, all too busy themselves with their own shot of disinfecting foam.
She rubbed it around her skin, it felt good everywhere, then she realized her clothes were gone. Everyone’s clothes had been pushed to the side
wall. It was going to take forever to sort them out.
“Welcome to the William Bradford,” a voice said from a large screen. Gwen turned to the screen to see a mousy looking man with thinning hair, a high forehead, and a large nose on the screen. “The Hrwang do not like to share names and would prefer it if you didn’t tell them yours, but I will tell you mine. I am Captain Stanley Russell, formerly captain of the UNSA spaceship Beagle, which was in orbit around Mars during the war.” He looked humbly away from the camera and toward the ground. “Because I was not on Earth during the insane conflict, the Hrwang have asked me to be Earth’s Ambassador to them. In that role, I negotiated what you see before you now.”
His face faded and a shot of many large spaceships appeared on the screen.
“This will be the largest armada in the history of the world. We will found a new society on a new world, a new Earth, one that will be free of poverty and ignorance. One that will be free of crime and hate. One where science and logic and love and kindness will rule.”
The spaceships faded and the man returned to the screen. He looked sincerely at the camera.
“Join me on this quest.”
There was a lot of noise after that. The man continued to speak, but he was hard to hear. The guy who mentioned Auschwitz shouted now and Gwen feared aliens would come take him away, but none did.
“Be quiet everyone!” yelled the woman who stood next to Gwen. “Listen to what he has to say. You didn’t come all this way to grouse, now did you, loves?”
People around them quieted down.
“...and once you’ve agreed to that, you can head to the chambers where you will be placed into cold sleep. I’m afraid you will need to remain naked.”
“Agree to what?” Gwen asked, panic returning.
“I don’t know. I couldn’t hear because of all these...” her words were lost in the rest of the commotion.
“If you do not agree,” the Ambassador said sternly on the screen, “You can retrieve your clothes and return to Earth. No one will force you.”
The thought of returning to Earth and the fate that probably awaited her there frightened Gwen more than the aliens.
“C’mon, love. We’ve come this far,” the woman next to her said and grabbed her arm. Gwen nodded agreement and the two floated awkwardly away from the last bits of their world they left on the floor, impossible to cover their bodies now as they moved en masse toward the cold sleep chambers, heading to an uncertain future as the Ambassador from Earth to the Hrwang kept talking on the screen, trying to reassure them.
Gwen wondered what had happened to the nice boy she’d met on the spaceship on the way up from Earth.
Moving down the corridors in zero gravity with a broken wrist proved more difficult than Kell could have imagined. Hands were like feet in the weightlessness and he felt crippled, pulling himself along with one arm, using his feet to keep himself from hitting the walls. He got turned around more than once and the exasperated Hrwang had to keep him moving in the right direction.
They finally made it to a room with several white beds, two occupied by sleeping figures. A man in a white gown spoke to the Hrwang soldier for a couple of minutes, then the soldier left without acknowledging Kell. Kell felt lost.
“Why did you crash into the wall?” the man in the white gown asked.
“I don’t know.” Kell felt stupid now, as well as lost.
“I’m First Doctor Medical Corps. Please don’t tell me your name, Colonist,” the smiling man said.
“Okay,” Kell replied, surprised. What was that all about?
“Let’s look at your wrist.”
The doctor used a device that looked advanced to examine Kell’s wrist.
He put the device away and frowned.
“We can’t put you in cold sleep with a break like that. It will need to heal first.”
“How long will that take?”
“Two weeks, tops. I’ll set the break, then you’ll go into a light sleep, sort of like a coma, and when you wake up, it will be healed sufficiently for you to go into cold sleep. Your people say ‘easy peasy’, or something like that.”
Kell wanted to run. “Two weeks?”
“Please understand, Colonist. We don’t have enough food or water to feed all the colonists that are coming aboard. As soon as the new colonists complete an indoctrination and agree to cold sleep for the next five years, we put you under.”
Kell didn’t know how he imagined space travel, but sleeping through it hadn’t been what he expected. Especially not for five years.
“I can tell you’re distressed. I apologize. I’m not good at the indoctrination.”
“I came with someone. We’re supposed to stay together.”
The doctor put his hand on Kell’s shoulder.
“I apologize,” he said and drowsiness immediately overcame Kell. “Enjoy your new planet.”
The doctor had slipped him a mickey. Great.
Kell would remember nothing else until he awoke from cold sleep.
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