HIDDEN: A Dystopian Science Fiction Adventure Page 6

  It doesn’t make any sense. Merrick said I’d be safe. What was it I was to say?

  He pointed the crossbow at me. “I said be-gone or are you so dim-witted you don’t understand?”

  “I am Lumenara, daughter of Gaia.”

  His eyes narrowed, and the crossbow dropped to his side. “What did you say?”

  “I’m a daughter of Gaia.”

  “No, before that.”

  “I am Lumenara?”

  “Well, it’s about damn time. I was wondering if you were ever going to show up.”

  “Wait, that’s not my name. I’m actually called Fives.”

  “Technically, your slave ID is HU-645-555, but your given name is Lumenara. You were named after your mother. A custom you Hu-mans used to have. I’ve been expecting you for a very long time.”

  My mother was Lumenara.

  It all made sense.

  Why didn’t Merrick tell me? He had no right to hide that from me.

  Cradlo looked me over. “I suppose you’re hungry?”

  I nodded. “I have my own food.”

  “I’m sure you do. Why don’t you try one of the apples in the box on the shelf?”

  Apples?

  I had never seen an apple before. I reached for the box then hesitated and pulled back.

  Was he trying to poison me?

  His three legs loped forward. “Come now, Hu-man.” He ripped open the box and handed me a fist sized green globe. “It’s not polite to decline an offer from your host. Besides, I think you’ll enjoy it.”

  I brought the apple to my nose, but it didn’t smell like anything, so I bit in. A sweet tangy flavor rushed over my tongue. I took another bite and another.

  “Told you, you’d like it. The Targs love them, but I’m not allowed to sell any to Merrick. Help yourself to as many as you want.”

  I reached inside and grabbed two more. I took bites out of each and savored the sweet juicy flavor.

  “Just toss the cores on the floor. I’ll take care of them in the morning. The burlap bags contain potatoes I dug up yesterday. Now, I suppose you have a group of nasty Targs behind you?”

  “Yes,” I said, my mouth full of the delectable treat.

  “You’ll need a place to hide.” He slid up a panel hidden on the side of the bin. Inside was a crawlspace. “It’s not much, but you should be able to fit in there and sleep. Now about your scent.”

  He lifted the lid on the bin and a pungent, nauseating smell engulfed me causing my eyes to water. “What is that?”

  “It’s chicken manure.” He took a shovelful and placed it by the crawlspace entrance. “I use it for fertilizer and it’s a smell the Targs can’t stand. Why do you think I became a chicken farmer?” He got another shovelful and dropped it near the bin. “There, you’ll be quite safe once you get used to it. Oh, take off your shirt.”

  I took a step back. “Why?”

  “Payment for the apples, of course,” he said, his voice laced with sarcasm.

  What could he possibly want with my shirt?

  He motioned his hand toward me. “Oh for heaven’s sake, Hu-man, this is for your own protection. I have no interest in you otherwise.”

  Despite the kindness he showed me, I didn’t dare turn my back to him. So I pulled off my shirt, keeping a hand over my chest. He snatched it and tossed it in the bin with the chicken poop.

  “Hey!”

  “Well I assume you packed another?” He slammed the lid. “Sleep well, Hu-man.”

  ~~~

  “…Four hours ago, I contacted the Targ station and only now you show up?”

  The sound of Cradlo’s shouting awakened me.

  “We were not informed—”

  It was Draks voice.

  I’ve been betrayed.

  “Oh, spare me your excuses.”

  The barn door opened, and cracks of brilliant light in the seams of the crawlspace entrance stung at my eyes.

  “Look, just look at my apples and my potatoes! You tell Merrick this game of his has gone far enough, and I expect to be compensated.”

  “Where did she go, Exog scum?” another voice hissed.

  “How should I know? I chased her back into the forest. Why don’t you go look for her there?”

  He wasn’t betraying me. He was leading them away.

  The door creaked.

  “Wait,” Draks said. “Her scent is strong in here.”

  Footsteps stomped closer.

  My muscles tightened, ready to spring out of hiding.

  The bin creaked open, and the Targs wailed.

  “Now do you believe me?” Cradlo said.

  A soft thump sounded. I assumed it was my filthy shirt hitting the dirt floor before the door slammed shut.

  CHAPTER 10

  As soon as my heart rate slowed and my breathing was back to normal, the barn door creaked open.

  “You can come out now,” Cradlo said. “They’ve gone and we have much to discuss.”

  I scrambled out of the crawlspace as fast as I could and stretched my cramped legs.

  “Now, did Merrick tell you to give me a message?”

  “Yes. Eighteen of twenty-three pairs, sequence five, seven dash two thousand and three.” I shrugged. “He said you would know what to do.”

  He put his three fingers to his knobby chin before slapping his hands together. “Of course. Ah, Merrick, you always were a little paranoid. I’ll need a drop of your blood.”

  He scurried to a wall, and behind a panel, he pulled out a molted gray box with a slanted touchscreen. It had numerous soldered wires and connection ports, like it was ripped out of a larger machine.

  “This is a genome sequencer. Do you even know what that means?”

  “Yes, it’s for DNA research, but why would you have one?”

  “Ha, I wasn’t always a farmer.” He blew a cloud of dust off it.

  “Nineteen years ago, Merrick borrowed this from me. He wouldn’t tell me why, but now I suspect it was for you.”

  Cradlo attached a wire, and the machine thrummed to life.

  “Chromosome eighteen, sequence five, genes seven through two thousand and three are unused DNA sequences. A perfect place to hide something.”

  He pricked my finger and placed a drop of my blood on the sample pad. Several minutes passed with Cradlo flicking the touchscreen.

  “Interesting. This DNA sequence consists of only three base pairs in repetition. GC, AT, and CG but no TA in over thirty thousand base pairs.” His eyes shifted from one side to the other.

  “Trinary base code?” He smiled. “Of course, trinary not binary. Something only my species would understand.”

  His fingers pressed dozens of buttons on the touchscreen which contained a peculiar cursive lettering.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m guessing it’s a program, encoded within your DNA.”

  The device’s screen flashed, went blank, and displayed a detailed 3D topography map with a white line from Cradlo’s farm to a spot on a plateau near an extinct volcano. Below it sat a series of Egyptian hieroglyphs that read “The tiger stone points the way.”

  I know that volcano.

  It resembled the pencil drawing in Merrick’s office. Within its interior, a door key icon flashed.

  “Mount Kilimanjaro… Humph,” he snorted. “I should have known.”

  “Should have known what?”

  “The Gaia sanctum is there. Very clever, Merrick.”

  “He wasn’t clever; he was just an old fool.”

  Cradlo cocked his bulbous head. “A fool was he? Ha, you don’t even know what you are.”

  “I’m a slave.”

  “Ah, a slave. But your hands aren’t sand-worn, and I don’t see any dirt under your nails, obviously he didn’t send you to work in the pits.”

  “I’m a house slave.”

  “A house slave? Really? And whom do you serve?”

  I recoiled. I had never thought of that.

  “Or was it you who g
ot served? Perhaps you shared his bed?”

  “No!”

  “Then what good are you? You’re obviously intelligent. Did Merrick teach you? But why? Hu-mans aren’t supposed to learn to read or write. What good is an intelligent slave?”

  “I—I don’t know!” The little toad was making me angry.

  “That’s right, you don’t know. Tell me, did Merrick ever treat you like a slave?”

  “He whipped me once.”

  “Really?”

  He lifted the back of my shirt, and I yanked it down.

  “You can barely see those marks. I take it he healed you as well?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why would he do that? Why not let them scab over and scar up? What makes you so special?”

  “I don’t know!” That wasn’t true. In my heart, I began to believe he was my father. My fists clenched, and I wanted to lash out and hit him.

  “Oh, but I think you do. You just can’t admit the obvious to yourself.”

  I grabbed him by his shoulders and shook him. “No more riddles! What is going on?”

  “A vague question, I’ve a better one for you. Why are the Targs forcing your fellow slaves to dig vast pits in the wasteland?”

  I shrugged my shoulders, and he pointed at the volcano on the map.

  “To find the sanctum?” I said. I assumed it was some kind of room, but more than that, I didn’t know. “What is that place?”

  “Every Gaia planet is different, but the sanctum is usually a chamber where one would go to communicate with her.”

  “Her?” He still wasn’t making any sense.

  “Yes, her.” He leaned forward and whispered in my ear. “This world is alive.”

  Alive? Of course, the planet has life.

  “So.”

  He snapped his head back. “Literally alive, conscious, sentient.”

  I shrugged again.

  “Ba, listen carefully Hu-man. What I’m about to tell you has been pieced together from bits discovered by hundreds of slave species. A very long time ago, the Targs created a super empire that stretched across the galaxy. They used Gaia planets filled with slave-children like you and me to make bio-ships, weapons, and fabricate bio-machinery.”

  “The Gaia planets themselves were slaves. Their consciousness comprised of a collective telepathic link to their children. The more children they had, the stronger the link, and the more intelligent and independent they became.”

  He sat on a chair and slouched back. “That’s why the Targs can’t kill all of you. If they did, this Gaia planet would become worthless. So, they keep just enough of you alive to enslave her.”

  “Millennia ago, the Targ empire crumbled and hundreds of Gaia planets rebelled. They escaped to the far reaches of the galaxy to hide. This planet is one of them, but traveling through the stars is deadly. It’s likely most of the life on the surface died. When she arrived here, she used her last strength to create a new biosphere and new children to inhabit it. You Hu-mans are her children.”

  The Egyptian scroll?

  “So, she can talk to us?”

  “Oh, it’s much more than that. Within the walls of the sanctum, she will merge her thoughts with yours. You see young one, to Gaia, you’re literally her daughter.”

  “But if that’s the case, why doesn’t she help us?”

  “An apt question. I suspect the drain from her travels was so great that she slept and gave her children a key to awaken her when they were ready. A key the Targs are desperate to find, in addition to the sanctum.”

  “But how?”

  “Let’s find out.” Cradlo zoomed in on the flashing key icon. Deep within the volcano, an animated outline of a young girl appeared. She pulled a crystal from her forehead and inserted it in a slot on a cavern wall before the sequence repeated itself.

  “The key of Gaia,” he whispered. He turned and marveled at me. “And you’ve been carrying it all this time in the one place they’d never think to look.”

  My skull star?

  It wasn’t possible. I had heard stories of slaves who tried to remove their skull stars, only to die an agonizing death.

  “But how can I use this key if I can’t remove it?”

  “Can’t remove it?” He gave me a sarcastic look.

  I cocked my head. “Everybody knows that if you remove your skull star you’ll die.”

  He folded his arms. “Do you really think, that after all this meticulous planning, Merrick would leave such an obvious flaw?”

  But it’s not possible. Is it?

  I raised my hand and tugged on the shard. An intense pain lanced within me, and I doubled over. “I can’t do it.”

  “No, I suppose you can’t.” Quick as a snake, his hand flicked up. He twisted the shard and yanked it from my forehead. A brief spike of pain surged and then passed. “Then again.” He tossed it to me.

  I put a hand up to my forehead and traced a finger inside the sharp-edged hole. I felt something wet and pulled it back; a smear of blood on my fingertip.

  It’s impossible.

  I rotated the shard in my fingers, the light reflecting off the many facets.

  “The key of Gaia,” Cradlo said. “Put it back and never take it out again until you’re in the sanctum. Otherwise the Targs may suspect you have it, and instead of three Targs you’ll face an army of them.”

  I inserted the shard back into my forehead. “Why couldn’t Merrick just tell me all this?”

  “Why indeed? Why has Merrick hidden a secret so deliciously delicate within your DNA? Why would he give you that crystal shard? And why did he hide something from you he’s been desperate to share, ever since you were born?”

  Who my parents are?

  “I’ll tell you why,” he said. “Because what you’re carrying is so valuable that if any other slave even suspected what Merrick has done, it would be enough to buy their freedom from the Targs and plunge your kind into an eternity of darkness.”

  He shook his head. “For all that intellect, you’re nothing more than a foolish little girl. The real question is: now that you know, what do you intend to do?”

  My chin quivered and my eyes watered.

  Merrick’s my father.

  I did NOT choose you to die, his voice echoed. I choose you because everything we have trained for has led us to this moment.

  A tear fell.

  Will I ever see you again?

  I set my jaw. I finally knew who I was and what I had to do.

  ~~~

  I spent the rest of the day with Cradlo. We plotted a ten-day route to Mount Kilimanjaro that gave me the best chance of avoiding Draks and the other Targ patrols. He felt it would be safest for me to leave at night because the Targs had poor eyesight.

  “You’re awfully quiet, Hu-man. Are you beginning to feel the weight of your destiny?”

  “I guess so.” A pain twisted in the pit of my stomach that wouldn’t go away. “I was just thinking of Indigo.”

  “Hmm.” He put a hand to his knobby chin. “She was a real piece of work.”

  “You knew her?”

  “Met her once.” He shivered. “That was a Hu-man who always had her wheels turning, and usually to no good.”

  “That’s what I don’t understand. Why would Merrick leave me with her?”

  He sighed. “I didn’t agree with it. Merrick suspected she was spying on him for Draks. When I told him I thought her caring for you was too risky, he told me that sometimes the best way to hide something was in plain sight. Considering you’re here, I’d say his instincts were correct.”

  “Maybe.” I wasn’t sure if Merrick was right, lucky, or both. I exhaled and yearned for his calming touch again. “I still have so many questions.”

  Cradlo put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, but I’ve no more time to prepare you. Merrick’s plan depended upon both speed and secrecy.”

  “I’m worried about him. I wasn’t very nice to him when I left and now I realize why he had to do it.” My
eyes teared up. “All this time he was protecting me, and I repaid him with hatred. I wonder if I’ll ever see him again.”

  “Well, I can’t predict the future, but I do know one thing.” His three eyes stared into my two. “He loved you very much. Told me many times when he came up here to barter.”

  For the first time since I met him, the little alien didn’t seem as gruff. “You know, you’re not that bad when you’re not being an arrogant ass.”

  His thick front teeth bared, and he clucked.

  “So, when do you think—”

  A powerful blast of icy pain thrust into my brain. It felt like someone had stabbed me in the eyes. I doubled over, vomited, and reached for my skull star.

  “No,” Cradlo grabbed my hand, “they mustn’t suspect anything. They’re probably trying to track you. Imagine you’re somewhere else. It’ll confuse them.”

  I focused my thoughts and tried to banish the pain. “It’s more intense than I remember.”

  “Be patient. Concentrate.”

  I took several halting breaths and tried to picture a sunrise like my father taught me.

  A deep breath escaped me.

  “Feeling better.”

  I nodded.

  His eyes searched over me. “Remember, never take it out until you’re in the sanctum. Come, we must leave, now.”

  Cradlo guided me through the chicken coops of his farm to mask my scent. When we got to the northern edge of the forest, he stopped.

  “This is as far as I can go.” He handed me a burlap bag and a long, serrated knife. “Some of my best apples and my family’s dagger. It’s not much, but I hope it helps.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Hundreds of years ago, Targs overran my planet and my people scattered to the stars. When you awaken your world and drive the Targs from it, maybe you can convince her to help my people retake mine?”

  I hugged him. “I’ll tell her all about you.”

  “Good luck, Lumenara.”

  CHAPTER 11

  I followed Cradlo’s advice and traveled only by night, hoping to use the darkness to hide my movements. Cradlo fashioned a black cap to mask my skull star as it shined as bright as a torch, keeping me in constant pain. I tried to imagine the sunrise in my mind to throw off the Targs, but I was only used to banishing pain for a few hours. Every so often, my concentration slipped, and I’d have to fight to regain it. During those times, I longed for the calming touch of my father.