Shades of Earth

I really have Elder’s attention now. He waits for me to continue.

I clench my fingers into fists so that Elder doesn’t see the way my hands are shaking. “I don’t know what I expected this planet to be,” I say in a quiet voice. “I thought I could face the monsters Orion warned us about, and I was fine with the pteros. But . . . ” My voice trails off. “I’m scared. The fact that this planet has Phydus . . . that’s what terrifies me. That’s worse than any monster. If there are aliens, and they have Phydus . . . ” My voice cracks. Elder saw my dad talk about killing aliens, and his instinct was to rebel against the very idea. But the aliens have Phydus, and I’m afraid there’s no way we can rebel against that.

“We should have stayed on Godspeed,” I say, looking down at the ground. It costs me everything to admit that I was wrong, that it was worth being trapped behind the walls in exchange for our safety.

“No.” The word bursts from Elder in a ragged whisper of protest. “Whatever happens—it was worth it to leave the ship.”

I don’t answer.

Elder shifts so he’s directly in front of me. When my eyes don’t focus on him, he touches my face until I really see him. And that is why I know—I know—he is telling me the truth when he repeats, “It was worth it.”

I shut my eyes, and my body melts with relief. I slowly become aware of how close we’re standing to each other, the heat radiating off Elder’s skin and warming me. When I open my eyes, I can see the same feral nature in my gaze reflected in his.

His hand is shaking when he trails it down the side of my face, tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers don’t stop, outlining the side of my jaw, pulling my chin up to his.

I close my eyes.

Our lips meet. He tastes like things that have no taste: warmth and life and truth and goodness and love.

And all my other senses fade away.

There is nothing but our kiss, and in it, the knowledge that Elder wants—needs—me just as much as I need him.

But he breaks away from me just long enough to ask one thing: “Are you sure?”

And he waits for my answer.

Before, the first time, on Earth with my boyfriend Jason, I thought I was sure. But he never asked, and I never answered, and we did it all silently, in the dark, fumbling around as we tried to put our feelings into physical form. It wasn’t a choice—it was just an action, a blind submission to desire.

I have made very few choices in my life. I respond to the situation, I react, but I have not set the course of my life and strode forward with the determination of a captain sailing into a storm. When my father gave me the choice to board Godspeed or stay on Earth, I didn’t decide, not really; I just accepted a fate I thought was inevitable.

It was only Elder—it has always been only Elder—who asked me to choose who and what I am. What I do.

“I choose this,” I say, my voice ragged with want. “I choose you.”

I have never desired anything more than him in this moment. He leads me up to his room on the second floor, where my sleeping bag is already spread out. I thank whatever twist of fate made me leave it here last night.

We fall into each other. All the other voices in my head—the fear, the doubt, the worry—are drowned out. I die at the end of each kiss and am brought gasping back to life at the beginning of the next. I close my eyes and the entire world fades away.

There is only him and me and this thing between us that I cannot name, not out loud, but that my heart knows is love.

I shiver when I finally wiggle out of my clothes. Sweat on my skin makes the cool night air even colder. But then Elder touches me, and my skin alights with fire and warmth.

I kiss him, hard, and his hands slide down my back, to my hips. Strong hands, hands that will hold me and never let go. I feel, oddly, both safe and afraid in this moment.

He looks once in my eyes, a question still there. But we are beyond questions. We are in a place where there are only answers, and my answer to him is yes.

42: ELDER

I wake her with a kiss. She wiggles her nose and bats her hands at me without opening her eyes. I wake her with a different sort of kiss, and she opens her eyes with surprise before shutting them again with bliss.

And that is enough to make a smirk slide on my face that I’m sure will never fade.

“What time is it?” Amy asks sleepily.

“Just an hour later,” I say, smiling.

“Mmm. More sleep.” Amy nuzzles into my side.

“You need to go,” I say, even though this is the last thing I want to tell her. “Your parents are going to be looking for you.”

Amy glares at me.

“Hey, don’t blame me,” I joke, throwing my hands up in mock protest. “You know your dad’s going to send out the entire military if he wakes up and realizes you’re not there.”

Amy rolls her eyes, but she gets dressed quickly.

“Hey.” I pull her close and kiss her again. “To remember me by,” I say softly.

She laughs, a musical sound. “Like I could forget.”

And then she’s gone.

My mind drifts immediately to every worry that’s been plaguing me since Colonel Martin’s announcement.

Phydus.

Aliens.

War.

Amy.

It’s hard to think about all the bad when she reminds me of all that’s good. I throw off the sleeping bag, shivering in the night air, and cross the hall to the other room on the second story of this building, hoping to catch a glimpse of her red hair before it disappears into the night.

My stomach clenches as I stare out at the darkness.

She’s not alone.

43: AMY

The night air makes my skin prickle with goose bumps, but I relish the warm memories I’ve just made.

“Amy?” a voice whispers through the night.

I turn, a smile on my face, half expecting Elder to have followed me. Instead, Chris emerges from the shadows.

“What are you doing here?” I ask in a low voice.

Chris shrugs, an impish grin on his face. “I’m your bodyguard.”

I roll my eyes but don’t object as he starts to escort me down the steps toward the lower level of buildings and my parents’ house.

He notices, though, when my steps grow slower and slower.

“You don’t want to go back to your parents, do you?” he asks seriously.

I shake my head.

Chris gives me a mock bow. “Right,” he says decisively. “Leave it to me. I’ll convince them we have to go back to the shuttle for some reason.” He darts ahead, and soon I can hear the rumble of deep male voices as he talks to Dad. I can’t make out the words, but a moment later, Chris steps back out of the house—alone.

“Thanks,” I mutter as Chris leads me back to the shuttle. Centauri-Earth is not the place for a nighttime stroll, but right now I’d rather face pteros and darkness than my father’s lies.

“You know,” I say as we approach the shuttle, “there is actually another test I could run.”

Chris laughs. “You and Dr. Martin ran a hundred tests today! There can’t possibly be anything else to examine from those little sample jars!”

I bump against his shoulder, which is hard as a rock. “Humor me,” I say, bounding up the ramp and throwing open the door on the bridge. We tested the ptero for gen mod material, which led to Mom’s discovery that the ptero contained a combination of DNA from Earth and Centauri-Earth. And we tested the people for Phydus once Elder and I came up with the idea that the people had been poisoned. But no one’s tested a ptero for Phydus.

“It’s probably nothing,” I tell Chris, half for him, half for me. The chances of finding Phydus in a ptero? That seems impossible. But then again, if Phydus is somehow a natural part of this world, why wouldn’t a ptero be infected?

I grab the ptero blood stored in the fridge and set up the test.

“What are you doing?” He actually sounds interested.

“Elder and I figured out that most of the victims have a . . . ” I don’t want to say “drug.” “They have a substance in them, something that could control them. If Elder’s right, and the aliens on this planet are sentient and they are attacking us, maybe the pteros have this substance in them too—and the aliens are using them to help target the attacks.”

“It would be hard to control a wild animal,” Chris says doubtfully.

Not with Phydus.

I’m on the edge of my seat when the immunoassay dings to let me know it’s done. And even though I half expected it, I’m still surprised when I see the result.

Positive.

The pteros have gen mod material in them and Phydus. Elder thought he saw something when he was first attacked and later found the three-clawed footprint. The aliens are smart. They were watching us. And they must know some way to control the pteros, using them to attack.

“Find what you were looking for?” Chris asks, watching me closely.

I nod. “I’m ready to go back home now.” Somehow, finding out the hidden truths of this world is making it easier to face the father I never thought would lie to me.

The word makes Chris pause. “Home? You’ve only been here a few days. Do you really already see this planet as home?”

I can tell from the way he says this that he doesn’t.

But I do. I really do.

When we step outside the shuttle, it’s pitch dark, a stark contrast to the electric lights inside running on the generator.

Chris stops, looking up at the starry sky. “This world really is beautiful, isn’t it?”

I nod silently.

He turns to me. He has a look of intensity on his face that I cannot place. I’ve never seen that kind of fierceness in his eyes before.

“Follow me,” he says. He grabs my hand and drags me down the ramp. I’m breathless, trying to keep up with his long legs. He veers away from the path that connects the shuttle to the colony, deeper into the forest.

“Is this safe?” I ask, touching the .38 at my hip with my free hand.

“Nothing’s ever safe,” Chris says.

He keeps going deeper and deeper into the trees, far away from anywhere I’ve dared to explore on this planet. I’m just about to jerk my hand out of his grasp and run back when he stops.

“Close your eyes,” he says.

I laugh nervously.

“Seriously,” Chris says. “Close your eyes.”

I look at him doubtfully, then do as he says.

His fingers brush the bottom of my chin, pointing my face toward a breeze of fresh air.

“Now,” he whispers in my ear, his voice tickling the side of my face. “Listen.”

My eyes are filled with black. I breathe in and breathe out. I listen.

At first, I hear nothing. But then I notice the drip, drip, drip of water—somewhere. A creek or a small waterfall. The distant shuffle of leaves. A zhrr—shh—zhrr sound, similar to locusts. A sound that is, unmistakably, a frog’s croak.

I open my eyes slowly.

“This world,” Chris says, his eyes beseeching mine. “It really is a home worth fighting for, isn’t it?”