CHAPTER NINE
An hour later the cave began trembling. Anthony recgonized the low rumbling noises as land vehicles swarming to the mouth of the cave. This time when the walls and the ceiling shook, it was not a product of the Novacadians' mind energy--it was the astronauts coming to take them all away.
They had had nowhere to go, and so they were virtually sitting ducks in the cave they had called their home for many months--ever since the first of the Novacadians had been enslaved and many of them had managed to escape.
A secret undertaking that had been under way since the humans had arrived came to an end before Anthony's very eyes, and yet the Novacadians showed no fear when the astronauts, wielding machine guns, barged into the room and collected the people two and three at a time.
They showed no fear when the astronauts chained their legs and arms together, poked the butts of their guns into their backs, picked them up like furniture, and dragged them out into the light of day. Sometimes they dragged them by the hair.
And there was no screaming. Not even in their minds. What Anthony heard within his own mind at that point was an endless string of conversations. "Remember what you've seen today." "Protect Eve." "There is love between you; don't forget it."
When his peers saw him, a voice, stronger than all the others, resonated in his mind: "Save yourself trouble; tell them you had just discovered us and were about to turn us in."
He searched for Eve through the crowd but could not see her. He said to his commanding officer, "We'll be able to speak with them yet."
He was not disciplined for abandoning his fellow officers. Instead, they told him to give a report at the next meeting and, of all things, they patted him on the back.
Back at camp, Anthony folded his uniform and got ready for bed. He heard a knock at his door. "Come in," he called.
It was Jackson. He nodded his head, closed the door behind him and sat down on the edge of the squeaky bed. "Hey, Jackson," Anthony said. He felt tired and ached all over. If he were back on Earth, he'd make the first appointment he could with his occasional masseuse, Candy.
"So what happened today?" Jackson asked, jiggling his knees up and down. Anthony dropped the folded shirt on top of the pile and looked at his peer.
"I wanted to go sight-seeing," he lied. "Interest took me to the caves, and I decided to go in."
"So why didn't you immediately call the general or one of us?"
Anthony sighed. "They're so peaceful. It's not like they were going to attack me or do anything horrible."
Jackson pointed to his chest. "Come on, Harding," he said. "It's me. You can tell me what really happened. I know you didn't just happen to stumble upon their secret hiding place on one of your first days--the chances of that happening are minimal. So what really happened?"
He sighed again. "Part of why we came here was to blend in with the natives, right?" Anthony said. "Go under-cover?"
"Yeah."
Anthony stared him straight in the eyeballs. "That's not what happened. In all truthfulness, I didn't intend to turn them in."
Jackson held his hands up. "Well, you'd better not say that at the meeting. They'd have your hide, not to mention probably send you back home."
Anthony sat down next to Jackson. "It's just that, I mean, what have they done to us? Besides not speaking? Where I grew up, that wasn't so much a crime."
"The government, though, does. They see it as a threat."
"That's something that I don't understand."
"They're just taking precautions with these people while we determine if they're dangerous or not."
"But," Anthony said, exasperated, "they're not. What if I know that they're not? What if what we're doing to them is harming them in ways that we never thought it would?"
"Like?"
"I don't know, don't you think that imprisoning people, even if they're aliens, is cruel? And the experiments, haven't some of them died? And what about the force we use to contain them?"
"Whoa," Jackson said. "We only use force when they act up, and besides, you yourself heard that some of the astronauts turned up missing and are probably dead. And the experiments that they do are only ones that have been tested out on humans ahead of time."
"But what if it's different to these aliens?" Anthony said.
"Like how?"
"They don't talk," Anthony said. "Inserting communication chips in them could be harmful."
"It's all been well tested," Jackson said. "I don't see how it could be harmful."
Anthony gave up. He looked out the window into a twilight in which stars abounded. Thinking of Eve, he said, "Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm just crazy."
"What did you see there?" Jackson asked.
He looked back at his peer. "They were dancing," he said. "They looked like they were having the most fun in their lives." That gave him an idea. He stuck his pointer finger in the air. "Dancing!"
"You okay, buddy?" Jackson asked.
"Dancing is a social activity, right?" he said.
"Yeah."
"And, if you look at it a certain way, it can also be a form of communication, right?"
"Now I see what you're getting at. Are you going to talk about it at the meeting?"
"I sure am."
Jackson bent his head down and left the room, and with a new spark of excitement, Anthony lay back against his stiff pillow and kept his eyes open for several minutes, devising his plan. Not even the reality of Eve's recapture could squelch the optimism he now felt about the project to commune with Novacadia.
She opened her eyes weakly to a dim, dusty room. Pale light beamed in through the hastily nailed-up boards on the windows, which had been put there by the astronauts, the light catching particles of dust which floated and sparkled in the dank air. She could hear the sounds of land vehicles speeding by outside, gentle winds rocking the sturdy walls of the hut, and the heavy, raspy breathing of several people sleeping in the room.
She tried to lift her head, but could not, because she was chained down to her bed. Her head, hands and feet were cuffed in place by thick metal bands and when she spit into the air, she saw the sizzle of the force field around her.
She knew that her papa was in the room. She could sense him. Papa? No answer. A deeply sickening feeling engulfed her. What had happened while she was gone?
I should not have left. Not while my family was so vulnerable. But they had insisted that she do so, believing with such utter faith that she was the one who would at some point free them.
She was in her own hut, the hut that she had lived in with her family since her youth; that she knew. The breathing...were they those of her brothers and sisters?
She closed her eyes, focusing her mind. Even though she knew it was probably impossible, she made the attempt anyway. Nela, can you hear me? Lir? Benjamen?
She held her breath while she waited, and jumped when she heard someone stir. Towards the end, only her father had been able to communicate with her, for the willpowers and the psychic bonds between her and her brothers and sisters were younger and much weaker--they had diminished long ago, destroyed by the vibrations of greed and hatred that were being sent off by the humans. But nevertheless, her heart jumped when she heard someone stand up out of bed.
A dark figure leaned over her. Her breathing quickened. Lir? Ben?
In a voice that sounded neither Novacadian nor human, she heard, "Eve, you look terrible. You should not have let the humans catch you. You know, you have to be careful when you run away."
She lurched upwards but was caught by the restraints. Her eyes felt sore, as though they had been blackened, and she was certain that she had bruises all over her body.
When the person turned, she could see his face. It was Autumn, her oldest brother. Autumn!
But why could he now hear her voice? And why did he sound so strange?
With a few gestures, he leaned down and deactivated the force field, then gingerly released her from the metal restraints. She opened and closed her sore hands, then with his help, she sat up, eyes open and alert.
When she looked around the dim room, she saw the outlines of the rest of her family sleeping on their beds. How did you release me? Surely it was the humans who restrained me.
"I used my mind energy to release you, Eve. And soon, I'm going to do the same to release everyone."
Autumn, that's too dangerous. You can't release everyone...you know that, she said calmly.
"There are enough of us, Eve. We can overpower the humans, if we combine our energies."
What do you plan to do? Kill them all?
"If it will save us from their tortures, then yes."
So Autumn had succumbed to the hatred. His mind, now bursting with power, was high on the negativity that he had been picking up from the humans. It was only a matter of time either before he was killed by the force of the humans or of the hatred that would weaken and kill him like the illness that it was.
And Papa...where is he? Is he alright? Eve hugged her sheets protectively around her, feeling sickened and frightened--not of her brother so much as for him.
"He is asleep. He will be with you shortly. Just take it easy now. Gather up your strength for later."