Chapter 4

Daium was panicking.

A first contact! Her meeting with these strange fur-less creatures was a first contact, and she was fucking it up!

Oh, by the First Tree, this was bad. Yes, her situationwas bad, that of her people, her culture ... but, a first contact! Ruining a new species! How would she ever face her ancestors, let alone herself! Everything she had been taught, everything she'd ever read, everything she BELIEVED, went against what she had done!

But, what could she have done?

Her father was dead. Killed, by the very ones who should have been helping him. Killed because he would not help them on a hopeless path. Killed, because it was already over...

She looked out at them, sitting at the table. Waiting. Waiting for her, the black furry stranger, to tell them about a universe they were in no way ready for. Could she just ... lie? Just make something up, then hope to get them home quickly, before they found out? No ... no, mostly because she had no hope of returning them. They could be from anywhere in the universe.

Daium's eyes flicked over to Nona. It was her fault. She spoke the sacred language. Why, in the name of the ancestors, would Daium even consider that someone speaking that language was from some unknown primitive world? What were the odds of the same language developing twice, and the two coming into contact? She mentally sighed. It was probably caused by something quantum. Professor Arliza always blamed this kind of thing on quantum anomalies.

Well ... what was done, was done. She had to tell them. Tell them what they were in for. Tell them about the place they'd be spending the rest of their lives.

May her father forgive her.

"This is the planet Tanah."

Writing the name next to her neatly drawn circle on the wall, she heard Nona repeat it in their strange language. Taking a deep breath, she went on.

"We are here, in the northern wastelands. My people, the Orang ... We are from here. Were created by the Gods and put here, so the stories go. Put here in paradise. Not HERE, in the land of endless snow, but the rest of Tanah, the forests, the lakes, home..." She paused. Not so much to let the translation catch up, but to get a hold of herself. Just the thought of home, family ... maybe if she kept her back to these creatures, she could think.

"There ... there are many, many worlds." That's it, she thought. Treat this like they were children. "Many species and many cultures on many worlds. Some have banded together, work together. Some have spread out and conquered. Others keep to themselves, or hide. As you see among the animals and creatures of any forest, so the galaxy is no different. We who travel among the stars find our own niche, our place in the evolutionary ecosystem ... or we die." Daium could hear Nona have problems with a couple of those words, but she pressed on. "My people, as of this week ... have died."

"WHAT?!?"

Nona's cry of surprise was ignored. Still facing the white writing board, Daium hung her head.

"We ... we went, we did, what we shouldn't have. We went against what nature said we should, what our role was in the universe of life. And ... we are paying."

She could feel it coming. The sorrow. Last night, she had cried herself to sleep, her father dead in the other room. She thought she could get away with just that. An hour's grief, then get on with life. With what had to be done. But, no. She wanted Dad. And Mom. And her sister. Where was Sumi? Was she even still in this world?

"We ... They attacked. Showed us our place, how little we mattered. And, I can't blame them. We would have done it too. Would have, were GOING to if what Father said was true. But, they came first ... oh, forgive us..."

Daium fell to her knees. The tears came. It was gone. All gone. The Forest of the Ancestors. The City of Light. The Orang...

The universe had spoken. The Orang were not needed.

She felt hands on her shoulders. Felt her body being turned, her head brought to rest against soft fabric covering a beating heart. Brown arms wrapped around her. A voice ... she didn't understand a syllable of that voice, but it spoke to her soul.

It's name was Justin.

Alicia watched as Justin held the crying fur ball on the floor.

None of this made sense. None of it. And, she didn't want it to make sense. She wanted it to be a dream. A fantasy. As Jesus was her savior, all she wanted was to wake up and be home with her parents. And Daren. Beautiful, hunky Daren ... if this was a dream, why couldn't he be here with her? Even more so if this was real! He'd know what to do. He'd know how to save them...

But, instead, she had ... well, Chuck was OK. As a friend, although not more. He made her laugh, and was easy to talk to, but that was it. And Anthony was funny. As for everyone else ... they didn't like her. She knew that. They thought, because she was blond, that she was dumb. That because of her scar, she was ugly. They hadn't seen her with all her makeup on: you could barely see it then, and she looked smoking hot when she put her mind to it. And, damn it, she wasn't dumb! She could think! Just because she didn't CARE much of the time, didn't mean she couldn't do all they could do (if not more) when she wanted to.

Take now, for example. She wanted to go home. Nothing was more important. If, as this thing had said, they were on some planet far from Earth, how would they get home? With a ship. This creature had come here, with her father, fleeing war. How do you flee a planet at war?

"Nona ... ask her if she has a space ship."

It came out of her quiet, cold. Chuck shot her a glance, proof that the whining slut Melinda couldn't hold his attention when Alicia wanted it. Not that Alicia cared. The rest of the room was still focused on the crying monkey, so, pushing back her chair and standing, she tried again.

"Nona, ask Daium if she and her father came up here because they have a spaceship."

Anthony cast a disapproving glance at her.

"Later, please."

"No, Anthony, now. We don't have much time."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Is no one here thinking but me?" She closed her eyes. God, they could be so stupid, distracted by some crying pet. "Look, evil people came last night and killed her dad, right? They were looking for something. And didn't find it." Her eyes opened, catching Anthony's. "Don't you think they'll be back? Don't you think they'll come, tear that house apart, look around the area ... and see our little store here? Don't you think we should probably try and HIDE, or FLEE? Wouldn't that be GOOD? God!" She pound on the table, now the center of everyone's attention. Even the chimp was staring at her, all four eyes wide in surprise. "If the two of them came here to flee, or fight back, or whatever, then what she's hiding is probably something we need! Let's find out!"

In the silence that followed, she saw Nona drop to one knee and begin to whisper to Daium. Good. Tell her. Alicia watched the alien's reaction. Her four eyes widened ... then closed. Her head dropped ... and she nodded, slowly, as if it took all her will. Justin, still holding her, put a hand on the back of her head and began to pet Daium. Alicia turned to Anthony.

"Looks like I was right."

"Mother fucker..."

Anthony just stared. They had landed on top of it. Literally. Well, maybe a bit to the side, but, damn it, no wonder Daium couldn't believe her eyes when she saw the store. Her secret spaceship was right under it! She probably had given them power in the hope they could then fly off and leave her in peace!

The hidden elevator shaft had popped up from under the snow not five feet from the power outlet now connected to the store. All nine of them had fit in it easily, the car having probably been designed for cargo. It had no walls or railing, either, which made the short trip down very memorable. Alicia had clung to him, a feeling he had enjoyed even as Hannah rolled her eyes. Hey, if they were going to start a human colony a billion light years from Earth, the DNA from the three males would have to be spread around a bit.

Yeah, right. Keep dreaming.

After maybe twenty feet of dirt and rock, the view in front of them opened up, and there she was. A space ship. Not even thirty feet away. Fucking cool.

Now, naturally, all of them had seen space ships. Humans had been making them for over half a century. But, Anthony had to admit, this was something else. For one thing, it was big. Easily longer than a football stadium, and he doubted all of it was engines like the largest Earth ones. As the elevator came to a stop at the walkway running level with the middle of the ship, he tried to take it all in.

The front was a sphere. Recalling the house, (and had it only been this morning when they had seen that?), these aliens obviously liked their spheres and domes. Maybe forty feet in diameter, it was as smooth as glass, the color reminding him of nothing so much as wood from a cherry tree. Stretching out behind this was ... well, it almost looked like half an egg on its side. The flat oval upper surface stretched out easily three hundred feet. Behind that, another sphere, smaller than the one at this end, with a number of smaller spheres attached to it. It was as he was trying to make out more detail on this apparent engine that he realized the middle section actually WAS egg shaped: the upper half was a clear dome.

Daium walked forward a few paces, then turned to face the intruders. She gestured, as if to say, "Well, there it is. Now what?" She didn't look happy.

Anthony sighed. Looking over her at the ship, he wondered the same thing. Now what? Leave? Abandon the store? It had food, if nothing else. The effort to unload all of it would be immense. And, despite Alicia's rather good points ... his gaze dropped back to Daium. It wasn't theirs. They couldn't just take it, or even demand a ride. He had morals, damn it, at least outside the bedroom. The people who had killed her father had been, not the aliens now nuking the rest of the planet or whatever was going on, but her own people. Soldiers, or something, who wanted the ship. He, they, humans, were better than that.

"Nona, tell her ... tell Daium that the ship is hers. She can do what she wants. We won't take it."

"Like hell!" Alicia practically spat it at him, scar a dark red on her smooth white face.

"Shut up and listen! Daium, we are your friends. Or, most of us want to be." His harsh gaze silenced the angry blonde. "We also want to go home, to our families ... or, at least, where we can be safe. If you can fly your ship, and you were planning on leaving anyway ... please, let us accompany you."

She had been planning on leaving. Anthony was sure about that. She had packed, after all. Filled a backpack with the intention of never going back to that house. The culture was different enough that he wasn't going to fault her for leaving her father there. Hell, on a practical side, moving him would tell the world there had been a survivor.

... Anthony had flipped him over.

Fuck.

The black furred girl's eyes bore into him, as she digested the translation. Her eyes flicked to Alicia ... then Anthony saw them slide over to Justin. She ... God damn it, if Anthony wasn't seeing her blush looking at the kid. Well. This could be good or bad. He hated dealing with hormonal teens.

Which, yes, meant he'd made a horrible carrier choice.

Daium's eyes came back to meet his. Slowly, she nodded, turning slightly to Nona.

"Nona, bagaimana anda berkata, 'ya'?"

"Yes."

Daium took a step forward, holding her right hand out, palm facing him. Her other hand took his left, putting it up against hers. Her skin was unexpectedly smooth.

"Yes, Anthony. Yes."

There was a tree in the ship.

A tree.

In the ship.

On the bridge, no less. Right there, going from the bottom of the sphere up to the ceiling, a tree. Trunk, branches, leaves, the works.

Captain Picard would never have stood for that.

Melinda just shook her head, eyes unable to focus anywhere else. They'd entered the bridge sphere through a hatch right in the middle, and found themselves on a six foot wide walkway running all the way around the circumference. Various control panels with seats were set against the wall, ringing that damned tree. Over on her left, two sets of short stairways, one up and one down, led to two doors. It took a moment for her to figure out that one must lead into the hull of the middle section, while the other led to that large flat enclosed upper section.

There was so much wasted space. That was her main problem with it. The ship had this huge open sphere, and the only thing used was this ring? It made no sense!

"Um," Chuck said, next to her, "why are there control panels on the ceiling?"

"What?" She looked up. Well, God damn it ... there WERE control stations of some sort up there. All around! Walking over to the edge of the circular walkway, which thank the heavens DID have a railing, real wood too, she looked down. The lower sphere had various computer or whatever stations as well! What the hell!

"Ha!" It was Tammy this time with the insight, grinning. "It's gravity! Or, no gravity! Once this ship is in space, there's no gravity, so you can float anywhere!"

"What kind of sci fi ship doesn't have gravity? I want my money back." Chuck shook his head disgusted. He paused, then looked over at Nona.