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?? CHAPTER 4 ??
We agree to wait at least six hours. Earth hours, that is. We haven’t exactly mapped the time on this mystery planet yet. Judd is put to work doing some heavy lifting as soon as we return, but the rest of us flounder. I’m starting to wonder if I should have been sent here; if I deserved that seat on our ship at all.
I’m not a robotics expert like Kit or a computer scientist like Tess - I can’t help get our ship’s systems back up and running. I’m not a doctor like Justina or Rowan, I can’t heal anyone. Hell, I’m not even as useful as the farmers. What is my purpose here exactly? I questioned it back on earth but I question it even more, now. I may play a part in the continuation of the overall story of humanity. But in a struggle for survival? I may as well be a child, or a pet. Just getting in the way.
I help minimally as I am able, by running and fetching and cleaning. I help sort the crates of supplies that we can pull from the ship. Finally Dean, the other soldier, climbs up into the medbay and tosses down whatever he can reach that won’t shatter as it falls. The bandages are the most important at this point.
Luckily, the backup power is functioning up there. If the refrigerators die, we’ll lose a lot of medicine.
What an absolute disaster.
I make notes about the position of the two suns in the sky as the day wears on. I use my personal tablet to take pictures, to map their positions - or rather, our positions as we rotate around them - and note the length of the day. It will take more than a few day/night cycles to truly paint a picture, but judging by the condition of our ship and the fact of our missing engine, we may be here for a while.
We may be stranded completely.
Permanently.
With those camouflaging aliens.
I shudder.
“It’s been six earth hours,” I tell Judd. He’s taking a break, sitting with Nikos by one of the lanterns, sipping a water pouch. It isn’t dark yet, but the closer sun has sunk beyond the horizon and the air is growing cooler.
“Okay. Let’s check it out.” We wave over the rest of Team Expendable and, with a dismissive wave from our exhausted leader, we huddle up and march out into the woods once again.
?????
None of us want to touch it.
Our page is gone. The aliens left a note of their own, something scrawled on a brownish, crumpled scrap of thin paper.
“You.” Hope and Quinn both nudge me forward. I turn to Judd.
He shrugs and gestures with his weapon. “I have to keep my eyes on our surroundings.”
Great. I hope this doesn’t mean I’m the most expendable of the expendables, but I suspect it does.
“You’re the anthropologist,” Quinn assures me. “You’ll have some idea about how to read it. Right? I’m just a cook. I don’t know anything about anything.”
She’s the one who reminds us all to stay hydrated; a damn important role, if you ask me.
So, fine. I straighten my spine, and I step out onto the dried ground of the riverbed.
First, I examine the ground for their footprints. They’ve left theirs, just as we so foolishly did. We could pretty easily track each other. The fact that they haven’t charged into our camp yet is a good thing, right? A good sign. They aren’t out to eat us, at least.
My hands still shake as I reach for their note.
I pull the paper from where it is stuck between two of the sticks, pinched between my fingers. Carefully, I smooth it out over one arm.
They scribbled what appears to be words - words! Alien written words, an alien language! This is so unbelievable.
Focus. Below the words are a series of pictures. One looks like a river. Another looks like a shoreline. A third looks like a map - not an actual map, just a representation of one, with X’s and mountains and blue squiggles. They’ve underlined this one three times.
Is this an offer? Or is it a question?
“Skye?” I call. “You brought your pencils, right?”
?????
