Shades of Earth

“Houses?” Emma asks, shock in her voice.



“Can’t be,” Colonel Martin says, staring harder. He snaps his fingers at one of his soldiers, and the man places a pair of binoculars in Colonel Martin’s hands. Colonel Martin stares through them, then curses.



“They’re ruins. Buildings built straight into the rock, but probably abandoned.”



“We need to go there,” I say.



“Out of the question—we don’t know what kind of life-form constructed these buildings.” Colonel Martin passes the binoculars to Emma—but Emma immediately hands them to me.



I stare through the lens. The side of the mountain has been carved into levels, connected by rows of stone steps. Large, even-sided buildings rise up against the hillside, perhaps made using the same stone dug out from the mountain to make the levels. I can see cutouts in the walls of the buildings: windows and doors.



Human-sized windows and doors.



Colonel Martin is right—the entire place looks dusty and old, long abandoned.



“Something could still be there. If there are sentient creatures on this planet, they had to have seen our landing,” Colonel Martin says.



I think about the way the shuttle seemed to be knocked off course. Was that a malfunction of the shuttle, something to do with those giant birds, or was it an attack by whatever being built these structures?



This changes everything.



“I don’t trust it,” Colonel Martin continues.



Lightning cracks across the sky. Fat, heavy drops of water start to fall. My people scream. This rain is nothing like the “rain” from Godspeed. On Godspeed, rain is measured bursts of water from the sprinkler system built into the painted ceiling. But this? No rhythmic falling, no even distribution. The fat, irregular raindrops just plop down on us, clattering through the leaves, splashing against our skin, cool and slick.



“What is this?” a woman shouts. She swipes at her body, trying to get the rain off her, but of course she can’t. More falls down.



I hop onto the boulder Colonel Martin still stands on. “Look,” I say, “you’re moments away from my people panicking. We need to get to shelter, and we need to get to shelter now. Those buildings are the best bet we have!”



Colonel Martin looks at me the same way Eldest did when I thought the light bulbs in the Keeper Level were real stars. “You’d really choose hiding in there with God knows what inside instead of staying out here in a little rain?”



“To us this is not just ‘a little rain.’ And you said yourself the buildings are probably abandoned.”



“Besides,” Emma says, “the lightning is dangerous. Can’t stay near the trees, stupid to head into the flat areas of land or by the lake. Safest thing is shelter. Here, or somewhere else.”



A meaningful look shoots between Emma and Colonel Martin, and from his scowl, I can tell that Amy’s father doesn’t like whatever it is Emma is implying.



“Rank one, rank two,” Colonel Martin bellows. Emma snaps to attention and the rest of the nearby military gathers around her. “Go first, inspect the buildings. Radio back. Hurry!”



Emma races forward, followed by the rest of the military in the first two ranks. Which must not include Chris, because he stays by Amy’s side.



Colonel Martin doesn’t look happy, but he heads across the meadow as well, cutting a swath through the high, yellowish-green grass. Now that we’re out from the trees, my people are more nervous and scared than ever. I keep looking behind me as I follow Colonel Martin, almost tripping, trying to keep tabs on everyone.



Amy sprints forward, to be beside me. I glance back but can’t find the ever-present Chris tagging along. “What is this place?” Amy asks, breathless not from running, but from excitement.



“I don’t know.” I hate the childish way seeing Amy with Chris makes me feel, but I can’t tamp it down.



The farther in the open we travel, the faster my people go until we’re all jogging across the wide meadow, tall grasses whipping against our legs. The rain makes the grains stick to our skin and clothing, and a sweet smell escapes from the broken stalks as we trample the grass in our mad dash toward the buildings.



A crackle escapes the radio at Colonel Martin’s shoulder. “All clear, sir,” Emma’s voice says through the radio.



Colonel Martin looks back. “We’re heading to those buildings!” he shouts, waving his arm forward.



That’s all my people need to hear. They quickly overtake him, running, racing as fast as they can to be out of the storm. The rain comes faster and harder, water pouring from the skies so intensely that I can barely see. Amy grabs my hand, her own slippery, pulling me beside her.



A bright flash of lightning illuminates the sky, casting Amy in light that seems to capture her in a single moment of time, not unlike when she was frozen.



All around us, everyone is running with terror. Blind panic, shouts of fear, our primal instincts have taken over.



But Amy runs through the rain, her mouth wide and grinning, her eyes sparkling, relishing every second.



17: AMY



I would use the same word to describe both my joy and the rain: torrential. This—this—this is all I ever wanted from the world: wide-open spaces and cooling rain and the chance to run.



We reach the buildings much too soon.



The Earthborns, grumbling at the rain they see as a nuisance more than anything else, stagger into the first buildings. The shipborns are panicked, but not so panicked that they’re willing to share space with the people from Earth. They race past the closest buildings, the ones the Earthborns chose, then pour into the ones behind the first row, packing each building so tight that there’s only room for them to stand as they watch the rain stream down over the walls.



I stop, letting the rain wash over me, and Elder watches me, bemused. I squint through the rain, trying to see the buildings clearly. They are ancient, far older than anything I’ve ever seen before. They remind me of the cave dwellings at Mesa Verde, the way they pop straight up out of the stone of the hill.



“Find shelter!” Emma shouts as she runs past me. She and the military are going to each building, checking them, trying to make sure that everyone’s arrived safely.



Elder starts to pull me toward the closest building—the one packed with dozens of shipborns all standing, shivering together.



“Let’s go this way,” I say, pulling him in the other direction. It seems stupid to cram together with others when there’s so much space here. So many empty buildings, with rain darkening their pale, dusty exteriors. Elder hesitates, but I slip my fingers through his, and he grips my hand in reply.



We climb the stone steps to the next level. The buildings are nearly all two stories high, with the second story smaller than the first, making a square deck. The path is paved with large, flat rocks and is as wide as a country road—a small car might be able to squeeze between the buildings if it weren’t for all the stairs, but two people can easily walk side by side.



Lightning flashes.



The buildings all look hollow inside, dark, and despite the fact that there is no glass in the window or doors at the entrances, the air inside feels musty and stale. The gaping maws of the doorways remind me of monsters’ mouths. And suddenly I don’t want to go farther. I don’t want to be here at all. Because these houses are the perfect size for people, but we’re supposed to be the only people on this planet.



When I stop, Elder tugs at my arm, pulling me into the nearest building. “This happened often on Sol-Earth?” he asks as another roll of thunder bursts out overhead.



I grin at him. “Not all the time, but it happened,” I say. “Isn’t it great?”



Elder looks at me as if I’ve completely lost it.



“At least it’ll be cooler after the rain,” I add. “On Earth, in the summer, it’d get really hot, and then there would be a quick thunderstorm. This must be Centauri-Earth’s summertime.”



“So summer is a time of terrifying thunder and fire from the sky?”



I laugh, but when I see Elder’s serious, I bite it back. “Not usually, no. Trust me, it’ll be over soon. And it’s not dangerous, not really.”



To prove it, I step through the doorway again, twirling in the rain. I tilt my head back, looking up as the drops falls down, spinning fast on the slick stones.



Elder catches me before I fall.



The rain pours down. We’re both soaked, and the rain is falling so hard that I can feel it in my scalp.



“This is loons!” Elder shouts over the downpour. “We need to get inside!” He tugs on my arm, trying to pull me into the shelter of the closest building, but I tug back, pulling him closer to me.



Another flash of this lightning. The world illuminates for just a split second—I can see each glittering drop of rain as it falls—and then another huge crash! of thunder.



I don’t think anymore, I don’t feel. I don’t have time to be gentle or shy.



I just kiss him.



My lips press against his, my arms weave around him until we are so close that even the raindrops don’t slip between us. My fingers tangle in his hair, then slide down the back of his neck. His arms tense, tightening his hold around me, pulling me closer, closer.



All my senses burst into life: the feel of cool rain, the thunder cracking overhead ringing in my ears, but it’s all overwhelmed by the sense of Elder filling every pore of my being.



I see, through my closed eyes, another flash of lightning. It electrifies me—and Elder. He kisses me with passion that can only be described as voracious. I clutch at him the same way he clutches me: with a feeling of need, of longing, of insatiableness.



Always in the rain.



I stand on my tiptoes to reach Elder’s lips better, but I lose balance, slipping on the wet stones. Elder’s grip on me is so tight, though, that he easily lifts me from the ground, spinning in a slow circle, his laughter weaving in between raindrops to splash against my heart.



* * *



I shiver, my rain-darkened hair hanging down in clumps as the downpour ends as abruptly as it began. Already the sky is lightening, the air cooler. I lean back, blinking in the soft light of the twin suns.



“What is it?” Elder asks, and it’s only then that I realize I’ve sighed aloud.



“I was sort of hoping for a rainbow,” I say.



He stops dead and shoots me an incredulous look. “Those are frexing real?”



I laugh. “Of course they are!”



Elder shakes his head, as if trying to make the idea of colors arching across the sky stick in his brain.



Up here on the second level of buildings, it almost feels as if we have a semblance of privacy. The rain has brought not just cooler air, but also a sheen of freshness to the whole world.



And insects.



I swat at a gnat—or something very like a gnat—buzzing around my face, then notice a subtle humming made by the bugs nearby. I wander along the wall of the building and find a tree, like the ones in the forest but smaller, with a swarm of gnat-like bugs hovering over beautiful, delicate purple flowers dripping from the tree branches.



I reach out to touch the petals, but then a screech cuts through the air—a high-pitched scream that fades to silence, then circles back around. I pull my hand back, instinctively wanting to protect myself even though I know I can’t.