Alone

  Matilda’s memories flashfire, try to match words to what my eyes take in.

  Some of those words are for real animals: whale…eel…hanash…lamprey…centipede…Rewall…Lisa’s cardon…

  Other names represent creatures of legend, things that never existed at all: Jörmungandrm…Quetzalcoatl…death worm…Bakunawa…

  Then her memories lock onto something repulsive and disgusting, something that’s so close to what I see I can’t possibly call it by any other name.

  Grub.

  A gleaming copper color instead of translucent white. If there is a head, I can’t see it. All I see is the long body wedged into the mud slimed across it. The Grub is as much a part of this cavern as it is inside of it. The thing twitches, wriggles, sending undulations down its length in trembling waves of fat. I see things fluttering beneath the copper skin, see the coursing pulse of barely visible liquid that can only be its blood.

  My father steps toward this…this leviathan… and I realize that his boots leave no footprints in the mud. He’s not real. He’s just an image, projected onto the ground before us, or directly into our minds, I don’t know.

  “This is the reason you’re here,” he says. “This is the next generation of my kind. One species, and only one, will merge with it, complete the cycle. I sent a call across the universe, inviting any who heard it to come and compete for this ultimate blessing.”

  “You’re wrong,” Huan says. “I remember sermons from school, from church…we were destined to find the promised land. But that thing isn’t land. And the other ships that came here, the other races—how could they respond to the same call that brought us when we all speak different languages?”

  My false father nods as if to say That’s an excellent question.

  “Our race first rose to the stars five hundred million years ago,” he says. “Our ability to communicate with any intelligent species is too complex for you to understand, but I will try to explain. There are commonalities in the mental processes of sentient creatures. Certain energies generated from conscious, intelligent thought have similar patterns.” He gestures to himself. “I’m using those patterns now to create this image. I have also used such patterns to appear in different forms.”

  One moment he is my father, the next he is a Vellen, like the statues I saw in the Springer church. My height, the one big eye, the backward-folded legs, the larger middle set of arms just above the hips, the thin arms coming out the sides of the head, ending in delicate hands.

  The strange creature speaks with my father’s voice: “This race landed and built a city above this spot, but they could not defend themselves.”

  The form shifts again, becomes a green-eyed Springer wearing beautiful clothes of purple trimmed with silver lace and dotted with real jewels—not bits of melted glass. No Springer has clothing this fine, not even Barkah.

  “This race destroyed the first, even stood where you stand right now.”

  The Springer shifts back to the form of my father.

  “Sadly for them, they were not strong enough to survive your race’s arrival. The closer my child comes to rising, the more powerful the urge to compete for his love.”

  When we first lived here, we had problems with the Springers, yes, but nothing Barkah and I couldn’t handle. About six months ago, things got worse. Then the Belligerents came. Were they somehow drawn toward Uchmal by this urge to compete? And in the past few days, incidents of violence amongst my people—the fight on the training ground, Spingate torturing Bello, me almost killing Spingate…

  I don’t understand how this can be, but the facts seem obvious; the Grub is doing something to our heads. It is the cause of the hate and violence that’s tearing us apart.

  “Now a new race has landed,” False Father says. “You will destroy them or they will destroy you. Or perhaps the Springers that you stupidly allow to live will be the ones who wipe you out. When my child rises, we shall see who is there to merge with him.”

  Huan’s hand moves to his belt, rests on the handle of his knife.

  “Huan, don’t,” I say.

  “He’s making us fight each other,” Huan says. “Like animals.”

  False Father nods. “Trials determine the strong. For a species as primitive as yours, to merge with us is the ultimate gift. Your kind rules planets—our kind rules space itself.”

  “Merge,” I say. “What does that mean?”

  “When my child rises, he will be weak. Defenseless. The strongest species will protect him until he can protect himself, then be a part of him when he leaves this planet.”

  Huan’s nose wrinkles in confusion. “Leave? You mean on a ship?”

  False Father shakes his head.

  “Our kind do not need ships. We move through space as easily as you walk on land. But the nature of our biology requires that smaller, intelligent organisms merge with us, tend to us from the inside. Together, my child and the winning species will explore the stars, see the wonders of the universe. And someday, the descendants of that species will be there when my child breeds. On some distant planet in some other galaxy, my child will lay its three eggs, just as I did.”

  My dad died over a thousand years ago. The thing that looks exactly like him turns slightly, gazes lovingly at the giant, coppery Grub.

  “An echo of my child will send out a call of its own. That call will reach intelligent races, who will build new ships. They will travel to that planet. They will compete against each other. The strongest will survive, and will join with my grandchild.”

  Huan’s grip tightens on the knife handle.

  “So your squirming, jiggling baby doesn’t need a ship, it is a ship,” he says. “We’d be, what…its crew?”

  False Father thinks on this for a moment.

  “Merging is far more than that,” he says. “Once my child travels to the stars, he will not be able to live without you. And you will change, too, to where you cannot live without him. He will protect you from the vastness of space. In return, you tend to his needs.”

  Two species that can’t survive without each other.

  Just like the tiny organisms that live in the vine roots.

  That’s what we would be to this massive thing: worms. We would be a part of it. It would be a part of us.

  Symbiotes.

  Huan adjusts his stance. His boots make sucking sounds in the mud.

  “So you want us to be babysitters?” he says. “You’re so powerful you can draw all these races and make them fight, but you can’t protect your babies?”

  “As it is with any intelligent race,” False Father says. “Can the newborn human babies protect themselves?”

  I think of little Kevin, soft, helpless. If left on his own, he would quickly die.

  “Our parents protect us,” I say. “Most of our parents do, anyway. But not you—you abandon your children?”

  “Our ancestors reached the stars and stayed, but at a price. When our kind leaves a planet, our bodies change permanently. We retain the ability to survive planetside only long enough to deposit our three eggs and”—he gestures to himself—“leave an echo which can send a call and communicate with those that answer it. After we lay eggs, we undergo a final change and we become too delicate to survive in heavy gravity. We end our lives as creatures of the cosmos, seeing all the beauty we can before we pass on.”

  “You’re like insects,” Huan says. He points to the Grub. “That’s some kind of larva, right? It will change, like a maggot turning into a fly. Your species is nothing but damned bugs.”

  False Father spreads his hands.

  “Our kind has survived half a billion years. We have watched hundreds of races like yours evolve, flourish, reach the stars, then fade and die out. After humanity has vanished from history, my kind will still be spreading across the universe, finding new worlds and merging with new races.”

  Wait…what he said…

  “You said three eggs.” I point to the wriggling monstrosity. “There’s two
more of those?”

  “They hatch one at a time,” False Father says. “The next two are buried deeper. When this child leaves the planet, the next child will hatch, develop and eventually rise.”

  “Multiples of three,” Huan says, his voice dreamy, distant. “Everything is multiples of three…”

  Three eggs. My lacha—my twelve. The coffins on Ximbal, 168 of them. The Church of Mictlan references multiples of three over and over again. And it’s not just us: six Wasp troopships, 666 soldiers in each one, twenty-one troopships landing somewhere in the jungle.

  I wonder if the cultures aboard the Basilisk and the Goblin celebrated the same number.

  “The signal,” I say. “The call you sent out. Did it contain this information? Did our Founder really understand what was waiting for us here?”

  “Impossible to know,” False Father answers. “An infinite number of races has interpreted an infinite number of calls an infinite number of ways. I can communicate directly with you because you’re here, because you are close enough that I can sense and interpret your thought patterns. Exoplanets are far too distant for that. We can only send, we can’t receive, we can’t communicate. The signal we broadcast has two parts. My part is mathematical—ship designs, galactic location and more. The second part of the signal comes from my child, a nonlinguistic impulse our kind has sent out for over half a billion years—a primitive, basic urge to come, to fight, to join, to love. To serve.”

  Maybe the Founder knew what awaited us here, maybe not. She clearly understood, though, that other races would come to this location, that there would be a brutal war. She prepared for it—when we were just children, Okadigbo was trained to use the Goff Spear.

  “Why humanity?” I ask. “Why the Springers? The Vellen and the other races?”

  “My kind evolved on a planet similar to this one. So did the first race that joined with our kind. As adults we travel the stars, but our”—he smiles at Huan—“our larvae and pupae, they need oxygen, they need gravity. The call included this planet’s atmospheric composition—the races that could survive here came. Finding new races to merge with us is part of why we have spread so far and survived for so long, but those races must be able to survive inside our skin as did the first race. That is why those that join with us must be a carbon-based, oxygen-breathing species.”

  Carbon. The symbol on the Well wall. On the Springer church. On the Basilisk’s flat prow. The symbol was part of the signal that went out across the stars. Some races, including my own, made that image part of a new religion, a religion dedicated to obeying the call of a powerful being.

  Of…of a god.

  Tlaloc. The God of Blood. It’s real. And it’s right in front of me.

  I look at the Grub. This glistening nightmare is what makes us want to fight, want to kill. This is what is making us hate. Maybe it only magnifies the natural urges we have inside of us, but if this thing wasn’t here would Spingate have killed Bello? Would the Belligerents have come at all?

  It’s been down here the whole time.

  That’s why the other races didn’t bomb the Observatory—because they knew, or maybe sensed is a better word, that their god lived down here. That must be part of the signal the Grub sends out.

  “So what happens now?” I ask. “Do you expect us to just…what…come down here and climb in? What if we choose not to do that?”

  False Father smiles at me.

  “My child has been growing stronger. You’ve felt it. Soon, it will rise, and when it does, every sentient being around will be compelled to protect it.”

  I want to believe that isn’t possible, but look what has already happened. Six races have reached Omeyocan. A seventh is on the way. Who knows how many more are coming? There is a power here beyond comprehension. Maybe it’s advanced technology, maybe it’s something else, but if this species has existed for half a billion years it is because their strategy works.

  I thought gods didn’t exist.

  I was wrong.

  “What if more than one race is worthy?” I ask. “We’re working closely with the Springers. Your child tried to make us kill each other—it failed.”

  “Your two races have already fought,” my false father says. “Multiple times. Do you think that was a coincidence? You’ve overcome the urge for now, which is a testament to your strength. When my child rises, however, those urges will become irresistible. The races will fight. One race will win, the others will be eliminated.”

  His words chill me. If he’s right, not even Barkah and I will be able to keep our people apart. And if we fight each other, there is no way we can defeat the Wasps.

  We’re doomed.

  I thought the Grownups were evil, but they’re pawns. Just like we are. The Cherished, the Springers, the Wasps…we’ve all been manipulated and drawn in by a lie so massive it spans galaxies, maybe even the universe itself.

  We were brought here to fight to the death, for the privilege of being worms.

  The hiss of a knife sliding out of a sheath.

  Huan rushes at the Grub. Screaming, spitting, Huan raises his blade and drives it down.

  A crack of energy louder than any gunshot makes my body vibrate.

  Huan is flung backward. He splashes into the thick mud next to me, slides to a stop.

  I kneel beside him. His body is trembling so hard his teeth rattle. Smoke rises up from his face and hands, which smolder with fresh burns.

  “Huan! Are you all right?”

  A stupid thing to say. He’s hurt bad.

  I look up at my father. If he was real, I would gut him.

  “My child protected himself,” he says. “Your friend is lucky to be alive—that was a fraction of my child’s power. The next attacker will not be as fortunate.”

  “You said it couldn’t defend itself!”

  He smooths his mustache. “Not against all attacks, no.”

  Fury fills me, encases me. I want to hurt…I want to murder.

  I drag Huan to his feet. He’s shaking so bad he can barely stand.

  “Can you walk if I help you?”

  Grimacing, he nods.

  Supporting his weight, I turn my back on the Grub and the Echo.

  “Good luck,” False Father calls after me. “My child will soon rise. If you are strong, if you are smart, you will kill the Springers before that happens, because when it does, they will come to kill you.”

  I stop and turn, careful not to drop Huan. I look at the image of the man that raised my progenitor.

  “Don’t worry, Father—I promise you I’ll strike first.”

  And I will. But not against the Springers.

  Whatever it takes, I’ll find a way to destroy the thing responsible for all of this.

  I will kill the God of Blood.

  I stand next to the throne in the Grand Hall. Huan is with me. We look down at the faces of my people.

  So much to tell them. So little time.

  Huan leans against the throne because he can’t stand on his own. Physically weak but mentally strong, he refuses to go to the hospital until this is done. He grits his teeth against the pain.

  I tell everyone about my talk with Matilda. I tell them of Old Victor, somehow manage to not look at our Victor when I do so. I tell them about Marcus and the five thousand vassal descendants. I leave off the strange fact that he’s my descendant, because that’s not important right now. I tell them there are no weapons on the Xolotl for us, how we can’t count on any help from our mother ship.

  I talk about the tunnels. The Echo. The signal.

  Then, I tell them about the Grub. The size of it, how it’s making us violent…how we’re supposed to fight to the death so one race can merge with it. How it might soon rise.

  Faces stare back. Incredulous. Afraid. Disbelieving. And more than a few, angry. At me, for telling the truth?

  Maria and her squad are scouting, and a few cannon crews are in the towers serving as lookouts, but the rest of my people are here. Bishop, K
alle, Bawden, Farrar, Borjigin, Kenzie, Schuster…everyone. I even had Aramovsky brought down from his cell, although I hope that doesn’t turn out to be a mistake.

  The Springer residents of Uchmal are here, too, although I notice they aren’t mixed in with us like they were before. They’re clustered closer to Barkah and Lahfah. The distrust between our peoples is growing once again.

  “That’s it,” I say, finishing my tale. “That’s what we saw.”

  For almost a minute, there is only silence.

  Walezak is the first to speak.

  She steps forward from the crowd. “You’re a liar.”

  Huan points to the burns on his face. “Look what it did to me. Em speaks the truth.”

  Walezak’s lip curls into a hateful sneer.

  “You did that to yourself! Or you had Em do it to you! The gods called us here. The gods, not some imaginary monster that supposedly has to be born on a planet and then lives in space. That’s ridiculous!”

  Kalle steps forward, calm as can be.

  “There are some parallels to the amphibian life cycle,” she says. “Like toads, for example—eggs and tadpoles can only live in water, while adults of most species spend their lives on land. If the organism Em found does begin life on a planet, then lives out in the void, I suppose we’d classify it as an astrophibian.”

  Walezak stares at Kalle like Kalle is speaking a different language.

  “Granted, it would have to be an extremely complex life cycle,” Kalle says. “But that kind of drastic physical change isn’t that dissimilar from what insects or blurds go through. Like a caterpillar becoming a moth. If what this Echo told Em and Huan is true, the creature begins as an egg. When it hatches, it becomes a larva—the form it is now. Sometime after it rises, it must metamorphize into a form that can leave the planet. Let’s call that form a nymph. Maybe it has a couple of nymph stages, actually—a protonymph that leaves the planet, then a deuteronymph that lays eggs. After that it changes again, into the final, nonbreeding adult form.”