Epilogue
– Theodora –
I hold the item in front of Dex. “How’s that?”
He quickly scans it with a laser. “That may work. It’s eighty-one percent correct, which is the best you’ve shown me. Better than the other one. Please place it in the upper opening to your left.”
I drop the wooden propeller into place on his metal hull, where one of the old ones was missing. It fits pretty well. “How do you make it spin?”
“Are your fingers clear?” the drone asks.
I take a step back. “Yes.”
Dex spins all six of his propellers with a soft buzz. Each is about the diameter of my hand.
The drone takes off from the floor of the saucer and flies out into the clearing.
He does some aerobatics before he zooms back in and lands on the floor.
“I spin them using a torsion field. I have reason to believe that your planet does not have this particular tech, so it’s no wonder if you don’t understand what it is.
Most people don’t, even on planets where it is in common use.
I only needed the propeller itself. Thank you very much.
I have never seen any drone with wooden propellers, but now I will keep them until they fall apart. ”
“You may have to,” I tell him. “We still don’t know if the saucer flies.”
“I think we’re about ready to try,” Dex says, taking off again and racing back out, much faster this time. “I suggest I do the test myself, while you and Kenz’ox and Aker’iz stay well back in case something goes wrong.”
It’s what we’ve all been waiting for, testing the saucer.
Our future lives depend a lot on whether or not it can still fly and be controlled.
I wanted to make Dex his propellers first, which has taken days of testing and failed attempts, because those things had to be very precisely made.
And neither Kenz’ox nor I ever did much wood carving.
I watch as Dex flies around inside the saucer, prparing for the test. “So you couldn’t fly without all six propellers?”
He stops in mid-air and hovers. “Why do you ask?”
I lean my hip on a console. “Because looking at you fly now, it looks like you have plenty of power. Power to spare, even.”
“Ah. Well, since you’ve figured it out anyway: yes, I could fly with only four propellers. Not as well and not as fast, but I could do it.”
“And did you do it?”
He tilts one side down and backup . “A few times.”
I nod slowly. “Did it have anything to do with Aker’iz? I ask because her being born is a very strange thing to have happen to a tribe that had already have something strange happen: you arriving.”
Dex settles down on a console and spins down. “Not bad, Theodora. I wondered if you’d see the connection. Yes, it was I who manipulated Kenz’ox’s Lifegiver to make a female. It was a challenge. I flew out of the basket several dark nights in a row to do it. Nobody noticed.”
“Why did you do it?”
“Partly for the challenge of it. I was bored in that basket and I wanted something to happen. The tribe was stagnant and passive. Kenz’ox was by far the best of them, and I wanted to see how they would react to something really interesting happening.
I didn’t know they would react the way they did. I was horrified, but also entertained.”
“All right. If you don’t mind me asking-”
“No, I think that was it. No more questions.” He buzzes again, takes off and sets down on the main console. “Now for the test.”
“Okay,” I mutter and saunter over to the playpen.
They’re both in there, playing with a stick, two pieces of leather, and four wheels that I want to put on Aker’iz’s cradle to turn it into a cart. She got hold of one of them and was so fascinated that I let her have them all for now. “Dex will try to fly the saucer,” I tell them.
“Daarggggl,” Aker’iz says, holding out a wheel for me to look at. It’s just a thin cross-section of a round tree trunk, not very even.
“Then we should watch,” Kenz’ox says and steps out of the pen, then lifts Aker’iz into his arms. “From a safe distance.”
I know he doesn’t trust Dex after all the weird things the drone said while in his village.
But right now, we have no choice. He could take off and leave us behind, forever stranded on Xren.
He might crash the thing into the ground and destroy it forever.
The drone is perfectly polite and pleasant, but there’s an undertone of something weird in him.
That could be because he was made by aliens and also because his voice sounds so tinny, of course.
Dex does a quick loop and stops in front of us, buzzing while all his propellers spin.
There’s a little dissonance in the sound, probably from my moderate wood-carving skills.
“I will first raise it, have it hover, and rotate in place. If that works well, I will go higher and probably see if I can take it out over the beach.”
“You will come back, right?” I ask for certainty. I prefer speaking English with Dex.
“I will not do the full test today,” Dex tells me. “A short test will give me data to process so that I can control the craft better at higher speeds and greater distances.”
“I think that means ‘yes,’” I mutter to nobody in particular. “You said you are nearly blind,” I say louder. “Will that affect your control of the saucer?”
“Severely,” the drone says and flies into the saucer, closing the hatch.
“Umm. Okay…”
“What was that?” Kenz’ox asks.
I take his hand. “He will only do a short test and come right back. I think.”
“Ah. If he doesn’t, we lose our safe home,” my husband rumbles. “That would be unfortunate.”
“Yes,” I agree absentmindedly as the saucer slowly rises a foot into the air. I’m not so worried about Dex leaving as about the saucer not working.
The Plood flying saucer keeps rising, slowly but surely.
Some debris falls off it, some plants are pulled out with their roots, and some branches are still attached to the hull.
But the saucer itself looks perfectly fine as it ascends.
Soon it touches the treetops, and there’s the sound of branches breaking before it rains leaves and twigs and certain small creatures that plummet to the ground from the leafy canopy, then scurry out of sight.
“Looks good so far,” Kenz’ox says as we both stare up at the saucer’s underside while it rises to the other side of the leaves. Then it starts to move toward the beach, not making much of a sound except a deep hum that I feel in my chest.
Aker’iz starts to squirm and protest that nothing is happening, so Kenz’ox tosses her into the air, making her squeal. “This place is nicer without that Plood thing here anyway, right, Chief Aker’iz?”
She squeals in glee.
And I kind of have to agree. That saucer is creepy, inside and out.
It doesn’t help that it’s a constant reminder of the darkest day in my life, when I was abducted from Earth.
But I’ll forgive it all that for being a safe home for me and the girls for years.
And now, I might have the tool I need to search for Callie in a really effective way.
The saucer moves out of sight, leaving only a drizzle of leaves and bark.
“It looks like it works,” Kenz’ox says in a suspiciously neutral voice. “You can go back to your planet.”
I grab hold of his upper arm. “Do you want me to?”
“No,” he says with emphasis as he puts his hand on mine. “I want you here.”
“I want to be here, too,” I tell him. “This is where my life is now. You are where my life is.”
Before, I thought a caveman husband would be an anchor, keeping me trapped on planet Xren.
But that’s not how anchors work—they help you stay in a place where you want to be.
And while I still have a longing for Earth, now I want to be here with Kenz’ox.
He and Aker’iz can never go to Earth, that’s obvious.
But we can go to other places, if that saucer works as well as it seems to.
Kenz’ox bends down and picks something up from right underneath Aker’iz’s rocking cradle. “Do we need this anymore?”
It’s the letter I prepared for him to give to any Earth girl who might arrive after I left. “No. We can burn it.”
“It’s full of letters,” Kenz’ox observes as he slides the string off and unfolds the leather sheet. “Like on Aker’iz’x mug. What do they mean?” He shows me.
I grab the sheet. “I will read to you. Ahem.
Dear whoever you are.
I am assuming you are from Earth, if you can read this. If you’re not, please give it to the nearest Earth girl.
I am Theodora, and I’m not here anymore. I am walking toward the Borok tribe for a purpose that is important to both you and me. It concerns the flying saucer you’re looking at right now.
The caveman with the baby is called Kenz’ox. He is immensely kind and strong and dangerous. Please try to persuade him to go to the Borok tribe as well, so that he and his baby may be safe. If anything happens to any of them, I will murder someone, because I love him.
Signed, Theodora.
PS. Have you seen Callie? She’s missing.”
I fold the sheet in eight. “I don’t think it will burn. Let’s keep it for something else.”
Kenz’ox lays one massive arm around me and pulls me close. “You loved me. Even then. When you were leaving, and I told you to just go.” His voice has a good amount of gravel in it.
“Of course I loved you,” I say into his chest, fighting for breath. “I never stopped.”
“My love,” he growls so I feel it through all of me. “I love you desperately. We must never be apart.” He squeezes me one last time, making me gasp.
“We won’t,” I promise when he loosens his grip. “Oh… what was that?”
For a split second, it’s as if the sun gets brighter, then settles down.
Kenz’ox reaches for his sword. “Stay close.”
We stand like that for a moment, but nothing else happens before there’s the sound of breaking branches from above us and the saucer comes slowly down again.
Kenz’ox keeps his hand on the hilt of the sword. “I don’t like that Plood inside. What if he comes to life?”