Emerald and Dr. Viahakis rode down to Level Two in silence. Core was Level One, so Level Two was a sort of “roof to the world”. They got out into an empty corridor. There could be a pine tree hanging down below them or a pebbled river bottom might lay beneath her feet with a river rushing over it.
It made Emerald feel weird.
“The boxes were no longer safe in your unit,” said Dr. Viahakis. “We needed to move them to my lab and you need to open them there.”
“They won’t be safe anywhere any more. Inamma knew they were in my room. It knows they’re here," Emerald said.
Dr. Viahakis stopped suddenly and spun around, exclaiming, “What?”
Emerald backed up a bit and said, “I heard Inamma outside the door a few nights ago. The spiked legs hitting the ground are a sound I won’t ever forget.”
“Why didn’t you call us?”
“It happened too fast,” she said. “Inamma was there and then it was gone. Besides, would you have believed me?”
“Of course we would have...”
“Just like you believed I might actually know something about the Inamma? You believed strongly enough that you took the boxes from me without bothering to ask if I knew what was going on. You had the records from Dr. Jekyll down at the Century Square Psych Ward. You knew perfectly well what I said. Yet you did nothing.”
Dr. Viahakis had the grace to blush. “You have to believe me when I tell you, Emerald that we’re taking an awful lot of what you say on trust. Your parent’s reputations as researchers – especially in paleoxenoarchaeontology...”
“That’s what they’ve been doing all my life? Digging up ancient alien artifacts?”
Dr. Viahakis’ condescending smile vanished. “How do you know about paleoxenoarchaeontology? Vice-captain Marcillon knew they were working out the origin of ancient beings or creatures on Earth, who were possibly extraterrestrial.” She paused. “Everyone I knew said that their specialty was xenoarchaeology, but even that’s quite a mouthful. They mean practically the same thing – the distinction isn’t important.”
“It’s important to me! The word itself is important! The two words don’t even mean the same thing! If they were working on aliens, don’t you think...” she stopped suddenly, blinking. Several things fell into place, like the 3D alien projection – and even Inamma.
Dr. Viahakis stood, watching her, frowning slightly. She continued as if she’d been waiting for Emerald to apologize for belching, saying, “...their reputations in their field attracted quite a bit of attention.”
“There were some crazy people who came out to the Crater.” Emerald said, “They always looked beat up when they got to us.”
Dr. Viahakis said, “The governments of Earth made sure your parents weren’t distracted from their work. They put up all kinds of roadblocks against just any old person getting there. They knew they were on to something and only allowed the most determined crackpots in. They gave your parents time to formulate and support their hypotheses.”
“But they argued all the time! Dad wanted to go back the States and just teach! Mom always wanted to stay at Chicxulub!”
Dr. Viahakis looked away then turned to face Emerald squarely. “Their relationship with each other wasn’t something the governments wanted to do anything about.” She shook her head.
Emerald turned away, and touched the wall, tracing a figure eight on it. She fought back tears as she remembered all kinds of things about her parents. There had been some really good times at the Crater. She took a shuddering breath, bit her upper lip, turned back to Dr. Viahakis and said, “Could I have unlimited access to the boxes when they’re moved?”
Dr. Viahakis scowled. “Why?”
“Those are the last things Mom and Dad touched. Besides pictures and soundbytes, that’s all I have left. They loved their old junk.”
“You don’t know what’s in the boxes?”
She shrugged, “Stuff that has something to do with the Chicxulub Crater. Maybe some other stuff.”
“Such as...”
Again, Emerald shrugged. “They were always getting boxes sent to them from all over the world – even some stuff from the Lunar colonies. Other times, people who worked for the International Space Administration sent them samples, photos, or files taken from probes that visited Uranus, Mercury, and even the Oort Cloud. Plus pictures – zillions of physical photographs and baskets of memory chips. They spent hours and hours loading the data into their model.”
“How do you know that?”
Emerald snorted and said, “I’m an Aspie – not stupid. I can read the manifest screens just as well as anyone else. Besides, people let their guard down when they think you’re a little kid. Even Mom and Dad did it sometimes.” She suddenly sucked in her lower lip, willing herself not to cry at the memory that abruptly surged up. Mom and Dad had been working in the lab.
A recording appeared in the air between them.
Mom and Dad were at the holographic imager and it was projecting a strange creature. Both of them were walking around it, scowling. She’d skipped in and said, “What’s that?”
Mom slapped the off switch and stepped back, saying, “A friend of ours is on the design team of a new alien invasion 3D game. He sent us his sketches and wanted to know what we thought.” Mom glanced at Dad and said, “You remember him – he came out to look around here to see if it would be a good place to do a location shoot.” The image vanished.
Emerald looked up at Dr. Viahakis, “I didn’t believe her. Dad gave Mom a funny look when she said ‘alien invasion’. Something was up and they didn’t want me to know about it. I went goo-goo-ga-ga and begged them to see the picture again.” She paused then kept on, “They were fooled and showed me. Mom pulled up the image and it was the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen. The alien looked like a dinosaur, a bird and a rat sort-of-smashed-together. The mouth protruded but it had rat-teeth but shorter. It was mostly scaled, but patches of dark, stiff feather-spines sprouted from behind two large ears separated by a bony crest with two eyes on both sides, one toward the rear one toward the front. A forked tail that looked like a two-headed hooded cobra was attached behind with two sharp spikes at the tips. The legs were like kangaroo legs only heavier.” She abruptly came back to the present and shook her head. “They were always getting weird stuff besides artifacts – pictures and simulations. It was like Mom and Dad were the center of a bunch of scientists who were working on the origins of Chicxulub, the Caloris Basin on Mercury, the atmosphere on Venus, and the axial tilt of Uranus.”
“You know all of that?” Dr. Viahakis exclaimed. Emerald shrugged as they stopped in front of a door. Dr. Viahakis palmed the security pad then entered an extremely long sequence of numbers into the virtual keypad that appeared.
“It’s true I’m a kid, but you should know by now that kids stupid,” Emerald said.
The door slid back and after they stepped in, a voice from deeper inside said, “My great-niece is absolutely not stupid but like her parents, she has an amazing ability to get into trouble.”
“Great aunt Ruby!” Emerald spun and shot Dr. Viahakis a deadly glare. Her great aunt was sitting in a wide, high chair, leaning back with her arms crossed over her chest, studying Emerald.
Viahakis shrugged and said, “She’s the vice-captain, not stupid. She’s supposed to have a supple mind and follow through on her hunches.” She headed to a desk with a cubic meter of holographic computer projection above it and sat down in a chair. “You’ll have to cut a deal with the vice-captain if you want to see the artifacts.”
Emerald looked over at great aunt Ruby and said, “I’d like to be able to see the boxes whenever I want to.”
Ruby’s gaze fixed on Emerald and her eyes narrowed to slits. “Given what you said about the artifacts being your last contact with my brother and his wife – and with clearance from Dr. Viahakis,” the psychiatrist nodded absently. Ruby said, “We have a deal.”
“Agreed,” Emerald said, sticking out her hand.
Ruby took it, shook it. From the desk, Dr. Viahakis said, “Tomorrow go into Columbia Memorial Park and walk up to the giant oak. When no one’s looking, knock on the trunk five times, pause then knock seven times. A door will open. Go down the ladder. If I’m not there...”
Vice-Captain Ruby said, “Where else would you be?”
Dr. Viahakis sniffed, ignoring the comment and continued, “I’ll make sure you have access to your boxes.”
The vice-captain stood up with a sigh and went to the door. It slid open as if someone had been waiting for her to move. “I’ve got more work to do.” She was gone a moment later.
Emerald stared after her, mind fixed on the last words. She said to Dr. Viahakis, “Right after I got here, great-aunt Ruby said, ‘I don’t have time for a child. I have work to do.’ Then she said, ‘You’ve graduated from being a problem to being a liability’. ” Dr. Viahakis looked, raised an eyebrow. Her eyes asked the question and Emerald replied, “Looks like I’ve finally graduated to being work.”
Dr. Viahakis hummed deep in her throat, not-quite-a-grunt, but Emerald thought she saw a smile flick across her face before she said, “Congratulations.” Then she spun away on her chair and was back to work.
Emerald watched her for a moment then turned away, saying softly, “Then I’ve got some work to do.”
“What was that, Em?”
Emerald held her tongue – she hated being called ‘Em’ – and said, “I’m going to walk around outside a bit before I start looking into the boxes.”
Without turning around, Dr. Viahakis said, “Don’t take too much time outside. We need to find out what’s in them as soon as you’re ready to get to work.”
Emerald nodded and walked out.
THE STORY SO FAR: Emerald Marcillon’s parents excavated artifacts in the Chicxilub Crater that point to a long-ago alien war that spilled over to Earth. Inamma, an alien AI survived the war and will kill to retrieve the artifacts. When assembled, the AI intends to create a weapon that will destroy all of Humanity – thinking we are descendants of its ancient enemies. Emerald’s parents are dead, and she has escaped Earth to the SOLAR EXPLORER but finds that Inamma has followed her. The crew, aware of the origin of the artifacts, plan to protect her and hides her among the rest of the young people in the crew. Emerald lives with autism and making friends is difficult. She has a few good friends now, and while she holds the key to the artifacts, she has discovered the sport of pryzhok, and the odd hiding places the young players have hidden their clandestine pryzhok sphere. It appears that Inamma is on to them all…
(If you like what you see, share this link with a friend! This is where the story starts -- Season 1, Episode 1 is at the bottom: https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/search/label/YA%20SciFi%20EMERALD%20OF%20EARTH%20Serial?updated-max=2022-01-28T05:00:00-06:00&max-results=20&start=18&by-date=false)Guy Stewart is a retired teacher and counselor, with science fiction for young people and adults published in ANALOG Science Fiction and Fact; podcast at CAST OF WONDERS; and in CRICKET the Magazine for Children. For links to his other online works, go to https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/. For an interview with me about EMERALD OF EARTH, try this: http://www.writersandauthors.info/2015/09/interview-with-guy-stewart.html
Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR0X3mAc2AzqEJWA3ehVkVfHfzWGYFL0TbXeMyJDUyP3fRUi4gVLpK2PSo9qeqvljaCWKP7z9Dn120wRuSmoZoV_CWee_Yaw_UZx39rhg-xjZqsRFAr1ZFk6hZwUbDu0mLyb58RNhTPK9iS5HYXbijVje_dGNSJyz665C6PY0HtZRk-KaQWAsC46CEfQ/s1600/emerald_320.png