The Seeker's Riddle: A Novel of First Contact by Andrew Calhoun

Author:Andrew Calhoun [Calhoun, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Andrew Calhoun
Publisher: Andrew Calhoun
Published: 2018-03-14T22:00:00+00:00

15.NOT LIKE ME

“HIS BLOOD WAS blue,” I stated emphatically. “Blue!”

In fact, the blue-blooded man in question wasn’t there anymore; Alden had loaded him into the transport and driven off toward Liberty where they could get the medical help he needed, leaving the rest of us at the Farm to wait for Alden’s return. We were taking shelter from the ongoing storm inside the central two-story building.

In a large but rustic room just inside the main door, Danny and Kai stood to my left. Nile and José stood in front of me. The latter pair looked perplexed, but I could tell that their discomfort had nothing to do with the fact that their companion’s vital fluid was the color of blueberry juice and everything to do with how to explain it to me.

I let that sink in. They weren’t surprised that Carter had blue blood. Which meant they had known he had blue blood. I looked at José and thought about how close the big Libertarian had always been to Carter. They were inseparable. Peas in a pod. Thick as thieves. José has blue blood, too, I realized. They probably all did.

“You’re aliens!”

José and Nile both raised their eyebrows, which would have looked comical in other circumstances. I sensed panic rising up in my chest, and my knees started to feel wobbly. I was surrounded by aliens!

A second epiphany abruptly wrapped its arms around my brain and put it in a choke-hold.

“No, wait! You’re not an alien,” I told Nile, whose eyebrows continued to arch upward. Then I pointed my finger at José. “You’re an alien. That’s why you can’t go into the Theia. The ship won’t let aliens in. It’s got some sort of bio-scanner. Red-blooded humans, yes; blue-blooded aliens, no.”

It was all coming to me now. Nile and the other Farmers were slaves, unwillingly doing the bidding of their alien overlords. That’s why they lived out here on the Farm. It wasn’t just a separation of upper and lower classes; it was a separation of species.

The third epiphany tap-danced into my skull and presented itself with a grandiose ta-da!

“Oh my God. It’s your ship! The Theia is your ship. You locked yourself out of your own ship, and now you need Kai to unlock it for you. You’ve been stranded here with no way to get home and no way to get back in the Theia.”

“That’s stupid,” Danny said. “Why would they be locked out of their own ship?” She looked at me condescendingly.

I considered her point and admitted to myself that it was possible that I was being irrational. My heart was pounding in my chest and my breath was faster than it should have been. My fingertips were quivering, too. I was a shaky mess. It occurred to me that I had been a lot more composed just a short time ago when I was chasing down a weoparine with a gun than I was right now. I chalked that up to the adrenaline of the moment. I had read about that.

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