Children of Exile (25 page)

If she expected me to clap gleefully and shout,
Hurray!
That's so cool!
like I would have when I was little, she didn't know anything about me.

“But how . . . ?” I said. “Why . . . ?”

“We made you think it was just a plane ride back to your parents, because that was more appropriate for the humans you were rejoining,” she said. “But really there were wormholes, quantum travel, illusions. We Freds have technology that would have allowed us to zap you back here in no time flat, but the intergalactic court ruled that you needed more of a transition than that. More of a sense of distance.”

So that we didn't think we could just run away, back to Fredtown?
I wondered.

“Fredtown
is
on a planet in another galaxy,” Mrs. Osemwe continued. “We couldn't take you back there now without letting you see that.”

“Another galaxy,” Cana repeated numbly. “Another planet.”

“Ooh,” Bobo said. “You're another space person. Like the beetle man. Do you have a beetle face too? Can I see it?”

Mrs. Osemwe hesitated.

“My true face isn't a beetle's,” she said. “We Freds are a different species from the Enforcers. From a different planet. A different part of the universe. With entirely different outlooks and goals.”

But she touched her chin and her human face parted,
revealing soft mint-green fur below. It was hard to make out eyes and a nose and a mouth, exactly—was it possible that Mrs. Osemwe had
three
noses and
six
eyes? But the gentle kindness that had always shown through her human features was just as clearly written in her alien expression.

“Cool,” Bobo said. “That's the kind of face I'd want, if I had a second one.”

“Why didn't you let us see that from the start in Fredtown?” I asked. “We wouldn't have been afraid. You taught us never to be afraid of anyone based on appearances. You taught us not even to care about appearances. But
you
cared. You cared enough to hide your real faces from all of us.”

“You needed
human
role models to help you grow up properly,” Mrs. Osemwe said. She touched her chin again, and her familiar human face reappeared. “Or at least the illusion of those role models. All our studies—all our past interactions with other violent species—showed that you needed to think there were peaceable adults of your own kind for you to emulate.”

“So why didn't you just send us somewhere else on Earth?” I asked. I cast my eyes toward Bobo and Cana, but I
had
to ask the rest of my question. Even if they heard it. “Why didn't you send us somewhere on Earth where no one had ever killed anyone over what kind of eyes they had?”

“Because in other places on Earth, people were fighting
too,” Mrs. Osemwe said bitterly, in a tone that was entirely wrong, coming from her gentle face. “They were fighting over skin color or shoes or land or oil or olive trees or church buildings. Don't you understand? When we took away the children of your hometown to raise you in a peaceful fashion, we took away all the other human babies too. For twelve years, we took away every infant born on Earth.”

I don't know
what Cana and Bobo understood of Mrs. Osemwe's words, but I couldn't seem to fit them into my brain.

“Then—there isn't anywhere safe for us to go on Earth?” I asked. “Anywhere where people will treat us like . . .”

Like worthy human beings,
I almost said. When I guess what I really meant was,
Like Freds.

“There are
safer
places,” Mrs. Osemwe said sadly. “But nowhere fully safe. That's why you have to come back to Fredtown.”

Why did I pick that moment to be like Edwy—to hate being told what to do? Why, when she was saying I had to do what I'd wanted all along?

Mrs. Osemwe must have misinterpreted the confusion in my eyes, because she added, “Fredtown number one, I mean. There are actually thousands of Fredtowns we created on one of our surplus planets, all corresponding to an actual town or city here on Earth.”

It took me a moment to absorb that. The place I was homesick for—my longed-for Fredtown—wasn't even unique. It was just one of thousands of copies.

“So you took us away and then the Enforcers brought us back and now you and the other Freds . . . you
renegotiated
with all the human parents on Earth,” Cana said, pronouncing each syllable of
renegotiated
with more precision than most five-year-olds could handle. Most five-year-olds wouldn't have even known what the word meant. “You got them to let all of us kids go back to our own Fredtown, where we'll be safe.”

“No,” Mrs. Osemwe said, and even she sounded a little impatient. “We can only take the three of you back. We have to abide by the rules of the intergalactic court.”

“You mean, you're afraid of the Enforcers, too,” I said, disheartened. “They have control over you just like they do over this town.”

“No,”
Mrs. Osemwe said. Her expression was the closest thing to a scowl that I'd ever seen on any Fred's face. “Under intergalactic rules, no mature civilization has control over any other. We coexist peacefully, although . . .” She shook her head, as if trying to dislodge an unpleasant thought. “All mature, thinking civilizations are represented in the intergalactic court. But let's just say that some species have vastly different opinions about how to deal with immature
civilizations that are still mired in violence even as they inch their way out into space, endangering others. . . .”

Like humans,
I thought.

It hurt to hear my own species called “immature” and “mired in violence.” But wasn't that what I'd seen in my own hometown? Hadn't I myself reacted to violence with more violence?

Did the rest of the universe see human violence as a virus that threatened to infect everyone?

“Enforcers are violent, too,” I said defensively. “Enforcers are even worse than humans. Aren't they? Why aren't they punished and sent away?”

I sounded like a little kid tattling, telling the teacher,
Maybe I cheated a little bit, but not as bad as Edwy! He copied down every answer! Punish him, not me!

Mrs. Osemwe sighed.

“We Freds and the Enforcers stand at opposite ends of . . . mature, civilized thought,” she murmured, glancing quickly at Bobo and Cana, then back at me. “The Enforcers think containment is the only way to deal with an immature, violent species. They think you answer force with greater force, to keep violent societies from spilling over into the rest of the universe.”

“But how are they allowed to—”
Act like it's fun to shoot people,
I wanted to say.
Call it hunting rabbits. Treat us like we're not even human.

It was impossible to say any of that to Mrs. Osemwe's kind, caring face. It was too shameful.

“The Enforcers maintain that everything they do is in service to law enforcement,” Mrs. Osemwe said in a tightly controlled voice. “They are peaceful in their interactions with other citizens of their own civilizations and, indeed, all mature civilizations.”

I didn't have to be Edwy to feel that Mrs. Osemwe was hiding something.

Maybe that she doesn't like the Enforcers, either?
I thought.
Maybe she even hates them?

“Shall we focus on what the Freds have tried to do instead?” Mrs. Osemwe said, sounding almost like her usual cheerful self again. She even smiled. “We Freds lead long lives. That makes us patient. Patient enough to look for good, even in dangerous species. You humans have so much potential, and we had the time to help you develop it. We thought if we managed to raise up an entire generation in peace, if we waited until you were adults before we fully revealed your heritage and gave you the choice of whether to return to Earth, then—”

“We aren't adults yet,” Cana said in her whispery little-girl voice. I'd almost forgotten she and Bobo were there. I was too caught up in Mrs. Osemwe's words. “We didn't have a choice, coming here.”

Mrs. Osemwe turned her head to the side and peered out into darkness.

“After we got involved, humans stayed peaceful just long enough to win a seat on the intergalactic court as probationary members,” she said, and now her voice ached with pain. “They proved particularly persuasive, casting us Freds as the villains. As child-snatchers. Even though we sent food and other supplies to all the adults left behind on Earth, even though we were doing nothing to physically harm anyone . . .”

But you took away their children,
I thought. And it was like I was hearing my real parents' voices in my head. My real mother and father could never see the Freds as anything but kidnappers. That was why they despised them so much. That was why they'd hated me talking and acting like a Fred, even as I ached to be back with the Freds. Even as they themselves were trapped in a place where violence still simmered below the surface.

Where just having us kids come home was enough to make it boil over.

“But now you can take us back to Fredtown?” I asked, and I hated how my voice broke, saying that. “Us, but only us? How could that be?”

“Only because you now count as fugitives,” Mrs. Osemwe said. “Only because of that loophole. And . . . it's an iffy one.
That's why I'm doing this in secret. We have to leave all the other human children right where they are.”

She might as well have added:
Stuck on Earth. In danger.

I thought about Edwy, wherever he was, and how he and I had promised to watch out for each other. I still owed him that. I thought of all the other children who had come from Fredtown only days ago—like Meki, whose real father yelled at her; like Aili, whose father showed little more concern for her than for the red bow in her hair. I thought about my real parents and Cana's mother, and how they were probably risking their lives right now to make sure that Bobo, Cana, and I got away.

“If we go back to Fredtown—
our
Fredtown, I mean—,” I said slowly, “I know we'll be safe. But will we be able to
do
anything? To help anyone left behind on Earth?”

“No,” Mrs. Osemwe said. Was it just my imagination, or did she seem to fade a little into the darkness?

I thought of living in Fredtown with just Freds and Bobo and Cana. In some ways, it wouldn't be that different from hiding in the hollowed-out space under my real parents' living room floor. There'd be nothing to do. Nothing
real.
Nothing that mattered. Nothing that justified someone coming from another planet to save my life. Especially not twice.

“We can't go,” I said. “I can't.”

“What? How can you make that decision?” Mrs. Osemwe asked. “You're in danger.”

“Because this is the decision you and the other Freds taught me to make,” I said. I swallowed hard. “
The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.
Albert Schweitzer. That's a founding principle of Fredtown. That's what you and the other Freds always told me. And that's why I'm staying on Earth, where I can help my friends and family. Somehow. Someday.” I looked down at Cana and at Bobo, who was still sprawled on the ground. It pained me to say what I had to say next. “But maybe, since they're so young, Bobo and Cana should . . .”

“No,” Cana said, shaking her head firmly. “The Freds taught
me
to help, too.
Our prime purpose in this life is to help others.
The Dalai Lama.”

“I don't know all the principles yet, but I'm not leaving Rosi,” Bobo said. “She
needs
me.”

“Can't you help us with what we want to do here?” I asked Mrs. Osemwe.

“No,” she said sadly. “No, no . . .”

And then she was gone.

I didn't feel
like an orphan after all.

That was yet another surprise.

As Mrs. Osemwe's image faded away and Bobo, Cana, and I were left in the darkness again, I expected to feel bereft. Turning down Mrs. Osemwe's offer probably meant I would never see my Fred-parents again. Maybe it meant I would never be safe again.

But I could feel everything my Fred-parents had ever taught me embedded inside me. What I'd witnessed and experienced and learned in my hometown made me see them differently. But they were still a part of me, and always would be. And I still loved my Fred-parents, even if I couldn't go back to them.

Now that I understood my real parents a little better, I could feel their love for me too. I was even thinking of them as “
my
parents,” not “
the
.” I wasn't sure when that had started.
They were confusing people—they had awful secrets. But they belonged to me.

Was it because I understood fighting back now? Was it because I knew the story behind their scars?

Or was it because I finally understood that they had loved me all along, even when I was on another planet? And that they were willing to put their own lives in danger to keep me safe?

“Shouldn't we keep walking?” Cana asked anxiously.

“Yes,” I said. “Come on.”

Bobo sprang up from the ground, and the three of us turned away from our hometown, away from the wasteland where children had been killed. It was awful to still be in this place, to still be in danger. To still be on a planet where all children—and maybe even all people—were in danger. But it would have been worse to leave it without even trying to help. And, stepping forward, we were at least entering new territory, places I hadn't seen the night before with Edwy. In the moonlight, I could just barely make out the contour of a mountain ahead of us.