Red Moon Rising (2 page)

“Now!” I shout to Temple. “Now! Now!” I'm patting Heetle's neck with one hand, and realize I'm gripping on to her saddle with the other. As if I could pull her to safety with my matchstick arms.

Temple saws away at the rope as the boulder slips farther over the edge. Heetle loses a bit of footing in her hind legs now, slips a foot or so, and lets out a fuss. My heart hammers through my body like a quake.

“What is taking so gum long?” I shout at Temple. I see her sweating back there, sawing through the rope.

“Rope is stronger than you thought, rockhead,” Temple shouts back.

Heetle's feet slip some more, kicking up a cloud of dirt and dust that the wind grips and turns into devil spirals that spin off across the field just like the spiders. Heetle, she looks at me—I swear she does—with eyes that say,
Lookit what you done now, Rae,
as her back legs slip closer and closer to the edge.

But then Temple lets out a whoop, the severed rope springs back and whips me across the face, and the loosed boulder crashes into the gorge below.

Heetle takes off at a gallop to go stand under the awning
and shoot me looks of rage, while Temple saunters over, twirling her knife.

“That was exciting, eh?” She grins and flips the knife shut before dropping it back into her pocket.

“Too exciting,” I say, reaching up and touching the red welt growing on my cheek. It's as if Heetle herself slapped me good. And deservedly so. “Can you imagine explaining to Papa how we accidentally dropped Heetle over the edge of the gorge?”

Temple's eyes go wide and then we both start laughing. The idea is so terrifying and absurd—and close to the truth—that it's either laugh or cry, I suppose.

We sit in the scrub for a minute, taking sips from our canteens and not saying a word.

“You wanna hear a story, Temp?” I ask, holding my hand out to help her stand. Temple nods and pulls her hat lower over her eyes to protect from the suns that are out full force now. “It's the story about how the Cheese got their name,” I say.

Temple smiles, sweaty dirt and grime lining her face like an old lady's. I know she loves this one.

3

“THE SHIP CAN'T MAINTAIN ALTITUDE!
Everything is failing!” I run around the field and flail my arms over my head. Temple laughs. “We're dooooomed!” I cry. “Dooooomed!”

“But why are we doomed?” Temple asks, playing along. We've acted out this part of the story dozens of times. Rory used to tromp behind us and chant “Dooooomed, dooooomed, doooooomed” in a low voice. She'd have us rolling in the dust, we were laughing so hard.

“Those gum fools on Old Earth couldn't program a horse to water!” I shout. “They've mucked us up but good!”

“Whatever shall we dooooo?” Temple says in her fake cry that almost sounds like she's singing. Together we push a boulder into the gorge and wait for one beat, two beats,
three beats, and then watch it hit the blackened skeleton of the rear of the
Origin
.

“We shall pray to the gods,” I answer, marching to the next big rock. “We shall pray that all five thousand of us and our animals won't be smashed to bits or eaten by monsters or lost completely when this infernal machine plummets to the red moon below.”

“Red moooooon?” Temple singsongs, holding her hand to her forehead just like she did earlier when she was pretending to be me fainting. “But that doesn't sound like the glorious New Earth we were promised in the newsgrams of the Star Farmers Act!” We shove the next boulder into the gorge and then heave some smaller rocks in after it.

“You speak the truth, crusty-nosed maiden!” I say. Temple punches me in the arm and then wipes her nose with the back of her glove. “We have veered terribly off course and kept it a secret from everyone.”

She pretends to beat me with the rock in her hand and I pretend to cower in the dust.

“Do me no harm, ugly child!” I shout. “I am your captain! I have sailed you hundreds of light-years into the blackest of space. I have fought star pirates and space narwhals to keep you safe!”

At this, Temple breaks character and doubles over laughing. “Star pirates? Space narwhals? What is a
narwhal
?”

“Pay you no mind!” I say in my deep captain's voice, sweeping my arm out in front of me, thinking of how
much Rory would have loved to tell a story about space pirates.

Rae. Don't. Stop thinking about Rory.

“Do not continue beating me with your loathsome, weak hands,” I continue, trying to shake the thoughts of Rory from my head. Trying to ignore the shine tree across the gorge.

Temple throws a small rock at me and it bounces off my handbow holster. “Watch it,” I say. This time, I'm the one breaking character. “If you break my handbow Papa will whip us both.” Temple winces.

“What shall we doooo, Captain?” she says, returning to our story. “Surely we will all diiiiieeee!” We heave another stone into the gorge. It bounces off the growing pile of rocks below.

“Watch over us, gods!” I shout. “The time is nigh!”

This is the part in the story when we run around like lunatics, screaming into the wind and whipping our heads and arms around as we reenact the historic crash of the
Origin
, thirty summers ago, into the smallest moon of KL-5, third planet in the Kepler galaxy.

KL-5 . . . unreachable even as it looms overhead. We call it Red Crescent because of how it hangs in the sky. We call our moon nothing. It was too insignificant to warrant a name when it was discovered. And even though we have inhabited this dusty rock for thirty summers it still remains nameless. I do not know why. Maybe because there is still a shred of hope we might leave it someday. There are people
on the Red Crescent. Not humans, but . . . not Cheese. Reenacting their battles with the
Origin
homesteaders is another favorite game of ours.

I always wonder if they will come back, but Papa is sure they will not. “Not after having a taste of our mighty strength,” he says, and it makes me think—don't we
want
them to come back? Wasn't the entire reason for the
Origin
's journey to obtain lands on the Red Crescent? What do we gain by having scared them away? It perplexes me.

By this time, Boone has wandered over from the far side of the field where he was working. He must think we are both suffering from heat madness. He quickly figures out what we're doing, though, and takes a seat on a large rock, pulling his hat low over his eyes, but tilting his head back so he can watch and laugh. He aims his good ear at us.

Temple and I both collapse on the scrub to catch our breath. The suns are really beating down now. I wish I had my hat.

“Hallelujah!” I shout, after I've rested a moment. I sit up. “I did not get burned alive or eaten by monsters after that dreadful crash!”

“Nor did I!” Temple says, sitting and shaking scrub from her hair.

“It appears many of our shipmates have been killed, though,” I say. “Woe is me. Also, I think some of them have been eaten. But by what?”

Temple's hand flies to her mouth and she points to the sky. I know this is part of the story, but my heart always
jumps when she points. I lift my head and pretend to see a dactyl for the first time.

“Oh, gods! What is this beast? Why does it shimmer pink in the sky? Why must it clack its huge jaws in our direction?!”

“We are breakfast, I fear, Captain! Biscuits for the beast!”

Boone laughs at this and Temple shoots him a grin.

“Come then!” I say, remembering that we're supposed to be clearing the field and not just playing. I throw several more rocks into the gorge and Temple follows suit. Boone stays reclined on his rock until we shove him off and then push his boulder over the edge. “We must run away from this beast!” I continue. “Gather the survivors before we are all of us gobbled up!”

Temple grabs Boone's arm and pulls him up and we all run around in circles for a moment before I shout, “Here is where we shall hide! This cave carved in the walls of the deep gash we have crashed into.”

“This cave does not seem saaaaafe!” Temple wails.

“Perhaps you would rather be eaten by a flying monster?” I say, gesturing to the sky. I see Temple break character for just a second as her panicked eyes move to the sky. But then she's right back with me.

“I choose the cave!” Temple says, and Boone claps, making us all laugh. We toss a bunch of small rocks into the gorge and the wind carries the crashes they make as they bash into the pile below.

“I shall turn on the lights on the exterior of my helmet,”
I say. “So that we can see inside this mysterious cave.”

“I forgot they were wearing space suits,” Temple giggles. Then she pretends to turn her helmet lights on, too.

“Oh my!” I shout. “Whatever is this I see?” I kneel by a boulder that was scorched by an electric strike during one of the storms last month. “How can this be?”

“What is it?” Temple says in her high-pitched voice. “A message from the gods?”

“It is . . . ,” I say. “It is . . . a drawing of cheese!” I use a small rock to carve a crude drawing in the charred place. “Perhaps a tube of clotted cheese?”

Boone and Temple both bust out laughing. I've altered the story from the usual and I can't help but laugh, too. The story we usually act out—the story told to us by Papa and Aunt Billie that their parents told them—is that the captain and the few survivors saw pictographs in the cave that matched the basic shape of the dactyls that had chased them there. They saw drawings of humanoid figures, too. Then everyone heard a vibrating whistle and a red-moon native said something that sounded like “Chee-hoot.” Before anyone could react, he snatched a man right from the opening of the cave and fed him straight to a dactyl that had landed beside the native. From then on, the natives were called Cheese.

Not as funny as my story.

“This drawing of cheese is remarkable!” Temple says, still playing. “The tube looks so realistic.” I laugh because my drawing is pretty much the worst thing ever.

“Cheese,” Boone says.

“I looooove to squoosh it on biscuits,” Temple says, patting the drawing on the rock.

“No,” Boone says, pulling on his gogs. The right lens is still smashed from over a moon ago when Raj trampled it during one of our races. “Cheese.” He's standing still, staring out over the gorge.

I drop the rock I've been drawing with and snap my gogs over my eyes. Sure enough, there's a Cheese standing across the gorge from us. He's alone, with no dactyl, no obvious weapons. Strange.

“Rae.” Temple has her gogs on, too. She grabs my hand.

The Cheese is smaller than the warrior from the other night, thin but muscled. I would guess he is not much older than we are. He's standing by the shine tree, but not too close to it. Smart Cheese. I flick at the side of my gogs and zoom in. He's just standing there, with the dusky brownish-red ropes of his hair whipping in the wind. And he's wearing what? Only underpants? It looks like they're made of dactyl skin. I've only ever seen the Cheese painted and shining, ready for raiding. He looks small and not so fierce, with a pack slung over his shoulder and no sparkling swirls on his skin. He is staring at us.

There's a familiar sizzle that sounds through the air and I turn, seeing Papa's flare become a brief third sun. It's time for studies.

“Come on,” I say, still holding Temple's hand. Boone
runs to his side of the field and mounts Raj. I push Temple onto Heetle and climb on. Boone waits for us at the rise to the schoolhouse and we gallop in. Today, it's not a race. Today, we stay together.

4

“OH, DEAR GODS,” PAPA SAYS
when he sees me. He does not say it in a funny way or a tired way. He says it in a drop-down-on-his-knees-and-pray-about-it-right-gum-now way. “Ramona Darling, what have you done?” He whispers that part.

I find it hard to meet his eyes. He does not understand what it is to be a girl-child on this moon. To know you are hunted.

Papa takes a step closer to me and I shrink back. He will whip me for sure. The gods say not to hit a girl-child—unless you are her father and you are teaching her deference to the gods. I would rather not experience this particular lesson in front of Boone, though. I lift my eyes finally to meet Papa's. They are black as mine,
sparking. He works his jaw, but says nothing else.

“I will be safer this way,” I whisper.

He reaches out and I flinch, but he doesn't hit me. He just pushes hard on my shoulder and I sit on my stool in a burst of skirts.

We are the only ones in the schoolhouse, so there is no one other than Boone to be bothered by this familial scene. And no one to be bothered as we eat our sack lunches during the first part of lessons. Well, no one to be bothered other than Papa, who is grouchy to say the least. He is not just grouchy with me, though. He is unhappy that the other children have not come—again—and now he protests against our eating here at the school table instead of the field. He wants us to “pay full attention!” And “If I can eat while on duty and take time from my work to teach you, you can respect me by not spilling crumbs on the schoolhouse tables!” As if we would waste any crumbs by dropping them.

“There are too many rocks, Papa,” Temple says, between bites of her biscuit. “That storm churned the field up good. There's no time to eat if we are to keep coming to studies
and
clear the whole field before we take the journey to the cooling flats.” Temple is good at being reasonable—and at looking up out of deep-blue eyes and smiling in a way that seems to work only on Papa.

Papa grunts, but says nothing. We decided on the ride over not to tell him or Aunt Billie, or Boone's mama, about the lone Cheese or the shine tree. There's nothing any of us
can do about either one of those things, except worry and invent stories. And I don't like to worry Aunt Billie and Papa more than necessary. At least on purpose.

Papa sighs deeply and sweeps his long arms across the table, collecting our chalk and slates. He abruptly stands, pulling his satchel out from under his chair and slinging it over his shoulder.

“We're going to Old Settlement today. For just a little while. I have to make sure the scholars are obeying the laws. I thought . . . after everything”—and here he stares at me, hard—“you would all benefit from meeting an . . . acquaintance . . . of mine.”

“Old Settlement?” I say, my heart thrumming instantly. “Right now? Does Aunt Billie know you're doing this? Maybe we should find a handbow for Temple—” Papa holds up his hush-your-gum-mouth pinched fingers. I can't help it, though. Old Settlement!

I lean over and whisper “Old Settlement!” to Temple and she shares an eye roll with Boone. I don't know why they're not more excited.

Abandoned ancient homesteads from before the
Origin
crashed!

Mysterious buildings that belonged to people who were not the Cheese!

Drawings and carvings that can't be translated!

This is everything the scholars have studied since before I was born. Maybe keys to the mystery of getting off this godsforsaken rock. Everything I've always wanted to see.

“What changed your mind?” I blurt out. “About taking us to Old Settlement? I thought it was off-limits for anyone who is not a scholar—or the Sheriff Reverend.”

Papa rubs his beard, then puts on his sheriff's hat. “Stop asking questions, Rae. Don't ruin it.”

I bite my bottom lip and shove my hands into the pockets of my apron. I grip the armless statue next to my knife. Maybe there will be old wires or twine at Old Settlement that I can scavenge to make new arms. The thought makes me nearly forget Papa's coarseness and smile anew.

“Saddle up Heetle, Rae. Boone, is Raj up for the ride?” Boone sucks in his cheeks, then opens his mouth to speak.

“On second thought,” Papa says after seeing Boone's hesitation, “Rae, I want you to remove Heetle's armor and have Boone help you put it on Raj. Then saddle them both up.”

“What?! But . . . ,” I say. “I mean no disrespect to Boone”—and here I toss him a feeble glance that's supposed to be a smile—“but Heetle needs her armor. She's still getting used to it, and if she's not accustomed to it before high summer, well—”

Papa holds up his fingers again. I really hate it when he does that. “Do as I say, Rae. Or we won't be going anywhere.”

I bite my bottom lip again and wonder why Papa hates me so much. Then I stomp out to the side of the house, with Boone and Temple right behind me.

I flip the latches under Heetle's belly and up under her throat. I unsnap the casing around her full snout and
remove the shades from her eyes. Temple is cooing to her and letting her snuffle her hands while I yank and tug and grumble.

Boone is silent, taking the lightweight pieces of polymer as I hand them to him. Soon he has a stack on his arms nearly up to his gum eyeballs.

Heetle whinnies and stamps her feet in a little dance and I shake my head, trying to stay mad and not smile. “I know, girl, you think you're free of that mess. But you're not. Just for this afternoon.” I shoot Boone a look so he knows what I said is true—just for this afternoon. He sees my look and then stares at his dusty boots. They're so worn that his mama has patched them in places with canvas. Then it hits me. Oh, Rae, you're such a rockhead. Of course Raj needs the armor for our trip today. He's nearly as old as Boone's boots—in horse years. And you can't patch a horse with canvas when he gets worn out.

I throw Heetle's saddle onto her back and situate the bridle while Boone and Temple work on getting the armor snapped and strapped to Raj. Raj doesn't seem too happy about it, but once he's running across the open plains, I know the old beast will think differently. I walk over to make sure the armor is secure. It's loose in some places but there's nothing to do about that. Raj is all skin and bones compared with Heetle. There's only so much adjustment the armor plating can take. If he were to wear it all the time I could probably scrounge some metal and wire and fashion up a few new buckles, but he won't be. This is
Heetle's armor. Maybe someday Raj will get his own.

“Clamp on tight with your knees,” I say to Boone. “We don't need you sliding off in the middle of the gum plains.”

“I'm not a rockhead, Rae,” Boone says, his nose twitching up in the briefest of snarls.

I don't say anything, I just hop onto Heetle and pull Temple up with me. A black mood is settling between my eyes and the fact that it's happening on a day when I am about to see Old Settlement makes me feel even blacker.

“Hyah!” I yell, giving Heetle a squeeze, and she bursts out and away from the schoolhouse in a cloud of red dust.

“You best slow her down!” Papa yells after me. He's riding the one-man. It belches its stink into the air, mingling with the dust, and my face crinkles with the gum yuckness of it all. Temple pulls out her handkerchief and ties it around her nose. My handkerchief is in a ball on the floor next to my cot. Blast.

I pull back on the reins and Heetle slows to a trot. Boone and Papa catch up to us, and Papa takes the lead. He lets one hand rest easily on the cage that surrounds the seat, while he steers with the other. It's hard to miss that the hand resting on the cage is the one with his handbow. The plains are common territory for both the homesteaders and the Cheese. We are all supposed to have easy access and safe passage, but that's not how it always works out. It didn't work that way for Aunt Billie's son, Benny, who was taken like Rory.

Benny. The only boy ever taken by the Cheese. A special badge worn by the Darling family. I wonder if Papa told Boone's mama that we were making this trip today. I doubt she'd give permission. But then, it doesn't make sense that he wouldn't ask her first. No one is as straight up and rule-following as Papa. Sheriff Reverend Darling of Origin Township would never in a million years hide anything or lie to anyone. Of course she must know.

Heetle snorts against the stink of the one-man and I steer to the side a bit, hoping to miss the biggest of the belching white clouds coming from the pipe in the back. Boone trots Raj over to the other side and I see that the armor is already turning a very light blue. I feel bad that I was angry about sharing it. Papa was right. Today, Raj obviously needs the armor more than Heetle does. It's good to see it working, cooling him off. A true test for the summer. A true test for
Heetle's
summer. I don't know how Raj will survive.

Papa slows the one-man as we ride over a small rise that then dips into a valley.

And there it is. Old Settlement. It's laid out just as Papa has always described, just as I've seen it when I close my eyes. Homesteads taller than three of our cabins stacked on top of one another—made from something Papa calls “brick.” It's an ancient building device we've not had the luxury to use. Papa says it takes too much water and we cannot spare it. The buildings look like they've been made
from dust and dirt, as if magically conjured. It's hard to believe it takes water to do this.

There are shorter buildings. And a long one. There are not just whole buildings, but what I think must be ruins, too, and a tall structure that is beyond anything I could have imagined, with stairs and pillars and a frozen clockface set in a triangle holding up what's left of the roof. It's all so fascinating . . . and beautiful. I know Rory would laugh if she could see me, openmouthed, staring at broken-down buildings like they were flowers or sweet cakes, but I can't help it.

“I think your brain is smiling,” she'd say, punching my arm. And I'd grab her hand and hold it behind her back while I tickled her neck until she screamed for mercy.

Oh, Rory.

Don't think about Rory.

The buildings are on the right and left of us, but none are in the center. This, I know, was called a road.

In the middle of the road stands a Cheese.

His hands are on his head, his scaled face is painted in the silver and gold swirls I've come to fear. The fat ropes of his hair are tied up on the top of his head to look like a horse's tail. A similar fat rope lies coiled in a box on the mantel above the cooling grate back at the homestead, taken from a Cheese that Papa killed many, many summers ago. It's a talisman now, proof that humans can best even the strongest warriors. Temple and I are not allowed to touch it.

A dactyl flaps its large and scaly wings, but stands other­wise still next to him, two heads taller at least. It snaps its jaws into the wind and looks like it's smiling greedily at us.

Papa slows down the one-man so we can catch up.

“Do not move from this spot,” he says in a low voice. “I will come back to fetch you.” Then he speeds up the one-man and heads straight for that gum Cheese. Temple turns to look at me with wide eyes, and Boone walks Raj over. Where is the acquaintance Papa wants us to meet? Has the Cheese done something with him? Papa should not approach the enemy on his own—that violates several of the rules he repeats to us every day.

Without a word, Boone and I slip on our handbows and follow slowly behind Papa. Temple squeezes her arms around my waist. We are his deputies today, whether Papa likes it or not.