No, wait, nothing’s wrong, this is just the standard operating procedure. There’s not a thing wrong, now stop bothering the crew and let us work, damn it.
I want to be clear about something: We knew most of this was crap and nonsense. But what was underneath all the crap and nonsense was just as important: Confusion and unease had spread through the crew of the Magellan, and from them, to us. It moved fast. It told any number of lies—not to lie but to try to make sense of something. Something that happened. Something that shouldn’t have happened.
Through all of this, nothing from Mom or Dad, or Gretchen’s dad, or any of the colony council, all the members of which had suddenly found themselves called into a meeting.
The common room, previously deserted after the new world celebrations, began to fill up again. This time people weren’t celebrating. They looked confused, and concerned and tense, and some of them were beginning to look angry.
“This isn’t going to turn out well,” Gretchen said to me when we reunited.
“How are you doing?” I said.
She shrugged. “Something’s happening, that’s for sure. Everyone’s on edge. It’s putting me on edge.”
“Don’t go crazy on me,” I said. “Then there won’t be anyone to hold me back when I lose it.”
“Oh, well, for your sake then,” Gretchen said, and rolled her eyes dramatically. “Well. At least now I’m not having to fight off Magdy.”
“I like how you can see the bright side of any situation,” I said.
“Thanks,” she said. “How are you?”
“Honestly?” I asked. She nodded. “Scared as hell.”
“Thank God,” she said. “It’s not only me.” She held up her thumb and finger and marked the tiny space between them. “For the last half hour I’ve been this close to peeing myself.”
I took a step back. Gretchen laughed.
The ship’s intercom kicked on. “This is Captain Zane,” a man’s voice said. “This is a general message for passengers and crew. All crew will assemble in their respective department conference rooms in ten minutes, 2330 ship time. All passengers will assemble in the passenger common area in ten minutes, 2330 ship time. Passengers, this is a mandatory assembly. You will be addressed by your colony leaders.” The intercom went dead.
“Come on,” I said to Gretchen, and pointed to the platform where, earlier in the evening, she and I counted down the seconds until we were at our new world. “We should get a good place.”
“It’s going to get crowded in here,” she said.
I pointed to Hickory and Dickory. “They’ll be with us. You know how everyone gives them all the space they want.” Gretchen looked up at the two of them, and I realized that she wasn’t terribly fond of them either.
Minutes later the council came streaming in from one of the common area side doors and made their way to the platform. Gretchen and I stood in the front, Hickory and Dickory behind us, and at least five feet on every side. Alien bodyguards create their own buffer zone.
A whisper in my ear. “Hey,” Enzo said.
I looked over to him and smiled. “I wondered if you were going to be here,” I said.
“It’s an all-colonist meeting,” he said.
“Not here, in general,” I said. “Here.”
“Oh,” Enzo said. “I took a chance that your bodyguards wouldn’t stab me.”
“I’m glad you did,” I said. I took his hand.
On the platform, John Perry, the colony leader, my dad, came forward and picked up the microphone that still lay there from earlier in the evening. His eyes met mine as he reached down to pick it up.
Here’s the thing to know about my dad. He’s smart, he’s good at what he does, and almost all the time, his eyes look like he’s about to start laughing. He finds most things funny. He makes most things funny.
When he looked at me as he picked up the microphone, his eyes were dark, and heavy, and as serious as I had ever seen them. When I saw them I was reminded, no matter how young he looked, how old he really was. For as much as he could make light of things, he was a man who had seen trouble more than once in his life.
And he was seeing it again. Now, with us. For all of us.
Everyone else would know it as soon as he opened his mouth to tell them, but right then was when I knew—when I saw the truth of our situation.
We were lost.
PART I
ONE
The flying saucer landed on our front yard and a little green man got out of it.
It was the flying saucer that got my attention. Green men aren’t actually unheard of where I come from. All the Colonial Defense Forces were green; it’s part of the genetic engineering they do on them to help them fight better. Chlorophyll in the skin gives them the extra energy they need for truly first-class alien stomping.