CHAPTER THREE
Anthony left the room feeling bewildered. He had the distinct sensation that a lot of information was being witheld, but he couldn't pinpoint why he felt that way. He ate a healthy, liesurely lunch in the cafeteria and took the train over to the shuttle with time to spare.
Strapping into his seat and adjusting his headgear, Fred Jackson looked over at him. "You ready for this mission?"
"It'll be like any other, I suppose."
He gave him a sideways glance. "Have you ever seen a Novacadian?"
Anthony scratched his head. "No."
Jackson smiled. "They're just like old-timey versions of aliens who used to abduct people and make crop circles, only more human, with hair and teeth."
Anthony sat back in his seat. "So why don't they talk?"
Jackson snickered. "Maybe E.S.P. Maybe they're so intellectually superior that they can levitate objects with their minds. Maybe they can even travel to other worlds with their minds, you know? Hey, who knows, maybe it was them back then that people saw. It's possible, don't you think?"
Anthony shook his head and closed his eyes. "Don't get carried away. I'm sure these people are highly unimpressive."
Time came for launch, and as the craft was lifting off into space, the engines sounded like a thousand jets screaming in the afternoon air. The crew members remained seated until they were well out of the solar system, rapidly on a course for Novacadia.
Anthony had never seen this planet before. When the top hatch of the shuttle opened up, they were immediately greeted by a warm, misty air that quickly permeated the inside of the vessel. It smelled vaguely like moss and damp sage, only different, more rich.
He unbuckled himself and peered outside. The massive forest was miles away, but as visible as though it were a mountain range, considering the monumental size of the trees. In other directions, the landscape was flat and rocky. The soil was dry and cracked, resembling in some spots moist sand. The sky was pink with stripes of purple in which handfuls of stars were visible, and low-hovering, wispy clouds streaked the air overhead.
The air, similar in composition to that of Earth, was as pure as that of their 19th century, untouched by man-made pollution that had accumulated in the 20th and 21st centuries. Anthony felt invigorated as he took a deep breath, feeling for the first time in his life the sensation of breathing air with little resistance from his lungs.
His peers, one by one, came out to join him. "Home sweet home," one of them commented.
It was truly a beautiful sight. Not even a single building was around to taint the magnificent landscape. "Well, what do you think?" Andrews said, holding his helmet under his arm.
"I think it's spectacular," Anthony breathed.
"Wait till you see the aliens," he commented. "They're like nothing you've ever seen before."
They went back into the ship, gathered together their belongings, and went over their itinerary. Consulting a map, they determined that the village towards which they should be headed was due East.
They ate breakfast, washed up for the day and loaded the land vehicles with their baggage. The small vehicles held two people each, and Anthony paired up with Tony Peterson. With wind whipping in their faces, they scaled the flat, plantless ground in blinding speeds towards the village.
While they were on their way, Anthony realized that he felt almost weightless here. He expressed his curiosity to his fellow officer, who answered, "It's a smaller planet. The gravitational pull is less, similar to what you'd experience if you were walking on the moon."
He was well-studied about this new frontier in space-travel history, but he was fascinated with every new discovery and sight besides. A second sun was dipping behind the jagged horizon of the tall trees in the distance, and Anthony took this in with awe and appreciation.
Two hours later, still on even ground, they reached the campsight on the outskirts of the village the IAST had ironically christened "Communion."
Orange tents and huge, black vehicle rose up unnaturally against a peaceful background of swaying ferns and patches of barren soil. Dozens of groups of male and female astronauts hovered around the campsight wielding soldiers' uniforms and rifles slung over their shoulders.
The newcomers slowed their vehicles as they approached the massive campsight. Dust spewed out from underneath the tires, creating billowing clouds as they skidded to a halt before the manned entrance to the camp.
Anthony said over his shoulder in surprise, "They're armed. Why is that necessary?"
"Don't you remember what the general told us?" his partner answered. "Perhaps these Novacadians have been giving them more trouble than we had thought."
They stepped out of the vehicles, approached the two armed men at the entrance and identified themselves.
"We've been expecting you," they said. "We need all the help we can get over here. Come inside."
The men were led inside an orange tent, where a man in fatigues was sitting at a desk scrawling some notes. As they entered, he rose and asked them to sit down.
"I trust you've all made it safely here after a long journey from Earth."
"All and all in one piece," Smyth said.
"Are you enjoying the air here? There's nothing more pure on Earth except what you can get from machines," he said.
"When do we start?" Anthony asked.
The man in fatigues finally took a seat. "Tomorrow morning," he said seriously. "We're in over our heads as it is, and the sooner you all can start, the better it will be for the situation."
The man, General Garrison, looked severe and unforgiving. Frown lines on his forehead looked like trenches that had been dug into his skin. This man seemed as secretive and hesitant to disclose information about their mission as General Redding had been, and therefore alarms went off in Anthony's mind.
"What is it you want us to do, exactly?"
The general snapped shut the fountain pen he was holding in his hands. "When one of my men shows you the village, everything will be explained to you."
"Why all the weapons? Are the Novacadians dangerous?" Anthony asked. "It seems that we've been getting mixed messages: they're peaceful, but they've been causing trouble."
He nodded his head. "It's something we still haven't gotten to the bottom of. What's for certain is that we need to have the necessary arms ready in case resistance does break out."
"General Redding informed us of some strange happenings. Is it true that some of your men have disappeared, and that you believe that the Novacadians are to blame?"
He stare straight into Anthony's eyes. "We don't just believe that they are to blame, sir, we know it." He shifted his gaze to the door to the tent, which was flapping in the wind. "Of, course, how they did it we don't know. All that we know is that they are responsible."
They were taken during the night into Communion. At first sight, it was not spectacular. Hundreds of thatched huts sat on top of the cracked soil, huddled together in groups of eight or more. Most of them were lit from within, and to Anthony, it looked like a primal village of Earth days gone past.
As they rode into town on the back of a heavy tank, the first thing they noticed was that no one was outside. "Where are all the people?"
"Due to precautions, they're all confined to their houses at night, barred by force fields."
"And during the day?"
"We attempt to communicate with them."
Anthony did not ask what methods they were using to try and communicate with them. But he soon found out: as day broke out after a short night, he caught his first glimpse of one of the Novacadians.
Stepping out of one of the huts uncertainly, there appeared a pale, gangly creature with whitish, stringy hair and loose clothing. It was barefoot and bare-legged, with huge, expressive eyes and a sad expression. As Anthony watched, an astronaut with a rifle hung over his shoulder came and forcibly pulled the alien out of its house and onto the pavement of the road. With the butt of his gun, he coerced the alien onto his truck where he was then tied up in chains.
This was not what Anthony had imagined when he was first informed of the mission. The violence with which aliens were randomly being taken out of their houses, away from their families, and driven away was beyond what Anthony considered humane.
"Where are they taking them? What are they going to do to them?"
"You'll see. We're taking them to camp. There we're going to continue our experiments."
"It's savage," Anthony commented.
"Exactly the opposite," the officer argued. "It's for the good of our planet. If we ever want to colonize Novacadia, which becomes ever-increasingly more apparent that we need to do, then we need to dispose of any threats to that goal. And Novacadians are a threat."
Anthony wondered how these creatures, who looked so frail and so peaceful and unassuming, could be a threat.
"What type of experiments do you perform?"
"You'll see. It has mostly to do with their communication chips."
"Do they all have them?" Anthony felt a shiver run down his spine.
"All of them."