Everything else is still here - the pottery wheel, the kiln, the food storage. There are no people here, but it looks like there’s been someone here recently. As in, within the last three or four days.
There are new things, too. There’s a strange cage without a roof, there’s a hut that appears to be for smoking meat, and the grass has been flattened all over the clearing, as if there’s been lots of people here, or a few very active ones.
I scratch my head. “I don’t know what this means. It looks different from when I was here. Oh…”
One of the trees has something tied to it at eye height. It looks like a roll of thin leather.
Going closer, I can make out letters scribbled on the outside of it: CALLIE
I slide the roll out from the loop of string it hangs from and unroll it.
Dear Callie.
I really hope you’re reading this. I’m worried sick about you! How dare you get kidnapped and not tell me where you’re going. At least, we think that’s what happened. We saw the tracks.
Anyway, I got the saucer working again. It flies, but we’re not sure if it will take us to Earth. That has become less importantfor some of us, by which I mean me. Because: I’m married. To Kenz’ox, a tribesman who’s really great, and he hasOkay I’m running out of space.
I will be back here as soon as I can. We’re going to Cora’s tribe now, but we won’t stay there long. We’re back and forth a lot, now that we have a private jet.
If you stay right there, we will soon meet.
Theodora
PS: We found Dex, and he can fly again. There’s something weird about him, but what else is new
I read the message a couple of times, then convey the main ideas to Crat'ax.
“Then we can wait here for a while,” he says as he comes up from behind me. “I wonder how we will pass the time.” His hand nudges my butt.
“Did you finish reading?”asks a terrible, screechy voice.
I whirl around. That voice spoke English.
Crat'ax has his spear in his hands before I can react, and he quickly steps in front of me. “Show yourself!”
The drone buzzes as it comes flying out from behind a bush. “I’m not much to look at, but for what it’s worth...”
“Dex!” I exclaim. “Whathappenedto you?”
“I went through a number of events,”Dex says as he flies closer and hovers well away from the reach of Crat'ax’s spear. “But now that you have read the message, I have only a few things to say before I’ll be on my way. The first is that Theodora will notbe back here for weeks, at best. The Borok village lies far from here. The second item is related to the first: she no longer has access to the Plood saucer. It was stolen by your friend Riley, and where it is now is anyone’s guess. If you see her, you are to tell her that the saucer cannot be used to travel back to Earth. The third thing I want to say is that I shall now go back and tell Theodora that you are alive and well. That is likely my final act before I take a longer hiatus from running errands for Earth girls. I once found that I was partly responsible for stranding you four here on Xren, seeing as I grabbed you all from the space station and flew you here. Now I feel differently about it, as it appears that some of you are thriving much more than you ever did on your planet of origin. Perhaps Theodora is right when she writes that I’m weird. I assume you live in that fishing village I spotted some weeks ago. Goodbye.”
Before I can ask him some of the many questions I have, the drone buzzes off with a high-pitched scream from his rotors, soaring over the trees and going inland.
I’m stunned. Riley stole the saucer?
“What was that?” Crat'ax asks, looking tensely around for enemies.
“That was Dex,” I manage, head spinning. “I told you about him.”
“The artificial Small who flew the Plood ship here,” he sums up some of the many things I’ve told him. “What did he want?”
I tell him what Dex said. “Which means that things changed after Theodora wrote that letter, and we may have to stay here for much longer before she’ll be back.”
He shrugs. “Then we stay.”
I think about it. I’d already decided that if Dorie wasn’t here, I’d go back to the village with Crat'ax and basically settle there. I see no reason to change that now.
This is actually a much better outcome than I could expect. Theodora is safe, the saucer flies, and Dex will tell everyone that I’m okay. Riley having stolen the saucer sounds like total nonsense to me, but it’s probably just Dex being weird. He was built by aliens, after all.
