Words Of The Ancients Read online

  “O’ee learned a lot in the tine o'ith you.”

  Sara squeezed Kessler’s arm and Kessler winced. He was suddenly reminded how much stronger she was than he. She seemed to notice as well, because she loosened her grasp.

  “Kessler, tell me,” she said. “Are there other humans outside this room?”

  “No, not like Sara.” Kessler chirped.

  “What do you mean, not like me?” she said.

  Kessler clicked incoherently.

  Sara pulled hard on Kessler’s arm, using him to lever herself up.

  “Not like,” he murmured, trying not to fall over.

  Once she was sitting up, she took a painful breath. “Show me.”

  Kessler took a step back.

  “Kessler,” she said. “Am I your prisoner? Am I trapped here?”

  “No. O’ee do not... It is thor thy sathety.”

  “Then you will not stop me from going up to the surface,” she said. She was not asking. She gripped her ribcage as she stood. “I deserve to know.”

  “I deg you...” Kessler said, “Lie down. Thou o'ill hurt thyselth.”

  Sara lay back, her breathing heavy, labored.

  Kessler’s wings fluttered as he held her wrist. “I o'ill take thee in the norning.”

  Part II

  Her stretcher was fitted to lines of cable and lifted up a long vertical shaft. Sara recognized it as the elevator shaft that had led to the hibernation chamber under the ETI facilities. Sara tried to focus on the streaks of light high above, where sunlight was waiting. Her small companion accompanied her on her ascent, clinging to the cable above her, watching her intently. His eyes, in the gloom of the shaft, looked like tiny pools of water. Despite their weeks together, she still could not read his expression. The sclerae of his eyes were dark, unfathomable, like a lizard's – yet it was hard for her to think of Kessler as a lizard. His intellect was impressive, astounding even. And yet he displayed such simple compassion for her. Shakespeare had been an apt primer for his understanding of humanity.

  Kessler's colleagues climbed the walls, their skin shimmering, beaks clicking, long tails twitching; they seemed unable to hold still. Yet, despite their unreadable black eyes and greenish scales, they watched her in a way she instinctively recognized. They observed her like scientists, with deep interest, but without judgment. It was familiar, comforting.

  She shielded her eyes as she was carried out of the ruins of her research building. The oppressive muggy air wrapped around her. She winced when a grayish alien with a red sash and several medical bags adjusted the tubes running from her chest. This alien had been looking after her medical needs since she awoke. Knowing the disease that infected her, she did not envy him.

  As the group crested a hill, Sara saw the landscape of what had once been her city. She recognized none of it. The world of concrete and glass, asphalt and plastic, had been completely swallowed. Everything was green – overwhelming, deep, powerful green. She would never have believed this was Miami if not for the rusted remains of the Carnegie Research Center, jammed into the earth like a broken knife. She tried to locate the remnants of the stadium and the College of Medicine, but they were gone. Miami Beach was nowhere to be seen, swallowed by the sea. She imagined much of Florida was now underwater.

  As they bore her through the forest, Sara stared up at the forest canopy. She noticed a large dull orange bulb, wrapped around the thick trunk of a tree. An alien emerged from a hatch in the side and glided through the trees.

  Other aliens climbed out of the bulbs to watch the arriving procession. Some of them circled above her. Kessler, always protective, hissed at them, his wings spreading, and they scattered, scrambling up into the canopy.

  Kessler led the group to the only structure that was built on the ground. Unlike the bulbs, it was large, spacious, made of wooden planks. Sara’s stretcher was gently placed beside it. As an alien with a medical pack examined her, Sara watched Kessler’s animated yet hushed conversation with another scientist. Their short, delicate arms hung limply by their sides as they spoke, but their tails whipped about in a frenzy. Sara couldn't pick out any of the words – but it looked as if they were arguing. Finally, Kessler broke off the conversation with a swat of his tail, and approached Sara.

  “What’s happening?” she asked.

  “Thou deserth to know,” he said. “Renender, o’ee o’ill not hurt thee. Dost thou understand?”

  Sara held onto Kessler’s hand as the aliens lifted her stretcher. The doors opened and she finally saw what Kessler had been keeping from her. The building was a barn, filled with stalls. Each stall floor was lined with hay, and each resident was staring at her, dull-eyed, uncomprehending.

  “Oh, my God!” Sara struggled to sit up “They’re still alive! Put me down!”

  They lowered her stretcher onto the straw.

  “Bring one of them here.”

  Kessler opened a stall gate and guided a girl to her side. Sara touched her round face gently, examining her small almond-shaped eyes, her tiny ears. She put her head to the girl’s chest, checked her hands.

  “She’s showing signs,” she murmured to herself. “How old is she?”

  Kessler spoke with the grayish alien for a moment.

  “Eighteen years,” he said.

  She checked the girl's nails. “This is remarkable. She has the disease, but it’s not killing her,” she looked over at Kessler. “Can they speak?”

  Kessler shook his head. “No. O’ee are sorry. O’ee did not know.”

  “Well how could you?” she said, absorbed by this new discovery. “She is showing signs of the later stages of the disease, but for some reason, she isn’t dying. Do you see?”

  “She hath sickness?”

  “Yes. She must possess some genetic mutation that somehow keeps her alive, even after contracting the virus. There is massive cognitive damage, but do you see what this means? It means that there is a way to resist the disease!”

  “They all ... hath sickness...?”

  “They all have the disease. It’s teratogenic. It transfers to the children. That’s why they all have it. But they don’t die of it!”

  Kessler said nothing. Sara noticed the silence that had fallen over the other scientists.

  “This is a major breakthrough,” she said. “I worked to cure the disease for years. But I never found a single person who survived. Now that I have, I can solve this! And if not, there are dozens of other scientists in those pods who have devoted their lives to...”

  The aliens seemed to be shivering. There was something she was not seeing. She looked into Kessler’s fathomless black eyes for some sign. Then a horrible thought came to her.

  “Why are they in stalls?” she demanded.

  “O’ee didn’t know... O’hen Ri’ik traveled here. Ri’ik took thood with us. Old o'rld thood. Our thood did not last. Ri’ik landed o'ith no thood. Ri’ik o’er starthing.”

  Sara covered her ears. She imagined the herds of humans, after the pandemic, with no language, no society. They had probably scavenged for berries, small animals. They had survived here, in Florida, where the winters were mild. And to the aliens they would have seemed just like any other animal.

  And then she remembered all the times Kessler had excused himself to eat.

  “Why us?” Sara frantically looked from one black-eyed lizard to the next.

  “It ... I do not know this ‘ord...” Kessler opened his bag. He took out his notebook and began flipping through it. He opened and closed his beak. Finally, he gave up and pointed at his beak, then made a line down to his stomach.

  “Digestion?” she said.

  “Digestion,” Kessler said. “Thor us to digestion any oth the thood on this ‘orld. Hath to eat...”

  “I get it. You have an incomplete set of enzymes, but... but why us?” Sara was beginning to wheeze. “We are made of the same proteins as every other species on this planet. Why people?”

  Kessler shifted from one foot to the othe
r. “Not all. Ri’ik only eat the ... “ He began chirping and clicking to the other scientists. One of the aliens pointed at his own head and Sara suddenly understood. The muscle tissue was the same, but the brain tissue was not.

  “You eat our...” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She suddenly noticed Kessler’s serrated teeth.

  “Kessler,” she said very softly. “Can everyone go?”

  Kessler hissed at the others, and they quickly shuffled out. He turned and gave Sara one last mournful look before leaving as well.

  Alone, Sara looked at the faces of her fellow survivors. They approached her cautiously, like curious puppies. A young boy sank to his knees by Sara's side, and leaned against her. Sara stroked his head, and his shoulders drooped, his eyes closed. She patted him gently as the others slowly congregated around her, gingerly laying themselves at her feet.

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, a group of aliens came into the barn, checked her vitals, shone lights into her eyes. She repeated Kessler’s name until they brought him, along with the gray alien.

  “I’ve been thinking all night, and I believe I have some understanding of the problem we face.”

  Kessler stood quietly while she spoke. She had never seen him so still.

  “I understand that to be able to digest any food on this world you must also eat...” She took a breath. “You must also eat the human brain.”

  Kessler nodded.

  “And I think I know why,” she said. “The disease that killed my people is very similar to Kuru. It’s caused by a prion, which is a type of protein. You may not understand any of this but, what I’m saying is that the reason you have to eat ... us ... is because of the disease. You’re actually eating the disease itself. A healthy human brain would not provide you the necessary protein and you would all starve.”

  Kessler and the other alien fell into a hurried conversation of clicks and hisses.

  “I understand that you couldn’t have known,” she said. “I know how you must feel. To you, we were just beasts.”

  Kessler drew close, his head bobbing up and down.

  The other alien clicked. Kessler translated.

  “Can you cure the sickness?”

  Sara nodded. “I can.”

  “O'eee can kee – keet you alithe and in health thor long tine. And you can cure the sickness.”

  “You would let me do that?” she asked.

  Kessler and his colleague clicked for a moment. “Oth course.”

  “Kessler, if I cure all the humans then what would become of your people? You will starve.”

  “You could just cure sone oth the hunans.” Kessler said. “And o’ee could still hath thood.”

  But Sara was already shaking her head. “We can’t have a world where your people eat mine. We couldn’t live with that. You couldn’t live with that.”

  “O’ee hath scientist. So do you,” Kessler said. “O’ee could renove the... 'rion.”

  “The prion cannot survive outside the human brain. There is absolutely no way to remove it.” But even as she spoke, Sara began to formulate theories. Maybe she could grow the prion in another mammal. With enough time, if they woke up the other scientists, maybe she could find a way. But she knew what would happen next. People, her people, would kill every last alien. She could clearly imagine how they would justify the genocide after seeing barns like this one.

  It was a dilemma with no solution. The fate of her people was now inextricably bound to the fate of the aliens, and it seemed neither could live while the other existed.

  Leaves rustled in the wind. She thought of the world, before she had fallen asleep hundreds of years ago, before humans had made diseases into weapons, weapons so effective that the only survivors could hardly be called human at all.

  Before they had made the prion.

  The solution settled upon her. It was so much simpler than she could have imagined.

  “Kessler. I want you to put me back to sleep.”

  “O'en shall I o'ake you?”

  “Don’t wake me,” she said. She was shivering and her heart was pounding in her chest, but she had never been so sure of anything in her life. “Don’t ever wake any of us.”

  THE PROCESSION BACK to the hibernation chamber began at dawn the next day; a long line of scientists headed by Sara on her stretcher. They brought her through the woods. She sometimes saw a corner of concrete, a metal shard, rusted and corroded. The last remnants of the human world. When they arrived at the clearing where Sara's people slept below the earth, Kessler crouched by her stretcher.

  “It is wrong,” he said. “This is your o’erld.”

  “Not anymore,” she said.

  “O-'at o'ill I do o-ithout thee.”

  “We’re not dead. We’re just asleep,” she said.

  She touched Kessler's cool ablated face then nodded to the other scientists to take her below. They brought her to the room with the other pods and they put her to sleep with her brothers and sisters.

  Part III

  Kessler sat in the cave before the blue and white door, clutching one of the human documents. The other scientists were on the surface discussing what to do next. He knew they would choose wisely. He looked at the document and fixed his eyes on a single letter. Alone, it meant nothing; he could not even pronounce it. But surrounded by all the other letters on the page, its meaning was so overwhelming that he could not breathe ... he could not breathe.

  Discussion Questions

  How do you know if an animal is dumb enough to be food? What, if any, test or question would you give it?

  The doctor shows the newly awakened person a book. The person looks at it and begins to cry. What book did you imagine it was and why? Would any book have made her cry?

  At what point in the story was the right time to tell the woman she was nearly biologically identical to the animals they ate? (If ever)

  Who has the greater right to live, the sleeping ancients, or the new residents? What is the best way to decide who rules the planet? Does a species have a natural right to preserve its existence to the detriment of another species?

  What should happen (or how long should they wait) before waking another ancient? (If at all?)

  LISTEN TO THESE AND other questions discussed on the “After Dinner Conversation” podcast.

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